Fortunately, Gaedynn did too-and after the nightmarish campaign in Thay, he knew how to fight a vampire. His next shaft punched into the creature’s heart, where it would serve the same function as a stake. Paralyzed, the undead collapsed.
Jhesrhi glanced around. Other pale figures were creeping from between the houses. She hurled a blast of fire and set the nearest two ablaze.
Then she pivoted, searching for her next target. Even though she was trying to avoid it, she looked straight into another vampire’s eyes.
The undead’s coercive power stabbed into her head. Suddenly she couldn’t move. She wanted to, but it was like she’d forgotten how. She had the terrifying feeling she’d even stopped breathing.
She strained to break free. In her mind she recited words of strength and liberation that would no longer pass her lips. Abruptly, and without realizing it was about to happen, she wrenched her gaze away and gasped for air.
Her paralysis, brief though it had been, had given her foes the chance to rush closer. She spoke to the wind, and it hurled a vampire backward an instant before his outstretched hands could grab her.
Behind her, light flashed, momentarily painting the world blue-white. Thunder boomed, power crackled, and Gaedynn laughed a single “Ha!” of satisfaction. He’d used one of the special arrows she’d enchanted for him, evidently to good effect.
Even comparatively weak vampires-and it seemed to her that these were some of the weaker ones-were fearsome opponents, but so far it appeared that she and the archer were holding their own. Hoping to stand back to back again, she retreated a step, and then other figures stalked from the gloom behind the undead.
The newcomers weren’t pale as bone, and she didn’t see any glistening fangs or lambent eyes. Humans, then, wrapped in shapeless hooded cloaks much like her own.
She drew breath to cast a spell at the new enemies, then realized some of them were already chanting. A couple whirled implements resembling picks through serpentine passes with a nimbleness at odds with the weapons’ obvious weight.
Jhesrhi abandoned her offensive magic to rattle off a briefer charm. A disk of golden light shimmered into existence in the air before her.
Also floating and made of glowing light, but continually rippling from one color to another, several picks abruptly appeared in front of her defense. The magical weapons hurtled at her, and though her amber shield shifted back and forth, it couldn’t block them all. One red as flame whirled itself around the edge of the oval. She parried it with her staff, but at the same instant another such attack stabbed her in the back.
Wracked with pain and horribly cold besides, she crumpled. The pick that had wounded her changed from white to green and struck again before she finished falling. Her nose, mouth, and throat burned, and she started coughing uncontrollably.
Evidently recognizing that she was no longer able to oppose them, the enemy sent the animated picks streaking over her to take Gaedynn from behind. Still coughing, floundering in her own blood, she flopped over to watch the inevitable result.
Gaedynn whirled and loosed another arrow. Then, chopping relentlessly, the luminous, multicolored picks assailed him like a swarm of wasps. He fell with blood streaming from his wounds.
Between coughs, Jhesrhi caught the stink of charred flesh. Hands grabbed her and slammed her flat on her back. His skin burned black, a vampire dropped to his knees and bent over her.
Then one of cloaked men stepped into Jhesrhi’s field of vision. Now that he’d come close enough, she could make out the pattern of scales on the robe visible through the gap between the wings of his outer garment. She could even discern how the folds of the iridescent vestment changed color as he moved, although in the darkness she couldn’t truly see the colors themselves.
But she didn’t have to see them to recognize a priest of five-headed Tiamat, the Dragon Queen. “Get away from her,” the cleric said.
The vampire glared up at him. “She burned me,” he said, the words garbled for want of the lips the fire had taken. “It’s only fair that her blood help restore me.”
“If we injure her any further, she’s likely to die. As it is, we’ll have to cast healings on her and the bowman before they’re fit to travel.”
Coughing less, no longer shaking quite so hard with chill, but still too weak to resist, Jhesrhi silently thanked the Foehammer that Gaedynn was still alive.
“You… mortals,” the vampire snarled, like it was the foulest insult imaginable. “You priests. You order us to the fore to run the greatest risk-”
“And you obey,” the wyrmkeeper said, “because our master has given us authority over you.” Master, Jhesrhi noted, not mistress. Whomever he was talking about, it wasn’t his goddess. “And because you know we possess the power to compel you-or at least I assume you know. If necessary, I can provide a demonstration.”
Though still glowering with fangs extended, the undead rose and backed away. “Thank you,” the wyrmkeeper said. He stooped and tugged the staff from Jhesrhi’s feeble grasp. The runes stopped shining. He studied the tool with a knowledgeable eye. “Nice. Very nice. Now, we’re going to gag you and bind your hands. Then I’ll do something to restore your strength and take away the worst of-”
“Look!” someone yelped.
The wyrmkeeper pivoted and glanced around. “At what?”
One of the men armed with a pick made of ordinary steel and wood pointed at a rooftop. “He’s gone now, but he was there! Somebody spying!”
The wyrmkeeper turned toward the spot where three vampires stood clustered together. “Whoever it is, retrieve him.”
The pale-faced figures dissolved from bottom to top like icicles melting. Shrunken into bats with wrinkled snouts and eyes like gleaming ink, swirling around one another, they fluttered upward and vanished into the night sky.
Next the cloaked men restrained Jhesrhi, denying her any hope of using her magic. Then the wyrmkeeper prayed over her. The nasty, sibilant sound of the words made her skin crawl. But as promised, they closed her wounds, muted her pain, and brought a bit of her strength trickling back. The priest moved over to Gaedynn and did the same for him.
Shortly afterward the three vampires, in human guise once more, stalked into view. The one in the lead was carrying a motionless body in his arms. When he dumped it on the street, its cape fell open. Jhesrhi was surprised to see that under his outer garment, the dead man too wore a vestment of iridescent scales.
“Thank the Dark Lady,” the wyrmkeeper said.
“What do we do with him?” asked the fellow who’d spotted the skulker in the first place.
“It’s better that he should disappear than be found,” said the priest. “So I suppose we’ll have to drag him along with us. Get them up.”
The enemy hauled Jhesrhi and Gaedynn to their feet, and she saw that they’d disarmed, bound, and gagged the archer as well. The wyrmkeeper rubbed the black, mask-shaped ring on his finger, and she felt a powerful enchantment-no doubt the charm of invisibility-enfold the entire company, captors and captives alike.
Then they all tramped some distance through the city. Thanks to the wyrmkeeper’s restorative magic, Jhesrhi expected that she’d continue to recover from her wounds with preternatural speed. But for now she was still weak and sore, and the walk taxed her severely. She might have been glad when her foes pointed her toward the entrance to the ruins of an old warehouse, except that she had every reason to be wary of whatever waited inside.
First she caught its odor, the tang of a gathering storm like she’d smelled that afternoon. Then she saw the sparks jumping and popping on the body that was simply a huge, shapeless mass in the dark. Eyes big as serving platters glowed white at the top of the murky form.
“I see you caught them,” the creature said, its voice a sort of rumbling hiss.