Whisper of Venom

FOUR

4 KYTHORN, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

Nicos Corynian loved his family and made a point of taking his evening meal with them whenever practical. That night, however, the bright, trivial chatter of his wife and nieces grated on his already jangled nerves. As soon as he could make his escape, he headed for the private study that served him as a kind of refuge.

His hand with its scarred knuckles trembling ever so slightly, he opened the door, set the single white wax candle he’d brought along on the dice table, and headed for the walnut cabinet in which he kept strong drink. The taper was sufficient illumination for the moment. He’d worry about lighting the lamps when he had some brandy inside him.

A deep voice sounded from the shadows. “Good evening, milord.”

Startled, Nicos lurched around. A robed and hooded figure rose from one of the chairs between the dice table and the wall. The apparition stepped forward and Nicos saw the eerie blue glow of its eyes.

Aoth pushed the cowl back, and the yellow candlelight gilded his tattooed face. “Please excuse the clothes. I realize they’re filthy and smell like garbage. But it’s not easy to wander around without being recognized when you look like I do.”

“How did you get in here?” As soon as the question left Nicos’s mouth, he realized the answer wasn’t important. But he was still too rattled to think straight.

“You have a kindly cook. She was willing to feed a beggar. Then I slipped out of the kitchen when her back was turned. I stole a bottle of cooking wine and left the door ajar so she’d assume I’d departed the house.”

“All right, but why are you in Luthcheq at all?”

“Partly to prod Tchazzar into heading north.” The mercenary hesitated. “What?”

Nicos realized that his expression must have changed when Aoth spoke the dragon’s name. “It’s nothing.”

“Plainly it isn’t, and since I’m planning to talk to him, I need to know about it.”

Nicos sighed. “Have it your way. At court today, a minstrel sang a song he’d written about Tchazzar’s past triumphs. In it he made mention of one of the wyrm’s old lieutenants. Someone Tchazzar evidently remembers fondly.”

“Go on.”

“Tchazzar flew into a rage. He said the bard had insulted his friend and ordered him whipped.”

“That’s harsh, but I’ve known other princes who might have done the same.”

“So have I,” said Nicos, “but here’s the difference. No one else could perceive the insult. I still can’t. Every word the singer used was complimentary.”

“Maybe if you’d actually known the fellow, you’d see that the words conveyed some hidden irony?”

“I doubt it, and anyway there’s more. A guard started the whipping, but Tchazzar wasn’t satisfied with the results. He insisted on taking over, and I think he must have some portion of a dragon’s strength even when he’s a man. He went on and on, tirelessly, until he’d all but cut the minstrel to pieces.”

Aoth frowned. “And we brought him back to Chessenta. Well, Jhesrhi and Gaedynn did, but I sent them on your orders.”

“Yes.”

“Well, we’ll just have to hope that Tchazzar’s good qualities offset his quirks. Meanwhile, I’ve delayed presenting myself at the War College because Cera Eurthos has disappeared, and I wanted a free hand to poke around. What do you know about it?”

Nicos blinked. “Me? Nothing! Why would I?”

“She was staying in Amaunator’s temple, but no one’s seen her for a while. I gather Daelric’s not especially concerned. He assumes she headed back north. Which she shouldn’t and wouldn’t have done without asking permission. But he’s apparently too jealous of Halonya’s sudden rise to think the matter through.”

“Perhaps she left the Keeper’s house to visit family or friends in the city.”

Aoth shook his head. “She doesn’t have any living family. She probably does have old friends hereabouts, but I’m certain she had something else in mind. As I’m sure you realize, no one ever figured out the whole truth about the Green Hand murders. She believed her god had given her the task.”

“That sounds potentially dangerous.”

Aoth smiled a crooked smile. “I agree. Yet I left her here to snoop around alone. I was preoccupied. I thought my responsibility was to lead the Brotherhood and defeat Threskel.”

“You were right. It is.”

“I know. Still, I mean to find her.”

“And you think that somehow, I can help you.”

“Yes, milord, I do. I don’t spread this around, but the Blue Fire did more than extend my life. It changed the way I see. Once in a while I have visions that point to hidden truths. The first time we met, I saw a green dragon looking over your shoulder.”

Making sure his voice would remain steady, Nicos took a breath. “What in the name of the Yellow Sun did that signify?”

“At the time, I had no idea. I’m still not sure. But ever since the Brotherhood came to these lands, there have been dragons, dragon-worshipers, and creatures with draconic traits popping up everywhere.”

Nicos forced a smile. “Well, obviously Chessenta is fighting a war against a dracolich and his circle of dragon followers-”

“I mean above and beyond that, as you understand perfectly well. I hadn’t gotten around to mentioning that I once smelled the lingering odor of a certain gum you’d burned in your study. A gum used in mystical rituals.”

“And that concerned you? All right, I confess I have a small talent for sorcery, which I’ve always concealed to avoid the stigma. But now that Tchazzar’s changed the law, what does it matter?”

“It matters because, together with my vision, it indicates there’s more to you than most people realize. Now, I’m not your enemy. By the Black Flame, I work for you, give or take. But I demand to know what you know. To find Cera, and to help me look out for the Brotherhood’s interests.”

“And if I refuse to surrender all my secrets?”

“Then I’ll tell Tchazzar what I know. Maybe you’ll be lucky and he won’t think anything of it. But I’m pretty sure Lord Luthen will talk until his teeth fall out trying to make it seem damning. You never know-tomorrow, or the next day, it could be you tied to the whipping post.”

Trying to look defeated, Nicos sighed and slumped his shoulders. “All right. I’m not some sort of scoundrel, but there are … things you probably should know. I’m afraid it will take a while.” He waved toward the pair of brown leather chairs in front of the hearth. “Sit. I’ll get us something to drink.”

“Fine.” Aoth flopped down in one of the chairs.

Nicos headed for the cabinet containing the bottles and goblets. Which put him behind the war-mage.

I can do this, he told himself. I’m a pugilist. I know how and where to hit. And the man said himself, no one knows he came here. I can dispose of the body somehow.

He looked at the nape of Aoth’s neck and clenched his fist.

Aoth sprang up out of the seat and whirled. He kicked the chair into Nicos’s legs.

It stung and made Nicos stagger back a step, but that was all. He started to rush Aoth, but by that time the Thayan was rattling off a charm. On the final syllable he snapped his fingers, and a pearly glow, dazzling in the gloomy chamber, appeared in the air between him and his attacker.

Squinting, Nicos instinctively balked, then realized the light was harmless. At the same instant vicious blows hammered him in the kidney and the jaw in quick succession. A foot sweep jerked one leg out from under him. Aoth slammed him down hard on the floor, then drew a dagger from one of his voluminous sleeves.

“Are you going to be sensible?” the sellsword asked. “Or do I have to hold the blade to your throat and go through the rest of the routine?”

Aching and breathless, half stunned, Nicos managed, “I’ll be sensible.”

“Good.” Aoth offered a hand and pulled him to his feet. “This time, you sit and I’ll fetch a bottle.”

Nicos collapsed into a chair. “How did you know? Another vision?”

“No. It’s just that I’ve spent the better part of a hundred years reading the faces and stances of men who were about to try to kill me.”

“It was an impulse. I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t apologize. I’m glad you panicked. I didn’t really have enough to go running to Tchazzar. I was bluffing. But I have it now.”

“Yes. I suppose you do.”

Aoth pulled the stopper from a decanter of brandy. The liquor gurgled into goblets, its scent filled the air, and, craving it, Nicos shivered.

Aoth gave him one of the cups, set the bottle on the low table between the chairs, then sat down opposite him. “Now,” he said, “talk.”

Nicos took a long drink first, and felt the brandy warm his belly. “I guess there’s no way to say this except straight out. For a number of years, I’ve secretly provided certain services to a green wyrm named Skuthosiin.”

Aoth’s lambent blue eyes bored into him. “You’re telling me,” he said, his voice flat, “that the man who brought the Brotherhood to Chessenta, the man to whom our fortunes are still tied, is a spy and a traitor?”

“No! It’s not like that. Skuthosiin never asked me to do anything that was clearly a disservice to the realm. And I wouldn’t have. It’s just that he was willing to reward me for … information and various favors.”

“Wait. Is this the same Skuthosiin who used to live in Unther?” Aoth asked.

“So he says,” Nicos said.

“How did he survive the Spellplague, and Tymanther more or less falling out of the sky on top of his country?” Aoth asked.

“I don’t know,” Nicos said. “He boasts that the Dark Lady favors him. Maybe she protected him.”

“Where is he now?” Aoth asked. “Chessenta, Tymanther, or someplace else?”

“I don’t know where he spends his time,” Nicos said. “He taught me a spell to talk to him from far away. That’s why I burn the gum.”

Aoth grunted. “I’ve done a little studying since Tchazzar returned. Supposedly he and Skuthosiin were allies in the old days. So I take it you ordered me to look for him because your secret master wanted him found.”

“Yes, but there’s more to it. From the start he wanted you and your sellswords in Chessenta, and he somehow knew in advance that your company would meet with defeat and disgrace in Impiltur and need a new employer. That’s how my messenger reached you at just the right time.”

Aoth’s eyes seemed to burn brighter. “ ‘Somehow knew in advance’ is the mush-mouthed way of saying, ‘Made it happen.’ That’s why that whoreson Kremphras and his company didn’t show up to support us, and why there were dragonlike creatures helping the demon-worshipers. They were all working for Skuthosiin, just like you.”

“I don’t know that for a fact,” said Nicos, “but I think it’s likely.”

“How many agents does he have, anyway?” Aoth asked. “Over how wide an area?”

“I don’t know,” said Nicos.

Aoth drew breath to make a reply-an angry one, to judge from his scowl-then caught himself and paused to take a drink. “Well, what else do you know? There had better be something.”

“Looking back, I can at least speculate,” Nicos said. “Skuthosiin somehow knows about your eyes. He initially wanted you here because he thought they might enable you to unmask the Green Hand killer.”

“Which arguably hurt Chessenta more than it helped. So, if Skuthosiin knew what we’d find, maybe he’s no friend to your country,” Aoth said.

“If he knew,” Nicos said, “there were easier ways to steer the city guards in the right direction.”

“Well, possibly,” Aoth said. “You truly have no idea why he wants what he wants? What his ultimate purpose is?”

“No.”

“Or if he’s even let Tchazzar know he’s still alive?”

“No. Are you going to denounce me?”

Aoth scratched his chin, and his fingertips rasped in the beard stubble. Nicos had the wholly irrelevant thought that he would have heard the exact same little sound if the Thayan had scratched his shaved scalp.

“I don’t especially want to,” Aoth said after a moment. “You didn’t cause the debacle in Impiltur, and I haven’t known many lords who weren’t involved in secret dirty dealings of one kind or another. I’d rather stay your friend and do what you and the Crown are paying me to do. But it’s not going to be that easy unless I find Cera. And nothing you’ve said so far points me in the right direction.”

“I told you, I don’t know what happened to her!”

“But you’re the damned spy and the damned courtier too. You keep track of everything that happens in the War College and the city at large. Think of something.”

Nicos did. He thought that if he called for help, the servants might respond quickly. And if they all attacked Aoth together, they might conceivably overwhelm him.

But when he took another look at the man on the other side of the low little table, the hopeful fantasy withered. At the moment the Thayan might not have his enchanted spear or his griffon either, but even so it was impossible to doubt that he could handle anything his unwilling host could throw at him.

Then a more useful thought occurred to Nicos. He sat up straighter, and Aoth said, “What?”

“The Church of Tchazzar,” Nicos said.

“What about it?”

“Tchazzar promised Halonya that a priesthood would form around her, and it did with remarkable speed. You’d think it would be mostly the same commoners who marched with her in the streets, seeking to rise along with her. But quite a few of them aren’t. Before the coronation she’d never even seen them before, and they seem at home in their new roles. Like educated men accustomed to ritual and protocol.”

“And Halonya doesn’t think it odd that these strangers came out of nowhere to attend her?”

“Halonya is a half-mad pauper moving through a dream of pomp and glory. Everything that’s happening seems miraculous, and so nothing seems peculiar. But here’s my point. At one time Tchazzar was widely regarded as Tiamat’s champion or even her avatar. So, if trained priests have come to officiate at his altar, who do you think they might be?”

“Wyrmkeepers,” said Aoth. “And there are wyrmkeepers all through this tangle. Gaedynn and Jhesrhi ran into them in Mourktar, and another tried to murder me in Soolabax.”

“If Cera Eurthos knew that, and if she made the same guess we just made, then that’s where she might have gone for answers.”

Oraxes had the urge to pace. Instead he and his fellow mages were expected to stand still and at least pretend to listen while Gaedynn Ulraes ran over their instructions-Oraxes refused to think of them as orders-another time.

The archer’s coppery hair was gray under the night sky, and he’d traded his usual bright, foppish attire for a black brigandine and clothes to match. “I know it will be difficult to cast a veil over so many,” he said. “But you only have to hide the skirmishers. We’re moving up in advance of the rest. And the dark should help.”

Meralaine-a diminutive, snub-nosed girl whose pixielike appearance belied a considerable talent for the sinister art of necromancy-nodded and said, “It will. And we’re good at concealment spells. The way Luthcheq treated us, we had to be.”

“When I give the word,” Gaedynn continued, “you’ll light up the enemy and keep them lit. The rest of us can kill them if we can see them.”

“Right,” said Meralaine. It seemed like she was trying to impress Gaedynn, maybe because she hoped to replace Oraxes as interim leader of the mages. Not, of course, that he cared one way or the other.

“As soon as you can,” Gaedynn said, “get behind men with shields and stay there. There’s no target so important that it’s worth one of our only four wizards taking unnecessary chances to strike at it.”

“We understand!” Oraxes snapped. “We understood the first time. You’d do better giving us a moment of peace to clear our heads.”

Gaedynn studied him for a moment, then grinned. “Don’t go out of your way to remind anybody, but I’ve never done this before either. Led a whole army, I mean.”

Oraxes sneered. “Then maybe Hasos should be in charge.”

“Maybe,” Gaedynn said, “but then the garrison would still be bottled up inside Soolabax when Alasklerbanbastos himself shows up to perch his bony arse atop the baron’s keep.”

“We trust you,” said Meralaine, sycophantic bitch that she was.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Gaedynn replied. “My talents are plain for all to see. As are yours. I realize that none of you has been in a full-scale battle before, and night fighting’s not the most comfortable way to begin. But keep your heads and you’ll do fine. Now go take your positions.”

Said positions were at intervals among the vanguard of bowmen, all members of Aoth and Gaedynn’s Brotherhood. Oraxes recited a rhyme, and for a moment the cool night air grew positively frigid. A blur rippled across his portion of the loose formation, and the darkness thickened around it.

He surveyed his work and felt a twinge of pride. He’d like to see Meralaine’s necromancy do better than that.

He somehow missed the signal that started his neighbors moving, and had to trot a couple of paces to catch up. As the archers advanced, he wished he could skulk as quietly as they did. He was an accomplished sneak thief, but that was on floors and cobbles. He couldn’t match the sellswords on grass and mud.

Gaedynn abruptly drew and released. Oraxes hadn’t realized there was anything to shoot at, nor did he see where the arrow flew. He supposed the lanky redhead had shot at a picket and killed him too, because they all kept slinking forward and nobody sounded an alarm.

The vague black mass that was the enemy camp and the east wall of Soolabax rising behind it swam out of the murk. Gaedynn raised his hand, and, up and down the formation, sergeants did the same. Everybody stopped advancing.

Gaedynn turned to Oraxes, smiled, and waved his hand at the foe like an elegant host inviting his guests into a feast.

Oraxes swallowed away a sudden dryness in his mouth. He tried to call the words of a spell to mind. For one horrible moment they wouldn’t come, but then he had them. He whispered the rhyme, building to a crescendo even so, and thrust out his left hand. A spark leaped from his fingertips and streaked over the ground.

Gaedynn had made it clear that above all, he wanted light. But the trouble with a simple enchantment of illumination was that a sorcerer on the other side could rather easily dispel it. It might be more difficult to extinguish the glow of a burning tent.

Besides, Oraxes had a yen to show those hardened professional warriors, those Brothers of the Griffon, that he was as dangerous as any of them. And certainly the most dangerous of the spellcasters they’d recruited in Luthcheq. Even if it was the first time he’d ever used magic in such a blatant, savage way.

The spark exploded into a blast that engulfed and ignited two tents. Silhouetted against the yellow blaze, bodies tumbled and flew to pieces. For a heartbeat the destruction amazed Oraxes, like he hadn’t had anything to do with it. Then he felt sick to his stomach.

But excited too.

Off to the right, another blast set fire to a different part of the camp. Less bloodthirsty, creative, or ambitious, the remaining mages contented themselves with conjuring pools of phosphorescence, one amber and one a sickly green.

“Shoot!” Gaedynn called, drawing and loosing. The skirmishers followed his example.

The arrows arced high and plummeted down. Men, orcs, and kobolds reeled and collapsed beneath the barrage.

Aoth Fezim had put together the force from a portion of his own company and various native Chessentan troops stationed along the border. By itself it was still smaller than the army besieging Soolabax. But the hope was that a surprise attack would more than compensate for the numerical disadvantage.

And it might. But it looked to Oraxes like the Great Bone Wyrm’s warriors wouldn’t remain stunned and disorganized for long. Already there were officers bellowing orders and goblins scrambling to grab their weapons and form up into squads.

Oraxes abruptly remembered that his part of the fight wasn’t over. In fact, it had scarcely begun. He threw darts of crimson light at something big. An ogre maybe, or some sort of tame troll. The creature staggered but didn’t fall down.

“What are you still doing here?” Gaedynn barked. Startled, Oraxes jerked around to find the archer right beside him. “I told you to get behind the shields!”

Oraxes scowled. At himself, because he’d forgotten all about that part of the plan, or even that there were any shields. He turned and saw that the spearmen had moved up unnoticed behind him. As he ran in their direction, an arrow or crossbow bolt whistled past his head.

Someone-Shala Karanok, most likely-had found a mansion on the edge of the religious quarter to serve as Tchazzar’s interim temple. As he surveyed the place from the air, Aoth wondered what the former war hero had needed to do to persuade the householder to vacate.

If I were you, said Jet, speaking mind to mind, I’d worry about what moved in after he did vacate. The last time you broke into a wyrmkeeper’s lair, you nearly got killed. And then it was just one wyrmkeeper.

Maybe you should be the captain, answered Aoth. You always know just what to say to inspire confidence.

The griffon gave a rasp of annoyance. My point is that Jhesrhi and Scar are at the War College.

Where I can’t go unless I want to waste a day explaining why we’re in Luthcheq, and alert the wyrmkeepers to our presence while I’m at it. This way is better.

Suit yourself. Maybe my next rider will be lighter.

Jet set down in an alley near the mansion. Aoth reluctantly left his spear secured to the familiar’s saddle. It was too recognizable, too threatening, and impossible to conceal. He’d make do with the short sword hidden under his shabby beggar’s robe. At least it had a little magic stored inside it.

He scratched Jet’s head, then, shaking a wooden bowl to rattle the coppers inside it, shuffled in the direction of the temple. Behind him, wings rustled and cracked as the griffon took to the air again.

He was careful to keep his head bowed. The cowl did a good job of shadowing his face, but he couldn’t depend on it alone to mask the light in his eyes. Fortunately, a servile posture jibed well with the other features of his disguise.

Seen from ground level, the mansion was even more impressive. Reflecting the Chessentan fascination with martial endeavor, it had turrets and battlements like a fortress, and friezes carved with men-at-arms slaughtering one another. It also had rosebushes at the foot of the facade, and even in the dark Aoth’s fire-touched eyes could see that the new buds were crimson, like drops of blood fallen from the carnage overhead.

A priest with a shaggy black beard sat on a stool beside the door. From his casual air, his mismatched and no doubt improvised red and pink vestments, and the jug sitting beside him, Aoth took him for one of Halonya’s longtime followers, not a priest of Tiamat. The newly minted cleric tossed a coin in the begging bowl.

“Thank you, holy sir,” Aoth mumbled, bobbing his head. “But I want to go inside too. To pray.”

The bearded man grinned. “And sleep indoors? I know how it is. Go on, then. But if you snore, we’ll have to toss you out.”

Beyond the door was a hall of considerable size. It smelled of sawdust as well as incense, and it was plain that carpenters had been working hard to turn it into a proper sanctum complete with benches where the rich and nobly born could sit and worship in comfort.

The chamber was already full of works of art, painted and sculpted depictions of Tchazzar as both dragon and man. Aoth assumed they were left over from the living god’s previous reigns.

A second priest stood behind the elevated bloodstone altar. Tall, with a long, ascetic face and mottled, sun-damaged skin, he stared intently into the chalice cradled in his hands. The fire flickering up above the rim burned blue, then green, then black. The shifts reminded Aoth of the variously colored candle flames he’d seen in the wyrmkeeper’s lair in Soolabax.

The priest glanced up when Aoth entered. Then, perhaps deciding that a grubby mendicant wouldn’t comprehend the significance of what he was seeing, he sniffed and returned to his meditations.

Aoth glanced around, taking note of the other doorways leading out of the room. He didn’t see how he could slip through either of them without the wyrmkeeper spotting him. But maybe he could wait the fellow out. He positioned himself in front of a painting of Tchazzar in wyrm form rearing bloody-jawed over the corpses of a green drake and a blue one. He folded his hands and watched the cleric from the corner of his eye.

And watched. And watched. While the flames in the cup danced from one color to the next.

He doesn’t show any signs of leaving, said Jet. Thanks to their psychic link, he could see what Aoth was seeing.

No, Aoth replied. Maybe someone is always supposed to tend the altar. Or he’s not inclined to leave a beggar alone with valuable carvings and the like. Whatever the problem is, I can’t just stand here until someone gets suspicious of me. So … He whispered an incantation.

Smoke streamed up from the cup of fire into the wyrmkeeper’s face. He started coughing.

Aoth charged the altar, counting on the thick smoke to hide his approach. Unfortunately, it hid the wyrmkeeper too. Though spellscarred eyes ignored darkness and pierced illusion, they couldn’t see through something that was real. But he’d taken careful note of the priest’s position, so maybe it wouldn’t be a problem.

He at least managed to scramble up onto the dais and into the heart of the smoke without hurting himself. At the same time, the coughing stopped. That was bad. If the wyrmkeeper had caught his breath, he could either cry for help or cast a spell.

Aoth glimpsed a shape in the smoke, plowed into it, and carried it down to the dais beneath him. In the process he inhaled smoke, and he too started to cough. Still, groping, he managed to grab the cleric’s neck and squeeze.

After a while, the priest stopped flailing and scratching at him. Despite the burning in his chest, Aoth made himself stop coughing long enough to wheeze a counterspell. The magic cleaned the smoke from the air.

He lifted his head and peered over the altar. No one seemed to be rushing to the wyrmkeeper’s aid.

He looked back down at the priest. The fellow was breathing.

You can fix that, Jet observed.

I could. But in theory, this whoreson is Tchazzar’s holy servant. If I can, I want to find Cera and get out of here without killing anybody, and without anyone recognizing me.

He pulled off the filthy robe, stripped the priest of his outer vestments, and put them on. They were a poor fit, but might do at a distance. Since they too possessed a cowl, they were definitely more likely than his beggar’s robe to pass inspection in the private precincts of the house.

He made sure the unconscious wyrmkeeper was well hidden behind the altar, then arbitrarily chose the door on the right. So far, no one had started modifying the rooms on the other side. They just look like parts of an opulent private home, some in disarray from the celebrations and slovenly habits of the new residents.

But Cera had to be there somewhere.

No, said Jet, she doesn’t. You only went in there on a guess. If there’s nothing, get out before they catch you.

I’ll be all right, Aoth answered. Most of the candles and lamps are out, and nearly everyone’s asleep…. Then, suddenly, peering through yet another doorway, he saw it.

Many aristocrats and wealthy merchants built homes that had secret areas, and the interim temple appeared to be one of them. A section of oak paneling was set a hair deeper than the pieces to either side. The button concealed in the trim was similarly recessed, and the grain in the darker wood didn’t line up precisely.

No one else would have noticed it, certainly not across the length of an unlit room. But just as Aoth could see in the absence of light, so too did he view the world in minute detail.

He stalked across the nondescript, mostly unfurnished chamber and pushed the button. The catch clicked. He cracked the door open. On the other side, a spiral staircase twisted down to some portion of the cellars.

Aoth made sure he could easily reach the hilt of the sword beneath his stolen vestments. Then he started down.

The orcs howled as they charged. It was the fourth time they’d rushed their foes, but Oraxes still flinched. He couldn’t help it.

The enemy crashed against the shields and the warriors who carried them like a great wave battering a rock. And after a time of frenzied stabbing, slashing, and shoving on both sides, like a wave they receded.

Or reeled back, or stumbled away, where they didn’t lie dead or maimed on the ground. One of the things Oraxes had learned early on in this terrifying, fascinating night was that he mostly couldn’t watch a battle and truly grasp the import of what he saw. But still he had a sense the orcs had had enough, and when his companions relaxed, he knew he was right.

A spearman spat. At some point, something had chopped or broken off the point of his weapon, but he’d continued fighting with the shaft in preference to the mace on his hip. Oraxes suspected it had something to do with reach.

“The mighty Red Spears,” the sellsword sneered, and the warriors around him laughed.

A pillar of flame leaped up in the midst of the enemy formation.

For a heartbeat, Oraxes assumed that one of his fellows from Luthcheq had hurled an incendiary attack. Then he glimpsed a horned, skeletal head and clawed hands inside the blaze. Tall as a hill giant, the burning figure stalked forward while its allies scurried out of the way.

Oraxes and his comrades knew the enemy had spellcasters too, mostly conjuring from behind cover, just like their counterparts. The griffon riders in the air had loosed a lot of arrows at them. Seemingly to no avail, because periodically the bastards materialized some new entity to fight on their behalf.

Humor and scorn wiped from his face, the man with the broken spear looked around at Oraxes. “What is that thing?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Oraxes admitted. But his instincts told him it was deadlier than any of the creatures that had preceded it.

He reflected with a pang of fear that he’d largely depleted his magic. Still, maybe he could destroy the thing before it came any closer. He spoke words of power and brandished his hand before him. Frost flowed over it from his fingertips to his wrist. He could feel that it was cold, but the chill wasn’t painful.

Mimicking the attitude of his extremity, a huge, disembodied hand made of ice appeared in front of the oncoming fire creature. Oraxes reached and clenched his fingers shut, and the hand of ice did the same, gripping the entity around the torso and pinning its arms to its sides.

The demon, if that was what it was, snarled and heaved, and the hand of ice shattered. Oraxes gasped at a sudden hot pain. When he inspected his own hand, there were blisters spotting the palm.

He told himself it could have been worse. At least the entity hadn’t broken his fingers.

Its aura of flame illuminating mangled corpses, as well as wounded men and goblinkin who struggled to crawl aside, the spirit advanced on Gaedynn and his archers. The bowmen stood in a somewhat protected position, with Oraxes’s formation of spearmen on their right and a company of native Chessentans to the left.

The archers shot at the advancing fire thing for several moments. Some of them hit it too, but the arrows burned away instantly, and it was impossible to tell if they were doing any real damage.

Then, still steadily drawing and releasing, Gaedynn shouted, “Bows, fall back! Spears, engage!”

Oraxes’s companions scrambled to plant themselves squarely in the fiery giant’s path. He scurried after them.

As they reformed their shield wall and extended their spears, the demon was still a stone’s throw away. But it swept one hand in an arc, and a tongue of flame leaped from its fingers to slash across several sellswords. They staggered and screamed, their garments burning.

The demon charged the point where it had weakened the formation. It snatched, snagged a sellsword on its talons, and heaved him into the air, letting him char in its fiery grasp for a moment before dashing him to the ground. It lashed out again, and a warrior’s head tumbled off his shoulders.

Even several paces back Oraxes felt like he was standing next to a bonfire, and he soon saw that often, the creature didn’t even have to attack a man to take him out of the fight. When their spears and clothing caught fire, or every breath seared their lungs, the mercenaries had no choice but to fall back.

More quickly than Oraxes would have imagined possible, given its steadfast performance against the orcs, the formation started to fall apart. The warriors weren’t routed yet, but he could feel their fear just as he’d felt it when the orcs lost heart.

Griffon riders wheeled overhead, shooting, but their shafts didn’t seem to trouble the demon any more than the ones Gaedynn and the skirmishers had loosed from the ground. The Chessentans kept their distance, unwilling to engage the thing that was ripping and burning its way through the sellswords. One spearman yelled, “Jhesrhi! Jhesrhi!” In his terror, he’d forgotten the Brotherhood’s chief wizard wasn’t there.

But Oraxes was, and he had to do something. He rattled off a spell, meanwhile making stabbing and slashing motions with both hands.

A dozen floating daggers materialized in the air around the demon. They too stabbed and sliced.

The demon snarled and sprang forward, smashing spearmen out of the way, extricating itself from the midst of the flying blades. Suddenly there was no one between it and Oraxes.

It slashed down at him. He jumped back and thought he’d avoided the attack. Then he felt fierce heat on his chest. He looked down.

He had two bloody grazes across his torso. But the truly alarming thing was that his tattered shirt and jerkin were on fire.

He dropped and rolled. But he couldn’t put out the fire and defend himself against the demon too. It reached for him-

And kobolds rushed it from the left and slashed at its legs with short, heavy, cleaverlike blades. Some even climbed its legs to strike at higher portions of its body. Its corona of flame didn’t deter them, and as he clambered back to his feet, Oraxes saw the reason why. They were already dead, and so incapable of pain, fear, or concern for their own survival. They didn’t stop trying to carry out their reanimator’s commands until they burned away to nothing.

Meanwhile, Meralaine chanted. The words sounded soft and dull, like shoveled earth dropping on top of a coffin, yet paradoxically they carried despite the din of battle. On the final syllable, she snapped a piece of bone in two.

The giant’s halo of flame shrank in on itself, and for the first time Oraxes got a clear look at the inhuman skeleton at the heart of the blaze. Then the creature collapsed in a heap, with just a few small blue and yellow flames flickering among the bones.

Meralaine gave Oraxes a grin. “It was an immolith,” she said. “An undead demon. So I knew how-”

Behind her, the immolith’s fire leaped up again. Heaving itself to its knees, it reached for her. She pivoted, saw the huge, burning hand right in front of her face, and froze.

Oraxes cried a word of power and squeezed his hands together like he was making a snowball. Then he hurled the imaginary missile. It became real in midflight and struck the immolith’s skeletal head in a burst of frost and steam.

An instant later, a black arrow punched into the side of the demon’s skull.

The immolith collapsed as it had before. Panting, heart thumping and scratches and blisters smarting, Oraxes watched it for a while. It showed no signs of rearing up again.

“That was the last of those,” said Gaedynn, striding nearer. Oraxes inferred that the sellsword meant the arrows he’d brought out of the Shadowfell. “Unfortunately.” He peered at Oraxes’s chest. “That doesn’t look so bad.”

Back home that dismissive comment might have incensed Oraxes. Here … well, he had to admit others had suffered worse. Much worse. “It’s not. Are we winning?”

“Not yet,” the archer said. “Maybe not … Never mind that.” He turned to the spearmen who’d engaged the immolith and who were currently milling around in disorder. “Spears! What in the name of the Black Bow is wrong with you? Form up!”

Once Aoth descended to the secret portion of the cellars, there was no doubt whatsoever that wyrmkeepers had laid claim to it. They hadn’t brought in a veritable treasure trove of icons the way Halonya had upstairs. But there were pentagons, and wheel-like emblems depicting five dragon heads with curving necks radiating from a central point, drawn with care on every wall. A rack in a cramped little armory held military picks, and, clustered together, the baneful enchantments smoldering in the steel made his teeth ache. The five tapers in every candelabra shined red, green, blue, shadowy black, and ghostly white.

Fortunately, he had yet to run into any of the wyrmkeepers themselves. He supposed they needed sleep like everyone else and would rather get it in a warm, properly furnished bedroom than a bare, chilly cellar, no matter how holy the latter was.

There’ll be someone, said Jet. Keep your guard up.

Aoth passed a strong room, its sturdy, ironbound door standing ajar, and wondered how much wealth it had contained before the former householder cleared it out. Next came a torture chamber, sparsely equipped by Thayan standards-with only a rack in the middle of the space and a few whips, pincers, thumbscrews, and pears hanging on hooks on the back wall-but capable of inflicting its share of agony nonetheless. There were dry brown stains here and there, but even fire-kissed eyes couldn’t tell just how old they were. Aoth scowled and quickened his stride a little.

But he need scarcely have bothered, because the one cell was just a few paces farther on, conveniently close to the torments. Her hands and ankles bound with coarse rope woven of multicolored fibers, a woman with golden hair lay on her side on the stone floor behind the iron bars.

“Cera!” said Aoth, keeping his voice low. “Cera!”

She opened her eyes and peered back at him. “Aoth?” she croaked. She seemed more dazed than joyful, like her captors had given her drugs or tortured the sense right out of her.

“Yes. Hang on.” He tried the door. It was locked, and the key was nowhere in sight.

He drew his short sword. Among other things, it had raw force sealed inside it to enable the wielder to thrust or cut with prodigious strength. He slipped the blade between the door and its frame, right above the lock, pried, and released a portion of the power. The grille snapped open.

He hurried into the cage and kneeled down beside her. Up close she stank of blood, sweat, and other filth. “How badly are you hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head. “The rope … I can’t think.…”

He set down the sword, drew a dagger, and sawed at the bonds that held her hands behind her back. They were tough and tried to squirm away from the edge of the blade like snakes. But he kept at it. Eventually one parted, and then the next.

“I …” she said. “I saw … there’s a beast down here! A drake! A priest walks it by every so often. It stares at me like it wants to eat me.” The action of the knife tugged on her arms, and she gasped.

“Did they rack you?” asked Aoth.

“I think … pulling on me. Yes.”

He felt his jaw clench.

The last loop of rope confining her wrists parted. He shifted around to work on her ankles. “Once you’re free, can you heal yourself? Enough to walk, and run if you need to?”

“I think so.”

The final loop parted, and he pulled the writhing pieces of cord away from her feet. She closed her eyes, drew a long breath, and murmured a prayer. A warm golden glow supplanted the chill and shadowy dimness of the cellar.

And, down the hallway, something snarled.

Maybe the drake was close enough to see the magical sunlight, or maybe it had caught Aoth’s scent. It didn’t much matter which. Either way, it and its master were coming.

Hasos walked the battlements, spoke a word of encouragement to an archer or crossbowman from time to time, and surveyed the battle below. Pools of light periodically bloomed or guttered to darkness as wizards tried to illuminate their enemies and keep their allies hidden. Their supply of arrows depleted, griffon riders swooped down at the enemy like owls attacking mice. Masses of infantry shoved and ground together. Horsemen circled wide, maneuvering to attack some group of foemen from the flank or rear. Animated by sorcery, a trebuchet took laborious little steps. The throwing arm whipped like a scorpion’s tail to hammer orcs and kobolds on the ground.

Hasos turned to the aide trailing along behind him. “What do you think?”

The man shook his head. “I don’t know, milord. It looks like it could go either way.”

Useless! Hasos thought, even though he knew it wasn’t fair. A subordinate wasn’t supposed to have keener judgment than his commander, and Hasos couldn’t make up his mind either.

But precisely because he was the commander, he had to.

He could think of solid reasons to hold back. The war hero had put Aoth Fezim in charge, not Gaedynn Ulraes. The archer arguably had no authority to order Hasos to do anything.

And if the effort to break the siege failed, as it surely must without his wholehearted support, the Brotherhood of the Griffon would suffer heavy casualties. Afterward Tchazzar would strip Aoth of his authority, because the war-mage had abandoned his command at a crucial moment. Besides, no one would allow the captain of only a defeated, shattered company to lead the defense of an entire realm under any circumstances.

Which ought to benefit Soolabax, for how could it be wise to entrust the town’s defense to a devil-worshiping Thayan arcanist? By the Yellow Sun, with the griffon riders gone, at least the food would last longer. The beasts ate prodigious quantities of meat.

But unfortunately, it wasn’t just wretched outlander mercenaries trading spear thrusts and sword strokes with the kobolds and orcs. Aoth had mustered good Chessentan troops from elsewhere along the border, and they too would die without Hasos’s support.

How could he call himself a true Chessentan noble if he let that happen? How could he ever again sit in the seat of judgment that he still privately thought of as his father’s chair without a withering sense of shame?

He scowled. “Come on. Let’s get to the gate.”

He arrived in the nick of time. Faces twisted with anger, more of the sellswords stood facing ranks of Hasos’s men, who had positioned themselves to protect the windlass that raised the portcullis.

“It’s all right!” Hasos shouted. “We’re going now! Save your anger for the enemy!”

A groom brought his destrier, and he swung himself into the saddle. Men and riders jockeyed about, returning to the positions they’d abandoned when the quarrel broke out.

Hasos nodded to the pair of men charged with turning the windlass. They did their work, and the grille rattled upward on its chains. Other fellows scurried to slide the enormous bar, then swung the gates open.

Heart thumping, mouth dry, Hasos brandished the sword of his ancestors, spurred his steed, and rode forth to attack the besieging army from one side while Gaedynn’s troops harried it from the other. Pounding along behind him, his men howled like some titanic beast.

Aoth looked at Cera. Some of her bruises had faded. “Can you run?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Keep working on it.” As she began another prayer, he rose and rushed back out into the hallway.

The drake looked like a wingless red wyrm charging on all fours. It nearly filled the passage, making it difficult to discern the dragon priest behind it.

Scarcely slowing, the drake spewed slime. Aoth wrenched himself out of the way. The muck spattered the floor, where it sizzled and gave off vile-smelling smoke.

Unfortunately, the evasion deprived Aoth of the time necessary to cast a spell. Nor was there any ranged magic stored in his sword potent enough to neutralize the drake and its master too. Regretting the absence of his spear, he poised himself to receive the reptile’s attack.

The spitting drake sprang in an attempt to carry him to the floor. Somehow, though there was barely room for it, he sidestepped, released more of the power inside his blade to augment his strength, and stabbed downward.

He missed the drake’s neck but pierced its shoulder. The sword drove in deep, then tore free in a shower of gore as the beast plunged onward. A pulse of Cera’s yellow light gilding its crimson scales, the beast reared onto its hind legs to spin around in the narrow hall. When it lunged again it was on three legs, the maimed one curled against its chest, but that didn’t slow it down.

Aoth freed the last of the raw might stored in the sword, then heard the wyrmkeeper chanting at his back. A howl of frigid wind slammed into his back, knocking him forward. Off balance and chilled to the bone, he still tried to stab the onrushing drake. But it snapped, caught his sword arm in its teeth, and whipped its head.

Only the truesilver mail shirt he wore beneath his outer garments kept the shearing action of the fangs and the whipping action from severing his hand. As it was, the drake threw him to the floor, and the pressure of its bite was as unrelenting as it was excruciating. The armor wouldn’t protect him for long.

The drake lashed him back and forth. He tried to transfer his sword to his free hand but couldn’t reach it. He called darts of blue light from the blade to stab into the reptile’s body. It snarled with pain, but that was all.

Her voice a little stronger, Cera chanted. A shaft of dazzling light blazed out of her cell onto the side of the drake’s head and neck, burning red scales black and melting a slit-pupiled yellow eye.

Finally, recoiling, the reptile let go of Aoth. Then it glared in Cera’s direction, and he sensed it meant to spit more vitriol. He heaved himself to his feet, flung himself at the reptile, and stabbed. Sadly, the weapon no longer had extra force to lend, but, bellowing, he put every iota of his own strength and weight behind the stroke.

The sword punched in one side of the drake’s neck and out the other. The beast thrashed, and a flailing leg or tail clipped Aoth and knocked him staggering. As he recovered his equilibrium, the drake collapsed to lie twitching and bleeding on the floor.

He spun toward the wyrmkeeper. The priest was running and had already reached a branching corridor. He vanished around the corner before Aoth could even cast more shining darts from the sword, let alone recite an incantation. He growled an obscenity.

Which failed to improve the situation. So he turned back to Cera just as she came limping out of the cell. “If the whoreson didn’t recognize me-” he began.

Cera smiled wryly and ran a finger along his bare, sweaty temple. Which demonstrated that at some point during his struggles, his cowl had fallen back, giving the dragon priest a clear look at his head-shaved scalp, tattoos, glowing eyes, and all.

He grunted. “Right. He did recognize me. So, now can you run?”

“I think I can at least hobble quickly enough to reach the stairs before our friend assembles every wyrmkeeper on the premises at the top.”

“Satisfying as it might be to kill our way through the whole pack of them, we’re not going out that way. Or at least I hope not.”

“How, then?”

“Often if a rich man thinks he needs a secret area in his home, he thinks he needs a secret way in and out of the house as well. If there’s one down here, I shouldn’t have much trouble spotting it. Let’s look.”

When he saw how much trouble she was having keeping up, he put his arm around her and half carried her along. Then echoing voices called back and forth. The wyrmkeepers were coming after them.

They seemed to be proceeding cautiously, but it was still just a matter of moments before one of them caught sight of their quarry. Aoth had just about decided it was time to turn around and make a stand when he and Cera came to the largest room they’d seen so far.

The wyrmkeepers had turned it into the holiest part of their secret temple, complete with a sizable lacquered statue of their dragon goddess-batlike wings half unfurled, wedge-shaped heads glaring in all directions-that they’d somehow smuggled in. But what instantly snagged Aoth’s attention were the tiny cracks defining a rectangle on the back wall.

In his haste he all but dragged Cera across the room, and she gasped in pain. “Sorry,” he said, examining the hidden door more closely.

He found the catch and pressed it, and the panel clicked open. It was actually wood, with a stone veneer to make it look like the rest of the wall. On the other side was a tunnel. He and Cera scurried inside, and he shut the door.

“You realize,” she whispered, “I can’t see a thing.”

“I know,” he said. “I’ll guide you.”

He only had to do it for a short distance. Then they reached the end and a ladder leading upward. When he cautiously cracked open the door at the top, he found himself peeking out into a cobbler’s shop where the air was redolent of leather. The place was dark at that hour, the proprietor likely asleep upstairs.

He led Cera inside. A little light seeped through the oiled paper windows, enough for ordinary eyes to discern the essential nature of the place, and so she breathed, “We made it.”

He snorted. “Not yet. My guess is that the wyrmkeepers will run to Halonya, and she’ll run to Tchazzar. But maybe we can get to him first.”