[Darkblade 03] - Reaper of Souls

by Dan Abnett

  The retainer smiled. “I sleep in darkness so the dreamer may awake,” he said and stepped into the pit. He fell without a sound.

  Nagaira turned from the pit and headed back the way they’d come.

  They returned to the twisting tunnels and Nagaira consulted her maps. Some time later they came upon another pit and another of her worshipful followers took her gift and stepped into oblivion.

  Malus watched with growing horror as the ritual continued. After the third retainer went to sleep in darkness, he began to feel a charge building in the air. Were these sacrifices Nagaira was making and if so, to what or whom? What did it have to do with her plan to kill the drachau?

  In the end, six retainers were given to the darkness. The dank air in the tunnels seethed with built-up power—Malus could feel it shifting and pulsing against his skin like a living thing. It felt as though they had been wandering the labyrinth for an eternity and finally the highborn could take no more. “Will we walk these accursed tunnels until the fall of Eternal Night?” Malus exclaimed, angry at himself at the unease that was plain in his voice. “Bad enough you’ve turned me into your assassin’s arrow, sister. Loose me on the drachau or throw me down one of your bottomless pits. I really don’t care which any more.”

  Nagaira slowly turned to face him. “Very well,” she said, her tone icy and amused.

  She extended her hand at a pile of rubble that covered the side of a nearby wall and spoke a word of power. The air rippled like water at the sound and the pile of stones blew outward, away from the witch’s hand. When the dust cleared, Malus saw a ragged hole in the burrow wall and some kind of chamber beyond.

  “We have arrived,” Nagaira said.

  The witch pointed to the hole and Malus stepped through it as though moving in a dream. Backlit by Nagaira’s witchfire, he could tell that he stood in a small, rough-hewn chamber. Pairs of manacles were evenly spaced around the walls, their cuffs hanging open. Near the centre of the room he saw a mound of dusty skeletons, piled between two overturned braziers. On the other side of the chamber another opening hinted at an even larger space beyond.

  A chill ran down Malus’ spine. He knew where he was.

  Nagaira stepped into the room, her light flooding the space with pale green light. She crossed the room, pausing to touch the piled bones and then continued into the revel chamber beyond.

  The huge cavern was empty. The holes in the walls where the executioners of Khaine had unleashed their deadly ambush were bricked over and the many bodies had long since been taken away and burned. Malus followed his sister as she walked to the spiral staircase that soared up to the chamber’s vaulted ceiling.

  “It took me a decade to carve out this place,” Nagaira said. “I smuggled a score of dwarf slaves from Karond Kar to do the work. A score. Imagine the expense.” She laid a hand on the curved balustrade of the stair. “And that was just the construction. I spent twice that much time and sacrifices unnumbered to build the cult here in the city.” The witch turned to face him. “All of that undone in a single night.”

  Malus stared into her gleaming eyes. “Shall I pity you, sister?”

  “There is no sorcery in the world strong enough to wring pity from your cold heart,” Nagaira snarled. “And neither will you have any from me.” She raised her hand, pointing to his forehead. “I know of your ambitions, Malus. I have watched you in the Court of Thorns and seen how you yearned to place the crown of the drachau upon your brow. Now you will destroy those dreams with your own hand. My compulsion is upon you, Malus Darkblade,” she intoned. “It is written into your flesh and carved into your brain. Go to the drachau’s fortress and fulfil it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  VICTIMS OF FATE

  Bloodlust flowed like black ice in Malus’ veins. The hunger to kill caused his muscles to twitch, propelling him ever upward, climbing the curving staircase in Nagaira’s wrecked tower and through its ruined entry chamber. Collapsed, partially melted rubble filled the once-grand room and the heavy double doors hung from broken hinges, each propping the other upright by virtue of its massive weight. Malus half-stumbled, half-crawled across the debris-strewn chamber, his body trembling with barely contained power. His limbs felt swollen with unnatural strength, his heart hammering with sorcerous vigour. The highborn’s skin burned in thin, razor-edged lines of script as the spell Nagaira etched into his flesh drove him onwards, into the jaws of death.

  He threw himself at the tower’s double doors with a bestial snarl, sending them crashing to the cobblestones in the courtyard beyond.

  Malus staggered into the night air, his chest heaving. He no longer felt his wounds, or the fatigue of days marching and fighting on the road to the Hag. There was nothing but the gnawing hunger to find and kill his prey. If he stood still too long he could feel the urge burning like a coal in his guts, growing fiercer by the moment. Steam curled from his lips as he bared his teeth to the starry sky. It was all he could do not to howl like a blood-starved wolf.

  Instead, he tried to harness the fury he felt, turning it back upon itself in order to resist Nagaira’s compulsion. The coal searing his insides grew hotter and hotter. He staggered across the rubble-strewn courtyard, past a makeshift bier where scores of Slaaneshi worshippers were taken from the tower and burned only a few months before. The air still hung heavy with the smell of burnt flesh and spilled blood.

  The centre of the courtyard contained a broken fountain, its decorative stonework pitted and melted. He fell against the curved lip of the pool and buried his face in the brackish water that remained there.

  When Malus pulled his head from the polluted water he disturbed enough of the rubbish floating on its surface that he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the pool’s oily surface. His black hair was lank with grime and dried blood, his pale face stained with a layer of mud and gore that transformed him into a leering daemon. He looked back at the twisted visage of the knight from his visions and heard his words once more: What a witch gives, only a witch can lake away.

  Malus ground his teeth in frustration, staring at the knife-like spires of the drachau’s tower rising into the night sky. His doom called to him, pulling at every fibre of his body. He could no more turn back and retrace his steps to his sister than he could breathe the turgid fountain water rippling beneath his chin. His stomach roiled at the sensation of snakes writhing within his chest. What terrible seed had his sister planted within him and what horrible fruit would it soon bear?

  His mind churned, desperate for a way to escape the witch’s compulsion. “What do I know of damned sorcery?” he seethed. “I am no witch like my mother!”

  The thought struck Malus like a blow between the eyes. Thunderstruck, he slid from the edge of the fountain and sprawled upon the cobblestones. The angry coal of his sister’s compulsion burned still hotter, spreading waves of pain through his gut, but for a brief moment the possibility of freedom gave him the strength to endure its pain.

  Eldire, he thought. Of course.

  He struggled to his feet and studied the drachau’s tower once more. The convent was part of the fortress’ inner complex of towers, accessible only through a single passage within the central keep itself.

  The first challenge was to make it inside the keep. Malus grinned mirthlessly. For a time at least he could make the power of Nagaira’s compulsion work in his favour.

  The fortress of the drachau was almost a city unto itself. Surrounding the central spires of the ruler’s keep were a host of subordinate towers that were the residences of the city’s highest-ranking nobles and their children. Many of these spires were interconnected by narrow, delicate-seeming walkways, built by dwarf slaves hundreds of years in the past. Few of the subordinate towers connected directly to the drachau’s keep, but one exception to the rule was the tower of the city’s vaulkhar.

  The inner courtyards and the passages of the great fortress were deserted and dark; it appeared as though every able-bodied druchii who could bear arms had b
een conscripted by Isilvar to swell the ranks of the army in the face of the Naggorite threat. Malus could not help but admire the foresight and thoroughness of his sister’s scheme as he stole swiftly and easily though the dark byways of the outer courtyards until he came to the doors of the vaulkhar’s tower itself.

  There were no guards standing watch before the tall double doors. Malus pressed his hands against the old wood, bound by iron and ensorcelled to be stronger than steel. The highborn smiled cruelly. “Let me in,” he whispered to the power that boiled beneath his skin. He planted his feet, bent his head and pushed.

  The fire in his belly dimmed, hardening to a solid knot of unbreakable will. At first the doors did not budge; Malus growled beneath his breath and pushed all the harder. He willed the black ice in his veins to flow outward, into the planks of hardened oak and the iron bolts beyond.

  There was a faint creak. Blood leaked from Malus’ nose and his limbs trembled from the strain. Somewhere distant, thunder grumbled across the sky.

  Malus heard a single, splintering crack. Then another. Beyond the door, Malus heard a faint, muffled shout. He rejoiced in the despairing sound and pushed with all his might, his voice rising into a feral roar. Then, with a rending crash, the bars securing the great doors warped and burst from their moorings and the great portal swung wide with a groan of tortured iron.

  A handful of servants cowered in the vaulkhar’s grand entry hall, covered in stone dust. They screamed in terror as he stalked across the broken threshold and fled at the sound of his maddened laughter. Malus crossed the great chamber, with its soaring roof and pillars worked in the shape of watchful dragons and climbed the main stairway. He had never seen the vaulkhar’s personal apartments, but he knew enough of the tower to be able to find them.

  The tower had the feel of a deserted town; hallways and landings were silent and echoing as he climbed the long, twisting staircase. Lurhan’s men were gone and Isilvar had yet to create his own large retinue, so there was no one to stand in Malus’ way as he smashed open the double doors to the warlord’s personal quarters and crossed the modest antechamber to a single, unassuming door.

  Malus twisted the iron handle from its fittings and pushed the door open into blackness and rushing wind. Thunder rolled again, apparently nearer this time, though he could see the cold points of stars glimmering in the sky overhead. Knees crouched and head bent against the treacherously shifting wind, Malus trod implacably along the narrow walkway towards the dark bulk of the drachau’s keep.

  He took the two guards for statues at first; within the sheltered alcove surrounding the drachau’s door the wind did not even pluck at the sentries’ heavy cloaks. As it was, he was caught by surprise when one of the armoured men took a half-step forward and extended his spear to bar passage into the alcove. The sentry’s voice sounded uncertain. Who was this black-cloaked stranger crossing from the tower of the vaulkhar? “You may not enter, dread lord,” he shouted, trying to be heard over the angry wind. The drachau does not wish—”

  Malus grabbed a handful of the guard’s thick cloak and pitched him off the bridge as though he were no more than a child’s doll. His terrified scream was swallowed by the keening wind and another rumbling groan of thunder.

  The second sentry froze. Malus reached the man with two swift steps, grabbed the front of the guard’s helmet and smashed him against the iron-bound door at his back. The door shook on its hinges but did not give, so Malus struck it twice more in quick succession. Wood cracked and metal crumpled; the guard in Malus’ grip writhed and twitched in his death throes. After a fourth blow the door swing open and Malus tossed his bloodstained ram aside. The guard room beyond was empty. He stood there for a few moments, listening for the sound of an alarm over the torrent of blood thundering in his temples.

  All was silent. The coal in his gut seethed, driving him onward. Taking his bearings, he found a narrow set of stairs leading down into the lower floors and headed for the witches’ convent.

  The drachau’s keep was just as deserted as the rest of the fortress. Malus wondered how many druchii servants and men at arms were out in the forests beyond the city, slitting throats and looting the bodies of the Naggorite dead.

  There were armed men waiting outside the black door of the witches’ convent.

  By tradition, the guardsmen standing watch outside the Brides’ Door did so with bared steel in their hands: long, two-handed draichs, wrought with sorcery to give their edges supernatural keenness and power. The two guards stood at their customary posts, but were reinforced by four more men carrying the heavy axes of the drachau’s personal troops.

  Malus fell upon them without a word, drawing his sword and stepping from the shadows in one graceful, silent motion. The first of the axe-wielders fell, blood pouring from a slashed throat; the highborn plucked the axe from the man’s hand and hurled it into the face of one of the swordsmen near the door.

  As the swordsman’s brains spilled out on the floor Malus dropped to one knee and swung his sword two-handed at another axeman’s legs. Knee joints popped and metal tore as he severed both legs in a single, powerful stroke. Again, the highborn snatched the axe from the dying man’s hand just in time to block a furious downward stroke from the third guardsman’s axe. Fuelled by sorcerous strength, Malus stopped the blow with ease, swept the man’s weapon aside and stabbed his sword into the man’s screaming mouth. Vertebrae popped wetly as the guardsman collapsed, his spine shorn through.

  The last axe-wielder swung wide of Malus, swinging a vicious blow at the back of the highborn’s head. He ducked, feeling the wind of the keen blade’s passing, then slashed at the man with a powerful backhanded blow that caught the guardsman behind his right knee. Leather, flesh and muscle parted in a fan of bright blood and the warrior collapsed as his leg gave way beneath him. Before the man could recover Malus continued to turn and severed the guardsman’s head with a sweep of his axe.

  A thin whistling of shorn wind was the only warning Malus got as the last warrior’s draich flashed down at his head. He brought sword and axe into an X above his head and caught the downward blow, staggering slightly at the power of the man’s swing. With a roar Malus surged to his feet, sweeping the draich away with his axe and spinning on his heel to strike the warrior’s head from his shoulders.

  He was at the black door before the last body had fallen to the ground. Unlike all the others, the entry to the convent swung open at the slightest touch.

  The door was bare, flat black marble, unpolished and cold. At his touch, its stone surface flared with the magic runes laid into its surface and a portentous shiver trembled through the air. As he crossed the threshold from the drachau’s keep into the sacrosanct tower, he felt the fire in his belly flare into agonising fury. The black snakes in his chest squeezed tightly around his heart, making it nearly impossible to breathe. With all his will, he forced his body to move forward.

  Let my skin blacken and my bones crack, he thought, teeth grinding at the pain. Better by far to suffer and die than become the killing hand of another!

  Beyond the doorway was a short, dimly-lit passage, alcoves to either side held tall, forbidding statues of crones from ancient times. Pale light, like moonlight, gleamed faintly at the end of the corridor.

  Malus staggered down the passage, biting back his screams as Nagaira’s compulsion ravaged him from within. He all but fell across the threshold at the far end, into a huge, cathedral-like chamber lit by dozens of glowing witchfire globes. Huge pillars soared to the arched ceiling high overhead, supporting tier upon tier of galleries that looked out onto the devotional space below. At the far end of the space rose a statue of Malekith himself, the cold husband to the brides of the convent.

  Before the statue, surrounded by a small group of novice witches, stood Eldire, the eldest and most potent of the seers of Hag Graef. Her cold beauty and forbidding stare made the majestic statue behind her seem small and ill-formed by comparison. The seer’s eyes narrowed at Malus’ approac
h.

  A man stood before Eldire, his hands open in supplication. At the sound of Malus’ approach he turned, his thin, boyish face taut with apprehension and fatigue.

  Uthlan Tyr’s face went white with shock as he recognised the tortured face before him and Malus let out a terrible groan as Nagaira’s compulsion bore its final, bitter fruit.

  Pain and rage exploded inside Malus’ chest, spreading through his entire body like searing fire. He felt his veins shrivel and his muscles writhe like serpents—and then they swelled with vigour, pressing against the insides of his armour. It felt as though some rough beast crouched within his skin, freshly awakened and hungry for hot blood. When Malus threw back his head and howled, the voice bore no resemblance to his own.

  “Mother!” he cried hungrily, his face transported with murderous ecstasy as he looked upon the object of his sister’s compulsion and craved nothing more than to hold her beating heart in his hands. Thunder groaned, reverberating through the stone and earth and the floor shook with the awakened fury of a titan.

  He threw himself at his mother, stained blades flashing in the pale light. Uthlan Tyr fell back with a terrified cry, reaching for his sword. The novices raised their hands and spat words of power and black flames arced like lightning into Malus’ chest. The bolts traced molten lines across the highborn’s breastplate, burning like blades deep into his chest, but the beast within scarcely felt the pain. Women screamed as the highborn plied axe and sword in a deadly dance; blood flew and torn bodies crumpled to the floor. A figure rushed at Malus from the corner of his eye. With a contemptuous flick of the wrist he sent the drachau reeling backwards, clasping his hands to his ruined face and screaming like a child.

  The last of the novices leapt at Malus, her fingers transformed into iron knives shimmering with molten heat. He cut her in half with a swipe of his heavy sword and leapt through the shower of blood and organs, hurling himself at his mother.