Arch Wizard

him back to the trail again.

He suspected he'd been led around a body. Of a Lyrose guard who'd just been killed.

The moon was rising, and he could just make out shapes, now. One of them was the grim face of the Hammerhand knight still guiding him.

The other, soaring like a dark and endless cliff right in front of him, must be Lyraunt Castle.

'Bright moon rising,' the Aumrarr whispered, as if to herself. She had not moved, nor stopped staring out the window.

Garfist rumbled deep in his throat, as if about to point out that he had eyes that worked, too, but it was Iskarra who spoke first.

'Dyune, there is something I would know. Something I hope you can tell me.'

The Aumrarr turned her head. 'An Aumrarr secret?'

'Perhaps.'

Iskarra let that lone word fall into a silence, and waited.

Until Dyune shrugged and said simply, 'Ask.'

'Time and again Aumrarr warn that this new Lord Archwizard is going to do something terrible, soon. Now, I'll grant you, terrible things are what wizards-all wizards-do, darned near every time they really try to do anything. But just what are you afraid of? What can he do, that the others can't?'

Dyune grimaced. 'We Aumrarr don't speak of such things, and-'

'Then ye Aumrarr are fools,' Gar rumbled. 'How many secrets and wise remembrances were lost when the Dark Helms slaughtered everyone in Highcrag? If ye tell us, then mayhap when ye're dead, one of us can shout to some handy hero what he has to stop the Lord Archwizard doing! Now tell us, glork ye! We healed ye, didn't we?'

The Aumrarr regarded them both thoughtfully, looking slowly from one to the other, then nodded. 'Very well. There's an enspelled gem-we call it the mindgem-that scrambles the minds of wizards who get too close to it. Made long ago, by a forgotten enchanter. It's long been one of the treasures we Aumrarr keep secret-and has always had a tale clinging to it: that it sears the minds of wizards too close to it, until they're dragged back away from it or it's taken away from them, because it's waiting for just one wizard. The right one. The Lord Archwizard. So it could make him like unto a god, able to hurl mountains into nothing at a whim. That's why we guard it.'

'And where is it now?' Iskarra asked softly.

Dyune shook her head, her lips tightening in might what have become a mirthless smile.

If, in that moment, she hadn't heard or felt something they could not.

Stiffening, the Aumrarr suddenly moved as swiftly as any striking serpent. Snatching up her weapons from where Iskarra and Garfist had laid them near to hand, she tugged hard on something hidden in her hair, tore forth a fine but now-broken chain that had been looped around both of her ears, and flung it to Iskarra.

Who caught it out of habit, and was still staring at the sparkling gemstone she now held as Dyune sprang out of the window, eluding Garfist's oath-accompanied grab at her, and flew fast and hard up into the night, warsteel ready in her hands.

Chapter Twelve

Garfist hurled himself at the window, but as always, Isk was faster. Like a lightning-swift serpent she was there and pressed to one side of the window opening, to give him ample room to do what she was doing: craning his neck to look sharply up into the night.

The light of the rising moon was strong, despite the countless trees blocking much of it, and they could make out what blotted out so many of the stars overhead.

The huge bulk of a greatfangs hung across the night sky like a vast ceiling-a ceiling that swooped, beating wings so massive that their cleaving of the air could be felt more than heard.

Dyune was swooping all around the vast beast, darting and stabbing, as its fearsome head sought her but turned too slowly to close on her jaws that three dozen Aumrarr could not have filled.

There were other Aumrarr swooping and stabbing too, their wings curling and flapping as they fought to keep too close to it to be easily reached, but just far enough away that it couldn't slam into them in the air, and leave them falling, broken or stunned.

As they watched, one of the winged women got struck glancingly, and tumbled down through the air, that great neck sweeping around to-

'Bright nipples of Nornautha!' Garfist swore, clenching one fist and using his other hand to stab a hairy pointing finger into the night. 'That's Dauntra, one o' the wingbitches as brought us here! An' that's Juskra, yon! By the Devouring Worm, all four of 'em!'

'Aptly cursed,' Iskarra murmured. 'It will devour them, if it can catch them. Hmm. They weren't all that far off all this time, those four, I'll be bound.'

She watched the desperate dance in the sky for a few breaths longer, then snapped, 'There's someone riding the beast! The third Doom, Narmarkoun, I'll lay you a gleaming gold broon.'

'No, I'll lose no coins to ye this night,' Gar growled, pounding his fists on the sill in frustration. Almost directly overhead, rolling in the air above the battlements of Stormcrag Castle, the great wyrm twisted, snapping its jaws but just failing to catch a desperately-diving Aumrarr.

They saw the rider on its back shaping air with his hands, in the strange fluid gestures that meant magic was being worked-and then the air in front of those hands blossomed into shadowy shapes that bit and snapped and darted in an echo of the bitings of the huge, arrow-shaped head of the greatfangs. Phantom spell-jaws reached hungrily for the flying Aumrarr, trailing the little winking lights of fresh-spun sorcery, and bit down. Hard.

An Aumrarr reeled in midair, the magic that had savaged her sapping her strength, and fell… and as Gar and Isk watched, hard-eyed, the huge head of the greatfangs swung up to finally catch a darting foe.

Teeth as long as the falling Aumrarr's body closed on the winged woman, blood sprayed in all directions, and severed limbs came tumbling down out of the sky in the wake of that many-fanged, busily chewing head.

Another Aumrarr rushed up to stab at a large and heavy-lidded eye, howling in rage and grief-and the head drew away from her and then thrust back, slamming its snout into her. She spun helplessly away across the sky, wings curling and convulsing, and the great wyrm lunged after her and bit her apart, too.

Gar and Isk saw a third Aumrarr swoop up from beneath the greatfangs to slice and stab at its rider, and-

Brightness burst across the darkness, an explosion that rocked Stormcrag Castle and tore the night sky asunder.

Gar roared in pain, clutching at his eyes, and Isk whimpered beside him. They could see nothing more.

Blindly, they groped for each other, hoping their sightlessness wouldn't last long.

'Lass,' Garfist rumbled, as his arms went around a familiar bony shape, that clung to him and nipped at his shoulder lovingly, 'I'm thinking we're now the guardians of this mindgem that's waiting for the right Lord Archwizard to come along.'

'I'm thinking that, too,' Isk whispered, nigh his neck. 'Glork. Glork and be-frawling bugger.'

A flash of light split the sky above Harstorm Ridge, driving blinded knights on the walls of Hammerhold to curse or cry out. They had scarce clutched at their eyes and shouted for fresh watchers to come up from below when Hammerhand's castle rocked and shuddered under them in the throes of a second great crash.

This one was coming from behind them, and it was moving. As knights pounded up stairs onto the battlements to peer into the night, it groaned on for a long, rending time in which trees shrieked aloud as they were torn apart, snapped like so much kindling, and hurled down amid many smaller crashings. Then it all faded.

The hard-eyed watchers on the walls of Hammerhold saw that something had smashed a path of