• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Omentar made his own frowning inspection-as the two running men slowed, looked fearfully back over their shoulders, and then slowed once more, panting wildly. "No," he said.

"Smite them down?"

The baron's smile was as brief as it was sour. "Best have them tell us what they're running from, first."

"That darkness," Tarlagar said slowly. "Magic, I swear it must have been-and lasting some time, too: look at the sun!"

"Will you still your tongue about your precious darkness?" Loushoond snarled. "So 'twas magic-so your eyes are green! What boots it? I-"

"My eyes," Tarlagar said stiffly, "happen to be gray."

"Cease this, both of you!" Ornentar snapped, loudly enough for the two fleeing armaragors to hear, even from a good distance past the watching men. They traded glances-and then started to flee again, with renewed vigor.

"Well," a swordcaptain by Loushoond's shoulder said heavily, "I'm not chasing them!"

, "And why not?" that baron asked silkily, turning his head to give the man a cold and meaningful glare. "If I order you-"

"You need not," the man barked, pointing with the mace he bore in his hand. "Look there: that's what they were fleeing from!"

Serpents as long as two good-sized horses were gliding along through the gardens, heads raised to look about as they came.

"The regent was in league with the Snake-lovers?" Tarlagar swore. "Three Above, we should have slain him right there when Snowsar named him, Risen King and scores of guards or no!"

"Who's to say they're not just guardians of the Isle," Loushoond asked peevishly, "conjured by whatever pet mages Blackgult still has?"

"He has no 'pet mages,' to use your well-aimed words," Ornentar told him.

"Except for the Silvertree bitch," Tarlagar reminded them. "Lady Embra of the Many Jewels, foe of her father. She might obey Blackgult just because of that, whatever fancy tide Kelgrael invented for her."

"Overdukes!" Loushoond snorted. "The king's lover and her three pack-dogs, more like!"

"I've heard that Blackgult is her father," Baron Ornentar said quietly.

"Ho-ho!" Tarlagar cried. "No wonder Silvertree hated him so! Why, the sly fox! I've been hearing for years how he tumbled every baroness and terseptress in the Vale, but you know how such tales grow in the tel-"

"We're all well shut of Faerod Silvertree," Loushoond said heavily. "His schemings and daggers in the dark make the regent look like a loving mistress to us all!"

"Ware!" the swordcaptain who'd spoken before said suddenly.

" What, man? You presume overmuch, to be giving us ord-"

The swordcaptain gave him a dark look, and barked, "I'll serve you no longer, Lord High Fool of Loushoond! You three idiots can stand here bickering the day long, for all I care-but mind you carve up yon serpents yourselves-ere they dine on you! And with a defiant wave of his mace, he burst through the branches behind them, and was gone.

"What? By the Three, man, I-"

"After that bebolten whoreson, you 1-"

" Graul! Swords out, all of you!" Ornentar cried, in sudden fear-as a great sleek scaled head slid into view around the tree in front of him, smiling a very wide smile.

"Ssssso," it hissed, eyeing all the men snatching at their swords and trembling, "we're all gathering to sssssee a new day for Aglirta together. That'sss good!"

And its jaws took off an armaragor's head, helm and all, with one lightning-swift bite.

Another serpent-head swung into view-and with a common cry of terror, three barons and their warriors whirled and ran, to crash headlong through the trees with hissing laughter loud at their heels.

"In!" Tarlagar cried frantically, beating at the rump of the armaragor in front of him with the flat of his sword. "Get in, graul you!"

"There's a man lying here burned to death," an armsman called back gloomily. "Not long ago, by the smell of him."

"Phaugh! He was rotten before he burned!" another warrior complained.

"Out of my way!" Baron Tarlagar shrieked, as serpents glided swiftly across a lawn and onto the terrace