Falconfar 03-Falconfar Read Free

this had certainly been no dream. Across the room, the severed ends of the power cable that the calmly murderous Dark Helm had sliced through were still swinging gently, back and forth, spitting sparks almost lazily out onto the floor.
    Rusty stared at them, trying to remember where the nearest guns were, and how many locks he'd have to get through to get at them. Behind him, the huge metal fortress-door of Brain Central stood closed and gleaming. Silent and immobile, with who knew what sort of panic going on behind it.
    Well, Hank knew, for one—and it was his problem now.
    Faintly, far away, the wail of a siren arose, and the Head of Nrjurity found himself smiling humorlessly.
    Or he could just wait for the police. It seemed Derek had taken Rusty Carroll seriously for once, after all.
    Which just left him the colossal headache of dealing with all of the injuries and deaths, which—if the six Dark Helms and the... the creature that had flown in with them had been half as efficiently deadly as they'd seemed to be—could be many, plus all the inevitable lawyers, and shattered glass windows that until recently had been the outside walls of the company's corporate headquarters, and all of the electrical damage, too, and...
    "No sign of them, Chief!" Pete said excitedly, whirling from the screens with fresh tears leaking from his eyes. "We're clear!"
    And Rusty Carroll let out a deep breath he hadn't known he was holding until that moment, and smiled a smile so broad he thought his face might hurt.
    The parade of colossal headaches ahead were nothing, nothing at all.

     
    THE MAGIC SEIZED hold of him like a fist, bruisingly hard. He choked, trying to fight it, and—
    Narmarkoun. The voice thundered in his head, coldly hostile and gloating. It was Malraun, and yet it was not only Malraun. It was older, deeper... colder.
    The world whirled and flashed around him, and he found himself suddenly blinking in the changed light. He was in the open, under the sky, standing amid rubble on ruined stone tiles. It was somewhere he'd seen before, only never so smashed and ruined as this. Malragard?
    Malragard, tower of his hated foe Malraun, and it had been Malraun who'd so tauntingly called him here.
    Blinking as he called on all the magic he had left to him, gathering it for the coming fight, he stared all around.
    Yes, it was Malragard, and here were his own Dark Helms, striding grimly through the tumbled stones with swords drawn, coming closer. Through billowing smoke they came—and greater darkness gathered overhead. His greatfangs were gliding through the sky, converging overhead... all six of them. But how-?
    "Narmarkoun!" Malraun crooned. His voice came from behind Narmarkoun, not far off.
    Even before he turned to face Malraun, fighting to stammer out a warding spell, Narmarkoun knew what he would see.
    And what would happen to him.
    Malraun was holding two horn-headed scepters, smiling faintly. The moment their eyes met, he unleashed those scepters.
    And Narmarkoun screamed.
    Could not help but scream as magic thrust into him, as sharp and as painful as any saw-bladed lorn sword. Then the claws of Malraun's cruel magic tore at his body, tugging it open, and he had no breath left to scream.
    He was spun around, helpless, unable even to cry as the clawing magics tore at him and spiraled, whirling around him in a tightening sphere, drawing in close as they raked and tore.
    His blood sprayed out of him in a mist, his legs wobbled and failed beneath him, a red fire of agony slashed across his world as one of his arms was torn away, and Narmarkoun sobbed as he fought to focus on one rune in his mind, the relic of a spell memorized long ago. His last hope, his only way out of this...
    He was a helpless, bloody wreck already, armless, stumbling on shattered legs, whirled along by magics, reeling back... back...
    He was vaguely aware of striking something hard, his shoulder and ribs giving way, collapsing into shards that stabbed through