ED Greenwood - Band of Four 01 - The Kingless Land

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The Kingless Land
Book 1 of Band of Four
By Ed Greenwood
Scanned by Highroller.
Proofed by an anonymous proofer.
A Proofpack release.
Ebook version 1.0
All we can boast about
All we hold proud
Comes to us drenched in blood:
The spilled lives of those who won it
For us all. Revere them.
Forget not their names.
In time of need,
Over the flames of fires,
We call to them
To come again.
For no land ever has heroes enough.
Especially not this one.
____Whisper-chant of Kurgrimmon,
Master Bard of Aglirta,
in the elder days, when there was a King
Prologue
The tavern sighed again.
Flaeros frowned across the warm room. Jacks of burnished copper hung on a forest of stout
pillars flashed fireflicker back at him. Long-whiskered men hefted pipes and tankards
unconcernedly, as if none heard the mournful wail but a would-be bard visiting from oversea.
He covered his darting glances with a sip of wine. A shiver trailed cold fingers down his back as
the wailing ghosted past to his left. Peering that way, he caught the eye of a lion-maned old man two
tables away: an eye that was keen, hawk-gold—and amused.
"You'll get used to it," the man told him, scratching his nose with a thoughtful thumb. "Truly."
Flaeros Delcamper drew in a deep breath. Arching his brow in a failing attempt to look
unconcerned, he asked as quietly as possible, "Is—is it a haunting, then?"
The old man chuckled. "Came in the back door, did you? From over the wave?"
Flaeros flushed. "From Ragalar," he said shortly, "for the Moot. Landed at dusk, on the Storm
Bird."
Bristling brows rose. "Costs a pearl or two for that swift a passage." Flaeros found himself
measured, that golden gaze flicking up and down like a thrusting sword. He squirmed, suddenly
more uncomfortable un-der scrutiny than he'd been since childhood.
Those golden eyes saw a man excited, young, and with a little too much wine aboard. From a
prosperous Ragalan house, by his garb, eyes bright with all the wonders of the world on his first
venture away from stern, gray Ragalar. Lilting voice, plenty of coins—a ro-mantic, dreaming of
being a master bard, probably sped hence with the blessings of parents beginning to think hopes of
their youngling becoming anything were but wispy dreams.
Nettled by that knowing gaze, Flaeros opened his mouth to say something rude—but the moaning
died as the old man glided soundlessly to a seat beside him.
"What you heard is why this house is less crowded than most, with the Moot coming down swift
upon us." Old lips curved in a wry smile. "Sirl folk come here to avoid being jostled by the
ballad-hungry. .. or just to spare their ears."
The severe wine matron who'd begun ignoring the beckonings of the youngest Delcamper
appeared like a silent shadow to set down a generous platter of hot herbed woodwings tarts and a
decanter of decidedly finer vintage than Flaeros had yet tasted. He turned to look at her in surprise,
only to find a tapestry rippling back into place in her wake—an instant too late for him to miss the
flashing smile she gave the old man over her shoulder. Who was he?
By then, the dry old voice was telling Flaeros that he was sitting in the Sighing Gargoyle. When
breezes blew just so through the sculpted stone ears and many-fanged mouth of the archmount
gargoyle out front, a sigh arose that was loud and lifelike.
Flaeros nodded and then stiffened at a warm touch against his hand. The old man had pushed
the heated platter his way. He looked up warily as the delicious smell of heartgaer and roast
woodwings rose around him.
"Eat," the old man said simply. "You have to give the wine something to work on, down below.
Maershee's tarts are as good as you'll taste in all Sirlptar."
Flaeros was suddenly so hungry that his mouth filled with juices. He bit into a tart like a starving
man and found it as good as it smelled.
Hot gravy was running off his chin, and the old man was grinning at him. The youngest
Delcamper suddenly found that he didn't care. He grinned back, and the old man promptly pressed
another tart into his hand.
Flaeros had come to the fabled Glittering City to be-hold the Moot of the master bards. Every two
years they gathered at Sirlptar to exchange news, decide which towns and baronies were to go
"under the ban" and hear no tales or harping for a time, and consider which bans should be lifted.
For a score of nights they bought and sold instruments, sang to crowds who paid far too much to
cram shoulder-close into taverns, took on or exchanged students, confirmed a few new bards . ..
and in rare years, named a precious handful of harpists to the maroon mantle of Mastery.
Flaeros Delcamper was years away from such a wondrous fate, and he knew it. Yet he was giddy
with the sheer joy of his venture, sitting in a tavern in fabled Sirlptar with wonders on all sides.
Small, but more worldly than the best tavern in Ragalar, filled with folk from far sailings . . . folk
more confident than the anx-ious coin-pinching merchants of Ragalar the Stern. Aye, he was alone
and far from home, in a city of ready swords and, the tales ran, expert thieves . . . but was he not
near invincible, with the Vodal on his finger?
He looked down at it—a twisted and battered nail spotted with black tar, roughly banged into a
finger ring long ago. It looked as worthless as the seaman's bauble it had been before the best
mages the Delcampers of old could hire laid a score of enchantments on it and made it. .. the Vodal.
He glanced away quickly, afraid he'd drawn attention to it. It had done the Delcampers much
service and was worth (he'd been told, sharply) ten younger sons of the blood, and more. He
casually closed his hand over it, feeling its familiar tingle. The Vodal could do many things, but
Flaeros had been properly shown only one of its powers: when he stared at a person or a thing and
set his will just so, he could see through all magical guises and gaze on the truth. Not that he
expected to encounter many spell-cloaked mages... but why else waste a truly powerful heirloom on
a wayward son?
Suddenly impatient with kin and home, Flaeros heard himself asking, "So where exactly did
Aglirta lie, and how fare its remnants? I've heard tales of its fall, and I'm sure I'll hear them told
better and broader in the nights ahead, but merchants are fond of wild gossip, and I'd rather hear
some truth."
The lion-maned old man slowly lost his smile. "You honor me, lad, to think my words hold truth.
Know, then: all the mountain-girt vale of the Silverflow that comes down to the sea here, cutting
Sirlptar in two, was once proud Aglirta. You probably know the water better as the River Coiling.
Somewhere in the depths of green Loaurimm it rises. No baron ever ruled those silences, but from
where the woodcutters left off, down its wind-ings through a dozen baronies, was Aglirta. All
between the Windfangs to the north, and the Talaglatlad—the peaks you see from Ragalar—to the
south, is now the Kingless Land: a lawless string of battling baronies. A good place to stay out of
until the Sleeping King wakes."
Flaeros raised an eyebrow. "That's more than a child's tale?"
The old man shrugged. "You know how such things are .. . yet it's curious; with bards spinning
new words for centuries, that tale never changes: the last true king of Aglirta will awaken when the
Dwaerindim are set just so, at the right place."
"Yes," Flaeros recalled eagerly. "The enchanted stones—are they just, well, stones? I was told
they were gems: huge jewels that could each fill a man's palm!"
The old man spread his hands. "Four old stones, he who saw them said. .. and being a bard,
Elloch would have embroidered his tale if what he'd seen left him room to do so."
"But that was but a dream," Flaeros protested.
Golden eyes flashed sudden fire. "'But a dream'? Lad, what do you think bards—and mages—
and lovers high and low feast on? What do you think barons and kings heed and hunger for?
Dreams drive us all!"
"But I want to hear truth. Dreams aren't truth!"
"They can be the goblet that holds it."
The young Delcamper frowned at that. Raking the air as if waving the thought aside to consider
later—or never—he asked fiercely, "But you believe all that? The Sleeping King, and Aglirta rising
again?"
Golden eyes met his steadily. "Aye. I do. I doubt I'll live to see it happen, and I scoff at the notion
his rising will at one magic stroke restore peace and bounty to the land—I think it'll bring us a war
leader who'll have to swing his blade mightily for years to hammer Aglirta together again. But there
is a Sleeping King, waiting to be awakened. Somewhere."
The young bard-to-be muttered, "Yet I'm hardly apt to go tripping over him outside the gates, am
I?"Old lips twisted wryly. "True enough, young lion. The corpse of a brigand, or the farmer he
knifed, per-haps, but not a snoring monarch."
Flaeros stared at him, eyes growing large. "What? Just how dangerous is the Kingless Land?
Should I buy a sword on the way back to my room?"
The old man's smile thinned. "Oh, it's safe enough here in Sirlptar. Life's not bad upriver, either,
if you belong—firmly under the gauntlet of this or that whim-ridden baron or Tersept. Wolves and
worse roam the fallen baronies. I'd not head into the forest without a blade, no—but then, were I
you, alone and new to Aglirta, I'd not go out into the forest at all. A blade stops no arrows."
Flaeros shook his head. "I'd heard Aglirta was beautiful but dangerous; one had to be careful.
You make it sound as if 'careful' means bring your own armed host, loyal mages and all!"
The old man smiled and propped one battered boot up on a chair. A flourish of his arms seemed
no more than a stretching of old limbs, but Maershee appeared before Flaeros could draw breath,
as if summoned up out of the empty floor by a spell. Setting sparkling gob-lets of sweet-smelling
wine before them both, she van-ished again without a sound.
"These are interesting days in Aglirta," the old man replied calmly, "what with the fall of the
Golden Grif-fon—Baron Blackgult, that is, who ruled the barony of Blackgult—and the rise of his
old rival Silvertree."
"Another baron?" Flaeros hazarded, sipping. This new wine was like the juiciest berries he'd
ever tasted, drowned in liquid fire.
The old man nodded. "There's an Aglirtan saying you'd do well to remember: 'Never trust a
Silvertree.' He's made swift work of pillaging Blackgult and almost built himself into a new king of
the Kingless Land, with at least three barons on the verge of kneeling to him."
"Almost? Will he rule it all?"
The lionlike mane of air shook in a firm no. "Faerod Silvertree's cruelty has ever clouded his
long sight. He's made foes of a thousand men by declaring them outlaw. With a price on their heads
they'll have no choice but to take to the woods and raid farms for food. Much blood will smoke on
the snow, come the cold."
"I never knew Aglirta had 'thousands of warriors.'"
"Men whelmed from all over Asmarand who fought in vain to conquer the Isles of Ieirembor for
Blackgult," the old voice explained. "Now they're trickling home—to find homes and farms gone,
and friends turned against them. Aye, the wolves'll be busy this winter."
Flaeros looked across the room. Through a diamond-shaped window, he could see the darkness
of full night, hiding the river Silverflow endlessly sliding past behind tall, crowded houses.
Somewhere out there in the dark, not so far off, desperate men with drawn swords were creeping.. ..
"Why do that?" he asked suddenly. "Why turn so many battle-ready warriors into your foes? Is
this Baron Silvertree mad?"
Heads turned. With a kind of cold thrill Flaeros real-ized his words had come out a trifle more
loudly than they should have done.
The old man, however, smiled easily. "Some have claimed so, but I find it does a man better to use
the word 'cunning' instead, and act accordingly."
As their eyes met over raised goblets, he added, "If a baron began hiring armaragors without
warning, rulers up and down the Coiling would rise in alarm and do the same. All would be thrust
closer to bloodshed, all would have to spend coins in plenty—and coins are something that barons
never do seem to want to part with."
Flaeros snorted. As if other folk liked to see coins roll away from them, either. ..
"Yet consider," the old man went on, "how it seems if you loudly trumpet the perils outlying folk
suffer from a few raiders and make a show of the diligence with which you rush to defend them. And
lo—some of these foes are renegade wizards; your patrols suffer under dark spells! To keep
Silvertree safe you need fresh swords, and put out the call, urging friendly barons to do the same,
proclaiming a blood price on this dark legacy of darker Blackgult, come down on fair Aglirta like
thieves in the night. None cry out at the strength you build against a phantom foe. Those who do
come raiding taste your strength and turn to harry other bar-onies, weakening your rivals—and
hastening the day you'll reach out and snatch them down, one by one. Cunning."
Flaeros looked wonderingly out the window at the night and a single twinkling light he could
now see, and protested, "You speak of scheming that rushes lands to war and cares not for lives
shed in the doing!"
"Ah," the old man whispered over his goblet, "that's where the madness comes in."
Eyeball to eyeball young man and old stared at each other, until Flaeros asked almost
despairingly, "How is it that you know all this?"
Old lips laughed without a sound. "I am Inderos Stormharp."
Flaeros gasped, thrust his chair back as if he'd strayed too close to a hot fire, and gaped at the
old man—who raised his glass in an almost mocking salute.
Inderos Stormharp! Most famous of the master bards!
The oldest and most respected weaver of ballads in all Asmarand, the seldom-seen master of
enchanted harps who could call forth the strains of a dozen instru-ments out of empty air to dance
with his voice. The man who'd wooed the sensuous Nuesressa of Teln, only to unmask her as a
dragon using shape-shiftings to lure men as a spider catches flies. The man who'd called forth
unicorns with his singing and danced with dryads in mushroom groves to learn their secrets.
Flaeros knew he was staring like a man brain-smit-ten and searched for something intelligent to
say. It was a doomed quest. "I-I—ahhh ...," he began.
Stormharp waved him to silence. "Gabbling is not needful, nor the fawning I find myself in
constant over-supply of," he said lightly, and then cocked his head and asked, "You looked at me
strangely when first 1 spoke to you .. . have you seen me before?"
Flaeros blinked. "Ah, no," he said truthfully, "I know I haven't. Heard of the great Stormharp,
yes, but... bards come seldom to Ragalar, and respected mer-chants look ill on their sons learning
ballads when they could—should—be mastering a trade."
The old man nodded silently. There was something of danger removed in that gaze, like a dagger
being slid back into a sheath. Out of habit Flaeros called on the Vodal then, letting it govern his
right eye, while he kept his left gazing unchanged on the old man with the golden eyes.
His right eye regarded a rather different man looking back at him over a goblet. A younger man,
though no youth—a man of weathered features, piercing black eyes, and the lionlike build and
manner of a warlord who rides into battle rather than lounging on a baron's throne. A man who was
holding a hand-length deadly firelance wand trained at the breast of Flaeros Delcamper.
The hairy-knuckled hand that held that wand so pa-tiently and steadily bore a large gold ring,
and its large head in turn bore the device of a golden griffon.
Flaeros drew in a tense breath and devoted himself to looking innocent. It would have been more
difficult if he'd known what, by the Three, was going on—yet thanks to those same gods, truth had
always been in short supply in Darsar.
"So," he asked, with a joviality he did not feel, "what should a man visiting Sirlptar do to stay out
of trou-ble?"
Inderos Stormharp chuckled. "Too late, lad," he added, waving to Maershee for more wine with
a hand that—without the Vodal—seemed empty of both ring and wand. "You'll just have to settle
down to enjoying yourself instead."
1
The Lady of Jewels
The River Coiling is cold at night. It slid endlessly and restlessly past Hawkril's shoulders as he swam
steadily closer to the solid stone darkness of the castle walls, hoping no alert guard would hear Craer's teeth
chattering beside him—and that they'd not meet with a watersnake.
But then, what was one more pair of hungry fangs now? They were outlaws, every man's hand raised
against them. As a ripple slapped his face with chilling water, Hawkril recalled their desperate scheming,
over a meager fire high in the Wildrocks.
It had been cold then, too, and he'd challenged his clever-tongued, spiderlike comrade to find them a
warm lair before the winter snows.
"With what?" Craer had snarled.
"Your wits, Longfingers," the armaragor had told him, almost merrily, knowing they hadn't even coins
enough between them to buy an ax to hew firewood. Craer Delnbone was quick-witted, too (no army
pro-curer prospered for long who wasn't). After all, "pro-curer" was just a handsome title for a word most
folk knew rather better: thief.
"The only places that seem to have coins to spare are Sirlptar," Craer had reasoned, "which holds far too
many prying mages for my liking—and Silvertree, which already regards us as foes to be slain."
"I knew we were going to end up charging right at the throat of the strongest foe you could find,"
Hawkril had answered. "How are we going to find out where Faerod keeps his gold? His castle fills an
entire island! He's got that wizard Gadaster, too!"
Craer had smiled, and shared his one good bit of news: "I heard two merchants in Dranmaer hawing on
about how important they were and how much they'd make off of Silvertree. One of them said old Mulkyn
died whilst we were away at war. They wondered about his replacements—and if Aglirta has heard
nothing of them, they can't be powerful mages hired from some-one else in the Vale—and so can only be
more feeble at magic than Gadaster was .. . and thus hopefully less likely to find and track down two gown
thieves."
"'Gown thieves'?" Hawkril had asked patiently, as he'd known he was supposed to.
"Who's the richest woman in the baronies?" Craer had asked briskly.
He hadn't had to frown for long. "The Lady of Jew-els," he'd replied, "or so rumor has it."
"Exactly," the procurer had agreed, proceeding to make a show of leisurely taking a tiny bite of the
stolen lamb they were sharing.
The armaragor had put the toe of one of his boots into Craer's thigh, not ungently, and the procurer had
added hastily, "A tall, beautiful thing, or so we're told, whom no one ever sees these days—not that many
folk have ever been welcome to step into Castle Silvertree, or wanted to. She wears gowns festooned with
gems; everyone still agrees on that, and she certainly did when she was a wisp of a girl; I saw her ... and
her forty-three guards."
"Not a pleasant memory?"
Craer had shrugged, licking grease from his fingertips. "I'm sitting here talking to you with all of my
limbs intact, am I not?"
Hawkril had given him a grin. "Yet I'd not be mis-taken in thinking she lost no gems that day?"
The procurer had sighed theatrically, and told his fin-gernails, "I thought that if I let the girl be, she'd
grow much larger... and of course, her gowns would grow with her, so I'd have more and bigger gems to
harvest, some day...."
"We set off to conquer the Isles," Hawkril had growled slowly, "and now we're talking about stealing a
lady's dress."
"Not just any lady," Craer had reminded him. "And recluse or not, this one can hardly be innocent or
even nice—after all, she's Baron Faerod's daughter! The Lady of Jewels, famous for her life of indolent
luxury. She probably has forty gowns festooned with gems— and only one body to wear them. "Why, she
probably has wardrobes and even whole robing chambers full of gowns she's tired of and won't wear. We'll
be doing her a favor by taking one off her hands—and one, just one should be good for five or six seasons
of guzzling wine and searching for just the right woman in Sirlptar, or even fabled Renshoun across the
Spellgirt Sea."
Hawkril had shrugged. Craer had done it again. "Well, if you put it that way ...," he'd said slowly.
"Yes, we may well die in the trying," the procurer had hissed in his ear, "but why not go splendidly,
fight-ing and striving, instead of shivering away cold winter nights of hunger, waiting for the wolves to end it
all?"
Water slapped his face again, jolting Hawkril out of his memories of warm dripping lamb. If he'd dared
to speak at all, he'd have dared the procurer swimming at his elbow to justify stealing a gown—a lady's
gown, sargh and bebolt it!—again.
But they were close in under the grim gray walls now, and he dared not say a word. The icy breeze
ghost-ing past could well be carrying the ears of a listening wizard. A mage whose boredom would die
swiftly in the glee of slaughtering two outlaws daring to intrude on the island that was Castle Silvertree.
Why, oh why, did he let Longfingers talk him into such madnesses? They'd agreed to get in, steal a
gown or whatever else of substantial worth they could easily carry off that didn't look magical, and get out
without tarrying to explore or get greedy.
Castle Silvertree occupied an entire island in the Sil-verflow ... or at least its walls enclosed the isle.
Walls that now towered up into the night like a black hand raised against them—a black gauntlet waiting to
close down and crush what it grasped.
It was well known that a forested garden grew at the heart of the island, between the palace wherein
dwelt the Lady Embra Silvertree—the tall, beautiful, never-seen Lady of Jewels—at its downstream end,
and a dock and fortress, the true Castle Silvertree, at the "prow," or eastern end. Walls as steep and
crenellated as any bold baron's linked them, rising from the rocky roots of the isle like a huge shield to wall
out unwanted intruders. Two desperate outlaws from the ruin of Ezen-dor Blackgult's army, for instance.
The Golden Griffon badge they'd been so proud to wear would now mean their deaths—and a ruthless
man somewhere on the island ahead seemed a few swift battles away from claiming the kingdom Blackgult
had fallen short of, with the baronies of Brostos, Maerlin, and Ornentar bowing to his writ and wishes. A
greater snake than anything the Silverflow might hold.
The river rippled again, carrying away most of Hawkril's deep growl of anger.
Craer had led the way, striking out from shore the moment full night was down and the river mists had
risen, hopefully cloaking them from any watchers on the frowning battlements. Their only hope of reaching
the isle without tiring was to swim for the dock and let the river carry them down the length of the fortified
island, to the rough outcropping in the otherwise sheer castle walls, where a jetty had been torn away at the
or-ders of Faerod Silvertree—to keep unwanted visitors far from his daughter.
Their only hope of even reaching the castle alive was to get to it before the moon rose and transformed
the river into a sheet of rippling silver. Even a yawning guard could hardly miss two heads moving steadily
nearer.
Tarry, old moon ... for once.. . .
"Close, now," Craer gasped, so quietly that Hawkril only just caught the words. As their fingertips
brushed wet and slimy stone at about the same time, the pro-curer added in an almost soundless breath,
"Seems like we've been in this bebolten river all night!"
He shivered like a swift-wriggling eel as he clawed himself up the broken face of rock, a dark and
glisten-ing shadow in front of Hawkril's nose. They both wore carry-sacks and bore their weapons lashed
into goose-greased scabbards . .. and they were both cold, wet, and having second thoughts about this
bold—ah, by the Three, call it true and call it "foolish"—plan.
"Ready?" Craer asked in Hawkril's ear, as the ar-maragor clambered up onto a rock shelf beside him
and tugged off one boot to let far too much river water spill out.
"No, but if we meet a guard, I can always drown him," the swordmaster muttered, carefully working his
boot back on. They both wore their light fighting-leathers without the battle padding that, when wet, would
have made it too heavy to climb in. At least the walls here were rough set and easy to scale. No doubt the
Lords Silvertree, down the years, hadn't given much thought to the steadily diminishing ranks of thieves
idi-otic enough to try to drop in on a succession of barons known for their cruelty, slave-dealings, and love
of tor-ture. It seemed that the latest flowering of the line, Baron Faerod, was no more vigilant.
"Well, that's it: he's doomed now, the fool," Craer told himself in silent sarcasm, as he wiped his
fingertips on the stone walls until he judged them dry enough and reached up to find his first fingerholds.
The palace was somewhere on the far side of the is-land, with a Silvertree riverboat—according to local
gossip, the home of restless Silvertree soldiery set there to intercept attempts by enemies of the baron to
use his ferry—anchored not far off its walls.
Hopefully no one and nothing dwelt or guarded the walls just here, where the pavilion and jetty had been
torn down, and two desperate men were now making their way up. "Desperate, or just foolish," Craer
grunted, not realizing he'd spoken aloud until he heard Hawkril answer from below.
"Master it, Longfingers: you're desperate. I'm just foolish, look you?"
Craer grinned into the darkness and climbed on with-out answering. The going was easy—too easy, old
in-stincts were shrieking at him—and they were almost at the crenellations that topped the wall already.
He'd heard and seen no sign of sentries, but...
Straining to make no sound, and to hear even the slight whistle of sliced air a stealthily swung weapon
might make, the procurer hauled himself up onto smooth stone strewn with bird droppings—a thankful sign
of neglect—between two merlons. The wall was thick and showed not the slightest signs of weathering,
here at its top. Not the slightest signs .. .
The hair rose on the back of his neck. A frowning Craer unlaced the ties on two of his daggers. Then,
swallowing, he crawled forward to make room for Hawkril. The armaragor was patting his leg impatiently,
wanting to get clear of the danger of a killing fall back down to the cold, waiting river.
A simple, railless walkway ran along the inside of the walls for as far as the lastalan's eyes could see in
ei-ther direction, without stair or tower or platform to break its run. It seemed deserted, silent trees standing
in thick ranks right in front of them. The walkway was perhaps the height of three men aboveground. It
didn't seem to bear any traps or pitfalls but was in truth largely lost in darkness.
Some spells give off a faint, high singing, an endless keening of aroused magic ... but there was no such
sound here. The trees had been trimmed to keep ambi-tious boughs from reaching out to overhang the
walk-way. Craer looked up and down the deserted curve of the wall, frowning, but could see nothing amiss.
Behind him, he could feel more than hear Hawkril's heavy breathing on his shoulder. Something was
wrong....
He reached back and tapped the armaragor's arm de-liberately, twice—the Blackgultan signal to wait
silently until bidden otherwise—and then eased himself forward, keeping low and inching with infinite care,
looking for a tripwire that might bring death out of that close and dark foliage. He found nothing.
Unlacing the cords that secured his needle-thin whip-blade shortsword, Craer thrust it out before him
and waved it around. Its blade was black and dull finished, but the grease that might keep it from rusting
glistened in the first light of the rising moon. Nothing happened, even when he touched the walkway and
pressed down hard. Then he sighed, shrugged, and stepped forward and down, knowing this was going to
be a mistake.
It was, but Hawkril had joined him before something brushed Craer's leg. He spun away, and felt leather
tear. Looking down, he stared at a humanlike arm that had sprouted out of the stones to clutch at him.
Another was reaching for Hawkril—and a third!
"'Ware!" he snarled, shoving the armaragor away from him. His skin crawled as he saw a forest of
finger-tips growing out of the stones, now. "Jump!" he hissed. "We've got to get gone before—"
Cruel stone fingers clutched them from all sides.
"Horns!" Hawkril swore, and put his whole body behind a swing of his war sword. Craer heard stone
shat-ter and shards clack and clatter off the stones around the swordmaster, an instant before he bent to
hammer with the pommel of his own blade at the stony hands now tightening with crushing force around his
own ankles.
"Get off the wall!" he snarled in Hawkril's direction, twisting and stamping his feet as he whacked aside
stabbing fingers of stone.
He heard the tall armaragor grunt with effort, and something struck his leg a numbing blow. Craer felt
wetness in his boot—and sudden freedom. He spun away into space, drawing up his knees to land in what
he hoped was earth and not spikes or the waiting jaws of some guardian beast.
His heels found soft earth and leaves that tore under him—and then he was rolling desperately out of
the way, as an off-balance armaragor, arms flailing, toppled down out of the night almost on top of him. The
pro-curer felt another blow on his leg ... and then silence fell. He drew in a deep breath and sprang to his
feet, tugging at Hawkril.
"There may be a warning spell! Come!"
The armaragor answered him with a groan and then a curse. As he rolled over to find his feet almost
reluc-tantly, what was left of some spiny, berry-bedecked shrub fell from his back and shoulders. Hawkril
looked down, found that he'd crushed whatever it was thor-oughly, and waded rather stiffly out of its
shattered ruin onto what must be a moss path. The garden ahead was a maze of moon-silvered tree trunks,
winding paths, and beds of half-seen, shadowed flowers and shrubs. It seemed to be a succession of gentle
hills.
Craer was already a few paces down the path, crouching and peering intently as he drew on soft (and
sopping) leather gloves. "They say the baron hunts stags here," he murmured, "and that his daughter
wan-ders idly about in floral gardens that are probably that way."
Without another word the procurer set off in the di-rection he'd pointed, in a sort of crouching run. He
seemed to be limping. Ignoring his own pains, Hawkril dug in his heels and lumbered along in pursuit,
grum-bling, "If she's wandering around a garden right now, in the dark, it won't be for idle purposes . . . not
unless she's a deal less sane than most of us."
Neither of the intruders saw the wall behind them ripple and bulge, for all the world as if it was pudding
being mixed vigorously and not old and massive stone.
One of the crenellations toppled suddenly, and seemed to flow through the walkway and downward
rather than crashing and shattering. When it reached the torn flowerbed where the two men had landed, it
stopped, and its shape seemed to shift subtly. When it moved again, it walked like a man—a lumbering
knight in full armor, visor down and stony blade raised to slay, its free hand wearing a massive spiked war
gauntlet.
It moved stiffly, as if a little uncertain of its surround-ings, but its course was clear: it was following the
in-truders, sword raised and ready to slay.
Hawkril thrust his head forward, listening intently. Faint crashings of disturbed foliage could be heard far
back along the way they'd come. He frowned. "Dogs?" he asked, puzzled. "No, something that moves more
slowly..."
"Come," Craer said, moving on at a trot. He way limping, and his smile was tight and mirthless. "No
doubt we'll learn what it is soon enough." A few paces on, he changed direction. "Formal plantings!"
"Whence this sudden fancy for flowers?" Hawkril growled. "'Tis a bit dark, surely, to be admiring
blooms!"
The procurer gave him a pity-the-poor-dullard look and explained. "If the Lady Embra wanders idly in
flo-ral gardens from time to time, said floral gardens are therefore probably free of sentries or guardian
beasts. Through the thick helm yet, Tall Post?"
The rustlings and crashings were growing steadily nearer. "Getting there," Hawkril told his
brother-in--arms dryly, and joined the gasping procurer in a last sprint toward flowers and open moonlit
spaces. The moon was very bright now; the open space ahead shone like a row of candlelit swords in a
swordsmith's shop. Against that shining rose a dark bulk: a rampant watch-wyvern, its fearsome beak
poised and its glittering gaze bent upon them.
"Graul," Hawkril gasped, losing his breath for the first time. "What's this, friend Craer? Rush to thy doom
evening?"
"What?"
"Yon—look! The wyvern!"
"A statue, thick helm . .. see? There's another, there, and—"
"In this place, they're probably all real wyverns, made statues by magic until we try to walk past them,"
Hawkril complained.
Craer asked mockingly, "Want to be an adventurer, laddy, and use that sword?"
The armaragor noticed, however, that as they ran the procurer shook his strangling wire out of his glove
and let it dangle ready in his hand—and that the point of the short sword he bore in his other hand never
dipped in the direction of its sheath.
The garden glades were lovely by moonlight; 'twas a pity something was chasing them and that they
dared not linger for even a single look into each bower they passed. Ahead, the silver light touched stone
balconies and gleamed back from windows.. . .
That were blotted out an instant later by something large and furred and silent, springing through the air
with its gaping jaws agleam!
"Horns!" Hawkril swore, driving his blade at the thing as it plunged past. "'Tis a wolf!"
His steel met the leaping form solidly and tore along its ribs with a rattling impact that sent blood
spraying and nearly tore the sword from his grasp. The wolf made no sound of rage or pain—only the snap
of its jaws as it pounced on Craer and drove him over back-ward, biting viciously at his face.
The armaragor swallowed a curse and chopped at the wolf's head. Its jaws were caught on Craer's
strangling-wire, which the procurer had hastily stretched from hand to hand to bar the way to his throat.
The beast was ignoring the long, jagged wound Hawkril's blade had opened in its side—a rent out of which
much dark liq-uid was pouring—but it couldn't ignore the blows that nearly severed its head from its body.
Craer was making wet choking sounds under all the gore, and Hawkril bent to snatch the wolf off of his
... The sudden blow to his ribs drove the wind from him and tore both hot and cold; Hawkril cried out
despite himself as he went to the ground, sword flailing the air in futility. There was a second wolf.
Gore burst from the jaws and cloven throat of the wolf atop Craer, half drowning him in a hot, wet,
blind-ing flood; he spat and coughed and tried to keep breath-ing, smashing at lolling jaws with his elbow in
an attempt to get out from under. These must be a pair of the legendary smoke wolves, who always kept
摘要：

TheKinglessLandBook1ofBandofFourByEdGreenwoodScannedbyHighroller.Proofedbyananonymousproofer.AProofpackrelease.Ebookversion1.0AllwecanboastaboutAllweholdproudComestousdrenchedinblood:ThespilledlivesofthosewhowonitForusall.Reverethem.Forgetnottheirnames.Intimeofneed,Overtheflamesoffires,WecalltothemT...

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