The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [86]
It seemed to gaze up the Vale for a very long time before suddenly descending again, to glide swiftly and purposefully away westwards along the road.
When it was quite out of sight, a blood-caked woman slowly drew her knuckles from her trembling mouth. Then, and only then, Brithra the cook permitted herself to scream.
Craer Delnbone sighed, sat on a handy stone, put his feet up on the stone beside it, and started waiting. Creeping through ferns in the roadside shade one moment, and then…
He'd obviously been whisked here for a reason. That much was certain from the unfamiliar, hulking body his own slender form had somehow changed into. He flexed large and hairy hands for the first time in his life and shook his head in bewilderment. He was evidently a warrior of importance, by the armor and cloak and all-and by the looks of things, he was somewhere far downdale, on the other side of the river. Cardassa or thereabouts.
Hmm. He just hoped the plans of the mysterious wielder of the Dwaerindim involved Craer's continued survival for the next little while. And the continued health and happiness of whoever he'd now become.
He was not a devout man, but a moment later, Craer found himself silently praying to any and all of the Three who might care to listen, as he closed fingers that felt awkward around the hilt of an unfamiliar sword.
16
Flagons Aplenty, and Blood Enough to
Fill Them
The first soft shadows of evening were stretching forth from the trees to shroud the road in gloom as four travelers, on foot, trudged out of the heart of outlaw-haunted Deep Hollow and came to where the war dogs were chained, to give ears in the Flagon their first warning of visitors-honest or unwanted.
The Flagon and the Gauntlet was an old inn, but a prosperous one. The only stop on the road through the woods that linked the steadings of Phelinndar with the farms and mills of Silvertree, it sprawled away from the road like an old, comfortable, and gigantic sleeping hound through three clearings that (but for a lone fenced gap) were safely walled against bears, hunting cats, and other creeping creatures of the night-such as outlaws with sharp knives in their hands-with a palisade of old and stout fire-hardened logs.
Men with ready crossbows guarded the road-gate that let wayfarers into the innyard, and they were not used to regarding folk who came afoot out of the deep forest in a kindly manner.
They grew even more wary, standing in their archers' booth above the road, when they saw the armored giant of an armaragor who led the four, sword drawn and face hard. Yet the woman who strode behind him looked every haughty inch regal or at least highborn, for all her road dust, and the man who leaned on her was undeniably old-while the youngest of the four, an almost beautiful boy who brought up the rear, walked with a limp and a face twisted in pain.
"My foot hurts," Raulin complained, as they drew nearer to the gate. "Is all this acting really necessary? If they shot down or turned away every traveler along this road, they'd soon starve!"
"Lad," Embra cooed back over her shoulder at him, "humor me just a few moments longer, will you? I can, of course, say a few words-a very simple incantation-and that overpronounced limp of yours will become very, very real."
Raulin's reply was a mutter that sank into a growl as one of the guards at the gate barked, "Crave you welcome within? Your names, then, and business!"
The first soft shadows of evening were stretching forth long fingers, and hiding much that was unlovely in these back streets. Even some things that moved.
The dung-carter had not been lovely at birth, and a hard life had done nothing to improve his appearance. So many white and thick-ridged scars crossed his head that his face thrust forward into a doglike snout, and what little hair was left to him grew in awkward clumps, leaving much rough and puckered bare flesh between. He whistled tunelessly as he came down the dark steps into the full stink of the sewers of Sirlptar,