The griffon rider had botched the attempt to apprehend Malark Springhill, but he was also the man who'd discovered the spymaster's treason in the first place. Nevron supposed that on the whole, he was less useless than many of the weaklings and imbeciles assembled in the council chamber. "Yes, Captain?"
"I guarantee you, Your Omnipotence, the necromancers see our scouts in the air. They realize they can't head down without us knowing. What they hope is that they can bring up troops from the Keep of Sorrows to secure the base of the descent, or, if we get there first, to attack our flank while we're trying to kill the warriors coming down from the heights."
"I see that," Lauzoril said. "Still, why attempt such a risky ploy now? Szass Tam can't possibly have rebuilt his strength already."
"Desperation?" Dmitra said. "He is weaker now than at any time since the war began, and Eltabbar is a big city. If he takes it, he can slaughter the populace and turn them into walking dead to replace the troops he's lost."
Lallara laughed a nasty laugh. "Didn't we already sing this song earlier this year? Oh joy, oh joy, through impatience, desperation, or whatever, the lich has miscalculated at last. Let's commit our strength and crush him. Except that it didn't turn out that way. We walked into a snare, and only the coming of the blue fire saved us from utter defeat."
"No one respects Szass Tam's brilliance more than I," Dmitra said. "But we can't be afraid to try to outthink him, nor to act decisively when we see an opportunity."
"I'm not afraid," Lallara snapped. "But we lost plenty of men at the Keep of Sorrows, and more when your servant wrecked the subsequent campaign. Perhaps it's time to assume a defensive posture and rebuild our own strength."
"It's already summer," Dmitra said. "In essence, you're talking about finishing out the year with another series of inconsequential moves and countermoves. While Thay starves and the necromancers rebuild their own legions with warriors who have no need to eat. While the realm burns and shakes to pieces, and we do nothing to arrest the destruction because we're too busy prosecuting a war we're unable to end."
"We don't know," Samas said, "how much longer the blue fires will burn and the earth will shudder. It could all stop tomorrow."
"And it might not."
"I think," Nevron said, "that we should allow Szass Tam to squander resources he can ill afford in what will surely prove a futile attempt to take Eltabbar." And if by chance the lich did overwhelm it, at least the loss would injure Dmitra more than the rest of them. "Meanwhile, we'll retake the rest of the tharch, lay waste to Delhumide, and relieve the city if necessary."
"I concur," Lauzoril said.
"So do I," Lallara said. "For once, let's not do the stupid thing."
Samas Kul nodded. "Once we pacify the far north, we can bring all our strength to bear to deal with the armies of High Thay and the Keep of Sorrows."
As Nevron had assumed they would, Zola Sethrakt and Kumed Hahpret chimed in to support the majority point of view. With luck, it meant that henceforth, he would exert the greatest influence over the council, and he gave Dmitra a gloating smile. She responded with a slight and somehow condescending shake of her head, as if to convey that he was a fool to worry about precedence when it was essential that they make the right decision.
For a moment, he felt a pang of foreboding, but the feeling faded quickly. He and the others were making the right decision. She was the one who was misguided, and even if she weren't, a man's own position and power were never irrelevant to any deliberation.
"It seems we have a plan," he said. "It only remains-"
A shimmer of yellow flame crawling on his crown and shoulders, Iphegor Nath rose from his seat. "I've already explained," he said, "that the Firelord wishes us to assail the necromancers relentlessly."
"As we will," Nevron said, "but guided by a prudent strategy."
"If you mean to pass up an opportunity to smash the legions of High Thay-"
"They'll die before the walls of Eltabbar," Nevron said. "Now then. We always benefit from your wisdom, Your Omniscience, but the rulers of Thay have made their decision. That means your role is to determine how your church can best support our strategy."
"Is that my role, also?" asked a sardonic masculine voice. Nevron turned his head to see Dimon stand up.
The tharchion's utterance caught Nevron off guard. Iphegor Nath was at least the head of a church that had proved an invaluable resource in the struggle against the necromancers. It was understandable, if not forgivable, if he sometimes addressed the zulkirs as an equal. Dimon was a lesser priest of a different faith and a governor, beholden to the council for his military rank. It was absurdly reckless for him to take an insolent tone.
"If I were you, Tharchion," Nevron said, "I'd sit back down and hold my tongue."
"No," Dimon said. "I don't believe I will."
"So be it," Nevron said. He released the entity bound in his silver thumb ring like a falconer tossing a goshawk into the air.
The devil was an advespa, a black wasp the size of a bear, with a hideous travesty of a woman's face and scarlet striations on its lower body. Beating so fast they were only a blur, its wings droned, and even the other zulkirs recoiled in their chairs. Its body cast a smear of reflection in the polished surface below it as the thing shot down the length of the long red table.
But Dimon didn't cringe. Rather, the pale priest with the twisting blue veins vivid in his shaven crown laughed and stretched out the hand wearing the black gauntlet.
It seemed a useless gesture, an attack easily evaded by a creature as nimble as an advespa on the wing. But Dimon somehow contrived to seize the devil at the point where its head fused with its thorax, and to hold on to it.
The advespa's raking, gouging claws ripped his face, vestments, and the flesh beneath. Its abdomen rocked back and forth like a pendulum, repeatedly driving its stinger into the cleric's chest.
Dimon kept on laughing and squeezing the juncture of his attacker's head and body, sinking his fingers deeper and deeper. Until the creature convulsed, he jerked his arm back, and the advespa's head with its antennae, mandibles, and harpy face ripped away from the rest of it. The carcass thumped down on the tabletop in a splash of steaming ichor.
Dimon's reedy Mulan frame became bulkier, and flowing darkness stained him. In other circumstances, Nevron might have assumed it was the effect of the poison the wasp devil had injected. But the blackness tinged tattered clothing as well as torn flesh, and even if it hadn't, all the bound spirits Nevron kept ready to hand were clamoring, some terrified, some transported by demented ecstasy.
In another few moments, Dimon was virtually all shadow, although Nevron could make out a glint of eyes, the gleam of the jewels now encrusting the gauntlet, and the static curves of clothing turned to plate. "Do you know me?" the tharchion asked, and though his voice was soft and mellow, something about it lanced pain into a listener's ears.
Nevron took a breath. "You're Bane, Lord of Darkness." He rose, but resisted the craven urge to bow or kneel, prudent as it might have been. He'd decided long ago that a true archmage must never abase himself before anyone or anything, self-proclaimed deities included. Much as he hated Szass Tam, it was the one point on which they'd always agreed.
"Yes, I am," said Bane. "You mages have done a fair job of sealing your citadel against spiritual entities you don't summon yourselves, but you can't lock out a god, and the bond I share with my faithful servant provided a convenient way in." He stroked his temple-Dimon's temple-rather like a man petting a dog.