The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [60]
Tshamarra ran frantically to meet them.
"Craer!" she screamed-and the roiling flames spat a blackened, struggling figure at her, spinning in a ball of flame!
8
Many an Unquiet Knight
The moon had not yet risen over Bowshun, so the night was very dark. Wherefore boots blundered, branches snapped, and men swore softly as they gathered by Marag Spring, halfway up the trail to Emdel's Glade. They were few, but all carried unsheaDied, ready weapons.
"Eregar?"
"Aye, Thunn. Who's with 'ee?"
"Braumdur," hissed a deeper voice. "With my best blade: 'Twill be a pleasure to let air into the innards of that snake-priest!"
"Aye," Eregar the hunter agreed, feeling his way to his favorite stump in the darkness. Then he stiffened and leaned into the night, muttering, "Who comes?"
"Narvul," came the fierce reply, "with my ax!"
"Good. That's all of us. Time to sword this snake of a priest 'fore he has time to wag his jaws o'ermuch, and turn our wives and lads into strangers, and set them to spying on us. I had a bellyful of that last time-and this 'Brother of the Serpent' is far less sly-tongued and handsome than the snakes hissing at us then. I'll be damned by the Three if I'll let Bowshun be torn apart again by the likes of him."
"So you shall, indeed," said a new voice, dark laughter in its cold tones. The four Bowshun men barely had time to gasp before ale-brown fire blossomed all around them.
It lit up Marag Spring, and showed the men of Bowshun each other frozen in gasping terror-literally frozen, only their eyes obeying their utmost straining efforts to move. Though the brown radiance was already fading, it held them like an iron-hard, unyielding claw-and its source was a cold-eyed man in robes now stepping carefully around trees until he could set foot on the trail. Other men walked with him, some in Serpent-robes and some in the motley armor of down-at-heel hireswords.
"Fangbrother," Scaled Master Arthroon said in satisfaction, "make ready." A robed priest snapped orders, and hireswords lumbered forward to each of the four mute captives, drew a knife, and looked to Arthroon. He nodded and said flatly, "Now."
Four throats were cut with savage ease, gurgling bodies slumped and toppled, and full darkness returned to the trail.
"Kick them into the stream," Arthroon said sharply. "Off the trail, every trace of them. The moon's rising, and I want us gone from sight before the good folk of Bowshun answer the Serpent's call."
Fangbrother Khavan conjured up a glowing, floating serpent's head that moved at his bidding. The Scaled Master gave it a sour look but said no word of rebuke, as the hireswords bent swiftly to work.
By the time they were done, moans of awe and cries of "Look!" were coming from down the trail. The serpent-head had been seen.
"Off the trail," Arthroon ordered quietly. "Stop as soon as you cross the spring." Obediently the Serpent-party melted into the trees.
Cold blue moonlight was growing steadily stronger, and by its light the silently watching Serpents saw folk of Bowshun hastening past the sprawled, unseen bodies of four of their own men, to reach Emdel's Glade and hear the Serpent's call.
Maelra came out of her scheming with a start. There! A throbbing, a twinge of awakened power!
Intruding magic was trying to enter the largest scrying-crystal she'd enspelled. It couldn't be Uncle Multhas, for her own covert use of his smallest crystal was at this very moment displaying a wavering image of him hurrying up the staircase where Uncle Dolmur hung all those splendid paintings, through veil after veil of Dolmur's strong wards.
She dared not continue that scrutiny for fear of being detected by whoever was sending this new magic. For a moment she raged-she must hear what Dolmur said-and then let her magic lapse, waiting for the contact she