leader to march in the vanguard and be exposed to every pit trap and skirmisher sniping from cover. And if the Thayan didn t understand that, then he was a fool no matter how many liches and dragons he d defeated, or how keenly his burning blue eyes saw what others could not.
Besides, someone needed to be rearguard Aoth acknowledged that himself. So why shouldn t it be the Stag King and his servants? Unless he missed his guess, the fighting here at the back of the column was likely to prove every bit as hard and as important as the battle at the front.
An echoing roar, the shouts of men, the cries of other things, and the boom and crackle of magic all mixed together, told him the battle had begun. He peered down the passage behind him, at the arched openings leading to other tunnels, and waited for his own particular foes to appear in the gloom. Beside him, a semitransparent, faintly luminous telthor in the form of a huge wolf sniffed the cold, musty air. It growled, and its fur bristled.
Dark figures surged up the tunnel and out of all the doorways in view. Others simply plunged through the solid stone of the walls, floors, and ceiling. The stench of putrefaction filled the Stag King s nose more indication, if anyone needed it, that he and his fellow warriors were primarily facing the undead.
And is that supposed to daunt me? he asked himself, grinning. With a thought, he commanded the spirit animals to oppose the wraiths and such; since the telthors weren t made of solid flesh, either, they were best suited to the task. Then he bellowed a war cry, stepped to meet the creatures shambling up the passage, and cut a withered ghoul in two with a sweep of his antler-axe. Behind him, weapons thudded home as his offspring degenerate, disappointing brutes, but able warriors all started fighting, too. They woke the bells in their antlers, and the little orbs chimed and chimed and chimed.
The Stag King drove his weapon into another ghoul s chest, smashing ribs, pulping the rotten organs inside, and snapping its spine. Then he struck a zombie s head off. He d already lost count of how many foes he d dispatched, and if he wasn t careful, he was going to give himself over entirely to the frenzy and urgencies of melee, to think of the opponent in front of him and nothing more. Especially since, with the fight raging along a corridor and in the mouths of the intersecting passages, it was virtually impossible to keep track of the overall tactical picture anyway.
But he knew that as the leader of his group, he had to try, partly because so far, the durthans hadn t made their presence felt. When they started weaving magic, it would be his task to counter it.
Perhaps believing its lack of substance would keep it safe, a ghost with a wavering smudge of a face flew at him with wispy hands outstretched. He sliced it to tatters with his axe. A dead goblin with a crushed head swung its scimitar at the Stag King s kidney. He parried and smashed its skull even farther out of shape. It flopped back against the creatures shoving up behind it.
Power suddenly shivered through the air. It wasn t truly sound or light or heat or cold, but anyone with mystical abilities would have sensed it somehow. The Stag King felt it as a twinge in his joints and a vile bitter taste on his tongue.
A phantom bear faltered as the witches sought to retake control of it. A ghostly badger fell down convulsing.
The Stag King sneered, focused his will to slap the durthans power away from their former familiars, and found that it wasn t that easy. Apparently the undead witches had taken advantage of the time between battles to figure out how to contend with him more successfully.
The only way they could possibly accomplish such a thing was if several of them were working in concert. Employing a trick of perception he d mastered millennia before, he deafened himself to all the echoing roars of the battle except for the cold, intricate chanting that, he surmised, the louder noises covered.
The rest of the world fell silent, and he did indeed hear the witches incantation. He d expected them to be working behind the protection afforded by their massed warriors, and so they were. They were also on the far side of a doorway on the left, out of the lethal chaos of the central corridor.
The Stag King allowed his hearing to revert to normal, and the noise of the battle exploded at him. He chopped with the antler-axe and sent a blast of pure force down the passage, smashing some of the ghouls and zombies off their feet and jolting others backward. Then he plunged forward, and some of his offspring, spirit animals that were still strong and obedient to his will, and a couple of screaming berserkers drove forward along with him.
Once he and his servants and the undead jammed together, the Stag King gained ground with every chop, jab, and shuffling half step until the arch was just ahead. He struck again and again till he cut and smashed the final clawing, stabbing, decaying obstacles out of his way. Then he lunged into the side passage.
There were six masked witches gathered in a circle around a little blue fire on the floor. The smoke from the blaze made an eye-stinging haze in the air, and the malignant power of the ritual made grimacing faces take shape and melt away in the sandstone walls. Some were crying tears of blood, which remained even after the sources had dissolved.
The durthans pointed their wands and staves at the Stag King. He raised his power once again, chopped, and cast another burst of force. It staggered the witches and scattered the scraps of bone and desiccated flesh that fueled the fire.
It was a good start. But so far, none of the Stag King s minions had managed to follow him through the arch. He was on his own, and that meant he didn t dare give any of the renegade wise women a chance to recover. He started after them, but saw other robed figures flow into visibility and solidity all around him. He belatedly realized that the haze was made not only of smoke but also of mist, and the one had concealed the presence of the other.
He roared and flailed with all of his strength. But several vampire women were clinging to him, and some of them managed to hold on.
One of them crooned in his ear. Do you know me? she said. And he did. He just had time to recognize the voice of Nyevarra, who d fought so cunningly in the Witch War, before two cold needles slid into his neck.
Aoth s aborted spell discharged its power in a crackling shower of sparks. He pivoted in the direction of Cera s scream, but couldn t quite see her. She was all but lost in the middle of a slashing whirl of shadow demons, and evidently couldn t produce a blaze of light bright enough to destroy or repel them. The demons were somehow making the glow that emanated from her flicker and dim. If it went out altogether, the attackers would have nothing but a few torches and luminous crystals to pierce the ambient murk.
Leaving the glabrezu to Jhesrhi, Vandar, and its other berserker assailants for the time being, Aoth aimed his spear and hurled darts of light at the shadows. It was far from the most powerful attack spell in his arsenal, but he didn t dare cast any of the deadliest ones for fear of hitting Cera as well.
Two dark forms with ragged black wings and long horns curling up from their heads spun out of the whirl in his direction. He charged his spear with the seething essence of chaos and struck at one of the shadows. It dodged, and at the same moment, something jolted him, although the shock was psychic, not physical. His body abruptly felt numb as his spirit began to separate from it.
Aoth snarled a word of defense, invoked the magic bound in a tattoo, and flesh and soul locked together once more. But his instant of clumsiness allowed the demon he d struck at to tear the spear from his grip and toss it away. Both shadows rushed in raking with their claws.
Covering up with his shield, trying to keep either of the demons from getting behind him, Aoth scrambled backward, bumping into someone, and struggling to retain his balance. He snatched out his sword and charged it with a shimmer of destructive power. He feinted a cut at one of the demons, before spinning and extending at the other.
That shadow was lunging at him, and it impaled itself. The magic in the blade frayed it into wisps of darkness.
Aoth pivoted back in the opposite direction. The other shadow demon wasn t there anymore.
Suspecting that it had shifted behind him, he kept turning, just barely in time to block a claw slash with his targe, and then slice the demon across the belly. His foe broke apart into tatters of murk, which then dissolved entirely.
He turned back toward Cera and found he was farther away and could barely see her. The vault was crowded with berserkers and stag warriors rushing to engage one foe or another, or else tottering back from the battle line with streaming wounds. Still, no one could have missed the flash when she finally succeeded in channeling Amaunator s power. All but one of the remaining shadow demons vanished instantly. The last one tried to shield
