Leering, mouths smeared with red, three of the pallid undead started forward. Cera stepped back, drew breath, and raised her hand to what, in a sane, living world, would have been a sky. She had, Jhesrhi knew, intended to play the helpless prisoner whatever transpired, but the threat of the vampires’ attentions was so repellent that instinct had taken over.
Lod spoke a word of chastisement, and even though Jhesrhi wasn’t the target, it made her body feel as if it were vibrating. Cera cried out and fell to her knees.
The vampires closed with her an instant later and threw her down on her back. Their white fingers ripped away mail and the leather underneath to expose flesh. Then the creatures bent down and bit.
“Try not to kill her,” said Lod. Swaying, he alternated between watching his followers feed and watching Jhesrhi.
Be fire, she thought, and anger and horror dwindled from her awareness as though they’d burned away.
Apparently that was good enough for Lod. For after a while, he said, “I have had reports from Rashemen, of course. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be going there. But please, my new friend, tell me everything
6
The pearly, seemingly sourceless glow of enchantment gleamed on swords, spears, shields, staves, wands, and crystal. The fine workmanship would have been apparent to anyone, but Aoth’s fire-kissed eyes could also discern the force of enchantment pent inside the articles.
Orgurth peered around the spacious, high-ceilinged cave, part forge, part conjuring chamber, and part armory, and said, “Well, all this should help, shouldn’t it?”
“It might,” Aoth replied.
After a round of introductions and explanations, Shaugar-the older cave dweller in the three-eyed wooden mask who’d helped haul Aoth and Orgurth to safety-and Kanilak had taken their new allies on a tour of their cavern home. The older man didn’t seem to resent the lack of gushing optimism in Aoth’s reply. But the youth glared like the owl whose visage he wore.
“No one crafts more powerful talismans than the Silverbloods!” he said.
Aoth supposed that within the borders of Rashemen, that might be true. As it turned out, the Wychlaran reserved all the mystic arts to their own sex except for the creation of magical weapons and tools. Males with a talent for wizardry or commerce with the divine could use their skills in that arena, but only if willing to join one of the groups of “Old Ones” sequestered in the Running Rocks. The Silverbloods were one such group.
It seemed like a dismal sort of life to Aoth, but so far, he hadn’t noticed any indication that the male spellcasters chafed at their subservience to the hathrans or their obligatory seclusion. Of course, the undead Raumvirans outside their granite gates had given them other things to think about.
And unfortunately, despite Kanilak’s touchy pride in the potency of Silverblood magic, the contents of the armory weren’t likely to solve the problem. Not by themselves, at any rate. Aoth took a moment to frame an explanation that, he hoped, would avoid giving further offense.
“I see the quality of your craftsmanship,” he said. “But many of these articles aren’t finished.” And thus, not as formidable as they ought to be. “If they were, you would have shipped them off to the hathrans and the Iron Lord’s warriors already.”
“We may have time to finish some,” Shaugar said. “If the siege drags on.”
“It won’t,” Aoth replied. “We slowed the enemy down when we destroyed their stone thrower. But it won’t keep them out for long.”
As though to validate his assertion, a boom reverberated through the caves, and the floor shivered. An undead mage had cast destructive magic at one of the stone seals.
“We also,” Aoth continued once the echoes died away, “have to face the fact that we don’t even have enough fighters to use all the weapons at the same time.”
The Silverbloods were apparently one of the largest enclaves of Old Ones. That, combined with their level of expertise, was likely why the Raumvirans had decided to attack them. But even so, there were only a few dozen of them.
“Then each of us,” Kanilak said, “will empty one talisman of power, then switch to another.”
Aoth nodded as he might have to a raw recruit on the training field, where even painfully obvious thinking warranted encouragement. “That’s exactly what we’ll do. Still, we’ll have the problem that constructs are sometimes resistant to spells. I’m an accomplished war mage, but if you were watching, you saw I couldn’t just dissolve the stone thrower. I had to chuck it over a cliff and let the violence of the fall destroy it.”
Orgurth grinned an ugly grin. “Then it’s hopeless.”
“No,” Aoth said. “Because useful as they are, automatons have their limitations too, and we’re going to exploit them.”
“Hold on!” Kanilak said. “You aren’t the leader here! You’re just a stranger we took in for kindness’s sake when you were running for your life!”
“That’s true,” Aoth replied. “But even if you’ve never heard of me, I’ve been commanding armies for a hundred years. I know how to be a war leader. Do you need one?”
The young man hesitated. “At moments when all Rashemen was in danger, the hathrans called the Old Ones forth. And we fought well!”
“I believe it,” Aoth replied. “But did Old Ones plan strategy and direct the battles, or did you simply play the roles the witches and lodge masters assigned to you?”
Shaugar put his hand on Kanilak’s shoulder. “Go easy, son. Captain Fezim’s not belittling the Silverbloods, and obviously, if we don’t like his plan, we won’t follow it. But considering that we haven’t even managed to come up with one of our own, it makes sense to at least hear his thoughts.”
“Thank you,” said Aoth. “One of a golem’s weaknesses is that it’s a made thing. That’s never helped me much because I’m not a maker. I can turn a weapon stronger and sharper and store power inside it, but that’s all. You fellows, though,
Now it was Shaugar’s turn to hesitate. “It’s an interesting notion,” he said at length, “but no Old One has ever crafted anything like those metal beasts outside.”
“You must animate
“How’s that?” Orgurth asked.
“Because most of the enemy are constructs. I don’t know why it’s that way. There wasn’t any shortage of actual ghouls and such garrisoning the Fortress of the Half-Demon or raiding elsewhere in Rashemen, for that matter. But still, we don’t have that many reanimated Raumvirans to contend with, especially because the tumbling boulders squashed some.”
“And without the Raumvirans to control them,” Kanilak said, “the golems don’t count for anything!” The possibilities inherent in the notion had finally purged the belligerence from his tone.
“That’s right,” said Aoth. “It will work if we can control the timing and flow of the action so that, when the automatons fail, the undead are where we can get at them.” He looked to Shaugar. “What do you think?”
“I think,” said the man in the three-eyed mask, “you should come tell the others what you just told us.”
The wordless psychic call came midway through Dai Shan’s watch, and so eagerly had he awaited it that he nearly responded straightaway. But his father had taught him-sometimes with his fist or his cane-that a Shou merchant lord always thought before he acted, and a moment’s reflection sufficed to convince him he shouldn’t simply abandon sentry duty. As the grisly detritus throughout the fortress attested, the North Country was full of trolls and similar dangers, and he, Vandar, and Jet had no way of sealing up the Fortress of the Half-Demon to prevent incursions from the benighted wilderness outside.
And even had it been otherwise, he didn’t want his companions in adversity to decide he was behaving
