The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [94]
Whatever this statue had been-she'd not bothered to look at it closely- it had held more magic than any of the Silent House relics she'd handled thus far. There was a sudden roaring surge of light from under her fingers, and Hawkril was hurled back and away from her, his body arched and spread-eagled in a halo of white fire.
Gasping as the icy searing of a lot of magic surged through her, Embra was plucked from her knees and hurled out the doorway into the passage, where she fetched up against the wall in a curled heap, her ears ringing, atop a stunned Raulin.
Thankfully, the burning chair had flown from his hands to crash and bounce from wall to passage wall, and none of their increasingly fearful night attackers was close enough to put his sword through the tangled limbs of a nearly naked sorceress and a bewildered youth. Embra shook her head dazedly, trying to move swiftly, and slapped at the wall in frustration when her legs seemed made of slowly drooping mud.
Yet she could move, and hastily too, though her limbs felt numb and monstrously clumsy, like clubs of flesh without joints. Embra was still uncoiling herself when Hawkril grinned at her on his way by. Seemingly completely healed, he pounded out into the passage waving his warsword like a child impatient to use a new toy.
The Lady of Jewels found her feet, swayed unsteadily, and then put out a hand to the wall to steady herself as she snarled, "Raulin! Raulin!"
The young lad she'd landed on was groaning and reaching blindly for the wall, and showed not the slightest sign of having heard her. That was no wonder, given the noise Hawkril was making as he battered his way through the parries of his foes with huge sweeps of his blade.
The door of a room opened a little way down the passage, and a sleepy, frowning, and heavily stubbled man in a dirty nightshirt peered out.
"Can't you-" he began, before he got a good look at Embra Silvertree leaning against the wall glaring back at him, with her unbound hair framing her, wearing only her high-topped boots.
His eyes widened, he smiled-and Raulin's foot unintentionally smashed that door shut, driving the man from view with a loud, meaty smack that was followed almost immediately by a heavy, tumbling thud, as the boy scrambled up, trying not to look at the sorceress, and gasped, "Yes, Lady?"
Embra shook her head, grabbed his arm and tugged him vigorously back towards their rooms, and snapped, "Stop trying not to stare at my skin for a moment, and get in here! I need you to hide and guard Sarasper!"
Raulin stepped back and gave her an incredulous look, while swords clashed and rang behind him, and they heard Hawkril's exultant growl rise into a bark of low laughter.
"While you, uh-while you go to war with-ah-that?" The boy waved in the general direction of her body, his scarlet face turned firmly away. "No, Lady, I can't let y-"
Embra sprang forward and caught hold of him with clawlike fingers. "Raulin," she snarled into his ear, "do you truly think you can stop me? And is this not a weapon, with all the goggling that men do? And just what good, by all the loving Three, will I be standing in there with a blade if a dozen men rush me in the dark, hmm? I probably couldn't even lift it before he'd be dead and I'd be on my back for a few moments of pleasure-theirs- ere I followed him to the grave. Raulin, I need you to do this! Find another room with a door you can bar, and get Sarasper into it, and you with him! I can't guard him!"
Raulin looked at her wildly, and sprang for the door. Then he turned in the doorway, banging his shoulder with a wince and a gasp, and asked a little wearily, "I suppose you'll be wanting some more figurines and gewgaws?"
Embra struck a pose, bare as she was, and smiled sweetly at him. "If it's not too much trouble…"
Raulin's reply, as he ducked back into the room, was surprising, vivid, and inventive. Embra was even more surprised to discover she could still blush.
Hawkril swung and hacked with a fierce smile on his face and exaltation