dripping body and stalked unconcernedly up to the gates of Lyraunt Castle.
As guards fled at his approach, leaving those tall doors untended, Malraun noticed they were fire-scorched and blood-spattered.
He found himself utterly uncaring as to why, and managed a shrug. Increasingly he was uncaring and uncurious. Perhaps that was what had afflicted Arlaghaun. Perhaps it was the price of rising to rule all Falconfar.
Right now, he didn't care to even bother thinking about it. A wand found its way into his hand, roared at his command, and the great gates ceased to bar his way.
He strode through the smoke of their destruction. Let their fate be shared by all who hampered his path, or defied his will.
'One thing's certain,' Garfist growled, ignoring Iskarra's raging commands, 'and another's likely. 'Tis certain that if we stand waiting here long enough, we
He whirled around to deliver these last words right into Iskarra's furious face, with slow and heavy menace. She blinked at him-and shut her mouth.
In the resulting silence, Garfist smiled, gave her a nod of pure pleasure-and stepped off the bottom step of the stairs, turning sharply to the right to stalk along the wall.
A glow of light promptly kindled in the empty air just inside the tall front doors of Malragard.
Iskarra stared at it-and then turned her head sharply to glare at the pillars and their statues. Had one of those motionless monsters moved? Garfist trudged along the wall as if heading unconcernedly home down a deserted lane at the end of a tiring but satisfying day of field-work, paying no apparent attention at all to what was happening elsewhere in the entry hall.
He was watching, though. When something rose silently up out of the apparently solid stone floor in the heart of that brightening radiance before the doors, and it turned out to be a stone table strewn with gems and gold-coins, a huge crown and scepter, and an orb thickly encrusted with jewels-he veered toward it.
'No,' Isk snapped from behind him, in the cold tones of command. 'It's a clear trap, Gar. If those are real at all, touching them-mayhap even stepping too close to the table-will mean your death. Let's just get out of here. Alive.'
Gar hesitated, one boot raised. Then he put it down, turned with a snarl, and trudged back toward the wall again.
Where Isk was waiting. Together they walked along the rest of that wall, then turned along the front one to reach the door.
Where Garfist paused, looked back at the table strewn with treasure, and hesitated again.
Whereupon all of the statues-or monsters-turned their heads to look at him.
Naked except for his belt of wands, Malraun the Matchless strode into Lyraunt Castle. It should have been bustling at this time of morning-and indeed, the stink of the sizzling sliced roast boar of the morning meal wafting down its passages was strong, and setting his all-too-empty stomach to growling-but the place seemed deserted. Hall after hall he strode down, and room after room, with his wands up and ready, fully expecting to face arrows or hurled spears at every corner.
Nothing. He might have been padding through a tomb, if the singing, watchful tension of fear hadn't hung so strong all around, silently stalking the halls with him.
It was almost a relief to meet a guard at last, a dark-armored warrior standing before a closed door. Trembling, that worthy warned him away with raised sword, the despair of one who knew himself to be doomed clear in his voice.
Malraun didn't disappoint him.
Stepping over the smoldering corpse, he kicked open the door the man had been guarding, stood aside to let the volley of arrows from inside the room beyond whistle harmlessly past, and exchanged one of his blasting wands for one that would conjure a spying eye to swoop in through the open door and survey what awaited within.
A room of goodly size, with four guards standing as a living wall to bar approach to a door in the back wall, and six archers scattered around the room, two of them against the wall either side of the door he'd kicked open. Malraun sighed, put the spying wand away again, and blasted the chamber with enough destroying fire to scorch it to the bare walls, not just fell the men within.
Their raw, dying screams were still echoing around the room as he strode into it, on a force-road spun by yet another wand, an invisible bridge across floor tiles that were still cracking underfoot from the heat. A bridge that led straight to the door that had been guarded.
If he recalled rightly, it led up a stair into a gaudily luxurious private suite of Lyrose bedchambers. That held probably not much more than a guard or two more he'd have to butcher, before he finally came face to face with those he sought.
The mother and daughter. The last two and strongest Lyroses, likely to be useful to him still if they were clever enough not to succumb to any notions of treachery.
He used one wand with deft precision, causing the door to vanish with no damage at all to its frame or the walls around. Malraun smiled pleasantly at the guard who'd been lurking just behind it, poison-tipped war-trident in hand, and said, 'Drop that and flee, and I'll let you live. Do anything else, and you'll join the ranks of the foolish dead before-'
The guard didn't wait to hear more. With a despairing shout he charged, hurling the trident. Malraun's force-wand spat, and the weapon spun around in midair to thrust deeply into guard's throat.
Staring and gurgling, the man went down. The foremost Doom of Falconfar sighed, stepped around the feebly-flailing corpse, and mounted the stairs.
He kept his blasting wand, but exchanged the force-wand for one that compelled instant slumber. He didn't like to take lives wastefully, and they'd be throwing cowering maids at him next…
They did. In growing disgust Malraun sent various frightened servants who were brandishing mops, bedpans, and tapestry-hooks toppling into helpless collapse, stalking on through rooms of rich draperies, soft fur rugs, and heaped multitudes of silken cushions. There was a trail of closed doors with furniture hastily heaped up behind them, and he used his force-wand to thrust these open, splintering some of them but sending no roaring flames nor shattering blasts through the rooms.
Until at last there were no doors left, and through the gaping arch that had held the last one, Malraun beheld the Lady Maerelle Lyrose and her daughter Mrythra huddled in each other's arms, cowering where the walls met in the farthest corner of that back bedchamber.
He cast swift glances at floor, ceiling, and about the room, seeking traps and lurking guards. None that he could see-not that he expected any. Silently the Doom of Harlhoh padded closer to the trembling women, his face carefully kept expressionless, his wands raised.
'Don't-' Maerelle blurted, as Mrythra mewed in wordless fear and buried her face in her mother's bosom.
Rod Everlar found himself standing in a cold, dark, and silent room. There was no dust, and no hint of the lingering mildew that afflicted damp, long-unused stone chambers. In all other ways, the room might have been abandoned for centuries, so lifeless was the stillness.
He could barely see anything in the gloom, and so almost crashed into the chairs drawn up around a table. His knee slammed glancingly into one, his hand sought its arched back out of habit-and slowly and silently, the chair acquired a cold, green-rime glow out of nowhere, shining steadily more and more brightly, until it lit up the room.
Letting Rod-and the rest, Reld and Syregorn and the others, their swords raised and ready at Rod's back- see a closed door at the end of the room, and shelves on both sides of it that held dull metal coffers. These bore labels, and Rod peered at them.
'What say they, Lord Archwizard?' the warcaptain murmured.
'Thaedre,' Rod read aloud, from one. 'Muskflower.' That was the next, and he turned his attention down a
