form of magic.
Right, Aoth said, nodding. So maybe, after Mangan and the others have gone away, and the sun sets, the killers will come out of hiding or sneak back to the grove if they really did withdraw to somewhere else to do that. We re going to be here to meet them.
Vandar scowled. I m not, he said.
That all sounded like so much guesswork for me. I m going with the others.
You can try to beg a ride, said Aoth, but I doubt you ll have any better luck than the Shou did. And even if someone takes pity on you, and even if the others actually locate the enemy, how will you show off your kind of prowess while the Aglarondans are loosing arrows and Bez s sellswords are hurling blasts of flame and lightning from on high? Staying here gives you a chance to prove your worth.
Glowering, Vandar stood and pondered. Eventually, he said,
I ll stay. But you d better be right.
A huge black shape plunged down from on high. Cera jumped, and Vandar jerked his javelin up over his shoulder for throwing.
What did I miss? Jet rasped.
Riding Jet above the grove, Aoth felt a chill. With a touch and a thought, he roused the magic of one of his tattoos. The result was only a feeble, fleeting pulse of warmth. He d invoked the enchantment too often. Its strength would renew itself, but not quickly enough to do him much good tonight.
You humans are so delicate, said Jet. He wheeled for another pass, and his ebony feathers reflected a glint of Sel ne s silvery light. It reminded Aoth of the Moonmaiden s servant lying twisted and rotting in her black and argent mantle, and he felt a stab of anger.
He supposed that was stupid if not downright unprofessional. After all, he d never even met the woman, and there couldn t be many people across the length and breadth of Faer n who d seen more slaughtered corpses than he had. But still, at that moment, the thought of a priestess slain by magic troubled him. Chathi had died that way.
He still missed her occasionally, even after a hundred years. He wondered if he would soon be missing Cera, too, once the other sunladies and lords decided to elevate her as she deserved. They were going to choose Daelric s successor at Greengrass, so
Motion in the trees below jolted him from his musings.
Darkness was nearly the same as light to him, while distance was far less of a hindrance than it was to other men. Still, trying to see through crisscrossed branches, and peering down from overhead, it was hard to make out much more than the tops of hoods. But over the course of several heartbeats, the details started coming clear.
Swaying and stepping in unison, as though to music only they could hear, a line of robed women was weaving toward the huts and the blighted tree. Given their location, it was conceivable they d crawled up out of the ancient tomb. Aoth found that possibility perplexing, but not as troubling as the fact that they were masked.
What in the name of the deepest Hell? he thought. Is there such a thing as an outlaw hathran? A traitor hathran?
Without a doubt, said Jet. Don t you know your own species?
Wolves prowled among the masked women. So did vague, flowing shapes like the shadows of wolves. Aoth s frown deepened. The phantoms reminded him of creatures he d fought during the War of the Zulkirs, darkness itself given form and a mockery of life by necromantic arts.
He tensed as the procession neared its destination. One petty drawback of inhumanly keen eyesight was that it was sometimes difficult to judge just how well a comrade had succeeded in concealing himself. Despite crouching behind cover and all but burying themselves in snow, Cera, Jhesrhi, and Vandar were plainly visible to him. He breathed a sigh of relief when none of the enemy paid them any attention. The witches seemingly had no idea that the clear patch of ground was surrounded.
They did set sentries, though, albeit in a haphazard fashion. The wolves, corporeal and otherwise, prowled, sniffed, and peered out into the trees. The witches Aoth counted thirteen altogether arranged themselves in a semicircle in front of the ruined oak and started a moaning incantation.
Aoth frowned, because the dismal wail had a muffled, faraway quality. Even as he listened, he could almost doubt that he was truly hearing anything at all, except, maybe, the beginnings of madness echoing inside his head. The air grew colder.
They re working necromancy right now, Aoth concluded. Or they re undead themselves.
Or both, answered Jet.
For a while, the masked women only moaned. Then they started making beckoning motions toward the tree, curling what Aoth now observed to be gray, shriveled fingers. The patches of rot seethed and bubbled, and the the whole oak writhed. More bark flaked from the trunk, and twigs fell from the branches.
Suddenly, a figure lurched from the tree like a drunkard stumbling over a rut in the street.
The entity was twice as tall as any of the undead hathrans for Aoth was virtually certain that s what they were and seemingly made of a blur of greenish phosphorescence. Or most of it was. As the oak had pockets of decay eating into it, the insubstantial giant had bits and patches of darkness blemishing its form.
The giant flailed its hand at the witches, but the blow passed harmlessly over their heads. The only effect was to cost Vandar s wise old spirit for that it surely was, not slain after all, but wounded and crippled its balance, and it dropped noiselessly to its knees. A couple of the flesh-and-blood wolves snarled, howling at its helplessness and humiliation. This display of cruel mirth led Aoth to consider the possibility that the beasts were actually werewolves.
One of the witches silenced them with a snap of her fingers before she and her sisters resumed their moaning. The patches of shadow inside the giant expanded, sending inky tendrils slithering through the glow, as the spirit hung its head and shuddered.
Aoth wondered how long to let the witches continue. He and his comrades were apt to learn quite a bit as they watched. Yet they couldn t allow the oak spirit to be killed, enslaved, or corrupted in some fundamental way.
He was still considering the matter when Vandar screamed a war cry that was a fair imitation of a griffon s screech, sprang up from under the pine where he d lain concealed, and charged. He d taken off his beadwork regalia, perhaps to not risk it getting damaged or bloodstained.
Startled, the witches and their four-footed servants froze for a moment. It gave the berserker who certainly appeared berserk at that moment a chance to land a cut to the head of one of the corporeal wolves. The beast fell down but rolled to its feet again, its resistance to common steel confirming Aoth s suspicion.
Idiot! said Jet with a snarl.
Aoth agreed. He hadn t been too worried about the undead witches superior numbers or their presumably potent magic to that point, because he d intended that he and his allies would make a coordinated surprise attack. But that couldn t happen anymore.
Of course, Aoth thought, some folk might say that the effects of Vandar s recklessness weren t all bad, because Vandar wasn t really a comrade. He was a competitor, and Aoth s mission would be that much simpler if the Rashemi didn t survive the consequences of his folly. But even as the thought flickered through his mind, he was already aiming his spear; and Jet, discerning his actual intent, was diving.
Aoth spoke a word of command, and darts of blue light hurtled from the head of his weapon into the body of the wounded werewolf. The shapeshifter collapsed, but unlike with Vandar s attack, didn t jump back up.
Staying crouched behind a pine tree, Jhesrhi made a jabbing motion with her staff. The brass glowed, and so did her golden eyes, while the evergreen boughs brushing against the metal charred. Flames leaped from the tip of an arcane weapon, annihilating one of the shadow wolves, then jumping to set a werewolf ablaze.
Cera stood straight up and stepped out into the open. Swinging her gilded mace over her head, she shouted, Your time is past!
Light flared around her, as though, in the middle of the night, she was nonetheless standing in sunshine. A shadow wolf lunging at Vandar s flank withered away to nothing, and several of the witches recoiled.
But one of the undead didn t flinch: a witch who had nearly completed a spell. Glaring in Vandar s direction, her voice rose on the final syllables of her incantation, as she brandished an orb of black crystal over her head.
Jet leveled out from his dive and hurtled at her. His talons slammed into her body, yanked her off her feet,
