by Dan Abnett
This time the magic caul was even harder to push through. When it parted, the transition was so sudden he stumbled forward several steps and felt the surface of the floor give slightly under his weight. The air was close and humid, but the moisture didn’t settle on his skin. The stench of rotting blood hung in the dimness. Distantly, he thought he could hear screams, but when he tried to focus on them he could not make out where they were coming from. The walls of a narrow corridor closed around him, yet he felt as though he stood on the edge of a great plain. His mind warred with the conflicting sensations, and he swayed on his feet.
Nagaira stepped through next. Malus noticed that her small strides made a thick, squishing sound, as though she stepped over rain-soaked ground. She seemed unaffected by the forces at work around her. Her lantern was shuttered, yet Malus could see her face quite clearly in the gloom, as if she stood apart from the darkness around her. The other druchii staggered through the doorway, and the highborn found he could see them clearly as well.
“Hurry now!” Nagaira commanded the dazed retainers. “We are nearly there.” She once again resumed the lead, heading off down the passage, and Malus found he hadn’t the presence of mind to protest. He felt a flash of anger — and surprisingly, his mind became clearer. Very well, he thought. Let hatred be my guide.
Malus focused on Nagaira’s back as she led them through the gloom. He had a sense of walls and doorways, of turning corners and ascending steps, but they were only vague sensations, dimly felt. With every step he focused on his age-old hatreds, on all the different ways he dreamt that his family would suffer for the insults they’d done to him. With every step he dreamt of the glory that was his due. I will be Vaulkhar. Not Bruglir. Not Isilvar. I will destroy them all and pluck the scourge from my father’s stiffening fingers, and then this city will learn to fear me as they have no other!
He saw Nagaira float through an archway made of bleached, blood-streaked skulls. Malus followed her into a small, octagonal room formed of huge blocks of basalt. Another set of double doors stood at the opposite end of the room, the pointed arch crowned with a trio of snarling silvery faces. The screams were louder here, punctuated by a chorus of ringing tones, like the sound of steel striking bone. The floor was awash in congealing gore, sticking to the soles of his boots.
Nagaira crossed the room and grasped the door’s iron ring. She turned to say something to him. Suddenly the air shook with ululating howls as three misshapen figures emerged from the inky depths of the very walls.
Chapter Seven
FLIGHT FROM THE TOWER
The monsters were scabrous, bloody things, with lashing, segmented tails and an odd number of clawed, disjointed legs. They hurled themselves at the invaders, their bulbous, blind heads splitting wide to reveal rows of jagged, saw-edged teeth.
The druchii cried out as one, and at that moment the room seemed to snap into focus. Crossbows thumped, and black fletching sprouted from the chests of two of the twisted creatures. Malus raised his crossbow and shot one-handed, burying a bolt in the third monster’s misshapen skull before the beasts were among them. The highborn dropped the crossbow and drew his sword just as the creature he’d shot leapt at him.
Jagged teeth slicked with poisonous slime snapped shut mere inches from his head as Malus ducked to one side and drove the point of his sword into the monster’s flank. Black ichor bubbled from the wound, and the beast let out a discordant howl as it flashed past. Its stinger-tipped tail smashed into his left pauldron, half-spinning him around. A gob of venom struck the armour and began to sizzle, filling his nostrils with an acrid stench.
The creature landed, gathered itself and spun — but Malus leapt at it, slashing for its head. The beast shied to one side, and the keen sword sliced through one of the monster’s forelegs instead. Again the tail flicked out at him, but the creature’s aim was off; the black stinger, long as a dagger, blurred past the highborn’s face.
Howling, the monster began to circle to his right, dragging the stump of its foreleg across the gore-stained floor. Steeling himself, Malus feinted with a thrust to the beast’s head. The tail flicked out and the highborn pivoted, letting it slide past, and then severed it with a backhanded stroke of his sword. Ichor pumped from the gaping wound, and the creature roared and gibbered with rage.
Pressing his advantage, Malus rushed at the beast and in an eye blink the blind head ducked low and closed its jaws on Malus’ armoured calf. For the moment the curved plates held. Malus shouted a vicious oath and brought his sword down on the monster’s thick neck The blow sliced halfway through the thickly-muscled trunk and he felt the beast’s jaws slacken their grip. Another blow and the creature’s headless body was thrashing in a spreading pool of black ichor. Another stroke cracked the monster’s jaw and he shook the head loose from his leg with a savage kick.
Reeling a little, Malus took in his surroundings. One of the raiders had pinned a monster to the floor with one of his short spears and two other druchii were methodically hacking the creature apart. Lhunara stood over the second beast, wiping her ichor-stained sword on the monster’s hide. One of Nagaira’s men leaned against one of the walls, pressing his palm to a wound in his side.
The highborn turned to Nagaira. “What now?”
“Urial’s sanctum lies just beyond,” she replied, still holding the door’s iron ring. Malus realised with a start that she hadn’t moved so much as an inch during the whole struggle, and the sorcerous creatures had somehow ignored her. “There is one last ward,” she continued. “Things beyond will be… unnatural. Perhaps it is best that I go on alone.”
“No,” he said, surprised to find his voice had grown hoarse. Had he been shouting? “If you go, dear sister, then so do I. The others may remain here.”
Nagaira’s face showed a momentary flash of anger, then she quickly composed herself. With a mocking flourish, she pulled the double doors wide. Beyond was nothing but darkness.
“After you,” she said coldly. “We can’t afford for me to be injured, after all.”
The sense of disorientation was returning as the druchii’s anger began to wane. Malus’ fist tightened on the hilt of his sword. “Do not tarry, sister,” he said through clenched teeth, and then rushed through the doorway.
The pain was like nothing he had ever felt before.
There was no sensation of resistance; he crossed the threshold and felt himself tear from within. Malus fell to his knees with an angry cry, and blood pooled from the spongy floor around his greaves.
The pain went on and on. Trembling, he clenched his fists, focusing on them — and saw a drop of crimson splash on his right knuckle. He brought his hand to his face, and it came away slick and red. Blood was weeping from his skin, soaking through the robes beneath his kheitan.
The chamber was suffused with reddish light. Pillars of bloody skulls stretched from floor to ceiling, framing more than half-a-dozen alcoves around the irregularly-shaped room. Directly ahead of him, Malus could see an altar formed from severed heads. As he watched, he saw mouths gape and mumble, trying to form words of fear or exaltation. Upon the altar rested a huge tome bound in pale leather. Its pages, made from fine human parchment, curled and rustled in a nonexistent wind.
He could not see the walls of the chamber. Malus knew, even as his mind rebelled against it, that space had no meaning in the place where he now stood. His guts clenched, and he vomited blood and bile.
A hand twisted in his hair. Nagaira pulled him roughly to his feet. “I warned you, brother,” she said, her voice reverberating in his ears like the clashing of cymbals. “We stand at the edge of a whirlwind that hungers for the living. Only those anointed by the god of slaughter can survive here unscathed.” As she spoke, a single, red tear ran down her pale cheek. “Do not touch the book upon the altar. Do not even look at it. We must pass beyond into the alcoves yonder. The thing we seek lies there.”
Malus shook his head free with a snarl and lurched past the altar. There were three alcov
es in a tight cluster just beyond, each one with a shelf populated by a collection of arcane items. On instinct, he staggered to the one in the centre. There, resting on a tripod of iron, sat an ancient, misshapen skull. The yellowed bone was covered in hundreds of tiny, incised runes and bound with a mesh of silver wire. Even in his wretched state, Malus could sense the power radiating from this artefact — the empty eye sockets seemed to regard him with malevolent awareness. Next to the tripod rested a small book, a quill and a bottle of ink.
“Take it,” Nagaira commanded, her voice strained.
Malus took a pained breath, tasting blood in his mouth, and took the skull in his trembling hands. As he was about to turn away, the highborn impulsively snatched the book as well, tucking the volume into his belt. Nagaira, her face a mask of crimson, had already retreated back to the doorway. “Hurry!” she said. He noticed that she was pressing something small into one of the pouches at her belt. What had she stolen while his back was turned?
Nagaira leapt through the doorway as he approached, and Malus followed, directly on her heels.
He emerged into the octagonal chamber to cries of alarm from Lhunara and his other retainers. Before he could say a word, however, the air was rent with a chorus of thin, unearthly wails that emanated from the doorway behind him.
Malus spun, his sword ready, but the doorway was empty. Instead, just above his head, he saw three misty shapes streaming from the eyes and mouth of each of the silver masks. As he watched, the mists took the shape of small, thin-limbed figures with long, almost skeletal fingers. Their faces were druchii-like, but their eyes were solid black.
“Blessed Mother of Darkness,” Nagaira whispered, her voice full of fear. “The maelithii! Run!”
At the sound of their name, the maelithii howled like the souls of the damned, showing mouths full of glittering black fangs. The very air reverberated like a struck gong. An alarm, Malus thought wildly. One of us triggered it. Was it you, Nagaira? Your greed may be our undoing! He swung his sword at one of the spirits. The blade passed harmlessly through it, but a shock of freezing cold shot up his sword arm, as though he’d plunged it into an icy river. The maelithii hissed hungrily at him, and Malus turned on his heel and ran. Nagaira was already moving, fleet as a deer, and the rest of the raiding party bolted after them.
It was all Malus could do to stay focused on Nagaira’s retreating form as she plunged through the gloom. A quick look over his shoulder revealed that they had either left the maelithii behind or the spirits had abandoned their pursuit. Hardly daring to trust his luck, the highborn plunged on, feeling sensation return to his numbed arm.
They reached the second ward in minutes. Nagaira stopped at the threshold and put out a warning hand to Malus as he approached. “Send another through,” she said. “I don’t care who.”
Malus turned to the first retainer who caught up to them, one of his own druchii named Aricar. “Go!” he commanded, pointing at the doorway, and without hesitation the warrior dove through.
The maelithii pounced on Aricar just on the other side of the door. It was the masks, Malus realised. The spirits could travel from mask to mask throughout the tower.
Aricar staggered as the spirits sank their obsidian teeth into his face and neck. He spun, hands lashing at empty air, but Malus could see the skin around where the spirits bit turn bluish-grey, like a corpse left out in the snow.
“Now!” Nagaira shouted. “While they’re feeding! Run!”
Without hesitation, the highborn plunged across the threshold. At once, it felt as though a crushing weight slipped from his shoulders. Aricar had fallen to his knees, his eyes wide. His breath came in choking, misty gasps through cracked, blue-black lips. Malus pushed past the dying man, thinking of all the silver masks lining the walls at the bottom of the tower. He hoped there were only the three maelithii.
Malus bolted down the curving staircase, hearing shouts echoing from below. Four silver-masked retainers came around the turn, swords in hand. The highborn barrelled into them with an angry cry, hacking left and right with his sword.
Urial’s retainers were as swift as nighthawks. With preternatural agility they halted their charge up the stairs and gave way slightly in the face of Malus’ charge. They weren’t retreating, however — merely opening the distance enough to bring their swords to bear on the highborn. Malus lashed viciously at the retainer to his left, aiming savage blows at his head and neck, but the man blocked one blow with a ringing stroke of his sword and ducked the other, then struck like a viper at one of the articulated lames in the highborn’s breastplate At the last second Malus twisted his whole body, causing the retainer’s sword to glance along his breastplate instead of digging in and sinking into his stomach.
There was a glint of silver to his right, followed by the sharp scratch of what felt like a red-hot claw just above his temple. His sudden motion had saved his life from more than one blow, as the retainer to his right had been aiming for his forehead.
Blessed Mother, they’re fast, Malus thought. Whatever else his faults may be, Urial knows how to choose his men. The highborn feinted at the retainer to his left, jabbing at the man’s eyes — and then Lhunara was beside him, her twin blades flickering like lightning at the man to Malus’ right. No longer forced to deal with both men at once, the highborn grinned savagely and bent himself to the destruction of the man on his left.
The narrow staircase rang with the sounds of clashing blades. The silver-masked warrior was a master with the sword, blocking the highborn’s every attack with fluid speed and power. Despite Malus’ slight advantage of fighting from a higher step and raining blows on the retainer’s head, neck and shoulders, the warrior had a countermove for the highborn’s every tactic. Well, he thought, as Surhan, his childhood swordmaster had often said: when they’re better at the game than you are, change the rules.
Malus let out a roar and brought a vicious blow down towards the top of the retainer’s head. The warrior easily blocked the blow — and Malus kicked him hard in the face. The silver mask crumpled beneath the blow and the man staggered backwards. Pressing his advantage, Malus lunged forwards and sliced open the retainer’s sword arm from wrist to elbow. A stream of bright red blood sprayed across the stones of the stairwell, but the retainer made no sound.
Another body went tumbling down the stairwell -Lhunara’s foe collapsed, blood pouring over his hand as he clutched futilely at his slashed throat. She advanced a step towards the next man in the group, and in passing lashed out with her left-hand sword. Malus’ opponent saw the blow at the last moment and twisted away from the sword, catching only a glancing blow against the side of his head, but it was a fatal distraction. Malus brought his sword down on the opposite side of the man’s neck, shearing deep and severing the retainer’s spine. He collapsed in a heap, his sword tumbling end-to-end down the stairs.
The retainer behind the dead man had to dodge to the side to avoid the falling corpse, and Malus took advantage of the moment, stabbing his sword at the man’s eyes. The warrior dodged the blow with a jerk of his head and chopped viciously at Malus’ knee. The blade slammed into the armoured joint of his greave, and a thrill of fear raced along the highborn’s spine as he thought the metal might fail. But the joint held, and Malus brought his sword down on the retainer’s sword wrist, shearing neatly through the limb. Blood sprayed across Malus’ legs and feet, but the retainer didn’t give up the fight.
To Malus’ surprise, the retainer grabbed for his lost sword with his other hand, all but oblivious to the terrible wound he’d received. Moving swiftly, the highborn stepped on the flat of the retainer’s blade and thrust his own sword into the warrior’s neck. Steel grated on bone and the warrior collapsed, sliding down the stairs in a welter of his own blood. Lhunara was drawing her right-hand sword from the chest of her second foe, and for the moment the way ahead was clear. Raising his sword, Malus rushed down the stairs.
At the next landing a knot of slaves leapt from his path, wailing in f
ear. He sped past, but just as he turned the next curve he slowed abruptly. Ahead, just out of sight around the turn, he could hear the thin keening of the maelithii — not just three of them but, judging by the sound, a whole pack.
The highborn’s mind raced as Nagaira and the rest of the retainers caught up with him. The wailing of the spirits and the cries of the slaves at the landing above made for a discordant chorus. Malus gritted his teeth in irritation. He was half-tempted to send one of the men back upstairs to start cutting throats so he could hear himself think—
Malus straightened. He turned back to the assembled raiders, seeking out Lhunara’s scarred face. “Take two men and bring me those slaves,” he ordered. She gave him a sharp nod and took two of his men back up the stairs. Within moments the wailing of the humans changed pitch, turning from fear into near-hysterical terror.
Rough hands pushed the humans down past the group of raiders. The lead slave, a scrawny human with wide, stupid eyes, tried to recoil from Malus as the highborn reached for him, but the druchii was much too fast. He took the slave by the shoulder, plunged his sword into the human’s chest, then hurled the body down the stairs. The wounded man plunged out of sight, and the keening chorus below went silent.
“That’s it!” Malus said with a feral grin. “Cut their throats and hurl them down the stairs! Quickly!”
In moments the bodies of the rest of the slaves tumbled down the stairs. “Now run!” Malus cried, rushing after them.
The corpses made a bloody pile at the bottom of the stairs, their blood freezing into a black sheet of ice as almost a dozen maelithii swarmed over their rapidly-cooling forms. Malus leapt off the stairs into the room and bolted for the first set of double doors.