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"Gah!" the procurer snapped, spurring his mount away. "You speak truth, I know, but I don't have to like it!"
Tshamarra rolled her eyes and called, "Rein in, Lord Idiot! When the next three-headed dragon comes, I want you right here at my side, so you can die with the rest of us!"
Craer shot her a disgusted look back over his shoulder-and reined in.
Embra gave Tshamarra a much more respectful glance, and murmured, "Impressive."
Whatever reply the Lady Talasorn may have been pla
"Don't be letting anyone bite you, I'm thinking," Craer said grimly, half-drawing his sword.
"Let's just keep riding," Hawkril growled. "There's nothing we can do for this many folk-except find the Serpent-priests and put a stop to their plague-spreading."
"While there's someone left alive in Aglirta, you mean?" Craer asked bitterly, his hand still on his sword.
They urged their horses to a faster pace, and the snorting beasts seemed eager to comply; firm hands on the reins were required to slow them from a gallop. More wandering humans shrank away at their approach-save for one man, more oblivious than the rest, who kept plunging into convulsions, rising again to walk normally, and then sinking down into spasms again. As the overdukes rode up, they saw him fail to straighten from his latest writhing, as hair-beast hair-suddenly sprouted on his body.
Craer hissed in disgust and drew his sword, but Embra snapped, "Craer, stop! I need this one captured. Hawk?"
"Arrow to your bow, Lady," he rumbled, spurring forward.
"What means he?" Tshamarra asked quickly. "I've heard those words before."
"Oh. Old lovers' saying of the Vale," Embra replied absently, her eyes on Craer turning to spring from the saddle on one side of the man, and Blackgult racing smoothly past to snatch the reins of the procurer's mount, while Hawkril reined in on the other side of the now-crouching, snarling man. "From an old ballad: 'Lady, I'll be the arrow to your bow/Command me lifelong, in all things'… and so on."
"Oh," the Lady Talasorn replied, almost wistfully.
Embra shot her a curious glance, and then looked swiftly around in all directions to make sure no one-and no thing-was getting ready to attack or pounce. Aside from obedient male overdukes, that is.
The man looked like a wolf, now, his transformation into beast-shape almost complete. And when he lowered his head and snarled thrreateningly at Hawkril, Craer deftly looped cord-a line he'd been carrying wrapped around his waist, belt-fashion-around the man's legs.
The man-wolf whirled around with a roar, snapping-and Craer shoved his sword broadside-on into its jaws, just as Hawkril caught it by the neck with both hands, straddled its back, and sat on it. The transformed man squirmed and thrashed. But Craer wound his line around all of his paws and then his snout, pulling the cord tight, and Hawkril kept him pi
"Nicely captured," Blackgult said, holding a snorting horse with either hand. He looked at Embra. "Want to practice, I presume?"
"Precisely." The Lady Silvertree held up the Dwaer, and said to Tshamarra, "I want you to ride my mind as I try this."
As the Talasorn sorceress nodded, Embra turned her head. "If it works, and we see another wolf, we'll try it again as you join me, Father. We have to know how to purge the plague, and practice doing it, until forcing folk back to their own shapes isn't a battle against the Dwaer but something we can do readily."
The plague in their captive was subtly different from the last one they'd felt in their own bodies… but having seen the man before he was forced out of his own shape helped, the two sorceresses discovered. Their memories of his proper self gave them something to move him toward as the Stone in their shared grasp forced the man-wolf through a dozen or so transformations. The Malady seemed to be watching them, shifting to minimize their success but having no place to hide, and eventually being driven down to… nothing.
When he was himself again, the plague-magic broken, the man stared at them in haggard, unshaven horror-and fainted.
Craer caught him by the simple tactic of being under the man as he collapsed. "Well," he snapped, wrestling the man into a sitting position, " 'tis a quieter thanks than some you've received."
Embra gave him a wry smile. "The next wolf we see, we must try this again, to see how we fare without knowing the proper human form we're trying to restore."
Craer rolled his eyes. "Exactly how many wolves am I going to have to cuddle for you?"
"How many fingers have you left to count with?"
Blackgult snorted as he handed Craer back the reins of his horse. "Now that's a waste of time, Embra: trying to trade witticisms with Lord Delnbone. I take it the only way of learning how to fight down the plague is the hard way-and through such battles coming to understand the Serpent-magics of the Malady well enough to break them?"
Embra nodded. "It… changes, each time I contact it. Except…" she frowned, and added slowly, "when the infections have come from the same source. I think. I'm not sure yet, beyond knowing the differences are there and that the Malady seems to alter itself when assailed. So each battle's different, but one learns what to do-the same way armaragors master their weapons, I guess."
Hawkril swung up into his saddle. "You forgot one small but crucial part of achieving weapon mastery that must prevail through all battleblood practice: staying alive."
They rode on, practicing staying alive as they crossed the wooded ridges that kept this part of Glarond little visited by outlander merchants. It was a country of small farms, rolling hills, and unmarked lanes-but now held a wearying harvest of corpses and fearfully skulking Glarondans, though overduke-seeking arrows became fewer.
The five rode even more warily as their trail descended into broader valleys where more prosperous farms sprawled, but not a single cart or traveler did they meet. It was as if the land had been emptied, everyone rushing off downriver to Sirlptar to some festival or other, leaving their farms and shops and smithies to-
Wolves! As Craer and Hawkril, in the lead, rode around a bend where the trail curved between two hills crowned by gnarled everember trees, three panting farmers sprinted across the road-with a man-sized wolf loping hard on their heels!
Its jaws were agape, the hindmost farmer only just ahead of them as he crashed through a blackthorn bush, stumbled on uneven ground, and then staggered on.
Craer sprang from his saddle, right into the wolf's path. The beast blinked at this obliging apparition, shied aside as if to race around it, causing Craer's riderless horse to rear and then bolt, and then whirled in at this new arrival from one side, biting down-onto the procurer's sword, helpfully slammed flat, edge-on, into its jaws. Its strike bowled Craer over, and he rolled over on his shoulders snarling like a wolf himself, putting his boots into the beast's ribs to keep it from pi
His toe-blades made it yelp-and then Hawkril was there, bounding from his own saddle to pounce on the beast. Wrapping an arm around its neck, he shoved aside Craer's sword and used his weight to roll the beast over on its back, putting an ungentle knee into those same ribs-the wolf yelped again-and then ramming his armored forearm between its jaws.
"Forefather!" he yelled in pain, as it bit down hard enough to crush his bracer deep into his skin. "This one's a right monster!"