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"Craer!" she called-and her man groaned to his feet behind her, plucked her up by the hips, and staggered toward the Lady Silvertree, who was now enshrouded by the whirling radiance of another spell she was weaving.
As Embra's magic grew in brightness and started to blaze ruby-red, Blackgult roared in fresh agony, and grew many eyes. Grotesque and glistening, they sprouted all over him, of varying sizes but all staring in beseeching pain. The body sporting them slumped, turned a muddy hue, and many sucking mouths or holes opened in it, to the accompaniment of horrible wet sounds.
Embra hurled her spell a scant moment before Craer fell again and sent Tshamarra crashing into her, and as the two sorceresses rolled and tumbled together, the Dwaer spi
Hawkril struck him, shoulder to monstrous bulk, and they crashed together in a shuddering tangle that sent Blackgult struggling through a nightmarish succession of forms. Jaws appeared, snapped, flowed, and were gone, eyes rose and fell atop tentacles and heads and dorsal ridges, tentacles and claws and talons sprouted and melted back into the ever-flowing flesh-and Craer flung himself into the heart of the amorphous body, both boots first.
The thing that had been Blackgult shuddered and wailed, a high and horrible wet fluting cry that sent its many jaws falling open and tentacled limbs collapsing back into shapelessness, and fell back.
It was still thrashing and roiling on the ground when two frantic hands closed together around the glowing Stone. Two pairs of blazing eyes met, and then turned with one accord to gaze at the ever-changing monster. Mouths murmured incantations in unison, hands shaped spells, and the Dwaer sang.
Radiance after rushing radiance burst over Blackgult and settled, and under their sway the slithering of shapes slowed and then halted, until it seemed like a puddle of flesh lay on the forest floor.
Flesh that slowly became pinkish again, and hairy, as it dwindled. The sorceresses went right on murmuring spells, advancing in careful unison as Hawkril and Craer drew warily back, until they knelt an arm's reach from the quivering flesh.
Slowly Embra extended her hand, the Dwaer in it, out and down to the pool of flesh… as if offering it. The incantations continued unbroken as the Stone spun very slowly in a grasp that gave it no such encouragement.
As the armaragor and procurer watched with wary eyes and half-drawn blades, the flesh seemed to shudder, and then bulge upward toward the Dwaer. Like an eyeless worm it rose, wriggling, and grew fingers, thi
The Stone flashed, the pool of flesh seemed to shiver and clench into a wild, whirling variety of shapes… and then the hand led down into an arm, attached to a body with a familiar face… and Ezendor Blackgult was blinking at them, eyes like two coals in a shaking, sweat-drenched body that was his own. Human once more, he groaned, bent his head as the tears came, and collapsed onto his face, exhausted.
"Get up," Craer snapped, picking up the nearest piece of Blackgult's armor and tapping the sprawled, naked man with an air of disgust. "I don't see why you're weary-I'm the one who's been doing all the work!"
14
Riding Through Blood
Sparks raced around her, riding a surging power that left Maelra Bowdragon awed. Rushing magic swept her into its coils, whirling away the dark and narrow storeroom of magics that Uncle Multhas had always thought was his own little secret, in a torrent of air and crackling lightning that left her breathless.
When the chaos fell away, Maelra became aware that she was no longer crouching in the gloom of that hidden Bowdragon storeroom. She was somewhere dim that smelled of damp earth, somewhere she'd never stood before-but that was, yes, familiar. A place she'd visited as a sending: the abode of the Spellmaster of Aglirta… and there he was, standing in the shadows watching her.
Shivering with excitement, Maelra met the cold and knowing eyes of Ingryl Ambelter. She'd seen such soft smiles from men before-smiles that lingered on the sleek curves of her body, but always fled when they learned her heritage. She'd never seen one surmounted by such a deadly gaze, though.
Swallowing, she held out her armful of enchanted Bowdragon things- the mirrors and coffers and daggers she'd obediently stolen for this man a moment ago. One slid in her cradling grasp, and she shifted her arms hastily to avoid dropping it. This was real. She was truly here, somewhere underground near the river in Aglirta, far from home… and two short strides away from more power than she'd ever felt before. Her skin crawled at its awakened, pulsing presence.
"Come," the Spellmaster said with that same softly dangerous smile, holding out a beckoning hand and cradling the glowing Dwaer-Stone with the other. "There's much to do."
"Ah, aren't you going to… uh, yes. Of course," Maelra replied, hearing the faint scrape of a booted foot on stone behind her, and casting a quick glance over her shoulder.
Baron Pheli
Maelra whirled back to face Ambelter, to see if these men really possessed two Dwaerindim-but the Spellmaster's hand was now empty. Trying to keep her face expressionless but knowing Ambelter had seen her eyes narrow, she swallowed again and said, "Yes, we've much to do."
"My father and all of our horses are just fine,' Embra said sharply. "Or so the Dwaer showed me, Craer-and believe me, it lets you feel as well as see."
The procurer held up a hand. "Pillory me not, Lady; I was merely pointing out that our mounts all appear… ah, restive."
Tshamarra sighed. "Well, wouldn't you be, Craer, if you were a horse?" She waved one slim hand. "Look around us!"
The choice view of Glarond they were enjoying at that moment included at least six clusters of carrion-crows, vultures, and worse. What was left of a corpse presumably lay at the heart of each squawking, pecking group-and more than one plume of smoke was rising from distant barns and farmhouses. The cottage nearest to them had already been burnt out, and now stood blackened, roofless, and deserted. Livestock wandered aimlessly, bawling their displeasure and loneliness from time to time-except when arrows whistling from stands of trees brought them thunderously down, and men raced out to hack at the twitching corpses, cut off legs or large hunks of rump and ribs, and hurried back to the trees again.
The only other living humans the overdukes had seen since leaving the forest had fled from them in terrified disarray, but the five had already learned to keep well away from woodlots and thickets. Evidendy the good folk of Glarond were not too witless with fear to aim bows, and not too ammunition-poor to stint on loosing arrows at five mounted strangers.
Arrows hissed out of some trees now, arcing high into the air to thump and thud into the ditch, well short of overduchal horses-or torsos. "Are we this close to brigandry in Aglirta?" Craer snarled in disgust, turning in his saddle to glare at the dark stand of trees the shafts had come from.
"Evidently," Embra sighed. "Remember, Craer, it takes three generations of relative peace and order for folk to trust in kings and laws and such… and yon folk have seen barons change with the passing seasons, armies on the march, lawless magic hurled hither and thither, ceaseless talk of new rule in Flowfoam, Serpent-priests whispering in their ears every bebolten year-and now a madness and beast-curse that no one defends them against or tells them truth about. Be glad they've got bows and the wits left to use them!"