Across that unnatural hush, Embra heard Belgur Arthroon's shout of triumph die away uncertainly as he stared at the dull Stone in his grasp. Had he destroyed it? Or drained all its power for a time?

The dead warrior floating in front of Embra thumped to the ground, the rigid serpent-arrows crumbling to ash as he fell. He crashed down atop

Tshamarra-who awakened from her spell-slumber in a snarling whirlwind of biting and kicking as she rolled onto the dead man, clawing with her hands for a strangling grip on his throat.

"Easy, Tash!" Embra hissed. "He's dead! Dead of snake-venom!"

The Talasorn sorceress stared up at her, rage ebbing in those dark eyes. Then she turned her head to look where Embra was staring: across the body-strewn, much-trampled glade at the Lord of the Serpent.

Belgur Arthroon was spitting curses at the Dwaer-Stone in his hands, and it was spitting tiny lightnings right back at him-but little else. Shaking his head, he let it fall at his feet, glared at the Lady Silvertree, and raised both hands to cast a spell at her.

"He ruined a Dwaer-Stone?" Tshamarra gasped. "Is that possible?"

Embra shook her head. "No. He misused it foolishly, breaking all magics within reach." She raised her own Dwaer, and a soft light kindled in it. "Which leaves me free to…"

She fell silent, and Tshamarra turned again to see what Embra was gazing at. Arthroon's hands were lifted to cup and hold the glow of his gathering magic, and his eyes were alight with triumph as he chanted the last few words of an incantation both women recognized. It would bring into being a sphere of raging lightnings… a sphere he'd doubtless hurl at them both.

Something else was rising behind the Lord of the Serpent, something darker and taller, gleaming in the gathering spell-glow. A figure in armor… Ezendor Blackgult, awakened from his mind-slumber. As he rose, the Golden Griffon swept his sword up in a thrust that began at his knees, and sliced the air upward with the full weight of his swordarm behind it.

The point of that blade burst through Belgur Arthroon's neck from behind and slid out of the priest's mouth like a long, rigid, bloody tongue.

The stricken Serpent-lord stared wide-eyed at Embra, choking on the last words of his incantation. His spell collapsed into fading fires that splashed into his palms and then flowed down to lick the ground and the away entirely. Blackgult pulled back his blade to thrust again, but the Lord of the Serpent said nothing more as he sank to the waiting loam in a last, reluctant kneeling.

Embra slashed out with her Dwaer, sending thin bolts stabbing like lances into warriors who were beginning their own charges toward Blackgult. Her father grinned, waved at her, and whirled to hack down the next priest.

Embra turned to face where she knew none but Serpents stood, and blasted that clump of men, hurling them back into the trees. Then she turned swiftly to make sure no one was coming up behind her, kept turning when she saw no foe until she came around to face the Serpent-men on the far right-and blasted them, too.

Her Dwaer flickered in the wake of that magic, its radiance visibly fading. Tash gasped at the sight. Embra gave her a grim look. "We'd best get that second Stone," she snapped, and the Lady Talasorn nodded and set off across the clearing.

In the heart of a fray of hacking, snarling men, Blackgult was slaying his third priest. Something rolled under a boot, and Tshamarra darted at it with a wordless cry.

Embra nodded. That was the Dwaer, dull and dark, and… that was a priest, fallen in the thrusting and jostling, reaching for it!

She raised her own Stone to give those reaching fingers a desperate blast-and something like a silver fang flashed down out of the leaves overhead to quiver deep in sundered flesh, pinning the screaming priest's hand to a root.

"That's my Longfingers!" Tshamarra shouted delightedly, running hard with Embra right behind her. Another priest abandoned attempts to weave a spell through the warriors jostling to get at Blackgult, and dived to snatch at the fallen Stone-and Craer swung down from a bough, kicking aside a priest's head to get a clear view, and threw a second dagger that flashed down under the fallen Dwaer just as the priest's hands were about to close on it-and sent the Stone bounding right past Tshamarra's elbow to where… Embra could snatch it up.

A blinding flash rocked the clearing, and two balls of lightning sprang away from each other, one of them trailing Embra and her scream of pain. Those lightnings faded in her hands as she crashed to earth, to become her Dwaer… and the others dwindled back into Arthroon's fallen Stone and crashed at the feet of a Serpent hiresword.

That warrior bent to catch it up-and Blackgult thrust his sword past the man he was fighting, into the hiresword's backside.

With a startled groan the warrior fell forward-and was almost beheaded by Hawkril as the armaragor burst out of the fray, sweeping aside Serpent-sworn bodies with his busy blade. He raced toward Embra, roaring her name.

Tshamarra whirled to follow him, as Craer bounded past her with an affectionate slap, to bury a dagger hilt-deep in the back of the warrior fighting Blackgult. That man collapsed with a soundless cry, and Blackgult burst over him and got a hand on the errant Stone.

Both Dwaerindim flared into blinding brightness again, though the one clutched to Embra's breast did so only momentarily, as Hawkril cursed helplessly above her, and Tshamarra looked wildly from one Stone to another.

The one between Blackgult's ringers spun momentarily into the air, spitting lightnings that hurled the Golden Griffon and at least two hitherto-eager priests away, and swept Craer off his feet, tumbling him over the body of the warrior he'd just slain.

As the Stone fell, another Serpent-warrior blundered forward and scooped it up-only to snatch his hand back and let it fall, roaring in pain. Craer daggered him from behind, and he fell on his face beside the Stone. It flickered on the trodden ground like a baleful eye, untouched by anyone, as a wounded hiresword rose up behind Hawkril, blade in hand-and Tshamarra flung herself at the back of the man's knees, stabbing with her dagger.

He fell, shouting, and twisted around to slash at her. She parried that blade desperately, teeth clenched, and then stabbed him again, in the face this time. Again, and then again, until she rose grimly, panting and bloody-handed, from a hiresword who'd slay for the Serpent no more.

She was tottering to her feet in a strange quiet. Beneath Hawkril's guard, Embra was dazedly moaning her way back to consciousness, her Dwaer flickering on her breast. Blackgult was slowly moving around the glade, stabbing wounded men, and Craer was racing about doing the same thing. Tshamarra had the impression that many men had fled into the deep woods; as she peered around, half-afraid she'd end up staring into the eyes of some archer or triumphant priest finishing a spell, Craer came toward her, dragging a priest by means of a strangling cord around the man's throat. There was a bloody dagger in the procurer's hand, more blood all down one side of his face, and a fierce grin beneath it.

"Over here," he snarled, hauling hard at the feebly struggling Serpent-priest. The man looked hurt, and almost fell as Craer tugged him forward. The Serpent halted, swaying, in front of Arthroon's fallen stone. "Take it up!" the procurer snapped.

"Craer!" Tshamarra gasped, "what are-?"

With desperate speed the priest snatched up the Stone-and as he roared in pain and the Stone flared, Craer stabbed the man and then rushed the staggering, dying body over to the woodcutter's chopping block.

"Hawk!" the procurer cried, holding the priest's sagging arm across the block. Hawkril took three swift strides and brought his warsword down.