A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [85]
The robed and cowled Serpent-priest sitting beside him laughed coldly, and the warrior shrank back from him. Other Snake-clergy joined in that exulting laughter-and stood up, one by one, to throw off their cloaks. Scales glinted in the sun, legs lost already in serpent coils, and as Bloodblade's warriors stared in horror, scales raced up shoulders and down forearms, those arms shrank away to spindly, child-sized limbs, hair gave way to scales on dozens of laughing heads-and they were sharing their boats with huge serpents, swaying upright taller than a man.
As the boats swung around and bumped the docks, warriors leaped ashore with even more alacrity than usual-as the serpents struck again, and again, gleefully biting everyone within reach. Armaragors who could not flee in time slumped down in heaps around the serpents, who were now hissing incantations that stabbed at the lifting darkness.
The foremost armsmen never knew they'd paused in midstep as they rushed up the stone steps to seize the palace. They never saw the serpents wriggling eagerly onto the island, or a lone waterswift flying on at last, or the swordcaptains plunging into the water to cling grimly to dock rings, hoping the snakes would slither past and leave them alive to clamber aboard the boats again and return for the next ferrying of warriors.
Then, priests standing mere or no priests, those swordcaptains intended to tell Lord Bloodblade a thing or two about serpents and their fangs. At about that time it dawned on most of them, as the hissing continued above their heads and darkness receded, that all, or almost all, of the robed and cowled figures riding with them had crowded aboard for the first crossing. So eager to die? But then, Serpent-priests did not fear what fighting men might…
About then, as the first clang of arms rang out from above and the first shouts joined them, most of the silently raging swordcaptains returned to a dark thought every one of them had visited and often revisited already: why did the Hope of Aglirta welcome Snake-lovers at his side, and ride with them to war?
Serpent-priests who now surged up the steps towards the River Throne as fast as their undulating coils could take them?
"Whatever spell it may have been," an aging armaragor growled to a swordbrother, as together they fought to catch breath after sprinting up the steps to Flowfoam's southern gardens, " 'tis gone now, or seems almost so… making me a wagonload or two happier about rushing into yon palace with my steel drawn, let me tell you!"
The other armaragor nodded, head down and fighting for air. "Let me… rest just a… moment more…"
"Of course, Landron! I could use a breath or two more mysel-Aonw!"
Frenzied hands seized Landron by the arms and more or less threw him across the terrace where they'd been standing.
"What?" Landron snarled, snatching for his sword. "Telez, what're you-?"
"Run, Lan! Run, graul you!"
"What?" Landron Stonetower cried, in a last, futile protest, ere Telezgrar Rethtarn burst past him, plucking at Landron's swordarm as he passed.
Spun around and staggering, Landron found himself looking at the reason for Telezgrar's sudden renewed enthusiasm for a breathless assault on Flowfoam.
Rearing up above the topmost step with black-and-gold gleaming eyes fixed on him and many-fanged jaws widening eagerly was a snake twice as tall as a man already-and its coils ran down out of a sight a good way, with another serpent-head just coming into view lower on the stair.
Landron choked in midcurse and spun himself around this time, sprinting to catch and then pass Telezgrar on an impromptu tour of the Flowfoam gardens. That stand of tall ultharnwoods at the far end of the Isle looked particularly attractive, all of a sudden…
"Look!" an armaragor snapped, pointing with his sword. Two knights were running frantically through the gardens, whooping for breath as they came.
"None of ours," the