Clad in long, plain, hooded cloaks like many a common legionnaire, two figures pushed through the opening then threw back their cowls to reveal themselves as Nymia and Milsantos. The tharchions had trailed Bareris and his comrades up to the tent, then skulked outside to listen to the interrogation.
"You've done well," Milsantos said.
"They've made a filthy mess," Nymia growled. "They attacked and killed a Red Wizard, and we still don't know that the necromancers mean to betray us."
"If they don't," Bareris asked, "then why couldn't Urhur say so? Why was that the question that finally triggered the seizure?"
"I don't know," the female commander answered. "I don't pretend to comprehend all the ins and outs of wizardry, but if Szass Tam only changed his plans after the other zulkirs rebuffed him, how could he already have sent new orders to minions hundreds of miles away from Eltabbar?"
"The same way," said Milsantos, "my informants passed a message to me: magic."
"I suppose," Nymia said. "Still-"
"Still," Milsantos said, "you don't like it that we have, in effect, colluded in the murder of a Red Wizard, and you shrink from the thought of making a whole troupe of them our prisoners. So do I. I didn't come to be an old man, let alone retain my office for lo these many decades, by indulging in such practices. But we now have genuine reason to suspect the necromancers of treachery, and I won't send legionnaires into battle with such folk positioned to strike at their backs. They deserve better, and so do we. Remember, if we lose, the enemy is apt to kill us, too, and if they don't, the zulkirs might."
"Yet if we anger Szass Tam and the order of Necromancy…" Nymia threw up her hands. "Yes, all right, we'll do it your way, assuming we even have followers stupid enough to lay hands on Red Wizards."
Chathi smiled. "The Braziers will help you, Tharchion."
"And I," said Aoth, "know griffon riders who'll do the same."
Malark jumped, caught the top of the high wrought-iron fence with its row of sharp points, and swung himself over without cutting himself or even snagging his clothing. He then dropped to the grass on the other side, his knees flexing to absorb the jolt.
As one of Dmitra Flass's lieutenants, he actually had no need to enter in such a fashion. He could have presented himself at the gate and waited for the watchman to appear and admit him or procured his own key, but why bother? For a man trained as a Monk of the Long Death, hopping the fence was easy as climbing a flight of stairs.
Alert and silent by habit, not because he expected trouble, he strolled onward through Eltabbar's largest cemetery. The meadows with their stone and wooden markers were peaceful after dark.
He often came here where no one could find and interrupt him to mull over one problem or another.
But tonight he found the place less soothing than formerly. The air was pleasant, neither too hot nor too cool, and perfumed with the scent of flowers. A night bird sang, and the stars shone, but the sight of so many open graves, yawning like raw wounds in the earth, offended him. Death was supposed to be an ending, but for the poor wretches interred here, it had only been a brief respite. They'd toil and struggle on through the mortal world as zombie soldiers.
Yet much as Malark deplored Thay's practice of employing such warriors, he could do nothing about it. So he scowled and resolved to put the matter out of his mind and focus instead on the puzzle he needed to unravel.
Szass Tam had manipulated events to persuade the council of zulkirs to elect him regent. His efforts had failed, yet it was plain he was still maneuvering. To what end?
Malark had reviewed all the intelligence available to him, all the secrets his agents daily risked their lives to gather, and he still had no idea. It was almost enough to discourage him, to persuade him that Szass Tam was as transcendently brilliant as everyone maintained, so cunning and devious that no other being could hope to fathom his schemes.
But Malark refused to concede that. Though he was no wizard nor, thank the gods, a lich, he was as old as Szass Tam, and his extended span had afforded him the opportunity to develop a comparable subtlety of mind. No doubt the undead necromancer possessed the power to obliterate a mere excommunicant monk with a flick of his shriveled fingers, but that didn't mean he could outthink him.
The spymaster wandered by another pair of gaping graves, which still stank of carrion even though their former occupants were gone. He'd passed quite a few such cavities in just a short while, and he suddenly wondered if anyone except Szass Tam and his followers knew how many had been opened altogether or whether all the corpses really had gone to serve Tharchions Focar and Daramos, the commanders who'd marched up the Pass of Thazar to counter a threat in the east.
He whirled and dashed back the way he'd come, meanwhile wondering if Dmitra was already asleep or amusing herself with a lover. If so, she wouldn't appreciate being disturbed, but Malark needed another flying horse, and he needed it now.
The sky above the mountains was blue, but as one pivoted toward the Keep of Thazar, it darkened by degrees, so that the castle seemed to stand in a private pocket of night.
As yet, Aoth hadn't seen the nighthaunt or any of the undead except for a few ghouls and skeletons on the battlements, but he had little doubt the winged creature was responsible for the shroud of darkness. He recalled the boundless malevolence of the nighthaunt's blank pearly eyes, the contemptuous way it had allowed him to escape-because Szass Tam wanted news of the attack to travel, evidently-and all the horrors he'd witnessed on the night the fortress fell, and despite himself, he shivered.
His reaction annoyed him and made him wish the battle would begin. Once the waiting ended, his jitters should end with it. They always had.
Unfortunately, it wasn't time yet. First, the Burning Braziers had to complete their ritual, and unless it succeeded, the legionnaires had no hope of a successful assault.
To better survey the castle and the army arrayed before it, Aoth had ascended a hillock with Brightwing and Bareris-and Mirror too, presumably, though the spirit was entirely imperceptible at present-and so he turned to the singer.
Though bards were generally garrulous to a fault, following their interrogation of Urhur Hahpet, Bareris had lapsed into sullen taciturnity. But perhaps Aoth could draw him into a conversation. He was still curious about the man, and it would be something to occupy his mind.
"It will be a tough fight," said Aoth, "but we can win. Even without our zombies, we have a sizable army, and even without the necromancers, we have wizardry. I'm not the only war mage in the host."
Bareris grunted.
"Of course," Aoth persisted, "we wouldn't have a chance if not for you. Makes me glad you asked to fight in my company."
"Don't be. My luck is bad."
Aoth snorted. "I'd say you were damn lucky to make it out of the mountains alive, and we were lucky you turned up here when you did."
Bareris shrugged. "The gravecrawler said I still had a path to walk, and maybe this is it. Revenge. As much as I can take, for as long as I'm able."
Aoth was still trying to decide how to answer that when the ground began to shake. The Burning Braziers had warned their comrades of what to expect, but some of the soldiers standing in formation in front of the castle cried out anyway.
"This is it," Aoth said.
He swung himself onto Brightwing's back, and the griffon beat her wings and soared into the air. Bareris trotted to join the axemen he intended to fight among.
The tremors intensified, and men-at-arms on the ground crouched to avoid being knocked down. Riders and grooms struggled to control frightened horses. Trees lashed back and forth, and stones rolled clattering down the mountainsides, until something huge and bright burst from the empty stretch of ground between the Keep of Thazar and the besieging army.