The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [54]
Steel shrieked, and locked-and held. Two men strained, their blades bound together, faces almost meeting. Then Duthjack spun away and struck, low and swift: his best trick-of-the-blade, which had slain old Sarnor six summers back, and the outlaw Largrath before that.
His steel was turned aside by steel that seemed to spin out of nowhere to meet it. That same parry slid dazzlingly into a strike that smote Bloodblade's ribs sorely, tearing away an armor plate to clang and dangle by its remaining strap.
"Who are you?" Duthjack gasped, reeling back from his foe's swift steel.
The armored knight lifted his visor. Cold eyes stared at the outlaw.
"Your king," came a voice that was even colder.
Duthjack swallowed, uttered what might be a sob-and fled.
11
Of Snakes and Stones and Wells
Gazes met for a fleeting instant, each seeing hope dawning in the other. This just might be the chance they were awaiting. The two apprentices did not have to smile to share that thought-which was good, because neither quite dared to. This might, just might, be the day when the mighty and widely feared Tharlorn of the Thunders fell-dead, or twisted into endless torment and imprisonment by two unknown novices at sorcery.
There'd be plenty in the Vale to thank them for that. More than once, Tharlorn's dark magics had cracked like a slaver's whip over those he deemed his enemies. His spells had eaten men alive from within, or turned their limbs to tentacles to leave them flopping vainly until slain by revolted neighbors, or sent flying eels to devour the eyes of those who dared stand against him.
Wizards of note had been among Tharlorn's foes-a few, at first, and then pairs and cabals of them, driven together by increasing fear of the man who could call down lightnings from the sky, and turned men who intruded onto his lands into helpless statues, their muscles locked, until they perished of thirst or the creeping cold… or were devoured alive by scavengers.
Not so long ago, Tharlorn of the Thunders had been served by three apprentices-young, eager sorcerers of accomplishment who leaped to serve their master with absolute loyalty. Daring to do no less. The younger two were men, but the eldest and most skilled was a woman, and Tharlorn's bedmate: Cathaleira Bowdragon, of the Bowdragons of Arlund. Her family were famous in magecraft, and she was not the least among them-but a day after their first meeting, she was Tharlorn's willing slave.
That had been twelve summers ago, and a little more, and the time had come when Tharlorn had tired of willing slaves and their slyly ambitious little treacheries. Wherefore only two apprentices were standing in the chill deeps of the outermost spellcasting cavern beneath hidden Thundergard this day, and both of them were men.
"There," Tharlorn said suddenly, lifting his arms, the great sleeves of his robes billowing open by themselves as power streamed forth from him, in an invisible flood so rich and so sudden that the air itself seemed to ooze and shudder. " 'Tis done."
They were the first words the archwizard had spoken since muttering the last of the ten incantations that had transformed a tiny groundsnake into Tharlorn's masterpiece: a mage-slayer. Cathaleira's body had still steamed then, gutted and laid open on the worktable like a hog on a butcher's slab… before the many-times-enlarged snake had fallen on it, the snapping jaws of its many heads biting down in hungry unison, and devoured every last bone of the youngest Bowdragon. Tharlorn would face the enmity of a family of sorcerers when they learned her fate-but then, he would probably welcome it. Even archwizards need entertainment.
Tharlorn's fingers clawed the air in deliberate half-circles, and he could be seen to tremble. The two apprentices exchanged glances, and then the taller of the two took a cautious step forward to where he could-just-peer at Tharlorn's face.
The Master of the Thunders was sweating, and veins were standing out on his neck