The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [134]
Hawkril stared around in the light of the leaping flames at Craer and Embra, both sprawled on their faces, and said in a voice that quavered only a little, "Sarasper? I think I need you more than the beast, just now!"
The longfangs stared at him for what seemed a long time, its eyes expressionless and dark, before it seemed to shrug, and then shudder, and then suddenly dwindle… into a grizzled, naked old man whose face was pinched in pain, and who dripped blood from gashes on one forearm, and hobbled on a foot that left smudges of blood where it trod.
"I suppose," Sarasper wheezed, glaring around at the battlefield, "you'd be right about that, sword-swinger. Sargh it all."
He went to Embra, turned her over as gently as his grunting weakness would allow-Hawkril hastened to assist-and muttered, "If your rock-headed flirtation with encasing the lass in armor is quite over, armaragor, suppose we have this whang-iron off her."
Hawkril's brows drew down into a frown. "Why?" he asked bluntly.
Sarasper gave him a look. "I need to be getting at all the trinkets Craer dropped down inside it, to have any means of healing either of them-or these old bones of mine-or you, for that matter. I see blood here and there, for all your boldness. Now, help me with these buckles!"
Hawkril's answer was a curt nod and a swift and skillful assault on the straps and fastenings of Embra's breastplate. They were half-done when a flash of amber radiance made both men whirl around, still on their knees. That sort of light could only mean magic.
A cloud of spreading, winking balls of spell-glow was fading towards the floor, and at its heart was its source: a pale blue gemstone set on a ring of thrice normal size, on the finger of a staggering, blinking man in rich robes.
Hawkril lifted his warsword back over his should to throw, if need be, as both he and Sarasper stared hard at the newcomer.
He did not look like a man ready to attack anything. He was fat, his flesh quivering with his exertions and glistening with sweat. He had wild black hair, wilder brown eyes, and a fringe of a beard, straggling over jowls as heavy-folded as those of a mastiff. Those eyes roved the room wildly in the dying firelight, until they fixed on the two kneeling men, and in them was a little leaping hope-and much dark despair.
The man wore brown velvets and silks, much stained with food and crammed into tall and magnificent shining black leather boots. A breastplate had been hastily buckled over the robes, and it displayed to the world a black dragon and flanking gauntlets, on a bronzen field. Brostos. This must be-gods, yes it was: Baron Thanglar Brostos!
Gone to fat and fallen into desperation, by the looks of him. "Be you-?" he gasped, waving his arms like a man seeking balance. "Be you men of the Band of Four?"
"Aye," Hawkril said firmly. "Are you Baron Brostos?"
"Yes," the man almost sobbed, "and I need your aid! An army ravages Brostos, raging at my gates even now! I need the Dwaer! Come with me, I beg of you, or Brostos falls!"
"And if we refuse to give you a Stone?" the armaragor growled, rising slowly to his feet like a menacing mountain.
Brostos fixed him with anguished eyes. "No, no-come with me to wield it, and whatever else of all the fabled Silvertree magics you have! My people die! Brostos will fall!"
His hands were outstretched, pleading claws as he stepped forward, weeping openly now; Hawkril motioned Sarasper back and lifted his warsword warningly.
Brostos seemed not to see it. "King's Heroes," he howled, "aid, for the love of Aglirta! I've no one else to turn to! I've-aarrrrrrraawggh!"
He struggled as if being plucked away by a gale, clawing at the air as he shouted that despairing cry. Hawkril gaped at the sight as the fat baron started to fade away, the pillars of the room becoming visible through him.
"No! No!" Brostos shouted faintly, as if from far away. Despair darkened his eyes, and he shook his head slightly, as if in disbelief, as