Deathblade: A Tale of Malus Darkblade

by C. L. Werner

  ‘Poor choice of words, old comrade,’ Darkblade snarled as the last flicker of life left Dolthaic. The knight really had brought his execution upon himself. He should have remembered the details of his lord’s parentage.

  Spite shifted beneath Malus, the reptile’s jaws snapping off the arm of an asur spearman as the warrior tried to attack the drachau. Malus turned away from the murdered Dolthaic and brought the warpsword shearing through the spearman’s shoulder, leaving the elf’s other arm lying in the dirt. The mangled body staggered back, collapsing against the warriors in the rear ranks. Spite lunged into the gap, shaking its horned head and snapping its fangs at the enemies around it. Malus played his blade about him, shattering shields and breaking spears at every turn.

  Cries of dismay rose from the embattled asur. Malus saw several of the warriors in the rear ranks pointing up at the sky. Overhead, he could hear the shrieks of the phoenixes and the roars of the dragons. A hasty glance showed him Caradryan attacking Iktheon. A pivotal duel, one that might shatter the enemy’s resistance if it favoured the Caledorians.

  Careful to keep the asur at bay with his sword, Malus watched as Ashtari dived down upon the red-scaled dragon. Iktheon’s sword crashed against Caradryan’s halberd as the two elves struck at one another. Then the claws of the icy phoenix were ripping at the dragon’s hide, clumps of frost forming with each buffet of the great bird’s wings. The dragon gnashed its jaws, trying to snatch Ashtari from the air. The reptile’s reward was the bite of Caradryan’s halberd, the Phoenix Blade. Wreathed in flame, the enchanted weapon shattered several of the wyrm’s fangs and drove a shard of tooth up through the top of its mouth.

  Snarling in pain, the dragon started to roll in mid-air, trying to knock Ashtari loose. The roll, however, brought unintended disaster. While the wyrm seemed largely impervious to the cold generated by the phoenix, the chains holding Iktheon’s saddle were far less robust. As the dragon rolled, chains already turned brittle by Ashtari’s frost snapped. Iktheon managed a single wail of terror as the saddle tore loose and he plummeted to the ground far below.

  Even as the dragon prince died, his monstrous steed sought to avenge him. Flipping back, turning its roll into a climb, the dragon soared upwards. Craning its head around, the brute breathed a gout of flame full into Ashtari. The cold phoenix shrieked, some of its icy feathers melting in the dragon’s malignance. The pain was enough that the bird pulled its talons from the scaly hide. As it tried to glide away, the wyrm’s jaws snapped at Ashtari, tearing into its left wing.

  Before the dragon could work further havoc, Caradryan struck at it. Forged in the almost legendary time of Kor-Baelon, the first captain of the Phoenix Guard, the Phoenix Blade pierced the dragon’s eye. Fiery ichor and molten jelly spurted from the wound, bathing Caradryan in burning slime. The stricken dragon released Ashtari, vengeance and the fallen Iktheon forgotten as it bellowed in anguish. Beating its mighty wings, the reptile soared away, driving back towards the south and the volcanic mountains of Caledor.

  The asur warriors began to cheer the destruction of Iktheon and the routing of his dragon, but the celebration quickly fell silent. Ashtari, its wing maimed by the dragon’s bite, came hurtling down from the sky. The bird crashed to the earth with the ferocity of a comet, scattering druchii and asur alike. Slivers of ice slashed at the elves while those closest to the impact were crushed by the phoenix.

  A ragged shout did sound from the asur as the wounded phoenix stirred. Even in its fall, Ashtari had tried to protect its elven friend. Loyal to the end, the bird had shielded Caradryan from much of the impact. Now the hero emerged from the devastation, the dragon slime still steaming on his golden armour. Caradryan the Flame, bathed in smoke and wielding the fiery Phoenix Blade, stood beside the crippled Ashtari and prepared to receive his foes.

  Malus sneered. It was a futile act of defiance. The asur were still vastly outnumbered. All Caradryan could do was try to sell his life as dearly as he could. The drachau was determined the elf would find no heroic end. Urging Spite away from the melee, he drove the horned one towards the regiments under Silar’s command. He’d have the darkshards deploy against the arrogant lordling. There wasn’t too much honour in being pierced by a hundred bolts and dying like a sick dog in the dirt.

  Riding towards Silar, Malus heard a disconcerting sound ring out across the battlefield. Turning about in his saddle, he felt ice crawl down his spine. The sound was that of horns, the sharp keening blasts of war and the promise of combat. He could hear the thundering hooves of hundreds of horses, see the bright gleam of armour in the sunlight. Then Malus saw the standard of the Phoenix King, rising above a vast company of asur knights. Finubar was dead, that much Malus knew for certain. He also knew who it was who had been appointed Regent of Ulthuan.

  An army was riding to rescue Caradryan and the Phoenix Guard, an army commanded by the most famed of all Ulthuan’s heroes.

  Prince Tyrion, the Dragon of Cothique!

  NINETEEN

  Malus could see the magic burn of Tyrion’s sword, Sunfang, as the hero led his knights across the plain. Malus had imagined the Regent of Ulthuan would be far from the battlefields of Ellyrion, that he would be ensconced in some stronghold somewhere orchestrating the defence of the ten kingdoms against the elven and daemon enemies who threatened the realm. He hadn’t considered that the blood of Aenarion truly coursed through Tyrion’s veins, or that the regent would be as loathe to keep himself from combat as his famed ancestor.

  The first victims of the asur knights were a group of Ghrondian spearmen acting as bodyguard for one of the Eternal Malediction’s sorceresses. As the knights thundered towards them, the dreadspears tried to brace for the assault. The sorceress drew upon her magic, hurling arcane fire into the charging Ellyrians. A clutch of knights were blasted into oblivion, their flesh melting into the backs of their panicked steeds. The malefic spell wasn’t enough to break the attack. Voices raised in a cry of vengeance, demanding justice for the slaughtered elves of Tor Emyrath, the cavalry slammed into the dreadspears. The force of their impact buckled the formation, spilling druchii warriors in every direction. Tyrion himself, upon his noble stallion, Malhandhir, charged towards the sorceress.

  The druchii witch hurled a blast of black lightning full into the elven prince’s face. The great blood-red ruby Tyrion wore upon the brow of his winged helm pulsed and flashed with a crimson glow. The black lightning parted before him as though swept away by a spectral wind. Before the stunned sorceress could unleash another spell, Sunfang came slashing down and sent her head tumbling from her shoulders.

  A flash of ghostly light, and suddenly the charge of the Ellyrian knights was blocked by a regiment of warriors from Clar Karond. The druchii soldiers locked their shields and received the brunt of the assault, resisting the driving hooves and stabbing lances of the asur.

  More of the weird luminance played about the battlefield now. A company of darkshards were transplanted from where they had been menacing Caradryan and moved to the flank of the elven knights instead. Drusala and the Blood Coven, working once again their uncanny violation of space and time. Now it was only their place in the material plane that the sorceresses adjusted, allowing the temporal positioning to remain unaffected. They didn’t confine their effort to the druchii, however, and soon the spiralling rings of arcane energy were swirling about the blocks of advancing infantry moving to support Tyrion’s knights. A company of Lothern archers found themselves flung to the far side of Reaver’s Mark, spun around so that the arrows they loosed fell upon a cove of sun-bleached trees instead of druchii flesh. A complement of sea guard was cast full into the blades of Malus’s soul-bonded dreadspears. The careful formations of the asur general were thrown into utter disarray as Drusala’s sorcery scattered them about the plain.

  Malus laughed. He’d thought to end Caradryan quickly, to content himself with sacrificing Tullaris and the Ossian Guard in exchange for a speedy v
ictory. Now he found himself with a prize even greater than anything he had imagined. The Regent of Ulthuan, the mighty hero the asur had rallied to in their moment of crisis and calamity. If he could take Tyrion’s head he wouldn’t need to lay waste to Avelorn and capture the Everqueen. He could break the asur here and now. He could claim a victory that Malekith wouldn’t be able to take from him. With the head of Tyrion hanging from his belt, the Witch King would have no choice but to make Malus his seneschal, to elevate him to a rank second only to the king himself.

  Roaring commands at Silar to bring his troops, shouting threats at the Knights of the Burning Dark to follow him, Malus whipped Spite away from the Phoenix Guard and towards the new prey he had chosen for himself. The warpsword would hew the head from Tyrion’s shoulders. It had been a long time since he’d faced the hero, but Malus was confident that this time their meeting would be different. He could feel the strength of Tz’arkan within him, filling his veins and muscles with power. The daemon had retreated into the hinterlands of his soul after Drusala had pacified it, but Malus found he could still call upon the fiend’s strength. Even better, since the daemon wasn’t trying to exert its control over him at the same time. Perhaps it understood the danger of confronting Tyrion – the Sunfang was a weapon forged to slay its kind after all. Perhaps Tz’arkan understood that if it were to endure it had to invest Malus with its strength without the usual distraction of its plots and schemes.

  For Malus to endure, he had to be the one to strike down the elven prince. Yet even as he spurred Spite away from the Phoenix Guard, he could see that he wasn’t alone in his ambition. Tullaris Dreadbringer had seen the Dragon of Cothique as well. A blood-curdling howl rose from the Chosen of Khaine. Driving the First Draich clean through the body of the asur he was fighting, ripping the dying elf from his blade as though he were nothing more substantial than a leaf, Tullaris turned and forced his way back through the ranks of the Ossian Guard. Those executioners too slow to part ranks for their maddened master were cut down with the same ruthlessness he had shown the asur.

  There was a bitter hatred between Tullaris and Tyrion, but Malus knew on the part of Tullaris that hate was wrapped up within the divine visions and whispers the executioner believed himself to receive from Khaine. The fire that burned in Tullaris was more than simple madness: it was a religious mania that could sate itself only with the blood of the asur hero. Malus wanted the prince’s head to secure his power; Tullaris wanted it merely as an offering to the Lord of Murder.

  The Scion of Hag Graef was certain his claim was better, and he would make sure it was the warpsword that ended the legend of Tyrion this day. Leaning from his saddle, Malus glared back at Silar. He gestured at Tullaris and crooked two of his fingers against one another. It was an old signal between them, one that had been developed when Malus still dwelled in his father’s tower and Silar was but a simple retainer. It was a sign that had brought death to a great many Malus had found inconvenient over the years. Now it would initiate still another murder.

  Leaving Silar to attend the details, Malus spurred Spite onwards. Around him, the Knights of the Burning Dark urged their blood-maddened cold ones onwards, the reptiles’ roars thundering across the battlefield.

  The asur infantry, seeing the threat posed by the cold one knights, moved to intercept the charge, to thwart the druchii rush towards Tyrion and his cavalry. A phalanx of Sapherian spears interposed themselves in Malus’s path. The spearmen were too few to overcome the knights, but they were enough to act as an obstacle to their advance. A sickening groan rattled across the field as the ponderous cold ones slammed into the hastily assembled fence of asur spears and shields. Druchii lances pierced the silverwood shields, gouging hideous wounds in the warriors behind them. A few of the cold ones were brought down, impaling themselves upon the waiting spears in their savage rush. Most of the knights on their backs were able to kick themselves free of the dying reptiles, but a couple of the elves weren’t so fortunate, crushed beneath the bulk of their beasts as the brutes writhed in their death throes.

  Malus brought the warpsword slashing out. Powered by the infernal strength of Tz’arkan, he sent a spearman hurtling overhead, flung like a bullet from a sling by the impact of the drachau’s blade. The mangled asur crashed violently among the ranks of her comrades, breaking arms and backs as her armoured weight slammed into them. Malus urged Spite forwards, lunging into the gap he’d created; then he began to slash his enchanted blade to right and left, reaping a ghastly toll from the Sapherian soldiers. A silver-helmed champion chopped at him with a gem-encrusted axe but the elf’s first blow merely glanced from the drachau’s spiny sabaton. Malus answered the assault with a cleaving strike of his blade that sliced the face from the champion’s head and left a screaming skull behind.

  The slaughter among the Sapherians was woefully one-sided. Scores of the spearmen were cut down by the Knights of the Burning Dark or mangled by the fangs and claws of their cold ones. The stubborn defence the asur offered soon crumbled as the determination of the survivors faltered. The spearmen broke and fled, ironically causing Malus more problems in retreat than they had in battle. Bellowing threats and curses, he commanded his knights to restrain their reptilian steeds and keep them from pursuing the fleeing asur. Subduing the bestial instincts of the cold ones was a task easier said than achieved. Several of the knights broke ranks as the hungry reptiles defied their riders and loped after the Sapherians. One of the cold ones was so opposed to the idea of lingering behind that it flung its head back and caught its rider’s arm, pulling the limb from its socket before any of the other druchii could come to the knight’s aid.

  In the confusion of restoring order among the knights, Malus looked away to the south. He could see that Tullaris had taken control of another contingent from Har Ganeth, the Bloodseekers, executioners who had once served Sarkol Narza. The Chosen of Khaine led his warriors at a loping trot across the plain, still intent on reaching Tyrion and his knights. Like Malus, however, the executioners found their path blocked, this time by a regiment of Chracian warriors. Draped in the pelts of white lions, the spearmen of Chrace met the glaives of the Bloodseekers in a display of primitive savagery that recalled to Malus the feuds of skin-clad barbarians in the Wastes. It was a forbidding reminder to him of the brute hiding beneath the veneer of civilisation, that thousands of years of culture and refinement were but a mask the elves wore to restrain the savage underneath. For the Fangs of Chrace and the Bloodseekers, such restraint had been cast into the winds.

  Malus smiled when he saw Silar leading his darkshards towards the rear of the Bloodseekers. The crossbows would quickly turn the tide and settle the problem of Tullaris Dreadbringer.

  Standing in his stirrups, Malus cried out to his knights. ‘I want the regent’s head,’ he shouted. ‘The knight who kills Tyrion will be given the weight of his cold one in gold! The knight who lets the regent escape will be fed to his cold one!’ He brought his sword swinging down, thrusting its point to where Tyrion battled the warriors of Clar Karond. The asur were winning, but if the druchii fighters could hold out just a few minutes more, Malus could bring his cavalry smashing into the Ellyrian flank. They’d have half the asur knights lying in the dirt before the Regent could react.

  Then it would just be a small matter of killing the greatest asur hero of the age. Malus was going to enjoy that. Despite his promise of reward, he would kill any druchii who tried to steal that glory from him.

  Tullaris Dreadbringer hurled himself into the fray with the wanton abandon of a blood daemon. The First Draich slashed and gouged, hacked and stabbed its way through the Chracian warriors. The executioners around him gave a wide berth to the Chosen of Khaine, all too aware how easily it could be them rather than the asur who were claimed by their lord’s murderous fury. Their hesitancy caused more of the asur spearmen to rush Tullaris, thinking to bring down the infamous villain before meeting the glaives of the Bloodseekers.

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nbsp; The song of Khaine thundered through Tullaris’s veins as he met the Fangs of Chrace. Ten, then twenty of the elves lay butchered at his feet. The gore of his victims dripped from his armour and plastered his face, lending him a fiendish aspect. The slaughter thrilled Tullaris, made his heart swell inside his breast. Death! Blood! Skulls for Khaine! He would glut the Lord of Murder with the souls of his victims this day. The First Draich would reap a harvest of carnage undreamed of.

  Through the blood frenzy, Tullaris could yet hear the voice of his god. Khaine’s words pulsed through his very soul. The executioner snarled in rage, his entire being revelling in the havoc around him. Yet the commandments of a god couldn’t be ignored.

  While Tullaris wrestled to pull himself free from his own frenzy of slaughter, the commander of the Chracians fell upon him. The elf’s gleaming axe came chopping down, striking for the villain’s head. In a blur of motion, Tullaris spun his draich around, the ancient blade cleaving through the haft of the Chracian captain’s axe. As the ancestral axe was cut in half, the draich continued its vicious sweep, slicing through the heavy lion pelt the asur wore, crumpling the steel helmet beneath and crunching through the skull inside. Before the horrified spearmen knew what was happening, their captain fell at the feet of Tullaris.

  The killer’s face split in an ophidian smile of diabolic satisfaction. Tullaris would heed the words of Khaine, he would march to the destiny that awaited him. But there would be blood every step of the way. Tullaris would find Tyrion even if he had to turn the whole of Reaver’s Mark into a charnel house to do it.

  Away from the roar of battle, Drusala watched as the asur poured more forces into the fight. With the arrival of the Ellyrian host, Caradryan had been saved. She had detected the presence of Korhil among the relieving force, Charandis-bane as the elves of Chrace had named him. An almost legendary warrior, renowned as the captain of the fearsome White Lions, Korhil would prove a formidable adversary for Malus. Perhaps too much for Darkblade to overcome.