A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [84]
That longer neck arched, those black-and-gold eyes looked down, the jaws widened into a horrible maw, and-there was a sudden green-and-gold flash of light, a wild burst of gore and scales and tumbling fangs, and a beam of golden rathance was sizzling through empty air, above the headless trunk of a serpent.
A wild spasm seized that trunk, whipping it so wildly that Flaeros was flung into the air and rolled over there, thrice, while coils raced crazily through the air all around him, buffeting him even as the golden ray melted them away into little tendrils of smoke-and then the tiny bit of snake tail that was left struck the bard like a cruel drover's whip, and hurled him through the air to crash into tall grass and creepers, bouncing and rolling painfully and helplessly until he fetched up against something cold, and hard, and old.
That bright beam of magic had come lancing out of the Silent House, his mind told him brightly, and Flaeros considered that thought dazedly for a time, his face pressed against crumbling stone.
A Silvertree tomb, of course-what else could it be?
My, but his mind was full of useful observations this day…
And then Flaeros heard something that brought his thoughts to a quivering, chilled halt. Slow, shuffling footfalls were approaching him, thudding heavy and deliberate on the grass, from the Silent House.
Closer, and closer…
Chapter Fourteen
Serpents and Stormharp
Darkness hung like a heavy cloak over the stillness. Gently drifting dust was all that moved in the ruined Throne Chamber of Flowfoam. Amid the tumbled stones with no courtiers crowding forward to see them and the dead strewn all around them, a few folk stood like statues, unseeing and unhearing…
Tshamarra Talasorn stared at a spot near her where there was nothing now, not even dust. Her lips were parted slightly, her eyes wide, astonishment and wariness and triumph all warring on her face, with just a hint of sorrow in her eyes. Her hands were half-raised, to ward off what could never be warded-and the fingers of that hand were the first thing that moved.
Ever so slowly, drifting like the dust, her fingers rose and straightened.
Raulin Castlecloaks, face frozen in midshout, was the next to move, his jaw starting to close around a word that no one would ever hear. Let it be writ that this word was " DIV the and of some all holds he his a who that with it was it.Glarsimber Belklarravus, Baron of Brightpennant, was also shouting-as his head turned the other way, seeking the one whose name he was crying: "Embra!" His cry, too, would go unheard, as his wounded, pained whirl around resumed, slow inch by inch.
Sarasper Codelmer stood facing the king who was no longer there, a dragon fading before his eyes. The old healer's arms were still rising to sweep apart in the first surge of shapechanging that would give him wings, and diminish him into a bird that might, just might-though he knew it could not, even as he strove to do it-reach Kelgrael Snowsar in time to pluck that sword away, to snatch it and fly on with it, over river and farms and forest, to where it might be plunged into the head of a Rising Serpent and end Aglirta's doom forever. The stuff of fireside dreams-but a day's work for an overduke, it seemed, in all this tumult and treachery and time of great need.
All across the throne room, the living were moving, now, while yet the uncanny silence reigned-moving ever so slowly, as if their limbs were drifting in thick molasses… as the darkness seemed to lessen, ever so slightly.
Away above the endless foam of the river rushing past the rocks at the base of Flowfoam's southern battlements, a waterswift hung frozen, utterly unmoving. Even rough change takes time to touch all things.
The armaragors and armsmen peered warily ahead as the boats neared Flowfoam's docks. A cloud of shadow cloaked the entire island,