The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [132]
"We're not butchers," Embra said bitterly, as Hawkril sprinted forward and the longfangs uncurled from its kill like lightning and swarmed up the nearest wall. "Do they all have to die?"
Craer looked back at her and said gently, "Yes. That's what setting a trap means. Will it help if you think of it as cleansing Aglirta of as many troublc-bringers as we can reach-when we can only reach those who choose to come in here and try to slay us?"
Embra looked at him, her face as white as that of the underpriestess, and said slowly, "Y-Yes. Yes, it does."
Craer stared into her eyes for what seemed like a long time, as warriors screamed and died down the passage, and said slowly, "Welcome, Lady Baron, to the work of a King's Hero. Or, for that matter, of being the king. It's not much different than gardening, really. You nurture where you can, and prune what you have to."
He rose from among the corpses, cast a quick glance down the passage at the battle and saw that it was already ended, and then looked back at the sorceress. "It's not a lot different from what your father did, either-but we're doing it for very different reasons… and unlike him, thank the Three, you're not enjoying it."
Embra Silvertree looked back at the procurer and whispered, "All this because you came to steal one of my gowns so you could eat?"
Craer shrugged. "I was a warrior of Blackgult before that night, Lady. Just like a Vale fanner or a tapmaster or a young lady trapped into becoming a 'Living Castle,' I was doing what I had to do."
Embra nodded as they went forward together to join Hawkril and the longfangs. "And when you faltered, or sickened or tired of it?" she asked, waving back at where she'd been sitting on her bruised behind in the armory. "What kept you going then?"
Craer waved at the hulking armored shoulders ahead of them and said, "I had Hawkril. He had me."
She stared at him thoughtfully, and made no reply.
"New dark-work," Hawkril growled to them as they joined him, and moved a bloodied sleeve with his sword. The underpriestess looked very young and very surprised as she lay on her back in the passage, sprawled and dead-and one of her slender arms ended in a scaly, serpentine body, with a fanged serpent-head where her hand should have been. It had been hacked and almost severed at its neck, and its own blood, spilling forth, was purple where hers was red.
"I had to kill it twice," Hawkril grunted, his face dark with anger. "I struck it through-so-and it dangled and couldn't bite me, but sargh if it didn't start to heal, right there in front of me. I chopped it again, and again the wound sank away and the blood stopped. I tried severing it from her, here, but no, still it healed. It wouldn't die until I struck her down. The snake was feeding off her!"
Embra drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and suddenly turned her face away. Craer and Hawkril watched armored shoulders shudder for a bit before the procurer jerked his head at the armaragor to go and comfort their sorceress, and then turned to look up at the longfangs and asked, "Are you all right, Sass? I saw that bone-spell tear into you."
The longfangs shrugged eloquently. Then it moved along the ceiling a little way and pointed with a forelimb. Craer nodded.
"This way, Heroes," he said, stepping through a doorway. "Sass says we've more bold guests coming."
The man called Velvetfoot smiled a cold gray smile as he passed the ninth body. This one was dangling by its shoulders from a falling-block trap, in a window that had allowed the warrior to peer from his high passage into a room below-until the block had fallen and crushed his head.
Weeding out the dangerous. Hmm… if only barons would come personally into such traps, and offer themselves up to the perils.
The ithraba sap was wearing off Velvetfoot's gloves and soles; soon he'd be in danger of falling from the ceiling-but he was almost in place.