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His armaragors standing with him took up the cry: "King Ironstone!"
"It's customary," Craer Delnbone remarked, as he sprang from atop a broken wall to crash down atop Ironstone's shoulders, slitting the man's throat with a dagger and striking the crown from his head to clang and roll on the floor, "to have just one king in a realm at a time. Orele?"
The Lady of the Wise was already picking her way forward through the rubble to where Raulin lay, the sorceress she'd just healed at her side. Wordlessly the old woman turned to Tshamarra, and the last Talasorn sorceress fed her what magic she had left, to heal the king.
The moment it was clear the Lady Overduke's magic was bent on healing and not blasting them down, Ironstone's men surged forward with a roar-but were met by royal warriors headed by Hawkril, Hulgor, Flaeros, and Craer, who sprang to meet them, striking savagely with their blades.
In a trice the Throne Chamber was in an uproar of men swording each other, chambermaids screaming from the balconies, tersepts shouting orders, and hurrying folk. Royal guards led by Suldun Greatsarn rushed into the room to form a defensive ring around the stricken king-and some of the courtiers shifted their shapes into warriors wearing Flowfoam armor, plucked up weapons from among the fallen, and joined them.
More arrivals from the docks charged in with swords drawn, novice Serpent-priests with venomed knives slipped in among the royal warriors and started slaying, and the clang of steel became deafening in the shattered Throne Chamber. Men were dying bloodily everywhere. Embra stood like a living torch of blue flame in the center of the tumult, and tersept turned on tersept to settle old scores.
On her knees above a blood-drenched Raulin Castlecloaks, Tshamarra Talasorn went pale as she spent the last of her power. Swaying, she almost fell over on her face-but Lady Orele put a steadying hand around her shoulders, ignoring an armaragor bearing down on them with bloody sword raised.
The man was still two hurrying strides away when Hulgor Delcamper crashed into him from one side and Flaeros Delcamper hit him from another. The young bard smote his foe so hard that his sword broke, its riven ends singing past the Lady Talasorn's nose. Snarling, Flaeros drove the broken stub of the blade into the man's face, and they crashed to the floor together, rolling-the bard trying to deal more harm to his foe, and the warrior lost in pain. Hulgor ended it for him with a sword-thrust, and kicked the body aside to grin encouragingly at Orele.
She shook her head and sighed. "Lads never grow up, do they?"
The Tersept of Thornwood died screaming an instant later, his fingers hacked away by the cortahars of a rival and a spear run through him-and at the same time, not far away, the Tersept of Harbridge took a hurled Serpent-dagger in the face and went down, tripping over the heaped bodies of his fallen armaragors.
The ruined Throne Chamber was strewn with the dead and dying now, and as the Tersept of Mesper roared out a challenge to his rival of Tarnshars and launched into a lumbering run, Embra Silvertree suddenly threw up her hands and bellowed "Enough!" in a voice that rocked Flowfoam and echoed back from the banks of the Silverflow and the crumbling battlements of the Silent House.
Scales rippled into being on her cheeks, and then as swiftly faded again. Dragon scales.
"Sithra dourr" she whispered, her voice still thunderous with the awakened power of the Dragon-and all drawn swords, daggers, spears, and like weapons in the room were plucked into the air. Above the roofless part of the Throne Chamber, the sky was full of swords-and where there was still a ceiling, the weapons were driven deep into smoking stone.
Silence fell as dumbfounded men turned to stare at the Lady of Jewels.
Wild-eyed, her breast heaving and her hair standing on end, Embra Silvertree glared back at them.
"There's been more than enough killing in Aglirta today," she said fiercely. "Let it end, now."
A deeper silence fell, wherein men glanced sidelong at each other, and then hurriedly back to the tall, slender woman still sheathed in wisps of bright blue flame, wondering what she'd do next-and what they dared try, in the face of her fury.
"The King lives," Craer Delnbone remarked, into that stillness.
"H-help me up," Raulin said urgently. Hawkril Anharu took one great stride and plucked the King of Aglirta to his feet.
Raulin Castlecloaks's face was bone-white, and he was still drenched in his own blood, his breastplate missing and the rest of his armor much hacked and dented. Yet he looked both calm and older than he'd ever seemed before as he faced the silent crowd and a
"No," the Lady Silvertree said firmly, from behind him. "No, Raulin, this is not the way. Loyalty and trust must be earned… and not by greater tyra
She bent, and picked up the crown. "I think Aglirta deserves better."
There was a brief murmur from the watching crowd as she lifted the crown, and the sunlight caught it, making it gleam in her hands.
"What do you mean?" Raulin whispered, whirling around. "You know I never wanted the throne…"
"Precisely why you've done better than a more ambitious man would have," the Lady of Jewels replied, "yet still there's unrest in the Vale, and swords out, and Serpent-mischief."
She turned slowly to look around at all the faces staring back at her. "I could change all that," she told them quietly. "I am the Dragon. A new Serpent is rising even now, but he'll be but a lone, weak man if none worship him-and for now, I hold sway over Aglirta, to do whatever I desire."
She turned again to regard Raulin, and added gently, "And I desire Raulin Castlecloaks to be free of the throne."
"Aye! Down with the King!" someone shouted, from among the watching warriors.
Embra whirled to face whence that cry had come. "No! Say rather: 'Up with the King!' For years upon years the King slept, and Aglirta was the Kingless Land. The curse of the realm then was ambitious, warring men-each baron ruling as his own king, and desiring the rest of the Vale. 'Tis the curse of the realm now. You folk of Aglirta have too many rulers."
She climbed a heap of rubble so that everyone could see her, and turned slowly to look at them all with the crown shining in her hands. "There was a time when I would never have dared challenge what was right and lawful, what nobles and kings said and did. That time is past. Hear then my will. I desire Raulin Castlecloaks to rule as Regent of all Aglirta. There will be no King, hereafter, and no barons-only tersepts who garrison and give judgment and watch over folk around them in the name of the regent. All of these titled folk shall rule in the name of the people."
Embra sighed, looked down at the crown, and added, "The regent will travel the realm constantly, at the head of an army that will build and fix and tend crops and settle disputes and improve roads as well as fighting. Flowfoam will become a court and a place of healing where folk are tended by priests of the Three, who shall be permitted no temples elsewhere, but only open-air altars. No one shall worship the Serpent in Aglirta upon pain of exile, and in like ma
There was a stirring of released breath from all around her, as folk lost themselves in relief that there was to be no attempted tyra