His mouth twisted into a frown. Was that all he was now? A servant of fate? The thought did not sit well with him. Fate had ever been his enemy, from the first moment he had learned of the curse that had lurked in his and Tyrion’s bloodline. Without thinking, he sought out his brother. As ever, Tyrion was deep in the maelstrom of battle, his form glowing brightly as he rode Malhandir through the press, striking down beastmen with every blow. The Emperor rode beside him on his screeching griffon, and though the human did not glow with power, his sword, and the claws and beak of his beast, took an equal toll.
The two were accompanied by Imrik and his fellow Dragon Princes, who crashed and swirled through the enemy ranks like lightning. The finest cavalry in all of Ulthuan, it was all but impossible to force them to maintain proper battle order. The Bretonnians too had joined with them, carving out a trail through the heart of the warherd. And above the massed charge flew Caradryan and his Phoenix Guard. The captain unleashed torrents of flame which burned only beastmen, and spared elves, men and trees alike.
And still, it was not enough. Teclis could feel the awful pulse of dark magics which hissed through the blood of the enemy. The Children of Chaos had ever been the fodder of the dark armies, and they had been called to Athel Loren in their thousands, united at last in common cause. They were not meant to succeed, he knew. They were but chaff, sent to die and keep the last redoubt under siege, until the Everchosen bestirred himself to launch a final attack.
The question was, why hadn’t Archaon yet launched that attack? Why did he still sit north of the Grey Mountains, rather than flowing down and engulfing Athel Loren in fire and steel? Why not make an end of it?
There was something they were missing, some piece of the puzzle not yet fitted into place. Frustrated, Teclis whirled his staff over his head and brought it down. Crackling talons of lightning shot forth, catching nearby beastmen in their grasp. The creatures fell, wreathed in smoke. What have we missed? he thought. He heard the sound of a signal horn, and saw the Dragon Princes and the Bretonnians retreating. They flowed through the ranks of spearmen, who formed up behind them as the beastmen pressed forwards. He could hear elf nobles shouting out orders up and down the lines. They were buckling, and there was nothing anyone, even the Incarnates, could do. And will we survive long enough to find out?
He saw Imrik’s standard bearer gallop past. The spearmen were falling back in good order, covered by bowmen and Alith Anar’s Shadow Warriors as well as the dwarf Thunderers, but there were too many bodies in white and silver left behind. The battle-line was swinging inwards, folding in on itself as the press of the enemy became too great. Teclis set his staff, and readied a spell. It would not end here, but they would lose the Silvale Glade, and the enemy would draw ever closer to the heart of the forest-kingdom.
Then, a wash of cold, foul air filled the glade. The beastmen, once braying in triumph, began to edge back, suddenly uncertain. Teclis turned, and felt his blood turn to ice in his veins. Nagash had at last decided to act. The Great Necromancer had stood at the rear of the army, accompanied by Arkhan the Black, seemingly content to do nothing more than observe. But now, the Undying King moved slowly to the centre of the glade. The bodies of the dead twitched and stirred as he moved through them, and moaning souls were drawn in his wake. His nine books thrashed in their chains and snapped like wild beasts.
A minotaur charged towards him, roaring. Nagash’s claw snapped out and caught the creature by the throat. Without slowing, or any visible effort, he broke the beast’s neck and slung the body aside. Horns sounded and the elves retreated, streaming back from the liche. Teclis forced himself forwards. He doubted Nagash needed any help, and he wasn’t inclined to offer it besides, but he was curious about what the Incarnate of Death was planning.
Nagash raised his staff in both hands, and brought it down. The ground groaned, and a circle of dead grass spread out from the point where the staff touched. Amethyst light blazed through ruptures in the soil. It grew brighter and brighter, and where it passed, beastmen died in untold numbers. Hundreds fell in moments, and fear swept through those who survived. Soon, those that the light hadn’t touched were fleeing back into the trees. The herd was broken. Teclis released a shuddering breath.
Nagash lowered his staff and turned.
‘IT IS DONE.’
‘You… have our thanks,’ Teclis said. Silence had fallen over the glade in the wake of Nagash’s spell. Nagash strode past him without reply. Arkhan fell in step beside him. Vlad hesitated. He looked around, a slight smile on his face, and sheathed the sword he’d been holding. The vampire looked as if he’d participated in the fighting, at least.
‘Well, I trust you’re now seeing the benefit to our presence,’ the vampire said. He grabbed Lileath’s hand and bowed low. ‘My lady,’ he murmured. He released her and nodded to Teclis. ‘Loremaster,’ he said. Then he straightened, turned on his heel, and strode after Nagash.
‘Though you did not choose him, I am forced to admit he is impressive,’ Lileath murmured. She cradled her hand to her chest, and for a moment, Teclis wondered whether she was talking about Nagash or Vlad.
‘I would be more impressed if he’d done that to begin with,’ a harsh voice said. Teclis turned to see a familiar figure clad in blue and silver armour approaching, leading a horse in his wake.
‘Well met, Imrik,’ Teclis said. The Dragon Prince of Caledor looked as tired as Teclis felt, and worse besides. His once-proud bearing was bent beneath the weight of exhaustion, and his fine armour was hacked and torn and covered in gore. Imrik nodded curtly.
‘The beasts are retreating, for now at any rate,’ he said. His voice was hoarse from strain. He pulled off his helmet and ran a hand through his sweat-matted hair. ‘They will return, though. In a matter of days, if not hours.’ He turned his helmet over in his hands. ‘There are more of them every time. It is as if every beast left in the world has gone mad, and come to Athel Loren.’
‘You’re not far wrong,’ Teclis said. He looked up at the blistered sky, where the clouds seemed to congeal into leering faces which came apart as soon as he caught a glimpse of them. ‘The Dark Gods muster their strength for some final blow – one which I fear will fall here, and soon.’ He looked at Imrik. ‘Can you hold them, if they come again?’
Imrik looked away, across the glade. ‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment. ‘After that, however…’ He trailed off. He shook his head. ‘Your brother fought well, mage. He helped turn the tide here, as he did when the daemonspawn attacked the Oak of Ages. Hard to believe… what he was. It is almost as if it didn’t happen.’
‘Is it, Prince of Caledor? I find it all too easy to remember,’ Teclis said. He watched as Tyrion picked his way through the carnage, sword held loosely in his hand. Even now, suffused by Light, he looked as if he belonged nowhere else.
‘Aenarion come again,’ Imrik said. ‘And gone as quickly.’ He looked at Teclis. ‘Something must be done, mage. And soon… My forces are bled white while the Eternity King consorts with savages and worse things,’ he muttered, casting a wary glance at Nagash.
‘I know,’ Teclis said. He leaned against his staff. His limbs felt like lead. ‘I know.’
ELEVEN
Somewhere beneath the Eternal Glade
Mannfred’s eyes opened slowly. He had not been sleeping. His kind did not sleep, no matter how much it might have passed the time. He had been thinking, plotting his course should the opportunity for freedom present itself.
There were few paths open to him. Sylvania was a trap that would be his unmaking, if he dared cross its borders. Neferata would send his fangs back to Athel Loren without hesitation. The rest of the world was being consumed in a conflagration the likes of which even he had never seen, and he had no intention of dying alone and forgotten in some hole. No, there was only one route that promised even a hint of a chance at victory.
Middenheim, he thought bitterl
y. Middenheim, the heart of enemy territory. Having been rejected by his allies, he had no place to go but the arms of his former foes. Would they welcome him? He liked to think so. How could they not? Was Mannfred von Carstein not a pre-eminent sorcerer and tactician, a master of life and death? And did he not know many valuable secrets?
Indeed I do, he thought. So many secrets, including the presence of the goddess of the moon herself. He smiled cruelly. His brief association with the branch wraith Drycha had yielded much, including the revelation that the Lady so assiduously worshipped by the Bretonnians was, in fact, the elven goddess Ladrielle, albeit in disguise. And since Ladrielle had kindly revealed that she and Lileath were one and the same, in the King’s Glade earlier, it wasn’t hard to see the weapon such information could be in the right hands.
But first, he would have to escape. And he judged that the opportunity to do so had just presented itself. A faint stirring of the air had brought him fully alert, and now his gaze roamed the shadows. There was a new smell on the air, indefinable but nonetheless familiar. Something was watching him. ‘I smell you, daemon,’ he said, acting on a hunch.
A shape moved out of the shadows on the other side of the bars. Great wings folded back as a horned head bent, and a voice like the grinding of stone said, ‘And I smell you, vampire. You stink of need and spite.’
‘And you smell like an untended fire-pit. What’s your point?’ Mannfred asked. ‘I’d heard that the elves had chased you out of the forest with your tail between your legs, Be’lakor.’ He gestured. ‘They cast you out, as is ever your lot. It must get tiring, being thrown out of places you’d rather not leave. Shuffled aside and forgotten, as if you were nothing more than an annoyance.’
Be’lakor cocked his head. ‘You are one to speak of being forgotten, given your current situation,’ the daemon murmured.
‘True, but you have fallen from heights I can but dream of,’ Mannfred said. ‘Be’lakor, the Harbinger, He Who Heralds the Conquerors, the Foresworn, the Dark Master. Blessed at the dawn of time by all four of the dark powers, you ruled the world before the coming of the elves. And now look at you… a shadow of your former glory, forced to scrabble for meaning as destinies clash just out of reach.’ He smiled. ‘One wonders what victory you seek here, in my guest quarters.’
‘No victory, vampire. Merely curiosity,’ Be’lakor said. ‘And now that I have satisfied that, I shall take my leave.’ The daemon prince turned, as if to vanish back into the shadows. Mannfred recognised the ploy for what it was. For an ageless being, Be’lakor had all the subtlety of a brute.
‘Free me, daemon,’ Mannfred said.
‘And why would I do that, vampire?’ Be’lakor asked. He stopped and turned. ‘Will you promise to serve me, perhaps?’ Obsidian claws stretched out, as if to caress the roots of Mannfred’s cage. ‘Will you sign yourself over to me, and wield those not inconsiderable powers of yours at my discretion?’
Mannfred laughed. ‘Hardly.’ He smiled. ‘I know you, First Damned. I know your ways and your wiles, and our paths have crossed more than once. I saw you slip through the streets of comet-shattered Mordheim, and I watched from afar as you tried to break the waystones of a certain foggy isle in the Great Ocean. Your schemes and mine have ever been woven along parallel seams, though until now we have not met face to face.’ Mannfred sniffed. ‘I must say, I wasn’t missing much.’
‘You mock me,’ Be’lakor rumbled.
‘And you mock me, by implying that you would free me in return for my loyalty. We both know that such an oath, made under duress, would be no more binding than a morning mist.’
Be’lakor’s hideous features twisted into a leer. ‘Even if it were not made under duress, I would no more trust you than I would trust the Changer of Ways himself. You are a serpent, Mannfred, with a serpent’s ambition. Power is your only master, and you ever seek it, even when it would be wiser to restrain yourself.’
‘Ah, more mockery… Be’lakor, hubris made manifest, warns me of overreach. Did I not say that I know you, daemon? I have read of your mistakes, your crimes, and you are the last being who should warn anyone of the perils of ambition. There is a saying in Sylvania… grave, meet mould.’ Mannfred chortled. ‘I leave it to you, to decide which you are.’
‘Are you finished?’
‘I’m just getting started. I have nothing but time here, and nothing to do but to sharpen my wit. Shall I comment on your many failures next?’
Be’lakor growled. Mannfred subsided. He sat back, and smirked at the daemon. He’d planned to provoke the creature into attacking, and thus freeing him, but he had the sense that Be’lakor was too canny for such tricks, despite his lack of subtlety. ‘No, instead, I think I shall offer thee a bargain. A titbit of some rare value, in return for thy aid in shattering the cage which so cruelly detains me.’
‘And what is this bibelot, this morsel, that I should exert myself so?’
‘Oh, something of great value, for all that it is but a small thing… a name.’ Mannfred cocked his head. ‘Much diminished, this name, but valuable all the same, I think.’
‘Speak it,’ Be’lakor said.
‘Free me,’ Mannfred replied.
‘No. Why should I? What good is this name to me?’
‘Well, it is not so much the name as the soul upon which it hangs. A divine soul, Be’lakor. One which has supped at the sweet nectar of immortality, but now is but a mortal. Helpless and fragile.’
‘A god,’ Be’lakor rasped. The daemon’s eyes narrowed. ‘The gods are dead.’
‘Not all of them. Some yet remain.’ Mannfred stepped back. He spread his arms. ‘One, at least, is here, in this pestilential forest. Hidden amongst the cattle.’
‘A god,’ Be’lakor repeated, softly. The daemon’s features twisted. Mannfred could almost smell the creature’s greed.
‘An elven god,’ he said. ‘One whose blood, mortal or not, contains no small amount of power, for one who knows how to extract it. I had considered it myself, but, well…’ He motioned to the cage. ‘I will gladly offer their identity in exchange for but the simple favour of cleaving these pestiferous roots which do bind me.’
Be’lakor was silent for a moment. Then, with a gesture, a sword of writhing shadows sprouted from his hand. He swept the blade across the bars, and Mannfred clapped his hands to his ears as he heard the trees which made up his prison scream in agony. He made to leave, but found the tip of Be’lakor’s blade at his throat. ‘The name, vampire.’
‘Lileath, goddess of moon and prophecy,’ Mannfred said, gingerly pushing the blade aside. It squirmed unpleasantly at his touch.
‘Where?’ Be’lakor growled.
‘That was not part of the bargain,’ Mannfred said. ‘But, as I am an honourable man, I shall tell you anyway. The King’s Glade. She sits on the Council of Incarnates, and listens to their bickering, no doubt plotting some scheme of her own.’
Be’lakor grinned. Then, in a twist of shadow, the daemon prince was gone. Mannfred sagged. Free of the deadening effect of the magics, he suddenly realised just how weak he truly was. Hunger gnawed at him.
He heard the rattle of weapons, and realised that Be’lakor’s destruction of the cage had roused the guards. Mannfred smiled, and as the first elf entered the chamber, he was already in motion, jaw unhinged like that of a serpent and claws sprouting from his fingertips. He bowled the elf over with bone-shattering force and tore the spear from his grip. He hurled it with deadly accuracy, spitting the second and driving her back against the wall. With a growl, he tore the helm from the first guard’s head and fastened his jaws on the helpless elf’s throat.
Pain lashed across his back, even as he fed. He turned, jaws and chest stained with blood, and twisted aside as the sword came down again. The elf pursued him as he slithered away. Mannfred caught the blade as it stabbed for his midsection, and hissed in pain as the sigils carved into its su
rface burned his flesh. He drove the claws of his free hand into the elf’s throat and tore it out.
He fed quickly, knowing that more guards were on their way. When he had supped his fill from each of the guards, he fled into the labyrinth of roots, taking care to keep to the shadows and to hide himself from the spirits which haunted Athel Loren. Freed of his cell, his magics had returned, and he had little difficulty in reaching the surface.
As he reached the open air, he tilted his head and sniffed. Escape was his most pressing concern, but he hesitated. He had been betrayed and humiliated. All of the plots and schemes he had concocted in his confinement came rushing back, and he savoured them. No, it wouldn’t do to leave without saying goodbye. Nagash was beyond the scope of his powers. But he could still poison the well.
Which one will it be? he thought, as he glided through the trees, moving swiftly, conscious of the alarms which were even now being raised. The Incarnates were all, like Nagash, beyond him, though he hated to admit it. That left only certain individuals. And only one whose scent was close at hand.
Mannfred smiled as he set off in pursuit of his quarry. How appropriate, he thought. Maybe fate is on my side after all. If nothing else, it might prove amusing to take Be’lakor’s prize off the table before the daemon got a chance to claim her. And if in doing so he could rend his faithless former would-be allies from a safe remove, all the better. Moving swiftly, he navigated the ever-shifting trails of the forest, avoiding the kinbands likely dispatched to bring him to heel, until he found the one he sought.
And then, with the surety of a serpent, he struck.
Duke Jerrod rose to his feet and spun, his sword flying from his sheath and into his hand. The point of the gleaming blade came to rest in the hollow of Mannfred von Carstein’s throat. ‘Do not move, vampire, or I will remove your foul head,’ Jerrod said.
The Council of Incarnates was squabbling again, arguing over which course of action to take. He’d hoped that the battle with the beastmen would have seen them united at last, but such was not to be. Even as they’d returned to the glade, arguments had started anew. While Hammerson seemed to take a perverse pleasure in watching such rancorous discussion, Jerrod no longer had the stomach for it. It reminded him of the last days in the king’s court, before Mallobaude’s civil war. An enemy on the horizon, and all of them more concerned about getting their own way. Even demigods, it seemed, were not immune to foolishness.
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