The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [135]
And then the chamber was empty of shouting barons, and in the sudden silence Hawkril and Sarasper found themselves blinking at each other.
"Three above," the armaragor whispered, and grounded the tip of his warsword on the floor. It grated, and Sarasper saw that the large warrior's hands were trembling. Hawkril's next whisper was so quiet that he almost didn't catch it.
" 'King's Heroes,' he called us," the armaragor said to the floor, "and we did nothing for him."
"Hawkril," the healer said gravely, "there's worse. Craer's gone again."
24
A Bold Harvest of Barons
Light burst forth in darkness, spreading in magical motes that were winking and dying even as they hurtled silently outward. The closet made no comment, for it was both a patient closet and an empty one.
Empty, that is, but for the man who'd arrived in the light's pulsing heart. A man whom any minstrel, had there been a selection of such standing in the closet, would have recognized at once as the great bard Inderos Stormharp.
They would not, however, have expected the bard to be clad in dark leather-and-plate armor, with a gleaming array of magical rings upon his gloved hands, or to carry a glowing, obviously enchanted longsword in the manner of one who knows well how to use such things.
But then, the world is full of surprises for bards.
The man in dark leathers cocked his head, listened to faint shouting and the pounding of running feet, and gave the darkness around him a smile. Then he opened the door and went out into the light.
By the sounds of it, the army of Glarond and Maerlin (barons whom the man in leathers knew well, professionally, and had some-small-measure of respect for) was more than at the gates of Brostos: the attacking warriors were inside the castle.
This would make the bold stroke he was about to try even more dangerous… but then, he'd never been a stranger to peril, nor afraid of it. Stormharp smiled again as he slipped out of the top-turret apartments that had lain unused since the death of the Dowager-Baroness Maegla Brostos, mother of the present baron, and hastened down a stair to the passage that led to the other turret. As he went, he took a piece of cloth about the size of a man's chest from a belt-pouch, and held it ready in his free hand. It looked to be made of… shadow, and that was apt once one knew it was the Shroud of Sleepness.
For years Inderos Stormharp had made a career of gathering magic, by fair means or foul, both for the fascination inherent in such works (representing, as most did, the skill in spellcraft of one mage and the death of another) and against the day when he might need them-or might need someone else not to have them. A ruthless baron, for instance. It was well known by a long history of their deeds that barons, with their hatred and fear of wizards and of each other, were the chief collectors of enchanted things in Aglirta.
Inderos was, he hoped, engaged in gathering magic right now. Ahead lay the private apartments of Thanglar Brostos, a coldly efficient merchant trader and taker of taxes who'd no doubt gone to pieces when war had come for him with sharp swords drawn. The baron would probably be there, frantically snatching things out of hiding and strapping them to himself or into this pouch and that carrysack right now. With too few warriors and no one to lead them against the whelmed might of two baronies, Brostos was doomed. Twice Inderos had risked his own hide on forays into Brostos to watch keep after village after town fall almost without a sword being drawn, as folk too wealthy and busy becoming wealthier to defend themselves stared openmouthed at hard-riding lancers and hard-faced mages, leading a sea of bright-helmed warriors.
Those journeys had been more dangerous than they might have been because of the eagerness with which men making war in the Vale these days let loose with loaded and ready crossbows… and because Inderos had left the three Dwaer behind.
He'd kept the Stones hidden in the floor drain of a dark