Ed Greenwood: The Halls of Stormweather

They shared a bark of hollow laughter at that, an instant before Teskra burst out into a ravaged room that had once been a linen cellar. She led the way, vaulting heaps of rubble, through a breach in the walls to where Perivel was crouching behind the spell-scorched remnant of a wall, grimly putting arrows in distant men.

He gave them a wild look, and snapped, " 'Ware either side, you two! They're creeping around along the walls where I can't see."

Thamalon looked obediently to the right, saw nothing, then looked to the left. Teskra was already crouching, slender and beautiful, and leaning out on one knee to peer around a corner.

Thamalon saw the blade flash down at her even before she screamed, and he got his own sword out in time to catch it and take it, ringing, into the wall scant inches from her hip. Teskra sprang up beneath the bound blades with her flickering candle still in her hand and thrust it into the face of the bearded swordsman.

His beard caught light with a vicious crackle. The arms-man screamed hoarsely as he staggered back, waving his sword wildly to keep them at bay. Teskra flung herself around his ankles like a striking snake and heaved.

One of her daggers flashed out as the man fell-ready to stab as she climbed along his body-but the man's head struck the wall with a wet, heavy sound. His lolling neck as he plunged the rest of the way to the flagstones told her there'd be no need to slide steel into this foe.

Thamalon was already striding along the wall, anger rising in him and with it a hunger-a need-to strike out at one of these men who'd slain his father and despoiled his home. He got his wish soon enough, striking aside a spear to take its wielder by the throat, spin him around into another armsman who'd been following him, then thrust his blade in, low and through, to pin him there. He took the man's own sword as the pinioned armsmen screamed and thrashed together. Thamalon used the sword to slash open the throat of the second man, then hurriedly retreated to where Perivel and Teskra were fencing with men who'd come at them from the other direction. Lightning leaped away from the tip of Perivel's blade as Thamalon arrived, and where it cracked, men danced and died.

"I've been trying to get Rajeldus or Loargon, but they keep well back and out of my view," Perivel gasped. "How fares it, brother?"

"Not well," Thamalon told him truthfully. "There's lots of smoke back there-and yonder, too. They must have set fires against the walls to burn down the house while we fought them here."

"I find myself unsurprised," Perivel told him grimly. "Recall you what father said about earning a stiff price for our deaths? Well, that's my work now. You're going to be the one to run-with Teskra-to carry on."

"Run, and leave you to die alone?" Teskra asked, color high in her cheeks. She flung a stone into the face of a Talendar man-at-arms and followed it with her dagger under his chin. His blood drenched her before she could spin away, but she never wavered. She used her knife as a handle to drag his sagging body sideways into the path of the next attacker. "Whose idea was that?"

"Lady, you do us honor," Perivel told her as he grunted and slung steel with all his might, fencing with a huge Soargyl warrior whose mustache and beak of a nose made him look like a walrus, "but we are bound to obey Father's last command to us. One of us is to bear you to safety, and stay alive this day to sire other Uskevren."

"To die in other battles, in years to come," his stepmother replied bitterly. "While I watch, without my Aldimar."

She spat in a warrior's face then drove her sword into the man, leaping high to put her shoulder against the wall and her boots into his chest. He reeled away with a raw cry of pain as her kick drove him off her blade. Teskra growled like any man, and bounded across the littered floor to drive her bloody sword into the neck of the man Perivel was fighting.

The smoke was growing thick around them, and from somewhere above and behind the three struggling Uskevren a roar was growing. It was the hungry roar of flames, sweeping through the rooms of Stormweather Towers… the roar of a family being swept away.

"You'd best be thinking about getting away," Perivel called to Thamalon, coughing as his cry took in some smoke. "I don't think they've got any mages or bowmen left here, but I can't see to shoot any more arrows."

Thamalon turned his head to shout an answer of defiance. Though fighting frankly scared and sickened him, it was not right to leave yet and abandon Perivel to the blades of a score of men on all sides, seeking his blood.

He never got that refusal out of his mouth. With a sudden boom, a beam gave way overhead and fell, trailing sparks. Blazing rubble cascaded down, forcing Teskra into a frantic leap for safety. Her knees took a startled Blester Soargyl in the throat, and he was still choking for breath when they hit the ground together. The Lady Uskevren's dagger busily rose and fell into his face and throat.

Thamalon made his own desperate, lurching run away from the blistering heat, shouldering aside a man who didn't even see him in the smoke, to drive aside the blade of a Soargyl armsman before he could run Teskra through. As it was, his steel laid open her left side, leaving her sobbing and twisting in pain, Thamalon rained blows on the man's face until he fell, giving the youngest Uskevren room enough to stab the man.

Stormweather Towers was blazing away in earnest, heat shimmering everywhere the smoke didn't cloak all vision. Cinders were whirling in the heat, and somewhere nearby a warrior, caught under a fallen beam, was screaming as he burned to death.

"I should be thinking about getting away," Thamalon hissed aloud, as he floundered in smoking rubble, trying to fend off the blows of another Soargyl swordsman.

There was a sudden roar of flame and doubled brightness behind him. The heat suddenly intensified. Thamalon choked and staggered helplessly sideways before he dared to step away from his foe and look whence the fire flared.

Teskra was crawling toward him, gasping. Her long hair had come unbound, and was smoldering. Beyond her he saw a wall of flame, with two beams settling into it, like bright bars, as they burned through and sagged. Something dark was floating in midair in the heart of those flames.

A large, plain metal goblet, black but seemingly otherwise untouched by the fire. Could it be… the Quaff of the Uskevren? His father had talked about it, had mentioned something about it catching fire if someone not of the family blood touched it.

Thamalon set himself to meet a charge from the shouting Soargyl, intercepted both the man's sword and dagger with his own. Almost instantly he was forced to give ground, slipping and stumbling in the rubble underfoot as their bodies crashed together and the Soargyl's size and momentum drove Thamalon back.

A sudden burning to outstrip the pains of his real blisters made the youngest Uskevren grunt in pain and arch his bare biceps away from the swordsman's blade that had sliced it. Grinning fiercely, the Soargyl bore down, forcing the steel closer to Thamalon again… and closer…

Teskra rose behind the man like a vengeful shadow and flung herself into the air to reach high and hard with her dagger. She cut his throat.

The Soargyl turned, gurgling, as his blood sprayed forth, and stared at her in disbelief as his eyes slowly went dark. He sank down and died. Teskra favored him with a mirthless smile, then looked up at Thamalon.

He was stealing another glance at the dark, eerie, floating chalice. She followed his gaze, drew in breath in a whistle of amazement, and said, "I'd forgotten it did that. Aid-your father showed me once, when we'd had too much to drink." Grief washed across her face for a moment. She swallowed, tossing her head as her lips trembled, then snapped, "Enough! It's high time you obeyed the orders of your father and your brother and took yourself away from here."