by William King
Slowed by his wound, Tyrion could not attack the second dark elf before he had struck a blow. Tyrion raised his blade to parry and the dark elf stepped back instinctively, flinching before the flame. The two blades clashed together.
Tyrion struck. The dark elf fell. He tumbled backwards into his friends, getting tangled in them. Tyrion pressed his advantage and stepped forwards, claiming another victim.
‘Get out! Run!’ he shouted. Alarielle stepped into the corridor behind him. He sensed her presence and roared, ‘Get going! I’ll be right behind you.’
He could see that there were only a few more dark elves left, and in the confusion they were panicking. Disciplined as they were, they were not used to fighting in these narrow tunnels deep beneath the earth against a foe with a magical blade.
Several of them had already turned and run. The last one faced Tyrion, only to be chopped down with one brutal stroke. Tyrion considered pursuing the fleeing dark elves, but that would mean losing contact with Alarielle; he was not going to let that happen again. He turned and was surprised to see that she was still there, aiming her bow. Tyrion stepped to one side. She let loose her arrow and was rewarded with a scream from the far end of the corridor.
‘Now they’ll know that they’re not the only ones who can shoot,’ she said.
‘Don’t you do anything that you’re told?’ Tyrion asked. She shrugged.
‘You looked like you could use the help.’
He grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her off down the corridor, regretting it immediately when the wound in his side began to ache.
‘Don’t you want to know where we are going?’ she asked.
‘Why don’t you tell me as we run?’
Alarielle ran like a frightened deer, speeding along, turning left and then right decisively as if she knew exactly where she was going.
It occurred to Tyrion that if the dark elves had found other entrances, there might well be a problem. They might run headlong into their pursuers.
The ceilings became lower. Tyrion had to crouch in order to keep going. Ahead of them, he could see a wooden doorway. It looked old and was covered in moss. The air here was colder and damper than it had been, and he felt as if the outside world was closer.
She reached out and touched the door, muttering a word of command. It swung open even before Tyrion reached it. A draught of cold air hit him in the face and he caught sight of shadows and gloom outside. It came as a shock – he had somehow been expecting to see daylight when the door opened, and he realised now that it was night.
Alarielle paused for a moment and listened. Tyrion realised that she was learning caution. She had not bolted straight out into the night as perhaps she might have been inclined to do only a few days before.
He felt winded as he had never done in the past, and he realised that his wound and the poison in it were still affecting him greatly. He felt his face flush. He was not used to being the weakest person present and he found it both irritating and embarrassing.
He tried to listen over the sound of his own rough breathing, but he could hear nothing. Alarielle waited for a few heartbeats, looked at him, nodded and gestured to him to go ahead. He drew his dagger, not wanting to draw Sunfang in case the flame of the blade gave away their position to any watchers. He advanced, balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to strike at anybody waiting in ambush, but there was no one.
He surveyed the bushes close at hand and saw no waiting enemy. They had emerged onto a wooded slope. Beneath them was a river. It was not as wide as the Everflow and there was a path of stepping stones just below them, doubtless put there deliberately to service this doorway into the palace. He gestured for her to follow him, and they both ran down the hill until they reached the stepping stones and crossed the river.
He kept glancing to left and right, suspecting that every shadow might conceal a watching archer, expecting at any moment to feel a crossbow bolt plunge into his chest. He kept low, squatting down to provide the smallest possible silhouette, to make himself the most difficult target he could. Copying his action, Alarielle did the same.
Where were the dark elves? Surely they must be out there somewhere. He felt as if he was walking into a vast trap of which he did not know the full extent.
There must be enemies out there, that all of the dark elves could not have entered the palace. That would be foolish. There must be scouts here somewhere, watching things, hoping to prevent their escape. It was what he would have done if he was leading the dark elves, and it would be foolish to assume that their leader was any less competent than he was.
Alarielle held her bow, ready to shoot any dark elf she saw. He realised she had come a very long way in a very short time. She was no longer the scared girl he had rescued. Perhaps she never had been. Perhaps that had only been the way he perceived her.
They had to come to a decision, he realised. They could not just stand here waiting like frightened rabbits for the dark elves to pick them up. They needed to move.
Something quivered in the ground at his feet. A crossbow bolt. He looked around to see who had fired it. An arrow whizzed past his ear and into a bush. A scream rang out through the night. Alarielle’s shot had found its target.
Answering cries echoed through the night. They were surrounded.
Chapter Sixteen
She walked along a beach of black sand. Black gulls shrieked overhead, sometimes coming to rest on oddly shaped dunes. It took her a few moments to realise that the dunes were made of skulls, bones and ancient rotting armour. She was looking for something or someone she had lost a long time ago. She had been looking for ages and she had not found it. She feared she never would, no matter how hard she tried.
‘Morathi…’ The voice might have been the cold wind that blew in from the sea; it was just as monotonous, just as cold and just as cutting. Her cloak fluttered in the wind. A strand of her curly black hair escaped from beneath her hood. She turned around and could not see who spoke.
‘Morathi…’ She glanced back over her shoulder and still no one was there. Perhaps it was a ghost who taunted her. This was a haunted land. She felt the nearness of the Black Sword. It was a hideous presence, terrifying in its fatal potential and yet oddly reassuring. It reminded her of Aenarion. Its aura had always marked his presence. He had not been separated from the weapon in all the time she had known him.
Perhaps that was what brought her here so often. Perhaps something of him still lingered, unable to part from the blade even in death. She felt a certain bitterness. She had always thought the blade was more his mistress than she was. It was a more terrible rival than any mere elf woman could have been.
‘Morathi…’ She thought she had identified the source of the voice now, and began to follow it through the dunes of bones and wreckage, determined to confront whoever was its source and make it pay for mocking her.
She found him standing amid the rubble of some ancient broken shrine. The stone face of Khaela Mensha Khaine looked down upon him as he studied his reflection in the stagnant, scummy waters of the font. His back was to her but even before he turned to face her, she knew him.
His skin was near translucent. The muscles writhed below it like worms in a corpse. His eyes were mere pools of black light. His fingers were claws. He looked like an animated skeleton smeared with a thin layer of flesh. The expression on his face was a calm madness personified.
‘Death does not agree with you, Caledor,’ Morathi said. His lips quirked in a quiet, mad smile.
‘I did not need you to tell me that, Morathi. He tells me that himself.’ She studied him closely. His limbs twitched. He licked his lips. He looked shrunken and twisted and lonely.
‘You have gone mad, old ghost. Avaunt, begone and trouble my dreams no more.’
‘This is more than a dream, Morathi. You know that. You sleep surrounded by wards to shield your thoughts. And yet I am here. Why do you think that is?’
‘You grow lonely in your dotage, perhaps.’
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‘You are in my land now, Morathi. In the place I made. You should be careful what you say, careful what you think…’
She started. What the wizard said was true. He should not be in her dreams and yet he was. Who knew what else he was capable of? In life, there never had been another mage as subtle and powerful as Caledor. Who knew what he was capable of in death. Best be wary.
‘You have something to say to me, Caledor, so say it and begone!’
‘I know why you have come to Ulthuan. I know why you lead your army of barbarian Chaos worshippers. I will not allow it, Morathi.’
‘What can you do to stop me? You are trapped with all your former students at the heart of the Vortex. You cannot leave it or it will collapse, and that will serve my purposes just as well.’
‘Are you sure?’ In truth she was not, but it would never do to let him know that, so she kept quiet.
‘Listen to me, Morathi, and listen well… I created the Vortex, and before I let you use it for your twisted purposes I will destroy it myself.’
‘Then you are as mad as I always suspected…’
‘No. The destruction will liberate an enormous amount of magical energy and I will use it for one purpose…’
‘And what would that be?’
‘Though it be the last thing I do, I will slay you. On this you have my word.’
The most frightening thing was the way he said it. There was no menace in his voice, just sorrow, regret and absolutely no doubt that it would happen if he so willed it.
Looking at him now, she recalled exactly who and what he was – the mage who had beaten back the greatest invasion of Chaos the world had ever known, who had shackled a continent with his power, whose will, even in death, preserved the spell that preserved the world.
Gazing upon the ancient ghost, Morathi discovered, much to her surprise, that there was still a being in this world capable of frightening her. She awoke covered in cold sweat, her scream awakening the barbarian lovers who shared her bed.
Caledor picked up the piece that represented Morathi and removed it from the board, then slumped forwards in his chair. His confrontation with the sorceress had left him feeling weary. It had been a task of near-insuperable difficulty to penetrate the wards surrounding her dreams. Talking with her had been worse.
Death looked at him and smiled. ‘An excellent move. I thought your bluff about destroying the Vortex was masterful.’
‘It was not a bluff,’ said Caledor. ‘I never make a threat I am not prepared to keep.’
‘Interesting,’ said Death. ‘I will remember that.’
Caledor feared he had revealed far more than he had intended to or was wise. Death reached down and lifted another piece.
‘You are doing what?’ Malekith bellowed, barely able to restrain himself from rising from his throne. In the mirror, his mother shrugged. She looked pale and dishevelled and there was something in her expression at odds with her normal perfect poise and self-possession.
‘I am leaving for Naggaroth.’
‘You cannot do that! I forbid it!’ His mother looked frightened, but not of him.
‘I think you will find I have already done it.’
‘Leaving our northern allies leaderless.’
Her smile was full of sweet malice. ‘They are not exactly leaderless. They never were. They follow their own chieftains and warlords.’
‘What new treachery is this, mother?’
‘No treachery, my son, I swear it.’ She sounded completely sincere, but then she always did when she wanted to.
‘Then why abandon our human catspaws now and retreat when everything is going well?’
She gazed around nervously, that alone told him that something was wrong. Under normal circumstances, she would never allow the slightest trace of weakness to show. ‘Caledor has spoken to me.’
‘It must have been quite a conversation.’
‘He told me he will kill me, if I proceed.’
‘And you are still frightened of that ancient ghost?’
‘You did not see him, my son. He has changed. I think he is mad.’
‘And who would not be, imprisoned within the Vortex for six millennia?’ His mother smiled ironically. She was clearly thinking that he had been imprisoned within his armour for almost as much time, although she did not say it. She did not need to. He knew her that well.
‘You do not understand, Malekith. He spoke to me. While I slept. While my dreams were warded, through my strongest protective spells.’
That was troubling. The defences his mother had woven around her were every bit as strong as his own. ‘He has not taken the trouble to appear to me. Are you implying he considers you more important than me?’ There was a dangerous edge to his voice now.
‘No. Who knows why he does anything? He defied your father when it suited him. Even in life he was a law unto himself. In death…’
Malekith considered her words and suddenly he understood. He knew why the ancient mage would threaten his mother and not him. ‘Mother, if you have been tampering with his work, I swear to you that if he does not kill you, I will do it myself.’
‘You may find that more difficult than you imagine.’
‘And yet clearly you do not think that Caledor would have any trouble with that.’
‘You do not yet have the power he has.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘The power to destroy everything that exists.’
Malekith slumped back into his throne and considered what she had said. It was true. He lacked the power of that ancient wizard, and while he did it would always hang over his head. He refused to acknowledge that anyone had that right, even the gods. And yet that was a problem for another day.
‘Flee back to your kennel then, mother. When I have completed the conquest of Ulthuan, you and I will have words.’
‘I wish you luck with that, my son, but I fear there are older and stronger powers working against you.’
The mirror went blank, leaving Malekith contemplating his own massive armoured reflection. He feared his mother was right. Everything was starting to unravel, all of his carefully woven plans. The question was, why? Who stood to gain from that? And what could he do in response?
Malekith faced the mirror for a long time, brooding. His mother’s defection was an immediate problem. Without her to restrain them, her barbarian horde would fragment and rampage across northern Ulthuan. In itself that was no great problem, as he had once told her it would simply make it easier to deal with them permanently when the time came. However, that time was not here yet. He still needed their massive manpower to tie down the asur armies in the north. As things stood it was perfectly possible they might turn on his own troops and he would be facing a double threat.
Beyond that, he had no idea what their daemonic masters would put them up to. They needed to be restrained and either brought to heel or destroyed. There was only one person who was capable of doing that, who had the power and the charisma to force them to obey, and that was himself. He would need to gather his force, leave a garrison in Mancastra and head east to take control of the situation. N’Kari would open the gate to take his army there.
It niggled at him, being forced to abandon his carefully laid plans, and yet he had always known that such a situation might arise. No plan ever survived contact with the foe.
He summoned aides and began bellowing orders for departure. He would bring the rebellious barbarians to heel, then hunt down the Everqueen if need be.
Chapter Seventeen
‘Be still!’ Tyrion said. Alarielle froze in place, becoming just another shadow. Tyrion listened – he could hear soldiers moving all around, but that was not what he was seeking. He knew there would be others out there, assassins, scouts and dark elf warriors, all capable of moving silently through the night. They would be the real danger.
He gestured with his left hand for Alarielle to start to move again. She did so slowly, like a hunter stalking a dangerou
s beast. He did the same, moving as cautiously as he could, paying as much attention to his surroundings as his senses would allow. She was keeping an arrow nocked in her bow. He could understand the reassurance that having a ready weapon brought. He dared not draw Sunfang in case the sudden blaze of light drew attention to them. Instead he kept a long hunting knife available in his right hand.
The woods around them were thick. The undergrowth was dense. He gestured for Alarielle to start moving through the undergrowth. He followed her, wriggling on his belly, pushing aside twigs and leafy stalks to keep them away from his eyes. The heavy tread of moving soldiers passed nearby. They were so close that Tyrion could hear them talking.
‘I don’t think they came this way,’ said one voice.
‘That would be our bad luck,’ said another, obviously more authoritative. ‘We could live on the bounty for the rest of our lives if we are the ones who find them.’
‘I am never that lucky,’ said the first speaker.
‘Perhaps you should both be more attentive,’ said a third voice, more sinister and quiet. What was startling was the fact that it had come from a point where Tyrion had not expected to hear anyone speak. Its owner was obviously capable of moving with great stealth. How long had he been there? Had he seen the fugitives as they took cover?
‘Someone has been this way,’ it said. ‘Look at these tracks!’
‘I don’t see any.’
‘You’ve obviously never stalked wolves in the wastelands of Naggaroth.’
‘No, Kalysar, I was too busy fighting Chaos warriors.’
‘These tracks were not made by Chaos warriors. They were not made by dark elves either. You can see these were made by leather moccasins, the sort that the natives of Avelorn wear.’
‘Maybe they were made by hunters. Maybe they were made by scouts.’
‘In that case you’d better keep your eyes open, hadn’t you? And maybe, just maybe, they were made by the people we are looking for.’
Tyrion lay so close to the Everqueen that he could feel her heart pounding. He realised that they were not in a good position. It would be difficult to rise and fight while concealed in the undergrowth. He was lying flat on his belly. There was no way he could dodge if someone decided to put his spear through him.