Unclean

The old warrior smiled a crooked smile. "When you put it like that, it's not an appealing prospect, is it? We'd certainly need to win and hope our success would motivate the other zulkirs to shield us from the lich's displeasure."

"I don't know if we even have the authority to deal with Red Wizards in such a ma

"You're tharchions," said Aoth. "This is an army in the field. The Burning Braziers will support you. They hate the necromancers condescending to them. Take the authority."

She considered it for several heartbeats then shook her head. "No. Not without proof, and I mean something I can see with my own eyes, not just a wanderer's tale, even should a cleric vouch for him."

"Then I'll interrogate one of your Red Wizards," Bareris said. "He'll tell the truth or die in a fit like the orc. Either way, you can be certain."

Nymia hesitated. "Neither Tharchion Daramos nor I could consent to such an outrage. You'd have to act alone, without our aid or intercession, and if you failed to extort the proof you promise, we'd order your execution. It would be the only way to make sure the stink of your treason didn't attach itself to us."

Bareris shrugged as if the prospect of a slow death under torture was of no concern. "Fine."

"Except," said Aoth, "that you won't have to do it alone. I'll help, and I know a fire priestess who will too." He gri

Bareris crooned his charm of silence, each note softer than the one before. He centered the charm on the sword sheathed at this side. It seemed as good an anchor point as any.

With the final note, the camp, quiet already here in the dregs of the night, fell absolutely silent. He, Aoth, Chathi, and Mirror, only perceptible as the vaguest hint of visual distortion, sneaked up to the rear of Urhur Hahpet's spacious, sigil-embroidered tent a few breaths later.

Aoth gave Chathi an inquiring look. Even without benefit of words, his meaning was plain. He was asking if she was certain she wanted to risk this particular venture. She responded with an expression that expressed assurance, impatience, and affection all at once.

The lovers' interplay gave Bareris a fresh pang of heartache. He turned away and peered about to make certain no one was looking in their direction. Nobody was, so he drew his dagger, cut a peephole in the tent, and looked inside.

No lamps or candles burned within. Evidently even necromancers, who worked so much of their wizardry at night, had to sleep sometime. But Bareris had sharpened his sight with magic, and he could make out a figure wrapped in blankets lying on the cot.

He gave his comrades a nod, then reinserted his dagger in the hole and pulled it downward, cutting a slit large enough for a man to squirm through, as he proceeded to do.

With the tent now enveloped in silence, he had no need to tiptoe, so he simply strode toward the man in the camp bed. But before he could cross the intervening space, something small and gray leaped onto Urhur Hahpet's chest, then, eyes burning with greenish phosphorescence, immediately launched itself at Bareris's face.

It was a zombie or mummified cat, evidently reanimated to watch over its master as he slept. Bareris swung his arm and batted it out of the air. It scrambled up and charged him.

Though the shriveled, stinking thing wasn't large enough to seem all that dire a threat, Bareris suspected its darkened fangs and claws might well be poisonous, either i

By then, though, Urhur had cast off his covers and was rearing up from the bed. The silence would keep him from reciting incantations, and since he didn't sleep in his clothes, he didn't have his spell foci ready to hand, but he was wearing a presumably enchanted necklace of small bones and grasping a crooked blackwood wand he'd apparently stashed beneath his blankets or pillow. He extended the arcane weapon in the intruders' direction.

Bareris yanked his sword out of the feline carcass, sprang forward, and poised the weapon to strike at the wand. At the same instant, a gout of dark fire, or something like it, leaped from the end of the wand to chill him. Refusing to let the freezing anguish stop him, he delivered the beat, and the wand flew from Urhur's grasp.

Bareris and his comrades had observed two withered, yellow-eyed dread warriors standing guard in front of the tent, and now the sentries pushed through the flap of cloth covering the doorway. He'd hoped the magical silence would keep them from discerning that their master needed them, but perhaps they were responding to a psychic summons.

Though Bareris hadn't taken his eyes off his foes to glance around and check, he assumed Aoth, Mirror, and Chathi were likewise inside the tent by now, and he'd depend on them to deal with the dread warriors. He had to stay focused on Urhur, because the Red Wizard merely needed to scurry into the open air, dart beyond the confines of the zone of silence, and scream for help to ruin his plan.

He tried to lame Urhur with a slash to the leg. The necromancer flung himself backward into the taut canvas wall of the tent, rebounded, and landed on the ground behind the cot. Fearful that Urhur would squirm out under the bottom of the cloth barrier, Bareris dropped his dagger, grabbed the camp bed, and jerked it out of his way.

Meanwhile, Urhur gripped one of the bones strung around his neck, and a seething dimness shrouded his form. Still aiming for the leg, Bareris thrust. Urhur tried to snatch his limb out of the way, but the blade grazed him even so.

Malignancy burned up the sword and into Bareris's hand, chilling and stinging him like the blast from the wand. Urhur scrambled up and reached for him. A tattoo on the back of the necromancer's hand gleamed, releasing its power, whereupon his nails grew long and jagged as the claws of a ghoul.

By the time Bareris recovered from the shock of the hurt he'd just sustained, Urhur had already lunged near enough to rend and grab, too close for the sword to be of use. Bareris dropped the weapon and caught the mage by the wrists.

They wrestled, shoving and staggering back and forth, and as they did so, the bard caught glimpses of the rest of the fight. Aoth swung his falchion, its heavy blade shining blue with enchantment, and buried it in a dread warrior's chest. The creature stumbled, and Mirror, somewhat more visible now, his shadow weapon currently shaped like Aoth's, struck it as well. Meanwhile, Chathi brandished a hand wreathed in fire, and the other undead guard collapsed before her, breaking and crumbling in the process.

Bareris thought he should be faring as well or better than his comrades. He was stronger than Urhur and a superior brawler, but he didn't dare risk even a single scratch from the wizard's nails for fear it would incapacitate him, and every time he landed a head butt or stamp to the toes, his adversary's protective aura caused the impact to pain him as well.

Urhur abruptly opened his mouth wide, revealing that his teeth, too, had grown long and pointed. He yanked Bareris close and bit at his neck. Caught by surprise, the bard just barely managed to jerk his upper body backward in time. Drops of saliva spattered him as the crooked fangs gnashed shut.

Then, however, Urhur lurched forward, and his legs buckled beneath him. Employing the pommel of his falchion as a bludgeon, Aoth clubbed the necromancer's head a second time. Urhur slumped entirely limp. Sore and weak from the punishment he'd endured, Bareris tore away the necklace of bones, depriving the Red Wizard of his defensive aura, then threw him to the ground.