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  Tammith scurried to grab another bench, keeping an eye on the spider lest it jump at her again. Instead, it reared onto its hind legs, exposing the underside of its body. Burning matter sprayed from an orifice in its abdomen.

  The discharge spewed in a wide arc and expanded in flight to become a kind of net. Caught by surprise, Tammith tried to dodge, but was too slow. The heavy mesh fell over her and dragged her to her knees. Its blazing touch brought instant agony.

  With burning, blackening hands, she struggled to rip the adhesive web away from her body. Another weight, far heavier than the mesh, slammed down on her and crushed her to the floor. Liquid fire dripping from its fangs, the spider lowered its head to bite.

  She wasted a precious instant in desperate, agonized squirming, then realized what she needed to do. Focusing past the distractions of pain and fear, she asserted her mastery of her own mutable form.

  Tammith dissolved into vapor. Even the lack of a solid body failed to quell the ache of her wounds, but the spider could no longer bite her, and its bulk and web couldn't hold her any longer. She billowed up around it and streamed to the other side of the room.

  Given the choice, she might well have kept flowing right out the door. But although she was a captain in the legions of the north, she was also a slave, magically constrained to obey Xingax and Szass Tam. The latter had ordered her to accomplish her mission at any cost.

  That would require slaying the spider, and she couldn't do it as a cloud of fog. She had to become tangible once again.

  As she did so, she glanced at her charred hands and her arms where the sleeves had burned away. New skin was already growing, but not quickly enough. If the arachnid seized her again, it would likely hurt her so severely as to render her helpless.

  She spun and scaled one of the bookcases, then released the shelves to cling to the ceiling. Intent on climbing up after her, her adversary raced across the floor.

  She grabbed the bookcase and strained to heave it away from the wall. She could use only one hand and had no leverage, and for a moment, she feared that even her vampiric strength would prove insufficient. Then she felt the case's center of gravity shift, and it toppled.

  It crashed down on top of the spider. She dropped after it, then jumped up and down to smash the arachnid's body. Layers of paper and wood insulated her from flames and the worst of the heat. At first, the wreckage rocked back and forth as the spider tried to drag itself out, but after several impacts, its struggles subsided.

  Tammith grinned, and then something hit her like a giant's hammer. Her guts churned and her skin burned anew, glowing, on the brink of catching fire. She reeled back and Hezass Nymar stepped from his apartments into the antechamber. She could barely make him out, for the man assailing her with the power of his priesthood stood shrouded from head to toe in Kossuth's fire.

  Tammith ordinarily had a strong resistance to the divine abilities that most priests wielded against the undead. But Nymar was a high priest standing in his place of power, and she was already badly hurt. His righteous loathing ground at her flesh and mind.

  She silently called to the rats, crouching in the shadows. She hadn't sought to use them against the spider. They would have burned to death in a heartbeat, most likely without the beast even noticing their presence. But maybe they could help her now.

  The rodents charged Nymar and clambered up his bare feet and ankles, biting and clawing. He yelped, danced, and flailed, trying to dislodge them. It broke his concentration, and his nimbus of flame, along with Tammith's sickness and paralysis, vanished altogether.

  Tammith rushed Nymar, grabbed him, and slammed him down on his back. The rats scurried away. She bashed the priest's head back and forth, pinned him, and showed him her fangs. She needed willpower to refrain from tearing her captive's throat out and guzzling him dry. She was still in pain, and such a meal would speed her healing.

  "Please," he gasped, "this is a mistake. I'm on Szass Tam's side."

  "No," she said. "You slipped away to betray him to the council. As he knew you would. As he intended."

  "I… I don't understand."

  "Since you were sincere, you were able to win a measure of their trust despite your history of treachery. But now that your task is accomplished, it's time to cement your allegiance where it belongs."

  "I swear by the holy fire, from now on, I truly will be loyal."

  "I know you will."

  "You made too much noise! The monks are surely coming even now!"

  "I know that, too. I can hear them. But by the time they arrive, I'll be gone, and you'll explain how an assassin tried to murder you, but you burned the dastard to ash. They'll have no reason to doubt you, as long as you hide the marks on your neck."

  CHAPTER TWO

  16–29 Tarsakh, the Year of Blue Fire

  The griffon rider came running to tell Bareris that some of the legionnaires were violating the patrol's standing orders. The soldier found his immediate superior in consultation with Aoth.

  When the two comrades investigated, they discovered a griffon crouching outside the hut in question. No doubt its master had stationed it there to keep anyone from interfering with the mischief inside. Aoth brandished his spear at the beast and it screeched, lowered its white-feathered aquiline head, and slunk to the side.

  Bareris tried the door. It was latched, so he booted it open.

  The round dwelling was all one room, with a stove in the center, a loom to one side, and a bed on the far end. Their faces pulped and bloody, a man and a woman sprawled on the rush-strewn earthen floor. Two of the soldiers responsible were holding a sobbing, thrashing girl-Bareris put her age at twelve or thirteen-spread-eagled atop a table. The third was tearing off her clothes.

  The door banged against the wall and all three jerked around. Aoth could have simply snapped orders at the men, but he was too angry to settle for mere words. He lunged at one and struck with the butt of his spear. The ash haft cracked against bone and the man fell, tatters of skirt in his hand. The other two released the child and scrambled out of reach.

  Aoth took a deep breath. "You know the rules. No looting except for what an officer gives you permission to confiscate, no beatings, and no rape."

  "But that's provided the rustics are friendly," said the soldier on the left. "Provided they cooperate. These didn't."

  "What do you mean?" asked Aoth.

  The warrior picked up a clay bowl from the table. Somehow, it remained unspilled and unbroken. The legionnaire overturned it, and a watery brown liquid spattered out.

  "The villagers are supposed to give their best hospitality to the zulkirs' troops," he said. "Yet this is what they serve us. This slop! Isn't it plain they're holding the good food back?"

  Aoth sighed. "No, idiot, it isn't. Last year's harvest was bad, the winter was long and harsh, and they've barely had time to begin the spring planting. They'll go hungry tomorrow for want of the gruel they offered you tonight."

  The griffon rider blinked. "Well… I couldn't know, could I? And anyway, I'm almost certain I heard one of them insult the First Princess."

  "Did you now?"

  "Besides," the soldier continued, "they're just peasants. Just Rashe-" It dawned on him that he might not be taking a wise tactic in light of his commander's suspect ancestry, and the words caught in his throat.

  "The two of you," said Aoth, "pick up your fellow imbecile and get out of here. I'll deal with you shortly." They did as instructed, and then Aoth turned to Bareris. "I trust you know songs to calm this girl, and to ease her parents' hurts."

  "Yes," Bareris said. He applied the remedies as best he could, even though charms of solace and healing no longer came to him as naturally as they once had.

  With the parents back on their feet and the girl huddling in her mother's arms, Aoth offered his apologies and a handful of silver. The father seemed to think the coins were some sort of trap, for he proved reluctant to accept them. Aoth left the money on the table on his way out.

/>   "What's the punishment?" Bareris asked. As the miscreants' immediate superior, he was the one responsible for administering discipline.

  "Hang the bastards," Aoth replied.

  "You don't mean that."

  "They deserve it. But you're right. Nymia would string me up if I executed two of her griffon riders just for mistreating a family of farmers, especially on the eve of a major battle. So five lashes each, but not yet. Let them sweat while you and I have a talk."

  "As you wish." They'd already been talking when the soldier came to fetch them, but Bareris inferred that Aoth had something more private in mind. Sure enough, the war mage led him all the way through the cluster of huts and cottages. The men-at-arms watched as their officers tramped by.

  Beyond the farmhouses were fields and pastures, which gave way to rolling grasslands that made up the greater part of Tyraturos. Bareris scrutinized the landscape stretched out beneath the evening sky, still banded with gold where the sun had made its farewell, and charcoal gray high above.

  Earlier that day, they'd ascertained that the bulk of Szass Tam's army was marching well to the northwest, and it was unlikely that even the lich's scouts and outriders had strayed this far from the main column. Still, it paid to be cautious.

  Aoth led his friend to a pen made of split rails. It held no animals, only a scattering of leprous-looking toadstools. The war mage heaved himself up to sit on the fence, and Bareris climbed up beside him.

  "Well," said Aoth. "Ten years since I discovered you and Mirror hiking out of the Sunrise Mountains."

  Responding to his name, Mirror wavered into view. Maybe he'd been with them all along. For a moment, the phantom resembled the bard, then Aoth, and then settled into a blurred gray shadow that scarcely possessed a face at all. His presence chilled the air.

  Aoth acknowledged the ghost with a nod. "Ten years since we started fighting Szass Tam."

  "Yes," Bareris said.

  "Have you ever thought it might be time to stop?"

  Bareris cocked his head. A strand of hair spilled across his eye and he pushed it up, noticing in passing just how matted and greasy it was. "I don't know what you mean."

  "A griffon rider could be out of Thay before anyone even realized he'd decided to leave, and then, well, Faerыn's a big place, with plenty of opportunities for a fellow who knows how to cast spells or swing a sword."

  "This is just blather. You'd never abandon your men."

  "We'll invite them to come along. Think how much a foreign prince will pay to employ an entire company of griffon riders."

  "You must be tired if that unpleasantness back in the hut upset you as much as this."

  "It wasn't that. At most, that was the last little weight that finally tipped the scale. Do you ever ask yourself why we're fighting?"

  "To destroy Szass Tam, or at least to keep him from making himself overlord."

  "And why is that important, when he has as much right to rule Thay as anyone? When the lords who oppose him are just as untrustworthy and indifferent to anything but their own interests?"

  "Because they aren't. Not quite, anyway. Don't you remember? We made up our minds on the subject back in that grove, when the necromancer came to speak with us."

  "Yes, but over the course of a decade, a man can change his opinion. Consider this. Samas Kul cast his lot with the lich for a season or two. Yaphyll's allied with him now. Half the tharchions jump back and forth like frogs. By the Abyss, I doubt that even Nymia would stay loyal if she thought she'd fare better on the other side, and then where would you and I be with our preferences and principles?"

  "It's more sensible," Bareris said, "to consider where you actually are. Our mistress and the zulkirs have treated you well. They've given you command of the Griffon Legion and purses full of gold."

  "Things I never wanted. I was happy as I was. If they want to reward me, I wish it could be with their respect. Respect for my judgment and experience." Aoth shifted slightly atop the fence.

  "Now I see. They offended you by rejecting your advice. But I'll be honest with you. It isn't plain to me that you were right and they were wrong."

  "It isn't plain to me, either, but I feel it, just as I've sensed such things once or twice before. We believe we've out-thought the enemy, but we haven't. Something nasty is going to happen at the Keep of Sorrows, and I'd rather be far away when it does."

  "You say that, but I know you're not a coward," Bareris said.

  "You're right. I have my share of courage, or at least I hope I do. What I lack is a cause worth risking my life over. For a long while, I thought I was fighting to save the green, bountiful Thay of my boyhood, but look around you. That realm's already dead, trampled by armies and poisoned by battle sorcery. I'm not a necromancer, and I don't want to waste the rest of my days trying to animate the rotting husk that remains."

  "And neither should you," Aoth continued. "I understand why you fight-to avenge Tammith. But from all you've told me, she'd weep to see what your compulsion has made of you-a bard who never sings except to kill. I think she'd want you to lay down your grief and hatred and start life anew."

  He's made up his mind, Bareris realized. He's going to saddle Brightwing and disappear into the sky, even if I refuse to go with him.

  And that would be a disaster. Aoth had matured into one of the most formidable champions in the south. The cause could ill afford to lose him, and it certainly couldn't manage without all the griffon riders, who might well follow where their captain led.

  Bareris would have to stop him.

  "You know me too well," he said, infusing his speech with enchantment. "It is hate that drives me, and I won't pretend otherwise. But your judgment is too pessimistic where our homeland is concerned. What sorcery has broken, it can mend. Given a chance, the old Thay will rise again, blue skies, thriving plantations, mile-long merchant caravans, and all."

  Aoth's eyelids fluttered. He gave his head a shake as if it felt muddled and he needed to clear it. "Well, it's possible, I suppose. But for it to flower again in our lifetime-"

  "We need to win the war quickly," Bareris said, "before it further fouls the earth, water, and air, and further depopulates the countryside. I agree, the zulkirs agree, and that's why they intend to strike hard at the opening Szass Tam is giving them. You see the sense in it, don't you?"

  "Yes," Aoth admitted, his speech ever so slightly slurred. "I do understand, just as I understand that they're cunning, and mine is only one dissenting voice. It's just…" He seemed unable to complete his thought.

  "If you understand, then help! Keep your oath. Stand with me and the rest of your friends. If we win, you'll share in the glory and all the good things that will follow. If we lose, at least you won't live out your life wracked with a betrayer's guilt, wondering whether your prowess might have meant the difference."

  "Fastrin the Delver went mad," Mirror said in his hollow moan. Bareris jerked around, and Aoth did too, despite his light trance. Over the years, they'd grown used to the ghost hovering around, but he spoke so rarely that his utterances still tended to startle.

  "He wanted to kill everyone," Mirror continued. "Some folk fought, some ran, and either way, it didn't matter. He got everyone in the end. But I'm glad I'm one who fought."

  Bareris's mouth tightened in exasperation. The terse story agreed with the history Quickstrike the gravecrawler had once related, and almost certainly represented one of Mirror's rare glimmers of authentic memory, but that wasn't the point. Though the ghost appeared to be recommending courage, his story also implied that those who dared to cross archwizards like Szass Tam could anticipate only destruction. That moral seemed likely to bolster Aoth's doubts and so disrupt the influence Bareris was weaving.

  But Aoth sighed and said, "I suppose I'd feel the same way. Death gets us all eventually, doesn't it? If not in the form of an ambitious lich or crazy warlock, then in some other guise. So you might as well stick by your comrades and follow the banner you've chosen no matter how ragged
and faded it becomes."

  Bareris's shoulders slumped with relief. Beneath that emotion was the hint of another-a vague, uncomfortable squirming that might have been shame-but it subsided quickly. "Now that's the Aoth I've known for all these years."

  Aoth snorted. "Yes, Aoth the fool." His mail clinking, he slid off the fence. "Let's go back and get the flogging over with."

  Perched on a mound at the edge of the sheer drop that was the First Escarpment, girt with a double ring of walls, the Keep of Sorrows had never fallen, and wise men opined it never could. Still, as Nular Zurn, the castellan of the granite fortress, stood on the battlements and studied the advancing host through his spyglass, he felt tense anyway.

  It wasn't just the size of the besieging force, though it was huge, darkening the plain like a vast stain and flying the standards of every tharch and order of Wizardry, since Szass Tam claimed dominion over them all. Nor was it the knowledge that the lich himself was down there somewhere. What troubled him was the nature of the troops under his command.

  Throughout its history, Thay had employed undead troops, the Zombie Legion, dread warriors, and the like. During his thirty-five years of soldiering, Nular had, of necessity, grown accustomed to such creatures. But he'd never seen so many gathered together, rank upon rank of withered and sometimes eyeless faces, and enclosed wagons shrouded in pockets of unnatural gloom carrying entities that could only move around between sunset and dawn. Although the host was still some distance away, the wind already carried its carrion stink, and he wondered how the lich's companies of living warriors could stand marching in the thick of it.

  Nular glanced up and down the walkway. Lacking spyglasses, his own soldiers couldn't see the advancing army as well as he could, but they could discern enough to discomfit them. He could read it in their faces.

  "Where's our hospitality?" he said, raising his voice sufficiently to carry along the battlements. "Why do you stand mute when guests have come to call? Say hello!"

  Its gray hide creased with scars and spittle flying from its mouth, a blood orc sergeant screamed an ear-splitting battle cry. In moments, all the orcs joined in and the human warriors too, although the latter couldn't compete with their pig-faced comrades. Their shouts were all but lost in the din.