by Dan Abnett
Lost in his schemes, Malus raced down the Slavers’ Road, heading for the icy wastes and the Black Ark of Naggor, the realm of Balneth Bale.
Chapter Eleven
THE HATEFUL ROAD
Days passed; how many days Malus could no longer say for certain. There were times when he couldn’t even say for sure whether it was day or night.
There was no rest, no pause in his flight from Lurhan’s men. The vaulkhar’s vengeful retainers were faster on their horses, so Malus simply never stopped for more than a few minutes at a time. Spite loped along tirelessly, the cold one’s broad, flat feet slapping along the black stones of the Slavers’ Road and Malus slipped in and out of consciousness, delirious from blood loss and fatigue.
They passed Har Ganeth in the night, close enough to hear the wails of the sacrificial mobs within the city walls. The scent of blood was so strong in the air, even more than a mile distant, that Malus had to fight to keep the nauglir on the roadway. The highborn had to fight a three-mile contest of wills with the one-ton warbeast until they were finally upwind of the charnel city.
Things became blurry not long after the food ran out. Spite, Malus knew, could run for a week on the meat it had killed and eaten on the road, but the highborn wasn’t so fortunate. Nor could he afford to let the cold one spend an entire night hunting in the wood. Each morning and evening Malus would study the road back the way they’d come and measure the pall of dust kicked up by his pursuers and by the end of the day it was clear that the swifter hunters had all but erased any gains the highborn had made during the night before. It was all he could do just to stay out of the jaws of the vaulkhar’s hounds.
During the long hours in the saddle he would invoke Tz’arkan’s name and call upon the daemon’s power to heal him. There was never any reply. The highborn cursed the daemon, calling it a coward and a weakling, but the serpents never so much as stirred around Malus’ labouring heart.
Three days and two nights past Har Ganeth Malus was jerked from dreamless oblivion by Spite’s threatening growl. The highborn reeled in the saddle, thinking irrationally that the nauglir had stopped by the side of the road to sleep and Lurhan’s men had caught him, until he heard the faint sounds of wailing hanging in the night air.
Malus gripped the reins with white-knuckled hands, realising as soon as he saw the tall black stakes rising into the night sky ahead that he’d reached the great crossroads where the Spear and Slavers’ Roads met. Bodies in varying states of decomposition were lashed to the forty-foot stakes, their limbs stretched and bones broken as they were wrapped around the unforgiving poles and held there with metal wire. Nearly all of them were limned with a guttering, greenish fire that pooled in sightless eye sockets and gaping mouths.
Some of the bodies had hung on the stakes for days; others had endured for years, worn away by slow inches by the ravages of wind and ice. Each of them had been highborn once, many of them more prominent and powerful than Malus had ever been. Each one had broken one of the Witch King’s laws and now their spirits glimmered in agony as their bodies were consumed by the merciless Land of Chill.
Even Spite sensed the pall of undying pain hanging over the crossroads, snapping irritably at the chill air. There waits my own fate, Malus suddenly realised. The things Lurhan’s men will do to me would be a kindness compared to Malekith’s judgement.
Then he remembered the daemon and his delirious mind once again conjured the image of the Witch King and Tz’arkan wrestling for possession of an outcast’s soul. Laughing wildly, Malus put his heels to Spite’s flanks and trotted among the forest of wailing figures. In the distance off to the west the highborn could see the fortress city of Naggorond, its black spires painted with cold witchlight. A white ribbon of roadway gleamed under the moonlight, winding a sinuous path to the dread city from the western side of the crossroads. Made from the skulls of Aenarion’s cursed kin, the Hateful Road
ran to Naggorond alone and many druchii who were called upon to walk that path never came back. On impulse, Malus drew his sword and raised it to the distant fortress in mocking salute, then spurred his mount northwards. Let them come for me now if they dare, he thought wildly. They’ll have to deal with the black ark first.
Two days north of the crossroads Malus saw the first signs of ice. His breath made great plumes of mist in the cold air and the wind felt like a blessing against his feverish skin.
He’d been applying the vrahsha daily to his wounds since the fight near Vaelgor Keep. Without the toxin’s numbing effects he doubted he could have stayed conscious for even one day of hard riding, let alone nearly a week. The toxic slime was even fairly effective at killing mortified flesh, but there had been no time to keep the wounds clean while travelling and at some point they had become infected.
There was no way to know for certain how close he was to the black ark, but there was no point in stopping—he had neither the knowledge nor the materials to treat the wounds properly. All he could do was ride on and hope that rot didn’t take hold. If that happened, Spite would turn on him as soon as he became too weak to assert himself. He was in a race not only against Lurhan’s men, but against his own failing body as well.
He reeled drunkenly in the saddle and bellowed curses at the daemon for hours on end, but Tz’arkan had forsaken him.
Worse, it seemed that the vaulkhar’s retainers were closing the distance. For a while Malus discounted the evidence of his own senses, blaming it on his fever. Every morning the highborn forced himself to turn in the saddle and stare southward, looking for signs of camp fires and since turning north the thin tendrils of smoke seemed a little closer each day.
It was only after Malus passed the third despatch fort on the road that he realised what was happening; the retainers had become desperate enough to begin buying or commandeering fresh mounts at each fort they passed. That would allow them to ride much longer and faster than before, though at enormous cost. The men must have concluded that it was better to risk torture for misusing state resources than lose their honour by returning to the Hag empty-handed. It was a fateful decision, he realised. If he did not reach the limits of Bale’s territory in the next few days, Lurhan’s men would catch him. Time was no longer on his side.
At some point, in desperation, he left the road altogether, hoping that his pursuers wouldn’t spot his trail. He couldn’t recall what made him angle north and east. The terrain was steeper and more forbidding and perhaps, he thought perversely, it was simply par for the course that the only way to his destination was over the most difficult ground possible. Regardless, Lurhan’s men were undaunted. Malus reckoned he gained a few hours before his pursuers realised he was no longer on the road and backtracked far enough to find his trail.
Spite gamely tackled the steep, forested hills, but even Malus could sense that the great beast was growing tired. In this rough terrain the odds between hunter and hunted became roughly even, boiling down to which side was willing to ride harder for their goal.
The night after he left the Spear Road
the torturous hills gave way to a rolling, glacial plain that shone pale blue beneath the moonlight. Mountains loomed white and unforgiving on the northern horizon; for hours Malus stared at their irregular lines, hoping to catch a glimpse of the black ark.
Time lost all meaning as he rode over the endless plain. His body burned and trembled and his mind drifted. Dreams came and went. Once he found himself riding among a company of druchii riding their nauglir across the frozen plain. He could not see the faces of the riders, but the voices that echoed in his ears seemed eerily familiar—they laughed and called to one another, sharing jibes and wagers.
Malus tried to speak to them, but they paid him no mind, as though he were a ghost riding among them. After a time, one of the riders sidled alongside, close enough to touch. The knight’s armour was covered in dried gore, as though he were a corpse left on a battlefield. Malus reached out to touch the mounted warrior with a trembling hand and the knight turned to look at him. Ey
es glowing with grave mould shone from the helmet’s eye slits, burning with hate. Malus recoiled, fumbling for his sword with a curse. By the time he’d drawn his weapon the vision was gone.
Another time it felt as though someone sat behind him in the saddle. It was a woman—he knew that in the strange omniscience that dreams sometimes granted—and she pressed against him, her hands sliding around his waist and up across his armoured chest. He could feel the passage of her fingers even through the silvered steel; they left a trail of ice along his bones like the passage of a bitter frost. Malus felt a head against his shoulder and smelled fresh earth mixed with grave rot just as the icy hands closed about his throat.
Malus thrashed and twisted, reaching back to wrest the wight from the saddle, but his hands closed on empty air. Suddenly he felt a breath of cool air against his cheek and then came a wrenching impact as his falling body slammed into the glacial ice.
He awoke with a monster looming over him. Spite’s toothy snout nudged his right leg, as though trying to prod some life back into its pack-mate. The head drooped to the highborn’s calf, sniffing at the crusted wound there and Malus watched the nauglir’s lips draw back, revealing yellowed fangs. Malus let out a startled shout and kicked the cold one in the nose. Startled, the beast sidled a few feet away and settled on its haunches, studying Malus with one red eye.
* * * * *
Malus awoke to painful sunlight and the wailing of horns.
The ground trembled as Spite roared out a challenge. Malus raised an arm that felt heavy as lead and tried to shield his eyes from the painful glare. He saw the nauglir on its feet, snarling back the way they’d come. A horse whinnied fearfully in response and Malus realised that the long race had come to an end.
With a cry of effort Malus rolled onto his side and got his feet underneath him. Lurhan’s men sat on their mounts a hundred yards away, watching their prey from a low ridgeline. Black streamers—the colour of vengeance and the blood feud—snapped in the cold wind from the ends of their long spears. Their horses trembled with exhaustion, but the riders’ faces were stoic, set in frozen masks of unquenchable hate.
As Malus watched, their leader pulled an object from his saddlebag and held it aloft for the highborn to see. It was Lurhan’s severed head, its black hair streaming raggedly in the wind. It was the badge of the feud. When the retainers marched him through the gates of the Hag he would be forced to carry his father’s head in his hands so that the entire city could behold the awful nature of his crime.
Without a word spoken the warriors lowered their spears and began to advance. Spite let out a hungry hiss; ice crunched beneath the war-beast’s feet as it moved between Malus and the horsemen. The highborn fumbled for his sword; it seemed to take forever to pull it free and when he did it was all he could do not to drop it onto the ice.
The retainers advanced warily; there were at least a dozen of them, possibly as many as a score—to Malus’ wavering eyes their dark forms were like a flock of ravens picking their way across the ice. Their spears were reinforced with steel and the heads were broad and razor-sharp; weapons ideal for fighting cold ones from horseback. Through his delirium Malus could see how the battle would unfold. They would surround Spite first, distracting the hungry cold one with tempting horseflesh while other riders drove in from both flanks and stabbed their spears into the nauglir’s vitals. Then once Spite was dead they would come for him. The best he could hope for was to take one or two of the bastards down before they took his sword away.
Malus’ cracked lips worked. His voice came out in a ragged whisper. “Tz’arkan,” he croaked. “Help me. Help me or I’ll tell these men everything. I’ll tell them to give the relics to Eldire. I swear it! You won’t be free until the stars are cinders in the night sky!”
It was the worst threat Malus could think of on the spur of the moment, but it evoked no response. “Curse you,” Malus said. “When they drag me before the drachau and vivisect me before the court you can have the bitter leavings and may you choke on them!”
The highborn closed his eyes and summoned the last of his strength. He would go down fighting, charging at the oncoming men and shedding hot blood—when a roll of thunder echoed from the north and the ground shook beneath Malus’ feet. He spun, staggering from the sudden motion and saw a party of ten cold one knights charging down the slope of the hill to the north, their lances levelled at Lurhan’s men.
The warriors of Hag Graef hesitated but a moment. Given the situation, there was only one possible response. The leader of the hunters turned to his band. “Charge!” he cried over the rumble of the cold ones’ advance and the warriors responded with a fierce cry, hurling themselves at the knights of the black ark.
The retainers swept down the ridge in a wall of galloping horses and glittering spear points. They veered slightly to the right, shying away from the highborn and his hissing mount, but Spite was not to be thwarted so easily. The nauglir’s talons sent shards of ice and frozen dirt in the air as it threw itself at the right flank of the horsemen.
Two men and their mounts went down in a sickening crunch as the one-ton warbeast pounced on them like a hunting cat. Spite rolled across the ice with its huge jaws locked around the shoulder and neck of one of the horses; the second one lay in a twisted heap, its back broken by the nauglir’s impact. The armoured horsemen had fared little better than their mounts: one lay motionless some feet away, his neck clearly broken, while the other struggled to regain his feet while clutching a limp and broken arm. A cold clarity settled over Malus at the sight of the wounded man—hefting his sword he staggered across the ice towards the retainer, coming up on him from behind.
The two mounted forces came together in a rending crash of steel and flesh. Horses, men and cold ones roared and screamed in anger and pain as spears and talons sank into living flesh. Wood splintered as spear hafts shattered against armour or were broken off in their targets.
The sound caught Malus’ attention; the impact was so earth-shaking it brought his head around in spite of himself. He saw warhorses thrown backwards by the collision—one of Lurhan’s warriors was hurled ten feet into the air, still clutching the splintered haft of his weapon. A cold one crashed through the wall of horses, rolling snout-over-tail in a spray of scales, blood and torn earth; the beast had died instantly when a broad-bladed spear had driven deep into its brain. Another nauglir snapped and thrashed like a hound, scattering pieces of mangled armour as it tore a screaming warrior apart. The sturdier cold ones plunged like catapult stones through the line of horsemen, their broad feet clawing for purchase as they tried to slow down and make another pass. Many of the surviving horsemen had already turned their more nimble mounts and were even now bearing down on the cold ones, touching off a swirling melee.
The injured horseman charged Malus with a hateful scream, brandishing his sword in his left hand—had the warrior not given in to his pain and rage he could likely have taken the highborn completely unawares. As it was, Malus got his sword up in a weak block that was barely enough to keep the warrior from splitting his skull with a downward cut. The force of the impact drove Malus backwards, even as the icy thrill of imminent death drove the delirium from his mind.
Still screaming, the warrior aimed a series of clumsy blows against Malus’ head and arms. What the man lacked in dexterity he made up for in vigour. Each blow used up a little more of the highborn’s reserves of strength, making each successive parry a little slower and a little weaker. One of the retainer’s blows left a long, shallow cut on Malus’ right cheek; another smashed into his left pauldron, sending bright streaks of pain shooting along the highborn’s shoulder. A third blow rang against Malus’ right vambrace, nearly knocking the sword from his grasp. Reacting instinctively, the highborn planted his right heel and stopped in his tracks, causing Lurhan’s man to crash against him. The warrior let out an agonised cry as his broken arm hit Malus’ chest, only to scream even louder as the highborn grabbed the injured limb with his free han
d and twisted it as hard as he could. Malus watched the man’s face turn the colour of chalk; the retainer’s eyes rolled up and he fainted from the unbearable pain a split-second before the highborn’s sword tore into his throat. It was all the highborn could do to stagger out of the way as the warrior collapsed to the ground. Malus fell to his knees beside the dead man, his own limbs trembling with exertion.
The sound of thundering hooves broke over him like a wave. Malus looked up to see the surviving horsemen fleeing back the way they’d come, their swords and armour stained red. Their leader still survived, clutching the head of his dead lord close to his chest. As he passed Malus some ten yards away he threw the highborn a look of bitterest hate. You’ve won but a small reprieve, those dark eyes told Malus. There will be another reckoning. We do not forgive and we do not forget.
By the time Malus rose unsteadily to his feet the horsemen were gone. The ground shook with the loping strides of the cold ones—only six now—as they moved among the dead. A tall highborn in black and gold armour walked his mount over to Malus, his aristocratic features twisted in a furious scowl.
Malus bent and wiped the blood from his sword with the hair of the man he’d slain. “Well fought, men of the black ark,” he said, sheathing his blade. “I am Malus, formerly of Hag Graef.” He looked up at the knight. “Your lord, Balneth Bale—”
The knight’s boot took him right between the eyes. One moment he was talking and the next he was falling into blackness.
Visions came and went after that, ebbing and flowing like the tide. He saw strange faces peering down at him, their expressions distorted as though reflected in a pool of water. Their mouths moved, but their voices were blurry and vague as well. Only the hatred burning in their eyes was clear and unequivocal. That much at least he understood.
Malus tasted bitter liquid on his tongue. His body felt swollen and burned, like meat left to char in a fire. The sensation stirred memories like rotting leaves. “Father?” he whispered fearfully.