“Then you’ll have to make sure that, no matter what the zulkirs imagine, it’s actually you calling the tune.”
“A good trick if I can manage it, whereas your task is to figure out what Szass Tam means to do next.”
Malark grinned. “Even though I’ve never met him, and you tell me he’s a genius. It should prove an interesting challenge.”
chapter thirteen
13–14 Kythorn, the Year of Risen Elfkin
Borrowing Brightwing’s eyes to combat the darkness, Aoth rode the griffon above the mountainsides on the northern edge of the valley. It was a necessary chore. As far as the Thayans could tell, after they’d chased the undead up the pass, the creatures had retreated into the Keep of Thazar, but it was possible they hadn’t all done so. Even if they had, with flying wraiths and ghouls possessing a preternatural ability to dig tunnels among their company, it was by no means a certainty that they’d all remain inside the walls. Ergo, someone had to make sure no enemy was slinking through the night.
“It didn’t have to be you,” Brightwing said, catching the tenor of his thoughts. “You’re an officer now, remember? You could have sent a common soldier and stayed in camp to guzzle beer and rut with your female.”
“I know.” Maybe he hadn’t been a captain long enough to delegate such tasks as he ought. He’d so often served as a scout, advance guard, or outrider that he still felt a need to observe things for himself whenever possible. “But you’re getting fat. We need to work some of the lard off your furry arse.”
Brightwing clashed her beak shut in feigned irritation at the jibe then exclaimed, “Look there!”
Two beings were descending a slope. One was a living man—a Mulan, to judge from his lanky physique, though his head and chin weren’t properly shaved—wearing a sword. Evidently he was a refugee who’d somehow avoided death at the hands of the undead infesting the valley. Gliding along behind him, perceptible primarily as a mote of cold, aching wrongness, was some sort of ghost. No doubt it was stalking him and would attack when ready, though Aoth couldn’t imagine what it was waiting on.
Lady Luck must love you, the war mage silently told the refugee, to keep you alive until Brightwing and I arrived. With a thought, he sent the griffon swooping lower then flourished his spear and rattled off an incantation.
Darts of blue light hurtled from the head of the lance to pierce the phantom through. The punishment made it more visible, though it was just a pale shadow with a hint of armor in its shape and the suggestion of a blade extending from its hand. It rose into the air as Aoth had hoped it would. He wanted to draw it away from the man on the ground.
“Run!” Aoth shouted.
Instead, the stranger called, “Don’t attack him! He’s my guide! Mirror, don’t fight! Come back to me!”
Aoth hesitated. Was the man a necromancer and “Mirror” his familiar?
Maybe not, because the ghost kept on flying at Aoth and his mount, and after his recent experiences with the undead, he had no intention of giving it the benefit of the doubt. He wheeled Brightwing in an attempt of keep away from the spirit and chanted words of power. For a moment, Mirror wavered into a short, broad, better-defined figure not unlike himself, then melted into blur once more.
“Stop!” the refugee roared, and his voice echoed from the mountainsides like thunder.
A palpable jolt made Brightwing screech and spoiled the mystic gesture necessary for the completion of Aoth’s spell. Mirror’s misty substance rippled like water, and then it—or he—floated back down toward the stranger like a hound called to heel.
With their psyches linked, Aoth could taste Brightwing’s anger almost as if it were his own. She believed the man they’d been seeking to rescue had treacherously attacked them, but striving for clarity of thought despite the flare of emotion, Aoth discerned that the magical cry hadn’t actually injured her, and the stranger had targeted both her and Mirror. Maybe he’d just been trying to halt the confrontation without harm to any of the parties involved.
“Calm yourself,” he told the griffon. “Let’s land and talk to him.”
“I’d rather land and tear him apart,” Brightwing snarled, but once she’d furled her wings and glided to the ground, she held her position several paces away from Mirror and the stranger.
Not so sure of the peculiar duo’s benign intentions that he cared to dismount, Aoth remained in the saddle. “I’m Aoth Fezim, captain and battle wizard in the Griffon Legion of Pyarados. Who are you, and what are you doing wandering in this region?”
“My name is Bareris Anskuld,” the stranger replied, and when Aoth viewed him up close, his haggard weariness was apparent. Weariness and something more. He had a bleakness about him, as if something of vital importance to him had gone horribly, irreparably awry. “A bard and sellsword. I’ve been lost in the mountains and trying to find my way out. I met Mirror, and he chose to lead me. Is that the Pass of Thazar below us?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Thank you for the information and for trying to help when you thought I was in danger. Mirror and I will move on now, if it’s all right with you.”
Aoth snorted. “No, musician, it’s not ‘all right.’ You need to give a better account of yourself than that, considering that my comrades and I are fighting a war of sorts in the vale.”
“A war? With whom?”
“Undead that came out of the mountains to the north, the same as you and your ghost friend.”
The bard’s eyes narrowed, and though he seemed no less despondent than before, his taut expression now bespoke a bitter resolve. “In that case, Captain, you should hear my tale in its entirety.”
It had taken most of the night to put the little meeting together while making sure none of the necromancers learned of it, and eyes smarting, nerves raw with tension and lack of sleep, Nymia Focar looked around the shadowy tent at the other three folk in attendance and found something to dislike in each of them.
Though evidently a Mulan of sorts and gifted with a facility for one of the lesser forms of magic, Bareris Anskuld was essentially a filthy, ragged vagabond. It was preposterous to imagine he had anything of importance to relate.
Despite his advanced years and the forfeiture of his rest, Milsantos Daramos, Tharchion of Thazalhar, looked fresh and alert and stood straight as a spear shaft. He’d even taken the trouble to put on his armor. That was reason enough to dislike the old man with his seamed face and shaggy white brows even if she hadn’t resented the necessity of begging his aid to salvage her province and the fact that everyone considered him a better commander than herself.
She found, however, that Aoth vexed her most of all. The half-breed had his uses, but she never should have promoted him. The pressures of command had evidently disposed him to absurd apprehensions and fancies. Rather to her embarrassment, he’d already blathered about them in one council of war, and here he was, making a fool of himself again, and dressing her in motley and bells as well.
For he’d somehow managed to persuade her to give Bareris a hearing in the covert manner he desired, and she winced to think what might happen if the Red Wizards learned she’d gone behind their backs.
She supposed that meant it behooved her to get this nonsense over with as rapidly as possible, to minimize the possibility of anyone else finding out about it. “Let’s hear it,” she rapped.
Aoth had already given her the gist of the story in terse summation, but Bareris told it in detail and was more persuasive than she’d expected. Perhaps the very strangeness of the tale made it seem more credible, for how—to say nothing of why—would anyone make such things up?
But she wanted the story to be false. Since her audience with the zulkirs and Iphegor Nath, everything had gone splendidly, until she was ready to retake the Keep of Thazar itself. The lack of siege equipment shouldn’t prove an insurmountable obstacle if the Burning Braziers performed as promised. She didn’t need complications arising at the last moment.
So she did her best t
o pick holes in Bareris’s story. “If you wanted to take slaves into the mountains, why not just march them there directly? Why bother with Delhumide and a portal?”
“Because they didn’t want anyone to see the thralls going east,” Bareris answered, “lest he draw a connection between them and the raiders.”
“Also,” said Milsantos, idly fingering a raised gilded rune on his breastplate, “it would be easier. The Sunrise Mountains are difficult terrain to negotiate and swarming with wild goblin and kobold tribes to boot.”
“Still,” she said, “where’s the proof this story is true?”
“The proof,” Aoth said, “is that Bareris’s report illuminates matters we couldn’t understand before. The enemy was able to overcome the priest in Thazar Keep, send lacedons swimming downriver, and reanimate the folk they slaughtered in such quantities because they aren’t all undead. Some are living necromancers.”
“That isn’t proof,” she snapped, “it’s speculation.”
She realized she craved a drink, and despite a suspicion that, tired and upset as she was, it would do her more harm than good, she picked up a half-finished bottle of wine. The cork made a popping sound as she pulled it out.
“Tharchion,” Bareris said, “if my word isn’t good enough, let me tell my story to one of the Burning Braziers. He can use clerical magic to verify that I’m speaking the truth.”
Nymia had no desire to involve another person in their deliberations. Besides, she abruptly discerned that, much as she’d struggled to deny the perception, her instincts told her the bard was being honest.
She looked around for a clean cup, couldn’t find one—she’d allowed her orderly to retire earlier—and swigged sweet white wine from the neck of the bottle. The stuff immediately roiled her stomach.
“For purposes of argument,” she said, “let’s say you are telling the truth as best you understand it. Your story suggests we’re facing a cartel of rogue necromancers, traitors to their order.”
“Maybe,” said Milsantos, “and maybe not. I have informants in Eltabbar. I’m sure you do too, but have you heard from yours in the past couple days? Mine got a letter to me.”
“And they said something pertinent to our situation here on the eastern border of the realm?”
“Perhaps. Two days ago, Szass Tam tried and failed to persuade the other zulkirs to proclaim him regent. In light of that, let’s consider recent events.”
“To have any hope of winning the council to his way of thinking,” said Aoth, “the lich had to seem a successful if not triumphant figure, so he manufactured a threat to the eastern tharchs then played a crucial role in combating it. That means it isn’t ‘rogue’ mages standing against us. It’s conceivable the entire order of Necromancy is involved, including the Red Wizards in our own army.”
“Impossible,” Nymia said. “No one could keep such a huge conspiracy secret.”
“He could,” Bareris said, “if he silenced his underlings with enchantment. I told you about the guard who died when I tried to question it.”
“That was an orc. No one would dare to lay such a binding on a Red Wizard.”
“A higher-ranking and more powerful Red Wizard would.”
“Curse it!” she exclaimed. “Even if all these crazy guesses are correct, don’t you see, it’s none of our business what games the zulkirs play with one another. All we need to know is that an undead host threatens Pyarados, and the council, Szass Tam included, wants us to destroy it.”
“What,” said Milsantos, “if Szass Tam has stopped wanting it? He desired our victories to advance a particular strategy, which has now failed. In the aftermath, what remains? A siege in which his followers and creatures are fighting on both sides. Can we be absolutely certain he’s still backing us?”
“Why would he stop?” she demanded.
“To create the impression that when Szass Tam is honored as is his due, things go well, but when the other zulkirs deny him, they go disastrously awry? Truly, Nymia, I can’t guess, but I shrink from the thought of what will happen if the necromancers and zombies in our own ranks suddenly turn on us in the midst of battle. Better, I think, to try our luck without them.”
“So we send them away? Restrain them? Insult Szass Tam and the entire order of Necromancy?”
The old warrior smiled a crooked smile. “When you put it like that, it’s not an appealing prospect, is it? We’d certainly need to win and hope our success would motivate the other zulkirs to shield us from the lich’s displeasure.”
“I don’t know if we even have the authority to deal with Red Wizards in such a manner.”
“You’re tharchions,” said Aoth. “This is an army in the field. The Burning Braziers will support you. They hate the necromancers condescending to them. Take the authority.”
She considered it for several heartbeats then shook her head. “No. Not without proof, and I mean something I can see with my own eyes, not just a wanderer’s tale, even should a cleric vouch for him.”
“Then I’ll interrogate one of your Red Wizards,” Bareris said. “He’ll tell the truth or die in a fit like the orc. Either way, you can be certain.”
Nymia hesitated. “Neither Tharchion Daramos nor I could consent to such an outrage. You’d have to act alone, without our aid or intercession, and if you failed to extort the proof you promise, we’d order your execution. It would be the only way to make sure the stink of your treason didn’t attach itself to us.”
Bareris shrugged as if the prospect of a slow death under torture was of no concern. “Fine.”
“Except,” said Aoth, “that you won’t have to do it alone. I’ll help, and I know a fire priestess who will too.” He grinned. “Now that I think of it, I can steer you to the perfect Red Wizard as well.”
Bareris crooned his charm of silence, each note softer than the one before. He centered the charm on the sword sheathed at this side. It seemed as good an anchor point as any.
With the final note, the camp, quiet already here in the dregs of the night, fell absolutely silent. He, Aoth, Chathi, and Mirror, only perceptible as the vaguest hint of visual distortion, sneaked up to the rear of Urhur Hahpet’s spacious, sigil-embroidered tent a few breaths later.
Aoth gave Chathi an inquiring look. Even without benefit of words, his meaning was plain. He was asking if she was certain she wanted to risk this particular venture. She responded with an expression that expressed assurance, impatience, and affection all at once.
The lovers’ interplay gave Bareris a fresh pang of heartache. He turned away and peered about to make certain no one was looking in their direction. Nobody was, so he drew his dagger, cut a peephole in the tent, and looked inside.
No lamps or candles burned within. Evidently even necromancers, who worked so much of their wizardry at night, had to sleep sometime. But Bareris had sharpened his sight with magic, and he could make out a figure wrapped in blankets lying on the cot.
He gave his comrades a nod, then reinserted his dagger in the hole and pulled it downward, cutting a slit large enough for a man to squirm through, as he proceeded to do.
With the tent now enveloped in silence, he had no need to tiptoe, so he simply strode toward the man in the camp bed. But before he could cross the intervening space, something small and gray leaped onto Urhur Hahpet’s chest, then, eyes burning with greenish phosphorescence, immediately launched itself at Bareris’s face.
It was a zombie or mummified cat, evidently reanimated to watch over its master as he slept. Bareris swung his arm and batted it out of the air. It scrambled up and charged him.
Though the shriveled, stinking thing wasn’t large enough to seem all that dire a threat, Bareris suspected its darkened fangs and claws might well be poisonous, either innately or because Urhur painted them with venom. Accordingly, he felt he had to deal with the cat at once. He shifted the knife to his off hand, whipped out his sword, and drove the point into the undead animal’s back, nailing it to the earth. It made a final frenzied sc
rabbling attempt to reach his foot then stopped moving. The sheen in its eyes faded.
By then, though, Urhur had cast off his covers and was rearing up from the bed. The silence would keep him from reciting incantations, and since he didn’t sleep in his clothes, he didn’t have his spell foci ready to hand, but he was wearing a presumably enchanted necklace of small bones and grasping a crooked blackwood wand he’d apparently stashed beneath his blankets or pillow. He extended the arcane weapon in the intruders’ direction.
Bareris yanked his sword out of the feline carcass, sprang forward, and poised the weapon to strike at the wand. At the same instant, a gout of dark fire, or something like it, leaped from the end of the wand to chill him. Refusing to let the freezing anguish stop him, he delivered the beat, and the wand flew from Urhur’s grasp.
Bareris and his comrades had observed two withered, yellow-eyed dread warriors standing guard in front of the tent, and now the sentries pushed through the flap of cloth covering the doorway. He’d hoped the magical silence would keep them from discerning that their master needed them, but perhaps they were responding to a psychic summons.
Though Bareris hadn’t taken his eyes off his foes to glance around and check, he assumed Aoth, Mirror, and Chathi were likewise inside the tent by now, and he’d depend on them to deal with the dread warriors. He had to stay focused on Urhur, because the Red Wizard merely needed to scurry into the open air, dart beyond the confines of the zone of silence, and scream for help to ruin his plan.
He tried to lame Urhur with a slash to the leg. The necromancer flung himself backward into the taut canvas wall of the tent, rebounded, and landed on the ground behind the cot. Fearful that Urhur would squirm out under the bottom of the cloth barrier, Bareris dropped his dagger, grabbed the camp bed, and jerked it out of his way.
Meanwhile, Urhur gripped one of the bones strung around his neck, and a seething dimness shrouded his form. Still aiming for the leg, Bareris thrust. Urhur tried to snatch his limb out of the way, but the blade grazed him even so.
Unclean: The Haunted Lands Page 26