Prophet of the Dead

7

Over the course of her long life, Yhelbruna had listened to countless messengers standing outside Witches’ Hall to request that she and her sisters attend the Iron Lord. Such callers were always respectful, but in subtle ways, their manner varied.

Generally, the messengers were extremely deferential, conveying that their master understood the hathrans would come if and when they pleased. But if a matter was urgent, and particularly if it pertained to the Iron Lord’s primary role as warlord, then his emissaries communicated that urgency. While still asking for assistance with all the rhetorical flourishes protocol required, they nonetheless made it clear that the Iron Lord expected representatives of the Wychlaran to attend him without delay.

The messenger that had arrived this afternoon had been of the latter variety. Still, Yhelbruna had expected to find Mangan Uruk inside the castle. Instead, he stood in the courtyard amid scurrying, shouting warriors, some of them his own personal retainers, others carrying shields painted with stags, snow tigers, and other totems of Immilmar’s berserker lodges.

Spying the half dozen hathrans entering through the gate, he waved to them. “Over here!”

The hathrans advanced, the warriors made way for them, and, when they reached him, Mangan bowed.

“What is all this?” Yhelbruna asked.

“I’ll let him tell you,” Mangan said. He held out his arm, and, its little brown-feathered body translucent in the winter sunlight, a wren fluttered down to light on his wrist.

Yhelbruna felt a pang of dismay. Despite all the distracting commotion, she ought to have sensed the presence of a spirit animal. It was one more indication that her mystical strength was waning.

“I am Rosesong!” chirped the wren. “I live in Belvata!”

“Yes,” Mangan said. “Please, tell the learned sisters what you told me.”

“I am Rosesong! I live in Belvata! Dead things came in the night! They killed men and women! They killed chickens and pigs! Hathran Yulzel sent me to fetch help! I am Rosesong! I live in Belvata!”

“Thank you, friend,” Mangan said. The phantom bird leaped off his wrist and fluttered up toward the battlements.

The Iron Lord then gave Yhelbruna a wry smile. “So you see, hathran, you were right. Whatever may have happened in the North Country, the threat from the ghouls and wraiths is not over, and I have to go end it once and for all. I’ll need witches to help me, and naturally, I’d like the aid of wise Yhelbruna most of all.”

She took another look around the crowded courtyard with its men tying bundles on braying donkeys; whining, sparking grinding wheels sharpening blades; and all the rest of its bustling, noisy preparations. “It looks like you’re taking every warrior you can lay your hands on.”

“As I said, we’re going to put an end to this menace as fast as possible, and the way to do that is to bring all our strength to bear.”

“I see the logic. But Belvata is a small village.” To be precise, it was a hamlet on the far side of the River Rasha a hundred miles to the south. “If a great host of undead raided it, how likely is it that anyone would have survived to send word?”

For a moment, a hint of something less cordial, a flicker of impatience, perhaps, showed through Mangan’s smile. “You listened to Rosesong. He’s a brave, loyal creature, but I doubt he has the wits to give us a more detailed explanation of what happened. Maybe only a few undead, scouts or foragers or whatever, turned up in Belvata. The fact remains that of late, no one has sighted any of the vile things anywhere else. Accordingly, I have to assume they’ve all moved south.”

Yhelbruna frowned. “That’s not as logical. What if-”

“Curse it!” Mangan exploded. “Enough of this!”

Startled for a moment, Yhelbruna could only stare, and in that instant, the Iron Lord appeared to realize he’d overstepped. He bowed a second time and far more deeply.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I revere the Wychlaran. I’ve spent my life serving you to the best of my ability. You know that.”

The apology, offered to placate an anger Yhelbruna hadn’t actually experienced, made her feel tired and lonely. Still, she replied with the austere composure Rashemen expected of her.

“But? You’ve already made it plain you have a grievance. You might as well go on and tell me what it is.”

Mangan took a breath. “As you wish. Before, I praised your wisdom. That was flattery, meant to quell any hard feelings that may have risen between us. The truth is, lately, you’ve been wrong at least as often as you’ve been right.”

“Tell me how.”

“I told you from the start that I could destroy the undead. It’s the Iron Lord’s responsibility, and the Wychlaran handed me the office, so your sisterhood must believe I can handle it. But you, hathran, insisted the spirits wanted me to sit by the fire while others, outlanders, mostly, fought my battles for me. And how did that work out? Folcoerr Dulsaer and his Aglarondans died. So, apparently, have Vandar Cherlinka and the Griffon Lodge, Aoth Fezim and his companions, and Dai Shan. The filthy Halruaans ended up trying to murder you and did kill others as they fled the city. Meanwhile, the undead are still roaming free, butchering folk who look to the Huhrong’s Citadel for protection!”

Yhelbruna didn’t know how to answer. It was an unaccustomed feeling and one she disliked. “I can’t deny the truth of any of that.”

“Then please, give me your blessing to go fight for Rashemen in the way I think best! Better still, come along and help!”

Well, why not?

As she’d just confessed, Mangan’s indictment of her was fair. Her plan for destroying the undead had failed. Indeed, now that none of her supposed champions remained, her scheme seemed not just wrongheaded but preposterous.

Perhaps the spirits no longer guided her decisions. Maybe she was simply imagining their promptings as she finally slipped into senescence, her mind and magic failing together.

But she didn’t feel senile. And no one could deny that the wild griffons and their golden telthor leader were a miracle, a gift from the Three intended for a special purpose, and she and Vandar were the ones who’d brought them down from the High Country.

Besides, Mangan’s decision to take every available warrior and rush south just felt rash and reckless. Unfortunately, Yhelbruna could see she had no hope of talking him out of it and knew she’d reached the point where she could no longer command him. Her judgment in this matter was no longer credible, and other witches, maybe the very hathrans at her back, would speak up to countermand her orders.

The only thing Yhelbruna could control was her own actions. “I’m sure many of my sisters will march with you,” she said. “But I have other matters to which I must attend.”

Mangan sighed, and she sensed his mingled disappointment and disgust. “I understand, and I certainly wouldn’t want to take you away from anything important.” He shifted his gaze to the witches behind her. “Learned sisters, if any of you intend to come south and help the brave men who fight in your name, I could use your advice and magic starting right now.”

Yhelbruna had in effect been dismissed. That feeling too, was both unfamiliar and unwelcome, but circumstances obliged her to tolerate the disrespect. Rebuking the Iron Lord when he was in the midst of readying his troops for war would only make her look petty and petulant, childish in the erratic, snappish way of an addled old woman.

Afterward, restless, she wandered the snowy streets of Immilmar. Even with all the warriors at the citadel, and the excited little boys peering in the gate to observe as much of the muster as they could, no one could honestly say the rest of the town seemed deserted. A dog barked, the smell of baking bread wafted from a kitchen window, and, his hammer tapping, a carpenter replaced a plank on one of the bridges. Still, under the surface, Yhelbruna’s surroundings felt strange, desolate, or even ominous for no reason she could define.

Is it really all just me, she wondered, then scowled and doggedly told herself it wasn’t. She turned back toward the Witches’ Hall to attempt what she already sensed would prove to be yet another opaque if not nonsensical divination.

Cera stumbled along in a blur of misery, chiefly aware of the ragged, slimy touch of the dead men supporting her and the even filthier feeling of contamination inside her.

Then, however, she felt a release, like someone had lifted a crushing weight off her or removed strangling hands from her neck. The relief was only partial if not marginal, but it sufficed to quicken her thoughts.

Not wanting her captors to realize she had in any measure recovered, she glanced around through half-lowered eyelids. By the feeble greenish luminosity of a phantom floating along ahead of her, she discerned that the endless profusion of tombs and sarcophagi had given way to a more normal sort of tunnel.

Combined with the feeling of relief, the change in her surroundings revealed that she and her captors had just emerged from the deathways! And even through all the stone and earth that still separated her from its light, she could faintly sense the Yellow Sun above her. She felt like laughing and weeping at the same time and clenched herself lest she do either.

In due course, her captors marched her up to what she recognized as the entrance hall of the primary keep of the Fortress of the Half-Demon. The sooty opening where Jhesrhi had burned away the doors was unmistakable. So were the hacked and blasted bodies.

Some of the undead were outside in the courtyard amid a litter of those frozen corpses. Lod and Dai Shan were looking out the doorway and conversing, and Cera strained to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“How much of a problem are they likely to be?” the bone naga asked.

“I doubt the griffon can fly very far,” Dai Shan answered, “which means they won’t make it out of this wasteland quickly. Still, if the sagacious champion of the undead can see a way to complete his conquest expeditiously, it might be well to do so.”

“I can,” Lod replied, swaying. “The strategy Uramar devised is clever, and I came to Rashemen because I can move it along even faster. The Codex of Araunt contains magic germane to the purpose.”

“But has anyone set the scheme in motion in the first place?” With a slight wave of his hand, Dai Shan indicated the bodies sprawled in the snow outside. “The learned prophet sees that circumstances here are as I reported. Your enemies took the Fortress of the Half-Demon, and it may be that Uramar and all his lieutenants lie among the slain.”

“I doubt it,” Lod said, “considering they had the option to retreat into the deathways when it became necessary. My judgment and instincts alike tell me we’ll find Uramar at Beacon Cairn.”

“I fervently hope so. Shall we go there, then?”

Cera realized that to “go there” would mean a return to the deathways, and in her brittle state, the prospect nearly maddened her. She struggled against the urge to try to yank away from the zombies and run.

“Yes,” said Lod, “but not quite yet. My folk fought a hard battle before we encountered you, and though we don’t suffer fatigue or pain exactly as mortals do, a period of recovery is still advisable. We’ll move on at midnight.”

“And-if the mighty and honorable naga lord will forgive me for seeking absolute clarity on the point-if I continue making myself useful, when the Eminence of Araunt rules Rashemen, I can take the wild griffons and depart in peace?”

“Of course,” said Lod, “I promise.”

With that, the undead began to make themselves at home, although they didn’t all simply flop down and rest. Lod slithered forth with half a dozen followers to explore the castle, scavenge equipment, and see if he did recognize any of the mangled corpses littering the battleground. Ghouls set about lighting a fire in a cold hearth and dragging goblin bodies close to it to thaw.

At which point, Cera’s guards hauled her away through the keep until they found what they evidently considered a suitable chamber. There, they dumped her on the cold, hard, grimy floor and withdrew, pulling the door shut behind them.

She told herself that where securing prisoners was concerned, the mute, dull-witted things could have learned a precaution or two from Halonya’s wyrmkeepers. But when she struggled and failed to clamber to her feet, she realized weakness was likely to hold her every bit as well as locks and iron bars.

But she couldn’t let it. Her desperate plan had gotten Jhesrhi and her out of the deathways even if it had done so in about the most unfortunate way imaginable. Now they had to finish their escape.

On the far wall, stout shutters sealed windows scarcely wider than arrow loops. At a couple of points, lines of pale light showed where the ironbound wooden panels fit imperfectly against the stone.

Cera crawled forward. The trailing scraps of her torn mail scraped against the floor.

She couldn’t see precisely where the light shone down. There wasn’t enough of it to make a brighter spot amid the gloom. But she felt it when it touched her.

The sensation, however, was not what she’d anticipated. Ever since she was a little girl, even before she realized her calling, she’d loved the warm caress of sunlight. Now it stung, and she-or rather the pollution inside her-wanted to flinch from it like a parasitic grub squirming away from a healer’s forceps.

But she didn’t flinch. She stayed where she was and fixed her eyes on the luminous cracks, keeping them there even when her head began to throb.

I accept the pain, she thought. It’s like a cauterizing iron searing infection out of me. And while it does, I pray for my god to reveal himself.

The discomfort faded, and the gloom and the massive structure around her faded with it, until she was floating in a sky of flawless blue, gazing into the heart of the Yellow Sun. All around her, though she couldn’t actually see them, she had a sense of wheels meshing and turning one another with utter smoothness and regularity. It was like the world’s most accomplished dwarf artisans had assembled to build the largest, most intricate, and most finely crafted mill in all creation.

Gradually, Amaunator’s radiance warmed and cleansed her, and her perception of the perfect order that was as intrinsic to his nature as the daylight soothed her with the promise that all things, no matter how seemingly discordant, resolved themselves into harmony in the end. Her communion with him was so blissful that a part of her could have basked in it forevermore. But Jhesrhi needed her, and so, after a time, she mustered the will to abandon the rapture of pure contemplation for more practical concerns.

“I have to go back,” she breathed, “to bring more of your grace to the world, and for that, I need my magic. Please, help me.”

She felt a pulse of reassurance that, now that she was out of the dark maze and purged of the taint of incipient vampirism as well, she could channel the god’s power as readily as ever. Then she was back on the floor.

For a moment, she lay relaxed and almost mindlessly serene in the afterglow of her meditation. Then she realized the light leaking through the cracks was dimmer than before.

She didn’t know how long her trance had lasted, but obviously, long enough for the westering sun to travel some distance across the sky. It would be dark soon, and once it was, the undead would be more active and alert.

She tried to rise, and as before, found herself clumsy and feeble. Her communion with the Keeper had revitalized her spiritually but hadn’t restored the physical vigor exsanguination had cost her.

Because, she supposed, she could attend to that herself. She murmured a prayer and felt a warm tingling as light poured into the core of her and made her body glow from within. Inside the blood-spotted rents in her mail and the padding beneath, the fang marks dwindled and disappeared.

She tried again to stand and did so without difficulty. She crept to the door, pressed her ear against the panel, listened, and heard nothing. Unfortunately, that was no guarantee of safety. The undead were notoriously quiet. She took a breath, gripped the handle, and jerked the door open.

As she’d feared, one of the zombies that had tossed her into the room was still standing and staring at nothing just outside. She supposed she was lucky it wasn’t both of them, although she would have felt luckier still if she had a weapon, a shield, and intact armor, or, as long as she was wishing, Aoth and twenty stalwart Brothers of the Griffon surrounding her.

Because she didn’t, she hopped back as the dead man lurched around to face her and slashed with his sword. The cut fell short, and she swept her hand in an arc that evoked the sun’s path from horizon to horizon. “The Keeper grant you peace,” she said.

Golden light shone through the air, and the living corpse crumbled into dust. A bit of it wafted into Cera’s nose and made her want to sneeze. The creature’s blade clanked on the floor, and its brigandine thumped down with it.

Well, Cera thought, that worked out. Especially if no other creature had noticed the holy light flashing out the doorway or the noise the falling sword and leather armor had made.

Deeming it better than nothing even though her clerical training had only encompassed the use of a mace, she picked up the blade. Then she peeked out the door. To her relief, no other undead horror was shambling or floating in her direction. Not yet, anyway.

Now, where was Jhesrhi? Was it possible Lod’s followers had taken the same casual approach to imprisoning the mage that they had to containing Cera?

Perhaps. They’d apparently assumed Cera’s vampire bites rendered her helpless, and from listening to them talk, she knew they’d beaten Jhesrhi senseless after Dai Shan exposed her deception. They’d also placed the wizard in some sort of restraints. They might well believe she was helpless too.

If so, Jhesrhi might be nearby. The undead might not have felt the need to haul her back down to the dungeons and lock her up properly either.

Cera stepped out into the corridor and headed in the opposite direction from the spaces near the primary entrance where many of the undead were taking their ease. To her relief, most of the doors she came to were open, which made checking the various rooms easier, and the traces of light leaking in from outdoors at various points alleviated the gloom just enough for her to grope her way along.

But the feeble illumination didn’t reveal everything, and it was a sunlady’s instincts, not Cera’s eyes, that abruptly gave her a sense of insatiable hunger and boundless hatred rushing out of the dark.

She jumped back and said, “Amaunator!” The Keeper’s power flowed into the core of her, then streamed down her arm to set her stolen sword aglow.

The brightness revealed a ragged shadow with a twisted smudge of a face. The Keeper’s light balked it, but Cera suspected the magic would hold it back for only an instant. Then it would either come back on the attack or raise the alarm.

She hurriedly recited a prayer and tapped the shining sword against the floor. Some of the holy light leaped from the steel to the stone, surging outward from the point of contact to form first a circle and then rays emanating from it.

In an instant, the rays shot out far enough that the wraith was floating just above them. Assailed by the sun symbol’s power, the phantom convulsed and frayed away to nothing.

All right, Cera thought, panting, I had a guard outside my cell. Let’s see if the ghost was lurking here because it was keeping an eye on Jhesrhi.

She cautiously opened a closed door. Gagged with a metal contraption bolted around her head, her hands shackled behind her, the wizard lay on the floor.

Cera smiled with a jubilation that immediately gave way to concern when Jhesrhi failed to react to her appearance. The priestess hurried over to her friend and knelt down beside her.

Thanks be to the Keeper and all the kindly powers, Jhesrhi was still breathing, but that was about all that could be said. She was too profoundly unconscious to stir even when Cera spoke to her, and when the priestess gently lifted the lids of her amber eyes, the pupils were different sizes. Blood matted her hair, and her tawny skin was a patchwork of bruises, scrapes, and scratches. One leg bent between the knee and ankle, and, not content merely to shackle a mage’s wonder-working hands, the undead had broken every one of her fingers.

Cera recited a healing prayer, reached out to Amaunator for all the power she could draw, laid her hand on Jhesrhi’s shoulder, and sent the pure essence of life and health streaming into her stricken comrade’s body. A few of Jhesrhi’s contusions faded, and her leg shifted and clicked as it sought to mend the break. But the wizard didn’t wake.

Cera prayed a second time. Cuts closed and, with a soft but wince-inducing grinding, the fingers of Jhesrhi’s left hand straightened. But she still didn’t rouse.

Like every practitioner of the healing arts, Cera had learned early in her career that some hurts were beyond remedy, but by the Yellow Sun, these hurts were not going to be among them! She took several deep, slow breaths to center herself.

Then Dai Shan said, “I admire both the sunlady’s resilience and her devotion to her friend.”

Cera jerked around. The little Shou was standing in the doorway.

“Nonetheless,” he continued, “I must regretfully request that she distance herself from Lady Sir Jhesrhi and the sword as well.”

Instead, Cera snatched up the blade and scrambled to her feet. “Stay back,” she said.

“I wish I could, but such forbearance would be contrary to my interests. It’s beneficial for the sapient prophet of the dead to hear from others that I was of service, but it can only enhance his gratitude to observe my diligence on behalf of his cause firsthand. That’s why I came to check on you, and I trust he’ll be happy I did.”

“He won’t be grateful no matter what you do.”

Dai Shan slightly inclined his head. “That sad possibility has occurred to me. Still, at the moment, the mighty king of serpents represents the only possible path to the wild griffons. What can a sensible man do but walk it, at least until a better course reveals itself?”

Cera shook her head. “But you’ve seen the undead up close. You’ve felt how they poison the world just by being in it. How can you bring yourself to side with them?”

“The virtuous sunlady deems them wicked and unnatural, and who could refute her assessment? Yet dividing all things into good or evil, salubrious or abominable, is but one way of considering the world. I classify things according to whether they aid or hinder the interests of the House of Shan and my advancement within it.”

“On the inside, you’re like an undead yourself.”

“Whereas on the outside, the brave priestess is gripping her sole weapon in a way that bespeaks a lack of experience in its use. I promise that if you let it fall, I won’t hurt you any further, and neither, I think, will Lod, provided you freely answer his questions. He’s curious to learn all that a priestess of Faerun can-”

Cera threw the sword.

Dai Shan likely didn’t expect her to use it in such an unconventional fashion, but he had no difficulty contending with the inept attack. He flicked his hand and knocked the blade tumbling to the side.

In the instant that required, though, Cera called out to Amaunator, drew down more of his might, and stamped her foot. Another sun symbol flowered beneath it, the rays stabbing out across the floor. Dai Shan gasped and stiffened.

She rattled off a second spell, mimed the act of striking with a weapon, and as the sun symbol faded, a mace made of yellow glow burst into being. With a thought, she sent it flying at Dai Shan.

But as she did, she saw he was reciting too. Then the room went black, darkness smothering even the luminescence of her conjured weapon. She made the mace swing anyway, but it didn’t connect.

Dai Shan had dodged it, and suddenly, instinct screamed that, blind though she now was, Cera needed to change position. She stepped back and to the left, and something, the Shou’s fist or foot, no doubt, slammed into her side.

The impact hurt, sent the breath whooshing out of her, and knocked her stumbling. If it had caught her squarely, or landed on a spot her torn mail didn’t cover anymore, it likely would have crippled her or worse.

She brought her conjured mace streaking back across the room for another blind attack. As it missed, she heard Dai Shan murmur two words in a language she didn’t recognize, a Shadow tongue, perhaps, and then sensed it when he snatched the magical weapon out of the air and snapped it like a twig.

Once again, though, at least the product of one spell had occupied him long enough for her to gasp out another. Light glowed from her right hand to counter the darkness he’d summoned and restore her sight.

Unfortunately, she could discern little cause for hope in what vision revealed. She was certain the power of the sun symbol had in some measure hurt Dai Shan, but no one could tell it from the smooth, subtle way he eased closer. Meanwhile, her side was throbbing, and when she twisted the wrong way, an even fiercer pain ripped through her.

She retreated, and, still in no hurry, he came after her. She realized he was backing her into a corner.

She raised her hands to face level as though to fend him off. Perhaps they, and the light shining from the right one, would keep him from observing her mouth was moving.

Alas, no. Evidently realizing she was whispering a spell, he lunged, faked a punch to the stomach that drew her guard down, then smashed the true attack into her face. She reeled, and suddenly the whole world seemed to ring like a giant bell, although simultaneously, everything was utterly silent.

Still, she forced out the last word of her incantation. The rays of another sun symbol flared out across the floor.

She discovered she hadn’t lost her hearing after all when Dai Shan stiffened and made a little grunting sound. After that, though, he seized her and tumbled her off her feet. Spinning around behind her, he pressed his forearm into her throat and choked her.

“The valiant sunlady should take pride in her prowess,” he said as she pawed in a futile attempt to break his hold. “Had we begun our contest at opposite ends of a sunlit field, the outcome might have been different. But close quarters and darkness favored me.”

Cera’s head swam, and the chamber grew dimmer. Until Jhesrhi’s body burst into flame, and the willowy mage started to struggle to her feet.

Because Amaunator’s magic was not merely potent but versatile. Channeled in the proper form, like the sun symbols, it could smite foes and revive friends simultaneously, and, to maximize her chances of surviving a fight against a strong and cunning adversary, Cera had so evoked it.

Startled or at least distracted, Dai Shan eased the pressure on Cera’s throat, and she sucked in a breath. The Shou thrust out one arm at Jhesrhi and murmured the first word of an incantation. Dark streaks ran through his outstretched hand as though the bones were in some sense glowing through the skin, but radiating shadow instead of light.

Cera jammed her head backward into his jaw. She was no brawler and felt at once that she hadn’t connected hard or squarely. But the impact sufficed to make him stumble over his recitation, and the shadow power accumulating inside his hand dissipated with the attack uncast.

Jhesrhi finished clambering up, and, with a roar, her halo of flame flared hotter. As Cera cringed, the wizard’s shackles and gag softened and sagged like dough. She stripped away the manacles, then jerked off the cruel-looking device that had cut the corners of her mouth, and finally spit out a stray bit of red-hot metal.

Fortunately, that burst of hotter fire lasted only a moment; Cera doubted she could have endured its searing proximity much longer. As it subsided, Jhesrhi swayed.

Dai Shan sprang up and rushed her. Evidently he was willing to risk punching or kicking through the weaker flame that still shrouded her slender form, if that was what it took to strike her down.

Cera swung her arm backward to trip the merchant as he dodged around her. But he sprang over her out-flung limb and charged onward.

Jhesrhi recited, and fresh blood trickled from her raw mouth. She gestured with swollen, crooked fingers. Meanwhile, she retreated, one step, two, and then her back was against the wall.

Dai Shan plunged into striking distance. His hand leaped, but then a red spark streaked at him as well. A dazzling, booming blast of flame engulfed both him and Jhesrhi.

When the flash faded, Cera, blinking, saw the sellsword was unharmed. Whereas what remained of Dai Shan lay burning on the floor.

Jhesrhi rounded on Cera. She raised her hands as though she meant to cast another spell.

“It’s Cera!” the priestess gasped. “Aoth and I are together! You remember!”

Jhesrhi faltered. “Yes. Sorry!”

“Don’t be.” Sucking in a hissing gasp at a fresh twinge in her side, Cera rose. “You saved us. Well, partly. Let me finish healing you so you can do the rest.”

“You’re all blistered, and your nose is broken.”

Cera wished the wizard hadn’t mentioned any of that, for now she felt those pains too. “It’s not important. Just stifle your halo of flame.”

Now that Jhesrhi was conscious, it wouldn’t do to administer the Keeper’s healing grace via a touch. The sellsword couldn’t bear it. But Cera wanted to get as close as possible.

Jhesrhi frowned as though the request warranted suspicion. But then she gave her head a little shake, and her cloak of flame vanished. She circled around Dai Shan’s still-burning body to meet Cera in the center of the room.

Cera drew down more of Amaunator’s light and, with an arcing gesture of benediction, sent it shining into the wizard’s body. Scratches and bruises faded.

Then zombie warriors appeared in the doorway, while a luminous phantom flowed through the wall beside it. The booms of the fiery blasts Jhesrhi had conjured had no doubt brought them rushing to investigate.

Cera hurled the Keeper’s power and burned the first ones to nothingness. Meanwhile, Jhesrhi recited with what, under the circumstances, felt like maddening slowness, articulating crunching, grinding, ponderous words that a person unschooled in earth magic could never even have pronounced.

More undead sought to enter the room, and with her dwindling store of power, Cera threw them back. The wall behind her scraped, banged, and let in a frigid breeze, as, obeying Jhesrhi’s command, it opened to provide an exit. That felt as if it were taking forever too.

Jhesrhi spoke moaning, whistling words. Cera glimpsed motion at the corner of her vision, turned, and saw the specter that had somehow penetrated her magical defense reaching out with shadowy hands to seize her. Then, howling, the wind picked her up and whisked her beyond the phantom’s reach.

In its haste, the wind banged her shoulder against the side of the breach as it carried her through, but all she cared about was that it was outdistancing the specter streaming in pursuit. She and Jhesrhi soared high above the fortress into a deep blue sky that glowed red on the western horizon. The frozen surface of Lake Ashane reflected a trace of the heavenly colors.

After the cold, lifeless darkness of the deathways and the predation of the vampires, the snowy twilit wilderness seemed like the loveliest sight Cera had ever seen, and despite her lingering pains, as she and Jhesrhi flew southward, she imagined she could scarcely feel any happier. Then a huge, black shape swooped down beside her. “About time you showed up,” it rasped.

“Jet!” said Jhesrhi an instant before Cera would have joyfully exclaimed the same. “How is it you’re still here?”

“Because Vandar and I stayed in the fortress to search for the two of you,” the griffon replied. “After he ran into the undead coming up out of the dungeons, we had to flee, but we didn’t go far. And for the last little while, I’ve been flying around, keeping an eye on the place to make sure the ghosts aren’t still chasing us. How is it you’re here?”

“The same undead Vandar encountered had taken us prisoner,” Jhesrhi said. “But we managed to escape.”

“Where is Vandar?” Cera asked. “Is he all right?”

“Yes,” said Jet, his voice even gruffer than usual. “He’s on the ground right now, because it hurts me to carry a rider. Aoth said that you, sunlady, would help me with that.”

“You’ve spoken with Aoth?” Cera said. “He made it out of the dark maze too?”

“Yes,” Jet replied. “After we set down, the two of you can talk to him too. I’ll pass the words back and forth. Just try not to gush, weep, or coo. I have enough ailing me without getting sick to my stomach.”

For once, Aoth’s preternaturally keen sight blurred, and his eyes felt wet. He realized he was on the verge of tears and at once felt a twinge of Jet’s disgust.

That disgust was half feigned, but still, the familiar had a point. A war captain couldn’t bask for long in sentiment, let alone give the impression of weakness, when he had important tasks to perform. Aoth took a deep, steadying breath, then turned to face Orgurth squarely.

“Good news?” asked the orc. He had a bloodstained dressing on his neck where an automaton had clawed him. Had the strike landed just a little differently, it either could have sliced his windpipe or slashed an artery, but he seemed to regard the actual wound as a trifle.

“The best,” Aoth replied. “Jet found Jhesrhi and Cera alive and well.”

Orgurth grunted. “That is good, when all your friends make it back from the battle alive.”

Aoth had the feeling Orgurth was remembering some sorrow from his own past and wondered if the orc was ever going to tell him why he’d been cast out of the legions and condemned to slavery. It plainly hadn’t been for cowardice.

With a leer, Orgurth appeared to cast off the grip of somber recollection. “Still,” said the orc, “you’re wrong. The best news would be your friends are alive and your enemies are dead.”

Aoth smiled. “True. Let’s go work on the second part of that.”

They found Pevkalondra, as the ghoul sorceress had named herself, where and how they’d left her, in a sort of natural alcove, bound hand and foot and gagged. With her filthy yellow fangs, she could likely have chewed the gag to shreds if she’d decided to, but she also had an “Old One”-actually, another keen young novice like Kanilak-hovering over her with an axe to chop her if she showed any sign of attempting to cast a spell.

Orgurth cut her feet free and hoisted her up. Then he, the Rashemi, and Aoth marched her to the large cave, an amphitheater somewhat like the one outside the Witches’ Hall in Immilmar but with the tiers of seats shaped from stone rather than dug out of the earth, where the rest of the Old Ones awaited them.

Most of the seats were occupied. The Old Ones had taken casualties during the final stage of the siege, but fewer than Aoth had privately expected. Even if they spent their days kowtowing to the hathrans, the enchanters hadn’t been bragging when they claimed to know how to fight.

Aoth gave a nod to all the folk looking back at him and his companions. “Well,” he said, “here we are, no thanks to this creature. Let’s find out why she came here to bother you.”

Watching out lest she suddenly twist her head and bite him, he pulled the gag away from Pevkalondra’s mouth. She spit viscous gray fluid and licked her shriveled lips with a long, pointed tongue. For some reason, the latter action thickened the dry-rot stink of her.

“I won’t tell you anything,” she said, “until you promise me my freedom.”

“Done,” said Aoth.

Some of the Old Ones exclaimed in dismay. Seated on the third tier up, owl mask set aside-likely because it chafed the bruised, swollen right side of his face-Kanilak yelled, “That thing led the attack on the caverns!”

“Yes,” said Shaugar, seated a level higher with Pevkalondra’s wand in his hand, “and it’s undead on top of that. Its very existence offends the spirits and the Three themselves.”

“She offends me too,” Aoth replied. “But we need to know what she can tell us. Because up in the North Country, my comrades and I believed we ended a threat to Rashemen. But plainly, the menace isn’t over.” He looked to Pevkalondra. “Isn’t that so, Raumviran?”

The pearl in her eye socket glimmering, Pevkalondra sneered back at him. “I told you what I require,” she said. “For obvious reasons, I require it from these barbarians as well.”

Orgurth snorted. “Stinky, I don’t see how you can ‘require’ much of anything. Like I already told the captain, I can make you talk.”

“Maybe,” said Aoth, “but maybe not. I’ve heard of undead yielding under torture, but also of those that never did. Their pain and fear aren’t necessarily like ours.”

“We could try,” said an Old One in a mask like the gnarled face of a tree spirit ringed with stubby twigs.

“I know you’ve lost friends,” said Aoth. “I understand the wish to avenge them. But think of the welfare of your country and your own welfare in particular. There could be more Raumvirans in the Running Rocks, and if so, you need to know.”

“I don’t like it,” Shaugar growled, “but the Silverbloods owe you, Captain, and you have a point.” He glowered at the ghoul. “We Old Ones promise to release you and give you a day to clear out of our territory in exchange for answers to our questions. Start with the one Captain Fezim just raised. Are we still in danger?”

“No immediate danger,” Pevkalondra said. “No more than the rest of the Rashemi.”

“Convince us,” said Aoth. “What were you and your raiders doing here?”

The Raumviran hesitated, not, he sensed, because she was concocting a lie but rather because the answer was somewhat complicated.

“Do you understand,” she asked at length, “that undead from an unknown land far to the west of Faerun have come to Rashemen?”

“I do now,” Aoth replied. Speaking through Jet, Jhesrhi and Cera had explained it to him. “The emissaries reanimated Raumvirans, Nars, durthans, and the Firelord knows what else to create a force capable of subjugating Rashemen.”

“Yes,” Pevkalondra said, “and then our confederacy explored various ways of achieving its purpose. One such option was via a straightforward military campaign, but your victory at the Fortress of the Half-Demon led Uramar-the chief envoy from the Eminence of Araunt-to decide to pursue a different scheme he hatched with Nyevarra, a durthan, instead.

“The plan,” the ghoul continued, “gave a central role to witches, and thereafter, Uramar concentrated on reanimating more of them. He ignored Raumvirans, even though we’d sustained heavy losses in the battle. His disregard made it clear my folk were destined for only a minor role in the Rashemen to come.”

“Unless,” said Aoth, “you did something to increase your power and prestige.”

“Yes. So I cast around to determine how to accomplish that, and I discovered hathrans weren’t the only mages who in one fashion or another support the Iron Lord. The Old Ones were up here in the mountains, and I hoped that if I led a war band to destroy them, one enclave after another, my efforts would demonstrate the worth of Raumathari wizardry and arms.”

“And if they didn’t,” said Orgurth, “you’d still have all the enchanted weapons and talismans you’d looted. If it came to it, you could make this Ura-something show you respect.”

“Exactly,” said the ghoul.

Orgurth leered. “Too bad it didn’t work out.”

“So you’re telling us,” said Aoth, “that yours was the only band of undead raiding in these mountains?”

“Yes,” Pevkalondra answered. “All the durthans and such are pursuing Uramar’s scheme.”

Aoth nodded. “Fair enough. And now let’s talk about that. What is the cursed scheme?”

The ghoul grinned, likely because she was anticipating the effect her next words would have. “Corruption. First and foremost, of the Urlingwood itself, the sacred earth Rashemi so revere. The durthans apparently know how to tilt the balance of forces centered there to strengthen their witchcraft and the dark fey while weakening the hathrans and their particular allies. The overt conquest of Rashemen will be a trifling matter after that.”

Seemingly astonished, the Old Ones stared down at her. Then Shaugar said, “Nonsense! If the durthans knew how to do such a thing, they would have done it during the Witch War of old.”

“They couldn’t,” Pevkalondra said. “The hathrans guarded the heart of their power too well.”

“And do you think they’re any less vigilant now, mere tendays after you and your undead friends were committing atrocities throughout the land?”

“Yes, because a traitor opened a magical gateway into the Iron Lord’s castle itself.”

“Dai Shan,” said Aoth, his fingers tightening on his spear. He thanked Kossuth, Amaunator, Tymora, and any other deity who might conceivably have had a hand in Cera and Jhesrhi successfully killing the little snake, but a part of him would always regret he hadn’t done the job himself.

“Yes,” Pevkalondra said, still grinning, “and that and the new powers undeath conferred on the durthans enabled them to subvert and weaken first our foes in Immilmar and then in the Urlingwood itself. They killed hathrans, donned their masks, and impersonated them. Vampires turned or enslaved other defenders of the old order, while ghosts possessed still more. A plague of treachery, torpor, and muddled wits swept through the covens, the Huhrong’s Citadel, and the lodge houses, and as a result, the forest is already under our control.”

“You’re lying!” Kanilak spit. “Nothing’s weakening our magic. It’s as strong as ever.”

Pevkalondra inclined her head. “True enough, boy, as my soldiers and I discovered to our cost. But in your crude way, you Old Ones are like Raumvirans. You’re makers, and your magic derives more from the mind and less from the soul. In retrospect, it makes sense that your power might stand strong for a while longer than that of your mistresses.”

The ghoul turned her stained, jagged grin back on Aoth. “So you see,” she said, “I’ve lost a battle, but you’ve lost the war. The Eminence of Araunt has occupied the ground it needs to ensure its triumph and neutralized all who might have broken its hold in time.”

Aoth considered the situation and decided it justified Pevkalondra’s confidence. Indeed, because she didn’t know Lod himself had come to Rashemen to speed the dark rituals along to their fruition, the Eminence’s position was even stronger than she realized.

“The Black Flame burn me,” he said, “if I ever travel without my own army again. If I walk down to the corner for a mug of beer, the entire Brotherhood of the Griffon is going with me.”

“Then you admit defeat,” Pevkalondra said.

Aoth smiled back at her, and something in his expression made her give a tiny start, predatory monstrosity though she was. “Well, no,” he answered, “I wouldn’t say that.”

He pivoted back toward the Old Ones. “You heard,” he said. “Your country’s enemies have deprived it of its usual cadre of protectors. We have to assemble a new one quickly to drive the vermin out of your sacred wood. Obviously, that effort starts with you. How soon can you be ready to march?”

For a heartbeat, no one answered. Then a man in a wolf mask said, “We can’t just do that because we want to. We can only leave the Running Rocks if the hathrans command it.”

“Stinky just told you,” Orgurth said, “the witches can’t command it. They’re dead, addled, or too stupid to see what’s falling apart right in front of them.”

“Still,” Shaugar said, “our vows are vows, and even if we did break them, no man is allowed in the Urlingwood.”

Orgurth shrugged. “Once you start breaking rules, what’s the difference if it’s one or two?”

An Old One in an iron T-shaped mask that left his cheeks and the corners of his mouth uncovered said, “To break our oaths would disgrace us. To defile the Urlingwood-”

“It’s being defiled now!” Aoth shouted. “How can you let that happen and still tell yourselves your vows and your religion count for anything? I’m an outlander-Abyss, I’m one of the Thayans you Rashemi all despise-and I don’t claim to understand your ways. But if it were my sacred forest, I’d save it and worry about getting punished for disobeying orders afterward. That’s what loyalty and duty mean to me!”

For a moment, the Old Ones were quiet again. Then Shaugar said, “But the ghoul was right. We are crafters first and foremost, and you saw how many of our staves and amulets we’ve already emptied of magic.”

“I’ve also seen plenty of intact Raumviran golems still standing around in the foundry,” Aoth replied. “Old Ones put them to sleep, and you can wake them too.”

“Some acts of creation,” quavered a stooped figure on the uppermost tier, an Old One in every sense of the term, “work in accordance with Nature, while others mock it. Our tradition-”

“So you break three rules!” Orgurth said, “to save your holy trees!”

“Yes,” said Shaugar, a hint of grim humor in his voice, “to save the ‘holy trees.’ ” He rose and turned so that, for a moment at least, he looked each of his fellow enchanters in the eye. “Our friends are right. We can’t sit idly by while the undead take over Rashemen even if the Wychlaran burn us all in wicker cages afterward. So: who’s coming with me?”

“I will!” Kanilak said.

“And I,” said a big man in a long-eared rabbit mask that presumably didn’t look as comical to his fellow Rashemi as it did to Aoth.

One by one, all the others agreed to march, although in some cases with manifest reluctance or windy-and likely specious-discourses on how precedent or the exact wording of their laws and vows might after all permit them to do as they intended. The lawyering made Aoth seethe with impatience, but he tried not to show it.

When all the talk was finally through, and most of the enchanters were headed out to prepare for the journey, Shaugar came down to the floor of the amphitheater. “Thanks for your support,” Aoth told him. “Can I hope the part about wicker cages was an exaggeration?”

Shaugar snorted. “You were right before. You really don’t understand Rashemen. But you were also correct that we mustn’t worry about that now. As we head north, we’ll pass near a couple other Old One villages. We can ask them to join us.”

Pevkalondra laughed. “You still won’t have enough men to stop what’s happening in the forest.”

“We’ll see,” said Aoth. “It may be that I can scare up a few more.”

“Either way,” Orgurth said, “I’m tired of listening to Stinky, here, jeer at us. I’ve also gone too long in my new life as a sellsword without picking up any plunder.”

He turned, grabbed Pevkalondra’s ocular between thumb and forefinger, and yanked. The pearl jerked free, trailing the thin prongs of metal that had zigzagged back into her head. They came out with bits of rotten matter clinging to them, and the ghoul screamed.

“See?” asked Orgurth, making a casual attempt to wipe the decay off on his sleeve. “I told you I could have made her talk.”

The durthans were performing their rites in a stand of towering, many-branched weirwood trees. It was one of the most sacred places of power in the Urlingwood, yet even so, permanently tilting the balance of dark and light in all Rashemen was proving to be a long and arduous process requiring night after night of chanted prayers and incantations around the greenish fire.

Although things were moving a little faster now that, with matters elsewhere under control, Nyevarra was leading the rituals. The Stag King’s antler staff had turned out to be a potent talisman for strengthening the conjurations.

She was spinning it through a complicated figure that made the bonfire blaze higher when, her mystical perceptions heightened by the ceremony, she sensed entities possessed of considerable supernatural power approaching in the night. She used a hand signal to warn her sister witches a pause was necessary, and they all stopped chanting on the same word, at a point that kept the forces they’d raised from bursting free of the metaphysical structures meant to channel and contain them.

Nyevarra and the other durthans then turned to await the newcomers. Some witches gasped or exclaimed when their fellow ghouls and specters marched out of the dark.

There were many creatures in the column formidable enough to merit such expressions of admiration and respect. But Nyevarra had no doubt that it was the singular entity crawling in the lead who’d riveted everyone’s attention.

The upper part of him was the top portion of a human skeleton. At the waist, those bare bones fused with an enormous, scaly serpentine body like a dragon’s tail. She knew from the description Uramar had given her that this was Lod, but even if she hadn’t, she would have assumed as much from the exceptional wizardly strength she sensed inside him.

She left the circle to greet him and his companions. Swaying slightly from side to side, he loomed over her, and she felt small and vulnerable. Making sure that didn’t reveal itself in her stance or voice, she said, “Welcome.”

“Thank you,” Lod replied. “You must be Nyevarra. Uramar’s messenger told me you’re the one who worked out how best to conquer this realm.”

Nyevarra smiled behind her mask. “It was my notion. But every durthan is aiding in the effort.”

Lod nodded. “I like it that you’re willing to share the credit. It reflects the spirit of fellowship our cause requires.” He peered over her head in the direction of the green fire. “But plainly, our arrival interrupted your labors. Will you take them up again? It would be a privilege to observe.”

Nyevarra blinked. “Right now? You’ve traveled a long way.”

“Yes. But as you’ve surely discovered, one of the many benefits of undeath is being impervious to fatigue.”

“In that case, please, come to the fire.”

After another series of complex invocations, the durthans came to a planned halt; undead might be tireless in the general course of things, but any witch performing a lengthy ritual was well advised to pause from time to time to refocus her will. At that point, curious to hear his opinion, Nyevarra looked up at Lod.

“Remarkable,” the bone naga said. “Until Uramar relayed your plans, I would never have dreamed such a thing was possible. Still, I have lore of my own, and with your permission, I believe I can speed things along.”

“I’m eager to see what you have in mind.”

“Then when everyone is ready, I’ll take the lead while you and your sisters make the ritual responses. I’m only going to change your incantations a little, so you won’t have any difficulty following along.”

In a sense, that proved to be true. But in the aggregate, the small changes-an arcane gesture performed with extra slashing vehemence, an alteration in the cadence of a phrase, the substitution of one name of power for another-made a considerable difference. Attuned to the magic, Nyevarra could perceive it transforming the Urlingwood in ways it hadn’t hitherto.

The fire turned from green to a gray so deep it was nearly black, and in some indefinable but ghastly fashion, the crackling alternately suggested sobbing and laughter. A darkness deeper than natural night thickened in the air.

Tendrils of rot snaked through one of the weir trees, riddling the heartwood in an instant. Farther away, oaks and pines perished of the same cankerous affliction.

Earth shifted and clenched like a miser’s fist, and the spring water that had bubbled up to feed a frozen brook could no longer find its way to the surface.

A bear sleeping in its burrow whimpered and thrashed as a new deformed head-three-eyed, with crooked jaws and jagged, oversized fangs-sprouted from its shoulder. But the natural head didn’t truly wake until the freakish one started eating it.

There was still a part of Nyevarra, the part that recalled life as a dutiful young hathran, that winced at the accelerated corruption and desecration. But the rebel and vampire that naive girl had become rejoiced. Before, she’d estimated that her rituals would make her and her allies invincible near the time of the spring thaw. But with Lod’s aid, it should require only another tenday or two.

Vandar felt a surge of happiness as, riding the giant hawk Jhesrhi had conjured to carry him, he gazed down on Immilmar from the air. After all the dangers and horrors he’d encountered in the north, home had never looked more inviting.

Or at least that was the case until his eyes fell on the peaked roof of the Griffon Lodge. Even on this frigid winter day, no smoke rose from the chimney, and why would it? The building stood empty as it would until someone new took possession of it.

Vandar averted his eyes, and in so doing, turned them toward the lake. The Storm of Vengeance was sitting on the shore.

Grief and guilt gave way to rage, and had he known how, he would have turned his steed toward the skyship. Because he didn’t know how to steer the giant hawk, he could only wait as his bird, Jhesrhi’s, and Jet, who was carrying Cera, swooped down to light in the snow in front of Witches’ Hall.

As soon as their riders dismounted, the two huge raptors dissolved into wind, moaning and flinging up snow for a moment, and then they were gone. Vandar started westward.

“Stop!” Cera said. “I saw the ship too, but you can’t just run off by yourself.”

“She’s right,” rasped Jet. Frequent applications of Cera’s healing sunlight had strengthened him and improved his appearance, although black feathers and fur had yet to cover over every patch of ugly scarring. “I’ve got a score of my own to settle, and if things were different, I’d come along and help you. But we have a plan in motion. A plan to rescue your miserable excuse for a homeland.”

Vandar hesitated and felt the red sword at this side urging him on to battle and revenge. And as he’d learned to his cost, when he felt the fey weapon goading him toward one course of action, that in itself was reason enough to at least consider doing the opposite.

“All right,” he growled. “I’ll wait.” He marched up to the hathrans’ house and pounded on the door.

A coltish novice in a simple cloth half mask answered, goggled at Vandar and those clustered behind him, and, when Vandar made his wishes known, scurried off to fetch Yhelbruna.

“You realize,” said Jet, “by now, the great hathran could be possessed or a vampire’s thrall herself.”

“If she is,” Cera said, “I’ll know.”

“So will I,” said Vandar. Yhelbruna had allowed him to meet the real woman hidden behind the leather mask and cold, mysterious demeanor only once, after they’d encountered the undead hag and goblins in the High Country, but it had left him with a vivid sense of who she truly was.

Vivid enough that he sensed the happiness the sight of him inspired when his companions almost certainly did not. “You’re alive,” she said.

“So is Captain Fezim,” said Jhesrhi, a new and hastily carved ash staff in her hand. She’d enchanted it as she did her clothing to keep it from charring in her grip. “Whatever Mario Bez may have told you.”

“We found out Bez is a liar,” Yhelbruna said. “Still, when you failed to return from this alleged battle at the Fortress of the Half-Demon, we had no choice but to assume the worst.”

“Aoth is looking through my eyes and listening through my ears right now,” said Jet. “He’ll speak through me too when he needs to. Take a walk with us, hathran. We need to talk where spies can’t overhear, and we’re short on time.”

“As you wish,” the witch replied. She turned and stepped out of the doorway for a moment, and when she reappeared, she wore a green hooded cloak and carried a staff of her own in her hand.

As they all wandered toward a little stand of trees to the west of the hall, Jhesrhi began to relate all that she and her comrades had discovered. Apparently, life as a sellsword had taught her to report clearly and succinctly, for it took her only a little time to lay out the facts as best they understood them.

“So you see,” she concluded, “at this point, we don’t know who among the hathrans and the Iron Lord’s warriors has been compromised and who hasn’t. But if Yhelbruna and Cera work together, the two of you should be able to identify at least some folk who are still trustworthy and free others from the undead’s influence. The troops you muster will rendezvous with the Old Ones south of the Urlingwood, and then we’ll all assault the wood together.”

Yhelbruna shook her head. “No. That won’t work.”

Vandar took a breath. “As you heard, the Old Ones understand they’re breaking their vows, and we all know men are barred from the forest. But-”

“Rose and scythe!” Yhelbruna snapped. “Do hathrans truly seem like such mad tyrants that you imagine I care about any of that when the soul of the land itself is in jeopardy? The wizard’s proposal won’t work because this Eminence of Araunt is a move ahead of us. Again. A few of their creatures revealed themselves on the southern shore of the River Rasha, and Mangan Uruk rushed forth to chase them with every witch and berserker he could find. I imagine we can still collect a smattering of reinforcements between here and Urling, but not in the numbers you were hoping for.”

Everyone was glumly silent for a moment. Then Cera said, “All right, but let’s think this through. The undead’s plan is based on stealth and trickery for good reason. We destroyed much of their strength at the Fortress of the Half-Demon, and Pevkalondra threw away more when she detached the Raumvirans from the rest of the creatures’ army and led them to defeat. Lod sought to bring reinforcements, but Sarshethrian’s ambush killed at least half of those. Maybe we aren’t at as much of a disadvantage as we think.”

Yhelbruna stopped and pondered, meanwhile idly poking holes in the snow at her feet with the lead tip on the butt of her staff.

“That all makes sense on its own terms,” she said eventually, “and now that I understand what’s been weakening my witchcraft, true hathrans can take countermeasures. But the enemy’s witchcraft is gaining strength, and with the Urlingwood falling into shadow, I guarantee you dark fey are assembling to support their old allies and ensure their ascendancy in the new Rashemen.”

Cera scowled. “I didn’t endure Sarshethrian’s foulness and vampires sucking my blood just to hear our cause is hopeless.”

“Aoth says it isn’t,” said Jet. “He wants to know, how did Yhelbruna come to realize Mario Bez is a liar, and why is the Storm of Vengeance still in Immilmar?”

Vandar’s jaw muscles clenched.

Even without the aid of a saddle and tack-Jet’s accouterments had burned away when the orb of fire blasted him-Aoth felt good hurtling along on griffon-back once more, with a cold wind in his face, a blue sky and wispy cirrus clouds above, and the tangled branches of a forest below. His pleasure would have been even keener if he hadn’t felt the ache in the griffon’s wings. Jet had pushed himself hard to fly to the Running Rocks, collect his master, and carry him to the Ashenwood, leaving Orgurth to shepherd the Old Ones the rest of the way north.

I’m fine! snarled Jet across their psychic link. Clearly, the bond had enabled him to perceive Aoth’s concern in the same way Aoth had registered his pain. Exercise is what I need to recover the last little bit of my strength. I only wish I was exerting myself for a sensible reason.

Do you want to win or not? Aoth replied.

Jet gave a disgusted rasp. It was a noise he made when he recognized his rider was right but was unwilling to admit it straight out. If you think I’m unhappy, wait until you see Vandar.

Vandar disagrees with one of my ideas? How surprising.

Jet laughed a screeching laugh, and they flew onward.

The trees grew thickly in the Ashenwood, and Aoth assumed those he sought knew something about how to hide. But fortunately, the ashes and aspens had shed their leaves, and he had his fire-kissed eyes and Jet’s sharp senses to foil attempts at concealment. He was confident they’d find their quarry if they simply kept looking, and toward twilight, he spotted a man with black side whiskers and grubby red and yellow clothing trying to dig and chop roots from the frozen earth while a skinny, shivering fellow dressed in the same colors stood watch with a crossbow cradled in his hands.

Unfortunately, the sentry was looking around at ground level, but not higher. Perched in the branches above him and his comrade, three rusty brown ettercaps, their forms an angular mix of human and spider, were drawing glistening white strands from their spinnerets. When they had enough webbing, they’d drop it to snare their prey.

Aoth was still pondering how best to handle the situation when Jet furled his wings and dived. Maybe he wanted to prove he was as capable of maneuvering among and, when necessary, smashing right through branches as he’d ever been.

Thanks to their mystical connection, Aoth knew which ettercap Jet was targeting. He pointed his spear, spoke a word of command, and hurled darts of blue light at the other two.

Then he and Jet were plunging through the canopy, branches cracking beneath them like a drumroll. The ettercap the griffon had chosen looked up in reaction to the noise, then flexed its four hind limbs and tried to spring aside.

With a flick of his wings, Jet compensated and crashed down on the spidery hunter anyway. His talons punched through shell into the flesh beneath, and the branch on which the ettercap had been perching snapped as well.

They all plunged on earthward together. Jet lashed his wings to slow their descent and landed without giving his master much of a jolt. His weight drove his eagle claws even deeper into the ettercap, though, and through their bond, Aoth felt the creature convulse and then stop moving as its body squashed.

Aoth glanced up. His magic hadn’t killed either of the other ettercaps, but they were fleeing, scurrying and leaping from branch to branch and tree to tree.

He then pointed his spear at the foragers, both of whom were frozen with shock, and set the point of the weapon aglow with an intimidating display of power.

“Hello,” he said. “Do you know me? If not, you surely remember my steed. Which of you vermin shot him out of the sky?”

“Not me!” babbled the man who’d been digging the roots. “Not either of us!”

“No matter,” said Jet. “You were all trying. That’s why I couldn’t let the ettercaps have you.” Making a show of it, he pulled his gory talons from the carcass beneath him.

“Please!” said the root digger. “It wasn’t personal. Our captain ordered us to shoot, and we obeyed. You’re sellswords. You know how it is!”

“We do,” said Aoth. “Just like we know it’s bad for a mercenary company’s reputation to let anybody attack it without reprisal. But fortunately for you, the man we really came to see is Mario Bez. If you take us to him, you just might live to see the moon rise.”

Both foragers seemed cowed and eager to cooperate. Still, Aoth made sure the failed sentry pointed his crossbow away from his captors and uncocked it slowly.

Meanwhile, he dismounted. Jet was always happy to carry him through the air, but not when they were on the ground. It was beneath his dignity to perform the function of a common beast of burden.

They ordered their captives to walk in front and watched them for signs of mischief. But the foragers led them straight to their camp and without trying to warn their comrades that enemies were approaching. That, however, didn’t keep the other sellswords from snatching for their weapons when Aoth and Jet came into view.

“Easy!” said Aoth. “If we wanted to kill you, we would have attacked from above in the dead of night. Half of you would have died in your sleep.”

“And if one of you raises a weapon or starts jabbering a spell,” Jet rasped, “these two idiots we caught will die right now. Then Captain Fezim and I will slaughter the rest of you.”

A bit of broken twig caught in the grizzled hair that now hung loose, not gathered in his customary ponytail, Mario Bez smiled. “I don’t take that threat lightly. The two of you wouldn’t be here now if you weren’t every bit as tough as the stories say. But if it is just the two of you dropping by, I’m fairly certain my crew and I can cope with you.”

“Even if you’re right,” Aoth replied, “you wouldn’t all live through it. And those who did wouldn’t be any better off than they were before.”

Bez raised an eyebrow. “Whereas …?”

“The undead didn’t all perish in the Fortress of the Half-Demon. In fact, the ones that remain are a bigger problem than anybody realized. You’ll hear the details if we come to an agreement, but the nub of it all is that Rashemen still needs you to do the job you promised to do in the first place.”

“In exchange for what? At this point, I assume Yhelbruna wouldn’t stand for Halruaans claiming any of the wild griffons, no matter how much we contributed to the solution of her problem.”

“In exchange for safe passage out of the country.”

Bez snorted. “Not exactly a generous offer for professionals of our caliber.”

“Your other option is to go on hiding here like the common outlaws the Rashemi now consider you to be. How’s that working out?” Aoth waved his spear to indicate the haggard faces and crudely constructed lean-tos he saw before him. “Do you like sleeping rough in the cold of a northern winter? Anybody sick yet? Are you finding plenty to eat? Just how often do you run into ettercaps and trolls? I hear the Ashenwood is crawling with them.”

Bez glowered. “I won’t insult your intelligence by saying we don’t find our situation challenging. But after what’s happened, it’s difficult to believe Yhelbruna and the Iron Lord would let us depart in peace no matter what.”

Jet made a spitting noise that was half screech as well. “Liars always have trouble believing other folk are telling the truth.”

“You’re right,” said Aoth. “But maybe Captain Bez senses there’s something I haven’t mentioned. And if we’re going to sneer at him for being the lying, traitorous turd he is, then maybe I shouldn’t hold any information back.”

Bez’s hand had shifted to the hilt of his main gauche. Evidently, he didn’t appreciate being likened to dung. “By all means,” he said through gritted teeth, “enlighten me.”

“You understand the locals have cause to dislike you,” Aoth replied, “but you don’t realize just how much of your treachery has come out. Vandar Cherlinka survived your attack to reveal you and your crew murdered his lodge brothers.”

For a heartbeat, Bez looked taken aback. Then he chuckled. “I can see how that looks bad.”

“Still, I told you the truth. Rashemen’s need is such that if you help now, Yhelbruna swears by the Three that each and every one of you will receive a pardon for his misdeeds. But for you, Captain, that won’t be quite the end of the matter. You and I may think of this land as backward, but it understands dueling as well as Chessenta, Impiltur, or any civilized realm you care to name. And before you take your leave, one of the folk you’ve wronged will call you out.”

“Are you referring to yourself?”

“I don’t know for certain, but I hope so.”

“Then perhaps it would be better to kill you here and now.”

“Better for whom? It’s only you who will have to fight the extra fight. No one will bother your men.”

A white-haired, sour-faced man with a wand tucked in his broad yellow belt cleared his throat.

Bez’s eyes flicked to the side to see who’d spoken, then immediately returned to Aoth. “Uregaunt,” he said. “What is it?”

“We’re sellswords,” the old mage said. “We follow a leader because it’s in our interest, not because he’s some halfwit inbred nobleman or somebody like that. Starving here in the snow is not in our interest.”

Bez smiled a smile so crooked it fell just short of being a sneer. “So you’re telling me if I don’t accept Captain Fezim’s offer, you’ll desert.”

“I’m saying I’ve watched you win plenty of fights. I’ll wager you can win one more.”

“Or,” Aoth said, “I suppose that if you’re afraid, you could even refuse to duel. But I wish you luck commanding sellswords or attracting contracts when word of that gets around.”

“I’m not afraid,” Bez said, “just examining all possibilities. You’d do the same in my place.”

“So is that a yes?” asked Aoth.

Bez snorted. “It is, curse you to the Hells. I assume you understand that to fight to best advantage, my crew and I will need the Storm of Vengeance.”

“I do,” said Aoth. He paused, giving the Halruaan a breath to examine what he must imagine to be the possibilities of that. Then: “That’s why Jhesrhi and Yhelbruna are busy carving runes in the hull. If you attack us once you’re in the air, or try to fly away without meeting your obligations, it will be your turn to burst into flame and fall out of the sky.”

The tent still held the heat of Cera’s conjured sunlight long after the glow had died away. She supposed it retained the heat of the three bouts of lovemaking too. At any rate, she was warm enough, but a mix of tenderness and worry still prompted her to snuggle even closer to Aoth’s naked body.

She hadn’t meant to wake him, but his luminous blue eyes opened in the gloom, and then he kissed her. “Ready for another tumble?” he asked.

“That would be lovely if you can manage it. One more. After that, it will be dawn and my time to pray.”

“Then let’s have at it. I know you can’t keep Amaunator waiting, and I don’t want him interrupting me in the middle.” He caressed her breast and made it tingle.

Good as it felt, she put her hand on his to stop it moving. “We’ve been too hungry for one another’s touch to talk much. Before we start in again, and then have to get up and be about our business, I just … well, I want you to know the deathways were bad for me, worse, even, than for Jhesrhi, because they all but cut me off from the Yellow Sun. It was partly the hope of finding you again that kept me from breaking down.”

“Only partly?”

“Be grateful an impious cutthroat rates even that high.”

“That sounded witchy. Yhelbruna and her kind are a bad influence … But, darling lass, if you insist on talking seriously, then I guess I should take a turn. I missed you too. Enough that I realized something.

“You can’t turn down being sunlady of Chessenta if your peers elect you to the office,” he continued. “Being a priestess is your calling. And I can’t give up being a wandering sellsword. That’s mine. But I swear by the Pure Flame, we won’t lose one another. At the moment, I have no idea how to make things work, but we’ll find a way.”

“I want that too. Perhaps we can figure it out after we defeat the undead.”

She’d intended to sound confident, but his lambent eyes narrowed. “Are you scared we won’t? Mario Bez has the scruples of a starving rat, but he has no play except to deliver on his promise. Neither he and his men, the Old Ones, nor I have gone into Immilmar, so Lod’s agents in town haven’t seen us and can’t have sent word to him that we’re lurking about. If Lady Luck smiles, we’ll catch the undead by surprise.”

“I’m more worried about Jet’s part of the plan.”

“Because he hasn’t healed?”

She sighed. “It’s difficult to answer that. He’s done all the healing the Keeper’s light could promote, given that I wasn’t able to tend him until days after he was injured. But he should take more time to rest. Are we sure this is a wise idea?”

Aoth grunted. “It’s difficult to answer that. Taking on undead and dark fey, we’re likely to need all the strength we can muster.”

“But will it even work? Yhelbruna said the Three would incline the wild griffons to serve those who defeat the undead. So far, no one truly has.”

“Which means that at this point, goddesses and spirits don’t figure in, and in the absence of their prompting, the griffons will act in accordance with their nature. That’s to follow the leader of the pride, and if Jet defeats the golden beast, he’ll be the leader.”

“But the golden beast’s no ordinary griffon. It’s a telthor.”

“And Jet’s the product of enchantments I cast not just on him but his bloodline going back for generations.”

“I’m not concerned because I underestimate him. It’s because I care about him and know you love him.”

Aoth snorted. “If I ever said such a thing to him, he’d mock me forever after. But you’re right, I do, and I argued when he broached his scheme on the journey back from the Ashenwood. But maybe he needs this fight to test himself. He doesn’t want to go on living except in the knowledge that he’s still as strong as ever.”

Cera frowned. “That’s foolish and arrogant too.”

“For a human being, maybe, but that’s not what he is.”

“No,” she said, trying to banish worry from her tone, “he’s the mighty, fearless creature who fought Tchazzar and Alasklerbanbastos, and obviously, he’ll be fine. So we’ll stop fretting over him and conclude our reunion properly.” She lifted her hand from his and glided her fingertips down his stomach.

The golden griffon was soaring high above the hilly ground north of Immilmar. Jet flew in at a higher altitude still. It would be foolish to cede the advantage of the high air before the duel had even begun.

As he made his approach, he felt an impulse to take stock of his wings and see if they were aching even a little, but he thrust the urge away. Whether he was hale or still impaired, it was too late to worry about it now.

A prickly sensation, almost stinging but not quite, danced over his body, and the blueness of the sky brightened and darkened from one moment to the next. He’d experienced the same phenomena on his previous visit. He was crossing the intangible barrier the hathrans had established to contain the feral griffons. Fortunately, because the original spell hadn’t targeted him, it had no power to keep him out.

Their feathers bronze and brown in the sunlight, common griffons flew toward him. They might well remember seeing him before, and on that occasion, he’d fled from them, or so they would have believed. They likely expected him either to do the same again or set down on the ground in submission.

Instead, he shrieked a challenge that caused the wild griffons to assess his attitude, size, and manifest strength anew. Then they all veered off in various directions, declining a confrontation and in the process clearing an expanse of empty air between him and their golden leader.

The king griffon was even larger than Jet, and no scarring or bald patches marred his plumage and pelt as they gleamed like polished metal in the sun. Now that his followers had failed to dominate the newcomer, he deigned to take notice of Jet himself. Opening his beak, he gave a piercing scream of his own to demand deference.

Jet simultaneously circled right and climbed even higher, the start of a corkscrew path that might allow him to plunge down at the golden griffon from above and with the wind at his back. His actions conveyed his defiance as clearly as any cry, and, pinions beating, blue eyes glaring, the other beast began maneuvering too.

Perhaps because he’d been restlessly flying around and around his invisible cage for so long and knew the space inside so intimately, the gold beast almost immediately found a fast-flowing updraft. The vertical current flung him upward, and in a moment, he possessed the high air. Jet realized he had little hope of reaching the same height swiftly enough for it to matter even if he exerted himself to the utmost.

But it might serve him well to pretend that was what he was doing. So he beat his wings and climbed like a dunce while the king griffon made a lazy-looking circle and positioned himself to dive.

The gold then hurtled downward. Jet kept climbing as if he had yet to perceive the threat or as if he were suicidal.

When the telthor had nearly plunged into striking distance, he gave a scream intended to petrify his prey. Jet, however, took the shriek as his cue to raise one wing, dip the other, and, with the agility Aoth’s prenatal enchantments and a lifetime of aerial combat had produced, dodge out from underneath the gold’s talons.

The gold plummeted through the space he’d just vacated, and now Jet was the one who held the high air and had his talons positioned to stab and seize. He furled his wings and dived after his foe.

The griffon chieftain zigzagged, trying to evade. Steadily closing the distance, Jet compensated as necessary and reached to catch the muscles bunching between the gold’s wings.

An instant before Jet’s talons could strike home, the telthor dodged a final time. Instead of plunging down on his foe’s back, Jet caught the middle of his right wing. Well, that ought to be good enough.

Jet’s aquiline claws clenched in flesh. He raked with his leonine hind legs and lowered his beak to bite. Then the pinion to which he clung lashed with startling violence and flung him off.

Jet snapped his own wings in an effort to close and grab hold once more. But he was too eager, lunging before he’d quite recovered full control of his body. Jet couldn’t dodge when, flinging blood, his foe’s faintly striped golden wing flapped and struck the side of his head.

The blow slapped Jet sideways and stunned him for an instant, and when he looked for the gold, the creature was no longer in front of him. He cast around and located his opponent just as the telthor swooped in from the right.

The gold’s talons stabbed into Jet’s back, then, one foot at a time, released and grabbed anew as he shifted his orientation. The telthor likely wanted to align himself in such a way that he could snap his beak shut on his opponent’s neck.

Jet lashed his wings, tucked his beak down against his chest, and flipped himself and the gold upside down. They tumbled earthward like a stone.

Probably still trying to bring his beak to bear, the griffon chieftain clung to Jet for a moment longer. Then, however, he sprang away to keep himself from slamming to the ground along with his foe.

Jet wrenched his body into the proper attitude for flight, resumed beating his wings, and pulled out of his fall. But in the process, he once again lost track of the gold.

Instinct screamed that he should veer to the right. He did, and, talons outstretched, the telthor hurtled past him.

Jet raced after the gold, and now it was the griffon king’s turn to dodge back and forth. Jet managed to claw the end of a wing anyway, and then the gold spun away from him.

The telthor started to climb away from the wide-eyed, upturned faces of Cera, Jhesrhi, Vandar, Yhelbruna, and the other humans standing in the snow. Jet climbed with him, and, as they spiraled around one another, peered to see how much harm he’d inflicted.

Lots. An ordinary griffon might not even be able to fly with wings so torn and bloody.

Whereas Jet was in better shape. The gold had torn up his back, but the initial strike hadn’t had the momentum of a long dive behind it, and in the moments thereafter, his adversary had been more interested in turning around to use his beak than continuing to rip with his claws.

I’m winning, Jet concluded. I’m stronger and faster than a stinking telthor, and I’m tearing him to shreds. The realization filled him with exultation.

But the gold wasn’t ready to concede defeat. Blue eyes blazing, he screamed his rage.

And that, Jet decided when his surge of savage satisfaction subsided, was unfortunate. He’d kill the gold if necessary, but he didn’t actually want to. Should he survive, the telthor would be one more attacker to send against the undead, and besides, Jet respected his ferocity.

Still, even wounded, the king griffon was so formidable that if Jet didn’t simply strive for the kill, he could still lose the fight and his own life with it. He tried to think of a tactic that would serve his need and resisted the temptation to consult with Aoth. His master was watching the combat unfold through his eyes and would surely help in any way he could. But Jet had resolved that he’d fight this fight alone.

At first, no idea came to him, and as the telthor circled to attack, he resigned himself to ending the stubborn creature’s life. Then, however, a notion popped into his head.

He flew at the oncoming gold, then abruptly lashed his left wing less vigorously than the right, as though the wounds on his back were hindering him. The uneven beats turned his progress into an awkward wobble.

Eager to take advantage of his seeming distress, the gold drove at him even faster. At the last possible instant, Jet swooped beneath his foe’s gaping beak and outstretched talons with what he hoped sounded like a rasp of tortured effort.

He kept right on swooping too, as if he no longer cared about anything but fleeing. The telthor wheeled and plunged after him.

The color of the sky danced from azure to iris and back again. The prickling in the air turned to fiery stinging where it jabbed into Jet’s open wounds. But he didn’t care because, behind him, the gold shrieked in agony when, forgetful of everything but the desire to pursue his adversary, he plunged into Yhelbruna’s zone of forbiddance.

Jet wheeled. The king griffon was doing the same, but more slowly. Bigger than his foe, he had more momentum to contend with, and the ongoing torment inflicted by Yhelbruna’s magic made him flounder.

But he’d still get clear in a few breaths unless Jet prevented it. Lashing his wings as fast as ever in his life, he gained just enough altitude to plunge onto the gold’s back. There, he bit down hard enough to penetrate the feathers on his foe’s neck and draw blood from the hide beneath.

The gold’s wings buffeted Jet’s flanks, and the rest of his body thrashed and flailed. But with hathran magic assailing him, he couldn’t dislodge his adversary.

Jet bit down harder, and then he could taste blood as well as smell it. I’ll take your head if you force me to, he thought. I’m done playing with you.

The gold gave a different cry than before, this one mournful and resigned. It was surrender, but Jet watched him anyway as he let go and sprang away to make it easier for both of them to fly. Normal griffons didn’t lie, but he couldn’t be sure about a telthor.

But evidently neither the Earthmother, the Forest Queen, nor the Moonmaiden had gifted the gold with that particular human propensity because he labored clear of the punishing magic and then swooped earthward as he was supposed to. All the common griffons descended too, to submit to their new chieftain.

Licking blood from the edges of his beak, Jet wondered how he was going to convey the relatively complex commands he’d have to give them in the battle to come. He assured himself he’d manage somehow. For the first time in a while, he felt certain of his ability to accomplish anything he set his mind to.