The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [10]
No, there was no seam here, and no wobbling weakness. It might have been a living man, it felt so alive. Alive, and as solid as stone, and he was going to die, here and now, as the stone sword swept back again to shear him off the knight's head.
At the last instant Craer swung himself around the far side of the head and dropped, clinging by his fingertips. The knight smote itself hard on the head, and Craer's world rocked.
Brief lightnings crackled through his fingertips, raging over the curved stone, and the procurer fell away, pain stabbing through him in a rush that left him unable to even cry out. He bounced on the damp grass, and far above him, the dark bulk of the knight swayed, blotting out the moon, and then started to fall, in a dark and looming rush he knew he could not escape…
A strong arm snatched him by one elbow and threw him into a flowerbed.
"Can't you keep out of tr-," Hawkril snarled, before the deep, ground-shaking crashes began, drowning out whatever else the swordmaster was trying to say. The knight's fall threw Hawkril helplessly up into the air, and in the moonlight Craer saw his tumbling friend arch in silent agony before a different part of the flowerbed swallowed him.
And silence, after ponderous pieces of stone stopped rolling, finally fell.
Craer rose into a low, tense crouch, keeping his eyes on the shattered knight, but its parts did not move again, and he let out his breath in silent thanks as he peered all around, seeking running wolves or armored figures or other guardians and finding blessed nothing.
"Hawk," the procurer hissed, "it's down. How badly?"
"Do I look like a master healer to you? How the horns should I know?" the armaragor snarled, from not far away. "My ribs… gone. Everything… wet and open…"
Craer scrambled through floral displays to pluck Hawkril's arm away from his side and look at the wounds, but the armaragor shook him away, wincing and gasping, and staggered to his feet, stumping off across the grass toward the fountain.
The procurer frowned at the wounded warrior's back for a moment, and then slowly sat down on the smooth turf and took off his left boot. It held about as much water as Hawkril's had-but it also held something else: a flat glass vial that Craer unstrapped, held in his hand for a moment as if reluctant to let it go, and then sprang up, bootless, to offer to the swordmaster.
Hawkril sank down on the stone lip of the fountain and swallowed the healing draught without query or hesitation. Craer held him firmly by one arm as the usual brief, teeth-chattering seizure wracked the armaragor.
When it was done, Hawkril looked up, the creases of pain gone from his face, and said softly, "Have my thanks. That's a very large thing I owe you, Craer."
"We'll be wed come morning," the procurer joked, stepping into the fountain. The waters were cold and the stone beneath his boots slimy with greencreep, but he had to get rid of the wolf blood, or there wouldn't be a blind hound in all the Vale that wouldn't be able to follow him.
As Craer crouched down and watched dark threads of blood drift away from him across the water, Hawkril followed him in. He growled, deep in his throat, at the water's chill, and then sank down as the procurer had done, wincing as the slimy wet touched his ravaged side. He touched himself there rather gingerly, then looked up and asked, "Well, shall we press on? By now she's either up and waiting for us, or she's deaf."
Craer lifted his lip in a mirthless grin and led the way through a still and coldly beautiful succession of paths, lawns, bowers, and little arched bridges over ponds. It was a surprisingly long way; if the Lady of Jewels had only her ears to rouse her, and not the promptings of magic, Hawkril might be wrong… and they just might live to see another morning. Beyond that, the procurer wasn't willing to entertain any bets.
The westernmost outcropping