and dragged her across the cleared area. In the process of tearing free, his claws ripped the witch apart.
With a reflexive stab of alarm, Aoth saw that Jet didn t have enough room to climb back up into the sky. The clear space wasn t long enough, and the familiar was going too fast.
Relax, said Jet. He furled his wings, and he and his master plunged to earth just a couple of paces shy of the tree with which they d been about to collide.
The griffon whirled to confront the foes rushing to attack. A ghostly wolf sprang, and he met it with a snap of his beak.
Unfortunately, the shadow beast s insubstantial nature protected it. It plunged right through the griffon s beak and sank its fangs into his chest. Thanks to their psychic link, Aoth felt the resulting burst of frigid pain.
But he couldn t afford to pay attention to it. He had to trust the griffon to deal with the close combat while he fought the witches hanging back to attack at range.
There were three of them. The one on the left wore brown robes and a wooden mask through which her milky eyes peered. She was pointing a dagger at him. The witch in the middle sported a black cloak and hood sewn with an over-layer of dangling bones. Her mask was a leering skull face that had evidently come from a real skull. In contrast to the others, the third witch had thrown back her cloak to reveal a spindly form clad only in a steel mask and a ragged, mold-spotted shift. Intricate tattooing crawled on every inch of her exposed gray skin.
All three were already chanting and sweeping their arcane foci through mystic passes. Aoth discharged another of the ones stored inside his spear.
A curtain of flying slashing blades flashed into existence and flew toward the trio. The witch with the milky eyes and the one cloaked in bones reeled out of the spell s effect with clothes and flesh tattered. The former s left arm hung useless, all but severed. But the tattooed hathran sprang clear like a cat, before any of the blades could touch her. She snarled the final word of her spell and clenched her fist.
A cloud of swirling vapor burst into existence around Aoth. His eyes burned, flooding with blinding tears. The same fire seared him from his nostrils and his lips all the way down into his chest. He coughed and choked, unable to catch his breath.
Aoth activated the tattoo he wore to counter poison, slapping at it through his mail. The burning abated for him, but he could still feel the echo of Jet s distress.
The griffon spread his wings, lashed them, and leaped, carrying them clear of the cloud. Shaking, he retched and spat.
Are you all right? asked Aoth.
Fine! the griffon said with a snarl. Just don t let them do it again!
Aoth could tell the griffon wasn t fine. He, himself, could barely breathe and barely see. But Jet was right. There was no time for anything but battle.
Blinking, Aoth cast about for the trio of undead hathrans. Residual sickness from the poison and dazzling flashes Jhesrhi and Cera fighting their own foes with conjured fire and sunlight made it harder to find them than it should have been. The first thing to catch his eye was a corpse lying in the fog cloud, slowly warping from wolf back into man, while a pair of lupine shadows charged out of the vapor after Jet. Vandar, painted with blood from at least two wounds, swung his sword and cut a hathran s neck.
Finally, Aoth located his particular foes in the flickering, lunging chaos. He leveled his spear and rattled off an incantation. A blast of wind sent the witch with the nearly severed arm staggering back amid the flying blades, still slashing away in the area where he d placed them. There came a rapid thunk-thunk-thunk as the magic hacked her to pieces.
One down! But at that same instant, the hathran with the mantle of bones thrust out her withered arm, and a ragged flare of darkness exploded from the tips of her jagged nails.
Aoth invoked the protective power of another tattoo. He didn t think there was anything else he could do. But though Jet was still half blind, defending by sheer instinct against shadow wolves that kept darting in, biting, and retreating, the griffon nonetheless perceived the witch s threat. With another great spring and beating of his wings, he leaped above the magic that, an instant later, splintered the front of the hut like a barrage of razors. And he landed right in front of the creature who d cast it.
The witch flourished her cape. Bones tore loose from it and battered Aoth like sling stones. Crying out at the pain, he charged his spear with destructive power and thrust.
The head of the weapon flared blue as it drove deep into the witch s chest. With a thunderous boom, force blasted out from the point of penetration and tore her body to shreds.
Jet whirled to confront the shadow wolves again. As he did so, Aoth glimpsed Cera hurling a shaft of light from the spherical head of her mace. Meanwhile, a second mace seemingly made of radiance and wielded by an invisible hand bashed a werewolf and held it away from her. Jhesrhi, standing straight and tall, had wrapped herself in blue and yellow flame from head to toe and was engaging the undead witches in a duel of spells.
Aoth located his remaining opponent just as the tattooed lines leaped from her flesh in a flying tangle. The leading edge of the spell s effect lashed him like whips before settling on him like a wire net.
The strands slithered around him and started to draw tight. He snarled words of power, and, straining against the constriction, sought to drag his hand through the proper mystic figure. The undead creature raised her hands high, her rotting skin hanging in rags freeing the tattoos that had all but flayed her. As she lashed her hands down, they blurred into the hands of a troll, too large for her arms, with greenish hide and long claws.
The hathran screamed and sprang over Jet s head. But at that instant, Aoth completed his counterspell. The animated mesh sizzled out of existence.
He snapped his spear into line and impaled the witch. He sent power surging through the weapon and blasted her apart.
He felt an instant of savage satisfaction. But the feeling crashed into dismay as Jet collapsed beneath him, and a feeling of cold, numb weakness flooded across their psychic link.
Aoth had to get out of the saddle lest he end up pinned under the griffon s body. He willed the straps holding him in place to unbuckle themselves, heaved himself clear, and slammed down into the snow.
At once, a hathran in a fanged, slant-eyed mask loomed over him, but Vandar rushed at her and distracted her. Aoth floundered to his feet and, furious at what the creatures had done to Jet, leveled his spear at the shadow wolves that were still tearing at the griffon.
The beasts rounded on Aoth and charged. He infused the head of his spear with blazing, crackling lightning and met the first with a thrust to the chest that burned the creature from existence.
The other lunged inside his reach and tried to snap its fangs shut on his arm. But although mere steel links couldn t have kept them out of his flesh, the enchantments bound in the metal did. Aoth dropped the spear, growled a word that concentrated stinging power in his fist, and hammered it down on the phantom creature s head. The creature withered away to nothing.
Aoth automatically cast about, making sure no new foe was advancing to attack him, then touched Jet s mind with his own. The familiar was alive but unconscious, and in urgent need of care.
Cera could provide it, but she, Jhesrhi, and Vandar were still fighting. Aoth pivoted and snarled incantations, scarcely pausing between one and the next, as he hurled darts of light and booming thunderbolts until every last hathran, werewolf, and shadow beast was gone.
Gasping and stumbling, Cera hurried to Jet s side. Vandar and Jhesrhi followed. The Rashemi looked shaky and spent with his rage having run its course, and he was finally feeling the effects of the superficial but bloody cuts in his scalp and forearm. Only Jhesrhi appeared untouched by all that had transpired as she snuffed her aura of flame.
What happened? Cera asked. She dropped to her knees beside the griffon that, even crumpled in the snow, made her look as small as a child by comparison.
The shadow wolves, Aoth said.
Will he be all right? Vandar asked.
You d better hope he will be, said Aoth.
Why in the name of the Black Hand did you attack before I gave the signal?
I don t take orders from you! Vandar snapped, before taking a breath. But understand, the fury is a gift of the spirits, and sometimes it takes us when they will it. I think maybe the oak telthor raised it in me because he couldn t have lasted much longer.
Aoth realized he d forgotten all about the ghostly giant. He glanced in the direction of the blighted tree and
