Grinning down on them from on high were at least seven Serpent-priests with bows, and in their midst was a palace servant, a lass with a decanter of wine in her hand. As the priests reached for fresh arrows-war-shafts, this time; they seemed to have run out of enspelled snakes-she unstoppered it and poured it down on the heads of some of the guards struggling with the beast, laughing. "A little more plague, sirs?"
Embra was curled up in a ball, rocking and moaning gently, her body aglow with strange, crawling magic. Just above her, Blackgult was nearing the end of a careful, one-handed spellcasting, his other hand thrust into his daughter's lap, where her Dwaer was.
Hawk cursed at the sight of the laughing wench, and lumbered forward into a charge-but was met by a fiercer charge, as the beast that had been a guard burst over its wounded fellow armsmen, and struck Hawkril with a crash. As they struggled, talons raking and a warsword rising and falling in the midst of coils and tentacles, the Serpent-priests bent their bows and drew back arrows to their ears-arrows that were aimed at the Lady of Jewels and her father.
And Blackgult finished his spell with a brittle smile.
There was a sudden grinding rumble from overhead, a tremor that shook the room. On the balcony, priests were sent staggering, and more than one arrow flashed harmlessly away to crack against the far wall, shiver, and tumble in shards and slivers to the floor. The servant girl screamed- and went on screaming as the ceiling above the balcony split apart, in rents that ran as fast as the fingers of an anguished opening fist…
… and crashed down on the balcony, breaking it off the wall with a noise like angry thunder and shattering it in a huge heap of rolling stones on the floor below. Blackgult plucked up Embra and dragged her back from sliding, tumbling stones just in time.
Dust rose in a roiling cloud, out of which loomed a blood-spattered Hawkril, the shorn-off, pulped remnant of a tentacle still clinging to his shoulder-and a retching, softly sobbing bundle in his hand that proved to be Tshamarra.
Someone else came staggering out of the dust behind him, and Blackgult grabbed for his sword and discovered he'd lost it in the tumult.
The new arrival coughed, wiped a hand across his face to reveal himself as one of the guards, and held up the cracked, dust-caked upper half of the decanter the servant girl had been waving so mockingly.
"She must have been plying us with plague-laced wine these last two days," he gasped, "that grauling Serpent-worshipper!"
"If she's been doing that all over the palace," Hawkril growled, reaching for his dazed lady, "Raulin could be dead already!"
"Too high a price to pay for ridding Aglirta of excess courtiers," Craer agreed with a twisted smile, appearing out of the murk.
He turned to Blackgult. "Nicely done. I was almost up to them when the top of the stair broke. Let's find the next way up; 'tis the far side of yon cross-passage, I recall."
"Yes," Blackgult agreed. "Yell when you reach it. Then perhaps Embra can get herself healed without Dwaer-magic tearing her insides out, hey?" The procurer gave him a reproachful look. "I ran as fast as I could." "And you will again-right now. Why, you'll be getting good at it, soon!" Craer's reply was a very rude gesture-but he obediently hastened, and Blackgult was puffing too severely to join in his signal shout when they
reached the stair they'd been seeking: a flight of marble steps strewn with dead bodies and witless, drooling men.
Craer glanced up it, waved a hand at all the slaughter and ruin, and said to the onetime Regent of all Aglirta, " Would you store a king up yonder, amid all this?"
"Get going," Blackgult told him grimly, "and we'll see, won't we?"
"Who knocks?" a voice asked suspiciously, from the other side of the door. The small, slender man flattened against the wall as far away from the door as he could get and just reach the edge of the door with his fingertips called back, "Craer Delnbone, Overduke of Aglirta. I've another overduke-Blackgult by name-with me."
There was a period of silence, then the voice declared with flat and very unwelcoming finality, "Any man can claim to be an overduke."
"Ah," Craer replied almost delightedly, "but can they correctly mimic my arch overduchal knock? The maid-enchanting lilt of my voice? The stunning beauty of my hand you're staring at through yon spyhole you so fondly believe I don't notice? Come to think of it, who else would come knocking-instead of using a spell or an ax on your door, or stuffing snakes under it to hiss their welcome for them, hey?"
They heard faint laughter from behind the door, then an order, a voice raised in tones of objection, the snap of another order, and then the sounds of a doorbar being lifted and bolts being thrown.
In a rattle of chain, the door opened just wide enough for a guard in full armor, with the visor of his helm down, to peer out. "Who else stands with you?"
Craer preened like a maiden, and then ran his hands over his hips like a strumpet. "Aren't we enough?"
Blackgult rolled his eyes. "Let us in, Greatsarn, before he gets worse. And believe me, he gets worse."
The guard withdrew, the door was opened just wide enough for both overdukes to slip through-and slammed shut behind them by guards who hastily fumbled the bolts and bars back into place.
"Imprisoning yourself to save some foe the trouble?" Craer demanded of the young, smiling man sitting at a table at the back of the room. "Raulin, d'you mind telling me just who this most puissant enemy is?"
If Macros Delcamper or any of the handful of old, trusted warriors in the stout-walled upper room-the stub of a long-vanished turret, sporting but the one door, a roof-hatch, and two narrow archers' windows-were shocked at hearing the King of Aglirta addressed so abruptly by only his first name, none of them showed it.
"Anyone and everyone," Raulin Castlecloaks replied with a sigh, slapping the table in weary exasperation. "I hope you brought food. We're starving up here, and hardly dare mount more armed expeditions to the kitchens. It cost us Ilger and his three underguard trainees two days back."
"No, Raulin," Blackgult told him darkly, "as a matter of fact we didn't, but if you stay here, I'll fetch the rest of your wayward overdukes, and we'll scour the kitchens for you. Embra might even be able to purge any poisons in whatever provender we find there. I take it the Serpents don't quite openly rule the palace yet?"
"Well," the young king replied ruefully, "not this chamber of it, at least."
Blackgult rolled his eyes again. "Remind me to leave you alone in Flowfoam Palace less often, lad. At least you had enough sense to choose a room a handful of willing swords have some chance of defending-but that's about it."
"Lord Blackgult," the bard from Ragalar said quietly, "might I remind you that you address your King? More respectful words would be advisable."
"No, Lord Delcamper, you may not remind me of such matters," the Golden Griffon told him flatly. "I'm getting too old to have time left for such foolishness-but not yet so age-enfeebled as to become respectful of anyone. That way lies ruin for all Aglirta, just now, no matter whose backside warms the throne."
The king pretended to be shocked, but as Flaeros Delcamper started to sputter with indignation, Raulin burst into whoops of laughter-the rather wild laughter of someone seizing on mirth after too long with nothing to laugh at-and told the room, "May the Band of Four live forever!"
Craer grinned. "Well, that's one more sharp difference of opinion between you and the Snake-lovers, to be sure. I-"
His face changed, and he clutched at the saddlebag slung over his shoulder. It was rising, the worn leather shifting, and as he caught at it, a sudden glow spilled from under its flaps.