by Dan Abnett
‘Hence the slaves,’ muttered Fithvael.
‘Exactly, Fithvael te tuin.’ Niobe smiled softly, though her slender face was still pale and drawn. ‘Creatures with magic in them, whether they knew it or not. Beings of every race, breed and kind. Creatures like me. He stole us from our lives, often in bloody raids mounted by his bestial warriors, and harnessed us to the gateway. Through the tethers, our magic was milked away to feed the Cipher.’
‘What is that?’ asked Gilead sharply, but he knew. The monstrous thing on the altar was vivid in his mind.
‘His pet, his servant? I don’t know, except that, bloated with stolen magic, it keeps the gate open for him. And through that gateway, his invading army will come.’
‘None of it is truly real though, is it?’ Fithvael asked uncertainly. ‘His bastion, all the rest? It was like a dream place. An illusion.’
‘It’s real enough - in his benighted realm. What you saw, what you fought your way into, was… like a ghost of it, an echo of his fortress projected here into this world through the gateway. It grows more real with each passing day. Soon it will be more here than there, solid, physical, impregnable. Then its doors will open.’
Gilead cleared his throat. What he was about to propose flew in the face of his entire being. ‘We… we could warn the humans. Take word to the leaders of this… this Empire of men that claims the land here.’
‘And they would believe the words of an elf? A thing stepped from the shadows of their folk-tales?’ Fithvael almost chuckled at Niobe’s words.
‘They have fought off invasions before!’ Gilead snapped. ‘Their armies are not without strength.’
Niobe nodded. ‘Many invasions, indeed. But every one of them assaulted the human territories from outside, from the fringes and borders. This comes from within. Imagine how long proud Tor Anrok would have stood if Chaos had welled up within the throne room itself.’
Fithvael sighed. ‘So you are saying that we must go back - and close the gate?’
‘Yes, Master Fithvael. That is so. Go back and close the gate.’
Gilead rose, shaking his head. He remembered how hard he had fought to destroy but one plinth out of the hundreds of thousands in that place. He knew that he could not liberate so many beings, even if he had ten lifetimes in which to do it.
‘We could not free them all,’ said Gilead tersely.
‘No indeed,’ said Niobe, ‘but we could close the gate.’
The emphasis she placed on the word ”could” chilled both the warriors.
She brushed out the creases in her dirty gown. ‘In Talthos Elios, my father raised me to honour the old pledge. The pledge our kind made in the last years, as our numbers dwindled and we retreated from the world that had been ours. We may regard them as a crude, ignorant child race, but the humans are our heirs to this land. My father taught me to honour mankind, with my life if needs be. Our time has gone, my friends. The world is newer and sparer than we in the days of our forebears.
‘There is a term the lords of Bretonnia use: ”noblesse oblige”. I see from your faces you know what it means. We owe our heirs. My magic was stolen and used to further the foul strategies of the Ruinous Powers. I would gladly give my life to destroy that gateway.’
‘Suicide,’ muttered Gilead.
‘No, my lord - honour. We must honour our legacy. And to honour that, we do not free one slave, but allow a thousand to die if it means that Lord Ire’s twisted gateway dies with them.’
Fithvael looked at Gilead, but the elf warrior said nothing.
‘You want us to kill them all? All the slaves?’ asked Fithvael.
‘I do not know,’ answered Niobe, looking around at them both. ‘But I know that Lord Ire has only one weakness.’
‘Then tell us,’ Gilead said in a flat tone.
‘I saw something in Lord Ire’s mind, but I dared not dwell there, lest the Chaos filth infect me. I have no answer except that he knew there was a weakness, and that weakness was his son.’
‘His son?’
‘He has a son. It is his only vulnerability.’
A long, desolate silence hung over them all.
‘Will you help me? Will you do it?’ asked Niobe after a while.
Gilead dropped his chin, not wanting to meet her gaze. ‘I think not,’ he said.
GILEAD ROSE FROM beside his friend and the woman he now believed he loved, and walked away from them. Fithvael stumbled to his feet and followed him, calling out to him as he strode away.
‘Gilead! Lord! Will you deny your duty?’ he called, but the elf did not turn back.
Fithvael quickened his pace until he was right behind Gilead and, reaching out a hand, he turned him roughly by the shoulder.
‘Tell me to my face! Tell me that you are going to walk away from this. Do you not remember Galeth and the ten year quest that brought you to his killer? Do you not remember the years you drank away in the ruins of Tor Anrok, miserable to your marrow? It was your sense of duty that saved you from ruin, your duty to a human. The Ziegler child! Remember her? Oh, I had to punch it into your dulled brain to make you realise… gods, I had to come near losing my own life! But you saw it by and by. Our time has come and gone, Gilead Lothain. It hurts, but it is so. We have nothing left but what we leave behind now. This is your destiny, my friend, our destiny. Don’t deny it now.’
‘And if I were to lose Niobe?’ asked Gilead.
‘My friend, if you do not do this thing, then she will surely be lost to you anyway! And if you cannot bear to destroy Lord Ire for the good of humankind, then do it for Niobe and for yourself.’
‘And you?’ asked Gilead.
‘I’ll be going anyway. But I’d do better with you at my side. You, Gilead were bred to fight. That’s how Cothor raised you, that’s why Nithrom trained you. A warrior, of Tor Anrok, of the old kind that is passing away. It is your life’s blood. If you deny all else, you cannot deny that.’
Gilead stared at him. For a long moment, Fithvael expected to be struck. Furious pride pinched Gilead’s face. The last lord of Tor Anrok glanced away at Niobe, watching them from the water’s edge, and then looked back at Fithvael.
‘Let us go and do this thing,’ he said at last. ‘But milady stays here.’
‘But we need her, Gilead. Only she can guide us in, only she can trace this son of Ire. If we go… when we go, she surely comes with us.’
NIGHT FELL, COLD and dank beneath the lowering trees. Fithvael checked his weapons and the field pack that he always carried, replenishing what stocks he could and ensuring everything was clean and dry. He also packed restorative herbs for Niobe, whom he recognised was still fragile.
Gilead checked his weapons, ensuring his quiver was full and his bow strung to tension. Most importantly, he spent some time with his sword and dagger, cleaning them and honing their blades to bright, hard cutting edges. He laid his fingers, for a moment, on the elven runes that decorated the steel and thought of Tor Anrok and the ideals his family had always lived by. He wiped mud from his long, narrow warshield. Then he buckled himself into his leather armour and slung the quiver and shield in a cross against his back.
It was time.
Niobe had prepared herself. She had tied back her long hair, and cut off the hem of her gown above the knee so she could run and move without hindrance.
She was so beautiful, Gilead’s throat caught.
‘Why so sad, tuin?’ she asked, handing Gilead back the long leaf-bladed knife he had lent her to cut away her dress.
‘Not sad, just… ready. You keep that.’
‘I was raised with many skills, Gilead, but warfare was not one of them. Take back your dagger.’
‘No, Niobe. Tuck it in your belt. You may have need of it tonight. Thrust with it, don’t slash. And don’t hesitate.’
She slid the blade under her leather girdle. ‘As you wish, tuin. Teaching me now, are you?’
‘If it keeps you alive, I will thank myself at least.’ He paused. A stale moon ha
d risen, and the trees cast long, mournful shadows across them.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘What happens to us… afterwards?’ he breathed.
‘Afterwards?’ Her vivacious smile lit up her face. She pushed at him playfully. ‘Let us pray there is an afterwards.’
‘There will be.’
‘Such optimism, Gilead.’
‘One of my better qualities,’ he lied. Nearby, Fithvael snorted.
Niobe laughed. ‘Cothor Lothain sired a beautiful son… even when he is lying.’
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he persisted.
She reached out and touched his temple gently. ‘I have been in here a long while now. We are bound together, Gilead. Whatever happens tonight, that bond will remain. I swear to you.’
Shaking, he took her in his arms and as long as their precious kiss lasted, the danger seemed far away.
Fithvael looked away and busied himself settling the horses. They were loaded and ready for the ride out of the forest. He would leave them loose-tethered, anticipating a hurried getaway.
THE THREE OF them clasped hands in the moonlit glade. A silent pact, done in the old manner. Then, side by side, the elves strode away into the whispering forest, towards the great, ghostly bastion of their foe.
An hour passed, and they met nothing. For most of that hour, the three had been able to walk abreast. Once or twice they had to proceed single file and when they did so, Gilead drew his sword and took the lead, with Fithvael bringing up the rear. But even on these narrow tracks all was calm and quiet.
‘We must stop,’ Fithvael said suddenly. ‘Something is amiss.’
Gilead turned to him. ‘I hear no threat. All is calm and well. Fithvael, you jump at shadows.’
‘No,’ replied Fithvael, unslinging his crossbow and winding up its tension. ‘Does it not concern you that there are no shadows to jump at? This is the Drakwald, a place of terror, of beasts, and yet we walk through it as though it were the playground of our youth.’
Gilead looked around and into the night sky, through the canopy above them, tensing as he realised that Fithvael was right.
‘Do you sense anything?’ he asked Niobe.
‘The forest is full of menace, but a little mind magic can drive off a legion of ignorant creatures,’ Niobe replied with a knowing smile.
Gilead and Fithvael stared at her. It was obvious now: their safe passage had been secured by Niobe, using all the power of her magic to seek out the beasts and monsters of the forest, and to plant images in their feeble minds, distracting them from the trio’s scent.
‘We are safe because of you?’ Fithvael asked.
‘For now,’ Niobe answered softly. ‘When we reach the portal my powers will be exhausted and confused by the corruption there.’
‘Lock away your magic,’ Gilead told Niobe gently. ‘Don’t let Lord Ire get a hint of it. What we meet here, we will deal with.’
He took out his blue-steel sword.
‘As you wish,’ she nodded.
STARLESS NIGHT ENCLOSED them now, cold and murky. They started at every crack and rustle in the thickets around them. They’d gone perhaps a half mile when she suddenly froze.
‘To the left! It’s… it’s…’
As she stammered, Gilead unsheathed his sword in one fluid movement, the rotten stench of Chaos suddenly heavy on the air.
A huge beast charged into the narrow clearing, sheering off lengths of cracking wood from the trees and shrubs as it broke cover. The creature was the size and stature of a stag, with a pattern of mottled grey and black in its coarse fur. Its cloven hooves grew from thick powerful ankles and were a foot across, dividing into dull, horny toes. The back legs of the animal were shorter than the forelegs and the tail was vestigial, like that of a goat. The monster pawed the ground, scoring a deep groove in the rotting ground, while it raised a pair of powerful humanoid arms that grew on either side of a barrelled chest.
Gilead saw in a moment that the beast’s arms ended in muscular hands, each equipped with two, single-jointed fingers, echoing its cloven hooves. A black, calloused thumb completed the hand that was grasping a crude but massive crossbow, with a bolt almost the size of Gilead’s forearm already fixed in position.
The stag’s neck was as broad as a man’s chest and above it rose a half-human head, perched there incongruously, narrower than the throat and peaked with a single wide, curved horn.
The beast-thing growled as it made to loose the bolt straight at Gilead, who dived in a feinting pattern first right, then left. The huge bolt whistled a high-pitched scream as it cut the air. It missed Gilead by inches as he rolled and defended his body with his shield.
The bearded head of the Chaos beast seemed to chuckle, making a throaty braying sound as it slid another bolt into the housing on the crossbow.
Gilead’s view of the beast was head on and at close range. He saw nothing above its flexed, upright neck and head, concentrating only on the immediate threat.
Fithvael, a few yards to Gilead’s right, had a different view, and for a split second he was mesmerised by what he saw.
Upon the back of the stag-thing was a second monstrosity. The beastman sat astride the creature on a bulky saddle made from pitted green leather. Huge, flat stirrups cut from the same material hung right up against the lip of the saddle, cupping the rider’s paw-like club feet. Its legs were short and malformed, the thigh bones twisting into the swollen knees.
The rider’s body also seemed too short and too wide, consisting only of a torso without waist or abdomen. By contrast, its arms were long and powerful, and its shoulders high and strong. The monster’s head was human in form, but ugly and bulbous, covered in warts and almost toothless, and it rested between the bulky shoulders without a neck. The rider held a cleaver in one huge hand and a flail in the other, and its face broke into a grin as it swung the pair of weapons in small, interlocking circles across its body, preparing to bludgeon and tear them all limb from limb.
Gilead ducked the second bolt, which landed squarely in a tree trunk behind him. Two-thirds of the bolt’s length protruded from the far side of the trunk. The elf drove forward, low to the ground, and brought his sword up under the stag’s chest, using the momentum of his short charge to drive his blade at the creature’s heart. The sword penetrated half a dozen inches and then hit bone with a force of impact that made it stop dead. The warrior elf tried to wrench the sword out of the bloodless wound, but the blade was stuck fast.
The stag-thing dropped its crossbow. It reached out for the elf’s neck with its huge deformed hands.
Still holding onto his sword hilt with one hand, Gilead grabbed for his long dagger. But the scabbard was empty. He had given it to Niobe. He threw himself down, rolling to avoid the stamping hooves.
‘Gilead!’ Niobe cried, already knowing what he needed, and threw the dagger across the glade.
He caught it and slashed up into the arm that reached for him. He ripped into muscle and tendons, exposing bone and sinew. There was no blood, no ichor, no body fluids at all.
Drawing two weapons himself, Fithvael drove forward to attack the godless creature that straddled its bestial steed. He struck first with the tip of his sword, swiping it along the creature’s thigh and tearing a jagged wound there, which quickly filled with yellowish black, oozing liquid. The downward sweep of the stroke allowed him to drop his head and shoulders, ducking the creature’s studded flail as it swept towards his face.
Fithvael took heart that the beast was undisciplined in its use of the flail and kept his position, rising again to drive his sword at the monster’s chest. The flail came once more, wrapping its coarse black chain around the blade of Fithvael’s sword. With a whipping action of his wrist, the veteran elf freed his blade and sent the flail swinging back toward its master. It thudded heavily against the beast’s chest, but the thing seemed not to notice as it brought the weapon over its shoulder in another ragged swing.
Fithvael sliced another
chunk from the monster’s leg, carving into the knee and almost separating the foot completely. The beast responded by turning its body in the saddle and bringing a heavy cleaver down in a strong, accurate swing that took Fithvael by surprise. The elf fell to his knees to avoid the blade, regaining his feet quickly before the beast could bring his weapon back into play.
Gilead freed his sword and rolled onto his back on the ground, beneath the stomping hooves of the stag-thing. From his new position, he swung his sword again, slicing into the join where the beast’s foreleg met its body. The dry wound gaped down at the elf, but the rhythm of the monster’s hoof beat did not change.
This time Gilead drove his long blade up towards its chest at an angle, aiming for the throat with his dagger. He found a space between the great, barrelling ribs and thrust his sword home to the hilt, and then he twisted left and right and withdrew the weapon. At the same time, he drove his dagger into the beast’s throat, disabling its braying voice and opening a ragged hole in its airway.
His work done, Gilead stepped back and watched the stag-thing trying to breathe through the hole in its throat. The tissue around the tear flapped in and then out again. The monstrosity tried to bring its crossbow up once more, but the hand on the end of the torn arm shook and could not find a place for the bolt.
Fithvael rose to his full height and lunged his sword at the mounted creature’s torso. The blade of the cleaver parried Fithvael’s lunge and the elf’s arms received a heavy jolt before he could bring his sword around. Fithvael cursed, span back and impaled the rider on his sword in a single, fluid motion.
The bloodless stag dropped to its knees slowly and keeled over, still clutching its crossbow in its one good hand. As it tipped forward, its rider was thrown against its neck and Fithvael was able to withdraw his sword and plunge it in again. The rider toppled from its mount and dropped its weapons, lifting itself upright on its fists and using them like feet to make its escape.
