The Demon Lord

by Peter Morwood

  “What else would I do?” he asked the long-dead chieftain, forcing false amusement into his voice. “Keep it? Not knowing what I know!” The skull’s grin didn’t alter and its empty sockets continued gazing at the entrance of the burial chamber, as if watching something living eyes could never see. Now you’re talking to a corpse, Aldric thought. What’s next? He stared down for several seconds at the pieces of parchment by his feet, disturbed by what he had read and trying to forget it. At first glance it had seemed to be an-pesoek, a little charm like the two or three he knew for finding lost things or calming unruly animals, but pesok’n hadn’t such an ominous sound to them…

  The setting sun grows dim

  And night surrounds me.

  There are no stars.

  The Darkness has devoured them

  With its black mouth.

  Issaqua sings the song of desolation

  And I know that I am lost

  And none can help me now…

  A tiny voice whispered the words inside his head over and over again, their rhythms weaving circles and patterns and made sense that was no sense at all. Aldric’s lips compressed to a bloodless line as he shrugged, dismissing the whole thing from his mind. Except doing that wasn’t as simple as the shrug suggested.

  He dusted flakes of parchment from his hands and reached out to pluck a rose from between the corpse’s claws, then gasped and jerked his fingers back with as much shock as pain in the small noise. He had barely touched the flower when a thorn jabbed straight through his glove and into the pad of his thumb, almost as if it had struck at him like a viper. A single ruby bead of blood welled out of the skin-tight black leather, rivalling the colour of the rose’s petals before it became a sluggish drop on the chieftain’s brow.

  Aldric teased his trophy free with much more care the second time and raised it to his nostrils even though he had no need. The overblown perfume flowed into his lungs like a thick stream of hot honey, making his senses swim as if with vertigo. It wasn’t a natural scent, not here, not now. Not at all.

  Then the blood so recently tapped by the rose froze in his veins as something moved behind him. It was only a tiny scuff of noise, but it was in a place where no such noise should be unless he made it himself. And he hadn’t. His throat tightened, his pulse thundered in his ears and the rose fell from his slack fingers as he became as immobile as the dead lord.

  As the dead lord had been.

  Then he turned with all the speed of a trained swordsman and his right hand snatched the telek from its holster, up into an arm-stretched shooting posture aimed point-blank at…

  Nothing.

  The lord of the mound lay as he had lain through all the long years since his kinfolk built the tomb around him, with a solitary gleaming gem of Aldric’s blood on his forehead like a mark of rank. There was no longer any sound, but in the entrance to the crypt there was a glitter that hadn’t been there before. The glint that comes when flame reflects from metal.

  “Evthan?” Aldric’s arid mouth had trouble shaping the word. “Evthan, what are you doing, man? Come into the light where I can see you!”

  At first there was no reply, then with a clatter of footsteps four men burst into the burial chamber. They were soldiers, lord’s retainers, in quilted body armour and round helmets, and they carried shortswords drawn and ready. There were no shouts of warning, no commands for him to drop his weapon, just an immediate charge to kill.

  Aldric couldn’t understand why his warning sixth-sense hadn’t put him on his guard; it happened sometimes, that was all. He had no sword, not even his taipan, and his bow was useless at such close quarters, but these men – probably local recruits who wore their new authority in their scabbards – seemed not to know what an Alban telek was, much less what it could do.

  He educated them.

  His first dart hit the foremost soldier square on the solar plexus, its sudden, massive shock collapsed the man’s legs under him. He fell in his tracks like a puppet with cut strings as Aldric’s arm swung up and back with a speed gained by many hours of practice with the weapon. His left hand gripped the spanning-sleeve and racked it back then forward as part of the same movement, so that the telek reloaded and presented again in what seemed an eyeblink. It was a bravo’s trick and frowned upon, but it was effective.

  The second of the four leapt over his comrade’s body, sword raised for a downward chop. He was so close that the telek almost hit him in the face as the second dart left it, burst his left eyeball and drove through its socket into his brain. His head jerked back as if kicked and he was dead before he dropped.

  When he fell, his sword fell with him. It didn’t matter that its wielder was a corpse, the blade was still sharp and aimed at Aldric’s skull. There was barely room to dodge, and he slammed against the crypt wall with a bone-jarring thud and a muffled scrape of metal as his sleeve shredded between the armour under it and the rough stones that raked his left arm from wrist to shoulder. Pain lanced through him, and he felt a flood of moist warmth spreading towards his elbow as his half-healed bicep split wide open for the second time within a week. After a few seconds the blood dribbled from his fingertips, pattering on the floor with a sound like rain.

  Aldric wasn’t surprised when things went still and silent. Those two quick deaths would give even the most hardened warrior pause for thought, let alone yokels who had most likely never drawn in anger against someone who could match them stroke for stroke.

  Then something did surprise him. One corpse moved.

  He took three quick steps backwards, aware that the two remaining soldiers had also retreated. As the man rolled into an untidy, half-seated slump with his head resting against the chieftain’s bier, Aldric realised the meagre light of his solitary candle had deceived him into shooting too low. That quilted armour had absorbed enough force to save the soldier’s life, but the dart’s slamming impact full on a nerve-centre had felled him as effectively as a punch to the same spot. Even now the man couldn’t make his legs obey him.

  For just an instant Aldric considered finished what he had started with another dart, then decided not. This opponent wasn’t a threat, just as killing a helpless man in cold blood wasn’t part of the Alban honour-codes. Nor was it a part of Aldric Talvalin, except as a most reluctant act of mercy.

  Yes, he was still outnumbered two to one, but he could take down both these peasants one-handed if he had to. A stab of icy heat down the core of his injured arm brought sweat out on his skin and reminded him he no longer had a choice. It would have to be one-handed…

  One of the pair shifted his feet with a loud scuff of leather on stone, and Aldric’s attention focused on the man at once. Tall and thin, with a lean face, deep-set eyes and a small, mean mouth, he looked like a weasel made human. The mouth opened a fraction, showing teeth.

  “Ven ya’va doss moy!” he snapped at his companion, waving the other man back.

  “Majen ovet, Eldhertag Keeyul, tau asyen sli—”

  Another abrupt gesture silenced the protest and sent the other man stumbling obediently back into the entrance, but one word of the brief exchange told Aldric how lucky he was to be alive. ‘Eldhertag’ wasn’t a name but a rank, and a Drusalan rank at that. These men weren’t inexperienced locals at all but Imperial soldiers, and the weasel-faced one, Keeyul, was a senior serjeant. Sheer chance had reduced the odds so early in the fight, and now surprise had worn off Aldric knew he was in grave peril. This eldhertag was more dangerous than all the others put together; he had that unmistakable confidence in his own ability and the way he held his sword suggested he knew how to use it.

  The Drusalan’s weapon was little more than a big knife with a broad, slightly curved blade ending in a clipped point, and it looked like the bastard child of a falchion and a butcher’s cleaver. There was no elegance to it, just a great deal of brutal efficiency. Aldric was skilled enough with taiken and taipan, spear and telek, horse and bow, but fighting with short blades in a cramped, ill-lit and unfamil
iar space could be more dangerous than any other combat.

  Keeyul might already have made his move if not for the telek, and even then he must suspect it was unloaded and harmless. But after seeing two men shot down in what must have appeared a single instant, suspicion wasn’t enough. He needed certainty.

  Aldric knew what was passing through the soldier’s mind. He knew, too, where one of the discarded shortswords lay, and made a quick backwards jerk with the telek as if to reload it – but the eldhertag’s reaction was far faster than he had expected. The man wasn’t just skilled, he had all the craftiness learnt in years spent fighting other people’s wars, and he accepted the invitation to attack with his blade not his body.

  What should have been a neat sidestep became instead a wild wrenching of Aldric’s body to get clear of the stabbing point, and he almost didn’t make it. His side stung where the shortsword had parted jerkin, shirt and the topmost layer of skin, and it gave him a hellish fright. Even as he swung the telek against the soldier’s arm in an automatic parry, he knew he had committed the cardinal sin of underestimating an opponent.

  Aldric dived at full stretch for the fallen sword and grabbed it despite the pain shooting through his left arm, rolling to break the impact of the fall and to get him out of range. Sinews cracked as he shifted that roll a few degrees and managed it a bare instant before the eldhertag’s blade gouged sparks and splinters from the ground just at the place where he should have been.

  The weasel-faced soldier was good, but whether he could match Aldric Talvalin with a sword in his hand was another matter. Not that Aldric dignified what he held as a sword at all. The thing was sharp enough, as cold air against his stinging ribs made all too plain, but it had a restricted reach, no guard to speak of and even less balance. Aldric hefted it, thought of Widowmaker’s excellence, and snarled.

  “You have luck.” The man spoke Jouvaine now, clear enough despite his heavy accent. “Wisdom not so, else you be not here. Lord Crisen do hate intruders.”

  Aldric wondered what in the name of the Nine Hot Hells Evthan was up to while all this was happening. He must have seen the soldiers, and if he had, then why hadn’t he given warning. Unless they’d reached him first.

  “Talk on, man,” he said. “I’ve fought talkers before. None were a threat, and none talk now. Except to worms.” He spoke court Drusalan, giving full weight to its insulting arrogance and implied superiority, but didn’t hide his own Elthanek burr and was rewarded with an expression where anger matched confusion. Anger meant carelessness, confusion meant a wavering of concentration, and he knew how to best use both.

  They circled the stone bed, boots sliding across the floor, and at long last a tiny awareness tickled at the back of Aldric’s mind as if his whole body was emerging from deep sleep. He could smell candle-smoke and roses blended with the more immediate odours of blood and sweat, he could feel the pounding of his heartbeat and the aches and pains of the past few minutes, he could hear the groans of the wounded man on the floor. Of all his senses only sight failed him, for in the darkness of the burial chamber there was little to see except the shift of monstrous shadows across monstrous stones, and the ominous glitter of sharp steel.

  The soldier in the doorway wasn’t a danger yet. He was only watchful, set there to prevent escape. Any killing was to be this serjeant’s pleasure, and it would be a pleasure. Aldric could almost taste the man’s eagerness to inflict pain, bitter and acidic like unripe apples. He was one of those men who needed to hurt, as others needed fire, or bread, or honour.

  Their swords met and took measure, the contact a harsh clank from blades too short for an honest clash of steel, and the sound they made was more threatening even than the icy music of taikenin which could cleave a man in half from crown to crotch. The exchange lasted bare seconds before both broke ground and retired. It had been a test of wrists, no more, mere academic posturing wasted on weapons meant for little more finesse than hack and stab.

  “You seem to have skill with the makher,” said Keeyul, speaking Drusalan himself now as his point wove to and fro like the head of a snake. “That is good. It will entertain me, before I cut you into pieces and watch you eat them.”

  Aldric ignored him. Anger wasn’t the way to win this fight. He stood almost relaxed with the shortsword raised and ready, but not high enough to be a threat, and waited. It confused the eldhertag, just as Aldric intended. He felt sure Keeyul was a man accustomed to opponents who came after him, drawn by taunting and insults, chopping and jabbing until they ran onto his ready sword. It was a new experience to meet one who kept his distance, seeming unprepared for any defensive move should he lunge home. And as for one who smiled at him… For Aldric did smile, and it wasn’t a cynical sneer but as if to a friend.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Out in the Deepwood after dark, don’t you fear the Beast?”

  “Not at this moon—” The Drusalan bit off the rest. Then he understood, or thought he understood, and grinned a nasty weasel’s grin. “We fear nothing!” There was too much confidence in that declaration. Four men might have no fear, but two? One, alone?

  “Tell me more about the moon. Is that why Lord Crisen sent you here so late at night? Or were you sent to fetch him this?” His foot scraped destructively across already-shredded parchment, and as the serjeant recognised what it had been, his eyes went wide. “You were late,” Aldric said. “What will Crisen think of that?” There was no reply. “You do fear something, Keeyul. I suggest you fear me too. And this forest most of all.”

  The wolf-howl came right then, with all the impact of a perfect cue, and its echoes throbbed and faded within the barrow. Aldric had heard that same sound not twelve hours ago, and it had been startling enough by daylight. Now, at night, in an ancient crypt filled with shadows and the ill-matched reek of blood and roses, the savage sadness of the cry appalled him.

  In any other place or at any other time the Drusalan eldhertag wouldn’t have flinched. Imperial senior serjeants were men with years of often-bloody service behind them, and mere noise shouldn’t have been enough. But, despite his bravado, the eerie atmosphere beneath the hollow hill must have been eroding his nerves these past few minutes, otherwise despite the years of ingrained training he wouldn’t have turned his head.

  It was just a fraction.

  It was enough.

  Three heartbeats later Keeyul was against the wall, slumped over a chest awash with blood where Aldric’s blade had gone in, beneath the ribs and up with his full weight behind it. The Drusalan’s legs gave way as his muscles relaxed. He slid down onto the floor and coughed twice, but a third attempt became a protracted bubbling exhalation that went on and on until he shuddered and was still. Aldric stared down at him, aware his victory came not from skill but luck, and the intervention of the Beast. There was no satisfaction or triumph, only slight disgust at his own aptitude for slaughter. And thinking of the Beast, where in all this while was Evthan…?

  He wiped one hand across his face, not caring that each finger left a glistening smear of crimson in its wake, then looked for the last of the soldiers, hoping the man had seized his chance to get away. But he was still there, standing in the doorway with lines of shock engraved by shadows on his face.

  “You should have run,” Aldric said wearily. For all his aversion to cold-blooded killing, there would have to be another before all this was over. Otherwise news of what had happened here would reach Lord Crisen’s ears before the night was out, and he could imagine the consequences for the villagers of Valden.

  Use the telek for this, he thought, not wanting more blood on his hands than there was already. Death was always simpler at a distance. Gemmel had said that, after the first appalling time he watched Aldric’s long training with Isileth Widowmaker put to real use. It was cheaper to pay the cost of killing when the details of how high it was were too far away to see. It would be even easier if its victims were so distant that they ceased to be people and were mere numbers on a tally. So might the worl
d die, consumed by fire while its leaders calculated how much loss each could accept before defeat or victory.

  So might Valden be destroyed, by the vengeful whim of a man who was the son of its Overlord.

  Aldric snatched up the spring-gun and levelled it, but hesitated when he realised the soldier hadn’t moved. The man’s arms hung by his sides, his head turned away as he waited for the inevitable. His terror was a palpable thing and, as Aldric felt sickness rise in his stomach, the telek wavered. He tried to summon images of what men like this would do to Valden and the people in it when Crisen turned them loose, but still couldn’t justify what he had to do unless the man attacked him, or tried to run, or…

  Or did something, anything that gave reason to complete that final pressure.

  “Come on,” he said. “The odds are even now. Come on. Rush me!”

  Now is that not the worst of all? said a small, stern voice inside his head. It sounded just like Gemmel. If you have to kill, then kill. But don’t waste time persuading yourself that what you do is right!

  Aldric swore softly and squeezed the trigger.

  *

  The running footsteps dwindled, replaced after a few moments by the rapid, fading beat of hoofs. They had horses. Of course they had horses, otherwise it was a long march down from Seghar. Would they march or come on horseback when Crisen sent them to obliterate the village because of what he did and what he couldn’t do…?

  Aldric lowered his telek, looking at it and smiling a small, wan smile. He hadn’t shot the soldier because he hadn’t fully cocked the weapon. Perhaps it was an accident, perhaps unconsciously deliberate. Either way, it no longer mattered. Three deaths in one night were enough for any man.

  And it would be three deaths. The killing might be over but the dying wasn’t finished, for the first man he had shot was doomed. The heavy quilted armour had stopped the dart, but not enough to keep its point out of his skin, and the venom Aldric had put there was working fast. At least wolfsbane would send a kinder finish than most of the other poisons he might have used, if any life ended before its time could be called kind.