The Rite (41 page)

To his surprise, however, he slowed to a stop, then rose toward the blue dome of the sky. Below him, Azhaq, still on the wing despite the ghastly wounds he bore, his vulture-demon assailant evidently slain, grunted in satisfaction at making the catch. Raryn nodded at Dorn, laid another arrow on his bow, and cast about for a target. Weak and clumsy with pain but still alive, Kara laboriously climbed toward her erstwhile rider, to collect him before the magic holding him aloft ran out of strength.

But nobody moved to assist Malazan. Either dead or crippled, in any case incapable of flight, the colossal red fell like a shooting star, shrouded in the flames of her burning blood and leaving a trail of smoke in her wake. She smashed down on a mountainside. The impact flattened and deformed her body and stabbed lengths of broken bone through her hide.

Faced with the likes of Tamarand, Nexus, and Havarlan, perhaps the chromatics had been losing the battle even before their commander perished, but even if not, her destruction panicked them. Crying to one another, most sought to break away and scatter in all directions.

Dorn wondered how many would get away. None, he hoped. Let the wrathful metallics slaughter them all. Then a wave of faintness picked him up and carried him into darkness.

Shrouded in invisibility, Brimstone circled over the benighted battlefield, taking stock of the situation. It looked as if Dragonsbane’s strategy had worked about as well as the king had had any right to expect. His troops had inflicted grievous casualties on the Vaasan horde.

But the majority of the goblins and giants had stood their ground and likewise butchered many a Damaran warrior through the hours of daylight, and since darkness had fallen, it was possible the balance was tilting in their favor. They could see well at night, and humans couldn’t. Dragonsbane’s wizards conjured fields of pearly glow to compensate, but often enough, a spellcaster on the other side extinguished them, and in any case, they couldn’t light up the whole landscape.

As he listened to the clash of metal on metal and the anguished cries of the wounded and dying, rather savoring them, Brimstone mused on just how easy it would be to betray his allies and hand the victory to Vaasa. Easy and natural, for though the goblin kin and their ilk were base, dull vermin compared to him, they were nonetheless born of the same darkness. Why not aid them, then, to slaughter the miserable paladins and priests of light, and rule as their monarch thereafter?

Only because such a betrayal would do nothing to further his vengeance against Sammaster. Someday, perhaps, he would claim a throne, command legions, and make his name a byword for terror across Faerűn, but for the moment, he craved retribution more than glory.

Brimstone flew to a place where the two armies ground together and soon spotted Dragonsbane at the forefront of the Damaran host. The paladin king was surely exhausted, but no one could have told it from the vigor with which he swung his broadsword and exhorted the warriors around him to fight on.

That was good. The little drama Brimstone had devised wouldn’t seem very convincing if Dragonsbane looked half dead in the saddle.

The vampire whispered words of power, shedding his mantle of invisibility and replacing it with a corona of harsh white light. The glare illuminated the puppet astride his back as well. It was simply an animated skeleton, a mindless tool, but crowned with gold and jewels and robed in ermine and purple, it looked the part of Zhengyi the Witch-King, and with Brimstone’s will prompting it, would behave appropriately as well.

Brimstone swooped down over the battlefield, roaring to attract the combatants’ notice. The puppet brandished its staff, and the goblins clamored to see their master finally appear. Then a dozen of them scrambled for their lives when they perceived that Brimstone intended to land on the patch of bloody, trampled earth they occupied.

His impressive advent made both sides pause in their struggles to gawk at him, and that was how he wanted it. As soon as he touched down opposite Dragonsbane, he bellowed maledictions and a challenge to single combat in a magically augmented voice that every member of the Vaasan host could hear and understand. The words, of course, seemed to rave from the skeletal figure perched on his back.

It might have been nice if the king had replied with a speech of his own, but he simply slashed his sword through the air to indicate he accepted the challenge. Conceivably his idiotic paladin code forbade him to say anything that amounted to a lie, but he was willing to act his part in a misleading pantomime and let the Vaasans draw their own erroneous conclusions.

Dragonsbane extended his blade in front of him and charged. Brimstone cast the first of the spells with which his puppet was supposedly attacking the king, invocations that filled the air with dazzling flashes, seething mists, and thunderous bangs and roars, magic that even shook the ground, but could do no actual harm to anyone.

The king cut at Brimstone. He was a talented enough swordsman to make it look convincing even though the strokes were too soft to penetrate a smoke drake’s scales. Brimstone bit and clawed at the human and his horse, warning what the next attack would be with slight shifts of his head and legs. He and Dragonsbane had rehearsed their dance, but he wasn’t willing to risk the human making a mistake. His fangs and talons were simply too deadly.

The hardest part was resisting the impulse to strike out in earnest, for he could feel the virtue, the sacred power, burning inside the paladin, and it filled him with loathing. He wondered if Dragonsbane was struggling against an equivalent urge.

As the drama progressed, Dragonsbane appeared to try repeatedly to strike at the figure on Brimstone’s back, and the vampire always moved to shield it, or lift it out of harm’s way. Until finally it was time to conjure the semblance of a burst of fire, an illusion so convincing that those nearby would even feel a flare of heat, though it wouldn’t burn the man and destrier caught in the center of the blast.

Dragonsbane wheeled his horse and ran. Brimstone gave chase. The Vaasans howled to see their nemesis fleeing for his life.

Actually, though, Dragonsbane was simply achieving the distance required to use a weapon other than his sword. He turned his mount again, pulled a luminous javelin from its sheath on the charger’s saddle, and hurled it.

The spear pierced the puppet through the torso, whereupon the skeleton instantly caught fire, flailed, shrieked, and toppled from Brimstone’s back. To all appearances, Dragonsbane had slain the Witch-King with a holy relic, or a weapon charged with his own god-granted magic.

The Vaasan cheering died, and a moment later, a Damaran shout of triumph filled the air. Dragonsbane charged Brimstone, and his warriors surged at the goblin kin and giants.

The king beat at Brimstone with his sword. Brimstone cringed away, spread his wings, and leaped into the air. Once he climbed high enough that no one was paying any attention to him anymore, he circled above the field to witness the result of his deception.

When he’d bolted, the Vaasans around him had too, and as they blundered backward, jamming into the ranks of the creatures behind them, sometimes lashing out with scimitars and spears to force their way through, they communicated their panic to even those goblins who hadn’t enjoyed a clear view of the mock duel. In a matter of minutes, the entire host was routing, and for the Damarans who rode in pursuit, killing them was as easy as slaughtering sheep.

Brimstone reckoned Dragonsbane’s men still had months of campaigning ahead before they fully purged their realm of invaders, retook the Gates, and sealed Bloodstone Pass. Still, in truth, they’d already won back Damara, or rather, a vampire drake had done it for them. He grinned at the irony.

The sickroom smelled of medicines and myrrh. The silvery glow of the magical crescent-shaped lamp was too dim to sweep the shadows from the corners. Perhaps the gloom was supposed to help Rilitar rest.

Sureene had wrapped the wizard in bandages, and surely used all the healing magic at her disposal to help stanch the flow of blood from his wounds. Still, red spots stained the white gauze, the bed linen, and the mound of pillows propping him up.

Inwardly, Taegan winced to see it, but resolved to keep his distress from showing. He was certain Rilitar didn’t want a display of pity.

“Hello,” he said.

“We came as soon as the stupid priestesses would let us in,” Jivex said.

Rilitar laboriously turned his head toward his visitors. “Our enterprise… ?” he wheezed.

Taegan realized what he meant. “None of your fellow mages died, and Firefingers saved most of the books and papers.”

Rilitar smiled feebly, the quirking of his ashen lips just visible between two strips of bandage. That old man knows how to talk to flame.”

“Naturally, the Watchlord—speaking for the old families, I assume—wasn’t happy about us fighting a sunwyrm in the street. But I pointed out that we did kill it before it harmed any of the citizenry, and that with our traitor unmasked and eliminated, we could absolutely guarantee there would be no more such incidents. Firefingers reminded him just how vital you wizards are to the security of Thentia, and the upshot of it all was that he grudgingly agreed to let you continue your investigations.”

“Then we truly did defeat Phourkyn.”

“You deserve the credit. Thanks be to Lady Luck that you noticed me reciting the charm of frenzy, and realized what it meant.”

“Luck had little to do with it. I’d been watching you closely for a while, because you were acting strangely, going to absurd lengths to play the frivolous rake.”

At first, I couldn’t determine what it meant. Phourkyn’s enchantments were so subtle my magic couldn’t detect them. But I was sure it indicated something.”

“I’m fortunate his curse made me peculiar.”

“I suspect it was your own mind, your own will, resisting him and signaling for help, even though you weren’t conscious of it. It isn’t easy to enslave an elf.”

“Or a master-of-arms, perhaps.”

Rilitar drew a ragged breath. “Sureene did everything she could to mend me, but says that even so, I’m unlikely to see the sunrise. Will you keep me company until the end?”

“Of course,” Taegan said.

He pulled a chair away from the wall. Jivex furled his wings and lit on the corner of the bed.

“Thank you,” the wizard said. “Perhaps you know a prayer or hymn, for when the moment comes.”

The avariel hesitated then said, “I remember a chant from my days with my tribe. But I imagine it’s a plain, crude thing compared to what true elves use in Cormanthor.”

“That’s fine. It will speed my spirit on its way better than any human words”

Like all the others, the final battle left countless tasks and duties in its wake. It was late before Cantoule could slip off by himself to collect his thoughts.

As he walked the monastery grounds, the pale statues and shrines gleaming in Selűne’s light, it grieved him to behold all the destruction. Yet the stronghold was enormous, and more of it remained intact than otherwise. The rest could be rebuilt.

He realized it was the same with the inhabitants. Many had died defending their holy sanctuary and the precious

archives, so many that he could hardly bear the sorrow of it, yet not all. The Order of the Yellow Rose survived, and in time, other men would hear IImater’s call and come to swell its ranks.

Meanwhile, because the brothers had endured the worst the besieging dragons could do, it was even possible that Kara and her comrades would avert a doom threatening all Faerűn.

But that was a matter too vast and mysterious for a tired man to contemplate for long. Soon enough, his thoughts returned to smaller matters. Indeed, to a petty one.

He knew that in the aftermath of the agonies the monastery had weathered, in the midst of the myriad needs that still remained, it was unworthy of him to think of himself at all. Yet he believed the Crying God would forgive him for taking a moment to recognize the truth that, in the darkest of times, his stewardship had proved sufficient. Perhaps he hadn’t led his followers as ably as Kane would have, but his best had been good enough. He found a vacant chapel and kneeled before the altar to whisper a prayer of thanks.

Midsummer-20 Eleasis, the Year of Rogue Dragons

Despite the dread that had engulfed the world, the burghers of Thentia celebrated Midsummer with gusto. Or perhaps, Taegan reflected, it was precisely the knowledge that a flight of rampaging dragons might descend on their town at any moment that made them embrace the pleasures of the festival with such enthusiasm.

The warm night rang with raucous music. The taverns were full to overflowing, and in every square and plaza, people danced fast, whirling, stomping dances, or watched them while ladling beer and wine from open barrels. Lads and lasses eyed one another, teased, flirted, and whispered, until eventually the couples stole away from the rest of their companions to find some privacy. Some of them didn’t require a lot of it. A shadowy doorway sufficed.

To Taegan’s sophisticated eye, Thentia’s revels had a crude, bucolic quality compared to the lavish, elegant Midsummer entertainments he’d enjoyed in Lyrabar. But he didn’t miss the latter as much as he might have expected. It was pleasant to stroll the boisterous streets with Jivex, Dorn, Raryn, and Will, observing the flushed, bright-eyed girls in their paint and finery, and regaling the hunters with the tale of his recent adventures. Even if the telling recalled the sorrow of Rilitar’s death, and he realized, required a certain amount of explaining at the end.

“Firefingers believes,” the bladesinger said, “that at the start, there was a real Phourkyn One-eye. But Sammaster arranged his murder and replaced him with an impersonator. At that point, he couldn’t know for a fact that the mages of Thentia would become involved in an effort to quell the Rage. You fellows hadn’t yet ventured into Northkeep, then traveled here to ask for their help. But he was aware of their reputation for learning, and deemed it prudent to have a powerful, resourceful agent in place to ruin any such endeavor if, in fact, they undertook it.”