Aoth sighed. "I suppose not."
"Then that makes it all the more pathetic."
It didn't take Aoth, or any of the officers, long to arrange their companies to their satisfaction. The common legionnaires already knew their parts in the battle plan. Wizards conjured blasts of frost and showers of hail to cool the red-hot scatter of debris that would otherwise obstruct the way, and then the army advanced. Aoth and Brightwing took to the sky once more.
The Thayans proceeded warily. Archers shot at any foe that showed itself on the remaining battlements. Mages cast flares of fire and clerics, pulses of divine power through the breach, in hopes of smiting any creature lying in wait just out of sight on the other side.
Aoth and Brightwing flew over the wall, and spears leveled and shields locked, the first warriors passed through the breach. Rather to the mage's surprise, at first nothing appeared to oppose their progress, but once a substantial portion of their force had entered, undead exploded from the doors and windows of nearby buildings. Others came racing down the unnaturally benighted lanes leading to the central redoubt or rose over the rooftops. The invaders raised their weapons against the threat.
Surrounded by their floating, luminous runes, quells suddenly materialized among the largest formation of fire priests, but the guardian monks assailed the creatures with glowing batons and blazing swords and hammered, slashed, and burned the apparitions out of existence. With that threat eliminated, the senior cleric barked a command, and moving as one, the Braziers extended their scarlet metal torches.
Weapons, Aoth suddenly recalled, that Szass Tam had supplied. If the Red Wizards in their company had been poised to betray them, could they rely on these particular devices?
He shouted for the priests not to discharge the torches, but the cacophony of battle was already deafening. Bows groaned and flights of arrows thrummed. Shields crashed as animate corpses hurled themselves against them. Officers bellowed orders, and legionnaires yelled war cries, called for help, or screamed in agony. Nobody noticed one more voice clamoring from overhead.
The red rods exploded in their wielders' hands, flowering into orbs of flame big and hot enough to incinerate the clerics, the monks hovering protectively around them, and any legionnaire unlucky enough to be standing adjacent to the servants of Kossuth. Aoth picked out Chathi an instant before she attempted to use her weapon. She vanished in a flare of yellow, and when that faded a heartbeat later, nothing at all remained.
My fault, thought Aoth, abruptly sick to his stomach. I knew where the torches came from. Why didn't I think to suspect them before?
Startled, warriors pivoted in the direction of the bursts of flame, then stared aghast as they realized that the majority of the priests, invaluable allies against the undead and an integral part of the tharchions' strategy, were gone. The shadows and skeletons hurled themselves at the living with renewed fury.
Singing, the war chant audible even over the ambient din, Bareris sidestepped a blow from a zombie's flail, riposted with a thrust to the torso, and the gray, rot-speckled creature collapsed. Around him, Mirror-still just a gleaming shadow but more clearly visible than the bard had seen him hitherto-and Aoth's axemen hacked down their own opponents. Bareris knew his battle anthem was feeding vigor and courage to his mortal allies. Perhaps even the ghost derived some benefit.
The Binder knew, they could use all the magical help they could get. Half their troops were still outside the wall, and those who'd already entered were jammed together in a space too small for them to deploy to best advantage. Assuming they survived this initial counterattack, they'd need to battle their way up the relatively narrow streets before assaulting the actual keep at the center of the fortress. As Bareris knew from past experience, that sort of combat was always arduous and apt to exact a heavy toll in lives.
Still, he judged the tharchions were correct. Their plan could work, and the knowledge of that didn't so much assuage as counterbalance the guilt and despair that engulfed him whenever he thought of Tammith. Accordingly, he fought hard, thankful for those moments when the exigencies of combat focused his entire mind on the next cut or parry, more than willing to die to help wreck the necromancers' schemes.
Then yellow light flared behind him, painting the curtain wall and buildings with its glow. He glanced back and saw the empty space a good many of the Firelord's servants had occupied only a moment before. Nothing remained of them but scraps of hot, twisted metal and wisps of floating ash.
Farther away, another contingent of Burning Braziers aimed their torches at the phantoms flying down at them like owls diving at mice. Perhaps, their attention locked on the imminent threat, they hadn't even noticed what had just happened to their fellows. The red metal rods exploded and they perished instantly, slain by the same force to which they'd consecrated their existences.
Bareris suspected that with the priests lost, the battle was almost certainly lost. All he and his comrades could do was attempt to destroy as many of the enemy as possible before the creatures slaughtered them in their turn.
So he struck blow after blow, splintering skeletons and hacking shambling cadavers to pieces, until Aoth and Brightwing plunged to earth in front of him. The griffon's talons impaled the ghoul Bareris had been about to attack, and her weight crushed the false life out of it.
When he saw the war mage, Bareris realized that in all probability, he wasn't the only one who'd lost a woman he loved. "Chathi?" he asked.
Aoth scowled. "Never mind that. Get on."
"What-"
"Do it!"
Bareris clambered up behind the legionnaire. Brightwing instantly leaped back into the air, nearly unseating him. Mirror floated upward to soar alongside his living comrades.
"After the priests burned to death," said Aoth, "Tharchion Daramos waved me down. I'm a galloper now, a messenger. Nobody on the ground could push through this press, but Brightwing can carry me over it."
"What's that got to do with me?"
"I can reach the folk I need to reach, but it's hard to make them hear me over all the noise unless I waste time setting down, but you're a bard with magic in your voice. They'll hear you."
"Fine. Just tell me what to say."
Bareris soon discovered that hurtling back and forth above the battle was no less perilous than fighting on the ground. Skeletal archers loosed shafts at them, and necromancers hurled chilling blasts of shadow. Wraiths soared to intercept them. Brightwing veered, swooped, and climbed, dodging the attacks. Aoth struck back with darts of amber light evoked from the head of his lance. Bareris and Mirror slashed at any foe that flew within reach of their blades.
Meanwhile, they delivered the tharchion's orders: The legionnaires must protect the surviving priests-servants of gods other than Kossuth, mostly, who'd served with the armies of Pyarados and Thazalhar since before the Burning Braziers arrived to lend their strength-and wizards at all costs. Difficult though it would be, the soldiers also needed to push forward to make room for the rest of their comrades to enter the fortress. Archers were to find their way to upper-story windows and rooftops, where they could target the enemy without the ranks of their own comrades obscuring their lines of sight. Thayans with mystical capabilities, be they arcane, deity-granted, or arising simply from the possession of an enchanted weapon, must concentrate their efforts on the specters and any other enemy essentially immune to common steel.
To Bareris's surprise, their efforts made a difference. The startling destruction of the fire priests had thrown the army into confusion, if not to the brink of panic and collapse, but Milsantos's commands were sound. By degrees, they reestablished order and valid tactics. Even more importantly, perhaps, they rallied the legionnaires by reminding them that a highly competent war leader was still directing the assault. The battle wasn't over yet.