'Darling Pel!'
'So how are these men of Earth with swords?' Syregorn asked, as casually as if he'd been inquiring about cattle breeds.
'Using them in battle, you mean?' Rod asked, inwardly cursing the eagerness the warcaptain's drug had given his tongue. 'No one does, in the countries I lived in and did book tours through, anyway. Oh, street gangs use knives, but most people, if they mean to do violence, use guns.'
'And what are 'guns'?'
'Uh, like blasting wands, only they fire tiny arrowheads into you. Without needing a wizard, nor the strong arm of an archer. Anyone can use one, even children.'
'Women, you mean?' Syregorn looked startled. Then the curl of contempt returned to his mouth, and he asked scornfully, 'Tiny arrowheads? They'd do no harm.'
'Ah, but they do,' Rod burst out, helpless to hold back his words. 'A gun can drive that arrowhead right into your heart. Or through it and out the other side of your body, so all the blood pours out.'
'And they need no skilled archers to do this?' Syregorn looked shaken.
Then he looked thoughtful.
The knot of fear inside Rod Everlar's stomach grew a little heavier, and a lot colder.
A line of broad cobbles marked where the trampled turf of Irontarl became the always-mud of the river ford. Pelmard Lyrose's head thudded onto it and rolled free of his hacked and quivering body.
As it tumbled past, seemingly seeking river water, the gift of Malraun, adorning a finger now lying severed in the mud some paces away, flared into sudden blue fire.
That tiny conflagration was echoed by a much larger flame of the same deep, thrilling blue hue, roaring up out of nothingness in the street in front of the pottery. A flame that broadened, split in the center, and widened like a hole burning in the air-if the air had been tinder-dry parchment or stretched hide-to reveal an angry naked man standing in its heart, with a belt of sticks in his hands.
Abruptly the flame winked out, leaving the man behind. Darkly handsome face bright with rage, he jerked one of the sticks out of a belt-loop, leveled it at the nearest of Pelmard's killers, and snarled, 'That man was
The Hammerhand knights took one look at the naked madman and fled in all directions, running as hard as they'd ever run in all their lives.
'Die, you stupid backland brutes!' the Doom shouted, voice cracking in his mounting rage.
The wand spat fire, plucking a running knight off his feet and turning him into crisped bones and blackened, creaking armor in long, frozen moments where he hung in midair, quivering in the roiling heart of flames.
A bolder Hammerhand knight ran desperately at the naked man from behind, sword reaching.
Malraun spun around, letting the belt fall as he clutched another wand from it, brought it up, and unleashed its power right into the charging knight's face.
Which promptly ceased to exist, bursting apart in a spray of red gore, fragments of bone, and shards of shattered helm.
Malraun calmly sidestepped the toppling corpse, sweeping his belt of wands to safety with one bare foot as he did so, and told the next knight, as he fed that unfortunate the results of both wands, 'I am furious. Much time and coin I've spent, shaping human tools, and you destroy them in a thoughtless moment. Well, the
The by-then-headless corpse toppled, its legs burned away.
'Oh, dear,' Malraun snarled at it. 'I've left you nothing to think with.
He bent, took up his belt, calmly buckled it around his naked waist, replaced the wands he was using and selected two others, and set off along the streets of Irontarl, blasting every armored man or rooftop archer he saw-and turning often to make sure he saw them all before an arrow or spear could find him.
When one of the wands faltered and spat sparks rather than slaying beams of magic, Malraun thrust it back into its loop and snatched forth another.
This one didn't spit; it roared, blasting buildings as well as men. Walls and roofs in Irontarl crumpled and collapsed, spilling screaming men down to thud heavily onto the ground and taste Malraun's other wand while they were still writhing feebly.
Man after man he slew, Hammerhand and Lyrose alike. Until the men cringing behind buildings and cowering flat on roofs decided this terrible wizard was blasting everyone his eyes fell upon-and rose, took up their last arrows, and started frantically trying to fell
As a growing storm of shafts sought the naked man standing alone, Malraun smiled a tight smile and fed them death.
After all, when they were all dead, he could always turn and conquer Tesmer.
Dawn was coming to the garden of Malragard, and the singing, urgent excitement surging in Rod Everlar was fading with the night-gloom. His tongue was slowing to its usual speed, and he found himself able to choose his words, not always instantly offering what he knew Syregorn most wanted to learn.
The drugs inside him must be nearly exhausted. He faltered, seeing Syregorn's cold eyes boring into his, and fell silent.
Whereupon the warcaptain reached out a long arm, announced briskly, 'Night is fled; time to be up and doing again!' and dragged Rod to his feet.
The Lord Archwizard of Falconfar stumbled, feeling strange, but Syregorn's grip-now on his left arm, just above the elbow-was firm.
The warcaptain rushed the reeling man of Earth along the grassy garden paths, his knights grinning as they fell into step behind Syregorn.
Who dragged Rod Everlar straight to the door into Malragard-where everyone came to a sudden, startled halt.
No one had seen it open, but that thick, heavy stone door was now yawning wide, revealing a stone-lined passage stretching off into darkness broken by no lantern. A silent, waiting maw.
The knights shuffled their boots uneasily, hanging back.
'Never seen such an obvious trap,' Reld muttered. On either side of him, Perthus and Tarth both nodded.
Syregorn grinned at all six Hammerhand knights coldly. 'That's all right, my blades,' he told them. 'We've got us a bold Lord Archwizard, remember?'
His iron-hard grip on Rod Everlar's shoulder rushed the writer into a helpless, stumbling run forward- through the dark and waiting doorway.
'This has GONE far enough!'
Lord Burrim Hammerhand was not a man who lived beset by fear, or shrank from thoughts of pain and battle. He had no stomach for sitting at home on a throne ordering men out of Hammerhold to stride forth and die for him.
If folk were to fight in his name, he wanted to lead them. Wherefore he was now crouching, anger warm in his throat, among prickly thistles behind the back wall of Irontarl's only smithy, with the Lord Leaf right behind him.
That anger boiled over. Standing up, Hammerhand waved his sword at Darlok, who was behind the stables across a wide and muddy street, with a score or so of Hammerhold spearmen.
'If we just wait in hiding,' Hammerhand barked, 'this mad wizard will blast us all dead, every last one of us! So we'd best charge him, at once and from all sides! Get every man who has a shield to the fore!'
Darlok nodded, waved his sword in salute, and turned to snap orders. Lord Hammerhand looked up. 'Nelgarth?'
'Here, lord,' came the low-voiced mutter from above. Archers were on the roof of the smithy, but keeping low, their bows stilled, as wands spat and roared along the street on its far side.
'I want all your lads ready,' Burrim Hammerhand growled. 'We're going to charge yon mage, and while
