Whisper of Venom: Brotherhood of the Griffon, Book II

by Richard Lee Byers

  Well, choke on it, thought Aoth. Despite the trouble in Tchazzar’s temple, he still outranked the baron in military matters, and as long as he did, they’d use every trick they had available.

  He turned to Jhesrhi. She looked odd in her fine new cloak and robe, but the scowl marring her lovely face was much the same as ever. “And you can still play your games with the wind?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she said. As though simply turning her mind to the subject had roused it, a breeze gusted, toying with her yellow hair and wafting the scent of fresh spring verdure. “It would have helped if I’d reached this spot sooner—”

  “But I suppose there were dances to dance,” Gaedynn said.

  Jhesrhi glowered. So did Aoth. He had some idea of what was rankling Gaedynn. He even sympathized. But it was not the time for the Aglarondan to vent his feelings.

  Fortunately, Tchazzar still appeared distracted.

  “If I’d had a few days,” Jhesrhi said with an edge in her voice, “I could have done a thorough job of making friends with the winds. But they are restless on these plains. Angry from time to time. With the proper combination of insistence and propitiation, we mages should be able to induce them to do our bidding.”

  The petite, impish-looking Meralaine said, “Lady, forgive me if you already know this, but the spirits of the air aren’t the only restless ones hereabouts.”

  “I have sensed something,” Jhesrhi said, “but maybe not as much as you.”

  “People lived here a long time ago.” Meralaine gestured toward a stone wrapped in helmthorn vine. It was hard to make out behind the long black thorns and green berries, and little more than a worn, rounded lump. Still, Aoth could tell that once it had possessed a sharp-edged regular shape that only tools could give. “Things didn’t end well for them. I can’t hear everything they’re whispering—not in daylight, not without going into a trance—but I think a dragon came.”

  “That’s good!” Oraxes said, surprising Aoth. He’d thought the lad disliked Meralaine, but evidently things had changed while he was away. “If they have a grudge against dragons, then they should want to help us fight the ones from Threskel.”

  “Wait,” Hasos said. “Are you talking about summoning the undead?”

  “It’s her particular gift,” Gaedynn said, “and she used it to good effect when we were saving your town.”

  “Well, she didn’t use it with my permission,” Hasos said.

  “She didn’t need it,” said Aoth. “She doesn’t now either.”

  Hasos sneered. “Of course a Thayan mage doesn’t see the evil in necromancy.”

  “I see we’re in for a tough fight,” said Aoth. “I see we need every edge we can get.”

  Shala gave the baron a troubled gaze. “I don’t like it either,” she said. “Still, Captain Fezim has a point.”

  “Does he?” Tchazzar said.

  Startled, Aoth pivoted. In human shape, Tchazzar was as imposing and magnetic a warlord as he’d ever met. But even so, he’d been so remote since the start of the discussion that one could forget he was even there.

  Shala hesitated. “I think so, Majesty.”

  “Even though your god himself will lead you into battle.”

  “Majesty,” said Aoth, “we all acknowledge your power. But surely there’s a reason why you, in your wisdom, chose to fight at the head of an army instead of alone. And surely, for that army to serve its purpose, we need to be able to use our skills to best effect.”

  Tchazzar advanced on Meralaine. Who recoiled a step, though she’d supposedly fought bravely during the siege and confronted horrors on a regular basis practicing her art. Hasos looked eager for what was to come.

  Tchazzar grabbed handfuls of Meralaine’s mantle and jerked her off her feet, putting the two of them face to face. He looked like an enraged father shaking a naughty child. “Who freed you?” he shouted, spattering her with steaming drops of spittle.

  Oraxes’s eyes opened wide, and his upper body hitched forward like he could barely restrain the urge to intervene. Meanwhile Meralaine flinched again, either from the heat of the dragon’s saliva, his vehemence, or a combination of the two. “You did, Majesty,” she stammered.

  “And is this how you repay me?”

  Meralaine looked like she had no idea what Tchazzar wanted her to say. Aoth didn’t either. He only knew that the young necromancer was currently dangling ashen-faced because he’d ordered her north. He had an obligation to protect her.

  “Majesty,” he said, “please. Obviously there’s no need for any … debate. You rule here. If you don’t want the girl to call the dead, she won’t.”

  “Then why is she even here?” Tchazzar snapped. “Explain her presence!”

  Aoth was still trying to frame an answer likely to mollify the dragon when, to his relief, Jhesrhi spoke. “Alasklerbanbastos is a dracolich. He’s probably sent lesser undead south to fight us. We need a necromancer’s special knowledge to help us destroy them.”

  Tchazzar frowned. “We have priests for that.”

  “Knowledge and faith working together often accomplish more than faith alone. I think even Sunlord Apathos would admit that. In any case, I command the wizards who fight for the Brotherhood. I promise you that Meralaine will only use her powers to banish ghosts, never to call them from their graves.”

  “So be it,” Tchazzar said. He tossed Meralaine away like she was a bone he’d finished gnawing.

  Gaedynn was well aware he had better things to do. Still, something made him watch from a distance while Oraxes hovered over Meralaine. Eventually she shooed him away. He sensed she was embarrassed that Tchazzar had frightened her and disliked attention that kept the memory fresh. Because she wanted to look and feel strong.

  Gaedynn approved of that. If there was one thing he’d learned, it was never to expose a vulnerable spot to anyone.

  Still not sure why he was bothering—the mages out of Luthcheq were Jhesrhi’s and Aoth’s problem, and thank the true gods for that—he ambled to intercept the skinny, slouching youth with his several daggers on ostentatious display.

  Oraxes glared. “What? I didn’t do anything.”

  Gaedynn grinned. “No, but you were thinking of it. Don’t give in to the temptation. Tchazzar will swat you like a gnat.”

  “All my life, people have told me how he was everything great and good.”

  “The same people who said that every mage is evil at the core?”

  Oraxes blinked. “I … Some of them, but it’s not the same thing.”

  “It’s time you recognized a sad truth. You Chessentans are brave, and good at athletics, but not very bright.”

  Oraxes bristled. “Tchazzar is good in his way. He truly did free us.”

  “And if you want to live to enjoy it when this is over, stay away from him. Don’t accept an appointment at court, or any nonsense like that.”

  “How would you know what goes on at court? You’ve been up here in the north.”

  “I know a certain type of arrogance when I see it. I know how such lords behave.” Even when it endangered the lives of their sons.

  “You just don’t like it that he likes Jhesrhi.”

  “Nonsense. Since I seem to be in an advice-giving mood, let me advise you that one woman is much like another, and none of them is worth so much as the loss of your composure, let alone a drop of your blood. In other words, don’t go annoying the dragon—who also happens to be your sovereign—over a lass. By the Black Bow, you didn’t even like the wench a tenday ago.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” Oraxes said.

  “Good, because I have a job for you. I’m going out to scout, and with the enemy so near, I want a wizard with me. The outing can do double duty as your first flying lesson. We’ll borrow Queen Umara. She’s docile—well, for a griffon—and she’ll follow Eider’s lead.”

  Oraxes blinked. “I didn’t ask to learn to ride a griffon.”

  “That’s one of the advantages of military life
. Your superiors provide you with interesting experiences you didn’t even know you wanted.”

  Queen Umara was a trifle small for a griffon, with a hint of red in her plumage, a scarred, featherless spot on the side of her aquiline head, and a crooked hind leg. She’d sustained both injuries on the expedition into Thay, but fortunately neither rendered her unfit to fly or fight.

  Oraxes seemed surprised and suspicious that Gaedynn gave him so few instructions. He thought there had to be more to riding a griffon than that. He was right, but he was also a child of Luthcheq’s slums. Gaedynn had a hunch he’d never even ridden a donkey, and didn’t want to confuse him with too much information. It was better to trust Queen Umara to handle what a novice rider couldn’t.

  “Ready?” Gaedynn asked.

  “Let’s go,” the wizard replied. His voice cracked, and Gaedynn grinned.

  He brushed a fingertip up Eider’s neck. She trotted, lashed her wings, and rose into the air. Gaedynn glanced back and saw Queen Umara leave the ground with an awkward lurch. It might have tossed her rider out of the saddle if not for the straps and buckles holding him there. The problem wasn’t a lack of agility. Oraxes had thrown the griffon off her rhythm by repeating a command, or giving it too forcefully.

  Eider found a column of warm, rising air and used it to lift her and her master high above the plain. Gaedynn looked down at the copses and the high ground the decoy force would occupy. At soldiers busy digging earthworks or constructing archers’ platforms in the trees, and others just arriving from the south and west, the unlucky fellows in the rear of a column eating the dust raised by their comrades in the front.

  He wheeled Eider toward the north, and Oraxes and Queen Umara followed. After a while a griffon rider passed them heading the other way, for of course the Brotherhood had other scouts watching on the enemy. And Gaedynn trusted them—but, like Aoth, he still needed to see things for himself. That was how the elves had taught him to hunt.

  He kept an eye on Oraxes. The mage’s anxiety revealed itself in his hunched, rigid posture and in the grim intensity of his expression. But after a while, the ruffled feathers on Queen Umara’s neck lay down, and she stopped screeching in annoyance. Because her rider wasn’t directing her in the needlessly frantic manner he had before.

  Some time after that, some of the stony grimness left Oraxes’s face. He still didn’t look like he was enjoying his situation, but he might have been feeling some satisfaction that he was able to cope.

  Gaedynn nodded. Truculence and all, the lad would do. If—

  Abruptly angry with himself, he cut off that line of thought. Plainly it would be worthwhile to recruit Oraxes, but it would have been a good idea at any time and under any circumstances. There was no if involved, because Jhesrhi wasn’t leaving.

  And if she did, to the Abyss with her.

  Not long afterward, he spotted a blot on the green and brown earth ahead and felt glad of the need to focus on it. Attending to business would keep his mind from straying where he didn’t want it to go.

  But the relief, if that was the proper word for it, only lasted until he noticed there were two blots. It was barely conceivable the column had simply split lengthwise for some reason, but he wasn’t optimistic enough to believe it.

  At the moment just a crimson speck in the distance, one of the dragons was currently in the air. So were some smaller flying creatures, hanging over their comrades on the ground like a cloud of mosquitoes, perhaps to deter griffon-riding bowmen from getting too close. Still, Gaedynn would have to venture nearer to obtain a better look at the blots.

  He needed to do it alone too. He didn’t want a fledgling rider like Oraxes going any nearer. He waved for the wizard to stay back, then urged Eider forward. She grunted like she was questioning his judgment, but obeyed as willingly as ever.

  Making sure he’d notice if his flying foes moved to attack him, he divided his attention between them and the ones on the ground. At first, squinting, he couldn’t differentiate between the two columns. Points of yellow sunlight gleamed from each. But then he saw that in the larger one, it was reflecting from reptilian scales. In the smaller, it was glinting on steel.

  A company of warriors—men, orcs, or goblinkin, he still couldn’t tell—had reinforced the dragons and the beasts they controlled. Wary of the brutes, they were maintaining some distance until such time as they all needed to fight as one.

  It was bad news, but, as he made a rough count of the soldiers, worse arrived. Leathery wings beating, a second red dragon flew out of the north to join the one in the air.

  Praying that he’d somehow lost track of a wyrm, that it had gotten up into the sky without him realizing it, Gaedynn peered back down at the ground. No, curse it, the dragon he’d seen there was still striding among the lesser reptiles. It was green too, a fact he’d apparently repressed to give himself an instant of false hope.

  He peered at the second red, trying to decide how old, large, and accordingly formidable it might be, and then it snarled. Though he couldn’t speak the language of dragons, he could tell the sound was complex and patterned enough to have words inside it. Three of the lesser specks abruptly hurtled forward.

  Gaedynn turned Eider as fast as he could, which was pretty fast. Yet in those few heartbeats the enemy flyers streaked close enough for him to make out the pale green of their hides, the long horns sweeping back from their almost birdlike heads, and their serpentine tails. They were the sort of reptile called spiretop drakes, and they shouldn’t have been able to close the distance as fast as they were. The red had apparently cast an enchantment to make their wings beat as quick as a hummingbird’s.

  Hoping the magic would run out of power soon, Gaedynn kept glancing back as he fled, and each time the spiretop drakes were closer. But raw speed didn’t equate to skill and maneuverability. If he turned again and fought, he might be able to kill the wretched things. But what if other flying foes, maybe even the dragons themselves, caught up to him before he finished?

  A red spark streaked past him and then, with a boom, exploded into fire. The mote of light hadn’t flown quite far enough for the blast to engulf any of the drakes, but they screeched and veered off. And as they aimed themselves at Gaedynn once again, their pounding wings finally slowed down.

  Oraxes wheeled Queen Umara close enough to call across the intervening distance. Which was closer than Gaedynn would have preferred, given the wizard’s lack of experience in the saddle. “That showed them!” Oraxes yelled.

  “Shut up!” Gaedynn snapped. “Head for camp as fast as you can.”

  They didn’t actually need to run all the way. The drakes gave up the pursuit before they’d flown much farther. But Aoth would want to hear their report as soon as possible.

  Jhesrhi seldom minded killing people. She wouldn’t have lasted long as a sellsword if she did. But helpless animals were a different matter, and as she approached the metal and wooden cages the army had brought from Soolabax, she felt a pang of reluctance.

  She quelled it as every mage learned to silence distracting thoughts. She had to keep her mind focused on her purpose, or the power she’d raised with her purifications and invocations would slip from her control.

  She opened the first cage, a dainty brass miniature palace. The canary inside was wise enough to mistrust her and, wings fluttering, tried to evade her grasp. But wizards have nimble hands, and she seized it anyway, although not before it gave her a stinging peck on the thumb.

  She looked skyward, recited a final incantation, and drew the blade of a small silver knife across the canary’s throat. Wind swirled around her, and the bird’s blood spiraled upward, dispersing into mist and then disappearing entirely. A drop or two of her own blood went with it, but that was all right. It might make the binding stronger.

  As she killed each bird in its turn, her inner eye gradually started to perceive entities who were vast, formless, and invisible to ordinary sight. Still for the moment, or nearly so, the winds of the plain hovered ab
ove her, greedy for a sip of life and magic. Willing to indenture themselves for the taste.

  The final offering was a dove. She could feel its heartbeat through her wet, red fingers. She started to make the cut, and then Tchazzar said, “My lady!”

  She hadn’t realized he’d come up behind her. His voice startled her, and she didn’t slice as deeply as she’d intended. Wounded but not slain, the dove shuddered.

  She felt a shift in the attitude of the hovering spirits, a sudden doubt that she was strong and clever enough to command them. She rattled off words of power and made a second cut. The dove stopped struggling. For a moment it looked like the blood was going to drip to the ground, but then it whirled upward like that of the previous sacrifices.

  Jhesrhi sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she recited the closing incantation and made a chopping motion with her staff to end the ritual safely. She felt the residual power drain into the ground, and the winds departed with a whoosh that set her clothing flapping and branches lashing.

  Tchazzar was a dragon, a monarch, and the Brotherhood’s employer. All good reasons not to let on that she was annoyed with him. Still, as she turned around, she had to struggle to keep it from showing in her expression. She had yet to learn if he was a wizard or if all his legendary powers were innate. But either way, he surely knew enough about magic to understand that it was stupid to disturb a conjuror in the middle of a ritual.

  But when she saw the contrition and anxiety in his handsome face, it took the edge off her irritation. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were still working. Did I spoil it?”

  “No, Majesty,” she said. Although the binding likely wasn’t as strong as it could have been.

  “Good. Come walk with me.”

  Her throat was raw from reciting so many incantations, and her body sore from standing in one spot for too long. Still, even at a moment when she would have preferred to flop down on the ground and drink a jack of ale, it was flattering that he desired her company. She found a smile for him and used the butt of her staff to open the circle she’d earlier drawn on the ground.