Ulamir was silent in her head, gathering power for the next time that he needed to protect her. The tree she’d sheltered behind provided temporary cover. Vivian sent it a quick mental apology given what had happened to the other, then peered past it while exposing as little of herself as she could manage.
Olvir had made it behind one of the other trees, a few yards from her cover. The wizard was pacing in front of the mound.
The size of the dirt-covered pile bothered her. Marching that many twistedmen over the mountains would have been a difficult job, whether or not stolen lives had kept them all safe from the storm. And why would a wizard bother bringing his sacrifices to the site? Generally speaking, from what Vivian had seen in the war, the Twisted mages could store their power for a while after they’d stolen it.
Vivian eyed the distorted figure as she’d done before. Her combat blessing might work on the wizard through its shield, but the protection would probably keep her or Olvir from finishing Thyran’s creature off, even if it had suffered a near-fatal wound in the past.
She surveyed the terrain: trees, mound of dirt and probably bodies, river behind them. The cover was passable, but there wasn’t much else she could use. Olvir had set a good example, though: keep talking until the situation changes.
“Well,” Vivian said. She raised her voice so that the robed figure could hear but threw it a trifle, one of the tricks that the Order had taught her in her youth. Deceit was a weapon too. “I don’t guess any of us want to do this, mmm?”
The wizard spun and unleashed another bolt. This one went wide of any trees, thank the gods, and dissipated in midair, still closer than Vivian ever wanted to be to such power. Leaves rustled in its passing, as though in reprimand.
She moved her voice. “You can keep doing that. We can keep evading. We have protection. Soon, if I understand your kind, you’ll wear out your reserves—and if we don’t both outlast you, there are two of us.”
“I only need the knight’s death.”
That was very possibly true. Vivian estimated the distance between herself and the monster. If she told Olvir to run and triggered the combat blessing…maybe. It was too uncertain to be a first resort. She bluffed instead.
“Really? Do you imagine that to be the case here, over the mountains and so close to the Battlefield? Do you really think your…master”—she put as much disdain as possible into the word—“can draw what he seeks if it escapes here? I suspect it may become unsuited to a physical frame again, and he’d have to redo whatever tiresome ritual Gizath’s little worshippers in Heliodar performed in the first place.”
For all Vivian knew, she could have been completely correct about every word she spoke. She hoped that helped her sound convincing.
A strangeness lies in that pile of earth,Ulamir said faintly in her mind.Protecting you, I can’t sense it completely, but I’m trying to feel more.
She sent acknowledgment and thanks, then dared another glance at the wizard. It had stopped pacing and was considering, or maybe communicating, again.
“You may be honored to die for your lord and his god, completing their mission,” she added, “but will you be as honored to die in vain? Or even making matters harder for him? I assure you, two of us against one of you won’t end happily. And if you slay Olvir”—she hated to speak the words, but there they were—“and I live, I assure you I can put considerable force between Thyran and retrieving the Heart. Your talents may be best needed elsewhere.”
The wizard turned. Vivian wondered, briefly, if she might have gotten through to it.
No, no, it’s not earth, not entirely.
The wizard raised its hands again.
Vivian sprang to her feet.
Beyond the wizard, the mound shuddered, then split. Earth fell away around parts that wriggled themselves together: six legs ending in paws, a huge body, a great rotting head.
The geisbar lumbered forward once more.
Chapter 31
Death hadn’t treated the beast kindly. Olvir could see bones clearly through great gaps where scavengers had been at its meat, only magic and a scrap of flesh held its head to its body, and all four of its eyes were gone. Gizath’s power flickered in the sockets, the same gray-orange as the force that the wizard had thrown at him and Vivian, but Olvir didn’t think the geisbar had sight: it swung its head back and forth constantly as it headed toward them.
The undead sensed life. Vision wasn’t necessary.
The wizard was watching, hands half-raised. However much power it had expended on raising the beast, it clearly had some left.
The ground shook beneath the bear’s paws. It came on slower than it had in life, another gift of the Dark Lady.
Olvir noted that, combined the information with what he’d seen of the wizard’s power, and came to a quick decision—one he didn’t dare shout. They needed every advantage they could get. He bolted back the way they’d come from and hoped Vivian realized what he was trying to do.
He ran at as wide an angle as he could away from where she’d taken cover, zigging and zagging while he went. Behind him, the monster’s feet thudded on. The Twisted wizard had too much control to shout in rage or lacked the parts to do so, but Gizath’s power slashed a wound in the air far to Olvir’s left. Darting a glance in that direction, he saw an amber light flare around Vivian, deflecting the attack. She was running, too, as opposite to Olvir’s direction as she could manage without heading back toward the wizard.
As Olvir had half hoped, the geisbar hesitated as his path and Vivian’s diverged.
When the creature began shambling after Vivian, it was the better part of tactics to let it. Vivian was lighter, less armored, and, in the coldest thinking, the less essential. Olvir still felt a sickness in the pit of his stomach, distant only because of the battle.
