The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [107]
Ah, but what a bright battle it had been! To rend that inn like a handful of rotten kindling and scorch a dozen mages or more…
Markoun found himself grinning again, as the nightwyrm's scales became smoke beneath him, and he was suddenly tumbling through the air.
The River Coiling was cold-kisses of the Three, 'twas cold!-and Markoun found himself gasping for air as he struggled to the nearest bank. His fingers were numb already; it took him three tries to claw himself up the rocks and ashore, dripping.
His probable reception from the baron, of course, would be even colder. Markoun looked upriver until he found a landmark he knew, shook river water from his fingers, and cast a spelljump.
An instant after the Silvertree mage vanished, an arrow hissed through the spot where he'd stood. In its wake came a shouted oath of disgust from the archer of Adeln who'd shot it.
***
The Priest of the Serpent smiled as the kneeling woman gasped. "Sssuch venom slays all who serve not the Ssserpent," he told her. "Rise, sssister, and join in the most sacred service in all Darsar."
Almost hungrily the woman kissed the scaly snout of the serpent. The fangs that had bitten her breast gnawed at her mouth as tenderly as any human lover, and the snake seemed almost to purr as her limbs started to twitch and tremble, and foam gathered at the place where their mouths met. The Priest's smile broadened.
"Dusk's not far off now," Craer murmured, as the Band of Four crouched together in a fern-filled hollow. They'd been quiet enough that birds hadn't stopped calling and whirring overhead-and they'd still seen no sign of men or tall stone buildings for men to lurk in.
"Are we lost?" Sarasper asked doubtfully, looking around at the unbroken trees of Loaurimm Forest.
"You're never lost," Hawkril growled next to his ear. "You're always 'right here'-where you don't want to be. Old soldiers' joke."
The healer gave him an exasperated look. "Well then, Clevertongue-where's Indraevyn?"
"Right here around us," Craer murmured, spreading his hand in a gesture that indicated the sweep of forest all around.
"Oh, surely," Sarasper said in disbelief. "Where're the buildings-inside these trees?"
Hawkril touched the older man's arm, and pointed. "See yon? And there?" The armaragor was indicating what looked like a mound of vines tangled around shrubs, with the leafless skeleton of a fallen, long-dead tree draped across all.
"I see only forest," the healer told him.
"And we see overgrown lumps of stone-suspiciously numerous and steep-sided," Craer replied. "Behold ruined Indraevyn."
Sarasper looked stunned. "If it's all like this," he said grimly, "we should have brought lit torches in plenty-and a hired hundred of farmers with good shovels. There'll be no wizards mincing grandly in to pluck up Dwaerindim in this."
"All the better," Embra put in, looking skyward. "Dusk is coming down soon."
"We'd best camp back at the hollow with the stream," Craer suggested, "and venture forward in earnest on the morrow. But there's a little time left, and we've been managing stealth well enough thus far…"
"Forward the Four," Embra murmured. "To do what?"
"Scout a bit," the procurer said, "so we don't end up trying to cross any bare ridges or open places in the bright sun, under the nose of a sentinel."
"Lead on," Sarasper directed, and the procurer did, leading them cautiously up a little valley. There was a ridge at its head, and they clambered cautiously up its vine-cloaked slope together-only to come to a sudden, still halt.
A grisly warning hung in front of them. Someone had seized a warrior and tied him head downward, spread-eagled in midair by ropes at his wrists and ankles stretched tight to four trees-and some prowling forest predator had come along and eaten away his head.
Hawkril's mouth tightened. "That forester I left, back by the lake…" he murmured.
"We daren't go back now," Craer told him. "At least you left him alive, where most would have slain him out of hand." He lifted his head slowly, just a trifle, and then let out a soundless sigh