Dmitra smiled her radiant smile. “Thanks be to the High One,” she drawled, “that the zulkir of Conjuration isn’t wasting our time harping on the obvious.”
The devil Nevron carried in the heavy silver ring on his left thumb murmured to him, imploring him to unleash it to punish the bitch for her mockery, and he wished that it were practical. Yes, he was saying what everyone already knew, but he had to launch the discussion somehow, didn’t he?
“Once we determined what falsehoods Springhill uttered,” he continued, “we could try to figure out why. The reason for some of it was obvious. He steered companies into traps, or to destinations that served no military purpose, or sowed suspicion and disaffection in the ranks. But he also sought to shift all our forces off the plain where the road heads up the Third Escarpment to Thralgard Keep.”
His wobbling chins speckled with sugar glaze, Samas Kul swallowed a mouthful of pastry. “Szass Tam’s army just retreated into High Thay. This makes it sound like they’re ready to come down again.”
“Which doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Lauzoril said. “He withdrew because the disaster at the Keep of Sorrows weakened him even more than us. Granted, with Springhill’s aid, he’s managed to stall and hurt us since, but not so severely as to shift the balance back in his favor.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Nevron said. “However …” he turned his gaze on Nymia Focar.
The tharchion of Pyarados looked uncomfortable at becoming the center of attention, and that was as it should be. Her withdrawal from Delhumide had been one of the more damaging missteps of the past several tendays.
She cleared her throat. “My flying scouts confirm that Szass Tam is massing troops in and around Thralgard Keep.”
“Perhaps,” Lauzoril said, “the necromancers are simply protecting the route we’d need to use if we tried to climb up after them.”
“I doubt it,” Dmitra said. “The original garrison at Thralgard was already adequate for that purpose.”
The zulkir of Enchantment frowned and made a tent of his long, pale fingers. “Let’s say you’re correct. What’s Szass Tam’s objective?”
“Eltabbar, most likely,” Dmitra said, plainly referring to the capital city of her tharch. “He’s tried to take it repeatedly, because it hinders him moving troops in and out of High Thay, and because it poses a constant threat to any enemy host fighting in the lands to the south of it.”
“Can Eltabbar withstand another siege?” Nevron asked. A demon, a spirit of war caged in an amulet dangling on his chest, stirred restlessly at the thought of such battle. Its agitation made the bronze medallion grow warm, and sent a sort of shiver across the psychic link that it shared with Nevron.
“A short one, perhaps,” Dmitra said. “Last year’s harvests were so meager that we don’t have a great deal of food stored away, and, going by past experience, the necromancers will seed the lake with lacedons to make fishing hazardous. But in any case, I don’t want to defend against a siege. I want to meet Szass Tam’s legions as they descend from the heights.”
“Because the road down is narrow,” said Thessaloni Canos, “and they can come only a few at a time.” Tall even for a Mulan woman, the governor of the island tharch known as the Alaor and Thay’s most capable admiral, she had a pleasant face, hooded green eyes, and weather-beaten skin. She wore scale armor and ornaments of coral, pearl, and scrimshaw, and her tattooing followed the same aquatic motif.
Dmitra gave Thessaloni a smile and a nod. “Exactly so. Obviously, it would be even better if the necromancers were clambering uphill, but we should still enjoy a tactical advantage.”
Samas Kul grunted. It made his jowls quiver. “What happened to isolating High Thay and its legions? I liked that plan.”
Lauzoril pursed his lips. “I don’t suppose you can isolate them if they’re absolutely resolved to come down. Not until you push them back up again.”
“We could if we destroyed the roads that connect the Plateau of Ruthammar with the lands below,” Samas said. “I’ve been pondering the problem. The evokers could send a vibration through the cliffs to break them apart, or the conjurors could summon a host of earth elementals.”
“But we won’t,” Nevron said. “We won’t attempt anything that ambitious and accordingly hazardous while sorcery is unreliable. If you think it’s a good idea, then you transmuters give it a try. Turn the slopes under the roads into air. Just don’t whine to me when the magic rebounds on you and obliterates your followers instead.”
Samas pouted. “All right. If you think it’s impractical, I withdraw the suggestion.”
“The question we need to answer,” Nevron said, “is why would Szass Tam make this particular move now? Why does he imagine it will work? Does he believe he can march his army down the Third Escarpment without us noticing?”
Aoth Fezim lifted his hand.
The griffon rider had botched the attempt to apprehend Malark Springhill, but he was also the man who’d discovered the spymaster’s treason in the first place. Nevron supposed that on the whole, he was less useless than many of the weaklings and imbeciles assembled in the council chamber. “Yes, Captain?”
“I guarantee you, Your Omnipotence, the necromancers see our scouts in the air. They realize they can’t head down without us knowing. What they hope is that they can bring up troops from the Keep of Sorrows to secure the base of the descent, or, if we get there first, to attack our flank while we’re trying to kill the warriors coming down from the heights.”
“I see that,” Lauzoril said. “Still, why attempt such a risky ploy now? Szass Tam can’t possibly have rebuilt his strength already.”
“Desperation?” Dmitra said. “He is weaker now than at any time since the war began, and Eltabbar is a big city. If he takes it, he can slaughter the populace and turn them into walking dead to replace the troops he’s lost.”
Lallara laughed a nasty laugh. “Didn’t we already sing this song earlier this year? Oh joy, oh joy, through impatience, desperation, or whatever, the lich has miscalculated at last. Let’s commit our strength and crush him. Except that it didn’t turn out that way. We walked into a snare, and only the coming of the blue fire saved us from utter defeat.”
“No one respects Szass Tam’s brilliance more than I,” Dmitra said. “But we can’t be afraid to try to outthink him, nor to act decisively when we see an opportunity.”
“I’m not afraid,” Lallara snapped. “But we lost plenty of men at the Keep of Sorrows, and more when your servant wrecked the subsequent campaign. Perhaps it’s time to assume a defensive posture and rebuild our own strength.”
“It’s already summer,” Dmitra said. “In essence, you’re talking about finishing out the year with another series of inconsequential moves and countermoves. While Thay starves and the necromancers rebuild their own legions with warriors who have no need to eat. While the realm burns and shakes to pieces, and we do nothing to arrest the destruction because we’re too busy prosecuting a war we’re unable to end.”
“We don’t know,” Samas said, “how much longer the blue fires will burn and the earth will shudder. It could all stop tomorrow.”
“And it might not.”
“I think,” Nevron said, “that we should allow Szass Tam to squander resources he can ill afford in what will surely prove a futile attempt to take Eltabbar.” And if by chance the lich did overwhelm it, at least the loss would injure Dmitra more than the rest of them. “Meanwhile, we’ll retake the rest of the tharch, lay waste to Delhumide, and relieve the city if necessary.”
“I concur,” Lauzoril said.
“So do I,” Lallara said. “For once, let’s not do the stupid thing.”
Samas Kul nodded. “Once we pacify the far north, we can bring all our strength to bear to deal with the armies of High Thay and the Keep of Sorrows.”
As Nevron had assumed they would, Zola Sethrakt and Kumed Hahpret chimed in to support the majority point of view. With luck, it meant that henceforth, he would exe
rt the greatest influence over the council, and he gave Dmitra a gloating smile. She responded with a slight and somehow condescending shake of her head, as if to convey that he was a fool to worry about precedence when it was essential that they make the right decision.
For a moment, he felt a pang of foreboding, but the feeling faded quickly. He and the others were making the right decision. She was the one who was misguided, and even if she weren’t, a man’s own position and power were never irrelevant to any deliberation.
“It seems we have a plan,” he said. “It only remains—”
A shimmer of yellow flame crawling on his crown and shoulders, Iphegor Nath rose from his seat. “I’ve already explained,” he said, “that the Firelord wishes us to assail the necromancers relentlessly.”
“As we will,” Nevron said, “but guided by a prudent strategy.”
“If you mean to pass up an opportunity to smash the legions of High Thay—”
“They’ll die before the walls of Eltabbar,” Nevron said. “Now then. We always benefit from your wisdom, Your Omniscience, but the rulers of Thay have made their decision. That means your role is to determine how your church can best support our strategy.”
“Is that my role, also?” asked a sardonic masculine voice. Nevron turned his head to see Dimon stand up.
The tharchion’s utterance caught Nevron off guard. Iphegor Nath was at least the head of a church that had proved an invaluable resource in the struggle against the necromancers. It was understandable, if not forgivable, if he sometimes addressed the zulkirs as an equal. Dimon was a lesser priest of a different faith and a governor, beholden to the council for his military rank. It was absurdly reckless for him to take an insolent tone.
“If I were you, Tharchion,” Nevron said, “I’d sit back down and hold my tongue.”
“No,” Dimon said. “I don’t believe I will.”
“So be it,” Nevron said. He released the entity bound in his silver thumb ring like a falconer tossing a goshawk into the air.
The devil was an advespa, a black wasp the size of a bear, with a hideous travesty of a woman’s face and scarlet striations on its lower body. Beating so fast they were only a blur, its wings droned, and even the other zulkirs recoiled in their chairs. Its body cast a smear of reflection in the polished surface below it as the thing shot down the length of the long red table.
But Dimon didn’t cringe. Rather, the pale priest with the twisting blue veins vivid in his shaven crown laughed and stretched out the hand wearing the black gauntlet.
It seemed a useless gesture, an attack easily evaded by a creature as nimble as an advespa on the wing. But Dimon somehow contrived to seize the devil at the point where its head fused with its thorax, and to hold on to it.
The advespa’s raking, gouging claws ripped his face, vestments, and the flesh beneath. Its abdomen rocked back and forth like a pendulum, repeatedly driving its stinger into the cleric’s chest.
Dimon kept on laughing and squeezing the juncture of his attacker’s head and body, sinking his fingers deeper and deeper. Until the creature convulsed, he jerked his arm back, and the advespa’s head with its antennae, mandibles, and harpy face ripped away from the rest of it. The carcass thumped down on the tabletop in a splash of steaming ichor.
Dimon’s reedy Mulan frame became bulkier, and flowing darkness stained him. In other circumstances, Nevron might have assumed it was the effect of the poison the wasp devil had injected. But the blackness tinged tattered clothing as well as torn flesh, and even if it hadn’t, all the bound spirits Nevron kept ready to hand were clamoring, some terrified, some transported by demented ecstasy.
In another few moments, Dimon was virtually all shadow, although Nevron could make out a glint of eyes, the gleam of the jewels now encrusting the gauntlet, and the static curves of clothing turned to plate. “Do you know me?” the tharchion asked, and though his voice was soft and mellow, something about it lanced pain into a listener’s ears.
Nevron took a breath. “You’re Bane, Lord of Darkness.” He rose, but resisted the craven urge to bow or kneel, prudent as it might have been. He’d decided long ago that a true archmage must never abase himself before anyone or anything, self-proclaimed deities included. Much as he hated Szass Tam, it was the one point on which they’d always agreed.
“Yes, I am,” said Bane. “You mages have done a fair job of sealing your citadel against spiritual entities you don’t summon yourselves, but you can’t lock out a god, and the bond I share with my faithful servant provided a convenient way in.” He stroked his temple—Dimon’s temple—rather like a man petting a dog.
“To what do we owe the honor of your presence?” Nevron asked.
“I’m tired of your sad little war,” the Black Hand said. “It drags on battle after battle, year after year, ruining a realm we gods of shadow raised up to dominate the east.”
Lauzoril rose from his seat. When it splashed, the advespa’s inky gore had spattered his scarlet robes. “Great Lord, we’re doing our best to bring the conflict to a conclusion.”
“Then your best is pathetic,” said Bane. “Seven archmages against one, seven orders of wizardry against one, the rich and populous south against the poor and empty north, and still, Szass Tam holds you in check for a decade.”
“It isn’t that simple,” Lauzoril said. “At the moment, we don’t have a zulkir of Divination, and over time, wizards of every order have defected …” His voice trailed off as he realized that it might not be an ideal moment for his usual practice of fussy, argumentative nitpicking.
Dmitra rose. “Great One, we accept your rebuke. Will you instruct us how we might do better?”
Bane smiled. Nevron couldn’t see the expression, but he could feel it, and although it conveyed no threat in any immediate sense, something about it was disquieting even to a man accustomed to trafficking with the most hideous denizens of the higher worlds.
“You already know the answer,” said the god, “for you proposed it yourself. Fight Szass Tam when he descends from High Thay, and that will settle the war. All the northern tharchs will lay down their arms if you slay their overlord.”
Nevron felt a strange mix of disgust and hope. Ever since Dmitra’s ascension to the rank of zulkir, he’d chafed under her pretensions to leadership. The revelation of Malark Springhill’s treason had called her judgment into question, and he’d exploited the situation to pull her off her pedestal and claim the chieftain’s role for himself.
But only for a tantalizing moment, because this meddling god had lifted her up again. Nevron could see it in the expressions of the other zulkirs. Arrogant though they were, when a deity invaded their council chamber to recommend they reverse a decision, it made an impression.
And there was no point swimming against the tide, especially if it would carry them all to victory. “Lord Bane,” Nevron said, “I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we’ll do as you direct. We pray you’ll give us your blessing and your aid.”
“Wherever men shed one another’s blood,” and Bane, “there will you find me.”
The darkness suffusing the Black Hand’s form drained away, and then he was merely Dimon once again. The wounds the advespa had given him hadn’t bled while he was possessed, but they gushed blood now, and he pitched forward. His head cracked against the edge of the table, then he crumpled to the floor.
Her black and white ornaments clinking, Zola Sethrakt shifted her chair to take a better look at the fallen priest. “He’s dead,” she said, and Nevron supposed that, worthless as she often proved to be, she was necromancer enough to be right about that, anyway.
After scouting throughout the morning, surveying the way ahead for the troops on the ground, Aoth, Bareris, and Mirror lit on a floating island to rest. The griffon riders dismounted, and Aoth peered over the edge of the floating chunk of soil and rock at a landscape of chasms, ridges, and twisting, leaning spires of stone stretched out far below. The earthbound portion of the council’s legions
struggled over the difficult terrain like a column of ants. Even with his fire-touched eyes, he couldn’t see anything else moving.
He’d imagined that over the course of the past decade, he’d seen his homeland reduced to a wasteland, but he’d been mistaken. This was a wasteland, viewed through a lens of nightmare.
“It looks as if we already fought the war to a bitter end,” he murmured, “or the gods waged a final, world-killing war of their own. Like we’re an army of ghosts, damned to march through an empty land forever.”
Strands of his blond hair stirring in the wind, Bareris smiled. “You should leave morbid flights of fancy to us bards.”
Aoth grunted. “I’m just getting over being insane. I’m entitled to be a little moody.”
“Fair enough. Still, the war isn’t over, but it soon will be. According to you, Bane said so himself.”
“That’s right, but he never came right out and promised we were going to win it, or that he was going to do anything out of the ordinary to help us. What he did was let his own priest drop dead when he was through wearing him like a festival mask. I felt awe when he manifested among us—how could you not? But even so, I don’t know that I trust him.”
Bareris shook his head. “I wish I’d seen him. I’m sure it would have given me inspiration for a dozen songs. But if you don’t trust the Black Hand, put your faith in Kossuth, or our own prowess.”
“Because we’re so mighty? That army marching down there is big, but not as big as it was last summer.”
“If we’re mightier than Szass Tam’s legions, that’s all that matters. And despite your grumbling, I guess we both believe the south can win, because otherwise, why stay and risk our necks? You’ve considered running, and I confess, now that I have Tammith back, I have, too.”
“Since I recovered my sight, I’ve thought of many reasons to stay, but I’m not sure that any of them make sense, or is the real reason. Maybe I’m still here simply because it’s my fate.”
“Or perhaps those magical eyes of yours peeked into the future and saw Aoth the tharchion, lounging on a golden couch with concubines feeding him apricots.”
The Haunted Lands: Book II - Undead Page 22