The Dragon's Doom

4

A Stornbridge Welcome

The circular window of the study overlooked the finest and most extensive gardens in all wealthy and sun-warmed Arlund. A gray-bearded, dark-browed man in simple but expensive robes stood gazing in the direction of Aglirta, thinking of that nigh-Kingless Land.

Dolmur Bowdragon did a lot of that, these days.

There were great disturbances in the flow of the Arrada, as if mighty magics were being worked in secret… somewhere in Silverflow Vale. Of course. Such things always befell in Aglirta, land of reckless mages and those fell wizards who called themselves "priests of the Serpent." Which was why Dolmur kept spell-watch over that long, narrow green realm that had one great river at its heart-and not much else to remark upon.

So who in Aglirta was working sorceries that shook all Darsar… when the priests were dabbling in poisons and bribery, and the forces of the king were rounding up every wizard they could find?

Such puzzles were why he'd always watched Aglirta, and always would… even if it hadn't been a place that had made his heart dark and heavy with grief.

Accursed Aglirta-the realm that had swallowed most of the younger Bowdragons. Cut down in eager youth, their bright magic lost before they could quite achieve mastery… just a handful among the ranks of all the dead and forgotten wizards who'd fallen in the ongoing strife that had been the true ruler of the Kingless Land for as long as Dolmur could remember.

As long as his parents could have remembered, too, and probably their parents before that. Senseless, so senseless.

"They fled," he murmured to the unheeding window, "because they were fools who went looking for trouble. Fools near and dear to me, but no less foolish for that."

The window was taller than a man, its frame set with gems inside and out-massive cabochon-cut stones there to hold enchantments that warded birds from the glass and kept the single huge pane from breaking under the sharpest weapon-blows Dolmur Bowdragon had been able to test it with. He smiled at the memory of the largest, strongest armaragor he could find running full-tilt down the long cellar passage in full armor, before leaping into the air to put his entire weight behind a great swing of his two-handed battleaxe. In the crash that had followed, the weapon had been chipped and its wielder numbed and winded, but the glass had held firm, unmarked. It was a good, strong spell, one of the last powered by the slowly ebbing life of the spellbound wizard entombed alive deep under this house. Someone called Eiyraskul, who'd been a foe of Dolmur's father.

Dolmur would have preferred to source his lasting spells from an enchanted ring, wand, or stone he could control rather than a slumbrous mage who might someday be freed of the binding enchantments and come looking to slay Bowdragons-but wizards weren't obligingly sacrificing their own lives to craft such treasures, these days.

Dolmur sighed aloud and told the window, "We must work with what we have. Yearning after desired dreams of what can never be is how the weak-minded waste their lives."

"Is it now?" came a quiet voice from behind him. A voice that should not have been there.

Dolmur Bowdragon whirled around. To a wizard, such surprises are armor-chinks of carelessness or misfortune that usually mean death. But no man can help but want to see his slayer or fate.

The ward-spells on the study and the house around it should have hurled away non-mages and warned Dolmur of the entry of any wizard powerful enough to break them… yet this robed man facing him, with the raven-dark hair and the soft, knowing smile, could be nothing else but a wizard.

An intruder standing in his own study, boots only a stride from a flagstone that bore one of Dolmur's hurl-hard spells-that would snatch the man straight up to impalement on the spikes of the huge iron dragon-head candle cluster thrusting down from the ceiling above.

His visitor smiled more broadly, and carefully stepped around that flagstone as he paced forward. "Forgive the abruptness of my intrusion-and for that matter the intrusion itself, Lord Bowdragon. I come with peaceful intent, to make an offer, not to try spells with you."

"Then be welcome, Lord Nameless," Dolmur said calmly, gesturing to the lounges by the fireplace as he turned and walked toward them. "Offers always interest me. Will you take wine? Or hot serbret, perhaps?"

"Neither, thank you," his guest replied, following. The stranger's route took him across a certain cluster of flagstones-as Dolmur had intended it to-but no alarm flourish of horn music swelled to fife. This was no intruder, then, but a "sending." Solid-seeming but illusory, and so of course unable to drink. Able to spy on him for months, though… and wanting Dolmur to know it, by the avoidance of the hurl-hard flagstone.

"Then take your ease, and unfold your offer." The Bowdragon patriarch waved his hand toward the fireplace, offering his unexpected guest any of four lounges-or the more likely choice of standing against the mantel. Again his guest surprised him, taking a seat. There came a slight rustling of robes and a creak of furniture as he sat down, but Dolmur smiled inwardly. He knew of no natural way to make that lounge creak in that manner, given what it was made of-so his visitor must be using magic to "supply" sounds, to fool Dolmur into thinking this sending was solid. My, to have magic to waste so lavishly…

Dolmur took a seat of his own, briefly entertaining the notion of using the lingering spell that amplified his voice to summon servants to echo perfectly the rustling and creaking, to signal to his guest his recognition of their falsity, but-no. Mages whose greatest need was to impress did such things, and Dolmur Bowdragon was years beyond the need to impress.

Or so he hoped. Assuming a relaxed pose, he waited.

"I'm Ingryl Ambelter, a wizard once in the service of Baron Silvertree of Aglirta. I supported him in his ambitions to rule the Kingless Land, and confess myself less than enamored of the new King, the boy Raulin Castlecloaks-and of the overdukes and former regent who crowned him. They've done me much injury, though my sorcery has been powerful enough to keep me alive and allow me to flourish since. These foes of mine have also done much injury to you, slaying more than one Bowdragon without cause, warning, or so much as fair salutation. Now they're hunting wizards, slaying or imprisoning without cause-and when they've scoured Silverflow Vale clean of mages, they'll look in this direction and others, and reach for you. Not for nothing do your countrymen have the saying, 'Beware wizards of Aglirta.' The overdukes watch you even now, and remain a menace to you so long as they live."

"And so?" Dolmur asked calmly, wishing he'd fetched a decanter, but not wanting to interrupt this Ambelter now.

"I offer you a chance to avenge the deaths of your kin-and more. I'm here to entreat you to join with me to overthrow and slay Aglirta's new King and his overdukes."

Silence hung between them after that. It lasted a goodly time, both robed men staring expressionlessly into each other's eyes, before Dolmur slowly shook his head.

"As it happens," he told his unexpected visitor calmly, "I've no interest in slaying any royalty or nobles, and even less interest in overthrowing any ruler. Mastering sorcery is enough for me, and takes most of my time-and achieving as much power as possible in these arts would seem to be my only defense when these Aglirtans, as you warn, come looking for me. If they ever do."

"Oh, they will, believe me. I know they spy upon you with magic, even now. I say again: 'Beware wizards of Aglirta.' "

"Ingryl Ambelter, you are a wizard of Aglirta."

"Forgive my correction, Lord Bowdragon: I was once a wizard of Aglirta, neither born nor reared there, but merely hired by a baron of that realm-and cast aside when he deemed me no longer useful. I'm now an exiled foe of Aglirta."

"Correction noted; yet I remain a man who desires neither to slay nor to overthrow. Such actions create lawless strife, and the banishing of such must needs be by the imposition of new rulers… and in being such a ruler, or thinking myself responsible for placing anyone in such a position, whether they know of me or take counsel of me or not, are things in which I have no interest."

"Not even if it delivers into your hands one or more of the fabled Dwaerindim?" Ambelter held out his empty hand, palm up-and suddenly a molded, round stone hovered or rather spun above it, acrawl with strange glows and fleeting lightnings.

Dolmur's visitor smiled over it at the patriarch of the Bowdragons. "This is but an illusion of the Stone I already control. I'm not foolish enough to think I can control more than two Dwaer. Wherefore I need someone I can trust, stand in common cause with, and respect, to wield the third and hopefully the fourth Dwaer, once we win them. I already know where one Dwaerindim lies: in the hands of one of the overdukes who seek us both. The Lady Embra Silvertree has it, and must be made to yield it… or neither of us is safe. I need your help, Dolmur Bowdragon-and the reward for your aid could well be what wizards of all Darsar dream of: an everlasting and mighty Dwaer-Stone."

Ambelter held out his hand, and the Stone spinning above it drifted toward the eldest living Bowdragon. Small motes of light sparkled into life, orbited it, and winked out again in an endless, excited cycle of eager power. Dolmur stared narrowly at it, and then drew his head back and said bleakly, "No. I'm not yet interested."

"Aha! Then the day will soon come when you are?"

"The day may come when I'm changed enough to be overly tempted by such power," Dolmur Bowdragon replied in a level voice, "but it is not a change I shall welcome. Or encourage."

"Then-"

"Then begone, Ingryl Ambelter. Take your sending, and your spying, too, and return my privacy to me!"

Ingryl Ambelter nodded, and the winking Stone vanished, leaving him empty-handed once more. "I respect your wishes, Lord Bowdragon, and have no desire to give offense or make of you an enemy. But by the names of your slain kin, I entreat you to remember my offer. Should you ever desire vengeance for-"

"Begone!" Dolmur Bowdragon snapped, rising to his feet. He took a swift, threatening step toward Ambelter, but the sending only sat, smiling faintly at him, until with a sudden furious incantation Dolmur banished it.

He was breathing heavily as he went back to the window, and stared out at the garden without seeing a single tree or flower. "So it's begun," he murmured. "Far sooner than I'd like… But then, things always do."

Mouth tightening, he whirled away from the window, silently calling on the binding to strengthen his wards. They sang and glowed in the air around him as he added reluctantly, "Wherefore I must make ready. Time to earn my share of the fell reputation that clings to wizards."

Shuddering, Embra clutched her Dwaer to her breast and snarled out a spell-and the gale that roared out from her swept away arrows like dry leaves whirled away by a winter-heralding storm.

Hawkril lowered his head against the hissing flood of arrows and sprinted forward, waving his warsword wildly as if he could bat speeding warshafts out of the air with it.

He could not. One arrow shrieked along the armor covering his shoulder and bit home deep enough to hang from him as he ran-and the next slammed home right through the lacings of his side-plates, driving the air from him and spinning him half around. His insides blazed up into numbing fire as he roared, struggling to keep going. Two more arrows found him, an archer dodged away through the trees in front of him, and then a howling storm caught the armaragor from behind and tried to hurl him off his feet. Hawkril snarled at the fire now raging in his innards and leaped forward, seeking to reach another man in the trees-and the gale at his back plucked him right into the forester. They fell heavily to the ground together, rolling and growling like beasts… beasts trying to sink sharpened fangs of steel into each other…

The Lady of Jewels watched her sorcerous wind howl away from her. It slapped Tshamarra to the ground and rolled a groaning, cursing Craer away from Embra, too, but… 'twas that or they'd all be slain hosting half a dozen arrows each, or more.

Blackgult was whirled to the turf with a snarl, and even Hawkril struggled against her rushing wind, staggering through the trees bent over in pain and clutching at the arrows in him, so Embra reluctantly let it drop.

As soon as she did, a fresh volley of arrows came racing at her from all sides-aimed right at her, this time!

Gasping, Tshamarra Talasorn found herself able to move again, the moan of the gale dying as it slackened. She was wallowing in road mud, fighting for breath, and couldn't even see if anyone was running up to stab at her… hastily she rolled over onto her back, seeing a brief whirlwind of greenery and rushing arrows and sun-dappled sky. Embra's magic had left the air still roiling up twigs and old leaves, in a storm that began inches above her nose. Sobbing for breath, Tshamarra tried to think of what spell she could use to deliver herself-and all the overdukes-from this now. She could hear a distant Hawkril roaring in pain, gasping to match her own that must be Embra, and Craer grunting with effort, grunts that moved rapidly away from her. She dared not even lift her head to look, as arrow after arrow hummed through the air just above her…

Embra threw herself into the dirt. Something struck her elbow a numbing blow as she went down-a burning that swiftly became a tearing, sickening pain. She bit at her lip to keep from retching, her ears full of the vicious, wasplike buzzing snarl of arrows whisking over her, only inches away. Her arrow-struck arm felt wet… wetness that was trickling between her fingers. She did not have to look to know it was blood.

Well, if Embra's little gale was going to roll him like an empty tankard, roll he would-into the trees where he might at least find someone to bury a dagger in. Anything to take his mind away from the numbing fire of the arrow in his shoulder…

Craer tumbled enthusiastically, drawing in breath for a whoop-and then spending it in a curse as the gale suddenly died, leaving him all too far away from the nearest tree, with movement behind it that just had to be a bowman shifting to see him better, so as to put an arrow-his next one-through a certain stranded procurer.

"Graul," Craer grunted, kicking off hard and tucking his head under so tightly it hurt. The world whirled, his boot heels slammed into the ground as he trailed his injured shoulder, and red pain blinded him for a moment.

He flung himself forward and out of that red mist, growling "Bebolt!" this time, and rolled on, bruising his knuckles but not daring to let go of the daggers clutched in both fists. If the-"Sargh!"-gods were willing, he'd live long enough to have a chance to use them, once he reached that tree…

"Enough!" the Lady Silvertree spat, and furiously hurled her will up and out at the trees above, willing the air to become not a gale, but a great hand that would slam and push.

A half-heard heaviness rippled in the air, rolling outward from above her. She heard Craer cursing softly, and then some startled, angry oaths from farther away.

A trunk as large around as one of the thrashing, dying overduchal horses cracked with a sharp, deafening sound. Embra watched it topple-and as if its fall had been some sort of cue, small branches splintered, tumbled, and then were hurled away in all directions. Most of the other trees she could see started to groan and then lean away from her, farther… and farther…

The ground heaved under Embra as a deep root was forced to the surface. She rode it upward in time to come upright and see fearfully crouching archers loosing a volley of shafts low along the ground at her.

Setting her teeth-Three Above, but her arm was hurting! -Embra slashed out with a sudden gust of wind that snatched the arrows far off to the right, well away from her companions.

The trees all around were leaning slowly outward like the spreading petals of an opening flower. One fell as the groaning of tortured wood grew as loud as a roaring bull, and its crash spurred some of the archers to startled shouts. Those angry, frightened cries were still rising when Embra heard something else: the sudden crashings of heavy-booted men fleeing frantically away through dead leaves.

Someone screamed in fear, someone else bellowed out a long, elaborate curse like a battle cry-and a third someone's rallying yell ended abruptly in the heavy crash of a tree slamming to earth. Boots kicked wildly from beneath its trunk-briefly, ere they went limp and still. Human groans mingled with louder protests of tortured wood as Embra's sorcery slammed fleeing archers helplessly into tree trunks. More than one bow splintered in such collisions, and watching archers saw their fellows battered, cast fearful glances at Embra, and then rose out of their crouches to flee headlong into the forest.

The Lady of Jewels swayed on her tree root, hoping her arm wasn't broken. It felt weak and useless, and she needed peace and quiet to fight past the pain and remember how to heal with her Dwaer. 'Twas easy when no battle was raging and a certain sorceress was unhurt, but right now… Horns of the Lady, it hurt!

Embra's gale had slammed into Blackgult's horse, driven it back a few stamping, frightened feet, and then-once it reared obligingly-flung it over on its side.

Out of that snorting, pawing confusion the Golden Griffon sprang, in a leap that brought him to the ground in the lee of his rolling mount. Crouching, he ran back down the trail the way they'd come, chased by two hissing arrows that were caught and sent tumbling by the gale… and then he was in the trees with his sword in his hand, keeping low as he whirled around and fought his way back toward Embra, from trunk to trunk.

Men with unfriendly faces and blades in their hands were waiting for him in the lee of the fourth tree. Ezendor Blackgult gave them a grin that held no humor, and launched himself into a charge.

When the gale died, his arrival among them was its own storm. Swordtips bit through his armor soon enough, but men were already down and dying around him by then, and he was on to the next tree.

He gave the men waiting there a cheerful smile, too.

Out of a blur of tears, Embra shook herself awake, wondering how long she'd been sliding into pain and letting her magic falter.

Well, no archers were running toward her, at least. Her companions were huddled together around her. As far as she could tell, Blackgult had suffered only swordcuts. Everyone else was nursing arrows… but one by one they all gave her the grim nods that told her they'd survive for now, if she needed to fight on.

Throwing back her head to gulp in air-it seemed she'd have to quell this thrusting-with-air magic soon, or fall asleep for lack of something to breathe-the Lady Silvertree called on her Dwaer to quiet and call back their horses.

Two responded, snorting and tossing their heads as they came back into view through the shattered trees. Only Blackgult's horse looked unhurt, though Embra's own mount might be more terrified than wounded. Craer's horse was down and dead, Tshamarra's was dying on the trail behind them, and the great beast that bore Hawkril limped so badly that no one could ride it, perhaps ever again.

Sunlight was flooding down into Embra's new-made clearing-and as she looked in all directions, seeking foes foolish enough to bend bows in her direction again, she caught sight of some astonished woodcutters far off in the trees, axes dangling forgotten in their hands as they gaped at her. None of them looked angry or likely to attack. Rather, they looked as if they wanted to stay a long, long way back from so deadly a sorceress-or perhaps dwell in a land that had never known wizards, and never would.

Embra turned to seeking foes again. Some of the archers had drawn their last breaths in Darsar; their sprawled bodies were already surrounded by buzzing flies. Other bowmen had taken hurt but yet lived, and were feebly trying to drag themselves away or at least into hiding.

"Who commands you?" the Lady of Jewels demanded as she glared at their frightened faces, her voice cold and level. They froze in unison, but no one seemed in any hurry to answer, so she asked again.

Silence.

"Well, then," she said curtly, "I'll have to assume that each one of you is the Tersept of Stornbridge-and guilty of treason against the River Throne. Wherefore I've no choice but to slay you all, one after another, starting now!”

Taking a slow, purposeful step forward, she raised her hands above her head in two dramatic claws, a gesture of menacing magic that was spoiled by her need to hold the Dwaer in one hand-and use its power to clumsily lift her injured arm. The resulting pain was so sickening that she staggered helplessly sideways, and almost spewed up the contents of her stomach.

Shuddering, the Lady Silvertree held herself upright by magic, swaying and letting small sparks of light swirl around her. Those twinkling motes meant nothing and could unleash no magic, but Embra hoped they looked impressive.

More than one of the watching men mistook her twisted expression for fury rather than pain, and cowered visibly.

"L-lady," an older archer called hesitantly, from among them, "how can we win our lives? What must we do to have you spare us?"

Embra gave him the coldest and most steely look she could muster. "Bring me Tersept Stornbridge-or the man who ordered this attack upon us, if that man is not the tersept. Bring him now"

The man looked fearfully back over his shoulder, and so did some of his fellows. It mattered not if they ever summoned up the courage to obey her, for now the Lady Silvertree knew which trees to blast to flame and ashes if the pain threatened to overwhelm her.

Swaying, she turned toward that thick stand, on the far side of a wooded hollow a good distance down the road to the open fields of Stornbridge. "Come forth, Stornbridge!" she snapped, letting the Dwaer carry her quiet voice into the trees like a biting weapon.

Silence fell again, and she added almost lazily, hoping no one would realize just how close she was to collapsing, "Come forth. Or die."

There was a stirring, and a man rode forth from behind the trees-bareheaded and empty-handed, slowing his mount swiftly to a trot, and then to a walk. When Hawkril raised his blade warningly, he stopped his horse altogether.

"That's not Stornbridge," Craer muttered, out of the side of his mouth. Blackgult nodded, and smiled wryly when he saw that his daughter's eyes had already narrowed in suspicion. He crawled closer to her, so as to be within reach if she fell. She thanked him with the flick of an eye, her cold expression never changing.

"Stornbridge," Embra told the trees gently, "I want to see you, not your loyal armaragors and cortahars. I've felt one of your arrows, and my patience is dwindling. Very swiftly."

The man who rode into view this time was larger, and wore overly splendid armor-as did his horse, lavishly emblazoned with the arms of Stornbridge: scarlet hawk after scarlet hawk, perched on as many gilded bridge-arches in an unending tapestry of barding and freshly painted armorplate.

"Graul me if it doesn't look like a court costume," Craer muttered. Tshamarra laid a hand on his arm, and he winced as he tried to give her a smile.

"I-I humbly beg your pardons, Crown Lords and Ladies," the Tersept Stornbridge said grandly, sweeping his arms wide as he assumed an anguished expression. "Down bows, men of Stornbridge!"

He rode nearer, trying an uneasy smile. His elaborately curled shoulder-length locks of chestnut-hued hair warred with watery blue eyes and an awkwardly broken nose. "Forgive me, great Overdukes, but I've had to fight off so many brigands in this forest-here, before my very gates!-in recent days! I-I had no idea… if I'd heard even a whisper you were coming, or seen royal banners, or heard heralds' horns…"

"Is it then your custom to greet any five swift and well-mounted riders with arrows? Sirl traders, perhaps, or Flowfoam heralds?" Embra snapped.

"Well, I-I-"

"Or any tersept or baron of the realm, riding with his personal armaragors?"

"Lady Silvertree," Stornbridge blustered, "as a tersept myself, I'm charged by the same crown you serve and uphold with the duty of keeping safe my roads, lands, and people! Armed folk riding hard and fast around here are brigands, and if an honest man of Stornbridge doesn't put swiftly an arrow into any brigand he faces, he all too often dies!"

"I daresay," the Lady Embra replied. "And I also daresay that if you judge who's a brigand and who's not so swiftly, and with eyesight so poor, you shoot down more than your share of honest men of Stornbridge."

"Lady, I protest!" Stornbridge snapped.

"Lord, I bleed," Embra snarled back at him, and lifted her Dwaer meaningfully. The tersept and the men slowly gathering behind him stiffened in unison, and both Blackgult and Hawkril struggled to their feet and stood where they could block any charge or bowshot aimed at the Stone or the slender arm that held it.

All of the overdukes stared coldly at Stornbridge, and he stared back at them, defiance warring with fear across his florid face. His words fooled none of them, and he knew it.

"Of course," the tersept said abruptly, raising his voice. "I quite forget both my manners and your peril. "You have my word that you'll be both safe and treated with all courtesy, as we tend you in Stornbridge Castle. All Stornbridge is ashamed at this terrible mistake!" He turned and roared, "Clear me yon wood-wagon! Let the overdukes be conducted to the castle with as much gentle care and dignity as we can give them!"

There was a general scrambling, all around the overdukes. Blackgult and Embra glared about as if expecting a stealthy bowshot or sudden sword-charge, but-aside from averting their eyes from the simmering displeasure of their overduchal guests-the Storn men seemed to be interested only in obeying Stornbridge's orders in almost frantic haste.

Amid the tumult, Hawkril reached out a long arm and hauled his friend Craer upright. Tshamarra sprang to help the procurer as he winced, swayed, and spat blood.

"Well, now," Craer asked her from between clenched teeth, as firewood was hastily swept off the wagon, and cloaks laid across its mess of bark and splinters for them, "did I not describe him rightly?"

" 'A blustering man in overly splendid armor,' " Tshamarra quoted in a disgusted murmur. "Yes, your words cover him quite well. Now keep still, Craer! You've lost blood enough!"

"Lady," Hawkril rumbled, leaning close to Embra.

"'Embra, Hawk," she whispered, her lips trembling on the sudden edge of tears. "Call me Embra-and just hold on a little longer. Please." As hesitant hands ushered them up onto the wagon, the sorceress cast a warning ring of harmless golden sparks around herself, and in its midst leaned toward Blackgult and murmured, "Father, be ready if I falter. Tshamarra, hold to my hand. Together we must… must…"

Heal. Tshamarra silently sent that word into all of their minds with a swift, simple spell that kept them all linked, so any attack, word, or gesture one of them saw would instantly be shown to them all… and in that half-mazed state they raided and swayed their way into Stornbridge.

Hawkril and Craer peered up at the looming castle, seeking to glimpse who gazed down at them from window and battlement-but never saw certain servants standing in the shadows behind the row of gawking maids who leaned and jostled along the sills. Four chamber knaves among those watchers in the shadows exchanged silent glances… and then slipped away. They hastened out of Stornbridge Castle by rear doors, crossing its moat by bridges unseen from the foregate where the wagon of wounded overdukes rumbled along in the heart of a hastily formed and untidy honor guard of battered archers and puzzled woodcutters.

The departing chamber knaves did not hasten as men do when they flee in fear, never to return. Rather, they hurried as men do who desire to deliver reports amid the cottages of Stornbridge, and then hasten back to their castle posts ere their covert expeditions are noticed by visiting-and somewhat battered-overdukes.

Fangbrother Khavan peered at the muddy pastures of Bowshun rather sourly. He'd seen more than enough dusty, muddy, dung-reeking villages of backcountry Aglirta to last him the rest of his life. A thorny branch sliced ever so gently across his nose as he turned away from the incredible stench of a far-too-successful farmer's pig midden, and back to where Scaled Master Arthroon's iron grip on his shoulder was guiding him. A crowd of intently listening villagers, yes-quite possibly every last lad and lass of thinking age in Bowshun-but even if they were hanging on every word uttered by a Serpent-priest, this was very far away from where men dwelt who held real power in Silverflow Vale.

Yet here they all were: a Brother of the Serpent he'd never seen before; Khavan himself; and cold, implacable Scaled Master Arthroon. Wasting words on dungheads dragged away from their fields to stare uncomprehendingly at a snarling servant of the Serpent.

"Know you," the man was raging now, punching the air with his fists in emphasis, "that the Dragon was evil. Yes, the good Serpent defeated it-but at great loss. Your worship, your coins, and your strong, honest hands are needed!"

The Brother paused, looking around at his silent audience, waiting for at least a scattered cheer-and daring it to come. The silence held.

"Worship the Serpent!" he roared. "Give us your support, that we may cleanse Flowfoam of this boy king and the foul, decadent Baron Blackgult who lurks behind him, telling you what to do just as he always has!"

A mutter ran through the crowd, a murmur of agreement. The priest grinned, thinking he'd broken the mistrust and fear he'd seen in the villagers' faces earlier. "Oh, I know some of you dare not rally to our holy cause yet. You're honest folk, and I admire that. Dutiful folk, dependable. You're the backbone and ready hands and staunch heart of Aglirta… and you'll know, when the time comes, the right thing to do."

He leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially. From their concealment in the bushes behind the crowd, Scaled Master Arthroon and Fangbrother Khavan might have been two statues-but the Brother of the Serpent wasn't speaking to them.

"Some of you know already: the wisest of you, those who see first what's best for Bowshun, and for Aglirta. I'll welcome you this very night, when the moon falls upon Emdel's Glade, to worship the Sacred Serpent with me. In the glade I'll say more, and together we'll gaze upon a glorious future for Aglirta. I tell you that before you're another summer older, the Kingless Land shall be rich and mighty at last! Km shall be rich and mighty at last!"

He drew himself up, robes swirling, and smiled down at them. "In the moonlight, in Emdel's Glade, you'll hear more. Wise ones, I'll await you there." With one uplifted hand the Brother of the Serpent traced the sinuous Sign of the Serpent in the air.

A few tentative hands echoed it-and he smiled at their owners from atop the haystack, whirled, and stepped down from its far side.

A breeze stirred, a bird flapped lazily over a nearby field, and still the folk of Bowshun stood still and silent, staring at the empty height where the priest had stood in silence… a silence that lasted a very long time before any of them stirred and moved away. It was even longer before they started to chatter, and for the first time, Fangbrother Khavan was impressed.

He still didn't see what a few toothless old farmers, dungpat-hurling youths, and sunburnt dungheads of the fields could do against armored cortahars of Aglirta. Now, however, he believed that they could be made to do something.

And that, after all, was what priests were for.