"With a god endorsing her point of view," Lauzoril said.
"Are you sure?" Lallara asked. "Dmitra is the zulkir of Illusion. Perhaps she tricked us into believing the Black Hand spoke to us."
"I hope you're wrong," Lauzoril said, "because that would make it Szass Tam and two other zulkirs against the rest of us. But let's stay focused on the lich's new servant. We no longer have a wizard with a special understanding of dreams in our company. But we do have an authority on undeath."
Zola's mouth tightened. "If you're asking me if I know how to stop the creature, Your Omnipotence, I'm sorry, but the answer is no."
Lallara sneered. "Zola Sethrakt at a loss. How astonishing."
"Perhaps," Lauzoril said, "since the dream vestige is a form of undead, the priests can destroy or at least repel it."
"Don't count on it," Nevron said. "I watched Iphegor Nath and a circle of his acolytes try and fail. I detest that arrogant whoreson, but he's the best of his breed. He always has been."
"The Order of Abjuration," Lallara said, "can try to devise a ward to hold the dream vestige back. Although if it can jump back and forth between this world and some astral realm, that makes the task more difficult."
"Perhaps it's time," Lauzoril said, "to ask ourselves whether it even matters if we can devise a defense against the dream entity."
Nevron glowered at him. "Are you suggesting what I think you are?"
"Reluctantly," the zulkir of Enchantment replied, "but someone has to say it. We just lost the greater part of our military strength."
"We have other troops," Nevron said.
"Who are out of position to confront the horde of undead that is surely racing south, and too few to stop it even if they could. Because somehow, Szass Tam has raised a vast new army when it should have been impossible. He and his necromancers also appear to have discovered how to make wizardry reliable again while the solution still eludes us. In short, the lich holds every advantage."
"I don't care," Nevron said.
"Nor does it matter to me," Lauzoril responded, "what your pride obliges you to do. But I don't intend to die struggling to cling to my position in a realm that mostly lies in ruins anyway. Not if the cause is hopeless."
"It may be that Szass Tam would offer us terms," Samas said.
Lallara laughed. "Now that his victory is at hand? He'd butcher you and feed your bloated carcass to his ghouls before you could even blink."
"Even if he was inclined to be merciful," Lauzoril said, "I'd prefer a comfortable life in exile to subservience."
Nevron shook his head. "I won't give up." But for the first time in all their long acquaintance, Samas heard a hint of weakness and doubt in the conjuror's voice.
"No one has to flee yet," Lauzoril said. "We can keep searching for a way to turn the situation around. But we'll also make preparations to depart, and take comfort in the fact that, whatever resources Szass Tam may possess, he doesn't have ships, and some forms of undead can't cross open water."
"Very well," Nevron said. "I suppose that's reasonable." He turned his glower back on Zola, studying her, and his mouth tightened. He stroked the hideous face tattooed in the palm of one hand and muttered under his breath.
A creature resembling a diseased satyr appeared behind the conjuror's seat. Open sores mottled its emaciated frame. It had horns and a head like a ram, but with seeping crimson eyes and pointed fangs. Its serpentine tail switched back and forth, scraping a cluster of metallic spines on the tip against the floor. It clutched a huge spear in its four-fingered hands. Nevron pointed, and it oriented on Zola.
The necromancer jumped out of her seat. "What are you doing?"
"It's only a bulezau," Nevron said, "not all that powerful for a demon. A true zulkir shouldn't have any trouble defending against it."
The tanar'ri leveled its spear and charged.
Zola shouted a word of power and swept her hand through a mystic pass. Swirls of jagged darkness spun from her fingertips to fill the space between the bulezau and herself. The demon lunged in and stuck fast like an animal caught in brambles. Zola grabbed a bone-and-onyx amulet.
The bulezau vanished from the shadowy trap and appeared behind her. She sensed it, started to turn, but was too slow. It raised its spear high, rammed it into her torso, and the force of the blow smashed her to the floor. The bulezau threw itself on top of her, clawed away hunks of flesh, and stuffed them into its mouth. The rattle of the jewelry on her flailing limbs found a counterpoint in the snapping of her bones.
Samas swallowed and wondered if he would even be hungry at suppertime.
"If this really is the end," Nevron said, "I'll be damned if I meet it in the company of a useless weakling claiming to be my equal and looking to rule our shrunken dominions along with the rest of us."
Samas noticed that Kumed Hahpret had turned an ashen white.
If the war had taught the people of Thay anything, it was that horrible entities were apt to come stalking or flying out of the dark. That was why Aoth approached the walls of Mophur wrapped in a pearly conjured glow that also enveloped Brightwing, and with a fluttering banner of the Griffon Legion tied to the end of his spear.
Even so, crossbow bolts flew at him from the battlements. One struck his shoulder with stinging force but glanced off his mail.
"Bareris!" he shouted. The bard was better able to communicate over a distance.
"Stop shooting!" Bareris called. "We fight for the council. Look carefully at Captain Fezim and you'll see."
More quarrels flew. Brightwing screeched in anger. "Go away!" someone yelled.
Aoth flew Brightwing away from the walls and waved his spear for his fellow griffon riders to follow. They landed beside the High Road, near the mounted knights and men-at-arms who'd fled south with them. The griffons were so tired that they didn't even show signs of wanting to eat the horses. Some wounded, heads hanging low, the equines were in even worse shape. One charger toppled sideways, dumping its master on the ground, writhed once, and then lay still.
While he flew, the kiss of the wind had kept Aoth alert, but on the ground, he suddenly felt weary enough to keel over himself. He invoked the magic of a tattoo to clear his head and send a surge of energy into his limbs. It helped, but not a great deal. He'd already used the trick too many times.
"What's wrong?" asked the knight at the head of the column. Aoth tried to recall the man's name and rank, but couldn't dredge them out of his memory.
"Apparently," said Aoth, "the autharch of the city doesn't want to let us in."
"He has to!" said the knight. "Now that it's dark, Szass Tam's creatures will be on our trail again."
"I know," said Aoth. "Bareris and I will talk to him." He found a sycamore growing near the road, chopped off a leafy branch to signal he wanted a parley, and he and the bard walked their griffons toward the city's northern gate. Currently resembling an orc with a longbow, Mirror oozed into visible existence to stride along beside them.
As they came near enough to the gate for Aoth to converse without shouting at the top of his lungs, several figures mounted the crenellated wall-walk at the top of it. The flickering light in the grip of a torchbearer was inadequate to reveal them clearly, but Aoth's fire-infected eyes had no difficulty making them out.
One was Drash Rurith, autharch of the city. Aoth had met him a time or two. Gaunt and wizened, he hobbled with a cane, and looked so frail that one half expected the weight of the sword on his hip to tip him over. But there was nothing feeble or senile in the traplike set of his mouth.
Beside him stood a younger man. Judging from his dark gauntlet and the black pearls and emeralds adorning his vestments, he must be the high priest of Bane's temple in Mophur. Where Drash looked unhappy but resolute, like a person determined to perform some unpleasant task and be done with it, the cleric smirked and had an air of eagerness around him.
The other eight men were guards, some clad in the livery of the city, the rest sporting the fist-and-green-fire emblem of
the Black Hand's church.
"Milord autharch," said Aoth, "it's a relief to see you. Your servants apparently doubt my identity, or that we all owe our fealty to the same masters. I come to you with a number of the council's soldiers at my back. We need shelter and food."
"I regret," said Drash, "that Mophur can't assist you. The city is already full to overflowing with country folk who fled here when the war, the earthquakes, or blue fire destroyed their homes. I need all my resources to tend to their needs."
"I understand your situation," said Aoth. "But you can at least spare us water from your wells, and a length of street on which to unroll our bedding."
"I'm afraid not."
"If I must, I demand it in the zulkirs' names."
The high priest spat, "There is only one true zulkir, and his name is Szass Tam."
Aoth stared at Drash. "Does this priest speak for you? Have you switched sides?"
"I only say," the old man replied, "that, to my sorrow, it isn't practical for Mophur to accommodate you at this time."
"You'd better be sure of what you're doing."
"We are," said the priest. "Do you think we don't know that Szass Tam smashed the army of the south? We do! The Lord of Darkness revealed the truth to his servants, and now we understand that the lich's triumph is inevitable, and likewise in accordance with the will of Bane. Those who act to hasten that victory will thrive, those who seek to thwart it will perish, and when Szass Tam claims his regency, the earth will stop trembling and the blue fires will burn out."
"Do you truly find this mad rant convincing?" asked Aoth, still speaking to Drash. "You shouldn't. I actually saw Bane appear to the council and give them his blessing. Kossuth and the other gods of Thay stand with the south as well. I'll admit, we lost a battle beneath the cliffs, but we've lost them before. It doesn't mean we've lost the war."
"I regret," said Drash, "that Mophur cannot help you at this time. I wish you good fortune on the road."
Speaking softly enough that the men above the gate wouldn't hear him, Aoth said, "Can you charm the bastard into letting us in?"
"No," Bareris said. "I pretty much exhausted my magic during the battle. Even if I hadn't, I doubt I could beguile the autharch with the priest standing right there to counter any enchantment I cast."
"I was afraid of that. Curse it, we need what's inside those walls, but I don't know how to get it. I don't have any magic left, either. Knights are pretty much useless in situations like this, especially with their horses dropping dead underneath them. The griffons have a little strength left, enough to fly over the walls. But even if they weren't exhausted, we don't have enough riders with us to take a city. We don't even have any arrows."
"Don't worry about taking the city. Let's take the gate, right now, the three of us."
"Five," Brightwing said.
"We just rode up out of the dark," Bareris said. "Most of the town guards have barely gotten themselves out of bed. They're making their way to the battlements to drive us off if need be, but they aren't there yet. Let's strike before they're ready."
Mirror frowned around his jutting ore tusks. "We stand before this gate under sign of truce."
"The autharch has betrayed his oaths to the council. He isn't an honorable man."
"But we are."
No, thought Aoth, we're Thayan soldiers, not followers of some ancient and asinine code of chivalry. Although in fact, the ghost's objections gave him an irrational twinge of shame. "Our comrades are going to die if we don't get inside these walls. That will weigh heavier on my conscience than sinning against the supposed meaning of this stick in my hand. But I won't ask you to help if you feel otherwise."
Mirror changed from an orc into a murky, twisted semblance of Aoth. "I'll stand with my brothers and seek to atone afterward."
"Then let's do it," said Aoth. He dropped the sycamore branch, and the weary griffons beat their wings and heaved themselves into the air. Sword in hand, Mirror followed.
Someone atop the gate cried out in alarm. Quarrels flew, and Brightwing grunted and stiffened, the sweep of her wings faltering. Because of their empathic link, Aoth felt the stab of pain in her foreleg. "I'm all right!" she snarled.
They plunged down on top of the battlements. She bit, and her beak tore into a guard's torso. Aoth twisted in the saddle and thrust his spear into one of the warriors pledged to Bane. From the sound of it, Bareris, Winddancer, and Mirror had reached the walkway and were doing their own killing, but Aoth was too busy to look around.
Someone roared a battle cry and charged him. It was Drash Rurith, cane discarded and sword in hand. The blade glowed a sickly green, and perhaps the enchantments sealed inside it were feeding the old man strength and agility, for he moved like a hunting cat.
Occupied with another foe, Brightwing couldn't pivot to face Drash. Aoth was on his own. Drash feinted a head cut, slashed at his opponent's chest, and Aoth parried with the shaft of his spear. The impact jolted through his fingers. He struck back with a thrust to the belly, but Drash twisted out of the way, then rushed in again. The head of the spear was behind the autharch now, and he was plainly confident that he could drive his sword into Aoth before the griffon rider could pull his long weapon all the way back for another jab.
But Aoth simply whirled the spear in a horizontal arc as if it were a club, and the shaft took Drash in the side. Teeth gritted, exerting every iota of his strength, Aoth kept shoving, threw the autharch off balance, and pushed him staggering through a crenel and off the walk.
A city guard attacked immediately thereafter. Aoth speared him in the guts, and then had a moment to look around.
What he saw was less than encouraging. His comrades were holding their own for the moment, but other guards were running along the battlements toward the gate, with even more scurrying on the ground just inside it, about to climb the stairs on either side.
"Let's kill the ones down below!" Brightwing snarled.
"I suppose somebody has to," Aoth replied, and she leaped down into the mass of soldiers, smashing two or three to the ground beneath her.
She ripped with beak and talon, and he thrust with his spear. For a few heartbeats, it was all right, but then a blade sliced the same foreleg the crossbow bolt had pierced, and afterward Brightwing couldn't use it to claw or even support her weight.
Sword strokes hit Aoth as well, and though his mail kept them from doing more than bruising the flesh beneath, that luck couldn't hold indefinitely. He heard himself gasping, felt the burning in his heaving chest and the exhaustion weighting his limbs, looked at the feral faces and upraised weapons hemming him in all around, and decided that his time had come. After all the perils they'd survived, he and Brightwing were about to die trying to take a stupid gate in a drab little market town that was supposed to be on their side.
Then scraps of darkness fluttered down from above. They attached themselves to several of Aoth's foes, and he realized they were enormous bats biting and clawing at human prey. Startled by the unexpected assault, the warriors of Mophur broke off their furious assault to flail and fumble at the creatures sucking their blood.
The guards so afflicted either collapsed or turned tail. The bats abandoned them to whirl together and become a pale, raven-haired woman in black mail. Mirror floated down from the top of the gate to stand beside her.
The remaining guards decided they no longer liked the odds. They ran, too.
Tammith nodded to indicate the gates. "Let's get these open."
Aoth climbed out of the saddle. Together, they threw their weight against the enormous bar, and it groaned and slid in its brackets. They swung the leaves open while Brightwing and Mirror guarded their backs.
Aoth peered up at the platform atop the gate. It looked as if the fight had ended there as well, and although he couldn't see the bard from this angle, Bareris must have won it. Otherwise, the surviving guards would be taking steps to kill their foes on the ground and close the gate once more.
"Sound
your horn!" Aoth shouted, or at least that was what he intended. The cry emerged as more of a wheeze.
But Bareris evidently heard, for he gave the signal. Griffons soared into the air and winged their way toward the city. Hoofbeats drummed as knights spurred their steeds in the same direction.
His sword gory from point to guard, Bareris jumped from Winddancer to the ground, and then his eyes opened wide. It was only at that moment that he realized Tammith had arrived.
He scrambled out of the saddle and embraced her. "I kept waiting for you to appear. If you hadn't found me by morning, 1 was going to turn back to search for you."
As Aoth watched them clinging to one another, he felt wistful. He'd never in his life known anything like the fierce obsessive adoration Bareris felt for Tammith, and she for him. The closest he'd ever come had been with Chathi. But she was long dead, and he supposed that meant that on a certain fundamental level he would always be alone.
On the other hand, he didn't have to worry that any of his casual lovers or whores would ever rip his throat out in the throes of passion, so perhaps things balanced out.
In any case, he had more immediate problems to ponder. "I recommend we clear the gate," he said. "Otherwise, the knights are liable to ride us down."
"Right," said Bareris. Everyone moved aside.
"I did my best to find you," Tammith said, "but what's left of the army has broken into countless tiny pieces fleeing south. It took time to find the right piece, especially since I had to lay up by day."
"Are other griffon riders still alive?" asked Aoth.
"I saw some."
"Thanks be to the Lord of Flames for that. And thank you, too, for coming to help me when you did."
"I needed to help," the vampire said, "if we were going to get the gates open. But… I wanted to. I cared about what might happen." She sounded like a person who'd just discovered something surprising about herself, although Aoth didn't understand what it was.
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