Страница 37 из 111
"Oh? Can I watch?"
Blackgult gave her a wolfish grin. "Oh, you'll live a while yet-if you don't say the right smart words to the wrong person, that is."
Embra knelt over the procurer sprawled on the steps, and then looked at Tshamarra. "Leave off fooling with my father, now, and hold Craer. He may buck and twist-Father, take his feet-and I want you with me, to feel and see what I do. If your own sickness starts to twist things, and I order you away, break off touching any of us just as fast as you know how." Without turning her head, she asked, "Hawk?"
"Standing guard," came the calm reply. "No Storn swords in sight yet."
Embra sighed. "They'll find us soon enough." She bent her will, her long dark hair stirred around her as if plucked by a wind no one felt, and the Dwaer rose an inch or so from her palm and started to spin.
Tshamarra hastily let her light spell lapse as the Stone tugged at it, glowing with its own brightening fire-and Craer suddenly leaped under her hands.
"Hold him!" Embra snapped, as the procurer made a sound that was half-gasp and half-sob, and wriDied under her. Without hesitation, she flung herself atop him like a farm lass wrestling a pig, clutching the Dwaer in both hands and using her elbows, knees, and thighs to try to keep him down.
Tshamarra ducked her head to avoid Embra's boots and clung to Craer's shoulders, biting her lip as she saw Blackgult being battered back and forth by violently kicking feet.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the spasm ended, and Craer was smiling up at them. "More, more! Clothes off, Lady of Jewels, and let me enjoy this properly!"
"He's better," Hawkril observed, as Tshamarra dealt the procurer an affectionate slap and he gri
"Up, Craer," Embra ordered crisply, clambering off him. "Your lady needs you-'tis her turn."
Tshamarra barely had time to blink before Craer sprang up and over her, to clutch her wrists as Blackgult pounced on her ankles-and Embra called on the Dwaer again.
"You… you know," Tshamarra gasped, as she bucked and twisted and tried to speak without biting her own tongue, "we'd be lost without this thing. I hope it has no limits we'll ever find… We've been… calling on it heavily enough…"
Then white fire seemed to storm through her, and she lost all means of speech or sight for a moment, as fire claimed her.
When she could see again, shuddering and drenched with her own sweat, Embra was saying gravely, "I hope so, too, because our only hope to see the morrow is for us to stand together now, so we three can all source our spells in the power of the Stone. Craer and Hawkril must be our merry warriors again, guarding our fronts and backs-and no clever comments, please, Craer."
Overduke Delnbone looked mournful. "None? Not even a little one?"
"No," Blackgult and Hawkril said in sudden unison.
"Give the ladies a rest, Longfingers," the armaragor added. "They've got to be thinking of spells and the like, not your jests, or we'll never get through all this creeping around in the dark." He looked at Embra, and added, "This stair must end in a turret-a trap for us if there're Serpent-priests or wizards about, I'm thinking."
The Lady Silvertree nodded. "Agreed. You and Father work out where we go and what we do; you know castles better than the rest of us."
"If we're trying to just stay alive," Blackgult put in, "getting to the battlements so you can spelljump us out of here would be the best scheme- though dangerous in itself, given cortahars with bows standing nightguard."
"I heard an 'if' there," Tshamarra murmured, flexing her hands and wondering what could be wrong with her to make her feel so hot again, this soon after being Dwaer-healed.
Blackgult smiled. "Yes. We can try much more than that. If we find Lord Stornbridge, we won't be far from also finding any Serpent-priests lurking in this town or keep, if there are any at all."
"We'll probably have to wade through all of the rest of these Storn-heads to get to the tersept," Craer said darkly.
"So, what're we waiting for?" Hawkril growled. "Even if we're still hacking down seneschals and tersept's champions when the sun comes up, we'll have accomplished something."
"So we go back down this stair," Blackgult said, "slay anyone we meet who waves a sword at us-and put to sleep anyone ru
"Ah," Embra said with a sigh that was only half-mocking. " 'Tis so nice to have clear orders and a plan."
"Careful," her father warned sardonically. "That love of clear direction is what's let evil men rule large parts of Aglirta these last fifty summers or so."
Embra stuck out her tongue at Blackgult. Surprisingly, he returned the pleasantry, as he followed Hawkril down the stairs.
"They may be clumsy fools in Stornbridge," Lord of the Serpent Hanenhather observed, "but thankfully, the poisons of our faith are neither foolish nor clumsy. I suspect Aglirta is short a few overdukes by now."
Brother Landrun chuckled tentatively. Hanenhather's temper had been chancy these last few days, and his hands were raised to weave a spell right now.
"Begone, longfangs," the Serpent-lord said crisply, as a glow of quickening magic outlined his fingers, "and arise, Lady of Jewels. An Embra Silvertree, Landrun, far more biddable to my will than the real one will ever deign to be."
Landrun watched the furry, wolf-headed beast dwindle into a slender, shapely human woman. Nude and placid, she blinked at them in blank bafflement, and the Serpent-lord rubbed his chin and said, "Those eyes seem wrong, yes-no fire behind them. Yet."
He raised his hands again. "Drag yon wench into the next room before you go and fetch the rock-cat, Landrun. We don't want it gnawing on our lovely sorceress, do we?"
"Fetch the rock-cat, Lord?"
"Yes, Brother. Let it chase you in here, and then get out of the way- unless you want me to transform you into that little thief of the overdukes. Not more than two bites for the rock-cat, though, by my reckoning."
Landrun cast a quick glance at the Lord of the Serpent. Hanenhather was smiling faintly, as usual.
"Where now, Father?" Embra gasped, as they drew breath at the head of a stair now littered with bleeding Storn bodies.
"Aye," Tshamarra agreed, panting. "We're listening with interest."
"Listening, aye, but heeding?" Blackgult replied. "Now that would be rare and bright. Hearken, then: We go to the end of this passage and through the tower beyond, thence to the north gatetower, and descend it-by the servant's stair, not the grander one guards use. Then we double back along the ground floor and go hunting Serpent-priests. Above all, keep together."
Tshamarra frowned. "What north gatetower? I don't-"
"First rule upon entering an unfamiliar castle," Hawkril rapped out. "Look how it lies, and keep track of where you go, within."
Tshamarra sighed. "Things were much simpler before I came to Aglirta. Hold out hand, accept what servant puts into it, and move on."
"And that's just how kings get slain, here in the Vale," Craer told her.
She rolled her eyes in response, and pointed at Blackgult. "So we do as you suggest. Let's move!"
"Ah, at last" Blackgult and Hawkril said, more or less in unison-and then traded looks of surprise, followed by chuckles.
Tshamarra looked disgusted. "Men." "No," Embra corrected her. "Boys."
Their first guardpost was a drowsy, half-asleep armsman who came awake in sudden alarm as Craer jerked his spear sharply out of his hands, sending him sprawling-and Hawkril thoughtfully plucked up a couch every bit as large as the guard and dropped it on the man.