The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [12]
" 'Marauding'? Mad, or hungry, or consumed by the urge to slay all they see?"
"Most of them, yes. Yet, if our most secret tomes can be believed, some may be suited to serving us in a greater way."
"And this 'greater way'-?"
"Patience, and we'll see."
"But…"
"Landrun, which of us two is a Lord of the Serpent?"
"My," Craer Delnbone commented, squirming in his saddle, "but there's one thing being a tirelessly roving overduke gives you a true appreciation of: just how blamed big the Vale is."
"I suppose," Tshamarra teased, "you'd prefer all the King's foes to obligingly show up at court and line up to receive us?"
"Well," Craer reflected brightly, "t'would save wear on my backside-and spare the horses, too. We could sword the enemies of the crown by appointment, be finished by evening, and celebrate in the wine cellar."
"Thereby considerately saving servants the trouble of fetching us bottles up and down stairs," Blackgult observed. "Your commendable consideration for others surprises me, Lord Delnbone-'tis a side of you I've not seen before."
"My good Lord Blackgult," Craer observed in shocked tones, "you amaze me. Why, you hired me yourself as a procurer in your forces, some years back. Can it be that you've forgotten the function of procurers? Poured out from the brimming flask of your memory the fact that procurers considerately relieve persons possessing too many valuables-or valuing same so carelessly that they safeguard them not-of excess items, and transfer those items to persons who think so much more highly of them that they're willing to pay to acquire same?"
"Craer," Embra observed pleasantly, "belt up. Procurer philosophy is far too arch to be entertainment even if one's tipsy-and all of us are very far from that now."
"Precisely why I evoked the image of the royal wine cellar at Flowfoam," Craer explained earnestly. "Scouring the realm for missing barons and anyone else who may have a Dwaer-Stone is thirsty work."
"I believe King Raulin used the phrase 'crucial and exacting' rather than 'thirsty,' " Blackgult told his saddlehorn calmly, "but your mention of refreshment brings up a point we may as well debate now as later. Once more we ride through the Aglirtan countryside seeking Baron Phelinndar, the Stone he presumably bears, and two other unaccounted-for Dwaerindim. Various tersepts and barons are demonstrably paying a minimum of loyalty to the River Throne-and despite our exalted tides, we are but five against all the forces they may muster. Accordingly, we should reach some decisions about where we should look next-hmm?-and how closely we should keep in touch with Raulin, to guard against courtiers either slaying or subverting him."
Craer sketched a bow. "My concerns exactly. As the overduke who's invariably in the lead when we get attacked-"
"This sounds all too much like a cue," Tshamarra murmured to Embra, peering into the trees that shaded their wandering cart track on both sides.
"-and upon whom shall fall the weight of the blame should we ride enthusiastically into a trap, it behooves me to share some of that blame by involving the rest of you in some decision as to where specifically we're headed. Now, some prudent Aglirtans-killjoys and shutter-minded sorts, to be sure, but fellow citizens of this fair realm nonetheless-cleave to the notion of deciding where they're bound even before they set forth, but-"
"Browning's too quick for him," Embra observed. "Strangulation, Hawk?"
"If you insist, Lady Love of mine," the hulking armaragor rumbled, "though I should point out that he does have his uses. Occasionally."
"-on the other hand, it has been observed by sages writing well before my time that if you expected a hireling to do nothing stupid, you'd not engage the services of a procurer in the first place, and-"
"If he keeps this up," Blackgult