She chanted percussive words full of hard consonants, and gripping her staff in both hands, swung it like a mallet she was using to break down a wall. The raindrops pouring down on the spinagon glowed white and steamed and sizzled on its hide.
That seemed promising, but it was still no guarantee that she’d overcome the other spellcaster’s power. She supposed she’d know in a moment. “Now will you talk to me?” she asked.
Still wallowing in mud, the creature was appeared to be trying. Its mouth moved but no sound came out, or at least, none she could hear through the clatter of the rain. Then it shrieked and snatched out two more handfuls of its quills.
Jhesrhi prepared to defend. But the spinagon stabbed the spines deep into its own torso and pitched forward onto its face.
Well, that settles that, she thought. Scowling in annoyance, she floated to the ground and kneeled down to inspect the iron ring that had enabled the spinagon to hurl its own burst of countermagic and probably to become invisible before that. Presumably the creature’s master had given it the talisman, but there was nothing distinctive about the design to suggest who that person was.
Not knowing made returning to the War College an even less appealing prospect than it would have been otherwise. But that was where Aoth’s strategy dictated Jhesrhi should be. So she murmured to the mud, and it churned, sucked down the spinagon’s body, and buried it completely. Then she flew back toward the fortress.
Like many mages, Oraxes had trained himself to be cognizant of his own internal states, and as a result, he often recognized a dream for what it was. Such was the case currently, and he was enjoying it. When he’d lived through the “raid” in reality, he’d been dry mouthed with anxiety that the ruse wouldn’t work. No longer. He could bask in his own cleverness as the pantomime unfolded.
He’d masked himself in Aoth’s appearance and made a common griffon look like Jet. Occasionally he even made it talk. Maintaining the illusions was tricky, but as he and his companions flew through the night toward the proper hillside in the Sky Riders, he knew that Meralaine had an even more difficult task. She had to make it look as if she were attacking to some effect while simultaneously controlling her puppets on the ground, the zombies and skeletons masquerading as a coven of traitorous necromancers and their undead minions.
She managed it, though. Swooping on the back of her griffon, stabbing with her wand, she actually threw the first attack, and jagged shards of something blacker even than the night rained down on the figures below.
The sellsword archers started loosing an instant later. As befitted supposed wizards, the zombies struck back with flares of power from the miscellany of arcane weapons and talismans Oraxes had found among Aoth’s belongings. And as instructed, the dead aimed the blasts at the drakkensteeds and the wyrmkeepers astride them. If anyone was going to get hurt, let it be them.
Throughout the action that followed, Meralaine managed to create the appearance of such fierce, fanatical resistance that when the battle ended, it seemed credible that the attackers hadn’t succeeded in taking any of the coven “alive.” The wyrmkeepers weren’t happy about it, but Oraxes mollified them by “discovering” folded papers in the pocket of a zombie’s robe. The ambiguous but suggestive jottings looked like just the clues to lead the Brotherhood on to other enemies of the Crown. It would simply take a little study.
It was all Oraxes could do to keep from laughing as Sphorrid Nyra congratulated him on the success of the assault. He took a breath to steady himself and started to reply with the same cordiality. Then, suddenly, something covered his mouth.
That jolted him awake, to find that he really did have a hand clamped over his lips and a dagger at his throat as well. It was dark in Aoth’s tent, with just the first gray hint of dawn light seeping through the canvas, but he could still tell it was Sphorrid and the other wyrmkeepers standing over him and Meralaine. One of the priests was covering the necromancer’s mouth and holding a big, curved knife with a single-edged blade to her neck as well.
“Don’t struggle,” Sphorrid said. “Don’t raise your voice above a whisper. Don’t say anything that even sounds like it might be the start of a spell. Otherwise, I swear by the Five Breaths that we’ll kill you both immediately.”
He nodded to the priest restraining Oraxes, and the man uncovered his mouth.
“I never did meet the real Aoth Fezim, did I?” the wyrmlord continued. “It was you all along. That’s why you’re sleeping in his pavilion and his bed, to keep up the imposture until we leave camp.”
Oraxes kept silent.
“Why was it necessary?” Sphorrid asked. “Where is Fezim?”
Oraxes groped for a credible, useful lie. He couldn’t think of any.
Sphorrid shrugged. “Suit yourself. If you won’t talk here, I guarantee you will when we get you to Luthcheq. Let’s get them up and dressed. Make sure they don’t have any weapons or charms hidden in their clothes.”
The wyrmkeeper with the dagger threw the sheets back and dragged Oraxes up off the cot, and the one with the knife did the same to Meralaine. Oraxes felt a flash of anger that the priests were seeing her naked, but there was nothing lewd in their demeanor. They were intent on their business, and that, he realized, was worse. Had she been able to distract them, perhaps it would given him a chance to… do something.
But since that hadn’t happened, maybe he could serve as a distraction for her. As the third acolyte started pawing through their discarded garments, he asked, “How did you know?”
Sphorrid sneered. The filed teeth made the expression jarringly ugly. “You aren’t nearly as clever as you imagine. Wyrmkeepers are priests. Did you think you could pass reanimated corpses off as living men and we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference?”
“We hoped,” Oraxes said. The acolyte tossed him his clothes. “We were high above them, and it was dark. Why didn’t you confront us on the spot?” He already knew the answer, but it was the only thing he could think of to say to keep the conversation going.
“Because I had to assume,” Sphorrid said, “that all the soldiers you brought on the raid were in on the deception. In other words, you and they had the four of us outnumbered.”
“We still do,” Oraxes said, pulling on his breeches. “The entire Brotherhood is camped around this tent.”
“And for the most part,” Sphorrid answered, “fast asleep. You’ll make sure that any who are awake don’t notice anything amiss as you walk us to our steeds because I’ve already indicated what will happen if they do. Now, both of you, hurry and finish dressing.”
Oraxes and Meralaine drew out the process as long as they could, but that wasn’t long at all, and Tchazzar’s agents never relaxed their vigilance. When the captives were fully clad, the two priests sheathed their blades and picked up their fighting picks. All four wyrmkeepers held the weapons in a casual-looking way that would nonetheless allow them to swing in an instant. And they stayed close behind Oraxes and Meralaine as they all exited the pavilion.
As Sphorrid had said, the whole camp seemed asleep in the last precious, fading bit of the night before the bugles started blowing and griffons began screeching, horses neighing, and mules braying for their provender. Snores rumbled from the various tents, and from the men who, in the warm summer weather, had opted to sleep out under the stars.
I have to do something, Oraxes thought. It will get me killed, but if all four of them are busy butchering me, that might give Meralaine a real chance.