Unholy

the spooks away? I was hoping they were good for something.'

'And I keep hoping the same about you,' Lallara said. She turned her flinty gaze on Aoth. 'We expended much of our power during the battle. We need time and rest to recover. But we understand that we must all do what we can.'

Nevron glowered at her. A tattooed demon face on his neck appeared to mouth a silent obscenity, but perhaps that was a trick of the lamplight. 'Do not,' he said, 'presume to speak for me.' He took a breath. 'But yes, Captain, I'll help, and so will my followers. What's left of them.'

'I regret the loss of those who died,' said Aoth.

'As well you should,' Samas said. A cup appeared in fingers so fat the flab bulged around the edges of the several talismanic rings.

'We tried the best plan that any of us could think of,' Lallara said.

'Well, I said from the start that it wouldn't work,' Samas retorted.

'True. You did. I freely acknowledge that you've finally been right once in the hundred and fifty years we've known you. Now let's talk about something important.'

'I think that's a sensible suggestion,' Lauzoril said. It was Lallara who looked like a frail if shrewish old granny, but he was the one who'd bundled up to ward off the evening chill. 'Captain, what's your assessment? After the beating we took today, is the army in any condition to continue the siege?'

'Well,' said Aoth, 'the real answer to that is that even if we six were the only ones left alive, we'd still have to continue, given what's at stake. But I know what you mean. Nasty as today was, more men than not made it back alive. I think our legions have at least one more good fight left in them.' In fact, even the Brotherhood of the Griffon survived, although, battling at the forefront, its own aerial cavalry and Khouryn's spearmen had suffered a worse mauling than any of the zulkirs' household troops.

'But how do we continue the fight?' Lauzoril asked, fussily tugging his red velvet cloak tighter around him. 'We need a new strategy. A better one.'

'I think,' Bareris said, 'that when we conferred previously, His Omnipotence Samas Kul was right about at least two things. The only way to get a significant portion of our army into the Dread Ring is for someone who's already inside to open a gate.'

'So we're back to trying to free some of the enemy from Szass Tam's psychic bonds?' Nevron growled. 'I thought we all agreed that scheme was unwieldy.'

'We did,' Bareris said. 'That's why I intend to go inside the Ring and open the gate.'

'How?' Lallara asked. 'Invisibly? Masked in the appearance of a zombie? I guarantee you the necromancers are prepared for such tricks.'

'I'm sure they are. I expect them to spot me almost immediately. However…' In a few terse sentences, Bareris explained his plan.

When he finished, Lallara turned to Lauzoril. 'Will it work?' she asked.

The other zulkir fingered his chin. 'It might.'

'I think so too,' said Aoth, 'but it's damn risky.' Especially considering that the enemy commander had thus far anticipated his adversaries' every move. For all they knew, he might be expecting this as well.

'What concerns me,' Nevron said, glaring at Bareris, 'is your hatred of Tsagoth. I'm told it overwhelmed you today. What if it does so again once you're inside the fortress? What if you succumb to your obsession and forget all about your mission?'

'It won't,' Bareris said. 'I don't deny we have a history together, and when I saw him, I lost my head. But truly, it's Szass Tam I hate, and Tsagoth is just his instrument. You can trust me to remember that from now on. But suppose I don't. Or suppose the scheme fails for some other reason. What have you lost? One warrior.'

I'll have lost a friend, Aoth thought, but what he said was, 'You can depend on Bareris, Your Omnipotences. When has he ever let you down?'

Lallara gave a brusque nod. 'All right. How soon can the legions be ready?'

'A day or two,' said Aoth. Somewhere to the north, someone shrieked. Inside the tent, everyone's head snapped around in the direction of the noise. 'Assuming we can get them through the night.' He picked up his spear, planted the butt of it on the ground, and heaved himself to his feet.

Shrouded in invisibility, Bareris stalked toward the huge, black castle. Lallara had expressed doubt that such a defense would get him very far, but he hoped it would keep him from being noticed until he at least reached the top of the wall.

He made his approach shortly before the first gray insinuations of dawn could stain the black sky to the east. His timing might help him more than the magic. Undead entities and orcs could see in the dark, but not as far as a man could see by day. And creatures that couldn't abide the touch of the sun or, like the goblin-kin, were simply nocturnal by nature might already be retiring to their vaults and barracks.

He reached the foot of the west wall. If anyone had noticed him, there was no indication of it. He undipped the coil of rope from his belt and sang a charm under his breath. The line warmed in his hands, then squirmed. He loosened his grip on it, permitting it to move freely, and one end writhed up and up until it reached the top of the black barrier before him. It looped around a merlon, tied itself off, and then he climbed it.

At the top, he peeked over the parapet. There were no guards in his immediate vicinity-no visible ones, anyway-so he swung himself onto the wall-walk and prowled onward, looking for a stairway to the courtyard below.

He was expecting to trigger some sort of enchantment, but also was tense enough that he still jumped when it happened. A mouth opened on the inner face of one of the merlons and cried, 'Enemy! Enemy! Enemy!' A prickling chill danced over his body, and he didn't even bother to look down to verify that countermagic had ripped his veil of invisibility away.

He jumped off the wall-walk, sang a word of power, and fell slowly enough to avoid injury when he landed in the courtyard. Looking for a doorway, he ran. Other mouths opened one by one in the stonework to cry out his current location.

Blood orcs rushed out of the dark, then hesitated when they took in his ink black eyes and bone white skin. They wondered if a warrior so manifestly undead could truly be a foe, and under other circumstances, Bareris might have tried to bluff them. Now, however, he broke their bones and blasted them off their feet with a thunderous shout.

'Tsagoth!' he called in a voice augmented to carry throughout the fortress. 'Show yourself!' He sprinted to a door at the base of one of the Ring's lesser towers and yanked it open.

No one was on the other side. Not in this little antechamber, anyway. He sang a spell to seal both the door he'd just entered and the one on the far side of the room, then took a better look around.

Even here, inside the fortress, the windows were mere arrow slits. He just had time to reflect that nothing solid and man-sized would have room to wriggle though when something else did, a flowing shadow with the murky, rippling suggestion of an anguished, silently wailing old man's face. It reached for Bareris, and he felt the chill poison that comprised its essence. The malignancy was nowhere near as dangerous to him as it would have been to a mortal, but no doubt the wraith could hurt him.

He sidestepped its scrabbling hands, drew his sword, and cut through the center of it. The phantom flickered, stumbled, then rounded on him. He cut down the middle of its head, and it disappeared.

Bareris pivoted back to the nearest arrow slit. He pressed his eye to it just in time to see a necromancer thrust out a wand made from a mummified human forearm. A spark leaped from the instrument's shriveled fingertips.

Bareris dived away from the opening and threw himself flat. The spark streaked through the arrow slit and, with an echoing boom, exploded into a yellow burst of flame.

Fortunately, only the fringe of the blast washed over Bareris. It stung and scorched him, but that was all. He scrambled back to the arrow slit, chanted a spell, and felt a throbbing in his eyes. He stared at the Red Wizard, and the necromancer cried out and doubled over, dropping the preserved forearm in the process. The blood orcs gathered around him gaped in consternation.

'I want Tsagoth!' Bareris howled. 'Tsagoth! Bring him to me, or I'll curse you all!'

Malark and Tsagoth stood on the wall-walk, high enough that Bareris couldn't possibly see them, listening to