The Masked Witches

by Richard Lee Byers

  Frowning and struggling to understand them, he concentrated on the alien feelings. After a few moments he decided that the weapons themselves were unable to interpret what they were sensing. But because he was paying attention, just for an instant he heard Cera calling.

  Or had he? Her voice sounded faint and faraway, and more than that, there was a not-quite-real quality to it, like it had only called in his memory or imagination.

  Still, he answered. He shouted her name, but she didn’t shout back. Whatever he’d heard, or thought he’d heard, there was nothing left of it. He waved one of his mystified torchbearers up to the archway. The wavering yellow glow of the brand didn’t illuminate all that much of the branching passage, but the way was empty as far down as Vandar could see.

  He shook his head. If he tarried here long enough, would the fey weapons make sense of the mystery? If so, was that what he should do? If Cera was in danger—

  A sickly green glow appeared in the gloom ahead, down the passage he’d been traversing before the arch attracted his attention. It was the telltale glimmer of some enchantment surrounding shadowy figures negotiating the intersection where Vandar’s tunnel crossed another. The creature in the lead was big. It strode with a limp, and was carrying a greatsword.

  Vandar caught his breath. He was all but certain he’d just seen the “patchwork man” or “blaspheme”—the hulking thing his outlander allies thought might well be the leader of all the undead durthans and Nars.

  Vandar and his lodge brothers had already killed the giant demon upstairs, thereby winning that battle no matter what Aoth Fezim might claim. If they destroyed the patchwork man, too, then surely no one could deny they were the true saviors of Rashemen and deserved to claim the wild griffons for their own.

  But Cera …

  With a scowl, Vandar put the sunlady out of his mind. He didn’t know if she was really in trouble or somewhere down the seemingly deserted corridor beyond the archway at all. And even had he known, she was one of Aoth Fezim’s allies, and Aoth was a Thayan and a mercenary. He was dishonorable enough to flout the will of the spirits themselves to steal the wild griffons just as he’d tried to snatch Vandar’s spear. Dishonorable enough to abandon the brothers of the Griffon Lodge to fight the glabrezu by themselves, either out of cowardice or hope that the fiend would kill a rival. And, given that the ploy had failed, he was dishonorable enough to try to murder Vandar from the air, or so the guardian of the fey mound had warned.

  Because Vandar was honorable, he would never have raised his hand against Aoth and his friends until they demonstrated beyond any possible doubt that they meant to play him false. But that didn’t mean he was going to stand idly and uselessly in front of an empty passage while his destiny fled in another direction. He broke into a run, and his fellow berserkers charged behind him. In a moment, they’d left the archway behind.

  * * * * *

  Cera called Aoth’s name again, and the sound echoed away into the darkness.

  Jhesrhi felt a pang of irritation and strained to keep it from showing on her face, because Cera wasn’t the veteran soldier. If anyone was to blame for Aoth’s disappearance, it was Jhesrhi herself. If she’d kept him in sight, or reacted more quickly to the sounds of a struggle …

  She sighed. If was no more help than Cera’s shouting.

  “Stop yelling,” she said.

  “But—”

  “If Aoth were going to answer, he would have done it already,” she said.

  Cera shook her head. “This is all my fault,” she replied. “I told Dai Shan whom we were hunting. Then he fed it right back to us to lure us into this place.”

  “Probably,” said Jhesrhi. “But lamenting the fact won’t help us. We have to figure out what will.”

  Cera took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she replied. “When the two of them disappeared, you and I were trying to pick up the blaspheme’s trail. I couldn’t do it. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s not surprising if he never really came in here in the first place. Let’s try again, only this time, search for Aoth.”

  “All right.”

  With the stag warriors looking on, she and the sunlady moved back to the spots in which they had each chosen to work their magic.

  Jhesrhi’s jaw tightened as she rested her hand on the wall and reached for the consciousness inside. She loved communing with the elemental spirits of the mortal world. They were pure and simple—not maddeningly complicated and perverse like so many humans beings—and they were nearly always friendly and glad to help her. In contrast, the powers of the place they were in, like those of the Shadowfell, were foul to the psychic touch, spiteful, and required coercion to do her bidding.

  So it was coercion she applied, growling and rumbling words of power in one of the ponderous languages of Root Hold. The magic chipped and cracked the stone around her until finally, when it had had enough, it told her that it didn’t know where Aoth or Dai Shan was. It took pleasure in her disappointment.

  Maybe the cold, stale air knew what the stone didn’t. Preparing to ask, Jhesrhi focused her will anew. Cera abandoned her murmuring chant and said, “I can’t find them.”

  “Of course you can’t,” said a deep silky voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “How can Amaunator shed his light on secrets in a place where the Yellow Sun never shines?”

  As if to validate that statement, gloom smothered the glow Cera had conjured to light their way, not slowly as it had been doing all along, but as fast as a strong man strangling a kitten. With a jangling of bells, the stag warriors leveled their weapons and pivoted this way and that. Jhesrhi called flame from the core of her and concentrated its essence in the head of her staff.

  And something awful came out of the dark.

  F

  O

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  With their torches burning and their racing feet thumping the floor, Vandar and his lodge brothers had little hope of taking the patchwork man and his minions by surprise. When they drew near, he confirmed that it wasn’t going to happen. The walking dead and their haze of green phosphorescence had stopped and turned to make a stand at a spot where the corridor widened out into a pentagonal chamber.

  Despite running flat out, Vandar managed a screech, and some of his comrades did, too. As he sprinted to close the remaining distance, he watched for one of the slumped, decaying figures before him to aim a wand and hurl a burst of frost or blighting shadow. But none of them did. Maybe the witches and such had already exhausted their powers, he thought.

  Vandar threw the red spear, and it plunged through the patchwork’s man’s mail and into his chest. Without a twitch or the slightest change of expression, the hulking undead grabbed the shaft of the weapon, jerked it free, and dropped it clanging onto the floor.

  By that time, Vandar was close enough to see the mismatched eyes Aoth had mentioned: one glimmering yellow, the other dull, weeping slime, and possibly blind. The scars crisscrossing the blaspheme’s skin were oozing, too, as if the joins had never closed properly.

  As Vandar continued to raced toward the undead, the blaspheme’s greatsword whirled in a low cut. Vandar threw himself on the floor and rolled to avoid the stroke. The patchwork man pivoted, trying for a second slash, but Vandar was too quick for him. He simultaneously scrambled up and cut at the undead creature’s wrist.

  The crimson blade bit deep, and the greatsword wobbled in the patchwork man’s grip. Maybe he could shrug off a spear thrust to the torso, but he shouldn’t be able to manage his heavy two-handed weapon as well with ripped muscles and severed tendons.

  Vandar suddenly sensed danger at his back—or maybe the red sword sensed it for him. He whirled to find a masked, hooded durthan lunging at him with her clawed gray hands outstretched. She was already too close for a sword cut, so he punched instead. The blow hurled her back into the zombie rushin
g up behind her.

  His defense only stopped them momentarily, but in that moment, Vandar’s brothers caught up with him. They hurled themselves at the lesser undead and freed him to concentrate on the patchwork man.

  As he spun back around, the greatsword swept down at his head. He wrenched himself aside and cut at the blaspheme’s undamaged wrist. Again, the red sword cut deep.

  Even after that, the patchwork man somehow kept his grip on the greatsword’s hilt. But he could barely aim his attacks, and his parries and recoveries were slow. Hating him, riding the rage, Vandar circled him and slashed him to pieces.

  A couple of lesser undead survived their master, but only by a heartbeat or two. Then the warriors of the Griffon Lodge disposed of them as well.

  * * * * *

  Jet approached the Storm of Vengeance from high above, the safest and stealthiest way to do it. He wasn’t sure of a hostile reception, but there was ample reason to be wary of Mario Bez and his crew. The Halruaan had the scruples of a hungry rat, he was Aoth’s rival in the competition for the wild griffons, and his appearance at the Fortress of the Half-Demon was as unexpected and possibly as unfortunate as …

  Dai Shan? As a member of a more sensible species, Jet was largely immune to the feelings of incredulity and self-doubt that afflicted humankind. What he saw, he saw, and what he knew, he knew. But he found himself peering more closely at the elevated bow of the Storm to make sure the darkness wasn’t playing tricks on him.

  It wasn’t, so he studied the skyship. His experience with any sort of ship was happily limited—like all griffons, he had little use for the sea—but he understood the danger of colliding with any part of the complex web of rigging and sails. The results could easily be fatal. It was helpful that Dai Shan was at the end of the vessel rather than somewhere in the middle, but it didn’t eliminate the hazard entirely.

  Jet decided on the trajectory he wanted and wheeled to the start of it. Then he furled his wings and dived.

  Despite the darkness, one of the crew saw him swooping in and shouted. But no one had time to react to the cry. An instant later, Jet’s talons closed on Dai Shan where he stood peering down at the benighted stronghold with Bez. He jerked the merchant off his feet and carried him over the far rail.

  Beating his wings to regain the high air, the griffon rasped, “Where is Captain Fezim?”

  Dai Shan took a moment to reply. Maybe he needed to get past the shock of what had so abruptly befallen him. “With all respect, majestic commander of the skies,” he eventually said, “how would I know? I’ve only just arrived.”

  Jet closed his talons tightly enough that Dai Shan gasped and stiffened. “Don’t lie to me,” the griffon said. “Aoth and I are linked mind to mind. I saw you take him and the others through the gate into Shadow. He’s still gone, but somehow, you’re here. Tell me what happened.”

  “It’s fairly involved. I fear we may not have time.”

  “Stop stalling! Bez can’t help you now!”

  “Nor am I certain that doing so is foremost in his mind. If my mighty captor can climb or distance himself from the ship anymore quickly, I respectfully advise it.”

  * * * * *

  Mario Bez considered himself keen of eye and quick of mind. Still, though the huge black griffon had swooped within an arm’s reach of him, he’d barely glimpsed it as it snatched up and carried off Dai Shan.

  Still, a glimpse had sufficed, and fortunately, given that the Storm had reached her destination, all hands were at their battle stations. “Ready the catapults and ballistae!” he called.

  The artillerymen scrambled to obey. Melemer made sure the team under his immediate supervision was performing as it should be, then leered up at the forecastle. “The griffon thinks we won’t strike at it for fear of killing the Theskian, too,” he called.

  Bez smiled back at the little tiefling. “And it would be ungrateful of us. Dai Shan guided us here. He scouted the situation so we’d know what to do when we arrived. He claims to have rid us of Aoth Fezim, although he’s hazy on the details. Still, we wouldn’t want him to take it into his head to blackmail us with what he knows, and the Thayan’s talking steed poses a similar threat. It could tattle on us, too. So, all things considered, I believe we should take advantage of a happy opportunity to solve two problems at once.”

  “Ready, Captain!” a ballista man called. Down the length of the vessel, other sellswords shouted the same.

  “Lights!” called Bez.

  Crossbows shot in all directions. The quarrels exploded into orbs of light that only drifted earthward slowly, like thistledown. For the moment, their silvery glow did a fair job of illuminating the sky around the Storm.

  “Off the port bow,” shouted a crewman, “and three hands above the deck!”

  Those teams who had a shot scurried to pivot their weapons and adjust the elevations.

  “Not an easy shot,” Melemer said.

  “We’ll make it,” Olthe growled. The battleguard stepped up to the tiefling’s catapult, rested her hand on the throwing arm, and chanted a prayer to Tempus. Smirking, Melemer whispered a spell of his own, and points of red light glimmered over the surface of the weapon.

  “Kill the griffon!” shouted Bez.

  The catapults and ballistae loosed a clanking, snapping volley, and the missiles turned into blazing thunderbolts and orbs of fire in midflight. Most fell well short, flew far wide, or both.

  But the ball of flame from Melemer’s catapult hurtled at the mark. Plainly perceiving the danger, the black griffon lashed its wings and dodged out of the way.

  Olthe brandished her axe and shouted, “Tempus!” Melemer smacked the palms of his hands onto his stubby horns, displayed the resulting bloody little punctures to the heavens, and snarled two rhyming words in some Abyssal tongue. Gripping the hilt of the rapier hanging at his side, Bez rattled off an incantation of his own, but more for form’s sake than because he expected any of the magic to accomplish anything. The griffon had simply evaded too deftly.

  But the orb of fire veered in what was nearly a hairpin turn, a magical course correction so pronounced that, despite decades spent practicing battle wizardry, Bez had never seen the like. There was always an element of chaos and uncertainty in magic, the more so when multiple spells worked in concert. And it appeared that the arcane and divine forces at play on the Storm had achieved an amazingly potent synergy.

  Perhaps its power caught the griffon by surprise, too. The beast tried to dive and dodge again, but the luminous sphere hit it anyway. The missile exploded into a ragged, booming burst of yellow fire, and a burning mass tumbled out of the heart of the blast and plummeted toward the ground.

  Momentarily forgetting she didn’t like him, Olthe gave Melemer a clap on the shoulder. The buffet nearly knocked him off his feet.

  * * * * *

  Vandar roamed through the corpse-littered courtyard and the chambers adjacent to it, checking on his brothers. Despite the magic of his crimson weapons, which evidently, had some power to delay the onset of fatigue, he felt the same grinding exhaustion as the others. But as lodge master, it was his duty to offer praise, guidance, encouragement, jokes, or consolation as needed.

  Too often, it was the last. The entire Griffon Lodge was a tight-knit fellowship, and nearly everyone had lost at least one close comrade. The society as a whole had lost half its initiates and all its more notable allies as well. Aoth, Jhesrhi, Jet, and the Stag King had all either perished or disappeared.

  Vandar felt a pang of his own grief, or perhaps even guilt. His brothers had died because he had led them to the Fortress. And for all he knew, Cera and the other outlanders might conceivably have survived if he hadn’t turned away when he heard her calling.

  The red metal shaft of his spear warmed in his hand, and he realized such self-reproach was pointless. His fallen brothers had been warriors, and they’d died as they would have chosen, fighting to destroy a threat to Rashemen. They’d succeeded, too, and as a result, the lodge th
ey’d loved would henceforth stand as high, or higher, than any in the land. Recruits would pour in to replenish its depleted ranks.

  And as for the outlanders … The mound guardian’s prophecy said that, had they lived, they and Vandar were fated to be enemies. That being the case, wouldn’t it be foolish to regret the manner of their passing? Wasn’t it better that they’d died before they had had the chance to betray a comrade and so disgrace their names?

  Remember the dead, but move on, he thought. Focus on getting his weary, wounded brothers home, claiming and taming the griffons, and building the lodge into a warrior fraternity whose fame would live forever.

  Smiling, he stepped back out into the morning sunlight to organize the trek south. And then he faltered, because five stag warriors were waiting in front of the doorway. Their brown eyes fixed on him.

  Vandar had been so busy seeing to the needs of his own people that he’d half forgotten the fey. It occurred to him that they might well feel demoralized and confused. They’d suffered heavy casualties just like the berserkers, and on top of that, they’d lost the lord and progenitor who had, until yesterday, given purpose and order to their lives.

  “Uh … hello,” he said. “My brothers and I are grateful to you for fighting alongside us, and we mourn for your fallen comrades. And … Well, plainly, our work is done now. The fight is over. So I suppose you should take whatever you want in the way of plunder and go back home. And know that we will always be your friends.”

  The stag warriors kept staring at him. They didn’t understand a word he’d just blathered, and with no one left who spoke Elvish, there was nobody to translate.

  Vandar gestured to the open gate and the wide world outside. The stag men followed the sweep of his arm, but then just looked back at him.

  He shook his head in perplexity. It occurred to him to wonder why they were interested in him in particular. What differentiated him from all the other humans? It might be that he was the one striding around giving instructions, but he suspected it was the fey weapons.