This is how it starts, Bareris thought. This is how Szass Tam has always liked to fight. He makes you think you're winning, gets you fully committed, and then the surprises start.

So-Kehur and Muthoth had armored themselves in enchantments of protection, and their personal dread-warrior guards stood in front of them in a little semicircular wall of shields, mail, and withered, malodorous flesh. Yet even so, an arrow droned down from on high to stick in the ground a finger-length from the pudgy necromancer's foot.

"We're too close," So-Kehur said. He heard the craven whine in his voice and hated it.

His wand gripped in his good hand, Muthoth, predictably, responded with a sneer. "We have to be this close, or our spells won't reach the enemy."

"What spells?" So-Kehur said, although it wasn't a reasonable comment. After Mystra's death, he'd scarcely been able to turn ale into piss, but when Szass Tam force-fed his followers insights into the changing nature of the arcane, he'd more or less recovered the use of his powers.

But as far as he was concerned, it wasn't worth it. He'd never liked knowing that the lich had constrained his will. It bothered him even though he'd always had better sense than to flout his zulkir's wishes and so rouse the magic. But having Szass Tam shove knowledge straight into his mind was a more overt violation, and thus considerably more odious. Along with a vague but sickening feeling that a wisp of the mage's psyche remained in his head, spying on him and polluting his own fundamental identity, the new lore rode in his consciousness like a stone.

But the howling, crashing terror of the battlefield, with quarrels and arrows flying and men and orcs falling dead on every side, was worse. I never wanted to be a necromancer in the first place, So-Kehur thought, or any kind of wizard. My family pushed me into it. I would have been happy to stay home and manage our estates.

Horns blared, sounding a distinctive six-note call. "It's time," Muthoth said. He sounded eager.

So-Kehur wasn't, but he knew his fellow mage was right. No matter how frightened he was, he had to start fighting.

He shifted forward and the two guards directly in front of him started to step apart. He clutched their cold, slimy forearms to keep them from exposing him. "I only need a crack to peek through!" he said.

So that was what they gave him. He picked a spot along the enemy's battle line and started chanting.

Stripped of the cunning shortcuts and enhancements that were the craft secrets of the Order of Necromancy, reduced to its most basic elements, the spell seemed an ugly, cumbersome thing. But it worked. A blaze of shadow leaped from his fingertips to slice into two southerners in the front rank. They collapsed, and so did other men behind them.

Muthoth snarled words of fear, and several men in the enemy formation turned tail, shoving and flailing through the ranks of their companions. A sergeant, failing to understand that the afflicted men had fallen victim to a curse, cut one down for a coward and would-be deserter. Muthoth laughed and aimed his wand.

Other flares of power, some luminous, many bursts of shadow, blazed from the ranks of the legionnaires from the Keep of Sorrows, and from up and down the crooked length of the path that climbed to High Thay. When they realized their adversaries were casting more spells than they had before, the council's sorcerers intensified their efforts as well. But as often as not, their magic failed to produce any useful effects, or yielded only feeble ones. Whereas nearly all the necromantic spells performed as they should, and many hit hard.

A pair of Red Wizards-conjurors, judging from the cut of their robes and the talismans they wore-appeared in the mass of soldiery opposite So-Kehur, Muthoth, and the troops surrounding them. They looked old enough to have sons So-Kehur's age, and were likely genuine masters of their diabolical art. Reciting in unison, somehow clearly audible despite the din, they chanted words in some infernal tongue, and So-Kehur cringed at the grating sound and the power he felt gathering inside it.

Muthoth hurled flame from his wand. It burned down some of the council's soldiers, but the conjurors stood unharmed at the center of the blast. They shouted the final syllables of their incantation.

Nothing happened. No entity answered their call, and the sense of massing power dwindled like water gurgling down a drain.

So-Kehur's fear subsided a little, and he realized he'd better not permit the conjurors to try again. He jabbered an incantation of his own. A cloud of toxic vapor materialized around the southern wizards, and they staggered and crumpled to the ground.

I beat them, So-Kehur thought. I was sure they were going to kill me, but I was better than they were. Muthoth grinned at him and clapped him on the shoulder without a trace of mockery or bullying condescension, as if, after all the years of shared danger and effort, they were truly friends at last.

So-Kehur decided the battlefield wasn't quite as horrible a place as he'd imagined.

Perched on a round platform at the top of Thralgard Keep's highest tower, Szass Tam peered into a scrying mirror to track the battle unfolding in the gulf below. Sometimes he simply beheld the combatants. At other moments, glowing red runes appeared as one or another of the ghosts bound to the looking glass offered commentary.

Lacking mystical talents of his own, Malark sat on a merlon with his feet dangling over the crags and peered down at what he could make out of the struggle. Szass Tam doubted that was a great deal. The night was too dark, and everything was too far away.

"I see more flickers and flashes," Malark said, "than I did a while ago. It's like looking at fireflies, shooting stars, and heat lightning all dancing in a black sky together."

"My wizards," Szass Tam said, "are showing the council what they can actually do."

"Can they do enough? Are you going to win?"

"It might be sufficient, but I'm not finished. The Black Hand lent me even more power than I expected, and I mean to use it."

"Then you're going to raise the force you told me about. Are you sure that's wise?"

Szass Tam chuckled. "Sure? No. How can I be, when, to the best of my knowledge, no magus has ever roused such an entity before? It's possible that Bane understands my ultimate intentions, and gave me the strength to try precisely so I'd overreach and destroy myself. He is a god, after all. I suppose we have to give him credit for a measure of subtlety and discernment."

"Then maybe you should refrain."

"No. Call me smug, but I like my chances. Besides, if I shrink from attempting this, how will I ever muster the courage to perform the greater works to come?"

"Fair enough. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Thank you, but no."

"In that case…" Malark hesitated.

Szass Tam smiled. "You'd like my help to reach the battlefield quickly."

"Yes, if you can spare the magic. So many interesting things are happening below that it would grieve me to stand aloof."

Szass Tam plucked a little carved bone from one of his pockets, swept it through a mystic pass, and whispered an incantation. Shadow swirled in the air overhead and gathered into the form of a gigantic bat.

The beast's rotting wings gave off a carrion stink. It furled them and landed on a merlon, its talons clutching the block of stone.

"It will obey your commands," Szass Tam said, "and carry you wherever you want to go."

"Thank you." Malark swung onto the bat's back and kicked it with his heels. It hopped off the merlon and glided over the battlefield.