Richard Byers - Prophet of the Dead

Aoth could feel it was useless to resist. Even with tattoo magic enhancing it, his strength was inferior to Lod’s.

So he didn’t resist. He let Lod’s pulling hoist him back onto his feet, then yanked his arm out of the straps on the inner face of the targe.

And finally , a move seemed to catch Lod by surprise. Swaying atop his coils, the bone naga hesitated, holding the shield as if uncertain what to do with it.

Gripping his spear with both hands, Aoth spoke a word that brought all the power still stored in the weapon surging into the point to set it aglow. He fed the blue light with much of his own remaining innate magic, and it blazed brighter still.

Lod cast the targe aside and struck. Aoth met him with a spear thrust that drove cleanly between two ribs. With a dazzling flash, force exploded from the weapon to tear apart the naga’s rib cage from the inside, where the graven symbols didn’t protect it.

Unfortunately, that didn’t finish the bone naga. Lod hissed a word of chastisement, and Aoth cried out with sudden pain, weakness, and dizziness that dropped him to his knees.

Lod tore the spear out of his grasp and opened the fanged jaws of a skull that was abruptly far less human and more reptilian than before. The pieces of rib Aoth had blasted away floated through the air toward their former positions.

But then wind screamed, flung snow across the battlefield, and tossed Aoth onto his side. It caught the rib fragments too and swept them away despite the force animating them.

Lod twisted to look into the wind and no doubt find its source. He raised his hands to start a spell.

But meanwhile, the wind screamed louder still. The naga’s left arm snapped loose and blew away, and the right followed a heartbeat later.

But even that didn’t stop the bone naga’s conjuring. He roared words of malediction that made Aoth’s body feel as heavy as lead-his heart pounded as if it were trying to tear itself apart, and his ears ached as if he were deep underwater. Aoth strained to croak out a spell but couldn’t control his breathing.

Fortunately, Jhesrhi’s voice was chanting as vehemently as Lod’s. At her behest, the wind howled even louder until it drowned out both of them. Then Lod’s entire upper body burst apart into tumbling bones, and the snake part flopped down on the ground.

Although it didn’t die entirely, the wind ebbed. Feeling stronger than he had a moment before, Aoth floundered to his feet, recovered his spear, and found Lod’s fallen skull. The naga’s bones no longer showed any signs of wanting to reassemble themselves, but he smashed them anyway.

As he finished, Jet and Jhesrhi swooped down to light near him, the latter borne aloft by a friendly wind of lesser violence. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I will be,” Aoth panted. “Thanks to the two of you.” He turned to survey the greater battle and was just in time to view the final moments.

The air brightened yet again, burning off the last trace of unnatural murk and letting the sun shine down without hindrance. Phantoms shredded away to nothing. Vampires fell down smoking and thrashing, and zombies balked. And all those foes who were still capable of it turned and bolted, with automatons, berserkers, bright fey, and flares of hathran magic in pursuit.

Aoth grunted in satisfaction. “I believe we’ve fulfilled our contract with Yhelbruna.”

“Yes,” Jhesrhi said, “and done a service for the unknown lands the Eminence of Araunt hailed from, too.”

“Too bad we can’t charge them.”

Jhesrhi stood silent for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Aoth.”

“Yes?”

“The fire. My fire. When it attached itself to me, I thought it made me stronger and would shield me from … from the things I don’t like. But …”

She’d always hated to confess weakness or ask for help, and Aoth saw no reason to make her say the words when he could do it for her. “But now you realize it’s a sickness.”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll cure it.”

How? asked Jet.

I don’t know. But we’ll find a way .

The Storm of Vengeance couldn’t set down inside the Urlingwood. Mario Bez had to rendezvous with his allies, if that was still the proper term for them, on scrubland south of the sacred forest.

By then, the setting sun was casting long gray shadows across the snow, everyone had had some opportunity to rest, and Cera Eurthos, Yhelbruna, or some other hathran had had time to use her healing magic on Aoth Fezim and Vandar Cherlinka.

Still, the folk who’d fought on the ground looked haggard with fatigue, and Fezim and Cherlinka were bandaged where even a priestess’s prayers hadn’t entirely erased a wound. In contrast, Bez still felt relatively fresh. As his Thayan counterpart had predicted, flying foes had intermittently assailed the skyship. But repelling the boarders hadn’t proved too difficult, and Bez himself hadn’t suffered any harm in the process.

He gave the circle of scowling folk who’d assembled to meet him a smile. “I take it,” he said, “that we carried the day.”

“Yes,” said Fezim, the glow of his blue eyes more noticeable with the coming of twilight. “Although a number of undead escaped, and even more of the dark fey and their telthors.”

“The dark fey shouldn’t pose too much of a problem,” the witch said in her usual austere tones. “They’re as much a part of the land as the bright ones, and without the durthans to incite them, they won’t perpetuate a war they no longer have any hope of winning.”

“But you do need to hunt down every last undead,” Cera said. “They’ll prey on the living and spread their contagion until you do.”

“Indeed,” Yhelbruna said. “We must also cleanse the Urlingwood of the stain our enemies introduced. And free those whose minds were twisted, and replace the hathrans and berserkers who perished. It will all take time, and until we accomplish it, Rashemen will be weaker than it should be.”

“Still,” said Bez, “Captain Fezim is right. Victory truly is ours. And given that we all contributed, may I suggest that the appropriate way to honor the occasion is to lay old quarrels to rest?”

For a moment, no one answered. Then an orc who was missing his tusks grinned and said, “But the best thing about beating a war band of walking corpses and angry trees and such is that it frees you to slaughter the people you really hate.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Fezim said, “but Orgurth’s right. You’re not leaving unless you first survive a duel.”

Bez shrugged. “Then let’s get to it. I assume you’re the one who’s going to meet me on the field of honor.”

“No,” said Vandar Cherlinka, “I am.”

Plainly surprised, Fezim turned to regard the berserker. “Bez and I are both war mages. It makes sense-”

“I don’t care,” Cherlinka snapped. “Look, I know you have reason to kill him. He tried to kill Jet. But he did kill my lodge brothers, and I swore to avenge them.”

The Thayan scowled, but he nodded too. “Do it, then.”

Bez waved his hand. “There’s a clear, level patch of ground over there.”

“I see it,” Cherlinka said, and people started moving in that direction. Taking a moment to watch carefully, Bez verified that an earlier impression was correct. His opponent was walking with a bit of a stiff-legged limp.

Bez then turned to Aoth Fezim. “Please, stroll along with me, Captain.”

His fellow commander fell into stride beside him. “What do you want?”

“Aside from the pleasure of your company, to remind you you said one duel.”

“I did,” Fezim replied, “and I swear by the Pure Flame, I won’t insist on fighting you if you kill Vandar. I won’t let dozens of berserkers line up to do it either. You’ll be free to go.”