The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [95]
Tshamarra gave her a sour look. "Get in here and show me which end of the horse I put this on, hey?"
"Hey, indeed," Embra agreed. "Father?"
"Of course," Blackgult agreed, striding into the stall, striking aside its frightened occupant's deadly foreleg kick with one blow of a practiced hand, and ramming himself against the breast of the horse, crowding it back until he could get the bridle on. "Easy, see?"
Tshamarra and Embra looked at each other and rolled their eyes in heartfelt unison.
Fires were rising here and there in Stombridge town, and half-eaten bodies and the stains of pools of blood were everywhere. The horses snorted and danced, even under Dwaer-calming, and their disgusted riders glanced around warily in search of danger. No dogs barked… probably because they'd been eaten, perhaps by the dark shapes that slunk from bush to bush and tree to tree, following the five riders and their pack horses, but never coming near.
"So this is a Blood Plague," Tshamarra said slowly, looking around at the devastation. "If it was what tainted us, it can be visited on folk in food or wine… but what is it, really?"
"Aye," Hawkril growled. "Foul Serpent-work, to be sure, but how? What spell, and how to undo or stop it?"
Embra sighed. "And so we're back to the problem that always besets us: not knowing." She held up the Dwaer. "If I knew what I was doing with this, and how to make sure the other three Dwaerindim were lost forever, I could rule Darsar quite handily, were I subtle and cunning enough."
She smiled thinly at the looks she received. "Worry not, friends-not only have I no desire to rule Darsar, I'll never know this Stone properly. They fight you, you know, quietly-things you've done before with them become harder to remember how to evoke, not easier."
Blackgult nodded. "That's true. I've never voiced it before, but… yes. The Dwaer do fight their wielders."
Craer glanced at the molded Stone in Embra's hand with new respect. "Well, now," he began, "that makes dreams of snatching one of these baubles for my own-"
He was interrupted by a ragged shout from among the cottages to their left. A wild-eyed man charging at them, pitchfork in hand, with several boys running along in his wake. They clutched stones, and echoed the man's roar of challenge as he ran right at the horses, fork leveled.
"Hold!" Hawkril bellowed, drawing his sword, but the Storn folk didn't seem to hear him. Straight at the overdukes they ran.
Embra sighed, the Dwaer flared in her hand-and when the first stones came, they struck something unseen in the air and bounced away. The fork halted suddenly in midair, causing its wielder to emit a startled "Ooof!" as he folded up around it. The overdukes spurred their horses and rode away, up the road where they'd been greeted by arrows the day before.
Today, there were no woodcutters, or bowmen, though they all kept a sharp watch as they rode up through the trees, heading back to Osklodge.
"Whither now?" Craer asked quietly, as the trees gave way to fields around them. No carts, no beasts in the high meadows; this part of Aglirta seemed to have emptied.
"Glarondar," Embra said firmly. "We go right back the way we came."
"Well, that's a relief," the procurer said with a smile, cutting into a small wheel of cheese that seemed to have fallen out of his saddlebag into his hand a moment before. " 'Tis nice to have a clear destination for once. The barony of Glarond, where they've at least heard of decent wine, food, and hospitality."
Blackgult and Hawkril both cast looks at Embra, but said nothing. If she was choosing not to share her reason for heading to Glarond with them yet, that was all right. They had to search for missing Dwaer somewhere-and seemed to have found something more pressingly important that just might be everywhere in the Vale, so one direction was as good as any other.
Moreover, every last one of the Overdukes of Aglirta was weary of constant wrangling