"Come," the Spellmaster said with that same softly dangerous smile, holding out a beckoning hand and cradling the glowing Dwaer-Stone with the other. "There's much to do."
"Ah, aren't you going to… uh, yes. Of course," Maelra replied, hearing the faint scrape of a booted foot on stone behind her, and casting a quick glance over her shoulder.
Baron Phelinndar stood regarding her calmly, his armor gleaming and his sword raised-poised to plunge into her back! Yet already he was lowering it, and a Dwaer-Stone was glowing in his other hand.
Maelra whirled back to face Ambelter, to see if these men really possessed two Dwaerindim-but the Spellmaster's hand was now empty. Trying to keep her face expressionless but knowing Ambelter had seen her eyes narrow, she swallowed again and said, "Yes, we've much to do."
"My father and all of our horses are just fine,' Embra said sharply. "Or so the Dwaer showed me, Craer-and believe me, it lets you feel as well as see."
The procurer held up a hand. "Pillory me not, Lady; I was merely pointing out that our mounts all appear… ah, restive."
Tshamarra sighed. "Well, wouldn't you be, Craer, if you were a horse?" She waved one slim hand. "Look around us!"
The choice view of Glarond they were enjoying at that moment included at least six clusters of carrion-crows, vultures, and worse. What was left of a corpse presumably lay at the heart of each squawking, pecking group-and more than one plume of smoke was rising from distant barns and farmhouses. The cottage nearest to them had already been burnt out, and now stood blackened, roofless, and deserted. Livestock wandered aimlessly, bawling their displeasure and loneliness from time to time-except when arrows whistling from stands of trees brought them thunderously down, and men raced out to hack at the twitching corpses, cut off legs or large hunks of rump and ribs, and hurried back to the trees again.
The only other living humans the overdukes had seen since leaving the forest had fled from them in terrified disarray, but the five had already learned to keep well away from woodlots and thickets. Evidendy the good folk of Glarond were not too witless with fear to aim bows, and not too ammunition-poor to stint on loosing arrows at five mounted strangers.
Arrows hissed out of some trees now, arcing high into the air to thump and thud into the ditch, well short of overduchal horses-or torsos. "Are we this close to brigandry in Aglirta?" Craer snarled in disgust, turning in his saddle to glare at the dark stand of trees the shafts had come from.
"Evidently," Embra sighed. "Remember, Craer, it takes three generations of relative peace and order for folk to trust in kings and laws and such… and yon folk have seen barons change with the passing seasons, armies on the march, lawless magic hurled hither and thither, ceaseless talk of new rule in Flowfoam, Serpent-priests whispering in their ears every bebolten year-and now a madness and beast-curse that no one defends them against or tells them truth about. Be glad they've got bows and the wits left to use them!"
"Gah!" the procurer snapped, spurring his mount away. "You speak truth, I know, but I don't have to like it!"
Tshamarra rolled her eyes and called, "Rein in, Lord Idiot! When the next three-headed dragon comes, I want you right here at my side, so you can die with the rest of us!"
Craer shot her a disgusted look back over his shoulder-and reined in.
Embra gave Tshamarra a much more respectful glance, and murmured, "Impressive."
Whatever reply the Lady Talasorn may have been planning to make was lost forever in a sudden scream from the trees to her left. She turned to look, lifting her shield as swiftly as any warrior now, and beheld… more striding-to-nowhere folk in torn and soiled garb. These Aglirtans were quiet as they walked, but their shudderings and wild stares betrayed plague-madness.
"Don't be letting anyone bite you, I'm thinking," Craer said grimly, half-drawing his sword.
"Let's just keep riding," Hawkril growled. "There's nothing we can do for this many folk-except find the Serpent-priests and put a stop to their plague-spreading."
"While there's someone left alive in Aglirta, you mean?" Craer asked bitterly, his hand still on his sword.
They urged their horses to a faster pace, and the snorting beasts seemed eager to comply; firm hands on the reins were required to slow them from a gallop. More wandering humans shrank away at their approach-save for one man, more oblivious than the rest, who kept plunging into convulsions, rising again to walk normally, and then sinking down into spasms again. As the overdukes rode up, they saw him fail to straighten from his latest writhing, as hair-beast hair-suddenly sprouted on his body.
Craer hissed in disgust and drew his sword, but Embra snapped, "Craer, stop! I need this one captured. Hawk?"
"Arrow to your bow, Lady," he rumbled, spurring forward.
"What means he?" Tshamarra asked quickly. "I've heard those words before."
"Oh. Old lovers' saying of the Vale," Embra replied absently, her eyes on Craer turning to spring from the saddle on one side of the man, and Blackgult racing smoothly past to snatch the reins of the procurer's mount, while Hawkril reined in on the other side of the now-crouching, snarling man. "From an old ballad: 'Lady, I'll be the arrow to your bow/Command me lifelong, in all things'… and so on."
"Oh," the Lady Talasorn replied, almost wistfully.
Embra shot her a curious glance, and then looked swiftly around in all directions to make sure no one-and no thing-was getting ready to attack or pounce. Aside from obedient male overdukes, that is.
The man looked like a wolf, now, his transformation into beast-shape almost complete. And when he lowered his head and snarled thrreateningly at Hawkril, Craer deftly looped cord-a line he'd been carrying wrapped around his waist, belt-fashion-around the man's legs.
The man-wolf whirled around with a roar, snapping-and Craer shoved his sword broadside-on into its jaws, just as Hawkril caught it by the neck with both hands, straddled its back, and sat on it. The transformed man squirmed and thrashed. But Craer wound his line around all of his paws and then his snout, pulling the cord tight, and Hawkril kept him pinned… and it was clear that as long as they kept their positions, the man-wolf wasn't going anywhere.
"Nicely captured," Blackgult said, holding a snorting horse with either hand. He looked at Embra. "Want to practice, I presume?"
"Precisely." The Lady Silvertree held up the Dwaer, and said to Tshamarra, "I want you to ride my mind as I try this."
As the Talasorn sorceress nodded, Embra turned her head. "If it works, and we see another wolf, we'll try it again as you join me, Father. We have to know how to purge the plague, and practice doing it, until forcing folk back to their own shapes isn't a battle against the Dwaer but something we can do readily."
The plague in their captive was subtly different from the last one they'd felt in their own bodies… but having seen the man before he was forced out of his own shape helped, the two sorceresses discovered. Their memories of his proper self gave them something to move him toward as the Stone in their shared grasp forced the man-wolf through a dozen or so transformations. The Malady seemed to be watching them, shifting to minimize their success but having no place to hide, and eventually being driven down to… nothing.
When he was himself again, the plague-magic broken, the man stared at them in haggard, unshaven horror-and fainted.
Craer caught him by the simple tactic of being under the man as he collapsed. "Well," he snapped, wrestling the man into a sitting position, " 'tis a quieter thanks than some you've received."