The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [8]
"Graul," Hawkril gasped, losing his breath for the first time. "What's this, friend Craer? Rush to thy doom evening?"
"What?"
"Yon-look! The wyvern!"
"A statue, thick helm… see? There's another, there, and-"
"In this place, they're probably all real wyverns, made statues by magic until we try to walk past them," Hawkril complained.
Craer asked mockingly, "Want to be an adventurer, laddy, and use that sword?"
The armaragor noticed, however, that as they ran the procurer shook his strangling wire out of his glove and let it dangle ready in his hand-and that the point of the short sword he bore in his other hand never dipped in the direction of its sheath.
The garden glades were lovely by moonlight; 'twas a pity something was chasing them and that they dared not linger for even a single look into each bower they passed. Ahead, the silver light touched stone balconies and gleamed back from windows…
That were blotted out an instant later by something large and furred and silent, springing through the air with its gaping jaws agleam!
"Horns!" Hawkril swore, driving his blade at the thing as it plunged past. "'Tis a wolf!"
His steel met the leaping form solidly and tore along its ribs with a rattling impact that sent blood spraying and nearly tore the sword from his grasp. The wolf made no sound of rage or pain-only the snap of its jaws as it pounced on Craer and drove him over backward, biting viciously at his face.
The armaragor swallowed a curse and chopped at the wolf's head. Its jaws were caught on Craer's strangling-wire, which the procurer had hastily stretched from hand to hand to bar the way to his throat. The beast was ignoring the long, jagged wound Hawkril's blade had opened in its side-a rent out of which much dark liquid was pouring-but it couldn't ignore the blows that nearly severed its head from its body.
Craer was making wet choking sounds under all the gore, and Hawkril bent to snatch the wolf off of his…
The sudden blow to his ribs drove the wind from him and tore both hot and cold; Hawkril cried out despite himself as he went to the ground, sword flailing the air in futility. There was a second wolf.
Gore burst from the jaws and cloven throat of the wolf atop Craer, half drowning him in a hot, wet, blinding flood; he spat and coughed and tried to keep breathing, smashing at lolling jaws with his elbow in an attempt to get out from under. These must be a pair of the legendary smoke wolves, who always kept silence as they slew… at least, he hoped there were only two.
Hawkril was gasping in pain, the sound almost drowned out by horrible gnawing noises. Craer struggled desperately to roll away from the wet and dead weight on top of him. He had to get to his friend in time.
He was free! Rolling to his feet, Craer stumbled and fell onto his knees as the ground shook, and something large and dark blotted out the moonlight. It loomed over the struggling forms of Hawkril and the wolf, now rolling and kicking, and a massive stone sword swung ponderously up-by the Three, a knight of stone!-and then down, ringing sparks from ornamental stones set in a floral planting. Hawkril was a hand's width away from that descending blade, but the wolf that had savaged him was thrashing and sagging on the ground, cut cleanly in two.
Craer was sprinting by then, dodging past the rising stone sword to pluck at his groaning friend. "Up! Up and run!" he gasped. "Run, you thick-headed sword swinger!"
Hawkril swayed to his feet, made a sort of a sob, and stumbled out of the floral bed into a staggering, lumbering run, the procurer at his elbow urging and tugging.
"Come on, come on, hurry, come on." Craer glanced back at the approaching stone guardian and saw it striding after them, sword raised, staring stone eyes blank. If he was wrong about the magic that moved it, the lives and careers of Craer Delnbone and Hawkril Anharu bid fair to be soon over. The open moonlight of the gardens was close ahead,