With bleary eyes and trembling hands he began preparations. From one of the many earthenware jars resting on a bench near the window, he poured a substance which seemed like dried blood mottled with the hardened blue venom of the black serpent whose homeland was in far Dorel which lay on the edge of the world. Over this, he muttered a swift incantation, scooped the stuff into a crucible and hurled it at the mirror, one arm shielding his eyes. A crack sounded, hard and sharp to his ears, and bright green light erupted suddenly and was gone. The mirror flickered deep within itself, the silvering seemed to undulate and flicker and flash and then a picture began to form.
Theleb K'aarna knew that the sight he witnessed had taken place in the recent past. It showed him Elric's summoning of the Wind Giants.
Theleb K'aarna's dark features grinned with a terrible fear. His hands jerked as spasms shook him. Half-gibbering, he rushed back to his bench and, leaning his hands upon it, stared out of the window into the deep night. He knew what to expect.
A great and dreadful storm was blowing-and he was the object of the Lasshaar's attack. He had to retaliate, else his own soul would be wrenched from him by the Giants of the Wind and flung to the air spirits, to be borne for eternity on the winds of the world. Then his voice would moan like a banshee around the cold peaks of high ice-clothed mountains for ever-lost and lonely. His soul would be damned to travel with the four winds wherever their caprice might bear it, knowing no rest.
Theleb K'aarna had a respect born of fear for the powers of the aeromancer, the rare wizard who could control the wind elementals-and aeromancy was only one of the arts which Elric and his ancestors possessed. Then Theleb K'aarna realised what he was battling-ten thousand years and hundreds of generations of sorcerers who had gleaned knowledge from the Earth and beyond it and passed it down to the albino whom he, Theleb K'aarna, had sought to destroy. Then Theleb K'aarna fully regretted his actions. Then-it was too late.
The sorcerer had no control over the powerful Wind Giants as Elric had. His only hope was to combat one element with another. The fire-spirits must be summoned, and quickly. All of Theleb K'aarna's pyromantic powers would be required to hold off the ravening supernatural winds which were soon to shake the air and the earth. Even Hell would shake to the sound and the thunder of the Wind Giants' wrath.
Quickly, Theleb K'aarna marshalled his thoughts and, with trembling hands, began to make strange passes in the air and promise unhealthy pacts with whichever of the powerful fire elementals would help him this once. He promised himself to eternal death for the sake of a few more years of life.
With the gathering of the Wind Giants came the thunder and the rain. The lightning flashed sporadically, but not lethally. It never touched the earth. Elric, Moonglum, and the men of Imrryr were aware of disturbing movements in the atmosphere, but only Elric with his witch sight could see a little of what was happening. The Lasshaar Giants were invisible to other eyes.
The war engines which the Imrryrians were even now constructing from pre-fashioned parts were puny things compared to the Wind Giants' might. But victory depended upon these engines since the Lasshaar's fight would be with the supernatural not the natural.
Battle-rams and siege ladders were slowly taking shape as the warriors worked with frantic speed. The hour of the storming came closer as the wind rose and thunder rattled. The moon was blanked out by huge billowings of black cloud, and the men worked by the light of torches. Surprise was no great asset in an attack of the kind planned.
Two hours before dawn, they were ready.
At last the men of Imrryr, Elric, Dyvim Tvar and Moonglum riding high at their head, moved towards the castle of Nikorn. As they did so, Elric raised his voice in an unholy shout-and thunder rumbled in answer to him. A great gout of lightning seared out of the sky towards the palace and the whole place shook and trembled as a ball of mauve and orange fire suddenly appeared over the castle and absorbed the lightning! The battle between fire and air had begun.
The surrounding countryside was alive with a weird and malignant shrieking and moaning, deafening to the ears of the marching men. They sensed conflict all round them, and only a little was visible.
Over most of the castle an unearthly glow hung, waxing and waning, defending a gibbering wretch of a sorcerer who knew that he was doomed if once the Lords of the Flame gave way to the roaring Wind Giants.
Elric smiled without humour as he observed the war. On the supernatural plane, he now had little to fear. But there was still the castle and he had no extra supernatural aid to help him take that. Swordplay and skill in battle was the only hope against the ferocious desert warriors who now crowded the battlements, preparing to destroy the two hundred men who came against them.
Up rose the Dragon Standards their cloth-of-gold fab ric flashing in the eerie glow. Spread out, walking slowly, the sons of Imrryr moved forward to do battle. Up, also, rose the siege ladders as captains directed warriors to begin the assault. The defenders' faces were pale spots against the dark stone and thin shouts came from them; but it was impossible to catch their words.
Two great battle-rams, fashioned the day before, were brought to the vanguard of the approaching warriors. The narrow causeway was a dangerous one to pass over, but it was the only means of crossing the moat at ground level. Twenty men carried each of the great iron-tipped rams and now they began to run forward while arrows hailed downwards. Their shields protecting them from most of the shafts, the warriors reached the causeway and rushed across it. Now the first ram connected with the gate. It seemed to Elric as he watched this operation that nothing of wood and iron could withstand the vicious impact of the ram, but the gates shivered almost imperceptibly-and held!
Like vampires, hungry for blood, the men howled and staggered aside crabwise to let pass the log held by their comrades. Again the gates shivered, more easily noticed this time, but they yet held.
Dyvim Tvar roared encouragement to those now scaling the siege ladders. These were brave, almost desperate men, for few of the first climbers would reach the top and even if they were successful, they would be hard-pressed to stay alive until their comrades arrived.
Boiling lead hissed from great cauldrons set on spindles so that they could be easily emptied and filled quickly. Many a brave Imrryrian warrior fell earthwards, dead from the searing metal before he reached the sharp rocks beneath. Large stones were released out of leather bags hanging from rotating pulleys which could swing out beyond the battlements and rain bonecrushing death on the besiegers. But still the invaders advanced, voicing half-a-hundred war-shouts and steadily scaling their long ladders, whilst their comrades, using a shield barrier still, to protect their heads, concentrated on breaking down the gates.
Elric and his two companions could do little to help the sealers or the rammers at that stage. All three were hand-to-hand fighters, leaving even the archery to their rear ranks of bowmen who stood in rows and shot their shafts high into the castle defenders.
The gates were beginning to give. Cracks and splits appeared in them, ever widening. Then, all at once, when hardly expected, the right gate creaked on tortured hinges and fell. A triumphant roar erupted from the throats of the invaders and, dropping their hold on the logs, they led their companions through the breach, axes and maces swinging like scythes and flails before them-and enemy heads springing from necks like wheat from the stalk.
"The castle is ours! " shouted Moonglum, running forward and upward towards the gap in the archway. "The castle's taken."
"Speak not too hastily of victory," replied Dyvim Tvar, but he laughed as he spoke and ran as fast as the others to reach the castle.
"And where is your doom, now?" Elric called to his fellow Melnibonean, then broke off sharply when Dyvim Tvar's face clouded and his mouth set grimly. For a moment there was tension between them, even as they ran, then Dyvim Tvar laughed loud and made a joke of it. "It lies somewhere, Elric, it lies somewhere-but let us not worry about such things, for if my doom hangs over me, I ca
nnot stop its descent when my hour arrives! " He slapped Elric's shoulder, feeling for the albino's uncharacteristic confusion.
Then they were under the mighty archway and in the courtyard of the castle where savage fighting had developed almost into single duels, enemy choosing enemy and fighting him to the death.
Stormbringer was the first of the three men's blades to take blood and send a desert man's soul to Hell. The song it sang as it was lashed through the air in strong strokes was an evil one-evil and triumphant.
The dark-faced desert warriors were famous for their courage and skill with swords. Their curved blades were reaping havoc in the Imrryrian ranks for, at that stage, the desert men far outnumbered the Melnibonean force.
Somewhere above, the inspired sealers had got a firm foothold on the battlements and were closing with the men of Nikorn, driving them back, forcing many over the unrailed edges of the parapets. A falling, still screaming warrior plummeted down, to land almost on Elric, knocking his shoulder and causing him to fall heavily to the blood-and-rain-slick cobbles. A badly scarred desert man, quick to see his chance, moved forward with a gloating look on his travesty of a face. His scimitar moved up, poised to hack Elric's neck from his shoulders, and then his helmet split open and his forehead spurted a sudden gout of blood.
Dyvim Tvar wrenched a captured axe from the skull of the slain warrior and grinned at Elric as the albino rose.
"We'll both live to see victory, yet," he shouted over the din of the warring elementals above them and the sound of clashing arms. "My doom, I will escape until-" He broke off, a look of surprise on his fine-boned face, and Elric's stomach twisted inside him as he saw a steel point appear in Dyvim Tvar's right side. Behind the Dragon Master, a maliciously smiling desert warrior pulled his blade from Dyvim Tvar's body. Elric cursed and rushed forward. The man put up his blade to defend himself, backing hurriedly away from the infuriated albino. Stormbringer swung up and then down, it howled a death-song and sheared right through the curved steel of Elric's opponent-and it kept on going, straight through the man's shoulder blade, splitting him half in two. Elric turned back to Dyvim Tvar who was still standing up, but was pale and strained. His blood dripped from his wound and seeped through his garments.
"How badly are you hurt?" Elric said anxiously. "Can you tell?"
"That trollspawn's sword passed through my ribs, I think-no vitals were harmed." Dyvim Tvar gasped and tried to smile. "I'm sure I'd know if he'd made more of the wound."
Then he fell. And when Elric turned him, he looked into a dead and staring face. The Dragon Master, Lord of the Dragon Caves, would never tend his beasts again.
Elric felt sick and weary as he got up, standing over the body of his kinsman. Because of me, he thought, another fine man has died. But this was the only conscious thought he allowed himself for the meantime. He was forced to defend himself from the slashing swords of a couple of desert men who came at him in a rush.
The archers, their work done outside, came running through the breach in the gate and their arrows poured into the enemy ranks.
Elric shouted loudly: "My kinsman Dyvim Tvar lies dead, stabbed in the back by a desert warrior-avenge him brethren. Avenge the Dragon Master of Imrryr! "
A low moaning came from the throats of the Melniboneans and their attack was even more, ferocious than before. Elric called to a bunch of axe-men who ran down from the battlements, their victory assured,
"You men, follow me. We can avenge the blood that Theleb K'aarna took! " He had a good idea of the geography of the castle.
Moonglum shouted from somewhere. "One moment, Elric, and I'll join you! " A desert warrior fell, his back to Elric, and from behind him emerged a grinning Moonglum, his sword covered in blood from point to pommel.
Elric led the way to a small door, set into the main tower of the castle. He pointed at it and spoke to the axemen. "Set to with your axes, lads, and hurry! "
Grimly, the axe-men began to hack at the tough timber. Impatiently, Elric watched as the wood chips started to fly.
The conflict was appalling. Theleb K'aarna sobbed in frustration. Kakatal, the Fire Lord, and his minions were having little effect on the Wind Giants. Their power appeared to be increasing if anything. The sorcerer gnawed his knuckles and quaked in his chamber while below him the human warriors fought, bled and died. Theleb K'aarna made himself concentrate on one thing only-total destruction of the Lasshaar forces. But he knew, somehow, even then, that sooner or later, in one way or another, he was doomed.
The axes drove deeper and deeper into the stout timber. At last it gave. "We're through, my lord," one of the axe-men indicated the gaping hole they'd made.
Elric reached his arm through the gap and prised up the bar which secured the door. The bar moved upwards and then fell with a clatter to the stone flagging. Elric put his shoulder to the door and pushed.
Above them, now, two huge, almost-human figures had appeared in the sky, outlined against the night. One was golden and glowing like the sun and seemed to wield a great sword of fire. The other was dark blue and silver, writhing, smoke-like, with a flickering spear of restless orange in his hand.
Misha and Kakatal clashed. The outcome of their mighty struggle might well decide Theleb K'aarna's fate.
"Quickly," Elric said. "Upwards! "
They ran up the stairs. The stairs which led to Theleb K'aarna's chamber.
Suddenly the men were forced to stop as they came to a door of jet-black, studded with crimson iron. It had no keyhole, no bolts, no bars, but it was quite secure. Elric directed the axe-men to begin hewing at it. All six struck at the door in unison.
In unison, they screamed and vanished. Not even a wisp of smoke remained to mark where they had disappeared.
Moonglum staggered backwards, eyes wide in fear. He was backing away from Elric who remained firmly by the door, Stormbringer throbbing in his hand. "Get out, Elric-this is a sorcery of terrible power. Let your friends of the air finish the wizard! "
Elric shouted half-hysterically: "Magic is best fought by magic! " He hurled his whole body behind the blow which he struck at the black door. Stormbringer whined into it, shrieked as if in victory and howled like a soulhungry demon. There was a blinding flash, a roaring in Elric's ears, a sense of weightlessness; and then the door had crashed inwards. Moonglum witnessed this-he had remained against his will.
"Stormbringer has rarely failed me, Moonglum," cried Elric as he leapt through the aperture. "Come, we have reached Theleb K'aarna's den-" He broke off, staring at the gibbering thing on the floor. It had been a man. It had been Theleb K'aarna. Now it was hunched and twisted-sitting in the middle of a broken pentacle and tittering to itself.
Suddenly, intelligence came into its eyes. "Too late for vengeance, Lord Elric," it said. "I have won, you see-I have claimed your vengeance as my own."
Grim-faced and speechless, Elric stepped forward, lifted Stormbringer and brought the moaning runesword down into the sorcerer's skull. He left it there for several moments.
"Drink your fill, hell-blade," he murmured. "We have earned it, you and I."
Overhead, there was a sudden silence.
SIX
"It's untrue! You lie! " screamed the frightened man. "We were not responsible." Pilarmo faced the group of leading citizens. Behind the overdressed merchant were his three colleagues-those who had earlier met Elric and Moonglum in the tavern.
One of the accusing citizens pointed a chubby finger towards the north and Nikorn's palace.
"So-Nikorn was an enemy of all other traders in Bakshaan. That I accept. But now a horde of bloodyhanded reavers attack his castle with the aid of demons-and Elric of Melnibone leads them! You know that you were responsible-the gossip's all over the city. You employed Elric-and this is what's happened! "
"But we didn't know he would go to such lengths to kill Nikorn! " Fat Tormiel wrung his hands, his face aggrieved and afraid. "You are wronging us. We only..."
"We're wronging you! " Faratt, spok
esman for his fellow citizens, was thick-lipped and florid. He waved his hands in angry exasperation. "When Elric and his jackals have done with Nikorn-they'll come to the city. Fool! That is what the albino sorcerer planned to begin with. He was only mocking you-for you provided him with an excuse. Armed men we can fight-but not foul sorcery! "
"What shall we do? What shall we do? Bakshaan will be razed within the day! " Tormiel turned on Pilarmo. "This was your idea-you think of a plan! "
Pilarmo stuttered: "We could pay a ransom-bribe them-give them enough money to satisfy them."
"And who shall give this money?" asked Faratt.
Again the argument began.
Elric looked with distaste at Theleb K'aarna's broken corpse. He turned away and faced a blanch-featured Moonglum who said hoarsely: "Let's away, now, Elric. Yishana awaits you in Bakshaan as she promised. You must keep your end of the bargain I made for you."
Elric nodded wearily. "Aye-the Imrryrians seem to have taken the castle by the sound of it. We'll leave them to their spoiling and get out while we may. Will you allow me a few moments here, alone? The sword rejects the soul."
Moonglum sighed thankfully. "I'll join you in the courtyard within the quarter hour. I wish to claim some measure of the spoils." He left clattering down the stairs while Elric remained standing over his enemy's body. He spread out his arms, the sword, dripping blood, still in his hand.
"Dyvim Tvar," he cried, "You and our countrymen have been avenged. Let any evil one who holds the soul of Dyvim Tvar release it now and take instead the soul of Theleb K'aarna."
Within the room something invisible and intangiblebut sensed all the same-flowed and hovered over the sprawled body of Theleb K'aarna. Elric looked out of the window and thought he heard the beating of dragon wings-smelled the acrid breath of dragons-saw a shape winging across the dawn sky bearing Dyvim Tvar the Dragon Master away.
The Bane of the Black Sword (elric saga) Page 4