The Masked Witches Page 10

  “Aoth wants a prisoner to question,” Cera continued, “and this is the one who knows the most.”

  She was right, of course, but Choschax was also the one who’d struck Aoth down. That, far more than the cyclops’s attempt to kill her, made Jhesrhi want to burn his life away. If the war mage wasn’t all right, she would, too. To the Abyss with the mission, Yhelbruna’s griffons, and Rashemen’s problems.

  For the moment, though, she and her comrades needed to finish the fight so Cera could tend to Aoth. “Watch him, then!” she told the sunlady, pivoting and looking to see where a spell would help the most.

  For a heartbeat or two, she saw no reason to cast one at all. A griffon was slightly less deadly fighting on the ground than in the air, but even so, Jet had plainly had little trouble annihilating his share of the werewolves. He whirled amid a litter of mangled, bloody bodies as a last foe dashed away on four feet. He bounded after it like a cat chasing a mouse.

  With his teeth bared and his eyes glaring, Vandar pushed a wolf-man backward. The berserker’s style was all offense: a relentless onslaught of slashes and cuts. He scarcely even maintained a guard, or seemed aware that his opponent had the ability to hurt him.

  No sellsword in Aoth’s company would have fought so recklessly, if only because the drillmasters would have trained it out of him. But it was working. The bloody gashes on the werewolf’s torso showed that Vandar was hurting it faster than it could heal. Whenever it lashed out with its claws or fangs, the beserker somehow contrived either to meet the attack with a stop cut or to twist aside.

  Suddenly a four-legged werewolf lunged out of the darkness toward Vandar’s back. Jhesrhi leveled her staff and shouted a word of command. The resulting darts of scarlet light pierced the creature just as it started to leap, turning what could have been a deadly spring into the flopping tumble of a lifeless body.

  Without seeming to even realize there’d been anything behind him, Vandar kept pressing his foe until his sword cut halfway through the werewolf’s neck. The creature’s legs buckled, and it dropped to its knees, clawing feebly at the blade. When the berserker yanked his weapon out of the wound, the beast toppled onto its face, and the fight was over.

  Cera instantly abandoned the fallen Choschax to rush to Aoth and kneel down beside him. Jhesrhi guessed that meant it was her turn to stand guard over the cyclops. She positioned herself accordingly, but found it difficult to pay attention to anything but what the sunlady was doing.

  Maybe her concern showed in the way she was standing. As Cera tugged off Aoth’s dented helmet, Jet looked over and rasped, “He’s not dead. I’d know if he was.”

  “I know,” Jhesrhi said. But that didn’t mean Aoth wasn’t badly hurt or even dying.

  Cera closed her eyes for a moment, and then her shoulders slumped in manifest relief. “He’s all right,” she said. “Just knocked senseless. I’ll bring him around.” She murmured a prayer, and her fingers glowed with golden luminescence. She gently touched them to Aoth’s forehead, where a livid stripe of bruise already showed.

  Aoth stirred, and his lambent blue eyes in their mask of tattooing fluttered open. “Need to puke,” he groaned. Cera helped him sit up, and he turned his head and vomited into the snow.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Some,” he replied as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “My head still hurts. What happened to me?”

  “Choschax hit you,” Cera said.

  “You’d think I’d remember that,” Aoth said.

  “No, it’s normal,” she answered. “Stay still.” She murmured a second prayer and caressed his forehead again.

  He smiled. “That’s much better,” he said. “Thanks.” He looked around, retrieved his spear, and stood up. Cera quickly rose as well, and stood ready to catch him if he lost his balance. But he didn’t.

  When it was clear that he was steady on his feet, Cera looked around at the rest of her comrades. “Was anyone else hurt?” she asked. “In particular, was anybody bitten? If so, the Keeper’s light can cleanse you, but we need to deal with it right now.”

  Apparently, everyone else was essentially all right. Jet disdained to mention the bumps and scratches he’d sustained while plunging through the branches.

  “So what’s our situation?” asked Aoth.

  “Your trick failed,” said Jet. “And the rest of us had to clean up the mess. As usual.”

  Aoth smiled a crooked smile. “And don’t think I don’t appreciate it,” he said. “But the question is, why did the trick fail? What sort or rebel or marauder spurns a potential ally out of hand when he’s got a powerful enemy to fight?”

  “All Rashemi hate Thayans,” Vandar said. Looking drained and shaky with his fury subsided, he tugged a stopper from a water bottle.

  Aoth shook his head. “If it was a werewolf that had attacked me, or even an undead durthan, that might explain it,” he said. “But do the fey care about the grudges that divide one group of humans from another?”

  “It could be that the cyclops recognized you,” Cera said. “Because you have a reputation even this far north, or because the enemy has spies in Immilmar.”

  “Maybe,” said Aoth, shrugging. Bits of snow that had caught in the links of his mail fell out.

  “We don’t have to speculate,” Jhesrhi said. “Choschax is alive. Wake him up, and he can tell us.”

  “Good idea,” said Aoth.

  Everyone gathered around the cyclops. Aoth took a look at the hulking creature, satisfying himself that he was still unconscious, then used the point of his spear to pry the axe out of his hand and flip it beyond his reach. Next he slipped Choschax’s curved dagger from its sheath and poised the spear an inch above his eye.

  “Now you can heal him enough to rouse him,” he said to Cera. “He doesn’t need to feel well and strong. In fact, I’d rather he didn’t.”

  “Amaunator will do as he sees fit,” Cera replied with a hint of reproof. But when she stooped and worked the same magic on the cyclops that she had worked on Aoth, it was in a brusquer and more perfunctory fashion. The burns on the side of Choschax’s face scarred over like he’d sustained them months before, and she backed away from him.

  The fey’s eye opened. He gasped and froze.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” said Aoth. “I’m squeamish about sticking a spear in a captive’s eye. But not so squeamish that I won’t do it.”

  “Useless curs,” Choschax growled.

  “Don’t be too hard on them,” Aoth replied. “Jhes there is an able wizard, and anyway, they’ve already paid with their lives for not being able to sniff us out. Your guards, too, I’m afraid. There’s nobody left to help you if things get nasty.”

  “What is it you want?” the cyclops asked.

  “Information,” said Aoth. “Why did you respond to an offer of help by trying to take me prisoner?”

  Choschax hesitated. “I do want to take you to speak to those above me,” he said. “But no one is allowed to see the way to our stronghold.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you to offer me a blindfold?” Aoth asked. “Try again.”

  “The wolves,” Choschax said. “You stole their human lives away from them. They needed revenge.”

  “The wolves weren’t in charge,” Aoth replied. “You were. Even that one female gave in to what you wanted in the end. Tell the truth, or lose the eye.”

  “I can’t tell you!” the cyclops said. “I gave my oath.”

  Aoth set the spearhead shining with blue phosphorescence. “I promise you, no healing power will grow it back,” he said. “Not with my magic poisoning the wound. So, how do the blind and the crippled fare among your kind? Will the other cyclopes care for you lovingly? I doubt it. But since your loyalty is absolute—”

  “Don’t!” Choschax said.

  “Then tell,” replied Aoth.

  The one-eyed giant swallowed. “I can only say what I know,” he said. “I’m not one of the lords who first struck bargains with the
durthans, nor one who conferred with them when they returned. I’m just the leader of a war band. My mistress gives me orders without explaining the reasons why.”

  “What orders?” asked Aoth.

  “To keep our endeavors a secret from all living humans, especially those loyal to the hathrans and the Iron Lord, of course,” Choschax said. “But also especially from Thayans.”

  Aoth frowned. “You’re sure she said that specific thing?” he asked. “Even though the odds of running into a Thayan this far north of the border were remote?”

  “Yes,” the cyclops said.

  “Why? What exactly was she worried about?”

  “I just told you, I don’t know.”

  “How did the undead witches and the werewolves travel south from the Erech Forest without being spotted?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How is it that you ‘dark fey’ and durthans expect to win this time around?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Aoth made a spitting sound. “You’d better know something more than what you’ve said already,” he said. “Otherwise, enjoy the sight of my face, because it’s the last—”

  “It’s not durthans!” Choschax said.

  “What?”

  “I mean, it is, but they’re just one part of something bigger. It’s not live durthans bringing back the dead ones, because there aren’t any. At the end of the last war, the hathrans really did wipe them out.”

  “Then who’s doing it?”

  “I don’t know. But they’re the instigators of all this. The planners. And they must be the ones who are leery of Thay.”

  Aoth frowned. “This ‘mistress’ of yours. Does she know more than you?” he asked.

  “I … suppose she must,” replied the cyclops.

  “Then we’ll need you to show us where she lives.”

  F

  I

  V

  E

  Dai Shan looked at the Iron Lord and saw a creature scarcely better than a wild orc squatting in a cave. The dimmest apprentice in a Shou merchant household had more subtlety and sophistication than such a puppet ruler ensconced in a cold, stark little chamber adjacent to his equally graceless throne room.

  Precisely because he himself possessed the qualities that Mangan Uruk conspicuously lacked, Dai Shan wasn’t worried that his sense of superiority showed in his face, or that his deep bow conveyed any sense of irony. Nonetheless, the Rashemi glowered at him.

  “You wanted a private meeting,” Mangan said. “Tell me why. Have you learned something about the undead?”

  “Alas, no,” Dai Shan replied. “My people made an honest effort, but … Highness, have you ever found yourself in the disconcerting situation of having to admit that a fool was right?”

  “Not that I recall,” Mangan said, gesturing for Dai Shan to sit down on the other side of the table.

  Dai Shan pulled back a chair. “Thank you, noble prince,” he said. “In this case, Folcoerr Dulsaer is the fool in question—a doltish, arrogant representative of a doltish, arrogant people. Still, buffoon though he is, he’s right about one thing. Theskian traders have no hope of unraveling a mystery involving the undead, necromancy, and the like.”

  Mangan grunted. “I saw how it got dark when you used your magic,” he said. “I thought maybe you knew at least a little necromancy.”

  Dai Shan felt a twinge of surprise. Perhaps the Iron Lord was a bit less dim than he seemed.

  “I’m afraid not,” the merchant said. “And, if I may return to my point: the fact of the matter is that no group of outlanders—be they Shou, Aglarondan, Halruaan, or Thayan—is likely to solve the current problem for you. We simply know too little about Rashemen. We don’t comprehend its history and traditions.”

  “Yhelbruna says differently,” Mangan said.

  “Highness, I mean no disrespect to the hathrans when I suggest that prophecy provides uncertain guidance to practical men,” the Shou replied. “In my experience, it’s better to act on the basis of common sense, and then trust that afterward, no matter how things work out, the seer will provide a tortured interpretation of the original prediction to demonstrate that it all came true after all.”

  For a moment, Mangan’s lips quirked into a smile. It was the revelation Dai Shan had been watching for: a sign that at least once in a while and to some degree, the Iron Lord chafed at taking orders from the Wychlaran.

  “I hear you,” Mangan said. “But to a ‘practical’ man like me, your remarks so far seem to boil down to one thing: You give up. But you didn’t ask for a private palaver just to tell me that.”

  “Your Highness is as astute as he is valiant,” replied the Shou. “I’m ready to give up on ridding Rashemen of the undead. But I haven’t given up on acquiring the griffons. The talks we had when I first arrived in Immilmar give me hope that you still see some advantage to parting with them in a straightforward business transaction.”

  Mangan scratched at his short black beard with its sprinkling of white. Dai Shan wouldn’t have been astonished to discover that the Rashemi had fleas.

  “You know I was always of two minds about that,” Mangan said. “I believe the beasts truly are a gift from the spirits, and they unquestionably have the potential to become a formidable weapon. But Rashemen’s forces have never included aerial cavalry—by the spiral horn, we barely even have horsemen—and a sensible warrior sees the practical difficulties of building such a company from scratch even if the witches don’t. I also know Rashemen is a poor realm because we don’t have much to sell that folk from other lands are willing to buy at a decent price. I thought, perhaps we finally do have something, and who’s to say that’s not what the Three mean for us to do with it?”

  Dai Shan smiled. “Certainly not I,” he said.

  Mangan didn’t return the smile. “No. Not you,” he replied. “Yhelbruna. She proclaimed this quest of hers, and there’s the end of any common-sense notions I had.”

  “Yet you’re the Iron Lord,” the Shou said. “Beloved champion of your people. I know you don’t mean to suggest that you have nothing to say in the matter.”

  Mangan opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated.

  Dai Shan pressed onward. “So it seems to me, wise prince,” he continued, that if you ordered the release of the griffons into my custody, released they would surely be. Afterward, if you deemed it necessary, you could say you misunderstood the hathrans’ plans for them, or that the Three spoke to you and commanded you to act as you did. Surely they’ve granted a revelation to a male at some point in Rashemi history.

  “At any rate, the crux of the matter is this: With the griffons gone, the Aglarondans and the various sellswords will have no reason to stay in Rashemen and try to help you. And when they leave, the Wychlaran will understand that they don’t dare pick a quarrel with the only warlord left to deal with the undead. That’s what you’ve wanted to do from the start, if I’m not mistaken, and I have every confidence you ultimately will. By the time you have destroyed them, the griffons will only be a fading memory, whereas Mangan Uruk will be more of a hero than ever. The hathrans will surely see there’s absolutely nothing to gain by bickering with you, then.”

  “You spin a happy story,” Mangan said. “But hathrans are actually minding the griffons, hathrans who undoubtedly do understand Yhelbruna’s actual intent.”

  “One priestess tends the animals,” Dai Shan replied. “One at a time. I took the liberty of checking. Surely two practical men can contrive a way to draw her away from her post. Then a wizard in my company, a beast charmer of some renown, will contrive to replace the enchantment Yhelbruna used to control the griffons with one of his own. After which, Rashemen will see us no more.”

  Mangan sat, scowled, and pondered for several heartbeats. “No,” he said, finally.

  Dai Shan sighed. “You’re quite certain that’s your final word?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Mangan said with a smile. “Sorry to disappoint you. I think you were pretty
sure you’d hooked your fish, and for a moment … But an Iron Lord takes direction from the Urlingwood even when he wonders if the wise women are really so wise after all. I do it not only because I swore an oath to do it but also because that’s the way it’s always been. And I don’t care how it looks to some outsider.”

  “Highness, I understand completely,” replied the Shou. “A wise man honors the ways of his forefathers.” Except when they were cretinous savages who lived in fear of his foremothers, Dai Shan thought.

  “Well, then,” Mangan said. “Are we done? Shall I tell the cooks to prepare a farewell feast, and order my people to help yours get your iceboats ready to sail?”

  “Actually, no,” Dai Shan answered. “With your permission, we Theskians will stay awhile longer and keep trying to solve the undead problem.”

  “Even though you just told me you can’t?”

  “I was seeking a shorter, surer path to the griffons. But if no such path exists, well, perhaps the task the hathrans set us isn’t so hopeless after all. The only way to find out is to give it our best.”

  “Then go do that.”

  “Yes, august prince.” Dai Shan rose and bowed.

  “Oh, and Saer?” Mangan said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll be sending some warriors to keep that lone hathran company. Just to make sure you understand that the short path really doesn’t exist.”

  After leaving the Iron Lord’s presence, Dai Shan decided to walk the battlements for a time. It would be cold under the black and starry sky, but quieter than the chambers the castle chamberlain had set aside for his company’s use, with his underlings and servants babbling, snoring, or wandering about. The solitude would help him think.

  Though he couldn’t have seen the griffons at such a distance even by day, he felt moved to linger on the north wall and gaze in the general direction of the hills where the hathrans were keeping them. By Shar’s empty heart, what a treasure! The beasts could make the House of Shan the wealthiest merchant enterprise in Telflamm, and inspire Dai Shan’s father to name him heir. In which case, his siblings had better commence their groveling quickly.