"We'll probably have to wade through all of the rest of these Storn-heads to get to the tersept," Craer said darkly.
"So, what're we waiting for?" Hawkril growled. "Even if we're still hacking down seneschals and tersept's champions when the sun comes up, we'll have accomplished something."
"So we go back down this stair," Blackgult said, "slay anyone we meet who waves a sword at us-and put to sleep anyone running to raise the alarm about our whereabouts. If we keep moving, stay out of places where we can be cornered, and lead them a merry dancing tour around their own castle, I'd say we can do fair damage to the ranks of Storn swordsmen before we're done. If you think you see a Serpent-priest, cry it out without delay."
"Ah," Embra said with a sigh that was only half-mocking. " 'Tis so nice to have clear orders and a plan."
"Careful," her father warned sardonically. "That love of clear direction is what's let evil men rule large parts of Aglirta these last fifty summers or so."
Embra stuck out her tongue at Blackgult. Surprisingly, he returned the pleasantry, as he followed Hawkril down the stairs.
"They may be clumsy fools in Stornbridge," Lord of the Serpent Hanenhather observed, "but thankfully, the poisons of our faith are neither foolish nor clumsy. I suspect Aglirta is short a few overdukes by now."
Brother Landrun chuckled tentatively. Hanenhather's temper had been chancy these last few days, and his hands were raised to weave a spell right now.
"Begone, longfangs," the Serpent-lord said crisply, as a glow of quickening magic outlined his fingers, "and arise, Lady of Jewels. An Embra Silvertree, Landrun, far more biddable to my will than the real one will ever deign to be."
Landrun watched the furry, wolf-headed beast dwindle into a slender, shapely human woman. Nude and placid, she blinked at them in blank bafflement, and the Serpent-lord rubbed his chin and said, "Those eyes seem wrong, yes-no fire behind them. Yet."
He raised his hands again. "Drag yon wench into the next room before you go and fetch the rock-cat, Landrun. We don't want it gnawing on our lovely sorceress, do we?"
"Fetch the rock-cat, Lord?"
"Yes, Brother. Let it chase you in here, and then get out of the way- unless you want me to transform you into that little thief of the overdukes. Not more than two bites for the rock-cat, though, by my reckoning."
Landrun cast a quick glance at the Lord of the Serpent. Hanenhather was smiling faintly, as usual.
"Where now, Father?" Embra gasped, as they drew breath at the head of a stair now littered with bleeding Storn bodies.
"Aye," Tshamarra agreed, panting. "We're listening with interest."
"Listening, aye, but heeding?" Blackgult replied. "Now that would be rare and bright. Hearken, then: We go to the end of this passage and through the tower beyond, thence to the north gatetower, and descend it-by the servant's stair, not the grander one guards use. Then we double back along the ground floor and go hunting Serpent-priests. Above all, keep together."
Tshamarra frowned. "What north gatetower? I don't-"
"First rule upon entering an unfamiliar castle," Hawkril rapped out. "Look how it lies, and keep track of where you go, within."
Tshamarra sighed. "Things were much simpler before I came to Aglirta. Hold out hand, accept what servant puts into it, and move on."
"And that's just how kings get slain, here in the Vale," Craer told her.
She rolled her eyes in response, and pointed at Blackgult. "So we do as you suggest. Let's move!"
"Ah, at last" Blackgult and Hawkril said, more or less in unison-and then traded looks of surprise, followed by chuckles.
Tshamarra looked disgusted. "Men." "No," Embra corrected her. "Boys."
Their first guardpost was a drowsy, half-asleep armsman who came awake in sudden alarm as Craer jerked his spear sharply out of his hands, sending him sprawling-and Hawkril thoughtfully plucked up a couch every bit as large as the guard and dropped it on the man.
He groaned once, twisted, and then sighed into senselessness beneath it. The overdukes were already racing on, through the door on the far side of the guardroom and along another passage.
This way, at the narrowing end of Stornbridge Castle, had no half-towers on its courtyard side, and its wall of windows let an ocean of bright silver moonlight into the room. That cold radiance highlighted some frowning portraits of presumably dead former owners of Stornbridge, none of which so much as moved-let alone attacked-as the overdukes ran past.
Then came another door, unguarded this time, and entry into the gate-tower, where voices coming up its two stairwells-which lacked doors of their own, opening directly into the chamber they now crouched in-told the suddenly cautious overdukes that folk were awake and about.
"Look, Chalance," an exasperated voice was saying. "If they try to flee, they have to come to South Tower, Storn Tower, or here. I can't see high-and-mighty overdukes willingly plunging off battlements or bursting through windows to plunge into the moat-nor can I see them getting all the way around the castle to the other gatetower without word coming to us, and every cortahar we have being flung against them, first. So they'll be along, fear you not. Our task is to wait with our bows, keeping quiet and out of sight, firing when we see the chance and only when we see a chance, until the blood price of coming down this stair is so high that they take the other one-into the arms of the priests. We're to try to leave one of the ladies alive but unable to cast spells-break her wrists and fingers, or cut out her tongue, or suchlike. The Champion was most insistent about that."
"My, what a surprise," Embra muttered sarcastically. "He was the one I wanted another long look at, too."
"If I'd been mounting this guard," Tshamarra whispered into Embra's ear, "I'd have put a spying eye up here, so they can see our arrival and which stair we take."
"Serpent-priests have a pet spell that hunts the spying eyes of others, so they think everyone else does the same," Embra breaDied back, falling silent and using the Dwaer to mind-talk. "There'll be an eye somewhere, all right-my bet 'tis above the other side of yon arch, to warn the priests if we use their stair. I don't think they care what happens to the archers-and the archers know it."
"And so?" Craer asked, touching Tshamarra's hand to join the silent discussion.
"River of flame down the archers' stair, all of us scream like we're in agony, and then quick and quiet back out through that door and close it quietly-and wait for them to come to us."
Blackgult shook his head. "Good plan if there weren't dozens of Storn crawling around the castle behind us. I'd say we send a false Dwaer flying down the priest's stair, our own spying eye after it, but give a gout of flame up above the arch first to take out their spying eye. Then Hawk with shield up and Embra behind him down the archer's stair, flame at every turn in it to take out bows before they can fire. Get to the bottom, big rolling fireball, and then back up to join us and we go down the priest's stair after all, knowing how many priests are waiting to hurl doom at us. Keep looking at the ceiling, Hawk and Craer-Serpents love to use a spell that drops biting snakes on heads."
"Ugh. I hate snakes in my hair," Tshamarra announced, in a mind-voice so firm that several of her companions winced.
"Agreed?" Blackgult asked. Their mind-touch flared with accord, and they hastened.
The priests' eye was just where Embra had thought it would be. It vanished in an instant, to the accompaniment of shouts from below-shouts that rose into an excited crescendo when the Dwaer-Stone sailed into view. Spells and hurled weapons surrounded it in a cloud, snarled orders making it clear that at least one Serpent believed an invisible Embra was flying and holding a Stone she couldn't hide with magic-and by then flames were roaring on the other stair, and archers were running up its steps and firing before they had anyone to shoot at and then bounding down and away again, just to avoid the fate of sudden fire rolling over them.