Just stifle your halo of flame.”
Now that Jhesrhi was conscious, it wouldn’t do to administer the Keeper’s healing grace via a touch. The sellsword couldn’t bear it. But Cera wanted to get as close as possible.
Jhesrhi frowned as though the request warranted suspicion. But then she gave her head a little shake, and her cloak of flame vanished. She circled around Dai Shan’s still-burning body to meet Cera in the center of the room.
Cera drew down more of Amaunator’s light and, with an arcing gesture of benediction, sent it shining into the wizard’s body. Scratches and bruises faded.
Then zombie warriors appeared in the doorway, while a luminous phantom flowed through the wall beside it. The booms of the fiery blasts Jhesrhi had conjured had no doubt brought them rushing to investigate.
Cera hurled the Keeper’s power and burned the first ones to nothingness. Meanwhile, Jhesrhi recited with what, under the circumstances, felt like maddening slowness, articulating crunching, grinding, ponderous words that a person unschooled in earth magic could never even have pronounced.
More undead sought to enter the room, and with her dwindling store of power, Cera threw them back. The wall behind her scraped, banged, and let in a frigid breeze, as, obeying Jhesrhi’s command, it opened to provide an exit. That felt as if it were taking forever too.
Jhesrhi spoke moaning, whistling words. Cera glimpsed motion at the corner of her vision, turned, and saw the specter that had somehow penetrated her magical defense reaching out with shadowy hands to seize her. Then, howling, the wind picked her up and whisked her beyond the phantom’s reach.
In its haste, the wind banged her shoulder against the side of the breach as it carried her through, but all she cared about was that it was outdistancing the specter streaming in pursuit. She and Jhesrhi soared high above the fortress into a deep blue sky that glowed red on the western horizon. The frozen surface of Lake Ashane reflected a trace of the heavenly colors.
After the cold, lifeless darkness of the deathways and the predation of the vampires, the snowy twilit wilderness seemed like the loveliest sight Cera had ever seen, and despite her lingering pains, as she and Jhesrhi flew southward, she imagined she could scarcely feel any happier. Then a huge, black shape swooped down beside her. “About time you showed up,” it rasped.
“Jet!” said Jhesrhi an instant before Cera would have joyfully exclaimed the same. “How is it you’re still here?”
“Because Vandar and I stayed in the fortress to search for the two of you,” the griffon replied. “After he ran into the undead coming up out of the dungeons, we had to flee, but we didn’t go far. And for the last little while, I’ve been flying around, keeping an eye on the place to make sure the ghosts aren’t still chasing us. How is it
“The same undead Vandar encountered had taken us prisoner,” Jhesrhi said. “But we managed to escape.”
“Where
“Yes,” said Jet, his voice even gruffer than usual. “He’s on the ground right now, because it hurts me to carry a rider. Aoth said that you, sunlady, would help me with that.”
“You’ve spoken with Aoth?” Cera said. “He made it out of the dark maze too?”
“Yes,” Jet replied. “After we set down, the two of you can talk to him too. I’ll pass the words back and forth. Just try not to gush, weep, or coo. I have enough ailing me without getting sick to my stomach.”
For once, Aoth’s preternaturally keen sight blurred, and his eyes felt wet. He realized he was on the verge of tears and at once felt a twinge of Jet’s disgust.
That disgust was half feigned, but still, the familiar had a point. A war captain couldn’t bask for long in sentiment, let alone give the impression of weakness, when he had important tasks to perform. Aoth took a deep, steadying breath, then turned to face Orgurth squarely.
“Good news?” asked the orc. He had a bloodstained dressing on his neck where an automaton had clawed him. Had the strike landed just a little differently, it either could have sliced his windpipe or slashed an artery, but he seemed to regard the actual wound as a trifle.
“The best,” Aoth replied. “Jet found Jhesrhi and Cera alive and well.”
Orgurth grunted. “That is good, when all your friends make it back from the battle alive.”
Aoth had the feeling Orgurth was remembering some sorrow from his own past and wondered if the orc was ever going to tell him why he’d been cast out of the legions and condemned to slavery. It plainly hadn’t been for cowardice.
With a leer, Orgurth appeared to cast off the grip of somber recollection. “Still,” said the orc, “you’re wrong. The best news would be your friends are alive
Aoth smiled. “True. Let’s go work on the second part of that.”
They found Pevkalondra, as the ghoul sorceress had named herself, where and how they’d left her, in a sort of natural alcove, bound hand and foot and gagged. With her filthy yellow fangs, she could likely have chewed the gag to shreds if she’d decided to, but she also had an “Old One”-actually, another keen young novice like Kanilak- hovering over her with an axe to chop her if she showed any sign of attempting to cast a spell.
Orgurth cut her feet free and hoisted her up. Then he, the Rashemi, and Aoth marched her to the large cave, an amphitheater somewhat like the one outside the Witches’ Hall in Immilmar but with the tiers of seats shaped from stone rather than dug out of the earth, where the rest of the Old Ones awaited them.
Most of the seats were occupied. The Old Ones had taken casualties during the final stage of the siege, but fewer than Aoth had privately expected. Even if they spent their days kowtowing to the hathrans, the enchanters hadn’t been bragging when they claimed to know how to fight.
Aoth gave a nod to all the folk looking back at him and his companions. “Well,” he said, “here we are, no thanks to this creature. Let’s find out why she came here to bother you.”
Watching out lest she suddenly twist her head and bite him, he pulled the gag away from Pevkalondra’s mouth. She spit viscous gray fluid and licked her shriveled lips with a long, pointed tongue. For some reason, the latter action thickened the dry-rot stink of her.
“I won’t tell you anything,” she said, “until you promise me my freedom.”
“Done,” said Aoth.
Some of the Old Ones exclaimed in dismay. Seated on the third tier up, owl mask set aside-likely because it chafed the bruised, swollen right side of his face-Kanilak yelled, “That thing
“Yes,” said Shaugar, seated a level higher with Pevkalondra’s wand in his hand, “and it’s undead on top of that. Its very existence offends the spirits and the Three themselves.”
“She offends me too,” Aoth replied. “But we need to know what she can tell us. Because up in the North Country, my comrades and I believed we ended a threat to Rashemen. But plainly, the menace
The pearl in her eye socket glimmering, Pevkalondra sneered back at him. “I told you what I require,” she said. “For obvious reasons, I require it from these barbarians as well.”
Orgurth snorted. “Stinky, I don’t see how you can ‘require’ much of anything. Like I already told the captain, I can
“Maybe,” said Aoth, “but maybe not. I’ve heard of undead yielding under torture, but also of those that never did. Their pain and fear aren’t necessarily like ours.”
“We could try,” said an Old One in a mask like the gnarled face of a tree spirit ringed with stubby twigs.
“I know you’ve lost friends,” said Aoth. “I understand the wish to avenge them. But think of the welfare of your country and your own welfare in particular. There could be more Raumvirans in the Running Rocks, and if so, you need to know.”
“I don’t like it,” Shaugar growled, “but the Silverbloods owe you, Captain, and you have a point.” He glowered at the ghoul. “We Old Ones promise to release you and give you a day to clear out of our territory in exchange for answers to our questions. Start with the one Captain Fezim just raised.
“No immediate danger,” Pevkalondra said. “No more than the rest of the Rashemi.”
“Convince us,” said Aoth. “What were you and your raiders doing here?”
