Was he chasing Jhesrhi? Or on his way to attack our camp?
All I know is he was headed west.
Curse it! Get here as soon as you can!
What do you think I’m trying to do? Several moments passed before the griffon spoke again. A couple of the buildings near the War College are on fire.
There may be a reason to care about that later. Right now, we have other problems.
Aoth reached the top of the stairs and led Cera to the left again. Every upper level of the fortress provided some sort of access to the open air. He just had to find one of the doors.
But before he could, a squad of Tchazzar’s guards armored in gilded breastplates and helms with scarlet horsehair crests came around a corner. Spying Aoth and Cera, they reached to draw their swords. Their leader sucked in a breath to shout.
Aoth shouted first. He bellowed a word of power and jabbed at the soldiers with his spear.
Magic amplified the shout in a boom like a thunderclap. Loud as it was, the noise didn’t hurt him or Cera, but the guards reeled and fell.
Aoth strode forward and looked down at the officer. The Chessentan was bleeding from the nose and ears and looked dazed. But his eyes were open.
Aoth poised his spear at the fellow’s throat. “My followers and I want out of Chessenta,” he said.
The officer goggled back at him.
“I don’t think he can hear you,” Cera said. She murmured a prayer that set her fingertips aglow with golden light, stooped, and touched the fallen man on each ear. “Try it again.”
“My men and I just want to leave,” Aoth said. “If Tchazzar allows it, there won’t be any trouble. But if he tries to stop us, I guarantee the battle will lay waste to Luthcheq.” He remembered the blazing aerial display and the burning buildings Jet had told him about. “In fact, I’ll burn the place to the ground. Tell him.” He waited for an answer, but the man just kept gawking. “Say you understand or I’ll kill you.”
“I… I understand,” the warrior stammered.
“Good,” Aoth took a look at the other battered soldiers. They were all still too groggy to cause any trouble. He and Cera picked their way through them then hurried on.
“You can’t burn Luthcheq,” she said. “There are tens of thousands of innocent people here.”
“I had to threaten them with something,” he said. Then, at last, he found what they were looking for.
The door opened on a walkway behind a row of merlons. He pulled it open, and wings beating, blacker than the night behind him, Jet lit on one of the sandstone blocks.
“Tchazzar’s chasing us,” said Jhesrhi, her golden hair streaming and nightclothes flapping in the gale that swept her and Gaedynn along.
He looked around. He could see the War College, its walls stained by the wavering yellow light of the fires near its base, but nothing in the air.
“I assume the wind told you,” he said.
“Yes. We’re faster than he is, but…”
“But he’d catch us eventually. When you ran out of magic if not before.”
“Yes.”
“But it doesn’t matter. As long as we reach the Brotherhood ahead of him, we’ll be all right.”
Inwardly he prayed to old Keen-Eye that that was true.
They soared over the site of Tchazzar’s new temple. The shops and homes that had stood there were mostly rubble, waiting for someone to cart it away. Fires burned in the shadow of the piles. Displaced paupers with nowhere else to go were surviving as best they could.
Gaedynn peered ahead, at the place where the city started to thin out and the army was encamped. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed a sigh when he spotted figures scurrying in the Brotherhood’s part of the sprawl. Something had alerted them that there was trouble in the city, and that meant they all had a chance.
Jhesrhi’s tame wind set them down in the center of their camp, then departed in a final howling swirl. People gawked at them. Her mouth hanging open, Son-liin in particular seemed unable to tear her gaze away from Gaedynn.
He grinned. “I know it’s magnificent, but now is not the time. Find me a bow and quiver. Go!”
The stormsoul scurried off, and Ramed strode out of the dark. “What’s happening?” he asked. “Jet cried that there was danger, then-”
“Tchazzar’s coming to attack us,” Gaedynn said, “but maybe we can make him reconsider. Get all the griffons in the air.”
“It’s only been a little while. Most of them aren’t saddled-”
“I don’t care. I don’t care if they have riders. They’re more intimidating on the wing than on the ground. I want every man showing he’s ready to fight too. Don’t worry about putting them in formation. There’s no time for that either. Just have them point their weapons at the sky.”
“Right.” Ramed hurried away, shouting orders.
“It isn’t going to be enough,” Jhesrhi said. “Tchazzar’s a warlord. He’ll see that we’re not prepared to stop him.” She looked around. “Oraxes! Meralaine!”
She kept shouting while Gaedynn scrutinized the sky above the city. His mouth was dry, and his hands ached with their emptiness. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime although he knew that it had really been only a few breaths, Son-liin came running back with a longbow and arrows. Then Oraxes and Meralaine trotted out of the dark aisle that ran away between two rows of tents.
“Tchazzar’s coming for us,” Jhesrhi told them. “He’ll be here in a matter of moments. You have to make us look more ready than we are. You have to fill the night with shadows and phantoms and play on his fears. Start now and I’ll support you as best I can.”
Meralaine clutched her wand of bone in both fists and whispered. Her body shriveled and dark patches appeared on her skin as she took on the appearance of one of the dead. Oraxes drew one of his daggers and gashed the tattooed palm of his hand. At first the cut bled normally, but when he started to chant, the blood swirled forth as phosphorescent vapor, with vague shapes forming and dissolving inside the coils. Murmuring along with one incantation then the other, Jhesrhi stretched out her hand, and the air rippled between it and the younger mages to whom she was lending her strength.
The warm, summer night turned cold, and the stink of corruption tinged the air. Overhead, a griffon screeched, and even though he was in on the trick, Gaedynn felt a pang of reflexive dread because, somehow, it hadn’t sounded like the cry of a living creature. There was a quality to it, a hollowness, perhaps, that bespoke the insatiable hunger and malice of the undead.
But it was just an illusion, and how could anyone think that Tchazzar would fall for it again, when he understood that his supposed allies had been deceiving him all along? Scowling, Gaedynn laid an arrow on his bow.
“Aim for the eyes,” he told Son-liin. “They’ll be tough to hit, but if we do-”
The former firestormer gave a nod. “We might really hurt him,” she said, her youthful, soprano voice steady. “I understand.”
Then, suddenly, Tchazzar was there, a bat-winged shadow sweeping in from the east, still difficult to make out except for the glow of his eyes and the firelight flickering through his fangs. Gaedynn drew his arrow back to his ear-
And the Red Dragon veered off.
For a few moments, the camp was silent. Then people started cheering and Meralaine collapsed. Oraxes lunged, grabbed her, but couldn’t hold her up. Instead, she dragged him to the ground.
Their companions hurried over to them. Gaedynn was glad to see that Meralaine was breathing, and the blotches and streaks of discoloration were dissolving from her skin. She was still thinner than before she’d worked her magic but plainly alive as well.
“I think she’s all right,” Oraxes wheezed. “Is she all right?”