Unholy

"I don't remember ordering you lads to make a night patrol," Gaedy

Toriak wondered if a lie would help, then decided it plainly wouldn't. He took a deep breath. "We're leaving."

"Remember the compact you signed when you joined the Brotherhood. You can leave between campaigns, not when we're in the field. Then it's desertion, and it's punished the same as in any other army."

"We already took plenty of loot from the Dread Ring," Toriak said. "It's stupid to hang around any longer."

A dark form reared up, and despite the gloom, he recognized its contours immediately. His voice had woken Dodger, and in all likelihood, the voices of his companions would rouse their particular griffons. He made a surreptitious gesture, hoping they'd understand he was encouraging them to talk.

"I take it," Gaedy

Standing to Toriak's right, Ralivar snorted. "Things like that just don't happen. Not anymore. Maybe they never did, except in stories." His griffon raised its head.

"I'm skeptical myself." Casually, as though making some petty adjustment to his garments, Gaedy

"I'll risk it," Duma said. Maybe her griffon hadn't been asleep, or at least not soundly, for it rose to its feet at once. "It's better than fighting in the vanguard time after time."

"But that's what sellswords do," Gaedy

"We don't care! Like Toriak said, we're leaving! Do you think you can stop us and four griffons too?" Sopsek half-shouted, making sure his mount would hear. Toriak winced at the loudness, but no answering cry of alarm sounded back in camp, and at least Sopsek's griffon did spring to its feet, cast about, and, like its fellows, come prowling across the field to stand with its rider. Sensing the tension between their masters and Gaedy

"I promise that at the very least, I'll stop a couple of you," Gaedy

To the Abyss with this, Toriak thought. He drew breath to order his mount to attack, shifted his grip on his saddle to use it as a shield against the officer's arrow, and then a huge shape emerged from the gloom at Gaedy

Jet screeched, a cry like an eagle's scream with an undertone of leonine roar. The other griffons shrank back before the leader of their pride, then slunk away from their human masters.

"Now," said Gaedy

Gaedy

Gaedy

"Glad to," the familiar rasped. "Do you think more men will try to leave?"

"I hope not. With luck, those four will warn other malcontents that we're alert to the possibility. And speaking of them, I need another favor. Please don't tell Aoth they sneaked out here tonight."

"You don't want them punished?"

"They're good soldiers. It's just that they know we're in a tough spot, and they had a little crisis of confidence, possibly exacerbated by strong drink plundered from the Dread Ring's cellars. They'll rediscover their nerve in the morning. Besides, I have my own reputation to consider."

Jet cocked his aquiline head. "Your reputation for not caring about anyone but yourself?"

Gaedy

A chunk of rock and soil supporting a single pine tree floated just west of the Lapendrar, one of many such islets in the sky, raised by the Spellplague. It commanded a view of Anhaurz, so Khouryn and Aoth landed their griffons on top of it, dismounted, walked to the dropoff, and surveyed the city.

Khouryn reflected that despite the distance, Aoth's luminous sapphire eyes no doubt made out every detail with utter clarity. Squinting, Khouryn had a harder time of it but fancied he was seeing enough to draw conclusions.

After a time, Aoth said, "It didn't always look like that, but then, I remember hearing that the blue fire destroyed it. It's been completely rebuilt since then."

Khouryn dug his fingers into his beard to scratch an itch on his chin. "The question is, why? The civil war was over, and while this town commands the river crossing, it's also well inland from the edge of the realm. To say the least, the average lord wouldn't fortify it to the extent that this one-or his predecessor-has."

"Then I gather you wouldn't relish laying siege to the place."

Khouryn snorted. "You gather rightly. The bridge amounts to a castle by itself, and combined with the rest, it's as bad as the Dread Ring. Maybe worse." He gri

Aoth gri

"Which we won't find," Khouryn said, "because the spring thaw and the spring rains have swollen the river. Actually, we'll be headed toward the border even though it will look like we're still trying to march deeper into the country."

"Not bad, eh? We might actually make it out of Thay with a company left to lead."

"As long as the bard and the ghost succeed at their task, and then everything else works out. As long as we aren't still diddling around taking in our surroundings when Szass Tam sends forth his tides of death."

Aoth's smile turned wry and crooked. "You know, for a moment there, I actually felt my spirits lift."

Even in Szass Tam's own city, where his undead minions were ubiquitous and the living scurried like mice to make way for them, there were rebels, and Arizima Nathandem was their leader. In her youth, the Red Wizards had taken her as an apprentice, until a training exercise gone awry left her with a persistent stammer and the inability to recite spells with the requisite precision. Then they'd cast her out as a useless cripple.

At first agreeing with that judgment, she'd fallen a long way, her Mulan blood notwithstanding. She'd landed in a festhall and still worked there today, though age had long since wrinkled her face, whitened her hair, and stained some of her teeth and outright stolen the rest. Now she managed the house, and it served the rebel cause admirably. No one questioned it when people of all stripes came and went at any hour of the day or night.

She conducted Bareris and Mirror into a sort of mock torture chamber, equipped with soft leather whips, switches, blindfolds, gags, and restraints, but no implements likely to inflict permanent harm. Just toys to amuse a Thayan noble bored with ordinary forms of sexual congress.