With a gasp, she sat up in her bed. Twisted and tangled, her blankets lay on the floor, and she was cold. But cold was better than lightning-struck, or standing over the bodies of lightning-struck children, and she sighed and slumped to realize the ordeal had only been a nightmare.
Then something boomed, and the heart jolting in her chest, she jumped.
Scowling, she pulled on her mask, rose, moved to the window, and opened the shutters. Wings extended, red and yellow flags flapping, the
Mario Bez and his sellswords hadn’t raised such a commotion on the previous occasions when they’d flown into Immilmar. It was a display they’d likely reserved to proclaim themselves victorious.
Yhelbruna felt a twinge of regret. Although her office required impartiality, in her secret heart, she’d hoped Vandar would beat out Bez and his other rivals in the competition for the wild griffons.
But the thing that truly mattered was if someone had ended the threat the undead posed to Rashemen. So, laying her personal feelings aside, she dressed quickly, gripped her staff, and then took a moment to settle dignity and reserve about her like an extra cloak. With that accomplished, she left the whitewashed longhouse that was the Witches’ Hall.
She wasn’t the only one braving the early morning chill. Dozens of curious folk were heading for the spot on the lakeshore where the sellswords customarily set down. Their feet crunched in the snow, and their breath steamed, reminding Yhelbruna momentarily of Hulmith’s body smoking in the dream.
Maybe conversation would distract her from such unpleasant images. She cast around and found Fyazel tramping toward the frozen lake. For some reason, the priestess of Selune was wearing a different mask than usual, a full moon instead of a crescent, but after long years of acquaintanceship, Yhelbruna had no difficulty recognizing her from the way she carried herself.
“Good morning, Sister,” she said.
Fyazel turned. The brown eyes behind the white wooden mask blinked twice, almost as if she didn’t recognize the woman who’d addressed her.
“Are you all right?” Yhelbruna asked.
Fyazel’s eyes narrowed and appeared to focus. “Fine! It’s just that I was up all night communing with the Moonmaiden. Now I have this racket waking me with the dawn.”
They walked on together until they spied brawny, bearded Mangan Uruk striding along with his iron circlet on his head and a number of his warriors hurrying to keep up with him. It might have better befitted the dignity of the Iron Lord to wait for Bez to come to him, but curiosity had evidently superseded protocol.
With a trace of amusement, Yhelbruna realized the same could be said of her. She was likewise an important personage, yet she too, had proved too eager to learn what was happening to stand on ceremony.
She and Fyazel joined the Iron Lord’s party as was their due, and he and the other warriors bowed to them. Then they all continued onward and reached the frozen lake just in time to see the
A rope ladder tumbled over the side of the skyship. Mario Bez swarmed down it as nimbly as a squirrel. A middle-aged man who wore his graying hair pulled back in a ponytail, he had a strong, shrewd face marred by a bumpy beak of a nose. As usual, he’d dressed in the red and yellow that were his company colors and armed himself with a rapier and main gauche. The blades were enchanted; they were not only weapons but tools for conjuring as well.
Bez bowed low with a sweeping flourish of his arms that he’d likely learned in some southern court. “Majesty,” he said. “High Lady. I come with good news and a trophy or two as well.”
He waved to the ship. Some of his men lowered sacks on ropes. Others clambered down the ladder to catch the bags and carry them forward.
“If I may?” he asked, and when the Iron Lord inclined his head, the sellswords dumped the contents of the sacks in the snow.
People gasped and flinched, and Yhelbruna understood why. Many of the severed heads were hideous, decayed and deformed, but beyond that, in their plenitude, they radiated a sort of spiritual vileness sufficient to grate on the nerves of even the least sensitive.
Yet the trophies were harmless and inert, dead now in every sense of the word, and she wondered why the sight of them failed to move her to happiness, relief, gratitude, or any emotion Bez might reasonably have expected.
“I could have brought troll and hobgoblin heads too,” the outlander said. “But I figured these were the ones that mattered.”
Yhelbruna supposed they were, indeed. The sellswords had collected the putrescent heads of zombies; the fanged, vaguely canine heads of ghouls; and the naked skulls of animate skeletons, all festering with the lingering residue of undeath. The mercenaries also had the vulturine head of a vrock and the broad, scaly one of a hezrou.
Mangan stooped to inspect the demon heads more closely. It was likely that, despite a lifetime of combat, he’d never seen such entities before. As he straightened up again, he said, “Tell me the tale.”
Bez grinned. “Gladly, Majesty. With the resources at my disposal, I eventually tracked the raiding parties that have been plaguing Rashemen back to their secret stronghold. As it turned out, they’d established themselves in an old castle in the north. I believe your sagas call it the Fortress of the Half-Demon. There, as I mentioned, they were building a genuine army, with goblin-kin and their ilk rallying to their banner. Fortunately, their plans hadn’t progressed so far that the
Mangan smiled, sincerely enough but with a hint of rue. “It must have been a glorious battle. I wish I’d been there. Congratulations.” He offered his hand, and Bez shook it.
“I congratulate you as well,” Yhelbruna said. “But why were the undead rising in the first place? What was behind it?”
The Halruaan shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea. My commission was to exterminate the creatures, and I did. Now that the crisis is over, perhaps you and the other wise women can look into the underlying cause.”
“I’m sure they can,” Mangan said. “But first, we’ll have feasting and games to celebrate your victory.”
“Thank you,” said Bez. “You honor us. But I hope that first before anything, I can claim my prize. This morning, if possible.”
The Iron Lord cocked his head. “Right now, in other words? Surely you and your warriors are tired.”
“Of course,” Bez replied. “But we traveled far in the dead of winter to obtain the griffons. Then we fought what turned out to be a challenging little campaign across the length and breadth of this land. In our place, wouldn’t you be eager for your reward, no matter how weary you were?”
“I suppose so,” Mangan said. He turned to Yhelbruna. “Are you prepared to work your part of the magic?”
She hesitated for a heartbeat without quite knowing why. Then she told him, “Yes.”
“Then I guess we’re all going to hike a little farther in the snow.”
Some of Bez’s sellswords joined the procession as it headed northeast. Yhelbruna recognized Melemer, a sly- looking little tiefling warlock with stubby horns, yellow eyes, and a cabalistic ring on every finger; Olthe, a priestess of Tempus the Foehammer as broad-shouldered and burly as many a berserker; and Sandrue, a plump, jolly-looking fellow with a scraggy, goatish beard, who, as his belt of pouches for spell components and the bronze sickle hanging from it attested, was versed in both arcane and druidic mysteries. He was the beast master Bez was counting on to control the griffons well enough to get them back to Yaulazna for proper training.
As they all left Immilmar behind, Yhelbruna asked, “Where’s Dai Shan? Didn’t he accompany you the last time you flew out of town?”
Perhaps, for an instant, a subtle tightening of Bez’s mouth bespoke irritation, but then his face was all affability again, a mask as effective in its way as any witch’s. “If we weren’t all friends here, I might almost wonder if you hathrans spy on your guests.”
“You can understand why we’d take an interest in those on whom we depended to perform a vital task.”
“Of course. And unfortunately, that’s the part of my news that isn’t joyous. The Shou perished during the
