The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [76]
"Well, well, what have we here?" Seneschal Urbrindur's voice was loud and cold. "Traitors to the crown and murderers of honest Storn men, who break guest-rights with the bloodiest of crimes, and make war on us in our own castle. The penalty for such behavior is no less than death, and in the King's name I sentence you five false nobles to-"
Craer yawned, turned away politely to mask it with one hand, and then whirled around and hurled a dagger with all the force he could muster.
It was a long throw, and the cortahars had time to see the flash of spinning steel and get their shields up. The dagger clanged off one of them and shot harmlessly aside to clatter down a wall.
"Delnbone! Bring him to me alive, but maimed. For that attempt on my person, little man, your death shall be slow and painful!"
Craer yawned again. "You," he said severely, strolling forward, "have been reading too many bad Sirl chapbooks. Next you'll be telling us that we must die, foul villains that we are, that Aglirta may live! Or couldn't you afford to purchase that particular tale?"
"Kill him," the seneschal ordered the cortahars curtly. "I've no desire to listen to his insolent mouthings."
The Storn knights advanced in careful unison, adjusting shields and blades to form a solid, moving wall. It was clear by their mutters and narrowed eyes that they didn't like the look of their foes.
Not that the overdukes were all that impressive-it was that they were walking unconcernedly forward with no semblance of battle readiness at all. The two women whispered together like town gossips behind old Baron Blackgult, and all three male overdukes seemed relaxed and smiling, slouching along for all the world as if they were crossing a manor lawn for their third or fourth feast of the day.
The two forces were perhaps six paces apart, with Craer busily buffing an invisible blemish on his shortsword on one sleeve, when an invisible force of frightening intensity plucked at the cortahars, tugging them irresistibly into each other. They wavered, leaning and struggling-and then crashed together in a huge, ungainly, and silent knot.
An utter lack of sound now reigned over the passage. Men shouted and dropped their blades unheard, and Blackgult raised a hand as he smilingly sidestepped the frantic, entangled knot of cortahars-and cast a silent spell Seneschal Urbrindur did not recognize.
He discovered what it was as Craer and Blackgult closed in on him and he turned with a pale attempt at a sneer and tried to open the door into Storn Tower, right behind him. It was sealed as solidly as if it had never been there. The wall was as unbroken stone.
The seneschal gabbled soundlessly, and then frantically clawed out various daggers from about his person.
As iron-strong hands encircled his wrists and forced him to drop the two knives he'd managed to fumble forth, Malvus Urbrindur discovered the spell of silence wasn't absolute: if you were touching someone directly, the two of you could hear each other. He could hear Blackgult right now.
"You were correct in one matter," the Golden Griffon told him almost jovially. "The penalty for treason is death, as is murder done or ordered against nobility, by commoners not acting upon royal justice. Overduke Delnbone will now enact sentence upon you."
Craer reached up, put the tip of a wickedly sharp dagger against Urbrindur's throat, and then said, "Ah, let him go. It feels ill to gut a man like a hog, when he's held-and besides, 'tis more fun to chase him."
Blackgult nodded, released the seneschal, and stepped back. Urbrindur stared at the procurer for a moment, trembling-and then whirled away, viciously snatching out and hurling something as he did so.
Craer struck the hurled dagger aside with his own drawn fang, watched it bite deep into a window frame, and noted the greenish sheen on its thrumming blade. "Poisoned," he said