"That won't be anytime soon. The sickness has run its course. Evendur was the first case in several days, and he'll also be the last. You'll see."

"I hope so," Darvin repeated. To take back Nothos, a mostly ruinous town in northern Lapendrar, the mercenary company had needed to destroy a garrison of necromancers and dread warriors. With the wizards' magic weakened, the Gray Archers succeeded, but afterward, sickness broke out among the ranks, possibly a result of close contact with the undead.

"I think you're tired," Lureene said.

"I am. Tired of fighting ghouls and wraiths, and of serving lords who traffic with demons and feel only contempt for anyone who isn't both Thayan and Mulan."

"Do you want to seek employment elsewhere? I'm sure someone is fighting a war in some other part of Faerыn."

"I'd love it, but how would we get there? With the earth shaking and the blue fires burning, it's difficult enough to march overland. Can you imagine how dangerous it must be to travel by sea? No, we're stuck here." He spat. "People say the world's ending. If so, I guess it doesn't matter anyway."

"When the funeral's over, you're coming to my tent. I know how to brighten your mood."

But it seemed she wouldn't have the chance. When the fire had had its way with the dead Gray Archer, and the company priest finished the final prayer, several of the men accosted Darvin. He inferred that they too must have been conferring in hushed voices as they watched the body burn.

"Captain." Squinting Aelthas said, "Sir. Sorry to bother you, but the money didn't come again today."

"I know," Darvin said. He'd been assured their pay would follow them north, but it was a tenday late.

"You know we're not shirkers or cowards, Captain. We've followed you into all nine kinds of Hell. But if the council of zulkirs isn't going to pay us, what's the point?"

Darvin groped for the right words to persuade the men to be patient. Then, it was as if something turned over in his head, and he decided he was out of patience himself. "Fortunately, there's an easy remedy," he said. "Collect our wages from the town."

Lureene pivoted toward him, her brown eyes narrowed. "Are you sure that's wise? By the looks of it, this place has been sacked already."

"Then the people should be used to it."

"I don't think we're supposed to mistreat them. The zulkirs want Lapendrar-"

"We're not mistreating them. We're charging a fair price for ridding their settlement of undead. Now stop blathering and organize the collection!"

Her mouth tightened. "Yes, sir."

He felt a pang of guilt for snarling at her, but he'd never been one for apologies, and so he didn't tell her he was sorry. Not even late that night, when a burgher had broken her arm with a club and the riot was well under way.

The dead griffon scarcely had any flesh left, let alone feathers. Yet its rattling wings carried it through the air, because that was the unnatural nature of undeath.

Bareris was no necromancer. But over the years, as his bardic powers increased and his mood grew ever bleaker, he'd discovered that his music could reanimate dead bodies. With mounts in scarce supply, he'd used the talent back in Xingax's stronghold to create one more. It was carrying Tammith, too, strapped to its skeletal form and shrouded in black cloth to ward her from the sun.

He peered through the gathering twilight at the plains of Tyraturos stretched below. Soon it would be time to set down and make camp, and Tammith would wake. He smiled at the prospect of seeing and touching her again. His throat tingled.

Then he spied a deep gorge splitting the earth, and the legionnaires milling around on the far side of it. Their banners bore the eight-pointed crimson star device of the council, as well as the Black Hand of Bane.

Dimon's troops, more than likely. Evidently they'd been heading north and had been unpleasantly surprised to find the chasm barring the way.

Clearly, they wouldn't be marching any farther until morning, and Bareris supposed he and his men might as well share their camp. Using magic to project his voice, he called to them that he and his companions were Nymia Focar's men, then blew a signal on his trumpet to convey the same message.

Meanwhile, his undead steed carried him over the wound in the earth. When he was directly above it, he gasped.

Something huge was climbing out of the depths, a mass of writhing tentacles with bulging eyes and circular orifices, alternately expanding and puckering, down the length of the arms. Blue fire flickered around it and allowed it to sink the tips of its arms into the stony wall, which they penetrated as easily as a knife cutting butter.

It was the most grotesque thing Bareris had ever seen. He couldn't even tell what sort of creature it had been before the blue flame transformed it. Perhaps it hadn't been alive at all. Maybe the wave of chaotic power had made it out of rock, earth, and air, or nothing at all.

Whatever it was, it had nearly reached the top of the crevasse, and by ill fortune, none of the legionnaires were looking over the edge. Bareris bellowed a warning.

It came too late. The creature heaved itself over the edge of the rim and flailed its tentacles. The blows bashed men to the ground or hurled them through the air. But more often than not, what actually killed them was the blue flame playing around the entity's body. When it touched them, they melted.

Bareris hoped that after slaying its first several victims, the creature would stop to slurp up the remains. It didn't. Motivated by fury rather than hunger, it crawled toward more of Dimon's soldiers.

It was fast, too. Panicking, jamming and tangling together, knocking one another down, some legionnaires might escape, but not many.

Bareris sang a song of lethargy. The creature slowed, moving more sluggishly than before.

"Hit it!" he called to the other griffon riders. "But stay high enough that it can't snatch you out of the air."

His men loosed arrows. The Burning Braziers hurled sprays of fire, or conjured flying hammers wreathed in yellow flame. He slammed the creature with the force of a thunderous shout.

Was any of it doing the beast harm? The thing was so bizarre that he couldn't tell. But the barrage distracted it. It left off pursuing the men on the ground to grope impotently at the attackers harassing it from on high.

Or perhaps not so impotently after all. Without warning, it shot up into the air.

If it could fly all along, Bareris wondered why it had climbed to the top of the chasm. It made no sense, but then, nothing associated with the blue fire did.

He wheeled his mount to keep beyond the creature's reach, but the skeletal griffon didn't respond quickly enough. A tentacle whipped around its neck, shattering naked vertebrae, and hung there in a loop. Blue fire ran up the arm toward the steed and its rider as though following a trail of oil.

Bareris chanted words of power, undipped the strap holding Tammith to the saddle, and grabbed hold of her shroud. The azure flame leaped at him just as he sang the final note. The world seemed to break apart, and then he was standing on the ground with his legs still spread as though straddling a mount. Tammith fell to the ground at his feet, her weight jerking his hand down with her. The folds of the shroud separated. Smoke billowed forth, and Bareris cried out in horror.

But Tammith wasn't burning up. The sun had already dropped out of sight, and she'd turned to mist to extricate herself from her cloth cocoon. The swirls of fog congealed into human form.

"What's going on?" Tammith asked.

Bareris pointed. "That."

The creature had scattered the griffon riders. Perhaps thinking that now they'd leave it alone, it plummeted, and jolted the earth when it slammed down. It then heaved itself toward him, Tammith, and Dimon's men, crawling and lashing its tentacles as fast as it had originally. The curse of slowness had worn off.