The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [139]
And then his face changed again, as behind him a bewildered, wounded Craer Delnbone appeared out of shimmerings, heard a voice he'd hoped never to hear again, and stabbed with his dagger, as hard as bright, burning pain would let him.
As Faerod's borrowed body grunted in astonished pain and Craer's second thrust turned into a whimpering collapse onto the floor, Ezendor Blackgult twisted desperately in Silvertree's quivering grasp, and smashed the fat body that was dragging him across the face, with all the strength he could manage.
Silvertree dropped him. The man in dark leathers rolled away, moaning in pain. At least he'd get his sword back before he left. The warriors who rushed in here could butcher Silvertree for him. There was no time now to do anything more than just get his own skin to safety-
"No, you don't!" Silvertree roared, his voice a horrible, sliding fluting of two speakers wrestling for supremacy, as he flung himself down on Blackgult again.
The man in leathers screamed as his shattered shoulder was ground into the floor. As tears of pain blinded him, he clawed blindly with his maimed sword-hand at the fat body atop his.
Silvertree punched him, bouncing Blackgult's head off the floor. Sobbing, the man in leathers punched back. Knuckles crashed into knuckles in midair, and they both fell onto their sides and raked at each other.
Rolling and punching and clawing each other, the two old foes flailed about on the floor. Silvertree barked and hooted and flopped like a fish from time to time as his wits struggled against the insane remnants of those that had been Thanglar Brostos, still sharing the same skull, and in those moments he stopped fighting. The baron who had hidden in the shape of a bard was too badly wounded, however, to do more than crawl away whenever he could, weeping and gasping, with never time enough to call on the magic of the one ring he wore that could heal him.
In his moments of control, Silvertree was dragging them both around the bed to where the sprawled corpse of a guard held the scepter he needed, and Ezendor Blackgult was writhing in the cruel, tightening grip of more pain than he'd felt in years.
He clenched his teeth as Silvertree threw back his head, howled wildly, and hauled him-hard-into the last corner of the bed. The barking, drooling, flailing husk of his foe was short and fat and should have been little trouble to him, but by the Three, such agony!
Silvertree tugged at him again, twisting at the foot he had hold of, and Blackgult found himself flipped onto his face, skidding along on bunched-up furs, and-
And a cloth that looked like a small cloud of shadows. Ezendor Blackgult dug his fingers into it and twisted around desperately, kicking out.
From pain-wracked somewhere, Craer Delnbone saw a booted foot in front of his nose. He snatched at it, and Faerod Silvertree tripped, lost his grip, and went for a brief stagger. Snarling, he strode back and bent to close his hands around a throat again… whereupon Blackgult thrust the Shroud of Sleepness into the snarling face of his foe, and gathered the tatters of his will to make it work.
And Faerod Silvertree, or Thanglar Brostos, or whoever he was at the moment, slumped over onto his face and lay still. His body didn't even shudder when a bloody hand reached up from the floor to drive a dagger home hilt-deep. "Die," Craer Delnbone husked fiercely, to ears that could not hear. "Die, Silvertree!"
Then the procurer fell back on the carpet, and bled.
Beside him, the bard who'd been a baron let his tears flow as the pain raged through him. He didn't need to be able to see, to call on the healing ring.
Thank the Three. Ahhh, but it felt good…
The red mists that had been threatening to drag him down into darkness slowly faded, and Ezendor Blackgult was able to roll over, find his knees and then his