The Dragon's Doom

8

Many an Unquiet Knight

The moon had not yet risen over Bowshun, so the night was very dark. Wherefore boots blundered, branches snapped, and men swore softly as they gathered by Marag Spring, halfway up the trail to Emdel's Glade. They were few, but all carried unsheaDied, ready weapons.

"Eregar?"

"Aye, Thunn. Who's with 'ee?"

"Braumdur," hissed a deeper voice. "With my best blade: 'Twill be a pleasure to let air into the innards of that snake-priest!"

"Aye," Eregar the hunter agreed, feeling his way to his favorite stump in the darkness. Then he stiffened and leaned into the night, muttering, "Who comes?"

"Narvul," came the fierce reply, "with my ax!"

"Good. That's all of us. Time to sword this snake of a priest 'fore he has time to wag his jaws o'ermuch, and turn our wives and lads into strangers, and set them to spying on us. I had a bellyful of that last time-and this 'Brother of the Serpent' is far less sly-tongued and handsome than the snakes hissing at us then. I'll be damned by the Three if I'll let Bowshun be torn apart again by the likes of him."

"So you shall, indeed," said a new voice, dark laughter in its cold tones. The four Bowshun men barely had time to gasp before ale-brown fire blossomed all around them.

It lit up Marag Spring, and showed the men of Bowshun each other frozen in gasping terror-literally frozen, only their eyes obeying their utmost straining efforts to move. Though the brown radiance was already fading, it held them like an iron-hard, unyielding claw-and its source was a cold-eyed man in robes now stepping carefully around trees until he could set foot on the trail. Other men walked with him, some in Serpent-robes and some in the motley armor of down-at-heel hireswords.

"Fangbrother," Scaled Master Arthroon said in satisfaction, "make ready." A robed priest snapped orders, and hireswords lumbered forward to each of the four mute captives, drew a knife, and looked to Arthroon. He nodded and said flatly, "Now."

Four throats were cut with savage ease, gurgling bodies slumped and toppled, and full darkness returned to the trail.

"Kick them into the stream," Arthroon said sharply. "Off the trail, every trace of them. The moon's rising, and I want us gone from sight before the good folk of Bowshun answer the Serpent's call."

Fangbrother Khavan conjured up a glowing, floating serpent's head that moved at his bidding. The Scaled Master gave it a sour look but said no word of rebuke, as the hireswords bent swiftly to work.

By the time they were done, moans of awe and cries of "Look!" were coming from down the trail. The serpent-head had been seen.

"Off the trail," Arthroon ordered quietly. "Stop as soon as you cross the spring." Obediently the Serpent-party melted into the trees.

Cold blue moonlight was growing steadily stronger, and by its light the silently watching Serpents saw folk of Bowshun hastening past the sprawled, unseen bodies of four of their own men, to reach Emdel's Glade and hear the Serpent's call.

Maelra came out of her scheming with a start. There! A throbbing, a twinge of awakened power!

Intruding magic was trying to enter the largest scrying-crystal she'd enspelled. It couldn't be Uncle Multhas, for her own covert use of his smallest crystal was at this very moment displaying a wavering image of him hurrying up the staircase where Uncle Dolmur hung all those splendid paintings, through veil after veil of Dolmur's strong wards.

She dared not continue that scrutiny for fear of being detected by whoever was sending this new magic. For a moment she raged-she must hear what Dolmur said-and then let her magic lapse, waiting for the contact she knew would come. Maelra emptied her mind, seeking calm by holding to a mental picture of glowing flames.

For all her effort at control, she fell into a brief imagining of herself as a

baleful rat crouched at a corner where two passage walls met while a guard came tramping past… and then the contact came.

The spy was probing all of the crystals, to give himself-yes, the mind-touch felt male-many vantage points rather than one, and better chances of hiding from angry Bowdragons.

It was Ingryl Ambelter, come to spy on the Bowdragon brothers. Triumphantly Maelra pounced on his probe, riding rather than challenging it. Images flooded into her, and she waited, letting the scenes flow over her, doing nothing as Ambelter made his own reaching to Multhas, found the hurrying black-robed wizard, and witnessed the entry of the Roaring-Bearded Storm into Dolmur's inner chambers. There came a little lift of excitement in Ambelter then, and Maelra used it to slip into his linkage, transferring her own spying from Uncle Multhas to the Spellmaster.

Then she firmly withdrew her awareness, returning to herself sweating and eager. The spell lay ready, written out for this moment, and she was pleased to see that her hand trembled but little as she reached for it.

It took a moment to dare to whisper the first words of the incantation- and then the spell was unfolding, and there was no time to look back, and this was all so easy…

Alone in a plain and disused cellar of Maransur House in Arlund, Maelra Bowdragon finished her spell with a flourish, and began to magically trace the Spellmaster of Aglirta back to his lair.

"Lady look down, Hawk," Embra murmured, putting her hands over both of her breasts to keep them from getting torn by passing hilts or buckles, "not your amor!"

" 'Twould be wiser," Hawkril growled, settling heavily back down beside her in the great bed. Though she couldn't see him properly in the darkness, made all the deeper by the bed draperies, she could hear and feel that he was in his feast clothes, now adorned with the crisscrossing belts and baldrics of all of his blades scabbarded to him, and his great boots were still on his feet. "They'll have handbows when they come for us, if my guess is right."

The Lady Silvertree sighed, patted her hip as she thought about how easily a dart or arrow would pierce the leather breeches covering them or the still-unbuttoned jack she wore above it, and murmured, "And plenty of time to fire them, while I'm still buckling and hoisting up plates and tightening them around you…"

"Lass, lass, you make it sound as if I wear more barding than three horses! I haven't spells or a Dwaer-Stone to keep me safe when traipsing around Stornbridge Castle barefoot, like you do!"

"I put my boots on as I was taking the nightgown off," Embra told him teasingly. "I thought you'd be looking."

The armaragor snorted. "I was." He half-drew his sword experimentally and added, "But for secret doors popping open, and panels sliding to show me ready bows, and such, not at your feet-or a pair of boots slung fetchingly around your neck, either. You look marvelous in leather, mistake me not, but your own bare hide's far more to my liking."

Embra smiled. Ah, but 'twas nice to be wanted. By the strongest and yet most gentle man in all the Vale, too. "I wonder how long it'll take the seneschal to find my guards entranced, and charge in to hack apart the fell sorceress."

Hawkril chuckled. "Well, we're certain to hear it when he does. You left the usual blast-trap spell as your welcome?"

"I did," Embra said a little grimly. "How dare they give us rooms apart? And treat us like prisoners? After donning my leathers, I put my gown back on over them, opened the door to stroll out-and they set steel to me, forbidding me to set foot outside my chamber doors until escorted out come morning! Forbidding me! What do they think 'Overduke' means, anyway?"

" 'Enemy,' probably," Hawkril grunted. "And after all, they'd be right about that, wouldn't they?"

It was Embra's turn to snort. "After someone tries to arrowfall us on the road like a brigand, and then threaten and belittle us in converse, and then feed us poison on our platters, that someone should hardly expect us to think of them as anything less." She sighed, and stroked his arm. "I'm sorry, Hawk. I'm squawking like a chambermaid. Even after using the Dwaer twice, I don't feel right. Something's still crawling through me. I… I wish Sarasper was here, to heal us all properly."

"I wish that winter never came again, and that everyone in all Darsar was so happy and wealthy that they'd never have to raise sword or ax or hoe, and that every day would have splendid weather, with all tables in every realm constandy groaning under the weight of food put there fresh and ready by the Three without anyone having to sweat in a kitchen," Hawkril replied, "but do the gods listen to me?"

"No," Embra told him dryly, "they're always too busy listening to Craer. His tongue provides endless entertainment enough." She yawned, and then turned to bury her nose in the warmth of Hawkril's doublet and added sleepily, "Wake me when the trouble starts."

Hawkril reached a long arm across them both to pat his lady's behind affectionately, and rumbled, "To do that, I'd've had to start slapping and jostling you when you were about nine-and that's only counting the trouble you personally started, on purpose."

"Don't remind me," the Lady of Jewels muttered, yawning again. "We none of us get to choose our lineage, only whether or not we'll be like our parents. That wasn't much of a-"

There was a creaking or cracking sound from one side of the room, echoed by a like sound from the other direction.

"Under," Hawkril snarled in Embra's ear in a clear order, giving her a shove into the darkness. He plunged in the other direction, and Embra heard the scrape of his shield being plucked up from under the bed. She almost lost hold of the Dwaer in her haste to get under the bed without transfixing herself on the dagger on her own belt-and by then, the clash of steel had begun, shockingly loud and very close on Hawkril's side of the bed, and the thunder of many boots racing toward her was growing loud indeed…

"Craer!" Tshamarra hissed, rolling him over. "Craer! Speak to me!"

The smoldering man under her hands made a husky, rattling cough, and then spat something onto the floor and gasped hoarsely, "I'm alive. I think."

The Lady Talasorn snatched back one of her hands from him as his leathers beneath her fingers suddenly flared up into open flame. She sprang up, whirled to snatch the ewer of drinking water, and emptied it over him.

The result was a loud hiss, much smoke, and a sharper stink than had been arising from him up until then. Craer groaned, and the sound almost made Tshamarra miss the scrape of a stealthy footstep in the passage.

She rose, quivering in silent anger, and stepped carefully forward in the near darkness, as catlike as she knew how. Though she could hear herself moving, the noise she made was far less than the stealthy sounds of someone advancing cautiously along the passage toward her.

The Lady Talasorn mouDied an incantation, uttering all but the last word. She had few enough battle-spells left, and several overduchal lives might depend upon not wasting a single one.

Behind her, Craer groaned again and rolled over, shedding flakes and ashes of his scorched leathers. He reached his hands and knees and swayed there, head down and softly spitting curses, arms trembling in the aftershock of violent magic. The stealthy advance in the passage continued.

Tshamarra watched with icy eyes, waiting… waiting…

Something moved amid the darkening smoke still eddying in the mouth of the passage, and the sorceress breaDied the last word of her spell as tenderly as any lover: "Harandreth."

And from her outstretched fingers streaked tiny teardrops of wriggling flesh, surrounded by their own twinkling trails of force. They flew like vengeful wasps, growing little fanged jaws and dark smudges of eyes as they went. Plunging into the drifting smoke, they darted and-struck.

A hitherto-hooded lantern crashed into brilliant life as it tumbled, its bearer staggering back with a hoarse cry and clutching at his face. Something dark and wriggling was gnawing at one of his eyes, and he shrieked and tried to tear it from his face. The skin of his cheek bulged as he tugged- and then his cries sank into desperate, strangled gurgles as another of Tshamarra's spellspawn darted into the man's throat, striking as hard as any arrow, and started its own gnawing.

The shattered lantern spilled flaming oil across the floor, and in its light Tshamarra saw the boots of other stumbling men-cortahars, a hostler, and a chamber knave, still in his livery-behind it. They seemed to have lost any enthusiasm for proceeding out of the passage as they hacked, tore, and slapped at her conjured attackers.

Tshamarra had never found the more powerful spell that gave the wizard casting it some of the life force drained by the spellspawn… so the poison raging through her might still bring her death before dawn. With that savage drought bitter in her mouth, the sorceress helped her dazed and burned Craer to his feet.

He was dying, too, all because they'd taken one road at Osklodge and not another. Still, the Dwaer they were seeking and the foe wielding it might be lurking somewhere in this cold, hostile castle. Aye, and perhaps Sirl ladies were wearing their sashes a fingerwidth shorter this month, too…

Staggering under Craer's lurching weight, the Lady Talasorn called back one of her spellspawn to dart ahead of them and light a way to the door. It faded and flickered, her spell almost spent-which was why she had to get out of here, and find Embra and the Dwaer. It could power the simpler spells for both of them, and old Blackgult too, if his wits weren't too wavering…

The spellspawn collapsed into sparks and then nothing as they burst out of Craer's room together, the procurer wincing and cursing but running more steadily now, getting back his balance.

"On, Lightfingers," Tshamarra hissed in his ear, dragging him around to the right. "We've got to find Hawkril and the rest!"

"Hawk's this way, yes," Graer gasped. "Blackgult… back behind… 'tother way…"

They rounded a bend in the passage, and lamplight flickered ahead. Standing in it, waiting with grim smiles and swords drawn, were a dozen cortahars, with a handful of chamber knaves behind them.

"Those who do murder in Stornbridge can expect but one fate," one Storn guard called-as they started to stalk forward, in careful, menacing unison.

Ezendor Blackgult had lived long enough to earn himself vivid dreams. Dying faces, stabbing blades, cold battlefield mornings, and slender hands clutching ready daggers behind welcoming thighs. All of these were familiar visitors, frequently shattered with bright Dwaer-fire, remembered explosions, and the hate-filled faces of shouting mages. Nor was the Golden Griffon any stranger to coming awake shouting himself, in a cold sweat or with a sleeping fur clutched in his hand as if it were the throat of a hated foe.

But this time the pain seemed real, as he was jolted from dark slumber by agony as great as he'd ever felt before, a red tide of burning pain that brought him awake and straining to rise-in a sticky wetness of his own blood enlivened by two snarling faces above him, in the glaring light of a lantern.

Those faces belonged to men he'd never seen before, but their intent was clear enough. He was staring at the ceiling of his sleeping chamber in Stornbridge Castle, between the tall and lancelike cornerposts of his bed-one that lacked a canopy, thank the Three, or it'd be aflame right now, and cooking him!

The intent of the two chamber knaves above Blackgult was clear because their hands were on the hafts of the two spears that had pierced right through him-one from either side; orderly fellows-to pin him to the bed.

The eldest baron of Aglirta, and sometime Regent of the Realm, could only writhe as they laughed and bore down. Already he was both numb and afire, red mists of pain threatening to overwhelm him entirely.

"Bring that lamp herel" someone snapped from the foot of the bed, as Ezendor Blackgult slapped his hands against the two spearshafts, and fought to close trembling fingers around them. They glistened with his own gore; his hands slipped, and then slipped again. He fumbled his way higher up the shafts as the lamp bobbed around from his right to somewhere beyond his knees.

"Ah, the great Griffon struggles," the same voice gloated. "Fitting. Let him the struggling, knowing the Serpent has collected his life at last!"

A head came into view above Blackgult's knees-a bald, cruel head, of a man who stood with the cowl of his serpent-adorned robes thrown back. A small, vertical coiling serpent was branded on one of his cheeks; it gave his smile a crooked appearance. The man was smiling now, as he slowly drew a wavy-bladed dagger and held it up to the light for Blackgult to see.

Blood was flooding into Blackgult's mouth. One way or another, this would end soon. He'd accumulated a few little tricks and magical gewgaws down the years, but nothing he could reach now, unless…

He tried to shove himself up off the bed, and learned two things: that great pain can force an overduke to instantly retch and spew blood and bile into the faces of anyone close above him, and that his left side wasn't pinned to the bed. That was the side where his boots stood, if someone hadn't moved them, and a sheath inside one of those boots held a very slim chance of taking his slayers down with him.

The chamber knave drenched in Blackgult's spew moaned in disgust and tried to back away, his weight leaving his spear-but the Serpent-priest struck him hard across the shoulders, and snapped, "Let go, and die!

In the hand that wasn't walloping servants, the priest still held his dagger. He smiled down at Blackgult, turned the blade with leisurely slowness until its point menaced the pinioned overduke's breast, and then slowly-very slowly-stabbed down.

That glittering point was moving far too slowly to pierce skin; the man must mean to slice away Blackgult's silken nightshirt, and lay bare the overduchal chest for another thrust.

But no. As the blade descended, it seemed to writhe, ripple, and grow, twisting into… a silver-hued snake-head, whose fanged jaws opened to bite!

Ezendor Blackgult was not a man to surrender to any fate. He caught hold of the two spearshafts as high up as he could, and with a sudden jerk- and agonized roar-of effort, he pulled the two embedded spears toward each other.

The chamber knaves holding them staggered, gave startled exclamations, and then crashed together, shoulder to shoulder, with the priest's arm caught between them.

The Servant of the Serpent screamed, his ringers springing open, and the snake-headed dagger spun away to clang off a wall nearby.

Now. It had to be now. Sobbing, Ezendor Blackgult kicked the servant on the left off one spear, plucked it forth from himself, and smashed it across the face of the other chamber knave. Blood spurted as a nose broke, and the servant roared and staggered back, leaving Blackgult free to heave himself upward, and… tear… bloodily free of the blood-soaked bed.

The pain drove him to his knees, the world whirling around him in a yellow mist…

Shuddering, with one spear still through him and his hands like limp dead things, Blackgult felt for his boots-and managed to knock them over.

"Lady, smile upon me," he snarled, reaching again. "Old One, aid me…"

He tried to get his fingers inside a boot, and failed.

"Dark One, smite my foe," he prayed, trying-and failing-again.

Across the room, the Serpent-priest wept and danced in pain, clutching at a flopping hand that bespoke a shattered forearm.

"Aid, fools! Aid, or taste the curse of the Serpent!" he spat, but the other servants crowded into the bedchamber doorway-and a hitherto-hidden door, where a section of the paneled wall stood open across the room-hung back, gaping, swords and daggers forgotten in their hands.

The third time, Blackgult got his fingers into a boot and felt… the hilt of the little dagger he kept sheaDied there. Horns of the Lady! The wrong boot; his flask of healing was in the other one!

Across the room, the Serpent-priest swayed, murmuring a healing spell upon himself, and Blackgult saw what lay right at the man's booted feet: that snake-dagger.

Healing-for both of them-would just have to wait. The Golden Griffon plucked forth his bootfang, hefted the spear until he got its far end up off the floor, and launched himself into a lumbering run across the chamber.

Watching servants murmured as the butt of the spear caught the Servant of the Serpent low in the ribs, ruining his spell and slamming him into the wall.

The pain of the impact made Blackgult scream, or chokingly try to scream, and he went to one knee, the yellow mists flooding in again. Through them he dimly saw the priest snatch up the snake-head dagger in his unhurt hand, and glare at Blackgult, his eyes flat with hatred. "Now," he spat, "you're going to die!n And he launched himself into a run across the room.

The overduke staggered to his feet, turned away from the onrushing Serpent-and then at just the right time swung around to face him, bringing the spear butt into the priest's path again.

The Servant of the Serpent dodged aside to keep from running onto the spear. Blackgult kept on turning until the priest was running along the bloody spearshaft, raising his arm to reach out and stab.

Blackgult feigned faintness, bending his knees in a sagging that forced the priest to reach farther and farther-and left his wrist open to the sudden slash of Blackgult's bootfang dagger.

It must have burned like fire. The fingers flew open, the snake-head dagger spun away again, and the Serpent-priest opened his mouth to scream in pain.

Blackgult turned that shriek into a feeble bubbling with his backswing, slashing open a holy throat with the tip of his bootfang.

Then he turned away, not waiting to see the priest fall, and staggered back across the room to where his other boot lay. White-faced servants shrank back from him and the bobbing, bloody spear he wore, and when the Golden Griffon's numb fingers came up from the boot carefully cradling a vial-a vial that glowed when he pulled the stopper with his teeth-there was a general cry of fear, and the room emptied in a thunder of booted feet.

Ezendor Blackgult carefully drank down the icy-cold liquid to the last drop. It sooDied like velvet, cutting through the fire, and gave him the strength he needed, sweating and reeling, to tug the spear out of himself. Sitting down heavily on the bed as it fell, his own blood fountaining after it, he stared dazedly at the walls. Everything was growing dark as the yellow mists receded…

Dully he watched the snake-headed dagger turn back into an ordinary blade again.

"Embra, if I die, go on to glory! Blackgult is yours, or Hawk's if you prefer, and may the Three protect you both," he gasped, tasting more blood and wondering if this healing would be enough… and if he'd taken it in time.

Embra rolled and twisted desperately under the bed, trying to get her legs under her and move away from the edge-where dark swordpoints were already stabbing hungrily down through the straw mattress, like fangs reaching for her face. The front of her jack was still unbuttoned, leaving only light silk over her breasts and nothing over her throat-the dangling gorget kept banging against her neck as she rolled-and she had to move fast. A moment more and they'd be sure her side of the bed was empty, and be bounding up and across it to stab Hawk from behind.

"Back!" she snarled, more to focus her will than out of any need to incant, and called on the Dwaer furiously, thrusting all living things away from her as hard as she could. There were startled shouts and wavering, fearful cries, and the thuds and scrapes of boots ended abruptly-only to be replaced by meaty thuds of bodies striking walls and doors and each other. This din was enlivened by a few shrill shrieks as men were impaled on the weapons of others, or laid open by blades they were tumbling past.

Embra set her teeth and reminded herself that she hadn't wanted this violence, any of it, and would just as soon dwell in an Aglirta where she'd never have to lay hand on a Dwaer, and men had better things to do than swagger around by night putting their blades through sleeping guests.

Bearing down with her will, she held the unseen men where they were, all around the chamber, and called on the Dwaer to do a second thing at the same time. She was getting better at this. Slowly. What she wanted was to hurl the bed above her over on its side, freeing her to stand up, and that was such a similar force as she was already holding unleashed that she thought she could manage it. To call on the Dwaer in this way she must have cast spells that worked very similar effects in the past, so as to recall just how it felt. Recapture that feeling closely enough, and the Dwaer-result would copy the long-gone spell. Luckily, hurling things about was something every novice sorceress did, in her earliest days of working brutish "shove at the world" spells.

The bed whirled up and crashed against a wall on the side away from Hawkril, its posts splintering with loud crashes. Judging by the thunder of its impact, men had been standing on it when its violent journey began-but as none of them could have been Hawkril, she cared not a whit.

Embra stood up, cradling the Dwaer, and from all sides came little moans of fear. Some radiance had leaked from the Stone in her use of it, and now outlined her in a softly flickering halo. From end to end of the Vale men heard tales of the Lady of jewels, and here she was, among them. Frowning.

Embra breaDied deeply, feeling the magic flowing through her that kept all of these armed and furious men motionless against the walls. Now to do something harder: cause the air to glow, to make her bedchamber as bright as day and show her where Hawk was, as well as all their foes.

Making an object emit radiance-what old grimoires called a "cold torch"-was easy, a magic mastered early by would-be wizards: it needed only the right visualization and incantation, and a flame to "drink." The Dwaer could replace fuel and conjuration, if she could hold a "mind seeing" of the brightness, thus…

Slowly, in a silent, rippling wave, the air grew bright. The Lady Silvertree saw her beloved right away, and Hawkril managed a wink to tell her he was unhurt. The shuddering of his neck and shoulders told her how much it had cost him to twist his head around so she could see his face. Around him-and trapped between him and the wall-were seven or so men of Storn. Dozens more were plastered against the walls on all sides: chamber knaves in livery, men in plainer garb bearing Stornbridge shoulder-badges-verderers and stablehands, perhaps-and fully armored cortahars with the scarlet hawks perched on gilded bridge-arches of Stornbridge bright upon their breasts. All of them had blades in their hands, and were staring silently at her in fear and hatred.

"Overduke Hawkril Anharu should be flattered, I suppose," she murmured. "So many of you, all come to claim his life-just one poisoned, sleeping noble. Whereas I'm the surprise sent by the Three to twist your scheme awry, as so often befalls in life. All of you came here seeking to take the life of the man I love, and I can't trust any of you not to try to take it again. Wherefore I'll now end yours."

She strode to where Hawkril was, turned her back on him to face the rest of the room, closed her eyes, and silently told the Dwaer what to do.

The force holding the men against the walls was reversed-violently- and then reversed yet again. Bodies slammed together in the center of the room with loud smacking sounds, clangs of metal, deep thuds, and one ragged cry. Then they were hurled back against the walls with another crash.

Again. Bodies slammed together, some still-conscious men having the sense to throw away their blades. Swords clattered to the floor here and there, but there were more grunts and sobs of pain as the Storn men slammed together once more.

Many of the bodies leaving the walls this time hung limp, senseless, or broken of limb. More of them made wet or cracking sounds when they tasted the stone walls once more.

Hard-faced, Embra hurled them again, and again. Her gorge was rising, but this was war, and she didn't want a man still able to stand or bend a bow or throw a dagger when she released Hawk and the seven Storn men trapped with him. Again. And again.

Many of the forms were shapeless now, and trailed blood as they went. More and more of them slumped, not responding to her magic… which meant that they must no longer be living.

Embra Silvertree drew in a tremulous, unhappy breath, strode to the center of the room with the Dwaer ready in her hand, and ended her magic. She stood somewhat off to one side of Hawkril, and as he staggered away from the wall, she sent a gout of fire in front of him-washing over the groaning Storn men following him.

There were a few screams and struggles from within those flames, but most of the men toppled without a sound, blazing.

When Embra and Hawkril were the only moving things left in the room, the armaragor turned to his lady and murmured, "My thanks for my life, Em. Remind me, please, never to get you really angry."

Embra stared at him, white-faced and trembling-and then flung herself into his arms, sobbing bitterly. Hawk held and rocked her gently as she wept, turning her slowly around and around-so as to look in turn through each of the six open doorways he could see, for any signs of more attackers. He'd known about only two of those doors when getting into bed.

The Dwaer, pressed between them, was hard and cool. Hawkril stole a hand up under it to make sure it didn't fall when they did draw apart-and discovered that one of Embra's hands was clenched around the Stone as tightly as any beast's claw could grip.

The touch of his fingers on it made her draw back in alarm and glare at him-and then dissolve into fresh tears, and embrace him all the more fiercely. Hawkril let her cry while his eyes roved about the chamber. His armor there and there, his boots over yonder beside the shattered, facedown wreckage of a wardrobe with two crushed servants sprawled half out from under it, and a blade Em could probably heft over there, by the splintered wreckage of the bed.

When his lady mastered her tears, Hawkril said gently, "Lady Silvertree, 'tis best we be going. We must find the other overdukes and make a stand together. Stand ready with the Stone whilst I salvage what we need, and think you on which doorway we should leave this place by."

Embra gulped, sniffed furiously, gulped again, and nodded. Her face was as white as moonlit snow, but she managed a lopsided wreck of a smile when he looked at her.

Hawkril gripped her shoulder reassuringly for a moment, and then hurried to his task, holding out his breastplate to her in the space of three breaths. "Hand me the Dwaer, and start buckling."

He stood patiently through the wild, helpless flood of laughter and fresh tears that followed-and for that, Embra knew, she would always love him.

She buckled and tightened and adjusted as fast as she could, heedless of cut or pinched fingers. For his patience and his kindness, most of all, she so loved this great bear of a man…