Unclean

her idea. She'd had to talk him into it, and it had literally taken years, because the zulkirs didn't know about the expedition, would have forbidden it if they had, and Homen very sensibly feared their displeasure. The mage-lords wouldn't content themselves with discharging tharchions who so exceeded their authority. They'd punish the transgressors as only Red Wizards could.

But only, she was certain, if the invasion failed. If she presented her masters with a victory over the hated barbarians, with wagon-loads of plunder and hundreds of newly captured slaves, perhaps even with Rashemen itself conquered at last, they would surely reward her initiative.

She needed Homen's warriors to ensure such a triumph, so she had to treat him as an equal for the time being. She promised herself she'd find a way to claim the bulk of the credit and the highest honors when the time came.

He looked in her direction, and she dipped the tip of her lance to signal that all was well on her side of the river. Then voices started singing, the music intricate and contrapuntal, the sound high, sweet, and eerie as it resounded from the brown stone canyon walls. Azhir cast about, seeking the source, and arrows began falling from on high, thrumming through the air and thudding into the bodies of her troops.

At last she could see some of the archers, perched on ledges high above her. Perhaps it was no great marvel that they'd managed to conceal themselves until that moment. Rashemi were little better than beasts and possessed an animal's facility for hiding in the wild, but how could they possibly have known Azhir's army would come so early in the year, let alone seek to ford the Gauros at this particular spot?

An arrow slammed into the crest of her helm, jerking her head, and she realized her questions would have to wait. For now, she had a disaster to avert. She bellowed for her troops to shoot back, though her bowmen, loosing their shafts at targets much higher up, half hidden behind makeshift ramparts of piled stone, were going to have a difficult time of it. Meanwhile, Homen sent all the Thayans still on the south shore rushing forward to ford as rapidly as they could and join the fight.

Azhir realized her wizards had yet to join the fray. A few thunderbolts, conjured devils, and blasts of blighting shadow could do wonders to scour the foe from the escarpment overhead. She cast about and saw the warlocks scurrying to form the circles they used to perform rituals in concert.

Idiocy! They didn't need to waste precious moments coordinating to evoke hailstorms and the like. They could do that working individually. She spurred her steed in front of a scrambling wizard, cutting him off from the half-formed circle he was trying to reach. He was one of the scarlet-robed elite, and ordinarily even a tharchion would be well advised to show him a certain deference, but this wasn't an ordinary situation.

'Just hit them!' she shouted, brandishing her lance at the Rashemi.

'Listen!' he replied, his eyes wide. 'Don't you hear it?'

Hear what? How was she supposed to hear anything in particular above the cacophony of the battle, the drone of arrows, wounded men screaming, the Rashemi women caterwauling, the blood orcs roaring, but then she did-a rumbling, roaring, crashing noise, growing louder by the moment and sounding from the east.

She realized it wasn't just Rashemi women singing. It was Rashemi witches, and chanting together, they'd broken the enchantment that had held the Gauros in check. Now the flood was reasserting itself, and the Thayan mages believed they had to combine forces to subdue the river once again.

Azhir permitted the Red Wizard to rush onward toward his fellows. She then faced the river and screamed, 'Get out of the water now! Run for whatever shore is closer! Just get out!'

As far as she could tell, no one heeded her. In all likelihood, no one could hear.

That left the wizards as the army's only hope, which, she insisted to herself, should suffice. Thayan magic was the most potent and sophisticated in all Faerыn. Rashemi witches were merely savages with a certain knack for trafficking with petty spirits of forest and field.

But however insignificant their powers, they'd already accomplished their liberation of the flood. That allowed them to harry the Thayan wizards as the latter sought to chain it anew. Emerging from their hiding places on the heights, their faces and bare limbs painted, their hair barbarously long and unbound, the witches conjured enormous hawks and clouds of stinging flies to attack the spellcasters below or made brambles burst forth from the ground to twine around them like serpents. Meanwhile, the Rashemi archers sent many of their shafts streaking at the Thayan warlocks.

It all served to hinder the Red Wizards and their ilk. Some perished or suffered incapacitating wounds. Others felt obliged to forsake their nascent ritual at least long enough to wrap themselves in protective auras of light or scorch masses of swarming insects from existence. Meanwhile, the hiss and roar of the flood grew louder.

Crowned with driftwood and chunks of ice, the white towering wall that was the wave front seemed to burst into view all at once, as if it had leaped up from a hiding place of its own, not hurtled downstream. It was hurtling, though, so swiftly that many of the warriors likely didn't even perceive it until it swept over them, to drown and smash them and carry the corpses away.

It obliterated a significant portion of the Thayan host, split the remainder in two, and left Azhir's part trapped on the wrong side of the river, where the Rashemi were going to massacre them while their comrades watched helplessly.

A number of her wizards had manifestly made the same bleak assessment she had. Some vanished, translating themselves instantaneously through space. Others invested themselves with the power of flight then soared into the air.

Azhir realized she had to reach one of them before they all bolted, so she could compel him to take her with him as he fled. She spurred her hell-steed toward a figure in a red robe, and an arrow punched into the beast's neck, burying itself up to the fletchings. The charger stumbled then toppled sideways.

She kicked her feet out of the stirrups and flung herself clear. She landed hard, her armor clashing, but at least her leg wasn't caught or broken beneath her mount's carcass. She dragged herself to her feet and cast about, trying to locate the Red Wizard once more.

She couldn't find him or anyone else attired in telltale crimson. In fact, now that she was no longer astride a mount, she couldn't discern much of anything. Everything was too chaotic. Panicked Thayan warriors scrambled every which way, without order or rational purpose.

She could hear, though. Somewhere close at hand, Rashemi berserkers howled like wolves, working themselves into frenzy. In a heartbeat or two, they'd burst from hiding and throw themselves at the Thayans, completing the ruin the witches and archers had begun.

I truly am going to die here, Azhir thought. The realization frightened her, but she'd spent a lifetime denying fear and wouldn't go out a craven at the last. Promising herself she'd send at least a few Rashemi vermin to the Hells ahead of her, she pulled her sword from its scabbard.

Then the wind shrieked. Azhir could scarcely feel a breeze, but she perceived that the air must be profoundly agitated overhead, because the Rashemi arrows were veering and tumbling off course.

She caught a glimpse of the half-naked berserkers driving in on the Thayan flank. All at once, ice gathered on the ground beneath their feet and rose here and there in glittering spikes.

The Rashemi warriors slipped and fell, gashing themselves against the protrusions, which were evidently sharp as razors. More ice geysered upward from the central mass, forming itself into a crude, thick-bodied, faceless shape like a statue on which the sculptor had barely begun to work. The giant swung its hand, and the shattered bodies of two barbarians flew through the air.

Rain poured from the empty air to batter the canyon wall, and wherever it pounded one of the Rashemi, flesh blistered and smoked. The enemy made haste to shield themselves or scuttle for cover, which interrupted the witches' barrage of spells.

Then he appeared before Azhir, so suddenly she assumed he must have shifted himself through space, but without the ostentatious burst of light, crackle of power, or puff of displaced air that often accompanied such feats. Rather it was as if she'd simply blinked, and at that precise moment, he'd stepped in front of her. Though he could no doubt appear however he liked-and gossip whispered that his true form was ghastly indeed-Szass Tam, zulkir of Necromancy, looked as he always had whenever she'd met him. He was tall and dark of eye, with a wispy black beard and a vermilion robe trimmed with gems and gold. He was gaunt and pale even for a Thayan aristocrat, but even so, he seemed more alive than otherwise. Only his withered hands and the hint of dry rot that occasionally wafted from his person truly attested that he was a lich, a wizard who'd achieved immortality by transforming himself into one of the undead.

She started to kneel, and he caught hold of her arm and held her up. 'No time for courtesies,' he said. 'My