The discharge spewed in a wide arc and expanded in flight to become a kind of net. Caught by surprise, Tammith tried to dodge, but was too slow. The heavy mesh fell over her and dragged her to her knees. Its blazing touch brought instant agony.
With burning, blackening hands, she struggled to rip the adhesive web away from her body. Another weight, far heavier than the mesh, slammed down on her and crushed her to the floor. Liquid fire dripping from its fangs, the spider lowered its head to bite.
She wasted a precious instant in desperate, agonized squirming, then realized what she needed to do. Focusing past the distractions of pain and fear, she asserted her mastery of her own mutable form.
Tammith dissolved into vapor. Even the lack of a solid body failed to quell the ache of her wounds, but the spider could no longer bite her, and its bulk and web couldn't hold her any longer. She billowed up around it and streamed to the other side of the room.
Given the choice, she might well have kept flowing right out the door. But although she was a captain in the legions of the north, she was also a slave, magically constrained to obey Xingax and Szass Tam. The latter had ordered her to accomplish her mission at any cost.
That would require slaying the spider, and she couldn't do it as a cloud of fog. She had to become tangible once again.
As she did so, she glanced at her charred hands and her arms where the sleeves had burned away. New skin was already growing, but not quickly enough. If the arachnid seized her again, it would likely hurt her so severely as to render her helpless.
She spun and scaled one of the bookcases, then released the shelves to cling to the ceiling. Intent on climbing up after her, her adversary raced across the floor.
She grabbed the bookcase and strained to heave it away from the wall. She could use only one hand and had no leverage, and for a moment, she feared that even her vampiric strength would prove insufficient. Then she felt the case's center of gravity shift, and it toppled.
It crashed down on top of the spider. She dropped after it, then jumped up and down to smash the arachnid's body. Layers of paper and wood insulated her from flames and the worst of the heat. At first, the wreckage rocked back and forth as the spider tried to drag itself out, but after several impacts, its struggles subsided.
Tammith grinned, and then something hit her like a giant's hammer. Her guts churned and her skin burned anew, glowing, on the brink of catching fire. She reeled back and Hezass Nymar stepped from his apartments into the antechamber. She could barely make him out, for the man assailing her with the power of his priesthood stood shrouded from head to toe in Kossuth's fire.
Tammith ordinarily had a strong resistance to the divine abilities that most priests wielded against the undead. But Nymar was a high priest standing in his place of power, and she was already badly hurt. His righteous loathing ground at her flesh and mind.
She silently called to the rats, crouching in the shadows. She hadn't sought to use them against the spider. They would have burned to death in a heartbeat, most likely without the beast even noticing their presence. But maybe they could help her now.
The rodents charged Nymar and clambered up his bare feet and ankles, biting and clawing. He yelped, danced, and flailed, trying to dislodge them. It broke his concentration, and his nimbus of flame, along with Tammith's sickness and paralysis, vanished altogether.
Tammith rushed Nymar, grabbed him, and slammed him down on his back. The rats scurried away. She bashed the priest's head back and forth, pinned him, and showed him her fangs. She needed willpower to refrain from tearing her captive's throat out and guzzling him dry. She was still in pain, and such a meal would speed her healing.
"Please," he gasped, "this is a mistake. I'm on Szass Tam's side."
"No," she said. "You slipped away to betray him to the council. As he knew you would. As he intended."
"I… I don't understand."
"Since you were sincere, you were able to win a measure of their trust despite your history of treachery. But now that your task is accomplished, it's time to cement your allegiance where it belongs."
"I swear by the holy fire, from now on, I truly will be loyal."
"I know you will."
"You made too much noise! The monks are surely coming even now!"
"I know that, too. I can hear them. But by the time they arrive, I'll be gone, and you'll explain how an assassin tried to murder you, but you burned the dastard to ash. They'll have no reason to doubt you, as long as you hide the marks on your neck."
CHAPTER TWO
16–29 Tarsakh, the Year of Blue Fire
The griffon rider came running to tell Bareris that some of the legionnaires were violating the patrol's standing orders. The soldier found his immediate superior in consultation with Aoth.
When the two comrades investigated, they discovered a griffon crouching outside the hut in question. No doubt its master had stationed it there to keep anyone from interfering with the mischief inside. Aoth brandished his spear at the beast and it screeched, lowered its white-feathered aquiline head, and slunk to the side.
Bareris tried the door. It was latched, so he booted it open.
The round dwelling was all one room, with a stove in the center, a loom to one side, and a bed on the far end. Their faces pulped and bloody, a man and a woman sprawled on the rush-strewn earthen floor. Two of the soldiers responsible were holding a sobbing, thrashing girl-Bareris put her age at twelve or thirteen-spread-eagled atop a table. The third was tearing off her clothes.
The door banged against the wall and all three jerked around. Aoth could have simply snapped orders at the men, but he was too angry to settle for mere words. He lunged at one and struck with the butt of his spear. The ash haft cracked against bone and the man fell, tatters of skirt in his hand. The other two released the child and scrambled out of reach.
Aoth took a deep breath. "You know the rules. No looting except for what an officer gives you permission to confiscate, no beatings, and no rape."
"But that's provided the rustics are friendly," said the soldier on the left. "Provided they cooperate. These didn't."
"What do you mean?" asked Aoth.
The warrior picked up a clay bowl from the table. Somehow, it remained unspilled and unbroken. The legionnaire overturned it, and a watery brown liquid spattered out.
"The villagers are supposed to give their best hospitality to the zulkirs' troops," he said. "Yet this is what they serve us. This slop! Isn't it plain they're holding the good food back?"
Aoth sighed. "No, idiot, it isn't. Last year's harvest was bad, the winter was long and harsh, and they've barely had time to begin the spring planting. They'll go hungry tomorrow for want of the gruel they offered you tonight."
The griffon rider blinked. "Well… I couldn't know, could I? And anyway, I'm almost certain I heard one of them insult the First Princess."
"Did you now?"
"Besides," the soldier continued, "they're just peasants. Just Rashe-" It dawned on him that he might not be taking a wise tactic in light of his commander's suspect ancestry, and the words caught in his throat.
"The two of you," said Aoth, "pick up your fellow imbecile and get out of here. I'll deal with you shortly." They did as instructed, and then Aoth turned to Bareris. "I trust you know songs to calm this girl, and to ease her parents' hurts."
"Yes," Bareris said. He applied the remedies as best he could, even though charms of solace and healing no longer came to him as naturally as they once had.