She rolled her eyes. He loved to correct her speech. 'Whatever it is, it's stupid.'
'Not really. Xingax will turn our captives into potent weapons of war. The result is a net gain in the strength of our legions.'
'Maybe.' Neske tore another bite of child flesh off the stick. 'But when Szass Tam is king, will anyone remember that this chore was important and we did it well? Or will all the rewards go to the warriors who stormed Bezantur and chopped off Nevron and Dmitra Flass's heads?'
'As far as I'm concerned,' Khazisk said, 'our fellow soldiers are welcome to such opportunities. You and I are better off here in the north. If I never see one of the council's warriors-'
A rams-horn bugle bleated. On the western edge of the camp, a sentry was sounding the alarm.
Trained reflex made Neske snatch for the targe that lay beside her and leap to her feet. But though her body knew what to do, her mind lagged a step behind, mired in perplexity. It would have made sense if an attack had come while she and her comrades were across the border in Thesk, or even during the trek through Surthay and Eltabbar. But once the slave takers finished the climb up the Third Escarpment into High Thay, they should have been safe.
'Look up!' someone shouted. Neske did, and made out winged shadows sweeping across the sky.
'Griffon riders,' Khazisk said. He stood up and brandished his staff over his head. The pole was a gleaming white, whittled down from a dragon's leg bone, or so he claimed. He chanted words that, even though she couldn't understand them, filled Neske with an instinctual revulsion. A carrion stink filled the air.
But that was all that happened. The magic failed.
Khazisk cursed and began again. Four syllables into the spell, an arrow punched into the center of his forehead. He toppled backward.
Neske decided she needed her bow and quiver, not her scimitar and shield. She pivoted toward the place where she'd set the rest of her gear. Then the world seemed to skip somehow, and she was lying on her belly. When she tried to stand, and pain ripped through her back, she understood that an arrow had found her, too.
Griffon riders were trained to hit their targets even when their mounts were swooping through the air, and the first flights of arrows did an admirable job of softening up the enemy on the ground. Then the orcs started shooting back.
Bareris was confident his troops would prevail in a duel of archery. But possibly not before the orcs managed to kill a griffon or two, and their masters with them when the stricken beasts plummeted to earth. Better to prevent that by ending the battle quickly.
'Dive!' he said, projecting his voice so every legionnaire would hear. He nudged the back of Murder's feathery neck, and the griffon hurtled toward the ground.
An arrow streaked past Bareris's head. Then Murder slammed down on top of an orc, his momentum snapping its bones, his talons piercing it. The sudden stop jolted Bareris, but his tack was designed to cushion such shocks, and a decade of aerial combat had taught him how to brace himself.
Another orc charged with an axe raised over its head. Murder twisted his neck and snapped at the warrior, biting through boiled-leather armor and tearing its chest apart before it could strike. Bareris looked around but couldn't find another foe within reach of his sword.
In fact, opponents were in short supply all across the battlefield. Orcs were no match for griffons, and the animals were quickly ripping them apart.
That didn't mean everything was under control. Some of the prisoners were cowering amid the carnage, but others were scrambling into the darkness.
Bareris kicked Murder's flanks, and the griffon lashed his wings and sprang into the air. Bareris flew the beast over several fleeing Theskians, then plunged down to block their path. They froze.
'You can't run away,' he said. He'd never had the opportunity to learn Damaran, the language of Thesk, but bardic magic would make it sound as if he had. 'My comrades and I will kill you if you try. Turn around and go back to the campfires.'
The gaunt, haggard folk with their rags and whip scars stared at him. Were they so desperate for freedom that they'd attempt a dash past a griffon and the swordsman astride his back?
A huge wolf padded out of the darkness and stationed itself at Murder's side. It bared its fangs and growled at the captives.
The two beasts made an uncanny pair. Murder was terrible in his ferocity, but his was the clean savagery of nature's predators. The wolf, on the other hand, gave off a palpable feel of the uncanny, of corruption and destruction fouler than death, and perhaps it was the sheer horror of its presence that made the Theskians quail, then turn and scurry back the way they'd come.
Bareris kicked Murder into the air to look for other escapees. He and his companions couldn't be certain they'd collected them all, but they rounded up most of them. Afterward, he set down and dismounted, and the wolf melted back into Tammith.
'So far, so good,' she said.
'Thanks to you,' he said, and it was true. In times past, even a flying company couldn't foray onto the Plateau of Ruthammar without encountering swift and overwhelming resistance. But Tammith knew how to evade the scrutiny of the watchers overseeing the approaches.
Someone would discover their intrusion soon enough. But if they finished their business quickly and withdrew, they might be all right.
She gave him a smile. 'You're too kind.'
Bareris lifted his hand to stroke her cheek, then caught himself. Something knotted in his chest.
Ever since they'd agreed to treat one another cordially, as comrades, the same thing had happened to him over and over again. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to have her at his side. It warmed him as nothing had in ten years.
Then he would remember that nothing was really the same. He'd lost her and could never have her again. In truth, she'd even lost herself. By her own admission, she was only a husk, a vile parody of the sweet, generous girl he'd loved. And the realization brought a stab of anguish.
Perhaps she noticed the aborted caress, and perhaps it made her uncomfortable. She turned away, toward the huddled captives.
'Looking for your supper?' he asked. Even as he spoke, he felt shame at the spite in his tone. He had no right to be angry with her. Her condition was his fault, not hers.
'No,' she said. 'I'm all right for now. I was just thinking. For all these wretches know, they've simply passed from the hands of one band of marauders to those of another.'
'Haven't they?'
'Well, at least we don't mean to turn them into zombies. It might comfort them to know that.'
He shook his head. 'If we tried to make them our willing collaborators, they'd be actors playing a role, and perhaps not convincingly. It's better if they don't think anything has changed.'
'I suppose. They're likely to die anyway, aren't they, even if they survive in Xingax's fortress. Because they'll still be stuck in the center of Szass Tam's domain. We certainly aren't going to fly them home.'
'Would you, if you could?'
She sneered, whether at the suggestion or herself, he wasn't sure. 'I doubt it. What are they to me? It's just… seeing them reminds me of when I was one of the slaves being marched into Xingax's clutches, and you were the gallant young fool striving to rescue me. Now we're the drovers flogging the thralls along. It makes you think, is all.'
'What are you thinking?'
'Oh, I suppose that the wrongs that the world inflicts on us all can never be set right. They can only be avenged. Perhaps I will slake my thirst after all.' She strode away.
The stronghold stood among the desolate foothills of the Thaymount. It presented the facade of an imposing keep, with massive gates at ground level and little round windows and arrow loops above. But it had no other walls, or at least none visible from the outside, because its builder had carved it into the face of a cliff.
Supposedly, he'd been a conjuror, and Tammith winced to think how much trouble someone must have had evicting him from this seemingly impregnable redoubt after Szass Tam and the council went to war. But the lich's
