The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [98]
"I wish the Four were back here with us," King Raulin whispered. "They'll know what to do."
13
Too Many Monsters
Tshamarra sighed as carrion-birds napped heavily away from something sprawled in the muddy trail ahead, and slowed her nervous mount. "I knew Glarond was a populous barony, but-gods-this many corpses? Is there anyone left?"
"Yes," Craer told her brightly, turning in his saddle. "The survivors!"
"And the worst of it all is," Embra murmured from beside the Lady Talasorn, "he thinks himself funny."
"He is," Blackgult said from behind them both, "so long as we're speaking purely of looks. 'Tis his words and deeds that swiftly stray from amusing to annoying. Yet the Three must love him dearly-what other procurer takes such care to be memorable and ever noticed? Most skulk through life in hopes of going unnoticed and living longer. Yet this mad Delnbone…"
Tshamarra nodded. "Truth, bluntly put. So can my Beloved-of-the-gods see us all safely through this Blood Plague, do you think?" She waved a small and slender hand at carrion-birds pecking busily at several motionless lumps in a field, and added quietly, "Or repopulate Glarond?"
Craer turned in his saddle, growing a broad grin, and without sparing a glance from his ceaseless peering at their surroundings, Hawkril growled, "Lady, encourage him not! D'you know what you said? 'Repopulate' hath but one means, remember?"
Tshamarra rolled her eyes. "Spare us your comments and gestures," she told her beaming man firmly, as he opened his mouth to say something clever. "Just-spare us."
"Shields up," Hawkril snapped. "Folk watching us, in the trees."
The two sorceresses hauled at the unaccustomed weight of the shields the armaragor had insisted on strapping to their saddlebags ere leaving Stornbridge, and looked at the trees ahead. The road plunged into their midst, and the two women exchanged wary glances, remembering arrows hissing… and thudding home…
Tshamarra caught sight of fearful eyes and cowering bodies. "By the Forefather, Hawk, they're just… frightened folk, staring at us!"
"Aye," Hawkril agreed, waving his drawn sword so that everyone could see it and standing tall in his saddle to peer farther into the treegloom ahead. "The problem with this plague is-"
Someone in the trees suddenly snarled and pounced on the man beside him. An unfortunate head was jerked back by a cruel tug on hair, a throat was cut, and in its wake that same someone howled and lashed out in all directions, steel flashing under the boughs amid wild screams and the crashings of fleeing folk.
"-this sudden falling into madness," the armaragor added grimly. "Prudence is swept away, threats and good sense mean nothing, and so 'tis wise to keep your shields up!"
His last few words were snapped back over his shoulder as he spurred forward to meet a wild-eyed man running out of the trees fumbling with a loaded crossbow. Shaking hands checked the quarrel, a ceaselessly murmuring mouth spoke reassurances to itself as the weapon was aimed-and Hawkril's warsword slashed the bow aside in a whirl of sliced strings, tumbling quarrel, and severed fingers.
The man screamed and ran, shaking his gory ruin of a hand and staring at nothing.
Embra winced, even as Blackgult snapped, "Craer! Guard the ladies!" and spurred past them to join Hawkril. Many folk were coining along the winding road ahead-fast. Eyes wild and unseeing, running hard, too winded for their screams to be much more than endless, raw groaning…
"What're they running from?" Embra muttered, clutching the Dwaer in one hand and trying to manage reins and shield in the other.
Hawkril looked back, guiding his nervously sidestepping horse, and the Lady Silvertree saw that he and her father were carefully positioning themselves to shield Tash and herself. She looked to the other sorceress, and found Tshamarra's eyes already on her. Tshamarra's face held the same helpless sadness she knew must be written across her own.
"Easy, now," Craer said from