by Dan Abnett
Within minutes Hauclir was standing beside him. “We’re ready, my lord,” he said quietly.
Malus nodded and went back to join the assembled troops. He reached down and picked up the first set of stained furs atop the pile that Cutter and Pockets had gathered. “Hauclir, you and the crossbowmen put these on,” he said, wrapping the stinking hide around his shoulders. “Pockets, Cutter and Ten-thumbs will stay in the middle of the group.”
Hauclir’s lip curled in disgust, but he obediently bent down and picked up a bloodstained cloak. “This isn’t going to fool anyone.”
“If we keep our distance it should suffice,” Malus said. “We just have to look similar enough in the darkness that we don’t raise any suspicions until we reach the square.”
Once Hauclir and the crossbowmen were wrapped in marauder attire the raiding party set off, creeping stealthily down the dark, corpse-laden streets. The exit point of the tunnel was to the south of the citadel, so they were forced to spend almost three hours in a circuitous route around the inner city until they could come within striking distance of the siege engines.
The Chaos horde had completely surrounded the inner fortress, filling the outer city like a swarm of maddened locusts. Fires burned out of control in parts of the city, and howling bands of beastmen and marauders rampaged through the once-orderly districts, looting and destroying everything in their path. Screams of terror and pain rent the night; the enemy had taken hundreds of prisoners after the outer wall had fallen, and now they sated their bestial appetites on their captives in every horrific manner possible. The small raiding party went all but unnoticed amid such pandemonium; only once did a band of marauders come close enough to get a good look at the shadowy group, and they were shot dead before they could shout an alarm. Pockets, Cutter and Ten-thumbs took their furs and the raiding party continued on.
Finally, just past midnight, the raiders found themselves north of the broad square containing the siege engines. The massive catapults had been firing without pause for hours; each siege engine was the size of a town house, resting on massive, ironbound wheels and held together with iron pins as thick as shinbones. Almost a hundred slaves per engine were used to crack the massive arms into firing position, and another fifty more were put to work loading the siege engine with boulders or hunks of masonry weighing hundreds of pounds. Already the thick walls of the inner gatehouse and the tall gates themselves were showing signs of damage. Nuarc had been right; given enough time the Chaos engines would dash the fortifications to the ground.
Unfortunately for them, Malus thought with a vicious smile, their time was nearly up.
The raiding party had gone to ground in a looted barracks some two blocks north of the square, close enough to hear the crack of the taskmasters’ whips and the bang of the catapults as they fired. One last time Malus considered the final stages of his plan. Everything seemed to be in place. It’s all going according to plan, the highborn thought. Obviously there’s something I’m missing. After a moment’s thought he motioned Cutter over.
“My lord?” the cutthroat said, settling quietly into a crouch beside the highborn.
“I want you to scout around the square,” Malus said. “We’ve had good fortune so far, but I’m starting to wonder how much of it we have left. Go and see if there’s anything out of the ordinary.”
“Right you are, my lord,” Cutter growled, and vanished into the darkness. In the meantime the raiders settled down in the shadows and did what they could to rest.
Another hour and a half went by. The night grew steadily colder as the night passed into early morning, and the paving stones outside glittered with a thin layer of frost. Malus was reminded of the passing of the seasons and the last few grains of sand remaining in the daemon’s hourglass. Was he fighting the wrong battle, he wondered? Here he was risking his life for the defenders of the fortress when he needed to be finding a way to get the Amulet of Vaurog and escape to the north. As it was, he only had a few days left before he began cutting into the time necessary to reach Tz’arkan’s distant temple.
For the moment, his plight and the fortress’ plight was one and the same. So long as Nagaira and her champion were surrounded by an army they were safe. That was going to have to change.
Hauclir and several of the cutthroats were sleeping in their filthy cloaks when Cutter finally returned. He settled down beside Malus. “It’s an ambush,” the pox-marked druchii said. “There’s a hundred marauders waiting in a barracks to the west of the square, with lookouts posted on the roof.”
Startled murmurs passed among the cutthroats. Suddenly Hauclir was wide-awake. “They expect us to hit the catapults?”
“Of course they would,” Malus said, nodding to himself. They know we can’t afford to let them pound us at their leisure.” It’s possible that they even expect me to lead the raid, Malus suddenly realised. It is, obviously, the sort of thing I would do. He rubbed his pointed chin thoughtfully. “We still hold the advantage, though.”
“Because now we know where the ambushers are,” Hauclir said.
“Exactly,” the highborn replied. He glanced back at Cutter. “All of the ambushers are in a single building?”
The assassin nodded. “If it hadn’t been for their lookouts I’d have never known they were there. No lights, no fires—they’re a clever bunch of animals.”
Malus thought it over. A crucial decision had to be made. “All right,” he said at length. “Hauclir, take Cutter and the crossbowmen and circle around to the west. When you’re in position, kill the lookouts and then hit the ambushers with your dragon’s breath. That will be our signal to attack the siege engines.”
“Our signal?” Pockets said, looking to Ten-thumbs. “What, the three of us?”
“A hundred marauders cooking alive should provide an ample distraction,” Malus replied coolly. “Enough for us to get into the square and employ our own orbs. Then we break away in the confusion and return to the tunnel.”
The female druchii shook her head in horror. “There’s no way. It’s suicide.”
But Malus smiled. “Not at all. If there’s one thing I know well, it’s that you can get farther on pure audacity than anything else. Just do what I do, and we’ll get through.” Without waiting for any further protests, he nodded to Hauclir. “Get your men and get moving,” he said. “We’ll give you half an hour to get into position.”
Without a word, Hauclir rose to his feet and motioned to the crossbowmen. Within minutes Malus watched them disappear across the narrow street and down a shadowy alley to the west.
Pockets and Ten-thumbs gathered their weapons and met Malus at the doorway. “He’s as mad as you are, my lord,” she said, nodding in the direction Hauclir had gone.
Malus grinned ruefully. “He served a highborn once who was fond of foolish risks. A complete madman. I suppose it left its mark on him.”
The female druchii frowned. “Really? I should have guessed. What a liar!”
Malus gave her a bemused look. “What are you talking about?”
She shrugged. “He told us his old master was a hero, as vicious and clever as they came.”
The highborn’s grin faded. “He couldn’t have been more wrong,” he said, suddenly uncomfortable. “Come on. We’ve got to get closer to the square.”
Keeping to the shadows, the three druchii sidled down the long avenue towards the siege engines. Lines of slave workers came and went, dragging wagons loaded with boulders to feed the great catapults. Marauders on horseback lashed at the slaves and urged them on with savage curses. Whenever one of the riders drew close Malus led the cutthroats inside the closest building until the horseman passed.
It took nearly twenty minutes to work their way down the two blocks to the edge of the square. A small band of marauders waited there, ostensibly guarding the avenue entrance, but they were passing looted wineskins back and forth and grunting to one another in their bestial tongue. The highborn led the two mercenaries into the deep shadow of
a nearby alley. “We wait here,” he whispered. “Get your orbs ready. When the commotion starts, I’ll take the catapult to the left. Ten-thumbs, you take the one in the middle, and Pockets will go to the one on the right. Aim for the winding drums; even if they have some sorcerous means of dousing the flame, it should burn through the ropes quickly enough to knock the catapults out. We’ll meet on the other side of the square and head for the tunnel.”
As it happened, they didn’t have long to wait. Off to their right they heard a great whoosh, and a chorus of wild screams, and suddenly the marauder horsemen were racing past, heading for the square as fast as their mounts would take them. “Now!” Malus hissed, and he dashed into the street, running along behind the horsemen. He could see a shifting green glow to the west, in the direction of the sounds, and knew that Hauclir and his men had been brutally successful.
The marauders guarding the entrance to the square were swaying on their feet and howling like the angry dead, torn between their orders and their instinct to race to the fight. They paid no attention to the horsemen or the small band of warriors trailing in their wake. The slave crews for the siege engines had been driven into three groups by their furious taskmasters and herded to the back of the square, away from the waiting siege engines. Malus turned and nodded to the cutthroats and headed straight for the catapult on his left, fishing one of his orbs of his carry-bag.
As he loped past one of the slave-gangs a whip-wielding taskmaster turned to look at him as he sped past and shouted a question in his barking tongue. Malus continued on, picking up speed. Green light shone between the fingers of his right hand.
The taskmaster yelled again, his tone sharper this time. Malus bared his teeth in a snarl. Just a dozen more yards to go.
As fast as he was, Pockets was faster. At the far end of the square bedlam erupted as the first of the catapults burst into flame. Angry cries of alarm echoed back and forth among the marauders. Throwing caution to the wind, Malus ran for his target as fast as he could.
A furious shout sounded behind the highborn, and he heard the thunder of hobnailed boots pounding after him. He reached the rear of the catapult and kept going, running for the huge winding mechanism in front. Off to the right, the second catapult was bathed in a sheet of hissing flame.
Just as he reached the far end of the catapult a chaos marauder leapt around the corner into his path, two short axes held ready. He shot the snarling man in the face with his crossbow, then half-spun on his heel and threw the green orb at the cable-wound drum looming above him.
The glass shattered and the liquid inside ignited with a roar and a dazzling green flash. Air rushed past Malus like a giant’s indrawn breath, and for a terrifying moment he felt himself pulled towards the blaze. He staggered, then regained his footing and raced for the far end of the square as fast as his feet would carry him.
By now the entire square blazed with green light. A thrown axe whirred past his head, and he worked the reloading lever on his crossbow as quickly as he could. The shadows beckoned to him from twenty yards away. At the moment it felt like twenty miles.
Hoof beats clattered across the paving stones to the highborn’s right. A horseman was spurring his wild-eyed mount right at him, a short spear held ready to throw. The crossbow’s bolt racked home in the firing trough with a loud clack, and Malus stopped just long enough to raise his weapon and shoot the marauder high in the chest. The Chaos warrior threw his spear at the same moment, and the weapon struck Malus in the right shoulder, glancing off his enchanted armour. The blow hit hard enough to spin the highborn half-around, and he found himself stumbling backwards and facing almost a score of screaming marauders, closing fast with the burning catapults blazing at their backs.
At the sight of his face the two men in the lead drew back their axes and let fly. The first one went wide, but the second smashed into the highborn’s left arm with enough force to knock the crossbow from his hand. Malus shouted a curse and tried to fumble in his bag for the second orb, but gave up in a moment and simply hurled bag and all at the oncoming enemies.
The bag sailed through the air and landed at the lead marauder’s feet but swathed in cotton and the thick burlap, the orb refused to break! Malus cursed and groped for his sword—just as the lead marauder tried to knock the bag aside with a savage kick.
Whump. The marauder band disappeared in a fierce explosion, sucking away even their screams in a rushing torrent of air. Teeth bared in a feral grin, Malus turned about and all but dove into the deep shadows of an alley beyond the square.
Swallowed up by the welcoming darkness, Malus listened to the furious shouts of the enemy echo all around him. Sword and axes clashed as warriors of the horde turned on one another in confusion. The sound was sweet to the highborn’s ears.
Above the sound of the enemy’s disarray rose another noise, high and sharp like the whistle of a razor-edged blade. The warriors of the Black Tower were cheering.
Chapter Nineteen
GHOSTS OF THE DARKNESS
Malus dreamt he was falling into darkness. Cold wind, damp and mouldy as a tomb, blew against the back of his neck and tangled his black hair as he plummeted downwards. From moment to moment his toes and fingertips would brush the packed earthen walls of the narrow shaft. Every so often he felt gnarled roots slip past his fingers, but never in enough time to snatch at them and save himself.
Slow, daemonic laughter echoed in his ears as he plunged into the Abyss.
The impact, when it came, startled him. It reverberated like thunder in the noisome blackness, and it felt as though every bone in his body shattered like glass. And yet there was no pain; just a creeping coldness, spreading through him like oil.
He could not guess how long he lay there. Malus could feel cold ichor seeping from his shattered skull and spreading across the earth beneath him. He lay there, waiting to die, but his body refused to submit to its injuries.
Then another wind brushed his face—this time from above. It reeked of blood and sickness and bodily vice, of every depravity Malus could imagine and more. And then he heard the laughter once more, and realised what was coming for him.
He rolled onto his knees, feeling bones cutting through his insides like jagged glass. His stomach spasmed, and he vomited a soup of black liquid and pulverized organs onto the unseen earth. The wind tickled at his neck like a lover, and with a groan he staggered to his feet and began to run.
Laughter echoed after him. “I love it when you run!” the daemon’s voice said behind him. “Look over your shoulder, Malus! I’m right here behind you!”
But he didn’t dare look. If he turned around, even for an instant, he knew Tz’arkan would catch him. As long as he ran, he was free.
Malus lurched and stumbled blindly down a long corridor, hands flung out before him. He crashed left and right into walls of packed earth as hard as stone and smelling of the grave. Splinters of bone pressed against the insides of his skin, burst through and then fell away in spurts of black fluid. Yet still he ran on, his body wired together by nothing more than galvanic fear and icy madness.
Then without warning he reached the end of the line, crashing headlong into an unyielding wall of earth. Malus was hurled to the ground by the impact, but the laughter of the daemon drove him back to his feet in an instant. He beat at the wall with his ragged fists; he clawed at the stone-like earth until the flesh of his fingertips was torn away. The laughter grew louder in his ears, and the air grew cold around him—and then his flailing hand closed around something hard and metallic jutting from the earthen wall.
An iron rung. He recognized it at once, and feverishly began to climb upwards, reaching frantically for the next iron staple and grabbing it with an almost hysterical wave of relief. Was he in the tunnel beneath the Black Tower? He had to be! The knowledge sped his climb even further, until it seemed that the laughter behind him was starting to fade. Tz’arkan, it seemed, didn’t know how to climb. A lunatic giggle escaped his stained lips.
&nbs
p; The trapdoor was exactly where he reckoned it would be. Malus pushed against it and it flew open, allowing a flood of warm, orange light to spill down from the space above. Now it was his turn to laugh as he struggled upwards, desperate for the glow of an honest fire.
That was when the hand closed about his ankle. “You and I are not finished yet, Darkblade,” the daemon hissed. “You have given yourself to the darkness, remember?”
He cried out, kicking and pulling at his leg, but the daemon was far stronger. Slowly, inexorably, he was pulled back down into the shadows.
Until he felt a strong pair of arms circle his chest and pull him upwards as though he were a child. Tz’arkan held on for a moment, struggling vainly, then the iron grip about his ankle gave way. It might have taken his foot with it, but at that moment Malus didn’t care.
Strong hands hauled him upwards into the light. He hung there like a babe, laughing and weeping with relief. A shadowy figure stepped towards him, limned with fire. A cold hand caressed his cheek, tracing lines through the thick sludge coating his skin.
“There you are, beloved,” Nagaira croaked. She smiled, and rivulets of filth oozed over her ruined lips as she bent close to him. Her pale skin was marbled with pulsing, black veins, and there was only blackness where her eyes ought to be. Malus looked into their depths and realised that there were things living there, beings older and vaster than time. He screamed and tried to struggle, but the Chaos champion held him from behind, his armoured hands tightening around Malus’ arms until black ooze ran from between his steel-clad fingers.
“We’ve come a very long way to find you,” Nagaira said. Her breath was cold and putrid, like air escaping from a corpse. The icy nothingness in her eyes pulled at him. There’s so much I want to show you. So much that you need to see.”
Then her lips covered his, and he tasted icy, squirming rot against his tongue as the ancient things behind Nagaira’s eyes took notice of him for the first time and the world exploded in pain.
