Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [50]
Most of the kin-sixty or more-were in the Great Hall of the Throne now, but the bell tolled on. Everyone but the struggling elders was talking excitedly, eyes glued to the portal, which showed Dhalgrave sprawled on the gleaming tiles of his private audience chamber. His eyes were two smoldering, empty holes. A long forked tongue trailed from his mouth, and his brow and wrists were bare. The Shadowcrown and the Doomstars were gone.
There was more. A word had been written on the tiles beside the head of the Shadowmaster High… written in his own blood. That word was "UNWORTHY."
The talk was growing excited, as hope to seize the Shadow Throne grew in the hearts of two dozen Malaugrym, tempered only by fear of what might befall anyone who tried to hold that throne without the Shadowcrown and the threat of the Doomstars. Even if the ambushes and treacheries of open rivals were quelled, whoever had the missing items could appear without warning and slay any new Shadowmaster High, to take the throne in turn.
"Who could have done this?" Taernil asked for the sixth time, his voice as awed and outraged as it had been at first. Beside him, Huerbara sighed.
"Someone has," she said simply. "Accept that and go on. What now, for the two of us?"
"Accept that someone-" The rising rage in Taernil's voice broke off abruptly, and he fell silent and looked at her. "You're right. We must decide what to do, and not rage or dither." Then his sharp features changed, and he added softly, almost wonderingly, "The two of us, you said…"
Huerbara blushed, eyes glittering into his, and then abruptly turned her head away.
"Young idiots," Kostil said under his breath, flapping his wings down to reabsorb them into his body, eyes on the quivering scene of Dhalgrave dead in his chambers.
Yabrant shrugged beside him. "We all were, once." He seemed about to say more, but at that moment Bheloris shuddered, cried out, and pitched forward on his face – and the scene of death flew apart into shards and streamers of radiance, fading swiftly into the mists.
"He managed to force the portal's eye through Dhalgrave's defenses?" Kostil muttered. "I'm surprised he held it together so long."
"Dhalgrave wasn't resisting him or directing the shield spells," Yabrant said thoughtfully. "The feat is not that impressive. Doing it with such swiftness is."
"The young she-kin's question remains a good one," Kostil said. "What to we do now, the two of us?"
"Rescue Bheloris, before one of his old rivals decides to take advantage of his condition. We'll need him," Yabrant said, shouldering his way forward. "I believe the killing's about to start."
As he spoke, shouts arose across the Great Hall, and there was frenzied movement. The flaring radiance of a spell followed, accompanied by a scream, as the unleashed magics returned to their caster.
"Didn't that idiot pay any attention to Dhalgrave's words about the defenses he'd added to this hall? He made enough noise about 'a truly safe meeting-ground for all of the blood of Malaug' and such!" Kostil's voice was disgusted. "Do we really share kinship with total idiots?"
"It's a common fate in the multiverse, I'm told," Yabrant replied wryly as they forced their way to Bheloris. They found Neleyd there before them, his body shifted into a shield of many curling tentacles. "Well done, boy."
Neleyd flushed at the words, then sighed and asked, "Am I to be 'boy' forever?"
"No," Kostil told him kindly. "You get to alternate between that, 'young fool,' and 'brainless youngling' for a few hundred years yet."
"I'll enjoy that," Neleyd told him dryly, as the chamber rocked under the impact of two warring explosions, and kin all around them grew weapons out of their limbs and began shouting and hacking. "Let's be gone!"
"Wisely said, young fool," Yabrant told him with a many-fanged smile.
His expression was matched by a figure none