Urian’s blades crossed as he parried, catching Sunfang between them. Tyrion tried to press home but he was only using one arm and his opponent was using both. Urian slowly but surely managed to push himself upright. Tyrion struck at him with the edge of his shield, catching him among the ribs and sending him reeling backwards.
The two armies were silent now as the champions leapt apart. They stood glaring at each other like maddened wolves. All appearance of civilisation, of urbanity, had dropped from Urian now. He glared at Tyrion in fury, knowing that he was fighting for his life as he had never had to fight before.
‘I see your armour is everything the legend said it was,’ Urian said. His voice sounded level but there was an undercurrent of menace in it that had not been there before. This pleased Tyrion. It meant that he was getting to his foe, that Urian was worried. He wondered what Urian was talking about then he realised that he did not feel any blood flowing where his enemy had struck him. He felt some pain but no more so than from a normal bruise. Given how powerful those magical blades were, it was a testimony to the work of Caledor and Teclis and his father that he was still standing.
Tyrion sprang forwards, slashing with Sunfang. Urian jumped backwards. The two blades slashed into action once again. One of them cut high, aiming at Tyrion’s head, the other was aimed at his leg, at the weakest point in the armour where it guarded the knee.
Tyrion stepped away from the low blow and parried the high blow. It was what Urian had been waiting for; he brought his left-hand blade upwards and slashed at Tyrion’s throat. Tyrion raised his shield to block it, partially obscuring his own field of vision.
If it were not for the awareness of magic that his armour had given him, he would not have sensed Urian shifting his position to come in from the side. As it was, he was able to circle and face him, striking out once more and catching Urian on the side of his head.
Urian staggered backwards, taken off guard for once. The dark elf army groaned. Tyrion was surprised. His blow would have beheaded anyone else. He’d put all of his strength behind it. It seemed that the armour that Malekith had given his chosen champion was every bit as good as the armour Tyrion himself wore.
Tyrion felt something new. Cold magic flowed over him, slowing him down. He risked a glance at Malekith from the corner of his eye. He knew the Witch King had cast some sort of spell, invisible to others, that was affecting him even through the armour. His timing was off. He could not press home quickly enough to take advantage of Urian’s weakness.
His heart sank. He was not fighting against just Urian now. Malekith himself had entered the fray on behalf of his champion. It seemed like the Witch King was taking no chances. He fully intended that Tyrion was going to be beaten.
Teclis saw Tyrion slow. He sensed the flow of spellwork coming from the Witch King. It was so subtle that he doubted that anyone else present could perceive it, let alone counter it. It was not a very powerful spell. It did not have to be. In a contest between two warriors so closely matched, even a spell that slowed a combatant just slightly would be enough to secure victory.
What was worse was that if Teclis tried any overt counterspell, it would look as if he was the one trying to influence the outcome by magic. It was a strategy of daemonic wickedness. Even if Tyrion won, the Witch King would have achieved his purpose. The only way the asur could be seen to win was by treachery.
Teclis closed his eyes and studied the near-invisible gossamer web that Malekith had woven. He would need to be as subtle as Malekith. He extended tendrils of his own magic, reinforcing some of the ancient protections of the armour, one by one unknotting the tendrils of Malekith’s spell. He prayed that he would be quick enough.
Suddenly, the fit passed. The feeling of lassitude lifted. Tyrion felt his body respond with its accustomed speed. Mere heartbeats had passed but it had been enough for Urian to regain his balance.
Tyrion struck again, hoping to take advantage, but Urian countered with his left-hand blade and slid a blow over the top of Tyrion’s shield. The poisoned blade glowed where it hit Aenarion’s ancient armour and threatened to pierce it. Tyrion stepped away so that it glanced off. Urian landed another blow on Tyrion’s shield. The clamour rang out across the field like a daemonic blacksmith striking an anvil in hell.
Malekith had risen to his feet now, apparently to get a better view of the battle. In reality his burning gaze contained potent magic. Something was countering it now. Tyrion suspected his twin was working counterspells. Nonetheless the Witch King’s looming presence distracted Tyrion for a moment and Urian struck once more, his blade aiming for his throat. Tyrion parried. Sunfang blazed dimly against a background of infernal green.
‘You have improved greatly, Prince Tyrion,’ Urian said. His voice was so quiet that Tyrion knew only he could hear it.
‘You have not.’
‘It is impossible to improve on perfection.’
Time seemed to slow for Tyrion. Everything narrowed down to his awareness of his enemy, of his flashing blades, his constant attacks. He had no idea how long they fought, only that he existed in the middle of a storm of violence, parrying an endless series of subtle and deadly attacks, replying in kind with volcanic onslaughts of violence.
All around them, quiet deadly magic flowed as Teclis and Malekith strove to influence the battle. Tyrion’s limbs ached. His breathing was laboured. Even the armour of Aenarion was starting to feel as if it was made of lead. Lifting Sunfang was like trying to lift a tree trunk.
Urian gave no sign of any slackening of his technique. He seemed to fight with the same polished precision as he had when they started, but Tyrion could see sweat rolling down his chin and noticed that he too was breathing hard.
He sensed that despite appearances, his foe must be as weary as he. If he were not, then things were going to end very badly. Tyrion started to limp a little, to slow his parries. Under normal circumstances such a stratagem would not have fooled Urian, but these were not normal circumstances. His enemy must be as tired as he was. Urian sent a sledgehammer blow smashing into Tyrion’s guard. Tyrion did not have to fake the slip. His leg gave way and he fell to the ground. Urian raised his blade, going for the final, flashy finishing blow.
‘Now you die,’ said Tyrion. Leaving himself completely open, trusting to his armour and not caring whether he died as long as he killed Urian; he struck the most brutal, simple and direct stroke he could, aiming upwards for Urian’s groin. Urian partially deflected it and struck home with his own blade, a stroke as simple and direct as Tyrion’s own. The armour of Aenarion held although the force of the impact was brutal. Sunfang pierced the armour of Malekith and came out the other side. Urian’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Well done,’ he said, and slid to the ground. Tyrion rose, spat in the direction of the Witch King and then turned and raised his burning blade in salute to the Everqueen. For a moment there was a terrible silence, then from the ranks of the asur a great cheer rang out.
With a bellow of incoherent rage, Malekith signalled for his troops to attack. From the body of the asur forces Malhandir raced forwards, coming for its master. Tyrion vaulted into the saddle even as the steel tidal wave engulfed him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
With a mighty roar the two armies came together. Tyrion rode through the vanguard of the conflict. Malhandir moved smoothly beneath him, sure-footed in the mud and blood. Sunfang blazed in his hand, cleaving through his foes. The armour fed him a terrible strength and a rage that drove him forwards like a drug.
He glowed with the joyous rage of his victory over Urian and the knowledge that he had given hope to an army so close to defeat. It would take more than hope now, he realised.
He fought like a mortal god, killing everything within reach with the sword that had been borne by his famous ancestor. Wherever he rode, his foes fled from him such was the terror inspired by his appearance. The humans would not face him at all, but turned tail as he came closer. He rode them down, and the caval
ry that followed him broke them.
The weight of numbers was still on the side of the druchii and their allies, but at least if felt like the asur had a chance, that if nothing else they would make a last stand worth singing about.
Teclis felt the cold power of the Witch King grow. Malekith had begun to summon the winds of magic to him and sculpt them into a massive, cold storm front of power. Gone was all attempt to subtly shape things. Now he was building a spell to smite his foes down with all the force of a hammer wielded by a god. The skies turned black. Strange polychromatic lightning danced along the underside of the clouds. The fingers of the wind tore at Teclis’s cloak.
The winds of magic spiralled in around Malekith, forming a cyclone of power. Teclis exerted his will to counter the spell, twisting the currents out of shape, making it ungovernable, poisoning the structure of the spell even as it was created so that it would become unstable. His hope was that Malekith would try and cast the spell and it would run out of control, but the Witch King understood too well the ways of sorcery.
He gave up all attempts at forming the massive attack spell and sent lines of force racing back along the currents of Teclis’s own weaving. Teclis had only a few heartbeats to counter them before bolts of scarlet lightning impacted on the wards he had set. He ground his teeth together with the effort of parrying the bludgeoning stroke.
Sweat stood out on his brow. He cursed himself for over-confidence. Until this day he had not encountered a magician who was beyond his strength and skill to cope with.
He had never encountered anyone as powerful as Malekith. He had a real battle on his hands, and he felt certain that if he continued to fight at this range, Malekith would win. The spell that he had been counting on to smite the Witch King with could be used only at close range, and there was a massive army between him and the blasted hillside upon which the Witch King stood.
Tyrion smashed through the ranks of black-armoured Chaos warriors, Sunfang burning in his hands. He chopped through the pole holding the obscene banner of a Chaos champion, grasped what remained of it with his shield hand and drove the broken point through the chest of one of his enemies like a spear.
He took in the field of battle at a glance, understanding it in a way that few could. The play of forces was immediately obvious to him. It was like looking down on a chessboard from above. He saw the main lines of advance the druchii army were taking towards the Everqueen’s tent. He saw where the forces of the asur were weak and faltering. He understood where they would stand true and hold firm.
Seeing a line of elven spearmen struggling to hold their ground in the face of a tight phalanx of dark elf warriors, he raced forwards on Malhandir, shouting his battle-cry. The mighty armoured steed smashed through the front line of the druchii soldiery. Sunfang arced downwards, splintering the helmet of the dark elf captain. Blades sleeted off the dragon armour of Aenarion and Malhandir’s heavy barding. Seeing Tyrion in their midst, the asur took heart, rallying around him, smashing through the broken ranks of their enemies.
From the left, Tyrion saw a company of Cold Ones approaching. They were about to take his own force in the flank. He wheeled Malhandir and charged towards them. For any other elf, it would have been a suicidal attack, but Tyrion was mounted on the greatest warhorse Ellyrion had produced in five thousand years, encased in the dragon armour of Aenarion and equipped with a blade forged by Caledor in the dawn ages of the world. He was among the Cold Ones in an instant, burning sword beheading the first. Malhandir rose on its hind legs and with a massive blow of hooves it crushed the head of a Cold One to pulp.
Unflinching, the remainder of the druchii cavalry closed in and Tyrion found himself surrounded by snapping jaws and hostile blades.
A mass of druchii infantry hurled itself at the rise on which Teclis stood. Crossbow bolts turned the air black around him, but so far his warding charms had held good. He wondered how well they would do when the druchii were upon him. He did not intend to find out.
He spoke the words of a powerful incantation, and a blast of lightning smote the dark elf ranks, overloading the warding spells around them, leaping from metal spearpoint to metal spearpoint, jumping from armoured form to armoured form. A score of druchii died in the first blast. More died with his second. Again and again he sent the lightning smashing into them, until it was more than even druchii flesh could bear and the surviving warriors turned and fled.
Teclis’s heart leapt with momentary elation, then he shivered as he realised that the attack had distracted him from Malekith, and that the Witch King had prepared a new abomination. From the midst of the enemy ranks a bubbling, boiling cloud of poisonous, putrescent magic emerged. Teclis wracked his brain for a counterspell to this ancient evil sorcery, but nothing came.
The asur screamed as tentacles of the poisonous cloud descended among them. Where it touched skin sloughed from bone, flesh rotted in a moment, bone turned from yellow to white. In the distance he heard gigantic evil laughter as if the Witch King fed upon the death and could not contain his mirth. The cloud stretched out its monstrous arms, reaching for Tyrion.
Tyrion smashed his way through the riders surrounding him, and found himself confronted by powerful evil magic.
Tyrion saw the elven spearmen start to die as the evil magical cloud settled on them. The asur were not the only ones to die. The druchii infantry they engaged died just as harshly. Clearly the Witch King did not care too much who got killed by his magic as long as his foes were smashed.
Tyrion realised at once that Malekith was concentrating on him. Perhaps this could be used to his advantage. He pulled Malhandir round and moved towards the cloud, veering at the last second to race ahead of the poisonous mist that reached out for him with ghostly tentacles.
The Cold Ones pursuing him were not so lucky. They raced through tattered streamers of mist and where it touched them, scales fell off to reveal the diseased flesh beneath. Where it touched riders’ armour, metal corroded and flesh turned to a loathsome, stinking pus.
He only hoped he could outrace it.
Teclis summoned an enormous wind to him. He drew it down from the skies, shaped its cyclonic force and then sent the hurricane ravening out over the battlefield. It smashed into the monstrous poisonous cloud pursuing Tyrion and rent it asunder, driving small ribbons of mist back into the druchii ranks, where they killed as they went until the storm force of the wind dissipated them entirely.
Teclis knew that Malekith could keep this up all day and that it would only work to his advantage. His army had the greater numbers, could afford to take the greater casualties. It did not matter how brave the asur were, they would be defeated unless something was done. He needed to get across the battlefield now and get close enough to the Witch King to work the spell he had planned.
He cast his mind back to his first flight on Silver Wing’s back, when he had tried to derive a spell of levitation from first principles. It was time to put that spell to the test. He summoned more power to him, and stepped upwards as if walking on an invisible stair.
One step at a time, he walked upwards into the sky above the battlefield and saw all of the carnage laid out beneath him. He saw the thin lines of the asur being overwhelmed. He saw Tyrion rally the high elves again and again, his blade a burning banner, the dragon armour of Aenarion terrible to his foes. He knew that given the weight of numbers, eventually even his twin would be pulled down.
If he was going to do something about that, he had better do it now. He kept walking across the face of the sky, towards the distant figure of Malekith.
Tyrion looked up at the sky, realising that victory or defeat did not lie in his hands any more but in the frail form of his brother, whose magic carried him overhead towards a confrontation with the greatest enemy of their people.
He offered up a prayer and returned to smiting his foes, determined if he could to carve a way to the throne of the Witch King himself.
As he stepped onto the ground before Malekith, Teclis w
as shocked by the sheer presence of the Witch King.
It was not just the magical energy which radiated from him like a blast furnace, Malekith possessed an aura of power that had nothing to do with his strength in magic. He gave out a sense of physical might that struck Teclis with the force of a blow from a mailed gauntlet. This massive metallic form was capable of breaking the mightiest of warriors with his bare hands.
Not for the first time, Teclis questioned the wisdom of the course of action he had chosen for himself. He pushed his doubts aside – the time for having them was long since passed. Now he had to concentrate all his faculties simply on completing the task at hand.
‘You should go home, mighty prince,’ Teclis said. ‘You are not welcome here.’
‘Welcome or not, I am home,’ said Malekith. ‘This is my land and I am its rightful king. Soon all will acknowledge that, or die.’
‘You will be king of the dead then in a land of ruins, even if you succeed.’
‘If that is how it must be, then so be it. Lands can be repopulated, ruins rebuilt.’
‘Not if Caledor’s ley lines are destroyed and the world unmade. That is what your mother plans if you are successful.’
‘I will deal with my mother.’
‘She might prove stronger than you.’
‘Do you think you are stronger than me?’ Malekith asked.
Teclis knew he was not. At best, he was Malekith’s equal in power and he was far inferior in knowledge and skill. All the things Tyrion had said when comparing himself to Urian were just as true for him when he compared himself to the Witch King. More so. Malekith had had millennia in which to perfect his arts.
‘You cannot survive this,’ Malekith said. He sounded almost sorry.