A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [52]
Her gaze shifted wearily to the trees. "It does every young sorceress good to be astonished by magic a time or two." Her smile twisted. "I should know."
And still wearing that wry smile, she toppled sideways, crashing into Raulin's startled arms like a dead thing..-…
She felt just as heavy and still as she'd been earlier, when a furious Hawkril had put her in Raulin's care. The young bard looked wildly up and down the blazing dock. "Hawkril?" he called. "Lord Hawkril?"
"Here, lad!" came a low growl, from somewhere on the other side of a plume of smoke. "What befalls?"
A scorched and bedraggled Craer was suddenly bending over Raulin, peering at Embra.
Sarasper lurched towards them, too, two or more of his spiderlike legs curled uselessly under him. Somewhere on the shore, armaragors were groaning and cursing. At least one was weeping.
"Don't you just love magic?" the procurer murmured, putting his hand gently against Embra's chin. "Hash, boom, and another dozen lives made dust! If Em here wasn't so beautiful-and so gods-cursed useful in keeping us all alive, grant you-I'd start strangling all wizards right here and now!"
"And if you do that," Glarsimber said in a raw, wheezing, pain-filled voice from somewhere nearby, "it'll be back to brute-force barons and their armies swording each other up and down all the Vale again! A vast improvement, don't you agree?"
Craer crooked an eyebrow. "What an odd thing for a baron to say," he commented, patting Embra's shoulder gently. "Well, she's alive, but probably kitten-weak again. I think I need to steal us one of Blackgult's Dwaer, if we're going to go on battling here-in-a-flash sorceresses…"
"No," Hawkril said grimly, as something that sounded like ragged but approaching thunder came to them, from along the shore road, "I think we're in for an unhealthily large dose of brute-force barons and their armies, about now. Swords out, all!"
As Raulin stared, Craer cursed softly, and Glarsimber lumbered past them drenched in blood, the thunder from the road grew.
The young bard hadn't known that wolf-spiders could sigh, but the beast that was Sarasper did so quite loudly as it limped past, joining Hawkril and Glarsimber on the shore.
More armaragors were galloping down to the docks, lances and pennants fluttering above them in a bright forest. Raulin stared-if those standards told truth, all three barons-Loushoond, Ornentar, and Tarlagar-Were among the sinister-helmed, hard-riding men.
"My, but Aglirta spawns an overabundance of greedy, greedy men."
Craer observed in a mocking voice. "A pity we haven't enough crowns to go around."
He cast glances in all directions as swiftly and as sharply as if he was hurling spears, and then snapped, "Raulin! Those boats, there-cut them clear, so none can follow you! Then get down into this one, and get Embra clear!"
The procurer slapped a gleaming dagger into Raulin's hand, and set off down the dock to join Hawkril without a backward glance.
The young bard stared after him. "Uh, ah-what'll you be… doing?"
"Bards usually refer to it as a 'doomed, defiant last stand,' I believe," Craer called back. "It's what nobles of Aglirta do best."
The Baron of Brightpennant turned and waved at Raulin almost jauntily, as the foremost armaragors lowered their lances and someone snapped, "Stand aside, or die!"
"As an Overduke of Aglirta," Hawkril rumbled calmly, "I believe I give the orders here. Where among you are the barons whose banners you bear?"
There was a little silence, ere someone in the press of men in armor said in bored, dismissive tones, "Kill them."
Armaragors surged forward-and with a roar, Hawkril and Glarsimber rushed to meet them, hacking aside lancetips, seeking only to bear the weapons down. The wolf-spider sprang over the struggling men, to land on the riders wielding those lances. In an instant,