the slope.
Bareris rushed the nearer of the two remaining archers. He didn't have an arrow on the string, and didn't like his chances of nocking, aiming, and loosing one in time. He threw down his bow and whipped a short sword from its scabbard. The hand gripping the blade was tattooed solid black, a sign of devotion among worshipers of Bane.
Bareris scrambled to close with the man. He wanted to kill him quickly, before the third archer, who was now standing behind him, could attack from that favorable position. But his haste, coupled with the slant of the roof, betrayed him. One foot slipped out from underneath him and he fell. The swordsman stabbed at him.
Bareris slammed down hard, but managed to swing his blade in a frantic parry. Somehow it carried his adversary's thrust safely to the side. Taking advantage of his supine position, he sliced the bowman's hamstring. The man with the black hand yelped and fell. Bareris heaved himself to his knees and cut, shearing into the archer's stomach.
That should take care of him, but what about the third enemy? Bareris twisted around just as the other man's arrow leaped from the bow.
The bard wrenched himself sideways and the shaft hurtled past him. The bowman instantly snatched for another. Bareris sucked in a breath to batter him with a thunderous shout.
But before he could, a cloud of black bats swirled down to rip at the archer from all sides. He collapsed immediately. The bats hadn't shed nearly enough blood to kill, but the cold poison of their touch had stopped his heart.
The bats flew round and round one another and became a woman. 'Are you all right?' Tammith asked.
'Yes.' He looked up and down the row of roofs and saw other black figures slinking with bows in hand. 'But we have problems.' He bellowed loud as his magic would permit. 'Legionnaires! Look up! At the rooftops!'
Despite the volume he achieved and the power of coercion with which he infused his call, he wasn't certain anyone would heed him. There was too much happening on the ground. But someone paid attention. Arrows and quarrels flew up from the docks and ships, and the dark bowmen started to drop. Bareris heaved a sigh of relief, and then an enormous shadow swept over him.
Black against a black sky, largely visible because it eclipsed the few stars shining through the cloud cover, a nightwing soared above the harbor, while other huge, batlike shadows glided over other parts of the city. Bareris wished again for his brigandine, wished, too, that Winddancer was with him, and that he hadn't already expended so much of his power. But the nightwings didn't dive and attack, and when they wheeled and flew north, he inferred that they'd simply been scouting the city stretched out beneath them.
He was glad he wouldn't have to fight one, but far from overjoyed. If the creatures had ventured here tonight, it could only mean the rest of Szass Tam's host was following close behind.
The Tower of Revelation offended Lallara's sensibilities. As far as she was concerned, a wizard's fortress was meant to hide secrets and provide strong defenses, and the sanctuary of the Order of Divination seemed capable of neither. The acoustics were so excellent that she could hear tiny sounds from two chambers away, and the place sported so many big, costly glass windows that it scarcely seemed to have enough solid stone wall to support its mass. More often than not, the casements stood open to admit the morning breeze and the faint sounds of the city, abnormally quiet, almost holding its breath after last night's insurrection and the sighting of Szass Tam's flying creatures.
But though the citadel made her feel exposed and ill at ease, she was an archmage specializing in protective magic, and perceived that the building had wards in place to foil eavesdroppers and keep assassins from flinging daggers or thunderbolts through the openings. So she supposed she could tolerate it for a while. Certainly it had seemed more expeditious for the zulkirs to go to the diviners than to require the seers to drag the appurtenances of their discipline to the Central Citadel.
Two dozen senior diviners chanted spells to their mirrors and crystal orbs. Light seethed inside the devices, then coalesced into coherent images. Lallara, Nevron, Lauzoril, Samas Kul, and Kumed Hahpret prowled among them, peering at ranks upon marching ranks of dread warriors, packs of loping ghouls, crawling hulks with writhing tentacles like the ones that had reared up out of the ground outside the Keep of Sorrows, and skeletal horses drawing closed wagons.
After a time, Lauzoril said, 'You've done well. Thank you.'
A diviner with additional eyes tattooed above and below his real ones said, 'To be honest, Your Omnipotence, it wasn't difficult. The necromancers aren't trying to conceal their numbers or their location.'
Nevron spat. 'No. Why should they? You soothsayers, get out. Your masters need to talk.'
If the diviners resented the brusque dismissal, they had better sense than to let on. They filed out docilely.
Samas flopped down on a stool, plucked a silk handkerchief from a pocket of his luxurious scarlet robe, and wiped sweat from his mottled, ruddy face. He looked as if the brief stroll around the chamber had taxed his stamina, and, as on many previous occasions, Lallara felt a pang of disgust at his gross, wheezing immensity.
'How can Szass Tam have such a large army?' the obese transmuter said. 'How could the necromancers create so many undead in so short a time?'
'We don't know!' Lallara snapped. 'We already discussed it and agreed that we don't understand. Either think of something new to contribute or keep your mouth shut.'
Samas glared at her. By the look of him, he was attempting to frame a truly scathing retort, but Lauzoril intervened before he could.
'Let's not take out our frustrations on one another,' the zulkir of Enchantment said, his manner that of the stuffy, condescending schoolmaster he was at heart. 'We have decisions to make, and we need to make them quickly, because I recognize that tax station.' He gestured to a greenish sphere floating in the air. The luminous scene inside it revealed gigantic hounds, their forms composed of mangled corpses twisted together, standing near a roadside keep, its walls a distinctive mosaic of white stones intermingled with black. 'The lich's host has nearly reached the First Escarpment.'
'How do they travel so fast?' Kumed asked.
'The undead are tireless,' Lauzoril said, 'and by day, the wagons carry the creatures who can't bear sunlight. And we have no one left in the field to harry the enemy and slow them down.'
'The Griffon Legion did it at the start of the war,' Samas said.
'The Griffon Legion is a shadow of its former self,' Nevron said, 'like all our other legions. I don't think they could manage the same trick again. Let's not send them to their deaths until we can accomplish something thereby.'
'So,' Samas said, 'Szass Tam will be here soon. The question is, do we linger to receive him?'
'Yes, damn it!' Nevron snarled. 'This is Bezantur! It can withstand a siege.'
'Can it?' Lauzoril asked. He waved his hand again, this time in a gesture that encompassed all the globes and mirrors shining on every side, and all the visions of martial and mystical might flickering inside them.
'If it can't,' Nevron said, 'the four of us-' He stopped short, then gave Kumed a cold smile. 'Excuse me, Your Omnipotence, obviously I meant to say, the
'In the midst of battle,' Lauzoril said, 'nothing is certain. It would be difficult to articulate any spell properly with a vampire's fangs buried in one's throat. Besides, if we waited to escape until Szass Tam's army had breached the walls and flooded into the city, we might get away, but it's likely that the ships carrying our treasure and our more useful followers wouldn't. Is that how we want to start our lives in exile?'
Samas looked pained at the mere thought of leaving his vast wealth behind.
'At this point,' Lallara said, 'we can count ourselves fortunate we even have ships. Only four burned, but we could have lost all of them.'
Kumed cleared his throat. 'What really happened last night? Who was responsible?'
'The church of Bane,' said Lauzoril. 'Their agents stirred up the rabble to try to steal the ships to flee the city. The point was to create cover for the Banites to sneak over the rooftops, shoot flaming arrows into the vessels, and so keep us from fleeing.'
Kumed attempted a scowl as fierce as Nevron's. 'Then we should hang every Banite we can find.'
'You won't find the ones who actually pose a threat,' Lallara said. 'They've gone into hiding.'
'Which means they could try again,' Samas said, summoning a golden cup into his hand. Lallara caught a
