“You came home to die,” said Raelum. Arthuras raised his eyebrows. “You’re ninety-six, after all.”
“I am,” said Arthuras, “but the blood of the Elder People runs in my veins. I do not know how long I will live. Two hundred years? Three hundred? A millennium? It matters not. After all, we might die tomorrow.”
“You might,” said Carandis, “but as for me, I would prefer to end my days comfortably in bed.”
“A fine goal,” said Arthuras. “Let us try to keep ourselves alive long enough for that.”
They kept walking. Arthuras’s stride lengthened, his movements regaining their usual fluidity. They made good time and soon came to an ancient, ice-crusted canal.
“The nameless city sits on the shores of a lake,” said Arthuras. “This canal connects to that lake. Tomorrow, I think, we should reach the city.”
“What will we do then?” said Lionel.
“Let’s worry about it tomorrow,” said Carandis.
They made camp by the edge of the frozen canal as night fell. Raelum took first watch, his sword point grounded, both hands clenched around the hilt.
Tomorrow, he would at last find Marsile.
Chapter 10 - A New Master
Marsile paced the top of the keep, watching the sun go down.
His servants stood guard around the battlements, ready to defend him. The stairs flickered and glowed with warding spells. Rays of orange light slanted through the ruined streets, painting the crumbled walls red.
He heard noises from the great pit in the city’s square, groans and shuffling.
Perhaps he should leave before the sun went down. He had not felt Carandis Marken’s spell for an entire day. Perhaps the girl had been killed. Or maybe Walchelin had succeeded after all. If so, Marsile no longer needed to set this ambush.
His spells detected thousands of demons moving beneath the city.
Perhaps he had miscalculated. He might not have the strength to survive an entire night here.
Marsile shook his head. If he left the city now, the demons would catch him before he even reached the gates. Here, in the fortified keep, he had an excellent chance of surviving, if he kept his wits about him.
The sun vanished beneath the city’s wall. The nameless city plunged into shadow, darkness choking the streets.
Hideous sounds rose from the pit in the square, groans and screams of pain. Marsile cast a series of spells over himself, wards to turn aside both physical and magical attacks.
He gazed down into the square beneath the keep and let out a pained breath.
Hundreds of demons boiled from the pit, like ants pouring from an anthill. Reaper-ghouls snarled and hissed, their glowing claws slashing. Marsile saw a scores of lesser ghouls. With the other demons came, bloated shapes, flesh quivering with noxious poisons. Outside the wall, the lake flickered with ghostly radiance as wraiths drifted over the water. Yelps and screams echoed from the desolate houses as the demons rose from the catacombs.
Marsile waited.
One of the reaper-ghouls lifted its head, sniffing. Others pressed drooling muzzles to the cracked paving stones, sniffing the ground. They would have picked up his scent by now, or perhaps the scent of the comatose children.
Then one of the reaper-ghouls looked up and saw him. It let loose a hideous squeal and dashed into the courtyard, vanishing into the keep’s doors. Dozens more followed.
Marsile hastened to the stairwell, readying himself. He heard the clamor as the reaper-ghouls raced up the stairs. If his warding spells failed, if the sigils inscribed upon the stone steps failed, then nothing would stop the reaper-ghouls from killing him.
One appeared at the base of the stairs, a dozen steps from Marsile, eyes ablaze with maddened hunger. The thing regarded him for a moment, then sprang up the stairs with a snarl.
An electric flash of white light illuminated the night. The reaper-ghoul howled in pain, white fire drilling into corroded flesh. It collapsed to the ground, writhing. Marsile’s warding spells had held against the creature. But would they hold against hundreds?
Dozens of reaper-ghouls crowded at the base of the stairs, snarling. With them came a host of lesser ghouls. Marsile cast the spell to dominate demons and forced his will into the creatures. Three of the lesser ghouls came under his control, and he commanded them to attack. The ghouls hurled themselves at their greater cousins, clawing and biting. A dozen reaper-ghouls rushed the stairs, and Marsile backed away as the dazzling white flash filled the night. The creatures retreated, screaming and burning. Marsile’s wards still showed no sign of weakening.
He cast a spell and unleashed a shaft of blue astralfire into the packed, snarling mass of demons. Limbs and heads flew, bursting into flame, and greasy smoke rose from the stairwell, accompanied by the enraged screams of the creatures. Marsile flung blast after blast until he could not stand the smoke rising from the stairwell, and stepped back to catch his breath. Another reaper-ghoul tried to charge through the smoke and burst into flame, thrown back by the warding spells.
Marsile laughed. Let them come! He would fill this keep with fire if necessary, fill the city with thousands of charred corpses.
The sound of horses’ hooves rose from the square. For a panicked moment Marsile wondered if Carandis Marken and the Paladins had charged into the city on horseback. He flung one more blast of astralfire down the stairwell, eliciting a chorus of screams, and hastened to the battlements.
Dark horsemen galloped through the square, dozens of them. Their horses were little more than skeletons draped in flapping rags of skin. The riders were withered corpses, clad in mail and plate. A faint greenish glow shimmered around their weapons and armor. Some carried lances bearing the standard Marsile had in seen in Abbotsford, the bone-crowned skull of Baligant. Had these demon knights once been the vassals of Baligant?
One of the knights rode forward and lifted a hand, and silence fell over the teeming demons. Marsile braced himself. If the demon knights led the reaper-ghouls in a coordinated assault, Marsile might not survive the night.
“Come down!” boomed the knight in an awful voice. “Come down, for you have entered the domain of the Lord Baligant! Your lives, and the lives of those with you, are forfeit to us!”
“I think not!” said Marsile. He cast the spell to sense the presence of magic, focusing on the knights. The knights’ weapons bore a powerful enchantment. Marsile suspected their blades could drain and store stolen life, while also shielding the knights from normal weapons and many spells.
“Come down!” commanded the knight. “We shall slay you, and you will rise as Lord Baligant’s servant.”
Marsile cocked his head to the side. The weapon might protect the knight, but he doubted it could shield the horse. “Would it change your mind if you knew I had come to raise Lord Baligant?”
“Do not beg for your life!” said the knight. “Come down and join us, or we shall come up and take you.”
Marsile laughed. “You must have more wisdom than that, surely, if you’ve survived all these years. Gallop elsewhere, before I lose patience.”
The knight stared to ride forward.
Marsile cast a spell. A burst of blue astralfire sheared through the horse’s neck and front legs, and the beast collapsed in a spray of bones. The knight clanged to the ground, and the black sword clattered away, the green glow vanishing. Marsile struck again, and his fire smashed the knight’s head and shoulders, devouring dry flesh and ancient bone. The demon knight flopped once and went still.
Marsile blinked the afterimage from his eyes. “Well, sirs!” he called. “Come up, if you wish! I have plenty for all!”
The knights thundered across the courtyard and vanished into the keep’s doors. Marsile turned, fighting off his growing weariness, and ran to the stairwell. Black smoke still billowed from the opening, and the floor trembled beneath Marsile’s boots as the knights galloped their horses up the stairs. The smoke cleared, and Marsile glimpsed a skeletal horse, its rider brandishing
a spear of black wood and steel.
The horse struck the wards on the stairs. The spells blazed with a dazzling green flash, and the horse disintegrated in a spray of emerald flame. The knight catapulted forward, tumbled up the stairs, and landed before Marsile’s feet. Marsile cast a spell, lashing his will like a fist, and sent the knight sprawling. He sent a silent command to his servants. Two ghouls dashed forward, seized the reeling knight, and flung it over the battlements. The knight’s armor clattered against the courtyard, bones rolling over the stones.
Three more knights tried to force the stairs. Marsile dispatched them all, first wrenching their weapons away with bursts of psychokinetic force, then blasting their bodies to ash with astralfire. Two lost their horses against the wards and fled. One knight even got caught within the wards and burned away, the spells incinerating the dead flesh. The knights broke off their attack and contented themselves with surrounding the keep.
Marsile laughed and cast one more spell, strengthening the wards guarding the stairs. With nothing more than his magic and some planning, he had held off a small army of demons. He could hold here as long as he wished. Yet Carandis Marken and the Silver Knights would not find it so easy. Marsile could kill them as they struggled against the city’s demons, and then continue to Moragannon in peace.
Assuming, of course, Carandis and the Paladins yet lived. Marsile had not felt the touch of the location-spell for some time. Perhaps Carandis had been killed or disabled.
A flicker of green light caught his eye. Marsile kicked aside the armor of a destroyed knight and bent over a fallen black spear. The metal flickered with green radiance, like lights shimmering beneath deep water. Intrigued, Marsile worked a spell to probe the weapon’s enchantment.
It held the stolen life energies of dozens of victims, captured through a powerful spell of blood sorcery. Curious, Marsile picked it up. The blade crackled with cold, though the shaft thrummed with warmth. Marsile focused his will into the weapon, and a small surge of life energy surged into him, easing the ache in his joints and skull.
He smiled. A reserve of stolen life energy would prove useful.
Marsile bade his servants to prepare his litter as a bed, and others to ready a small fire. The expenditure of power had taken its toll. Once the fire and the litter had been prepared, Marsile lay down with a weary sigh.
“Tored!” he called.
Tored slunk to his side. “Master?”
“Keep a close eye upon the demons,” Marsile ordered. “If anything changes, shout until I awaken.”
“Master.”
“For your own safety, I advise you stay close to the battlements,” said Marsile. “If you come within a dozen paces of me as I sleep, my servants will rip you apart.”
“Master,” croaked Tored. “Tored keep watch.” The ghoul prowled around the edge of the tower, peering between the battlements.
Marsile closed his eyes and fell asleep.
###
Nightgrim stood in the shadows, wrapped in the black clothes and cloak he had taken from Abbotsford. The clothes were rude things, well beneath his station, but they hid his bone-white skin.
And as Lionel of Tarrenheim stood a hundred paces away, Nightgrim wished to remain unseen.
Nightgrim stood still as death. Red-eyed Raelum, the Adept Carandis, and their strange guide lay asleep around the fire. Lionel stood guard, scanning the darkness. His eyes passed over Nightgrim and moved on.
Nightgrim focused his mind, listening to the young Paladin’s thoughts. To Nightgrim’s surprise, he heard Lionel’s thoughts with far greater clarity. The draugvir-taint must have soaked, bit by bit, into Lionel’s flesh. Guilt and terror and uneasy pleasure scudded through Lionel’s mind.
Which meant Nightgrim could walk into the camp and command Lionel to do whatever he wished. Paladin or not, Nightgrim doubted Lionel had the strength to resist him. Nightgrim licked his lips, his own hunger rising. He would kill Raelum and the guide in their sleep. Then he would drain the Adept dry, and last of all, he would drink the last drop of Lionel’s blood. Perhaps he would let them rise as lesser draugvir. Additional slaves might prove useful
But with them dead, how to find Marsile?
Nightgrim turned, intending to return to his slaves, and noticed a flash of light to the north. The flash returned, followed by a brief blue flare. It looked like the flash of an Adept’s astralfire.
Had Marsile encountered difficulties?
Nightgrim tittered and raced through the trees. A short distance later he came to his slaves. The ghouls moaned and whimpered, staring at the unconscious villagers. Nightgrim’s commands kept them from devouring the flesh.
“My loyal servants!” said Nightgrim. “We travel in haste. Follow me!”
“Master,” blubbered Walchelin, shuffling forward. “Hungry…so hungry…”
Nightgrim seized Walchelin’s head and bent it back until Walchelin wailed in misery. “As, no doubt, your ears are in an advanced state of decay, I fear you may not have heard me. We travel, in haste, immediately. Follow me!”
Nightgrim sprang through the trees, his servants racing after him. He lashed them with his will, driving them faster. He took a long loop around the camp, and returned to the ancient road alongside the canal. Nightgrim ran on, his servants following. An hour later the canal ended in a broad lake, wraiths dancing over its surface. On the shore rose a crumbling city ringed by a thick stone wall. The light had come within the city. Nightgrim strode to the city’s gate and lowered his head to the earth, sniffing.
Marsile had passed here, not long ago.
Nightgrim stared through the gate. Within he heard shuffling and groaning, the creak of rotted flesh and crumbling bone. He saw numerous hunched, dark shapes. Did demons fill the city? Nightgrim supposed it made sense. A city of living men would not survive in these lands.
“My gracious servants!” said Nightgrim. “Remain here while I pursue an errand within the city.”
His slaves groaned in response.
Nightgrim strolled into the gates, ruined stone walls looming over him. Within a few moments dozens of hulking, burning-eyed ghouls raced towards him, their fingers tipped with glowing scythe-claws. Nightgrim looked at them, the darkness of his demon welling within, and slaved the reaper-ghouls to his will. They fawned over him, licking his hands and boots. Nightgrim humored them for a few moments, then continued into the dead city, surrounded by his new escort.
He stepped into the city’s central square. A great High Temple rose on one side. To Nightgrim’s demon it glowed with a faint, painful light. On the other side of the square stood a sturdy castle. Nightgrim saw fires burning within, smoke rising from the windows. Another, smaller fire burned on the keep’s roof, outlining the forms of ghouls. Nightgrim brushed his mind against them and felt the familiar bonds of Marsile’s domination spells.
Marsile had camped on the roof of the keep? He wondered why the Adept had risked coming to his place. No matter. Nightgrim would scale the walls, surprise Marsile, and crush him like an insect.
Hordes of reaper-ghouls swarmed through the square, racing for Nightgrim. He shattered their wills and enslaved them without an effort. Within moments he had hundreds of the wretched things under his control.
Hooves clattered, and Nightgrim saw a dozen demon knights on skeletal horses riding towards him. The knights encircled him, lowering their green-flickering weapons. Nightgrim stared back, testing them with his will. They were too strong to dominate, and he was not sure he could defeat them in a straight fight.
One of the knights spurred its mount forward. The knight carried a standard, a sigil of a moldering skull crowned in bones and gold wire. “You are stronger than us.”
Nightgrim gripped the hem of his cloak and did a grand bow. “Your compliments, sir, do flatter me.”
“Why have you come?” rasped the knight. “You have taken our minions. Have you come to destroy us and take our place?”
Nightgrim laughed. “Your pardons,” he w
aved his hand over the desolation, “but I have no wish to rule over rubble and corpses. I have merely come to perform one small errand, and then I shall depart for lands more…amenable to my appetites.”
“Then what do you seek?”
“To put it simply,” Nightgrim pointed at the keep, “I have come to kill that man.”
The knight’s ravaged face revealed no expression, but the demon creature stiffened in the saddle. “He has defied us and mocked us. All mortals who enter this city must give their lives to the great Lord Baligant.”
Nightgrim heard howls of glee. He glanced back towards the city’s gate and saw reaper-ghouls ripping apart his unconscious villagers. “So I observe.”
“If you have come to kill the mage, we grant you leave,” said the knight. “And you may depart once we have his corpse.”
“Sir! I am hurt!” said Nightgrim. “I am a gentleman, and I presume you are, or at least you were. Gentlemen do not command each other. Though since I will have no use for Marsile’s corpse, I will be delighted to present it to you and your lordly brothers as a gift.”
“Very well,” said knight. “Be wary. He has laid a spell over the stairs. It ravages and burns immortal flesh.”
“I have,” said Nightgrim, “far better means of travel.”
“Then you will slay this impudent mage?” said the knight.
Nightgrim had enough stolen blood to survive a journey back to the civilized lands, though the hunger would drive him half-mad. And, after all, he could feast on Marsile, Lionel of Tarrenheim, and Carandis Marken before starting back. And once back in the civilized lands he could do as he had done to Abbotsford, feasting and killing as he pleased.
“Very well,” said Nightgrim, “I shall remove this fiendish intruder from your midst.”
He looked at the hundreds of reaper-ghouls. Marsile had survived their attack, it seemed, but Nightgrim would find a better use for them.
He sent them a silent command and turned for the keep, the reaper-ghouls following.
The Third Soul Omnibus Two Page 35
