The masked witches botg-4 Read online

  Lesser, said the demon, its psychic voice stabbing into Uramar s mind, is a strange word for one of you paltry undead to apply to me.

  We re the ones who have you caged, Uramar said.

  For how much longer? the demon replied. Your barrier and the witch are one and the same. I push, she has to push back. And so she exhausts her strength.

  If that s true, Nyevarra said, then I suppose it would be prudent to shove you back into your original prison while I still can.

  The wasp-thing laughed. Its mirth was like a whip lashing and slicing the inside of Uramar s head. But you can t, little leech. I don t know how long I was bound here. A long while, I think. But I can see that you re no Nar, and you don t possess their skills.

  I don t see a point to your hostility, Uramar said. The Nars enslaved you, so why would you want to fulfill their purpose? I was once in a similar situation, and I certainly had no desire to please my captors. Let Nyevarra set you free. All we ask in return is that you go in peace. Otherwise, we ll have to lock you away again or kill you.

  It would be nice to thwart the Nar who bound me, the demon said. But how would he ever even know about it? Whereas you little folk are cringing right in front of me. I can actually hurt and destroy you, and that too will set me free.

  We re not cringing, Nyevarra began. Suddenly the blue glimmer in the lines on the floor blinked out, and the ekolid sprang at her.

  Its forelegs slammed into her shoulders and chest, and its momentum plunged her to the floor beneath it. Its tails whirled around its body to drive their stingers into her flanks. Its mandibles spread to grip her head between them.

  Uramar raised his greatsword, willed his cold flesh colder, and rushed in. Kill it! he called to the zombies. He wasn t sure that any of them would obey under the circumstances, or that they d be of much use if they did, but it was worth a try.

  Meanwhile, Nyevarra s body vanished in a puff of mist and swirled away from the demon s murderous embrace. The ekolid immediately oriented on Uramar, and its several tails reared like serpents.

  As Uramar lunged into striking distance, he couldn t see any sign that the deathly chill that surrounded him was bothering the fiend. He hadn t really expected it to, but it was another measure that was at least worth a try.

  Let s see you ignore this! snarled one of his warrior selves, and he swung the greatsword down at the demon s head.

  The obyrith responded with two simultaneous actions. One of its stingers stabbed into Uramar s flank just above the hip. A different tail whipped into position to parry the sword stroke near the top of its arc.

  As the stinger ripped free, a burst of pain doubled Uramar over. But the greatsword cut a little nick in the demon s tail, and it faltered, too. A psychic shriek rasped through Uramar s head.

  The ekolid shook off the paralysis of sudden pain with a rattling shudder of its entire body, transparent wings, lashing tails, and all. At the same time, Uramar found renewed strength of his own in the power that shivered through his sword hilt into his hands.

  The ekolid scuttled forward. Though still not fully recovered, Uramar managed to snap his point into line. The demon jerked to a halt just before it would have rammed its own head onto the blade. Then it hopped backward.

  A life-drinking sword, it said. How does a slave stitched together from scraps of offal acquire such a treasure?

  I m not a slave, panted Uramar, straightening up. Not anymore, he wasn t. You have no idea who we are, or the things we re going to do. It s a shame you won t live long enough to find out.

  Perhaps you can tell me all about it when you re groveling to me in the Abyss, the demon said. That s assuming a travesty like you even has a soul to go there. Really, I think it s just as likely that everything you are is about to disappear like a blown-out candle flame.

  The pain of the puncture wound above Uramar s hip had faded to an ache, but flared into agony once more. A pale grub the size of his thumb came squirming out of the hole.

  At that moment of shock, revulsion, and pain, the ekolid lunged. The two zombies who hadn t lost what passed for their minds lurched past Uramar and swung their pickaxes. The one on the right popped a couple of the demon s round black eyes into smears of jelly. The other tore a wing. The ekolid retaliated and all but ripped them apart with arcing, whipping stabs of its stingers.

  At the same time, Nyevarra, in womanly form once more, shrieked three rhyming words. Lightning crackled from her outstretched hand to blaze across the demon s hindquarters. The blast made the ekolid falter for a scant instant, but had no other effect that Uramar could discern. It continued to scuttle toward him.

  He dipped the greatsword low, as if he meant to shear the obyrith s forelegs out from underneath it. Its tails shifted to defend against such an attack and strike back at his torso. He retreated just out of reach of the stingers and let go of his weapon with his left hand. Suddenly he whipped out his arm, and threw a barrage of conjured hailstones from his fingertips.

  Caught by surprise, the ekolid offered no defense. And while it might be impervious to pure cold, the hard bits of ice pulped and tore at the rest of its eyes almost as effectively as the zombies pickaxes.

  The demon recoiled, and, slashing, Uramar pursued. Nyevarra cast away her tarnished mask, revealing a face that a mortal might have found pretty except for its ashen pallor, needle fangs, and snarl of bestial fury. She leaped onto the demon s back among the buzzing wings and started biting.

  Despite their combined attack, killing the ekolid wasn t easy. But finally the demon collapsed with much of its head, torso, and limbs either crisscrossed with gory wounds or chopped away entirely.

  Its death throes were mere shudders, but from the corner of his eye, Uramar glimpsed something else crawling in the spreading pool of its dark, putrid blood. It was the larva, already bigger than when it had wriggled out of his side. He bellowed and stamped it to mush.

  For a moment, slumping, he imagined that was the last thing he needed to do. Then he realized that Nyevarra was still clinging to the motionless ekolid and still licking and sucking at its wounds.

  It was normal behavior for a vampire, but the results weren t. Her body swelled, and there was a squirming beneath her clothing, as though new appendages were sprouting. Her skull made crunching noises as it changed shape. Her two eyes divided into four, and the beginnings of mandibles curled from her temples.

  Uramar dropped his sword, grabbed Nyevarra, and dragged her off the ekolid. She struggled, but her strength, though greater than human, was less than his own. Knowing of a no more sophisticated remedy, he slammed her into the wall repeatedly.

  Rather to his surprise, it worked. Her shape ran and blurred, writhed and shifted in his grasp, until she was herself again, and she stopped fighting to break free.

  He let go of her carefully and watched to see if her seeming return to normalcy was a trick. It didn t seem to be. She didn t use her restored mobility to attack.

  Thank you, she said. She rubbed her stained lips with the back of her hand. The blood was foul, but wonderful, too. I couldn t stop drinking it.

  I m glad it didn t do you any permanent harm, he replied.

  That s twice you ve pulled me back from oblivion, or as good as, she said. She reached up, caressed his cheek, and traced the path of his jugular, her fingertip sliding over the ridges in his flesh. Would you like to help me wash the bad taste from my mouth?

  Some of his broken souls moaned, Yes! But others urged caution, reminded him of his mission, or simply felt awkward and inept, and those were the voices that prevailed.

  He stepped back from her and asked, How did the ekolid break free?

  She smirked at his implicit refusal, and her fangs retracted into what appeared to be ordinary canine teeth. The fiend explained it well enough, she said. It was strong, and I m not a Nar.

  Let s press on, then, and find those who are, he replied.

  He retrieved his greatsword, and Nyevarra, her mask. The two zombies who d gone mad had
stopped thrashing, and when he told them to get up, they obeyed as if they didn t even remember their panic.

  Uramar ordered the creatures to finish smashing a way through the wall. When they did, the burial chamber stood revealed.

  It was full of gold and gems, often used to fashion grotesque images of devils and demons in the forms of statuary, brooches, and sword hilts. One of Uramar s selves, a simpleminded one, wished he and his companions had brought a lantern so he could see all the treasure gleam. Others felt a reflexive thrill of greed. But he barely noticed the stray flickers of thought. He was too intent on the trio of sarcophagi on their pentagonal dais.

  Nyevarra grunted. That was a lot of trouble to go to for only three, she muttered.

  Uramar smiled. I think it will be all right, he said. Tombs are like houses. It s powerful folk who have big, luxurious spaces all to themselves, or nearly so. And if these people were powerful before they died, we can hope they ll come back the same way.

  Prying with their pickaxes, the zombies shifted the heavy stone sarcophagus lids out of the grooves where they fit, then slid them to the side. One by one, the lids crashed to the floor. Whatever ultimately came of it, Uramar found he enjoyed this bit of desecration for its own sake. For how often, during the idleness and solitude of his long years in bondage, had he wanted to do something similar?

  Inside the boxes were crumbling bones, dust, and the gem and metal portions of whatever garments the dead had worn. Uramar took a bottle of Lod s pigment from the pouch on his belt, and, careful not to crush the fragile things, daubed symbols of reanimation on what remained of the skulls.

  It was time for the incantation. Nyevarra joined in, and gradually other voices started whispering along as well. For a change, they were not the phantom voices that commonly pestered Uramar. He didn t know whose voices they were. He wondered if even Lod did.

  As he, Nyevarra, and the unseen chorus neared the end of the spell, he had a sense of twisting, or pressure and resistance, as though some abstract but fundamental aspect of the world was being forced into an unnatural shape. Somehow blacker even than the utter darkness of the crypt, shadows seethed and rippled inside the sarcophagi. On the final syllable, the shadows exploded outward, and for an instant, even he was blind.

  When Uramar s sight returned, the Nars were already sitting up. The magic had brought them back as ghouls gaunt, hunched, and hairless with sunken eyes, mouths full of fangs, and claws on the ends of twisted fingers.

  What s happened? asked one of the creatures. He d come back with his nose entirely rotted off, which made his withered face look even more like a skull s than was the case with the other two.

  We ve given the world back to you, Nyevarra said, and you back to the world.

  Why? Skull-face asked.

  Because we want your help, Uramar said.

  Skull-face sprang out of the sarcophagus, then faltered, seemingly startled by his own agility.

  We re reborn better than we were before, Nyevarra said.

  Skull-face looked down at himself, then examined his rotting features by touch. I would have thought I d be repelled, he murmured. But I m not. What I am is hungry. He licked his lips with a black and pointed tongue.

  A second ghoul sprang up. That one had been a woman. One breast dangled, and one was gone, along with the ear and cheek on the same side. It s strange, she said. I can t remember anything after the axe came down. Was it all just nothing, then, without even a hell to suffer in?

  It doesn t matter, Uramar said. You re here now.

  Thanks to you, said the third ghoul, standing up in a more gingerly fashion than the others. He d been extensively tattooed, and he twitched repeatedly as the designs redrew themselves, a stroke at a time, in his shriveled hide. Because you want our help. With what?

  You were lords and conquerors once, Uramar said.

  We invite you to be such again, and help found an empire like none the twin worlds have ever seen.

  The female ghoul grinned. Will this enterprise involve killing Raumvirans? she asked.

  Uramar sighed and replied. Actually, that s one of the many things we need to talk about.

  FOUR

  Huldra was a reasonably imposing figure in her black-and-white hooded cloak and mask. The colors flowed and changed from one to the other as she marched along, like she was the moon itself come down to the sunlit center of the village of Yivel. And Aoth fancied that the rest of their little procession Jhesrhi, Cera, Vandar, and himself appeared as impressive as the hathran striding at the head of it.

  Yes, all in all, it was no wonder that the inhabitants of the little huddle of longhouses and huts came scurrying to attend them. No one dared to keep them waiting, although, evidently hoping to avoid notice, some villagers made a point of standing behind their neighbors.

  Huldra lifted her staff a length of birch with an ivory crescent for a head and thumped it down again. Dirty snow crunched beneath the ferrule. Who speaks for this village? she asked.

  Since there was a gray-bearded man, muscular but running to fat, with a silver medallion in the shape of a bird of prey standing right in front of her, Aoth assumed the question was ceremonial. The bearded man s stony-faced response probably was, too. I, Borilak Murokina of the Eagle Lodge, he replied.

  Do you know why I ve come? Huldra asked.

  No, Borilak said, and now his anxiety showed through. Traveling hathrans visited the village once a month. But to hear Huldra tell it, it had always been as a friendly counselor and healer, not as the cold, magisterial figure who stood before him with even more threatening-looking associates in tow.

  Then you don t know anything about the massacre in the north? Huldra asked.

  No! the aging berserker said.

  That s strange, Huldra said. Very strange.

  Aoth had to give the hathran credit. He d drafted her not because he had any reason to think her a skilled dissembler, but simply because she was the hathran who ministered to the settlement. Yet she was being as subtly menacing as a Red Wizard inquisitor.

  Please, lady, Borilak said, tell us. A murmur ran through the onlookers.

  I believe you all know, Huldra said, that even with the durthans gone, the Erech Forest is a dark and tainted place. That s why the Wychlaran urged the Eagle Lodge and those allied with it not to settle the western shores of the lake. But you couldn t bear to let rich land go unclaimed, and we hathrans have protected you as best we can.

  Get to the point, growled Jet, monitoring the proceedings through his master s eyes and ears. Aoth suppressed a smile.

  Unfortunately, Huldra continued, bands of black and white flowing across her garments, it has now become plain that, despite our vigilance, a number of settlers have fallen prey to lycanthropy. And those so cursed have joined into a pack that slaughtered every living soul in Vinvel.

  The villagers gasped and babbled.

  Huldra waited until they had quieted down. I promise the same thing won t happen here, she said. We hathrans are going to do everything necessary to identify and kill the werewolves. You all know that my particular patron is Sel ne. At moonrise, she ll give me the power to reveal any lycanthropes living among you, and then my companions will strike them down. Killing shapeshifters is their particular trade.

  Her gaze shifted back to Borilak. Meanwhile, we ll rest in your house, she continued. We ve had a long hike through the snow.

  The hathran led her companions toward a longhouse with carved jutting eagle heads and images of the birds in flight. Behind them, the villagers resumed their agitated talk, and a couple of women started sobbing.

  Borilak had a good fire leaping and crackling in his field-stone hearth, and the air inside was considerably warmer than that outside. As Aoth leaned his spear against the wall and shrugged off his cloak, he said, That was perfect, lady, thank you.

  I m glad you think so, Huldra replied. Distress had supplanted the hauteur in her voice. I never would have done it if not ordered by the Urlingwood itself.

&
nbsp; Aoth knew just enough about Rashemen to understand the figure of speech. The Urlingwood was a sacred forest where only hathrans were allowed, and trespassers were put to death. Thus, ordered by the Urlingwood meant she had been commanded by one of the supreme matriarchs of her order. In her case, Yhelbruna.

  I understand how you feel, Cera began, slipping her gilded buckler off her arm.

  Do you? Huldra snapped. Many of the folk outside had family in Vinvel, and I just told them their kin are dead! How will they ever forgive me or trust me again?

  They ll forgive you, Jhesrhi said, when you explain the lie was necessary to flush out the werewolf that was living among them. Though she was the only one of them who likely hadn t felt the winter cold even slightly, she drifted toward the fireplace, and the yellow flames leaped higher. The light reflected on her staff.

  But you don t know that there is a werewolf! Vandar said. You re only guessing!

  Aoth sighed. He cast about and spotted a jug on a shelf. He pulled the cork and was pleased when the smell of beer suffused the air.

  Think about it, he said. High Lady Yhelbruna and the Iron Lord sent us all out to hunt the undead. So that s what Bez, Dulsaer, and Dai Shan are doing. Even though the ghosts and such have turned out to be damned elusive so far.

  He took a pull from the jug the hoppy brew tasted good to him, but then, drink nearly always did and offered it to Huldra. After a moment s hesitation, she accepted it and turned away to drink, so no one would see when she pulled her mask aside.

  What the others haven t considered, Aoth continued, or at least I hope they haven t, is that not all the creatures we fought were undead. Some were werewolves. And since the durthans hailed from the Erech Forest, maybe the shapeshifters came from hereabouts, too. Maybe those who remained behind can tell us something about the witches.

  If any did remain, Huldra said, passing the jug to Cera. And if they truly do live in one of the settlements instead of in the wild.