The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [62]
"Who are you?" she hissed at the man, digging into her bodice with frantic hands. Even the chain-sling was growing hot.
Craer, Hawkril, and a staggering Sarasper were closing ranks in front of her, swords raised and ready, to meet the advancing man-and, she now saw, a handful of warriors who were following on his flanks, as if he was the tip of an arrowhead coming at her.
A voice spoke from behind the advancing man, a voice she'd heard somewhere before. "Bow down before the rightful Lord of Tarlarnastar: Turnhelm the Mighty!"
Craer hooted in open mirth at that title, but none of the other Four joined in. Their eyes locked on the gleam of a Stone held in the breast of a tunic-and on the face above it, eerily lit by its growing glow.
It was a face Embra had known all her life. A face whose very sight awakened cold fear. Sickened, Embra laid her bleeding hand on her own Dwaer-Stone, hearing her spilled blood sizzle, and tried to force it back to coolness. She'd never be able to do it, this shaken and with so many swords coming for her. Swords in the hands of warriors she knew, too, from too many fear-filled years.
"Welcome, Daughter," said the Baron Faerod Silvertree, his smile as cold as a deep, white winter.
A spell she did not recognize erupted from behind him, racing past Embra's shoulder in a green arc to burst behind her, filling the wellhouse doorway with green raging fire that sent stabbing pains through Embra's back and thighs until she scrambled forward, cursing. They were walled in.
Her father had dabbled in magic, but this was something beyond her lore; Embra's eyes narrowed. There was a mage here, hiding behind the man who'd birthed her… the man she hated more than all other foes put together.
Yet it was her father-Turnhelm indeed; a very apt name he'd chosen himself-who held a Dwaer-Stone, and was making hers turn traitor on her.
She closed her hand like a claw around the Stone at her breast, regardless of the pain. She would wrest control of it back from him, or die in the trying. She'd hold it until the last bones of her fingers crumbled to ash and let it fall…
The moment her mind was in the flow between the Stones, Embra knew she was the stronger. Easily she thrust her father's influence away from her, until their wills strained in midair, closer to him than to her. Hasty spells had been cast to aid him-and only their force kept her clenched will from striking out through his Stone.
Faerod Silvertree had come to a halt, barely beyond the reach of Hawkril's blade, but all of his warriors were slowly staggering forward from the wall, fear and hatred of Embra warring on their faces, to stand beside him. Some of them had been his bodyguards in Castle Silvertree; one or two of those had been Embra's tormentors. When they stood in a long, menacing line-minus the few who'd never move again, lying still along the wall in awkward tangles of armored limbs-they took a step forward, in unison.
Behind the Four green fire raged, a wall of needle-thrusting death at their backs.
"So you found a Stone, Father," Embra remarked, almost casually, letting her eyes bore into his.
Faerod Silvertree's mouth crooked, a little. "An outlawed tersept had been hiding it for years," he said, "using it for nothing. My need was greater-particularly after his life so abruptly and regrettably ended-and since then, I've been healing myself. I'm almost whole again." His trace of a smile faded. "Almost."
Sudden fingers of fire burst into life behind the Lord of Tarlarnastar, reaching around him in a bright and deadly halo to stab at the Four.
Stab, and strike home, amid four gasps. It felt like heated daggers were being driven through the Four. They staggered, and Sarasper sagged slowly to the wellhouse floor.
"Old bones," Faerod Silvertree remarked. "Throw them aside, Daughter; your fondness for lesser beings remains a weakness. I need you to be a strong blade in my hands once more."
As Embra bared her teeth to snarl "Never" at him, the wizard stepped out of hiding from behind the self-styled Lord Turnhelm,