by C. L. Werner
As the attack on the gate gathered momentum, a third assault on the breach was set into motion. This time Malus didn’t trust the attack to anyone but himself. He didn’t leave the first charge to a lover and her knights, he didn’t delegate the first wave to vassals and their warriors. He didn’t linger behind and wait to see how the attack fared. This time, he led the push personally, commanding the soul-bonded warriors of his own tower, the drachau’s private guard. At their back rode Dolthaic and the Knights of the Burning Dark, eager to redeem themselves in the eyes of their despotic master, only too aware that no other dreadlord would give them sanctuary should Malus fall.
Spite loped along with the soul-bonded dreadspears, the horned one snapping at those warriors too clumsy to keep their distance. The reptile disliked the nearness of allies as much as it despised the closeness of enemies, traits ingrained into its tiny brain from the moment it had hatched and found itself the runt of the nest. Malus did little to curb his steed’s hostility. It reminded the soldiers of their place and warned them that death needn’t come from an asur arrow or spear.
The rampart of dead cold ones drew ever closer. Malus could see the asur spearmen defending the morbid barrier. One of them turned his head and shouted to someone behind him. A moment later, a volley of arrows came arching up from the ward beyond the broken wall. Dozens of the dreadspears were struck as the barrage came raining down upon them. Those who fell were trampled by those who followed behind them. It didn’t need the threats of the drachau to keep the spearmen moving. They knew they were within range of the enemy bows now. The only remedy for that was to get stuck in, engage the Eataine Guard and force the archers to hold back lest they strike friend instead of foe.
The rank smell of decaying cold ones struck Malus’s senses as his assault closed upon the ghoulish obstacle. Just as he came near the barrier, he gave Spite a vicious kick in its flanks. The horned one responded with a powerful leap that brought it pouncing onto the top of the barrier. The carcass of a cold one was dislodged, sliding free to drop onto the asur below. Malus laughed as the elves caught beneath the reptilian body tried to squirm free. With deliberate viciousness, he caused Spite to drop down onto the carcass, adding his own and the horned one’s weight to that already crushing the trapped asur. Screaming in pain, his white-clad enemies flailed in abject misery.
The suddenness of Malus’s assault caught the other Eataine Guard by surprise. Prepared to stab their spears through gaps in the macabre wall at enemies trying to climb it, ready to repel foes who tried to circle around it, they were unprepared for an adversary who was already over the barrier. In a few heartbeats, the warpsword wrought a grim harvest from the startled warriors. Spite’s jaws snapped shut upon the arm of an elf wearing the heraldry of an Ellyrian noble. A turn of the reptile’s head wrenched the limb from its socket, sending the elf lurching back, feebly trying to staunch the welter of blood spurting from his mangled body.
Before the Eataine Guard could concentrate their efforts against Malus, soul-bonded druchii were scrambling up and over the reptilian wall. Spears stabbed down into the asur, spitting them like pigs. It took only a few moments for the druchii to jump down and secure the foothold they had gained, their iron-shod boots stamping out any life that clung to the elves they had impaled. Around the flanks of the dreadspears came Dolthaic and the Knights of the Burning Dark, who barrelled into the asur and hurled them back.
The orderly defence that had resisted the last assault was quickly smashed aside by Malus’s troops. The drachau exulted as he butchered every asur he could reach. Spite’s jaws were foul with elven blood and strips of elven flesh. Within, he could feel Tz’arkan responding to the carnage, the daemon’s presence swelling and expanding.
‘This is my glory!’ Malus snarled at the thing inside him.
Is this glory? Even for a mortal, you are delusional, Malus. Look about you, fool.
The daemon’s mockery stabbed at Malus like an icy dagger. He pulled back on Spite’s reins, forcing the bloodthirsty reptile to heel. He ignored the fray unfolding around him, seized the moment to appreciate the broader situation. His face contorted into a mask of inhuman rage.
The Eataine Guard weren’t trying to hold the rampart, they were falling back. They were trying to draw his warriors deeper into the breach. They were trying to pull them into a trap! He could see Prince Yvarin, the glow of magic still burning beneath his armour, leading the slow withdrawal. Nothing that would alert the druchii and make them suspicious, but now Malus could see through the methodical retreat.
He could order his troops to withdraw, to avoid the jaws of whatever deceit Yvarin planned. To do so, however, would shatter the entire assault. He’d lose another day trying to orchestrate another thrust. Another day for reinforcements to arrive. The Tiranocii would be at his rear by then, certainly. The dragons of Caledor, too, might take wing and fly to the Eagle Gate’s rescue. He couldn’t risk that. There could be no more delays. This attack would succeed. It must succeed!
Victory is in your power, Malus. Do you have the courage to claim it?
The druchii continued to swarm the barrier and pursue the Eataine Guard past the broken walls beyond. Malus sneered. Yvarin had overplayed his hand. He was thinking like a soft, pampered prince of the Inner Kingdoms. What matter if his trap cost Malus a hundred soldiers? Two hundred? There were more. He could afford to drown the entire garrison in blood. The host of Hag Graef alone still outnumbered the garrison a hundredfold. He would mock Yvarin for his arrogance before he ripped out the maggot’s heart.
Roaring, Malus goaded his troops onwards, funnelling them into the gap, driving them at the Eataine Guard with the fury of a tempest. ‘One step back!’ he raged. ‘One step back and you shall feel the kiss of Khaine!’ He brought the warpsword flashing down into the helm of the nearest dreadspear, splitting the reinforced steel and shearing through the skull inside. The murdered warrior collapsed where he stood. Those around him redoubled their efforts to gain the walls.
‘What need have I of daemons?’ Malus spat at the beast inside him.
What need, Malus. Shall I tell you?
Tz’arkan’s slithering words stoked the furnace of Malus’s wrath. He wouldn’t let the daemon’s mockery poison the moment of his triumph. Savagely, he kicked Spite and sent the horned one rushing through the ranks of dreadspears. The push into the ward beyond the wall had faltered. He would know why.
Through his soul-bonded soldiers, Malus forced his reptilian steed onwards. Those elves who failed to leap out of the way were crushed underfoot. At last he reached the open ground within the ward itself. He felt his heart turn cold when he saw the battle unfolding. His dreadspears were beset on three sides by Yvarin’s troops. The Eataine Guard held the ground directly before the invaders, but from the sides it was regiments adorned in the colours and lion-skins of Chrace that fought the druchii, their heavy war-axes crunching through armour and snapping bones with each strike. Archers from Ellyrion stood upon the inner walls, loosing arrows into the rear ranks of Malus’s troops, felling them before they could fight their way to the front ranks.
Magnificent, are they not?
Malus could feel the daemon snicker at him. It took but a glance to understand its meaning. The archers on the walls, the Chracian axemen – these weren’t the beleaguered warriors from the last two days. Their armour and raiment wasn’t grimy with the foulness of war. These were fresh troops, fighters new to the battle. In the early morning, while Malus waited on the sun, the Eagle Gate had been reinforced!
The blast of a warning horn far back in the pass carried to Malus’s ears, magnified and made more distinct to him by the perfidy of Tz’arkan. Tiranoc! The chariots had reached the druchii camp. The rear of his army was now beset by yet another asur host.
What glory for a fool? But, then, your king didn’t expect you to win here. He expected you to die.
Snarling, Malus drove Spite fo
rwards. The horned one swatted the druchii in its way, lashing out with fang and claw. With a lunge, it brought its master into battle. The warpsword sang out as it cleaved through the breastplate of a warrior of the Eataine Guard. Spite’s jaws clamped tight about the head of a Chracian hunter.
Victory, Malus. It can still be yours. You can still have the last laugh over your king. Free me. Release me. The wild magic of these mountains rages through this land, and I have supped deeply from the storm. The pain and anguish of these mortals invigorates me. If I wanted, I could free myself, but we have been companions for so very long. It would sadden me if you weren’t able to enjoy the carnage with me.
‘Lies,’ Malus snapped. An asur spear glanced across his knee, the warrior behind it exploiting his distraction. The drachau brought his deadly blade sweeping around, reducing the elf’s face to a bloodied pulp.
What need have I for lies? You know the truth as well as I. You can feel it in your very bones. Are there not enough enemies here already, Malus? Must we fight one another as well? Think of what defeat means, Malus. Think of the Witch King laughing at you. Think of the honour and glory Prince Yvarin will enjoy, slayer of Malus Darkblade… and his lover!
Malus felt himself turning sick inside. Defeat was bitter enough to accept, but to know that in defeat he would further the ambitions of his enemies was too much to bear. How long had he resisted Tz’arkan? How many sleepless nights and hideous days? Every hour feeling the daemon’s thoughts nagging at him, urging him to relent, to allow it to go free.
He knew how mighty Tz’arkan was. He knew that it never made promises it wouldn’t keep. If it claimed it could still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, it could do so.
‘Very well,’ Malus whispered. ‘I release you, Tz’arkan. Together we will kill them all.’
We will kill them all, the daemon repeated. In that moment, Malus felt the fiend’s essence boiling inside him, rising up, flowing through every nerve and every vein. Spite bucked and flailed, the horned one’s terror so great that the straps of its saddle snapped and Malus was flung to the ground. Dimly he saw his loyal steed fleeing back through the press of dreadspears. Around him, druchii and asur alike drew back, gazing in horror at the fallen drachau.
It was different this time. As the pain of possession wracked him, Malus knew something was wrong. Having his body usurped by Tz’arkan was never a pleasant experience, but this time the agony was unspeakable. Screams pierced his ears, and it took the greatest effort to appreciate that the screams he heard were his own.
Now, Malus, it is your turn to be the spectator. Your chance to be the parasite. After a few centuries, you may even enjoy the experience.
Malus’s skin began to flow like water, dripping away from his body, exposing the raw meat and muscle beneath. His bones began to expand, popping and cracking as they assumed new dimensions and adopted new shapes. The drachau’s screams rose to a piercing wail, a cry of agony that ripped at the souls of all who heard it, tugging at them, dragging at them, trying to pull them into the private hell of the damned. The druchii and asur around the stricken tyrant backed away, retreating heedlessly into the blades of comrades and foes yet unaware of the horror unfolding so near to them.
A cackle of daemonic mirth rasped from the elongated jaws that distorted the drachau’s face. Armour cracked and split, sloughing away from the transforming body in patches of twisted steel. The torn rags of Malus’s rich garments fluttered in the wind as his body continued to expand, doubling in size, then redoubling once more. Long, razor-like spines erupted from his back, great horns sprouted from his forehead. Facial features withered into a skull-like semblance, eyes burned away to become embers of aethyric malevolence. The elf’s long black hair thickened into a mane of worms, writhing and squirming with obscene vitality. The bubbling mass of flesh reshaped itself into thick cords of muscle; legs lengthened and broadened into pillars of bone and sinew. Thick, ape-like arms ended in blade-like talons.
The warpsword alone remained unfazed by the transformation, seeming little more than a puny knife in the clawed fist of the unleashed monster. Then it too began to change, expanding, growing into a giant blade of darkness, the weapon of some primordial titan or maniacal god.
Tz’arkan threw back its skull-like head and roared in triumph. Free! It was free! The roar that erupted from its daemonic lungs deafened the elves nearest it, shattering their eardrums. Tz’arkan the daemon king walked the mortal world once more!
One of the Eataine Guard was Tz’arkan’s first victim, cut in half by a single stroke of the warpsword, his torso flung far across the battlefield. The daemon could feel the elf’s soul drawn into itself, feeding the insatiable furnace of its own malefic essence. The taste brought a howl of delight from the monster. Greed, the insatiable hunger for mortal energies, flared through the daemon’s mind. It had intended to keep the spirit of its bargain with Malus, to kill only the asur and spare the druchii. Now, however, it was minded to obey only the letter of their compact.
‘We will kill them all,’ Tz’arkan hissed, enjoying the terror that flared up from that tiny parasitic awareness lurking at the edge of its consciousness, that impotent spectator that shared its eyes. The feeble ghost that had been Malus Darkblade.
The daemon king swung around, slashing the warpsword across the druchii spearmen in its shadow. A score of elves were cut down in the blink of an eye, torn asunder by the daemon’s strength and the warpsword’s bite. The released spirit of each victim was channelled into Tz’arkan, further stoking the dark energies within it.
Tz’arkan howled once more. It could feel the terror of its victims and its future victims wash over it. It could feel the envy of its brother daemons, watching it from beyond the veil, straining to pierce the barrier, to emerge from the Realm of Chaos and join it in the feast. A thought, a gesture on its part, and they would be through. The daemon king laughed. The feast was rich and it had no intention of sharing. It forced down the perverse temptation to tear wide the rift. Later, perhaps, when the screams of mortals ceased to amuse it, it would let its brothers indulge themselves.
Druchii and asur alike attacked the daemon now. Dreadspears fought alongside the Eataine Guard, Knights of the Burning Dark made common cause with Chracian hunters. Spears stabbed into the monster from every side. Lances pierced its back, fangs snapped at its legs, axes hacked at its belly, swords slashed at its flanks. Tz’arkan laughed at the pathetic assault. Ichor bubbled from its wounds, closing them as soon as the violating steel was withdrawn. It plied the warpsword to left and right, spilling its enemies in every direction, each slaughtered soul serving to speed its own regeneration and invest yet more strength in its limbs.
Then, for an instant, Tz’arkan hesitated. The Eataine Guard retreated before it, but a lone warrior came striding out from their ranks. The daemon chuckled. How bold and stalwart Prince Yvarin looked, how heroically he marched to his doom. What would his vassals think, what would they say, if they could taste the desperation and fear their leader tried to hide so carefully?
Look, Malus, he is here, Tz’arkan taunted the drachau’s spirit. Pay close attention, because you surrendered more than you know just to enjoy this moment.
The daemon reached out for Yvarin, but its arrogance, its savouring of Malus’s emotions, was a distraction. The prince dived under the monster’s claw and struck. The runesword, the fabulous blade that had been handed down for thousands of years, burned brighter than the sun as it slashed across the daemon’s hide. Ancient enchantments blazed up from the blade, searing through the ghastly essence of Tz’arkan. The ichor that bubbled from this wound didn’t knit the flesh together, didn’t undo the hurt visited upon the daemon. Steaming, blackening the ground it fell upon, the ichor slopped from the cut in a continuous flow, each drop sapping some of the fiend’s hideous vitality.
Yvarin started to shout in triumph, to cry out to his warriors – even to the druchii – tha
t the beast could be hurt, the daemon could be slain. The sound died on his lips as one clawed hand closed about his runesword as he drew it from the wound. Another seized him by the neck. Tz’arkan glared at the prince with a malignity far beyond anything even Malus could have shown him.
‘That hurt,’ Tz’arkan growled as it crushed Yvarin’s neck like a rotten stick. A flick of the daemon’s claw sent the dead hero’s head spinning off into the battlements.
Tz’arkan looked across the horrified ranks of the Eataine Guard as the asur began to fall back.
‘Which of you wants to keep your prince company?’ it called out in challenge as it stalked after them.
Drusala sensed the moment when Tz’arkan was released. The daemon’s essence blazed like a pillar of fire to her witchsight, an infernal flare almost blinding in its brilliance. Amid the tumult of battle, the aethyric reverberations struck with the impact of a thunderbolt. The lesser sorceresses around her were knocked off their feet, sent tumbling through the dust, blood trickling from their ears and eyes. It would be hours before they could recover from the arcane shock and once again unleash their sorcery. Only she had the skill and power to shield herself – left shaken but otherwise unharmed.
The one consolation was that the shock wave hadn’t played favourites. The phoenixes had been sent shrieking away from the ramparts, spinning crazily up towards the mountains as they fled the daemon king’s return. Drusala knew the asur mages would be suffering the same debilitation as the druchii sorceresses. They’d be out of the fight for some time.
Only one of the enemy wizards remained. Without any other mages practising their art, it was comparatively simple for Drusala to detect the workings of Shrinastor’s magic. Like her own, the loremaster’s willpower and knowledge had been strong enough to shield him from the aethyric blast. Now he was trying to conjure a spell that would curb the daemon’s rampage.
