The Masked Witches

by Richard Lee Byers

  Bez nodded. “Naturally, the Storm will participate, too.”

  “You’ll discover,” the Aglarondan said, “that one skyship can’t cover ground the way twenty griffonriders can.”

  “Maybe so,” the sellsword said, smiling, “but at least I know I can count on you Aglarondans to summon me for the actual fighting. I mean, considering that His Highness is riding aboard my vessel. You surely aren’t planning to attack without involving him.”

  “Of course not,” Dulsaer snapped.

  “Let’s move out,” Mangan said, and in another moment, Dulsaer and Bez were both bellowing commands. The other Aglarondans led their screeching griffons to spots where gaps in the branches overhead would make it easy to ascend. Several sellswords scrambled to collect the bodies of the hathrans and even the fox. The rest trotted for their ship.

  Vandar rounded on Aoth and Jhesrhi. “What are you waiting for?” he asked. “Call another wind.”

  Aoth shook his head. “No need,” he said. “We’re not going.”

  Vandar gaped at him. “Why not?” he asked.

  “Is it something to do with the tomb?” Cera asked. “The markings?”

  “Maybe,” said Aoth. At that moment, a cloud blew across the face of the sun, and in the sudden dimness, his luminous blue eyes seemed to flare brighter. “Maybe not. But I have a hunch or two. Everyone wonders how the killers departed without leaving a trail. But what if there’s no trail because somehow, some way, they never left?”

  “And we missed seeing them?” Jhesrhi asked. “Is that possible with your truesight?”

  “Even I don’t see everything,” said Aoth. “Anyway, ask yourself, what’s the point of defiling a place of power?”

  “Maybe just to spoil it for people you hate,” Cera said. “But sometimes to taint the power for use in a darker form of magic.”

  “Right,” Aoth said, nodding. “So maybe, after Mangan and the others have gone away, and the sun sets, the killers will come out of hiding—or sneak back to the grove if they really did withdraw to somewhere else—to do that. We’re going to be here to meet them.”

  Vandar scowled. “I’m not,” he said. “That all sounded like so much guesswork for me. I’m going with the others.”

  “You can try to beg a ride,” said Aoth, “but I doubt you’ll have any better luck than the Shou did. And even if someone takes pity on you, and even if the others actually locate the enemy, how will you show off your kind of prowess while the Aglarondans are loosing arrows and Bez’s sellswords are hurling blasts of flame and lightning from on high? Staying here gives you a chance to prove your worth.”

  Glowering, Vandar stood and pondered. Eventually, he said, “I’ll stay. But you’d better be right.”

  A huge black shape plunged down from on high. Cera jumped, and Vandar jerked his javelin up over his shoulder for throwing.

  “What did I miss?” Jet rasped.

  * * * * *

  Riding Jet above the grove, Aoth felt a chill. With a touch and a thought, he roused the magic of one of his tattoos. The result was only a feeble, fleeting pulse of warmth. He’d invoked the enchantment too often. Its strength would renew itself, but not quickly enough to do him much good tonight.

  You humans are so delicate, said Jet. He wheeled for another pass, and his ebony feathers reflected a glint of Selûne’s silvery light. It reminded Aoth of the Moonmaiden’s servant lying twisted and rotting in her black and argent mantle, and he felt a stab of anger.

  He supposed that was stupid if not downright unprofessional. After all, he’d never even met the woman, and there couldn’t be many people across the length and breadth of Faerûn who’d seen more slaughtered corpses than he had. But still, at that moment, the thought of a priestess slain by magic troubled him. Chathi had died that way.

  He still missed her occasionally, even after a hundred years. He wondered if he would soon be missing Cera, too, once the other sunladies and lords decided to elevate her as she deserved. They were going to choose Daelric’s successor at Greengrass, so—

  Motion in the trees below jolted him from his musings.

  Darkness was nearly the same as light to him, while distance was far less of a hindrance than it was to other men. Still, trying to see through crisscrossed branches, and peering down from overhead, it was hard to make out much more than the tops of hoods. But over the course of several heartbeats, the details started coming clear.

  Swaying and stepping in unison, as though to music only they could hear, a line of robed women was weaving toward the huts and the blighted tree. Given their location, it was conceivable they’d crawled up out of the ancient tomb. Aoth found that possibility perplexing, but not as troubling as the fact that they were masked.

  What in the name of the deepest Hell? he thought. Is there such a thing as an outlaw hathran? A traitor hathran?

  Without a doubt, said Jet. Don’t you know your own species?

  Wolves prowled among the masked women. So did vague, flowing shapes like the shadows of wolves. Aoth’s frown deepened. The phantoms reminded him of creatures he’d fought during the War of the Zulkirs, darkness itself given form and a mockery of life by necromantic arts.

  He tensed as the procession neared its destination. One petty drawback of inhumanly keen eyesight was that it was sometimes difficult to judge just how well a comrade had succeeded in concealing himself. Despite crouching behind cover and all but burying themselves in snow, Cera, Jhesrhi, and Vandar were plainly visible to him. He breathed a sigh of relief when none of the enemy paid them any attention. The witches seemingly had no idea that the clear patch of ground was surrounded.

  They did set sentries, though, albeit in a haphazard fashion. The wolves, corporeal and otherwise, prowled, sniffed, and peered out into the trees. The witches—Aoth counted thirteen altogether—arranged themselves in a semicircle in front of the ruined oak and started a moaning incantation.

  Aoth frowned, because the dismal wail had a muffled, faraway quality. Even as he listened, he could almost doubt that he was truly hearing anything at all, except, maybe, the beginnings of madness echoing inside his head. The air grew colder.

  They’re working necromancy right now, Aoth concluded. Or they’re undead themselves.

  Or both, answered Jet.

  For a while, the masked women only moaned. Then they started making beckoning motions toward the tree, curling what Aoth now observed to be gray, shriveled fingers. The patches of rot seethed and bubbled, and the the whole oak writhed. More bark flaked from the trunk, and twigs fell from the branches.

  Suddenly, a figure lurched from the tree like a drunkard stumbling over a rut in the street.

  The entity was twice as tall as any of the undead hathrans—for Aoth was virtually certain that’s what they were—and seemingly made of a blur of greenish phosphorescence. Or most of it was. As the oak had pockets of decay eating into it, the insubstantial giant had bits and patches of darkness blemishing its form.

  The giant flailed its hand at the witches, but the blow passed harmlessly over their heads. The only effect was to cost Vandar’s “wise old spirit”—for that it surely was, not slain after all, but wounded and crippled—its balance, and it dropped noiselessly to its knees. A couple of the flesh-and-blood wolves snarled, howling at its helplessness and humiliation. This display of cruel mirth led Aoth to consider the possibility that the beasts were actually werewolves.

  One of the witches silenced them with a snap of her fingers before she and her sisters resumed their moaning. The patches of shadow inside the giant expanded, sending inky tendrils slithering through the glow, as the spirit hung its head and shuddered.

  Aoth wondered how long to let the witches continue. He and his comrades were apt to learn quite a bit as they watched. Yet they couldn’t allow the oak spirit to be killed, enslaved, or corrupted in some fundamental way.

  He was still considering the matter when Vandar screamed a war cry that was a fair imitation of a griffon’s screech, sprang up
from under the pine where he’d lain concealed, and charged. He’d taken off his beadwork regalia, perhaps to not risk it getting damaged or bloodstained.

  Startled, the witches and their four-footed servants froze for a moment. It gave the berserker—who certainly appeared berserk at that moment—a chance to land a cut to the head of one of the corporeal wolves. The beast fell down but rolled to its feet again, its resistance to common steel confirming Aoth’s suspicion.

  Idiot! said Jet with a snarl.

  Aoth agreed. He hadn’t been too worried about the undead witches’ superior numbers or their presumably potent magic to that point, because he’d intended that he and his allies would make a coordinated surprise attack. But that couldn’t happen anymore.

  Of course, Aoth thought, some folk might say that the effects of Vandar’s recklessness weren’t all bad, because Vandar wasn’t really a comrade. He was a competitor, and Aoth’s mission would be that much simpler if the Rashemi didn’t survive the consequences of his folly. But even as the thought flickered through his mind, he was already aiming his spear; and Jet, discerning his actual intent, was diving.

  Aoth spoke a word of command, and darts of blue light hurtled from the head of his weapon into the body of the wounded werewolf. The shapeshifter collapsed, but unlike with Vandar’s attack, didn’t jump back up.

  Staying crouched behind a pine tree, Jhesrhi made a jabbing motion with her staff. The brass glowed, and so did her golden eyes, while the evergreen boughs brushing against the metal charred. Flames leaped from the tip of an arcane weapon, annihilating one of the shadow wolves, then jumping to set a werewolf ablaze.

  Cera stood straight up and stepped out into the open. Swinging her gilded mace over her head, she shouted, “Your time is past!”

  Light flared around her, as though, in the middle of the night, she was nonetheless standing in sunshine. A shadow wolf lunging at Vandar’s flank withered away to nothing, and several of the witches recoiled.

  But one of the undead didn’t flinch: a witch who had nearly completed a spell. Glaring in Vandar’s direction, her voice rose on the final syllables of her incantation, as she brandished an orb of black crystal over her head.

  Jet leveled out from his dive and hurtled at her. His talons slammed into her body, yanked her off her feet, and dragged her across the cleared area. In the process of tearing free, his claws ripped the witch apart.

  With a reflexive stab of alarm, Aoth saw that Jet didn’t have enough room to climb back up into the sky. The clear space wasn’t long enough, and the familiar was going too fast.

  Relax, said Jet. He furled his wings, and he and his master plunged to earth just a couple of paces shy of the tree with which they’d been about to collide.

  The griffon whirled to confront the foes rushing to attack. A ghostly wolf sprang, and he met it with a snap of his beak.

  Unfortunately, the shadow beast’s insubstantial nature protected it. It plunged right through the griffon’s beak and sank its fangs into his chest. Thanks to their psychic link, Aoth felt the resulting burst of frigid pain.

  But he couldn’t afford to pay attention to it. He had to trust the griffon to deal with the close combat while he fought the witches hanging back to attack at range.

  There were three of them. The one on the left wore brown robes and a wooden mask through which her milky eyes peered. She was pointing a dagger at him. The witch in the middle sported a black cloak and hood sewn with an over-layer of dangling bones. Her mask was a leering skull face that had evidently come from a real skull. In contrast to the others, the third witch had thrown back her cloak to reveal a spindly form clad only in a steel mask and a ragged, mold-spotted shift. Intricate tattooing crawled on every inch of her exposed gray skin.

  All three were already chanting and sweeping their arcane foci through mystic passes. Aoth discharged another of the ones stored inside his spear.

  A curtain of flying slashing blades flashed into existence and flew toward the trio. The witch with the milky eyes and the one cloaked in bones reeled out of the spell’s effect with clothes and flesh tattered. The former’s left arm hung useless, all but severed. But the tattooed hathran sprang clear like a cat, before any of the blades could touch her. She snarled the final word of her spell and clenched her fist.

  A cloud of swirling vapor burst into existence around Aoth. His eyes burned, flooding with blinding tears. The same fire seared him from his nostrils and his lips all the way down into his chest. He coughed and choked, unable to catch his breath.

  Aoth activated the tattoo he wore to counter poison, slapping at it through his mail. The burning abated for him, but he could still feel the echo of Jet’s distress.

  The griffon spread his wings, lashed them, and leaped, carrying them clear of the cloud. Shaking, he retched and spat.

  Are you all right? asked Aoth.

  Fine! the griffon said with a snarl. Just don’t let them do it again!

  Aoth could tell the griffon wasn’t fine. He, himself, could barely breathe and barely see. But Jet was right. There was no time for anything but battle.

  Blinking, Aoth cast about for the trio of undead hathrans. Residual sickness from the poison and dazzling flashes—Jhesrhi and Cera fighting their own foes with conjured fire and sunlight—made it harder to find them than it should have been. The first thing to catch his eye was a corpse lying in the fog cloud, slowly warping from wolf back into man, while a pair of lupine shadows charged out of the vapor after Jet. Vandar, painted with blood from at least two wounds, swung his sword and cut a hathran’s neck.

  Finally, Aoth located his particular foes in the flickering, lunging chaos. He leveled his spear and rattled off an incantation. A blast of wind sent the witch with the nearly severed arm staggering back amid the flying blades, still slashing away in the area where he’d placed them. There came a rapid thunk-thunk-thunk as the magic hacked her to pieces.

  One down! But at that same instant, the hathran with the mantle of bones thrust out her withered arm, and a ragged flare of darkness exploded from the tips of her jagged nails.

  Aoth invoked the protective power of another tattoo. He didn’t think there was anything else he could do. But though Jet was still half blind, defending by sheer instinct against shadow wolves that kept darting in, biting, and retreating, the griffon nonetheless perceived the witch’s threat. With another great spring and beating of his wings, he leaped above the magic that, an instant later, splintered the front of the hut like a barrage of razors. And he landed right in front of the creature who’d cast it.

  The witch flourished her cape. Bones tore loose from it and battered Aoth like sling stones. Crying out at the pain, he charged his spear with destructive power and thrust.

  The head of the weapon flared blue as it drove deep into the witch’s chest. With a thunderous boom, force blasted out from the point of penetration and tore her body to shreds.

  Jet whirled to confront the shadow wolves again. As he did so, Aoth glimpsed Cera hurling a shaft of light from the spherical head of her mace. Meanwhile, a second mace—seemingly made of radiance and wielded by an invisible hand—bashed a werewolf and held it away from her. Jhesrhi, standing straight and tall, had wrapped herself in blue and yellow flame from head to toe and was engaging the undead witches in a duel of spells.

  Aoth located his remaining opponent just as the tattooed lines leaped from her flesh in a flying tangle. The leading edge of the spell’s effect lashed him like whips before settling on him like a wire net.

  The strands slithered around him and started to draw tight. He snarled words of power, and, straining against the constriction, sought to drag his hand through the proper mystic figure. The undead creature raised her hands high, her rotting skin hanging in rags—freeing the tattoos that had all but flayed her. As she lashed her hands down, they blurred into the hands of a troll, too large for her arms, with greenish hide and long claws.

  The hathran screamed and sprang over Jet’s head. But at that in
stant, Aoth completed his counterspell. The animated mesh sizzled out of existence.

  He snapped his spear into line and impaled the witch. He sent power surging through the weapon and blasted her apart.

  He felt an instant of savage satisfaction. But the feeling crashed into dismay as Jet collapsed beneath him, and a feeling of cold, numb weakness flooded across their psychic link.

  Aoth had to get out of the saddle lest he end up pinned under the griffon’s body. He willed the straps holding him in place to unbuckle themselves, heaved himself clear, and slammed down into the snow.

  At once, a hathran in a fanged, slant-eyed mask loomed over him, but Vandar rushed at her and distracted her. Aoth floundered to his feet and, furious at what the creatures had done to Jet, leveled his spear at the shadow wolves that were still tearing at the griffon.

  The beasts rounded on Aoth and charged. He infused the head of his spear with blazing, crackling lightning and met the first with a thrust to the chest that burned the creature from existence.

  The other lunged inside his reach and tried to snap its fangs shut on his arm. But although mere steel links couldn’t have kept them out of his flesh, the enchantments bound in the metal did. Aoth dropped the spear, growled a word that concentrated stinging power in his fist, and hammered it down on the phantom creature’s head. The creature withered away to nothing.

  Aoth automatically cast about, making sure no new foe was advancing to attack him, then touched Jet’s mind with his own. The familiar was alive but unconscious, and in urgent need of care.

  Cera could provide it, but she, Jhesrhi, and Vandar were still fighting. Aoth pivoted and snarled incantations, scarcely pausing between one and the next, as he hurled darts of light and booming thunderbolts until every last hathran, werewolf, and shadow beast was gone.

  Gasping and stumbling, Cera hurried to Jet’s side. Vandar and Jhesrhi followed. The Rashemi looked shaky and spent with his rage having run its course, and he was finally feeling the effects of the superficial but bloody cuts in his scalp and forearm. Only Jhesrhi appeared untouched by all that had transpired as she snuffed her aura of flame.