The Spectral Blaze

Throughout the action that followed, Meralaine managed to create the appearance of such fierce, fanatical resistance that when the battle ended, it seemed credible that the attackers hadn’t succeeded in taking any of the coven “alive.” The wyrmkeepers weren’t happy about it, but Oraxes mollified them by “discovering” folded papers in the pocket of a zombie’s robe. The ambiguous but suggestive jottings looked like just the clues to lead the Brotherhood on to other enemies of the Crown. It would simply take a little study.

It was all Oraxes could do to keep from laughing as Sphorrid Nyra congratulated him on the success of the assault. He took a breath to steady himself and started to reply with the same cordiality. Then, suddenly, something covered his mouth.

That jolted him awake, to find that he really did have a hand clamped over his lips and a dagger at his throat as well. It was dark in Aoth’s tent, with just the first gray hint of dawn light seeping through the canvas, but he could still tell it was Sphorrid and the other wyrmkeepers standing over him and Meralaine. One of the priests was covering the necromancer’s mouth and holding a big, curved knife with a single-edged blade to her neck as well.

“Don’t struggle,” Sphorrid said. “Don’t raise your voice above a whisper. Don’t say anything that even sounds like it might be the start of a spell. Otherwise, I swear by the Five Breaths that we’ll kill you both immediately.”

He nodded to the priest restraining Oraxes, and the man uncovered his mouth.

“I never did meet the real Aoth Fezim, did I?” the wyrmlord continued. “It was you all along. That’s why you’re sleeping in his pavilion and his bed, to keep up the imposture until we leave camp.”

Oraxes kept silent.

“Why was it necessary?” Sphorrid asked. “Where is Fezim?”

Oraxes groped for a credible, useful lie. He couldn’t think of any.

Sphorrid shrugged. “Suit yourself. If you won’t talk here, I guarantee you will when we get you to Luthcheq. Let’s get them up and dressed. Make sure they don’t have any weapons or charms hidden in their clothes.”

The wyrmkeeper with the dagger threw the sheets back and dragged Oraxes up off the cot, and the one with the knife did the same to Meralaine. Oraxes felt a flash of anger that the priests were seeing her naked, but there was nothing lewd in their demeanor. They were intent on their business, and that, he realized, was worse. Had she been able to distract them, perhaps it would given him a chance to… do something.

But since that hadn’t happened, maybe he could serve as a distraction for her. As the third acolyte started pawing through their discarded garments, he asked, “How did you know?”

Sphorrid sneered. The filed teeth made the expression jarringly ugly. “You aren’t nearly as clever as you imagine. Wyrmkeepers are priests. Did you think you could pass reanimated corpses off as living men and we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference?”

“We hoped,” Oraxes said. The acolyte tossed him his clothes. “We were high above them, and it was dark. Why didn’t you confront us on the spot?” He already knew the answer, but it was the only thing he could think of to say to keep the conversation going.

“Because I had to assume,” Sphorrid said, “that all the soldiers you brought on the raid were in on the deception. In other words, you and they had the four of us outnumbered.”

“We still do,” Oraxes said, pulling on his breeches. “The entire Brotherhood is camped around this tent.”

“And for the most part,” Sphorrid answered, “fast asleep. You’ll make sure that any who are awake don’t notice anything amiss as you walk us to our steeds because I’ve already indicated what will happen if they do. Now, both of you, hurry and finish dressing.”

Oraxes and Meralaine drew out the process as long as they could, but that wasn’t long at all, and Tchazzar’s agents never relaxed their vigilance. When the captives were fully clad, the two priests sheathed their blades and picked up their fighting picks. All four wyrmkeepers held the weapons in a casual-looking way that would nonetheless allow them to swing in an instant. And they stayed close behind Oraxes and Meralaine as they all exited the pavilion.

As Sphorrid had said, the whole camp seemed asleep in the last precious, fading bit of the night before the bugles started blowing and griffons began screeching, horses neighing, and mules braying for their provender. Snores rumbled from the various tents, and from the men who, in the warm summer weather, had opted to sleep out under the stars.

I have to do something, Oraxes thought. It will get me killed, but if all four of them are busy butchering me, that might give Meralaine a real chance.

But the right moment never came. Or else he hesitated whenever one of the wyrmkeepers glanced elsewhere or he got a quarter step farther ahead of them, and so lost his opportunities. They all rounded the big, patched tent containing the armorers’ portable forge, and they were facing the paddock where the drakkensteeds were waiting.

The reptiles gave odd cries, harsh, yet low and tremulous, when they spied their masters. They already had their saddles cinched around their middles and their saddlebags buckled in place, and they crouched down to make it easy to mount when the priests and their prisoners were still several paces away.

“Put them on the steeds one at a time,” Sphorrid said. “The boy first.”

Oraxes’s particular captor shoved him forward then backhanded him across the ear when he tried to mount. “Not in the saddle, blasphemer,” growled the priest. “In front of it.”

That made for a precarious and uncomfortable perch, with the drakkensteed’s vertebrae digging into Oraxes’s tender parts. Still, as the priest looked down to clip his fighting pick to the saddle, he thought Lady Luck might finally have given him his chance. But no, curse it, it wasn’t so, not with two of the other wyrmkeepers still hovering right behind Meralaine.

Oraxes’s keeper mounted behind him, buckled the straps that would hold him in his seat, and pulled his dagger from its sheath. Meralaine’s special guard got her and himself situated in the same way. Sphorrid and the other acolyte swung themselves onto their drakkensteeds. Then the reptiles rose, scuttled, lashed their batlike wings, and climbed into the air. The camp and Mourktar fell away beneath them.

This is it, Oraxes thought, clinging to the beast beneath him as best he could. As soon as we’re clear of the Brotherhood, they’ll set down again, gag us, and bind our hands. Then we really won’t have a chance. If I’m going to make a move, it has to be now.

But what move could that be when it was a struggle just to keep from sliding off the drakkensteed and his captor’s dagger was poised at his back? What would Gaedy

Even in the midst of his desperation, he noticed that was a strange thought for him. He wasn’t used to wondering what others might do, probably because, when he was growing up in squalor in Luthcheq’s arcane quarter, who had there ever been worth emulating? Certainly not his teacher, an able wizard, but a bitter, drunken wreck of a man in every other way.

He shoved such useless reflections and memories aside. Think, curse it! Think, think, think!

Like a griffon, the drakkensteed had no reins. Was it possible that a rider controlled such a reptile in the same way, with voice commands and by touching it on the neck? Could the system of signals be the same for both sorts of creature?

Oraxes didn’t know, but maybe he could find out. His hands were already on the drakkensteed’s scaly, bony neck. Indeed, he could hardly have lifted them away without risking a tumble.

He surreptitiously pressed his right index finger into the reptile’s neck. It turned a hair in that direction. Oraxes held his breath while he waited for the man behind him to react but he didn’t. The shift had been too minimal to capture his attention.