'To be honest, not certain at all, but I'm willing to play my hunch. In addition to which, I've seen quite a bit of the undead of late, enough to sicken me. I don't want a lich as sole ruler of my homeland.'
Nymia sighed. 'Nor do I. He unleashed his pet horrors on my tharch, ordered me to dispose of them, then betrayed and crippled our army at the worst possible moment. At this point, I hate and mistrust him too much to support him.'
'We're agreed, then.'
'Yes, curse you. I can have the Griffon Legion in the air before dusk, but it's going to be a nightmare getting the rest of the army ready for a forced march. We'll be lucky if the wretches don't mutiny.' A thought struck her. 'We're still holding all those necromancers prisoner. If we try to take them with us, they'll slow us down, and if we leave them behind, lightly guarded, they're apt to escape despite their bonds and gags.'
'Then we'll have to kill them.'
She ran her hand over her scalp. 'Just kill a band of Red Wizards.'
Milsantos grinned. 'Don't tell me you've never felt the urge.'
Squinting, Aoth scrutinized the mountainsides, but it was Brightwing who spotted the would-be travelers and pointed them out to him. Sword swinging at his side, bow slung across his back, Bareris was climbing a narrow, rocky trail. Diminished by sunlight and the absence of combat to the merest suggestion of murk, Mirror flowed along behind him.
Brightwing furled her wings, swooped, and landed in front of them, effectively blocking the path, though that wasn't Aoth's precise intention. At Bareris's back on the valley floor, small as a dollhouse with distance, the Keep of Thazar and the surrounding encampment bustled with activity occasioned by the impending departure. The sight reminded Aoth of an anthill.
'I have men to oversee,' he said, 'and my own packing to attend to. I don't have time to chase you.'
Bareris shrugged. 'Then you shouldn't have.'
'Should I let you throw your life away? As soon as I realized your belongings were gone, I guessed what you intended, and it's crazy. Even if you can find it again, you can't attack a necromancers' stronghold by yourself.'
'I'm not by myself. Mirror decided to stick with me.'
'It's still crazy.'
'My quarrel is with Xingax and his confederates. If you legionnaires no longer mean to go after them, that's my bad luck, but it doesn't change what I need to do.'
'I understand why you want to destroy Xingax, but you should save your fiercest hatred for Szass Tam. He's the one who bears ultimate responsibility for Tammith's transformation. Xingax was simply carrying out his orders.'
Bareris's mouth tightened. 'I suppose that's true.'
'Then come west with the army, idiot! If you want to punish Szass Tam in the only way that folk like us have any hope of hurting him, the time to do it is now. If we don't keep him from taking Bezantur, there'll be no stopping him later. You can hunt down Xingax another day.'
Bareris stood pondering for a heartbeat or two then said, 'All right. Under one condition.'
Aoth snorted. 'I go out of my way to keep a lunatic from committing suicide, and he wants to bargain with me. What is it you want?'
'A griffon. Surely there's at least one that lost its master in the battle. Let me fly west with you.'
'Have you ever ridden a griffon?'
'No, but you can teach me, and I can use song to establish a bond with my steed. You've seen me do it before.'
Now it was Aoth's turn to consider. Bareris-and Mirror-could prove invaluable in the actions to come, but those same skirmishes would be perilous for a novice rider.
'Please,' Bareris said. 'A moment ago, you called me a madman. I know you were joking, but sometimes I truly do feel as if my mind is going to break. It's not quite as bad when I'm striking blows against those who corrupted Tammith, and I'll fare better fighting alongside you than trudging for days merely hoping for a battle at the end of the trek.'
'Very well,' said Aoth. 'We'll find a masterless griffon and see if you can charm it.'
'Which is more,' Brightwing said, 'than you ever did for me.'
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
22–27 Kythorn, the Year of Risen Elfkin
The road to Priador ran roughly parallel to the First Escarpment, and the legions of the north straggled along it for miles. Bareris knew he and his comrades had no choice but to leave the body of the enemy host unmolested, at least while the sun burned in the sky. They didn't dare risk attacking such a superior force.
Outriders, however, were a different matter, and when an army lost those, it was reduced to creeping blind. Accordingly, the Griffon Legion, or what remained of it after the campaign through Pyarados and up the Pass of Thazar, had divided into smaller bands to hunt enemy scouts.
Aoth whistled and pointed with his lance. Following the gesture, Bareris saw the horsemen on the plain. The griffon riders dived, Bareris's eager mount furling its wings before he even gave the signal.
The northerners spotted them descending. A couple fled, perhaps because their horses panicked. The rest, evidently realizing they couldn't outrun griffons, scrambled to ready their bows.
An arrow streaked upward, and Bareris's steed veered to dodge it. He was slow shifting his weight to facilitate the maneuver, and the griffon screeched in annoyance.
The shaft still missed them, though, and an instant later, the griffon plunged down atop the archer and his piebald horse, driving its claws into their bodies and smashing them to the ground.
Bareris cast about. On all sides, griffons, the warriors on their backs essentially superfluous, shredded their shrieking targets with beak and talon. They hadn't gotten all the outriders, though. A necromancer with a scarlet robe peeking out from under his cloak howled words of power and swept his arms through mystic passes. His hands left smears of darkness on the air.
Bareris shouted at him. Striking hard as a hammer, the sound knocked the Red Wizard out of the saddle and ruined his spellcasting. Brightwing sprang, and Aoth thrust his lance into the warlock's chest.
'We need to catch the ones who ran,' said Aoth.
Bareris bumped his mount's flanks with his heels, and the griffon lashed its wings and leaped into the air. They raced in pursuit of the surviving scouts then saw there was no need to hurry. A shadow in the sunlight, eyes and other features barely discernible in his smear of a face, Mirror stood over the bodies of the northerners and their horses.
Bareris realized he ought to strip the corpses. Riding his flying steed, Malark Springhill had accompanied the griffon riders west, and though he'd eventually split off to attend to some project of his own, he'd first urged them to obtain the trappings of warriors from Gauros and Surthay whenever possible. These should do nicely. Thanks to the way Mirror's spectral sword dispatched its victims, they weren't even bloody or torn.
Malark cleared his throat. It seemed a gentler away of announcing his presence than abruptly casting his reflection into a lady's mirror.
It still startled her, though. Seated at her dressing table, one bright blue eye painted, the other not and therefore looking smaller than its mate, Nephis Sepret lurched around, then sighed and pressed a hand to her bosom when she saw who'd interrupted her at her toilet.
'Someday,' she said, 'you must tell me how you sneak in here without the servants knowing.'
He waved his hand to indicate the glittering gold-and-sapphire jewelry she'd laid out for herself. 'That's a lot of finery, considering that the autharch is otherwise engaged.'
She smiled. 'His fickleness doesn't mean I have to be lonely.'
