Malark smiled as if to acknowledge an opponent's sound play in some trivial game, then aimed his staff at a target-Mirror, presumably-in the air. At that point Jet plunged down on the spymaster like a hawk killing a rabbit.
The griffon dashed Malark to earth, but his talons didn't penetrate the human's armoring enchantments, nor did his plummeting mass snap the wizard's spine or even stun him. Malark immediately hit back with a chop to the side of the familiar's feathery neck.
Perhaps because Malark was on his back, the blow didn't land hard enough to kill. But it did jolt Jet to the side, which gave the former monk of the Long Death the chance to wrench himself out from under his attacker's claws.
Run! thought Aoth. You can't handle him by yourself. Jet's response was a pang of frustration and disgust, but as Malark rolled to his feet, the familiar lashed his wings and vaulted back into the air.
Lallara floated down from above to alight beside Aoth. She jabbed the ferrule of her staff into his ribs, and a surge of vitality swept the last of his weakness away.
"Thanks," he said.
"Get up," she snapped. "You have work to do."
"I suppose I do." He clambered to his feet and cast a thunderbolt.
Lallara too hurled attack spells but also conjured barriers of fire, stone, and spinning blades to hold back the enemy. Sometimes she even managed to drop such a wall right on top of one of Malark's servants, imprisoning it or tearing it in two. Mirror, who currently resembled a smudged caricature of Aoth, alternated between evoking bursts of divine light and battling with sword and shield. Jet repeatedly dived, attacked, and climbed back up into the sky, circling until he saw another chance to strike by surprise.
All in all, it was a fine display of fighting prowess, and yet it wasn't good enough. No matter how many of Malark's guardians Aoth and his companions destroyed, the creatures kept coming. Aoth never actually saw new ones popping into existence, but in time he decided that somehow the supply must be inexhaustible.
What was even more discouraging was that no attack seemed to damage Malark himself. Once in a while, a barrage of ball lightning or a blast of frost rocked him back on his heels, but afterward, he quickly returned to working his own magic, methodically dissolving Lallara's barriers.
Until a flying blade made of absolute darkness streaked down at him from above. Malark sidestepped the cut, then tapped the conjured weapon with his staff. The black sword vanished.
Then he looked up, and Aoth did too. Szass Tam was hovering above the mountaintop. Malark gestured and shouted a word of command, and a dozen death tyrants floated upward like bubbles to turn their virulent gazes on the lich.
That should have helped clear a path from Aoth's position near the drop to Malark's at the center of the high place. But when Aoth looked for such a route, it seemed there were just as many guardians blocking the way as ever.
He cursed, then sensed motion on his flank. He pivoted toward the onrushing plague spewer, and a thunderous shout blasted the head from its shoulders. As it toppled, rats swarmed from the stump of its neck. Meanwhile, Bareris finished hauling himself up onto the mountaintop.
"I'm glad you made it," said Aoth. The bard responded with a nod, drew his sword, and struck up a dirge. The eerie tones had no effect on Aoth but were apt to afflict a foe with weakness and confusion.
Nevron swooped down in the midst of a throng of demons that immediately hurled themselves at Malark's minions. Lauzoril arrived in a cloud of tiny floating daggers that darted from point to point like hummingbirds. Finally even Samas Kul, whom Aoth had judged the likeliest to flee, floated up into view with his quicksilver wand in his blubbery hand.
The other council members positioned themselves near Lallara, no doubt in the hope that her wards would protect them as well. Then they attacked. Lauzoril recited an incantation in his dry, clerkish voice, and three plague spewers started mauling one another. Growling words of power, Nevron summoned a ghour, a huge, shaggy demon with bull-like horns and cloven hooves, and the thing spat poison smoke at the enemy. Samas daintily flourished his wand, and a death tyrant turned to snow, its eye-stalks and globular body crumbling into a shapeless mound when it thumped down on the ground.
Surely now, Aoth thought, hurling darts of green light at Malark, surely now, he and his allies were strong enough to win. They had to be, because no more reinforcements were coming.
Yet he could see they weren't. Their combined might sufficed to offset Malark's but nothing more, and in time that strength would fade, as even archmages ran out of magic. Whereas Malark, if he truly was a kind of god in this place, would likely remain as powerful as ever.
"None of our spells are hurting Malark," said Aoth. "Those of us who are warriors need to get over to him and see if we can do any better with our blades. And do it now, before the tide turns against us."
Lauzoril arched an eyebrow. "Are you proposing to charge straight through the middle of all these undead?"
"Yes. You zulkirs will use your sorcery to keep the guardians off our backs, both while we advance and after we engage Malark."
Samas turned an onrushing plague spewer into mist. "Even with our help, I don't see how you're going to make it to Springhill. But you're right, we need to try something."
"That's the plan, then." Aoth turned to Bareris and Mirror. "Ready?"
The ghost flourished his sword, and warm light pulsed from the blade. Aoth felt a rush of confidence and vitality and inferred that he'd received some sort of blessing. "Now we are," Mirror said.
The enemy still had men positioned to flank the council's army. No doubt if given the opportunity, they'd make another attempt to advance into the trees. But they hadn't tried for a while, and Gaedynn had glimpsed motion behind the front ranks as their officers redirected a number of warriors elsewhere.
From that, he inferred that henceforth, his archers and skirmishers could probably hold this position without him. He set down his longbow and headed for Eider. Crouched back down in her hollow, the griffon was grooming herself, biting at the feathers she'd damaged flapping her wings among the low-hanging branches.
She jumped up when she realized her master meant to ride her. He swung himself into the saddle, strapped himself in, strung the shorter compound bow he used for aerial combat, then turned her away from the enemy, so no one would shoot her as she took off.
Picking up speed with every pace, Eider ran toward the riverbank, leaped, and soared over the black water. Gaedynn took a moment to savor the exhilaration of flight, then urged her higher. They wheeled and glided over the treetops so he could survey the battle as a whole.
Flashes of light-attack spells-leaped between the dark masses that were the opposing hosts. Then a chorus of battle cries howled from the one in the west, and the greater part of So-Kehur's army hurtled forward in what looked like an all-out effort to overwhelm the zulkirs' forces.
"Forward," Gaedynn said. He snatched arrows from one of the quivers buckled to his tack and loosed them at the charge as Eider dived into range. A skin kite flapped at him, and the griffon beat her wings, rose above the membranous undead, and ripped it to pieces with her talons.
The charge crashed into the defenders' spears and shields. As he nocked another shaft, Gaedynn peered, trying to determine if his sides formation was holding.
Some of it was. But, pincers snapping, tentacles lashing, and tail stabbing, a thing like a gigantic steel scorpion was tearing into the battle lines. Supposedly So-Kehur was a necromancer, fully capable of casting lightningbolts and the like, but Gaedynn supposed that a man didn't put on the shape of a beast unless he had a craving to kill like one.