Malignancy burned up the sword and into Bareris’s hand, chilling and stinging him like the blast from the wand. Urhur scrambled up and reached for him. A tattoo on the back of the necromancer’s hand gleamed, releasing its power, whereupon his nails grew long and jagged as the claws of a ghoul.
By the time Bareris recovered from the shock of the hurt he’d just sustained, Urhur had already lunged near enough to rend and grab, too close for the sword to be of use. Bareris dropped the weapon and caught the mage by the wrists.
They wrestled, shoving and staggering back and forth, and as they did so, the bard caught glimpses of the rest of the fight. Aoth swung his falchion, its heavy blade shining blue with enchantment, and buried it in a dread warrior’s chest. The creature stumbled, and Mirror, somewhat more visible now, his shadow weapon currently shaped like Aoth’s, struck it as well. Meanwhile, Chathi brandished a hand wreathed in fire, and the other undead guard collapsed before her, breaking and crumbling in the process.
Bareris thought he should be faring as well or better than his comrades. He was stronger than Urhur and a superior brawler, but he didn’t dare risk even a single scratch from the wizard’s nails for fear it would incapacitate him, and every time he landed a head butt or stamp to the toes, his adversary’s protective aura caused the impact to pain him as well.
Urhur abruptly opened his mouth wide, revealing that his teeth, too, had grown long and pointed. He yanked Bareris close and bit at his neck. Caught by surprise, the bard just barely managed to jerk his upper body backward in time. Drops of saliva spattered him as the crooked fangs gnashed shut.
Then, however, Urhur lurched forward, and his legs buckled beneath him. Employing the pommel of his falchion as a bludgeon, Aoth clubbed the necromancer’s head a second time. Urhur slumped entirely limp. Sore and weak from the punishment he’d endured, Bareris tore away the necklace of bones, depriving the Red Wizard of his defensive aura, then threw him to the ground.
Aoth’s falchion glowed brighter as he released the counterspell he’d stored in the steel. Bareris abruptly heard the rasp of his own labored breathing as the spell of silence dissolved. Meanwhile, Urhur’s claws and fangs melted away.
“Are you all right?” Aoth whispered.
“When this is over,” Bareris replied, “I’ll want the aid of a healer, but I can manage for now.”
Chathi moved to the door of the tent, shifted the flap, and peeked out. “I don’t think anyone’s noticed anything amiss.”
“Good,” said Aoth. “Can you restore Urhur to his senses?”
“Most likely.” She rooted in her belt pouch, produced a pewter vial, uncorked it, and held it under the Red Wizard’s nose.
Urhur’s eyes fluttered open, then he flailed, but to little effect. Bareris, Aoth, and Chathi were crouching all around him to hold him down and menace him with their daggers.
“Calm down,” said Aoth. “You probably realize I don’t like you, but my friends and I won’t kill you if you answer our questions.”
“You’re insane,” Urhur said. “You’ll all die for this outrage.”
Aoth smiled. “Yes, if it doesn’t work out, which means we have nothing to lose. If I were you, I’d think about the implications of that.”
Perhaps seeking to calm himself, Urhur took a deep breath. “Very well, I’ll answer your questions. In all likelihood, I would have done so in any case. I have no secrets.”
“If so,” said Aoth, “you must be the only Red Wizard who can make that claim, but before we proceed, I want you to think about something. I just cast a counterspell. Bareris and Chathi are each going to do the same. I hope that if anyone has laid a magical binding on you, it will turn out that one of us has succeeded in breaking your fetters, and you can give us what we require without suffering for it.”
“I have no idea what you’re babbling about.”
“I admit,” Aoth continued, “if you do tell the truth, you’ll be running a risk. We’ll have no way of knowing in advance whether we’ve actually freed you, but I guarantee that if your responses fail to satisfy us, we’ll kill you. Bareris, Chathi, do what you need to do.”
Bareris sang his charm, and the priestess chanted her invocation to the Firelord.
“Now,” said Aoth to the prisoner, “tell us who created the undead horde.”
Urhur’s eyes shifted left, then right, as if he was looking for succor. “How should I know? All anyone knows is that they came down out of the mountains.” “You’re lying,” said Aoth.
He clamped a hand over the necromancer’s mouth, and Bareris and Chathi exerted their strength to hold him motionless. Mirror glided forward, bent down, and slid his shadowy fingertips into Urhur’s torso.
It wasn’t the sort of violation that broke the skin, shed blood, or made any sort of visible wound, but Urhur bucked and thrashed in agony. His body grew thinner, and new lines incised themselves on his face.
“Enough,” Bareris said, and Mirror pulled his hand away.
“I’ll wager,” said Aoth to Urhur, “that you’ve unleashed ghosts and such on a good many victims in your time, but I wonder if you’d ever felt a phantom’s touch yourself. It looked painful, and you look older. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mirror has leeched years from your natural span. Now shall we have him tickle your guts again, or will you cooperate?”
“I don’t deserve this,” Urhur whimpered. “Szass Tam didn’t give me a choice. When I tried to keep you from discovering too much or warning Tharchion Focar and the other captains, I didn’t even understand what I was doing. I mean, not entirely. My memory’s funny. It’s like I’m split in two.”
“Just tell us,” said Aoth. “Where did the marauders come from?”
“Why do I have to say? It’s plain you already know.”
“We need to hear,” the war mage said.
“All right, curse you. My peers made them.”
“And helped them to their victories?”
“Yes!”
“What are your orders now that you and the other Red Wizards in this army are supposed to fight the nighthaunt and its primary host yourselves?”
“I—” Urhur’s eyes rolled up in his head.
His back arched and his limbs jerked as the dying orc’s had done. He jerked in a final great spasm that broke Chathi’s grip on his arm then lay motionless with bloody foam oozing from the corner of his mouth.
The fire priestess placed her hand in front of Urhur’s contorted features, feeling for his breath. After a moment, she said, “He’s dead.”
“Damn it,” said Aoth. “I’d hoped we’d forestalled that. Obviously, we only delayed it. Still, he admitted some things. Enough, I hope, to spare us a meeting with the headsman.” He looked back at the slit in the rear of the tent.
Clad in long, plain, hooded cloaks like many a common legionnaire, two figures pushed through the opening then threw back their cowls to reveal themselves as Nymia and Milsantos. The tharchions had trailed Bareris and his comrades up to the tent, then skulked outside to listen to the interrogation.
“You’ve done well,” Milsantos said.
“They’ve made a filthy mess,” Nymia growled. “They attacked and killed a Red Wizard, and we still don’t know that the necromancers mean to betray us.”
“If they don’t,” Bareris asked, “then why couldn’t Urhur say so? Why was that the question that finally triggered the seizure?”
“I don’t know,” the female commander answered. “I don’t pretend to comprehend all the ins and outs of wizardry, but if Szass Tam only changed his plans after the other zulkirs rebuffed him, how could he already have sent new orders to minions hundreds of miles away from Eltabbar?”
“The same way,” said Milsantos, “my informants passed a message to me: magic.”
“I suppose,” Nymia said. “Still—”
“Still,” Milsantos said, “you don’t like it that we have, in effect, colluded in the murder of a Red Wizard, and you shrink from the thought of making a whole tr
oupe of them our prisoners. So do I. I didn’t come to be an old man, let alone retain my office for lo these many decades, by indulging in such practices. But we now have genuine reason to suspect the necromancers of treachery, and I won’t send legionnaires into battle with such folk positioned to strike at their backs. They deserve better, and so do we. Remember, if we lose, the enemy is apt to kill us, too, and if they don’t, the zulkirs might.”
“Yet if we anger Szass Tam and the order of Necromancy …” Nymia threw up her hands. “Yes, all right, we’ll do it your way, assuming we even have followers stupid enough to lay hands on Red Wizards.”
Chathi smiled. “The Braziers will help you, Tharchion.”
“And I,” said Aoth, “know griffon riders who’ll do the same.”
Malark jumped, caught the top of the high wrought-iron fence with its row of sharp points, and swung himself over without cutting himself or even snagging his clothing. He then dropped to the grass on the other side, his knees flexing to absorb the jolt.
As one of Dmitra Flass’s lieutenants, he actually had no need to enter in such a fashion. He could have presented himself at the gate and waited for the watchman to appear and admit him or procured his own key, but why bother? For a man trained as a Monk of the Long Death, hopping the fence was easy as climbing a flight of stairs.
Alert and silent by habit, not because he expected trouble, he strolled onward through Eltabbar’s largest cemetery. The meadows with their stone and wooden markers were peaceful after dark. He often came here where no one could find and interrupt him to mull over one problem or another.
But tonight he found the place less soothing than formerly. The air was pleasant, neither too hot nor too cool, and perfumed with the scent of flowers. A night bird sang, and the stars shone, but the sight of so many open graves, yawning like raw wounds in the earth, offended him. Death was supposed to be an ending, but for the poor wretches interred here, it had only been a brief respite. They’d toil and struggle on through the mortal world as zombie soldiers.
Yet much as Malark deplored Thay’s practice of employing such warriors, he could do nothing about it. So he scowled and resolved to put the matter out of his mind and focus instead on the puzzle he needed to unravel.
Szass Tam had manipulated events to persuade the council of zulkirs to elect him regent. His efforts had failed, yet it was plain he was still maneuvering. To what end?
Malark had reviewed all the intelligence available to him, all the secrets his agents daily risked their lives to gather, and he still had no idea. It was almost enough to discourage him, to persuade him that Szass Tam was as transcendently brilliant as everyone maintained, so cunning and devious that no other being could hope to fathom his schemes.
But Malark refused to concede that. Though he was no wizard nor, thank the gods, a lich, he was as old as Szass Tam, and his extended span had afforded him the opportunity to develop a comparable subtlety of mind. No doubt the undead necromancer possessed the power to obliterate a mere excommunicant monk with a flick of his shriveled fingers, but that didn’t mean he could outthink him.
The spymaster wandered by another pair of gaping graves, which still stank of carrion even though their former occupants were gone. He’d passed quite a few such cavities in just a short while, and he suddenly wondered if anyone except Szass Tam and his followers knew how many had been opened altogether or whether all the corpses really had gone to serve Tharchions Focar and Daramos, the commanders who’d marched up the Pass of Thazar to counter a threat in the east.
He whirled and dashed back the way he’d come, meanwhile wondering if Dmitra was already asleep or amusing herself with a lover. If so, she wouldn’t appreciate being disturbed, but Malark needed another flying horse, and he needed it now.
The sky above the mountains was blue, but as one pivoted toward the Keep of Thazar, it darkened by degrees, so that the castle seemed to stand in a private pocket of night.
As yet, Aoth hadn’t seen the nighthaunt or any of the undead except for a few ghouls and skeletons on the battlements, but he had little doubt the winged creature was responsible for the shroud of darkness. He recalled the boundless malevolence of the nighthaunt’s blank pearly eyes, the contemptuous way it had allowed him to escape—because Szass Tam wanted news of the attack to travel, evidently—and all the horrors he’d witnessed on the night the fortress fell, and despite himself, he shivered.
His reaction annoyed him and made him wish the battle would begin. Once the waiting ended, his jitters should end with it. They always had.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t time yet. First, the Burning Braziers had to complete their ritual, and unless it succeeded, the legionnaires had no hope of a successful assault.
To better survey the castle and the army arrayed before it, Aoth had ascended a hillock with Brightwing and Bareris—and Mirror too, presumably, though the spirit was entirely imperceptible at present—and so he turned to the singer. Though bards were generally garrulous to a fault, following their interrogation of Urhur Hahpet, Bareris had lapsed into sullen taciturnity. But perhaps Aoth could draw him into a conversation. He was still curious about the man, and it would be something to occupy his mind.
“It will be a tough fight,” said Aoth, “but we can win. Even without our zombies, we have a sizable army, and even without the necromancers, we have wizardry. I’m not the only war mage in the host.”
Bareris grunted.
“Of course,” Aoth persisted, “we wouldn’t have a chance if not for you. Makes me glad you asked to fight in my company.”
“Don’t be. My luck is bad.”
Aoth snorted. “I’d say you were damn lucky to make it out of the mountains alive, and we were lucky you turned up here when you did.”
Bareris shrugged. “The gravecrawler said I still had a path to walk, and maybe this is it. Revenge. As much as I can take, for as long as I’m able.”
Aoth was still trying to decide how to answer that when the ground began to shake. The Burning Braziers had warned their comrades of what to expect, but some of the soldiers standing in formation in front of the castle cried out anyway.
“This is it,” Aoth said.
He swung himself onto Brightwing’s back, and the griffon beat her wings and soared into the air. Bareris trotted to join the axemen he intended to fight among.
The tremors intensified, and men-at-arms on the ground crouched to avoid being knocked down. Riders and grooms struggled to control frightened horses. Trees lashed back and forth, and stones rolled clattering down the mountainsides, until something huge and bright burst from the empty stretch of ground between the Keep of Thazar and the besieging army.
At first an observer could have mistaken it for a simple eruption of lava. Then, however, it heaved itself higher, and the contours of a lump of a head; a thick, flailing arm; and a hand with four stubby fingers became apparent.
Tall and massive as one of the castle towers, the searing heat of it perceptible even from far away, the colossal elemental finished dragging itself up out of the ground then clambered unsteadily onto its broad, toeless feet. Some of the legionnaires shrank from the terrifying spectacle. Others, remembering that this was supposed to happen, cheered.
Aoth thought the mystical feat deserved acclamation. Had the Burning Braziers summoned and bound a fire elemental big as a spire, that would have been impressive enough. But such an entity, formidable as it was, lacked the solidity required for the task at hand, so the clerics had opted for a spirit whose nature blended the hunger of flame with the weight of stone. That almost certainly made the magic more difficult for them, given that they lacked any special affinity for the element of earth, yet they’d managed nonetheless.
Its tread shaking the earth, the giant advanced to the castle wall, took hold of a row of merlons at the top, and ripped away a chunk of the battlements. It tossed the fragment of stone and masonry inside the fortress—to crush some of the enemy, Aoth hoped—and gripped the wall once more.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean the behemoth would prove impervious to the efforts of ghosts and spellcasters. The former might be able to leech the life from it, and the latter to break the priests’ control over it or send it back to its native level of existence. The Thayan archers and crossbowmen on the ground shot their missiles at any such foe that showed itself on the battlements. Aoth’s fellow war mages hurled thunderbolts and fire.
No one with sense would position himself in front of such a barrage or anywhere close, but somebody needed to peer down inside the castle courtyards and counter whatever mischief was happening there. Aoth urged Brightwing higher, and other griffon riders followed his lead. He hoped that if they flew high enough, no stray attack from their own side would hit them.
“If I do catch an arrow in the guts,” said Brightwing, discerning the essence of his thoughts, “you’ll know when we both plummet to our deaths.”
“Put your mind at ease,” Aoth replied. “I have a spell of slow falling ready for the casting. Whatever awfulness happens to you, your beloved master will fare all right.”
Brightwing laughed.
They raced into the pocket of darkness. Zombies shot crossbows at them, but the bolts flew wild. Brightwing streaked over the curtain wall, and as Aoth had anticipated, live wizards, gathered in circles, were chanting on the ground below. They’d forsaken red robes for nondescript garments, but they no doubt belonged to the order of Necromancy nonetheless.
Aoth prepared a blast of fire to keep them from interfering with the elemental, but wraiths flew up at him, and he had to use the magic to incinerate them instead. Fortunately, his fellow griffon riders, adept at hitting a mark even from the back of a flying steed, harried the necromancers with arrows. Meanwhile, stone crunched and crashed as the magma giant continued to demolish the exterior wall.
Unclean: The Haunted Lands Page 27