Flowing into view from head to foot like a painter’s brush stroke, a hulking, gray-and-black figure appeared. Horns jutted over its yellow eyes, and jagged tusks lined its oversized mouth. Its wings and pointed ears were like a bat’s.
“That’s a nabassu!” Cera said.
“I know,” said Aoth. In other words, it was a particularly nasty kind of demon. He spoke a word of command and released one of the spells stored in his spear. A rainbow of varied and destructive forces blazed from the point.
Unfortunately the nabassu vanished before the magic reached it. Prompted by instinct, Aoth looked up just as the demon reappeared overhead. It spread its leathery wings, turning what would have been a plummet into a swooping glide.
Jet gave a choked little cry as a mystical attack struck him, and Aoth felt a stab of pain and weakness across their psychic link. The steady beat of the griffon’s wings turned into a useless, spastic flailing. Then Jet was the one who fell, carrying his riders along with him. The nabassu dived at them all.
Cera rattled off the first words of a healing prayer, Aoth charged the point of the spear with power, thrust, and caught the demon in the belly. But the weapon didn’t go in deep enough to stick. The creature twisted and tumbled free, and Aoth knew that while he’d inflicted a wound that would have stopped any human, it wasn’t nearly enough to incapacitate a fiend from the netherworld.
Cera finished her prayer. Healing warmth poured from her hands into Jet’s body. He spread his wings and arrested his descent.
Let me take him! the griffon said.
When you can get above him, Aoth replied. Until then, let me wear him down with spells.
So the two flyers maneuvered, each seeking the high air. Meanwhile, the puncture in the nabassu’s stomach closed, and new hide and fur grew over it.
Swinging her golden mace over her head, Cera hurled flares of Amaunator’s light at the demon, and Aoth conjured blasts of flame and frost. The nabassu dodged more often than not, sometimes by translating itself through space and sometimes by becoming an insubstantial phantom for a moment.
It also snarled a word that, even though Aoth didn’t know the meaning, somehow carried a weight of stomach-churning foulness. Cera jerked and grunted then said, “I’m all right.” She started another prayer, and the demon shrouded itself in fog.
Aoth conjured a wind that tore the cloud apart, then immediately followed up with darts of crimson light. All five hit the nabassu squarely, and although they penetrated its head and torso without opening visible wounds, he suspected that he’d finally hurt it enough for it to matter.
Then pain ripped through his own skull and body. No, not his, Jet’s. When the darts had pierced their target, the magic had somehow wounded the familiar as well. The griffon flailed his wings, trying to keep flying and stay away from the demon despite the shock.
“What’s wrong?” Cera cried.
“The demon forged a link between the two of them,” said Aoth. “You have to break it.”
Cera began a spell, but she was only a word into it when the bat-winged creature flickered through space once again. It reappeared right beside Jet, snatched hold of his neck with the talons of one hand, and raked at Aoth with those on the other.
Unbalanced by his attacker, Jet floundered through the air. He strained to strike at the demon with his own talons and beak but couldn’t reach him.
Aoth could use neither the sharp end of his spear nor the lethal spells that were a warmage’s stock in trade for fear of killing Jet. Blocking claw strokes with his shield, the targe clanking, rasping, and jolting his arm, he reversed his weapon and used the butt to try to knock the nabassu away. He couldn’t. He conjured another howl of wind to blast it loose. That didn’t work either.
He struggled to think of a tactic to dislodge the demon and couldn’t. Then a sparkling, hissing curtain appeared before him. He just had time to realize that, despite the injuries and the clinging foe hindering his flight, Jet had managed to aim himself at the waterfall streaming down from the floating island into the lake below. Then they all plunged into it.
The frigid water hammered, smothered, deafened, and blinded Aoth, all in the first instant. He thrust with the butt of the staff anyway and thought he felt it connect, although with what result, it was impossible to tell.
It might not matter anyway. The waterfall would likely tumble them down to their deaths no matter what. He certainly couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t even tell which way was up anymore.
But then, half flying, half swimming, exerting every iota of his flagging strength, Jet carried his riders clear of the raging water and out into the open air on the other side.
His riders, but not the nabassu. The savage force of the torrent, possibly aided by that final jab from Aoth’s spear, had finally broken them apart.
Unfortunately, thought Aoth, coughing, the demon was likely to escape a watery death too. All it had to do was recover from its surprise, disappear, and rematerialize outside the waterfall.
But Cera called out to Amaunator. And for an instant, the entire waterfall blazed with golden light. Spotting the nabassu with his spellscarred eyes, Aoth saw its body crumble away to nothing in the center of the torrent.
“Nice work,” he panted. “Both of you.”
It certainly was, answered Jet, flinging spray with every sweep of his wings. And remind me: who was it that you said does all the thinking?
“Do you have power left?” said Aoth to Cera. “Can you heal Jet?”
She coughed. “I’ll try.” She started another prayer, and Aoth cast about to survey the rest of the battle.
At some point Gaedynn had evidently tired of trying to drive an arrow past the shaman’s mystical defenses because he and Eider had set down on the ridge. But that hadn’t worked either. A circle of minotaurs armed with spears and axes was keeping them busy while the shaman stood off to the side and worked on casting a spell. The magic was a shuffling dance as much or more than it was verbal. He repeatedly dipped his head as though he were goring and tossing a victim with his bloodstained horns.
Aoth assumed that he had, at most, a heartbeat or two to interrupt the spell short of completion. He pointed his spear, then cursed when he recognized that the fight with the nabassu had carried him, Jet, and Cera too far from the ridge for his own magic to span the distance.
At that same moment, Gaedynn, who’d evidently managed to defend himself and unbuckle the straps securing him to the saddle at the same time, hurled himself off Eider’s back. The reckless move caught the minotaurs by surprise, and he plunged through a gap in the circle. One barbarian pivoted and leveled his spear for a thrust. Eider lunged and nipped his head off, and that deterred any of the others from turning his back on her.
When Gaedynn charged, the shaman abandoned his conjuring. Smoke swirled around him as the power he’d raised dissipated prematurely. But when he swung the club, sweeping it in a horizontal arc, that attack was magical as well. Almost invisible in the sunlight, misty horns appeared above, below, and around the weapon and whirled along with it in a stabbing cloud that threatened to pierce Gaedynn from head to toe. His two swords couldn’t possibly parry every thrust.
But he didn’t try. He put on a final burst of speed and sprang inside the shaman’s reach an instant before the horns could gore him. He thrust one sword up under the minotaur’s chin and the other into his chest.
The club slipped from the minotaur’s grasp, and the disembodied, semitransparent horns disappeared. The creature staggered backward off the ridge and disappeared down the slope on the other side. Unfortunately he took the short sword that had pierced his throat and head with him. Evidently it was stuck, and Gaedynn had to let go of the hilt to avoid being dragged along.
Two more minotaurs clambered onto the top of the ridge, and he wheeled to face them with the single blade he had left. Then genasi warriors swarmed up the other side.
Riding bareback, some clung to the backs of the gray lizards that see
med to climb almost as well as their smallest cousins. Bald, green-skinned watersouls somehow dashed up the steep slope with equal ease. Silver-skinned windsouls simply flew.
However they reached the top of the ridge, the Akanulans started killing minotaurs the instant they arrived. Spears stabbed and scimitars slashed. Little flames rippling along the pattern of lines crisscrossing his bronze-colored skin, a firesoul snapped his fingers and set a bull-man’s hide tunic ablaze. A burly earthsoul with skin the color of mud stood on the far side of the ridge and stamped his foot. Shocks ran through the slope below, presumably jolting any minotaurs who were still trying to climb up and join the fight. Aoth hoped that some reeled off the trail and fell, although, from his angle, he couldn’t actually tell.
But it didn’t really matter. Eider slashed with her talons and disemboweled the last living minotaur on the ridge, and she, Gaedynn, and the genasi all visibly relaxed. Obviously the surviving barbarians were fleeing.
*****
Jhesrhi found Shala sitting at a desk heaped high with stacks of parchment. Quills in hand, half a dozen clerks scratched away at smaller desks while several adolescent boys whispered, fidgeted, or dozed in chairs along the wall. The latter were messengers, waiting to run a note or document to wherever it needed to go.
“My lady,” Shala said, frowning. “What can I do for you?”
“You can respond when I ask for something,” Jhesrhi said. “I sent you lists of the improvements required to make the wizards’ quarter livable and petitions detailing the reparations due arcanists wronged by the courts and the watch.”
“You only sent them yesterday,” Shala said. “And as you can see, with the army preparing to march on Tymanther, I have many matters to attend to.”
“I also sent you a letter that pertains to the coming campaign,” Jhesrhi said. “I explained how you should integrate mages into His Majesty’s forces and the ranks they ought to hold.”
“I’ll get to that too. If you let me go back to work, I’ll get to it that much faster.”
Jhesrhi took a firmer grip on her staff. “It appears,” she said, “that you don’t think the needs of Chessenta’s arcanists are important.”
Shala’s mouth tightened. “You’re a soldier of a sort. Surely you agree that they aren’t the most important concern on the eve of war.”
“I suppose it’s to be expected that you think that way, considering that the arcanists suffered persecution through all the years you held the throne.”
“Lady, I’ll justify the decisions I made to Tchazzar if he requires it, not to you.”
“Of course,” Jhesrhi said, “because you’re simply too busy to talk to me about anything, aren’t you? But perhaps I can lift the burden from your back.”
With a thought, she made the head of her staff burn like a torch, and the pseudo-mind inside it crowed. She lowered the flames over the tallest stack of papers, and one of the clerks yelped in dismay.
Shala jumped up out of her chair, and seemingly indifferent to the possibility of burning herself, swatted the staff aside. “Are you crazy?” she snarled.
“No,” Jhesrhi said. “I merely wanted your full attention. If I finally have it, maybe we should continue this talk in private.”
Shala raked her assistants with her glare. “Go!” she said, and they all scurried out.
When the door closed, Jhesrhi ordered the staff to stop burning, and it sulked at being denied a conflagration. “I apologize for that,” she said to Shala. “Although I hope it was convincing.”
Shala blinked. “That was all a sham?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m no courtier, High Lady. But since I joined the Brotherhood, I’ve wandered through enough royal and noble courts to know that Tchazzar probably has a spy among your aides. I didn’t want him to slither off and report that we’re plotting in secret. And since I swaggered in here like Queen Bitch, I don’t think he will. He’ll believe we’re having a bitter row.”
“Possibly,” Shala said, “but what makes you think I’d conspire with you?” She smiled crookedly. “After all, you’re a wizard, and as you pointed out, I cruelly mistreated your poor, innocent kind.”
Jhesrhi shrugged. “You simply enforced laws that existed before you ever came to the throne, laws the temples told you were just and good. And then, when the murders began, you still let Lord Nicos bring the Brotherhood to Luthcheq so the people wouldn’t slaughter all the arcanists.”
“So I was only half a tyrant?”
“After that,” Jhesrhi persisted, “you rode to war with Oraxes, Meralaine, and me. Maybe you saw something there, something to persuade you that wizards are just people, not the devil-spawn that the priests have always made us out to be.”
“Let’s say I did.” Shala sat back down in her chair and waved Jhesrhi to another. “In my life I haven’t found normal people to be all that trustworthy either. If Tchazzar doubts my loyalty, maybe he asked you to trick me into saying something treasonous. And why wouldn’t you be eager to oblige when you’ve risen so high in his favor?”
“If he decides he wants to get rid of you, do you honestly think he’ll require incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing before ordering your arrest?”
Shala snorted. “There is that. Still, it doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“You know Halonya arrested Khouryn Skulldark.”
“And you couldn’t convince Tchazzar to let him go. The madwoman won that round.”
Jhesrhi scowled and a line of flame oozed up the staff. “The point is that if Tchazzar won’t free him, I have to. And I need help.”
“You’d risk everything the dragon’s given you-and your own freedom and your own life-to accomplish this?”
“I only have a handful of friends, High Lady. Khouryn’s one of them.”
“He’s also a dwarf, and Chessentans don’t like them any better than sorcerers. So why should I risk everything that I have left to help him?”
“Because you know he’s being punished just for following your orders. Because it will do you good to give Halonya a poke in the eye. And because you know that, even leaving the question of justification aside, it’s rash and stupid for Chessenta to invade Tymanther right after fighting a war in the north.”
“And freeing your friend will keep that from happening?”
“It might help,” Jhesrhi said, then explained how.
Shala grunted. “It sounds like a feeble hope to me.”
“It may be. But also consider that you won’t be running all that much of a risk. I’ll be the one taking the big chances.”
“I’m not a coward!” Shala snapped.
“I know that, High Lady. But you are the one who keeps asking why she should help me. I’m giving all the reasons I can think of.”
“What exactly do you want from me?”
“Halonya dangled Khouryn in front of me as bait,” Jhesrhi said. “She wants me to go after him so she can kill or capture me and then convince Tchazzar I’m a traitor.”
Shala fingered the scar on her square jaw. “That sounds about right.”
“Still, I have to rescue Khouryn and do it without using my most potent magic because if I invoked the wizardry of the four elements to do the job, it would be like signing my name.”
“I suppose so.”
“If I’m going to manage anyway, I need to know about the dungeons under the War College. Where exactly is Halonya keeping Khouryn? Are there mechanical or magical snares along the way, and if so, how do I bypass them? Where are guards generally posted, and where are the wyrmkeepers likely to wait in ambush? I know you can tell me. You’re the type who makes it a point to learn everything about everything over which you hold authority.”
Like Khouryn himself.
Shala sat and thought for a moment then stood up abruptly. “If you’re lying to me, then I swear by the Foehammer that I’ll see my blade in your heart before Tchazzar takes me into custody. Now come look at a
book. It has diagrams of the tunnel system in it.”
As he sipped the bitter beer the villagers had given him, Gaedynn reflected that it was odd to feel welcome and at ease among genasi. During his time in Luthcheq, he’d come to regard the Daardendriens and Perra as friends, and the Akanulans at court, who despised the dragonborn, as hostile to himself and all the Brotherhood as well.
But there was none of that here. These genasi were effusive in their gratitude. Even Aoth’s appearance didn’t faze them, although, once Gaedynn thought about it, perhaps that made sense. The tattoos that decorated Aoth’s body, face included, somewhat resembled the patterns of lines that crisscrossed the Akanulans’ skins, and with his shaved scalp, exposed after he’d removed his helmet, he was as bald as the earth- and watersouls.
Cera slumped beside him with her hand resting on his. She looked as if she could barely keep her eyes open. Gaedynn gathered that turning the waterfall to holy water-a trick he wished he’d witnessed-had taxed her mystical strength considerably. Then she’d expended what magic remained to cast healing charms on Jet and the more sorely wounded genasi warriors.
“I wish I knew how to repay you,” said Yarel-karn. The leader of the war band was a surprisingly young firesoul with an earnest, studious cast to his ruddy features. Flame rippled along one of the golden lines on the top of his head. It reminded Gaedynn of the way fire would sometimes spring, seemingly of its own volition, from Jhesrhi’s new staff. For a moment, he wished she were there, then, annoyed with himself, pushed her out of his thoughts and refocused on what was happening around him.
Aoth smiled at Yarel-karn. “Well, now that you mention it, there actually might be a way.”
“Anything!” the genasi said.
“We’re on our way to Airspur to seek an audience with the queen,” said Aoth. “If an officer in Her Majesty’s forces passed the word along that we helped him out, it might help us get in.”
“And lend weight to our words when we do,” Gaedynn added.
To his surprise, the firesoul looked chagrinned. “It might. Except that, unfortunately, you’ve mistaken me-us-for something we’re not.”
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