Unholy (37 page)

A tumbling mace flew at him. He knocked it aside, saw the other weapons whirling right behind it, and jerked the urgrosh back into position to parry those as well. Then the wind stopped howling and mauling him, and its several blades fell to the ground. A figure made of gray vapor fumed into visibility in the center of the space the maelstrom had inhabited.

Cheers rose from the battle lines. Panting, his heart pounding, Khouryn realized that something had balked all the sword spirits.

It appeared to be Lallara, outlined by the golden glow of her protective enchantments, standing at the front of the formation and brandishing her staff. But something about the crone’s posture told Khouryn it was actually Jhesrhi inside the illusory disguise.

That made sense. The sword spirits were undead, but they needed to manifest as whirlwinds to wield their weapons. And

Jhesrhi was adept at raising and quelling winds. In effect, she was grappling with the phantoms, gripping their wrists to keep them from using their hands.

Breezes whistled and gusted back and forth. A flail lifted partway off the ground, then dropped back. Jhesrhi had arrested the ragewinds, but even with other wizards lending covert aid, she evidently couldn’t hold them for long.

Khouryn croaked a battle cry and charged the misty apparition. He struck it repeatedly, every blow gashing it with a streak of crimson light. It started to come apart, but the wind was moaning louder, blowing harder, and he couldn’t tell if the phantom was dissolving because he was destroying it or because it was breaking free.

He hit it once more in the chest, and it vanished. He pivoted to find himself again at the center of a vortex of blades lifting up off the ground. He felt a pang of despair, struggled to quell it, and then the whirlwind died. The spirit’s weapons dropped.

Fresh cheering sounded. He looked around and saw that Jhesrhi’s intervention had likewise enabled his comrades to destroy the rest of the ragewinds in one manner or another.

In a just world, Khouryn would now have had a moment to rejoice and catch his breath. But in this one, dozens of dread warriors were still poised at the front of the enemy formation. They hadn’t been able to advance with the sword spirits, or the spinning weapons would have chopped them to pieces. But now they charged, and Khouryn had to sprint back to his own battle lines to keep the undead from swarming over him. He grabbed and braced his spear just in time to spit an onrushing zombie.

Aoth clambered onto the mountaintop. As far as he could tell, nothing had changed. It was possible—indeed, likely—that the

confluence of forces overhead was even more hideous than before, but he had no intention of taking another look at it.

His mouth dry, he stalked along the edge of the high place. If he could sneak behind Malark, maybe it wouldn’t matter that “hostile intent” would breach his invisibility. Maybe he could still attack by surprise.

It irked him that even close up, he couldn’t see what waited in the patches of writhing distortion. He’d gotten used to seeing whatever existed to be seen, even when magic sought to conceal it. Smiling crookedly, he told himself that in this situation, he might be better off not seeing. Most likely, it would only be bad for his motale.

To his surprise, he reached a point directly behind Malark without anything trying to stop him. He aimed his spear and whispered the first words of a death spell. If it worked, it would grip and crush the spymaster’s body like a piece of rotten fruit.

Malark dropped back to earth, whirled, and ended up in a crouch, staff cocked back behind him in one hand. A dimness, evidence of a protective enchantment, flowed over his body. Meanwhile, the guardians exploded inro view.

Some were the floating spherical creatures called beholders, each with one great, orblike eye and other, smaller ones twisting around on stalks, and with mouths full of jagged fangs. Rotting, spotted with fungus, and riddled with gaping wounds, these particular specimens were plainly the undead variety called death tyrants.

The rest of the guardians were gigantic corpses with snarling, demented faces and lumps scuttling around beneath their slimy, decaying skins. Xingax, who’d invented the things, had called them plague spewers, and they were one of his foulest creations.

Aoth felt a mad impulse to laugh, for, given that he was a lone attacker, his situation was so hopeless as to be ludicrous. Instead,

he rattled off the rest of his incantation. Though it seemed clear that Aoth was about to die, maybe Malark could go first.

Alas, no. A dark blaze of power leaped from the spear, but it frayed to nothingness when it touched Malark’s haze of protection.

The spell Aoth had cast would enable him to make more such attacks, but unfortunately, no two at the same foe. As he scrambled sideways to make himself a moving target, he weighed whether to turn the magic on one of the guardians or try to blast Malark with something else.

His foes all pivoted with him. “Where are your allies?” the spymaster asked.

Apparently he didwant to talk, and Aoth judged that conversation might well stall him longer than continuing a fight that would likely last only another heartbeat or two.

“As far as I know, everybody else died when the cliffs smashed together. Well, except for my griffon. He got hit by a falling boulder, but he was able to carry me this far before the wound killed him.”

Malark smiled. “I’m not certain I believe you.”

“The way I hear it, you’re supposed to be a mighty wizard now. If anyone else were still alive, wouldn’t you have found him with your scrying?”

“Perhaps, but after I shifted the mountains, I didn’t try. I don’t know if you can tell, but the Unmaking is close to flowering. It’s possible I’m only a few breaths away. So I thought it would be a good gamble just to try to finish before any survivors reached the mountain. It still seems like a sensible strategy, once I dispose of you.”

“So this is the way our friendship ends.”

Malark shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be. Throw your spear over the edge, submit to a binding, and you can watch the ritual unfold. You’ve grown into one of the finest soldiers in the East.

A master killer. A true disciple of Death, even if you don’t think of it that way. I’d like to believe that if you only give yourself the chance, you’ll perceive the glory of what’s about to happen.” “Sorry, no.”

“I understand. You’d rather go down fighting, and of course it’s a proper end for a man like you.” Malark lifted his hand as though to signal for the guardians to attack.

Aoth groped for something, anything, to say to keep the other man talking. “Curse it, your idiotic ceremony isn’t even going to work! The zulkirs say it can’t!”

“I’ll wager Szass Tam didn’t say it, and he’s the wisest of them all, as well as the only one who’s actually read Fastrin’s book.”

“He’s also crazy, and so are you.”

“It no doubt looks that way, but the reality is that he and I are idealists. We both aspire to purity and perfection, although, sadly, he doesn’t understand what they truly are.”

“I’m telling you, the most the magic will do is kill you and everyone else in Thay and maybe in the realms on our borders.”

“I don’t think so, but even if you’re right, that alone will be wonderful. And now, since it’s clear I can’t open your eyes, I’ll bid you good-bye.” Malark waved his hand, and the plague spewers took a stride toward Aoth. Phosphorescence glimmered in the death tyrants’ eyes.

The last of the dread warriors dropped, and So-Kehur peered across the open ground between the two armies to see what the living corpses had accomplished prior to their destruction. Lenses shifted inside his various eyes to magnify the view.

The invaders were hauling bodies back to the rear of their formation and trying to fill the new breaches in their battle lines. That didn’t work until a dwarf officer dissolved the back rank and

ordered its members forward into the two lines in front of it.

So-Kehur turned toward Churned and the other officers assembled beside him. In his eagerness, he wasn’t particularly careful, and one pinch-faced old necromancer had to forfeit his dignity and scurry to keep a pair of his master’s pincers from braining him. Well, no matter. The man was all right.

“Do you see that?” So-Kehur asked. “Bit by bit, we’re breaking them apart.”

To his annoyance, no one echoed his enthusiasm. In fact, for a moment, everyone hesitated to say anything at all.

Then Churned drew himself up straighten “Milord, I respectfully suggest that we consider what we’re doing to our own army as well.”

“I know we’re taking casualties, but that’s inevitable in war.”

“Master, it appears to me that we might indeed annihilate the enemy, but only if we’re willing to grind our own host down to nothing in the process. I ask you, is that a desirable outcome when our primary responsibility is the defense of Anhaurz? I recommend withdrawing. We’ve hurt the invaders badly enough that they no longer pose a threat. If they have any sense at all, they’ll run for the border. If not, Thay has other armies to finish them off.”

So-Kehur couldn’t believe what he’d heard. Withdraw? Let some other commander steal his victory over the infamous zulkirs-in-exile themselves, and the renown that would accompany it? He felt a surge of fury, and Churned fell, thrashed, and frothed at the mouth.

So-Kehur realized he’d lashed out at the seneschal with his psychic abilities. He hadn’t consciously intended it but decided he wasn’t sorry, either. Nor would he be even if the coward strangled on his own tongue.

He glared at his other officers. They cringed, either because the raw force of his anger was exerting pressure on their minds

or simply because they were intimidated. “Does anyone else want to run away?” he asked.

If anybody did, he kept it to himself.

“Good,” So-Kehur continued. “Now, I think we can break the enemy if we throw everything we have into one final assault, and this time, I’ll lead the charge myself.”

19 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

Dangerous as plague spewers were, in Aoth’s judgment, they were less so than beholders and far less so than Malark. So he lunged in front of one of the rotting giants with its twitching, snarling face, using the corpse as a wall to separate him from the rest of his foes.

Unfortunately, it was a wall that was just as intent on killing him as everything else on the mountaintop. It doubled over, opened its mouth impossibly wide, and puked up dozens of rats. Chittering and squealing, the rodents charged.

Aoth incinerated them with a flare of fire from his spear. Heedless of the blast, the plague spewer pounded forward right behind them. It had its enormous hands raised to grab, crush, and infect him, and its strides shook the ground.

Exerting his will, Aoth tried to seize it with the same magic that had failed to kill Malark. This time, he was more successful. Rotten hide splitting, muscles bursting and spattering slime,

bones snapping, the plague spewer’s body crumpled in on itself. More rats—the bulges that had scuttled ceaselessly under its skin—sprang clear of the demolition but, without the giant’s will to guide them, made no move to attack.

The stink of charred rat hung in the air along with drifting flecks of ash. Aoth cast about, surveying the battlefield. Malark was circling right, so he dodged left. The maneuver brought him in front of a death tyrant. The bulbous creatures floated slowly, but they didn’t need to close with an opponent to attack, only maintain a clear line of sight.

A ragged burst of shadow leaped from one of the death tyranr’s eyestalks. Aoth dodged, but it washed over him anyway. He felt a stab of pain, but it faded after a moment. Most likely thanks to the wards Lallara had cast on him, the attack hadn’t done him any actual harm.

He focused his will to strike back, then felt something else shaking the ground. He pivoted just in time to see the oncoming plague spewer flail at him with its fist.

He avoided the blow by lunging between the giant’s legs, then drove his spear into its ankle and channeled power through the point. The joint exploded, half severing the spewer’s foot and sending it reeling. It toppled into the path of another blaze of power from one of the death tyrant’s eyes, and as it crashed to earth, the giant turned to stone.

The petrified corpse blocked that undead beholder, but by now, another had maneuvered into position. Two of its rotting eyestalks bowed in Aoth’s direction. He reached for it with the pulverizing magic and managed to strike first. The pressure burst it like a boil, and viscera spilled from the ruptured husk.

Unfortunately, at that point, the crushing magic ran out of power, and it was questionable whether Aoth would have a chance to cast that or any spell again. Despite his best attempts to outma-neuver them, a dozen of his enemies, Malark included, had moved

into positions from which they could attack him simultaneously. The only hope of avoiding the assault would be to jump over the cliff, and then Malark would either rain destruction down on him or go back to his filthy ritual.

Ah, well, Aoth had expected it would come to this. He’d needed a kiss from Lady Luck, as well as some of the best fighting of his life, to last as long as he had.

He leveled his spear at Malark for one last strike. But Szass Tam’s protege brandished his staff, and his power stabbed through Lallara’s wards. Nausea twisted Aoth’s guts, and his legs buckled. The strength drained out of him all at once, and the head of his spear clanked against the ground. A plague spewer lumbered forward and stretched out its hand to seize him.

Then golden light flowered at his back. The radiance didn’t hurt him. In fact, it quelled his sickness and started his strength trickling back. But it seared the plague spewer, melted one of its eyes, and sent it stumbling backward.

Aoth didn’t have to look around to realize that Mirror had flown up over the mountaintop and had invoked the power of his god, and at that moment, Aoth no longer cared whether the intervention was sound strategy. He was simply grateful for another chance at life.