Deathblade: A Tale of Malus Darkblade

by C. L. Werner

  ‘Who is there?’ Eldire called out, her hands already tightening about the protective talismans hanging about her waist.

  A soft laugh answered her. ‘Is your sorcery so feeble that you do not know?’ a mocking voice called out from the darkness.

  The note of mockery vanished as the sanctum suddenly blazed with cold blue light. The gruesome conjuring circles, the sacrificial victim, the discarded heart and the pool of blood all stood revealed in the violent illumination. So too did a slender she-elf dressed in robes of purple and scarlet, a high collar of gold circling her delicate neck.

  ‘Drusala,’ Eldire hissed. ‘You dare much. What errand has Morathi set you upon? Did your mistress think to settle one of her petty jealousies through you?’

  Drusala paced slowly around the sanctum, careful to avoid the pool of blood Malus had squeezed from the heart. ‘I came of my own accord,’ she told Eldire.

  ‘Then you are a fool,’ Eldire said. ‘Your mistress did not dare to strike against me. What makes you think you can do more than she?’

  ‘Perhaps the opportunity never presented itself before,’ Drusala said. ‘Or maybe you were deemed unworthy of the effort.’ She stared into Eldire’s face and smiled. ‘Until now.’

  One instant, Drusala’s hand was empty, in the next she held a long staff of iron and ivory inlaid with the carved teeth of vanquished elves. A grinning skull of crystal topped the staff and from its mouth there leapt forth an icy wind, a stream of polar energy that set its elemental fury upon Eldire.

  The sorceress of Hag Graef was caught in the full force of that arctic blast. Hoarfrost formed around her body, engulfing her utterly in a shroud of ice. Soon, where she had stood there was only a snowy pillar cast in the rough shape of an elf.

  Drusala didn’t approach the pillar. Warily, she gestured with her free hand, swinging it back and forth as little orbs of molten fire formed on the tips of her fingers. After a time, she flung her hand forwards, hurling the fiery orbs across the sanctum. They struck the icy pillar, steam and slush exploding as they burned completely through the obstacle. Consternation gripped Drusala’s features when she saw no evidence of a corpse beneath the ice.

  ‘Your arrogance must be punished,’ Eldire’s voice snarled through the sanctum. Drusala spun around, trying to find where her enemy had translocated herself, but as soon as she started to move, she felt the floor beneath her feet lurch and sway. She tried to leap back, but it was already too late. What had been solid stone a moment before was now a viscous, gooey sludge that pulled at her feet and tried to suck her down into the floor.

  A bestial roar exploded from the trapped druchii’s lips, a cry that might have been bellowed by a mammoth. The icy blue light was transformed into a hellish crimson, scarlet shadows leaping from the walls and diving into the sucking floor. Grunting with the effort, Drusala pulled her feet free as the red pulsations compelled the floor back into a state of solidity.

  Even as she regained her feet, she was beset by her adversary. Spectral blades struck at Drusala from every quarter, phantom swords conjured from boiling fumes of dark magic. She whipped her iron staff around her body, using it to intercept each blade as it came slashing at her, fending them off with her parries. Faster and faster the assault came, forcing Drusala to sharpen her reactions with her own magic. The whirlwind of attack and interception became a blinding blur, the purple robes slashed to ribbons by the spectral blades, the phantom swords blunted and shattered by the flying staff.

  Finally, the assault faltered. The last of the ghostly swords evaporated back into the aethyr. Victoriously, Drusala drove the end of her staff against the floor. A pulsation of raw, unfocused magic swept through the sanctum. As it passed through the chamber, Lady Eldire’s figure abruptly stood revealed, the cloak of darkness that had hidden her obliterated by the force of Drusala’s power.

  Eldire glared at the other sorceress. ‘The hag of Ghrond taught you a few tricks,’ she conceded. ‘What I know, I learned for myself!’

  Lady Eldire now held a staff of her own, a thing of crystal and bone. At her command, the exposed crystal began to darken, to exude crawling tendrils of night. The black fingers shot across the sanctum, reaching out to seize Drusala in their clutches, to rip the soul from her flesh.

  Drusala took a step back and made an arcane gesture with her hand. From her palm, a ball of nebulous energy burst forth, striking across the black fingers that reached towards her, sending little slivers of magic flying in every direction. ‘You should have learned more,’ Drusala spat. ‘Your divinations have weakened you too much for such a conjuration. Even a mere handmaiden would know this.’

  A bolt of searing darkness leapt from Eldire’s staff, shearing through the shielding orb Drusala had evoked. The bolt slammed into the handmaiden, flinging her back, ripping her own staff from her hands. She crashed against the wall, almost passing through its unstable substance into the shadows beyond. By some effort of will, the stricken elf collapsed back against the semi-reality of the sanctum wall.

  Eldire was already evoking another spell to strike down her foe when her concentration faltered. She’d seen something in that instant when Drusala had pierced the sanctum’s illusion. Something so unexpected that it caused her concentration to slip. For an instant, for the merest fraction of time, her enemy had a different appearance. Her adversary was cloaked in a sorcerous glamour!

  ‘Who are you?’ Eldire demanded. ‘How did you penetrate the wards that guard this place?’

  Drusala looked up from the floor, blood trickling from her lip. ‘A traitor removed the soul hanging. That is how I found this place.’ She slapped her hand against the floor, sending a magical tremor through the stones. ‘And to you, I am the Pale Queen,’ she declared with a snarl, evoking the Cytharai goddess of the dead.

  From the pool of blood, sanguinary spears erupted, striking at Eldire. She raised her staff to ward away the gruesome assault, but her enemy had prepared the attack with vicious cunning. Too much of Eldire’s own magic infused the oracular liquid, too much of her own essence was yet bound within it. Aethyric sympathies, harmonies of spirit tied the sorceress to what she had conjured. The spears of solidified blood stabbed through the counter-spell Eldire raised to defend herself. In a welter of gore, they impaled her, piercing her at throat, navel and heart. The crystal staff fell from lifeless fingers to shatter upon the floor.

  Drusala studied her vanquished enemy, drawing a deep sigh of contentment as she watched Eldire’s life bleed away. She didn’t linger to savour her triumph. Already the sanctum was beginning to lose its substance, to collapse back into the nothingness from which it had been formed. Hurriedly, she dashed through the portal that linked the place to Eldire’s pavilion.

  As she rushed through the doorway, Drusala found Absaloth waiting for her. The silent guard bowed his head as he saw his mistress return. She gave the warrior scarcely a glance, but instead turned to the only other druchii in the tent.

  ‘Is it done?’ Korbus asked, the soul hanging folded across his arm.

  Drusala smiled at the tremor in the traitor’s voice. She slid her bloodied fingers down the elf’s cheek, leaving a line of gore across his skin.

  ‘It is only beginning,’ Drusala told him.

  NINE

  A cry of agony sang out from the left flank of the column, rising above the clatter of armour and the tromp of marching feet. A druchii warrior, elegant and sinister in his armour of darkened steel and cloak of deep crimson, collapsed into the dust. An arrow trembled in the pit of his eye, expertly loosed so that the shaft merely grazed the metal nasal that guarded the elf’s face. The warriors around the stricken druchii didn’t scatter, but came forwards, locking their shields together to form a wall of steel. Crossbows were trained upon the rocky slopes the column marched past.

  Malus Darkblade swung around in his saddle, glaring at the grey desolation of the hills, the crumbling toes
of the Annulii themselves. Here and there, some pattern among the rocks suggested an ancient construction, the foundation of some tower cast down ages ago. There was nothing to betray the presence of enemies, not even to eyes as keen as those of an elf or the sharp senses of the cold ones. Yet they were there just the same, lurking in the dirt and dust, stalking the druchii army, harassing it every step of the way. The toll in lives the ambushers took wasn’t even worth the drachau’s attention. Of what consequence was a spearman here or a knight there? Even the odd noble wasn’t a serious impediment; there were plenty of druchii only too eager to assume the command of a fallen highborn.

  No, the toll the ambushers were taking wasn’t measured in lives but in time. The incessant attacks were taxing the discipline and morale of his warriors. Their step wasn’t as firm as it had been when they left the shores of Tiranoc and abandoned the beached black ark. They were constantly looking around, watching for the next ambush, waiting for the scream that would tell of another comrade brought down by the slinking asur. Several times, entire companies of soldiers had broken, their discipline shattered by the harassing attacks. They’d stormed up onto the rocks, vengefully seeking their tormentors. Many more had been lost to deadfalls and other traps in these futile retaliations than had been felled by the black-fletched arrows. Malus had ended these breaks in discipline by employing the most ruthless measures – ordering the execution of any officer whose troops broke ranks and commanding that any soldier injured by an asur trap be left behind. Most of these injured druchii would be seen again, their butchered remains strewn across the road before the marching army by their shadowy enemy. In this, however, the vindictive asur had helped rather than hindered the determination of Malus’s troops. There were no more reckless forays into the hills.

  Still, it sat ill with Malus to allow the asur to assault his host with impunity. Magic would have offered the best recourse, but Lady Eldire had yet to rejoin his column. She’d remained behind at the beachhead to recover her strength after the toll her prophecy had taken on her. Until she rejoined him, the only sorceress of note in Malus’s army was Drusala and he was wary of depending too much on her arcane powers. The last thing he wanted to do was to appear weak to an enchantress who might yet prove an agent of Malekith.

  To that end, he’d come up with his own method of retaliation. Among the vastness of his army were his war hydras. Not only Griselfang and Snarclaw, but all the other beasts the refugees from Clar Karond had brought with them. The maws of the grotesque reptiles were fountains of corrosive, viscous bile. It was hazardous to collect that venom, to milk the ravenous hydras. The beastmasters balked at the very prospect of such labour. Fortunately, the slave-soldiers of Naggor had no choice in the matter. Under the lash of Kunor and the other slavemasters, the Naggorites had set about collecting the venom, drawing it from the glands of the multi-headed monsters. Dozens of the slave-soldiers had been lost in the process when the jaws of a hydra would slip free of the chains holding them open. In the end, however, they were able to provide gallons of the corrosive venom, storing it in clay jars and glass bottles.

  As the spearmen formed their shieldwall around their dead comrade, Malus looked over to Silar and nodded. His retainer made a broad sweep of his outstretched hand. In response, a clutch of elves came marching through the ranks – more of Kunor’s slave-soldiers. The Naggorites each carried a jar or bottle of hydra venom. Reaching their positions behind the shieldwall, they lobbed their burdens onto the hillside. The slaves were most energetic in this exercise, knowing that those who threw their missiles the farthest would be excused from collecting the next batch of hydra venom.

  Bottles and jars shattered against the rocks, splashing the vicious liquid in every direction. Small gaps appeared in the shieldwall now, as crossbowmen took aim. Once away from the poisonous jaws of a hydra for more than a few minutes, the venom lost most of its potency, but it was still able to inflict the most hideous burns. It would take a god-like discipline to ignore such pain.

  Despite their ghostly attacks, the asur proved to be mortal things of flesh and pain. As the hydra venom spattered across the rocks, grey figures rose up. Some were in such agony that they tried to rip their burning cloaks from their bodies. Others retained a bitter sense of purpose, taking swift aim with their bows and loosing arrows into their hated enemy. Several more druchii fell as the arrows stabbed into their ranks, but the retaliation of Hag Graef’s crossbowmen, with their repeating weapons, ripped through any asur before they could manage a second shot.

  A vengeful cheer welled up from Malus’s army as he watched a score of asur ashencloaks cut down. The camouflage afforded them by their garments was almost perfect; the fault lay not in the ability of the cloak to render the elves unseen but in the weakness of the asur themselves.

  Malus looked over to Silar once more, giving his loyal retainer another unspoken command. Silar barked out a string of orders and a small company of Naggorites rushed out from the column. They scrambled up the hillside, several of them vanishing as a hidden pit opened up beneath their feet. The survivors pressed on, only one of them making the mistake of turning and trying to retreat back to the column. A bolt from one of the crossbows killed the wretch before he’d gone a dozen feet. The rest picked their way among the rocks, searching out the tokens that would be their only chance to rejoin the host.

  A low grumble from Spite caused Malus to look away from the Naggorites on the hill. It was a general rule in any druchii force that cold ones and horses had to be kept away from one another. The reptiles relished nothing quite so much as horseflesh, a fact that made even the strongest warhorse skittish around the scaly brutes. Now a lone rider made her way through the mass of knights, and it was the cold ones that had become skittish, recoiling from the midnight-black courser as though it were a living flame. Even Spite was uneasy, flexing its claws so that the talons scrabbled at the ground.

  Malus refused to share his steed’s anxiety. He had endured too much to be frightened by a mere sorceress, whatever unsettling whispers Tz’arkan tried to fill his head with. He indulged in a patronising smile as Drusala rode towards him, injecting the nuances of annoyance and condescension that would remind her of her place in his army, emphasise who was in command.

  ‘Dreadlord,’ Drusala addressed him with just the slightest measure of deference. ‘You have dispatched your soldiers to recover the cloaks of our enemies. I fear that will be of no avail. The enchantment that conceals them so well is keyed to the peculiar hermetic harmonies of the asur. The air, earth and water of Naggaroth have changed the druchii too much to appeal to that magic.’

  Malus shook his head. ‘I haven’t risked soldiers to recover those rags. That is a task fit for dogs.’ From the hillside, more screams sounded. Malus turned his head to watch as an ashencloak who had been feigning death suddenly sprang into action, striking with his sword in a blur of ferocity that saw three Naggorites maimed or dead before the other slave-soldiers were able to smash him into the dirt. The crooked druchii swords slashed across the prone asur, hacking away at him without mercy.

  ‘Nevertheless, there are better uses even for dogs,’ Drusala insisted. ‘If you intend to take the Eagle Gate, you will need every warrior you have.’

  Malus studied the sorceress from the corner of his eye, watching her face, scrutinising her gaze. Looking for any sign that she knew, that Tz’arkan was right and that she had seen the awful secret locked away inside his soul. She could destroy him with such knowledge. If she had it, why didn’t she? He should have demanded the answer to that question when he’d consulted his mother. If her auguries could reveal to him the place for a great victory, then surely she could predict the motivations of a single elf.

  ‘I will take the Eagle Gate,’ Malus said. ‘It is my destiny.’

  Drusala’s face curled into an enigmatic smile. ‘Destiny is what the proud call fate and the foolish call doom.’

  ‘Are you presumin
g to advise me now?’ Malus asked.

  ‘Never, dreadlord,’ Drusala said. ‘I am well aware that you already have an advisor in matters arcane.’

  Try as he might, Malus couldn’t read the subtleties of tone in Drusala’s choice of words. He looked the sorceress in the eye. ‘Beside the Witch King himself, I am the most powerful warlord among our people. Serve me loyally, and there will always be a place for you in my court.’

  ‘I never doubted that,’ Drusala said. ‘You are many things, drachau, but you aren’t wasteful.’ She looked back to the hillside where another of the Naggorites had fallen victim to an ashencloak playing dead. ‘At least not with anyone you think is still useful to you.’

  ‘A sorceress always has her uses,’ Malus declared. He could feel a flicker of fear pass through him as he spoke. Was Tz’arkan nervous? Maybe a closer alliance with Drusala was just what he needed. Eldire had been unable to free him of the daemon; perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea to see what Drusala could do. Assuming of course he could arrange things so that if his affliction were found out the sorceress would suffer the same fate as he did.

  Drusala bowed her head. There was no misunderstanding the invitation in her smile. ‘I will await your pleasure, dreadlord.’ She started to turn her horse, but stopped and glanced past Malus. Her body became stiff and tense, reminding Malus of a panther scenting an intruder in its territory.

  He had to stifle the urge to laugh when he looked in the direction Drusala was staring and saw Vincirix riding over to join them. So, the sorceress was trying to stake out new territory. If so, she was being presumptuous. She certainly had her useful aspects, but the captain of the Knights of the Ebon Claw possessed something much more important. She was dependent on Malus for her rank and power. That gave him control over her. He didn’t have a similar hold over the witch. Not yet, at least.