The masked witches

Aoth frowned, because the dismal wail had a muffled, faraway quality. Even as he listened, he could almost doubt that he was truly hearing anything at all, except, maybe, the begi

They re working necromancy right now, Aoth concluded. Or they re undead themselves.

Or both, answered Jet.

For a while, the masked women only moaned. Then they started making beckoning motions toward the tree, curling what Aoth now observed to be gray, shriveled fingers. The patches of rot seethed and bubbled, and the the whole oak writhed. More bark flaked from the trunk, and twigs fell from the branches.

Suddenly, a figure lurched from the tree like a drunkard stumbling over a rut in the street.

The entity was twice as tall as any of the undead hathrans for Aoth was virtually certain that s what they were and seemingly made of a blur of greenish phosphorescence. Or most of it was. As the oak had pockets of decay eating into it, the insubstantial giant had bits and patches of darkness blemishing its form.

The giant flailed its hand at the witches, but the blow passed harmlessly over their heads. The only effect was to cost Vandar s wise old spirit for that it surely was, not slain after all, but wounded and crippled its balance, and it dropped noiselessly to its knees. A couple of the flesh-and-blood wolves snarled, howling at its helplessness and humiliation. This display of cruel mirth led Aoth to consider the possibility that the beasts were actually werewolves.

One of the witches silenced them with a snap of her fingers before she and her sisters resumed their moaning. The patches of shadow inside the giant expanded, sending inky tendrils slithering through the glow, as the spirit hung its head and shuddered.

Aoth wondered how long to let the witches continue. He and his comrades were apt to learn quite a bit as they watched. Yet they couldn t allow the oak spirit to be killed, enslaved, or corrupted in some fundamental way.

He was still considering the matter when Vandar screamed a war cry that was a fair imitation of a griffon s screech, sprang up from under the pine where he d lain concealed, and charged. He d taken off his beadwork regalia, perhaps to not risk it getting damaged or bloodstained.

Startled, the witches and their four-footed servants froze for a moment. It gave the berserker who certainly appeared berserk at that moment a chance to land a cut to the head of one of the corporeal wolves. The beast fell down but rolled to its feet again, its resistance to common steel confirming Aoth s suspicion.

Idiot! said Jet with a snarl.

Aoth agreed. He hadn t been too worried about the undead witches superior numbers or their presumably potent magic to that point, because he d intended that he and his allies would make a coordinated surprise attack. But that couldn t happen anymore.

Of course, Aoth thought, some folk might say that the effects of Vandar s recklessness weren t all bad, because Vandar wasn t really a comrade. He was a competitor, and Aoth s mission would be that much simpler if the Rashemi didn t survive the consequences of his folly. But even as the thought flickered through his mind, he was already aiming his spear; and Jet, discerning his actual intent, was diving.

Aoth spoke a word of command, and darts of blue light hurtled from the head of his weapon into the body of the wounded werewolf. The shapeshifter collapsed, but unlike with Vandar s attack, didn t jump back up.

Staying crouched behind a pine tree, Jhesrhi made a jabbing motion with her staff. The brass glowed, and so did her golden eyes, while the evergreen boughs brushing against the metal charred. Flames leaped from the tip of an arcane weapon, a

Cera stood straight up and stepped out into the open. Swinging her gilded mace over her head, she shouted, Your time is past!

Light flared around her, as though, in the middle of the night, she was nonetheless standing in sunshine. A shadow wolf lunging at Vandar s flank withered away to nothing, and several of the witches recoiled.

But one of the undead didn t flinch: a witch who had nearly completed a spell. Glaring in Vandar s direction, her voice rose on the final syllables of her incantation, as she brandished an orb of black crystal over her head.

Jet leveled out from his dive and hurtled at her. His talons slammed into her body, yanked her off her feet, and dragged her across the cleared area. In the process of tearing free, his claws ripped the witch apart.

With a reflexive stab of alarm, Aoth saw that Jet didn t have enough room to climb back up into the sky. The clear space wasn t long enough, and the familiar was going too fast.

Relax, said Jet. He furled his wings, and he and his master plunged to earth just a couple of paces shy of the tree with which they d been about to collide.

The griffon whirled to confront the foes rushing to attack. A ghostly wolf sprang, and he met it with a snap of his beak.

Unfortunately, the shadow beast s insubstantial nature protected it. It plunged right through the griffon s beak and sank its fangs into his chest. Thanks to their psychic link, Aoth felt the resulting burst of frigid pain.

But he couldn t afford to pay attention to it. He had to trust the griffon to deal with the close combat while he fought the witches hanging back to attack at range.

There were three of them. The one on the left wore brown robes and a wooden mask through which her milky eyes peered. She was pointing a dagger at him. The witch in the middle sported a black cloak and hood sewn with an over-layer of dangling bones. Her mask was a leering skull face that had evidently come from a real skull. In contrast to the others, the third witch had thrown back her cloak to reveal a spindly form clad only in a steel mask and a ragged, mold-spotted shift. Intricate tattooing crawled on every inch of her exposed gray skin.

All three were already chanting and sweeping their arcane foci through mystic passes. Aoth discharged another of the ones stored inside his spear.

A curtain of flying slashing blades flashed into existence and flew toward the trio. The witch with the milky eyes and the one cloaked in bones reeled out of the spell s effect with clothes and flesh tattered. The former s left arm hung useless, all but severed. But the tattooed hathran sprang clear like a cat, before any of the blades could touch her. She snarled the final word of her spell and clenched her fist.

A cloud of swirling vapor burst into existence around Aoth. His eyes burned, flooding with blinding tears. The same fire seared him from his nostrils and his lips all the way down into his chest. He coughed and choked, unable to catch his breath.

Aoth activated the tattoo he wore to counter poison, slapping at it through his mail. The burning abated for him, but he could still feel the echo of Jet s distress.

The griffon spread his wings, lashed them, and leaped, carrying them clear of the cloud. Shaking, he retched and spat.

Are you all right? asked Aoth.

Fine! the griffon said with a snarl. Just don t let them do it again!

Aoth could tell the griffon wasn t fine. He, himself, could barely breathe and barely see. But Jet was right. There was no time for anything but battle.

Blinking, Aoth cast about for the trio of undead hathrans. Residual sickness from the poison and dazzling flashes Jhesrhi and Cera fighting their own foes with conjured fire and sunlight made it harder to find them than it should have been. The first thing to catch his eye was a corpse lying in the fog cloud, slowly warping from wolf back into man, while a pair of lupine shadows charged out of the vapor after Jet. Vandar, painted with blood from at least two wounds, swung his sword and cut a hathran s neck.