Realms of War

He hooked his fingers into the creature's eye sockets and clawed the cold jelly away.

The vilewight stiffened, staggered, and lifted its hand. Darkness seethed around the talons. Kemas grabbed its clammy wrist to keep it from discharging a flare of shadow into his face.

But he couldn't defend against all its attacks. He didn't have enough hands. Gut-snakes twisted around to reach for him, their rings of fangs gnashing.

Bareris rushed forward with Kemas's broadsword in hand. He struck savagely, repeatedly, and the sightless vilewight couldn't block or dodge. The strokes landed to better effect than before.

Bareris cut into one of its knees. It fell forward, and Kemas scrambled clear of it. The bard hacked its skull to pieces, and it stopped moving.

Kemas felt empty and could think of nothing to do but stand, wheeze, and look at the fallen creature. Bareris, however, wheeled at once, searching for other threats.

But he needn't have bothered. While they'd fought the vilewight, their comrades had held the barricades against the rest of the autharch's servants, and it looked as though the demise of their ghastly champion had destroyed the attackers' morale. They shrank back from the ranks of Fire Drakes, and someone shouted, "Retreat!" They turned and scrambled for the breach.

The defenders didn't try to stop them. Kemas wondered if it was because everyone was too exhausted to strike a single unnecessary blow. The Great Flame knew, he was.

He was even wearier at the shank end of the night, when the priests had tended the wounded and lit the funeral pyres of the dead, the Fire Drakes had made the complex as secure as it could be with a hole in the wall, everyone had eaten a hot meal, and Rathoth-De sent for him. He was glad of his fatigue, for perhaps it was the numbing effect of it that kept him from feeling anything much as he entered his masters' hall. His arm in a sling, Bareris stood conferring with the officers of the temple.

"We won," said the high priest, an unaccustomed hint of petulance in his voice. "It doesn't seem fair that we should have to leave."

"But you must," Bareris said. "You repelled the autharch's household troops. You won't withstand a real army when Invarri Metron gets around to sending one against you."

"He's right," said Rathoth-De. "We need to pack up the relics, treasury, and sacred texts and clear out as soon as pos­sible." He smiled. "Don't take it hard, Master. It sounds as if the Firelord has work for us in the south."

Kemas decided he'd come close enough to bow. "Sir, I'm here to face your judgment."

Bareris frowned. "Surely the boy has proved useful enough that it would be folly to punish him."

"Thank you for speaking up for me," Kemas said, "but please, no more. This is a matter for the Fire Drakes, and for my commander to decide."

Rathoth-De smiled. "So it is, and our rule says a deserter must die. But it appears to me that he already has. The god's fire burned away what was unworthy in you and purified what remained, and that's good enough for me."

Kemas sighed and felt his muscles go limp with relief. He hadn't been conscious of feeling particularly afraid, yet it was suddenly clear to him just how much he'd wanted to live.

Scouting for threats on griffon-back, Bareris, along with his ghostly comrade Mirror, accompanied the servants of Kossuth on their journey south. Kemas tried repeatedly to make a true friend of the bard but always found him taciturn and aloof. He could only pray that, just as Bareris had helped him find his way to fidelity, so too would the blond man one day discover a remedy for the spiritual sick­ness afflicting him.