The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [149]
The warrior Shamurl was wading forward in clanking triumph now, as metal fell away from her like tinkling shards of glass-and Hawkril's own armor, as he staggered back in a hasty retreat, almost falling amid the tangle of splintered table legs and broken stools, grew a sudden webwork of cracks.
Frantically the armaragor hurled away his warsword, flinging it back behind him to crash down in a far corner. As he turned and fled in earnest after it, metal slid off the bulging muscles of his shoulders, showing the world sweat-stained underarmor.
Shamurl's own leathers bristled with sheaths, and she drew thorns as long as her forearms from two of them as she pursued Hawkril. Embra gasped at their size. They must have come from vines in the hot forests of the far south, and were big enough to serve as stabbing daggers, and then some!
The moment he was free of fallen furniture, Hawkril spun around and crouched to await his foe. "Does the magic move with her?" he growled over his shoulder.
Embra and Sarasper both shook their heads before they realized the armaragor wasn't looking at them. "No," they called together.
" 'Tis done," the healer added. "It never spreads far."
"Right," Hawkril said grimly-even as buckles crumbled, belts and baldrics fell away with a sudden crash, and he was reduced to his boots, breeches, and padding. Undaunted, he strode forward. "Surrender, woman!" he growled.
"Die!" Shamurl snarled back, charging. Hawkril shrugged and stood his ground.
"Hawk!" Embra snapped warningly, but as the bards gawked and shifted about to get a better view, the armaragor and the warrior-woman crashed together. As they grappled, Shamurl stabbed viciously.
Hawkril struck aside one blade with a twist of his body and a slap at her forearm; when the other blade came curving in, he caught it just below her own grip, wrenched it until it pointed away from him, and then-as she brought up her knee hard and bit at his face-he swung his free hand across them both in a blow to the side of Shamurl's head that spun the warrior-woman around like a doll, thorns flying, and laid her out across the furniture with a crash.
She convulsed in pain, clawing at the air… and then slowly went limp and lay still.
Across the chamber, several bards cheered. Hawkril gave them a dark look.
"You were right," he told Embra curtly, as he joined them. "This was a stoneheaded idea. First Brostos and now this; some King's Heroes we are. I liked that armor."
"There's more back at the armory," Sarasper told him.
"We have to get there first," Craer put in.
Hawkril craned his neck to see over the smaller man, and the procurer ducked to let him do so better and murmured, "What befalls thy brains now, Tall Post?"
"Did my warsword survive?"
Embra patted his chest reassuringly. "If it didn't shatter when it landed-and I didn't hear that sort of sound-it'll be fine."
The armaragor pushed through them, heading for the corner where his blade had clattered down. "If you don't mind…" he growled.
Back at the door, a bard screamed as someone thrust a sword through him from behind. As he gasped and coughed bloodily forward to the floor, aided by a cruel boot shoving at his backside, his fellow songweavers clawed their ways hastily up the walls and atop cabinets, gibbering in fear as cold laughter arose in their wake.
"Leave them, Kordul," someone snapped, as Craer and Embra crouched low behind the tangled barricade of furniture and peered at this new foe. Behind them, Sarasper wasted no time in looking; he let fall his belts and carrysacks without pause, draped his robes over them, and started to grow both spidery legs and fur. Hawkril came