The Dragon's Doom

16

Serving the Serpent Well

T he Dwaer spun faster, singing and soaring almost a foot higher-and as if in answer, Tshamarra Talasorn arched and twisted under Embra's ringers, rising right off the ground.

Embra drew back from the floating, quivering figure, and frowned. "There's something…," she murmured aloud, eyes narrowing as she stared at the younger sorceress.

Suddenly quite another something struck Embra hard on the shoulder, driving her to the ground, chin-first.

It was the boot of a warrior, who'd leaped from atop the woodpile behind her to snatch the Dwaer out of midair. Clutching the Stone, he rolled away and up to his feet, whirling around with a grin of triumph-and as Embra scrambled to her knees, fingers moving to shape a spell that would have to be fast, other armored men came rushing around both sides of the woodpile with drawn swords.

Where were Hawk and Craer?

She let her hands fall again as the warriors formed a blade-bristling wall facing her. In unison they took a slow stride forward, faces bleak.

"Embra Silvertree," the warrior hefting the Dwaer said silkily, "your father once tortured me. I'm going to enjoy this."

Embra crouched protectively over Tshamarra. The eyes of the Talasorn sorceress were still closed, but her arms and legs had started to writhe again, slowly and fitfully, as she settled a little closer to the ground. If she'd still held the Stone, Embra would have been trying to work gentle healing on her.

At that grim thought, the Lady Silvertree turned her head to seek her father. Blackgult sat huddled nearby, rocking slightly in seeming oblivious-ness.

A sudden blaze of Dwaer-light brought her gaze back to-the Stone, glowing brightly in the warrior's hand as he paced menacingly forward, his eyes glittering…

"You gave her enchanted armor?" Phelinndar's roar echoed around the chamber. "Why?"

The Spellmaster of Aglirta quirked an eyebrow. "Enchanted, my dear Baron?"

The nobleman's sword sang out so fast that even Ingryl Ambelter flinched. "Ambelter, I may not be a mage, but I'm not a. fool. Kindly remember that," Phelinndar snarled. "You give the wench armor twice her size and it fits her perfectly, then it glows when you use the Stone to send her-what does that tell any dolt with eyes, twice? 'Tis magical!" The baron rammed his blade back into its scabbard with an angry clank and barked, "So answer my question!"

Ingryl Ambelter drew a deep breath, hefted his Dwaer, and said smugly, "The spells on it prevent anyone from successfully tracing her to us… whereas I can trace it."

He strode across the chamber with his usual air of amused superiority. "Now, my increasingly angry Baron, you're right to be unamused about all of my boldnesses, so let's sit down and discuss what I've done and why, and what we'll do next. I must introduce you to the Sword of Spells."

"A sword? Something I can wield?" Phelinndar asked eagerly, despite himself.

The Spellmaster shook his head. "Not an actual blade, but rather a series of interwoven spells."

The baron did not trouble to hide his disgust, but Ambelter only smiled thinly and said, "You know magic is the key to power these days, Phelinndar-or you should, by now."

"Oh, I know it," the baron snarled, "but nothing's going to make me like it."

"Let her down," the warrior ordered curtly, "or-" Warningly he lifted the Dwaer in one hand and his sword in the other.

Embra looked at him, and then back at Tshamarra. Did he really not know…?

"I-I'll have to undo my spell," she said, trying to sound frightened, and discovering that she really was.

Without a Dwaer-Stone, Embra Silvertree was just one unarmored woman confronting thirty-odd angry warriors. She swallowed, and found herself trembling.

He smirked and took another step forward, tossing and cupping the Dwaer like a child playing catch-stone. "You're nothing without this, are you?"

"True," she whispered, from her knees, and he took another step forward. A bare three strides separated them now, but he'd brought his sword down to point at her. He wasn't going to blunder any closer, in case the touch of a sorceress bore any nasty little perils…

"S-so, should I-?" Embra asked, nodding her head at Tshamarra, who was moaning and writhing, as if about to awaken… writhing on empty air about a handwidth clear of the ground. One of the warriors muttered something to another, and there were grins.

"Keep your hands still!" the warrior snapped, and she froze, eyes fixed on his, clinging to the faint hope that Tshamarra's rousing would alarm him.

It did. "She's waking up, isn't she?"

"Yes," Embra told him anxiously, "and I don't know what she'll do. She went mad, and she's too powerful for me to control, even with the Stone. Her family rules Arlund with sorcery."

"And if you undo your spell?"

"She'll sleep again," Embra lied, keeping her hands very still. The warrior locked eyes with her.

Tshamarra wriDied more strongly.

"Do it," he snarled, and Embra nodded, reached out for Tshamarra, and carefully cast a spell that took but two gestures and a very short murmured incantation. It was one of the few she had magic enough left to power… O, Three aid me, let this one have no feel at all for using a Dwaer!

She felt the faint creeping sensation of the spell starting to take effect, and launched herself up and over Tshamarra in a single bound, landing and springing again before the watching warriors could do more than shout. Her magic snatched at the warrior's sword, plucking it to one side as if tugged by a gale-and for the scant seconds she needed, he did as any warrior would: he held onto it, fighting fiercely to keep possession of his weapon.

That left his arm pulled across his body and his side turned toward her, as she landed right at his boots-and embraced him.

Time slowed to a thunderous heartbeat. Between one clap and the next,

Embra called on the Dwaer. The moment she touched him, an unsorcerous man with no power to use the Stone to resist her, she could feel its power, reach its power, seize its power!

With a shout that echoed in every head around the woodpiles louder than in her own she made the Dwaer fling away metal in all directions, repelling it from herself… or rather, from their locked bodies, she and this warrior who hated her so much for something done to him by a dead man most of Aglirta believed to be her father.

Blackgult was hurled away like some sort of armored ball, bouncing with clangorous crashes toward the line of warriors-who were themselves flung back to crash into trees and crumple, blades whirling from numbed fingers to flash away deep into treegloom.

Embra opened her fingers, and the Dwaer flew into them. Then she stepped back from the warrior, lifting him into the air to float frozen in front of her. Only his eyes could still move, and they darted this way and that in wild terror before staring helplessly at her.

"You," Embra told him softly, sounding far more menacing than she felt, "shall be my shield."

As if her words had been a signal, the air was suddenly full of large, dark arrows, stabbing at her in a hail-snake-arrows!

Gaping fangs first, the enchanted-rigid serpents came hissing at her from three sides, and the sorceress had no choice but to use her living shield to drive aside many of them, running right behind it so the snakes aimed at her unprotected flank would also miss.

Serpent-priests were running out of the trees now, on all sides of her but the woodpile. Embra called on the Dwaer, seeking to fell them all by flinging broken hiresword bodies at their ankles, but something met the force of her Dwaer-thrust, blunted it, and forced it to a halt everywhere on her right.

Behind her, some priests had fallen, and others were fighting for balance or crouching to hurl spells before they dared advance farther. Embra spared them no more attention-not when she had eleven, no, twelve Serpent-priests giving her various cold grins as they strode toward her, defying her Dwaer with… what could only be the power of another Dwaer!

Somewhere nearby, probably in the trees just behind these smiling Brothers of the Serpent, someone was using another Stone…

She must find out who, and get it, and to do that she had to avoid being slain by these oh-so-enthusiastic Serpents. They were lifting their hands to shape spells even now, or brandishing cruel fang-knives, their eyes all fixed on Embra Silver tree.

So she gave them flame, the easiest thing to call forth from a Dwaer: a wall of roaring, streaming fire that hid those laughing men from her and set the branches of trees overhead crackling. Biting her lip, Embra lowered her wall and thrust it hard away from her, hoping to trap men within it.

Screams told her she'd succeeded, but there weren't as many cries as she'd hoped. Either they were swift-footed indeed, or the wielder of the rival Dwaer was-

Yes! Her flames parted and rolled back like curtains, letting cold laughter through. It was coming from a man standing behind the no-longer-grinning priests-and so was the telltale glow of awakened Dwaer-power.

"So death comes for you at last, Embra Silvertree," the richly robed Lord of the Serpent drawled, the power of the Stone glimmering in his hand carrying his lazy voice clearly to all ears through the snarling flames and the cries of the wounded. "The doom you so richly deserve, and have cheated for so long, visited rightfully on you at last in the divine name of the Great Serpent. I am the instrument of that doom, and I am-Belgur Arthroon, Lord of the Serpent!"

"Your pomposity," Embra muttered, as she lifted her Dwaer with hands that became flaming claws, "almost matches that of Ingryl Ambelter. Almost."

And flames streamed from her fingers, tugging at her own wall of fire, lifting it… lifting… until the smoldering priests and warriors coughed and staggered free of fire, the flames shimmering above them like a bed-canopy, a billowing carpet of fire that suddenly-fell, full upon their heads in a wash of bright-flowing flames!

Through the fresh screams and thrashings, the Lord of the Serpent snarled something, whirled his Dwaer around his head as if it was a hurl-hammer-and the air throbbed, there was a blinding flash of white light, and something rolled out in all directions, a great rush of power that broke over Embra, leaving her tingling and breathless, and raced on through the woods, moaning with a strange fury that disturbed not a single leaf.

Armor flickered and pulsed wildly among the men facing her, and Embra felt her Stone tremble in her hand, its own flashes mirroring the dying spell-glows. Her flames were gone, banished with all magic in that great outpouring of Dwaer-power, but most of the Serpent-priests and warriors stood in shuddering silence, seemingly dazed.

Across that unnatural hush, Embra heard Belgur Arthroon's shout of triumph die away uncertainly as he stared at the dull Stone in his grasp. Had he destroyed it? Or drained all its power for a time?

The dead warrior floating in front of Embra thumped to the ground, the rigid serpent-arrows crumbling to ash as he fell. He crashed down atop

Tshamarra-who awakened from her spell-slumber in a snarling whirlwind of biting and kicking as she rolled onto the dead man, clawing with her hands for a strangling grip on his throat.

"Easy, Tash!" Embra hissed. "He's dead! Dead of snake-venom!"

The Talasorn sorceress stared up at her, rage ebbing in those dark eyes. Then she turned her head to look where Embra was staring: across the body-strewn, much-trampled glade at the Lord of the Serpent.

Belgur Arthroon was spitting curses at the Dwaer-Stone in his hands, and it was spitting tiny lightnings right back at him-but little else. Shaking his head, he let it fall at his feet, glared at the Lady Silvertree, and raised both hands to cast a spell at her.

"He ruined a Dwaer-Stone?" Tshamarra gasped. "Is that possible?"

Embra shook her head. "No. He misused it foolishly, breaking all magics within reach." She raised her own Dwaer, and a soft light kindled in it. "Which leaves me free to…"

She fell silent, and Tshamarra turned again to see what Embra was gazing at. Arthroon's hands were lifted to cup and hold the glow of his gathering magic, and his eyes were alight with triumph as he chanted the last few words of an incantation both women recognized. It would bring into being a sphere of raging lightnings… a sphere he'd doubtless hurl at them both.

Something else was rising behind the Lord of the Serpent, something darker and taller, gleaming in the gathering spell-glow. A figure in armor… Ezendor Blackgult, awakened from his mind-slumber. As he rose, the Golden Griffon swept his sword up in a thrust that began at his knees, and sliced the air upward with the full weight of his swordarm behind it.

The point of that blade burst through Belgur Arthroon's neck from behind and slid out of the priest's mouth like a long, rigid, bloody tongue.

The stricken Serpent-lord stared wide-eyed at Embra, choking on the last words of his incantation. His spell collapsed into fading fires that splashed into his palms and then flowed down to lick the ground and the away entirely. Blackgult pulled back his blade to thrust again, but the Lord of the Serpent said nothing more as he sank to the waiting loam in a last, reluctant kneeling.

Embra slashed out with her Dwaer, sending thin bolts stabbing like lances into warriors who were beginning their own charges toward Blackgult. Her father grinned, waved at her, and whirled to hack down the next priest.

Embra turned to face where she knew none but Serpents stood, and blasted that clump of men, hurling them back into the trees. Then she turned swiftly to make sure no one was coming up behind her, kept turning when she saw no foe until she came around to face the Serpent-men on the far right-and blasted them, too.

Her Dwaer flickered in the wake of that magic, its radiance visibly fading. Tash gasped at the sight. Embra gave her a grim look. "We'd best get that second Stone," she snapped, and the Lady Talasorn nodded and set off across the clearing.

In the heart of a fray of hacking, snarling men, Blackgult was slaying his third priest. Something rolled under a boot, and Tshamarra darted at it with a wordless cry.

Embra nodded. That was the Dwaer, dull and dark, and… that was a priest, fallen in the thrusting and jostling, reaching for it!

She raised her own Stone to give those reaching fingers a desperate blast-and something like a silver fang flashed down out of the leaves overhead to quiver deep in sundered flesh, pinning the screaming priest's hand to a root.

"That's my Longfingers!" Tshamarra shouted delightedly, running hard with Embra right behind her. Another priest abandoned attempts to weave a spell through the warriors jostling to get at Blackgult, and dived to snatch at the fallen Stone-and Craer swung down from a bough, kicking aside a priest's head to get a clear view, and threw a second dagger that flashed down under the fallen Dwaer just as the priest's hands were about to close on it-and sent the Stone bounding right past Tshamarra's elbow to where… Embra could snatch it up.

A blinding flash rocked the clearing, and two balls of lightning sprang away from each other, one of them trailing Embra and her scream of pain. Those lightnings faded in her hands as she crashed to earth, to become her Dwaer… and the others dwindled back into Arthroon's fallen Stone and crashed at the feet of a Serpent hiresword.

That warrior bent to catch it up-and Blackgult thrust his sword past the man he was fighting, into the hiresword's backside.

With a startled groan the warrior fell forward-and was almost beheaded by Hawkril as the armaragor burst out of the fray, sweeping aside Serpent-sworn bodies with his busy blade. He raced toward Embra, roaring her name.

Tshamarra whirled to follow him, as Craer bounded past her with an affectionate slap, to bury a dagger hilt-deep in the back of the warrior fighting Blackgult. That man collapsed with a soundless cry, and Blackgult burst over him and got a hand on the errant Stone.

Both Dwaerindim flared into blinding brightness again, though the one clutched to Embra's breast did so only momentarily, as Hawkril cursed helplessly above her, and Tshamarra looked wildly from one Stone to another.

The one between Blackgult's ringers spun momentarily into the air, spitting lightnings that hurled the Golden Griffon and at least two hitherto-eager priests away, and swept Craer off his feet, tumbling him over the body of the warrior he'd just slain.

As the Stone fell, another Serpent-warrior blundered forward and scooped it up-only to snatch his hand back and let it fall, roaring in pain. Craer daggered him from behind, and he fell on his face beside the Stone. It flickered on the trodden ground like a baleful eye, untouched by anyone, as a wounded hiresword rose up behind Hawkril, blade in hand-and Tshamarra flung herself at the back of the man's knees, stabbing with her dagger.

He fell, shouting, and twisted around to slash at her. She parried that blade desperately, teeth clenched, and then stabbed him again, in the face this time. Again, and then again, until she rose grimly, panting and bloody-handed, from a hiresword who'd slay for the Serpent no more.

She was tottering to her feet in a strange quiet. Beneath Hawkril's guard, Embra was dazedly moaning her way back to consciousness, her Dwaer flickering on her breast. Blackgult was slowly moving around the glade, stabbing wounded men, and Craer was racing about doing the same thing. Tshamarra had the impression that many men had fled into the deep woods; as she peered around, half-afraid she'd end up staring into the eyes of some archer or triumphant priest finishing a spell, Craer came toward her, dragging a priest by means of a strangling cord around the man's throat. There was a bloody dagger in the procurer's hand, more blood all down one side of his face, and a fierce grin beneath it.

"Over here," he snarled, hauling hard at the feebly struggling Serpent-priest. The man looked hurt, and almost fell as Craer tugged him forward. The Serpent halted, swaying, in front of Arthroon's fallen stone. "Take it up!" the procurer snapped.

"Craer!" Tshamarra gasped, "what are-?"

With desperate speed the priest snatched up the Stone-and as he roared in pain and the Stone flared, Craer stabbed the man and then rushed the staggering, dying body over to the woodcutter's chopping block.

"Hawk!" the procurer cried, holding the priest's sagging arm across the block. Hawkril took three swift strides and brought his warsword down.

Still clutching the Dwaer, a severed hand bounced into the leaves underfoot. Craer picked up the gory appendage and flourished it triumphantly. "I've always said you'd need a hand in life, sooner or later!"

"Craer!" Embra's protest was weak, but no less disgusted.

"Aye, I know not which is worse," Hawkril rumbled. "The man's deeds, or his jests."

"Put it away," Embra commanded, "but keep it safe. Some trap has been laid on it, to let only that dead Serpent-lord wield it. 'Tis something I can no doubt break with my Dwaer, but I'll need time to study how."

"Perhaps," Blackgult offered, joining them, " 'tis blood-consecrated to folk who have Serpent-venom in their veins."

Tshamarra displayed a bloody hand to her fellow overdukes, and tried to smile. "That would be me. That warrior cut me."

Embra gave her a look. "Tash, I'm not sure trying to touch it now would be a good idea. You need Dwaer-healing again, before that venom… which reminds me: Father, should I be healing you in all the haste I can manage, before you fall over dead?"

The Golden Griffon shook his head. "When that Serpent-lord broke his spells, the plague left me. He must have been the source of the spell on the serpent-arrow that struck me. When I cut him down, my mind cleared, too."

The Lady Silvertree stared at him. "So if we slay a plague source, we cure all the creatures it's infected, too!"

"Perhaps," her father agreed. "Or perhaps not, if they've been forced into beast-shape already." He gave her a mirthless smile. "We'll just have to see."

"Hey, now," Craer said with a frown. " You have a Dwaer, Em, and sorcery of your own to overmatch half the Vale. Tash has mighty magic, too; what if she could wield a Stone, too? We'd be…" He broke off as Embra spread her hands in a silent gesture of acceptance.

Tshamarra came to him a little unsteadily. Silently Craer held out the severed hand, and she reached down for it with slow care, not touching the dead, dripping flesh that until recently had been part of a priest of the Serpent.

As her fingers closed gingerly on the Dwaer, there was a flash, a snarl of lightnings lashing forth from the Stone amid a spitting of sparks-and the blur of the Lady Talasorn being flung across the glade.

She crashed headlong into the armored form of Hawkril, who bent hastily to cradle her and so keep her neck from breaking, but found himself plucked from his feet and hurled into a tree.

"Hawk!" Embra shouted, wobbling her way to her own feet and rushing to him. Craer was right behind her; as he ran, he tore a cloak from the shoulders of a body and whipped it around the severed hand holding the Serpent-Dwaer, forming an improvised sack.

"Hawk?" the Lady Silvertree gasped, going to her knees beside the two tumbled bodies. The armaragor opened his eyes, winced, and then groaned. "No doubt I'll live," he said slowly, moving a shoulder slowly and wincing again, "but…"

"Lie down again," Embra commanded, and turned to Craer. "Take Tash off him. Gently, to let her lie right here."

"You'll be healing?" the procurer asked unnecessarily, as Embra's Dwaer rolled up into the air, glowing, and it started to sing.

"I trust," Embra replied, not looking up as the glow grew and the keening song of the Stone rose, "you'll put the other Stone safely in a saddlebag or suchlike, and keep it well away from me for this next little while."

Craer nodded, and trotted across the glade to do just that. A flitting movement caught his eye as he went, and he stopped above the saddlebag and looked back at the boughs where it had been with apparent casualness. When he was finished stowing and buckling, he brought the saddlebag most of the way back to Embra, set it down, and went to her.

"Lady Silvertree," he murmured in her ear, as he reached down to take Tshamarra's hand, "at least six bats are watching us, from two trees back behind me. Just above the crooked bough with the two dead side branches."

Embra nodded. "I know what that means, yes." She whirled suddenly, the Dwaer flashing-and lightning tore through the leaves of the crooked bough. Two sizzling, squeaking black forms fell to earth, rocked, and lay still, and the others raced away through the woods, swooping and darting. Embra sent one more bolt after them, but although leaves in plenty flared up and crackled to ash, no more bats fell. Four at least had gotten away.

"Is our Master of Bats out and free, do you drink?" Craer asked gravely.

Embra lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "It scarcely matters whether he's still chained to that cell wall or not. He's free to spy and work magic afar, and that brings us the same danger."

Craer nodded. "And Tash?" He risked another glance down at the still, pale form in front of him. The fingers in his felt like ice.

Embra smiled. "She'll be fine, and Hawk too. They'll awaken in a moment."

"I," the armaragor announced heavily, "am awake now. And viewing the prospect of fighting our way through every last house and back alley of

Serpent-ruled Glarond with increasing lack of endiusiasm. Craer and I must have slain over a score of men each, fighting our way back to you here."

"Given this sudden surfeit of bats," Blackgult agreed, joining them with a dark, smoking bat corpse in his palm, "I agree. 'Tis time to talk to the Master of Bats again. Even if he's fled Flowfoam, we must confer with Raulin about the Serpent-spawned unrest and whelming to arms, up and down Aglirta-and then perhaps take our King into hiding for his own safety."

Hawkril frowned. "Where?"

"Well, there're always the ruins of Indraevyn," Craer said wryly. "Or a certain Silent House."

King Castlecloaks hauled hard on a cord that rang a servants' bell, but the advancing guards only sneered.

"You really think some bearer of wine trays can smite us down?" one asked mockingly. "Before your bodies lie butchered here? 'Tis time to die, Your Majesty!"

Raulin and Flaeros had already drawn their belt-daggers and retreated, Greatsarn taking a stand before them with his sword drawn. As all three backed into the farthest corner of the chamber, the bard caught up the manyshields board and swung it like a man about to send a shield spinning edgewise across the room. The spired playing pieces bounced and rolled under the boots of the guards, but caused no slips, stumbles, or falls-only wider sneers.

"Fools," one guard said scornfully.

"Corpses," another corrected, gliding forward with his steel raised to strike.

Suldun Greatsarn swallowed and hefted his sword, knowing he must slay without being slain, at least until all but two of the traitors were down… and not knowing how by all graces of the Three he was going to manage that, against warriors so skilled, fresh, and careful. They advanced in a slowly tightening web, not allowing any gap a swift swordsman could use to strike, nor making any mistake that might leave a royal path to the door-even if the guards outside that door could be trusted. The boy king was going to die here this day, plunging all Aglirta back into bloodshed or the softly gloating tyranny of the Serpent…

And then a section of solid stone wall hard by Flaeros Delcamper swung open, striking the bard's shoulder a numbing blow. An unfamiliar man bustled out of it, calmly turning aside a startled Delcamper dagger-thrust with a hand somehow hard enough to parry steel, and murmured, "Flee!" to the three startled men backed into the corner.

Even as the king, his loyal warrior, and the bard gaped at the newcomer and the rectangle of dank, waiting darkness behind him, the guards charged forward with a roar-but the newly arrived man seemed to flow past Greatsarn, growing taller, and barred their way with hands that became hissing serpent-heads.

As the traitors hesitated, those heads melted back into human hands again, but the face above them had changed, becoming dark-eyed and scaled. A forked tongue undulated in its fanged mouth as it hissed, "Ssssso! Disssobeying ordersss again?"

The guards halted, lowering blades in bewilderment, as Greatsarn almost hurled the two younger men into the passage and then followed them. Barely had he ducked out of the room than its door swung open, revealing a page and a courtier-who promptly screamed at the sight of the drawn swords, and fled.

"Wh-who are you?" a guard snarled.

"The Sssupreme Ssserpent," the towering figure told them coldly. The warriors traded looks, growing pale, and then let their swords menace the floor as they backed away.

Without taking his eyes from them, the Supreme Serpent reached out an arm and swung the door of the secret passage closed. Putting his back to it, he leaned on it, folded his arms, and said, "Now, sssupposse you tell me jussst how many of you are here on FLowfoam, who givesss orders to who, and sssuchlike."

The guards exchanged doubtful looks.

"I'm waiting," the Serpent-priest added softiy, and all of the warriors hastily began to speak at once.