Where next? she wondered. Then fingers gripped her shoulder.
Baring her fangs, she whirled, dislodging the hand, then saw it was Bareris who'd had the poor judgment to slip up from behind and surprise her. His burns, visible through the gaps where something had dissolved portions of his armor, looked nasty, but they didn't appear to bother him. Maybe he was so full of battled rage that it blocked the pain.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I know where Xingax is," he said. "In a doorway in the center of the eastern galley."
Trying not to be obvious about it, she glanced in that direction. "I see one of those giant zombies he likes to ride, but not him. You think he's on top of it, but invisible?"
"Yes. It's just standing there. What other reason could there be for withholding such a strong fighter from the battle? And look. Along every other section of the gallery, the enemy has undead and living soldiers jumbled together. There, it's all dread warriors and their ilk. Why? Because proximity to Xingax sickens live men, and he can't afford to weaken his own defenders.
"I'm going to deal with him before he screws up the courage to take an active role in this battle. I assume you want to help me."
She smiled. "Oh, yes."
He grinned at her, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of the youth who'd once taken delight in surprising her and making her laugh. "Then stand ready and watch this." He raised his hand, swept it down, and started singing.
Several Burning Braziers oriented on the walkway Bareris had pointed out. One read a final syllable from a scroll, which flared and burned to ash in his grip. The others brandished fists or rattled chains sheathed in flame, and Tammith's skin crawled and stung at the sacred power gathering in the air. When it manifested, the dread warriors and ghouls in front of the giant zombie blew apart in a booming explosion.
Bareris gave Tammith a gentle push, telling her it was her time to attack. As she dissolved into bats, he vanished.
When she flew upward, she spied him again, barely visible behind the gray, hulking form of the giant zombie. He'd shifted himself through space to attack Xingax from behind. He swung his sword in a high arc, aiming for the unseen rider on the hideous steed's back.
Even above the din of battle, she heard Xingax scream like an infant in distress. It was the sweetest music Bareris had ever made.
The giant zombie lurched around and swiped at Bareris, who retreated out of range. Wavering into visibility, Xingax hurled ice crystals from Ysval's blackened, oversized hand. Bareris twisted, but couldn't dodge all of the barrage.
Yet when he sprang back, cut into the zombie's knee, yanked his sword free, and whirled it upward for another slash at Xingax, Tammith could see it hadn't hurt him much, nor had the poison haze that shrouded his opponent. He'd prepared for this confrontation, enhancing his natural capabilities with his songs, and for all she knew, talismans and potions. She felt a thrill of pride to see how well he was faring.
It was a puny little flicker of emotion, an almost indiscernible fleck of flotsam in the torrent of hatred and rage she felt for Xingax. She whirled her bats together and set her human feet down amid the cinders and bits of blackened bone that were all that remained of the dread warriors. Even through her boots, the residue of divine power stung her soles.
She jumped, caught Xingax by the neck, and dragged him from his perch. Bareris could destroy the giant zombie, and she'd slaughter its master. She pulled her sword back for a thrust.
Twisting to face her, Xingax sneered, and she felt vibration through the fingers she held clamped in his putrid flesh. Then she couldn't feel anything, and realized he meant to shift through space or between worlds to escape her.
But an instant later, when his form congealed again, she realized he couldn't. He'd temporarily lost the ability. His twisted little mouth dropped open in dismay, and she drove her blade into his guts.
It didn't finish him. It didn't even stun him, stop him from floating weightless in the air, or keep him from clawing at her face. But that was all right. She wanted him to succumb slowly, because she'd relish every instant of his destruction. She twisted her head and his talons scored her cheek but missed her eyes. She jerked the sword free for another attack.
"Stop!" a deep voice grated.
Tammith froze, and she realized some enchantment had taken hold of her. She strained against it, and her sword arm twitched. She was breaking free.
"Stop!" Xingax said. From the moment of her rebirth as a vampire, he'd been able to command her. She'd believed the blight on wizardry had set her free, but apparently her liberation wasn't as complete as she'd imagined. Xingax was able to muster at least a shadow of his old coercive power, and it combined with the psychic assault she was already fighting to tilt the balance against her. Her body locked into complete rigidity, and Xingax clawed at her hand until flesh and bones came apart and he was able to pull free of her grip.
Something snaked around her. When it lifted her off the balcony, it turned her, and she beheld the creature that had crept up behind her.
Once it sat atop a giant's shoulders. Now the severed head was a swollen, misshapen thing with rows of jagged fangs in its oversized mouth. Some of the guts and blood vessels protruding from the neck hole had wrapped around her. Others had plastered themselves to the wall above the doorways, allowing it to crawl along the vertical surface like a fly.
"You're a bad, ungrateful daughter!" Xingax shrilled. "I gave you everything!"
The crawling head's trailing tendrils lifted Tammith toward its jaws. Change to mist, she told herself. Then it can't hurt you or hold on to you. But she couldn't transform.
Her captor turned her body. She realized it was positioning her so it could nip her head off.
Then Bareris sprang onto the balcony. He must have finished slaying the giant zombie, clearing away the obstacle that stood between him and the rest of the combat.
He struck at Xingax before the maker of undead realized he was there. His sword crunched into the bulbous skull, and Xingax dropped from the air onto the gallery floor. Bareris instantly pivoted toward the crawling head and Tammith.
But Xingax was still conscious. He grabbed Bareris's leg with his nighthaunt hand, sinking the claws deep into his calf, and pointed with the stunted, withered one. Tammith felt malignant power burn through the air.
Bareris cried out and arched his back, but he didn't fall. After a moment, as the agony abated, he pivoted and cut until Xingax stopped moving, and he could pull free of the long bloody claws.
He hobbled toward Tammith and the thing that clutched her tightly. The giant's head howled, a shriek as full of murderous force as Xingax's final attack, but Bareris sang a fierce, sustained, vibrating note that shielded him from harm.
The crawling head lashed at him with lengths of artery and intestine. Hampered by his torn, bleeding leg, Bareris defended as best he could. At the same time, the creature positioned Tammith's neck between its rows of teeth.
Once more, she struggled against her intangible fetters. Perhaps Xingax's death had weakened them, because her limbs jerked. Bonds of ropy flesh still held her, but nothing else did.
But she was out of time to shapeshift. She strained with all her inhuman strength, heaved her arms free, and braced her sword to prop the head's jaws open.
Heedless of the grievous wound it thus inflicted in the roof of its mouth, the horror snapped its fangs shut. A fiery pain through her neck told Tammith her head had come loose from her body.
She fought to defy terror's grip, to remember that she'd survived this same mutilation before. Then a rippling peristalsis tumbled her head inside the creature, depositing it in some manner of sac. In the darkness, fleshy strands nudged at her scalp, brow, and cheeks, then, biting or stinging, anchored themselves like lampreys.