Richard Byers - The masked witches

But Cera

With a scowl, Vandar put the sunlady out of his mind. He didn t know if she was really in trouble or somewhere down the seemingly deserted corridor beyond the archway at all. And even had he known, she was one of Aoth Fezim s allies, and Aoth was a Thayan and a mercenary. He was dishonorable enough to flout the will of the spirits themselves to steal the wild griffons just as he d tried to snatch Vandar s spear. Dishonorable enough to abandon the brothers of the Griffon Lodge to fight the glabrezu by themselves, either out of cowardice or hope that the fiend would kill a rival. And, given that the ploy had failed, he was dishonorable enough to try to murder Vandar from the air, or so the guardian of the fey mound had warned.

Because Vandar was honorable, he would never have raised his hand against Aoth and his friends until they demonstrated beyond any possible doubt that they meant to play him false. But that didn t mean he was going to stand idly and uselessly in front of an empty passage while his destiny fled in another direction. He broke into a run, and his fellow berserkers charged behind him. In a moment, they d left the archway behind.

Cera called Aoth s name again, and the sound echoed away into the darkness.

Jhesrhi felt a pang of irritation and strained to keep it from showing on her face, because Cera wasn t the veteran soldier. If anyone was to blame for Aoth s disappearance, it was Jhesrhi herself. If she d kept him in sight, or reacted more quickly to the sounds of a struggle

She sighed. If was no more help than Cera s shouting.

Stop yelling, she said.

But

If Aoth were going to answer, he would have done it already, she said.

Cera shook her head. This is all my fault, she replied. I told Dai Shan whom we were hunting. Then he fed it right back to us to lure us into this place.

Probably, said Jhesrhi. But lamenting the fact won t help us. We have to figure out what will.

Cera took a deep breath. You re right, she replied. When the two of them disappeared, you and I were trying to pick up the blaspheme s trail. I couldn t do it. Did you?

No.

That s not surprising if he never really came in here in the first place. Let s try again, only this time, search for Aoth.

All right.

With the stag warriors looking on, she and the sunlady moved back to the spots in which they had each chosen to work their magic.

Jhesrhi s jaw tightened as she rested her hand on the wall and reached for the consciousness inside. She loved communing with the elemental spirits of the mortal world. They were pure and simple not maddeningly complicated and perverse like so many humans beings and they were nearly always friendly and glad to help her. In contrast, the powers of the place they were in, like those of the Shadowfell, were foul to the psychic touch, spiteful, and required coercion to do her bidding.

So it was coercion she applied, growling and rumbling words of power in one of the ponderous languages of Root Hold. The magic chipped and cracked the stone around her until finally, when it had had enough, it told her that it didn t know where Aoth or Dai Shan was. It took pleasure in her disappointment.

Maybe the cold, stale air knew what the stone didn t. Preparing to ask, Jhesrhi focused her will anew. Cera abandoned her murmuring chant and said, I can t find them.

Of course you can t, said a deep silky voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

How can Amaunator shed his light on secrets in a place where the Yellow Sun never shines?

As if to validate that statement, gloom smothered the glow Cera had conjured to light their way, not slowly as it had been doing all along, but as fast as a strong man strangling a kitten. With a jangling of bells, the stag warriors leveled their weapons and pivoted this way and that. Jhesrhi called flame from the core of her and concentrated its essence in the head of her staff.

And something awful came out of the dark.

W ith their torches burning and their racing feet thumping the floor, Vandar and his lodge brothers had little hope of taking the patchwork man and his minions by surprise. When they drew near, he confirmed that it wasn t going to happen. The walking dead and their haze of green phosphorescence had stopped and turned to make a stand at a spot where the corridor widened out into a pentagonal chamber.

Despite running flat out, Vandar managed a screech, and some of his comrades did, too. As he sprinted to close the remaining distance, he watched for one of the slumped, decaying figures before him to aim a wand and hurl a burst of frost or blighting shadow. But none of them did. Maybe the witches and such had already exhausted their powers, he thought.

Vandar threw the red spear, and it plunged through the patchwork s man s mail and into his chest. Without a twitch or the slightest change of expression, the hulking undead grabbed the shaft of the weapon, jerked it free, and dropped it clanging onto the floor.

By that time, Vandar was close enough to see the mismatched eyes Aoth had mentioned: one glimmering yellow, the other dull, weeping slime, and possibly blind. The scars crisscrossing the blaspheme s skin were oozing, too, as if the joins had never closed properly.

As Vandar continued to raced toward the undead, the blaspheme s greatsword whirled in a low cut. Vandar threw himself on the floor and rolled to avoid the stroke. The patchwork man pivoted, trying for a second slash, but Vandar was too quick for him. He simultaneously scrambled up and cut at the undead creature s wrist.

The crimson blade bit deep, and the greatsword wobbled in the patchwork man s grip. Maybe he could shrug off a spear thrust to the torso, but he shouldn t be able to manage his heavy two-handed weapon as well with ripped muscles and severed tendons.

Vandar suddenly sensed danger at his back or maybe the red sword sensed it for him. He whirled to find a masked, hooded durthan lunging at him with her clawed gray hands outstretched. She was already too close for a sword cut, so he punched instead. The blow hurled her back into the zombie rushing up behind her.

His defense only stopped them momentarily, but in that moment, Vandar s brothers caught up with him. They hurled themselves at the lesser undead and freed him to concentrate on the patchwork man.

As he spun back around, the greatsword swept down at his head. He wrenched himself aside and cut at the blaspheme s undamaged wrist. Again, the red sword cut deep.

Even after that, the patchwork man somehow kept his grip on the greatsword s hilt. But he could barely aim his attacks, and his parries and recoveries were slow. Hating him, riding the rage, Vandar circled him and slashed him to pieces.

A couple of lesser undead survived their master, but only by a heartbeat or two. Then the warriors of the Griffon Lodge disposed of them as well.

Jet approached the Storm of Vengeance from high above, the safest and stealthiest way to do it. He wasn t sure of a hostile reception, but there was ample reason to be wary of Mario Bez and his crew. The Halruaan had the scruples of a hungry rat, he was Aoth s rival in the competition for the wild griffons, and his appearance at the Fortress of the Half-Demon was as unexpected and possibly as unfortunate as

Dai Shan? As a member of a more sensible species, Jet was largely immune to the feelings of incredulity and self-doubt that afflicted humankind. What he saw, he saw, and what he knew, he knew. But he found himself peering more closely at the elevated bow of the Storm to make sure the darkness wasn t playing tricks on him.

It wasn t, so he studied the skyship. His experience with any sort of ship was happily limited like all griffons, he had little use for the sea but he understood the danger of colliding with any part of the complex web of rigging and sails. The results could easily be fatal. It was helpful that Dai Shan was at the end of the vessel rather than somewhere in the middle, but it didn t eliminate the hazard entirely.