A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [42]
"Aye," an almost-as-grand shout came back. "We must press on, crazed wizards or no! We'll never have a better chance to-nor Aglirta a greater need for us to-seize the Throne!" An unseen hand must have given a signal, for in the next instant they were all agallop again, sundering on amid the rising dust.
"And which of you will rule it, when you do?" Flaeros muttered, as he sprang to his feet in the wake of the last riders and trotted along after them, just inside the concealing edge of the forest.
"The old, old problem, my Lords," he told the empty air reprovingly, as sticks snapped under his boots, "and not settling such things beforehand is the old, old disaster that goes with it."
And with that wise judgment Flaeros Delcamper stumbled over a tree root and toppled, crashing right onto his face in the dead leaves.
Something hissed over his head, and struck a tree trunk a few paces head. Flaeros gaped at it-an arrow? No, gods, a rigid snake, its spread fangs sunk into the bark, and its eyes turning to look at him!
Flaeros whirled around to see whence the deadly thing had come-and found himself gaping past half a dozen trees, to where a single man in robes stood sneering at him. A Serpent-priest!
That sneer broadened, and from his sleeve the priest drew another snake, straight as a stick, and hefted it, overhand, to throw.
Flaeros gulped and snatched out the only thing he had that might serve to bat aside the serpent-dart-the dragon scepter.
At the sight of it the sneer fell away into a look of terror, and the priest whirled around and fled headlong through the trees, sprinting as swiftly and as desperately as Flaeros had ever run in his most terrified flights.
The Bard of the Delcampers stared in bewilderment at the place where the Serpent-priest disappeared from view, and then looked down at the scepter, shrugged, and whirled around to resume his pursuit of the baronial force. This time, he missed the first few tree roots.
In a tower remote indeed from the Silverflow, hard-galloping knights, and armies crashing together in fields, a man stood by an open, arched window.
Bats by the pairs, trios, and dozens were flapping out of the sky to swoop into that window, but the man never glanced at them-even when they settled on his shoulders like perching birds, in a silent but increasingly heavy living black cloak.
The Master of Bats had eyes only for a gently drifting array of upright, glowing ovals of rathance that almost filled the room around him.
One showed a chuckling man sitting on a throne, surrounded by silent, dead-looking warriors whose flesh sagged and drooped like the wax of old candles. Another showed hard-riding knights bearing the banners of three baronies, and another a furious battle raging between hundreds of screaming, thrusting, hacking men-who struggled to find footing on ground cloaked with hundreds more men, and horses, too, dead and fallen.
There were other scenes, also, of tense audience chambers and women brooding alone and young magelings crowding around scrying glasses.
The Master of Bats shook his head grimly as his gaze roved from scene to scene.
"Too many players in the game," he murmured, rubbing his cheek against a bat that was cluttering softly by his ear.
No, he was not going to enter the coming fray between Ingryl Ambelter, Blackgult and his pet heroes, Bloodblade who sought to be king, and the Serpent-folk. It was just too dangerous.
Far better to bide his time and wait. Two years ago, he could not have held back-he would have rushed in and been burned. He'd done just that.
Yet sometimes-slowly and reluctantly-even mighty wizards can learn lessons. He would lie low here in his tower, and just watch.
Of course, any magic let fall by someone slain in this fight-and anyone sufficiently wounded in the fray who could be caught alone by a properly prepared wizard-would be fair game! But for now, it was time to