by Ed Greenwood
Sunlight was flooding down into Embra's new-made clearing-and as she looked in all directions, seeking foes foolish enough to bend bows in her direction again, she caught sight of some astonished woodcutters far off in the trees, axes dangling forgotten in their hands as they gaped at her. None of them looked angry or likely to attack. Rather, they looked as if they wanted to stay a long, long way back from so deadly a sorceress-or perhaps dwell in a land that had never known wizards, and never would.
Embra turned to seeking foes again. Some of the archers had drawn their last breaths in Darsar; their sprawled bodies were already surrounded by buzzing flies. Other bowmen had taken hurt but yet lived, and were feebly trying to drag themselves away or at least into hiding.
"Who commands you?" the Lady of Jewels demanded as she glared at their frightened faces, her voice cold and level. They froze in unison, but no one seemed in any hurry to answer, so she asked again.
Silence.
"Well, then," she said curtly, "I'll have to assume that each one of you is the Tersept of Stornbridge-and guilty of treason against the River Throne. Wherefore I've no choice but to slay you all, one after another, starting now!”
Taking a slow, purposeful step forward, she raised her hands above her head in two dramatic claws, a gesture of menacing magic that was spoiled by her need to hold the Dwaer in one hand-and use its power to clumsily lift her injured arm. The resulting pain was so sickening that she staggered helplessly sideways, and almost spewed up the contents of her stomach.
Shuddering, the Lady Silvertree held herself upright by magic, swaying and letting small sparks of light swirl around her. Those twinkling motes meant nothing and could unleash no magic, but Embra hoped they looked impressive.
More than one of the watching men mistook her twisted expression for fury rather than pain, and cowered visibly.
"L-lady," an older archer called hesitantly, from among them, "how can we win our lives? What must we do to have you spare us?"
Embra gave him the coldest and most steely look she could muster. "Bring me Tersept Stornbridge-or the man who ordered this attack upon us, if that man is not the tersept. Bring him now"
The man looked fearfully back over his shoulder, and so did some of his fellows. It mattered not if they ever summoned up the courage to obey her, for now the Lady Silvertree knew which trees to blast to flame and ashes if the pain threatened to overwhelm her.
Swaying, she turned toward that thick stand, on the far side of a wooded hollow a good distance down the road to the open fields of Stornbridge. "Come forth, Stornbridge!" she snapped, letting the Dwaer carry her quiet voice into the trees like a biting weapon.
Silence fell again, and she added almost lazily, hoping no one would realize just how close she was to collapsing, "Come forth. Or die."
There was a stirring, and a man rode forth from behind the trees-bareheaded and empty-handed, slowing his mount swiftly to a trot, and then to a walk. When Hawkril raised his blade warningly, he stopped his horse altogether.
"That's not Stornbridge," Craer muttered, out of the side of his mouth. Blackgult nodded, and smiled wryly when he saw that his daughter's eyes had already narrowed in suspicion. He crawled closer to her, so as to be within reach if she fell. She thanked him with the flick of an eye, her cold expression never changing.
"Stornbridge," Embra told the trees gently, "I want to see you, not your loyal armaragors and cortahars. I've felt one of your arrows, and my patience is dwindling. Very swiftly."
The man who rode into view this time was larger, and wore overly splendid armor-as did his horse, lavishly emblazoned with the arms of Stornbridge: scarlet hawk after scarlet hawk, perched on as many gilded bridge-arches in an unending tapestry of barding and freshly painted armorplate.
"Graul me if it doesn't look like a court costume," Craer muttered. Tshamarra laid a hand on his arm, and he winced as he tried to give her a smile.
"I-I humbly beg your pardons, Crown Lords and Ladies," the Tersept Stornbridge said grandly, sweeping his arms wide as he assumed an anguished expression. "Down bows, men of Stornbridge!"
He rode nearer, trying an uneasy smile. His elaborately curled shoulder-length locks of chestnut-hued hair warred with watery blue eyes and an awkwardly broken nose. "Forgive me, great Overdukes, but I've had to fight off so many brigands in this forest-here, before my very gates!-in recent days! I-I had no idea… if I'd heard even a whisper you were coming, or seen royal banners, or heard heralds' horns…"
"Is it then your custom to greet any five swift and well-mounted riders with arrows? Sirl traders, perhaps, or Flowfoam heralds?" Embra snapped.
"Well, I-I-"
"Or any tersept or baron of the realm, riding with his personal armaragors?"
"Lady Silvertree," Stornbridge blustered, "as a tersept myself, I'm charged by the same crown you serve and uphold with the duty of keeping safe my roads, lands, and people! Armed folk riding hard and fast around here are brigands, and if an honest man of Stornbridge doesn't put swiftly an arrow into any brigand he faces, he all too often dies!"
"I daresay," the Lady Embra replied. "And I also daresay that if you judge who's a brigand and who's not so swiftly, and with eyesight so poor, you shoot down more than your share of honest men of Stornbridge."
"Lady, I protest!" Stornbridge snapped.
"Lord, I bleed," Embra snarled back at him, and lifted her Dwaer meaningfully. The tersept and the men slowly gathering behind him stiffened in unison, and both Blackgult and Hawkril struggled to their feet and stood where they could block any charge or bowshot aimed at the Stone or the slender arm that held it.
All of the overdukes stared coldly at Stornbridge, and he stared back at them, defiance warring with fear across his florid face. His words fooled none of them, and he knew it.
"Of course," the tersept said abruptly, raising his voice. "I quite forget both my manners and your peril. "You have my word that you'll be both safe and treated with all courtesy, as we tend you in Stornbridge Castle. All Stornbridge is ashamed at this terrible mistake!" He turned and roared, "Clear me yon wood-wagon! Let the overdukes be conducted to the castle with as much gentle care and dignity as we can give them!"
There was a general scrambling, all around the overdukes. Blackgult and Embra glared about as if expecting a stealthy bowshot or sudden sword-charge, but-aside from averting their eyes from the simmering displeasure of their overduchal guests-the Storn men seemed to be interested only in obeying Stornbridge's orders in almost frantic haste.
Amid the tumult, Hawkril reached out a long arm and hauled his friend Craer upright. Tshamarra sprang to help the procurer as he winced, swayed, and spat blood.
"Well, now," Craer asked her from between clenched teeth, as firewood was hastily swept off the wagon, and cloaks laid across its mess of bark and splinters for them, "did I not describe him rightly?"
" 'A blustering man in overly splendid armor,' " Tshamarra quoted in a disgusted murmur. "Yes, your words cover him quite well. Now keep still, Craer! You've lost blood enough!"
"Lady," Hawkril rumbled, leaning close to Embra.
"'Embra, Hawk," she whispered, her lips trembling on the sudden edge of tears. "Call me Embra-and just hold on a little longer. Please." As hesitant hands ushered them up onto the wagon, the sorceress cast a warning ring of harmless golden sparks around herself, and in its midst leaned toward Blackgult and murmured, "Father, be ready if I falter. Tshamarra, hold to my hand. Together we must… must…"
Heal. Tshamarra silently sent that word into all of their minds with a swift, simple spell that kept them all linked, so any attack, word, or gesture one of them saw would instantly be shown to them all… and in that half-mazed state they raided and swayed their way into Stornbridge.
Hawkril and Craer peered up at the looming castle, seeking to glimpse who gazed down at them from window and battlement-but never saw certain servants standing in the shadows behind the row of gawking maids who leaned and jostled along the sills. Four cham
ber knaves among those watchers in the shadows exchanged silent glances… and then slipped away. They hastened out of Stornbridge Castle by rear doors, crossing its moat by bridges unseen from the foregate where the wagon of wounded overdukes rumbled along in the heart of a hastily formed and untidy honor guard of battered archers and puzzled woodcutters.
The departing chamber knaves did not hasten as men do when they flee in fear, never to return. Rather, they hurried as men do who desire to deliver reports amid the cottages of Stornbridge, and then hasten back to their castle posts ere their covert expeditions are noticed by visiting-and somewhat battered-overdukes.
Fangbrother Khavan peered at the muddy pastures of Bowshun rather sourly. He'd seen more than enough dusty, muddy, dung-reeking villages of backcountry Aglirta to last him the rest of his life. A thorny branch sliced ever so gently across his nose as he turned away from the incredible stench of a far-too-successful farmer's pig midden, and back to where Scaled Master Arthroon's iron grip on his shoulder was guiding him. A crowd of intently listening villagers, yes-quite possibly every last lad and lass of thinking age in Bowshun-but even if they were hanging on every word uttered by a Serpent-priest, this was very far away from where men dwelt who held real power in Silverflow Vale.
Yet here they all were: a Brother of the Serpent he'd never seen before; Khavan himself; and cold, implacable Scaled Master Arthroon. Wasting words on dungheads dragged away from their fields to stare uncomprehendingly at a snarling servant of the Serpent.
"Know you," the man was raging now, punching the air with his fists in emphasis, "that the Dragon was evil. Yes, the good Serpent defeated it-but at great loss. Your worship, your coins, and your strong, honest hands are needed!"
The Brother paused, looking around at his silent audience, waiting for at least a scattered cheer-and daring it to come. The silence held.
"Worship the Serpent!" he roared. "Give us your support, that we may cleanse Flowfoam of this boy king and the foul, decadent Baron Blackgult who lurks behind him, telling you what to do just as he always has!"
A mutter ran through the crowd, a murmur of agreement. The priest grinned, thinking he'd broken the mistrust and fear he'd seen in the villagers' faces earlier. "Oh, I know some of you dare not rally to our holy cause yet. You're honest folk, and I admire that. Dutiful folk, dependable. You're the backbone and ready hands and staunch heart of Aglirta… and you'll know, when the time comes, the right thing to do."
He leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially. From their concealment in the bushes behind the crowd, Scaled Master Arthroon and Fangbrother Khavan might have been two statues-but the Brother of the Serpent wasn't speaking to them.
"Some of you know already: the wisest of you, those who see first what's best for Bowshun, and for Aglirta. I'll welcome you this very night, when the moon falls upon Emdel's Glade, to worship the Sacred Serpent with me. In the glade I'll say more, and together we'll gaze upon a glorious future for Aglirta. I tell you that before you're another summer older, the Kingless Land shall be rich and mighty at last! Km shall be rich and mighty at last!"
He drew himself up, robes swirling, and smiled down at them. "In the moonlight, in Emdel's Glade, you'll hear more. Wise ones, I'll await you there." With one uplifted hand the Brother of the Serpent traced the sinuous Sign of the Serpent in the air.
A few tentative hands echoed it-and he smiled at their owners from atop the haystack, whirled, and stepped down from its far side.
A breeze stirred, a bird flapped lazily over a nearby field, and still the folk of Bowshun stood still and silent, staring at the empty height where the priest had stood in silence… a silence that lasted a very long time before any of them stirred and moved away. It was even longer before they started to chatter, and for the first time, Fangbrother Khavan was impressed.
He still didn't see what a few toothless old farmers, dungpat-hurling youths, and sunburnt dungheads of the fields could do against armored cortahars of Aglirta. Now, however, he believed that they could be made to do something.
And that, after all, was what priests were for.
5
Feasts and Entreaties
This will be quite acceptable," the Lady Silvertree said coldly, waving the aged seneschal toward the door. He'd made the mistake of trying to be haughty to her-she was, after all, no more than a dirty and bedraggled woman claiming some grand upriver title, and accompanied by a handful of ragtag armsmen and vagabonds who could well have stolen all they'd brought-but his first glance had proven to be wrong. Very wrong.
Seneschal Urbrindur was old enough to have felt the sharp edge of two baronial tongues before the stormy bluster of his current master, and he knew real nobility when he heard and felt it. This icy wench was noble, Three take all. Was it his fault folk didn't look their proper parts anymore?
He strode stiffly out of the room he'd conducted the five wounded and furious "guests" to, and stared at the door after it closed in his face for only a brief, thoughtful moment before whirling away down the passage to deliver several sharp blows with his rod of office to heads and shoulders of the nearest handy chamber knaves.
Then he stalked off without a word to them, ignoring the hate-filled glances he knew they were giving his back. Such reactions were only fitting, after all-and Seneschal Urbrindur was very strong on what was right and fitting.
"They made a right and fitting end of as many of our horses as they could." Gloomily Craer surveyed the battered remnants of their saddlebags, flicking a last splinter of arrowshaft out of a torn tangle of leather. "I don't doubt roast horseflesh will feature prominently in tonight's feast."
"Later, Lightfingers," Embra Silvertree told him, her voice almost pleading. "I can't use the Dwaer if I fall senseless, now can I?"
Despite the arrows he still wore, Hawkril was at her side in an instant, awkwardly cradling her shoulders to hold her up. Embra sagged against him gratefully and asked, "Father?"
"Chairs, or to the floor together?" Blackgult asked, sword in hand as he peered about the room, seeking every possible spyhole and entrance.
"Floor, if we can get there gently."
Craer gave Embra a leer. "Lady, I never thought I'd hear you ask so plainly."
Tshamarra rolled her eyes and brought her hand down, ever so gently, on the broken shaft of the arrow that protruded from Craer's shoulder.
He doubled up with a shuddering sob, and she lowered him the rest of the way to the floor tiles, murmuring, "Lord Delnbone, you mustn 't hurt yourself more than you have already. Please, submit yourself to my will for once, and behave sensibly-and so live longer. Possibly."
Hawkril snorted at those honeyed words-and then hastily went to his own knees as the last surviving Talasorn gave him a hard glare.
"Close together," Embra told them, "so we can all touch." The Dwaer's power isn't endless, she added silently, using the last fading tatters of Tshamarra's spell. Not in so short a time. I've done much with it already.
"You certainly have," Blackgult murmured into her ear as he lowered Embra to the floor. "Though if admittedly twisted memories serve me, 'tis more a matter of the wielder's mind reaching limits than 'tis a Stone becoming exhausted."
"Well, that's consoling," Craer hissed through clenched teeth.
"We're being watched," Tshamarra whispered, joining them on the floor. More than once she glanced straight up, as if to repeatedly make sure nothing deadly was plunging down from the ceiling.
"Of course. Magic?" Blackgult muttered.
"No. Eyes. Moving, in the wall tapestry behind you."
"As long as 'tis just spying, and not darts that strike. We must shield Embra, until-"
"Of course," Tshamarra whispered back, with a mocking smile. "Magic?"
"No," Blackgult replied, in a ghostly parody of his 'old baron' growl. "Those charming armored curves of yours-augmented by my old bones."
The Talasorn sorceress flicked an appraising glance up and down his body. "Hmmph. Well-fleshed ancient bones, I'd say
."
The Golden Griffon struck a preening, feminine pose that would have done credit to the most alluring of court ladies, and then relaxed back into his customary wary lounging. "I'll take this side," he murmured into Tshamarra's amused-and astonished-face. "See if you can cover the rest without letting our stubborn lion of an armaragor rear up to try to do his duty no matter how sorely wounded he is, for once."
"Lord Ezendor," Hawkril protested, from somewhere beneath Tshamarra, but Blackgult waved a quelling hand.
"I'm your Lord no longer. Ezendor, yes-and as your friend I tell you: belt up and lie still. You've more arrows in you than the rest of us put together. Embra?"
"Forgive my selfishness, but this will go best if I'm free of pain: Now, Sarasper showed me… oh, yes…"
They felt her convulse, and then twitch and shudder from fingertips to toes. When it passed, Embra opened her eyes, smiled-and let the healing flow into them, like a warm and tingling tide.
As her four companions groaned and gasped, feeling pain ebbing from them, Blackgult moved like an attentive servant in response to looks she gave, gently drawing forth specific arrows at her bidding. Craer jerked when surrendering his shaft, mewing in helpless pain, but Tshamarra held him in a suddenly iron grip when he might otherwise have jerked away… and in both near silence and a surprisingly short time the healing was done, and they were whole again.
"We must be very careful not to lose that," Hawkril rumbled, patting the Stone as he flexed his arms and shoulders experimentally. "I'd not want to return to the days of pilfering trinkets from the Si-"
"Hush," Embra said severely, slapping his cheek gently with the tips of her fingers. "The walls listen, remember?"