The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [83]
"Coming," Hawkril rumbled, hefting his warsword and advancing into the mist.
"Tall Post!" the call came again. Something was moving to his right… a striding swordsman, taller than Craer… hidden again by mist…
An armored shoulder, the scarlet hawk of Stornbridge-and Hawkril thrust his sword in under that arm with all his strength.
His victim screamed and thrashed, trying to turn and hack but pinioned on Hawk's blade… Hawkril shoved and twisted his steel as he thrust forward, trying to keep the man off-balance.
The cortahar screamed again, far more feebly, and dropped his sword, stumbling-and then something flashed in the mist, the knight's head jerked back, and Craer grinned at Hawkril over another slit throat. "Greetings, Overduke Anharu. Charmed, I'm sure."
"Tolerated, I'd term it," Hawkril growled, "but let's use your word. 'Tis more flippant, and that's fitting, hey?"
"Indeed. Come on!"
The armaragor hastened to follow Craer, off around one side of a turret looming up in the mists. Its massive walls sported frequent tall, narrow slit windows, all firmly shuttered with covers made of vertical rows of overlapping shields. The door Hawkril could see was also sheaDied in old shields, hammered flat and nailed together.
"As quiet as you know how," Craer murmured, "get up yon ladder onto the banner platform. We both need to get there without a sound to let them inside know where we've gone. They'll be letting fly with everything in a moment, and we don't want to be here!"
In careful silence Hawkril did as he was told. They reached the small banner-platform atop the turret without incident, and lay down flat around the cluster of banner-poles a bare breath before the door below flew open with force enough to bang against the turret wall.
The air was briefly full of the angry hum and thrum of dozens of bows. The bowmen inside the turret must be moving with smooth precision, firing in pairs and then diving aside to let the next pair stand by the door, pair after pair.
Their reward was at least two groans from the mist, as they shot down their unseen fellow cortahars. Most of the shafts cracked off stones or whistled down over the moat to thump to earth as deadly offerings from the clear night sky.
Behind the twang of strings, thudding of boots, and hissing of arrows, the two overdukes could hear an angry, rising chant: Serpent-priests casting a spell, probably to banish the mist.
A bright and evil green radiance spun forth like spiraling tentacles from the door below when the chant ended. Those tentacles started to bleed smoke almost immediately, but mist fell away at their touch, and in a trice the moonlit battlements were clear once more.
Clear-and strewn with pools and smears of blood, most of them adorned with sprawled, motionless cortahars.
Out from behind a merlon ducked a lone figure-Embra, in a tattered and bloodstained but glowing gown, holding the Dwaer to her breast.
"Parley!" she called. "Lord Stornbridge, let's talk! There's-"
Bows twanged and two shafts sped through the Lady of Jewels, vanishing as if they'd never been fired. Another pair of arrows followed-as Hawkril, raging up to his feet atop the turret despite Craer's frantic clawings, saw she must be an illusion, and sank down again, breathing heavily.
"Spare your arrows," Embra cried. "I come for peace, not more bloodshed! Already you've slain most of my fellows, and-"
The ball of raging flame that burst out to consume her roared along the battlements as far as the next tower, where the changing course of the walls left nothing beneath the fire but air-so it plunged down to the moat below, a fall that ended in a hissing that briefly drowned out all other sound except Craer's snarl of "Keep still!" in Hawkril's ear.
The armaragor did just that. Together, the two waited for those in the turret to emerge or send forth more magic.
Instead, the turret shuddered under the sudden impact of a spell