The masked witches

Remember the dead, but move on, he thought. Focus on getting his weary, wounded brothers home, claiming and taming the griffons, and building the lodge into a warrior fraternity whose fame would live forever.

Smiling, he stepped back out into the morning sunlight to organize the trek south. And then he faltered, because five stag warriors were waiting in front of the doorway. Their brown eyes fixed on him.

Vandar had been so busy seeing to the needs of his own people that he d half forgotten the fey. It occurred to him that they might well feel demoralized and confused. They d suffered heavy casualties just like the berserkers, and on top of that, they d lost the lord and progenitor who had, until yesterday, given purpose and order to their lives.

Uh hello, he said.

My brothers and I are grateful to you for fighting alongside us, and we mourn for your fallen comrades. And Well, plainly, our work is done now. The fight is over. So I suppose you should take whatever you want in the way of plunder and go back home. And know that we will always be your friends.

The stag warriors kept staring at him. They didn t understand a word he d just blathered, and with no one left who spoke Elvish, there was nobody to translate.

Vandar gestured to the open gate and the wide world outside. The stag men followed the sweep of his arm, but then just looked back at him.

He shook his head in perplexity. It occurred to him to wonder why they were interested in him in particular. What differentiated him from all the other humans? It might be that he was the one striding around giving instructions, but he suspected it was the fey weapons.

He lifted the red spear to display it. The stag warriors bobbed their heads and rang the bells in their antlers.

All right, Vandar said. Understand, I m not commanding you to do this. You really are free to go home. But if you want to come with me and my brothers when we move out, you can.

And that was what the stag men did.

As everyone trudged southward through the snow, a cold wind blew at their backs. Vandar reflected that surely Yhelbruna would be able to communicate with the stag warriors. She could send them home.

Unless, of course, they truly didn t want to go. What if there was something in their natures that made them need a chieftain different than themselves, and they d selected Vandar for the role?

He supposed that the lodge would have to make accommodations for them, and fetch their females and children to join them in Immilmar. Just think how feared and famous he and his brothers would be if they had griffons to ride into battle and a band of fey archers for allies!

He imagined that intriguing possibility for several strides before he felt a throb of warning from his spear and sword. A heartbeat later, one of the men behind him shouted.

Vandar turned. With her sails billowing and canvas wings spread, the Storm of Vengeance was flying out of the northeast like a dragon. The she-demon figurehead leered down at the folk on the ground, as did the crimson skull on the flapping ensign.

Looking up from below, it was all but impossible to make out what the sellswords aboard the skyship were doing. But Vandar s every instinct screamed that they were attacking. That, and not Aoth and Jet striking at him from the air, was what the mound spirit s warning had portended.

In that moment of ghastly clarity, Vandar even understood exactly why it was happening. The Griffon Lodge and its allies had destroyed the undead threat to Rashemen. But if Mario Bez and his crew killed the victors, they could steal the credit and the prize for the victory.

Vandar cast about. There was nowhere on the rolling scrubland to take cover. The mercenaries had evidently hidden their ship until their prey had marched away from the relative safety of the fortress, then flown after them to catch them in the open.

And what could the exhausted warriors on the ground do about it? Men who d been riding in litters or limping along using their spears for crutches struggled to stand on their own two feet. Others screeched hoarsely, struggling to raise the fury one more time, and hefted the javelins they surely realized could never reach the enemy in the sky. The stag men with their longbows might do a little better, but not enough for it to matter.

Vandar gripped his spear and the hilt of his sword. You re magical, he silently pleaded. With the wizards and the sunlady gone, you re the only magic we have left. Do something! Tell me what to do!

But the weapons didn t answer, at least not in any way he could perceive. And he realized that, powerful though they were, they couldn t grow wings on his back.

The Storm of Vengeance swooped in at an angle to the road, and the travelers strung out along it. A round object arced over the ship s side. When it hit the ground, it exploded into a cloud of green vapor. Those touched by the fumes fell, retched and thrashed for a moment, and then lay still.

A deafening sound knocked down other warriors. Bleeding from their ears and noses, some of them did try to get up again, but only a single stag warrior succeeded.

Javelins and arrows flew up from the ground, but as impotently as Vandar had expected.

He remembered his fantasies of just a few moments before and despised himself for them. Because he was never going to lead his brothers to glory. By the time the pale sun reached its zenith in the gray winter sky, the Griffon Lodge would be extinct.

He reached down inside himself to find his own rage. For after all, what else was there to do?

EPILOGUE

Aoth didn t know how long he d wandered through the dark, silent labyrinth of tombs, graveyards, and funerary sculpture. Long enough for thirst to dry his throat. Long enough, maybe, for the struggle beneath the Fortress of the Half-Demon to grind to an end in one way or another.

Long enough for Cera and Jhesrhi to come to grief?

At the thought of them trapped in the cold, dead maze like he was, maybe fighting for their lives against creatures like the ones Dai Shan had hinted at, his jaw clenched. Suddenly, he couldn t believe he d resigned himself to losing Cera if her calling led her to a high priestess s throne. Surely they could still find a way to be together, even if it was only for part of the year. Nor could he credit that he d proceeded so gingerly when looking into Jhesrhi s transformation. True, she hated talking about intimate matters, but he couldn t just watch and wait if something truly bad had happened to her, especially if it wasn t over.

Things got away from me, he thought. Because the last couple of years were hard. There d been the mad schemes of necromancers and dragons to thwart, and the Brotherhood to haul back from the edge of ruin. But it was a poor excuse, and he promised himself he d do better when the three of them were free of this wretched place.

First of all, he needed to free himself. As Dai Shan had observed, he lacked the specialized sort of esoteric knowledge that might have told him how, so all he could do was to explore and examine his surroundings with his fire-kissed eyes. They hadn t observed anything helpful yet, but he had to believe that eventually, they would.

Whenever he happened upon an arch crowned with three notches, he looked long and hard before moving on. And in time, he came to one that opened on an ossuary, an octagonal chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Intricate floral patterns, each made of a particular human bone, decorated the walls.

He studied the entry for a time, then sighed and started to turn away. But before he could, the view beyond the threshold flickered. It became a more modest vault, with six stone sarcophagi on pedestals. And the space was only dark for want of light, not choked with the cold, vile murk through which he d been moving. But it stayed for only an instant before reverting to the crypt of bones.