Ed Greenwood - Dark Lord

She was crying as she swung the sword. Tears of pain and rage and desperation, as the knights in black armor crowded close around her, their black blades hacking ruthlessly. Sparks flew from her armor as she reeled, driven by one sword blow back into another. They were killing her, she was going to- No! Don't! I won't watch, I- But he could not look away as laughter echoed inside closed black helms, and long white feathers swirled in a swiftly spreading cloud. They're hacking off her wings! The Aumrarr fought on, her shattered armor clanging, as blood stained the snow-white curves above her shoulders. It was hopeless; she was doomed, whether he shouted or cowered. The Dark Helms were too many and too vicious.

She shrieked as a black blade thrust through one wing, and twisted wildly away to meet the biting black steel of another Dark Helm, a cut that tore away an armor plate, lacings and tatters of torn underjerkin spinning with it.

Rod had a glimpse of bare, sweat-slick hip as the winged woman threw herself around at the foe that had wounded her, stabbing upwards with her silver sword.

The Dark Helm stumbled back, hissing in pain, and the Aumrarr's war-steel came out of him dark with blood, to swing-

Too late. Rod winced back into shuddering darkness as two Dark Helms shouted in glee as they brought their blades down and sliced off a wing in a welter of blood-that sent the sobbing Aumrarr to her knees.

In half a breath they were all over her, kicking and stabbing, battering her remaining wing down into bloody ruin. Armor shrieked and clanged in protest as it was hacked from her, her vainly defending sword broke in a whirl of bright spell-sparks against seven black blades, shards flashing and then it was over. She lay huddled and still, severed armor straps strewn about her, snow-white belly slit open and lifeblood steaming. The Dark Helms spat on her, laughed a farewell, and strolled away.

Leaving Rod staring into her agonized, pleading eyes.

Emerald green eyes, wet with tears, yet not yet dimmed in death, and somehow seeing him, really seeing him

And Rod Everlar came awake screaming, clawing sweat-soaked sheets as he sat up to stare wide-eyed across the familiar darkness of his bedroom.

His throat was raw. Panting, Rod shook his head, trying to swallow and hoping the silvery chaos dancing in front of his eyes would clear. That had been a bad one.

Hoob.

His dreams of Falconfar were always vivid-he glanced toward the notebook, ready beside the bed-and sometimes held huge dark snakes and other menacing monsters, but this

"This takes the"

His voice was a thick croak, and the silver mists wouldn't clear. He shook his head again, and-

Something large, dark and heavy slammed down onto the bed from above. Rod's heart leaped and froze, all at once.

It was on his legs

Frantically he kicked out, trying to scramble up and back at the same time. There was nothing but bare plaster ceiling overhead, nothing up there that could fall so heavily without half the house falling down. This couldn't be hap-

"Mercy!" the voice sobbed out of the darkness, from very close by. On the bed. "Mercy, Dark Lord!"

The weight on his legs was moving, and panting as hard as he was, and there was something warm and wet

Rod got his legs out from under the heavy weight at last and grabbed for the flashlight he kept on the floor beside the bed, swinging himself away and up to his feet just as fast as he could.

Light snapped into brilliant being. He whirled, snatching his Olde Excalibur letter opener out of the book he'd left it in and brandishing it as if he were some sort of armored knight instead of a hairy, skinny man wearing only boxer shorts.

The light gleamed off the point of his letter opener, and Rod found himself staring over it and into the pleading emerald eyes and pain-twisted face of the woman from his dream, the blood-drenched stumps of her severed wings jutting up from her shoulders.

She was on her hands and knees on the end of his bed, trembling violently, amid a dark red sea of soaked sheets and dripping, hanging-down innards. Skin whiter than his sheets where it wasn't dark with gore, long black hair tangled and matted and those eyes.

Her jaw quivered in pain as she gasped, "Dark Lord! Help me!"

Rod stared at her in disbelief, shaking his head without really noticing. This couldn't be happening, this He must still be dreaming, this must all be part of it

Dark Lord? "II'll-"

I'll what? What the hell would I do, if I were awake?

"I'll get an ambulance," Rod snapped, striding across the room to the phone. Letter opener down, receiver up; an old, ugly rotary, heavy and solid and black, reassuring to hold on to in this crazy drea-

Something silver flashed bright moonlight as it spun past his cheek to thunk solidly into the wall. Something that left severed coils of phone cord dancing in Rod's face, and the dial tone of the heavy receiver in his hand suddenly silent. He whirled to face whatever it was in the direction it had come from, aiming his flashlight like a gun.

Rod found himself looking at the blood-slicked, clenched and trembling hands of the woman on his bed, who promptly cried, "No! No one here must know, or your power will be ended, and with it all our hope! Dark Lord, you must undo the evil you have wrought on us!"

Rod Everlar stared at her, dazedly wondering why he'd never bought a gun, and then wondering what he'd do with one right now, if he had it. She was dying, she should be dead already, and and women didn't have wings and snow-white skin, and didn't swing swords while wearing armor. Or hurl daggers, either.

Except in Falconfar. In his dreams.

He was going mad, he must be. If he'd drunk anything stronger than soda this week, he'd be blaming this on booze right now. This just couldn't be happening.

Not even in his books did did women with wings who'd just been gutted and left to die fall onto the beds of lonely thriller writers in the middle of the night. Any night, drunken or otherwise.

Transfixed in the beam of his flashlight, the shuddering Aumrarr sank belly-down on the bed, her strength plainly failing.

"Please," she whispered, eyes desperate, her voice strangely purring. "Please"

Rod shone his flashlight up at the ceiling-whole and unmarked-and wildly around the room to make sure there was no one else lurking anywhere. Not that it sounded like it. He lived alone, and the creaks and small moans of the old house were familiar things.

This visitor was not.

The flashlight showed him a wicked-looking dagger buried in the wall beside his head. Its hilt was dark and wet with blood, but he flung the phone down and seized it unhesitatingly. Grateful to have some sort of weapon, Rod wrenched it out of his wood paneling with some effort; it had bitten deep.

"Dark Lord," the Aumrarr moaned, her voice fainter. She tried to say something else, but it came out as wet, choking sounds.

Rod took a step closer to the bed, waving the dagger. The room smelled of blood, and sweat and fear.

"Get out," he snarled suddenly, as something wild rose inside him, sharp and sudden. Fear. His own fear. "Get out of my house!"

He lived alone by choice. He didn't want the world thrusting itself into his dreams, didn't

The woman on the bed moved, but only to sag forward, shards of shoulder-armor clattering briefly. She wasn't going anywhere, she was dying on his bed for chrissakes.

When was this nightmare going to end?

The floor was cold under his bare feet. The moonlight faded as he left the ruined phone behind and strode back to his bed. This was enough!

He was going to wake up, somehow; he was going to leave his imaginary world of Falconfar behind and go watch a No, no, he was going to read a good book. A book written by someone else, one that had nothing at all to do with wizards and dragons and Dark Helms and the soaring castles of Falconfar. He was