The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [31]
"And are those going to be your words whenever you want to march us about like little stick dolls? No time for what? To ask for our aid? Or will there always be just time enough to take it, moving our limbs in thrall?"
"I was going to die," the sorceress stormed at him. "If you hadn't run away, I-"
"Run away is the very least of the things I'll do if you ever dare to enslave me with spells again, Lady! Be glad I don't break your jaw and hands for you right now, to stop you from such excesses in the near future!"
"And if you did, how long do you think you'd last against my father's mages? Horns, but swordsmen are so stupid! About all they're good for, it seems to me, is to be ridden and bidden by those with wits enough to guide them!"
The hand that slapped her jaw then snapped her head back, stung forth a flood of tears, and hurled her bodily back against a wall with a grunt of pain.
Embra found herself on the floor, with the taste of blood in her mouth and her head singing a new tune. She looked up through watery tears at the armaragor standing over her, his jaw set and his face dark with anger. He seemed to be waiting for her to rise so that he could knock her down again. A man she'd kept alive half a dozen times this night, thus far, and-ah, to horns with it!
The Lady Silvertree struggled to her knees, discovering fresh aches-one elbow seemed to be on fire, or touched with ice-and looked up again at Hawkril, eyes blazing, to discover one of his hands waiting to take her by the throat and the other hovering above the hilt of his sword.
She brought her gaze back up from his weapon to the fear in his eyes that underlay the revulsion written all over his face, and fresh anger rose in her. Ah, so goading men with magic is such a great evil, but sticking sharpened steel through their guts is just fine and noble, hey?
Embra tore open the bodice of her sodden nightgown to lay bare her breast, and snarled up into the midst of his astonishment, "Right, then-plunge your blade in! I know you want to!"
Hawkril's face grew almost black with anger, and his blade grated out in an instant, scraping its way to freedom because his hand was trembling so with fury. Embra felt cold fear awaken deep in her throat as the hulking armaragor raised his steel to strike, but she met his eyes boldly, eyes still spitting fire of her own, and straightened herself to thrust her chest out toward him.
The sword drew back an inch or two-and then halted. Hawkril stared at her bared, curving flesh, and then up into the blazing eyes of the lady sorceress once more. Setting his jaw, he drew his sword back again…
And Craer darted between them hissing, "By the Three! You'll doom us all! Come on!"
He plucked and jostled as he swept past, bearing Hawkril's blade up over Embra's head and snatching the candle lamp from the armaragor's unsuspecting fingers.
The warrior turned to look at his old friend, and the procurer said, his voice high with warring fear and anger, "Pair of idiots! As if we've got time for quarrels! Put your blade away, Hawk! And-and put those away, too, Lady, and get up and get on! Or do your father's mages all stop work to catch up on their snoring at the same time? Hey? Or have I interrupted some solemn Silvertree ritual or other, wherein a warrior carves his initials on a lady?… Well?"
By sheer force of personality, ridiculing and tugging and cajoling, the procurer got his two companions moving again, though neither answered a word of his torrent of nonsense. As he jabbered and danced around them, they traded dark looks and fell into step shoulder to shoulder, Embra not bothering to refasten her bodice-and Hawkril not bothering to resheathe his sword.
The three had scarce traversed three rooms, all dust and the rubble of fallen ceiling facings, when an eerie howl echoed around the unseen passages ahead. The longfangs. Embra sighed.
Craer seemed not to have heard the beast's cry. He was calmly peering at small markings scratched on the rock wall where their passage split into two identical-seeming halls. After a moment, he nodded