Whisper of Venom: Brotherhood of the Griffon, Book II

by Richard Lee Byers

  Aoth struck back by hurling darts of green light. Jet’s wings pounded as he sought to maneuver and climb. They were rapidly approaching the dragon, only at a lower altitude, and neither of those things boded well for their survival.

  Talons outstretched, the blue plummeted at them. Jet raised one wing, lowered the other, and flung himself and his riders to the left. The gigantic reptile plunged by. It leveled off fifty feet above the ground and then, wings beating, began to rise again.

  An arrow appeared in the dragon’s back. Aoth hadn’t seen who loosed it, but he was sure it was Gaedynn. Master bowman that he was, he’d hit a rapidly moving target he couldn’t even see. Unfortunately, the reptile didn’t even appear to notice.

  Aoth abruptly became aware of a band of pressure around his torso. Even though he was securely strapped to Jet’s saddle, Oraxes was hanging on to him. The youth was panting too, a ragged, rasping sound.

  Positioned as he was, Aoth couldn’t grab the lad and shake him, so he elbowed him in the stomach. “Calm down!” he snapped. “Make yourself useful! The thing we’re fighting is a dragon. Do you know a spell to turn it visible?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then cast it. My attacks will show you where to aim.”

  He conjured localized rains of pounding hailstones and silvery flares of frost. The blue still wasn’t slowing down. Jet zigzagged and wheeled, swooped and climbed madly, fighting to stay out of reach of the dragon’s fangs and claws and dodge its bright, crackling breath. Oraxes chanted an incantation. After a pause he repeated it, once again to no avail.

  “If he botches it a third time,” Jet growled, “cut him loose and shove him off. I could do without the extra weight.”

  Oraxes drew a long breath, then started again.

  Then somehow, despite the griffon’s cunning maneuvers, the blue was above them and the rooftops of Soolabax below. Lightning blazed down, and Jet just managed to dodge it. The thunderbolt blasted shingles tumbling loose from the roof of a house and set the structure on fire.

  Even spellscarred eyes weren’t immune to glare. Squinting against the flash of the attack, it took Aoth a precious moment to perceive that the blue had spat its lightning, then immediately dived after it. “Dodge!” he screamed.

  Jet threw himself to the right. One of the dragon’s claws grazed him anyway, tearing feathers from his wing in a shower of blood. Aoth felt the slash of pain through their psychic bond.

  Can you still fly? he asked.

  You’d better hope so, the griffon replied.

  Raising his voice, Oraxes snarled the last line of his incantation. Neither Aoth’s frightened outcry, Jet’s last frantic evasion, nor the sudden appearance of the bloody wound had shaken his concentration.

  A greenish shimmer danced across the dragon’s body. Afterward, the creature didn’t look any different to Aoth. But he could tell from the way the other griffon riders oriented on it that they could finally see it too.

  Arrows flew at the wyrm from all directions. Some glanced off its scales, but others stabbed deep into its flesh. Two of the other mages riding behind sellswords threw magic. One conjured a flying sword made of golden light. The blade slashed rents in the dragon’s leathery wing. In his excitement, the other resorted to a thunderbolt of his own. It was likely his favorite attack, but essentially useless against a creature with a natural affinity for the powers of the storm.

  Realizing it was in trouble, the dragon wheeled and climbed. Its head swiveled at it looked for the easiest way through the foes who surrounded it.

  Aoth snarled words of power. A line of floating, whirling blades abruptly materialized in front of the wyrm. The reptile’s own momentum carried it into the magical weapons, and they sheared gory wounds into various portions of its body.

  Oraxes crooned a rhyme in a demonic tongue. Some of the flesh on the dragon’s shoulder melted and flowed like wax.

  An arrow, one of the poisonous black ones Gaedynn had brought back from the Shadowfell, punctured the reptile’s left eye.

  And then at last it fell, crashing down on a house that partially collapsed beneath the impact. Aoth studied it until he was sure it wasn’t going to get up again.

  Oraxes let out a whoop.

  Aoth grinned. “I take it you enjoyed that.”

  The adolescent hesitated, and when he spoke again, it was in his customary sullen tone. “It was all right.”

  Today, Tchazzar seemed content for Jhesrhi to wear her usual functional, comfortable clothing, and thank the gods for that. She told herself that if she never had to wear ridiculous court attire again, she’d count herself blessed.

  But if she didn’t relish fancy dress, Halonya plainly did. The prophetess still didn’t look especially clean, but she’d donned layer upon floppy, trailing layer of bejeweled and embroidered garments, all in various shades of red. Apparently the ensemble represented her notion of the regalia appropriate to a high priestess.

  At the moment, a parade of architects was regaling her and the rest of those assembled in the audience chamber with concepts for the new temple. Halonya listened with rapt attention, although Jhesrhi suspected the girl didn’t understand more than half.

  Tchazzar looked just as interested, but as time passed, his frown made it clear that he was dissatisfied as well. Finally he turned to Jhesrhi and said, “What do you think, my friend?”

  Caught off guard, she fumbled for an answer. “Uh, the second one? With the fountain of flame?”

  “The design has possibilities,” the transformed dragon said. “But it isn’t grand enough. None of them are.” He gave the architects an indulgent smile. “How could they be, when Halonya herded you into my presence when you’d scarcely had time to think? Return in a tenday, and we’ll see who deserves the commission.”

  As one, the builders bobbed their hands and professed their eagerness to obey.

  “One thing to bear in mind,” Tchazzar continued, “is that we’re going to build on the opposite side of the city from the War College. We’ll have all Luthcheq cradled between the two poles of power, the temporal and the divine. A neat conception, don’t you think?”

  Shala Karanok cleared her throat.

  The former war hero had relinquished her crown, but she still wore mannish garments trimmed with bits of steel that suggested armor. Apparently they weren’t part of the monarch’s formal regalia. She stood before a marble statue of a crouching, snarling warrior with a broken sword in his right hand and an axe in his left, one of the many martial decorations scattered throughout the chamber.

  “Majesty,” she said, “may I speak?”

  Tchazzar turned his grin on her. “Of course, High Lady, of course.”

  “I can find room for your temple on the mall in the religious quarter,” she said.

  “I’m glad you’re thinking,” Tchazzar replied, “but I like my notion better. It wouldn’t be very friendly of me to crowd my brother and sister deities.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, Majesty. But if I understand you correctly, the spot where you intend to build is quite built up already. That will add considerably to the expense.”

  “Oh, I know you’ll find the coin somewhere. The important thing is that we finish the temple before the end of the year.”

  Shala hesitated, and Jhesrhi had the feeling she was choosing her next words carefully. “Majesty, with all respect, that too will add to the expense if it can even be done at all. Chessenta has a war to fight and pay for.”

  “You see, there’s your answer,” Tchazzar said. “The plunder we seize will subsidize the temple.”

  “All the more reason then to take to the field as quickly as possible.”

  “Soon,” Tchazzar said. “As soon as I set the government to rights.”

  “Then may I have your permission to head north immediately? One of us should be there.”

  Tchazzar’s smile disappeared. He studied Shala for several heartbeats, then said, “No. I need you here. Don’t worry, we have plenty of brave
soldiers and shrewd captains to hold the line for now.”

  Shala gave a stiff half bow of acquiescence. “As Your Majesty commands.”

  “Now, everyone leave me,” the dragon said. “I need a time of contemplation.”

  Jhesrhi bowed with the rest.

  “Oh, not you,” Tchazzar said, “nor you either, Halonya. The two of you must help me ponder.”

  So Jhesrhi and the newly minted high priestess remained.

  “That woman,” Tchazzar said, once everyone else was gone. “That Shala. Do you think she resents me?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t trust her,” Halonya said.

  “I would,” said Jhesrhi. “I do. She’s just giving you the best advice she knows how to give.”

  “Hm,” said Tchazzar, gazing at the doorway through which Shala had exited. “We’ll see.”

  Aoth hastily unbuckled himself from Jet’s saddle. Leaving Oraxes to fumble with his own straps, he moved to inspect the end of Jet’s wounded wing. The griffon still held the member partly extended, and through their psychic link Aoth could tell that it would ache worse if he folded it up against his back as usual. Blood pattered steadily onto the ground.

  “I told you,” said Jet, “it’s all right.”

  “Not if I want to ride you tomorrow, it isn’t.” Aoth turned to survey the courtyard of Hasos Thora’s smallish castle in the center of Soolabax. Various retainers stood gaping at the griffon riders still setting down in the space.

  “Get me a healer!” Aoth shouted. “Fast!”

  In time, a plump, gray-bearded fellow scurried from the keep with a satchel tucked under his arm. Aoth was glad to see he wore the yellow robe of a priest of Amaunator. As far as he was concerned, a cleric of Kossuth would have been better still, but at least he was one of Cera’s subordinates. Maybe, knowing she was fond of him, he was willing to believe Aoth might be a decent fellow even if he was a mage, a sellsword, and a Thayan.

  Although the sunlord balked when he saw the blood and realized whom he was supposed to treat. But that was probably because—huge, crimson-eyed, and otherwise deepnight-black from his beak to the lashing tip of his leonine tail—Jet looked every bit as dangerous as he was, and a lot less tractable.

  “Come on!” Aoth called. “He won’t hurt you.”

  “Not unless you hurt me,” said the familiar.

  Aoth shot him an annoyed look. “You’re not helping.”

  The sun priest approached rather gingerly, inspected the wing, stanched the flow of blood with a healing prayer, rubbed a pungent amber salve into the wound, and finally stitched it shut. Jet stiffened once or twice, and Aoth felt the jabs of pain that made him do it. But the griffon resisted the temptation to spin around and rend the healer limb from limb.

  When it was done, Aoth scratched Jet’s neck, ruffling the feathers, stooped to uncinch his saddle, and then saw Hasos glowering at him. The tall, long-nosed baron looked petulant, but there was nothing new about that.

  “I should go talk to him,” said Aoth.

  “Yes, go,” said Jet, a trace of humor in his rasp of a voice. “I know you’ve been looking forward to it.”

  As Aoth crossed the muddy courtyard, Hasos said, “I would have appreciated it if you’d come and conferred with me right away. Someone else could have seen to your steed.”

  My “steed,” thought Aoth, is a lot more useful and important to me than you’ll ever be.

  “Please excuse me, milord,” he said aloud. “But I thought the situation deserved my personal attention. Now, I have something for you.” He opened the pouch on his belt, brought out a rolled parchment, and held it out to the nobleman.

  Hasos accepted it with a certain air of wariness. “What’s this?”

  “Tchazzar’s writ giving me ultimate authority over all of Soolabax’s troops and military resources for the duration of the war.”

  Hasos’s eyes shifted back and forth as he skimmed the first few lines. His aristocratic features turned a gratifying mottled red. “This is outrageous! Preposterous!”

  “If you read the whole document, you’ll come to the part where His Majesty says it’s no reflection on you. It’s just that the previous arrangement, where you and I each led our own troops, was keeping us from getting things done.”

  Hasos took a long breath. “If your scouts hadn’t stumbled across Tchazzar in the wild, if they hadn’t done him some sort of service—”

  “Then maybe I couldn’t have persuaded him that a clear chain of command is better,” said Aoth. “But it is what it is. If you want to argue about the wisdom of His Majesty’s decisions, you know the road to Luthcheq. If not, I expect your full support.”

  Hasos took another breath, and some of the red faded from his cheeks and brow. “I know how to obey a royal decree. I just don’t know why you felt you had to bother. What decisions are left to make? The enemy’s outside the walls, and we’re in. Now it’s just a matter of waiting them out.”

  Hasos relished the trappings of war. He often wore a breastplate and lugged a shield around even when there was no reason for it. But Aoth wondered if the nobleman had ever actually experienced a siege. If he had, he might not have been so blithe about subjecting his own town to the protracted misery such an action often entailed. For certainly Soolabax, its streets jammed with fugitives and livestock from the surrounding farmlands, was a prime candidate for starvation and disease.

  “That’s not how we’re going to play it,” said Aoth. “We griffon riders can pass in and out of the city as we please.” Well, give or take arrows flying up from below, but there were ways of contending with that. “I have troops camped outside the city, and Tchazzar himself is bringing more up from the south. Put it all together, and it means we can smash these fools who think they have us trapped. Our men outside the walls will be the hammer, and the town and its garrison will be the anvil.”

  Hasos shook his head. “The risk is too great. We’ll lose too many.”

  “Not if we do it right. Besides, Tchazzar doesn’t want to stay on the defensive. He doesn’t want to fend off the Great Bone Wyrm now, let it go at that, and have to do it all over again in a couple of years. The plan is to push north and make Threskel a part of Chessenta again. If I were you, I’d pack my kit.”

  The giants had killed or driven back the dragonborn who’d dared to confront them on Black Ash Plain. The fighting had all moved inside Tymanther, in the fertile fields and patches of woodland south of Djerad Thymar.

  A bat rider had spotted one of the raiding parties slaughtering people, pigs, and cattle. By good luck or ill, the scout had then found Medrash’s patrol within easy reach of the foe. As the paladin studied the terrain ahead for some sign of the enemy, he ran over Khouryn’s training in his mind. Even though his people considered him an expert warrior, he’d had to go through the exercises with everyone else because he’d never fought with a lance on horseback either. In fact, he still hadn’t—not in a real combat, not with his life on the line.

  He wished Khouryn were there, but the dwarf was busy schooling other fighters. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that Torm the True was always with him.

  But that reflection came with a measure of shame. Because he knew he’d failed the god of heroes repeatedly, even if others didn’t see it that way. His efforts to catch the Green Hand murderers had destroyed the alliance between Chessenta and Tymanther. And, commanding the first company that Clan Daardendrien fielded against the giants, he’d led his kinsfolk to disaster.

  He had to do better this time. Had to. Even if the giants were not capable of actually conquering Tymanther—and that no longer seemed like such a preposterous possibility—somebody had to prove that it wasn’t only adherents of the Platinum Cadre who could defeat them. Otherwise, in their desperation, more and more of his people would embrace the cult’s vile, dragon-loving creed, corrupting themselves in the process.

  “Look!” a rider said, pointing.

  Medrash turned his head. A white dog lay half hidden i
n the grass with the rear part of its body more or less smashed flat. Somehow it was still alive, whimpering, its chest expanding and contracting rapidly.

  “Put the poor beast out of its misery,” Medrash said. A rider dismounted, kneeled beside the dog, stroked its head and murmured to it for a moment, then slipped a knife between its ribs.

  Medrash surveyed his comrades and saw the same mixture of determination and doubt he felt within himself. As leader, it was his responsibility to do something about the latter.

  “All right,” he said, infusing his voice with the power to encourage and persuade that was one of the Loyal Fury’s gifts to his champions, “we’re obviously close, so let’s get ready. Let’s go give the brutes a surprise. Keep your heads, remember your lessons, and we’ll crush them.”

  Some of the riders nodded or growled their agreement. Then they all pulled their lances from the tubular sheaths the saddlers had added to their tack. They placed the weapons on the rests, angling them upward for the time being. Inwardly, Medrash winced to see how clumsily some warriors still handled the long spears. But he didn’t let it show in his outward demeanor.

  They walked their horses to the top of a rise. The gentle slope on the other side led down to a cluster of low huts adjacent to a cherry orchard. The trees were just beginning to flower.

  The bodies of dragonborn lay scattered and in some cases dismembered on the ground. One corpse dangled from a wall, pinned there by an enormous flint axe. Each twice as tall as the average Tymantheran, hairless, gray-skinned ash giants were roasting an ox on a spit. Evidently too hungry to wait till their supper cooked, others yanked and gobbled handfuls of raw meat from a fallen plow horse.

  Even before the current highly successful invasion, they’d always possessed their share of cunning. So it didn’t surprise Medrash that they had a sentry posted. The huge barbarian bellowed something in his own guttural language. His fellows oriented on the patrol, then moved to take up their weapons.

  They were doing so reasonably quickly too, but not with frantic haste. Probably because they knew how dragonborn cavalry customarily fought. They dismounted, made sure their mounts would be there when they needed them again, then advanced on foot.