The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [87]
"So where's Lord Stornbridge?" the armaragor asked, as the sounds of the splash reached them. "You think this whelming was all a trick to draw us here, whilst he goes to ground, or rides across the Vale to raise alarm?"
"No, he's here somewhere," Craer replied. "Behind one of these panels with the highest Serpent-priests. These are underlings, left to delay and entertain us whilst they cook up something especially dastardly. Something Em's probably keeping a firm lid on."
A snake struck at Craer's face, missing narrowly. "That does it," the procurer announced, heading for the door. "Hawk, I'm burning this turret out. Sooner or later, one of these slitherers is going to get us!"
Hissing sounds arose from all around the turret. Hawkril swore and hurried after the procurer.
"Hawk!" Craer snapped, from the door. "Run!"
Hawkril sprang into a thundering sprint as snakes boiled up into human shapes behind him, reaching and hissing, retaining their serpent-heads for one last chance at a bite as they… caught hold of nothing, fingertips sliding helplessly over curved armor.
Snarling human faces were spitting out incantations as the armaragor joined Craer out in the moonlight. The procurer flung a dagger, and then another, at a dodging priest who gave him a sneer-until Craer's third knife sprouted in his eye.
Then the armaragor dived one way and the procurer hurled himself in another, scattering across the width of the battlements as fire flared up in the turret room-and roared forth to stab at them.
Hot flames were suddenly all around Hawkril. He thrust his face tight into his knees and rolled, his hair sizzling. The fire flung him over and aside and snarled on along the flagstones, leaving him staring at fresh flames in front of his nose: the wadded-up cloak was burning. Hawkril shook the shield off his arm as he scrambled up, fearing the next spell might be a bolt of lightning instead of fire, and glanced across at Craer.
The procurer was flinging daggers through the turret door and windows in a constant stream of whirling steel, buying them both time. Hawkril saw a discarded cortahar's sword lying on the flagstones. Plucking it up, he thrust it through the blazing cloak, skewering the bundle, and then ran up to the turret door and flung it inside, aiming high and far.
The flaming bundle struck a tapestry on the far wall and rolled down it, in a spitting of sparks and flaming scraps of cloth that gave Hawkril a momentary glimpse of three Serpent-priests weaving spells in hissing haste.
Another cortahar in the pile was moving, struggling to drag himself out from under the weight of his fellows. Hawkril yanked him free, stood him up like a child's doll, and ran him at the door as a shield. A few running steps away from the doorway, the cortahar started to scream.
A priest hit him with a spell anyway-a beam of flickering dark fire that almost cut the man in half, reducing a hand-wide slice of the man's gut to bare bones, but leaving the body untouched above and below. Hawkril flung the cortahar headlong through the door, bowling over a shouting priest, and then ducked low and ran in himself.
Two priests backed away hastily, trying to get to where they could unleash spells on the armaragor without endangering themselves-but Hawkril dived over the dying cortahar and in under the table in the center of the room, rising up under it to fling it with his shoulders, up and over.
Its legs sent a priest flying, to twist and groan against a wall. Craer came leaping through the door as the table came down atop the tapestry, tearing it and feeding the rising flames. Craer stabbed the groaning priest and then flung the same dagger-his last-across the room, into the face of the remaining priest. It laid open the man's forehead and spun away. Gasping in pain, the priest ducked out the far door of the turret and fled along the battlements.
"Right," Craer snarled, snatching up two broken bows,