The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [118]
Those beams struck two other rounded stones set on high ledges in the vault walls, and as the conspirators turned with shouts of surprise and alarm, the three Dwaer pulsed as one-and beams of ravening force lashed out through portcullis bars that vanished like smoke before them, to stab through barons and a tersept as if they, too, had been smoke.
The warrior was already on his feet, sword whirling from his hand-but the tersept's fall made it spin harmlessly through empty air, to bite and clang down ranked halberds on a distant wall.
Ornentar spun, sobbing, as life erupted from him-but out of nowhere a green, glistening radiance burst into being, raging up and down him as if he stood cloaked in many hissing, writhing snakes… and the baron stood whole and amazed again even as he and the snake-headed magic began to fade together, the fell hand of distant Serpent-priests snatching him elsewhere.
The guard impaled on the wall waved a hand, and bright bolts of force flashed anew through the flickering space where the baron had been-but seared no blood or flesh. Ornentar was gone elsewhere, spared from death one more time.
The last of the conspirators stood alone, blinking at the guard impaled on the vault wall, until that imperious armored hand waved again, and a voice said, "Fare well, Craer. You made a good Narvim, if a bit overcautious. Perhaps I should make your tasks clearer in future." Dwaer-shimmering had claimed the lone armored warrior before the last words had been spoken; the man on the wall doubted Craer had heard the last sentence.
With a sigh, the guard who was no guard floated down from his impalement and beckoned his Stones to him. Weapons drew forth from many bloody resting places to wheel around him in slow, stately array, enchantments winking and glimmering down many of them, and the man at their center smiled again and let his face become once more that of Inderos Stormharp.
"Fools," he murmured, shaking his head… and slowly faded away.
A moment later, in silence and without ceremony, the floating weapons winked out in twos and threes, following him into otherwhere, until the vault was completely empty.
It stayed that way for perhaps the space of three breaths before the poundings of many booted feet erupted in the passages-and many hard-eyed men in the armor of Adeln and Ornentar burst into the chamber, drawn swords in their hands, to stare in disbelief at one more empty room in this deserted hold.
So swift was their haste to find their masters and do as they were bid, in this night in which all Cardassa was to be taken, that none of them noticed the papers their passing had whirled into the air, in a dining room where candles were now guttering out, and no cheer was left but casks and bottles of untouched wine.
Parchments flapped and fluttered perilously close to the dying flames, ere they found the floor, and most of them bore the neat, flourish-adorned hand of the Baron Ithclammert Cardassa. One of those was in fresh ink, and consisted of a list of names and a description of some demands of those conspirators-in hopes that it might prove useful as a warning to, or evidence in the hand of, a Risen King.
21
Valestorm Building
The Band of Four stood in the dappled shade of the laneway, sunken here and overhung by old and many-branched trees, and looked up the sunlit hillside ahead, past the crumbling wall and the leaning markers and tombs it enclosed, to where a familiar sprawling stone mansion rose out of the trees and clinging vines to stare endlessly down at the river.
The Silent House looked very much as they'd left it, the entry hall collapsed into rubble that held and hid many buried Silvertree warriors. Thankfully they'd not have to dig through that fall; the mansion walls were studded with many other doors-and a few of them even led into the dark and dusty halls, if one knew just how to proceed, without offering their users to the jaws of deadly traps.
A few.
"Well," Raulin observed with an impish smile, "at least it's not another inn."
His companions