“Why do even that?” she replied.
“Because,” he said, “when you’re traveling through wild country, it’s always better to know what the savages and brigands are up to, even when you can whiz by high above their heads.”
Responding to his unspoken desire, Jet raised one wing, dipped the other, and wheeled left. Aoth glanced back to see if Gaedynn and Eider were following. They were. The archer’s elegant rust-and-scarlet clothes and coppery hair shined in the sunlight. So did the griffon’s bronze-colored plumage and tawny fur.
Another stroke of Jet’s wings carried him, Cera, and Aoth far enough to see what lay beyond the ridge. Aoth took in the view, then cursed.
An earthmote hung high above the ground with a waterfall overflowing its edge and hissing downward. Sustained by a link to the realm of Elemental Chaos, the endless spillover had created a small lake at the bottom, with tilled fields and pastureland around it.
Goats and sheep grazed on the grass with a brown-skinned earthsoul boy to tend them. But most of the genasi villagers had forsaken the livestock and crops to take care of or palaver with the red-coated warriors who’d paid them a visit.
The warriors slumped on the ground in the clear space at the center of the huts looking as if they barely had the energy to lift the food and drink the villagers had provided to their mouths. Some had bloody bandages. Presently contained in a pen the settlers had cleared for the purpose, their steeds, gray lizardlike drakes as big as horses, looked just as battered and exhausted.
Cleary the men-at-arms had recently fought a hard battle. Aoth wondered if it had been a battle with another contingent of the same foes who were sneaking up on them.
The warriors should have posted a sentry on the high ground overlooking the village but they hadn’t, and if the settlers were in the habit of keeping watch, the excitement had evidently lured their sentry down from his perch.
“If the minotaurs attack by surprise,” Cera said, “shooting bows from the high ground-”
“Don’t worry,” said Aoth. “We’re going to help.”
Discerning his intent, Jet wheeled, and Gaedynn and Eider followed suit. Despite the impediment of being in the saddle, the archer strung his bow with quick facility.
So, said Jet, Tchazzar’s willing to pay us to fight dragonborn, but we don’t want to. Nobody’s paying us to kill minotaurs, but we do want that.
It may help us convince the queen, Aoth replied, if we’ve done some of her subjects a good turn.
I think you’re just showing off for the sunlady. But it’s fine with me. A little skirmish should be fun.
“Should I call Alasklerbanbastos?” Cera asked. The dracolich was in a sense traveling with them, but at a distance and mostly after dark. That way they didn’t have to worry every moment about him suddenly lashing out in another attempt to reclaim the phylactery.
Aoth snorted. “For this? No. I doubt it’ll last more than a moment.”
He lifted his ram’s-horn bugle and blew a blast to attract the attention of the folk on the ground. Then, leaning out of the saddle, he used his spear to point to the top of the ridge.
Meanwhile, the first minotaur climbed onto the crest of the outcropping. Instantly Gaedynn drove an arrow into his chest and he toppled. Eider and Jet let out bloodcurdling screeches.
A second minotaur scrambled to the top of the rise. Aoth rattled off a short incantation and punctuated it with a jab of his spear. A viscid glob flew from the point to splash in the bull-man’s face. He fell down, thrashing and screaming, pawing at the smoking, corrosive paste.
And that, thought Aoth, was likely to be that. The horned barbarians had lost the advantage of surprise. Nor would the high ground do them much good when a hostile warmage and bowman were flying higher still. It would make sense to withdraw.
Instead, a minotaur with red-stained horns clambered onto the ridge. Gaedynn instantly shot at him, and the shaft flew true. But it burst into flame and burned to a puff of ash just short of the creature’s body.
Maybe one of the demonic emblems freshly cut into his arms and chest was responsible. Aoth cursed himself for not noticing them before. But even fire-kissed eyes couldn’t take in everything at once.
The shaman brandished his club and bellowed a word-perhaps the name of his patron demon-in an Abyssal tongue. The sound jabbed a twinge of headache between Aoth’s eyes.
Flowing into view from head to foot like a painter’s brush stroke, a hulking, gray-and-black figure appeared. Horns jutted over its yellow eyes, and jagged tusks lined its oversized mouth. Its wings and pointed ears were like a bat’s.
“That’s a nabassu!” Cera said.
“I know,” said Aoth. In other words, it was a particularly nasty kind of demon. He spoke a word of command and released one of the spells stored in his spear. A rainbow of varied and destructive forces blazed from the point.
Unfortunately the nabassu vanished before the magic reached it. Prompted by instinct, Aoth looked up just as the demon reappeared overhead. It spread its leathery wings, turning what would have been a plummet into a swooping glide.
Jet gave a choked little cry as a mystical attack struck him, and Aoth felt a stab of pain and weakness across their psychic link. The steady beat of the griffon’s wings turned into a useless, spastic flailing. Then Jet was the one who fell, carrying his riders along with him. The nabassu dived at them all.
Cera rattled off the first words of a healing prayer, Aoth charged the point of the spear with power, thrust, and caught the demon in the belly. But the weapon didn’t go in deep enough to stick. The creature twisted and tumbled free, and Aoth knew that while he’d inflicted a wound that would have stopped any human, it wasn’t nearly enough to incapacitate a fiend from the netherworld.
Cera finished her prayer. Healing warmth poured from her hands into Jet’s body. He spread his wings and arrested his descent.
Let me take him! the griffon said.
When you can get above him, Aoth replied. Until then, let me wear him down with spells.
So the two flyers maneuvered, each seeking the high air. Meanwhile, the puncture in the nabassu’s stomach closed, and new hide and fur grew over it.
Swinging her golden mace over her head, Cera hurled flares of Amaunator’s light at the demon, and Aoth conjured blasts of flame and frost. The nabassu dodged more often than not, sometimes by translating itself through space and sometimes by becoming an insubstantial phantom for a moment.
It also snarled a word that, even though Aoth didn’t know the meaning, somehow carried a weight of stomach-churning foulness. Cera jerked and grunted then said, “I’m all right.” She started another prayer, and the demon shrouded itself in fog.
Aoth conjured a wind that tore the cloud apart, then immediately followed up with darts of crimson light. All five hit the nabassu squarely, and although they penetrated its head and torso without opening visible wounds, he suspected that he’d finally hurt it enough for it to matter.
Then pain ripped through his own skull and body. No, not his, Jet’s. When the darts had pierced their target, the magic had somehow wounded the familiar as well. The griffon flailed his wings, trying to keep flying and stay away from the demon despite the shock.
“What’s wrong?” Cera cried.
“The demon forged a link between the two of them,” said Aoth. “You have to break it.”
Cera began a spell, but she was only a word into it when the bat-winged creature flickered through space once again. It reappeared right beside Jet, snatched hold of his neck with the talons of one hand, and raked at Aoth with those on the other.
Unbalanced by his attacker, Jet floundered through the air. He strained to strike at the demon with his own talons and beak but couldn’t reach him.