"You should have punished Urhur Hahpet for his disrespect," the griffon said.
"And wound up chained in a dungeon for my temerity," Aoth replied, "if not now, then when the campaign is over."
"Not if you frightened him properly."
"His specialty is manipulating the forces of undeath. How easily do you think he scares?"
Still, maybe Brightwing was right. The Firelord knew, Aoth had never aspired to be a leader of men-he only needed good food, strong drink, women, magic, and flying to make him happy-and he still found it ironic that he'd ascended to a position of authority essentially by surviving a pair of military disasters. Contributing to a victory or two struck him as a far more legitimate qualification.
Which was to say, he was certain of his competence as a griffon rider and battle mage but less so of his ability as a captain. Still, here he was, with no option but to try his best.
"Maybe Urhur won't survive the battle," Brightwing said. "Maybe that would be better all around." It was one of those moments when the griffon revealed that, for all her augmented intelligence and immersion in the human world, she remained a beast of prey at heart.
"No," Aoth said. "It would be too risky, and wasteful besides, to murder one of our most valuable allies when we still have a war to fight. Anyway, it wouldn't sit right with me."
The griffon gave her wings a shake, a gesture denoting impatience. Her plumage rattled. "This squeamishness is why they never gave you a red robe."
"And here I thought I was just too short."
As the company neared the village, Aoth heard the flies buzzing over the carcasses in the corral, and the stink of spilled gore and decay grew thicker and fouler. The sound and smell clashed with the warmth and clear blue sky of a fine late-spring day, a day when lurking undead constituted a preposterous incongruity.
It occurred to him that if he could only expose them to the light of the sun shining brightly overhead, they might not lurk for long. He pointed his spear at the barn he and his squad were approaching, a structure sufficiently large that it seemed likely two or more families had owned it in common.
"Can you tear holes in the roof?"
Brightwing didn't ask why. She was intelligent enough to comprehend and might well have discerned the reason through their psychic link even if she weren't. "Yes." She unfurled her wings.
He stepped away to give her room to flap them. "Just be careful."
She screeched-derisively, he thought-and leaped into the air.
Aoth led his remaining companions to the door. He started through then hesitated. Should a captain take the lead going into danger or send common and presumably more expendable warriors in ahead? After a moment's hesitation, he proceeded. He'd rather be thought reckless than timid.
Inside, the mangled bodies of plow horses and goats lay where they'd dropped. The buzzing of the flies seemed louder and the stench more nauseating, as if the stale, hot, trapped air amplified them. Overhead, the roof cracked and crunched, and a first sunbeam stabbed down into the shadowy interior. Particles of dust floated in the light.
For a moment, nothing stirred except the swarming flies and the drifting motes. Then a thing that had once been a man floundered up from underneath a pile of hay. Clutching a saw as if it hoped to use the tool as a makeshift sword, it shuffled forward.
The zombie wore homespun peasant garb and showed little sign of decay, but no one who observed the glassy eyes and slack features could have mistaken it for a living thing. It made a wordless croaking sound, and its fellows reared up from their places of concealment.
Aoth leveled his spear to thrust at any foe that came within reach and considered the spells he carried ready for the casting. Before he could select one, however, Chathi stepped to the front line. Not bothering with her torch, she simply glared at the zombies and rattled off an invocation to her god. Blue and yellow fire danced on her upper body, and Aoth stepped back from the sudden heat. All but one of the zombies burst into flame and burned to ash in an instant. His face contorted with rage and loathing, a soldier armed with a battle-axe confronted the one remaining, first sidestepping the clumsy stroke of a cudgel and lopping off the gray hand that gripped it then smashing the undead creatures skull.
Was that it? Aoth wondered. Had they cleared the barn? Then Brightwing screeched, "Watch out! Above you!"
A hayloft hung over the earthen, straw-strewn floor, and now darkness poured over the edge of it like a waterfall. In that first instant, it looked like a single undifferentiated torrent of shadow. It was only when it splashed down and the entities comprising it sprang apart, launching themselves at one foe or another, that Aoth could make out the vague, inconstant semblances of men and hounds. Even then, the phantoms were difficult to see.
Brightwing's cry had no doubt served as a warning of sorts even to those who couldn't understand her voice. Still, the dark things were fast, and some of Aoth's men failed to orient on them quickly enough. The shadows snatched and bit, and though their touch shed no blood and left no visible marks, warriors gasped and staggered or collapsed entirely. The soldier who'd destroyed the zombie bellowed and swept his axe through the spindly waist of the creature facing him. By rights, the stroke should have cut the spirit entirely in two, but manifestly unharmed, the phantom drove its insubstantial fingers into its opponent's face. He fell backward with the undead entity clinging like a leech on top of him.
"You need some form of magic to hurt them!" Aoth shouted. "If you don't have it, stay behind those who do!" He pivoted to tell Chathi to use her torch.
Unfortunately, she'd dropped it, probably when one of the ghostly hounds charged in and bit her. The same murky shape was lunging and snapping at her now. She might have destroyed or repelled it with a spell or by the simple exertion of faith that had annihilated the zombies, but perhaps the debilitating effect of her invisible wound or simple agitation was hampering her concentration. Meanwhile, the monk assigned as her bodyguard was busy with two shadows, one man-shaped and one canine, of his own.
Aoth charged the point of his lance with additional power and drove it down at the shadow-beast assailing Chathi. The thrust drove into the center of the phantom's back and on through into the floor. The spirit withered away to nothing.
"Thank you," the priestess stammered, teeth chattering as if she'd taken a chill.
"Pick up the torch and use it," Aoth snapped then glimpsed motion from the corner of his eye. He pivoted toward it.
The shadow gripped the semblance of a battle-axe in its fists, and despite its vagueness, Aoth could make out hints of a legionnaire's trappings in its silhouetted form. The warrior who'd slain the zombie had risen as a shadow to menace his former comrades, and the transformation had occurred mere moments after his own demise.
Aoth tried to swing his spear into position to pierce his foe, but he'd driven it too deep into the earth. It took an instant too long to jerk it free, and the phantom warrior rushed into the distance and swung its axe.
Had the axe been a weapon of steel and wood and not, in effect, simply the ghost of one, the blow would have sheared off his right arm at the shoulder. As it was, the limb went numb. Cold and weakness stabbed through his entire body, and his knees buckled. He stumbled, and the shade lifted the axe for another blow.
Before it could strike, a flare of flame engulfed it, and it burned away to nothing. As close as they'd been, the blast could easily have burned Aoth as well, but he wasn't inclined to complain.
"Thanks," he gasped to Chathi.
"Now we're even," she replied, grinning. Torch extended, she turned to seek another target.
Striving to control his breathing, Aoth invoked the magic bound in his tattoos to alleviate his weakness and the chill still searing his insides. He then rattled off a spell. Darts of blue light hurtled from his fingertips, diverging to streak at shadows at various points around the barn. Some saw the attack coming and sought to dodge, but the missiles veered to compensate. It was one of the virtues of this particular spell that in most situations it simply couldn't miss.