Sheets of roaring flame rolled out in a great wave, making horses rear and scream and stray branches crackle and fall-and then were gone, leaving nothing but smoke and a sharp burnt smell in their wake.
Thankfully, no trees fell and no field caught alight, though it might have been better for the five riders on the trail if some had. Burning grass hides relatively few brigands… or lurking wizards.
Embra peered tensely this way and that through the thinning smoke as the last of the wagons bounced and rattled away into the distance, with no living man left to guide its oxen.
Dead carters lay sprawled everywhere atop the grassy rise, in the dappled shade of the dozen or so old thornapple trees that lined the trail here on both sides. The Lady Silvertree muttered something over her Dwaer, still casting swift glances in all directions… but no lurking foe could she find. The stump-fenced fields certainly looked deserted.
"Whence came those flames?" she inquired of the Vale at large, as her Stone quieted the horses.
"Sorry," Tshamarra Talasorn gasped, from her knees amid the rolling dust of the road. "My spell… got away from me."
"Ah, but you won't so easily get away from me? Craer said gleefully from beside her, dragging her down atop him. She slapped him hard, and then turned within the space his flinch allowed and dealt him a shrewd blow in a tender place. Obligingly, he emitted a strangled chirp of pain.
"Let me up, dolt," she snarled. Craer's only response was a gasp. She frowned at him as she clambered to her feet. He tried to give her a smile, but Tshamarra turned her back on him, clapped dust from herself, and peered about.
Blackgult, Hawkril, and Embra exchanged puzzled glances with her and each other across the stretch of churned and littered trail that was fairly carpeted with dead carters.
And at least one who still lived. Hawkril used his sword to nudge the one he'd stunned, but the man remained senseless, eyes closed and mouth slack and drooling. A gentle slap with the flat of Hawk's blade brought no reaction.
By then Craer had found his feet, wincing and straightening slowly. "So what was all that about?" he demanded, voicing the bewildered exasperation they all felt. "They're not wearing scales or Serpent-tattoos or anything, are they?"
Hawkril drew on his gauntlets against poison or creeping doings, and bent again to the unconscious carter at his feet. "Nay," he said briefly, after tugging aside none-too-clean clothing and peering here and there. He looked up at Embra from under bushy brows. "They were enspelled, though, aye?"
His lady frowned at him, and then traded similar expressions with Tshamarra. " 'Tis likely, given the suddenness of their attack, unless we deem them all trained Sirl actors-"
"And given the recklessness with which they fought," Craer's partner put in, swinging herself back into the saddle of her now calm horse.
Embra nodded. "But 'tis too late to be sure. Only when spells are very strong, or clash with other strong magics, or affect wards and other standing, spells, do they leave a taint of power behind that can tell us anything." She surveyed the sprawled bodies again and sighed. "If this befalls again and we've time and opportunity to cast the right spells before someone so war-crazed dies in the fray, we might be able to find out."
Craer had been conducting his own search of a handy body-that of a tall, well-dressed carter he'd seen hanging back from most of the fighting, doing more swaying and sweating than anything else. The man had the look of some wealth, so his purse might come in handy.
The procurer had drawn on one of the pairs of soft, tight leather gloves he always carried ready in belt-pouches. Those gloved hands had been gliding here and there up and down the corpse like busy spiders, but paused suddenly. "This one has scales," Craer reported grimly.
Embra exchanged unhappy glances with her father this time. By the set of Blackgult's jaw, he welcomed this news no more than she did.
"Magic, then," she said softly, "but what magic? Another evil Serpent sending, probably-but if not, whose dark reaching this time?"
Blackgult shrugged, and waved to Embra and her fellow sorceress to ride with him a little way on, to the crest of the rise.
Lacking shovels to do burials, Hawkril and Craer carried the corpses to the deepest part of the ditch, the procurer busily expropriating purses and serviceable-looking knives and daggers as they worked. Hawk propped the man he'd stunned into a sitting position against a tree, a little way along the trail from where they put the dead.
"We haven't seen any Snake-lovers recently," Craer said thoughtfully, taking the ankles of the corpse Hawkril was hefting.
"Oh?" the armaragor rumbled. "If they take off those robes and put on something that hides any scales, how would we know? They don't have to hiss and cackle, do they now?"
Craer grunted agreement as they let the body fall, and started back for another.
The merchant's wife set down her wine untasted. "What can be keeping him? Lessra, go you and fetch the master! Tell him the wine is poured, it grows late, and we've a long day ahead on the morrow."
Her maidservant hovered attentively, awaiting more instructions, until the goodwife lost her patience and snapped, "Go!"
Nathalessra went, passing out of the candlelit chamber like a hurrying shadow.
Her mistress sighed and gave the nearest candle a glare. Had Colbert got himself drunk again? How long did it take a man to dress in his finest? Why, he'd promised her this night of love on and off for two moons now! Always too busy, always another wagon to load or unload, until now there was just this last night before the ride to Sirlptar, and she'd put it to him bluntly-nay, begged him like a common trollop, almost in tears… truly in tears, after a frown had crossed his face. Why, 'twas as if-
Nathalessra screamed.
High, raw, and… cut off, abruptly. Wetly.
The goodwife frowned. "Lessra? Lessra! What've you found? What's he up to?"
There was no reply.
"Lessra?"
The candles flickered, but no answer came. With something approaching a growl the goodwife rose and made for the door. If Colbert had finally taken to pawing her own maidservant right under her nose, she'd-
Something came through the door before she reached it. Something low and long-snouted, with fur that glistened with blood. Its claws left bloody prints as it came, moving slowly and heavily.
Two yellow eyes gleamed hungrily at her over what was dangling from its many-fanged jaws: Nathalessra's staring, blood-dripping head.
It flopped loosely, still attached to one shoulder. The rest of the maid's body was nowhere to be seen; those fangs were long enough to pierce right through flesh.
The beast was still coming toward her menacingly, as large as the table behind her. As it came out into the full candlelight-long before she backed into the table and lost her footing and it loomed up over her-the goodwife screamed.
The beast was wearing the torn and shredded remnants of a tunic, vest, and breeches.
Colbert's tunic, vest, and breeches.
The Brother of the Serpent repressed a shudder-hopefully before it was noticed by the Lord of the Serpent who was standing beside him, smiling a soft smile.
That hope died swiftly as the senior priest asked, "Direjaws not a favorite of yours, Brother?"
"Ah, uh," Brother Landrun replied, swallowing, "no."
The Serpent-lord smiled and waved a dismissive hand. "No matter. I'm not as enamored of beasts as many Brethren, either. I prefer spellchanging those the plague plunges into beast-shape into more useful forms." He fell silent, obviously waiting for the Brother to ask what those useful forms might be.
Landrun did manage not to shudder this time. Every secret revealed to a priest of the Serpent was one more good reason why that particular priest might later have to die. He was not enthused to learn secrets.