slopes were monsters as tall as an average human. At first glance, Tazi thought they were the lizardfolk indigenous to the Surmarsh that Naglatha had mentioned. However, like the Thaymount lamias, the lizards were albinos. And Tazi recalled that the other lizardfolk were supposed to be simpletons at best. From her perch, Tazi could see several of the ones in the lead clearly give orders to those bringing up the rear. She watched as they fanned out and moved down the cliffs like they were a part of them, descending on all their limbs or walking upright, changing between modes when necessary.
The griffon lighted down next to Justikar, and he pulled his stolen war axe free, ready to ward the creature off.
'No,' Tazi called to him and jumped off her mount to stand protectively in front of it. The griffon flapped its wings and squawked at the dwarf.
'Remember me, do you?' he asked. 'Well, I remember you and what I owe you.'
'No,' Tazi warned him again and shoved him back, striking him in anger for the first time.
Justikar stumbled from her touch and turned back to her in surprise. 'Who did you slaughter?' he asked, and looked her up and down.
'No one yet,' she replied bleakly, 'but that's all about to change.' She grabbed him by the shoulder and continued.
'You see there,' she said and pointed to the range of peaks east of them. 'As far as I can tell, most of the demons are escaping from those points.' She released her hold on the duergar and squatted down, drawing a map in the fresh soot at their feet. 'If we can get our forces to form a semi-circle from here-' she motioned with her finger to the drawing of the gorge between the peaks- 'to here-' she then drew a line to the location where she had seen, from her aerial pass, a dormant field of ashfall- 'we might be able to cut them off.'
'And what about the lava?' he added.
Tazi looked up to meet his grim stare. 'One thing at a time.'
She rose up. 'I'll take the foot soldiers and lead them into position. Can you handle those in the air?'
'Do I have a choice?' he grumbled.
Tazi heard the echoes of Szass Tarn's words when she answered, 'You always have a choice.'
Without waiting for a reply, Tazi mounted the griffon and kicked it hard with her heels. The winged animal leaped into the sky almost joyously, and Tazi felt that it was only happy when in flight. Or perhaps it just felt safer there, away from the trembling ground. Considering the black and red clouds of darkenbeasts that were forming along the gloomy horizon like a storm, Tazi was certain the beast would soon revise its notions of safety in the sky.
She pulled on its feathers, and they swooped down low over the battalions of zombies. Though dead, they wore an eager look on their faces as though anticipating the coming bloodshed. Tazi was uncertain how to order them. She reached over and gingerly rested her right hand along the fell mark on her left shoulder. She closed her eyes and imagined the undead lining themselves up as she had envisioned it. She kept the images clear and simple. When she opened her eyes again and circled back around, she could see that they had begun to take up her formation.
Tazi soared down close to the ground where the troop of Blooded Ones had gathered just downhill from the zombies. They were hardly winded from their run, and Tazi could see several of them were gnashing their heavy canines and sniffing the air hungrily. Watching them, she could feel the blood start to throb in her own head. She drew her sword and pointed toward the ashfall in the distance.
'We meet up with the soldiers to the west and form a line to the ashfall along the eastern slope,' she called easily in Orcish. 'We form that line and let nothing cross it alive. Do you hear me? ' she screamed at them. The troop howled in agreement, beating their swords and cudgels against their shields. Tazi took to the air and assumed a position circling her growing wall of soldiers.
She could see Justikar holding an arm up toward the mass of darkenbeasts that were swirling around in frenzied flight, awaiting her signal. From one side to the other, the legions of undead and the Blooded Ones joined forces, forming a solid barricade, an unholy alliance. Farther north, Tazi could see more and more of Eltab's demons surge out of the Thaymount. Another eruption shook the region as Tazi turned her head from one side to the other to take one, last inventory.
'Now!' she screamed long and loud. Justikar released his hold on the darkenbeasts, and they swarmed forward. The Blooded Ones broke out into a full run, while the undead marched relentlessly onward. Tazi kicked at her winged mount and dived straight into the demon hordes, sword flashing.
Szass Tam and Nevron re-entered the council chamber. Lauzoril had taken the unconscious Azhir Kren to a more secure location, with Aznar Thrul trailing close behind.
The gray-haired Nevron had called after them, tauntingly, 'Do you really think there is a safe haven in this place as long as the demon-king is free?'
Lauzoril had ignored them and wearily carried Azhir away. Aznar Thrul shouted back over his shoulder to them as he departed, 'This is all your doing, with your secret scribblings, so you should be the ones to take care of it.'
Several of the lich's human servants had come into the chamber not long after the Red Wizards and Tazi had abandoned it. They had tried vainly to salvage what they could from the room and douse the many fires that still blazed. The lich's zombie servants had pointedly stayed away, as he suspected they would, because of their inherent fear of those very flames. He briefly wondered how Thazienne was going to manage to get his troops to fight with the burning earth all around them, but dismissed those queries as her concerns to deal with. The lich had other matters that occupied his attention.
The room was in shambles. Two women batted at the tapestries that still smoldered with heavy blankets that they had scrounged up from one of the many linen closets. Another was mindlessly collecting up the bits of shattered dinnerware and glasses, simply needing to do something. An elderly man slapped several parchments with a broom. Some of the papers curled up at the edges and wafted around like injured butterflies, and he alternated between swatting them and trying to catch them. He had already collected a small pile and stacked it against the wall nearest him. That was where Szass Tarn went first.
'Nevron, go around to the far side of the table where Naglatha had been standing before this disaster took place,' he ordered the other zulkir. 'I'll start in on these.'
As the lich approached the old man, he could see the fear in his faded eyes. Szass Tarn ruled with a fierce hand and had little tolerance for failure. Many of his slaves bore subtle and not-so-subtle reminders of their master's standards. And it was clear that the old man assumed the catastrophe did not bode well for any of those who served the necromancer. Szass Tarn appreciated his quivering, obsequious behavior but had no time for it at the moment.
'You did well. Please continue,' he murmured to the slave and floated past him to the remains of his stolen scrolls. He snatched up the fragments and didn't even notice that the man wept tears of relief as he passed.
With the pieces of his spell scrolls in his skeletal grip, the lich searched for a place to try and piece together the fractured puzzle. He saw that a smaller serving table was relatively unscathed though overturned.
'Right that for me,' he told the two women who had extinguished the last of the flaming furnishings.
They scurried over, coughing heavily, and flipped the table upright.
'You may go,' he dismissed them without an upward glance. He began to lay all the vestiges of parchment on the smooth surface of the table. Scanning the remnants quickly with his sharp eyes and tracing a bony finger across them, Szass Tam tried to cobble together a binding spell.
Barely looking up, he called over to Nevron, 'What luck have you had?' The gray-haired zulkir was on his knees, tearing away at a portion of the smashed council table. He tossed bits of the wood madly behind him, and Szass Tam was hard pressed not to laugh in spite of the circumstances. The Zulkir of Conjuration looked for all the world like a dog frantically digging up a bone.
'I think there's a scroll, or at least a good portion of one, under the table leg-if I can just reach…' his voice faded with the strain.
'Got it,' he croaked triumphantly, and when he popped back out from under the wreckage, his hair was askew and a smudge of soot crossed his forehead. But Szass Tam saw that he had a mostly intact parchment in his fist.
'Bring it here,' the lich ordered. 'Let's see what we have left.'
