by Ed Greenwood
The nightwyrm began thrashing as her magic raged inside it, black coils whipping wildly. She rolled away, keeping one arm in front of her face, and hissed the word that would bring her spell to its fatal conclusion.
The night exploded in a wet, rending rain of angry magical fire and enchanted monster, shaking the dewdrenched ground. Somewhere near, men shouted in fear.
Gore slapped onto trees all around and splattered down through shuddering leaves. Wood and flesh alike hissed in the afterglow of the blast as the black droplets that had been the nightwyrm landed on the tangled branches and the three escapees. Tiny tendrils of smoke arose from where those droplets fell.
The Lady Silvertree scrubbed at the worst of her burning patches, just above her knee, with the smoking remnants of her nightgown. Sobbing for breath, she tried hard not to empty her swimming stomach … and managed it, somehow. “Serpent in the shadows!” she cursed, using the strongest oath known in the Vale almost wearily.
Tearing herself free of one last, daggerlike tree branch with a wrench that left a bloody gouge along her ribs, she gulped cold night air hungrily, blinked, and found herself staring into the eyes of Hawkril Anharu.
The armaragor’s hair was smoldering here and there where the acidic ichor of the nightwyrm had struck home, and his wet, smoke-smudged face wore a look of awe. Craer rose into view beside him, as drenched with monster innards as his two companions, and wordlessly offered Embra a dark bundle that she recognized as the clothing she’d had him put in the sack.
“Later,” she snapped, and pointed imperiously along the seared scar her earlier spell had cloven through the woods. When neither of the men moved, she snarled something wordless and stumbled past them. For heroes, these two were a prize pair of dazed idiots.…
“Is there something about the word unharmed that eludes your comprehension?” the Baron Silvertree asked mildly, lowering cold and level eyes from the scene floating near his ceiling. Three wizards stared at him, sweat and fear mingled together on their faces.
“I … crave pardon, Lord,” Ingryl Ambelter mumbled, reading a certain look in the eyes of his employer. “The Lady Embra’s sorceries—”
“Are mightier and more numerous than you expected,” Baron Faerod cut in, his voice like the edge of a slow and deliberate sword blade. “She is my daughter, gentle mages. I expect your best efforts and that these strivings include, shall we say, rather more precision.”
He lifted his eyebrows in the tense silence and added silkily, “Your magics will protect every hair on her head, gentle mages, and every inch of the skin she’s so eager to display to passing swordsmen—won’t they?”
They gave him only silence in reply. Baron Silvertree inclined his head and in like silence looked from one sweating face to the next until each mage, however reluctantly, had given him a nod of acquiescence. Then he turned his gaze again to the scene from afar hovering by the ceiling, ignoring the almost-audible mutterings and sidelong looks the three mages gave him as they retired to their corners again, to work more spells.
One of those three customarily spake but little and—as is the way in too many lands—was often forgotten and ignored in the rush and prattle of his more vocal fellows. His name was Klamantle Beirldoun, and for what seemed like sweating hours he’d been working a mighty magic unbeknownst to his fellow wizards and to the baron: a curse upon the Lady of Jewels. If her magic was the real problem here—for without it, how long could two vagabond Blackgult warriors last against the sorcery of Silvertree?—then let her magic be shattered until such time as she knelt to her father in heart and in limbs once more. If such a day ever came … which he doubted much. Until then, let the curse ride her: each time she worked a spell, the magic would steal some vitality from her, leaving her enfeebled and at the last but a walking skeleton, clinging to life only so long as she worked no magic.
Klamantle smiled a slow and soft smile and breathed the final word of the incantation in a whisper. Let it be done. Ah, yes, let it be done. Often forgotten, indeed.
“Silvertree seems not the safest place in Aglirta,” Delvin of the Many Harps murmured to his companion, eyeing the dark forest around them. Night dew glistened in the fashionably curled brown hair that brushed the bard’s slender shoulders as he spoke, darting wary glances at the night around.
Arching branches overhung the road where the two men stood, plunging everything into a gloom deep enough to hide prowling bears and nightcats or any number of dagger-wielding outlaws. Hastening down to Sirlptar on the night-cloaked roads of Silvertree seemed a far less sensible idea than it had yesternoon, in the full light of the beating sun.
“I am coming to think there are no safe places in Aglirta, anymore,” Helgrym Castlecloaks replied quietly. Night dew glistened in the gray and white hairs of his short beard as he stopped to listen, his hand on the knife at his belt. “Hold!” He laid his other hand on Delvin’s arm, and the two bards grew still together. There had been a sound …
There it was again: the rasp of armor. A full-armed warrior was somewhere near and moving nearer. No, several warriors …
Helgrym had seen war before. He drew his younger companion to the side of the road and crouched in a ditch that smelled strongly of rotting leaves. “Be very quiet,” he breathed into Delvin’s ear, and pointed.
Coming from the trees on the river side of the road were a band of warriors—hastening in grim determination and dripping from a recent swim. As they crossed the road, many with weapons drawn, there was much buckling and adjusting of armor. Spiked gauntlets and crested helms gleaming … Armor of the finest make, adorned with the arms of Silvertree. Wherever these armaragors were bound, they were in a hurry—a hurry to slay.
The Lady of Jewels clambered up a slippery ridge of moss-covered stones and found herself gasping for breath again. She clung to the nearest branch for balance, drew in the air she needed, and looked back along their trail. Moonlight flashed on the helms and blades of the foremost Silvertree soldiers; ah, but it was a beautiful moon-drenched night. Graul it!
“Our shared need for your secure lair is becoming quite pressing,” Embra snarled at her two companions in a sarcastic parody of noble courtesy. “I don’t carry the wherewithal to spell-battle half Aglirta when I take to bed, you know!”
Hawkril grunted in alarm, not the sound she’d been expecting, and she spun around to see the brawny armaragor stepping hastily back from something that had begun to arise from the stones they’d clambered over. Something ghostly that glowed a sickly green and was taking a vaguely manlike shape, looming up and over them … this must be the work of Markoun. He always did prefer impressing folk to actually getting a task done.
Wearily, Embra destroyed the thickening shape with a wash of conjured fire. The brief flare of her flames evoked shouts from the pursuing soldiers, who began to sprint toward them.
Winded again, the Lady Silvertree stared at them and shook her head. “Your turn to save me,” she muttered grimly to Hawkril. His wordless reply was the spreading of his large, empty, and helpless hands in a shrug.
Craer darted out of the night at the hulking armaragor, slapped his arm, and hissed, “Take her up, and to flooting with her dignity! Hurry—this way, and through yon arch!”
“That must be a sorceress!” Delvin gasped excitedly, as fire burst into brief life up on the slope.
“Hist!” Helgrym whispered fiercely, thrusting Delvin down until his chin touched ditch water. “D’you want them to hear us? I’d rather live!”
He broke off his rebuke to gape in openmouthed astonishment at what he saw next. In unconscious unison the two bards rose from their knees to get a better view. The Silvertree soldiers were jostling and clanking into a charge, another green glowing figure was rising into view a little way down the slope—and out of the moonlit sky past that eerie, building light swooped something bat-winged and black-scaled, with two heads and long, rending claws. It led the chase after the sorceress and her two companions, who were busily vanishing thr
ough an archway in a crumbling stone wall atop a hill.
“By the Three,” Helgrym hissed in awe, “they’re heading for the haunted catacombs!”
“The Silent House?” Delvin gulped. “They say a longfangs lairs there!”
He gulped again when Helgrym nodded and said slowly, “You know what we must do.”
“Yes,” Delvin whispered, even more slowly. “We must see what passes, to sing of it later.”
They drew in deep breaths, looked around at the dark trees of Aglirta as if saying farewell, and moved in reluctant unison, watching the flying thing, the ghost shape, and the hurrying armaragors all plunge through the arch into the walled burial ground of the Silent House. Resting place of sixteen Barons Silvertree and perhaps more, ran the ballad, and no less a minstrel than the Master Harper himself, Inderos Stormharp, had once told Delvin that it clove to the truth. One didn’t have to be a veteran bard to know about the maneating longfangs that lurked inside. Enough folk had been eaten, or disappeared trying to find tomb treasures buried with dead Silvertree nobility, to convince the most skeptical that something that dined on human flesh dwelled within.
The moss-girt stones were slippery but the way all too short. They reached the shattered archway in a matter of moments.
“Is this how bards get killed?” Delvin murmured, pausing beside the crumbling stone wall. His voice was not quite steady.
“Yes,” Helgrym replied, in a bleak, weary whisper. “Yes, it is.”
Together they stepped through the arch into the haunted darkness.
The foreyard of the Silent House had once been a park studded with small formal gardens and later a place where bastard family offspring, much-loved servants, and better-loved horses and hounds were buried by a long line of Lords Silvertree. For years, now, the tirelessly creeping forest had held sway, and within the crumbling stone walls it seemed to wrestle back the moonlight so that leaning burial markers and even cottage-size tombs loomed up out of the gloom with startling abruptness.
“Put me down,” the damp bundle on the armaragor’s shoulder hissed. “Down, bebolt you! I …”
Her words broke off in a little scream as something leathery flapped through a sodden tress of her hair, squeaking.
“I didn’t catch that last comment,” her carrier rumbled, sounding more angry than amused. “Now stop struggling, or I may have no choice about dropping you onto some tombstones.”
His burden gave another little shriek as his boots slipped on wet stone, and Hawkril caught his balance with a jerk. That had been a true misstep, not a little lesson to the lady on his shoulder—and if she thought otherwise, what booted it?
They had real concerns to think dark and worried thoughts about. Behind them, down the hill, someone snapped orders, and they heard the creakings of men in armor hastening. A small army of men hurrying. Men of Silvertree, hunting to slay; Hawkril growled.
Bats swooped and flitted, trailing tiny squeakings. Craer moved on like a surefooted shadow, but the armaragor, laden by his wet and furious burden and a swinging sack of gems that bumped at his thigh with every step, stumbled and then stumbled again.
The inevitable time arrived when his boots came down on loose stone and slipped. In a moment, Hawkril’s arms were empty, gems spilling in a clattering torrent into the darkness in one direction and the Lady Embra, with a startled gasp, in another.
She landed hard on a tablelike tomb and bounced on the slab, bruising both elbows and knocking her head on weathered stone. Her curses, once she’d drawn breath enough to utter them, were so hot and swift that the fearful armaragor fled into the night.
Embra Silvertree spun around to face her father’s forces, scrambled to her scraped and bleeding knees, and lifted both hands. Well, graul if the stupid mages hadn’t conjured another nightwyrm—and another leech spirit, too!
The spell that howled out of her then shattered the stones of the arch, driving their shards right through the diving bulk of the nightwyrm in a deadly spray. It perished not even having time to scream.
Bubbling forth bloody froth, its rent, headless body flailed and spasmed in midair before tumbling to the ground, tearing apart the leech spirit it crashed through by overwhelming the leech with the very life essence the spirit sought.
Embra watched the glowing, thrashing deaths with her lips a tight white line of anger. Wincing and ducking through all she’d wrought, of course, the Silvertree armaragors came stumbling, loyal and determined, waving wet swords and looking grim. Whatever magic might roar and flash, it always came down to thickheaded warriors, didn’t it?
Embra suddenly found herself trembling. She felt weak and sick again—and she was using up her magic much too fast. Three mages to defy, and defeat, all of them no doubt stronger than she … and certainly more ruthless and cunning. Time to run again, and—
She clambered down off the slab, slipped on her own unseen gems, and realized she stood alone. Where was that ox of an armaragor?
She was spitting curses too swiftly now to even recall his name, but his face came to mind easily enough, and that was all she needed.
The Lady of Jewels snarled a spell that jerked Hawkril Anharu around in midstride. He almost fell, but cruelly surging forces were burning and tugging at his thews. He could not even curse as unseen hands forced him to turn abruptly around. Fires seemed to rage inside him, and he found himself staggering back to where the sorceress stood, a sudden prisoner in his own body.
Embra glared at the trembling warrior. Hawkril’s face was white with fear and tight with fury that only her iron control kept in check, but the ripplings of his muscles and his awkward stride told of his struggle against her magic. He extended his arms stiffly, and she sat into his grasp, not needing to look to know just how close the foremost soldiers were.
A moment later, the armaragor and his burden were crashing through the burial ground once more, gems forgotten, with the panting of the foremost, boldest Silvertree warriors loud and close in their ears.
“Here! Hurry!” Craer called from ahead, and Embra let her unwilling steed turn toward the voice. The procurer was standing before the dark and gaping doorway of a mansion-size tomb. In the moonlight, it looked like the empty, staring eyesocket of a gigantic, half-buried skull.
“The Silent House,” Embra spat at him through clenched teeth. “This is your ‘safe’ lair?”
Craer nodded, urgently beckoning her to enter.
“You before me,” she replied curtly. “A longfangs lairs here, and I haven’t the magic left to blast it down. Show it your blade, and let’s hope it flees. I’m tired; my control over Tall-and-Mighty here is starting to slip.”
Craer gave her a look of mingled surprise, alarm, and warning before he darted into the darkness, knife drawn.
Embra slipped out of Hawkril’s reach before the enraged, violently trembling armaragor could charge forward and smash her against the doorposts. Freed of her weight and much of her control, he raced forward the instant she was away from him. Well, he wasn’t alone in carrying a load of fury through the forest this night. Her choice had been made, the slender chance taken … only death awaited if she faltered now.
She made herself turn despite the soldiers hastening toward her. Glaring at them, Embra Silvertree told the moonlight softly, “I know you can hear me, Father. Know this: I have had my fill of being used. Henceforth, watch for me—and fear my coming.”
She ducked through the doorway as soldiers came clanking up to it.
Embra remembered the large, lofty chamber beyond the threshold. Its own fading enchantments lit it whenever there was movement within, and by their feeble glow she saw the vaulted stone ceiling still thick and furry with hanging cobwebs, the two rows of statues still standing as she’d first seen them so long ago, from within the shielding spell woven by old Gadaster Mulkyn. Armaragors of stone a head taller than living men, they stood in watchful ranks, their cold, sculpted eyes seeming somehow always upon you, wherever you might move or stand.…
&n
bsp; Hawkril was standing in the center of the room, struggling against her magic. She drove him before her with a hot flare of her anger, seizing the last few moments of the spell to lash him like a herder goading a thickheaded beast, and danced after him. Shouts from behind Embra, as she neared the open archway in the far wall, told just how close the soldiers had come. Had her father’s orders been different, she knew, knives and swords would be kissing her shoulders even now.
As her foot touched the threshold, she spun around with an anguished shout. The spell seemed to crack out of her this time, leaving a ringing headache in its wake, and Embra staggered and almost fell. Clinging to cold, unfeeling stone for support, she watched the ceiling of the chamber fall almost lazily onto the foremost rushing soldiers in a rain of tumbling stone that went on and on until the room, statues and all, was completely filled with fallen stone.
“Great laughter of the Three,” she said sourly, in the ringing, dusty aftermath of that tumult, “now we’re walled in with it: a hungry longfangs and me without a spell even to light a candle.”
As the words left her, sparks struck off the wall by her hand with a furious snap, and tinder cupped in a hand glowed, crackled, and caught. As it flared around a wick, Embra saw the coldly furious face of Hawkril glaring at her above its rising light. His dark, blazing eyes held hers like two dagger points as he deftly snapped open a folding candle-lamp from his belt, and used the wick to light it.
His hands were steady as he shuttered the lamp against breezes and returned his flint to a belt pouch, but his voice was like a sword being drawn when he said, “You used your magic on me as if I were a mule—or a slave under the lash. I don’t recall that being part of our bargain.”
“You dropped me,” Embra snarled, “and there was no time—”
“And are those going to be your words whenever you want to march us about like little stick dolls? No time for what? To ask for our aid? Or will there always be just time enough to take it, moving our limbs in thrall?”