Ed Greenwood - Arch Wizard

"Ah. I have heard," the priest murmured, "that a Doom rides behind this Horgul. The same wizard who aids Lyrose, Malraun the Matchless. If that's true, we are all… doomed."

"Heard where, and from whom?" Hammerhand growled, watching the knight who'd brought the news go pale and flinch back at Jaklar's words.

"In altar-visions, of far-away priests of the Forestmother talking to each other," the Lord Leaf replied.

Hammerhand shot him a hard look, but the priest seemed both sincere-and scared.

He was.

"I have prayed to the Forestmother for guidance," Jaklar whispered, "in case we must flee into the arms of the Raurklor around us. All of Hammerhold, that is. But She has sent me no sign."

Lord Hammerhand rounded on him. "Of course She hasn't. She knows we'll fight to hold Ironthorn, and die doing it. No Ironthar will flee anywhere. If we lose what's dear to us, what is 'living on' worth? Nothing. We stay here, our swords sharp in our hands, and defend our Vale against anyone who comes to try to take it from us."

He stared out into the night, past the torchlight. "Even if every last Stormar or Galathan took up arms and came here, in hosts beyond counting, I would take a stand and try to kill them all. It's glorking near all I know how to do."

Warriors were climbing the hill from all sides, torches flickering wildly in their hands. With the moon now so bright, the flames they carried served more to make them superb targets than to aid their way over the heaped and strewn bodies, but Malraun didn't even bother to shrug at that passing thought. He had more important matters to concern him.

Blasting down these last few wizards before any of them managed to spin a magic to flee this place, for instance.

Darswords had fought furiously against his army. Furiously but hopelessly; they would all die, or were dead already. The children had been hurried away into the forest, of course, by a few of the crones and youngest women. Everyone else would perish.

Malraun was not in the best of moods. Amaxas Horgul had been more boar than man, a brawling, rutting lout governed by his lusts and rages-but he had been a giant on the battlefield, and a man warriors looked to and obeyed.

And now he was dead, and if Malraun was to hold this army together, he would have to lead it himself. Falcon rut and spew! Riding across half Falconfar-the backlands, fly-infested half-was not how he'd planned on spending the next score or so of days. Which meant he'd have to get to know a lot of thick-headed swordswingers rather too well over the next day or so, and hope he could find a war leader among them who could lead them all half as well as Horgul had.

However, there was one task in hand to finish with, first. Scouring out Horgul's slayers.

The Stormar had been a surprise. Who'd have thought a remote Raurklor hold like Darswords could have coin enough to hire wizards from distant Sea of Storms cities, let alone known how to contact them?

Lesser mages or not, they'd been far from overconfident fools, too. They'd hidden among the defenders of the hold, avoiding hurling magical fires and lightnings in favor of peering hard to find the right man, and then hurling mind-lances. By such means they'd slain Horgul and some of his warcaptains, then tried to seize control over the minds of the rest, so as to take over command of the whole host.

If there'd been no Doom standing unseen behind Horgul, it would have worked. As it was, Malraun the Matchless was in the habit of often prying into the minds of Horgul and his captains from afar, and was warned. He'd learned all this from the mind of one startled Stormar mage, then given that unfortunate the same death that had been visited on Horgul, and then magically taken himself and Taeauna to this blood-drenched, moonlit hill nigh Darswords.

The hold itself crowned a hill beside the one he stood on, with the wingless Aumrarr by his side. This hill had been left bare of homes and barns because, fittingly, it was where they buried their dead.

There'd be a lot of burying to do, later, though he doubted anyone would be alive to do it. The slope they were cautiously climbing was heaped and strewn with the dead. The folk of Darswords must have spent every last coin that had been buried under every dirt floor, to hire so many mercenaries to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and fight. And die.

Taeauna raised her sword, peering past it at the last few Stormar huddled atop the hill. They were now hurling all the fires and lightnings they'd avoided using earlier, hence the caution of their ascent. She was shielding him with her body, something that almost brought a smile to Malraun's face. She was his creature, now, in truth; that wasn't something he'd coerced her into doing. When Aumrarr served, they served.

Now she was rising and striding on, a few swift, bent-over steps that took her to the next heap of dead they could shelter behind.

Malraun scrambled to keep up with her, ignoring a groaning, feebly-moving warrior underfoot. Whoever it was lacked the means to harm him, and would die soon enough of his wounds or under the claws and jaws of lurking beasts who'd come out of the forest-or down out of the skies-to feast on the dead.

The Stormar wizards were still hurling death of their own, a roiling wall of flames this time, that marched down the slope, licking empty air, until it engulfed the foremost torch-bearers. Their screams were raw and terrible, but didn't last long.

Malraun smiled. That fiery wall had faded away to nothing already, and the very use of it told him the Stormar were running out of real battle-spells. This would probably take no time at all, once he got close enough to smite them all at once. They knew he was here-or at least, something that could burn out the minds of their fellows was. Hence all the shieldings they'd so hastily conjured. Yet he'd been careful not to hurl fires and lightnings of his own, to give them a target or to frighten them into flight, when he was too far off to trap and hold them.

He wanted every last one of them.

Taeauna turned to look at him, her hair swirling about her shoulders. Malraun gave her a smile, letting his growing fondness for her show through their linked minds, and her answering smile was dazzling. She gasped and shook in rapture, shuddering briefly and biting her lip ere she turned away to return to the careful climb up through the dead.

Malraun's smile went away. What did she think of him, really? If his hold over her mind was taken away?

He'd find fear, and hatred, and a desperate drive to murder him as swiftly as she could, no doubt. Falconaar all seemed to think of their Dooms the same way.

Yet she was a splendid creature, if he could ever trust her. He knew not if any Aumrarr could ever be trusted, or if there was something deep and innate within them that would goad them into striking out against all rulers and tyrant wizards when they saw a good chance to really do harm.

If he worked on her mind with his spells, not to control but to alter, a little here and a little there, could he avoid driving her mad? And truly change her, until she loved him? Or would she always remember what he'd done in her mind, and hate him for it, and wait for her chance to lash out in revenge?

And what was the love of one female worth, bought at such time and trouble, when he could mind-ride and coerce so many with such ease, and have a new and different one gasping willingly under him every night?

The torches were converging now, the small bare hilltop ringed closely by grimly-advancing warriors. Taeauna bore no torch, but her sword was raised and ready. Malraun admired her catlike grace as she stalked from one heap of bodies to another, using the last cover on this stretch of slope to full advantage. Then he reached into her mind and brought her to a shuddering halt, sending her his fondness to give her pleasure and quell her flare of resentment at being reined in as sharply as any snorting warhorse.