Arch Wizard

'Ah, well,' he told the knight, managing a twisted smile. 'Time to die valiantly. Or otherwise.'

Chapter Twenty

Malraun the Matchless raised his hand with a smile-and blasted down a pleading Narmarkoun, a blubbering-with-fear Rod Everlar, and six shadowy Stormar wizards, one of them a tall and mysterious figure with the antlers of a stag and a face that was two blazing white eyes floating in a shroud of darkness, all in one blazing instant of magic.

Watching warriors of three armies moaned in fearful awe and went down on their knees to him, there on the hilltop. Malraun ignored them. Instead, he reached down to the woman on her knees before him, who'd torn open her gown in abject surrender, plucked her up as if she weighed no more than a feather, and slung her over his shoulder. With the Empress of all the distant Emaeraun Empire riding warm against him, her rear in the air as she gasped out her loyalty and obedience to the ground behind his boots, Malraun turned his back on those armies, and set off for the nearest bed.

It obligingly appeared, wide and familiar-the bed from conquered Darswords-on the hilltop right in front of him, and Malraun threw the Empress down on it and plunged into her warm, yielding depths…

There was something warm and heavy on his left shoulder, and he… he was coming awake.

To look at a ceiling he knew. He was in the best bedchamber in Darswords, on his back in the rumpled bed with Taeauna snuggled against him.

Hmmph. No blasting of Narmarkoun and the rest yet, then. And the cruel Emaeraun Empress would sit idly tapping the arms of her throne for a day or six longer. He had a few lesser and more local tasks to see to, first.

Such as enjoying the last, wingless Aumrarr in all Falconfar. Loyal she might now be, thanks to his magic, but she slept still. Powerless to resist him forcing herself upon her, that most delicious of bed-pleasures.

He crossed her wrists, one over the other, and bound them that way with the simplest of spells, then spread her ankles far apart with the same spell, reversed.

That awakened her, so she was blinking at him in surprise when he snarled, 'Receive your Doom!' and flung himself on her.

'Willingly,' she managed to gasp, fighting for breath as the bed creaked and groaned under his bruising assault. She tried to cradle her long legs around him, tried to reach down to caress his back and shoulders… but fell back exhausted, defeated by the iron grip of his magic.

Malraun chuckled and spat out a word, and suddenly she could move, and tugged hungrily at him, seeking to claw him farther, tighter, closer…

He bit her breasts cruelly, laughed, and reared back out of her yielding, arching himself in triumph as he neared his moment of greatest pleasure-

Then, in an instant, his face changed. He stiffened in astonished dismay, and became a statue above her.

Taeauna watched rapture melt into anger on Malraun's darkly handsome face, with sweat just beginning to glisten at his temples. Grimacing, he flung up a hand to clutch at his head, his fingers like talons.

'What idiocy now? I swear, these Lyrose dolts…'

Still snarling, Malraun the Matchless flung himself back from her and off the bed, landing on the floor beyond with an awkward crash. Wincing and limping, he rose and scrambled across the room to his discarded garments, snatched up his belt of wands from where they lay atop the rest, and-was gone.

Taeauna fell back on the bed, her wrists and ankles tingling, and smiled a lopsided smile at the ceiling- beams.

Her lord and Doom was making a habit of teleporting away to seek trouble without even bothering to get dressed. Now, when a lass indulged in such behavior, she acquired a certain reputation…

'Slay me not!' Pelmard shouted desperately, slipping in blood again. That traitor Baernel had turned and fled-sprinting back to Lyraunt, to report, of course-the moment the nine Hammerhand knights had come trotting around the corner of yonder pottery with swords drawn, and come for him.

They'd known exactly where he was standing, and must have run a long way wide, out and around most of Irontarl and risking arrows all the way, to avoid getting caught up in battle with the desperately-fighting, retreating men of Lyrose. Now, panting behind their helms-full plate armor, all of them, and better than his own! — these Hammerhand hounds were here for him.

'Stand back! A ransom! I am Lord Pelmard Lyrose, heir of House Lyrose!' he snapped, tucking his sword under his arm so he could use that hand to pluck off his other gauntlet and bare his ring.

A hurled dagger caught fire across his fingertips the moment they were uncovered, and clanged away. Falcon hurl, they knew about the ring!

'Back from me, damn you!'

Pelmard backed away himself, let fall his gauntlet, and faced them with blood-dripping hand and raised sword. 'The Forestmother will curse you with ill luck for this, all your days!'

One of the knights snorted, by way of reply.

'Die,' another replied coldly, as they spread wide to come at him from all sides, and cut off his retreat. Calmly, not hurrying, they closed in.

Pelmard backed away again, well aware that the river-mud was a mere pace or two behind him. He bent his will and Malraun's gift flashed, lancing out and through the eyeslits of a helm worn by one of the outflanking knights. Who staggered, and then fell.

Goading his fellows into a snarling charge.

'Malraun!' Pelmard shouted desperately. 'Aid, I beg of you! Lyrose has need of you, mighty Doom! Malraun!'

They were rushing him now, trotting in with a forest of cold steel swung back to hack and thrust and-

Pelmard got his visor down just in time, swung desperately, clenched his bared hand and felt the ring-magic blaze forth again, and-

Steel rang on steel, jarring his arm, and cold hard steel hacked and thrust at him from all sides, squealing off his armor, flinging him back, their batterings crashing heavily against his ribs and face.

Half-dazed, Pelmard fought to see a foe well enough to use the ring again, trying to tuck his hand back into its armpit as cold blades came slicing at it, cutting away that thumb… The pain was sickening, and his helm was half-turned on his head, blood gushing out of his nose inside it and burning pain blossoming from his torn ear; he could see only out his left eye-hole…

He swung his sword feebly and blindly, as someone struck shrewdly at his ankles and sent him staggering…

Into the hard, punching embrace of someone else, who tore off Pelmard's helm with one cruelly-clawing gauntlet, hair and most of the other Lyrose ear coming with it, to snarl hatred into Pelmard's despairing face and- drive his sword home, up and under Pelmard's cods, sharp and high and so utterly, utterly cold…

'Mrythra!' he gasped, or tried to. 'I love youuuu-'

He never saw the sword that swept in along his shoulder-plates then, to bite deep into his neck and half- sever his head.

It wobbled obscenely, still partly attached, as blood spurted, choking him. Pelmard Lyrose reeled and went down, still struggling to tell his sister his deepest longing. The Hammerhand knights thrust and hacked viciously, seeking to get that head off its shoulders and that ring on its finger cut well free of the rest of the man ere it could unleash more deadliness.

The last thing Pelmard Lyrose saw, swimming into his darkening mind on wings of magic, was Mrythra Lyrose standing clutching the rail of the highest balcony of Lyraunt Castle, face twisted in revulsion. She pursed her lips, eyes meeting his, and spat in his direction.

And then burst into tears. 'Pel!' she sobbed, as he fell from her, down, down into echoing darkness.