"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.