“Why the hell would anyone sent one to the King of Siderea,” Gerd said. “Couldn’t they just have sent normal assassins like anybody else?”
“I don’t know but I intend to find out.”
“And I’ll help you but first I think I’ll need to have a little lie down. My bloody leg is killing me.”
Gerd’s limp was more pronounced. He brought up the rear. Kormak gave his attention back to the hounds. Fang had slowed a little and was sniffing the air in a puzzled manner. The torches flickered as if the flow of air within the catacombs had changed.
Fang gave a faint whimper, as if he sensed something was wrong.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
VORKHUL PADDED CLOSER through the gloom. A green glow marked the presence of the hunters. The odours of their weapons irritated his nose and made his eyes water. His heightened hearing picked out the bickering of the humans and the whimpering of the smallest hound. It sensed his presence somehow. No matter.
He extended his claws and sprang. Ahead of him stood the squat human who had thrown the sunflare. Vorkhul’s claw took him through the chest. Long sharp talons pierced the links of the armour, penetrated flesh and slid through the gaps between ribs.
Razor edges ripped through human meat. They sliced vertebrae and nerve cord, slashed internal organs. The Old One howled with pure pleasure as his prey screamed. He licked the metallic tasting blood that splashed his lips. He closed his jaws on the man’s neck, rending flesh, tearing arteries.
The human with the deadly sword turned his head. His eyes narrowed and he took a step forward, blade bared. The sea-woman with the odd scent whirled her torch to make it blaze brighter. The big man unleashed the dogs.
The largest of the beasts coiled to spring. The smaller bared its fangs and growled. Vorkhul threw the spasming body of his victim towards the humans then sprang back into the darkness. He raced away, daring the mortals to follow.
***
Kormak watched Slasher bound off into the darkness, howling. Gerd fell, blood fountaining from his throat. Kormak stepped over the mess of his friend’s back. The spine was snapped. Gerd’s slashed lung was visible through a rent in the flesh. A horrible sick wheezing filled the air. The abbot was already dead. His body had not quite accepted the fact yet.
There was nothing Kormak could do for the man except avenge him. He raced forward, trailing the dog, determined that this time, he would get the Old One.
***
Vorkhul bounded along on all fours, stretching his limbs, getting as much speed out of this form as he could. Behind him the largest of the dogs bellowed its stupid rage. Its hunger for blood outweighed its fear and made it careless. It saw an animal fleeing before it. Instinct told it to pull the prey down.
Behind the dog was something far more formidable; the man with the sword. He intended for the hound to slow Vorkhul so he could close and strike the killing blow.
In the confusion, the human was leaving the light behind him, moving into the darkness which was Vorkhul’s realm. It was simple. First kill the dog and then in the dark take the man.
Soon. Soon it would be time to turn on his pursuers once more.
***
From up ahead came a sudden agonised yelp. Kormak almost tripped over the corpse of Slasher. The big dog lay torn in two. A huge chunk of meat was gone from his chest. Blood pooled on the floor all around him.
The light of the torches and Rhiana’s pearl was a long way behind. From up ahead he could hear the sound of water and smell sewage. It overpowered even the stink of the dead dog’s innards.
Tension twisted his stomach. His heart raced. Out there in the darkness something watched, waiting for him to make a mistake. Following it into the dark would be suicidal. Worse—he had left Rhiana and Rodric behind him. The Old One had already doubled back once. It could do so again.
As the cold air swirled around him like the fetid breath of a great beast, it came to him that he was not the hunter here. The Old One was at home in the dark in a way he would never be. It could move faster and choose its time to strike. Already it had killed three of its pursuers. Perhaps even now it was moving to slay another.
He had been overconfident, too certain of his ability to kill it. He had led Gerd to his death. He considered the elixir in the flask on his belt. It would grant him super-human speed and strength for a few minutes, provide him with what he needed to slay his foe. If it did not kill him. If the Old One did not attack while he drank it and waited for it to take effect.
He pushed all such thoughts aside as needless distractions, as the voice of his fear. He did not need the drug. He took a deep breath to clear his mind as he had been taught to long ago on Mount Aethelas.
“Rhiana! Rodric! Leave the abbot! Get over here now!” he shouted. There was no answer. He dared not glance back to see if they were coming. In that moment of vulnerability the Old One might strike.
Long tense heartbeats passed before the lights grew brighter around him. He heard the snuffling of Fang and the footsteps of Rhiana and Rodric. He kept his gaze locked in front of him. The light drove the shadows back. He stepped forward, blade held ready, senses wound to a pitch of almost unbearable keenness.
***
Vorkhul watched the man with the sword move forward. The runes on the blade glittered darkly. The Old One saw death written in them. He could tell the man was nervous, perhaps afraid, but that his will over-rode his fear.
The human’s whole body was taut. His muscles were coiled, ready to strike. The scent of his armour made Vorkhul feel ill. Its touch would burn.
Perhaps Vorkhul could reach the human before he struck. Perhaps he could get in a fatal blow despite the mail shirt. Perhaps.
Perhaps the human was not the only one here who was afraid. A fatal promise was inscribed on that terrible weapon, spelled out in words of unbinding written in the primal language of creation. The human had struck him only a glancing blow and still the wound had not healed. Perhaps it never would. Another strike might end him.
There was a terrible asymmetry to this conflict. His pursuer wagered an insect-brief life against an existence intended to be eternal. Vorkhul could win this struggle by walking away. The human would die of disease or mischance or old age.
His soul screamed a protest against giving ground to this two-legged worm. He wanted to make it grovel and beg. He wanted to make it suffer. Nonetheless with every step the man took, Vorkhul took a step back. He kept to the shadows, watching the sword as if hypnotised.
Behind him he heard the sound of running water, smelled the stink of human excrement. He backed through a doorway and realised he had made a mistake. He was inside a cell. Massive chains dangled from one wall. An open metal sarcophagus, its inside lined with spikes, stood in one corner. It was a crude instrument of torture. The victim was placed inside and the coffin lid closed. Spikes would pierce flesh. It made him think about the way he had been entrapped and for a moment rage threatened to drown his mind. A plan formed. He could lurk within the metal case and spring out to take his foe by surprise.
The greenish light was close. The humans were almost upon him and there was little he could do but make a stand.
He felt something cold beneath his paws. He looked down and saw a metal grill. Beneath it he saw running water, a means of escape. He did not want to use it. He wanted to slay his pursuers. His pride demanded it.
Fight or stay? Wager eternity for a moment of revenge? He began to change.
***
Fang slunk forward on his belly, sniffing the ground and whimpering. The trail led into a cell. The sound of running water and the sewer stink became more intense. Rodric and Rhiana were right behind Kormak. He gestured for them to step back, to give him room to move and he was relieved when they did so.
The chamber looked empty except for the massive metal shape of an iron maiden standing in one corner. The lid was half-open. Perhaps the Old One lurked within, waiting in ambush.
Kormak stalked closer, blade held ready
. He slid his swordpoint into the gap between the walls of the iron maiden and the lid. It creaked open. Nothing was there.
Fang stopped and gave a puzzled whimper. He sniffed the air and bared his fangs and began to move in circles around something metallic in the floor.
“What is it, boy?” Rodric asked. The Shadowhound stopped and started pawing at the grill. The dog growled in frustration.
“It has gone down there,” Rhiana said.
Kormak looked at the grill. The narrow grating lay at the end of a groove in the floor leading to the instrument of torture. Its purpose was to let blood or the water used to clean it away flow out. It was far too small for anything human-sized to have passed through it, but that meant nothing to an Old One. It could change into a long thin serpent or an aquatic worm.
There was no other way out of this cell and he felt sure the monster had not passed him in the darkness.
He strained all his senses, trying to find any trace of his vanished foe but he could not. It might as well have melted into thin air.
He let out a long breath and gave his heart rate time to slow. He was keyed up tight, ready to strike in any direction, ready to kill. It was hard to pull back from the edge of that precipice.
“What now?” Rodric said.
Kormak considered his options. They could wait here until their torches ran out but no doubt the Old One would find another way out of the water-channels. They would end up hungry and vulnerable and sitting in the dark waiting for the Old One to return.
“We go back,” Kormak said. Failure tasted bitter in his mouth.
***
They trudged back to where Gerd had fallen. The abbot lay there, a thing of flesh that had once been alive and was no more. Kormak closed the abbot’s eyes.
Just this morning, they had joked and bickered and remembered old comrades. Now Gerd had gone to join the others in the grave.
No. He had gone to join them in the Light. Looking at the torn meat at his feet, Kormak found that difficult to believe.
He felt at once bereft and angry. Another face from the past was gone. Another voice had been silenced by an Old One Kormak had failed to kill. This was his fault. He had let Gerd down.
Rhiana’s face was a mask in the light of the green pearl. Rodric looked as if he was trying not to cry. Kormak indicated that the big man should take Gerd’s mace. He removed the abbot’s chain of office and elder signs. The question was what to do with the body. They could not leave it down here. Gerd was a member of the Order of the Dawn and deserved to be sent into the Light.
Dragging the body up would only slow them and make them vulnerable. There was only one thing to do. He reached down to the belt at Gerd’s waist and pulled out the thick stone flask of alchemical banefire.
Rodric’s eyes went wide for a moment as he watched. Kormak broke the wax seal that held the stone stopper in place. The sulphurous stink of banefire assaulted his nostrils. He poured the liquid over Gerd’s body. It ignited as it fell and it clung to the flesh and blackened it.
As the flames rose Kormak spoke, “Oh Holy Sun, accept this our brother Gerd into your light. Take his soul as it rises from his flame-cleansed flesh. For he was a man who did his duty and was true to his oaths. Hear these words, we pray you.”
***
Ahead of them, up the slope, the first barrier appeared. They could see the pale faces of nervous sentries looking at them.
Prince Taran stood behind the barrier, fingers drumming on the wood. “Did you kill it?” he asked.
Kormak shook his head. He walked on by the Prince, ignoring him. Right now, he just wanted to rest. He knew he shouldn’t. With each moment of freedom the Old One would grow stronger and more dangerous.
CHAPTER TWELVE
VORKHUL EASED HIMSELF out of the well, altering his form once more to humanoid. He had come a long way through chill water.
It took him minutes squatting on the flagstones of the dungeon to grow warm. His ability to think coherently returned as he altered his shape to one more suitable.
He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction at having outwitted his pursuers. Now it was time to work out what had happened to him.
His mind had been damaged in some way. The rightness of that thought tolled within him like a vast bell.
Who could have done this?
Perhaps he had done it himself. Perhaps he had willed forgetfulness. Perhaps he had committed some heinous deed that he could not live with. Perhaps he been imprisoned so long within that awful coffin he could no longer bear the memories of what it had been like outside.
He did not feel that immediate ringing sense of rightness. Nor had he expected to. His instincts told him that his kind were not prone to self-harm.
His kind? Yes. His kind. There were others like him, just as there were many different personalities among the cattle who pursued him.
Perhaps his own people had imprisoned him. They were his most likely rivals and he knew somehow that those rivalries were among the most intense sensations his folk ever felt.
He stored that knowledge away as useful and continued his chain of thought. Why would his own people do this to him? To punish him? Perhaps. To get him out of the way? A possibility. Why not destroy him?
As soon as the thought hit him he felt a deep and dreadful shock of revulsion. His whole being recoiled from the idea. His people did not do that. It was an anathema. The Lady would turn her face from those who did it. It was to be avoided at all costs and yet...
The Lady. Our Lady of the Moon. The Mother of the Eldrim. His people. A vision danced before his eyes as real as the dungeons that surrounded him. He stood in a perfect courtyard upon a glass floor beneath which lay stars. Around him a thousand Eldrim danced. Their forms shimmered and flowed. All were graceful. All were beautiful. All were competing for the attention of the being who ruled over them.
He remembered a perfect silver face and a perfect silver hand reaching out for him and the knowledge came back to him that he had once been chosen . . .
Chosen for what? The knowledge eluded him and when he returned to the fragment of memory, all he could find was what he already had. There was scent: the smell of honeysuckle and jasmine and moonglow. There was sound: the magnificent atonal music of the silverharp and metaclave. There was vibration: the tread of the great dance resonated on the surface of his skin. There was light in many spectrums. There were the stars below and the distant glitter of the moongates through which the guests were arriving.
He replayed the memory over and over. He gave himself eyes so he could weep. He howled with longing and loss. He looked upon his people in their days of glory and he knew that those days were gone although he did not yet know why or how.
How could this be? How could he remember a single scene so perfectly and yet not recall anything else? Again knowledge came to him. The memories were stored in his physical form, part of the organisation of his cells. They had been damaged, scrambled. Not by the mortal’s weapon either. The damage went deeper and had happened a long time ago. Who had done it? Who would dare do it? Who had the power?
He did not know yet but he was going to find answers. He would start with what was close, with the memories of mortals. He began to move, his form flowing into a shape part wolf, part human.
***
Kormak lay on the bed beside Rhiana, staring at the ceiling. Sleep would not come. She rolled onto one elbow and looked down at him.
“You don’t look too happy.”
“I don’t feel too happy.”
“Gerd?”
Kormak nodded. “He died because I was too slow.”
She stared at him with calm green eyes. “You can’t be certain of that.”
He shrugged. “Maybe not. And I can tell myself that about all the other people I failed to save, but there comes a point when I stop believing it.”
“You’re tired.”
“Yes. I am. And not just from lack of sleep. I am tired of this whole business. Maybe it is ti
me I gave up the blade, passed it on to somebody better able to wield it.”
She put her hand on top of his. “I’ve never seen anyone who could use a sword like you, and, believe me, I have known some masters.”
“I met Gerd when I first arrived at Mount Aethelas. He was a year older than me. Youngest son of an old Taurean noble family. Made no difference to him that I was from an Aquilean hill-tribe. He treated me the same as he treated everybody else.”
“He made fun of you.”
Kormak smiled. “Yes. He did.”
“He was a funny man. Why did you end up on the Mountain anyway?”
“I came to Aethelas, after an Old One killed my family. My entire village if truth be told. Malan found me, brought me back. The Order took me in and trained me. Since I took up this sword I’ve done my best to see that the Old Ones never killed anybody else’s people.”
“That’s what you’re doing here.”
“Trying to do. It’s what Gerd was trying to do too. Even though he gave up the sword.”
As he spoke, he realised he was getting to the core of what troubled him. “He didn’t need to go with us but he went anyway.”
“He was a brave man.”
Anger sparked within Kormak. “Yes. He was. And he felt he needed to prove that. To me. To himself. And there was something else there to.”
“What?”
“I think he missed the chase. I think he needed to be there even if it killed him.”
“Are we talking about him now?”
He looked into those green eyes. “Yes.”
He snapped his eyes shut. “I need to sleep,” he said.
“I can see that. I’ll let you get some rest.”
The door closed softly behind her.
***
Kormak opened his eyes and reached for his sword. It lay on the table, within easy reach. A ray of early evening sunlight filtered through the heavy drapes. He stretched out, alone in the large bed. His eyes felt gritty and it took him a long moment to realise where he was. The memory of his failure in the catacombs came back to him. He had let Gerd die. He had allowed the Old One to escape.