Nuarc chuckled. “Well said.” He motioned to the highborn. “Come inside. You look like you could stand to eat something.”
He led Malus and Hauclir into the gloomy corridors of the gatehouse, passing through deserted rooms and corridors lined with barrels of heavy bolts, until they reached a long room pierced with firing slits that looked out onto the killing ground before the gate.
Perhaps a dozen weary-looking druchii soldiers, male and female alike, looked out over the corpse-strewn approach with their crossbows close to hand. A brazier in the centre of the low-ceilinged chamber provided a modicum of warmth, and upon a nearby table sat a couple of loaves of bread, some hunks of cheese and dried fish, along with a half-dozen leather jacks and several bottles of wine.
“Help yourself,” Nuarc said, waving at the contents of the table. The troops on watch cast predatory glances at the two interlopers who had been welcomed into their midst, like a pack of dogs suddenly forced to share their meat. Malus’ stomach roiled at the sight of food, but Hauclir nodded his head respectfully to the warlord and helped himself to the food.
Nuarc poured some wine into one of the jacks and took a small sip. “Word of your exploits has been spreading among the men. First the raid on the siege engines, and now the battle in the tunnel. You’re fast becoming the hero of the hour.”
Malus let out a disdainful snort. “Never mind the fact that the battle in the tunnel wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t fallen for Nagaira’s stratagem,” he growled. “If those poor fools think me a hero, then things are desperate indeed.”
Hauclir chuckled around a mouthful of dried fish, but Nuarc stared into the depths of his wine jack and frowned. Malus caught the gesture and sobered at once. “How bad is it?”
“We’re barely holding on at this point,” Nuarc said gravely. “As best we can tell, we lost just over a third of our troops in the debacle at the outer wall, and the rest are worn out. We don’t lack for food or weapons, but the constant attacks have taken their toll. If we have another day of attacks like yesterday we could lose the inner wall by mid-afternoon.”
The revelation stunned Malus. “What about the reinforcements from Har Ganeth and Karond Kar?”
Nuarc shook his head, his expression grave. “There’s been no word. At this point I doubt they will arrive in time, if at all.”
“And what of those damned lords in the Black Tower?” the highborn snarled. He began pacing the long room like a caged wolf. “Have they any bold plans to save us from disaster?”
Nuarc reached for the wine bottle once more. “I’ve heard rumours,” he said. “Are you sure you won’t take some wine?”
“Gods, no, general,” Malus said. “I’ve had enough of that vinegar to last me a while.”
The warlord poured himself a healthy draught. “There are indications that your brother the vaulkhar is contemplating a plan that will end the siege in a single stroke.”
Malus chuckled bitterly. “He plans to lead the garrison against the Chaos horde?”
Nuarc shook his head. “He intends to turn you over to Nagaira.”
The highborn’s weak humour faded. “You can’t be serious.”
“I wish I wasn’t,” Nuarc admitted. “But you embarrassed Isilvar and the other nobles in front of the Witch King—and what’s worse, your exploits are winning the admiration of the troops. That makes you very dangerous, as far as they are concerned.”
“Malekith would never allow such a thing!”
The warlord shrugged. “I’ve served Malekith for more than three hundred years, boy, and I can’t say what he will or won’t allow. It’s clear to me that he’s testing Isilvar and the other lords, but to what end I can’t begin to guess. The thing is, they are beginning to realise this as well, and it’s making them nervous. They want the siege to end, and giving Nagaira what she wants is the quickest and easiest way to do it.”
“If Isilvar actually believes that, he’s an even bigger fool than I imagined,” Malus said, torn between murderous rage and cold panic. “If Nagaira believes that she can take the Black Tower—and humble the Witch King in the bargain—she won’t hesitate to do so.”
Nuarc grimaced. “I was afraid you were going to say something like that,” he replied. Then we’d best figure out another way of ending this siege before Isilvar and the other lords decide to take matters into their own hands.”
Malus bared his teeth in frustration. “I believe I’ll have a bit of that wine after all,” he said.
At that moment an earth-shaking rumble swelled up from the north, causing the oaken table to rattle and the wine bottles to wobble and clink against one another. A strange peal of thunder rent the air, like the sound of a hammer on glass. The druchii at the firing slits were suddenly alert. One of them turned to Nuarc with a frightened look on her face. “You’d better come see this, my lord,” she said. “Whatever it is, it can’t be good.”
Nuarc and Malus rushed to the firing slits, shouldering aside wide-eyed druchii warriors. The old warlord’s expression turned grim. “Damnation,” he hissed.
Outside, beyond the far curve of the outer wall, a huge column of swirling smoke rose into the cold, clear sky. Green threads of lightning pulsed and rippled through the roiling murk, and even from almost six miles away Malus could feel the winds of sorcery tingling in waves across his skin. As they watched, the column of dark magic rose more than a thousand feet into the air and poured out its energies across the sky. Blackness spread outwards from the column in an inky, turbulent pool, casting a dreadful pall across the war-torn land beneath. More tortured thunder squealed beneath the tainted sky, and a sudden gust of cold, dank wind beat against the face of the inner wall.
“Damnation is right,” Malus said. “I don’t like the looks of this at all.”
Nuarc turned to one of the warriors. “Sound the call to stand to,” he ordered. “Unless I miss my guess, the enemy is about to hit us hard.” The warrior nodded, his face white with fear, and dashed from the room.
The wind picked up, skirling eerily through the narrow firing slits and filling the druchii’s nostrils with the smell of damp earth. Green lightning strobed through the black sky overhead, glinting on the swords and shields of beastmen and marauders who were starting to trickle down the narrow lanes towards the killing ground before the inner fortress. Thunder keened overhead, and fat, greasy drops of rain began to spatter against the battlements. Above them, on the roof of the gatehouse, horns began to wail, their cries all but lost in the rising wind.
Within seconds the rain became a drenching downpour, tinged green by constant flashes of lightning. Cold air billowed through the firing slits; the druchii warriors recoiled with a curse, gagging on an overpowering stench of corruption. Malus cursed as well, but for a different reason entirely. A moment before he could clearly see the Chaos army massing for another assault, but now they were hidden completely by sheets of oily rain. They could be halfway across the killing ground by now.
The highborn turned to Nuarc. “Will Morathi and her witches intercede against this awful rain? This could cost us the inner wall if we can’t see the enemy until they’re standing on the battlements!”
Nuarc shook his head helplessly. “She is even harder to predict than her son. If Malekith orders her to do so, then perhaps she will.”
“Then you’ve got to get back to the citadel and speak to the Witch King!” The highborn turned to Hauclir, who was busy stuffing parcels of food and a bottle of wine into the sleeves of his robe. “Hauclir! Put that down and escort Nuarc back to the Black Tower. Quickly!”
The former guard captain hurriedly folded his arms, causing the pilfered food and wine to disappear. “As you wish, my lord,” Hauclir grumbled.
Nuarc snapped off a series of commands to the warriors, naming a half-dozen who would accompany him back to the citadel. Malus took the opportunity to join Hauclir and lead him towards the chamber doorway, out of earshot. “When you’ve got Nuarc back to the citadel, round up the harbour
rats and get back here as quick as you can,” he said quietly. “We may have to do something drastic in the next few hours if we’re both going to get what we want from Nagaira.”
“Drastic? Like what?” Hauclir whispered.
“Honestly? I haven’t the faintest idea,” Malus replied, managing a roguish grin. “Just like old times, eh?”
Hauclir winced. “Old times? The ones where we nearly got drowned, or burnt up, or eaten by daemons?”
Malus glared at his former retainer. “Now see here -what about all the good times?”
“Those were the good times.”
The highborn bit back a retort as Nuarc and his escorts approached. “Just get back here as quick as you can, you damned rogue,” he said quietly.
Malus followed the small party to the rear of the gatehouse and left them at a spiral staircase that would deposit them at an iron door set beside the inner gate. Then he drew his twin blades and made his way to the outer wall.
Moments later he reached the exit leading out onto the battlements and saw the heavy oaken door rattling in its frame, buffeted by a howling wind. Shouts and screams echoed faintly from the other side. Gathering his courage, the highborn pulled open the rattling door—and found himself standing upon the brink of hell.
Druchii warriors reeled beneath the lash of reeking wind and noisome rain, many crouching and pressing the tops of their helmets against the battlements to get some relief from the hideous storm. Forks of green lightning rent the skies overhead, seemingly close enough to touch. Malus saw pale faces lit with absolute terror and heard cries of fear all up and down the struggling line of spearmen. To the highborn’s horror he saw almost a dozen ladders already rising above the edge of the wall, their wooden rails quivering with the tread of hundreds of feet.
Less than twenty yards away half a dozen warriors were struggling with a thrashing figure lying on the paving stones. Malus heard shouts of anger and fury and saw a long dagger plunge again and again into the prone figure. A black rage boiled up from his heart.
“Stand and face the enemy!” he roared into the howling wind. Swords in hand, he strode out onto the parapet, heedless of the sheets of stinking water that blew into his face and into the crevices of his armour.
“The warriors of Naggaroth do not cower in the face of the storm! They fight or they die! Make your choice!”
Heads turned to Malus as he passed by. Lightning flared, lending his face a daemonic cast. Slowly but surely the spearmen of the regiment gripped their weapons and rose to the feet. Whether they did it out of honour, or shame, or fear of what he might do to them, Malus neither knew nor cared.
The brawl was still raging when Malus reached it, and with a furious shout he took to kicking the spearmen who were punching and stabbing at their victim. Fearful shouts rose in response to his angry blows. One knife-wielder even turned on Malus for a brief instant, his bloodstained knife ready, until he realised who he faced and recoiled with a frightened shout.
Now Malus could see the thrashing, snarling warrior at the bottom of the pile. Each flicker of lightning revealed ghastly wounds to the druchii’s chest, belly and legs—horrible rents torn by knife, sword and axe. The warrior had his pale hands around the neck of another spearman, and was trying to pull his struggling victim within reach of his torn lips and broken, bloodstained teeth.
Malus realised how little blood there was around the snarling warrior, and then a cold knot of realization turned his guts to ice.
The druchii was dead. He’d been dead for hours.
With a horrified shout, Malus slashed down with his blades, severing the revenant’s right arm at the elbow and then shearing half its skull away. The creature recoiled and his screaming victim pulled himself free -but the revenant tried to lunge for the warrior yet again, even as his brains spilled out onto the paving stones. The highborn stepped in quickly and with a backhand swing he severed the creature’s head from its shoulders. Only then did the wretched thing flop lifelessly onto the stone.
Thunder roared close to Malus’ ear. Warriors cried out in terror. One of the spearmen looked up at Malus, bleeding freely from a line of deep scratches carved into his face and neck. The highborn recognized him as the panicked soldier he’d spoken to only minutes before.
“It’s the rain, dread lord!” he shouted over the wind. “It got onto Turhan’s face and it brought him back to life!”
“Blessed Mother of Night,” Malus whispered, suddenly realizing Nagaira’s plan. He strode quickly to the inner edge of the parapet and looked down into the deep shadows at the foot of the wall.
Lightning burnt through the air overhead and Malus glimpsed the heaving mounds of rent and smashed corpses—hundreds, perhaps thousands of them—clawing their way free of the tangled piles that lined the inner avenue and staggering towards the long ramp leading to the top of the wall.
The scene was the same as far as Malus could see, all along the sections of the inner wall. His sister’s infernal sorceries had trapped the defenders between two armies: one living and the other dead. And I just sent Hauclir and Nuarc down into the midst of that nightmare, he thought.
Horns began to wail all along the wall. Whether it was a cry of warning or a call to retreat, Malus could not tell. He couldn’t begin to guess how such a plague of revenants could be stopped in time—all he could do was hold his part of the wall with the troops and the resources he had at his command.
Thinking quickly, Malus turned to the bleeding warrior. “You! What’s your name, spearman?”
“Anuric, dread lord,” the soldier stammered.
“You’re Sergeant Anuric now,” Malus snapped. He swept his stained sword in an arc, indicating the druchii who’d struggled with the revenant. Take these men and get to the gatehouse as fast as you can. Grab all the dragon’s breath bolts you can find and hurl them onto the ramp! Do you understand?”
The warrior nodded. “Understood, dread lord!”
“Then why are you still sitting there? Go!” He shouted, and the warriors scrambled to obey. Shouts and screams of battle were already sounding up and down the line as the first of the Chaos attackers reached the top of the wall. As the spearmen ran back for the gatehouse Malus turned and dashed in the opposite direction, racing the shambling corpses to the top of the steep ramp.
The eight segments of the inner wall were each about three-quarters of a mile in length, but now it seemed to stretch for leagues in the flickering, chaotic darkness. Malus slipped and staggered across the oily paving stones, dodging frantic battles between screaming spearmen and howling Chaos marauders and buffeted by fierce winds that threatened to hurl him from the parapet and plunge him into the mass of shambling revenants below. Frenetic glimpses of desperate fights came and went as the highborn ran past. A spearman went down with a beastman tearing at his throat, blood bursting from the druchii’s mouth even as he drove his sword again and again into his attacker’s muscular chest. Another spearman crawled blindly across the paving stones, bawling like a babe from the ruined pulp that had once been his face. A pair of spearmen dragged a flailing marauder off the battlements by his braided hair and threw him face-first onto the parapet, where one of them reached down and expertly slit his throat from ear to ear. The flood of steaming blood lapped at Malus’ feet as he raced past.
He was twenty yards from the end of the ramp and he could see that he was going to lose the race. The first of the revenants were almost at the top, and none of the warriors at that end of the line had any idea what was coming up behind them.
“End of the line! Look to your backs!” Malus shouted at the top of his lungs, but his words were all but lost in the roaring storm and the maelstrom of battle. Snarling in frustration, Malus started to shout again—but a snarling figure tackled him from behind, driving him face-first into the paving stones.
Malus heard a beastman’s snarl just above his head and felt its hot, foetid breath against the back of his neck. Then a sharp blow and a searing pain lanced down the len
gth of his right jaw, and he felt hot, thick ichor splash against his cheek. Roaring like a beast himself, the highborn tried to twist beneath his attacker, driving his armoured elbow into the side of the Chaos warrior’s bony snout. The beastman roared and tried to stab Malus again with his jagged knife, but the blade glanced off the highborn’s backplate. Driven by pure instinct, Malus twisted back fully prone and reversed his grip on his right-hand sword with a quick flick of his wrist, then brought the sword around behind him with all the strength he could muster. The blade sank deep into the beastman’s side, and Malus continued to roll, forcing the stunned and bleeding warrior off the inner edge of the parapet.
Breathing heavily, Malus clambered to one knee and saw a pair of revenants rushing towards him with grimy hands outstretched.
The undead monsters had reached the top of the wall, and already the druchii at the end of the line were being overwhelmed. Malus saw two spearmen attacked from behind and dragged down beneath a mob of tearing hands and clashing jaws. The rest were retreating with horrified screams, yielding still more of the parapet to the shambling fiends.
Malus leapt at the oncoming revenants with a fierce war-scream, his twin blades weaving a whistling pattern of dismemberment and death. Two quick swipes and the monsters’ hands were chopped to jagged stumps; then the highborn darted a step to the left and with two quick blows chopped off an arm and the leftmost revenant’s head. Before the body had even hit the paving stones Malus reversed his stance and lashed out at the creature to his right, decapitating it cleanly with a single, blurring sword-stroke. “Aim for their heads!” he shouted at the reeling warriors. “Follow me!” And laughing like a madman, he threw himself into the press.
The undead warriors knew neither pain nor fear, but their only weapons were claws and teeth and unnatural vigour. Fuelled by rage and spiteful hate, Malus carved a fearsome swath through the oncoming revenants. He knew that if he could reach the top of the ramp and stem the tide of creatures that reached the parapet then they could still hold the top of the wall. He sliced away fingers and parts of hands, lopped off arms and hacked away skulls. Marauders, beastmen and druchii all fell before his flickering blades.