"So help me escape and come back with me," Malark continued. "If I plead your case, the lich will forgive you. You'll command your followers just as you did before."
She glared and showed him her fangs. "I don't want anything to be as it was before, because I was a slave, with my mind in chains. Maybe you don't know what that's like, spymaster, but you will. With the Silent Company lost to me, I need some new progeny to do my bidding, and I'm going to start with you."
His mouth tightened. "Captain, it's conceivable you may kill me, but I swear by everything I hold sacred that I will never allow you to make me undead."
"It's always either funny or sad when people make vows they have no hope of keeping. In your case, I'd have to say funny." She sprang at him.
He twisted aside, hooked her ankle with his foot, and jerked her leg out from underneath her. She lurched forward. He snapped a kick into her kidney and chopped at the nape of her neck with the blade of his hand.
She planted her front foot and recovered her balance, but her upper body was still canted forward. That should have kept her from even perceiving the strike at her neck, let alone reacting quickly enough to counter it. But she twisted at the waist, grabbed Malark's wrist, and ripped the back of his hand with her fangs.
Her bite was frigid poison, and another wave of lightheaded weakness almost buckled his knees. He shouted to focus his strength, and she thrust the point of her sword at his midsection.
Fortunately, she was still in her awkward crouch, and they were too close together for her to use the long blade easily. It gave him just enough time to twist his arm free of her grip and her fangs and fling himself backward. Her thrust fell short by the length of a finger.
Tammith Iltazyarra straightened up and returned to a conventional swordsman's stance. She had his blood smeared across her mouth. More of it ran down from his torn hand, and dripped from the wounds in his brow to sting his eyes and blind them. He wiped them and willed the bleeding to stop. It didn't quite, but at least it diminished.
Tammith stared into his eyes and stabbed with her will, trying to hypnotize him. But his psyche proved too strong, and he struck back with a kick to her knee. She snatched her leg out of the way and cut at his torso. He dropped low, and the stroke whizzed over his head.
The combatants resumed circling, exchanged another set of attacks and then another. Still, neither could land a decisive blow.
It was plain to Malark that he was more skillful. Unfortunately, Tammith's preternatural strength helped to make up the difference, as did her sword, armor, indefatigability, and resilience. In theory, the naked hands of a monk could hurt her, but it was difficult to strike to great effect when mere pain appeared unable to slow her for more than an instant, and she no longer required the use of most of her internal organs.
Yet Malark had to finish the duel quickly. He couldn't linger, sparring, until her allies caught up or until someone came to investigate the commotion. It was time to take a chance.
She stepped forward, then back, or at least it was supposed to look that way. In reality, her lead foot hitched backward, but the other stayed in place. She was trying to throw off his sense of distance, to make him perceive her as farther away than she actually was.
He advanced as if the trick had deceived him. She lunged, her sword extended to pierce his guts.
Using both hands, he grabbed the blade. It cut him instantly. With her inhuman strength, his adversary needed only to yank it backward to slice him to the bone, sever tendons, and possibly even shear his fingers off.
He hammered a kick into her midsection. The shock locked her up and weakened her grip. He jerked the weapon free.
By doing so, he cut himself more deeply, but it didn't matter. He didn't care about the pain-wouldn't even really feel it until he chose to allow it-and his fingers were still able to clasp the hilt.
Employing both hands, he seized it in an overhand grip like a dagger, swung it over his head, lunged, bellowed, and struck. It was a clumsy way to wield a sword, but the only way to attack with the point and achieve the forceful downward arc he required.
The point crunched through her mail, pierced her heart, popped out her back, and stabbed into the pavement beneath her toppling form, nailing her to the ground.
A wooden stake would have been better. It would have paralyzed her. But at least the enchanted sword had her shrieking, thrashing, and fumbling impotently at the blade. In another moment, she might collect herself sufficiently to realize she could free herself by dissolving into mist, but he didn't give her the chance. He gouged her eyes from their sockets, then drove in bone-shattering blows until her neck broke and her head was lopsided.
He stepped back, regarded his handiwork, and felt a pang of loathing that had nothing to do with the harm she'd done to him. She was an abomination, an affront to Death, and he ought to do his utmost to slay her, not leave her to recover as she unquestionably would. But it wasn't practical. In fact, considering that she'd survived repeated beheadings, it might not even be possible.
He'd cleared her out of his way, and that would have to do. He turned and ran on.
CHAPTER NINE
21 Eleasias-15 Eleint, the Year of Blue Fire
Aoth peered at the faces looking back at him. At first he didn't recall them. He only had a sense that he should. Then one, a ferocious countenance comprised of beak, feathers, and piercing eyes, evoked a flood of memories and associations. "Brightwing," he croaked.
The griffon snorted. "Finally. Now maybe I can have my lair all to myself again." She nipped through the rope securing Aoth's left wrist to the frame of the cot.
He saw that his associates had actually tied him to a bed in the griffon's pungent stall. Shafts of moonlight fell through the high windows. Tammith's skin was white as bone in the pale illumination. Mirror was a faceless smudge.
"How are you?" Bareris asked.
"I'm not crazy anymore, if that's what you mean."
"Do you remember what happened to you?"
"Part of it." Some kind of spirits had attacked him, not spilling his blood but seemingly ripping away pieces of his inner self. He'd fallen unconscious, and when he awoke, he was like a cornered animal. He didn't recognize anyone or understand anything. He thought everyone was trying to hurt him, and fought back savagely.
The healers had tried to help him, but at first their magic hadn't had any effect. Then someone had hit on the idea of housing him with his familiar, in the hope that proximity to the creature with whom he shared a psychic bond would exert a restorative effect.
Maybe it had, for afterward, he grew calmer. He still didn't recognize his companions, but sometimes his fire-kissed eyes saw that they meant to help and not harm him. During those intervals he was willing to swallow the water, food, and medicines they brought, and to suffer the chanted prayers and healing touch of a priest without screaming, thrashing, or trying to bite him.
The recollection of his mad and feral state brought a surge of shame and horror, as well as fear that he might relapse. Sensing the tenor of his thoughts, Brightwing grunted. "Don't worry, you're your normal self again, for what little that's worth. I can tell."
"Thank you. I suppose."
The griffon bit through the other wrist restraint. His limbs stiff, Aoth sat up and started untying the remains of his bonds. His minders had used soft rope, but even so, his struggles had rubbed stinging galls into his wrists and ankles.