The Dragon's Doom

15

Lessons Grimly Learned

Embra Silvertree shook her head to clear it, the Dwaer round and hard and familiar in her hands, the only reassuring thing in all this blood and battle.

It had been two deserted hamlets and the ashes of one burned cart with gnawed-to-the-bone horses still harnessed to it later when they'd stopped to rest. She'd barely reached some handy bushes for privacy when the attack came.

It was sudden and almost blinding, like bright ruby fire inside her head. She gasped, staggered, and then… somehow… mastered her Stone once more, feeling as winded and bruised as if someone had punched and kicked her repeatedly.

Emerging from the bushes in a sort of weary daze, she watched her fellow overdukes standing by their horses-looking at her expectantly.

'Three Above, when did I become Lord Master of this motley band of heroes?

The Three forebore to answer that silent question, and Embra smiled grimly and told her companions, "Glarondar. As fast as we can. If 'tis at the other end of this road, as it always has been, someone there has a Dwaer, and is using it right now. Probably the same someone who just tried to wrest control of this Stone away from me. And before you ask: I'm fine."

"A Serpent!" Craer snarled, leaping into his saddle.

"Ambelter!" Hawkril growled, swinging himself up onto his horse.

"Phelinndar!" Tshamarra insisted, clawing her way up onto her own mount.

"Anyone in Aglirta," Blackgult suggested with a quiet smile, his battered

armor clanging as he leaned down a hand from horseback to assist his daughter.

The moment Embra was mounted, Craer spurred his horse into a gallop.

"Ho, there!" Hawkril called. "How fast d'you want to stick your fool head into the next Serpent ambush, hey?"

"Might as well be swift, so Embra can slay them the faster and we can get on," Craer called over his shoulder.

"Hear me: Even if we ride these poor beasts until they fall over, 'twill be next morning at the very least before we see Glarondar."

"So we'll steal fresh horses," Craer replied airily. His horse snorted and shied under him, as if in answer to his words-but really to avoid stepping on a dead horse sprawled in the trail, wearing arrows and surrounded by the blood left behind by the scavengers that had torn open its belly and plucked out its eyes. A skull and a few scattered bones beside it bespoke the fate of its rider.

"Well, this one's free for the taking," Hawkril observed. "Hey, Longfingers?"

Craer snarled and dug his boots into the flanks of his weary mount again.

Dwaer-power gripped the Baron of Glarond with viselike fingers.

"Tremblings and protests aren't reassuring to the good folk of Glarondar," Arthroon said firmly. "They much prefer smiles and a show of reverence to the Great Serpent to come. So you, my good and obedient Baron, will give them that."

A sudden surge of pain and a forcible trip to his knees in front of the gently smiling priest reminded the terrified baron that he was utterly under the control of the Dwaer. Now it was forcing him up again, past the ornate window that was displaying nightfall drawing down over Glarondar, to the mirror.

"Smooth out the wrinkles and square the shoulders, there's a good baron," the priest purred, as the magic suddenly let go of Glarond's arms. He gaped at his reflection, and then almost frantically brushed and tugged and smooDied, turning side-on to better judge his appearance.

Lord of the Serpent Belgur Arthroon nodded approvingly, took up his snake-headed staff, and indicated the door. "Open it, bold Baron Glarond, and show your people how devoutly you worship the Serpent."

The baron hastened to obey, as a drum started to beat in the courtyard below.

"Ah, we're just in time for the drinking of the plague-wine," Arthroon observed, prodding baronial shoulders with his fanged staff. "Down to the courtyard, and kneel to the priest serving wine there."

Helplessly, the baron started down the stairs, fixing a smile onto his face before the Dwaer could do it for him. Smiling like a snake, Arthroon followed him down into the rising chants and quickening drumbeats. It sounded as if all Glarondar had come to join in worship-and service-to the Serpent.

All fools, and all doomed. Yet if one was a priest of the Serpent, life was good… and could only get better.

The spears came down to bar his way. "Your name, and business in Flowfoam?"

"Suldun Greatsarn, loyal warrior of the King, reporting back to His Majesty under royal command to do so," growled the grim, exhausted man in mud-smeared and battered armor.

"Whether you are or are not a king's warrior, I very much doubt if he'll see you if you try to enter the inner rooms of the palace dressed like that," the guardcaptain told him coldly.

Suldun lifted an eyebrow-and then took a pace away from the guards, back down the steps. Spears swung around to menace him, so he descended below the guards' reach, and took a horn from his belt.

Its call brought a dozen warriors racing down the steps, swords drawn. The shieldsar who led them glared at the guardcaptain. "What're you doing with a royal horn?" he snapped.

The grim officer waved at the bedraggled and helmless figure down the steps. "Nothing, for I have none. He sounded it."

The shieldsar's head swung around. "And who are you, brig-oh. My pardon, Greatsarn. Come up! Our orders are to take you straight to the King at any hour!"

Suldun bowed his head and mounted the steps past the guardcaptain's frozen face, gently pushing aside spearpoints to do so.

He was very weary, but the shieldsar's guards practically swept him up in their enthusiasm and haste, rushing him through guarded doors, along back passages, and through more guarded doors, until they arrived quite suddenly at an unmarked door guarded by warriors in glittering plate armor, and stopped.

The shieldsar and the officer commanding this doorguard bowed solemnly to each other, and the shieldsar and his men withdrew. The gleaming officer regarded Suldun expressionlessly for a moment, then opened the latch of the door and waved the bedraggled knight through.

The small, narrow room inside had no other doors and rather sparse furnishings, but was afire with the first rays of sunset spilling their gold through two tall, narrow windows onto a manyshields board on the table between King Castlecloaks and the bard Flaeros Delcamper.

As the door closed behind Greatsarn, both looked up, and Raulin smiled, hooked a third chair out from under the table with his boot, and said heartily, "Sit down, Suldun. Your look at the Vale appears to have been less than leisurely. Tell us!"

Greatsarn waved warningly at the bard and the five glittering-armored guards ranged around the walls of the room, but the king just grinned, propped his elbows among the miniature forest of carved, spired manyshields pieces, and commanded, "Speak freely."

Suldun sighed, and said, "Your Majesty, I know of no soft way to say this: Widespread violence, death, and unrest now rule the kingdom."

There was a sudden stillness in the room, but King Castlecloaks merely nodded and gestured for more, so Greatsarn unhappily added, "The Blood Plague seems everywhere, even in Sirlptar-and so are the Serpent-priests, preaching that they can end the plague if the people support them… support them, that is, in slaying you and all your nobles and courtiers. They gather armies, promising immunity from the Malady to all who fight under their banner, and prepare to march on Flowfoam."

"Again," Flaeros sighed. "And who've we left to defend it this time?"

A guard coughed. The bard and the king looked up at the sound, in time to see that guard give them a menacing smile-and drive the point of his sword through the throat of another guard.

That startled victim toppled to the floor, gurgling, and all of the other glittering-armored guards grew smiles, drew steel, and advanced on the three aghast men around the manyshields table.

The guard commander looked at his king over the glittering point of his drawn sword and said almost gently, "Not us, kingless-and soon to be lifeless-fools. We serve the Serpent."

The dawn mists were racing across the fields like hurrying ghosts when the Overdukes of Aglirta rode into Glarondar.

Folk gave them fearful or sidelong glances as their exhausted horses plodded between outlying inns and cottages along what had become a good wagon road some hours back. A stone gate announced the formal edge of the town, and a confused, sleepy crowd of armed men were milling about in its arch.

"Smiles of the Three," Embra murmured, "someone's armed the farmers and shopkeepers. Craer, guard your tongue!"

Hayforks and scythes waved in hands obviously unused to wielding them. Men in smocks and homespun crowded fearfully together with hireswords in motley armor whom most barons would have termed "brigands" at a glance-and all of them shrank before the curt orders of officious men wearing… Serpent-robes!

"Embra," Craer muttered, "I don't think riding right into this waiting wall of Glarondans is a wise-"

A priest shouted an order and pointed at the overdukes. There was a general roar-and a thrum of bowstrings. Blackgult flung out his shield in front of Embra's horse, which promptly reared-as a handful of shafts banged against armor and shields and glanced away.

"Good," Craer said, wheeling his mount, "they're terrible archers. Let's get out of here before-"

Blackgult erupted in a roar and spurred his mount forward, flinging away his shield to stand tall in his stirrups and swing his sword with both hands in great wild slashes of the air.

"Gods, he's gone witless!" the procurer yelped-in the instant before he fell silent in horror and gaped at Tshamarra.

The Lady Talasorn was also upright in her saddle. Unlike Blackgult, she was arched over backwards, and an arrow stood out of her breast-or rather, a serpent as rigid as an arrow. As Embra and Hawkril both snapped curses, she reeled and fell back over the high cantel at the rear of her saddle. Craer screamed and spurred toward her.

Embra got there first. Hooking an arm around Tshamarra to keep her from falling off her horse, she lifted her Dwaer and blasted the serpent-arrow to smoke. The frantic procurer saw its head vanish down to tumbling fangs, which fell from Tshamarra's breast as he reached for her.

"Hawk! Get my father!" the Lady Silvertree shouted, eyes like flames-and something roared out of the Stone that swept the town gate clear of men, Serpent-robed or otherwise. They were flung against nearby buildings moments before the raving Golden Griffon would have ridden straight into their leveled forks and spears, and the brief, wet chorus of their thudding landings was thunderous and sickening.

Ezendor Blackgult crowed in triumph and flourished his blade, while Hawkril rode hard at him from behind. There was a wet gash on the Golden Griffon's face, purple-edged around his welling blood… Graul, a serpent-arrow must have sliced into him!

Embra mastered her anger long enough to spray lightnings at bows and faces she could see behind them, on balconies of the tall houses of Glarondar just inside the gate, and then turned her attention to Tshamarra and the gabbling Craer.

The Lady Talasorn's face was purple, and there was froth in her mouth. Craer screamed something wild and wordless at Embra, and she snapped, "Keep her in her saddle and keep her breathing-don't let her choke on that, but don't let her bite you! Get going back the way we came!"

Embra almost tossed Tshamarra to the procurer, who made a startled, strangled sound as his stricken lady ended up draped over his head, and turned her attention back to Hawkril and her father.

The armaragor had just clapped a hand onto Blackgult's elbow and spun him around, which brought his sword slicing over Hawkril's head. Hawkril caught hold of it and punched Blackgult hard in his armored gut, forcing the older man to let go his blade and try to be sick, all down the armorplates he was beginning to shed.

The Griffon snarled, or tried to, as Hawkril wresded their mounts around in a wide turn and got them headed back toward Embra. Blackgult went on roaring and ineffectually beating Hawkril's arm with his fists, but the armaragor caught hold of the baldric-strap that crossed Blackgult's breast under now-missing armorplates, and hauled him onward by main strength.

Embra frowned, reached out with the Dwaer, and put her father to sleep.

He slumped onto Hawkril's arm, and as the two armored men galloped on, the armaragor looked up at Embra to reassure himself that she was the cause of Blackgult's collapse. "What now, Em?"

"I believe 'tis called 'retreat in haste,' " the Lady of Jewels replied, pointing at the dwindling horses of Craer and Tshamarra. "Catch them up as fast as you can, and get them stopped. I must heal Tash very swiftly, or we'll lose her."

The armaragor nodded and spurred past, growling, "Why exactly were we in such a hurry to get here?"

Embra sighed and urged her mount after him, spinning a Dwaer-shield against arrows for herself. "Why, indeed?"

"Turn right, along that lane!" the Lady Silvertree shouted, seeing a farm track branch off into the trees of a large woodlot. "Turn-"

Of course they couldn't hear her. She used the Dwaer to snap the same command into all their ears-and saw the heads of both Tshamarra and her father lift groggily in response. They turned, and she Dwaer-twisted her shield into a great cloud of mist to hide where they'd gone from anyone following, after risking a brief glance over her shoulder. A few horses were just emerging from the gate, bared steel glittering on their riders…

"A leisurely overduchal grand promenade down the Vale, to be sure," she murmured bitterly, heading down the lane.

It sprouted smaller side trails as it wound through the trees, a small creek meandering to the right and farms to the left. Down the second trail-Embra used the Dwaer to give directions again-was a larger wood. If a lane entered it, there must be at least a woodcutter's clearing they could use. She told Craer to stop when he found one that didn't have dogs and hostile folk in it, and get Tshamarra down to the ground and lying quiet there, as quick as he could.

A few moments of hard riding later she saw a dim glade, an open place where trees met overhead. Craer and Hawkril were wrestling saddlebags off horses therein like madmen, and then shouting and slapping each beast in turn to make it gallop on and away.

They caught at the head of her own horse as she hauled hard on the reins to bring it to a halt, almost making it sit right back and fall over in its weariness.

"Down, my lady!" Hawkril cried, snatching her down into his arms.

Embra clutched the Dwaer. "Careful!"

"Oho!" he rumbled. "Hear that, Craer? She wants us to start being careful now! At last!"

"Too bebolten late," the procurer hissed, his face white with anger and worry. "She's dying, Em! Do something!"

The Lady of Jewels ran forward into the green gloom. Blackgult sat muttering on the ground beside a small, still form lying on a heap of wood shavings that stretched to several woodpiles beyond. Tshamarra's breathing was a wet, liquid sound, and her eyes were clouded over and milk-white.

Embra swallowed. "I'll try," was all she could think of to say, as she lifted the Dwaer.

Belgur Arthroon looked up suddenly from his leisurely morning feast, his head arrowing forward like that of a snake. The Baron of Glarond managed-just-not to shiver at the sight.

"A Dwaer!" the Lord of the Serpent snapped, eyes afire. "Very near!"

He rose in such haste that most of the table's contents spilled onto the floor, but he spared them not a glance as he pointed at the most capable hireswords the Church of the Serpent had been able to find, hereabouts, and the most dangerous of his underpriests, too-even Fangbrother Khavan, a dog too terrified to be disloyal. "Come!" he ordered them all. "There's something we must seize."

"Uh, Scaled Master?" Khavan stammered. "T-the baron?"

"Stay with him," Arthroon snapped, "and obey him, for his orders will be my own!" He lifted his Dwaer meaningfully and then hurried out, the men he'd beckoned clumping and clattering after him.

As they reached the hall below, he made his first silent urging with the Dwaer, causing the baron to turn to Khavan and say, "I've named Lord Arthroon my successor here in Glarond, should anything happen to me. He's ordered me to tell you to punish me freely, if I disobey you in the smallest way. Of course, if you act against his wishes, I'll order you slain in his name."

The Fangbrother looked surprised, and Arthroon watched him through the baron's eyes long enough to hear him say, "Well, then, Glarond, serve me that roast from the table-and then get down on your belly like a rat and eat up every bit of food that's fallen to the floor. You are forbidden to use your hands when doing so."

"Yes, Lord," the baron gasped, whirling toward the roast.

Arthroon shook his head, smiled, and left them to it. By then, his swift strides had carried him to where men were scrambling to ready a horse.

"Leave it, and come," he ordered. "We'll walk-'twon't be far. Out yon gate. Priests of the Serpent, form a ring around me, warriors to the outside."

When they were walking swiftly together, a storm of robes and armored men that split the gaping Glarondans like a bared blade as it streamed toward the gate, he snapped, "Heed, men of the Serpent! Stint not in use of your spells in the fray to come. We must surround our foe, and hurl all the batde-magic we have, upon my signal! No spell is too deadly, and-if you'd like to live to see it-nothing need be saved for the morrow!"

"Lie easy, Tash," Embra murmured, frowning over the glowing Dwaer. Beneath it, Tshamarra's bared breast rose and fell, the venom rising out of the gashes made by the serpent-arrow's fangs, bubbling forth dark and glistening. "Easy, now…"

"I-" Tshamarra gasped, eyes still clouded and unseeing. "I'm on fire!"

A sudden convulsion made her jerk and thrash her limbs, and from where he was standing bending over them both Craer burst out, "Embra, can't you do something?"

"Yes" Embra told him crisply, "and so can you. Get out of here and stand guard against the Glarondans you know are coming after us, and leave me alone to do what I have to do. This isn't easy, you know: I have to understand how the venom works to learn how to drive it out, and then banish what it's done. If I just attack the poison, I'm using the Dwaer only as searing fire-against Tash's blood, and inside her body!"

"Come," Hawkril rumbled firmly, taking his friend by the shoulder. "You go stand guard that way, along that track, and I'll go yonder, where the lane curves by those trees."

The procurer nodded reluctantly, then bent down quickly and kissed Embra's shoulder. "Thank you, Em," he whispered, and was gone.

Embra shook her head, smiled-and then pounced on Tshamarra as the Lady Talasorn convulsed again, moaning and jerking her limbs violently.

Wrestling with the smaller woman, Embra lost her smile swiftly. The Blood Plague and the venom were at war with each other inside Tash, and Dwaer or no Dwaer, Embra hadn't the barest beginnings of any idea how to stop the damage both were doing.

She plucked up the edge of Tash's undone leather bodice and thrust it between the teeth of the Talasorn sorceress to keep her from biting her own tongue. More venom bubbled forth.

Ever so carefully, with the point of her belt-knife, Embra made a small cut on her own forearm, let her blood drip onto the largest wood chip within reach, and then used another sliver of wood to transfer some of the venom from Tshamarra to her blood. As they swirled together with the faintest puff of vapor, she slapped her hand down on her Dwaer, cast a quick glance around to make sure no woodcutter or lurking Serpent-priest was approaching, and then worked a spell that took her down, down…

… into the hot red pool where the venom was spreading, curling out like smoke into the ruby sea from the first oily ropes of its arrival. Thus the poison changed the blood, and so it spread, changing this, and that…

But how was the plague changing both blood and venom? Surfacing from her magic into the relative brightness of the glade and blinking around again to make sure no peril approached, Embra took Tshamarra's own knife, made a similar cut on Tash's arm, used another wood chip to add this new blood to the mix, and went down into the tiny ruby sea again to watch.

Ruby sea and sky, all one, and this purple, heavy hue must be the plague-or rather, what plague did to blood, for around it the rest of Embra's blood was turning the same hue, crumbling into the spreading darkness with silent, frightening speed…

With the Dwaer she risked trying to twist the blood-mix, thus-and did something that made the wood chip shudder. Hastily she stopped, and instead strove to fight the darkness by changing it to match some of the blood it hadn't reached yet. The darkness thinned and shrank, and triumphantly she repeated the process, eating away at the still-spreading purple gloom again and again until it was reduced to a tiny mote. No matter how she tried to alter that mote, it remained, spreading forth again and again-until at last, in rising anger, she burned it with a tiny burst of Dwaer-fire… and it vanished, leaving only untainted blood behind. Venom and plague were both gone.

She'd done it!

Embra sat back on her heels and snarled wordless triumph at the leaves high overhead. Then she leaned forward to use the Dwaer on her friend-and was startled to see a tiny wisp of flame escaping from Tshamarra's lips, blackening the leather as it hissed past.

Frantically Embra called up the power of the Dwaer and dove "into" Tash, shaking her head. "Sarasper was the healer," she muttered. "I'm more like a chambermaid who only knows where to hurl buckets of water to clean by crude rinsing, and naught else."

There was no one there to hear her but the silent Tshamarra and her father, who'd come awake with the banishing of the plague from the sorceress. He looked sharply up at Embra with eyes that seemed to see nothing, and announced, "Much cleansing is needed before the Vale can be what it was. If the Vale can ever be what it was."

"You," Ingryl Ambelter told Maelra with a smile, "are going to Flowfoam for us." The Spellmaster swayed slightly as Dwaer-magic crackled in the air around him. The melt-faced men leaned forward, as if lured by it.

"I need you to fetch me some bones from there," Ambelter explained sweetly, as if to an idiot child, "and bring them back here. Oh, and kill the King while doing so, and carry his crown back to us, too."

"Some bones?" Baron Phelinndar frowned. "What magic're they for?"

"A traditional weaving," Ambelter replied soothingly. "Part of being Spellmaster. The crown, my dear Baron, is for you.

He turned back to Maelra. "Well, my dear? 'Twill be dangerous, but we'll both be with you, via spells, to guide and warn; you needn't be frightened."

Though she knew his reassurances must be false, Maelra's heart leaped with excitement. "When do I start?" she asked eagerly-and saw Phelinndar's eyes narrow.

Ambelter's excitement, however, matched her own. Nodding in satisfaction, he strode forward, put a hand to the bodice of her gown, and tore it down and away from her in one great wrench.

She looked at him with her great dark eyes, trying to read what lay behind his own fierce gaze. His eyes were on hers, not on her bared body. Hurriedly she slipped her arms out of the rag that remained, to stand before him nude but for her boots.

He was not standing and surveying her-though the baron was-but was already whirling away from her to snatch and tug plates of armor from one of the melted-faced men.

Turning back to Maelra with a battered and stained shoulder-archplate in his hands, he regarded her slender hips coolly, nodded, and held it out to her, to put on.

With a rustling of leaves, Craer Delnbone thumped down into the clearing, fresh blood glistening on his sword. He waved at Embra and called cheerfully, "Visitors! See?"

When Embra looked up, he waved his bloody sword and ran back into the trees, heading back to his tree-limb perch to await the arrival of the next hurrying Serpent-band.

"Back to the merry slaughter once more," he murmured, wiping his sword on the moss of the nearest tree trunk.

Embra watched the procurer go, her lips growing thin, and then turned and snapped, "Father!"

Her father was plague-addled; the arrow's venom was working on him differently than on Tash. Thank the Three-that was why he was still alive.

When her call garnered no reaction, she raised her voice and hailed him as Blackgult, and then as the Golden Griffon.

He turned his head. "Yes, my page?"

"Here, Father," she commanded briskly. "Help me carry this lady fair-who's delicate, and in some distress-around behind yon woodpile."

"But of course," he replied swiftly, rising to help. "I hope I had no part in bringing her to her present, ah, state?"

Embra sighed. "No, not really. No more so than the rest of Aglirta."