“If you would follow me, dread lord,” the page said, bowing low. “I am to conduct you to the council chambers.”
The highborn nodded curtly. “Lead on, then,” he said absently, his mind awhirl. Malus fell into step behind the page, his mind immersed in drawing up hasty battle-plans for the Witch King’s small army.
He followed the page upstairs, climbing the tall tower to the upper council rooms. Malus scarcely noticed the climb, buoyed by the daemon’s cold strength and thoughts of the glory that awaited him. We’ll have one last reunion, dear sister, the highborn thought grimly. And then I’ll send you screaming into the Abyss where you belong.
Two guardsmen stood with bared blades outside the door to the council chamber. They saluted as Malus approached, and the page retreated with another deep bow. At the door, the highborn paused, suddenly realizing how filthy he was. Every inch of his enamelled plate armour was coated with dust, grime and blood, and his face only slightly less so. Then he shrugged, allowing himself a grim smile. The Witch King wanted a warrior to lead his armies, he thought. A warrior he shall have. He laid his gauntleted hand on the door and pushed it wide, striding swiftly within.
The small room was dimly lit, bathed in the sullen glow of a pair of banked braziers. Maps and parchments were scattered across the broad table, just as Malus had last seen it. Retainers moved quietly among the shadows, attending upon the seated lords who watched the highborn approach. Balneth Bale glared coldly at Malus from his right, while Lord Myrchas scowled at him from the left. Lord Jhedir was conspicuously absent, Malus noted at once. Likely facedown in a puddle of wine somewhere, the highborn thought disdainfully.
As he stopped before the table the retainers retreated back to the far walls of the room, and Malus realised with a frown that none of the silver-masked Endless were present either.
His gaze fell upon the shadowy figure reclining at the far end of the table and his heart went cold.
“All hail the conquering hero,” Isilvar sneered, his ruined voice dripping with hate. He straightened in his chair and leaned towards Malus, until the red glow of the braziers painted his cheeks the dull colour of dried blood. “You see, my lords? I told you he would reach the citadel safely. My half-brother has a talent for escaping the disasters he creates.”
“Where is Malekith?” Malus demanded, fighting a slowly rising tide of panic.
Isilvar smiled cruelly. “Below, in the audience chamber. He is calling a council of war. Didn’t you hear?”
Malus bared his teeth in a wolfish snarl, angry at having been outwitted so easily. “I heard. He has commanded me to attend upon him.” The highborn coldly surveyed Isilvar and his allies. “I suppose Jhedir is there as well. Interesting that the Witch King values the counsel of a drunkard over the likes of you, don’t you think?”
He turned on his heel—and saw four of Isilvar’s men barring his path to the door. Steel glimmered in their hands. Suddenly Malus was acutely aware of the empty scabbards at his hip.
“We have little need of councils, brother,” Isilvar replied. “Our plan has already been set into motion. This siege begins and ends with you, Darkblade. As much as I would love to see you dragged back to the Hag in chains and taken apart one piece at a time, the needs of the moment demand that I give you to our dear sister instead.” The vaulkar’s smile widened. “I’m certain she has something very special in mind for you.”
Malus’ mind raced as he tried to think of a way out of his half-brother’s trap. He looked to Lord Myrchas and Balneth Bale and wondered how strong their alliance truly was. “You thrice-damned fool,” he said to Isilvar. “I’m the Witch King’s champion. Do you think you can just march me out through the citadel’s doors and hand me to Nagaira?”
Isilvar chuckled. “Certainly not. Thanks to you, however, we won’t need to.” He beckoned to the shadows with one long-fingered hand.
A hooded figure glided silently into the crimson light, dressed in druchii robes and a worn kheitan of dwarf hide. Grave mould glowed faintly from the depths of the hood where one of the figure’s eyes should have been.
Malus turned and threw himself at the druchii guarding the door. Fuelled by the daemon’s power he crossed the distance between them in an instant. In a blur of motion he snatched the sword from one of the stunned warriors and smashed the druchii to the floor with an open-handed blow to his chest. The sword flickered in Malus’ hand and another of the guards fell back, clutching at the gushing wound in his throat.
The highborn reached for the iron ring of the chamber door—and his entire body convulsed with a wave of icy pain. Gritting his teeth, Malus forced his hand to close about the ring, but his muscles rebelled. Tremors wracked his armoured frame as he bent every iota of will towards his escape, but it was as though flesh and bone had been transformed into solid ice.
A groan slipped past his thin lips. Inside, the daemon chuckled maliciously.
Your sister is waiting, little druchii, Tz’arkan said. We wouldn’t want to disappoint her, would we?
Slowly, achingly, his body turned away from the door. The stolen sword fell from his hand. Across the room, Isilvar watched Malus’ body betray him with a mix of cruel delight and bemused wonder. He turned to Lhunara. “I trust my sister understands the nature of the exchange?”
The hooded figure nodded. “You will have your victory, Isilvar,” she said, her voice bubbling up from dead lungs. “Slay all within the inner wall, and the rest will retreat to the north. Harry the rearguard as long as you wish. We will slip away when night falls.”
Isilvar nodded. “Excellent.” He smiled to his fellow lords. “By nightfall we shall all be heroes, and the Witch King will reward us well.” The vaulkhar glanced at Malus, who still trembled with thwarted rage. “By tomorrow the Witch King will have forgotten all about my lost brother.” He gestured dismissively to Lhunara. Take him down the hidden stair to the cistern tunnel,” he said. “We are late for the Witch King’s war council.”
Lhunara bowed stiffly to Isilvar, then stretched out her hand to Malus. The daemon within him stirred, and to the highborn’s horror his legs began to move. Slowly at first, then with gathering strength, he crossed the room like an obedient dog and fell in beside his former lieutenant.
The lords rose from their seats and filed past Malus. Balneth Bale fixed the highborn with a hateful stare and spat full in his face. “My only regret is that I cannot slay you myself,” he growled. “I will pray tonight that this sister of yours prolongs your suffering for a great many days.”
Lord Myrchas came next. He eyed Malus up and down, shaking his head in frightened wonder. “You are an even greater fool than I imagined,” he said, then walked away.
Isilvar was last. He leaned close to Malus’ immobile face. “I wish you could have seen the look on your face when you walked into this room,” he said, his voice sweet poison. “Did you honestly think I would sit meekly by and let you take my title from me? I won’t see you die, brother, but I did watch your dreams turn to ash in a single instant. I will savour that moment for centuries to come.”
And then he was gone. The door swung shut, and attendants busied themselves with removing the body of the druchii Malus had killed. Lhunara turned to her former lord. Her cold breath stank of mould and corruption. She raised a gloved hand and traced a fingertip along Malus’ jaw.
“Mine at last,” the revenant said, and her body trembled with terrible, bubbling laughter.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE AMULET OF VAUROG
There was a hidden stair at the far end of the council chamber that wound its way down the length of the tower and into the lower levels. Malus followed his former retainer as obediently as a hound, raging inwardly as Tz’arkan manipulated his limbs like a master puppeteer. From time to time the highborn heard voices and shouted orders emanating from the other side of spy-holes and hidden doors along the stairwell. At one point he could have sworn that they passed within a scant few yards of Malekith’s war council i
tself. Malus fought every step of the way, praying to every god and goddess he knew for someone to hear their passage or stumble onto their escape. But Lhunara’s luck held out, and Tz’arkan’s iron grip kept Malus helpless as a babe. Before long a chill settled against Malus’ skin, and he knew that they had descended below ground. A few minutes later Lhunara led him through a narrow door and into the cistern vaults. They walked through utter darkness, picking their way past the deep wells with unnatural ease. Malus found himself wishing with every step that the daemon would put a foot wrong and send them plunging into cold, brackish water. With all his armour he would sink like a stone. A watery death was preferable to remaining a slave in his own skin!
Isilvar had never set fire to the secret tunnel as he’d claimed. In the heat of battle it had never occurred to Malus that his half-brother would try to use it for other purposes. In retrospect, however, he was probably the one person in the tower who could treat with Nagaira effectively, owing to their ties to the Cult of Slaanesh.
They emerged into the wasteland of the outer city, now all but deserted with the bulk of the horde howling at the foot of the Black Tower. Lhunara led him down the corpse-choked lanes, past burnt-out buildings covered in obscene sigils and squares filled with victims of sacrifice and debased revelry. Ghrond had been transformed into a city of the dead; the carnage beggared anything Malus had seen in the bloody streets of Har Ganeth. The Black Tower had been transformed by the terrible siege into a city of ghosts, and there was still more hard fighting yet to come.
Beyond the outer gate waited the rude tents of the Chaos encampment. No sentries challenged Lhunara as she led Malus across the ashen plain; camp followers and wretched slaves clad in tattered rags peered warily from behind tent flaps or scattered like rats down the twisting lanes as the Chaos champion led the highborn to the pavilion of indigo-dyed tents that Malus had first spied days before. The air still roiled and seethed about the seat of Nagaira’s power; the closer Malus got to her tents the more he felt a curious pressure building behind his eyes, as though something unseen was pressing insistently against the inside of his skull. Tz’arkan reacted to it as well, swelling painfully within the highborn’s chest until Malus felt he was about to burst.
Huge, horned figures stood guard outside Nagaira’s tent: more than a score of minotaurs, clad in crude iron armour and hefting fearsome double-bladed axes. They bellowed a challenge at Lhunara as she approached, until the Chaos champion pulled back her hood and showed them her face. At the sight of her terrible visage the monsters bent their ponderous heads as one, their nostrils twitching as Malus marched stiffly past.
The pavilion of indigo tents wasn’t the elaborate, interlinked affair that Nagaira’s previous abode had been. Rather, Malus counted nine smaller tents, festooned with arcane sigils and constructs of freshly cleaned druchii bones, arrayed around a larger, central enclosure. The highborn reckoned the smaller tents were given over to Nagaira’s personal retainers; he wondered which one was Lhunara’s. Did a creature such as she even feel the need for sleep, or to take refuge from the elements?
As they approached the central tent Malus could feel the air roiling about him, churned by otherworldly energies emanating from within. The heavy hide flaps covering the entrance billowed open at their approach, crackling like whips in an invisible wind. Faint screams and cries of terror rose and fell within.
Lhunara and the daemon led Malus inside. He could no longer tell who was leading whom, for Tz’arkan seemed to gain strength and urgency from the obscene energies seething about the tent. Beyond the entrance the large enclosure was subdivided by heavy canvas hangings, reminding the highborn of his sister’s tent during the march on Hag Graef. In this case, however, the chambers were arranged in a crude spiral, leading them along a labyrinth of sorts around the circumference of the witch’s tent. Along the way they passed through a succession of dimly lit spaces, each one marked with complex sigils formed of powdered gold, silver and crushed bone. The powders were the only signs of material wealth Malus could see. So much for Hauclir’s visions of plunder, Malus thought bleakly.
Before long Malus could not say whether he walked in the mortal world or trod upon the threshold of another, far more terrible realm. The darkness about him stirred like ink, sliding over his skin like smoke, and strange whispers of horror and madness echoed in his ears.
Behold your future, Malus heard an unreal voice whisper to him. Whether it came from Lhunara, or Tz’arkan, or himself, he could not rightly say.
The chambers narrowed as they went. Canvas hangings pressed in about Malus, thick with oily darkness and sorcerous energies. Fear built within him, but his limbs were no longer his to command. The daemon bore him onwards through the suffocating blackness, until they rounded a final turn and the highborn found himself at the heart of Nagaira’s sanctum.
There was no light. Instead, the air itself seemed leeched of shadow, creating a grey sort of gloom that hurt the eye to look upon. Malus saw no walls, or roof. A horrid, atonal chanting filled the tortured air, uttered from the twisted throats of nine beastmen shamans. They knelt in a broad circle, their horned heads thrown back and the muscles of their necks etched in taut relief in the strange half-light. Within the circle formed by the warped figures of the beastmen lay nearly a dozen shrivelled corpses, sprawled in an untidy heap before a figure that left Malus’ tormented mind reeling in terror.
It was formed of inky layers of darkness and hues of smoke and shadow, swirling in the silhouette of a druchii-like figure standing with arms outstretched as though beckoning like a lover to the wailing victim floating helplessly before it. The victim was an autarii, his naked body unblemished save for dozens of ritual tattoos snaking across his muscular arms and shoulders. His body was stretched as though upon an invisible rack; each muscle tensed and twisted like ropes beneath his skin.
As Malus watched, wisps of steam began to rise from each of the autarii’s tattoos, glittering like melting frost and swirling in thin tendrils about the Shade’s agony-wracked form. The wisps of sorcerous power flowed towards the shadowy figure, as though drawn in by a hungry inhalation; the surface of the figure’s body shifted, and Malus saw scores of horrific faces take shape along the being’s limbs and torso. The obscene visages drank in the Shade’s magical bindings, until the mist began to turn a pale shade of pink, then bright crimson. The autarii’s body began to shrivel, his muscles softening like wax and his skin growing ashen. His screams bubbled and his eyes burst, and his tongue split apart. Within moments it was over. Another smoking, shrivelled husk clattered to the floor beside its fellows, and the beastmen’s horrid chanting devolved into a chorus of joyous, barking cries.
The beckoning figure was swathed in crimson mist, swirling and mingling with the shifting currents of darkness until it smoothed into a patina of dusky skin that Malus knew all too well. The body shifted slightly, taking on beguiling curves and long, black hair.
Between one heartbeat and the next the monster took the shape of his half-sister, naked and perfect.
Nagaira did not have the hollow eyes Malus saw in his dreams. They were dark orbs of jet, just like his. Her thin lips curved into a cruel smile. When she spoke, however, her voice was the same whispering chorus from his worst nightmares.
“The autarii are a bestial breed, but they understand the nature of spirits and how to bind them,” she said. “Their souls are strong and sweet, like wine. Even that highborn fool who led them held enough power to make him savoury.” Her catlike smile widened. They were a fine gift, brother. I have saved them until last.” She beckoned to him with a taloned finger. “Now you’re here, and the final moves of the game are at hand.”
Within the confines of his mind, Malus snarled like a trapped wolf, but his body moved to the daemon’s bidding. He and Lhunara stepped within the circle, and the beastmen bowed deeply, pressing their horned heads to the floor. Tz’arkan made no attempt to step over the piled bodies of the Black Tower’s scouts. Bones snapped like
twigs and grey skin turned to ash beneath Malus’ boots.
The very air constricted about Malus like a fist. The air he breathed was hot and curdled, searing his lungs. When Nagaira moved towards him, the awful pressure only increased. Her vortex of power didn’t emanate from her sorcerous circle, but from Nagaira herself; it seeped like acid from her skin, etching itself onto the fabric of reality around her. To the highborn’s surprise, even Tz’arkan subsided as she approached, and Malus thought of the scores of unnatural voices intermingled with her own. How many pacts had she sealed with the Ruinous Powers for the strength she now possessed, and how could he hope to overcome it?
Nagaira stepped close, her eyes glittering like a serpent’s. “Have you no kiss for me, dear brother?” she said in her unearthly voice. She leaned in to him, her power rippling through his armour and sending waves of pain through his flesh. Her lips pressed lightly against the side of his neck and his heart skipped a beat at the touch. When she stepped away her lips glistened with black ichor.
Malus’ jaw worked, but it was the daemon who spoke. “Have a care, witch,” Tz’arkan said. “This is my body now, not your brother’s! I have invested too much in it for the likes of your caresses.”
Nagaira inclined her head. “I forgot myself, oh Drinker of Worlds. It has been some time since my brother and I were together. There is much I wish to share with him.” She turned to Lhunara. “Where are the relics?” she snapped, as though speaking to a slave.
The demand caught Lhunara unawares. She was staring intently at Malus, as though she were mapping the course of each black vein woven beneath his sickly skin. Her ruined face turned to Nagaira, blinking away her reverie. “Relics?” she said, a momentary frown of consternation twisting her festering brow. “Relics? There were no relics, witch. Only him.”
Nagaira struck the revenant with the back of her hand, swifter than a serpent. The blow echoed through the unearthly space, hard enough to break the neck of a living druchii. The witch snarled, “Fool! Without the relics we cannot proceed! Have the maggots eaten so much of your brain that you cannot understand this?” She pointed to Malus. “Until the great Tz’arkan has been freed, Malus is his. Do you understand? We must find these relics, or you will never have the vengeance you seek.”