The Masked Witches

by Richard Lee Byers

  “Yes,” Jet rasped, “where is … There!”

  Because he was wheeling to aim himself directly at the creature in question, Cera had no difficulty seeing where he meant. The three-headed skeleton with the war hammer and bulky gauntlet was standing on the roof of the donjon.

  Aoth looked down into the courtyard, and Cera realized with a pang of guilt that he was making sure Jhesrhi was all right. She herself had forgotten all about their friend, even though they’d all been intent on rescuing her mere moments before. The frenzy of what followed had wiped the thought from her mind.

  “All right,” said Aoth. “Let’s do it!”

  Jet hurtled at the top of the keep like an arrow. The skull lord tossed his gauntleted hand. A bat-winged devil somewhat like the imps, but man-sized and covered in quills, appeared above him. The spinagon instantly lashed its wings and flew out over the courtyard. It whipped its arm and threw a volley of quills, which burst into flame as they shot through the air.

  Jet raised one wing, dipped the other, and dodged the attack. Aoth growled a rhyme, pointed his spear at the spined devil, and a thunderbolt boomed from the point to blast it apart.

  Jet jerked, and Cera realized that something had hurt him somehow. But his wings beat as smoothly and as strongly as ever, sweeping them all toward their foe as swiftly as before, so evidently it hadn’t been bad.

  Aoth recited the words to conjure more lightning. Cera drew down the Keeper’s power and flung it from the head of her mace in a blaze of brilliant light. The two attacks struck the armored skeleton simultaneously and blasted him apart.

  “We got him!” Cera cried.

  “Not yet,” Aoth said through gritted teeth, and Jet kept on driving at the rooftop as fast as before. She realized they understood something she didn’t. And an instant later, she saw what it was.

  The skull lord’s charred, splintered form flew back together, reassembling him, although for the most part, his broken bones didn’t whisk their bent, smoking scraps of armor along with them. That wreckage still lay where it had fallen. But other than that, the undead Nar appeared restored except that he had only two skulls instead of three.

  As the skeletal mage sprang to his feet, a crimson light glimmered in the eye sockets of the skull on the right. A great flare of dark red, foul-looking flame leaped forth, and, just a heartbeat short of the rooftop, Jet had to lash his wings and wrench himself off course to dodge it. By the time the griffon had corrected, the skull lord was scrambling through a door that likely opened onto stairs leading down into the keep.

  Still, the creature was only a moment ahead of his pursuers. Jet thumped down on the rooftop, and, responding to Aoth’s will, the saddle straps instantly unbuckled themselves. He and Cera leaped out of the saddle and ran toward the door.

  With a deafening bang, an even larger blast of red fire blew the entrance apart, staggering everyone and jolting the whole roof. When Cera approached the wreckage, coughing and her eyes stinging from the haze of grit now fouling the air, it was plain the detonation had collapsed the stairwell and rendered it impassable. She spat a curse she’d heard some of the coarser members of the Brotherhood use: a reference to Lady Firehair’s anatomy as blasphemous as it was obscene.

  “Easy,” said Aoth, “we’ll kill the thing. Just not right now.”

  “Don’t you have magic that will—” she began.

  Aoth waved his spear to indicate the rest of the castle and the battle still raging there. “For now, the fight is here,” he said. “Our allies need us to kill the creatures on the wall-walks. And now that we control the highest point in the fortress, we’re in a good position to do it.”

  * * * * *

  Bugles blared. Welvelod sensed surges of motion on every side.

  The horns were sounding the retreat. Casting about, the undead Raumathari warrior saw that his allies were doing their frantic best to disengage from their foes and scurry toward the various doors that led into the interior of the fortress. Someone—Uramar himself, most likely—must have decided that their side was losing.

  Welvelod whirled and bolted for one of the doors into the keep. A stag man jumped in his path and tried to spear him in the chest. He slipped the blow and stabbed at his attacker’s flank as he sprinted on by.

  Something thumped him between the shoulder blades, pitching him forward into a stumble but not quite making him fall. He didn’t know what had hit him—a missile or a handheld weapon—and he didn’t bother looking back to find out.

  He tripped over the twitching body of an ice troll, and again had to fight to regain his balance. Reeling onward, he saw that the keep, and safety, were just ahead. A Nar demonbinder, his withered gray limbs covered in tattoos and a round brass amulet hanging around his neck, was holding the ironbound door as a pair of goblins scurried through.

  The wizard looked straight at Welvelod, then gave him a grin and slammed the door with a bang like a thunderclap.

  You filthy Nar bastard! Welvelod thought, just as something rammed into the back of his knee. He fell forward onto the ground. As he rolled over, a second spear thrust caught him in the face.

  E

  L

  E

  V

  E

  N

  The various doors around the castle slammed with a series of thunderous bangs. Gazing down from the rooftop of the keep, Aoth tried to judge if any of the enemy were left trapped in the corner towers or any of the smaller structures along the walls.

  “No,” rasped Jet. “According to the Rashemi, the Fortress of the Half-Demon is famous for the dungeons and tunnels underneath it. My guess is that no matter what door a troll or a witch ducked into, there is a way to join up with the rest.”

  “You’re probably right,” Aoth said. “Curse it, anyway.”

  “Did you think we could stop them from locking themselves in the donjon?” Cera asked, breathing heavily. Despite the cold, her round face was sweaty, and she looked like she was feeling the weight of her mace and armor.

  “Not really,” said Aoth. “Given the haphazard way we tackled this, it went as well as we had any right to expect.” He took another look over the battlements. There were a couple of living—or undead—foes still left out in the open, but none that looked worth a burst of his magic. The men-at-arms could deal with them. “Come on, let’s get down there.”

  He swung himself onto Jet’s back, and Cera climbed up behind him, buckling in. The griffon lashed his wings and leaped over the row of merlons.

  As Jet swooped downward, Aoth looked for Jhesrhi. Still unharmed, she’d already set about the task of burning fallen trolls and the undead. Vandar and the Stag King were all right, too, and it seemed that neither the stag warriors nor the berserkers had suffered an inordinate number of casualties.

  The latter were pounding at the castle doors with any makeshift battering ram they could find. But a door wasn’t a foe, and without flesh to cut and blood to spill, the berserker rage had little to feed it. One or two at a time, they abandoned the futile assault and stumbled away, gray-faced and shivering.

  The Brotherhood, thought Aoth, would still have been strong and ready for another fight. But he knew he wasn’t being altogether fair. Even Khouryn’s infantry couldn’t have managed that mad charge into the castle any better than Vandar’s lodge brothers. In fact, despite all their training, they might not have managed as well. There was a time for discipline and tactics—and as far as Aoth was concerned, it was most of the time—but a time for sheer fury as well.

  As soon as the saddle straps had unbuckled, Cera jumped off Jet’s back and went looking for those who needed her healing ministrations. Aoth took another glance around, just in case something was apparent at ground level that even fire-kissed eyes had missed from the air, and spotted the butt of Vandar’s red spear peeking out from under the dead bugbear that had fallen on top of it.

  Jet sprang back into the air to keep watch over the battleground from on high. Aoth walked over to the spear and pick
ed it up. He caught his breath at the force and intricate structure of the enchantments he sensed inside it, and felt instantly wary of the weapon. It wasn’t that it was cursed, or at least, its maker hadn’t intended it to be. But he didn’t like the feeling that as he studied it, it was taking his measure as well.

  “That’s mine!” called Vandar.

  Aoth turned to find that the lodge master had come up behind him. He was glaring like he was still facing an enemy, and he still had the red sword in his grip.

  Making sure he didn’t hurry or look rattled, Aoth proffered the weapon butt first. “I know,” he replied. “I was just saving you the trouble of having to look for it.”

  “I can understand that you covet it,” Vandar said. “But the spirits gave it to me, just like they mean for me to have the griffons.”

  Aoth stared into the other man’s eyes. “But you’ll settle for half of them,” he said. “Because you do remember giving your word?”

  Vandar held his gaze for a long moment. Then he blinked, and something that might have been confusion or even a trace of shame flickered across his face. “Yes,” he said. “I mean, I keep faith with those who keep faith with me.” He hefted the spear. “Thanks for finding this.”

  “Be careful with it and the sword,” Aoth said. “I don’t know much about fey weapons—”

  Vandar turned toward the spot where some of his fellow berserkers were still trying to smash down a door. “Can’t magic break through there?” he asked.

  Aoth sighed and said, “I hope so, but it’s not going to do it yet. Call your men back.”

  “We shouldn’t give the durthans time to regroup!” the lodge master said.

  “We need time to regroup,” replied Aoth. “Your brothers need to recover their strength, or the enemy will butcher them as soon as they do get inside. Your wounded need care, or they’re likely to die. Is that what you want?”

  The Rashemi took a breath. “No,” he said. “It’s just that stopping halfway isn’t how a berserker fights.” He raised his voice to a bellow. “Brothers! Leave the doors alone for now! Just watch them, and help the wounded!”

  “While you and I,” said Aoth, “confer with our fellow officers.”

  They headed for the Stag King, who currently stood amid the phantom beasts he’d wrested from the durthans’ control and brought under his own. An enormous wolf fawned at his feet, squirrels sat on his shoulders, and wrens and crows perched on the points of his antlers. It might have looked comical if not for their misty appearance, the foxfire in their eyes, and the gore caking the head of the fey lord’s weapon.

  “That didn’t go too badly,” said Aoth.

  The Stag King nodded. “I see you pulled the Rashemi back from the doors,” he said.

  “They’ve taken a beating already,” said Aoth. “Maybe, when we do get the doors open, your warriors should go in first.”

  The spirit grinned as he replied, “Would that work? I’d be worried that such heroes would charge regardless, and trample my folk in their eagerness to close with the foe.”

  Vandar snorted. “We might at that,” he said. “It’s all right, Thayan. The Griffon Lodge is happy to take the lead, in this fight or any other.”

  Fine, Aoth thought. Be an idiot. What do I care?

  Aloud, he said, “We need more men on the walls. After we put them there, we should be able to relax a little. Eat, rest, and recover both our physical strength and our spells. Let’s plan on breaching the donjon a little before sundown.”

  “So you want to fight the undead at night?” asked Zyl. Aoth looked down to find the black hare crouching near his foot.

  The Stag King shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “It will be dark inside the keep and in the vaults underneath no matter when we venture in.”

  “That’s true,” said Aoth. “And we should expect it’s going to get nasty. The enemy knows the ground, and we don’t. Most of them will be able to see better than most of us can. They’ll try to split us up and lure us into traps. Which means that if we lose our heads, either to panic or to bloodlust, and go rushing off into the dark, we’re done for. Vandar, can you control your lodge brothers?”

  “Even when the fury takes us,” the Rashemi answered, “we don’t lose all our sense.” He surprised Aoth by smiling a wry little smile. “Not all of us, not every time. We’ll divide up into war bands, each led by a brother far advanced in the mysteries—a man who can ride the anger instead of letting it ride him. The others will move when he moves and stop when he stops.”

  “Good,” Aoth said as he turned to the Stag King. “And you can manage your warriors? I confess, I don’t understand much about them, but I don’t imagine they’ve spent much time underground.”

  “They’ll be all right,” the spirit replied. “Anyway, they’re my concern, not yours.”

  Aoth took a breath of the smoky air. “I’m not trying to set myself about you, Highness,” he said. “Or you, Vandar. But someone has to think about the overall tactical picture. And maybe a captain who’s taken more fortresses and fought more undead than he can remember, and who doesn’t have the management of one particular part of our army to preoccupy him, is a good choice for the job.”

  The Stag King waved a dismissive hand. “All right, human,” he said. “Perhaps you have a point. I promise, I’ll at least listen to whatever you recommend.”

  Vandar nodded curtly. “So will I,” he said.

  Finally! thought Aoth.

  Jet laughed his screeching laugh inside his master’s head. They just want someone to blame if it all goes wrong.

  * * * * *

  Uramar noted how the mushy flesh of the little demonic half-corpse oozed and dripped in Falconer’s grip. The skull lord himself looked somewhat the worse for wear. He still had his gauntlet, but the same skirmish that had charred bits of his bones black had cost him the rest of his gear, and he’d thrown on a brigandine that hung like a sack on his skeletal frame.

  The biggest change was the loss of one of his skulls. A pair of Uramar’s broken selves—two of the more erudite and less sane ones—were debating whether the Nar could somehow procure another or must manage with only two forevermore.

  For a moment their voices waxed painfully loud. Uramar resisted the impulse to grit his teeth and pound at his temples. His command had just lost a fight, and the warrior parts of him understood that at such a juncture, his officers mustn’t see him acting crazy or distressed. It would be bad for morale.

  Suddenly, the half-corpse spoke, distracting him from his discomfort. “I humbly apologize for making you wait, noblest of wizards. But I’m sure that you comprehend that, surrounded as I am by our mutual enemies, I can’t always answer instantly.”

  According to Falconer, the little half-demon was relaying the words of one Dai Shan, a merchant adventurer out of Thesk. The mortal’s accent was strange to Uramar, but his light baritone voice conveyed intelligence and self-assurance.

  “We’re under siege here,” Falconer snapped. “Why didn’t you warn me that the Griffon Lodge and their allies were coming?”

  “Would that I could have,” Dai Shan said, “but to my eternal regret, I didn’t know. I’m sure such a sagacious leader as youself can appreciate that, even though I gather intelligence as assiduously as I can, I’m not privy to everybody’s plans. Are you in serious difficulty?”

  “I’ve had better days,” the Nar replied. “Is there anything you can do to help us?”

  Dai Shan hesitated, or perhaps it simply took a moment for the magic to carry his words across the intervening distance. “Perhaps, august magus, perhaps,” he said. “As it happens—”

  With a soft slurping sound, the remaining flesh of the half-corpse liquefied all at once. It slipped off the little demon’s bones and spilled to the floor in a splash of filth. A couple of Uramar’s voices shrieked with laughter. A more squeamish soul wanted to puke, and its nausea churned his stomach.

  “I take it that’s the end of the conversation
?” Nyevarra asked. The vampire witch seemed vibrant with impatience. Uramar suspected it was less because her allies had lost the first fight than because the sunlight had kept her from participating and drinking the blood of those who fell victim to her powers.

  “Yes,” Falconer said. He dropped the imp’s bones into the puddle of rot at his feet.

  “It’s just as well,” said Pevkalondra, sneering. A lustrous, eyeball-sized pearl was set in the left orbit of her shriveled face; and tiny silver scorpions crawled like lice in the folds of her faded blue velvet robe. Since there were only a handful of Raumvirans in the fortress, she arguably didn’t enjoy quite the same status as Falconer and Nyevarra and needn’t have been included in a council of war. But some of Uramar’s shrewder voices had maintained it was politic to summon her to the keep’s shadowy, ruinous great hall along with the other two.

  Falconer pivoted to fix the ghoul with his double stare. “And why is that?” he asked.

  “Because anyone could hear the treachery in that oh-so-unctuous voice,” Pevkalondra said. “I would have thought even a Nar would notice. But perhaps—”

  “Don’t start!” Uramar said. “Please. We’re all brothers and sisters now, united by the creed of Lod. And even if we weren’t, this would hardly be the time to renew old quarrels among ourselves.”

  “I realized the Shou probably couldn’t help us,” Falconer said through gritted teeth. “But it did no harm to communicate with him, and there’s no reason to think he’s playing us false. He said he chiseled the marks in the tombs under the Iron Lord’s castle, and if so—”

  Uramar raised his hand with its crooked, mismatched fingers, ridged scars, and piebald skin. “You don’t have to justify yourself,” he said. “I thought it was worth talking to him myself. Now we need to consider the question he asked us. Are we in serious difficulty?”

  Nyevarra made a spitting sound. “Of course not!” she said. “I’m not the only durthan who couldn’t venture outside into the daylight. In the tunnels, we can turn the fight around.”