Then he started to run, and the horde of men arrayed at his back pounded after him. He had no difficulty staying in the front rank. His legs might be shorter than human ones, but he fancied he carried the weight of armor more lightly than most.

Behind him, he knew, some men were carrying ladders or rolling the huge battering ram called Tempus's Boot along. Not part of the charge itself, acting more or less in concert with the griffon riders, archers and wizards sought to slay any creature that showed itself on the battlements. Squads of horsemen watched and waited to intercept any threat that might emerge from the fortress and try to drive in on the flanks of the running infantrymen.

No doubt it all helped, but none of it helped enough to make the charge anything but a desperate, dangerous endeavor. Arrows whined down from on high, slipped past the shields raised to catch them, and men fell. And even if the men weren't badly hurt when they hit the ground, sometimes their comrades trampled them.

Long, thick veins pulsing and bulging beneath their skins, bloated, hulking creatures heaved themselves over the parapet above the gate. The festering things looked like they might have been hill giants in life, before the necromancers got hold of them.

The drop from the lofty battlements didn't appear to harm them. They picked themselves up and lumbered toward the head of the charge. Khouryn aimed himself and his spear at the nearest.

Jhesrhi, Nevron, and eleven of the latter's subordinates had prepared a patch of ground near the animal pens and baggage carts, close enough to the Dread Ring to monitor the progress of the attack but far enough away, they hoped, to make them inconspicuous.

Smelling of sulfur and sweat, Nevron scowled at the fight as he seemed to scowl at everything, "If the necromancers aren't distracted now, I doubt they ever will be. Let's get started."

Standing in a circle, reciting in unison, the wizards chanted words of power. At first, the only effect was to make Jhesrhi's entire body feel as numb as a foot that had fallen asleep. Then, abruptly, she seemed to float up through the top of her own head, to gaze down on the corporeal self she'd left behind. Her body was still speaking the incantation and would continue to do so until she took possession of it again, but it wasn't capable of doing anything else. That was why a squad of Nevron's guards was standing watch.

She looked around and found a single, silvery, translucent form floating beside her. Only Nevron, the infamous zulkir himself, had exited his body more quickly than she. She felt a twinge of satisfaction.

It took only a few moments for the rest of the assembly to rise like butterflies from cocoons. Then Nevron gestured, turned, and flew north, and everyone else followed.

They didn't go far before the zulkir dived and led them into the ground, where, attuned to the elements of earth and water, they could see as well as before. They beheld soil and rock but peered through them too, both at the same time.

That made it easy to swim like fish to their destination, the soft ground and subterranean stream they intended to command. Nevron and the other Red Wizards recited new spells, and elementals took on vaguely manlike forms, each in the midst of whatever substance was its essence. Whether they were merely revealing themselves or the magic was actually creating them was a question that had been debated since the dawn of time.

Either way, Jhesrhi had no need of such intermediaries. Not for this task. She whispered to the earth and moisture surrounding and interpenetrating her spirit form, and she felt them stir in response.

Malark watched the battle unfold from the apex of one of the castle's fanglike towers. The elevation, coupled with the six arched windows placed at regular intervals around the minaret, provided a reasonably good view.

Which, though useful, had the unfortunate effect of feeding his frustration. The spectacle of so much slaughter made him itch to kill someone himself. But alas, there were times when a commander had to hold himself back from the fray to make sure he gave the proper orders at the proper time.

He tried to tell himself that, in fact, he was killing, that his were the guiding will and intelligence, and the Ring's garrison was simply his weapon. But that perspective only helped a little.

Suddenly, with a puff of displaced air, Tsagoth appeared beside him. The blood fiend's innate ability to translate himself through space made him an ideal choice to carry messages.

Tsagoth said, "Frikhesp reports that Nevron and his assistants are trying to undermine the wall."

"Good." Malark took another look out a window. "And the griffon riders are fully committed. Let's close the trap. Tell Frikhesp… no, wait." He strode to Tsagoth and gripped the scaly wrist of one of the demon's lower arms. "To the Abyss with commanding from the rear. Take me with you."

Aoth glimpsed a flicker of motion below. He looked down. All around the inside of the Ring, doors-big ones, like the doors of a barn-were swinging open.

The first creatures to emerge looked like dozens of twisting, writhing scraps of parchment dancing in the hot air rising from a fire, but Aoth recognized them as skin kites. Behind them hopped gigantic eagles, their eyes milky or rotted away entirely, their flesh withered and decayed, skeletons in armor riding on their backs. The undead birds spread ragged, leprous wings.

Aoth realized that the master of the castle, whoever the whoreson was, had meant for the besieging force to believe he had no aerial cavalry to counter their own. To that end, he'd hidden his flyers in what must be extensive vaults underground. Living avians couldn't have tolerated such confinement, but undead could.

Aoth rained fire on the new additions to the battle, trying to destroy as many as possible while he and his comrades still had the advantage of height. He yelled to everyone within earshot to do likewise, and Gaedynn loosed an arrow that became a lightning-bolt in flight.

It wasn't going to be enough. The griffon riders situation had abruptly become untenable, and they needed to disengage.

Assuming they could. Aoth needed Bareris to sound a retreat that everyone would hear even amid the howling chaos of combat, then wield his music to help hold the undead flyers back. He cast about for the bard, then cursed. Tsagoth was riding an especially large eagle, and Bareris was flying straight at him. Judging from the snarl contorting his face, Aoth doubted his friend was aware of anything else.

Tempus's Boot, a massive, iron-capped, soth-wood log, swung back and forth in its cradle of rope, smashing at the crack where the two halves of the Ring's gate interlocked. Khouryn had somehow ended up in proximity to the ram without intending to but couldn't honestly say he was sorry, because the device had a roof of wood covered in wet hide. It shielded the operators from the stones and burning oil showering down from above.

Its relative immunity to those forms of attack made it a prime target for the undead monstrosities the enemy had sent over the wall. Creatures somewhat resembling the big goblin-kin called bugbears, but with gaunt bodies covered in oozing sores and a tentacle lashing beneath each arm, rushed toward the ram, leaped high, and bore some of the engine's defenders down beneath them. They wrapped the sellswords in their tentacles, plunged their jagged tangs into their bodies, and guzzled. The shrieking soldiers' bodies started to flatten as though their vampiric assailants were leeching bone instead of blood.