by Dan Abnett
The second druchii was bent and trembling, his sunken eyes like dark pits in a bloodless face lined with a network of fine scars. A thin, black beard shadowed his narrow chin and his hair was shaved but for a long corsair’s topknot. The wretch wore a provincial-looking kheitan of red leather worked with the sigil of a mountain peak. Silver rings glittered from the scarred ruin of his ears. Fuerlan, hostage to the court of the Drachau, glared at Malus with a look of fear and rage combined.
Behind Lurhan and his companions a trio of druchii slaves worked with a cluster of silver chains that hung from the centre of the room’s ceiling. Large, sharp hooks were attached to the chains at different heights. Small tables stood nearby, holding arrangements of gleaming tools laid out on silk cloths.
The two retainers backed away from Malus, retreating to the shadows by the doorway. The highborn returned his gaze to Lurhan and made an ostentatious bow. “Well met, father and Vaulkhar,” Malus rasped. “It’s an honour to be invited into your tower at long last. Though considering your choice of company, perhaps it’s not the privilege I thought it to be.”
Lurhan let out an angry hiss. “Insolent churl! Do not presume to speak to me as an equal. You have been a stain upon the honour of this house from the moment of your birth! Would that I could have given you to the cauldron when you were but a babe.” Beside the Vaulkhar, Urial stiffened slightly, but his cold expression betrayed nothing of his thoughts. Unlike Malus, he had been thrown into the Lord of Murder’s cauldron, his malformed body offered as a sacrifice—and emerged unscathed as one of Khaine’s chosen.
“Speak to you as an equal, dread Lurhan? I think it is you who are presuming here,” Malus said slowly, trying to keep his speech from slurring. The sound of his words reverberated through him as though he was speaking underwater—doubtless a lingering effect of the restorative drugs. “We could never be equals. I could never even rise to the level of the rest of your misbegotten brood. You saw to that. You gave me just barely enough support to survive, just enough to fulfil your obligations to my mother and then left me to wither.”
“You are not here to speak, you misbegotten bastard, but to suffer,” the Vaulkhar said. “It was not enough for you to indebt yourself to a handful of petty nobles—a debt that I was forced to pay when you could not—no, you also stained the honour of the Drachau himself by laying hands on his hostage and jeopardising the truce with Naggor.”
“A truce to a feud you started,” Malus shot back. “The Witch King himself ordered you to raid Naggor and take Eldire from her brother, but it was you who claimed conqueror’s privilege and brought her back to the Hag instead of sending her to Naggarond.” Malus staggered back upright, fixing his father with a glare of pure hatred. “Has she served you well, father? Has she shown you the future and steered you down the path of glory? Or did you find, too late, that she shares only what she chooses and then only when it suits her arcane schemes? But are you bold enough to cross her even now, with the Drachau ordering my death?” He grinned wolfishly. “Do you dare tempt her wrath by killing me?”
Lurhan gestured and the druchii slaves approached, their robes whispering around their bare feet. “I will not kill you,” the Vaulkhar said. “I will hurt you. You will suffer agonies for days on end, until you beg me for release. Yet I will do everything in my power to help you cling to life, each and every day. I will salve your exposed nerves and lave your raw flesh and turn a deaf ear to your pleas for mercy. If you die it will be because you wish it. You can chew off your own tongue and choke on your blood, or simply will your heart to stop beating—I have seen it happen to far stronger druchii than yourself. No, I will not kill you. That is your own choice to make.” He studied his son critically as the slaves dragged Malus to his feet. “No druchii has ever survived my attentions for more than five days. I think you will be dead within three and Eldire will have no one to blame but her own weak-willed son.”
The slaves dragged the highborn towards the waiting chains. Mains glared over his shoulder at the Vaulkhar. “I have never failed to disappoint you, father,” he snarled. “Mark my words, I will do so again and you will live to regret it.”
Lurhan chuckled cruelly and went to inspect his instruments. The highborn tried to struggle, but his limbs were leaden and useless.
Bestir yourself, daemon, Malus thought fiercely. I need no persuading now. Lend me your power!
The daemon uncoiled itself in the highborn’s breast. “Very well, you shall have it,” the daemon answered. “When the time is right.”
Malus was forced once more to his knees. Hands pulled the tattered robe from his back. One of the slaves studied the chains thoughtfully and reached for a gleaming hook, oblivious to the highborn’s cry of rage.
There was no end to the pain.
Malus hung from the silver chains, twisting slowly in an agonising breeze. Even when the Vaulkhar put down his spattered tools, the air alone was enough to torture his exposed nerves and muscle.
He felt shrivelled and hard, like petrified wood. His wounds no longer bled. For a while he was able to measure time by the steady drip of blood upon the tile, but now there was no procession of minutes and hours. There were only periods of agony that gave way to irregular stretches of unrelieved suffering. As he hung from the chains and waited for the Vaulkhar’s return, he could feel his life slipping away, receding like a tide. Yet every time his spirit ebbed, something dark and vital flowed into the space it left behind and lent him a small measure of strength. Sometimes the daemon whispered to him in a language whose words Malus could not understand, yet etched themselves deeply into his bones.
Each time Lurhan was done with him the Vaulkhar’s slaves would carefully tend his ravaged body with sophisticated salves and potions. A foul mixture of wine and hushalta was poured past his torn lips using a thin metal tube. It was not enough to allow him to sleep, but it did cause him to dream.
The tiles beneath him groaned.
He looked down, feeling the hooks pull painfully at the muscles of his shoulders. The slate was buckling, becoming concave; there was another long moan, then with a sharp crack the tile shattered, falling in upon itself. Below was absolute darkness, like the heart of the Dark Mother herself.
Such darkness, he thought. Such power. Take me from this place and loose me like a thunderbolt upon those I despise.
Something moved within the blackness. It seemed to shift and settle, though he could not say how he knew this; he simply felt the movement, as though the ancient blackness pressed against his ruined skin.
An armoured gauntlet rose from the darkness, its steel fingertips shaped into curved claws. The long fingers, almost delicate in their craftsmanship, unfolded with slow, malevolent grace.
The hand closed on his right foot and pulled.
He screamed in agony as the hooks in his back, arms and legs all pulled cruelly taut. Pierced muscles pulled away from his bones until the tendons creaked.
A second hand rose from the blackness and seized his other foot. Then, hand over hand, they began to climb upwards.
He felt his muscles began to tear. His skin trembled in waves of bright, burning pain. His throat seized, but the screams continued to come, making ragged, gasping noises each time the hands moved a little higher.
A helmeted head emerged from the blackness: peaked and plumed in the manner of a druchii knight, faceless and menacing. Little by little the armoured figure rose from the darkness, tearing him into pieces with each slow, methodical movement.
One hand rose high enough to close around his throat. His body seemed to sag against the hooks as his bones hung free from its fleshy sheath. The thin screams were stifled by the steel fingers gripping his neck.
The helmet rose until the black eye sockets were level with his own. He could feel the knight’s breath: it was cold and rank, like the air from a tomb.
Its free hand reached up and pulled the helmet off. A multitude of thin, black braids fell loose from the helm; spiders and centipedes scuttled
among clots of loam crusted into the hair. The knight’s skin was grey and shrunken with rot, the muscles long since turned to foul-smelling ichor. A single, deep gash ran from the top of the knight’s head to just above the left brow and the eye beneath was a swollen, black orb, the pupil gleaming with grave mould.
Lhunara’s blackened lips pulled back in a gruesome smile, revealing jagged yellow teeth.
There was no sensation of regaining consciousness; no fumbling, dawning awareness as the drugs failed to overcome his pain. One moment there was darkness and fever-dreams and the next moment his eyes were open and she was standing before him.
She was a statuesque figure in black, robed in the severe habit of the convent. Her alabaster face, stern and composed, seemed to float like an apparition in the darkness of the chamber. Long, black hair was drawn back in a single, heavy braid wrapped with silver wire, and a silver circlet wrought with tiny, arcane runes adorned her forehead. Her slim hands held a chain of gold, shaped from large, flat links set with precious stones. Unknowable power stirred in the depths of her violet eyes. She was utterly perfect, an image of the Dark Mother herself made flesh and he desired her with every fibre of his being.
Malus was certain she was another apparition, until the woman glided soundlessly forward and slipped the heavy chain around his neck. The instant the cold metal touched his skin a jolt passed through him from head to toe. In its wake his terrible pain faded and the last vestiges of the drugs vanished like morning mist. He was clear-headed and alert and suddenly he realised who it was standing before him.
“Mother?” Malus said wearily.
Eldire’s penetrating gaze surveyed the ruin of her son’s naked body. “Lurhan has outdone himself,” she said coldly. “I doubt even the Drachau himself could have done better. This will be something to remember, years from now. You will wear these scars with pride.”
Malus attempted a weak smile that was little more than parchment lips pulling away from a yellowed skull. “Will I be some wight, boasting of my scars in the barrow-field? I will stay here until I die, Mother. Lurhan made this clear.”
“He said no such thing, child. He said he would make you suffer until you were willing to kill yourself. A craven distinction, but it is the only stratagem the great warlord has at his disposal.” She laid a hand on his cheek, brushing away layers of dried blood. “Yet you have lingered well beyond his expectations.”
Malus did not question how Eldire knew what had been said between him and his father. Druchii witches were kept mewed up in convents in each of the great cities, forbidden to walk among the citizens by decree of the Witch King—yet the strongest among them had their ways of reaching beyond the convent walls.
“How long?”
“Today is the fifth day” Eldire said. “Your father is furious. The Drachau has commanded him to kill you, but if he does he will face a reckoning with me. This was the best way he could attempt to appease both of us and now the gambit looks likely to fail.”
Malus took a deep breath and tried to focus his thoughts. “I was right. Whatever agreement you forged with Lurhan included producing a child. If he kills me, then he loses your gifts.”
Eldire seized his chin with surprisingly strong fingers. “Do not pry into affairs that are none of your concern, child,” the witch said sternly. “It is enough for you to know that every day past today it will become increasingly obvious that Lurhan is intent on torturing you unto death. Then the Vaulkhar will have to decide whose displeasure he fears more. So you must endure a bit longer.” She leaned close, peering deeply into her son’s eyes. “You are stronger than even I expected, child.”
“Hate is a cure for all things, mother. You taught me that—”
“That is not what I mean,” she said sharply. Your body is stronger than I expected it to be after so much punishment. Something has changed about you… something that was not there when you went into the Wastes.”
Without warning, Malus felt a fist clench around his heart. The coils of the daemon tightened—or were they shrinking, fearful of attracting Eldire’s notice?
“I—it was a difficult journey,” Malus gasped. “I was forced to return to the Hag alone and the Wastes consume the weak-willed.” He managed a defiant grin. “I suffered much worse than this for weeks at a time.”
Eldire frowned. “And was your journey successful? Did you find what you sought?”
Malus stiffened. “Yes… and no. I found power there, but not the sort that would serve one such as me.”
“Nonsense,” Eldire snapped. “Are there swords you cannot wield, because they were not made for your hand? Are there towers you cannot shelter in, because they were not made with you in mind? Power is shaped by the wielder. It is made to serve, in the way a slave is bent to the master’s will.”
Malus started to formulate an answer when a thought suddenly occurred to him. Now it was his turn to regard Eldire suspiciously. “How did you know of my trip north? Who told you?”
The witch laughed mirthlessly. “Am I not a seer, child? Do I not ride the winds of time and space?”
“Of course,” Malus agreed. “But you haven’t taken such interest in my doings before.”
“That is not true,” Eldire said, stepping close. You are mine, child. Born of my flesh and blood. My eyes are upon you always.” She reached up to stroke his matted hair. “I know your ambitions, your secret hatreds and desires. And if you love me, I will give them all to you, in time. Do you love me, child?”
Malus stared deep into her violet eyes. “As much as I have ever loved anyone, mother.”
The witch smiled and kissed him gently on the lips. “Then you will survive, you will grow powerful and in time you will conquer, my beloved child. Do not forget.”
With that she drew away. Malus felt the chain lifted from his neck. He opened his mouth to reply, but the ocean of pain that the chain had held at bay fell upon him with crushing force. He was borne under and knew nothing more.
After that there were no dreams.
They stopped giving him hushalta and only the barest taste of watered wine. He lost consciousness many times, but whenever he opened his eyes again Lurhan was there, his fine knives working at Malus’ ravaged body.
“Why won’t you die?” The Vaulkhar said it again and again. “What is it that keeps you in this ruined husk? You’re weak. I know it. Why won’t you stop this?”
It took ages to remember how to speak. Drawing in a tendril of breath was a heroic effort.
“S… sss… spite,” he finally gasped, with a faint rattle of laughter.
As time passed, Lurhan’s work became frenzied and crude. He turned to larger knives and cut deeper and deeper.
And yet the highborn lingered.
Malus could feel the black stain of the daemon’s taint stretching throughout his body, like the roots of some enormous tree. Huge taproots and tiny, hair-like capillaries, reaching from his tortured brain to the tips of his toes. If he concentrated his attention he thought he could still perceive the difference between the two—the demarcation where he ended and Tz’arkan began—at least, for now.
He felt himself jerk against the chains. There was a pressure on his neck. He dimly realised Lurhan had grabbed him, but he couldn’t feel anything clearly any more. Something bright flashed before his eyes. Another knife, he supposed. A large one.
“It’s over, Malus,” Lurhan hissed. “It must end now. It must Beg me to end your life. I will make it quick and your agonies will end. It is no dishonour. No one will fault you.”
Again, Malus fought to draw breath. “Do… one thing… for me…”
“Yes?” Lurhan leaned close, almost pressing his ear to his son’s ravaged lips.
“Tell me… what… day… it is.”
Lurhan let out a savage cry of anger. The knife felt blessedly cool, like a soothing piece of ice, as it slid between his ribs. The slaves cried out in alarm, calling to the Vaulkhar, but Malus paid them no mind. It felt as though his conscious
ness was seeping away, draining like wine from a pierced skin. The coldness spread through his chest, taking away the pain and he surrendered gladly to it.
There was cloth against his face, light and cool. His arms were folded tightly against his chest and his legs were bound together. With effort, Malus opened his eyes and saw only a thin layer of fabric resting against his eyelids. There was a smell of unguents and spices in the air.
Am I in my barrow-shroud, he thought?
“But for me, it would have been,” a voice said in his mind. Malus paid it no heed.
“Much of his skin and the flesh beneath is gone, or carved into ruin,” a diffident voice said. “My master preserved most of his face and his eyes. A great many of his nerves were separated and splayed as well. Truly, I have never seen a more extensive series of excruciations. How he survived for seven days is truly a mystery to us and his injuries are far beyond our power to heal.”
A shadow moved between Malus and the dim light. Delicate fingertips, light as wasp’s wings, brushed across his face. Swift, precise movements peeled back the cloth covering his eyes. For a moment, even the witchlights were dazzling.
“I can help him,” a voice spoke from the brilliance. As Malus’ eyes adjusted, he saw a blurry shape looming over him. Cool fingertips brushed his cheek and the figure leaned closer.
“There are powers beyond bandages and unguents that will make him whole again,” Nagaira said, her lips twisting into a smile. “His mother has commanded the Vaulkhar to deliver him to me and I will show her that her faith in my power is not misplaced. It is the least I can do to have my beloved brother in my arms once more.”