The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [76]
There were more murmurs from outside. Well, at least they sounded more wondering than angry. Hawkril snarled and heaved and struggled to drag himself upright on his knees again. Leaning on the sword, he could now see Embra lying sprawled on the floor amid splintered roof timbers. She and they were shrouded in crushed bats-little wings upthrust at crazy angles, tiny jaws forever agape-and dust. Her face was white and still, and his heart froze ere he could get to her and clumsily, as gently as he could, turn her this way and that, to make sure no splinter had impaled her, or there wasn't some other gods-cursed wound on her, somewhere.
He found nothing like that… and soon after he'd begun his fumbling examination, she acquired a frown, stirred a little, and put out a soft hand to his cheek, like a sleeping child reassuring itself by touching its mother bending over it. Her touch was as gentle and fleeting as the brush of a falling feather, and her hand fell away to her side almost immediately, but Hawk found himself following it, tears in his eyes and catching at his throat, to plant a kiss on those fingers before he could bring himself to heave himself away from her and begin the struggle to find his feet.
Claws, but he was supposed to be a warrior! The first on his feet, the last to go down, fighting hard… The wellhouse spun crazily around Hawkril Anharu as pain shrieked through his side and his swordarm, and he crouched hastily back to his knees before he might fall. When he looked up again, it was straight into the face of a villager edging cautiously forward to peer in the wellhouse door.
He smiled at the man and waved his sword suggestively. The man bolted like a rabbit under the shadow of a hawk.
"Well," Hawk said roughly, after him. "Well, well. It seems I'm still alive."
"Really?" a faint voice answered him. Its fine thread of mockery was familiar. "I'm still alive over here by the well, too… but I can't say as I'm all that well."
"Craer!" the armaragor roared, scrambling across the wellhouse and rolling his friend over.
The procurer hissed in pain. "Gods, Hawk! D'you have to be so… hearty?"
"You're alive!"
"I'm not so sure," Craer told him, clawing his way up Hawkril's arm until he was sitting up. "Being dead hurt a lot less than this."
Hawkril chuckled and slapped the hilt of his found sword into his friend's hand. "If you're joking, you're alive. Can you get up?"
"I'll let you know," Craer said, wincing, as he rolled gingerly to his knees and reached to catch hold of the wall around the well, for support. "What happened?"
Hawkril shook his head. "Someone else was here-someone who had a third Dwaer."
Craer's head snapped up, and then he shot glances all around the well-house.
"No," the armaragor told him, realizing in an instant both what his old friend was seeking and what one Hawkril the Bruised hadn't really seen until then. "They're gone. All three Stones and the mysterious man who had the third. He blasted the baron and the wizard of the bats to bones and smoke."
"Bones and smoke," Craer muttered, looking around and shaking his head slowly. "I don't doubt it." Something caught his eye, and he leaned forward and plucked something out from under a red, glistening pile of what had until recently occupied a human belly. It was Hawkril's sword. "A man, hey? Then he's the one who sent me to the palace… and the tomb full of talkative traitors, just now."
The armaragor frowned. "What's that?"
Craer shook his head and waved a hand in dismissal. "Later, I think," he said dazedly. "If I can think later, that is."
Sarasper chose that moment to cough, choke weakly, and then groan. "What happened?" he asked the ceiling rather wearily. Hawkril put a hand on his shoulder.
"You're familiar with our usual triumphs in battle?" he asked dryly.
Sarasper groaned again, rolled over, and put