Broken Stone 02 - Warlock's Sun Rising

by Damien Black

  Gormly nodded, his bluff countenance betraying nothing, though he flicked a dark glance at Regan as they filed out of the room.

  Vertrix did his best to appear relaxed as they arrived at the hall. He could not afford to show his tension. He felt the witch’s dark eyes on him as he took his seat. It still wasn’t as close as he would like, but it would have to do. He forced himself to meet her gaze and nodded courteously. There was no presence in his mind: she wasn’t trying to enthral him. That was a blessed relief.

  Every yard counts, he told himself. Abrexta was sat twenty paces away. Two guards stood to attention behind her and Cadwy.

  Regan and Bryant sat to either side of him. Their three squires took up position behind them. They’d rehearsed the plan endlessly, but timing and detail would be crucial to its success. The chance of that would be oh so slim, but they had to try…

  He glanced sidelong at Regan as the court perfect intoned the standard prayer before meat. The young knight’s face remained as casual as ever. Was he wrong to doubt him? A sudden pang of guilt crossed his breast. These were strange times indeed, when old comrades in arms mistrusted one another. A hundred plagues on the wretched sorceress who had made it so.

  That thought only stiffened his resolve. He hoped he was wrong about Regan – but he couldn’t take that chance.

  Servants brought the first course. Roasted venison seasoned with nutmeg and pepper, precious spices brought from the hot Southlands. Gormly leaned forward to carve for his master. The court minstrels had begun playing a gentle ditty for the diners. Vertrix felt his heart quicken as his squire cut slices for him. Breaking off a crust of bread lined with chestnuts, Vertrix chewed on it and tried to look as though he were enjoying the food. Gormly began heaping slices on his trencher. When the third one was on, Vertrix nodded curtly.

  Instead of stepping back behind him, Gormly passed him the dagger. Vertrix was already on his feet. Leaping across the table he felt every sinew in his old body strain. Forcing himself into a sprint he closed on the King and his paramour.

  He risked slowing his pace for a quick glance back. Regan and Bryant were right behind him, daggers in hand, Gormly dogging their heels.

  He had closed half the distance before anyone else had a chance to react. The King was staring at him, open-mouthed. Abrexta was on her feet.

  ‘Kill him!’ she cried.

  The guards had stepped forward to protect their king, and exchanged confused glances, but Vertrix knew the order wasn’t meant for them.

  He turned again and saw Regan, his eyes glazing over as he raised his blade to strike. Then Gormly was on the young knight, throwing him to the floor as he wrestled the dagger from his grasp.

  ‘Protect the King!’ yelled Vertrix at the top of his lungs like a man gone wood. ‘The King has been bewitched! Protect the King!’

  He was just a few yards away from Abrexta now. He could see her beautiful face contorted in an ugly scowl as she mouthed the words of some spell…

  He closed with her and grabbed her tresses, pulling her down over the table as he raised his dagger to strike. At that moment he felt a hand about his throat and a sharp stabbing pain exploded through his kidneys. His whole body went limp, his legs turning to jelly beneath him. The pain continued to spread up through his back as he felt something hard wrenched from it.

  The hand let go of him and he sank to the floor.

  Something dark and sticky pooled beneath him. Looking up he saw Bryant’s face looking down at him, his eyes glazed and face expressionless. In his hand was a bloodied dagger. Vertrix struggled to sit up but could not. Bryant’s face remained emotionless as he knelt and plunged his blade into Vertrix’s throat. The old knight felt himself being sucked into a whirlpool of blood, it rose higher and higher as the life choked out of him…

  Abrexta felt herself stretched to breaking point. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. She could bear no more. She released the two knights from her thrall as Vertrix quivered into stillness before her. Bryant recoiled from the corpse, face going ashen as his senses returned to him.

  ‘Seize these traitors!’ she cried. The hall was a flurry of activity as knights and guards descended on Gormly, Regan and Bryant, who was screaming in anguish.

  ‘Take them outside and hang them,’ she commanded, recovering herself, though she felt like collapsing. It was a relief to have the two knights out of her control; she had stretched her powers to breaking point to enthral them on top of all the others.

  The King had retreated behind his guards. She spared a sneer of contempt for him. He looked so pathetic, cowering in a corner: she longed for the day when she could finally be rid of him and rule directly in her own right.

  The witch watched coolly as the five traitors were dragged from the hall. Looking at the corpse of Vertrix she smirked. Did he really think she could be so easily fooled? She could not hang them for treason without due cause – Vertrix had been too well respected, it was politically too risky. But now she had the pretext she needed to get rid of the troublesome northern knights. Another loose end neatly tied up.

  ‘A very sad day,’ said Sir Liant, the seneschal. ‘I had thought Sir Vertrix a knight of some esteem.’ Liant had been a landless knight until she got rid of his predecessor, who had been far too loyal and intransigent to enthral.

  ‘I’ll tell you what to think,’ said Abrexta curtly. A corpulent drunk, Liant was barely fit for office, but he wasn’t too much of a drain on her powers. In fact he barely needed enthralling at all. Palace affairs would have been a disorganised mess left in his hands, but fortunately the servants knew what they were about.

  That thought amused her. How long had the preening nobility thought themselves indispensible to the nation? Once the new world order was ushered in, such vainglorious notions would be swept away. Men – and women – of real power would rule the earth, just as it had been on the Island Realms she would conquer next.

  ‘Clean this away,’ she said, motioning dismissively towards Vertrix’s corpse. ‘But keep his head, I want to see it hanging from the palace with the rest of his traitor friends.’

  Men she had enthralled, bribed or cowed scrambled to obey. Within the hour the feast had resumed, King Cadwy timorously taking his seat again as servants poured him more wine.

  ‘There now, my sweet king,’ she purred in his ear. ‘No need to affright yourself – another conspiracy against the royal person quashed.’

  ‘But… Vertrix was an honourable man,’ muttered the King, confusion written across his face. ‘He wasn’t like the others, he never coveted power. I don’t understand…’

  ‘These are dark times, and they bring dark inclinations with them,’ she whispered, intensifying the image of a hand clutching a heart. She tried to ignore the nausea that washed over her as she stretched her elan again.

  ‘Yes,’ mumbled the King, ‘dark times indeed. And what shall we do to make them brighter?’

  As if on cue, the herald re-entered the room and bellowed: ‘Your Majesty, an emissary from the highland clans seeks audience!’

  Abrexta smiled at her lover. ‘I think you are just about to have that question answered, my sweet. Pray bid the savage enter.’

  Obediently the King did as he was told.

  It was the same man who had led the first delegation of emissaries, only now he was alone. As well as an axe he carried a sack in his other hand.

  ‘You disturb the royal person at feast-time,’ declared the King, following Abrexta’s mental script. ‘Your news had best be good for the realm.’

  The highland brigand’s face cracked an ugly sneer. ‘Aye, it’s good news for ye, sirrah,’ he said, before surprising them all by taking a knee. ‘Slangá and Tíerchán like yer offer – a thousand o’ their best men each they’ll send ye, in return fer the lands ye’ve offered us.’

  The enthralled and sycophants lost no time in cheering that, raising their goblets in a toast. Abrexta made a show of joining in, though the news hardly surprised her –
she had been in contact with Cormic Death’s Head on the matter already. Teaching one of his folk the rudiments of Scrying had been a good investment of time and effort.

  ‘Let us all drink another toast,’ she declared, rising. ‘To our most munificent and valorous King Cadwy, the monarch who shall unite the Westerling peoples after two thousand years asunder! Lowlander and highlander, mainlander and islander – all shall find common kinship under his banner when this war is done!’

  She fancied that the enthusiastic response was only partly down to her witcheries: her plans were ambitious, and had an appeal that even a sceptic could not deny.

  ‘Aye, ‘twill be a fine alliance,’ cried the highlander. ‘So long as yer majesty cleaves tae his part o’ the bargain. But if he doesnae, know that the highland clans will be swift and merciless in exacting their revenge. For we stand in possession o’ both the wards o’ Daxor and Gaellentir, and this is what becomes o’ those who oppose us.’

  The savage opened the sack and tossed its contents into the midst of the tables. The first head was already in a state of decay, its eyes picked out. But the second was fresher, its identity unmistakeable to all who had met its former owner. Several gasps went up.

  ‘Gaellentir fell a tenday ago,’ said the highlander. ‘We slaughtered every man in arms we found, including its master Lord Braun.’ He met the King’s eye and grinned fiercely. ‘Ye can add the Lords of Gaellen and Daxtir tae yer collection o’ heads on yon palace walls – consider it a reminder o’ what happens tae those who cross highland folk.’

  CHAPTER IX

  The Trail Grows Cold

  Stone effigies sprung to life, called from darkness by the light of Horskram’s lantern. By now Adelko knew better than to flinch or shudder, though already he was thinking back to the top floor of the inner sanctum at Ulfang. The same lurking presence of evil was there, and a foul odour permeated the Werecrypt.

  The tombs of the erstwhile lords of Graukolos stretched before them to either side; as Horskram guided them across the low vault Adelko could make out their names. Wilhelm Greybrow, father of the present-day Eorl; Urus the Strong, his father in turn; Alfric the Young… the names went on. Each of these tombs was crowned with the clenched fist of the Markward coat of arms. The tombs beyond those bore a different insignia: the heron of the House of Tal spread its petrified wings above more rude likenesses of the patrician lords of Dulsinor. There were a good deal more of these, he noticed: from the bygone days when Dulsinor had been a kingdom in its own right.

  To Adelko they seemed much the same, king and eorl, Tal and Markward: in life they had all been doughty warrior chieftains glorified with title and castle. And nothing more than that. But then he was in a cynical mood, as he was more often these days.

  Question everything… So the witch mistress of the Argael had bade him do. Now they were once more looking for a mystery warlock hell-bent on ruling entire kingdoms, provincial warlords seemed frankly trivial.

  His sixth sense went up a notch as they reached a stone trapdoor set in the floor at the back of the vault, behind the row of tombs devoted to the seneschals of Graukolos. A great bronze ring was set into the middle of it.

  ‘Well,’ muttered Horskram. ‘Whatever fell agent stole this fragment, it didn’t use the door like a respectable visitor. I’ll put a blessing on us and then you can help me to open this.’

  Together they muttered the Psalms of Abjuration and Fortitude. Adelko felt the words channelling his psyche. Somehow they meant more to him now; he felt he understood them better than he had done three months ago. Together they heaved the heavy door open. He felt the lingering evil washing up over them in an invisible miasma.

  More attuned to what was pure and holy; more sensitive to the wicked and profane. These were the fruits of spiritual growth.

  Taking up the lantern again Horskram led them down a diagonal flight of stone steps. Now the feeling was different, no less horrible but more clearly identifiable: a demon’s psychic spoor. That was one thing they hadn’t detected in Andragorix’s lair, though his scrolls and grimoires had contained depictions of the winged horror that had pursued them from Ulfang to Staerkvit.

  ‘Why couldn’t we sense a demonic presence at the Warlock’s Crown, Master Horskram?’ His own voice sounded curiously calm.

  ‘Because he did not summon a demon to his presence,’ said Horskram. ‘He sent it to pursue us, so it never left its spoor in his quarters.’

  ‘But there was something, coming from that… thing in his chamber. I could feel it.’

  Horskram’s lip curled in disgust. ‘Aye, ‘twas a Succubus – such fiends do not repel mortals but are designed to do exactly the opposite, inciting them to acts of depraved lust. Our Harijan friend would doubtless have approved.’

  Adelko flushed, glad of the darkness. So that was why he had experienced altogether different sensations when they were investigating Andragorix’s bedchamber. Clearly the servants of the Fallen One moved in diverse and mysterious ways.

  The demonic spoor intensified as they stepped over to the other end of the cramped chamber. Adelko had seen enough of witchery and demonkind not to be surprised by the sight of what had been an iron casket now torn to shreds like a piece of parchment – and a gaping hole in the far wall.

  ‘Something powerful enough to burrow through stone,’ said Horskram, shaking his head as he reached for his phial of holy water. ‘Join me in putting a blessing on this place. The heirs of Graukolos deserve better than to have such evil under their last resting place.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Adelko once they were done. The aura of evil had diminished slightly, though it was still there.

  Horskram nodded towards the hole. ‘We follow its trail.’

  This time Adelko’s heart didn’t sink, as it had done on so many other occasions: he had been expecting his mentor to say that.

  Through the winding tunnel they made their way, both whispering psalms in the dark. The stench was enough to make him gag; he almost felt the mounds of fly-encrusted corpses outside Linden and Salmor would have been preferable to this preternatural reek.

  The burrow-hole made its way steadily up towards the surface. In the light of Horskram’s lantern Adelko could see the rock and earth had been hewn away in rough chunks. Had the demonic thief simply penetrated its way into the Werecrypt – or had it eaten its way down? The question made him feel queasier still.

  On they scrambled and hours slipped by, with only their prayers and Horskram’s light for company. When at last they emerged above ground Adelko thought he had forgotten the taste of fresh air.

  He took it in gratefully as they looked around them. They were in a wood. The novice thought he caught a glimpse of an Aethus flittering between the branches. A few months ago that might have startled him or piqued his interest: now it just seemed mundane.

  ‘We must be in the Glimmerholt,’ said Horskram, looking around as he extinguished his lantern. ‘Very clever… It only needed to emerge here and fly off under cover of darkness.’

  ‘So it could fly as well?’

  ‘Doubtless… a more powerful entity than the one that robbed Ulfang, a demon capable of shape shifting. Third Tier denizen most likely.’

  ‘We didn’t see anything like that in Andragorix’s books,’ said Adelko.

  ‘No indeed – he wasn’t capable of summoning anything powerful enough to burrow through stone, otherwise we would have been done for at Landebert’s hut,’ mused Horskram, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. ‘Whoever he was serving kept him on a tight leash – he didn’t want to give him too much knowledge.’

  ‘So we’re after another sorcerer – one even more powerful than Andragorix?’

  ‘It would certainly appear so,’ said Horskram, frowning as he inspected the circumference of the burrow hole before splashing some more holy water and intoning another prayer. ‘Whoever it is, they’ve discovered some powerful Left-Hand magic, more potent than I thought in the first place.’

  ‘Th
e Earth Witch said something about that,’ said Adelko as they began to make their way through the woods. ‘But it wasn’t Andragorix who had access to the Elder Wizards’ texts.’

  ‘No indeed,’ said Horskram. ‘He managed to summon up the horror that pursued us but that – and the Succubus – was the limit of his grasp of Demonology. His knowledge of Necromancy was also limited. Those are the two darkest of the Seven Schools, and our Order has worked hard to expunge every text that teaches them these past five hundred years.’

  ‘Which is why such knowledge is hard to come by?’

  ‘Precisely. But whoever enthralled Andragorix must have discovered the same grimoires as Ashokainan and Morwena presumably did.’

  ‘If there’s only one other Watchtower inhabited today, that means it’s likely to be the Sassanian warlock you mentioned before.’

  ‘His name is Abdel Sha’arza,’ said Horskram. ‘A black magician of some repute who dwells in the Watchtower of Leviathan, in the Abydos Ranges that separate the sultanates of Halepo and Nazharya.’

  ‘So could it be him?’

  ‘He is a possible suspect in our inquiry now,’ said Horskram. ‘But as I said before, world domination is not something Sha’arza has ever craved, though his soul is doubtless corrupted by his studies of the Left-Hand path. Perhaps his ambitions have grown with his thirst for power. And Cael is believed to have brought the final fragment to the Sassanian Sultanates, which places him most conveniently.’

  ‘So… does that mean we’re going to head south?’ Adelko felt his pulse quicken at the thought. He had always longed to visit the Southlands, where loremasters were said to be wise beyond reckoning. Many Argolians travelled to the Pilgrim Kingdoms to share knowledge with the savants of the Faith, despite their different religions.

  ‘It means we’re heading to Rima, our original destination,’ said Horskram firmly. ‘We still need to consult Hannequin. Presumably he will have held a divination by now – we’ll need to compare notes.’