Kormak 01 - Stealer of Flesh

by William King

  Other soldiers sent arrows streaking towards Razhak. As they got close to him, lightning streaked from the spear and they burst into flame at the tip. The stink of ozone assaulted Kormak’s nostrils, its hot metallic tang making him want to gag. Two more thunderclaps sounded, two more flickers of lightning lashed out, two more soldiers died. The rest scurried for cover. Razhak’s laughter rang out.

  “Hiding, Guardian? Where is your confidence now? It’s not so easy when your prey fights back, is it?”

  Kormak squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He was still dazzled from the flash and he could see the after-image even through his closed lids.

  From cover, the soldiers started to shoot arrows again. Kormak risked a look and saw the same thing happen as before. He felt Olivia pressed against his side.

  “We can’t kill him with bows,” Kormak said. “We need to get closer.”

  “It’s not possible,” Olivia said. “That lance will kill you before you get up the ramp. Those amulets won’t protect you either any more than they would protect you from a lightning strike.”

  Kormak knew she was right. “There’s not a lot we can do,” he said. “Perhaps wait until the weapon’s power is discharged.”

  “That might take a while,” she said. “It seems to be drawing it from the spell-engines. We could all be dead by then.”

  “So you don’t want to stand and fight, Guardian!” Razhak bellowed. “How unlike you. Must I come looking?”

  “Can you use a bow?” Olivia asked.

  “Indifferently,” Kormak said. She dived from cover, picked up the bow that had been dropped by one of the dead guards and rolled into the shelter of a nearby pillar as another bolt came crashing down where she had been. Somehow she had managed to grab an arrow too. As Kormak watched she broke of the metal head, leaving only splintered wood. She stepped out, aimed and fired.

  Kormak looked and saw that the arrow now protruded from Razhak’s breast. The Ghul shrieked in pain. Olivia stepped to where Kormak stood. “It’s the metal arrowheads. The lightning is drawn to them as it is drawn to a lightning rod. Without them to draw the bolts, the arrow can get through.”

  She shouted to the soldiers. “Break off your arrowheads, use only the wood of the shafts and you can kill him.”

  A few soldiers took aim and let fly from around. Some of them panicked and did not remove the arrowheads, a few arrows clattered into the mechanism around Razhak, one bounced off his chestplate, another bit home into his flesh. The Ghul stepped away from the edge of the platform, clearly rattled. The soldiers kept up a rain of arrows on where he had been, clearly heartened by their success.

  “Well reasoned,” Kormak said to Olivia. He leaned forward, kissed her, drew his sword and raced for the ramp. He was surprised to find Prince Luther running beside him.

  “Go back,” Kormak said.

  “I will see the end of this,” Luther said. There was no time for Kormak to argue with him or force him back so he kept running, heart racing, fearful that the Ghul would reappear with his deadly weapon at the ready and cut them down.

  They stormed up the ramp and found themselves in the shadow of the gigantic, glowing spell-engines. Razhak was nowhere to be seen. Between the ancient machines a corridor ran back into the gloom. Kormak took up a position on one side of it. He did not want to run directly down it. He would be too easy a target in the confined space.

  Arrows clattered down around them. One of them, lacking an arrowhead passed through Kormak’s cloak.

  “Stop shooting,” Prince Luther shouted. “You’ll hit us!”

  The rain of arrows slackened and ceased.

  “Thank you,” Luther shouted, with some irony. He looked over at Kormak. “What now?”

  “Walking down this corridor is death,” Kormak said. He looked at the great engine. There were handholds in the side. “We go over.”

  He started to climb until he reached the top of the engines. The air was warm and dry and the ozone stink greater. Chain lightning danced overhead and each flicker made him flinch in case it diverted itself downwards and through his body. He looked around. The top of the engines were complex patterns of machinery and crystal. He had vague memories of this being the place where the Ghul had been created, had become bodiless, reached out to become more than mortal and less than they had been.

  He raced along the top, heading towards the centre of the plinth. Ahead lay a gap between two great mechanisms. He sprang across it, had a view of the surface far enough below so that a fall would break his back. He ran on, ignoring the fear in his gut, came to another gap, sprang across again and raced to the edge of the giant spell-machine, looking down.

  Razhak stood below, in the shadow of a vast spherical crystal within which chained lightning roiled. He was slumped in a metal throne, the spear across his knees, trying to bind his wounds with strips torn from his shirt. It struck Kormak as oddly sad that a life measured in ages and marked with flights of cosmic evil should be reduced to this. If he had brought a bow, he could have finished him from here.

  Heavy breathing beside him told him that Prince Luther had caught up. “An exciting little steeplechase,” he said. He glared down at Razhak. “He is still armed.”

  Kormak nodded. “We go down the far side of this machine where he cannot see us.”

  They moved to the far edge and descended with Kormak in the lead. He was very aware of the Prince clambering down above him. If Luther fell, he would sweep Kormak to the floor as well.

  Kormak moved up to the corner of the spell engine and glanced around. Razhak still sat there. He had finished binding his wounds and now glared around him like a beast at bay. He looked unutterably weary. Kormak quashed the brief strange flash of sympathy he felt. Razhak had cut down those soldiers without thought. He deserved nothing better himself.

  Kormak edged from the shadows, blade held ready. If only he could reach Razhak before he turned, he could strike of the Ghul’s head without interference. He padded forward and then heard the sound of a sword being drawn behind him. Razhak’s head turned, he raised the lightning-spear.

  Kormak desperately threw himself to one side as Razhak raised the weapon. Lightning flashed. There was a sound of screaming from behind Kormak. Prince Luther would be writing no more poems. The twisted remnants of his sword, dripped from his hand. Charred flesh had peeled away to reveal white bone beneath.

  Kormak moved around the outside of the mechanism holding the great crystal sphere. He was edgy as a cat. Razhak was expecting him now and any moment he might come face to face with the Ghul and his terrible weapon. He keyed himself up to strike instantly. He knew he would only have a heartbeat in which to act.

  “It’s just you and me now, Guardian,” said Razhak. His voice sounded loud and surprisingly close over the hum of the spell-engines. “Soon it will only be me. A pity about the boy. A good body. I could have made use of it, as I have made use of the others you brought me.”

  Kormak kept his mouth firmly closed. He did not want to speak, to give away his position. He wondered why Razhak was doing it. Was the Ghul nervous or did it have some other reason?

  “Still, there will be other bodies. You have brought me more. Very thoughtful of you.”

  Kormak looked at the runes on his blade. They blazed with light but that was no help. There was so much ambient magic that they could get no brighter. There would be no warning of Razhak’s presence there.

  “You may have saved me you know. With those bodies I can leave here, find more hosts. Perhaps one of your mages will be able to help me stave off oblivion.”

  It was fear, Kormak thought. That was why Razhak was talking. The Ghul was afraid. It was closer to death than it had ever been. It knew, just as he did, that its last few moments of life were coming closer. It knew also that for it there would be no afterlife. Perhaps there would be none for Kormak either despite what the Books of the Holy Sun promised.

  “I don’t suppose you would make a bargain with me,” Razhak said. “I
could teach you my secrets. I could teach you what Solareon was so desperate to learn. You could become like me.”

  I have no wish to become like you, Kormak thought. He moved a pace closer, paused and listened. Part of him was tempted though. Just as part of him was repulsed. He told himself the Ghul just wanted to lure him out, that it would never keep its promise, but something in the memories he shared caused him to doubt even that.

  “I know you are considering it,” the Ghul said. “I know your mind better than you know mine. I have had far more experience of assimilating the memories of mortals.”

  He took a step closer. He could see the shadow of the Ghul now, cast from where it stood. Looking beyond that down the long aisle between the spell-engines, he could see figures coming closer, Olivia and the soldiers of her bodyguard. He saw the shadow raise its spear into the attack position.

  Part of him was relieved. Olivia and the men would distract the Ghul and then he would strike. Part of him shouted, “Razhak!”

  The Ghul turned to face him as Kormak sprang. It tried to turn the spear to bear on him but Kormak brought his dwarf-forged blade smashing down on it, splitting the haft. His blade buried itself in Razhak’s head. He thought for a moment he had killed the Ghul but then he saw the shimmering ectoplasmic form floating in the air behind it. Once again Razhak had managed to leave the body he possessed moments before death. Looking at him now, Kormak could see differences though. The ghostly form was rent and torn and appeared to be on the verge of coming apart. It swirled through the air moving towards the soldiers faster than a man could run.

  Kormak could see that Olivia was leading the men forward. Her head was slightly turned as she gave a command to her nervous followers. The Ghul was going to reach her and claim one last victim.

  Kormak threw his sword towards the ghost. It turned end over end through the air and caught the apparition squarely in the centre, cleaving it apart. A long, low scream only partially physical echoed through the air, as Razhak’s final form disintegrated. It came apart in a shower of light and in the end left not even a shadow. The blade clattered against one of the spell-engines and then fell to the ground.

  Olivia turned her head and saw Kormak standing there. She must have read something in his face. She said, “Luther?”

  Kormak shook his head, walked over and picked up his sword. He had felt oddly naked without it. Olivia walked over to where her brother lay, a roasting meat smell emerged from the corpse. She looked at it for a while, removed her cloak and covered him with it.

  “We can burn the body in the desert,” Kormak said. “This would not be a good place to lie for all eternity.”

  He was thinking about Luther’s father’s words when they first met. The old man had been right. This way lay Death.

  THE END

  MORE E-BOOKS BY WILLIAM KING

  KORMAK

  Defiler of Tombs

  Weaver of Shadow

  THE TERRARCH CHRONICLES

  Death’s Angels

  The Serpent Tower

  The Queen’s Assassin

  Shadowblood

  OTHER NOVELS

  Sky Pirates

  The Inquiry Agent

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  William King lives in Prague, Czech Republic with his lovely wife Radka and his sons Dan and William Karel. He has been a professional author and games developer for almost a quarter of a century. He is the creator of the bestselling Gotrek and Felix series for Black Library and the author of the bestselling Space Wolf books which between them have sold over three quarters of a million copies in English and been translated into 8 languages.

  He has been short-listed for the David Gemmell Legend Award. His short fiction has appeared in Year’s Best SF and Best of Interzone. He has twice won the Origins Awards For Game Design. His hobbies include role-playing games and MMOs as well as travel.

  His website can be found at: www.williamking.me

  He can be contacted at bill@williamking.me

  If you would like to know when his next book will be released then please sign up for the mailing list. Your details will never be shared. Subscribe now