The guard hadn't even managed to frame a curse ere Craer was up again, tugging at the glaive's shaft. His jerk sent the guard staggering forward, off-balance-and into the waiting arms of Hawkril, who tossed the man aside like a doll. Guard struck wall with a loud clang of armor, and it was the guard who bounced, fell, and groaned in pain.
His fellow doorguard flung down his glaive and ran for an alarm-gong. Embra snapped, "Craer!'' in exasperation, and called on the Dwaer to shove the man aside-only to be sent staggering with a shriek of frustration as the other Dwaer-Stone sent her magic right back at her.
Craer whirled and flung a dagger-which flashed like silver fire across the passage and struck the running doorguard's neck, hilt-first, driving the man to the floor in a daze.
The procurer flung open the nearest door, and found himself peering down a narrow flight of stairs that led, judging by smell, to a jakes. He nodded approvingly, dragged the moaning guard to the doorway-and then administered a solid kick to the man's backside. With another groan and a few descending thuds the man disappeared, and Hawkril came striding with the first doorguard and tossed the man gently after the first.
Craer then slammed the door, assumed a casually lounging pose against it, and asked mildly, "Yes, Lady Silvertree? Can I be of service to you in some small way?"
Embra shook her head. "I've been wondering that for over a season now, and not found an answer. Perhaps if 'twere the fashion in Aglirta to hire jesters…"
Tshamarra snorted. "Well said, Lady! Craer, stop playing the fool and snatch us a courtier or senior guard who'll know where Raulin is and take us to him. Now! Get on with it!"
The procurer gave her a pained look. "You know, Lady Talasorn, I do believe that's just what I've been doing for most of this day? Running here, there, and everywhere with the rest of you overdukes puffing along like a lot of fat, flutter-feathered bustards behind me." He turned with a grand gesture of tragic dismissal. "But enough. Wounded by your words, I go!"
And he sprinted off down the passage to where the next pair of guards were waiting, peering warily over leveled glaives and wondering what had befallen their comrades.
"Make way!" Craer called this time, as he ran. "Overdukes of the King command you!"
The guards lifted their glaives, but one of them snapped, "Wherefore?"
"We hunt Serpents!" the procurer snapped back. "Where's the King?"
Their suspicious frowns told Craer all he needed to know, but by then Hawkril had lumbered into view, and the guards gave way before his more familiar-and formidable-figure. One of them even offered, "Ah, Lords, we know not!"
The overdukes ran on through Flowfoam Palace, brushing past startled-looking envoys and courtiers they'd never seen before, in search of someone they knew. The palace was busy in some areas but curiously empty in others, and guards' challenges were fewer than they should have been.
Blackgult was shaking his head in puzzlement by the time they reached and then left behind the guarded but deserted throne room. As they ran
down another passage, he growled, "Something's not right. Huldaerus must be chortling. Have the Serpents-?"
He never finished that question. They came to a high, many-balconied gallery where guards should have been looking down on other guards standing beside desks where scribes and Clerks of the Royal Person mounted a last line of defense against uninvited visitors trying to burst in and "just see the King for a moment." The hurrying Overdukes of Aglirta found no scribes or clerks, and no torches blazing along the dark balcony above-but instead literally ran right into a frightened ring of guards.
The armsmen whirled around with shouts of alarm, swords flashing. Craer and Hawkril parried, yelling, "Turn your blades! Overdukes of Aglirta command you!"
Then they saw what the guards had been menacing, and gasped: "Horns of the Lady!" in ragged unison.
The guards were clustered warily around a snarling, already wounded beast; the massed points of their glittering blades had been keeping it against the passage wall. The monster was a chaos of talons, scaly serpentine arms, tusks and fur, an undulating thing with the head of a boar and the build of a bull-and it was wearing torn scraps of armor that looked as if, before being torn or burst apart, it had been a match for what the guards were wearing.
The monster roared and charged. As the guards shouted in fear and leveled their blades against it, Hawkril ran to meet it, swinging his war-sword in a great slash that caught in those snarling jaws and drove the beast back to cower against the wall once more.
Talons clawed the air as the beast drooled blood and growled, but it made no move to rush forward again, now that the unbroken ring of steel had returned.
Blackgult eyed the dangling, clanging fragments of metal it wore and asked, "This was one of your fellows, hey? How did he-?"
A guard shook his head. 'Just groaned and hunkered down-and then started to… change. He screamed a lot, but we didn't want to… I mean…"
"Plague," Tshamarra said grimly. "Embra, can you-?"
"If Craer gets himself well away from me, perhaps. Every plague-healing's just a little different from those before," Embra replied sourly, peering at the wounded beast. "Three Above, hasn't Aglirta suffered enough?"
One of the guards staring at her started to tremble so violently that his fellows turned to look-whereupon foam burst from his mouth, his eyes started to weep blood, and he burst into a wild, lilting scream and swung his blade wildly-nay, blindly-in all directions.
As his fellow guards drew back from their newly stricken fellow and the beast saw room to move and started to growl its way forward again, something hissed down amongst them. It was swiftly followed by more somethings: strangely thick arrows tipped with gaping fangs!
"Serpent-arrows!" Hawkril bellowed, chopping at them with his war-sword as Craer cursed and dodged ahead, seeking to get under the place where the deadly hail of snakes was coming from-yon balcony!
"Three spit!" Tshamarra raged, ducking behind a screaming guard whose face had sprouted a snake. "Is there no end to this?"
Beside her, Embra sobbed out her own curse as she tore away a snake that had bitten her arm, and flung it as far as she could, reeling. Her arm was burning already, and she just hoped Craer was far enough away…
Crouching over her glowing Stone as more snakes rained down around her, striking many of the guards, Embra called on it to purge her of poison. It flared up in a brilliance so bright and sudden that she knew the other Dwaer was too close-even before its power shocked into her from behind, meeting the healing magic within her, and left her writhing, blinded, and gasping for breath on the floor.
"Em!" Hawkril roared, as if from a great distance-though she knew somehow that he was standing over her, shielding her with his own body. "Lady mine, are you well?"
"Now that," she snarled through her tears, shuddering, "was a stupid question." A fresh wave of pain made her whimper and twist uncontrollably, and then it ebbed and she could claw her way to her feet, enough to cling to him and scream, "Craer! Get away! Get away!"
"Gone!" came an answering shout, echoing from another room. Embra hissed in pain, gathered her strength, held the Dwaer to her breast-and tried again.
This time the Stone erupted in flames, bright tongues of magic that scorched nothing and chilled Embra to the bone. She lost her hold on Hawkril and fell to her knees, shrieking and clutching herself in rocking agony-and the flames that were not flames rose up in a bright blaze that lit the high gallery as bright as day.
"There!" a guard snarled, pointing up at the balcony. Blackgult crouched down behind Hawkril as the armaragor followed the guard's pointing arm.