The Dragon's Doom

With a bark of triumph he spun around, blades glittering in both hands. Hawkril charged, smashing one aside with his own warsword and then ducking after it, so Stornbridge's vicious thrust with the second blade stabbed only air.

Hawkril kept on circling, striding around behind the tersept until Stornbridge was forced to wheel around, leaving his back open to Craer.

The procurer promptly sprang onto the tersept's back and perched there, slapping Stornbridge's eyes with his fingers until the frantic noble flung himself over backwards to try to crush Craer on the flagstones.

The procurer leaped nimbly away, landed, and then sprang back, landing with both feet together and as hard as he could on Stornbridge's right wrist.

The tersept screamed as bones crunched audibly and his fingers spasmed open, letting fall one of his borrowed swords. Hawkril stalked forward, his warsword gleaming, but Craer called merrily, "Hey, now! You got to carve up Pheldane, and the lornsar, too, whilst declaiming grand doom- this one's mine!"

His next bound brought him down with crushing force on Stornbridge's other wrist-or rather, on a few fingers, as the tersept twisted desperately away.

Stornbridge screamed again, rolling over, and then found his feet and tried to flee, ru

Craer sighed and pursued, springing once more onto Stornbridge's back. Off-balance, the tersept staggered, still ru

Craer reached around and quite deliberately broke Stornbridge's nose.

Snarling, the tersept came to a halt, elbowed Craer free of him, snatched out his own dagger, and slashed wildly.

The procurer gri

Stornbridge howled, staggered-and then stabbed down in a blind, frantic fury, again and again, seeking to bury his steel in the infuriating little man beneath him. Kick after kick thudded against the tersept's armor as Craer twisted, rolled, arched, and spun, always avoiding that dagger. Eventually the tersept lost his balance and staggered back until he fetched up against a merlon.

Panting, he glared at the procurer, gathered himself-and then rushed at Craer once more. The procurer ducked sideways, toward the crenellations, and the snarling tersept whirled to follow, reaching out with his dagger-

His wrist was gripped in one strong hand, and another clamped down on his arm above it, tugging in the direction of his thrust, but also turning… and, with a sob of sudden fear and disbelief, Lord Stornbridge was forced to stab his own armpit.

Moaning in pain, he staggered back along a merlon, and felt the dagger ripped from his fingers.

"Enough sport," the procurer told him quietly. "You've lived quite long enough for a man who hurt my Tshamarra, Stornbridge. Oh, yes-and betrayed Aglirta, too. Die, now, and feed some fishes. You might as well be of some use."

A line of liquid fire seemed to erupt across the tersept's brow. Blinking through his own blood, Stornbridge felt tugs at his armpits as straps were deftly cut. Striking out feebly with his fists, he drove his assailant away, hearing a grunt of pain but also the clang of his own breastplate dangling and clashing against his other armor.

Again the deft slicing, and this time cool air touched Stornbridge's sweating chest. His leathers! The little fox must have-

And then something that was both fire and ice together drove into his chest, and he could no longer breathe, could no longer move, could only sag into the warm, waiting chill…

Craer hooked one boot behind the tersept's knee and hauled on the dagger-hilt like a handle, shoving-and the battlements of Stornbridge Castle were suddenly short one tersept.

From somewhere, Lord Stornbridge found the breath and strength for a dying scream, as the cold waters of the moat rushed up to receive him.

The splash was satisfying. Craer straightened up to trade glances with Hawkril-and their gazes were caught by a sudden tongue of bright flame flaring into the night sky from a nearby hilltop. As they watched, it began to curve, changing from a pillar of raging fire to a fiery serpent, swaying as its head cast about for foes, forked tongue licking forth repeatedly.

"All hail the Great Serpent," a weak voice husked from nearby. The overdukes turned to see the priest Craer had felled earlier lying on his side, with the fire-serpent reflected in his dying eyes. The man swallowed, struggled to speak as blood welled from his mouth, and then managed a single word: "Auncrauthador!"

As the two overdukes traded grim shrugs of foreboding, they felt the prickling of magic, and then the cold weight of hostile regard.

Some Serpent-lover was watching them from afar. Probably from yon hilltop, because now they could also hear-as if borne on a faint wind, but against the breeze sighing over the battlements from behind them, blowing toward the hill-chanting… a hissing chant: Serpent-worship.

Sudden shrieks arose in the castle yard below. Hawkril and Craer looked down, and saw cortahars and Storn folk stabbing each other with blades, clawing each other barehanded, and ru

Two strides took Craer to the dying priest. He slapped the man's face, and those dull eyes flickered. "What's causing this? This butchery and fighting? Hey?"

Bloody lips trembled to shape a last smile, and the priest whispered gloatingly, "Blood Plague. The Blood Plague is come at last."

12

A Surfeit of Plague

Fire leaped up in the night. Flaeros Delcamper stared at it-and then at another tongue of flame, shooting up to scorch the stars some distance away, probably at the next village. He frowned. "T'isn't festival time. What's going on?"

There were only three other paying passengers on the trade barge. One was asleep, but the other two were gawking at the flames just as he was. "What's going on?" he demanded again, but one of them-the trim-bearded Sirl merchant in green-just shook his head in silent bewilderment.

The barge crew had been rowing steadily against the steady flow of the river, keeping the barge to the most placid bankside shallows, but they'd seen the nightfires, too-and their response, without waiting for orders, was to stroke more swiftly.

For a moment the barge moved raggedly, and then settled into a new, faster rhythm. The breeze was quickening, too, and for the first time those afloat heard faint screams and shouts.

Flaeros strode toward the barge captain, sitting on his high perch and staring into the night ahead. Several of the hired Sirl guards moved to block his way, but the captain said a single quiet word and they drew back to allow the bard through.

Master Rold did not halt his ceaseless sca

Even before the bard could open his mouth to repeat his queston, the master of the Silver Fin gave him a flat stare and said, "I don't know either, sir bard-but I'd much appreciate it if you'd stand quiet and just watch and listen, until I tell you different. Panic aboard makes our tasks no easier. So look sharp for archers or others on the banks who could menace us, and otherwise…"

"Keep my jaw shut?"

The barge captain nodded once, and resumed his steady sca

Flaeros sighed, then said, "Very well. I agree if you'll tell me one thing- full truth, mind. I promise not to share your answer with…" He waved his hand to indicate the other passengers, now pacing nervously as new fires sprang up in the night-strange tall, narrow pillars of flame. The sleeping man had awakened, it seemed, and was going about asking very much the same thing Flaeros had been.