By sheer good luck, Xingax had wandered behind his hill-giant zombie when the blast flared and roared at the center of the northern army, and his hulking servant shielded him. It collapsed, a flayed and blackened ruin, and when he looked over the top of what remained of it, he wondered for a moment if the explosion had destroyed Szass Tam as well.
But obviously not, for the lich clambered up from the ground. He was surely hurt, though. Previously, despite his withered fingers and the occasional whiff of decay emanating from him, he could have passed for a living man. Now, with all the flesh seared and scoured from his face and hands, his eyes melted in their sockets, his undead nature was plain for all to see. The hem of his tattered robe was on fire, but he didn't seem to notice.
'Master,' Xingax said, 'what happened?'
Szass Tam oriented on him without difficulty. A lich didn't need eyes to see. 'Can you still transport both of us through space?' he croaked.
Xingax didn't see why not. Such instantaneous travel was a natural ability for him. 'Yes.'
'Then take us inside the Keep of Sorrows. If So-Kehur and Muthoth accomplished their task, we should be as safe there as anywhere, and I don't want to risk jumping any farther.'
'As you command,' Xingax said. 'But what in the name of the Abyss is happening?'
'We don't have time for an explanation,' the necromancer replied. 'Suffice it to say, we need to employ your talents, because I can't trust mine anymore. Not for the moment, anyway.'
Szass Tam vanished, seemingly vaporized by some sort of explosion, although Malark assumed the archmage hadn't really perished as easily as that. Dmitra had fainted, which was better than if she'd remained under the lich's spell and kept trying to murder her own officer. The kraken-things had slowed their irresistible advance and weren't smashing at the soldiers of Eltabbar as relentlessly as before. A few colossi were even pounding at one another.
It all looked like good news, but Malark couldn't rejoice because he didn't understand any of it. Nor would he, so long as he was stuck amid the clamorous, milling confusion that was Dmitra's army. He needed to oversee the situation from the air.
But he couldn't leave his liege lady stretched insensible on the ground. He picked her up, draped her over his shoulder, and trotted toward the place where he'd left his horse tied.
Another tremor shook the earth. He staggered, caught his balance, and scurried on.
The agony in Aoth's face abated, and he felt the steady bunching and releasing of Brightwing's muscles beneath him. Somehow both he and the griffon had survived the power that had killed so many others.
He realized that in response to the pain, he'd reflexively shut his eyes. He opened them, then cried out in dismay.
'What's wrong?' Brightwing asked. When he was slow to answer, she joined her mind to his to determine for herself. Then she hastily broke the link again. She had to if she was to see where she was going, because her master had gone blind.
But it wasn't ordinary blindness. He could still see something. In fact, he had the muddled impression he could see a great deal. But he couldn't make sense of it, and the effort was painful, like looking at the sun. His head throbbed, and, straining to hold in a whimper, he shut his eyes once more.
'I'll carry you to a healer,' Brightwing said.
'Wait! The legion. Look around. Did anyone else survive?'
'Some.'
'Bareris?'
'Yes.'
'Then I need to put him in charge before-'
Brightwing's pinions cracked like whips and her body rolled. Aoth realized she was maneuvering to contend with an adversary or dodging an actual attack. An instant later, the air turned deathly cold, as if a blast of frost were streaking by.
'What is it?' asked Aoth.
'One of those big shadow-bats,' the griffon said. 'I'll see if I can tear up its wing bad enough that it can't fly.' She hurtled forward, jolting Aoth back against the high cantle of his saddle.
If their assailant was a nightwing, she had no hope of defeating it by herself. Aoth had to help. But how could he, when he couldn't see?
By borrowing her senses, of course, just as he had many times. He should have thought of it immediately, but the inexplicable onslaught of the blue flame and his sudden blindness had robbed him of his wits.
By the time he tapped into Brightwing's consciousness, she'd nearly closed on her opponent. At the last possible instant, the bat-thing whirled itself away from her talons and struck with its fangs. The griffon dodged in her turn, but only by plunging lower, ceding the nightwing the advantage of height. Brightwing streaked through the air at top speed to get away from it.
'Turn around as soon as you can,' Aoth said. 'I can't target it unless you're looking at it.'
'You won't be able to target it if it bites your head off,' Brightwing growled, but she wheeled just heartbeats later.
He saw the nightwing was close, and swooping closer. He aimed his spear at it and rattled off an incantation. As he did, he could tell that something else was wrong.
When he cast a spell, he could sense the elements meshing like machinery in a mill, and feel the power leap from their interaction. But though he'd recited the words of command with the necessary precision, the magic's structure was out of balance. The components were tangling, jamming, and producing nothing but a useless stink and shimmer. Meanwhile, the bat-thing had nearly closed the distance. Brightwing waited as long as she dared, then swooped in an attempt to pass safely beneath it.
Aoth had emptied his spear's reservoir of stored spells over the course of the day's fighting. But he could still charge the weapon with destructive force. Or he hoped he could. For all he knew, even that simple operation had become impossible.
He spoke the proper word, and to his relief, he felt power flow and collect in the point of the spear. Then Brightwing hurtled under the shadow creature, and he couldn't see it anymore. He thrust blindly, and the spear bit into its target. The magic discharged in a crackle.
'Did I kill it?' he asked.
Before Brightwing could answer, agony ripped through her body, beginning in her chest. Linked to her mind, Aoth endured a measure of it as well. His muscles clenched and his mouth stretched into a snarl. Brightwing floundered in flight, and for a moment, Aoth feared she was about to die. Then the pain abated as her extraordinary hardiness shook off the effect of the supernatural attack.
'Does that answer your question?' she rasped.
She turned, and he could see the nightwing for himself. The thing wasn't flying as fast or as deftly as before. But it was still pursuing.
For want of a better plan, he tried another spell, and felt it taking something like the proper form. But he was straining against a resistance, as if he were forcing together puzzle pieces that weren't truly mates.
It worked, though. A cloud of vapor sprang into existence directly in front of the bat-thing, so close that the creature couldn't avoid it. It hurtled in and the corrosive mist burned its murky substance ragged, in some places searing holes completely through.
The creature fell, then flapped its tattered wings and climbed at Aoth and Brightwing.
But then Bareris and Mirror dived in on the entity's flank. The bard ripped the nightwing's head with a thunderous shout. The ghost closed and slashed with his phosphorescent blade. The bat-thing plummeted once more, and this time unraveled into wisps of darkness.
Bareris and Mirror ascended to reach Aoth, who tried to look at them with his own eyes. Maybe his blindness had been temporary. Maybe it was gone.
Then he clamped his eyes shut again as though flinching from overwhelming glare. Although, beneath the unnaturally darkened sky, glare couldn't possibly be the problem.
Bareris's face had become a lean, hard mask over the years, betraying little except a hunger to kill his enemies. Yet now he gaped in surprise.
