The daemon smiled blandly. Malekith knew he would need to use its services to get what he wanted done. A chamberlain announced the presence of those he had summoned. He turned his burning gaze to greet them.
Malekith inspected the four elves. They did not look immediately prepossessing. No one would suspect them of being among the most deadly elves who have ever lived. Which, of course, was the whole point.
These four were almost as dangerous as the great Urian himself. Each of them was only a hair’s breadth less dangerous in his or her field. All of them now looked at their ruler expectantly. Malekith stared back, daring them to show the slightest quantum of defiance. They were all too clever for that.
Malekith walked around them, surveying them. Amara looked as beautiful and innocent as a maiden from the foothills of the mountains of Cothique. She might have been a dairy maid from some small elven village in the wilderness. Her hair was long and blond. Her eyes were wide and innocently blue. Her nose was small for an elven aristocrat. Her lips were wide and pouting. She looked innocent, trusting and ever so slightly stupid.
She was none of these things.
To Malekith’s certain knowledge, she had slain over a thousand elves. She had done it with daggers, poison, garrottes and even a long slender blade which she wielded very expertly when she needed to. She was one of his deadliest spies, a consummate actress who had travelled undetected across Ulthuan on hundreds of occasions. She could appear to be a merchant princess from Lothern or a barmaid from a tavern in some remote village in Yvresse just as easily.
She was an expert of winning the trust of other elves and seducing them to her cause. Now she was dressed in the raiment of an officer of his guard, which was the position she occupied at his court when she was not dispatched on some mission. She kept her eyes modestly downcast but he knew she was listening attentively and without flinching as his metal footfalls passed behind her.
Balial was big and brutal. He was almost as large as Malekith himself. He was enormously broad and enormously strong and he delighted in using his strength. He could break the neck of a human blacksmith with a twist of his hands. He could wrestle monstrous bulls to the ground. He could chop through an outstretched neck and a heavy wooden log on which it rested with one sweep of the giant double-bladed axe that he carried across his back, unusual in that it had an axe-head at each end. There was nothing subtle about Balial. He killed face-to-face in combat. He liked to feel blood splatter his face as he did so.
He had started off as a pit fighter who had attracted Malekith’s attention through his sheer ferocity and brutality. For a time, Malekith had thought to make him his executioner until he had discovered that a sly intelligence lurked beneath his brutal mask. Balial was perhaps the deadliest warrior in Malekith’s entire retinue. Strangely enough, he possessed a certain charm that was able to win the trust of other elves. Malekith had often infiltrated him into groups of captured slave gladiators to find out what they were thinking, to pick their brains for intelligence about their homelands and to motivate them to fight and win and thus put on a better show. Balial had an excellent memory and a sound grasp of strategy; he was utterly trustworthy, which was not something that could be said of most dark elves.
Khalion looked like he liked his food, his wine and his drugs too much to be a fighter. That was deceptive too. He was a master sorcerer. He was particularly good at spells of illusion and deception, and being good at such things, he did not often fall for them himself. Malekith often used him to bring rebellious wizards to heel or to death’s door if they could not be disciplined. Khalion looked amiable but he was cruel almost beyond belief, even by the standards of dark elves. He liked to torture his victims and devour their souls or offer them up to daemons in a most unpleasant manner.
Vidor looked like an inhabitant of Avelorn. He could almost be one of the primitive asrai of the far eastern continent. He dressed all in leather, in a hooded jerkin. In his right hand he carried a great longbow which he could use with a proficiency that would do credit to even one of the elves of the forests across the ocean He was a deadly shot and just as deadly with a sword or knife. He liked to hunt, and most of all he liked to hunt intelligent creatures such as humans and elves. He was a famous tracker who often returned escaped slaves to their masters. He delighted in doing such things.
Malekith knew his secret. Not only was he a great tracker, but Malekith had ordered his sorcerers to alter the olfactory centres of Vidor’s brain. It had been an interesting experiment, a precursor to the much more elaborate ones that he had worked upon Urian and others. Vidor was capable of tracking like a hound. He had a sense of smell as keen as a wolf. Something about the sorcery had altered his brain and let him derive an almost sexual pleasure from the hunt and kill.
Malekith said, ‘You are being dispatched on a mission of utmost importance. You will travel to Avelorn and ascertain what has happened to our army there.’
They knew better than to ask any questions at this point. If he wanted to explain, he would. If he did not, they would need to interpret his wishes according to their own understanding.
Tersely Malekith explained the situation and gave them their instructions. ‘You are to seek out General Dorian’s force and seek an explanation as to why he has not been in contact. If this explanation is not satisfactory, you are to see that General Dorian is replaced by his immediate subordinates. If the Everqueen is present, return with her to me. If she is not present, find her and bring her to me if that is possible. If it is not possible, kill her and bring back her head so I may use it as a standard for my army.’
He gestured to the small gemstone amulets in the shape of a bird that lay on a nearby table.
‘You are each being given a stone raven. Use it to communicate with me if the need arises. I do not need to explain to you that it is of the utmost importance that you succeed in this mission. So far, the conquest of Ulthuan has occurred precisely as expected and according to plan, with the single exception of General Dorian’s command. To you falls the great responsibility of bringing that part of the plan back on track. Any questions?’
‘Am I to take it that we have your authority to do anything we require, sire?’ Balial asked.
‘You will be given black signets. You speak with my voice for the course of this mission.’
Balial looked satisfied. There could be no greater mark of Malekith’s trust.
‘We may remove any who get in our way, no matter how highly placed or no matter whose favour they enjoy, sire?’ Khalion asked in his annoying, high-pitched voice. He was well known to have feuded with several of Morathi’s most devoted sorceress followers. He hated them with a passion, possibly because all of them had rejected his overtures.
‘You do. No matter who they claim protects them. Your actions will be assessed afterwards. If they are found to be unnecessary, you will answer for them.’
Khalion smiled. He knew that success would absolve him of many sins. Malekith knew this too. He did not wish to state it overtly, however. There was no need to provoke his mother’s enmity unnecessarily.
‘How will we get there, sire?’
‘N’Kari will take you. I have assigned her to this immediately. It is a sign of the importance of your mission.’
‘I am ready to depart, sire,’ said Vidor.
All of them nodded. ‘Go!’ said Malekith. ‘Bring me the Everqueen dead or alive, and you may name your own rewards.’
That startled them. It was an offer of fantastic generosity. They hurried from the pavilion.
The four assassins stepped into Avelorn, leading their four large black steeds. They glanced around at what looked like a partially abandoned camp.
‘Not a lot of people here,’ said Balial.
‘Very observant,’ said N’Kari.
‘I did not ask for your opinion,’ said Balial.
‘I did not ask to endure your stench and yet I must,’ said the daemon. ‘And now I must go. I apologise for not waiting until yo
ur slow wits could formulate a reply, but I do not have a month to waste.’ With that the daemon was gone. The magical portal closed behind it.
‘You!’ Balial bellowed at one of the dark elf soldiers who stood nearby watching. The soldier marched over.
‘Sir,’ he said cautiously, for he was unsure who the newcomers were although he suspected they were important.
‘Where is your commander?’
‘Captain Marin is in the field, sir. We have heard nothing from him for several days. Our last order was to hold this spot and wait for the portal to open.’
‘Where are your captain and the general?’
‘They both went to the tournament fields, sir, to capture the Everqueen.’
‘They are there now?’
‘We have heard nothing from them, sir, since we received our orders.’
‘They have captured the Everqueen?’
‘I believe so, sir.’ The soldier did not seem at all certain.
‘Then why has the matter not been reported to the Witch King?’
‘General Dorian does not explain his decisions to me, sir. Perhaps you should ask him yourself.’
‘I will do that, soldier,’ said Balial. Vidor had already picked up the track and was riding down it. Clearly he intended to be the first to report success if he could.
Balial mounted up and followed the rest of them. It was clear the army had not been wiped out, or at least this contingent of it – the base camp had not been either. He wondered what they would find at the tournament grounds.
‘A remarkable number of slaves,’ said Vidor, inspecting the captives. They had that beaten look he knew from the faces of new captives everywhere. There were hundreds of them. He had never seen so many enslaved elves in one place before. The smell was quite distasteful. These elves clearly had taken defeat badly. They were unwashed and stank like humans.
‘A less than remarkable number of guards,’ said Amara, in her soft, husky voice.
‘There are enough,’ said Balial. ‘Dorian knows his business in this at least.’
‘He seems to have let the Everqueen slip through his fingers,’ said Khalion. He sounded almost disappointed. Vidor wondered what the sorcerer’s plans were if he got his hands on Alarielle. Nothing pleasant, that was for sure.
‘Taking most of his army in pursuit of her seems almost a dereliction of duty,’ said Khalion.
Balial shook his head. ‘It is entirely according to his orders. Taking the Everqueen dead or alive is of the highest priority both to him and us.’
‘It seems he had her and she escaped.’
‘Accompanied by a warrior with a burning sword, if the reports are to be believed,’ said Vidor.
‘I would like to meet this fighter,’ said Balial.
‘So would I,’ said Amara, although she sounded as if she had a different purpose in mind to the burly warrior.
‘Let us see what we can do about finding him,’ said Khalion.
‘It’s not the easiest thing to see what was going on here,’ said Vidor. ‘Too many others have been around and spoiled the traces.’
‘Surely the master tracker can tell us something,’ said Khalion. The sneer was evident in his voice. Vidor looked at him as if he wanted to put an arrow through the sorcerer’s throat.
‘There are still some traces,’ he said as if lecturing an idiot. ‘Over here we can see where the Cold Ones were. Their breath poisoned the leaves above them. Their riders were sitting by the fire over here. They were talking or drinking or both.’
‘Such a brilliant tracker,’ said Khalion. ‘He can even detect the fact that people were talking.’
‘It’s not a difficult thing to do,’ said Vidor. ‘From your tracks I could easily deduce that an idiot would be talking. Anyway, I can tell from the scent that the stranger came from over here. He was hiding in the bushes watching the knights. He came out of them and then he killed them.’
‘He killed half a dozen knights on his own,’ Amara said. ‘Impressive.’
‘Not quite so impressive if he took them by surprise,’ said Balial. ‘And I don’t doubt that he did.’
‘There was another one here. She was watching him. I can catch her scent too. She is the one we are looking for. The trace is very distinctive.’
‘I will take your word for it,’ said Balial. ‘You think you can find their trail from here?’
‘I can do that easily enough if I am not distracted by Khalion’s inane ramblings.’
Khalion poured some black liquid into a small goblet and took a sip of it. He shuddered with pleasure after he swallowed the first mouthful. ‘What reward will you ask of our glorious king?’ he asked.
‘I am tempted to ask for your head,’ said Vidor, ‘with the empty space inside it filled with gold. That would make me a very wealthy elf.’
‘I think I will ask for copies of all Morathi’s grimoires. I will be capable of astonishing things once I have mastered the knowledge in them.’ He turned the words into a very ominous threat.
‘I will settle for a mansion and a royal title,’ said Balial. ‘And the right to raise my own personal army.’
‘How about you, Amara?’ Khalion asked. He leered as he spoke. ‘What does your heart desire?’
‘Nothing that you could provide,’ she said.
‘I would not be so sure of that,’ he said. ‘The sorcerer’s arts are not the only arts I have mastered.’
‘I am sure many a maid has fainted under your caresses,’ said Amara. Her tone made the words very ambiguous.
‘We do not have all day to stand here,’ said Vidor. ‘We need to get on the trail as soon as possible, or the only reward any of us will get will be a painful death.’
All of them nodded in agreement and mounted their horses, following him off along the trail. Excitement filled them. It was only a matter of time before they overhauled their prey.
Chapter Eleven
Malekith stared into the mirror. His mother looked as clear and steady as if he was looking at her through a crystal window rather than by means of a spell that crossed the leagues between them. She smiled sweetly so he knew she was about to place one of her daggers ever so delicately through some chink she believed she had found in his armour.
‘It goes very well,’ she said. ‘The asur were taken completely by surprise. We have taken a dozen of their towns and villages. They are learning humility under the gentle caresses of our barbarian allies.’
‘Good. It will make them all the more grateful when I restore the natural order of the world,’ Malekith said.
‘The barbarians may not take to discipline quite as easily as you imagine.’ Morathi’s smiled widened. She was about to deliver the bad news. At least, he felt certain it would be bad news from his point of view.
‘What makes you say that?’ He allowed the merely fraction of his annoyance to glitter in his voice. Anyone else would have blanched with dread. His mother was amused.
‘They have their own priests, their own cults, their own ideas of destiny.’
‘I would have thought it would not be too difficult for you to subvert all of those to our needs. You have a gift for such things, mother.’
‘Under normal circumstances, I would have to agree with you, but these are not normal circumstances. The winds of magic blow strong and they are tainted by Chaos. That should tell you something.’
‘It tells me I am about to hear you make excuses about why you cannot do what is required of you.’
‘Do not sound so petulant, Malekith. It ill befits the greatest ruler of elves the world has ever known.’ How typical of her to mingle a compliment with a reprimand. Or perhaps it was a secret sneer at what she felt was his vanity. Even after all this time, with his mother, it was difficult to tell.
‘Make your excuses, mother.’
‘The winds blow so strongly because the northern gates awake from dormancy.’
‘We both knew this before we started. In fact we counted on it.’
&n
bsp; ‘What we did not count on, my son, is that those who lurk beyond those gates might also become more active. The old dark gods are reaching out and making their worshippers restless.’
‘You are saying the daemon gods of Chaos are preparing to intervene.’
‘They have intervened. They have spoken in the dreams of their priests. They are giving their followers ideas above their stations.’
‘Why have you not discouraged this?’
‘Our situation here is delicate, Malekith. I stand at the head of an army of ten thousand druchii. The barbarians have twenty times that number and that is but a fraction of their force. If we are to ride this whirlwind, we must be subtle. We cannot stand in its way. Not yet. We have unleashed a daemon that will be difficult to banish again.’
‘We shall see about that in time.’
‘The barbarians have started to act on their own account. The great army is splitting up into marauding hordes, bands of savages are following their own prophets, covens of magicians are going their own way. Many have headed south.’
‘So much the better. They will still cause havoc and they will be much easier to deal with piecemeal than as one unified force.’
‘Let us hope so. Many of their mages have already departed southwards. More and more of the barbarians are preparing to follow.’
Malekith understood. His mother was taunting him. She was showing him the mistake he had made in his calculations. She had planned this all along. She wanted him to know how clever she had been, organising it, working it into his plans. She was planning something herself, and doubtless would dispatch agents to work her will. The question was, what was she up to?
‘It seems one of us has made a miscalculation,’ he said, and broke the contact. Let her think about that for a while.
Signs of life became evident below Teclis as the sun lowered itself on the horizon. He did not welcome them. Large creatures prowled below, even as he looked for a place to put down for the night. Silver Wing was weary – flying on by moonlight did not seem like the smartest of things to do.