"We must bar those doors!" one of the younger guards shouted excitedly, pointing around the Throne Chamber with his sword at the many grand and gilded entrances. His blade was notched and dripping blood that was not his own.
"No, no!" Hawkril snarled at him. "This room's a deathtrap for us, with our few blades. We fall back. Up the Wyvern Stair! We'll make our stand in the Hall of Shields, that has its own kitchens and apartments behind it, and only one back door to guard: that stair down to the cellars!"
" What stair down to the cellars?" the guardsman bellowed back, even as he nodded and waved a weary arm to beckon what was left of his command to rally around.
"The secret stair you've now been told about, obviously," Hulgor Delcamper roared, wiping away enough Aglirtan blood to let the guard see his toothy grin. In the same movement he lurched around to peer through his gore-matted hair at Hawkril and shouted, "Gods, man, but you sure know how to lay on battles here! I thought I'd been reduced to tussling over pillows and gown fastenings with chambermaids for the rest of my fading days, but this, now! Ho, yes!"
"Fun for you, Lord," a guard said sourly, "but death for us-and for Aglirta."
"Hey, now," Hawkril told the man, as they watched a terrified-looking, gasping courtier run in through one of the rear royal doors, with a pair of guards. " 'Tis the Serpent-sown plague that's done this-and we've fought down the Serpents twice before, these last few seasons, as others did many times in older years… and there's still an Aglirta for the Snake-lovers to come and attack, isn't there?"
A guard chuckled. "Well said."
Others around him, however, shook their heads wearily, and one of them muttered bitterly, "Not that we'll live to see more of it."
The doors boomed open, and a blood-drenched titan of a man in full armor came staggering in. The guards whirled around and raised their weapons, but the arriving warrior thrust back the visor of his helm and grinned at them.
"Your magic worked, Daughter!" Ezendor Blackgult roared. "I'm myself once more! Now, which of you idiots let all this rabble into the palace? They've been falling off my sword all the way from the South Armory." Espying the pale-faced and trembling courtier who'd just arrived, he barked, "You! Next time, dolt, leave my armor where I can get it, instead of prettying it up to prop in some palace passage. Though seemingly hundreds of plague-crazed Vale folk are trying to violently change my health, I'm not quite dead yet!"
The courtier stammered something incoherent and tried to pluck at the Lady Silvertree's sleeve-only to spring back with a shriek, as the glittering point of a war sword stabbed at him.
The hulking armaragor on the other end of it gave the courtier a cold look and snarled, "Unhand my lady, or die!"
"Ah-uh-uh," the courtier blurted, backing away until he ran into the flat of a guard's sword, held horizontally as a none-too-friendly barrier. "I come from Overduke Craer! He needs the Lady Embra, at once!"
"Oh he does, does he?" the Lady of Jewels sighed. "What's he gotten himself into this time? A little plundering of palace vaults gone wrong? A chambermaid not quite so willing as he'd thought?"
Several of the guards chuckled, but the courtier gabbled, "W-wouldn't say, Lady. Called through his bedchamber door… something about the Lady Talasorn…"
"Hulgor, stay with Hawk," Embra snapped, striding toward the door the courtier had come in by and plucking that startled dandy by the sleeve, to drag him along with her. "Lorivar, bring two of your best and accompany us."
A guard who until that moment hadn't known the Lady Silvertree even knew his name flushed with pleasure and surprise, and snapped, "At once, Lady!"
Embra thanked him with a tight smile, not slowing. Looking back at them as she made for the doors, she snapped, "Let there be no dispute: Follow the Lord Anharu's orders, and fall back to the Hall of Shields! Mind you bring the King and the Lady Orele as you go!" She held up the Dwaer, and added, "One thing this bauble tells me: The palace is still full of the plague-mad, and they're slaying everyone they meet!"
"Well, that's nothing new," one of the oldest guards growled. "The whole Vale's always been full of mad folk who kill everyone they mislike the look of. They've just brought their ways here to the palace, that's all."
"Nay," another guard muttered, "that's where ye're wrong. Such folk have never left the palace-begging your pardon, Lords-down all the years I've been alive in Aglirta."
Some of the guards glanced swiftly at Hawkril, expecting an explosion at these near-treasonous words, but the huge armaragor merely grinned and grunted, "May there be many more, loyal sword. Many more for us all."
"Not much chance of that, I'm thinking," the youngest guard whispered, leaning on his sword and watching drops of other people's blood drip from his drenched hair down into the puddle at his feet-but his words were very faint, and only he heard them, in all the gasping for air of that weary fellowship of mad slayers.
"Who comes?" snapped the voice from inside, as a blade thrust warningly forth through the gap between the double doors.
"The Lady Silvertree, Lady Overduke of Aglirta," Embra snapped. "Now open up, or I'll blast these doors down!"
"How do I know-" the guard within started to say, but a deeper, older voice beside him snarled, "Idiot! Help me with the bar!"
"But-" the guard offered, as the bar raided. Embra shook her head in weary exasperation as the courtier beside her cried, "Open up! It's dangerous out here!"
The door swung wide, and the older of the two guards within grinned at the courtier and said, "Lad, 'tis dangerous in here, too. Thank the Three you've come, Lady!"
He led them through forechamber and feasting room, into the bedchamber proper-
where a white-faced Craer met them at the door, daggers in both hands. "The Lady Embra only," he snapped. "The rest of you, close the door on us and eat and drink whatever you like here, until we call for you."
Embra sighed. "You're missing the battle, Craer."
"Oh no I'm not," the procurer retorted, thrusting aside tapestries to reveal the bed itself.
It lay bared, down to scorched straw, with the smoldering remnants of its furs and linens kicked to the floor around it-and the reason why hovering above it.
Tshamarra Talasorn lay on her back in midair, arching and writhing, stark naked and as glistening with sweat as if she'd been oiled by servants. She was staring at nothing, in obvious pain, and at her every gasping breath, wisps of fire gouted from her lips.
"Do something," Craer hissed fearfully. "I think she's dying! Could it be Serpent-magic, do you think?"
Embra frowned. "Fire isn't the way of the Serpents," she murmured. "But… Ambelter, perhaps? Or another wizard working mischief while we're beset with the plague-ridden?" She stepped forward and held up her Dwaer. "It can't be a spell-trap… not with active magic at work."
She glanced at Craer, smiling without mirth. "Breathing fire isn't something Tash usually does when you're alone together, is it?"
Craer gave her a dark look.
"Right," Embra replied brightly. "I'll try a general purging of any magic that's at work on her. There're enough of the mattress ropes left to keep her from harm if she falls, I think…"
The Dwaer flashed in her hand. The lone lamp in the bedchamber went dark, the flames spewing from Tshamarra's mouth dimmed… and then something raced out of the floating sorceress.