“Then we’ll split up at the bottom of the steps. Wherever they’re keeping Shala Karanok, we’ll come at it, and them, from two sides. Quietly now.”
Hasos took the lead, and they all descended. The passages above were poorly lit, but the darkness below was deeper still, although still less than absolute. A soft, sibilant chanting echoed, and the air smelled of bitter incense.
At the bottom of the stairs, a straight corridor ran to a place where light shined from half a dozen doorways. Another passage twisted away to the left. Hasos prowled onward with Kassur whispering charms at his back. The men-at-arms started to divide into two groups as he’d directed.
Then a blast of vapor enveloped them all. Eyes burning, half blind with tears, Hasos doubled over, coughing. His comrades choked and retched behind him.
Its enchantment of concealment falling away, a drake the size of a donkey appeared immediately in front of Hasos. It instantly followed up on its breath attack with a lunge, its jaws agape to strike and tear.
Hasos could see it only as a blur amid the gloom, and he hadn’t yet managed to inhale anything but stinging, strangling filth. Still, he sprang to meet the reptile, and perhaps that tactic caught it by surprise. He cut and his sword bit deep into its skull.
The drake went down, thrashing. In its spasms, it nearly clawed Hasos’s leg out from under him, but he jumped away just in time.
Someone screamed. Hasos pivoted. Somewhat smaller than the one he’d just dropped, a second drake had one of his men down and was tearing lengths of gut out of his midsection. Arterial spray spurted upward.
Hasos drove his sword into the second drake’s flank. Another warrior stabbed it in the neck with a spear. It collapsed, although not in time to save the man it had eviscerated.
Hasos realized there were snarls and cries behind him too, which meant there’d been at least one drake in the branching corridor. But before he could even consider trying to do anything about it, a pair of shadowy figures stepped out of the lit doorways ahead of him. Alternately twirling and making chopping motions with their picks, they started chanting.
Kassur Jedea stepped up beside Hasos, jabbed with his wand, and rasped a word of power. The pool of light at the end of the passage seemed to swirl in a way that Hasos couldn’t quite see but that made his eyes ache and his stomach turn over nonetheless. The wyrmkeepers vanished and reappeared in slightly different places. The dislocations sent them staggering off balance.
Intent on closing the distance before the priests could attempt any more magic of their own, Hasos charged. Another warrior sprinted after him. And perhaps closing the distance kept the wyrmkeepers from using their most formidable powers. But they had time to come on guard and wake the enchantments bound in their weapons. The head of one pick burst into flame, while a coating of frost flowed across the other.
Hasos was on the same side of the corridor as the priest with the burning weapon. He sidestepped the wyrmkeeper’s chop at his head then lunged. His point drove into the priest’s torso.
A voice said, “Here.” Hasos turned in that direction, toward a wyrmkeeper standing behind a doorway. The dragon worshiper’s gaze stabbed into him, and he froze in sudden fear. The priest sprang and swung a pick whose head dripped with steaming vitriol.
Hasos broke free of his paralysis just in time to parry. The weapons clanged together. The shock jolted his arm and nearly knocked his hilt out of his grip but not quite. He riposted with a slash to the throat, and his opponent fell backward.
Hasos rushed on into the room and looked around for the next foe. There wasn’t one. And when he rejoined his comrades in the hall, he couldn’t find one there either. It appeared that he and his allies had killed all the priests and drakes, although they’d lost half their number in the process.
Hasos took a breath to steady himself. He’d known some of the men who’d just died since he was a child. But there’d be time to mourn later, or at least he hoped so.
“I see a barracks, a torture chamber, and a shrine,” said Kassur, looking into the various lit doorways. “But no Shala Karanok.”
“Keep looking,” Hasos replied. “She has to be here.”
And she was, locked in a bare cell not much farther along. Her captors simply hadn’t seen fit to give her a source of light, which meant Hasos couldn’t estimate the full extent of her injuries until he hauled her semiconscious form out into the passage.
There, he felt a mix of anger and relief. Shala’s face was bruised and swollen, and her back, crisscrossed with whip marks, but her condition could have been far worse than it was. Glad that he’d taken to carrying one around with him during the campaign against Threskel, he extracted a pewter vial of healing elixir from the pouch on his belt and held it to her lips. “Drink,” he said.
She did, although some of the clear liquid ran down her chin. Full awareness came back into her eyes, and her scarred face set in its customary scowl. She pushed Hasos’s hands away, clambered to her feet, and arranged her filthy, ragged garments as best she could.
Hasos stood up and saluted. “Hail, Shala Karanok, war hero of Chessenta,” he said. His companions did the same.
Shala grunted. “I didn’t resent giving up that title, no matter what Tchazzar thought. I figured it was his by right. And I prayed his mind would heal, and then he’d be the leader the stories tell about. But I assume that if you’re here, things are getting worse instead of better.”
“Much worse,” Hasos said. He explained as best he could.
“Then I won’t mind taking the title back either,” Shala said, “assuming we can get it.”
“The reason we came after you,” Hasos said, “is that the army still respects you. I believe there are plenty of Chessentan soldiers who will follow you into battle against the dragons, and at least a few who will follow me. We just have to get out of the War College and rally them.”
“And get word of our plans to Captain Fezim and Lord Magnol,” Shala said.
“Do you really think the genasi will stand with us?” Hasos asked.
Shala snorted. “They will if Tchazzar actually is crazy enough to strike at them too. Let’s hope he is.”
Kassur Jedea cleared his throat.
Shala turned to him. “Yes, Majesty?”
The king smiled a crooked smile. “Contrary to popular opinion, I was never entirely a figurehead. There are portions of the Threskelan army that will follow me into rebellion the same way Chessentans will follow you.”
“I’d be grateful,” said Shala. “But don’t misunderstand. I’m not going to relinquish Chessenta’s claim to Threskel. They should always have been one kingdom, and that’s how they’re going to stay.”
“All I ask,” Kassur said, “is to retain my crown as your vassal, and that you impose no taxes or duties on my lands unless they apply everywhere in the realm.”
“Done,” Shala said. “And so it appears we have a plan.” She peered at Hasos. “What is it?”
“What’s what?” Hasos answered.
“You’re grinning.”
“Am I?” Hasos shrugged. “I guess I like recklessness more than I expected.”
Jet soared on the night wind, and although Aoth could feel the griffon’s soreness and fatigue through their psychic link, no one else should have been able to tell it from the occasional smooth, powerful beat of his wings. But apparently, somehow, Cera could, or else she was just sensible enough to guess. Riding behind Aoth, she murmured a prayer that set her fingers aglow with golden light, then stroked the familiar’s fur. Warmth tingled through the contact and washed the aches away.
Meanwhile, Aoth watched the Brotherhood prepare for battle. They were doing as well as could be expected. The western edge of Luthcheq wasn’t the same demented tangle of streets one found farther in, and thank the Firelord for that. But it was still harder to set up a proper formation in the city than it would have been in open country, and as he so often had of late, he missed Khouryn’s expertise.
Responding to his unspoken will, Jet flew in a spiral, carrying him farther out, and even for a veteran soldier with fire-kissed eyes, the situation on the ground became harder to read. Some Chessentan, Threskelan, and sellsword companies were moving from their campsites to join forces with Aoth’s men. Others were shifting farther
