Whisper of Venom

SEVEN

12-15 KYTHORN THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

We’ve had griffon riders harassing them for days,” said Aoth. “Loosing an arrow or two, then flying away. Presumably, they’re sick of it and will jump at the chance to dish out some punishment in return. Especially when you consider that all those big beasts must eat a lot of meat, and men too stupid to run away will make a meal or two.”

Shala Karanok frowned. “Maybe. If they don’t realize that the small force they see before them is just the bait in a trap.” She waved a gauntleted hand at the oaks and elms that surrounded them. “Are you sure you can hide so many men in these little patches of woods?”

His red hair gleaming in a shaft of sunlight that penetrated the interlaced branches overhead, Gaedynn said, “We’re good at hiding, High Lady, especially my skirmishers.”

Aoth noted that despite Shala’s reduced status, the archer had still used a form of address indicative of great respect. He approved in principle, but wondered how Tchazzar felt about it.

But perhaps it would be more sensible to wonder if the living god even heard. Tchazzar stood gazing to the east. Toward the Sky Riders, although a person couldn’t see the hills with all the trees in the way.

“Besides,” Gaedynn continued, “we have wizards with a knack for veils. Isn’t that right, Oraxes?”

The sharp-featured youth gave a brusque nod. Strands of his long, greasy black hair stuck out from under the steel and leather helmet he’d taken to wearing.

Hasos made a sour face. Tchazzar could decree that his subjects had to stop persecuting arcanists, but he couldn’t make them stop fearing and mistrusting them in their hearts.

Well, choke on it, thought Aoth. Despite the trouble in Tchazzar’s temple, he still outranked the baron in military matters, and as long as he did, they’d use every trick they had available.

He turned to Jhesrhi. She looked odd in her fine new cloak and robe, but the scowl marring her lovely face was much the same as ever. “And you can still play your games with the wind?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. As though simply turning her mind to the subject had roused it, a breeze gusted, toying with her yellow hair and wafting the scent of fresh spring verdure. “It would have helped if I’d reached this spot sooner-”

“But I suppose there were dances to dance,” Gaedynn said.

Jhesrhi glowered. So did Aoth. He had some idea of what was rankling Gaedynn. He even sympathized. But it was not the time for the Aglarondan to vent his feelings.

Fortunately, Tchazzar still appeared distracted.

“If I’d had a few days,” Jhesrhi said with an edge in her voice, “I could have done a thorough job of making friends with the winds. But they are restless on these plains. Angry from time to time. With the proper combination of insistence and propitiation, we mages should be able to induce them to do our bidding.”

The petite, impish-looking Meralaine said, “Lady, forgive me if you already know this, but the spirits of the air aren’t the only restless ones hereabouts.”

“I have sensed something,” Jhesrhi said, “but maybe not as much as you.”

“People lived here a long time ago.” Meralaine gestured toward a stone wrapped in helmthorn vine. It was hard to make out behind the long black thorns and green berries, and little more than a worn, rounded lump. Still, Aoth could tell that once it had possessed a sharp-edged regular shape that only tools could give. “Things didn’t end well for them. I can’t hear everything they’re whispering-not in daylight, not without going into a trance-but I think a dragon came.”

“That’s good!” Oraxes said, surprising Aoth. He’d thought the lad disliked Meralaine, but evidently things had changed while he was away. “If they have a grudge against dragons, then they should want to help us fight the ones from Threskel.”

“Wait,” Hasos said. “Are you talking about summoning the undead?”

“It’s her particular gift,” Gaedynn said, “and she used it to good effect when we were saving your town.”

“Well, she didn’t use it with my permission,” Hasos said.

“She didn’t need it,” said Aoth. “She doesn’t now either.”

Hasos sneered. “Of course a Thayan mage doesn’t see the evil in necromancy.”

“I see we’re in for a tough fight,” said Aoth. “I see we need every edge we can get.”

Shala gave the baron a troubled gaze. “I don’t like it either,” she said. “Still, Captain Fezim has a point.”

“Does he?” Tchazzar said.

Startled, Aoth pivoted. In human shape, Tchazzar was as imposing and magnetic a warlord as he’d ever met. But even so, he’d been so remote since the start of the discussion that one could forget he was even there.

Shala hesitated. “I think so, Majesty.”

“Even though your god himself will lead you into battle.”

“Majesty,” said Aoth, “we all acknowledge your power. But surely there’s a reason why you, in your wisdom, chose to fight at the head of an army instead of alone. And surely, for that army to serve its purpose, we need to be able to use our skills to best effect.”

Tchazzar advanced on Meralaine. Who recoiled a step, though she’d supposedly fought bravely during the siege and confronted horrors on a regular basis practicing her art. Hasos looked eager for what was to come.

Tchazzar grabbed handfuls of Meralaine’s mantle and jerked her off her feet, putting the two of them face to face. He looked like an enraged father shaking a naughty child. “Who freed you?” he shouted, spattering her with steaming drops of spittle.

Oraxes’s eyes opened wide, and his upper body hitched forward like he could barely restrain the urge to intervene. Meanwhile Meralaine flinched again, either from the heat of the dragon’s saliva, his vehemence, or a combination of the two. “You did, Majesty,” she stammered.

“And is this how you repay me?”

Meralaine looked like she had no idea what Tchazzar wanted her to say. Aoth didn’t either. He only knew that the young necromancer was currently dangling ashen-faced because he’d ordered her north. He had an obligation to protect her.

“Majesty,” he said, “please. Obviously there’s no need for any … debate. You rule here. If you don’t want the girl to call the dead, she won’t.”

“Then why is she even here?” Tchazzar snapped. “Explain her presence!”

Aoth was still trying to frame an answer likely to mollify the dragon when, to his relief, Jhesrhi spoke. “Alasklerbanbastos is a dracolich. He’s probably sent lesser undead south to fight us. We need a necromancer’s special knowledge to help us destroy them.”

Tchazzar frowned. “We have priests for that.”

“Knowledge and faith working together often accomplish more than faith alone. I think even Sunlord Apathos would admit that. In any case, I command the wizards who fight for the Brotherhood. I promise you that Meralaine will only use her powers to banish ghosts, never to call them from their graves.”

“So be it,” Tchazzar said. He tossed Meralaine away like she was a bone he’d finished gnawing.

Gaedynn was well aware he had better things to do. Still, something made him watch from a distance while Oraxes hovered over Meralaine. Eventually she shooed him away. He sensed she was embarrassed that Tchazzar had frightened her and disliked attention that kept the memory fresh. Because she wanted to look and feel strong.

Gaedynn approved of that. If there was one thing he’d learned, it was never to expose a vulnerable spot to anyone.

Still not sure why he was bothering-the mages out of Luthcheq were Jhesrhi’s and Aoth’s problem, and thank the true gods for that-he ambled to intercept the skinny, slouching youth with his several daggers on ostentatious display.

Oraxes glared. “What? I didn’t do anything.”

Gaedynn grinned. “No, but you were thinking of it. Don’t give in to the temptation. Tchazzar will swat you like a gnat.”

“All my life, people have told me how he was everything great and good.”

“The same people who said that every mage is evil at the core?”

Oraxes blinked. “I … Some of them, but it’s not the same thing.”

“It’s time you recognized a sad truth. You Chessentans are brave, and good at athletics, but not very bright.”

Oraxes bristled. “Tchazzar is good in his way. He truly did free us.”

“And if you want to live to enjoy it when this is over, stay away from him. Don’t accept an appointment at court, or any nonsense like that.”

“How would you know what goes on at court? You’ve been up here in the north.”

“I know a certain type of arrogance when I see it. I know how such lords behave.” Even when it endangered the lives of their sons.

“You just don’t like it that he likes Jhesrhi.”

“Nonsense. Since I seem to be in an advice-giving mood, let me advise you that one woman is much like another, and none of them is worth so much as the loss of your composure, let alone a drop of your blood. In other words, don’t go annoying the dragon-who also happens to be your sovereign-over a lass. By the Black Bow, you didn’t even like the wench a tenday ago.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Oraxes said.

“Good, because I have a job for you. I’m going out to scout, and with the enemy so near, I want a wizard with me. The outing can do double duty as your first flying lesson. We’ll borrow Queen Umara. She’s docile-well, for a griffon-and she’ll follow Eider’s lead.”

Oraxes blinked. “I didn’t ask to learn to ride a griffon.”

“That’s one of the advantages of military life. Your superiors provide you with interesting experiences you didn’t even know you wanted.”

Queen Umara was a trifle small for a griffon, with a hint of red in her plumage, a scarred, featherless spot on the side of her aquiline head, and a crooked hind leg. She’d sustained both injuries on the expedition into Thay, but fortunately neither rendered her unfit to fly or fight.

Oraxes seemed surprised and suspicious that Gaedynn gave him so few instructions. He thought there had to be more to riding a griffon than that. He was right, but he was also a child of Luthcheq’s slums. Gaedynn had a hunch he’d never even ridden a donkey, and didn’t want to confuse him with too much information. It was better to trust Queen Umara to handle what a novice rider couldn’t.

“Ready?” Gaedynn asked.

“Let’s go,” the wizard replied. His voice cracked, and Gaedynn grinned.

He brushed a fingertip up Eider’s neck. She trotted, lashed her wings, and rose into the air. Gaedynn glanced back and saw Queen Umara leave the ground with an awkward lurch. It might have tossed her rider out of the saddle if not for the straps and buckles holding him there. The problem wasn’t a lack of agility. Oraxes had thrown the griffon off her rhythm by repeating a command, or giving it too forcefully.

Eider found a column of warm, rising air and used it to lift her and her master high above the plain. Gaedynn looked down at the copses and the high ground the decoy force would occupy. At soldiers busy digging earthworks or constructing archers’ platforms in the trees, and others just arriving from the south and west, the unlucky fellows in the rear of a column eating the dust raised by their comrades in the front.

He wheeled Eider toward the north, and Oraxes and Queen Umara followed. After a while a griffon rider passed them heading the other way, for of course the Brotherhood had other scouts watching on the enemy. And Gaedynn trusted them-but, like Aoth, he still needed to see things for himself. That was how the elves had taught him to hunt.

He kept an eye on Oraxes. The mage’s anxiety revealed itself in his hunched, rigid posture and in the grim intensity of his expression. But after a while, the ruffled feathers on Queen Umara’s neck lay down, and she stopped screeching in annoyance. Because her rider wasn’t directing her in the needlessly frantic manner he had before.

Some time after that, some of the stony grimness left Oraxes’s face. He still didn’t look like he was enjoying his situation, but he might have been feeling some satisfaction that he was able to cope.

Gaedynn nodded. Truculence and all, the lad would do. If-

Abruptly angry with himself, he cut off that line of thought. Plainly it would be worthwhile to recruit Oraxes, but it would have been a good idea at any time and under any circumstances. There was no if involved, because Jhesrhi wasn’t leaving.

And if she did, to the Abyss with her.

Not long afterward, he spotted a blot on the green and brown earth ahead and felt glad of the need to focus on it. Attending to business would keep his mind from straying where he didn’t want it to go.

But the relief, if that was the proper word for it, only lasted until he noticed there were two blots. It was barely conceivable the column had simply split lengthwise for some reason, but he wasn’t optimistic enough to believe it.

At the moment just a crimson speck in the distance, one of the dragons was currently in the air. So were some smaller flying creatures, hanging over their comrades on the ground like a cloud of mosquitoes, perhaps to deter griffon-riding bowmen from getting too close. Still, Gaedynn would have to venture nearer to obtain a better look at the blots.

He needed to do it alone too. He didn’t want a fledgling rider like Oraxes going any nearer. He waved for the wizard to stay back, then urged Eider forward. She grunted like she was questioning his judgment, but obeyed as willingly as ever.

Making sure he’d notice if his flying foes moved to attack him, he divided his attention between them and the ones on the ground. At first, squinting, he couldn’t differentiate between the two columns. Points of yellow sunlight gleamed from each. But then he saw that in the larger one, it was reflecting from reptilian scales. In the smaller, it was glinting on steel.

A company of warriors-men, orcs, or goblinkin, he still couldn’t tell-had reinforced the dragons and the beasts they controlled. Wary of the brutes, they were maintaining some distance until such time as they all needed to fight as one.

It was bad news, but, as he made a rough count of the soldiers, worse arrived. Leathery wings beating, a second red dragon flew out of the north to join the one in the air.

Praying that he’d somehow lost track of a wyrm, that it had gotten up into the sky without him realizing it, Gaedynn peered back down at the ground. No, curse it, the dragon he’d seen there was still striding among the lesser reptiles. It was green too, a fact he’d apparently repressed to give himself an instant of false hope.

He peered at the second red, trying to decide how old, large, and accordingly formidable it might be, and then it snarled. Though he couldn’t speak the language of dragons, he could tell the sound was complex and patterned enough to have words inside it. Three of the lesser specks abruptly hurtled forward.

Gaedynn turned Eider as fast as he could, which was pretty fast. Yet in those few heartbeats the enemy flyers streaked close enough for him to make out the pale green of their hides, the long horns sweeping back from their almost birdlike heads, and their serpentine tails. They were the sort of reptile called spiretop drakes, and they shouldn’t have been able to close the distance as fast as they were. The red had apparently cast an enchantment to make their wings beat as quick as a hummingbird’s.

Hoping the magic would run out of power soon, Gaedynn kept glancing back as he fled, and each time the spiretop drakes were closer. But raw speed didn’t equate to skill and maneuverability. If he turned again and fought, he might be able to kill the wretched things. But what if other flying foes, maybe even the dragons themselves, caught up to him before he finished?

A red spark streaked past him and then, with a boom, exploded into fire. The mote of light hadn’t flown quite far enough for the blast to engulf any of the drakes, but they screeched and veered off. And as they aimed themselves at Gaedynn once again, their pounding wings finally slowed down.

Oraxes wheeled Queen Umara close enough to call across the intervening distance. Which was closer than Gaedynn would have preferred, given the wizard’s lack of experience in the saddle. “That showed them!” Oraxes yelled.

“Shut up!” Gaedynn snapped. “Head for camp as fast as you can.”

They didn’t actually need to run all the way. The drakes gave up the pursuit before they’d flown much farther. But Aoth would want to hear their report as soon as possible.

Jhesrhi seldom minded killing people. She wouldn’t have lasted long as a sellsword if she did. But helpless animals were a different matter, and as she approached the metal and wooden cages the army had brought from Soolabax, she felt a pang of reluctance.

She quelled it as every mage learned to silence distracting thoughts. She had to keep her mind focused on her purpose, or the power she’d raised with her purifications and invocations would slip from her control.

She opened the first cage, a dainty brass miniature palace. The canary inside was wise enough to mistrust her and, wings fluttering, tried to evade her grasp. But wizards have nimble hands, and she seized it anyway, although not before it gave her a stinging peck on the thumb.

She looked skyward, recited a final incantation, and drew the blade of a small silver knife across the canary’s throat. Wind swirled around her, and the bird’s blood spiraled upward, dispersing into mist and then disappearing entirely. A drop or two of her own blood went with it, but that was all right. It might make the binding stronger.

As she killed each bird in its turn, her inner eye gradually started to perceive entities who were vast, formless, and invisible to ordinary sight. Still for the moment, or nearly so, the winds of the plain hovered above her, greedy for a sip of life and magic. Willing to indenture themselves for the taste.

The final offering was a dove. She could feel its heartbeat through her wet, red fingers. She started to make the cut, and then Tchazzar said, “My lady!”

She hadn’t realized he’d come up behind her. His voice startled her, and she didn’t slice as deeply as she’d intended. Wounded but not slain, the dove shuddered.

She felt a shift in the attitude of the hovering spirits, a sudden doubt that she was strong and clever enough to command them. She rattled off words of power and made a second cut. The dove stopped struggling. For a moment it looked like the blood was going to drip to the ground, but then it whirled upward like that of the previous sacrifices.

Jhesrhi sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she recited the closing incantation and made a chopping motion with her staff to end the ritual safely. She felt the residual power drain into the ground, and the winds departed with a whoosh that set her clothing flapping and branches lashing.

Tchazzar was a dragon, a monarch, and the Brotherhood’s employer. All good reasons not to let on that she was annoyed with him. Still, as she turned around, she had to struggle to keep it from showing in her expression. She had yet to learn if he was a wizard or if all his legendary powers were innate. But either way, he surely knew enough about magic to understand that it was stupid to disturb a conjuror in the middle of a ritual.

But when she saw the contrition and anxiety in his handsome face, it took the edge off her irritation. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were still working. Did I spoil it?”

“No, Majesty,” she said. Although the binding likely wasn’t as strong as it could have been.

“Good. Come walk with me.”

Her throat was raw from reciting so many incantations, and her body sore from standing in one spot for too long. Still, even at a moment when she would have preferred to flop down on the ground and drink a jack of ale, it was flattering that he desired her company. She found a smile for him and used the butt of her staff to open the circle she’d earlier drawn on the ground.

Then they strolled through the darkened camp with its paucity of crackling, smoky fires. (Aoth didn’t want enemy scouts to count the points of light and arrive at an accurate estimate of the size of their army.) Chessentan soldiers and sellswords alike saluted as the war hero passed. Tchazzar acknowledged them, but in a perfunctory fashion.

For a while Jhesrhi wondered if they were simply going to wander around in silence. Then he said, “The enemy force is stronger than expected.”

“I know,” she said. By then everyone knew what Gaedynn and Oraxes had seen.

“Hasos recommends that we fall back to Soolabax.”

She said what she knew Aoth must have said if he’d heard that particular proposal. “Your troops didn’t break one siege of the town just to run back inside the walls and wait for another. We need to take the fight to the enemy to solve the problem of Threskel for good and all. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Tchazzar smiled a tight-lipped, troubled smile. “Of course. What king, what god, could tolerate a part of his dominions defying his authority? It’s just … Do you understand why I didn’t want that wretched little witch to call the dead?”

Jhesrhi hesitated. “Not entirely, Majesty.”

“The dead are dark things. And it was here, in this very place, that dark things held and tortured me until I nearly lost my mind.”

“It wasn’t really here, Majesty. It was in the Sky Riders. It was also in the Shadowfell, a whole different world than the one we’re walking and talking in now.”

“Can I trust a necromancer, who draws her strength from darkness? Or a Thayan mage? They’re all necromancers, aren’t they? And when you consider that the man profaned my temple-”

“Majesty, I beg you to remember that like the rest of Chessenta’s arcanists, Meralaine owes everything to you. And Aoth is as honorable a mercenary as you could hope to hire, and outcast from his own people for fighting necromancers. There’s no question that either of them is loyal.”

“I suppose.” Some of the tension went out of his face. “I’m fortunate to have you for my lovac.”

She could tell he meant it as a compliment, and that pleased her. Still, she had to admit, “I don’t know that word, Majesty.”

He hesitated, then said, “It’s an old Draconic word. It means the faithful friend and lieutenant of a king.”

The enemy had seen a few griffon riders. So Tchazzar’s army wasn’t giving away any secrets by having a few in the air as the foe approached. Aoth had chosen to be among them to obtain the best possible view of all that was happening.

The decoy force stood at the top of a rise behind earthen ramparts. He wished Khouryn were there to command it. He tried to draw some comfort from everyone’s assurances that while it was always Hasos’s instinct to avoid battle if possible, he fought well if you managed to push him into one.

Aoth had had a century to grow accustomed to his fire-kissed eyes. Still, it was momentarily disconcerting to look down at the various stands of oaks and elms and plainly see the rest of the illusion-veiled army. He had to remind himself that the Threskelans couldn’t.

Or at least that was the idea. Unfortunately, dragons had keen senses. But if Tymora smiled, the wyrms would have other things to occupy their attention.

All three enemy dragons, the two reds and the green, were in the air along with other flying creatures. They were heading for the top of the rise. Aoth assumed the wyrms intended to start the battle by raking the position with flame and poisonous fumes.

My feelings are hurt, said Jet.

Don’t worry, Aoth replied. We’ll give them a reason to pay attention to us in a moment.

Though he lacked Jhesrhi’s enhanced rapport with the winds, he was wizard enough to feel it when she started to command them. The enemy dragons and flying drakes floundered and plunged as gusts of wind shoved them one way and another, and the air beneath their wings thinned.

Aoth lifted his ram’s horn bugle and blew three notes. No doubt the battlefield was already noisy with the thumping, clanking sound of Threskelan saurians, horsemen, and infantry-a mix of men, orcs, and kobolds-hurrying along beneath their flying allies. But his men were listening for the call, and he was confident they’d hear it even so.

They did. More griffon riders bounded from the copses, then-clear of the branches that would otherwise have hindered their ascent-beat their way up into the sky. Meanwhile, arrows flew from the trees and over the earthworks. Threskelan warriors and creatures began to drop.

Aoth grinned. Discerning what he wanted through their psychic link, Jet raced toward the nearer of the red dragons. Since the elementals weren’t playing pranks on him, the familiar could fly as nimbly as ever.

Which was a good thing. Aoth judged that like its companions, the red was relatively young. But it was still capable of burning Jet and him out of the sky or biting and clawing them to shreds.

He chanted words of power and aimed his spear, releasing some of the energy bound inside it to augment the innate force of the spell. A silvery blast of cold erupted from the weapon’s point and splashed across the dragon’s crested back.

It roared, twisted its neck, and spat fire in return. But perhaps the turbulence around it threw off its aim, because Jet didn’t even have to dodge.

Once they’d flown on by, Aoth conjured fire of his own and blasted two spiretop drakes out of the air. As Jet wheeled for another pass at the red dragon, there was a moment to take a look at how everyone else was faring.

Aoth’s fellow griffon riders loosed arrow after arrow at the winged reptiles. Often, for all their skill, they missed, since few things were more difficult than hitting a moving target from the back of a flying griffon. Sometimes the unquiet air around their targets sent the shafts glancing and tumbling awry. But Aoth estimated that one arrow in five hit and penetrated its mark. With luck, that would be good enough.

On the ground, archery was exacting a heavier toll. Caught in a three-sided box, the Threskelan warriors and their saurian allies scrambled to break out. But whenever they reached the earthworks or the stands of trees, they ran into shield walls bristling with spears.

In short, everything looked like it was going well. Then the blue sky darkened.

Aoth snarled an obscenity. His old enemy Ysval had been capable of blotting out the sunlight. As had Xingax, after he grafted the night-haunt’s hand onto his own arm. Both were long dead, but someone or something on the Threskelan side knew how to create the same effect.

One of the dragons? asked Jet.

I doubt it, Aoth replied. With the wind bashing them around and arrows sticking into them, it’s unlikely they could exert the necessary concentration. Fly over the ground troops. Maybe we’ll spot a wizard.

They did catch sight of spellcasters of one sort or another-human sorcerers chanting and sweeping staves, wands, or orbs through intricate passes; wyrmkeepers doing much the same with their picks; and orc and kobold shamans brandishing fetishes made of bone, mummified hands, and shrunken heads. At another time Aoth would have seized the opportunity to hurl flame or hail at any one of them. But none looked capable of leeching the sunlight out of the sky.

Then he noticed a pocket of murk under a stand of oaks at the back of what passed for the enemy formation. No eyes but his could have made out the huge green form hidden in the darkness, or, quite possibly, even noticed the blotch of shadow itself amid the general gloom.

The dragon was staring into a night black orb supported by an iron tripod. So was a circle of his attendants-men, or things that had once been men, with gaunt frames and ashen skin. Judging from the way their mouths were moving, they were chanting in unison as well. The trees around them dropped their leaves as though spring had turned to fall.

The wyrm was almost certainly Jaxanaedegor, the vampiric dragon who was Alasklerbanbastos’s chief lieutenant. Aoth recognized him from Gaedynn and Jhesrhi’s description, and he knew it would be worse than reckless for Jet and him to attack the creature and his followers alone.

But somebody needed to disrupt their conjuring before it produced something worse than darkness. Aoth looked around to see how many griffon riders he could gather. Then he felt a chill and smelled decay. A sense of virulent wrongness knotted his guts.