The Dragon's Doom

9

Impressing Overdukes to Death

Wake up, my lord!"

The voice above the candle was insistent and young. The Tersept of Stornbridge knuckled his eyes and growled, "What is it? Get that flame out of my eyes, man!"

"Get up! The castle's under attack!"

"The-what?

"The overdukes are slaughtering your people, Lord-up and down the passages. They're setting fire to things, too! You're needed-before they bring all Stornbridge Castle down on our heads!"

Lord Stornbridge spat out a heartfelt curse and rolled to a sitting position, running a hand through the matted mess of his hair and recoiling from what he saw in his bedside mirror. A sword-hilt was suddenly thrust between him and his reflection-a familiar sword-hilt. His own.

"Your sword, sir," the servant said unnecessarily.

The tersept looked at it and then peered at the man, eyes narrowing. "Where're Alais and Jhaundra? I don't know you!"

The face of the man holding out the sword to him rippled and changed, and in quite a different-and much colder-voice its owner said, "Oh, but you do."

Stornbridge winced. "Fangbrother Maurivan!"

"The same," the Serpent-priest said coldly. "Now get up, strip down, and stand away from your bed, or this'll hurt even more than it should!"

"What will?"

"Move!"

Stornbridge moved. He'd heard that tone of voice only twice before from Maurivan, and each time, men had died for disobedience, or lack of anticipation, or for being a trifle too slow.

When he was standing shivering in the darkness-for the priest stood between him and the lone, flickering candle-the Fangbrother snapped, "Arms out! Legs apart!"

"What're you-?"

"Silence!"

A moment later, this furious order was joined by the words, "And stand still unless you want to be maimed!"

Frightened now, the tersept managed to keep still, save for some uncontrollable trembling. He managed to continue to do so even when he saw the pieces of his own armor drifting toward him from various dim corners of the room, floating along as if they could fly, and see. Maurivan's magic, of course.

The Serpent-priest stood silently watching as plates clacked and skirled into place, buckles did themselves up, and boots thudded to the floor in an unspoken command, right in front of the tersept's bare feet. He stepped into them, sweating in his armor-and wincing as his movements made metal dig into him here and there. He'd never worn his armor without any of its underpadding before, and it hung loose and awkward on his body. Rattling, pinching-and sharp.

He tried not to let his irritation-and a small, mounting worm of fear-show, as Fangbrother Maurivan held out the sword again, scabbard and all, and his baldric, with its usual four daggers, came flying silently up.

"I'm ready," Lord Stornbridge snapped, putting up his hand to catch his flying helm before it could do something painful to him, trying to get itself down over his head.

"Where-?"

"The Lornsar's Forechamber."

"Ryethrel? You've awakened him, too? Then why couldn't he-?"

"He's dead, that's why. He led a foolish attack on the one they call Hawk, and died with all the others, spattered around the walls of the bedchamber you put that man-mountain in. That bitch he beds keeps her Dwaer ready, and wastes no time in using it."

The tersept opened his mouth to say something, found his mind empty, and settled for clapping down his visor instead, and starting the painful tramp out of his room and down the stairs toward the lornsar's rooms.

He didn't bother to look and see if Maurivan was accompanying him. Stornbridge had no doubt that wherever he went and whatever he did, the priest would be watching. He'd long suspected that the Fangbrother's eyes were always upon him.

That was no more reassuring a thought now than it had ever been.

'Just a little farther," Tshamarra gasped, hauling at Craer with all her strength. He groaned and sagged back down a step. A hard-thrown sword clunked against the paneled wall not far to his left, and the procurer snarled a pain-wracked curse and clawed his way up to join her, as more shouts came from below.

They'd fled down one stair and then back up another, with cortahars in pursuit. Tshamarra had no spells left worth thinking about-she could conjure light, and work a minor illusion to make one face look like another, and that was about it-and Craer was failing fast.

The lower passage, where the two sorceresses had been given rooms, was crawling with dozens of cortahars, armsmen, and chamber knaves who held their weapons awkwardly and looked like they'd rather be in bed several towers distant.

That left two overdukes on the run with rather slender choices. They'd fled back up here, after sending most of the castle men pounding off down the passage in pursuit of a false Craer and Tshamarra spun with the best Talasorn illusion spell she had.

The cortahars waiting outside Hawk's room were still there, and Craer had stopped a swordpoint in his shoulder while killing two of them, to win Tshamarra time to yank open doors enough to find stairs up.

That had sent the two youngest overdukes staggering along in the moonlight and gloom of an unfamiliar upper level, trying to stay ahead of these few but persistent Storn blades-and wondering how painful their fate would be when dawn came and the rest of the castle woke up.

More doors had been opened, a few snoring servants awakened, and this latest stair found. It led farther up still, hopefully to some turret they could barricade themselves in.

Tshamarra no longer much cared. She felt as if fire was raging inside her. Sweat was pouring off her so swiftly now that her boots were filling with it, and its flow had brought numbness, a drowsy lack of caring overmuch about anything, and, under all, a growing anger. A wrath unlike her own sharp and sudden tempers, but dark and hot and deep, rising like an incoming tide. She could taste it at the back of her throat now, and wondered what would become of her when it rose to overwhelm her.

Behind them came a sudden strangled cry, as if someone had suddenly felt a sword slide right up through him, and didn't know what to do. Tshamarra looked back, conjuring light to see by.

That was exactly what had made that sound. A dying cortahar was sliding limply down the steps as Overduke Blackgult, every inch the dark and sardonic Golden Griffon despite being covered in dried blood from boots to throat, withdrew a glistening sword from the man's backside.

Behind Blackgult, Embra stood looking up at her, Dwaer in hand. "You're readily traceable when you use magic," the Lady Silvertree called, "but you move too fast to be easily caught up to."

"Craer's hurt," Tshamarra called back. "Badly."

"We're coining up, lass," Hawkril rumbled, from somewhere below. "Worry not. The Griffon here was gutted like a half-butchered stag when we found him-and he's whole now."

Tshamarra looked down at Blackgult's face, as wet with sweat as her own, and said quietly, "Or not, as that poison may have it."

Blackgult climbed the steps to her. "Embra took care of the poison, but yes, I can see you're suffering the same taint or sickness I am. Some advice: Don't ask her to try and cure you with the Dwaer unless you like feeling like you're being roasted on a spit-on fire inside and out."

"Leaving you as before, when it passes?"

Blackgult nodded. "As you see. Now, let's look at this lad of yours." He bent and sniffed. "Smells cooked."

Tshamarra snorted. "Some comforting elder you are."

"Lass, I leave that to Hawkril and my daughter, who're among the best comforters in the realm. I'm more your grim, bitter old man whose dark rutting past is catching up with him."

"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 grinned unrepentantly up at her.

"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 running to raise the alarm about our whereabouts. If we keep moving, stay out of places where we can be cornered, and lead them a merry dancing tour around their own castle, I'd say we can do fair damage to the ranks of Storn swordsmen before we're done. If you think you see a Serpent-priest, cry it out without delay."

"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.

He groaned once, twisted, and then sighed into senselessness beneath it. The overdukes were already racing on, through the door on the far side of the guardroom and along another passage.

This way, at the narrowing end of Stornbridge Castle, had no half-towers on its courtyard side, and its wall of windows let an ocean of bright silver moonlight into the room. That cold radiance highlighted some frowning portraits of presumably dead former owners of Stornbridge, none of which so much as moved-let alone attacked-as the overdukes ran past.

Then came another door, unguarded this time, and entry into the gate-tower, where voices coming up its two stairwells-which lacked doors of their own, opening directly into the chamber they now crouched in-told the suddenly cautious overdukes that folk were awake and about.

"Look, Chalance," an exasperated voice was saying. "If they try to flee, they have to come to South Tower, Storn Tower, or here. I can't see high-and-mighty overdukes willingly plunging off battlements or bursting through windows to plunge into the moat-nor can I see them getting all the way around the castle to the other gatetower without word coming to us, and every cortahar we have being flung against them, first. So they'll be along, fear you not. Our task is to wait with our bows, keeping quiet and out of sight, firing when we see the chance and only when we see a chance, until the blood price of coming down this stair is so high that they take the other one-into the arms of the priests. We're to try to leave one of the ladies alive but unable to cast spells-break her wrists and fingers, or cut out her tongue, or suchlike. The Champion was most insistent about that."

"My, what a surprise," Embra muttered sarcastically. "He was the one I wanted another long look at, too."

"If I'd been mounting this guard," Tshamarra whispered into Embra's ear, "I'd have put a spying eye up here, so they can see our arrival and which stair we take."

"Serpent-priests have a pet spell that hunts the spying eyes of others, so they think everyone else does the same," Embra breaDied back, falling silent and using the Dwaer to mind-talk. "There'll be an eye somewhere, all right-my bet 'tis above the other side of yon arch, to warn the priests if we use their stair. I don't think they care what happens to the archers-and the archers know it."

"And so?" Craer asked, touching Tshamarra's hand to join the silent discussion.

"River of flame down the archers' stair, all of us scream like we're in agony, and then quick and quiet back out through that door and close it quietly-and wait for them to come to us."

Blackgult shook his head. "Good plan if there weren't dozens of Storn crawling around the castle behind us. I'd say we send a false Dwaer flying down the priest's stair, our own spying eye after it, but give a gout of flame up above the arch first to take out their spying eye. Then Hawk with shield up and Embra behind him down the archer's stair, flame at every turn in it to take out bows before they can fire. Get to the bottom, big rolling fireball, and then back up to join us and we go down the priest's stair after all, knowing how many priests are waiting to hurl doom at us. Keep looking at the ceiling, Hawk and Craer-Serpents love to use a spell that drops biting snakes on heads."

"Ugh. I hate snakes in my hair," Tshamarra announced, in a mind-voice so firm that several of her companions winced.

"Agreed?" Blackgult asked. Their mind-touch flared with accord, and they hastened.

The priests' eye was just where Embra had thought it would be. It vanished in an instant, to the accompaniment of shouts from below-shouts that rose into an excited crescendo when the Dwaer-Stone sailed into view. Spells and hurled weapons surrounded it in a cloud, snarled orders making it clear that at least one Serpent believed an invisible Embra was flying and holding a Stone she couldn't hide with magic-and by then flames were roaring on the other stair, and archers were running up its steps and firing before they had anyone to shoot at and then bounding down and away again, just to avoid the fate of sudden fire rolling over them.

"Behold, tower stairs," Blackgult gasped, after what seemed an eternity of running and slaying later. "Up or down, lads and lasses?"

"Down," Craer growled, hefting blood-drenched daggers.

"Up," Embra panted, "because it gives us more choices of ways on, and because the Serpents will be up high. Priests prefer to be above, looking down, in command. You're a thief, and so think of skulking-"

"Lady Silvertree! 'Procurer,' please!" Craer protested, in mimicry of a scandalized matron. "Agreed: up 'tis."

"Where we'll meet them teeth to teeth," Blackgult said in satisfaction, "and get our first strike at our real foes."

"Conjure a shield first," Tshamarra panted. "One for each of us, to float and flank Hawk's real one. There may be bows ready."

Embra nodded, and they hurried up the stairs with unseen shields shimmering before them.

The uppermost passage was deserted, but the Lady of Jewels urged them on. "If we can get to yonder room first and make ready by its doors, they'll be coming through in haste, thanks to all the fires we've set, and we can-"

The door at the far end of the passage burst open, and armaragors in full battle armor clanked hastily through, swords out. Seven-no, eight-knights, with shields at the ready, forming a neat, practiced-and menacing-wall. Craer whistled and grinned. "A proper fight at last!"

"Embra! Shields high, on edge, and fly them forward," Tshamarra hissed. "We might just be able to break a Serpent-worshipping neck!"

The Lady of Jewels replied with a smile and nod, as Blackgult and Craer hurried to flank Hawkril, and the two groups of armored men hastened to meet each other.

Coming through the door behind the Storn armaragors, as the overdukes had expected, were the Tersept's Champion, in gleamingly magnificent armor, and a haughty-looking man in robes adorned with wriggling serpent designs. Champion Pheldane drew his sword with a flourish and stood guard before the priest, who raised his hands dramatically and began to intone a loud, slow incantation.

"Lady look down, he's trying to impress us to death," Tshamarra murmured. Embra chuckled at that as their unseen shields flashed over Pheldane's shoulders… and struck the priest's throat, edge-on, from two directions at once.

They did not behead the man-quite-but broke his neck in an instant, leaving a gurgling head to loll on suddenly blood-spattered shoulders, ere the corpse toppled headlong.

It struck Pheldane's arm, and he whirled, aghast-at about the same time as Tshamarra snatched the magic of the invisible shields into a new spell, using the Dwaer to send lightning crackling through the Storn armaragors, a step or two before their swords reached the trio of overdukes.

Hawkril and Blackgult sprang back, swearing, but the Lady Talasorn's spell had been precise: their foes were still alive-barely-but quite helpless. To a man, the Storn armaragors crashed to the passage floor and lay there, twitching uncontrollably.

"Safe to proceed?" Craer called. Tshamarra shouted reassurance, and the three overdukes rushed over the stricken knights to confront Pheldane, who licked his lips, backed away, and then turned to flee.

Craer raced past him, eluding a wicked side thrust as he went, and spun in midair to fetch up barring the door with his blade raised. "Is this a Tersept's Champion I see before me?" he taunted. "Or a craven coward?"

Pheldane snarled and hacked at him furiously. He must hew down this little thief before the two armored overdukes reached him, and get out that door!

Craer deflected one mighty blow. The force of the next bent the procurer's parrying blade and drove him to the floor, where he overbalanced onto his back. The glittering point of the Champion's blade drew back to slay.

The procurer beneath it kicked out at the Champion's legs before Pheldane could skewer him. The Champion staggered, roaring in rage, and almost fell on his face atop Craer-but caught the door handle as he toppled forward. Gathering his great strength, he plucked the door open, crashing it hard into Craer's shoulder.

It was Craer's turn to roar, as bones splintered and the door drove him helplessly across the floor. The Champion wasted no time on trying to slay his foe, but trampled the procurer in a frantic rush to get out and away and-

Hawkril Anharu's diving lunge caught Pheldane's elbow, and whirled the man around against the wall with a crash. The Champion staggered, caught his balance, and sprang for the door again-only to find the edge of Blackgult's blade barring his way, at throat height. Recoiling, Pheldane found himself spun around by Hawkril's hand, as the armaragor clambered up from the floor.

Together, the two armored overdukes herded the Champion into a corner, away from the moaning, writhing procurer. It was Hawkril who withstood Pheldane's frantic sword blows with his own sword, while sparks flew and metal belled deafeningly-and it was Hawkril who in the end ducked low and then came lunging back up in the same motion to bury his blade hilt-deep in the gap between the Champion's gleamingly fluted codpiece and the tasset beside it.

Pheldane screamed, fountaining blood and trying to beat Hawkril aside with the hilt and quillons of his sword. The overduke stood firm.

For a moment they stood nose to nose, the one quivering in agony and disbelief, and the other blazing with anger.

"M-mercy," the Champion gasped. "Get me a healer, and chests of gold'll be yours!! -"

"You," Hawkril told him in a voice of doom, "are all that is wrong with Aglirta. Men like you, who kneel to the Serpents and take their coin. I have no use for chests of gold. Die, and so rid this fair realm of one small stain!"

And he twisted his blade, ramming it upward with all his strength as he did so.

Pheldane sobbed in pain and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, making the Sign of the Three with trembling fingers. But no healing stirred within him, nor shining cortahars appeared to deliver him from his foes. It seemed the gods were as hard of hearing as always.