"The enemy," he said, swinging himself off Brightwing's back, "attacked the village."

Her red metal torch weapon dangling in her hand, the scent of smoke clinging to her, Chathi Oandem frowned. The hazel-eyed priestess of Kossuth had old burn scars stippling her left cheek, the result, perhaps, of some devotion gone awry, but Aoth found her rather comely nonetheless, partly because of her air of energy and quick intelligence.

"They've come this far west then, this close to Eltabbar."

"Yes," said Aoth. "It makes me wonder if they might even have been bold enough to attack Surag and Thazrumaros." They were larger towns that might have had some hope of fending off an assault. "But for the time being, our concern is here. Can someone cast a divination to see if the settlement is still infested?"

Chathi opened her mouth, no doubt to say that she'd do it, but Urhur Hahpet jumped in ahead of her. Evidently not content with a single garment denoting his status, the sallow, pinch-faced necromancer wore a robe, cape, and shoulder-length overcape, all dyed and lined with various shades of red, as well as a clinking necklace of human vertebrae and finger bones.

"If it will help," he said, with the air of a lord granting a boon to a petitioner, "but we need to move up within sight of the place."

So they did, and Aoth made sure everyone advanced in formation, weapons at the ready, despite the fact that he and Brightwing had just surveyed the approach to the hamlet from the air and hadn't observed any potential threats. After seeing the lacedons rise from the river, he didn't intend to leave anything to chance.

Nothing molested them, and when he was ready, Urhur whispered a sibilant incantation and spun his staff, a rod of femurs fused end to end, through a mystic pass. The air darkened around him as if a cloud had drifted in front of the sun, reminding Aoth unpleasantly of the nighthaunt's ability to smother light.

"There are undead," the wizard said. "A fair number of them."

"Then we'll have to root them out," said Aoth.

Urhur smiled a condescending smile. "I think you mean burn them out. Surely that's the safest, easiest course, and it will give our cleric friends a chance to play with their new toys."

The Burning Braziers bristled. Aoth, however, did his best to mask his own annoyance. "Safest and easiest, perhaps, but it's possible there are still people alive in there."

"Unlikely, and in any case, you're talking about peasants."

"Destroying the village would also make it impossible to gather additional intelligence about our foes."

"What do you think there is to learn?"

"We'll know when we find it." Aoth remembered his resolve to lead by consensus, or at least to give the appearance, and looked around at the other officers in the circle. "What do the rest of you think?"

As expected, the other necromancers sided with Urhur, but rather to Aoth's relief, the Burning Braziers stood with him, perhaps because Urhur so plainly considered himself their superior as well. It gave the griffon rider the leeway to choose as he wanted to choose without unduly provoking the Red Wizards, or at least he hoped it did.

"Much as I respect your opinions," he said to Urhur, "I think that this time we need to do it the hard way. We'll divide the company into squads who will search house to house. We need at least one necromancer or priest in every group, and we want the monks and Black Flame Zealots sticking close to the Burning Braziers in case a quell or something similar appears. Clear?"

Apparently it was. Though after he turned away, he heard Urhur murmur to one of his fellows that it was a crime that a jumped-up little toad of a Rashemi should be permitted to risk Mulan lives merely to pursue a forlorn hope of rescuing others of his kind.

The nature of the battle to come required fighting on the ground, and as the company advanced, Aoth and Brightwing strode side by side.

"You should have punished Urhur Hahpet for his disrespect," the griffon said.

"And wound up chained in a dungeon for my temerity," Aoth replied, "if not now, then when the campaign is over."

"Not if you frightened him properly."

"His specialty is manipulating the forces of undeath. How easily do you think he scares?"

Still, maybe Brightwing was right. The Firelord knew, Aoth had never aspired to be a leader of men-he only needed good food, strong drink, women, magic, and flying to make him happy-and he still found it ironic that he'd ascended to a position of authority essentially by surviving a pair of military disasters. Contributing to a victory or two struck him as a far more legitimate qualification.

Which was to say, he was certain of his competence as a griffon rider and battle mage but less so of his ability as a captain. Still, here he was, with no option but to try his best.

"Maybe Urhur won't survive the battle," Brightwing said. "Maybe that would be better all around." It was one of those moments when the griffon revealed that, for all her augmented intelligence and immersion in the human world, she remained a beast of prey at heart.

"No," Aoth said. "It would be too risky, and wasteful besides, to murder one of our most valuable allies when we still have a war to fight. Anyway, it wouldn't sit right with me."

The griffon gave her wings a shake, a gesture denoting impatience. Her plumage rattled. "This squeamishness is why they never gave you a red robe."

"And here I thought I was just too short."

As the company neared the village, Aoth heard the flies buzzing over the carcasses in the corral, and the stink of spilled gore and decay grew thicker and fouler. The sound and smell clashed with the warmth and clear blue sky of a fine late-spring day, a day when lurking undead constituted a preposterous incongruity.

It occurred to him that if he could only expose them to the light of the sun shining brightly overhead, they might not lurk for long. He pointed his spear at the barn he and his squad were approaching, a structure sufficiently large that it seemed likely two or more families had owned it in common.

"Can you tear holes in the roof?"

Brightwing didn't ask why. She was intelligent enough to comprehend and might well have discerned the reason through their psychic link even if she weren't. "Yes." She unfurled her wings.

He stepped away to give her room to flap them. "Just be careful."

She screeched-derisively, he thought-and leaped into the air.

Aoth led his remaining companions to the door. He started through then hesitated. Should a captain take the lead going into danger or send common and presumably more expendable warriors in ahead? After a moment's hesitation, he proceeded. He'd rather be thought reckless than timid.

Inside, the mangled bodies of plow horses and goats lay where they'd dropped. The buzzing of the flies seemed louder and the stench more nauseating, as if the stale, hot, trapped air amplified them. Overhead, the roof cracked and crunched, and a first sunbeam stabbed down into the shadowy interior. Particles of dust floated in the light.

For a moment, nothing stirred except the swarming flies and the drifting motes. Then a thing that had once been a man floundered up from underneath a pile of hay. Clutching a saw as if it hoped to use the tool as a makeshift sword, it shuffled forward.

The zombie wore homespun peasant garb and showed little sign of decay, but no one who observed the glassy eyes and slack features could have mistaken it for a living thing. It made a wordless croaking sound, and its fellows reared up from their places of concealment.

Aoth leveled his spear to thrust at any foe that came within reach and considered the spells he carried ready for the casting. Before he could select one, however, Chathi stepped to the front line. Not bothering with her torch, she simply glared at the zombies and rattled off an invocation to her god. Blue and yellow fire danced on her upper body, and Aoth stepped back from the sudden heat. All but one of the zombies burst into flame and burned to ash in an instant. His face contorted with rage and loathing, a soldier armed with a battle-axe confronted the one remaining, first sidestepping the clumsy stroke of a cudgel and lopping off the gray hand that gripped it then smashing the undead creatures skull.