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"So what do you think, Father?" Embra's voice sang with exasperation.
"The Serpents again-but rising in earnest-or a few priests working mischief and vying with each other for command of the faith? Whoever cast the spell is gone, or in hiding watching us… but was it a test of his spells, a strike at overdukes blundering by, or a coldly pla
Blackgult shrugged. "You know sorcery-and those who work it, whether they trust in grimoires or scales and hissing-chants-far better than I do. I know how best to swing a blade or bellow at others to do so, the backtrails of the Vale, and reading and goading my fellow nobles… Must I now be your expert on Snake-worship, too?"
"Griffon," Embra snarled, "help me! I-I learned spells well enough, but precious little else, and Craer and Hawk now look to me to be their war-captain! You roamed Aglirta for years before I was born, and as I grew up imprisoned in Castle Silvertree. Then you were regent, at the heart of the court… whereas I'm still learning blind-basic things about Aglirta as we travel, and know so little of what I should be doing that I often lie awake nights fearing I'll lead us all to our deaths-or doom Aglirta with a single wrong word."
Blackgult gave her a long look. "I'm glad to hear that. Good rulers and warlords spend much slumbertime worrying. Bad ones only fear for their own skins."
"Lord Blackgult," Tshamarra Talasorn put in softly, leaning forward in a creaking of saddle leather, "must your daughter beg more, or will my plea do? Speak, I pray you! Tell us your feelings about the realm as it stands now, and share something of what you know of its doings… Please?"
Blackgult sighed and threw up his hands. "And when I'm dead, who'll you turn to for advice then? The wind, to wait as battle comes down on you? Any smiling foe?"
"Without your counsel," Embra told him grimly, "there's little chance of us outliving you-I'm all too apt to get us all killed together."
The man who'd sired her looked away down the Silverflow for a moment, and then sighed again, leaned forward conspiratorially, and said, "For a long time, I've been in the habit of buying tankards for 'old friends' when stopping at i
Embra stirred, but Blackgult held up a staying hand and added, "I'm well aware that time is what none of us have to spare, these days-not when any afternoon can hold an attack like the one just visited upon us. So I'll share what's most telling of my learnings, this last while. Not that it should come as great enlightenment, mind. Neither of you lasses are dullards nor dreamwalkers through your days; I'm sure you know as well as I do how unhappy Aglirtans are, right now."
Tshamarra nodded. "The notion of a 'boy king' sits not well with them," she said. "They long for peace and plenty… and feeling safe in their own land."
It was Embra's turn to sigh. "They long for golden days none of us can remember, if they ever existed at all. Long years and many cruel and close-to-home examples have made them hate and fear barons and tersepts-and Serpent-priests, too, for that matter. Wild tales have served wizards the same, and built the Risen King into a shining crown of hope they now know is shattered and gone."
The Golden Griffon nodded in agreement, and waved at her to go on.
Embra took a deep breath and obliged him. "Bloodblade was their new hope, and he, too, went down into darkness-after showing enough of them that he was no better than the barons he overthrew to sour Aglirtans on even new hopes."
She waved toward the river in exasperation. "That'll change… folk need to believe in new hopes, and they will again, as soon as something acceptable comes along. Right now, though, times are hard, brigands are everywhere, and royal law and order scarce or unknown. We are all most Vale folk see of Flowfoam or the hands of the King."
"Three help them all," Tshamarra commented, twisting her lips into a mirthless smile as she gazed down at the beauty of the Vale laid out before her, between the rising ranges of the Windfangs to the north and the Talagladad to the south. She peered at the haze in the distance that hid the lower baronies, Sirlptar, and the sea, and sighed. "Such a beautiful land, and such unhappy folk. There's many a seacoast village where poor men batde storms to put to sea, to eat fish or starve, and would think themselves beloved of the gods were they delivered here."
She swung her darkly beautiful head around to regard Blackgult with sad eyes. "Yet it seems to me that Aglirta always knows strife, and its folk are always unhappy. Is this an affliction, a curse of wizards or gods? Or are the people who dwell along the Silverflow all crazed?"
Ezendor Blackgult shrugged and gave her a crooked smile. "You touch on a question sages and simple men alike-myself, for one-have thought upon in vain. Like all folk, we react with fury when outlanders point such things out to us, debate among ourselves with almost as much anger… and in truth know nothing, whatever our conclusions. Some say the never-ending strife of Serpent and Dragon keeps the land restless, making peace and contentment impossible. Some agree, saying the Three decree this, while others claim 'tis all the work of men. Still others hold that Aglirtans have learned wisdom from the violence of the realm though others across all Darsar deny or ca
He shrugged again, and added bitterly, "When I was young, of course, I knew all truths with fire-graven certainty-when I bothered to think at all beyond my loins, belly, and the point of my sword. Later, I saw I was no more than a hotheaded brawler… and then was caught in a Dwaer-blast that left me with but the shards of my memories and my thinking. Now I'm a simple soldier indeed."
He smiled at the Lady Talasorn. "I think many Aglirtans are like me. They've known so much disappointment and war that all they remember is their anger and their loss-and how to fight."
" Aglirta is the anvil upon which all hammers fall,' " Embra murmured, quoting the old Vale saying.
"I don't think the 'why' of the strife matters, particularly to those who puzzle when they should be swinging swords, and so wind up dead," Hawkril rumbled, leading his horse to join them with Craer right behind. "Our task is to defend the realm. As always. How we do that is our puzzle."
"Our task?" Tshamarra echoed. "As overdukes?"
"As overdukes," the armaragor agreed heavily. "Our work is simply put: Find whatever crisis tightens its jaws about Aglirta now, and deal with it before the next hungry trouble comes."
"My only real complaint," Craer put in, as he swung himself back into his saddle, "is that overdukes seem to spend their waking lives riding hard from crisis to another. Can't the things grow in bunches, or at least on the same bush?"
"Now, Cleverfingers," Embra said affectionately, "you'd miss these endless rides-ho ho-if ever you weren't racing wild-cloaked across the realm."