"Lady Talasorn," Craer replied with dignity, "she was of the Wise, and I'd just rendered her a service. Buying myself armor for the morrow, as it were. I drank the uppermost half not long ago, and-see?-still stand before you. Have all that remains. Please?
Tshamarra nodded-and a sudden shuddering shook her entire body and left her in an anxious crouch, halfway to her knees. "It can hardly make me feel worse," she muttered, putting her lantern on the floor and taking the flask. She sniffed it suspiciously, and then drank.
The shuddering that seized her this time was much worse. Tshamarra gasped, reeled, and put out a hand to clutch the wall, shaking her head and wincing.
"Ah," Craer said sympathetically, "forgive me. I forgot; 'tis strong stuff."
"Tell me no tales I know not already." She fixed him with tear-starred eyes that were both baleful and amused. "Let's find Embra before this night brings any more fiery little surprises."
Craer nodded, stepped to the carved wall panels where he'd traced a line with his fingers earlier, and did something to a carved stag-head. The wall split soundlessly and sagged open, to reveal utter darkness behind.
As Tshamarra lifted her lantern, the procurer gestured grandly at the hitherto-hidden passage its faint light revealed. Then he made a gesture that indicated that Tshamarra should move herself to one side, and then another that bade her hood her lantern.
As the Talasorn sorceress swiftly did both of those things, she saw Craer draw a dagger from one sleeve and glide to the opening, stepping to one side-and then the flash and gleam of the procurer hurling his blade sidelong, into and down the passage.
There followed a soft thud and a hiss of pain.
Then, softly and from very close by, a whisper of movement came to Tshamarra's ears. She reared back from it but did nothing else… and almost immethately saw a flare of light as Craer lifted the hood of her little lantern just enough to get the wick from another lantern under it. He drew it forth flaming, and softly let the hood back down again, Tshamarra watched the wick bob across the room in silken silence. As Craer settled the wick back into place and his lamp caught alight, they exchanged silent glances over its dancing radiance. The procurer winked solemnly, swept up his lit lamp, and strode back to the passage.
The moment he showed himself in the entrance, there came the snap and clack of bowguns-the hand-sized crossbows so favored in Teln and the cities of the South-from down the passage.
Craer sprang back, wielding the lantern like a buckler to strike aside the darts that came hissing at him, and grinning fiercely. Another trap anticipated. The luck of the Three-which any good procurer knows is no luck at all, but the result of preparation, suspicion, anticipation, and a certain nimbleness-was with him.
And making its usual mocking laughter. Flaming oil dripped between the procurer's fingers, now; a dart had shattered the cauldron of the lamp.
Overduke Delnbone snatched one hand free of his blazing burden-which must have been blistering the other-shook it to be sure it was free of flame and oil, snatched something from his belt, and hissed at Tshamarra, "My chamberpot, under the bed! Fetch quick!
She spun and fetched, and he shook what he'd snatched into it. "Flash powder," she breaDied, comprehending.
Craer grinned at her as he snatched up the chamberpot, ran back to the secret door, and hurled it around the corner, aiming high and dirowing hard.
They heard it shatter against the passage ceiling-and Craer set his teeth and flung the flaming wreckage of the oil lamp around the corner to join it.
Tshamarra hurled herself flat to the floor.
Darsar exploded right on schedule.
The blast flung the last of the Talasorns against the wall, bruising her shoulder, but the room soon stopped rocking.
Tshamarra found her little lantern on its side, the floor already hot beneath it. She righted it and unhooded it just enough to make sure it was still lit and unbroken.
Craer gestured furiously to her to quench even that tiny flash of light, and she did so, watching the dark shape of Craer crouching in the glowing smoke.
The passage spewed that silently drifting smoke in profusion, and the procurer kept very low as he stepped into it, moving with the eerie silence that so awed Tshamarra. Oh, she knew a spell that could quell noise, but she could still hear her own swift breathing, the dying echoes of the blast still rolling and rebounding in distant, unseen passages, and even the faint roiling of the air around her… but not Craer.
She waited one long, drawn-out moment, realized she was holding her breath, and carefully let it out in a gently measured sigh, still waiting for-
The passage exploded in a sudden bright inferno, and raging flames burst back into the room. Magical, they had to be!
Tshamarra ran frantically to meet them.
"Craer!" she screamed-and the roiling flames spat a blackened, struggling figure at her, spinning in a ball of flame!
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.