The Masked Witches Read online

  A Griffon Leader’s Destiny

  Power blazed through Vandar like a thunderbolt. It was as overwhelming as the shriek had been, full of strength and joy, but most of all fury, a lust to kill.

  He screamed his own battle cry, an imitation of a griffon’s screech, and sprang to meet the undead goblins. He saw their weapons at last—a scimitar and a spear—as they struck at him, and he smashed them both out of line with a single sweeping parry. He riposted at the zombie on his right, and his broadsword split its skull. The yellow gleam guttered out in its eyes, and its knees buckled.

  Grinning, Vandar tried to jerk his sword free. But it stuck in the wound. Meanwhile, the other goblin’s scimitar flashed at him. He leaped back and avoided the stroke, but had to let go of the hilt of his own weapon to do it.

  The second zombie advanced and made another cut, pushing Vandar farther and farther away from his own blade. He rushed his foe before it could poise the scimitar for a fourth attack, bulled the reeking creature over, and dumped it on its back. He dropped to his knees on top of its chest and hammered both fists down into its face. Bone crunched, the piss-colored glimmer went out of the creature’s eyes, and it stopped moving. A small part of Vandar, the bit not yet transported by the fury, recognized that he, too, might have just hurt himself. He might even have broken a finger bone or two. But, for the moment, he couldn’t feel it.

  He was free to retake his own familiar sword, but his rage begrudged the moment it would take to scramble around and pull on the weapon. Instead, the zombie’s scimitar was ready to hand. Vandar grabbed it, leaped to his feet, and whirled toward the cloaked figure.

  ALSO BY RICHARD LEE BYERS

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE GRIFFON

  Book I

  The Captive Flame

  Book II

  Whisper of Venom

  Book III

  The Spectral Blaze

  Book IV

  The Masked Witches

  THE HAUNTED LANDS

  Book I

  Unclean

  Book II

  Undead

  Book III

  Unholy

  Anthology

  Realms of the Dead

  Realms of War

  The Haunted Lands

  (February 2012)

  R.A. SALVATORE’S

  WAR OF THE SPIDER QUEEN

  Book I

  Dissolution

  THE YEAR OF ROGUE DRAGONS

  Book I

  The Rage

  Book II

  The Rite

  Book III

  The Ruin

  SEMBIA:

  GATEWAY TO THE REALMS

  The Halls of Stormweather

  Shattered Mask

  THE PRIESTS

  Queen of the Depths

  THE ROGUES

  The Black Bouquet

  Brotherhood of the Griffon

  Book IV

  THE MASKED WITCHES

  ©2012 Wizards of the Coast LLC

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Hasbro SA, represented by Hasbro Europe, Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK.

  Forgotten Realms, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Wizards of the Coast, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.

  All Wizards of the Coast characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Cover art by: Kekai Kotaki

  eISBN: 978-0-7869-5997-6

  620-38723000-001-EN

  For customer service, contact:

  U.S., Canada, Asia Pacific, & Latin America: Wizards of the Coast LLC, P.O. Box 707, Renton,

  WA 98057-0707, +1-800-324-6496, www.wizards.com/customerservice

  U.K., Eire, & South Africa: Wizards of the Coast LLC, c/o Hasbro UK Ltd., P.O. Box 43, Newport, NP19 4YD, UK, Tel: +08457 12 55 99, Email: [email protected]

  Europe: Wizards of the Coast p/a Hasbro Belgium NV/SA, Industrialaan 1, 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium, Tel: +32.70.233.277, Email: [email protected]

  Visit our websites at www.wizards.com

  www.DungeonsandDragons.com

  v3.1

  FOR VICTORIA

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Liz Mills, Nina Hess, Susan Morris, and Phil

  Athans for all their help and support.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Welcome to Faerûn, a land of magic and intrigue, brutal violence and divine compassion, where gods have ascended and died, and mighty heroes have risen to fight terrifying monsters. Here, millennia of warfare and conquest have shaped dozens of unique cultures, raised and leveled shining kingdoms and tyrannical empires alike, and left long forgotten, horror-infested ruins in their wake.

  A LAND OF MAGIC

  When the goddess of magic was murdered, a magical plague of blue fire—the Spellplague—swept across the face of Faerûn, killing some, mutilating many, and imbuing a rare few with amazing supernatural abilities. The Spellplague forever changed the nature of magic itself, and seeded the land with hidden wonders and bloodcurdling monstrosities.

  A LAND OF DARKNESS

  The threats Faerûn faces are legion. Armies of undead mass in Thay under the brilliant but mad lich king Szass Tam. Treacherous dark elves plot in the Underdark in the service of their cruel and fickle goddess, Lolth. The Abolethic Sovereignty, a terrifying hive of inhuman slave masters, floats above the Sea of Fallen Stars, spreading chaos and destruction. And the Empire of Netheril, armed with magic of unimaginable power, prowls Faerûn in flying fortresses, sowing discord to their own incalculable ends.

  A LAND OF HEROES

  But Faerûn is not without hope. Heroes have emerged to fight the growing tide of darkness. Battle-scarred rangers bring their notched blades to bear against marauding hordes of orcs. Lowly street rats match wits with demons for the fate of cities. Inscrutable tiefling warlocks unite with fierce elf warriors to rain fire and steel upon monstrous enemies. And valiant servants of merciful gods forever struggle against the darkness.

  A LAND OF

  UNTOLD ADVENTURE

  P

  R

  O

  L

  O

  G

  U

  E

  Vandar Cherlinka hefted the straw-wrapped earthenware bottle. The lack of weight made it plain that only a few swallows of jhuild remained inside, and he wished he could keep all the tart red firewine for himself.

  Only for an instant, though, and then he pushed the thought firmly out of his mind. For no man rose to lead a berserker lodge without training himself to be as generous as he was valorous. He told himself that he never would have felt the selfish urge at all if his traveling companion weren’t so … uncompanionable.

  The
problem wasn’t that Lady Yhelbruna—reputedly the oldest hathran in all Rashemen—never removed her brown leather mask and gloves or even pushed back the cowl of her robe in Vandar’s view. As curious as the next fellow, he’d wondered if at some point during the trek, he might discover if the witch was a magically preserved beauty or a hideously wrinkled crone—the only possibilities that gossip and rumor entertained—but he hadn’t really expected it. No, what rankled was her cheerless taciturnity for mile after hard, clambering mile, the silence broken only by her incomprehensible murmurs to herself and the occasional terse command.

  Still, he wouldn’t let her haughty aloofness turn him into a bad companion. He pulled the cork, and it came out with a little popping sound. He offered the bottle. Instead of taking it, she suddenly twisted away from him, and the campfire, too, to peer at the black masses of the mountains rising against the night sky. The patches of snow on the peaks were pale smudges in the moonlight.

  Vandar’s heart beat a little faster. He cast about but saw nothing. Which didn’t necessarily mean they were alone on the mountainside. The High Country possessed more than its share of dangers, and it was possible a hathran had sensed what even an experienced hunter couldn’t have.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  “Be still,” she replied in her steely contralto, “and you’ll hear.”

  He strained to listen, and after a moment he caught the noise. There was a pounding to the east, farther up the mountain they’d been climbing before making camp.

  Yhelbruna sprang to her feet, as though still youthful and spry. “Pick up your sword and javelin,” she said.

  “Why?” Vandar asked, reaching for the weapons that lay within easy reach of his hand.

  “Because you need to kill something, and it will be better if it doesn’t hear us coming,” she replied. “So close your mouth and follow me.”

  Swallowing an exasperated retort, he obeyed.

  The High Country could be treacherous even by day. In addition to trolls, kobolds, and other such creatures waiting in ambush, a wayfarer had to be wary of scree that would crumble under a body’s weight, and crusts of snow concealing sheer crevasses. But Yhelbruna strode along through the chill autumn air as though such hazards were of no concern. Vandar could only hope that her magic encompassed the ability to see in the dark like an owl.

  Maybe it did, for they reached the top of a ridge without coming to grief. They started down the other side into a sort of notch in the mountainside, a long, narrow pocket where snow lay unmelted from winter to winter. The steady beat of the knocking was louder, and Vandar caught the soft chant that accompanied it. He couldn’t understand the words, but the power in them twisted his guts and put a metallic taste in his mouth.

  Yhelbruna raised her hand to halt his advance. She pointed with her bluewood wand.

  Peering, he made out what she was indicating despite the gloom, which was even deeper than on the slope they’d scaled to find the little valley. The backdrop of snow helped. A menhir rose from that white carpet, and a cloaked figure was hammering the rock with a crooked staff. A pair of goblins looked on, recognizable by virtue of their stunted frames.

  Yhelbruna waved Vandar onward with little flicks of the wand.

  He was not averse to going. A berserker leader never shrank from a fight. Still, he gave her a look that asked if, her powers notwithstanding, she intended him to handle all three foes by himself. She responded with a nod.

  “Typical,” he muttered.

  Half annoyed and half amused, Vandar skulked on down the slope. As far as he could tell, none of the trio below had a bow, a sling, or anything else to strike a man down from a distance. Yet even so, he might as well sneak in as close as he could.

  His approach worked until he reached the snow. Then, despite his efforts to stay silent, his steps made tiny crunching sounds, and eventually the goblins and the cloaked figure pivoted in his direction.

  Stealth had pretty much served its purpose. A few more strides would carry him close enough to cast his javelin. Vandar started running, and then an earsplitting screech stabbed into his head.

  He knew—or a part of him did—that the scream only lasted for a moment or two. But it seemed to echo on and on inside his skull, terrifying him and smothering his ability to think. Indeed, it nearly blinded him to anything but his own excruciating sensations.

  Nearly, but not quite. He registered the goblins floundering toward him through the snow, and he knew he had to ready himself to fight. Like a drowning man struggling toward the water’s surface, he strained to banish fear and confusion, to silence the howl inside his head. After a moment, the phantom noise abated.

  When it did, he saw there was something wrong with the goblins. They moved in an awkward, shuffling fashion, and they stank of rot. The yellow gleam in their sunken eyes had nothing to do with the moonlight.

  Zombies. Vandar smiled because that didn’t scare him. Like every Rashemi warrior deserving of the name, he’d fought the legions of Thay—the land of necromancers and the undead—many times.

  He no longer held his javelin. He must have dropped it when he’d been staggering and flailing around. With no reason to delay, he visualized the mighty winged totem of Griffon Lodge—half eagle and half lion—and willed himself to go berserk.

  Power blazed through Vandar like a thunderbolt. It was as overwhelming as the shriek had been, full of strength and joy, but most of all fury, a lust to kill.

  He screamed his own battle cry, an imitation of a griffon’s screech, and sprang to meet the undead goblins. He saw their weapons at last—a scimitar and a spear—as they struck at him, and he smashed them both out of line with a single sweeping parry. He riposted at the zombie on his right, and his broadsword split its skull. The yellow gleam guttered out in its eyes, and its knees buckled.

  Grinning, Vandar tried to jerk his sword free. But it stuck in the wound. Meanwhile, the other goblin’s scimitar flashed at him. He leaped back and avoided the stroke, but had to let go of the hilt of his own weapon to do it.

  The second zombie advanced and made another cut, pushing Vandar farther and farther away from his own blade. He rushed his foe before it could poise the scimitar for a fourth attack, bulled the reeking creature over, and dumped it on its back. He dropped to his knees on top of its chest and hammered both fists down into its face. Bone crunched, the piss-colored glimmer went out of the creature’s eyes, and it stopped moving. A small part of Vandar, the bit not yet transported by the fury, recognized that he, too, might have just hurt himself. He might even have broken a finger bone or two. But for the moment, he couldn’t feel it.

  He was free to retake his own familiar sword, but his rage begrudged the moment it would take to scramble around and pull on the weapon. Instead, the zombie’s scimitar was ready to hand. Vandar grabbed it, leaped to his feet, and whirled toward the cloaked figure.

  From a closer distance, Vandar could see that she was one of the womanlike creatures known as hags. She was more humanlooking than some, no taller than he was. And before undeath had claimed her, mottling her leathery hide with decay and kindling a sickly amber glow in her eyes, she could possibly have passed for human as long as she kept her twisted hands with their long talons hidden inside her mantle.

  He charged her, and she screamed again. The noise stung his face and chest like a barrage of pebbles, but it didn’t addle him. His fury armored him against it.

  Unfortunately, shrieking wasn’t her only trick. The hag thrust out her hand at him, and a freezing wind howled and shoved him from the side. Caught in the vortex that had sprung up around her, snow swirled up from the ground.

  Thrown off balance, Vandar fell. Instinct warned him that he mustn’t stay where he’d dropped, so, impeded by the snow, he flung himself to the side. Thunder boomed, and a dazzling flash lit up the notch in the mountain, robbing him of his night vision. A hint of the lightning he’d just dodged stung him through the ground.

  Prompted by instinct a
gain, he heaved himself to his feet and cut at a shadow. The curved sword sheared into solidity. At the same instant, something snagged in his vest of boiled leather. The hag’s claws ripped away the protection and scored his flesh beneath.

  Vandar ripped the scimitar out of the place where it had lodged and cut at the murky form before him. But the hag was too close for him to use the unfamiliar blade to best effect. Even the strength of a berserker couldn’t make it bite deeply. Meanwhile, the creature scrabbled at him, tearing his armor to shreds.

  He cut low, trying for a knee, and felt a jolt as the scimitar met flesh and bone. The hag’s raking, ripping assault abated, but surely not because she was trying to escape. The undead were fearless. She must be trying to circle around behind him, Vandar thought, or open up some distance between them to facilitate the use of her magic.

  Battered by the howling wind and squinting, he turned and sought her. As he did, a measure of his sight returned, enough to spot her a few paces away. She was favoring the leg he’d cut and had a horizontal gash across her belly. Her cowl had slipped backward off her head, and her long white hair lashed and streamed in the whirlwind like her ragged garments. A glimmering flickered inside her gnarled fingers, intermittently revealing the shadows of her bones, like streaks of infection in her flesh.

  With a bellow, Vandar threw himself at her, and she sprang to meet him. He cut at her neck, and an instant later, she drove the talons of both hands into his chest.

  Something crackled. A sensation of fire along his nerves made him jerk like a man suffering a seizure. Then the hag’s claws slipped out of his pectorals, and she collapsed. When she hit the ground, her head, nearly severed by the scimitar, tore away completely from her neck. The yellow gleam in her eyes went out, and the unnatural wind sighed away to nothing.

  With all three of Vandar’s foes destroyed, the berserker fury drained away. He felt weak and shaky, and the sudden throb of pain in his blistered, bleeding chest and bruised hands made the sick feeling worse. Panting, he flopped down to sit in the snow.