A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [140]
An armsman yelled in horror and scrabbled for his crossbow-and the snake-man's hand came up, with a slender wand in it that spat once. A beam of flame snarled forth, and they saw the warrior's face melt away into a skull mantled with ashes. As the man slumped over, the Serpent-priest asked calmly, "Anyone elssse?"
He spun around, to make sure no warrior behind him was readying a stealthy weapon, then told them, "Now, all isss over. You have won, becaussse the Ssserpent liesss ssslain. And you have lossst, becaussse I ssshall not leave you alive to gloat!"
And with a horrible laugh he slashed at the barges around him with more beams of flame, firing small snarling spheres of it into the faces of warriors who scrambled up to hurl daggers or their swords, until flames were licking up from the deck boards all around him.
And then, of course, he vanished into the same thin air he'd come from.
Men were screaming and shoving the rocking barges apart as fire snarled up around them; only Buldrim's barge had been spared the flames, and men tried to leap to it or to dive into the river-only to fall to a new slayer.
The helmsman had produced a wand of his own that spat long needles of dark force. His first took Buldrim through the belly, sliding through armor plate as if the swordcaptain wore none, and left the officer whimpering on his face on the deck. Then he dealt with men thrashing in the river or trying to board. When there were no more feebly swimming or desperately leaping men to be seen, the helmsman coolly raked the barge with slaying needles, putting them through heads until not a man still stood.
The barges drifted downstream, burning merrily, and the helmsman strolled his deck sending a thorn here and a thorn there-wherever he saw movement.
When there was no one left to slay, he booted Buldrim's sword into the water, bent over the stricken swordcaptain, and rolled him over.
Buldrim lay shoulder-to-shoulder with the sorely wounded leader of the Cardassan bodyguard, bunking up at the familiar face above him. It was smiling.
"Wh-why did you do this, Ansyarde?" Buldrim gasped, through the deepening mists of pain.
The man grinned. "I'm not Ansyarde." His face wavered, flowed-and was suddenly Duthjack's, with swordcut-and then, the flesh melting into unmarked smoothness as Buldrim stared, without. "And I'm not Blood-blade, either."
The face changed again, becoming the scaled head of the Serpent-priest, and hissed, "Or a Sssnake-lover, either. That wasss all a trick, to turn you back from ssslaying another king. Thaebred'sss a good actor, isssn't he?"
"Who are you, really?" Buldrim gasped, urgently. Everything was going dim.
The scaled snake-head looked down at him for a moment, then the shoulders below it lifted in a shrug. "Very well-you'll die easssier, knowing, and we're not unmerciful."
His face changed again, becoming… utterly blank. A mouth slit opened in the smooth mask of flesh, and smiled down.
Buldrim and Suldun beside him gasped the same horrified name together: "Faceless!"
"Indeed. Koglaur, we call ourselves. The true guardians of Aglirta."
"You… you…" Buldrim struggled to speak against the blood and pain rising in him, and then blurted: "Bloodblade seeks a new glory for Aglirta, a new road to greatness. I and the others who ride with him can see that road… taste it… If you Faceless are truly the guardians of Aglirta, why d'you slay us?" He coughed, choked, and then managed to add, "As we try to hew that new road to glory? Why?"
The Koglaur smiled grimly. "Peace to you, Buldrim. You fought well, and made only one mistake: you chose the wrong road."
Buldrim moaned, then, as the pain and the rising blood he'd been wrestling with for so long rose to overwhelm him. He tried to sob, tried to lift his hand… and failed. His head lolled to one side, and the last things he saw were the sky and the Silverflow, flowing endlessly…
When the last rattling breath died away, the Koglaur rolled the sword-captain's body off the barge. Then he turned back to Suldun-who tried