Free Falconfar 03-Falconfar by Ed Greenwood Page B

of—of—turnips, or something, that he could just flop down on, making sure he propped the door open with a lot of them, and...
    The nearest door was black, blackness that crumbled and flaked off at his touch. Iron, or something like it, painted black. Counterweighted, so loose in its stone frame that it couldn't possibly be rusted shut—or ever rust shut, for that matter—and adorned with the symbol of the Falcon in flight.
    Which meant... what?
    A temple? Something sacred? He had no idea.
    Rod sighed, hoping he'd not be facing some fearsome monster in a moment, and tugged the door wide.
    Silence. Dark, chill, still silence. A smallish stone room—no other doors—with irregular dark heaps all around its walls. Had he found his turnip-pile? He couldn't smell anything particularly bad, or for that matter anything at all...
    He took a cautious step closer to the pile on his right, aiming the spindle-light as if it was some sort of weapon, to get a better look at it. Were those cobwebs, or—?
    The pile moved, not just in front of his eyes but all around him. Rod backed away hastily, choking on sudden fright.
    All around him things were erupting, shedding the enshrouding darkness. It was crumbling, falling away like loose black dirt—to reveal brown and yellow bones.
    Bones now standing upright, moving in eerie silence. No, not standing, attached to each other but floating, dangling in the air like marionettes without strings. Hanging-on-nothing arrays of bones, with dark and eyeless skulls hovering in the air above all the rest.
    Skeletons, dozens of human skeletons, all of them clutching rusted, jagged remnants of swords.
    Swords they were pointing at him.

 

     

     
    "HOW DO WE know you're telling us the truth?" Norgarl growled, waving his hairy hands. "How can we know, with the Lord Malraun nowhere to be found? Why, you could have murdered him and rolled his body under the bed, and we'd be none the wiser!"
    "No, she couldn't," one of the brothers Esdagh said flatly. "I sent in some good men to look around. No bloodstains, no one hidden anywhere, alive or dead. No sign of the wizard, either, beyond what the two of them did to the bed—fair tore it apart, they did. And yes, we looked under it."
    The other Esdagh—Mulzurr, the silent one—leered at Taeauna, but she ignored him, glaring coldly at Norgarl and Korauth. Hairy, unlovely, coarse old Norgarl had brought the largest band of warriors into Horgul's host, and everyone saw him as the senior commander in the army. Korauth, with his fiery temper and fearlessness, was the loudest of the army commanders, the most feared. The most likely to cause trouble.
    The other battle-lords standing around the fire—Lanneth and Mulzurr Esdagh, ever-present axes at their belts; tall Tamgrym Buckhold, staring out at the world through his mass of scars, as terse as ever; and the old, hollow-eyed Stormar, Dzundivvur, who looked more like a worn-out merchant than a warrior—watched Taeauna to see what she'd do. What she said and did now would decide them, for her or bloodily against her. And with no wings, she couldn't just flap out of reach and avoid these butchers—yet with all of them knowing she was an Aumrarr, she already had their mistrust. Men who live by the sword grew up hating and fearing the winged warrior-women who won battles serving themselves, disdaining kings and coin.
    They were all suspicious of her, too, and no wonder. Malraun had been firm enough in his oft-repeated orders that after his army took Darswords, they'd be pressing on to Ironthorn. Right swiftly, too; just as soon as they'd rested, eaten, seized food and a little plunder, and done enough to their wounds to be trudging on again.
    Not that they were quite ready yet. If they turned and started striding right now, charging on to Ironthorn, they'd be thrusting their noses into a real fight, quite possibly a battle or three more than they could win. Standing over this fire now, with Darswords just fallen