by William King
‘Don’t worry, I shall show you how it is done.’
‘Well, this is novel,’ said Tyrion, looking down from the bole of the great tree. The ground was a very long way below, but he had always possessed a good head for heights.
‘Great oaks are good places for this,’ Alarielle said. ‘Their branches are broad and there are boughs where they join the trunk. Even better, there are often hollows such as this one.’
She threw herself flat inside the small cave-like opening in the tree’s side. ‘Out of the wind, see?’
She was showing off and revelling in her superior knowledge, but he did not mind. She had charm when she chose to use it, and anything that made her feel more confident was a good thing as far as he was concerned.
‘What about beasts?’ Tyrion asked. ‘I would imagine some things use them as dens.’
‘Tree panthers, oak hawks, leaf pythons,’ she said. ‘But there are none of them here. I checked. Nothing has used this place for a long time.’
‘Perhaps there is a reason for that,’ he said.
‘The main thing is that we are off the ground, and away from the trail.’ Tyrion wondered about that. They had clambered up a lesser tree and then made their way here following the broad branches. It had not been the easiest of feats in the moonlight but they had managed it.
‘Won’t anybody tracking us wonder that the trail suddenly vanished?’ he said.
‘That’s why I picked a tree surrounded by rocks in a rocky area,’ she said, ‘and that’s why we climbed up them first. If anyone can track us over that, they are using magic, and we have other things to worry about.’
‘I am glad you reminded me of that. I think it’s safe to assume that there will be sorcerers amid the dark elves.’
Her smile vanished like the sun behind a cloud. ‘True. But we’ve done what we can.’
‘Can’t you work magic to hide us? I have always heard that the Everqueen was a great sorceress.’
‘It is not so simple, Prince Tyrion. I have the power but I don’t know how to use it… yet.’
‘I would respectfully suggest that you learn.’
‘If I could, I would. Anyway, that is a problem for tomorrow. Tonight we shall sleep.’
‘You sleep first,’ he said. ‘I will keep watch.’
She looked as if she wanted to argue, but then said, ‘Wake me in a few hours.’
‘That I will,’ said Tyrion.
General Dorian strode through the woods. He was coming to hate this place. He disliked being surrounded by the gigantic trees. He wished that he was home in the cold wastes of northern Naggaroth, fighting against a foe that he at least understood. He disliked being surrounded by gigantic plants that obscured his field of vision, and low bushes in which predators could lurk. He preferred the rocky wastelands.
This was like hunting for a shadow in a darkened room. Even his army, which had seemed so large when he set out, seemed inadequate to the task. He had hundreds of trackers looking for the Everqueen and her mysterious protector, all of them following different trails with different forces. He was starting to wonder whether that was wise. Already the queen and her protector had more than once turned at bay and slaughtered those who should have been hunting them.
He wondered if he was only doing this in order to lengthen his life. All he was really doing was putting off the evil moment when he would need to go back and confess his failure to Malekith.
No! He would not give up. He would find the Everqueen and where she hid, no matter how long it took. It was only a matter of time before the trackers found the right trail and he would be able to bring his overwhelming force to bear. Once that happened, he would be able to report to his master the good news and claim the reward that would be his due.
He suspected that he was not even fooling himself. He very much doubted that there would be any reward for him except a painful death. Malekith did not like to be kept waiting.
Even though it was not his fault that the mirror had not worked, Dorian knew that he would take the blame for it. He should have stayed at his post and waited instructions. He had not. He had taken it upon himself to go and seek the Everqueen. It was the only sensible decision. There was nothing else he could have done under the circumstances. That would make no difference.
Dorian decided that it was time to employ new methods to find the Everqueen and her guardian. Conventional scouting and tracking had failed, so it seemed that the time had arrived to use magic. He had been putting this off because normally he relied on Cassandra to perform the sorcery that he required or to pass on his commands to her fellow witches. Doing this reminded him of her absence and of his own weakness. Nonetheless, the time had arrived.
Alexandra, the chief sorceress, arrived flanked by her sister-witches. They stared at Dorian with cold, malevolent eyes. He matched them glare for glare. He knew they were used to intimidating most druchii, but he had not reached the rank of general by allowing himself to be intimidated.
‘Yes,’ Alexandra said. Her gaze was particularly cold. She had once been his rival for Cass’s affections, and it meant that no love was lost between them.
‘We need to find the Everqueen. She continues to elude our scouts.’
‘And you wish us to use our magic.’
‘No, I expect you to strip naked and race through the woods shouting her name until she answers.’ That drew a laugh from the surrounding soldiery which was quickly quelled by the glares of the witches.
‘You are not requesting our aid very politely.’
‘I am not requesting your aid at all. I am ordering you to do it as your commanding officer.’
‘I answer to Morathi.’
‘You will answer to Malekith soon if the Everqueen is not found. I doubt even your mistress will protect you from his wrath.’
‘Your failure is not our failure, general,’ said Alexandra. She had clearly decided that this was the line to take.
‘And I am sure the Witch King will take your assessment of that at its true value,’ Dorian said. ‘I will be sure to mention you specifically when he questions me about this matter.’
Dorian wanted to make it very clear that he was not going to go down for this alone. The witches were no more going to be able to wriggle out from under Malekith’s vengeance than he was. He smiled coldly at her to emphasise his point.
‘Accidents happen, general. You may not live to be questioned.’
‘Some would say that would be a fortunate event for me, given the current situation. I am sure Malekith would conduct his own investigation should that eventuality arise, and he will be generous in apportioning blame.’
Alexandra clearly got the point.
‘There is no need for this senseless bickering, general. My sisters and I will get you out of the mess you and your scouts have got yourself into.’
‘I welcome your acquiescence.’ Her glare told him he might be pushing things a little too far.
Alexandra led her coven out of the tent and Dorian followed. He was curious, and knew that watching her perform their rituals would provide him with distraction from his grief.
The witches scratched a hexagon six paces wide on the ground and then a circle that connected to its corners. Each of them then inscribed a smaller version of the same figure at a corner.
‘Are you sure you want to stay, general?’ Alexandra asked. ‘If something goes wrong you may suffer from the backlash.’
‘I am sure my amulets will protect me,’ said Dorian, although he was not sure at all. He was simply beyond all caring. He took a few steps back though, to put some distance between himself and the ritual.
Alexandra started to chant. One by one the witches took up the chant. It was in the ancient elvish tongue interspersed with some words in another language which made the hairs stand on the back of Dorian’s neck. He recognised some of them from Cass’s grimoires. They were in one of the daemon tongues. Curious birds fluttered overhead, cawing raucously, obviously disturbed by wha
t they saw.
As the witches repeated the words a cold breeze sprang up which carried on it strange odours. Small firefly-like points of light shimmered in the air around the hexagon until the witches were obscured by their swarming. The tones of the chant changed and the motes drifted outward. One of them touched a hovering raven. The bird let out an unearthly shriek. Its eyes glowed with the strange corpse-light of the mote. It began to move and circle with a new intelligence, buffeting some of its companions down into the cloud with its wings. They too were limned in light and shrieked loudly and were merged with the possessed flock.
The motes continued to drift outwards, touching animals and birds as they went. Every one that was touched joined the great swarm, and circled around the witches, a mass of birds, foxes, weasels and other animals, all moving in eerie unison, like a great shoal of fish changing directions in a current.
One of the motes drifted close to where Dorian stood. He was almost curious enough to reach out and touch it. It moved closer and circled him, coming close to the amulets he wore before veering away. He had a sense of malign intelligence in the thing. It buzzed into a nearby bush, and something shrieked and scuttled out of the undergrowth and headed back towards the ever-growing swarm.
Alexandra was talking to it, and it was responding in the same odd language, all of the creatures’ voices blending together into one cacophonous roar that made the air vibrate with its words. He knew without being told that the witch was giving this composite creature its orders, telling it what to seek and what to do when it found its prey.
The roar sounded angry and defiant. Alexandra’s tone was by turns threatening and cajoling. Eventually some accommodation seemed to be reached. The birds fell upon the ground-based animals, pecking out their eyes, devouring their flesh and drinking their blood. As they did so, imprisoned sparks were liberated and drifted free to seek out another avian host. Eventually the air was filled with birds, swarming in a vast flock, which suddenly erupted skywards and hurtled east as if seeking a trail.
‘Something is wrong,’ Alarielle said. ‘I can feel it in the air.’
She had been nervous all day, full of dire premonitions.
Tyrion just looked at her. Studying their surroundings, he could not see any threats at all. It was not that the woods were quiet. They were never really that. There are always some small animals or birds moving through them somewhere but he could not discern any threat, particularly compared to previous days when it had seemed that the surrounding forest teemed with dark elf soldiers. She tilted her head to one side and said, ‘There is something wrong – it has something to do with magic. That is all I can say.’
Tyrion understood this – he had never been good at sensing the winds of magic. In fact, he was much worse at it than most elves. It was a species of blindness that he suffered from compared to most of his people, and he felt its lack now.
Even as Alarielle spoke, a dark cloud appeared overhead. It was a mass of birds, all flying together with a strange rigidity and precision in their formation. His magesight was not the best but there was nothing wrong with his eyes, and he immediately saw the sinister nature of the flock.
It consisted of birds that should not have been flying together, such as rooks, sparrows and swallows. Its composition was random and there was something strange and malevolent about the eyes of the birds. Looking closely he could see that they glowed with tiny pinpricks of red light. Even as he noticed this, they swooped down towards him and swirled around in a storm of wings. He could feel the wings beating against him, the feathery mass obscuring his vision temporarily. He regretted that he was not wearing a helmet for he feared that the birds would start pecking at his eyes. They did not attack, and shortly thereafter they withdrew. One of them was soaring off into the distance and he could hear it cawing with a strange intelligence. The birds returned to swooping above them in a holding pattern, circling overhead. If they had been on open ground he would have worried that such a strange formation of flying creatures would have given away their position at a distance, but he strongly doubted that anyone would notice that unless they were close enough to hear the birds shrieking.
‘It is a spell,’ Alarielle said. ‘Those creatures are possessed, I can feel it.’
It came to Tyrion exactly what was happening. ‘One of them has returned to whoever sent it.’
Alarielle nodded. ‘And I do not doubt that there is a link between it and the rest of the flock so that it will be able to find where we are again.’
‘We should kill them,’ Tyrion said.
‘And how do you propose to do that, Prince Tyrion?’ Alarielle said. ‘I have a limited number of arrows and they are flying among the branches and I doubt that we can even see all of them.’
‘We have to do something,’ Tyrion said.
‘The best thing that we can do is to try and run ahead of them and hope that we can outpace our pursuers.’
Tyrion could not think of anything else to do, so he started to jog along among the trees while Alarielle easily kept pace beside him. Overhead the birds followed, mostly in ominous silence but sometimes cawing loudly as if to summon pursuers who might be lurking in the woods.
‘There has to be some way to get out of their sight,’ Tyrion said.
‘I can only think of one,’ Alarielle said. ‘We could head for Winterwood Palace.’
‘Where is that and how will it help?’
‘Save your breath for running, Prince Tyrion. You’ll see when we get there.’
The shadow of the daemonic birds fell upon them as they ran.
Chapter Ten
Impatience grew within Malekith. What was going on, he wondered? Why had he not heard from Dorian? He glared at the mirror once more and willed it to work. It stubbornly refused to respond, just as it had done for the past several days. He clenched his fist and fought down the urge to smash it. He knew that it would do no good – after all, he had designed the thing and caused it to be created. It was intended to be able to withstand much greater force than even his massive strength could bring to bear.
He turned his burning gaze on the rest of the druchii in the command tent. They quailed, sensing his mood. Only N’Kari, the greater daemon that he had bound to his service, refused to care. The daemon still wore the form of a beautiful, naked elven woman. Today, she was tattooed with the runes of Slaanesh.
Malekith rose from his throne, looming over every single person in the room. He strode down from the dais on which his seat had rested and marched across the chamber, wrestling with his own anger.
Be calm, he told himself. Restrain yourself. Before you can rule others, you must first rule yourself. There was no need to be impatient. Everything was still going according to plan. All of the reports coming in told him this.
In the north, the vast force of human Chaos worshippers led by his mother surged across the lands of Yvresse with fire and the sword. In Lothern, the rebellion his supporters had fomented was tying down the great city-state’s military strength even as his fleet laid siege. In a dozen different places, armies led by his generals had seized crucial objectives, fortresses, mountain passes that dominated supply lines and ports. From everywhere came reports of uninterrupted success. The plan was working. As he had known it would.
Except in one aspect.
He had heard nothing from Dorian. It had been days now and still there was no contact. He did not know whether the Everqueen was his prisoner or not. He did not know whether the spiritual leader of the elves was alive or dead. He did not know whether his army was victorious or had been destroyed.
For the first time in centuries, the magical mirror he used to keep in touch with his agents and lackeys all over the globe had failed to make contact with its counterpart. It seemed ominous that for the first time, that potent magical instrument had failed. What did it signify?
Had his army been defeated? Was the mirror even now in the hands of his enemies? Had it been destroyed? He doubted it was the latter. He wo
uld have sensed that.
Perhaps there was some more reasonable explanation. Perhaps there was some form of magical interference. He knew that protective spells might be at work in the area of Avelorn where the Everqueen dwelled.
Partially, it was his own fault. He had let things slip. He had been too busy issuing orders to the force he himself commanded. He had been too busy overseeing the destruction of the ancient elven city of Mancastra. He had neglected his duties. It was his first field command in many decades. He had allowed himself to succumb to the pleasure of watching his troops smash through the walls of the ancient city and search through the streets, killing and enslaving the inhabitants. He had allowed himself to be overcome by the pleasure of destroying his enemies with his own hands. For the first time in many years he had killed using his own sword.
It had been a foolish mistake, he now thought. He pushed his doubts to one side. He did not know that any mistake had been made. He needed to find out what was going on. The capture of the Everqueen was a major part of his strategy. It had been stupid to delegate responsibility to any underling, no matter how competent.
He had let his own secret, nagging fears dominate him. It was something that he had trouble admitting even to himself. The prospect of facing the god-queen of the elves had worried him. There was always the possibility that he had miscalculated, but his spies had missed something, that there were ancient, potent spells in place in Avelorn that might be able to slay even him.
Perhaps that was in fact the case. Perhaps that was why General Dorian was not in contact with him. Perhaps some hidden magic had risen up and destroyed his follower and the force he led. Perhaps it had been wisdom, not fear, to avoid going to Avelorn himself.
In any case, it was no longer permissible for him to stand by and do nothing. He needed to know what was going on there. He needed to know what had happened to his army there. He needed the information so that he could deal with any problem that might have arisen.
He could not send another army just yet. In fact, it may not be wise to do so. If one army had already been destroyed, he would only be weakening his forces unnecessarily by sending them into the same trap. He needed to do something else. He looked at the daemon, wondering suspiciously if N’Kari had anything to do with what was going on here.