Whisper of Venom: Brotherhood of the Griffon, Book II

by Richard Lee Byers

  Aoth wanted to conserve his power. But that particular war band had soldiers riding bounding drakes, as well as a pair of shambling, long-nosed war trolls. It made sense to soften them up a little.

  Once Jet carried him beyond the reach of their arrows and quarrels, he twisted in the saddle and looked for some sign that Tchazzar had entered the battle. The Firelord knew, it shouldn’t be hard to spot.

  But you’re afraid he’ll balk, the griffon said.

  Jhesrhi stayed behind to encourage him, Aoth replied. Unfortunately, Halonya’s there too, without me to intimidate her. We just have to hope—

  A roar thundered across the scrubland, drowning out the rest of the muddled cacophony of battle. Wings lashing, golden eyes burning, blue and yellow flames leaping from his mouth, the red dragon rose from the center of the Chessentan formation.

  In the night, few of the advancing enemy could see Tchazzar as clearly as Aoth could. Yet even so, every one of them faltered. Lurching, stumbling hesitation rippled across the battlefield.

  Congratulations, said Jet. One of your schemes finally worked.

  Not yet, said Aoth, but it’s off to a reasonable start.

  Tchazzar was supposed to fight hard during the opening movements of the battle, wreaking havoc on Alasklerbanbastos’s army and creating the appearance that he was squandering his strength. Assuming he conducted himself as he had in past conflicts, the Great Bone Wyrm would let his archenemy wear himself down, then attack when he judged he had the advantage. At which point Jaxanaedegor and his fellow traitors would turn on their overlord, and they and Tchazzar would take him down together.

  It would be a neat trick if it came together. Aoth could think of a dozen ways it could go wrong. But then, that was the case with most such plans.

  Tchazzar hurtled toward a blue dragon on the wing. The blue had an unusually long beard of bladelike scales dangling beneath her chin, and the massive horn on her snout lacked a secondary point. By those details, Aoth identified her as Venzentilax, one of the wyrms genuinely loyal to Alasklerbanbastos.

  She spat a bright, twisting flare of lightning. Tchazzar didn’t even try to dodge. Nor did he jerk, falter, or reveal any other sign of distress when the attack hit him, although it blackened a spot at the base of his neck.

  “Watch out!” a griffon rider shouted. His mount gave a piercing screech, and others took up the cry, spreading the alarm across the sky.

  Aoth turned to behold a flight of undead hawks the size of horses, with green phosphorescence shimmering in their sunken eyes and bone showing through holes in their rotting feathers and skins. The raptors had come up on his flank while the dragons’ duel distracted him.

  He pointed his spear and started to hurl fire at the hawks. Then Jet lashed his wings and flung himself sideways.

  Even so, a stab of cold chilled both the griffon and Aoth to the bone—he could feel the familiar’s distress through their psychic link. Both undead, another mount with another master plunged down at them. They’d flown in higher than the hawks, and that had kept Aoth from noticing them before. Even fire-kissed eyes couldn’t spot trouble if he was looking in the wrong direction.

  The steed was the reanimated corpse of a chimera. It had the pallid wings, hind legs, and serpentine tail of a white dragon, while the rest of the body was leonine. Three heads sprouted from the shoulders—the wyrm’s, the lion’s, and the odd one out, a ram’s complete with curving horns.

  The rider had three heads too, although they all looked the same—naked human skulls perched atop a single skeleton. It clutched a staff in its bony hands.

  Beating his wings, Jet flew out from under the chimera. Aoth tried to aim his spear and recite an incantation, but the aftereffects of the jolt of cold made his hand shake and his mouth stammer. He botched the spell, and as his attackers dived past, the skull lord—as such things were called—glared at him. Pale light seethed in the orbits of the fleshless head on the left, and cold burned through him once again.

  But that was even worse than the dragon head’s frigid breath, because it also sent terror howling through his mind. Suddenly, all he wanted to do was flee.

  He looked around, but horribly could find no clear path to safety. His sellswords and the undead hawks were fighting on all sides. Apparently the griffon riders had discovered that their bows were of little use, for they were relying on their mounts to fight the raptors, beak to beak and claw to claw, with the losers falling to earth in pieces.

  Get hold of yourself! snapped Jet. You aren’t really afraid! The skull lord put it in your mind!

  Aoth realized it was true. He struggled to focus past the fear and activate the countermagic bound in one of his tattoos. A bracing sting of power restored him to himself.

  But why let the skull lord know it? He mimed panic while the undead chimera wheeled and climbed for another pass. Jet floundered in flight like a mount infected with his rider’s distress or confused by nonsensical commands.

  The chimera swooped at them. Aoth let it get close, then leveled his spear and spoke the single word necessary to release one of the spells bound inside the weapon.

  The fiery blast sent the ram’s head tumbling in one direction and the dragon’s in the other. The wings tore away to drift like burning kites on the night wind, while the remains of the body dropped away beneath them. The skull lord’s six orbits stared upward in impotent astonishment or rage.

  Are you all right? asked Aoth.

  Just a little frostbitten around the edges, said Jet. That was like being back in Thay.

  What it was, said Aoth, was a reminder that we have other things besides dragons to worry about. Twisting in the saddle, he looked to see which of his fellow griffon riders needed help.

  Nala cradled the green orb in both hands and focused her will on it. If she established a psychic bond, she’d be able to summon dragonspawn a shade more quickly in a little while, when the defenders of Ashhold needed them.

  As they would. Created from actual wyrm eggs with rituals imparted by Tiamat herself, dragonspawn had proved insufficient to win the last big battle in Tymanther. But surely this time would be different. The giants were fighting on their home ground, where the towering masses of rock and the channels of fire running through the ground would make a mass charge of lancers impossible. What was more, Skuthosiin himself would take the field.

  And after he won, the green would surely recognize just how valuable a weapon her talismans had been.

  Nala needed that because the failure of her schemes in Djerad Thymar had cost her his favor. He’d granted her asylum among the giants, but hadn’t seen fit to include her in his great magical ritual or even explain what it was meant to accomplish. That had to change if she was ever to assume her rightful role as a high priestess of the Nemesis of the Gods. Indeed, if she was even to be certain of avoiding the grim fate he intended for every other Tymantheran.

  Her mind reached into the globe in somewhat the same way that she might have stuck her hand through a hole. Then her companion, a giant shaman who was doing the same thing with a gray talisman, cried out.

  Nala glanced around in time to see the adept flounder back against a basalt wall. Blood streaming from his mouth and his left eye, he heaved the globe away from him. It smashed against the rock face on the other side of the relatively narrow alley in which they’d taken shelter.

  Nala felt a stab of outrage. She and her true acolytes had worked long and hard to make the globes. Then, perhaps because the giant’s distress alerted her, she sensed resistance in her own orb. A heartbeat earlier it had been a doorway. Now it was a trap snapping shut. She snatched her psychic presence clear before it could catch her.

  “Betrayer,” the shaman mumbled. He pushed off the wall, swayed, and stumbled toward her, enormous gray hands outstretched.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “I didn’t ruin the talismans. The vanquisher’s wizards found a way to do it. If you’re hurt, let me help you.” She grabbed hold of one of the giant’s fi
ngers and rattled off a healing prayer. Tiamat’s Power manifested as a glow of warmth at her core, which then streamed through the point of contact.

  The giant grunted.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, no longer sounding dazed. Although he seemed nonplussed that his menacing advance hadn’t frightened her.

  “Then go find the other shamans. Warn them not to use the orbs. Or if they already did, heal them so they can fight.”

  He studied her for another moment, and she in turn could see just how reluctant he still was to trust or obey any dragonborn. But at last he said, “All right.” He swiped blood from his face, turned, and loped away.

  Nala headed for the other end of the passage and the shouting, crashing cacophony of battle. It was maddening that the talismans had failed—had, indeed, become a means for the enemy to cripple the adepts—but since they had, she needed to find a new way to make herself not just useful but indispensable to the defense.

  The passage narrowed down to an opening narrow enough that no adult giant could squeeze through. It seemed like a good place to crouch and study the combat without being noticed.

  Giants perched on the ledges and tops of the stony eminences, hurling javelins and rocks at foes who remained, for the moment, out of Nala’s view. Then motion flickered above one such elevated position, there and gone too quickly for her to see it clearly. A shaft of wood sticking straight up from the top of his bald, knobby head, a barbarian toppled and crashed to the ground. She realized a Lance Defender had swooped down and speared him.

  A volley of crossbow bolts pierced several of the slain giants’ fellows and made the rest dive for cover. Then her countrymen came streaming through one of the broader passages dividing the towering stones.

  By the Five Breaths, how she hated them! She’d brought them gifts that would have made them a great people, and they’d spurned them. Driven her into exile to live among savages. And now come to deprive her of even that miserable refuge.

  In her heart, she begged the Dark Lady for revenge.

  A long shape burst from the earth right in front of a company of Tymantheran spearmen. For an instant in the darkness, it looked like a new basalt spire suddenly rising to claim a place among the old ones. Then it swayed, opened its jaws, and roared.

  The brown dragon bore ugly, half-healed wounds, yet it had come to fight the intruders anyway. Nala loved it for its courage.

  It spewed hot sand, and dragonborn reeled, scorched and scraped bloody. The grit stayed in the air too, in a blinding, choking swirl. It afflicted Nala as much as anyone else, but she laughed anyway. Because she could just make out how helpless the soldiers were as the brown repeatedly struck and lifted its head, dispatching a foe with every bite.

  Then white light flashed in the front rank of the foot soldiers. In the darkness, churning dust, and general confusion, Nala found it difficult to be sure, but it seemed to her that one of the soldiers vanished, and another dragonborn appeared in his place.

  The newcomer was on horseback, and the horse was galloping. It only took it an instant to close the distance to the startled dragon, and then the rider’s lance plunged into the creature’s chest.

  The brown jerked, then snarled and raised a clawed foot to retaliate. But at the same instant, a second lancer drove in on its flank and speared it in the base of its neck.

  The wyrm thrashed, then tried to dissolve into sand. Nala could just make out its outlines softening and streaming. She surmised that it wanted to pour itself down the burrow to safety.

  The first rider pulled his lance free, then stabbed repeatedly. Each attack flared with mystic power. The force, or the agony it brought, evidently hindered the brown’s ability to transform, for the process slowed, then stopped. Leaving the sacred creature sprawled lifeless on the ground.

  The cloud of sand subsided, and then Nala could see Medrash and Balasar clearly. Their comrades saw them too and raised a raw-throated cheer.

  Though Nala had imagined herself full of hatred before, it had been a feeble thing compared to the loathing that gripped her now. Her breath weapon burned in her throat, and she shivered with the urge to hurl herself forward and attack. But that would just be throwing her life away. Which was the last thing she truly wanted to do, considering that Tiamat had just answered all her prayers.

  Instinct—or perhaps the Dark Lady’s whisper—told her that the paladin of Torm and his clan brother would prove to be pivotal figures that night, just as they and Khouryn Skulldark had been in Tymanther. And if she stalked them and waited for the right moment to strike, then she too would play a crucial role.

  But how could she be sure of keeping them always in sight amid the frenzy of the battle? By the looks of it, they were already preparing to press on. For a moment, the problem perplexed her, and then she smiled at her own foolishness.

  For of course she too was dragonborn, and how likely was it that anyone would notice her telltale swaying or recognize her in some other fashion, in the dark, with far more obvious dangers looming on every side? As long as she didn’t get too close to Medrash, Balasar, or any members of the Platinum Cadre, she should be fine. She discarded her robe of shimmering scales, then slipped from the notch between the stones to join the vanquisher’s troops.

  As Scar carried Jhesrhi up into the sky, she watched Tchazzar blast Venzentilax with his fiery breath. The quasi mind in her staff exhorted her to find a target and conjure a blaze of her own. Soon, she told it, soon.

  Tchazzar had invited her to ride him into battle, as she had when he’d rescued Gaedynn and avenged himself on the shadar-kai. But she had a hunch it would be imprudent for a fragile human to sit on his back while other dragons tried to kill him. She also wanted to fight astride her griffon in concert with the rest of the Brotherhood. Impossible as it seemed, she might not get another chance.

  It was a pity the red dragon hadn’t insisted that Halonya ride him, to use her alleged clerical powers in the fray. But alas, Tymora hadn’t smiled so widely as that. Halonya was still back in camp, safe as any of them were that night and likely nursing her many grudges.

  The reanimated carcass of a huge bird of prey flew toward Jhesrhi’s flank. She spoke to the wind, and the air thinned beneath the zombie’s pinions. It floundered and tumbled, and, deciding not to waste any more magic on it, she had Scar swoop down on top of it and rip it apart with talon and claw. Which meant she had to endure its putrid stink, but fortunately only for a moment.

  Up ahead, other griffon riders were fighting similar products of necromancy. Points of green light streaked across the dark as Aoth cast darts of force. She was about to urge Scar onward to the heart of that particular fight when something else snagged her attention.

  A huge draconic skeleton lumbered out of the night. For a heartbeat Jhesrhi thought it was Alasklerbanbastos himself. But it didn’t have a glow in its eye sockets, or small flares of lightning leaping and arcing from bone to bone. In fact, the bones looked like they didn’t even all come from the same body, giving the thing a lopsided appearance and a limp.

  It was a necromantic construct then, not unlike the undead hawks. But it was plainly a far greater threat, and one that Jaxanaedegor hadn’t warned his new confederates about. Maybe his overlord had never told him of its existence.

  The siegewyrm, as such colossal automata were called, was advancing on a formation of archers. With every lurching, uneven stride, jagged spurs of bone sprouted from the ground around it like fast-growing saplings. The bowmen drew and released with commendable coolness, but most of their shafts simply glanced off their target. Even Gaedynn, standing in the forefront, seemed unable to score a hit that mattered.

  Jhesrhi felt a twinge of guilt that she hadn’t enchanted any more arrows for him since their escape from the Shadowfell. But she’d simply never found the time.

  Well, she’d help him now. She spoke a word of command and pointed her staff. An explosion of flame bloomed at the point where the siegewyrm’s w
ings connected to its spine.

  The detonation jolted and blackened bones, but it didn’t shatter any of the big ones or break the linkages between them. She drew breath to try again, and then, vertebrae scraping and rattling together, the siegewyrm twisted its neck and raised its head to stare at her.

  Pain ripped through her. Scar screeched as the same agonizing shock apparently jolted him. Together, they fell.

  Struggling against the paralyzing pain, she told the wind to support the griffon or, failing that, to cushion his landing. No doubt fighting the same fight, Scar managed to half spread his wings. They thumped down hard, but not hard enough to kill them.

  Although it seemed likely they’d only prolonged their lives by a few heartbeats. The siegewyrm heaved itself around in their direction. Spurs of bone as long as her staff and as sharp as Scar’s talons stabbed up from the ground as it advanced.

  Hands shaking, she lifted her staff and tried to focus her will. She felt Scar shuddering too. He was trying to find the strength to take to the air again. Then the construct lumbered into striking distance, and she and her mount were out of time.

  A second griffon swooped onto the siegewyrm’s back. Clinging, Eider tore and bit. Gaedynn leaned out of the saddle and smashed with a long-handled maul. Bone chips flew.

  The skeletal dragon twisted its neck to retaliate. Eider lashed her wings and flew beyond its reach.

  Meanwhile, veering to avoid the jagged bones sprouting from the earth, archers charged the undead wyrm. Jhesrhi saw that most of the ones who dared were sellswords of the Brotherhood. They battered their huge foe’s legs with mace and axe.

  Oraxes and Meralaine attacked the thing as well. Jhesrhi hadn’t spotted them, but, sensitive to magic, she could half hear them chanting incantations even amid the clamor of battle. She could also see it when their wizardry produced its effects. Oraxes created a flying blade of yellow light to hack at the siegewyrm’s neck. The necromancer’s power pulled darkness boiling out from between its ribs and through the cavities in its skull and, judging from the way it jerked, hurt it worse than anything else so far.