He'd likely cripple or kill Malark the instant after. In light of Malark's previous failure to hinder Szass Tam's spellcasting, the spymaster decided he needed to close now, even though the lich hadn't positioned himself precisely as he'd hoped.

He charged.

He had some semblance of cover part of the way, but none for the last few feet. As he burst out into the open, he hoped that astonishment might paralyze his opponent for a critical instant. After all, Malark Springhill had supposedly died in Lapendrar and was supposedly Szass Tam's faithful disciple as well.

He should have known better. The lich hadn't existed as long as he had and hadn't achieved supremacy in Thay by freezing in the midst of combat. The black blade leaped at Malark.

He hurled himself underneath the stroke, slid forward on the dusty floor, and sprang upright again. Now the flying sword was behind him, the worst place for it, but he ignored the peril to concentrate on pivoting and driving a thrust kick into Szass Tam's midsection.

As intended, the attack knocked the lich stumbling backward, but it also jolted Malark as if he'd kicked a granite column. For an instant, he feared he'd broken his leg.

When he set it down, it was plain he hadn't, but there was worse to come. His stomach turned over, and the room tilted and spun. Another effect of Szass Tam's armoring enchantments, perhaps, or simply the result of touching the undead creature's poisonous flesh.

Whatever it was, he couldn't let it slow him down. He was certain the shadow blade was making another attack. Instinct prompted him to fake left, then shift right, and the stroke missed.

But at the same time, Szass Tam snarled a rhyme and thrust out a shriveled hand. A splash of liquid appeared in midair, and, nauseated and dizzy as he was, Malark couldn't dodge it and the sword too. He flung up his arm and shielded his eyes, but the acid spattered the rest of him, burned him, and kept on burning.

He knew a spell to wash the vitriol away, and another to purge himself of sickness, but had no time for either. Now that he'd knocked Szass Tam backward to the proper spot, he had something else to do, something that neither the lich nor the philosopher-assassins of the Long Death had taught him.

Rather, he'd learned it as a boy growing up in a long-vanished city beside the Moonsea, before he'd betrayed his best friend for the elixir of perpetual youth, suffered the despair of endless life, or discovered the consolations of devoting himself to death. In that bygone age, he and the other children had played kickball in a field near the purplish waters, with a tree at each end to serve as a goal. He'd gotten pretty good at scoring points once he learned to take an instant to line up his shot.

And, ignoring his vertigo, churning guts, and the searing pain of the sizzling, smoking acid, twisting out of the path of a sword stroke that slashed close enough to catch his sleeve and make it disappear, that was what he did now. Then he launched himself into a flying kick.

chapter eleven

27 Mirtul-9 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

When the scout arrived, the artisans were giving So-Kehur's everyday body a second pair of hands, human-looking except for being made of sculpted steel. He'd long since learned to manipulate four crablike claws, tentacles, or what have you at the same time. Now he wanted to see if he could make the precise gestures required for spellcasting with four hands simultaneously, and whether that would enhance the effect of the magic.

He waved the artisans away with the flick of a tentacle and, using his eight arachnoid legs, turned his cylindrical body in the scout's direction. He extended several of his eyes at the ends of their flexible antennae to view the newcomer from multiple angles at once.

Because he'd taken the trouble to do so, he saw the kneeling scout tremble ever so slightly. The creature was an undead soldier with a gray withered face and glazed, sunken eyes, but even so, he feared his lord. So-Kehur found it gratifying.

But it was detrimental to morale to terrorize underlings who'd done nothing to deserve it-he'd learned that observing Szass Tam-so he'd try to make the scout feel at ease. "Please, get up," he said. His voice was indistinguishable from that produced by a normal larynx and mouth, for that was necessary for his conjuring. "Would you like some refreshment?"

"No, thank you, Master," said the scout. His leather trappings creaked as he straightened up. "One of the grooms offered me a prisoner as I was climbing off my eagle."

"Good. Then tell me what you've seen."

"The invaders abandoned the Dread Ring and marched south again. I thought they'd go back into the Umber Marshes and on home to the Wizard's Reach, but they didn't make the turn."

So-Kehur felt a surge of excitement. If he'd still possessed a pulse, no doubt it would have quickened. "You mean they're heading toward Anhaurz."

"It looks that way."

"The lunatics must actually believe they can reach and destroy another Ring-the one in Tyraturos." So-Kehur had no idea why the archmages of the council were so fixated on the gigantic strongholds, but it seemed evident they were. "They mean to take the High Road up the First Escarpment. Of the three likely ascents, it's the only one without a fortress guarding the top. But to get to the High Road, they need to use the bridge here at Anhaurz to cross the Lapendrar."

The undead warrior inclined his head. "The autharch is wise."

"So this is where we'll stop them!"

In his youth, So-Kehur had been a coward, even if it never quite prevented him from doing his duty. But on the plain below Thralgard Keep, in the battle that broke the southern legions, he'd finally found his courage, and afterward, he'd vowed to make sure it never slipped away.

To that end, he'd started replacing parts of his body with grafts from the undead and, when even those began to seem insufficiently strong to protect him from any conceivable threat, with metal. He supposed that at some point afterward, he must have decided to dispense with an organic form entirely, to become a disembodied brain, charged with the energies of undeath to nourish and preserve it, encased in a steel shell, although oddly enough, he couldn't recall the exact moment when he'd made such a choice. Rather, when he looked back, it seemed to him as if the process had simply happened by degrees.

In any case, his transformation had mostly worked out all right. Much as he'd loved to eat, he no longer missed it, or the touch of a woman, either. The cravings faded after he divested himself of the organs with which a person gratified them. Strange abilities emerged to take their place, along with the desire to exert his newly developed strengths.

That last was the problem because the War of the Zulkirs was over, and afterward, Szass Tam proved unexpectedly reluctant to start any new ones. Instead, he devoted himself to erecting the Dread Rings, unnecessary defenses for a realm already impregnable, or, conceivably, monuments to overweening vanity. Either way, it left So-Kehur with no outlet for his aggression except hunting rebels, scarcely a challenge for the consummate killer he'd become.

Now, however, an enemy army was heading straight for Anhaurz, a slayer in its own right. Ninety years ago, the Spellplague had destroyed the town, and when Szass Tam appointed him autharch and gave him the task of rebuilding it, So-Kehur'd done so in a way that expressed his yearning for battle. The new Anhaurz was a true fortress city, constructed and garrisoned to break any force that dared to assault it. Even one led by the likes of Nevron and Lauzoril.

"Fetch me my maps!" So-Kehur called. One of the artisans scurried to relay the order.