The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [19]
The senior Serpent-priest shook his head. "Out here, Fangbrother Khavan, I am 'Scaled Master Arthroon,' or just 'Master.' Hear my strict order: You are not to go fleeing anywhere. Nor shall I. We'd best escape notice for some time, lest these simple folk turn on us, the only strangers, as the cause of this, ah, 'dangerous puzzle'-but we must remain. Our work here isn't done. We must still see if some fight off the Malady, not falling into war-crazed rage, but instead are turned to beasts by it."
Khavan stared at his superior, and then nodded his head toward the gathered villagers. "So that's the 'lost magic' that spawns the Beast Plague?" Belgur Arthroon stared at him in silence. "Uh… Scaled Master Arthroon?"
The senior priest smiled coldly. "Indeed it is," he replied. "We must know who falls, who fights and is twisted into beast, and who withstands it altogether… before I go hunting barons, tersepts-and boy kings and overdukes."
"The Band of Four?" Fangbrother Khavan gasped. Arthroon's smile was as cold as ever. "Of course."
Sheets of roaring flame rolled out in a great wave, making horses rear and scream and stray branches crackle and fall-and then were gone, leaving nothing but smoke and a sharp burnt smell in their wake.
Thankfully, no trees fell and no field caught alight, though it might have been better for the five riders on the trail if some had. Burning grass hides relatively few brigands… or lurking wizards.
Embra peered tensely this way and that through the thinning smoke as the last of the wagons bounced and rattled away into the distance, with no living man left to guide its oxen.
Dead carters lay sprawled everywhere atop the grassy rise, in the dappled shade of the dozen or so old thornapple trees that lined the trail here on both sides. The Lady Silvertree muttered something over her Dwaer, still casting swift glances in all directions… but no lurking foe could she find. The stump-fenced fields certainly looked deserted.
"Whence came those flames?" she inquired of the Vale at large, as her Stone quieted the horses.
"Sorry," Tshamarra Talasorn gasped, from her knees amid the rolling dust of the road. "My spell… got away from me."
"Ah, but you won't so easily get away from me? Craer said gleefully from beside her, dragging her down atop him. She slapped him hard, and then turned within the space his flinch allowed and dealt him a shrewd blow in a tender place. Obligingly, he emitted a strangled chirp of pain.
"Let me up, dolt," she snarled. Craer's only response was a gasp. She frowned at him as she clambered to her feet. He tried to give her a smile, but Tshamarra turned her back on him, clapped dust from herself, and peered about.
Blackgult, Hawkril, and Embra exchanged puzzled glances with her and each other across the stretch of churned and littered trail that was fairly carpeted with dead carters.
And at least one who still lived. Hawkril used his sword to nudge the one he'd stunned, but the man remained senseless, eyes closed and mouth slack and drooling. A gentle slap with the flat of Hawk's blade brought no reaction.
By then Craer had found his feet, wincing and straightening slowly. "So what was all that about?" he demanded, voicing the bewildered exasperation they all felt. "They're not wearing scales or Serpent-tattoos or anything, are they?"
Hawkril drew on his gauntlets against poison or creeping doings, and bent again to the unconscious carter at his feet. "Nay," he said briefly, after tugging aside none-too-clean clothing and peering here and there. He looked up at Embra from under bushy brows. "They were enspelled, though, aye?"
His lady frowned at him, and then traded similar expressions with Tshamarra. " 'Tis likely, given the suddenness of their attack, unless we deem them all trained Sirl actors-"
"And given the recklessness with which they fought," Craer's partner put in, swinging herself back into the saddle of her now calm horse.
Embra nodded. "But 'tis too late to