Her wounds itched as they closed. The cut on Tsagoth's wrist was already gone, and no doubt the more serious wound on his back was healing too. In theory, they could duel the night away, each suffering but never quite succumbing to an endless succession of ghastly injuries. Until the sun rose, when she'd burn and he wouldn't.
But it was unlikely to come to that. As he'd boasted, he was the stronger, and if she couldn't beat him quickly, he was apt to wear her into helplessness well before dawn.
He murmured a word and ragged flares of power in a dazzling array of colors exploded from a central point like a garish flower blooming in a single instant. Tammith was close enough that the leading edge of the blast washed over her and seared her like acid.
Even as she staggered, she realized her foe had wounded her but likewise given her an opportunity. Fighting in a war of wizards, she'd seen this same attack, and understood how it worked when it achieved its full effect. Perhaps she could convince Tsagoth that it had done so. It all depended on her skill at pantomime.
She fell on her rump as if her mind and body were reacting too slowly for her to catch her balance. She dropped her jaw in what she hoped was a convincing expression of surprised dismay and started to rise, all with the same exaggerated lethargy.
Tsagoth sprang at her, all four hands poised to snatch and rend. She waited until the last instant, then abandoned her pretence of sluggishness and thrust the point of her sword at his chest.
She knew the ruse had fooled him when he failed to defend himself in time. The blade plunged into his heart.
He kept clawing at her, but for a moment, the shock of the injury made his efforts clumsy, and except for a scratch down the side of her face, she was unharmed. She tore her sword free and slashed open his belly. Guts came sliding out.
He plunged his talons into her shoulder and nearly tore her arm off. It wasn't her sword arm, but it might be next time, or he might manage something even worse, because his wounds were no longer slowing him.
She had to finish this exchange quickly. One sword couldn't parry four sets of talons for long. She dodged out of his way, swung the blade high, and sheared into his luminous scarlet eyes. Then she broke apart into bats, localizing the injury of her mangled shoulder in one crippled, expendable specimen.
The bats flew in the general direction of the Keep of Sorrows, the weak one trailing behind the others. She made sure their wings rustled audibly.
Tsagoth peered after her. Two red gleams appeared above his muzzle as his eyes reformed. Tammith could only hope they couldn't yet see as well as before, and that the desire to catch her and hurt her had pushed every other thought out of his head.
He vanished and instantly reappeared in her path, hands raised to rip the bats out of the air. He didn't realize that by shifting through space as he had, he'd placed himself directly in front of one of the squid-things that still showed signs of animation. Now, if the giant would only react!
It did. Trailing filthy tatters of mummy wrappings, a gigantic tentacle rose and slammed down on top of the blood fiend's head, smashing him to the ground. Then it coiled around him, picked him up, and squeezed. Bones cracked and their jagged ends jabbed through his scaly hide.
Ready to dodge, Tammith waited to see if the leviathan would strike at her, too, but it didn't. A scattered swarm of bats evidently wasn't as provocative a target as a nine-foot-tall undead demon.
She wasn't certain that even the squid-thing could destroy Tsagoth, but she was confident he wouldn't pursue her any time soon. As she swirled upward, she pondered one of the questions her adversary had posed: Where, indeed, could she go now?
Situated at a juncture of secondary roads, Zolum was a humdrum farmer's market of a town. As far as Dmitra could recall, she'd never visited the place before, and she felt none the poorer for it.
But at the moment, it possessed two attractions. Even for battle-weary legions, it was only a few days' march east of the Keep of Sorrows, and it was still standing. No wave of blue flame had obliterated it, nor had any earthquake knocked it down. So the council's army had crowded in, compelling the burghers to billet soldiers who ate their larders bare.
As Zolum was second-rate, so too was the hall of its autharch with its flickering oil lamps, plain oak floor, and simple cloth banners, devoid of gems or magical enhancements. In other circumstances, some of Dmitra's fellow dignitaries might have sneered at the chamber's provincial appointments, or groused about a lack of luxuries. Not now, though. Everyone had more important things to think about.
Which was not to suggest that everyone was frightened or downcast. His nimbus of flame burning brightly, Iphegor Nath looked excited, and Malark smiled as if life were merely a play staged for his diversion, and the plot had just taken an amusing turn.
A soldier led Aoth Fezim and helped him to a chair. The captain wore a dark bandage wrapped around his eyes.
It was a pity about his blinding. He was a good officer. Still, he couldn't command the Griffon Legion as he was.
The most interesting thing about him at that moment was that he was an anomaly. The blue fire had injured but not killed him, and since the zulkirs needed a better understanding of that enigmatic force, Dmitra had a mind to vivisect him and see what could be learned. Although it could wait until he was in one place and his legion in another. Supposedly, the men liked him, so why distress them and perhaps undermine their morale when a modicum of tact could avoid it?
The autharch kept a little brass gong beside his seat at the big round table, presumably to command everyone's attention and silence, and Dmitra clanged it. The assembly fell silent, and the others turned to look at her. "Your Omnipotences," she said, "Your Omniscience, Saers, and Captains. Not long ago, we believed ourselves on the brink of defeat. But fate intervened, and now we have another chance."
Samas Kul snorted. Although no one had set out food in the hall, he had grease on his full, ruddy lips and a half-eaten leg of duck in his blubbery hand. "Another chance. Is that what we're calling it?"
Dmitra smiled. "What would you call it?"
"Considering that we have reports of whole cities and fiefs burned or melted away, of the land itself tortured into new shapes, I'd call it a disaster."
"That," said Iphegor, "is because you don't understand what's happening." He raked the company with the gaze of his lambent orange eyes. "What you take to be a calamity is actually an occasion for great rejoicing and great resolve. Kossuth has always promised that one day the multiverse would catch fire, and that much of it would perish. It's our task to make sure it's the debased and polluted portions that burn, so that we'll dwell in a purer, nobler world thereafter."
"Nonsense," Dimon said. The tharchion of Tyraturos had even fairer skin than most Mulans, and blue veins snaked like rivers across his shaven crown. He was a priest of Bane, god of darkness, as well as a soldier, and wore the black gauntlet emblematic of his order.
Iphegor pivoted to glare at him. "What did you say?"
"I said you're talking nonsense. This blue stuff isn't really fire, and your god and his prophecies had nothing to do with its coming. It's here because Shar and Cyric killed Mystra. We know that much even if we know precious little more, so you might as well stop trying to convince us that the crisis means we ought to exalt your faith above all others."
"You see only the surface of things," Iphegor replied. "Look deeper."
"That's always good advice," Dmitra said, hoping to avert an argument between the two clerics, "whatever god one follows. We need to weigh our options and choose the one that will leave us in the strongest position when the disturbances end."
"Assuming they ever do," Lallara said.