He didn't bother to look and see if Maurivan was accompanying him. Stornbridge had no doubt that wherever he went and whatever he did, the priest would be watching. He'd long suspected that the Fangbrother's eyes were always upon him.
That was no more reassuring a thought now than it had ever been.
'Just a little farther," Tshamarra gasped, hauling at Craer with all her strength. He groaned and sagged back down a step. A hard-thrown sword clunked against the paneled wall not far to his left, and the procurer snarled a pain-wracked curse and clawed his way up to join her, as more shouts came from below.
They'd fled down one stair and then back up another, with cortahars in pursuit. Tshamarra had no spells left worth thinking about-she could conjure light, and work a minor illusion to make one face look like another, and that was about it-and Craer was failing fast.
The lower passage, where the two sorceresses had been given rooms, was crawling with dozens of cortahars, armsmen, and chamber knaves who held their weapons awkwardly and looked like they'd rather be in bed several towers distant.
That left two overdukes on the run with rather slender choices. They'd fled back up here, after sending most of the castle men pounding off down the passage in pursuit of a false Craer and Tshamarra spun with the best Talasorn illusion spell she had.
The cortahars waiting outside Hawk's room were still there, and Craer had stopped a swordpoint in his shoulder while killing two of them, to win Tshamarra time to yank open doors enough to find stairs up.
That had sent the two youngest overdukes staggering along in the moonlight and gloom of an unfamiliar upper level, trying to stay ahead of these few but persistent Storn blades-and wondering how painful their fate would be when dawn came and the rest of the castle woke up.
More doors had been opened, a few snoring servants awakened, and this latest stair found. It led farther up still, hopefully to some turret they could barricade themselves in.
Tshamarra no longer much cared. She felt as if fire was raging inside her. Sweat was pouring off her so swiftly now that her boots were filling with it, and its flow had brought numbness, a drowsy lack of caring overmuch about anything, and, under all, a growing anger. A wrath unlike her own sharp and sudden tempers, but dark and hot and deep, rising like an incoming tide. She could taste it at the back of her throat now, and wondered what would become of her when it rose to overwhelm her.
Behind them came a sudden strangled cry, as if someone had suddenly felt a sword slide right up through him, and didn't know what to do. Tshamarra looked back, conjuring light to see by.
That was exactly what had made that sound. A dying cortahar was sliding limply down the steps as Overduke Blackgult, every inch the dark and sardonic Golden Griffon despite being covered in dried blood from boots to throat, withdrew a glistening sword from the man's backside.
Behind Blackgult, Embra stood looking up at her, Dwaer in hand. "You're readily traceable when you use magic," the Lady Silvertree called, "but you move too fast to be easily caught up to."
"Craer's hurt," Tshamarra called back. "Badly."
"We're coining up, lass," Hawkril rumbled, from somewhere below. "Worry not. The Griffon here was gutted like a half-butchered stag when we found him-and he's whole now."
Tshamarra looked down at Blackgult's face, as wet with sweat as her own, and said quietly, "Or not, as that poison may have it."
Blackgult climbed the steps to her. "Embra took care of the poison, but yes, I can see you're suffering the same taint or sickness I am. Some advice: Don't ask her to try and cure you with the Dwaer unless you like feeling like you're being roasted on a spit-on fire inside and out."
"Leaving you as before, when it passes?"
Blackgult nodded. "As you see. Now, let's look at this lad of yours." He bent and sniffed. "Smells cooked."
Tshamarra snorted. "Some comforting elder you are."
"Lass, I leave that to Hawkril and my daughter, who're among the best comforters in the realm. I'm more your grim, bitter old man whose dark rutting past is catching up with him."
"Oh? Can I watch?"
Blackgult gave her a wolfish grin. "Oh, you'll live a while yet-if you don't say the right smart words to the wrong person, that is."
Embra knelt over the procurer sprawled on the steps, and then looked at Tshamarra. "Leave off fooling with my father, now, and hold Craer. He may buck and twist-Father, take his feet-and I want you with me, to feel and see what I do. If your own sickness starts to twist things, and I order you away, break off touching any of us just as fast as you know how." Without turning her head, she asked, "Hawk?"
"Standing guard," came the calm reply. "No Storn swords in sight yet."
Embra sighed. "They'll find us soon enough." She bent her will, her long dark hair stirred around her as if plucked by a wind no one felt, and the Dwaer rose an inch or so from her palm and started to spin.
Tshamarra hastily let her light spell lapse as the Stone tugged at it, glowing with its own brightening fire-and Craer suddenly leaped under her hands.
"Hold him!" Embra snapped, as the procurer made a sound that was half-gasp and half-sob, and wriDied under her. Without hesitation, she flung herself atop him like a farm lass wrestling a pig, clutching the Dwaer in both hands and using her elbows, knees, and thighs to try to keep him down.
Tshamarra ducked her head to avoid Embra's boots and clung to Craer's shoulders, biting her lip as she saw Blackgult being battered back and forth by violently kicking feet.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the spasm ended, and Craer was smiling up at them. "More, more! Clothes off, Lady of Jewels, and let me enjoy this properly!"
"He's better," Hawkril observed, as Tshamarra dealt the procurer an affectionate slap and he grinned unrepentantly up at her.
"Up, Craer," Embra ordered crisply, clambering off him. "Your lady needs you-'tis her turn."
Tshamarra barely had time to blink before Craer sprang up and over her, to clutch her wrists as Blackgult pounced on her ankles-and Embra called on the Dwaer again.
"You… you know," Tshamarra gasped, as she bucked and twisted and tried to speak without biting her own tongue, "we'd be lost without this thing. I hope it has no limits we'll ever find… We've been… calling on it heavily enough…"
Then white fire seemed to storm through her, and she lost all means of speech or sight for a moment, as fire claimed her.
When she could see again, shuddering and drenched with her own sweat, Embra was saying gravely, "I hope so, too, because our only hope to see the morrow is for us to stand together now, so we three can all source our spells in the power of the Stone. Craer and Hawkril must be our merry warriors again, guarding our fronts and backs-and no clever comments, please, Craer."
Overduke Delnbone looked mournful. "None? Not even a little one?"
"No," Blackgult and Hawkril said in sudden unison.
"Give the ladies a rest, Longfingers," the armaragor added. "They've got to be thinking of spells and the like, not your jests, or we'll never get through all this creeping around in the dark." He looked at Embra, and added, "This stair must end in a turret-a trap for us if there're Serpent-priests or wizards about, I'm thinking."
The Lady Silvertree nodded. "Agreed. You and Father work out where we go and what we do; you know castles better than the rest of us."
"If we're trying to just stay alive," Blackgult put in, "getting to the battlements so you can spelljump us out of here would be the best scheme- though dangerous in itself, given cortahars with bows standing nightguard."
"I heard an 'if' there," Tshamarra murmured, flexing her hands and wondering what could be wrong with her to make her feel so hot again, this soon after being Dwaer-healed.
Blackgult smiled. "Yes. We can try much more than that. If we find Lord Stornbridge, we won't be far from also finding any Serpent-priests lurking in this town or keep, if there are any at all."