[Darkblade 03] - Reaper of Souls

by Dan Abnett

“And so you live… as your fate requires,” the daemon agreed.

  “I knew you were going to say something like that,” Malus snarled. He sank to his knees beside Spite, resting a hand on the beast’s flank. The nauglir was breathing shallowly. The highborn crawled over next to the beast’s head and gently pried open one great eyelid. The eye was rolled back, showing only white.

  Suddenly the great reptile spasmed, thrashing with all four legs and long, cable-like tail. Malus hurled himself backwards, narrowly escaping a swipe from the nauglir’s foreleg as the cold one leapt to its feet. The one-ton warbeast spun in place, snapping and snarling at thin air, then subsided. It sniffed the air warily, eyeing Malus and letting out a querulous grunt.

  Malus shook his head. “Stupid lizard,” he said affectionately. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you fainted.”

  The nauglir let out a long rumble, settling tentatively on its haunches. Malus couldn’t say he blamed the beast.

  Malus rode throughout the long night, winding his way up the valley in the driving rain.

  He had pulled the bolts from Spite’s hide and cleaned them as best he could. The highborn knew from long experience that the cold one’s constitution would heal the punctures within days, so long as the bolts hadn’t been poisoned. With darkness drawing on he’d walked the cold one back to the main avenue and started his quest for Eleuril’s crypt, switching to the saddle only after he became too weary to take another step. The nauglir plodded on tirelessly, scarcely affected by the armoured druchii on its back. Vor had told him that the prince’s tomb was near the head of the valley, another full day’s hike up the black road. With luck he would reach it by dawn and find some place to rest for a while.

  Hours passed in silence, save for the steady drumming of the rain and the soft slap of the nauglir’s feet. The numbness had finally ebbed to a kind of pervasive cold that chilled his flesh from head to toe. He craved a warm fire and better yet, a warm goblet of wine, but there was none to be had. More than once his thoughts drifted to the flask of wine in his pack, but each time he pushed the temptation aside. Who knew what other dangers lurked in the houses of the dead? And so he rode on, cold and sore and the daemon’s words preyed upon his mind.

  What he needed was a seer. The Witch King and his lieutenants could call upon their services to show them the possible outcomes of their efforts, the better to govern and confound the plans of their enemies. When I return to the Hag, Eldire and I will have much to discuss, he vowed.

  Of course, given his suspicions, could he trust anything she said?

  He was so lost in brooding that at first he didn’t notice the change in Spite’s gait. The nauglir sank lower to the ground and its gait became slower and more fluid. The cold one’s nostrils dilated, drinking deeply of the wet air and its blunt snout lowered until its chin nearly touched the ground. It was only after the warbeast began a low, throaty rumbling that Malus snapped out of his reverie. He realised at once what was happening. The cold one had caught the scent of its favourite food: horseflesh.

  The highborn hurriedly reined Spite in, leading him off the road and into the shadowy depths of a side lane. It was close to dawn, he noticed with a start; the grey sky was turning pearlescent with false dawn. Tendrils of fog curled around the foundations of the empty buildings and the looming towers. Malus studied his surroundings more closely—the buildings were made of finer materials and ornamented with graceful, sinuous carvings that seemed both familiar and alien at the same time. The towers stood in greater profusion, though many had been worn down by untold ages and some few were little more than toppled ruins. He had reached the abode of the Old Kings, the crypts of the last princes of Nagarythe.

  “Stand,” Malus ordered and dropped stiffly to the cobblestones. Every sound seemed unnaturally loud in the fog-shrouded stillness, setting the highborn’s nerves on end. Out of habit he reached for his crossbow, only to remember that he’d given it away during the battle with the shades.

  Looking quickly about, Malus took stock of his surroundings and noticed a tall pile of rubble farther down the lane. The mass of bricks made a steep slope up the side of a partially fallen tower, the rough summit rising two or three storeys above the buildings in this part of the necropolis.

  “Stay” he told Spite, wishing he had a way of hobbling or otherwise corralling the hungry beast—if he was gone too long it was possible that the nauglir’s appetite would override its self-control and it would go hunting for the source of all the tantalising equine smells. Glancing warily over his shoulder, the highborn moved swiftly and silently to the broken tower, then began to scale the heavy, rain-slicked blocks of stone.

  The climb took far longer than he expected; the rubble was somewhat unstable and every time a hand or boot touched off a clatter of small stones he froze in place, listening for sounds of alarm. After almost an hour he reached the summit and pressed himself flat against the stones, peering out across the vista of close-set buildings and narrow lanes.

  He saw the watch-fires at once: twin pyres set twenty yards apart that sent flames ten feet into the damp air. They had been lit in a small square several hundred yards distant, casting a flickering glow across rows of dark campaign tents and against the carved facade of a mortuary tower at the square’s far end. The faint sounds of restless horses carried over the soft pattering of the rain.

  Malus studied the tower more closely, a sick feeling of dread starting to churn in his gut. The stonework decorating the arch of the recessed entryway was a giant bas relief of a druchii prince clad in ornate armour. A clutch of severed heads hung by their hair from the prince’s right fist, while his left hand reached upwards, closing about the curve of a crescent moon.

  “Blessed Mother of Night,” he cursed softly. “They’re trying to break into Eleuril’s tomb.”

  His questing hands found the Idol of Kolkuth first—the brass statue was colder than ice, despite being wrapped in layers of grimy rags. Malus set it hurriedly on the cobblestones and continued rummaging through his saddlebag. “Of all the places in Naggaroth to come seeking adventure, they had to come here,” he muttered angrily. A quick glance at the sky showed that he had less than half an hour until dawn. The druchii in the camp could wake at any moment. He was going to have to move quickly if he was to have any chance at all.

  “Do you imagine this to be mere coincidence, Darkblade?” The daemon sounded genuinely surprised.

  Malus found a small object wrapped in cloth and drew it out, then realised at once it was his brother’s skinned face, neatly salted and folded for safekeeping. He returned it to the bag and dug deeper. “It’s the campaigning season,” he said absently. “Druchii lords take to the field in search of glory, or treasure, or both. I don’t doubt that many of them take up grave-robbing if they think they can get away with it.”

  “But at the head of so large a force?”

  “The woods are full of shades, daemon. If I’d had my choice I’d have brought a small army myself.” His hand closed around a smooth, rounded shape. It sloshed gently as he pulled it free. Malus stared at the flask for a moment, started to put it away, then pulled the stopper free with his teeth and took a deep drink before dropping it back in the bag.

  “How many lords could raise such a force, just to go hunting relics?”

  “In all of Naggaroth? Dozens, I’m sure,” Malus snapped. “You expect me to believe that this has anything to do with me?”

  “Foolish druchii,” the daemon sneered. “Of all the crypts in this valley, that warband just happens to be camped outside the tower you’re looking for.”

  “But that would mean that someone else knows I’m looking for the , Dagger of Torxus and knows where the dagger might be found,” Malus said. “And no one—”

  The thought brought Malus up short. Urial would know, he realised. Could he have raised a force so quickly? Har Ganeth was only a few days’ ride farther down the Slavers’ Road.

  Malus took a deep breath, set his jaw stubbornly
and resumed his search. “Perhaps you are right,” he said, “but what does it matter? Whoever the lord might be, he hasn’t got the dagger yet, or he wouldn’t still be here. So I can still beat him to it.”

  To the highborn’s surprise, the daemon let out a long, rolling laugh. “You are your own worst enemy, Darkblade,” the daemon said. “So clever, so vicious, so deliriously hateful, but so single-minded. You think the world begins and ends with you.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?” Malus asked.

  “Consequences, Malus, consequences. You have already disturbed the schemes of a great many people in your quest for power. Did you think they would forget you once you were done with them? Even now they lay snares for you, but you are too impetuous to avoid them.”

  “And this, coming from a mighty daemon who allowed himself to be trapped in a crystal for thousands of years? I can do without your attempts at wisdom,” the highborn replied. Just then his hand closed on a flat, hard object wrapped in silk. “That’s the one,” he muttered and pulled it forth.

  Malus reached into the folds of silk and uncovered an octagonal medallion worked from thick brass and etched with an eye-twisting array of strange runes. The Octagon of Praan was the first of the relics Malus had recovered at the daemon’s behest. Where the Idol of Kolkuth could warp space and time around it, the Octagon protected its bearer from sorcery. Frowning in distaste, he slipped the medallion’s chain around his neck, then picked up a small pack hanging from the cantle of his saddle and slung it over his shoulder. Then, reluctantly, he picked up the idol and returned it quickly to his saddlebag.

  On impulse, Malus reached out and patted Spite’s flank. “If I’m not back in a day’s time you have my permission to go over there and eat every living thing you can get your teeth around,” the highborn growled. “In the meantime, stay!

  That done, Malus glanced at the dark sky, trying to gauge the hour. It would take quite a while to work out the positions of the sentries around the druchii camp and still more time to slip past them and reach the tomb. The last thing he wanted was to make it into the tower and then find himself trapped inside as the sun rose and the grave robbers returned to their labours.

  “You could always use the idol again,” Tz’arkan whispered coyly. “One step would take you from here to the front doors of the tomb. Imagine that.”

  Malus grimaced. “Oh, I can imagine it all too well, daemon,” he said. That’s why I’ll take my chances with the guards.”

  The tomb’s entryway was a short passage less than ten feet long that opened into a square chamber perhaps twenty feet across. Statues of manticores kept a silent vigil to either side of the crypt’s vaulted doors opposite the entryway and the walls of the chamber were decorated with mosaics showing a tall, handsome druchii inflicting terrible tortures on a wide variety of noble-looking men and women.

  Malus saw at once that the would-be grave robbers had already gone to work on the crypt’s large doors. Hammers and chisels lay scattered about the threshold and there were deep divots carved out of the doors’ surface. The highborn glanced the other way, out into the square and saw that there was still no one moving among the dark campaign tents. It had taken less time than he’d thought to find his way past the guards. Between the constant rain and the late hour the sentries had taken shelter inside the ruined buildings surrounding the square, leaving him an easy path into camp.

  The highborn turned back and crept carefully into the entry chamber, scrutinising the tall doors and the damage the druchii warriors had done to them. “It’s like they’re digging into stone,” he muttered, stepping closer—then he noticed the dark splotches staining the floor in front of the threshold.

  So, he thought. Eleuril’s crypt was not without its traps for the unwary.

  Malus stepped closer still, careful not to pass between the two manticores. He crouched on his heels, studying the floor for hidden switches or plates. “Wish Arleth Vann was here,” he muttered. “He could probably do this blindfolded. I have no idea what I’m looking for.”

  He searched the floor for several long minutes, knowing that he had few of them to spare, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps they set something off when they tried to get through the doors, he thought, studying their iron rings, hinges and fittings.

  The highborn stared carefully at the divots carved into the doors. The wood was so dark and ancient it looked like stone.

  Malus frowned. He scanned the floor, looking for fragments scattered by the workers’ chisels. After a moment he saw a piece matching the hue of the doors and picked it up. The edges were razor sharp and the fragment had no discernible grain.

  The door wasn’t wood hardened to stone. It was stone.

  “That’s not the way in,” he realised. “It’s a decoy to distract looters. So… where is the real door?”

  The highborn retreated to the centre of the chamber and began to study each wall in turn. He pored over each scene depicted on the walls, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then he considered the scenes as part of a whole and began noticing differences in the appearance of Eleuril himself. There was a definite progression to the scenes, showing a chronology of his exploits as the Witch King’s inquisitor. The last scene in the sequence showed him vivisecting a shrieking warlock with a strange-looking black dagger. Intrigued, Malus approached the mosaic. It was, curiously enough, set at the centre of the right-hand wall.

  He reached out and ran his fingers over the smooth stones of the mosaic, testing their solidity. When his fingertips probed at the long, black stone of the dagger’s blade, he felt it depress and heard a gritty click.

  Suddenly a greenish blast of light enveloped Malus, sizzling as it coursed over his body like liquid fire. He felt the hot wind of its passage, but the energy itself rolled over him like water and vanished in a rattling boom.

  The highborn staggered backwards, his eyes dazzled and his ears ringing from the blast. It took him a moment before he noticed the medallion around his neck glowing like brass hot from the forge and realised that the Octagon of Praan had saved him from the sorcerous trap.

  As the ringing in his ears faded Malus heard surprised shouts coming from the square. Malus hesitated, then reached out and pressed against the wall with both hands. A section of the wall swung silently inwards, revealing a narrow stairway winding up and out of sight.

  The eyes of the dead were upon Malus as he climbed the stair to the prince’s tomb.

  Grey stone gave way to polished black marble within the stairwell and globes of witchlight flickered to life as though awakened by the highborn’s echoing footsteps. Every three feet Malus passed a narrow alcove set into the inner wall of the stairway, its archway chased in gold and carved with delicate runes. A mummified servant stood in each alcove, hands folded and head bowed to their chest in eternal supplication. Their eyes were open—perhaps they had been left that way intentionally, or perhaps their eyelids had receded over the centuries as their bodies slowly succumbed to the forces of time—and they seemed to stare at Malus as he hastened upwards in search of their master.

  He could not say how long he climbed, nor how many silent, staring figures he passed before the staircase ended at an open doorway. Beyond lay a circular chamber of polished marble, bathed in sorcerous light.

  A thin rug of dark silk ran from the doorway to the centre of the chamber, where a lectern held a massive book bound in dark leather. Beyond this lectern rose an octagonal dais and upon this dais, standing in an upright casket and clad in black enamelled armour, stood the withered corpse of Prince Eleuril.

  Eight more caskets lay in a ring around the prince’s dais and from where Malus stood he could see that each one held the body of a druchii knight, laid out in full panoply of war and bearing a long, gleaming sword upon his breast. The highborn hesitated in the doorway. The very air reeked of magic; he could not say why, but he could feel it, like a tingle across his skin.

  Faint sounds echoed up the stairwell. To Malus�
� ears they sounded like voices. Was it Urial and his men, bursting through the hidden door and racing up the stairs?

  Malus turned his eyes back to the prince’s body. Eleuril’s hands were clasped around something on his chest. It could be a dagger, he thought.

  Moving cautiously, the highborn crept into the chamber. The air felt heavy with age; an arched ceiling curved thirty feet above and motes of dust danced in the green glow of the witchlights high overhead. He trod carefully along the silk carpet, watching it crumble to dust beneath his feet.

  In ancient times the highborn of Naggaroth would come to pay respects to their ancestors in the houses of the dead. They would walk on rugs such as the one Malus now walked on and kneel before books such as the one before the prince’s casket and read of the legendary feats of their forebears. They would be reminded of the glories that were lost when Nagarythe sank beneath the sea and they would swear powerful oaths of revenge in their ancestors’ names. Once upon a time the warlords of the Witch King would make the long trek to the necropolis on the eve of war and invoke the spirits of the Old Kings, as the princes were sometimes called.

  But those times were long gone, Malus thought. Ancient ways passed into obscurity. Tomes of great deeds went unread in sepulchral darkness and silk rugs crumbled to dust beneath the feet of a thief. Such was the way of things.

  The highborn edged past the great tome and gingerly climbed onto the dais. There was little room on the platform, it being just wide enough to accommodate the prince’s casket and Malus found himself grasping the marble rim to steady himself. Mere inches from the body of the dead prince, Malus could clearly see the long, black dagger clutched in Eleuril’s gauntleted hands. Strange that he was laid to rest with the knife like that, he thought, reaching up to pry the hands apart. One would think he would have preferred a sword.

  Malus’ fingers touched the cold silver steel of the gauntlet—and Prince Eleuril screamed.

  Terror raced along the highborn’s spine as the prince’s shrivelled eyes snapped open, revealing angry points of bluish light blazing in their black depths. The highborn recoiled and found himself fighting for balance on the edge of the dais, but before he could right himself the prince’s body jerked to unnatural life and a gauntleted hand smashed against Malus’ face.