The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [158]
The Baron Blackgult watched it go with a little smile, and made only a small gesture when it came to a halt, far away across the stones. A single Dwaer flared obediently-and a small whirlwind of stones rose from the nearby rubble and gently entombed the coffer.
Hawkril looked at his longtime master and growled, "You, Lord-as king?"
Before Blackgult could reply, Sarasper snapped, "Never!" His body sank into a sudden whirl of ruddy fur and fangs. Embra raised her other hand, her eyes very dark in her pale, trembling face as she gazed fixedly at the baron, but he never moved.
"You, my father? I don't believe you," she whispered at last. As Blackgult turned his head to reply to her, still wearing that gentle smile, the long-fangs that Sarasper had become leaped forward, springing at the baron.
"It's a tale," the baron told her simply, ignoring the wolf-spider. "One of those about love, and two barons who were idiots-but it's yours. One day I hope you'll want to hear it."
Two of the Dwaer flashed as he spoke, orbiting each other in a gentle dance-and Sarasper Codelmer was suddenly himself again, a near-naked, frail old man, all bones and brown spots, frozen in midleap with his eyes aglare and his hands spread into reaching claws.
There was a commotion in the doorway as a shattered litter was roughly hurled aside, and barons of Aglirta, magnificent in their best battle armor, burst into the room. Blackgult included them in the bright and merry smile he gave to the Four then, as he added, "In answer to your question, Hawkril, I was actually thinking of ruling as regent until the king feels ready to walk among us again."
"Blasphemy!" a baron shouted-and all over the chamber, swords rang as they were drawn.
As the barons advanced, armaragors and Serpent-priests, tense tersepts and courtiers, and even bards white-faced with fear crowded through the doorway into the room behind them. High up on the walls, amid clashings, dusty and boarded-over doors were forced open. Other men strode out of them onto landings that gave onto stairs that descended only a few treads before ending in long-crumbled ruin. Nevertheless, they stayed on these unreliable perches like so many vultures, staring down eagerly as many hands tensed on sword-hilts.
The Baron Blackgult looked around at them all and said, "As Aglirta seems to be gathering in earnest for the first time in my memory, let us have more room." The three Dwaer flashed in unison and rose up around him in sinuous arcs-and rubble left the floor of the room everywhere, broken bodies and splintered wood and all, to fly into a far corner and there settle into a huge and untidy heap.
Into the awed silence, the Baron Maerlin spat, "You as regent? Blackgult, your villainy is the reason we need a regent! What makes you better than me? Why not Maerlin as regent?"
"Maerlin! Maerlin!" Some of the armaragors standing behind him took up the cry.
"Silence!" another baron roared. "I see no need for the great hurry in naming a regent that you, Blackgult the Skulker, seem to feel-or you, Maerlin the Grasping! Let there-"
Someone threw a dagger, high over the heads of the crowd-and it flashed past a baronial ear and sliced open the chin of the armaragor behind him.
In an instant, the room erupted into wild, shouting battle. Swords clanged like a smith's hammerblows on his forge, fast and ragged and furious, and men punched and shoved and flailed and died.
Craer and Hawkril stepped protectively in front of Embra as the air filled with hurled daggers, swords, and even stones. Their eyes stayed mostly on the cowled Serpent-priests-who'd moved to the outer edges of the room and were using only defensive shielding spells. If there were any mages present, they were being just as circumspect in their spellhurlings.
Embra turned to Blackgult, threw one hand up to point at Sarasper, and said fiercely, "Father or not, put him down! I'll fight you and die fighting you, if you don't put him down!"
The Baron Blackgult did not