A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [12]
It was suddenly very silent in the road.
Craer sprinted after his daggers, in case the mage had fartraveled just a few trees away and decided to hurl lightning at where the procurer had been standing. Scooping them both up, Craer whirled, crouched, and froze to listen… hearing nothing but the rustling leaves.
Cautiously, the overduke peered here and there into the trees, seeking anyone-bowmen, as well as murderous young wizards. The leaves rustled as cheerfully as ever, sun dapple danced in the tree gloom, and-he could see no menacing figure amid all the large, dark tree trunks around him.
Cursing silently but fervently, Craer ran back to the road. Hawkril had fallen on his face with the sort of sob that he only made when his wounds were very bad, and wasn't moving. Neither were Sass or Embra, and with the Dwaer gone, there wasn't much a procurer dared try, if they were dying… nothing much beyond prayer…
"Forefather Oak and Lady of Grace," Craer began unsteadily, clambering hastily over dead bowmen and through whizzing flies to where Hawk lay fallen, "hear now my-"?;
"Tanth the road! Overdukes, I come in peace!"
Craer's head jerked up. The voice was male and sounded young, uncertain, and different from Jhavarr Bowdragon, and "tanth" in back-lands speech meant "I'm hailing you but in peace, and don't want an arrow in reply"-but anyone who wanted to get close enough to strike true could cry such a thing!
With a single angry bound, Craer crashed through ferns and into the trees whence the call had come, daggers gleaming ready in each hand.
"Why," Aglirta's newest baron asked the armaragors gently, "do you want to ride with me? Tell me truth, now."
The younger knight flushed and cast a quick glance at the older armaragor beside him, who frowned, fixed Bloodblade with a level gray gaze, and said, "I've heard of you, Duthjack-good an' bad, but more victories than not. No turning away from your men, either. That's good-an' that's what I want in a king. So, to tell you true, that's why we're here: to find a new road to glory for Aglirta. We want to grow old in a strong realm, an' a just one, not this kingless land of barons stabbing endlessly at each other an' hiring wizards to try out their newest and crudest spells on Vale folk."
Bloodblade nodded thoughtfully. "A new road to glory for Aglirta." He looked up and grinned fiercely. "Handy, that-because that's what I want, too." He bounded up from his seat and held out his hand.
"Let's build that road together."
The Regent of Aglirta strode to the map on the wall, gazed at it for perhaps the thirdscore time that day, and sighed. Neither the Sleeping King nor any of his crowned predecessors had thought a map of Aglirta was necessary-and now he wished he had three of them, to mark out with stones and wood tokens all the whelmings and journeyings of his ambitious barons and their forces. Aye, they and the Sirl wizards had grown so arrogant as to regard Aglirta as a vineyard ripe for their private plucking- to say nothing of Aglirta's homebred mages, and the mysterious Koglaur, and the fell priests of the Serpent. Aye, the Snake-lovers were active in every hamlet and trailmoot, from one end of the Kingless Land to the other.
Ezendor Blackgult sighed. When he'd been the Golden Griffon, a warrior baron, chief rival to the fell Faerod Silvertree, the "Noble Baron" many hated and others hailed but all respected, he could ride and swing sword and dispense justice as he liked, with the occasional oath hurled at the absent king and many more snarled at his rivals. Now, striding the echoing vaulted chambers and gleaming marble of Flowfoam, ever watched by the ambitious eyes of a hundred glib-tongued courtiers, his hands itched to swing a sword in battle.
Yet he dared not leave the seat of power,