The battlements belonged to an unfamiliar keep that stood in a narrow green river valley, that was part of a labyrinth of side-vales, somewhere in the vast Raurklor.
She'd seen that much while hurtling down to… here.
Iskarra shook her head, wincing. Everything she looked at swam a little around its edges, and looked a trifle greener than it should. "What did you do to us?"
"Took you through a gate," Dauntra said tartly. "Wizards and high priests aren't the only ones who have a little magic."
"Yours came from something you carry, not a spell," Isk said calmly, trying not to show her horrible queasiness. "I was watching."
Dauntra shrugged, her smile fading not a whit.
"So where are we?" Garfist's grunt, from above and behind Iskarra, was as sour as it was resigned.
"Ironthorn," snapped Juskra, as she flapped her wings hard to slow her plunge-and dropped him the last foot or so onto the battlements. "The other end of it. Tesmer lands."
"This is Imtowers," Dauntra added softly.
Gar's grunt told all listening Falconfar that he was far from impressed.
He lurched to the rampart, looked down, then turned away. No escape there. Not and keep hold of life. He started the long trudge to where the battlements turned a corner, heading for where the hillside loomed and the drop would be less.
A dark shadow glided over him before he was halfway there, landed in his path, and folded her wings rather grimly.
The scarred Aumrarr wasn't in the best of humors. Garfist Gulkoun wasn't the lightest of men, and had the irritating habit, when dangling in the air as a burden, of twisting and kicking just as a side-gust struck. Wherefore her shoulders ached abominably.
"In there," Juskra told him, pointing.
Gar spared the stair-hutch she'd indicated not so much as a glance. He kept right on lumbering along the battlements toward her.
"Garfist Gulkoun," she added, voice sharpening, "that's the way down. Or rather, the only one that doesn't involve your neck-and probably most of the rest of you, too-getting thoroughly broken."
Face set, eyes flickering everywhere but at her as he strode, he gave no sign of having heard her words.
"Those stairs descend past three bedchambers that're very likely unoccupied this night, unless various of the younger Ismers have very swiftly returned from mischief they looked quite happy to be part of, in various elsewheres. The third step below the landing giving onto the main floor lifts up. The catch under it opens a door in the stairwell you'll never find otherwise, into the room where Lord Irrance Tesmer keeps the greater part of his spending-gems. In handy carry-coffers."
The striding man lifted a hand and firmly favored her with a gesture that was both dismissive and decidedly rude, and kept right on coming.
"Garfist," she added warningly.
He did not slow.
The Aumrarr sighed, bounded into the air in a violent clapping of wings that sent him staggering, and landed right behind him. He whirled with an oath, fists coming up, but it took her only a passing moment to slap the side of his neck as he turned.
His eyes went out like two snuffed candles, and he kept right on turning, plunging silently to the floor.
Iskarra darted forward, eyes wild. "What did you-?"
"Hush," Juskra replied soothingly, raising a hand on which a ring was glowing softly. That faint radiance certainly hadn't been there before. "He'll be able to move again very soon. And breathe."
Isk gave her a cold look. "If you've harmed him…"
"Very soon," Dauntra murmured, from just behind her.
The gaunt woman was unmollified. "We faced and fought Lyroses for you; why are you doing this to us?"
The scarred Aumrarr shrugged. "Your work in this isn't done. That which you were intended to affect hasn't yet arisen."
"Can I have that in plain tongue?" Gar growled weakly, glaring up from the flagstones by her feet. "Ye sound like a sly merchant trying to sell a new cure-all-ills ointment! Plain talk, wingbitches! Plain talk!"
"You need not fight, for this one," Dauntra told him, waving at the stair-hutch. "If the Falcon smiles, no Tesmer will even see you."
"Nor any of their guards," Juskra added.
Iskarra put her hands on her hips, disbelief large on her face. "You want their riches," she said almost primly, "and daren't risk your own precious necks going down in there to steal it. So the traps are? And the guards?"
"There are none," Juskra said flatly. "Nor do we need their riches; we wingbitches have always had more than enough coin to buy the best spies. Which is why we know there are spells waiting all down that stair that will cry out when Aumrarr-or lorn, for that matter-come too close. Hence your present usefulness."
"Tesmers shorn of their ready wealth," Dauntra added calmly, "are Tesmers looking over their shoulders for thieves, or assassins following where the thieves came in knowing so much. They are also Tesmers now lacking coin enough to work certain mischiefs better not promoted. Whereas Garfist and Iskarra enriched are… Garfist and Iskarra enriched."
Garfist shook his head. "Were either of ye priests, in younger days?" he asked sourly, finding his feet unsteadily and not shaking off the swift assistance of his lady. "Such verbiage!"
"I can be blunter," Juskra said with the faintest of smiles, her voice dry. "Both of you are thirsting hard to be free of us and everyone else who's been chasing you and forcing you to do this and that. You want food, rest, and riches."
Garfist and Iskarra both nodded.
Juskra held up her hand to show them her ring again; the glow had quite fled from it. She drew it off and put it carefully into Garfist's hand. "You awaken it by thinking of a vivid sunrise. It should work twoscore times more. It belonged to an Aumrarr who's now too dead to feel the lack of it. I give it to you freely."
He glared down at it, then lifted his glare to her. "So just what're ye playing at, hey?"
"If you do this thieving for us," she replied, "and come back up these stairs, we'll fly you safe out of here. To a ruin-an Aumrarr wingbitch ruin no others dare approach, though none of us are left to guard it now-where we can all rest. Then come the next day, aloft again and on to an inn in Galath we know, where you can have all the food and drink you want, and no one will ask who you are or who you may be running from. Safe we'll take you, just as I've promised; no treachery and no lies."
Dauntra nodded, and the battlescarred Aumrarr spoke again.
"We'll swear this by any bindings you desire; we want to know you as friends, henceforth."
"Because ye'll be needing us again, in time to come," Gar growled.
Juskra did smile, this time. Sweetly. "Of course."
The mountain shuddered again, a deep, teeth-jarring rumbling that was loud and long. As its din deepened, rocks as large as human heads came crashing down in a hard rain from above, amid the usual dust and grit.
None of Narmarkoun's undead shrieked or cried out. Without the Master to empower them to do otherwise, they remained mute.
Yet their agitation was clear to each other by the ways they stiffened and hastened to vantage points in the great open interior of Closecandle, to peer in all directions to try to see what was happening.
Solid stone rocked beneath them, under heavy blows. In the great central well-shaft where Narmarkoun was wont to ride his greatfangs up into the chill mountain sky or come plunging down out of it to thunderous landings, a jutting balcony cracked off the wall and fell. One of the Master's favorite playpretties clung silently to its sheared-off fragment of railing, staring all around in wild despair, as she plunged to shattering oblivion below.
Another balcony cracked and crumbled away, spewing smaller stones down the shaft. Then, quite suddenly, there was no room for more stone to fall down that great opening, as huge scaled bodies burst into view from below, thrusting upwards wedged together and struggling, each one furious to get to the light first. Huge claws raked the ancient stone walls as if they were made of butter, and wings strained to find space enough to unfurl.