"To be honest," Malark said, "neither did I. I'm still not sure which argument did the trick. Probably the last. For all their might, zulkirs aren't eager to risk their own skins, particularly when they don't understand the peril. That's how they live long enough to become zulkirs, I suppose. Here, take this." He gave Aoth his spear.
The war mage gripped his shoulder. "I won't forget this."
Malark smiled. "I was glad to help." Aoth had killed a great many men in his time. It felt right to set him free to slaughter more, and to seek an end more befitting such a warrior.
CHAPTER FIVE
29 Mirtul-2 Kythorn, the Year of Blue Fire
Like many orcs, Neske Horthor would have taken offense at the suggestion that she'd ever felt "pity." But it took only a dash of brains to recognize that the prisoners had it hard, marching on short rations day after day with whips slicing into their backs and fear gnawing at their nerves. It was no wonder that one occasionally dropped dead, succumbing to exhaustion, fever, or pure despair.
Such a child had keeled over that day, whereupon Neske halted the march long enough to dress the corpse. It was wrong of her, she supposed. She should have carried the body on to Xingax. But he'd never know about it unless somebody tattled, and Khazisk wouldn't. She and the necromancer had worked together long enough to come to an understanding.
She pulled her skewer back from the campfire, inspected the chunks of fragrant, blackened meat impaled on it, and offered it to Khazisk, sitting cross-legged beside her with the sweep of his red robe pooled around him. "Try it. It's good."
The wizard's narrow, supercilious face screwed up as she'd known it would. "Thank you, no."
She laughed. "You do all sorts of nasty things with rotten bodies. I've watched you. But your stomach rolls over at the prospect of fresh meat, just because it happens to come from your own kind. If you had any sense, you'd realize that's the most nourishing kind of food."
"You're saying you eat orc?"
"Every chance I get." She bit the top piece of juicy meat from the skewer. It was too hot, and seared the roof of her mouth, but she wolfed it down anyway. "You know, it's a puzzle."
"What is?"
"Our real enemies, the ones we're at war with, are in the south. Yet our masters have us sneaking in and out of Thesk, raiding villages and capturing the peasants."
"You mean paradox, not puzzle."
She rolled her eyes. He loved to correct her speech. "Whatever it is, it's stupid."
"Not really. Xingax will turn our captives into potent weapons of war. The result is a net gain in the strength of our legions."
"Maybe." Neske tore another bite of child flesh off the stick. "But when Szass Tam is king, will anyone remember that this chore was important and we did it well? Or will all the rewards go to the warriors who stormed Bezantur and chopped off Nevron and Dmitra Flass's heads?"
"As far as I'm concerned," Khazisk said, "our fellow soldiers are welcome to such opportunities. You and I are better off here in the north. If I never see one of the council's warriors-"
A rams-horn bugle bleated. On the western edge of the camp, a sentry was sounding the alarm.
Trained reflex made Neske snatch for the targe that lay beside her and leap to her feet. But though her body knew what to do, her mind lagged a step behind, mired in perplexity. It would have made sense if an attack had come while she and her comrades were across the border in Thesk, or even during the trek through Surthay and Eltabbar. But once the slave takers finished the climb up the Third Escarpment into High Thay, they should have been safe.
"Look up!" someone shouted. Neske did, and made out winged shadows sweeping across the sky.
"Griffon riders," Khazisk said. He stood up and brandished his staff over his head. The pole was a gleaming white, whittled down from a dragon's leg bone, or so he claimed. He chanted words that, even though she couldn't understand them, filled Neske with an instinctual revulsion. A carrion stink filled the air.
But that was all that happened. The magic failed.
Khazisk cursed and began again. Four syllables into the spell, an arrow punched into the center of his forehead. He toppled backward.
Neske decided she needed her bow and quiver, not her scimitar and shield. She pivoted toward the place where she'd set the rest of her gear. Then the world seemed to skip somehow, and she was lying on her belly. When she tried to stand, and pain ripped through her back, she understood that an arrow had found her, too.
Griffon riders were trained to hit their targets even when their mounts were swooping through the air, and the first flights of arrows did an admirable job of softening up the enemy on the ground. Then the orcs started shooting back.
Bareris was confident his troops would prevail in a duel of archery. But possibly not before the orcs managed to kill a griffon or two, and their masters with them when the stricken beasts plummeted to earth. Better to prevent that by ending the battle quickly.
"Dive!" he said, projecting his voice so every legionnaire would hear. He nudged the back of Murder's feathery neck, and the griffon hurtled toward the ground.
An arrow streaked past Bareris's head. Then Murder slammed down on top of an orc, his momentum snapping its bones, his talons piercing it. The sudden stop jolted Bareris, but his tack was designed to cushion such shocks, and a decade of aerial combat had taught him how to brace himself.
Another orc charged with an axe raised over its head. Murder twisted his neck and snapped at the warrior, biting through boiled-leather armor and tearing its chest apart before it could strike. Bareris looked around but couldn't find another foe within reach of his sword.
In fact, opponents were in short supply all across the battlefield. Orcs were no match for griffons, and the animals were quickly ripping them apart.
That didn't mean everything was under control. Some of the prisoners were cowering amid the carnage, but others were scrambling into the darkness.
Bareris kicked Murder's flanks, and the griffon lashed his wings and sprang into the air. Bareris flew the beast over several fleeing Theskians, then plunged down to block their path. They froze.
"You can't run away," he said. He'd never had the opportunity to learn Damaran, the language of Thesk, but bardic magic would make it sound as if he had. "My comrades and I will kill you if you try. Turn around and go back to the campfires."
The gaunt, haggard folk with their rags and whip scars stared at him. Were they so desperate for freedom that they'd attempt a dash past a griffon and the swordsman astride his back?
A huge wolf padded out of the darkness and stationed itself at Murder's side. It bared its fangs and growled at the captives.
The two beasts made an uncanny pair. Murder was terrible in his ferocity, but his was the clean savagery of nature's predators. The wolf, on the other hand, gave off a palpable feel of the uncanny, of corruption and destruction fouler than death, and perhaps it was the sheer horror of its presence that made the Theskians quail, then turn and scurry back the way they'd come.
Bareris kicked Murder into the air to look for other escapees. He and his companions couldn't be certain they'd collected them all, but they rounded up most of them. Afterward, he set down and dismounted, and the wolf melted back into Tammith.
"So far, so good," she said.
"Thanks to you," he said, and it was true. In times past, even a flying company couldn't foray onto the Plateau of Ruthammar without encountering swift and overwhelming resistance. But Tammith knew how to evade the scrutiny of the watchers overseeing the approaches.
Someone would discover their intrusion soon enough. But if they finished their business quickly and withdrew, they might be all right.