The masked witches

If we know it s an ambush, said a warrior at Aoth s back, what do you say we don t walk into it? Let s find a way around.

No, said Vandar, his red spear gleaming in the glow Cera had conjured to light their way. Let s turn the trap against the trappers.

Aoth nodded. I agree, he said. It s not like we can actually avoid fighting the demon. The Nars will pull it out of its cage eventually. At least up ahead there s room for a bunch of us to fight at the same time, and since we know what to expect well, partly we can give the enemy a surprise instead of the other way around.

Should we find out what the Stag King thinks? Cera asked.

No, said Aoth. If he wanted to voice his opinions, he should have walked in front with the rest of us. Here s what we are going to do

When he had finished laying it out for them, and his orders had been whispered from man to man down the tu

No, the griffon answered. If the Nars have tu

Good, because we re about to release a demon. It wouldn t be a particularly clever thing to do if the real enemy were already long gone.

It likely isn t a clever thing to do, anyway. But that never stopped you before.

The word came back up the tu

As the leaders prowled into the crypt, Aoth noticed that not only was it large, but also the vaulted ceiling was high enough to accommodate even a true giant. Wonderful. As he steeled himself to deliberately step on the outermost line of the pentacle, Vandar brushed past him.

Fine, Aoth thought, you do it. And the berserker did, nearly stamping on that part of the mosaic.

The demon exploded into view and roared a word of power at the same time. It was every bit as huge as Aoth had feared it might be, with horns, a lupine head, a shaggy red-black pelt, and disproportionately large crab-like pincers at the end of each long, burly arm. The charge of force the word carried knocked Aoth and his comrades staggering.

He found his footing, shouted his own word of command, and hurled a thunderbolt at the demon s torso. Jhesrhi matched him with a fan-shaped flare of fire; and Cera, with a scorching shaft of Amaunator s light. Seemingly startled by the speed of their response, the glabrezu flailed its claws and stumbled a step.

But it wasn t enough for the three of them to strike back. Their allies needed to start fighting, and once again, Aoth had to admit that the madmen of Rashemen had their uses. Even his sellswords might have hesitated, if only for a heartbeat or two, if such a huge horror had suddenly burst into view directly in front of them. The berserkers didn t. Vandar screeched like a griffon, his brothers responded in kind, and they all charged.

What Aoth found even more impressive was that they acted exactly as he d ordered them to. Some threw themselves at the demon, while others raced to intercept the enemies who, he was certain, were about to pour into the chamber from the other tu

Vandar was one of the warriors who rushed the demon. He thrust the red spear completely through the creature s left leg. The glabrezu pivoted toward him, and in so doing, sidestepped and jerked the beserker off his feet. Vandar let go of the spear, and, nimble as a tumbler in a carnival, rolled to his feet with the scarlet broadsword in his hand.

Aoth aimed his spear at the glabrezu s chest and rattled off the first words of an incantation that would blast it with a rainbow of destructive effects. Suddenly, the light in the chamber flickered and dimmed, and behind him, Cera screamed.

The Stag King had some inkling that Aoth Fezim considered him a shirker, and it alternately a

Besides, someone needed to be rearguard Aoth acknowledged that himself. So why shouldn t it be the Stag King and his servants? Unless he missed his guess, the fighting here at the back of the column was likely to prove every bit as hard and as important as the battle at the front.

An echoing roar, the shouts of men, the cries of other things, and the boom and crackle of magic all mixed together, told him the battle had begun. He peered down the passage behind him, at the arched openings leading to other tu

Dark figures surged up the tu

And is that supposed to daunt me? he asked himself, gri

The Stag King drove his weapon into another ghoul s chest, smashing ribs, pulping the rotten organs inside, and snapping its spine. Then he struck a zombie s head off. He d already lost count of how many foes he d dispatched, and if he wasn t careful, he was going to give himself over entirely to the frenzy and urgencies of melee, to think of the opponent in front of him and nothing more. Especially since, with the fight raging along a corridor and in the mouths of the intersecting passages, it was virtually impossible to keep track of the overall tactical picture anyway.

But he knew that as the leader of his group, he had to try, partly because so far, the durthans hadn t made their presence felt. When they started weaving magic, it would be his task to counter it.

Perhaps believing its lack of substance would keep it safe, a ghost with a wavering smudge of a face flew at him with wispy hands outstretched. He sliced it to tatters with his axe. A dead goblin with a crushed head swung its scimitar at the Stag King s kidney. He parried and smashed its skull even farther out of shape. It flopped back against the creatures shoving up behind it.

Power suddenly shivered through the air. It wasn t truly sound or light or heat or cold, but anyone with mystical abilities would have sensed it somehow. The Stag King felt it as a twinge in his joints and a vile bitter taste on his tongue.

A phantom bear faltered as the witches sought to retake control of it. A ghostly badger fell down convulsing.

The Stag King sneered, focused his will to slap the durthans power away from their former familiars, and found that it wasn t that easy. Apparently the undead witches had taken advantage of the time between battles to figure out how to contend with him more successfully.