A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [54]
The whorl-caster nodded. "This man, long called the Smiling Wolf-rough, yet swift-witted, an able fighting man capable of staunch loyalty when he found lords he could believe in-was told privately-and separately-by both those lords, to guard the bard and his scepter."
"Those lords being?"
"Regent Blackgult and the King of Aglirta-or rather, the flickering phantom of King Kelgrael, who warned this Glarsimber that keeping the scepter safe was his true task. Kelgrael led him to a spell-gate that took him to the coastal road nigh Ragalar without the need for a long ship voyage. Of course, those lords-or at least, the Blackgult and the Kelgrael who appeared to this baron-were two of us."
He smiled again. "I particularly enjoy being Blackgult. All dark, grim swagger, hints of great intrigues and high missions, and enemies everywhere; richly earned, too."
The Koglaur from Sarinda nodded. "So while this naive dolt of a Del-camper remains necessary, we guard him closely, of course. Given that we're counting on the Band of Four to do so much actual work against various evil wizards and would-be Kings of Aglirta, why aren't we guarding them with the same diligence?"
The whorl-caster smiled. "We watch the Four, but guard them only lightly, because we want them-and Aglirta needs them-to be tempered like fine weapons, in battles large and small, to be good defenders of Aglirta in the years ahead."
The Koglaur from Sarinda smiled wryly. "I see." He waved at the scrying whorl. "I also see that the forge fires are raging. The Band of Four can't be enjoying themselves, about now."
"Ho, Tall Post! How fare you?"
"Passably well," Hawkril grunted, swinging his warsword in a great roundhouse blow that struck sparks off the swords raised against it, and sent two armaragors staggering back with numbed hands. "I don't seem to be hewing my way any closer to any real barons, mind you."
"That's because," Craer panted, "these craven upstarts believe in cowering behind heavy guard, ordering their swordsworn to die for them-a task, I might add, that in the main they accomplish remarkably well."
"Your tally?" Hawkril shouted back, hewing an armaragor to the ground and springing back before the man could trip him-and other blades reach in to stab him from several sides.
"Four and ten, I make it!"
"Five and ten," Glarsimber corrected, shoving a dying knight away and reeling back against an upthrust dock piling. "That one you kicked off his horse spitted himself on someone else's lance."
"Well, well," Craer called, snatching up a dagger from the belt of a dead armaragor and hurling it into the face of a rushing armsman, "we may soon leave them with no one to hide behind!"
"And then, no doubt," Hawkril rumbled, parrying two swordcuts and leaning over on his backswing to slice through the back of a knight's knee, "we'll be treated to the sight of three belted barons of the realm running away!"
"Ah, but will it be fast enough?" Baron Brightpennant cried, lurching forward to hew down the swordarm of an armaragor who was trying to stab Sarasper before the longfangs bit out his throat. "I've a hunger to cut the heels off the slowest one!"
Sarasper bit down, blood spurted, and the knight fell with a wet, wordless sound. Glarsimber snatched a dagger from the corpse and tossed it to Craer's feet. "You seem to be collecting these, so…"
"Kill them!" Baron Tarlagar howled at his men, brandishing a bright, unused sword from some distance back behind the fray. "What does it take to kill three men and a spider?"
"More armaragors than you remembered to bring, evidently," Craer called back. "Why don't you show them, Tarlagar? Or should I call you 'Baron Coward'?"
"Now, now," Glarsimber gasped, as he parried a knight's blade a handwidth in front of his face, "if you do that, I'll grow confused, and I might start hitting things! After all, there are three of them! Which Baron Coward do you mean, exactly?"
"Slay them!" Baron Loushoond