A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [104]
The Serpent-priests were fending off the shield-spawned lightnings now, warding spells of their own glowing as each bolt bit into those unseen barriers, flared out in a spreading flood, and faded. Embra's eyes narrowed-yes, the snake-men's shieldings must be drinking the power of the bolts, growing stronger with each lightning that struck!
Frowning, the Lady Silvertree sent her next bolt lower, striking not at grinning Serpent-priests, but at the broken edges of the throne chamber ceiling beneath their boots. For a breath or two nothing happened but lightning clawing and snarling its way along jagged stone-but then a large chunk of vaulted ceiling broke free, and fell.
That huge stone plunged through the throne room, spilling dust and rubble-and then the floor tiles of the gallery above-all down onto the heads of shouting warriors below. They were men of the three barons, and what few shields they raised did no good against stones as large as men, that simply smashed everything standing against them down to the floor.
Screaming Serpent-priests joined that cascade, and Tshamarra Tala-sorn grinned and fed them bolts as they fell, suspecting that some of the shieldings would hang in the air where they'd been cast, in the gallery above, and not cling to their creators. She was right-and more than one scaled man burned on the way down, or landed gouting smoke from various places, and lay still.
Embra kept her gaze on that upper gallery, expecting spell attacks from the snake-men who'd been wise enough to hastily back away from the edge, but their attention-and their hurled magics-were aimed elsewhere.
Even as Tshamarra merrily raked the broken edges of rock again with her lightnings and sent fresh showers of stone down onto the trapped armsmen below, varicolored fires snarled down from scaled hands at Ezendor Blackgult's barrier.
At the heart of their fiery onslaught, as tongues of flame splashed and raged outward, the air around the regent began to flicker with dark, flame-like shadows interspersed with lightninglike flashes. In its midst, Blackgult and the bard sank towards the floor, the Dwaer winking and sputtering fitfully above them-and eager blades were waiting for them, thrusting in ruthless unison.
Ezendor Blackgult had been a giant among warriors long before he'd ever seen a Dwaer-Stone, and he swung his sword in one hand and his dagger in the other in great roundhouse sweeps, striking aside enemy blade after enemy blade in a shower of sparks. All the while he was muttering something that made his Dwaer flash and pulse with redoubled vigor-and when he let go of his dagger it did not fall to the floor, but whirled up into the air around him and became a dozen shining fangs of metal, racing back and forth in a bright barrier of steel that rose around the regent and the bard, keeping Bloodblade's warriors at bay.
Blackgult gave them a savage grin, and then reached up and plucked the Dwaer out of midair with his freed hand. Looking over at Embra, he cried, "Lass-catch!" and threw it.
End over end the mottled tan stone flew, as Serpent-priests hissed in eager unison and spun snake-swift magics, Bloodblade's warriors stared in horror-and a Lady Overduke's long, slender arm reached up to just the right place.
And caught hold of the Stone.
The shield in Raulin's hands burst into tiny shards with a scream of tortured metal, Blackgult's barrier of whirling daggers flashed into silver flames and was gone, and Embra clutched the Dwaer to her breast with a moan of what could only be described as-rapture.
White flames suddenly wreathed her about in a soaring white column, and she was snatched up in them, spiraling upright off the floor. Raulin and Tshamarra cried out and shrank away in pain from that whirling, blinding fire, a few last lightning bolts stabbed out across the throne chamber at random, and an overeager Serpent-priest overbalanced on the edge of the riven ceiling and fell, wailing, onto the head of the Baron Tarlagar below. This time the baron's warriors were