Free Falconfar 03-Falconfar by Ed Greenwood

and full beard. He was scowling right now, his helm in the crook of his arm just as Taeauna's was, and full, freshly-polished armor gleaming on him.
    He hadn't been one of Taeauna's favorites when at his best, and he was far from at his best now.
    "Wench!" he snapped, "where's your master?"
    "Elsewhere," she flung back at him, and to the guards added a curt, "Stay your blades."
    The doorguards obeyed her, but Korauth's bodyguards did not. She gave each of them a long, cold stare, but all that accomplished was to make them shift their swords from raised in general menace to pointing right at her.
    "Disobedience," she observed softly, "tends to end in death."
    "Enough, bed-lass; you don't command here!"
    Taeauna turned her stare to Korauth. "As a matter of fact, Korauth, I do. You can dispute that with Malraun if you'd like to... but I'll wager much you won't like to." She raised an eyebrow in mocking query. "Well?"
    "Well, there's no time for this foolishness!" Korauth started to pace, waving his helm for emphasis. It took him only one sighing whirl around back to face her to tell Taeauna that he was deeply worried beneath his bluster. "We have troubles!"
    "Troubles, lord?" Taeauna lowered her voice and stepped closer, like a confidante rather than a challenger. This man was scared.
    "Lorn have been seen lurking," he blurted. "Not once, but scores of times now. They're spying on us, following us—drawing back from battle when we try to cross swords with them. They all have swords, too!"
    "And?" she asked gently, knowing there was more. Lorn in the Raurklor were a real danger, but hardly something new.
    "Greatfangs have been seen in the sky! A line of them, low down yonder—" He waved an arm at the wall behind him. "Winging their way, straight across. Six of them."
    He started pacing again. "More than that, small magics cast by Lord Malraun have been fading away; the glow-lamps, the horse-calmings. The men are unsettled."
    He waved his other arm, and added heavily, "And none of us battle-lords know what to tell them."
    Then, as she'd known he would, Korauth whirled around to face her and snarled, "So, woman: where by the flying Falcon is Malraun? Rutting takes not that long, he's never been seen to need much sleep, and we'd have felt it if he'd been spinning mighty spells in there—so what have you done with him?"

     
    THE GLOW BOBBED with Rod as he ran, clutched against his chest with everything else. He should be using it like a flashlight, but that would draw the greatfangs right to him—
    Behind him, the ceiling was torn away like a kid tearing aside cellophane to get at a toy underneath. No, not a toy. Chocolate. A big hunk of rich, succulent chocolate.
    And he was that hotly-sought treat. Never mind the glow from the spindle, it was after him anyway!
    Get lower down, deeper into Malragard, down into the lowest cellars where the ceilings would be layers of solid stone, not timber beams and cross-boards and—
    Rod blundered into the edge of an unseen doorframe and through it, running on until the floor suddenly opened up under his boots and he fell—headlong down bruisingly-hard stone steps.
    It was a long and steep flight of steps. He'd never been so happy to fall down stairs in his life, but the third bounce spilled some of his loot out of his grasp. Rod let it all go, making a grab only for the spindle-light, raking it in as he fetched up in a ball on a stone step with a chipped, saw-sharp edge.
    "I'm a writer," he gasped into the darkness, feeling that edge biting into his shoulder, "not a fucking warrior—or cross-country runner, for that matter!"
    Rod's breath ran out before he could vent any more, and he lay there panting for what seemed a long time—as more of the tower groaned and shrieked and was torn away, somewhere back above him—until he could find strength and air enough to roll over, banging his knees and elbows, and aim the spindle-light.
    He willed it brighter, and it obligingly showed him that