Whisper of Venom

Meralaine gave Oraxes a grin. “It was an immolith,” she said. “An undead demon. So I knew how-”

Behind her, the immolith’s fire leaped up again. Heaving itself to its knees, it reached for her. She pivoted, saw the huge, burning hand right in front of her face, and froze.

Oraxes cried a word of power and squeezed his hands together like he was making a snowball. Then he hurled the imaginary missile. It became real in midflight and struck the immolith’s skeletal head in a burst of frost and steam.

An instant later, a black arrow punched into the side of the demon’s skull.

The immolith collapsed as it had before. Panting, heart thumping and scratches and blisters smarting, Oraxes watched it for a while. It showed no signs of rearing up again.

“That was the last of those,” said Gaedy

Back home that dismissive comment might have incensed Oraxes. Here … well, he had to admit others had suffered worse. Much worse. “It’s not. Are we wi

“Not yet,” the archer said. “Maybe not … Never mind that.” He turned to the spearmen who’d engaged the immolith and who were currently milling around in disorder. “Spears! What in the name of the Black Bow is wrong with you? Form up!”

Once Aoth descended to the secret portion of the cellars, there was no doubt whatsoever that wyrmkeepers had laid claim to it. They hadn’t brought in a veritable treasure trove of icons the way Halonya had upstairs. But there were pentagons, and wheel-like emblems depicting five dragon heads with curving necks radiating from a central point, drawn with care on every wall. A rack in a cramped little armory held military picks, and, clustered together, the baneful enchantments smoldering in the steel made his teeth ache. The five tapers in every candelabra shined red, green, blue, shadowy black, and ghostly white.

Fortunately, he had yet to run into any of the wyrmkeepers themselves. He supposed they needed sleep like everyone else and would rather get it in a warm, properly furnished bedroom than a bare, chilly cellar, no matter how holy the latter was.

There’ll be someone, said Jet. Keep your guard up.

Aoth passed a strong room, its sturdy, ironbound door standing ajar, and wondered how much wealth it had contained before the former householder cleared it out. Next came a torture chamber, sparsely equipped by Thayan standards-with only a rack in the middle of the space and a few whips, pincers, thumbscrews, and pears hanging on hooks on the back wall-but capable of inflicting its share of agony nonetheless. There were dry brown stains here and there, but even fire-kissed eyes couldn’t tell just how old they were. Aoth scowled and quickened his stride a little.

But he need scarcely have bothered, because the one cell was just a few paces farther on, conveniently close to the torments. Her hands and ankles bound with coarse rope woven of multicolored fibers, a woman with golden hair lay on her side on the stone floor behind the iron bars.

“Cera!” said Aoth, keeping his voice low. “Cera!”

She opened her eyes and peered back at him. “Aoth?” she croaked. She seemed more dazed than joyful, like her captors had given her drugs or tortured the sense right out of her.

“Yes. Hang on.” He tried the door. It was locked, and the key was nowhere in sight.

He drew his short sword. Among other things, it had raw force sealed inside it to enable the wielder to thrust or cut with prodigious strength. He slipped the blade between the door and its frame, right above the lock, pried, and released a portion of the power. The grille snapped open.

He hurried into the cage and kneeled down beside her. Up close she stank of blood, sweat, and other filth. “How badly are you hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head. “The rope … I can’t think.…”

He set down the sword, drew a dagger, and sawed at the bonds that held her hands behind her back. They were tough and tried to squirm away from the edge of the blade like snakes. But he kept at it. Eventually one parted, and then the next.

“I …” she said. “I saw … there’s a beast down here! A drake! A priest walks it by every so often. It stares at me like it wants to eat me.” The action of the knife tugged on her arms, and she gasped.

“Did they rack you?” asked Aoth.

“I think … pulling on me. Yes.”

He felt his jaw clench.

The last loop of rope confining her wrists parted. He shifted around to work on her ankles. “Once you’re free, can you heal yourself? Enough to walk, and run if you need to?”

“I think so.”

The final loop parted, and he pulled the writhing pieces of cord away from her feet. She closed her eyes, drew a long breath, and murmured a prayer. A warm golden glow supplanted the chill and shadowy dimness of the cellar.

And, down the hallway, something snarled.

Maybe the drake was close enough to see the magical sunlight, or maybe it had caught Aoth’s scent. It didn’t much matter which. Either way, it and its master were coming.

Hasos walked the battlements, spoke a word of encouragement to an archer or crossbowman from time to time, and surveyed the battle below. Pools of light periodically bloomed or guttered to darkness as wizards tried to illuminate their enemies and keep their allies hidden. Their supply of arrows depleted, griffon riders swooped down at the enemy like owls attacking mice. Masses of infantry shoved and ground together. Horsemen circled wide, maneuvering to attack some group of foemen from the flank or rear. Animated by sorcery, a trebuchet took laborious little steps. The throwing arm whipped like a scorpion’s tail to hammer orcs and kobolds on the ground.

Hasos turned to the aide trailing along behind him. “What do you think?”

The man shook his head. “I don’t know, milord. It looks like it could go either way.”

Useless! Hasos thought, even though he knew it wasn’t fair. A subordinate wasn’t supposed to have keener judgment than his commander, and Hasos couldn’t make up his mind either.

But precisely because he was the commander, he had to.

He could think of solid reasons to hold back. The war hero had put Aoth Fezim in charge, not Gaedy

And if the effort to break the siege failed, as it surely must without his wholehearted support, the Brotherhood of the Griffon would suffer heavy casualties. Afterward Tchazzar would strip Aoth of his authority, because the war-mage had abandoned his command at a crucial moment. Besides, no one would allow the captain of only a defeated, shattered company to lead the defense of an entire realm under any circumstances.

Which ought to benefit Soolabax, for how could it be wise to entrust the town’s defense to a devil-worshiping Thayan arcanist? By the Yellow Sun, with the griffon riders gone, at least the food would last longer. The beasts ate prodigious quantities of meat.

But unfortunately, it wasn’t just wretched outlander mercenaries trading spear thrusts and sword strokes with the kobolds and orcs. Aoth had mustered good Chessentan troops from elsewhere along the border, and they too would die without Hasos’s support.

How could he call himself a true Chessentan noble if he let that happen? How could he ever again sit in the seat of judgment that he still privately thought of as his father’s chair without a withering sense of shame?

He scowled. “Come on. Let’s get to the gate.”

He arrived in the nick of time. Faces twisted with anger, more of the sellswords stood facing ranks of Hasos’s men, who had positioned themselves to protect the windlass that raised the portcullis.