Rod tried not to stare at her with quite the shock Tindror's playlasses had done, but wasn't sure he was succeeding. "But… where will you-?"
Taeauna gave Rod a look that silenced him in an instant, and then whirled back to the baron, sword up to point at the spiral staircase.
"Get up there," she ordered, "and then toss every last hidden weapon in your bedchamber down here. Then I'll come to your bed. And do all you ask. Try not to scar me too badly."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rod Everlar was awakened by the screaming. Shrill, agonized shrieking from overhead that sent him bolt upright in the near-darkness, and wakened the bound wizard beside him into a squirming frenzy of frantic muffled calls through his gag.
Rod was still blinking and trying to gather his wits when Taeauna and the baron, both unclad, burst into view at the top of the spiral staircase, bloody swords in hand. Tindror half-ran and half-fell around the first curve of the stair, fetching up against the rail and turning to face whatever might be following them, and the Aumrarr vaulted over the rail to crash down feet-first on the edge of the bed, tipping it up wildly in a great groaning of wood. Rod and the struggling wizard were hurled into the air, and the bundle of boots and clothing Taeauna was carrying burst apart in all directions.
Taeauna's landing was hard enough to hurl her across the room into a wardrobe; it rocked, boomed against the wall behind it, and flung its doors open in protest, but didn't topple as she caromed off it into a run.
The wizard squalled through his gag as she sprinted right at him, but she merely freed him with two swift slices of her gore-dripping sword and whirled away in search of her boots, hissing at Rod, "Get dressed! Find your sword! We're under attack!"
Tindror joined the hunt for clothes, panting hard and snarling, "They must have emptied the Falconspires of lorn! There must be hundreds out there!"
"There'll be hundreds in here, once they hew through all the furniture," Taeauna panted back at him. "Sorry about your bed!"
The bearded baron shrugged. "Just so long as we both live to see you help me warm the next one." He found his belt and fumbled at the buckle, which started to glow, lifting the darkness they were all groping in to mere dimness. "Can't find my damn boots in all this gloom! Why can't they attack after morning soup, like decent bandits?"
Rod stared at him.
"'Twas a joke, silent man!" Tindror snarled, while hopping on one foot as he struggled, one-handed, to tug on what must be Galathan underwear. Then the baron saw that Rod's stare was fixed on his sword, which was dripping bright blue ichor. Tindror waved it. "Hoy, silent man, haven't you ever seen lorn blood before?"
"N-no," Rod admitted. "We don't put it in our morning soup."
Baron Tindror blinked at his guest, and then roared with sudden laughter.
"Ho, but that's the spirit! That's the flaming backbone, by Galath!"
He whirled suddenly to wag a finger in the half-dressed wizard's face, and said, "Don't let me catch you trying to hurl spells at our backsides, or use them to slink away, either! That motherless rump-licker Murlstag is out there with all his knights, nigh a score of Helms against every one of ours, ringing Wrathgard all around, and lorn by the score are roosting on all our roofs and turrets and battlements! You know as well as I do which Doom is behind this, and if you don't know by now what Dooms do to lesser wizards when they catch them, trust me thus far: you don't want to find out!"
The wizard whimpered, gabbling his words twice before he could say them clearly. "Isn't this the safest place to stay, right here? With the long staircase Baron Murlstag's swords will have to fight their way up."
"It would be," Tindror snarled, "if the lorn hadn't burst in on us up there! When my father's grandsire built Wrathgard, there were no lorn in Galath, none of us had ever seen such a beast. So my bedchamber has eight windows, each as tall as two men-or had; they just smashed them all, coming in at us all at once!"
He lowered his voice into a fierce muttering, and added, "The only reason they're not down here clawing and biting at us right now is that Tay and I pulled my best suit of armor down into the top of the stair after us, and chanted nonsense over it; the lorn think it's enspelled and waiting to do them harm if they so much as touch it. No, we have to get down and go deep, to the cellars where our well is, and the granary and armory around it, where old spells are laced through the stones and no wizard of today, Doom or otherwise, can make those stones walk to thunder into battle against us, or melt to fall on our heads! Come, while we still can!"
By then, Tindror was speaking to three hastily dressed people. He and Taeauna traded looks, she lifted aside the bar across the door, Rod handed her the key to its lock, and they started down the steep, narrow staircase and into the growing din of battle.
Murlstag's men had won past the gates and were already inside the castle.
"Oh, shit," Taeauna whispered, and turned to Rod. "Lord, this is not the ending I hoped for. I am sorry."
Tindror and the wizard both looked at Rod, startled at that "lord."
He kept his eyes on Taeauna, and told her fiercely, "We're not dead yet. You… you have nothing to apologize to me for. I… I'm starting to like this. Even with all the blood and doom."
Her sudden smile made her eyes flame. "Oh, I can give you more of that."
"I don't doubt it," the wizard said suddenly from ahead of them, slowing as they reached the bottom of the staircase and the clash and clang of swords grew suddenly louder. "But what of right now? What should-?"
"Stand aside," Lord Tindror told him brusquely, "and save your spells until I ask for their hurling. 'Tis time to fight! Good old butchery, carving up foes like carcasses for the kitchens!"
He thrust himself past the shuddering wizard and sprang down the last few steps, bellowing, "For Wrathgard! For Tarmoral!"
The stair opened into blood-drenched tumult. Bodies lay sprawled in spreading pools of blood everywhere, and rats were boldly scurrying from one corpse to another, unheeded in the desperate fray. There was no sign of the baron's maids or any other women of the castle, except among the dead, and the few men of Tarmoral were busily swarming and hacking down two foes in full plate armor, holding their arms and feebly kicking legs as daggers worked at armor joints and snarling men wrestled against locked-down visors to open breach enough to slip a knife blade in.
The baron rushed over to the nearest enemy knight, dug his fingers under the edge of the man's helm, and tore at it, twisting viciously. The neck inside it cracked just before he got it far enough up that his men, stabbing past him, could bury half a dozen daggers into the exposed Murlan throat.
Blood fountained, and streamed down Lord Tindror as he turned and stalked over to the second Murlan knight, snapping, "Belgard! Guard yon door! Gethkur, I want every stick of furniture you can swiftly lay hand to packed-and packed tight, in a real tangle-into the forehall, and its doors barred and braced, both ends!"
His men leaped to obey. Their fellows kept stabbing at the second knight who was dying by the time the baron reached him.
"The least of Murlstag's hounds," Tindror said sourly, "have better armor than any man of Tarmoral has ever owned. And for years the bulk of our crops have been demanded by the Throne of Galath, while all they ask of Morngard is a dozen new-forged swords and shields every harvest-tide. 'Twill be a pleasure swording warriors who invade us at the behest of the king."