by William King
“I will count to one hundred and then my pack will pursue. I am giving you a head start. There should be some sport.”
Brandon glared at the Old One contemptuously. “You and your hundred brothers pursuing one man. I had heard the Old Ones were braver. I would not give you the satisfaction of running. Come at me and I will cleave you in twain.”
Kormak measured the distance between him and Malion. He could cross it in a few strides and his sword would be in his hand.
Malion’s grin widened. “You think you could defeat me? With your pathetic steel weapon.”
“I can fight you and I can kill you,” Sir Brandon said. Malion laughed.
“You can’t kill him with a mortal weapon,” Kormak said.
“He can borrow yours,” said Malion. Was that what this was about Kormak wondered. Getting the blade out of his hand. How subtle was the Old One? Probably a very great deal. He might be mad but he was intelligent.
“That cannot be,” Kormak said. “I swore an oath.”
“And you will keep that oath even if your friend dies,” Malion said.
“I will kill you myself,” Kormak said.
“That was not the terms of the proposition,” Malion said. “This knight claims he wishes to fight me. If he does I will let you live and go on your way, no matter what the outcome. If he does not, we shall see what happens. It may be I shall fly away and leave you and your friends here with my pets.”
Despair settled on Kormak. He was being given the choice of disarming himself or watching his friend die.
“I do not need Kormak’s blade,” said Brandon. “I never learned to fight with such toothpicks anyway. My father’s battle-blade is good enough for me.”
“There is no need to sacrifice yourself, Brandon,” Kormak said.
The knight grinned. “I am not afraid.”
He brandished his sword. He looked surprised, as if he had passed a test he had not expected to. “Really. I am not afraid.”
The ghouls formed a huge circle around them. Kormak wondered what the chances were of cutting his way through such a vast horde. Not good he thought and their deaths would achieve nothing. Morghael would still be free to complete his evil work. Aisha looked at Kormak. “Are you really going to allow this madness. You know he has no chance against an Old One.” This time she did not make the gesture of respect.
She spoke so low that Brandon had no chance of hearing. Kormak was glad for that at least. “I am,” he said.
“You are a cruel man, Kormak,” she said. She sounded almost admiring. Lucas moved over. He held his bow ready. He licked his lips and held an arrow ready. Clearly he could calculate the odds as well as Kormak.
“I don’t like this,” he said, but he made no move to stop it.
“Are we going to wait all night?” Brandon asked Malion. “Are you frightened, Old One?”
Malion’s spring was tigerish. Kormak was not sure he could have avoided it himself. Brandon could not. He did not even try. His enormous blade swept down and smashed into the Old One. It encountered some resistance as it met flesh but it cleaved through Malion’s ghoul form. The flesh knit behind it with a hideous slurping sound. Brandon reeled away with a great gouge torn in his upper left arm. Mail had parted under the Old One’s claws.
“Is that the best you can do?” Brandon asked. He strode forward, slashing with the blade. Malion ducked underneath it effortlessly, striking with his claws. Brandon stepped back, blade moving in a figure of eight in front of him, keeping the Old One at bay. Malion did not step into it.
Kormak had seen such a thing before. Perhaps it was an instinctive response to being struck, perhaps the regeneration of the flesh caused the Old One pain. He seemed in no hurry to be struck again. Instead he began to circle, moving to the right. Brandon kept his sword moving, but blood was dripping from his arm. It was only a matter of time before he weakened.
All around the ghouls hissed and gibbered, sometimes raising one of their eerie howls. They moved around the edge of the fight, almost as if they were prepared to leap in and take part themselves. Malion turned and hissed something at the largest and it slunk back. Clearly the Old One was enjoying itself, and did not welcome any intervention on the part of its followers.
Brandon leapt forward and struck. The blow took Malion clean through the neck. Kormak wondered if Brandon had remembered his talk about stopping the walking dead by cutting off their heads. The blade smashed through flesh but once again it knit. Malion reached out with both claws and buried themselves in Brandon’s upper arms. The knight dropped his sword and threw himself forward. He was a huge heavy man and he and the Old One overbalanced, wrestling.
Malion's inhuman strength prevailed. Malion was astride Brandon, his hands around the knight’s throat, his talons lightly piercing flesh. He raised his head and let out a long, ululating howl. Kormak sprang. His blade was at Malion's throat, where it touched flesh burned.
“Are you really ready to die, Old One?” he asked. His mouth was right next to Malion's ear. “This blade will kill you.”
“I will tear off your friend’s head by reflex.”
“He is dead anyway.”
“You will not survive my pets.”
“Are you absolutely sure of that? Without you to lead them, if I kill a few, the rest will flee. I have survived far worse than this.”
“You are not a very honourable man, Guardian.”
“What is to be, Child of the Moon? Life or death? Are you really ready to find out what lies beyond that particular doorway?”
“Very well then I yield.”
“In the name of the Lady and your hope of her forgiveness?”
“In the name of the Lady, in my hope of my forgiveness I swear to let you pass.”
“And take no action against us for a year and a day.”
“And take no action against you for a year and a day.”
“And give no further aid to Morghael by word or deed.”
“That is not part of an honourable surrender. That is not part of the Law.”
Kormak pushed the blade a little deeper. The smell of burning flesh reached his nostrils.
“And give no further aid to Morghael by word or deed. Now take your burning blade away.”
“Dismiss your pets.”
Malion gave another long howl. The ghouls looked at him with their saucer eyes. One or two growled at him in challenge. Malion growled back and one by one they backed down and departed, melting away into the mist.
“I really do not like you, Sir Kormak,” said Malion.
Kormak beheaded him. Flickering sparks danced from his form. His flesh melted into a black pool and then bubbled away. The others looked at Kormak appalled.
“He had surrendered,” said Brandon. He looked appalled. “You took his parole.”
“He was tainted by the Shadow, he had broken the Law” said Kormak. “He would kill and kill again.”
“You are not a nice man,” said Lucas. He shrugged. “But I am glad you are here.”
“Odds of hundreds to one are not good odds,” said Kormak. “Let’s take a look at those wounds now.”
He leaned forward. Brandon did not look well.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“WHY DID YOU go and interfere?” Brandon asked. “I had him right where I wanted. He fell right into my trap.”
The armour on his chest and upper arms was tattered. His flesh was shredded. He was bleeding badly. Aisha knelt beside him. She had produced some herbal ointment from within her bag and was applying it to the wound. Kormak watched her. She seemed to know what she was doing.
“They say the claws of Old Ones are infected sometimes,” Aisha said. She had taken a spare shirt and was ripping it into bandages. There was still a lot of blood flowing from Brandon’s mangled flesh.
“The orcs gave me worse,” he said. He looked pale and grim. Kormak wondered whether he was going to make it. He had seen men die from smaller scratches inflicted by Old Ones.
Somewhere out in the night, thunder rumbled. “What was that?” Lucas asked.
A cold wind blew, scattering fragments of the mist, bringing with it a strange smell like ozone and sulphur and rot. A loud crackling hiss sounded. Off in the darkness, black lightning danced above the city, flickering from the ground to the sky in an eerie reversal of a normal storm. All of the bolts converged on one point. That point grew darker and expanded with every strike, at first a small black dot, growing.
“Morghael has opened the final doorway.” Aisha looked at Kormak. “It seems we have run out of time. The Black Sun is rising again.”
“I can still ride,” said Sir Brandon. “Get me on horseback and let’s go.”
Kormak considered just leaving him there but that did not seem either fair or wise. Aisha finished tying off his wounds. She gave him some herbs to chew on to kill the pain.
They rode through the dark streets of the dead city with a foul wind from hell blowing into their faces. The buildings shimmered oddly as the black sphere above the ziggurat grew in power. Streamers of shadow leapt from it, surged outwards, settled into the bones of the long dead. They stirred and twitched.
Spinal columns slithered like snakes along the street. Bones clattered together, meshing like interlocking fingers. Skulls rolled as if tumbled by the black wind.
The sediment of bone and desiccated flesh scattered over the city was becoming imbued with a fearful animation.
The skeleton of an ancient legionary, still wearing his breastplate and armed with his short stabbing sword, rose in front of them. Kormak’s horse reared. Brandon’s enraged warhorse attacked, smashing the animated skeleton to the ground with his hooves. Still the old bones tried to rise. Kormak lashed out with his blade. It blazed in his hands. The bones burned with black flames where he hit it, the oily shadows slithered away as if trying to escape its burning touch.
Kormak gentled his horse. The others stared at him, their eyes wide with panic.
From all around came the sound of moving bones, of the ancient dead coming awake into an eerie parody of life. The defenders of the city and those who had slain them alike were rising. Kormak wondered if they were too late. If all the bones were reanimated, Morghael would have an invincible army, far too many to be overcome. All around ghouls howled. It was a terrifying sound and the most frightening thing about it was the fear the cry contained. The ghouls were fleeing the city.
Ahead of them now, skeletons were piling up in the street, a mountain of skulls and spines and limbs, binding themselves together into a massive, tangle. Long limbs of linked bones and vertebrae thrashed, a skeletal kraken with a central mound of skulls. A massive column of knitted bones the size of a tree trunk smashed down on the ground next to Kormak.
He gestured to the others to go left, to find another street to go round the obstruction. They did not have the time to fight it even if they could overcome it, which was far from certain.
The monster pushed itself upright, becoming an awful parody of the human form, a knitted mesh of bone, skulls, vertebrae and withered flesh, lumbering along with great slow-seeming strides that were yet capable of keeping up with a galloping horse, or of overhauling it.
A massive arm, ending in a spiked, mace-like fist smashed into the ground beside Brandon’s horse.
“Ride on! Ride on!” Kormak called. Desperately the others followed. The gigantic monster wheeled to pursue them but a great dragon-like beast wrought from fused skeletons emerged from a side-street and sprang upon it. They fought in a great clatter, trying to absorb each other’s very substance.
All around was roaring chaos as the city sprang to a horrible kind of animation. All the old bones, all of the old corpses, were being brought back to life by the power of the Black Sun. Not all of them were reassembling in their original forms. Skulls floated surrounded by cloaks of shadow. Things that resembled man-sized crabs made from the contents of an ossuary scuttled around them.
There was no rhyme nor reason to their actions. Skeletons danced and fought and ran aimlessly through the street. Monsters made from bone fought until they had smashed their opponents and then integrated their components into themselves. A horrible mating seemed to take place when some met and a larger amalgamation of boneyard junk moved away from the spot.
At the moment, there was no sense of any intelligence guiding the evil magic. All was a maelstrom of dark energy and chaotic activity. Kormak suspected it was only a matter of time before Morghael took control.
His Elder Sign amulets glowed brilliantly. They gave off heat as they strove to protect him from the shadowy beams of the Dark Sun.
They rode into a square, where a company of animated corpses with skin like parchment were assembling around a dried up ancient fountain. Its spout was a leering death’s head. They swept by the monsters, heading towards the great black ziggurat over which a black sun glowed through the night’s darkness.
“We need to find Morghael and stop this before it’s too late,” shouted Kormak. Above them the black ziggurat loomed. Dark lightning flickered across the sky. Thunder spoke in the voice of an angry god.
Ahead of them a great archway rose out of the side of the pyramid. Reflections of the black lightning flickered on its surface.
Kormak could see massive stone doors had swung open. He knew without having to be told that they had been closed until recently. A hideous stench came through them, rising from deep below. All around them greenish lights pulsed, long chains of sickly illumination ran into the depths of the building, shadows dancing in time to their movement.
They dismounted and led their horses into the building. At least here, at this moment, it seemed quiet. No skeletons danced. The light of the Black Sun did not shine into the place directly beneath. Beads of foam dropped from Shae's mouth. His fur stood on end. Brandon’s face looked awful, contorted with pain. Lucas’s features were blank, like those of a man who has seen too much too quickly, whose mind has abdicated control of the body to instinctive responses. Kormak had seen that before in those called on to face ancient horrors.
“Morghael has opened the way. What will you do now, Guardian?” Aisha asked.
“I will kill him.”
The ziggurat shivered, as if it has been hit by a giant hammer.
“This whole pyramid is a focus of power and he has woken it.”
“Can you stop what is happening?” Kormak asked.
She moved her hands through the air, made an intricate gesture. Shadowy energy curdled on her finger tips forming an evil parody of an Elder Sign. “The scale of the energy here is too much for me to control. Whatever magic I try here is likely to be corrupted.”
“What were you doing?”
“A divination.”
“Learn anything?”
“There is something wrong with the magic Morghael is casting, I think. The pyramid is old. The spells have become eroded. I am not sure anyone can control what my brother has wakened, not even him.”
“We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” said Kormak. “Take the oil flasks and the lanterns with you. We’re going to need them.”
The others took the stuff from their saddlebags. Brandon offered up a prayer to the Holy Sun and collapsed. His face was white as a corpse’s. His eyes were feverish. He tried to push himself up but could not. It looked like the wounds the Old One had given him had finally taken their toll.
Kormak offered him his hand. Brandon clutched it and tried to pull himself upright but his grip was weak and his legs gave way before he was halfway to his feet. He fell in a clatter of metal.
“Damn,” he said. Kormak saw the marks of death appearing on his friend’s bluff face. “Leave me. Get the bastard who killed Olaf. Tell Gena and the kids, I’m sorry, I lo….”
“I told you to go back,” Kormak said, but Brandon did not answer. “But you had to prove how brave you were. And you did…”
A cold fist clutched at Kormak’s heart and cold rage filled his heart. Aisha tugged at his shoulder.
She said, “We need to go. Now!”
Lucas picked up the flask of oil that Brandon had dropped. “She’s right.”
Kormak nodded grimly. His sword was in his hand now. Anything that got in his way was going to straight to hell.
They moved off down the revealed tunnel into the dank, shadowy interior of the Tomb Palace. There was a smell of corruption in the air that reminded Kormak of that beneath a barrow only a hundred times worse and there was a feeling of something else, of ancient evil and leashed power as strong as anything he had ever faced. The walls here were made of old stone peeking out from behind peeling plasterwork. Frescoes on that showed scenes of ancient hunts. Some of the creatures being hunted bore a resemblance to men. Skeletons danced through graveyards. The moon watched with her cold silver eye.
The people depicted in the frescoes wore rich clothing, dark in colour, of an unfamiliar cut. The nobles wore masks of silver that hid their faces. Some of those masks had been moulded to their features, some of them were little more than blank ovals, some of them were downright monstrous. Kormak knew he was looking on the Death Lords of Kharon.
The corridor was a ramp sloping down. There was only darkness ahead of them until that was dispersed by their lanterns. A hot wind blew from the depths, carrying the sound of strange chanting.
They came to a crossroads. Kormak looked at Aisha. She stroked Shae's head. The wolf whimpered uneasily but it picked the rampway running directly ahead, straight down into the gloom.
As they ran Kormak tried to imagine the last journey that had been made down this corridor before today. It would have been the acolytes of the Defiler carrying the great necromancer down to his tomb before being sealed in forever. Outside their world was burning and the Solari rampaged through their city. He wondered if they could have even have heard it. Judging by the thickness of those exterior doors, he doubted it.
His heart started to beat faster. He was close to his goal. Soon he would find the necromancer he had pursued for so many days and who had caused the Northlands so much trouble. Soon, one way or another, this thing would be over. He’d have vengeance for Olaf and Brandon.