Can you send us aloft another way besides up yon stair? Craer thought back at her. I'm betting they've bows ready.
Of course. We 'II need to peek at the battlements, to properly see a spot to deliver you to.
'Then let's take your road. Craer's reply was echoed with wordless affirmations from Blackgult and Tshamarra.
Lass! Hawkril's mind-voice burst forth like an anguished shout. Those serpents! How fare you?
His lady's mind-voice sounded wry: Let's just say I've been reminded how painful venom can be, and how much like being on fire Dwaer-healing feels like. I'll live, love.
Then Embra called on the Dwaer with a force they all felt, and it spat forth tendrils of thick mist. Out of them she beckoned the Coinmaster.
The scribe rose, swallowing several times, and moved reluctantly around the table. When he was standing amid the overdukes-painfully aware that Craer was holding a dagger to his codpiece from one side of him, and Hawkril held another blade not far from his ear on the other-the mist suddenly swirled all around them in a sphere, and changed into something deeper and stranger.
Embra gave the trembling Storn officer a steady look. "So, Inskur Eirevaur: Do you prefer to live, this day? Or die?"
"L-live, of course."
"In Aglirta, making full report to King Castlecloaks on Rowfoam-or in exile, to an anonymous alleyway in Sirlptar?"
The Coinmaster stared at her, swallowed, and said, "In exile. Nowhere in the Vale is safe for me, once they know my treachery."
" 'They'? The Serpents?"
Eirevaur nodded mutely. The overdukes exchanged glances.
"Are they that widespread, then?" Craer asked. "Serpents in every village and town?"
"Y-yes."
"How do you know that?" Tshamarra snapped. "They've told you, you've gained that impression, or-what?"
"L-lady, many of them have dined at Stornbridge, passing on reports and orders. Threescore and more, coming singly or in pairs. Add to that the names of never-seen-here fellows they've uttered, they can't muster less than fourscore. They still come, often-and they're building up to something. I know not what, but 'tis something soon and very important. Something they believe is going to give them power over nearly every commoner of Aglirta."
"What sort of something?" Blackgult asked calmly.
The Coinmaster spread helpless hands. "Lord, if I knew, I'd tell you, believe me. Something that will spread, and that-according to a report a few days back that occasioned much celebration amongst them, the first time I've seen them here drunk and merry-has been tried somewhere in the Vale, and has worked."
"Coinmaster Eirevaur," Embra said, "have the thanks of Aglirta. Craer, give him something tangible of that."
The procurer frowned at her. "Em…?"
"Coins," the Lady of Jewels said bluntly. "Those purses you stuffed into your boots not so long ago? A man needs coins to get anything in Sirlptar."
Craer gave her a hurt look, then took off one of his boots and upended it. A slithering pile of purses spilled out onto the floor. He spread them with his fingers to make sure no daggers, lockpicks, or the like had fallen out with them, and then pulled his boot on again.
"And now the other one," Embra said flady.
"Graul," Overduke Delnbone told his second boot, as he slid it off and another pile of purses started to appear. "I suppose you want me to give him a dagger, too?"
"No," the Lady of Jewels said calmly. "I can see from here that Coinmaster Eirevaur has a perfectly good one at his belt, and he walks like a man who has at least one sheaDied down a boot. He also acts like the sort of man who'd carry at least one hidden dagger up a sleeve, probably more. He might even manage to stay alive in Sirlptar long enough to thank us."
The treasurer stared at her, and around at them all, disbelievingly, and then down at the pile of purses.
Craer gave him a disgusted look and Embra another, and plucked a wrinkled carrysack of thin cloth from his belt. He tossed it into the air and let it settle over one heap of purses.
"Try not to spend it all at once," he growled, and turned away.
11
A Bowdragon Comes Calling
A man whose robes bore the arms of Stornbridge stood blinking in the shadows of a stinking moonlit alley in Sirlptar, a small but heavy sack of coin-purses in his hands.
Though strewn with rat-haunted rubble from the collapse of two buildings, the alleyway had been entirely empty of men-blinking or otherwise- a moment before.
At first, Coinmaster Eirevaur just looked in all directions, fearing immediate attack. Reassured by the still emptiness of his surroundings, he shook himself like a dog awakening from dreams, and looked up at the sky in wonder, smelling the sour sea air and reassuring himself that yes, this must be Sirlptar.
Then he seemed to recall that he was holding a sack of money-and that this could be a danger in itself. With slow, exaggerated care, seeking to avoid any telltale clink or metallic shifting of coins, he thrust the sack under his robes and folded his arm over it. Moving slowly and bent over, as if he was a beggar or an old destitute, Eirevaur shuffled out into the moonlight and off down the alley, seeking a place of safety-but too happy to entirely hide his wide grin.
He was away from the coldly spying Serpents at last, and his cruel, increasingly treacherous Storn fellows, too. Not far enough to be comfortable, of course. His first move must be to take passage on a ship, and get well away from Aglirta before it erupted in war once more.
A scribe who could keep honest count could readily find work in any port of Asmarand-and any port comfortably distant from Silverflow Vale beckoned warmly about now.
Coinmaster of Stornbridge no longer-gods, yes, he must get rid of these arms on his breast; best turn his robe inside out in this next doorway-Inskur Eirevaur went on down the alley, daring to hope for the first time in months.
Out of a doorway that had seemed quite empty when he passed it slid something that looked like a cat, only larger. It rose, shifting smoothly into manlike stance, but remained black and furred as it loped silently along after Eirevaur, padding closer… and closer…
When the scribe reached his chosen doorway and glanced quickly up and down the alley again, the loping thing had thrown itself onto its face in the refuse, and he did not see it. It risked scarring no features on the littered cobbles by its swift dive, for its otherwise human head had a smoothly featureless face.
Once Eirevaur set down his sack and hoisted his robe up over his head, however, the faceless beast rose up from the cobbles like a great black claw, growing huge fanged jaws and curving talons as long as scimitars-talons that reached out in almost loving anticipation…
The moon was sinking, but would shine brightly on the high battlements of Stornbridge Castle for some time yet. Occasional gentle breezes ghosted past the nervous Storn cortahars who kept watch there, but the starry sky had been clear since sunset, and bid fair to remain so.
Or had, at least, until a moment ago, when a drift of cloud as thick as river-mist had unaccountably formed above the moat, curling around itself with deceptive lassitude… and then suddenly flowed up the castle wall and flooded through the merlons, to drift among the warriors.
There were words of wary alarm, and a call through a turret window for a Serpent-priest-but before any robed figure could stride forth to deal with the mysterious mist or impart some sharp words to overly fearful cortahars, two figures appeared in the lee of the mist, seemingly born of nothingness, on a part of the battlements where the usual bored wallwatch sentries were absent thanks to the unusual gathering of fully armored defenders around the turret of Storn Tower.
"A snake'll be out to clear it soon," Craer murmured. "By then we must be right in their midst, or 'twill be farewell, surplus overdukes!"