The thump of hurrying footsteps announced the dread warriors. As soon as they advanced into view, Orgurth sprang at them. He had to hold the doorway, and if he didn’t let them push him back, maybe their shriveled, stinking bodies would shield him from their master’s magic.
He cut into a zombie’s chest. The resulting injury would have finished any living opponent, but the walking corpse cut back at him, and he blocked the stroke with his shield.
A second dread warrior moved to flank him. Bellowing, Orgurth split its skull, and it dropped.
But at the same time, his first foe came at him hard, trying to push him back. Its fellows maneuvered to do the same.
Even so, slashing furiously, defending frantically, he held his ground for another moment or two. Then, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a mace hurtling at his head.
It was too late to swing his shield into position to catch the blow. He had to parry with his scimitar, and the resulting jolt loosened his grip on the hilt. He didn’t quite drop the weapon, but as he fumbled to regain a proper hold, the enemy’s onslaught drove him backward, and the dead men pursued him into the chamber.
Then Aoth appeared beside him. The head of his spear burning like a torch, he lashed the weapon from right to left and hurled an arc of flame into the dread warriors’ withered faces, balking them.
“Get on the map!” said Aoth. “Put at least one foot on Rashemen!”
Slashing and jabbing, the two fugitives retreated, and the zombies followed. Orgurth was too busy fending them off to look down and see where Rashemen was, but Aoth somehow found an instant to grab him by the shoulder and jerk him to what was presumably the right spot.
Meanwhile, the mummy stalked into the room behind his guards. He pointed the slender ebony wand in his brown, gnarled hand.
“We go to the Fortress of the Half-Demon!” said Aoth, and at the same instant, a jagged darkness leaped from the tip of the undead wizard’s weapon.
4
The world exploded into meaningless flecks of light and shadow. Aoth had the sensation of falling but, assuming the feeling even corresponded to anything real, couldn’t tell whether he was plummeting headfirst, feet first, or some other way.
No wonder I never get around to learning how to do this, he thought. I always hate it.
Then, suddenly, up was up, down was down, and he had solidity beneath his feet. He didn’t have his balance, though, and had to stumble two steps through the snow before he caught it.
He looked around and was relieved to see Orgurth was with him. Unfortunately, that appeared to be the only thing that had worked out as intended.
The Fortress of the Half-Demon was nowhere in view. What was even more disheartening was that the ancient Nar stronghold sat in the relatively flat wasteland that was Rashemen’s North Country, whereas Aoth was standing in the mountains. Some mountains, somewhere. Somewhere that Jet and the entrance to the otherworldly trap that had swallowed Cera and Jhesrhi were not.
He gripped his spear and felt the power inside it stir in response to his urge to vent his frustration on a pine, an outcropping, or some other target within easy reach. Then he noticed Orgurth’s expression.
Like many orcs of Aoth’s acquaintance, the runaway slave seemed to make it a point of honor not to act impressed by much of anything, certainly anything a “puny” human being could do. But at the moment, he was regarding Aoth with a touch of awe in his brutish face.
“You really did it,” Orgurth said. “We’re out.”
Were they? Aoth looked around and registered that none of the surrounding peaks was sending up a plume of smoke, nor did the wintery air smell of fire and ash. They weren’t on the Thaymount anymore, which meant that for all practical purposes, they weren’t in Thay. The only other mountain range even partly in Szass Tam’s domain was the Sunrise Mountains on the eastern border, and it was virtually uninhabited.
“Yes,” Aoth said, the orc’s happiness slightly dulling the bite of his own disappointment, “we’re out. You’re free.”
“Thanks to you,” Orgurth said.
“Not really. We’re comrades, we helped each other, and that’s all that need be said. Except that if you want me to make you a soldier again, we can go ahead and formalize that.”
The orc made a show of looking around. “I like the sound of it, but I don’t see an army.”
“Sadly, neither do I. But my full name is Aoth Fezim-”
Orgurth’s eyes widened. “The sellsword?”
“That’s me. Do you want to join the Brotherhood of the Griffon? Will you obey orders and follow the rules?”
“Yes, I swear!”
“Then you’re in.” Aoth sighed. “It will mean more once we join the company back in Chessenta.”
“I’m guessing that will be a while. First, you need to get back to this ‘Fortress of the Half-Demon,’ your familiar, and all the rest of it.” Orgurth cocked his head. “Why aren’t we there already?”
Aoth shrugged. “Because the portal was damaged. Or I didn’t embellish the original incantation properly. Or we shouldn’t have had dread warriors standing inside the circle when we traveled. Or the mummy threw disruptive magic at us right there at the end. It could have been any of those things. Truly, we’re lucky we didn’t end up at the bottom of the sea or scattered in pieces across the length of the continent, although I’m having trouble feeling lucky at the moment.”
Orgurth grunted. “However you feel, we won’t know how to get to your fortress until we figure out where we are now.”
“I was just about to work on that.”
Aoth studied the constellations with blue Karpri and green-brown Chandos wandering among the starry pictures. Then he reached out for Jet and felt that the griffon was asleep.
Aoth resisted the temptation to wake him and ask if Cera and Jhesrhi had turned up. The wounded familiar still needed his rest, and all his master truly required at the moment was a sense of direction.
“I think,” he said, “that if Tymora gave us even the hint of a smile, the gate tossed us in the right direction, just not far enough. If so, we may be in a part of Rashemen called the Running Rocks.”
“So what do we do, Captain?”
“We hike north.”
Tangled helmthorn shrouded the base of the dead tree, and Nyevarra touched her fingertip to one of the long black stickers that gave the shrub its name. Even though she hadn’t applied any pressure at all, a bead of blood welled forth, and she laughed. It was wonderful that the thorn could be so sharp!
The tiny wound healed instantly, and she wandered on toward a stand of shadowtop trees looming against the night sky. Their strength and wordless, inhuman wisdom made her lightheaded.
Simply seeing Immilmar had delighted her, but that joy was nothing compared to the rapture of walking in the Urlingwood again. She felt like she could drift on forever, deeper and deeper into the forest and the green heart of the sacred.
But that, of course, was nonsense. The spirits intended her for greater responsibilities and a more complicated existence than those of a common witch, and even had it been otherwise, vampirism came with its own perspective and imperatives.
To work, then. Shaking her head to rid it of the residue of the dreamlike state that had briefly overtaken her, she headed east.
She soon spied a clearing, a fire-built only of deadwood, she was certain-and the masked, robed women gathered around it. Such circles tended to attract the same celebrants ritual after ritual but generally welcomed any hathran who cared to take part.
This one proved to be no exception, and once the other witches had greeted a wandering sister, they returned to the business of minor blessings, consecrations, and offerings to the fey. Nyevarra, meanwhile, studied them.