by C. L. Werner
And, of course, the biggest hazard offered by Tor Anroc was the simple fact that the city would spread the alarm to the rest of Ulthuan. The asur would be alerted to the return of their betrayed kin. They would muster their armies and march to repulse the druchii, to drive the invaders back into the sea. This time, with even their exile kingdom lost to them, the druchii couldn’t allow their landings to be repulsed. They had to succeed, or perish in the attempt. Avoiding Tor Anroc would gain them precious hours, perhaps even a full day, to seize their beachheads. While the fleet of Drane Blackblood harried the asur naval patrols and Lokhir Fellheart led his fleet to the south and the harbours of Tor Dranil and Merokai, Malus would have a prime opportunity to wage his own war and claim his own measure of glory.
Malus crushed the scroll he held in his hand, feeling the flayed strip of skin crinkle under his grip. Dictates from the Witch King were inked in the blood of traitors on the hides of their offspring, the seals affixed to them crafted from the fat of the selfsame traitors. Such gruesome missives were a reminder that Malekith was watching, and of what the recipients’ fates would be should they fail their king.
The army of Hag Graef had been given a singular honour. They would lead the attack on Ulthuan. They would be the first to land in Tiranoc, the first to confront the wrathful warriors of the shattered kingdom. The Eternal Malediction was to beach itself, hurl itself far out upon the shore. The ancient enchantments that kept the black ark buoyant would be dispelled, severed by the Witch King’s own cabal of sorceresses. The vessel would remain as a bastion, a citadel from whence Malus would stage his attack. The ships of the fleet would be broken up, their timber used to craft siege engines and cartage for the army, their iron fastenings reforged into shields and spears, their sails cut into tents and blankets for the long march to the Annulii Mountains and the Inner Kingdoms beyond.
This was what Malekith had spared him for! A suicidal probe against the most heavily defended of Ulthuan’s Outer Kingdoms! A feint to draw the attention of the asur while the rest of the invasion massed in the south. Once the asur were committed, the Witch King would order the rest of the black arks to loose their warriors on the shores of Nagarythe, reclaim the old homeland. Malus knew he was being sacrificed; he had known it the moment the black dragon had descended from the stormy sky and its rider handed him the royal command.
Yet what else was there but to obey? Naggaroth was lost; there was nowhere to sail back to. The choice of retreat had been taken away the moment he’d abandoned Hag Graef.
Still, perhaps there was a way. The army of Hag Graef was larger even than that of Naggarond, bolstered by the enslaved Naggorites and the refugees from Clar Karond. He even had the expeditionary force from Ghrond that had accompanied Drusala. If he struck swiftly, if he was ruthless enough and spared nothing to move his army at speed, there was just a chance he could outwit the Witch King. If Malus’s landing was intended as a sacrificial feint, then he would turn it into a victorious conquest! Even Malekith would have a hard time arguing with victory.
Malus turned from the balcony high upon the fleetmaster’s tower. After the death of Hadrith, the drachau had assumed virtual command of the black ark, installing an opportunistic corsair named Aeich as the new fleetmaster. His sycophantic minion had rendered up the royal chambers for Malus’s own use. He wondered if Aeich was still so eager to please now that the order to beach the black ark had been given. He rather supposed it put a kink in Aeich’s ideas about the power he thought he’d inherited.
‘You have conceived a plan, my lord?’ Vincirix had cast aside the brief, loose robes that she’d adopted in her role as the drachau’s consort. With the shores of Tiranoc just beyond the black ark, she again wore the steel plate and chain befitting a Knight of the Ebon Claw. Malus smiled at the cold lines of her armour, the slumbering lethality of the sword and clawed mace hanging from her belt. If anything, he found her more enticing this way. Nothing soft and weak, only the merciless strength of a true daughter of Naggaroth.
He waved the ghoulish proclamation at her. ‘I have an idea,’ he said. ‘But it will take craft to implement it properly.’ Malus tapped the rolled sheet of flayed skin against his thigh. ‘It is a great gamble. The wager must be everything or nothing.’
‘One wins nothing without risk,’ Vincirix said. ‘The bigger the gamble, the greater the prize.’
Malus laid his hand against his lover’s cheek, giving it an ungentle pat. ‘This isn’t helping a nubile wench in her patricidal fantasies,’ he said, draining some of the self-assurance from her eyes. After helping save his life by leading the war hydras to the attack, she’d become a bit too certain of her place. Malus needed her insecure. The hunger to prove herself, to maintain everything she’d managed to acquire would be a valuable asset on the battlefield. If she was worried about displeasing him, she’d push her knights to the limit of endurance and beyond.
The drachau turned and paced through the opulently appointed parlour of the late Hadrith. At each step, he slapped the royal command against his leg, reminding himself of the magnitude of the responsibility resting on him now. There could be no half measures if he was going to prevail. At the same time, failure would mean complete destruction. If his name was remembered at all, it would be as that of a reckless fool.
But to dare! To trick that conniving tyrant. If he won through, his name would be heaped with glory and envy. He’d be greater than all the dreadlords. Greater, perhaps, than the Witch King himself, for he would have done what Malekith had never been able to do. The Witch King expected to spend the lives of Malus’s army and eliminate the enemy within by setting him against the asur. The last thing Malekith would be ready for would be a victorious Malus.
‘It is a kingdom I gamble for now,’ Malus told Vincirix. ‘That is why the wager must be so costly.’ His hand tightened around the decree, causing the traitor-fat seal to crack. ‘But maybe there is a way that I can hedge my bet.’ He spun around and pointed at the knight. ‘Find that buzzard Korbus. Tell him that I want my mother to disembark with the first wave. I want her ready to perform one of her auguries as soon as she is set ashore.’
Vincirix looked uneasy as she heard her lover’s command. ‘Your mother will listen to no one but you, my lord. If you would have her obey, you should speak to her personally.’
Malus shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. He removed one of the rings from his fingers and set it in the knight’s hand. ‘Give Korbus this and he will know the command comes from me. I will not see my mother until she is ready to relate to me what the future holds.’ A scowl briefly worked itself onto his face. ‘If I saw her before, she might cause me to falter in my purpose.’ With a wave of his hand, Malus dismissed Vincirix to hurry away on her errand.
Left alone, the drachau stepped back to the balcony, casting his gaze once more upon the broken shore of Tiranoc. How much blood had the druchii shed here over the ages, trying to seize the land from their hated kin? How much more would it cost before they were victorious? How much was he willing to sacrifice for that triumph?
He almost expected the sneering voice of Tz’arkan to slither through his brain, mocking him for his timidity and his ruthlessness. The daemon was capricious and saw no vice in hypocrisy. A lie wrapped in a truth disguised in a falsehood, that was the parasite’s favourite manner.
The daemon, however, had been curiously silent since the sea titan had taken Lady Khyra to a watery grave. Malus hadn’t even felt the need to drink his draught much, just enough to keep his senses at the proper degree of wariness. What Tz’arkan was about, he couldn’t begin to guess. It had claimed Drusala had seen it when they were in the Star Spire. If so, the sorceress had made no move to denounce him. Daemonic possession was the sort of affliction that no dreadlord, not even the most powerful, could survive if it was exposed to his peers. His own subjects would rise up and tear him limb from limb, even more so now that Naggaroth had been abandoned to the bestial
creatures of Chaos.
The prudent thing for Malus to do would be to have Drusala murdered. That would ensure the safety of his secret. Wisdom demanded such a course. It was for that very reason he was indecisive. He still harboured suspicions that Tz’arkan had deliberately drawn the sea daemon to attack the black ark. He couldn’t trust anything the parasite told him. It might share his skin, but it didn’t share his life. It had its own ambitions and desires. It would do anything to break free of him. Goading him into killing someone who could help him was just the sort of ploy that would appeal to Tz’arkan’s perverse humour.
No, despite the danger, Malus couldn’t act until he was sure. His mother had been incapable of freeing him from the daemon, but Drusala had been handmaiden to Morathi herself. She doubtless knew things even Eldire didn’t, things that might be a threat to Tz’arkan.
Such concerns were for the future, however. At the moment, the success of his invasion was the only thing that mattered. Securing a victory that even the Witch King would be unable to take away from him. Without that, even if Drusala exposed him it wouldn’t matter.
He could only die once.
Columns of spearmen and swordsmen marched from the black ark’s belly, trooping down iron bridges and timber platforms. As each druchii set foot upon the shore, he turned his head and spit on the sands of Tiranoc, an ancient gesture of contempt for the hated asur who had driven their ancestors from Ulthuan. Even in this, the final battle with their treacherous kin, the druchii clung to the traditions of hate.
From a small hillock, seated in Spite’s saddle, Malus watched as his army disembarked from the Eternal Malediction. Aeich had run the black ark aground, the huge vessel gouging a deep furrow in the rock and sand as its magic failed and it entrenched itself in the shore of Tiranoc. Corsairs were already scavenging timber from their ships to erect a palisade around the beached city, a wall to hold back any asur raiders. As yet, there had been no sign of Tiranoc’s people, but the druchii knew it was only a matter of time before the vengeful natives came down from their cities to repulse the invaders. By that time, the fleetmaster intended to have defences in place to protect the black ark.
Malus had encouraged Aeich in his plans. He’d sent troops of doomfire warlocks and dark riders galloping off into the countryside to ostensibly spy out the land and determine the position of a gathering enemy. On their swift horses, the squadrons of cavalry could cover a vast area in a short amount of time. He’d impressed on them the urgency of their mission; the threat of failing the drachau was enough to make even the murderous warlocks set aside their need for slaughter. They’d soon bring back the intelligence the invaders needed.
Of course, if Eldire’s prophecies were auspicious, that information might not be put to the purpose Aeich expected.
Across the beach, Malus could see the baggage train of his warhost slowly taking shape. Such slaves as hadn’t been butchered during the long voyage from Naggaroth were now pressed into service, toiling away under the lashes of their cruel masters. He could see Kunor mounted upon a black charger galloping up and down the beachhead, plying his whip across the backs of his Naggorites, forcing the enslaved druchii to unload the ships the corsairs had driven up onto the rocky shelf. Kunor didn’t need an excuse to indulge his sadism. When purpose was linked to his penchant for brutality, the slavemaster was utterly without pity or restraint.
A tumult around the black ark marked the unloading of Griselfang and Snarclaw. The gigantic war hydras struggled against the chains with which they were bound, their jaws straining against the steel muzzles that bound their snouts closed. More chains restrained their tails, keeping the reptiles from smashing their keepers with a slap of the long, scaly columns of flesh. As the straining, vicious beasts were led down one of the bridges by a small army of beast-breakers, Vincirix Quickdeath and her Knights of the Ebon Claw waited in a solemn formation along the shore, lances at the ready and their cold ones sniffing and snarling at the air. The gigantic war hydras were a powerful weapon in the arsenal of Hag Graef. Too powerful. If they broke free and raged among Malus’s forces, the toll they would take would be hideous. Better to kill the brutes than have his own warriors massacred.
A low growl rumbled from the depths of Spite’s throat. Malus could feel the reptile’s body become tense beneath him. He slapped the side of the horned one’s snout, warning it to be still. He knew what had agitated his steed; he didn’t even need to turn around to know that a rider was approaching. Spite was an excellent judge of character, but the poor brute simply didn’t have the wit to understand that people of low quality and verminous morality had their uses.
A lone cold one loped towards Malus’s position. When it was still a dozen yards away, the reptile’s pace slackened, and it dipped its head in an attitude of submission, trying to make its huge body seem smaller than it was. Deep scars marked the creature’s scales, the reminder of the claws and fangs that had likewise left their imprint on the beast’s tiny brain. The cold one had made the mistake of challenging Spite once before. It wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The reptile’s rider dismounted and removed his helm. Unlike his steed, the knight knew better than to ever challenge Malus. He’d seen for himself what happened to those who did. Indeed, he’d helped make it happen many times.
‘Dolthaic, old comrade,’ Malus greeted the knight as he bowed to the drachau. Dolthaic was the deposed heir of a noble house in Naggarond. His birthright usurped, he’d taken up the mercenary trail, gathering to him a vicious cadre of warriors he’d formed into the Knights of the Burning Dark. The sell-swords had long been in the service of Hag Graef, long enough that they’d earned too many enemies elsewhere to ever leave Malus’s service. Calling Dolthaic comrade was like calling a loyal dog ‘brother’, and the hesitation the knight exhibited as he approached told Malus that neither the irony nor the insult was lost on him.
‘Dreadlord, the offerings have been rendered up to Khaine,’ Dolthaic reported.
Malus sneered at the knight’s piety. He seemed to believe Khaine would smile down on them because they’d spilled a few bottles of wine and opened the bellies of a dozen slaves in his name. They asked their god to deliver to them victory over the asur and offered so little for such beneficence. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetic.
‘Khaine respects those who do not beg his favours,’ Malus said, ‘those who take for themselves what they desire! The only offering worthy of Khaine is victory, Dolthaic. Remember that.’
The chastened knight bowed his head once more. ‘Yes, dreadlord.’
‘Lord Silar has deployed the first cohort?’
Dolthaic nodded. ‘They have assembled at the edge of the plain. The bolt throwers are in position just below the shelf. The crews have been given their orders. My knights are poised to support them, should the need arise.’
Malus smiled at the report. Silar was a capable lieutenant, but sometimes insufficiently ruthless. If the asur attacked while the core of their army was disembarking, the invasion would be over before it could properly begin. Against that possibility, Malus had dispatched a small force out beyond the beach, bait the vengeful elves of Tiranoc would be certain to seize upon. The small vanguard would be routed; they’d flee back to the beaches and draw the pursuing asur straight into the waiting bolt throwers. It would, of necessity, be costly for the vanguard, but if the natives fell into the trap, it would blunt their initial assault against the landings.
‘Good, Dolthaic. If we can keep the asur off the beaches until the rest of the army disembarks, this enterprise may yet prove itself.’ Malus eyed the mercenary, his expression growing thoughtful. ‘There should be good pickings for your knights once we penetrate into the Inner Kingdoms.’
The mercenary’s face betrayed no change in expression, but Malus could read the elf’s avarice in his body language. The Knights of the Burning Dark were reckoned the most dependable troops in his army
not because they owed any unusual loyalty to Malus or Hag Graef, but because they didn’t. Their motive was simple greed – they took the drachau’s coin and he paid them better than they could expect from any other dreadlord. Among the maze of hatreds and jealousies that ruled the hearts of most druchii, greed was pure and predictable. A warrior motivated by greed could be depended upon without the undue worry about what ulterior agenda might be lurking in the shadows of his soul. That was why Malus had set Vincirix and the Knights of the Ebon Claw the task of watching his war hydras. He could afford to lose the refugees from Clar Karond far more easily than Dolthaic’s mercenaries.
‘When do we march?’ Dolthaic asked.
‘Patience, old comrade,’ Malus said. ‘First I must know where before I can know when.’ He looked back towards the beach, chuckling as he watched an elf hurrying across the rocks towards him. From the awkwardness of his movements, it seemed that he was unaccustomed to the heavy mail he now wore. ‘Unless I am mistaken, I should be getting an answer to that question very soon.’ Malus dismissed Dolthaic with a wave of his hand. He didn’t want the mercenary around when the messenger arrived. Saluting his master, Dolthaic hurried back to his waiting steed and rode off to where his knights were lurking.
Malus let his eyes rove across the confusion of activity along the shore, the corsairs breaking their ships with mauls and sledges, the beast-keepers herding their ghastly creatures of war through the shallows, the infantry marching stoically towards the enemy shore. Tents and pavilions had already been erected, the banners of nobles and warrior companies fluttering in the salty breeze. A plume of smoke wafted into the sky from a hastily assembled shrine to Khaine. Harpies wheeled overhead as they emerged from the cramped cages that had borne them from Naggaroth.
The thing he was looking for defied his vision. Nowhere did he see the pavilion of Lady Eldire. He knew his mother had obeyed his command and joined the first wave of invaders. Somewhere down there, her shelter had been pitched. Perhaps she’d spared some small measure of her magic to disguise the place. After the sacrifice of Hadrith’s son and the deaths of so many of the black ark’s seers, there were many among the fleet who bore the sorceress malice. Enemies who had their own magic to call upon. It was only prudent that she would take steps to protect herself.