In this colossal stronghold, even the secondary gates were massive, designed to be operated by two or more soldiers at a time. But with his unnatural strength, Bareris managed. It was odd to feel the heavy bars slide and the valves swing apart when, beguiled by the mirage he himself had conjured, his eyes insisted that the sally-port was still sealed up tight.
CHAPTER EIGHT
17 Mirtul, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)
Invisible to hostile eyes-or so they hoped-Aoth, his fellow commanders, and a goodly portion of their army lay behind a shallow rise on the western approach to the Dread Ring. Blessed with the sharpest vision in the company, Aoth peered at the sally-port they'd selected before Bareris sneaked into the enemy stronghold. He willed it to open.
Crouching beside him, Jet grunted. "Yes. Wish for it. That'll make a difference."
"It can't hurt," said Aoth, and then, finally, the two leaves of the gate swung inward, first one and then the other. He could make out a fleck of white that must be Bareris pulling them open.
"By all the flames that burn in all the Hells," said Nevron, for once sounding impressed instead of contemptuous, "the singer did it."
"Or else the necromancers forced him to divulge his intentions and are exploiting our own scheme to set a snare for us," Lallara said, smiling maliciously. "Shall we go find out which it is?"
"Yes," said Aoth. "Let's." He drew himself up, the others followed suit, and for an instant, he thought again how odd it was to have zulkirs lying on their stomachs in the sparse grass at his direction. Even Samas Kul had grudgingly forsaken his floating throne, substituting a conjured armature of glowing white lines that wrapped around his bloated body and evidently enabled him to move without strain.
Only Aoth intended to march in the vanguard, so he had to wait while the archmages retreated to the center of the company and their bodyguards formed protective ranks around them. "Are you sure you want to walk in?" he asked Jet. "You could wait and fly with the rest of the griffons." He hadn't included aerial cavalry in the first wave lest it double the chances of being spotted.
Jet dismissed the suggestion with a toss of his black-feathered head. "I'll go when and how you go. Just don't think you can ride me in the same way you'd ride a damned horse."
"Perish the thought." Aoth glanced around and judged that they were ready. He pointed with his spear, strode forward, and the others followed.
As they advanced, Jhesrhi and other wizards whispered spells of concealment. Aoth could feel the power of them seething in the air, and, even with his fire-kissed eyes, he didn't see any foes lurking on the battlements waiting to spring a trap. Still, his throat was dry. He couldn't help imagining that when he and his comrades came close enough, flights of arrows and blasts of freezing, poisonous shadow would hammer down from the wall.
Fortunately, it never happened, and when, spear leveled, he warily stepped through the open gate, only Bareris was waiting to meet him. He grinned and gripped the bard by the shoulder. Mirror, on this occasion looking like the ghost of his own living self and not somebody else's, flitted in after him and saluted their friend with an elaborate flourish of his shadowy sword.
Bareris acknowledged them both with a curt nod.
Aoth looked around and found Khouryn already standing expectantly at his side. "Form ranks," he told the dwarf. "Quietly. We don't want the necromancers to know they have callers quite yet."
"I remember the plan," Khouryn said. He turned and waved a group of spearmen forward.
"Now where are the mages?" said Aoth.
"Here," said Jhesrhi, striding forward. The golden runes on her staff glowed. Silvery phosphorescence, the visible manifestation of some armoring enchantment, outlined her body. Her blonde tresses, cloak, and robe stirred as through brushed by a wind that wasn't blowing on anyone else. Several tattooed, shaven-headed Red Wizards trailed along behind her. "I assume it's time?"
"Yes," said Aoth. "Do it."
The wizards formed a circle and raised their instruments-two staves, four wands, and a clear crystal orb wrapped in a silvery web of filigree-above their heads. The mages chanted in unison, power warmed the air, and then a rattle ran from their immediate vicinity down the length of the fortress. It was the sound of doors banging shut in quick succession as they jumped and jerked in their frames.
The magic had sealed them. In some cases, those trapped inside the various towers and bastions would break them open again and rush out into the cool, moist dawn air. In others, the attackers would breach the doors themselves when they were ready, and pass through to kill whoever waited on the other side. Either way, the object was to fight the garrison a piece at a time instead of all at once.
"There's something you should know," Bareris said. "Malark's here, commanding the defense."
"I'm not entirely surprised. We knew we were up against someone clever."
"Be wary of him. He's spent the past ninety years learning sorcery from Szass Tam himself. He's even more dangerous than he was before."
"So are we." Aoth nodded to Khouryn, who relayed the command to the soldiers under his command. As the first hint of sunrise turned the sky above the postern gray, the spearmen stalked forward.
Despite the howling, surging press of battle, the corpse moved in its own little bubble of clear space, as if even its allies were taking care not to come too close. It wore filthy bandages, but if someone had tried to mummify and so preserve it in the usual way, the process had failed. Putrescence leaked from between the loops of linen, and the thing smelled as foul as anything Bareris had encountered in a century of battling undead. As it shambled toward three of Aoth's sellswords, the miasma overwhelmed them. One actually doubled over and puked. The other two reeled.
It made them easy prey. The plague blight, as such horrors were called, grabbed the man who was vomiting and hoisted him off his feet. Streaks of gangrene ran through the man's flesh.
"Leave it to me!" Bareris shouted. Obnoxious though it was, the stink wasn't making him sick, and it was even possible his undead body was immune to the blight's corrupting touch, though he hoped to avoid putting it to the test. He ran up behind the creature and plunged his sword into its back.
It dropped the already lifeless body of its previous opponent and lurched around to face him. He slashed it twice more, then retreated and cut its hand when it pawed for him.
The plague blight kept coming as though its wounds were inconsequential. He shifted out of its path and shouted. The blast of sound smashed it into wisps of bandage, bone chips, and spatters of rot.
He pivoted, looking for whatever foe was rushing or creeping up on him now. None was, so he took a moment to try to take stock of the battle, difficult as that could be when a warrior was in the thick of it.
Aoth's plan to isolate the various components of the garrison had worked for a while. Long enough, one could hope, to give the attackers a significant edge. But then all the sealed doors opened virtually at once when some master wizard obliterated the locking enchantment. Now all of Szass Tam's minions could join the fight, and it became a desperate, chaotic affair.
The tide of battle carried Bareris to the main gate. Scores of his allies were fighting like madmen to gain control of it, so they could open it and bring the rest of the zulkirs' army streaming in. But enemy axemen and spearmen were struggling just as furiously to hold them back, while up on the battlements, archers loosed arrows and scarlet-robed necromancers hurled flares of fire and shadow. Confiscated after the besiegers abandoned it and animated by magic, Tempus's Boot rolled itself back and forth to bash at its former masters.