Whisper of Venom: Brotherhood of the Griffon, Book II

by Richard Lee Byers

  The arrows arced high and plummeted down. Men, orcs, and kobolds reeled and collapsed beneath the barrage.

  Aoth Fezim had put together the force from a portion of his own company and various native Chessentan troops stationed along the border. By itself it was still smaller than the army besieging Soolabax. But the hope was that a surprise attack would more than compensate for the numerical disadvantage.

  And it might. But it looked to Oraxes like the Great Bone Wyrm’s warriors wouldn’t remain stunned and disorganized for long. Already there were officers bellowing orders and goblins scrambling to grab their weapons and form up into squads.

  Oraxes abruptly remembered that his part of the fight wasn’t over. In fact, it had scarcely begun. He threw darts of crimson light at something big. An ogre maybe, or some sort of tame troll. The creature staggered but didn’t fall down.

  “What are you still doing here?” Gaedynn barked. Startled, Oraxes jerked around to find the archer right beside him. “I told you to get behind the shields!”

  Oraxes scowled. At himself, because he’d forgotten all about that part of the plan, or even that there were any shields. He turned and saw that the spearmen had moved up unnoticed behind him. As he ran in their direction, an arrow or crossbow bolt whistled past his head.

  Someone—Shala Karanok, most likely—had found a mansion on the edge of the religious quarter to serve as Tchazzar’s interim temple. As he surveyed the place from the air, Aoth wondered what the former war hero had needed to do to persuade the householder to vacate.

  If I were you, said Jet, speaking mind to mind, I’d worry about what moved in after he did vacate. The last time you broke into a wyrmkeeper’s lair, you nearly got killed. And then it was just one wyrmkeeper.

  Maybe you should be the captain, answered Aoth. You always know just what to say to inspire confidence.

  The griffon gave a rasp of annoyance. My point is that Jhesrhi and Scar are at the War College.

  Where I can’t go unless I want to waste a day explaining why we’re in Luthcheq, and alert the wyrmkeepers to our presence while I’m at it. This way is better.

  Suit yourself. Maybe my next rider will be lighter.

  Jet set down in an alley near the mansion. Aoth reluctantly left his spear secured to the familiar’s saddle. It was too recognizable, too threatening, and impossible to conceal. He’d make do with the short sword hidden under his shabby beggar’s robe. At least it had a little magic stored inside it.

  He scratched Jet’s head, then, shaking a wooden bowl to rattle the coppers inside it, shuffled in the direction of the temple. Behind him, wings rustled and cracked as the griffon took to the air again.

  He was careful to keep his head bowed. The cowl did a good job of shadowing his face, but he couldn’t depend on it alone to mask the light in his eyes. Fortunately, a servile posture jibed well with the other features of his disguise.

  Seen from ground level, the mansion was even more impressive. Reflecting the Chessentan fascination with martial endeavor, it had turrets and battlements like a fortress, and friezes carved with men-at-arms slaughtering one another. It also had rosebushes at the foot of the facade, and even in the dark Aoth’s fire-touched eyes could see that the new buds were crimson, like drops of blood fallen from the carnage overhead.

  A priest with a shaggy black beard sat on a stool beside the door. From his casual air, his mismatched and no doubt improvised red and pink vestments, and the jug sitting beside him, Aoth took him for one of Halonya’s longtime followers, not a priest of Tiamat. The newly minted cleric tossed a coin in the begging bowl.

  “Thank you, holy sir,” Aoth mumbled, bobbing his head. “But I want to go inside too. To pray.”

  The bearded man grinned. “And sleep indoors? I know how it is. Go on, then. But if you snore, we’ll have to toss you out.”

  Beyond the door was a hall of considerable size. It smelled of sawdust as well as incense, and it was plain that carpenters had been working hard to turn it into a proper sanctum complete with benches where the rich and nobly born could sit and worship in comfort.

  The chamber was already full of works of art, painted and sculpted depictions of Tchazzar as both dragon and man. Aoth assumed they were left over from the living god’s previous reigns.

  A second priest stood behind the elevated bloodstone altar. Tall, with a long, ascetic face and mottled, sun-damaged skin, he stared intently into the chalice cradled in his hands. The fire flickering up above the rim burned blue, then green, then black. The shifts reminded Aoth of the variously colored candle flames he’d seen in the wyrmkeeper’s lair in Soolabax.

  The priest glanced up when Aoth entered. Then, perhaps deciding that a grubby mendicant wouldn’t comprehend the significance of what he was seeing, he sniffed and returned to his meditations.

  Aoth glanced around, taking note of the other doorways leading out of the room. He didn’t see how he could slip through either of them without the wyrmkeeper spotting him. But maybe he could wait the fellow out. He positioned himself in front of a painting of Tchazzar in wyrm form rearing bloody-jawed over the corpses of a green drake and a blue one. He folded his hands and watched the cleric from the corner of his eye.

  And watched. And watched. While the flames in the cup danced from one color to the next.

  He doesn’t show any signs of leaving, said Jet. Thanks to their psychic link, he could see what Aoth was seeing.

  No, Aoth replied. Maybe someone is always supposed to tend the altar. Or he’s not inclined to leave a beggar alone with valuable carvings and the like. Whatever the problem is, I can’t just stand here until someone gets suspicious of me. So … He whispered an incantation.

  Smoke streamed up from the cup of fire into the wyrmkeeper’s face. He started coughing.

  Aoth charged the altar, counting on the thick smoke to hide his approach. Unfortunately, it hid the wyrmkeeper too. Though spellscarred eyes ignored darkness and pierced illusion, they couldn’t see through something that was real. But he’d taken careful note of the priest’s position, so maybe it wouldn’t be a problem.

  He at least managed to scramble up onto the dais and into the heart of the smoke without hurting himself. At the same time, the coughing stopped. That was bad. If the wyrmkeeper had caught his breath, he could either cry for help or cast a spell.

  Aoth glimpsed a shape in the smoke, plowed into it, and carried it down to the dais beneath him. In the process he inhaled smoke, and he too started to cough. Still, groping, he managed to grab the cleric’s neck and squeeze.

  After a while, the priest stopped flailing and scratching at him. Despite the burning in his chest, Aoth made himself stop coughing long enough to wheeze a counterspell. The magic cleaned the smoke from the air.

  He lifted his head and peered over the altar. No one seemed to be rushing to the wyrmkeeper’s aid.

  He looked back down at the priest. The fellow was breathing.

  You can fix that, Jet observed.

  I could. But in theory, this whoreson is Tchazzar’s holy servant. If I can, I want to find Cera and get out of here without killing anybody, and without anyone recognizing me.

  He pulled off the filthy robe, stripped the priest of his outer vestments, and put them on. They were a poor fit, but might do at a distance. Since they too possessed a cowl, they were definitely more likely than his beggar’s robe to pass inspection in the private precincts of the house.

  He made sure the unconscious wyrmkeeper was well hidden behind the altar, then arbitrarily chose the door on the right. So far, no one had started modifying the rooms on the other side. They just look like parts of an opulent private home, some in disarray from the celebrations and slovenly habits of the new residents.

  But Cera had to be there somewhere.

  No, said Jet, she doesn’t. You only went in there on a guess. If there’s nothing, get out before they catch you.

  I’ll be all right, Aoth answered. Most of the candles and lamps are out, and nearly ever
yone’s asleep…. Then, suddenly, peering through yet another doorway, he saw it.

  Many aristocrats and wealthy merchants built homes that had secret areas, and the interim temple appeared to be one of them. A section of oak paneling was set a hair deeper than the pieces to either side. The button concealed in the trim was similarly recessed, and the grain in the darker wood didn’t line up precisely.

  No one else would have noticed it, certainly not across the length of an unlit room. But just as Aoth could see in the absence of light, so too did he view the world in minute detail.

  He stalked across the nondescript, mostly unfurnished chamber and pushed the button. The catch clicked. He cracked the door open. On the other side, a spiral staircase twisted down to some portion of the cellars.

  Aoth made sure he could easily reach the hilt of the sword beneath his stolen vestments. Then he started down.

  The orcs howled as they charged. It was the fourth time they’d rushed their foes, but Oraxes still flinched. He couldn’t help it.

  The enemy crashed against the shields and the warriors who carried them like a great wave battering a rock. And after a time of frenzied stabbing, slashing, and shoving on both sides, like a wave they receded.

  Or reeled back, or stumbled away, where they didn’t lie dead or maimed on the ground. One of the things Oraxes had learned early on in this terrifying, fascinating night was that he mostly couldn’t watch a battle and truly grasp the import of what he saw. But still he had a sense the orcs had had enough, and when his companions relaxed, he knew he was right.

  A spearman spat. At some point, something had chopped or broken off the point of his weapon, but he’d continued fighting with the shaft in preference to the mace on his hip. Oraxes suspected it had something to do with reach.

  “The mighty Red Spears,” the sellsword sneered, and the warriors around him laughed.

  A pillar of flame leaped up in the midst of the enemy formation.

  For a heartbeat, Oraxes assumed that one of his fellows from Luthcheq had hurled an incendiary attack. Then he glimpsed a horned, skeletal head and clawed hands inside the blaze. Tall as a hill giant, the burning figure stalked forward while its allies scurried out of the way.

  Oraxes and his comrades knew the enemy had spellcasters too, mostly conjuring from behind cover, just like their counterparts. The griffon riders in the air had loosed a lot of arrows at them. Seemingly to no avail, because periodically the bastards materialized some new entity to fight on their behalf.

  Humor and scorn wiped from his face, the man with the broken spear looked around at Oraxes. “What is that thing?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Oraxes admitted. But his instincts told him it was deadlier than any of the creatures that had preceded it.

  He reflected with a pang of fear that he’d largely depleted his magic. Still, maybe he could destroy the thing before it came any closer. He spoke words of power and brandished his hand before him. Frost flowed over it from his fingertips to his wrist. He could feel that it was cold, but the chill wasn’t painful.

  Mimicking the attitude of his extremity, a huge, disembodied hand made of ice appeared in front of the oncoming fire creature. Oraxes reached and clenched his fingers shut, and the hand of ice did the same, gripping the entity around the torso and pinning its arms to its sides.

  The demon, if that was what it was, snarled and heaved, and the hand of ice shattered. Oraxes gasped at a sudden hot pain. When he inspected his own hand, there were blisters spotting the palm.

  He told himself it could have been worse. At least the entity hadn’t broken his fingers.

  Its aura of flame illuminating mangled corpses, as well as wounded men and goblinkin who struggled to crawl aside, the spirit advanced on Gaedynn and his archers. The bowmen stood in a somewhat protected position, with Oraxes’s formation of spearmen on their right and a company of native Chessentans to the left.

  The archers shot at the advancing fire thing for several moments. Some of them hit it too, but the arrows burned away instantly, and it was impossible to tell if they were doing any real damage.

  Then, still steadily drawing and releasing, Gaedynn shouted, “Bows, fall back! Spears, engage!”

  Oraxes’s companions scrambled to plant themselves squarely in the fiery giant’s path. He scurried after them.

  As they reformed their shield wall and extended their spears, the demon was still a stone’s throw away. But it swept one hand in an arc, and a tongue of flame leaped from its fingers to slash across several sellswords. They staggered and screamed, their garments burning.

  The demon charged the point where it had weakened the formation. It snatched, snagged a sellsword on its talons, and heaved him into the air, letting him char in its fiery grasp for a moment before dashing him to the ground. It lashed out again, and a warrior’s head tumbled off his shoulders.

  Even several paces back Oraxes felt like he was standing next to a bonfire, and he soon saw that often, the creature didn’t even have to attack a man to take him out of the fight. When their spears and clothing caught fire, or every breath seared their lungs, the mercenaries had no choice but to fall back.

  More quickly than Oraxes would have imagined possible, given its steadfast performance against the orcs, the formation started to fall apart. The warriors weren’t routed yet, but he could feel their fear just as he’d felt it when the orcs lost heart.

  Griffon riders wheeled overhead, shooting, but their shafts didn’t seem to trouble the demon any more than the ones Gaedynn and the skirmishers had loosed from the ground. The Chessentans kept their distance, unwilling to engage the thing that was ripping and burning its way through the sellswords. One spearman yelled, “Jhesrhi! Jhesrhi!” In his terror, he’d forgotten the Brotherhood’s chief wizard wasn’t there.

  But Oraxes was, and he had to do something. He rattled off a spell, meanwhile making stabbing and slashing motions with both hands.

  A dozen floating daggers materialized in the air around the demon. They too stabbed and sliced.

  The demon snarled and sprang forward, smashing spearmen out of the way, extricating itself from the midst of the flying blades. Suddenly there was no one between it and Oraxes.

  It slashed down at him. He jumped back and thought he’d avoided the attack. Then he felt fierce heat on his chest. He looked down.

  He had two bloody grazes across his torso. But the truly alarming thing was that his tattered shirt and jerkin were on fire.

  He dropped and rolled. But he couldn’t put out the fire and defend himself against the demon too. It reached for him—

  And kobolds rushed it from the left and slashed at its legs with short, heavy, cleaverlike blades. Some even climbed its legs to strike at higher portions of its body. Its corona of flame didn’t deter them, and as he clambered back to his feet, Oraxes saw the reason why. They were already dead, and so incapable of pain, fear, or concern for their own survival. They didn’t stop trying to carry out their reanimator’s commands until they burned away to nothing.

  Meanwhile, Meralaine chanted. The words sounded soft and dull, like shoveled earth dropping on top of a coffin, yet paradoxically they carried despite the din of battle. On the final syllable, she snapped a piece of bone in two.

  The giant’s halo of flame shrank in on itself, and for the first time Oraxes got a clear look at the inhuman skeleton at the heart of the blaze. Then the creature collapsed in a heap, with just a few small blue and yellow flames flickering among the bones.

  Meralaine gave Oraxes a grin. “It was an immolith,” she said. “An undead demon. So I knew how—”

  Behind her, the immolith’s fire leaped up again. Heaving itself to its knees, it reached for her. She pivoted, saw the huge, burning hand right in front of her face, and froze.

  Oraxes cried a word of power and squeezed his hands together like he was making a snowball. Then he hurled the imaginary missile. It became real in midflight and struck the immolith’s skeletal head in a burst of
frost and steam.

  An instant later, a black arrow punched into the side of the demon’s skull.

  The immolith collapsed as it had before. Panting, heart thumping and scratches and blisters smarting, Oraxes watched it for a while. It showed no signs of rearing up again.

  “That was the last of those,” said Gaedynn, striding nearer. Oraxes inferred that the sellsword meant the arrows he’d brought out of the Shadowfell. “Unfortunately.” He peered at Oraxes’s chest. “That doesn’t look so bad.”

  Back home that dismissive comment might have incensed Oraxes. Here … well, he had to admit others had suffered worse. Much worse. “It’s not. Are we winning?”

  “Not yet,” the archer said. “Maybe not … Never mind that.” He turned to the spearmen who’d engaged the immolith and who were currently milling around in disorder. “Spears! What in the name of the Black Bow is wrong with you? Form up!”

  Once Aoth descended to the secret portion of the cellars, there was no doubt whatsoever that wyrmkeepers had laid claim to it. They hadn’t brought in a veritable treasure trove of icons the way Halonya had upstairs. But there were pentagons, and wheel-like emblems depicting five dragon heads with curving necks radiating from a central point, drawn with care on every wall. A rack in a cramped little armory held military picks, and, clustered together, the baneful enchantments smoldering in the steel made his teeth ache. The five tapers in every candelabra shined red, green, blue, shadowy black, and ghostly white.

  Fortunately, he had yet to run into any of the wyrmkeepers themselves. He supposed they needed sleep like everyone else and would rather get it in a warm, properly furnished bedroom than a bare, chilly cellar, no matter how holy the latter was.

  There’ll be someone, said Jet. Keep your guard up.

  Aoth passed a strong room, its sturdy, ironbound door standing ajar, and wondered how much wealth it had contained before the former householder cleared it out. Next came a torture chamber, sparsely equipped by Thayan standards—with only a rack in the middle of the space and a few whips, pincers, thumbscrews, and pears hanging on hooks on the back wall—but capable of inflicting its share of agony nonetheless. There were dry brown stains here and there, but even fire-kissed eyes couldn’t tell just how old they were. Aoth scowled and quickened his stride a little.