The masked witches botg-4 Read online

  Pure startled reflexes made the other cyclopes scramble away from the beast that had plummeted among them. But they soon poised their weapons to threaten him. Snarling werewolves came slinking to surround and menace him as well.

  With the cyclopes gazes diverted elsewhere, Jhesrhi managed to suck in a breath and wheeze her incantation. Her heartbeat steadied, and the juddering pain subsided. Using her staff for support, she heaved herself to her feet. Swaying, she regarded the circle of foes who, by the looks of it, were only a moment away from swarming Jet and overwhelming him.

  She couldn t hit them all without striking the familiar as well, so she settled for extending her blazing hand and snapping a word of command. Darts of red light leaped from her fingertips and stabbed into the broad backs of Choschax and another cyclops. The brutes cried out and staggered.

  At that same moment, Vandar charged out of the darkness. With his face twisted in a snarl that made him look as feral as any of the wolf-men, he cut at a cyclops s neck. The giant jumped back and raised his shield just in time to keep the blade from opening his throat. Metal clanked on metal.

  Cera chanted and swung her mace over her head. A circle of golden light flared into existence beneath her feet, and lines shot out from it through the snow, so that she appeared to be standing atop a shining symbol of the sun. The rays reached far enough to stab under some of the werewolves and Jet, too. The lycanthropes jerked, yelped, and snarled. The griffon struck at a shapeshifter and nipped off a forearm.

  For a heartbeat or two, the enemy floundered in confusion, and Jhesrhi thought the fight might already be as good as won. But then Choschax bellowed, Parothor, the sun priestess! Wolves, the griffon and the berserker! I ll kill the wizard! And his underlings, cyclopes and lycanthropes alike, oriented on the targets he d chosen for them.

  Choschax s crimson gaze jabbed at Jhesrhi once again. To her relief, it wasn t as devastating that time. It didn t have the power of three other cyclopes eyes reinforcing it, she d warded herself, and she knew better than to meet it squarely. But even so, it rocked her backward and made her head throb.

  She was still off balance when Choschax produced a javelin that seemed to simply appear in his hand, and threw it. She jerked up her staff and gasped a word of command. A disk of red light blinked into existence between them. The javelin banged into the shield and fell to the ground.

  Choschax charged. His lumbering strides ate up the distance, and his axe was upraised. Jhesrhi realized that her corona of flame hadn t dissuaded him from fighting at close quarters. Maybe he thought that with his long arms, leathery hide, and gauntlets, he could strike her down and come away with nothing worse than blistered hands.

  She spoke to the wind, and it blasted into Choschax s face, slowing his progress to a stagger. In other circumstances, she might have asked the spirits of the air to whisk her beyond his reach, but the terrain was too clustered for flying. She didn t want to bang into a tree or entangle herself in branches.

  The cyclops drove into striking distance. The malice in his eye was like a pounding hammer, and his arm shifted as he aimed his black axe at her head.

  She asked the wind to stop shoving him, and it did. As he pitched forward off balance, she stepped forward and to the side. She was close enough for her fire to sear much of his body, but she saw no reason to leave it at that. The end of her staff burst into flame, and she jabbed it at his eye. He flinched. She missed her mark but charred his jaw, cheek, and ear.

  Choschax screamed and reeled sideways. She hurled a fan-shaped burst of yellow fire at his feet. If it burned them, so much the better, but her real objective was to melt the snowdrift he d stumbled into. As soon that happened, she rattled off a rhyme, pointed her staff, and hurled a blast of pure cold.

  The meltwater froze into ice around Choschax s boots. He backed up another step, and his legs flew out from under him. He hit the ground with a crash of battered armor.

  Jhesrhi grinned because she knew she had him. She spoke the first word of a spell intended to burn his flesh to ash, when suddenly a grip clamped shut on her ankle. It wrenched her leg out from under her, and she fell down, too.

  A lycanthrope in true wolf guise had attacked her. Her halo of fire was burning away its fur and the skin beneath, but it was still snapping and gnawing in a frenzy. It left off gnawing at her war boot to lunge for her throat.

  Jhesrhi jerked her staff across her body, and the brass rod caught the werewolf at the base of its neck. The shapeshifter strained to reach her with its slavering jaws, and she struggled to hold them away. The beast s paws pummeled her torso. Its raking nails tore her robes.

  Her arms were hitched backward as the werewolf s strength overcame her own an inch at a time. The gnashing, foaming jaws and the glaring eyes behind them lurched closer. The creature s burns were ghastly, but it didn t even seem to feel them, or anything but the need to make its kill.

  Jhesrhi struggled to simultaneously hold the werewolf back and recite an incantation with the precise cadence required. On the final word, a portion of her mantle of fire streamed into her attacker s gaping jaws. The lycanthrope screamed once and collapsed, burned from the inside out. Some of its ashy substance crumbled instantly, and more dropped away from the central mass as, in death, it reverted to human shape.

  Enough of the charred form remained intact to show that Jhesrhi had just killed the daughter, the child werewolf. With a gasp of revulsion, she rolled the flaking corpse off her chest.

  Choschax loomed over her, his glare pinning her in place like a butterfly in some sage s display case. He raised his axe.

  Snarling, Jhesrhi broke free of her paralysis but knew she only had time for the simplest of spells. She jerked her staff into line and channeled pure force, pure will, through the end of it.

  The power shot out as a ball of solid light. It smashed Choschax in the mouth and shattered into shards that vanished before they could tumble all the way to the ground. The cyclops fell and lay motionless.

  Sometimes, Jhesrhi thought, the simplest magic did the trick. Although it helped if you d already kicked the enemy around for a while.

  As Aoth had taught her, she glanced about, making sure no new threat was about to strike at her. She clambered to her feet. Choschax was still breathing, but a final burst of flame would remedy that. She steadied her breathing and raised her staff.

  No! Cera called. Jhesrhi turned to see the priestess hurrying toward her. She appeared disheveled but unharmed, which presumably meant she d disposed of the cyclops that Choschax had ordered to kill her.

  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 cl
aws 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.

  FIVE
r />   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.