The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [52]
Gods, it was probably one of her own ancestors! Her father didn't have to slay her-one of his own forebears would quite capably accomplish the little task of tearing the head off his wayward heiress!
"Serpent in the Shadows!" she whispered in despair, watching the tall, smoothly striding bone man come for her. Shuffling no longer, it moved with alert and agile purpose, its hands spread wide so she could not hope to dodge past, here where the caskets stood close together.
She almost screamed again when her hip fetched up against a casket that was open-and then saw that no skeleton lay within or was rising to menace her with its own dry clutches.
Of course; this must have held the thing that was coming for her. Something had shattered the stone slab that served as a lid long ago; its pieces, all of them larger than she could lift, lay tilted or fallen around the casket, and within-what was that?
Desperate, slender fingers closed on something cold and hard. Embra snatched it forth, found that she held a wand and that the skeleton was a bare pace away from its bony hands closing on her, and willed the magic in her hand into life. Magic might strengthen this skeleton, but perhaps its own magic could hurt it-and she had no other chance left.
Sharp, bony fingers caught at her throat, closed on her collarbone and shoulder as she twisted desperately away-and then shone with bright fire as the wand spat into life.
White sparks cascaded down its bony ribs and danced on the floor around them both; Embra didn't even know what she was awakening. The skeleton surged upward and seemed to grow more substantial, its glowing bones vanishing beneath a racing cloak of tissue, its hands growing more solid and fleshy, itsAs the heiress of House Silvertree sobbed in despair, bubbling laughter began, laughter that rolled around the crypt, gathering strength, andBroke off sharply, as something crashed into the ceiling. Something grated damply on stone, and then the grip that was bruising her was abruptly gone, and the body that now dwarfed her own toppled past her, crashing into the casket that had held it, its head lolling loosely.
Embra stared at that head, and then swung the bowl in her other hand with all her strength.
That skull shattered, and her hand was suddenly drenched in dark, thick wetness. She snarled in revulsion and swung again, smashing the cracked curve of a head. Again, and again until the thing that looked like an egg with its top shattered and gone broke free of the shoulders it was lolling on and fell, to roll away among the silent caskets.
The headless thing draped across the casket did not move, save to shrivel slightly, sagging down with a faint sound that might have been a moan of disappointment… or might have just been escaping air.
Embra looked at the wand in her hand and suddenly flung it down. It struck the floor with a ringing sound that echoed loudly in the sudden silence.
Above her, the spell-born storm was gone.
The Lady of Jewels clutched the bowl to her breast and called, "Craer? Hawkril? Sarasper?"
"Lady?" a cry came back. It was the procurer, and he sounded anxious… truly scared for her. "Are you all right?"
Embra's face was suddenly wet with tears. She had to swallow twice before she could shape the words, "Yes. Yes, I think so. Now."
The trees they'd been walking through for most of the day gave way to swamp, and the stinging insects grew really fierce. Ornentarn hands slapped at cheeks and thumbed at eyes and nostrils, trying to keep the keening things away. Ornentarn boots slipped and slid in muck and evil-smelling water-and Ornentarn tempers smoldered.
The world stank, and even the reeds they rustled through were the color of sucking mud. By the smell, everything that had ever lived in Darsar had crawled here to die. All except the ever-present stinging flies.
Somewhere ahead lay the Loaurimm Forest, and deep