Deldragon's brows lifted. "Ah. Entertaining guests, I see. Be welcome in my home, provided, of course, we get there. Once the very rock of peace, justice, and order, Galath has become a rather more interesting place."
Without turning his head, he raised a voice a trifle and called, "Pari?"
"Lord Velduke?"
"How many Murlan horses can be ridden?"
"We have ten-and-nine, lord."
"Provide our two guests with one apiece, keep two as remounts, and give the rest unto Lord Tindror, in payment for disturbing his tillage."
He looked down at the baron, who nodded and said, "Deldragon, you are a decent man."
"Galath demands, Darl. Galath demands."
The velduke watched horses being brought to Rod and Taeauna, and Deldragon knights assisting them to mount by cupping gauntlets around their boots and through sheer strength lifting them up onto their horses. Deldragon nodded, let his own restive mount trot in a tight circle, and came back to Tindror to murmur, "You're sure you'd not want to feast tonight in Bowrock? Natha would be glad to see you, and Laranna, too!"
Baron Tindror stared up at him. "Tempting. Thanks. I find myself strong enough to stay. Where I belong."
Deldragon inclined his head. "Darl, you're a decent man, too. Fare you well, in the days ahead; they bid fair to test us all." He looked across the churned slopes of dead and dying men and horses, and added, "You've weathered the first test handily. I wonder if there's such a thing as a lorn-slaying spell?"
Tindror shrugged. "There's such a thing as too much magic in a kingdom, that much I know."
Deldragon shook his head, watching servants hasten out of Wrathgard to hand his two new guests each a small, half-full laedre. "Too much magic? That's like saying 'too much boar' or 'too many knives.' 'Tis not the magic… 'Tis those who wield it; their weakness, that they get so seduced by power as to use it for their every whim. But this is converse for a fairer day, another time." He turned his head and cried, "We ride!"
"We ride!" the Deldragon knights roared in chorus, and set about turning their mounts in thunderous unison.
Deldragon nodded to Tindror, raised his open hand in salute, and said to Rod and Taeauna, "Guests, will you ride with me?"
"Bright Lord of Galath, we will," the wingless Aumrarr replied, framing her words in the tones and serene dignity of a noble lady of long years and high standing.
The velduke flashed his teeth at her in a delighted smile. "I believe I'm going to enjoy this ride home even more than usual."
Taeauna inclined her head to him, and turned to raise her hand in salute to Baron Tindror, who was still standing with his arms folded, in the open doorway of Wrathgard. He lifted his hand in response, face carefully expressionless.
Aside from Taeauna, who was watching for it, Rod was the only person who saw Tindror's lips move, soundlessly framing the words, "I love you."
Then Wrathgard and its bearded baron were behind them, Deldragon knights closing in around them in a jingling, clottering forest of trotting riders.
The velduke leaned close to Taeauna and said, "A good man; one of the few. You have just seen the pride and folly of Galath. If we were all a bit less noble and high-minded, and a bit more surly and… and…"
"Pragmatic," Rod murmured, earning himself a startled look from Deldragon, and then a fierce nod.
"Come," the velduke cried then to the knights all around, spurring his horse into a canter. "Ride in earnest! Lances up! 'Tis a long ride to Bowrock!"
CHAPTER NINE
The riven keep stood on a ridge deep in the wild heart of the Great Forests; already young trees were sprouting up amid its blackened and tumbled stones, and older ones thrusting out branches to cloak it in their greedy Teachings for sunlight. The winged Aumrarr stalking grimly through the seared ruin moved slowly, for they were weary from a long flight, and battered from battle.
"Well, 'tisn't called Shatterjewels for nothing," Juskra said fiercely, impatiently brushing matted blonde hair back from her scarred face. "Of course the Dooms blasted every likely-looking stone and wall to powder! They'd cook and eat their own grandmares in hot-gobbling haste, if they thought doing so would win them one more spell!"
"Sister," the youngest and most beautiful Aumrarr replied quellingly, "tell us something we don't know. Years upon years of sisters before us swarmed all over this keep looking for magic, any magic!" Dauntra waved her arms at the devastation around them. "I don't know what you were thinking to find that they couldn't."
"A stone or two of the keep still standing," Juskra snarled back. "Do the Dooms have to wantonly despoil everything they touch?"
"It seems so," dark-robed Lorlarra sighed, coming into the shattered room from the dark opening that had brought her from the well-chamber. It had been a tight fit, even with her wings folded tightly around her. "Just be glad they've raged over this place so often, and thoroughly satisfied themselves that no magic remains but the echoes of what is lost. Otherwise, the power Ambrelle and I just used would have them all here in a trice, hungry for battle and new magic to call their own."
"It worked?" Dauntra's usually impish voice was sharp.
Ambrelle was the tallest and oldest of the four, and had fought hard and long. Her severe face was pinched with pain as she came out of the well-chamber in Lorlarra's wake, her purple-black hair hanging across her face as she nodded wearily. "Thus far," she said. "Malraeana and Phandele float in spell-sleep, and the healing has begun. It will take days, sisters mine."
"There are our own hurts to see to, after that," Juskra muttered. "I'm in no hurry to leave these glows that blind the Dooms to what we do here. Where in all the Falcon Kingdoms are folk free of their sway now?"
"And Highcrag and all our sisters are gone," Lorlarra whispered, hugging herself as if a chill wind had just thrust past her, "or twisted by those spell-tyrants."
"Twisted? Who? I thought they slaughtered everyone at Highcrag."
"They did." Lorlarra's voice was sadder than ever.
"Then who?"
"Taeauna. Wingless, now, and seen walking the world with a wizard."
"Taeauna? A wizard? Who?"
Lorlarra shrugged. "An unknown mage. From afar, perhaps."
"So how is it we know he's a wizard?"
Lorlarra shrugged again. "Who else but a wizard could tame her, sear off her wings, and have her so enthralled that she'd travel with him?"
Dauntra shook her head. "I'll not believe that until I see it myself," the youngest of the four Aumrarr said wearily. "There are wild tales enough whispering their ways ar-"
"This is no wild tale," Juskra said bitterly. "I heard it, too. From a trader who's one of the Vengeful."
Dauntra clapped her wings angrily, her large brown eyes darkening in anger. "Ah! The Vengeful, who see fell wizards under every stone and behind every face that so much as looks at them!"
"The Vengeful," Juskra snapped back, "who have found so many wizards these last few years and sent them to swiftly dug graves."
"Yes, and what has that given Falconfar? Three Dooms who tower over all the lands like god-colossi; three Lord Archwizards in the making!"
"Sisters!" Ambrelle said severely. "Cease this wrangling! I myself cleave to the thinking that we cannot be certain, from here in this ruin in the green wild heart of nowhere, whether or not Taeauna is a traitor and the man she's traveling with is a foe or a wizard, nor rightly deem them peril or no."