The Spectral Blaze

“Well, I’m certainly interested in hearing all about him.”

“Then it will be my pleasure to help you find him. Provided that the price is right.”

“How does ten gold-”

Something overhead made a thumping sound. Aoth looked up. One of the orcs on the battlements had an arrow sticking out of his chest. He tottered and pitched backward out of sight.

At the same instant, Jet spoke mind to mind, not with language but rather a wordless urging to look back down. As Aoth did, the medusa and his bodyguards finished snatching their scimitars from their scabbards.

Jet crouched, then, with a snap of his wings, sprang to tear the threatening creatures apart. The medusa hissed, hunched forward, and glared. The griffon jerked in mid-leap, and a vicarious spasm of pain and nausea knotted Aoth’s insides.

Despite the assault, Jet slammed down on one orc and pierced him with his talons. But the other bodyguard jumped clear, then came on the attack. Shaking and seeing double, the familiar ducked an initial sword cut.

Aoth couldn’t go to his aid. He had his own adversary. The medusa lunged and slashed at his throat.

Gripping his spear with both hands-he’d left his targe behind so he could manage the cursed tree branch-Aoth parried, then riposted with a thrust to the guts. The medusa sidestepped and made it look easy.

Maybe for him it was. As they traded attacks, Aoth observed how economical and precise his adversary’s actions were and how he always returned to a perfect guard after even the fiercest exchange. The creature was as adept with a scimitar as Khouryn was with an axe or Gaedy

And the poisonous power of a medusa’s gaze stabbed at Aoth whenever the exigencies of the duel obliged him to look his foe in the face. So far it was producing only twinges of headache, but it was bound to break through his defenses eventually.

Judging that he needed to finish the confrontation fast, he retreated right off the relatively flat space where the old fort sat and back onto the slope. He slid again, and swayed as he struggled to keep his balance. But he’d gained the distance and time he needed to rattle off rhyming words of power.

The medusa rushed him and cut at his head. Aoth blocked and as the two weapons banged together, the power with which he’d infused the spear discharged itself with a shriek and a flash. The scimitar snapped into several pieces.

Still glaring, the medusa retreated, dropped the hilt of his ruined sword, and snatched for a dagger. Aoth scrambled upward and thrust the spear between the creature’s ribs.

Just as he jerked it out again, an arrow streaked down and stuck in the ground beside his foot. He looked up and saw that, since they no longer had to worry about hitting their fallen chieftain, all the orcs on the battlements were aiming at him.

Then Gaedy

The rest of the vanguard was right behind them. A watersoul sprinted on his own two feet as easily as though he were traversing level ground, and everyone else clung to the backs of the scuttling, surefooted drakes.

By the time they reached the top, the wall was clear, and they streamed on into the ruin, past Jet where he lay and panted. Despite his sickness, he’d evidently killed the other one-eyed orc but then taken cover in the short tu

Are you all right? asked Aoth.

Of course, Jet answered. Especially if your female purges me. Go inside and finish it.

Aoth did, not that his comrades actually needed him. There really hadn’t been enough orcs to withstand even the vanguard, and Eider’s beak and claws, Gaedy

The one-sided nature of the little clash didn’t bother Aoth. Sellswords didn’t go in for chivalry, nor was he inclined to wax sentimental over orcs. But right at the end, a brown dog, the barbarians’ pet or mascot, presumably, sprang at him out of nowhere. He automatically whipped his spear into line, and the cur impaled itself, shuddered, and died.

For some reason that did make him feel a pang of regret. Or maybe it just reminded him that the whole fight had been pointless-indeed, counterproductive-and purely the result of someone’s blunder. He shook the dog’s carcass off the end of his weapon and went to find out whose.

He assembled his comrades in the fort’s dusty courtyard. “Who loosed that first arrow?” he asked. “The one that started everything.”

Gaedy

Son-liin winced at the contempt in his tone. “I shot but it was not the start of everything! The orc was drawing his bow. He was going to shoot you, Captain.”

“Did anyone else see that?” asked Aoth.

“I didn’t,” said Jet, “and I was right up there with you, watching for signs of treachery.”

“I have to admit,” said Mardiz-sul, “I didn’t see it either.”

“Because your imagination doesn’t run away with you in a tense situation,” Gaedy

“Mine doesn’t either!” Son-liin snapped. “I grew up in these mountains! I’m more accustomed to their dangers than any of you!”

“You are one of their dangers,” Gaedy

A moment earlier, Aoth had been more than ready to berate the person responsible for starting the fight. But Gaedy

“Well, we all came out of the scrape in one piece,” he said. “And it was a nice shot, all the way from the trail up the hill to the top of the wall. You yourself couldn’t have done too much better.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gaedy

One firestormer muttered to the comrade next to him. Aoth couldn’t catch the words, but from their tone, he surmised that the genasi agreed with Gaedy

“Son-liin,” said Aoth, “you’ll look more carefully next time. Now let’s move on. We captured this miserable outpost, so we might as well search it. I want maps. Papers. I doubt that any of the orcs was much of a writer, but their chieftain may have been.”

Lightning ripped through the black sky, and rain fell in torrents to hammer the rooftops of Luthcheq. Watching through the casement of her chamber, Jhesrhi thought that it was as if the true gods were rebuking Tchazzar’s pretensions by demonstrating what genuine divine power could do.

But even if that fancy had been true, the mad dragon was incapable of comprehending such a lesson. So it was up to Jhesrhi to address his ambitions in a more practical way.

Despite the danger, she was eager to do so. For a long while, she’d felt torn between Gaedy

But his actions had steadily chipped away at her faith. Maybe it had been the sight of Khouryn bound to the rack, or of the poor, bewildered old man with his tongue torn out, that finally shattered it altogether. Maybe it was the eerie moment when she saw something twist in the dragon’s mind, and he started believing the wretch groveling before them truly was her father, for no other reason than that he wished it to be so.

Whatever it was, it had finally turned her against him for good and all because she believed that even if some miracle healed his reason, he’d remain just as vicious and devious as before. A creature who, even if he imagined himself capable of loving human beings, ultimately regarded them as nothing more than pawns on a lanceboard.