The two druchii walked on in silence for a time, journeying down the dark road past the doorways of the dead. Some quality of the stone swallowed their footsteps, and for a while it felt as if they had left the physical world behind, trudging like ghosts through some forgotten underworld. Malus considered the implications of everything Arleth Vann had told him. It did go a long way towards explaining the temple’s odd behaviour… but his mind kept drifting back to his meeting with Rhulan, and the wary look on the elder’s face. Urial’s claim casts the entire history of the temple into doubt, the highborn thought, which was ample reason to keep him in seclusion and look for a way to silence him. However, that would be self-evident to anyone familiar with temple dictum. There’s something more going on here, he thought. The elders have a secret that no one, not even the zealots, suspect.
Arleth Vann stopped. Malus looked around and saw that they had reached a point where two curving stairways—one ascending, the other descending—were carved into the living rock to either side of the dark road. “We’ll go no further into the hill. The Vermillion Gate is close by, and it is always well-guarded by a cadre of witches and executioners.” He pointed to the climbing stairway. “Here is where the journey becomes difficult.” Malus eyed the staircase. “More spirit wards?” Arleth Vann shook his head. “No. Just hundreds and hundreds of stairs.”
Malus lost all track of time as they trudged up the winding stairway. The journey passed as a blur of echoing steps and shadowy landings that opened onto ancient galleries and maze-like passageways leading to mouldy tombs. The temple hill was a labyrinth vaster and more convoluted than anything he had ever seen; even the tower of the mad sorcerer Eradorius seemed smaller and less complicated by comparison. The highborn mused between gasps for breath that crossing paths with Arleth Vann had turned out to be a great boon. Alone he might have been fumbling about the hill and its passageways until the seas ran dry. He breathed the dry, dusty pall of bone dust at every turn, as centuries of temple servants rotted to dust in the niches and alcoves beneath the great temple. The dust made his nose itch and left the taste of the grave in the back of his throat.
At last, they emerged into a well-lit chamber glowing with the green fire of witchlamps. They were in a large space with low, vaulted ceilings, practically an underground plaza compared to the tight passageways and the narrow, enclosed staircase they’d travelled. Malus fought the urge to rub the ache from his trembling legs. “Where are we?” he asked quietly.
“We’re in the vaults beneath the temple proper,” Arleth Vann replied, eyeing the many passageways leading off from the chamber. “From here we can reach almost every major building within the fortress, including the elders’ private chambers.”
Malus nodded, gritting his teeth against the burning ache flaring from his knees. “All right. Where are we likely to find Rhulan at this point?”
“When the elders are not conducting their rites, they typically retire to their chambers,” the assassin replied. “No doubt to reflect on matters of the faith,” he said with a sneer.
“Yes, but this is no typical night. An elder has deserted the temple. The story on the street might be that the man was kidnapped, but I imagine the rest of the elders know the truth of the matter. Their warriors have taken to the streets to fight the true believers, and their sacred council remains broken. Where do the elders normally go when they meet in conclave?”
“The council chambers within the Citadel of Bone,” Arleth Vann replied, “but if the elders are meeting there they will be well-guarded.”
“I thought the temple assassins were supposed to be invisible,” the highborn snapped.
“When the situation demands,” the retainer answered coolly. “Can my lord say the same?”
Malus gave the man a hard stare. “Just get us as close as you can. We’ll improvise from there.”
You mean we’ll kill whoever gets in our way.”
“That is what I said, yes.”
Arleth Vann gave another of his ghostly smiles. “It is good to know some things never change. Follow me, my lord.”
The assassin quickly led Malus out of the well-lit tunnels beneath the temple and into noisome passageways dripping with slime and tangled with dense layers of cobwebs. He made no effort to relight his sorcerous lamp, forcing Malus to crouch low and follow the almost undetectable sound of the retainer’s footfalls. From time to time their path crossed better-travelled corridors, and once or twice the highborn caught snatches of whispered conversations as the servants of the temple went about their nightly tasks. Each time, Arleth Vann would pause at the junction and listen for several moments, gauging the servants’ movements, before darting silently across the passageway into the darkened tunnel mouth opposite. Malus felt like a rat inside the walls of some vast city house, scuttling from shadow to shadow to avoid the master’s house serpents.
After nearly half an hour, Arleth Vann stopped a few feet shy of the end of the passage and drew his twin blades. He turned to Malus. “From here on out, I go ahead,” the assassin whispered. “Wait three minutes and then follow after me.”
Malus frowned. “Three minutes? How will I know where you’ve gone?”
The assassin looked at Malus over his shoulder. “Look for the trail of bodies,” he said in a hard voice. Then he stepped out of the corridor and slipped off to the right.
Malus drew his own sword. His limbs felt leaden after the long climb through the heart of the hill, and the prospect of more fighting filled him with a weary kind of dread. I should drink of the daemon’s power, he thought. Just a little, to lend me strength and take away this damned fatigue.
No sooner had the thought occurred to him than a wave of trembling wracked his body. His insides twisted with need as he thought about the glorious, icy vitality of the daemon’s power. “Mother of Night!” he breathed, dropping to one knee. The hunger felt bottomless, and his mind recoiled in terror from it.
It was several minutes before the trembling passed, leaving Malus feeling even weaker than before. His face and neck were bathed in cold sweat, and his guts felt tied in knots. The highborn clenched his sword tightly, focusing on the strain of his knuckles and the hard weight of the sword hilt digging into his palm. With an effort of will, he forced himself back onto his feet. A terrible sense of foreboding pressed down upon him. Had the daemon’s recent silence been nothing more than the infinite patience of a predator, knowing its prey was but a single step away from ruin? Blessed mother, have I gone too far, Malus thought? Am I now beholden to the daemon, body and soul?
The daemon slithered across his ribs. “Are you unwell, Malus?” Tz’arkan’s voice slid into his ears like sweet poison. The temple elders await. Do you wish my aid?”
Yes, Malus thought. He bit his lips to keep the words from slipping past them. His mind roiled with horror and revulsion. Another wave of trembling passed through his taut frame.
“Come now, don’t be proud,” the daemon whispered. “I can feel your weakness, little druchii, your need. If you go before the elders like this they will see how weak you are. Let me make you strong again.”
Malus tasted blood on his tongue. He bit deeper into his torn lip, letting the pain kindle the fires of his hate. With hate all things are possible, he told himself. “I… want nothing from you,” he gasped, sending a trickle of blood coursing down his chin. “Nothing, you hear?”
The daemon chuckled, his manner smug and easy. “That’s an easy thing to say when you’re alone and in the dark,” Tz’arkan said. “You have no idea how pitiful you look. If the elders see you like this they will laugh in your face. Is that what you really want?”
Growling like a wounded beast, Malus forced his body to move: one step, and then another. Hate seethed in his heart, a weak fire compared to the icy torrent of the daemon’s power, but it propelled him nonetheless. He bared red-stained teeth and spat onto the stone floor. “They will see what I choose to show them,” the highborn said, feeling a little of his old strength ret
urn, “nothing more or less.”
“Of course,” the daemon said in a patronising tone. “I should have guessed you’d say such a thing. Perhaps you can manage a little longer without my help, but mark me: there will come a time very soon when you will find yourself in dire need of my power. Ask, and it will be yours.”
Malus staggered from the dark passageway, blinking owlishly in the light of the corridor beyond. Not ten feet to the right a temple servant lay on his face in a pool of spreading blood. The man had died without the slightest sound.
The highborn drew a shuddering breath, horrified that suddenly he felt unequal to the task before him. He’d thought he’d gained the upper hand over Tz’arkan, and the whole time the daemon had simply bided its time, like a spider sitting in the centre of its invisible web.
All is not lost just yet, the highborn thought. I still live. I still have my sword and my mother’s ring; and my hate, always my hate. Dark Mother, let that be enough!
Licking bitter blood from his lips, Malus set off in the assassin’s wake.
Arleth Vann was true to his word. The assassin left a trail of slaughter that a blind man could have followed. Malus passed more than a dozen temple servants in corridors and at junctions, each laid out on the floor as if slain in mid-stride. At one point he passed a trio of corpses propping one another upright, and Malus was struck with the image of the pale-faced assassin weaving his way through the close knit group and slaying them so quickly that they fell almost as one. The man’s supernal skill filled Malus with admiration even as it reminded him of his own wretched state.
Finally Malus found himself at the end of a long corridor built from pale marble that glowed beneath globes of witchlight. An open doorway waited at the other end, beyond a pile of armoured guards. The highborn picked his way through the tangle of steel-clad bodies, his boots making tacky sounds as he crossed an enormous puddle of congealing blood.
Beyond lay a narrow chamber, dominated by a short ramp that led upwards to a large, echoing chamber. Arleth Vann waited at the base of the ramp, surrounded by half a dozen dead servants. The assassin was pausing to clean his twin blades with a cloth rag appropriated from one of the corpses. His pale face was spotted with blood and eerily serene. The roar of scores of angry voices rolled down the stone ramp from the chamber beyond, washing over Malus in seething waves.
“Where… where are we?” Malus stammered, raising his voice to be heard above the cacophony.
“Just beneath the council chamber,” Arleth Vann replied. This is the room where they remove claimants who fail to persuade their case before the council.”
At that moment a projectile hit the top of the ramp with a wet thud and bounced down the slope past the assassin. Malus caught the furious expression on the face of the severed head as it rolled across the floor.
The retainer looked up from his work. “Are you well, my lord? You look—”
“I expect I look as if I’d crawled from a tomb, considering the route you took us through,” Malus snapped. “It’s a wonder I can see after all the webs I walked into.” He looked down at the grisly trophy and gave it a savage kick. The spiteful gesture heartened him a little. “I’m fine,” he said, injecting a touch of steel into his voice, “merely vexed at the foolishness of priests.” Without another word he moved past his retainer and climbed the ramp, his sword held at his side.
For a moment Malus was certain Arleth Vann had led him wrong. He found himself near the point of an oval chamber, ringed by a gallery that rose in tiers for at least twenty feet. Men and women crowded the tiers shouting and shaking their fists at the brawl that raged on the chamber’s floor. The air stank of blood and shook with the inchoate thunder of an arena in the city’s entertainment district. Not ten yards from where Malus stood more than a score of druchii pushed, pummelled and slashed at one another. At the centre of the fight two older men grappled with each other, their faces twisted with bestial hate. Broad bladed knives trembled in their white knuckled fists as they wrestled for the advantage. Each man wore rich, red robes and kheitans of fine leather studded with gold and precious stones. Their retainers were only slightly less bedecked themselves, their struggles having left a fortune in gilt and gems scattered across the marble floor. Wounded men stumbled or crawled away from the raging fight, clutching at their wounds and screaming encouragement to their respective sides. A handful of corpses lay forgotten underfoot.
Malus looked up at the gallery, realising that the shouting throng was made up of still more richly attired elders and their servants. Six large thrones were set around the perimeter of the chamber at the lowest gallery tier. Three of the seats were empty, although they were surrounded by elders and their retinues like hounds standing over a freshly killed deer. At the apex of the oval chamber, in a throne that surpassed all the rest in size and extravagance, sat an ancient druchii in vestments of hammered brass inlaid with diamonds and rubies. A mask of gold worked in the shape of a leering skull concealed his features, but his gnarled fists shook as he leaned forwards in his chair, shouting encouragements or curses upon the men fighting below. Malus caught sight of Rhulan sitting on the throne to the elder druchii’s right. Of all the assembled elders, he seemed least interested in the fight. A gold mask lay in his hand as he leaned to one side and conferred with one of his followers.
The highborn looked over at Arleth Vann, who emerged from the ramp behind Malus. “This is how the temple council conducts its affairs?” he shouted.
Arleth Vann shrugged. “You must admit it’s more entertaining than any drachau’s court,” he shouted back.
The highborn shook his head irritably. “To the Outer Darkness with this,” he snarled. He pointed at the reeling brawl. “Make me a hole,” he said to the assassin.
Arleth Vann nodded grimly, raising his short blades. He glided swiftly towards the fight with Malus close behind and cut his way through the crowd like a thresher harvesting grain. Men fell away to either side, struck down by the assassin’s flickering blades, and the rest recoiled in shock from the sudden assault. Within moments Malus reached the battling elders, each man lost in his own single-minded struggle. The assassin stepped aside with a bow. Malus walked up to the two men and swung his heavy blade, decapitating both elders in a single stroke.
Blood erupted in a bright fountain from the two slain men, their bodies falling against one another in a grisly embrace. The severed heads bounced audibly on the stone floor in the sudden, shocked silence.
Gore dripping from his blade, Malus turned, regarding the assembled elders with cold, brass eyes. “Now that I have your attention,” he said, his voice echoing in the council chamber, “I’ve come to bring a warning to the council. You must sound the call to arms and hurry to the Sanctum of the Sword. While you squabble here like dogs over a corpse, Urial and his supporters are closing their hands around the Warpsword of Khaine.”
Murmurs of shock and snarls of derision echoed from the assembly. At the far end of the chamber the Grand Carnifex of the temple rose portentously to his feet. To his right, the Arch-Hierophant turned pale, his dark eyes shifting from Malus to the leader of the temple and back again.
The Grand Carnifex’s voice was a liquid rasp, bubbling up from old lungs thick with corruption. “Who are you?” he said, his words carrying across the chamber in spite of the mask he wore.
“A servant of Khaine,” Malus answered. “A man with a dire warning, and beyond that, what does it matter? Your enemies are on the verge of destroying you, Grand Carnifex: you and this house your predecessors have built. Will you act, or shall we sit here and waste precious time with introductions?”
The entire chamber resounded with a single intake of breath as the audience recoiled in shock at Malus’ words. Steel rang as swords leapt from gilt scabbards, and a number of the temple elders barked at their retainers to make a way for them to reach the chamber floor. Then Rhulan leapt to his feet, calling out in a carrying voice. “How do you know this?” he asked, looking meaningful
ly at Malus.
The highborn met the elder’s gaze and nodded respectfully. “Because I have spent the last four days at the feet of Tyran the Unscarred, the leader of the zealots who oppose you,” he answered. “I have sat in their councils, and I know that they have agents within the temple itself.” He surveyed the outraged elders coldly. They have been in close contact with Urial since the moment they entered the city and everything they have done has been in preparation for this very night.” He raised his bloodstained sword and pointed at each of the empty thrones in turn. “Do you think this was all some sort of accident? A stroke of cruel luck? No. They struck directly at the Haru’ann, sowing confusion and discord while they formed a learned council of their own. Now, with all your warriors pounding at the gates of empty houses across the city, they have slipped inside the temple and are performing the Rite of the Swordbearer even as we speak!”
“Let them!” A woman shouted. Her voice was an angry rasp, cutting jaggedly through the tense atmosphere. Malus saw a young priestess in the third tier of the gallery face the Grand Carnifex. “We know Urial is not the Scourge. The ritual will fail, and we will have the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to denounce him!”
“If the rite fails the heretics will find fault in the men performing the rite, not in their would-be saviour,” Malus shot back. This can only end in death,” he snarled, looking to the Grand Carnifex. “You know this.”
“I say this is the work of the heretics!” said an older druchii to Malus’ left, leaning over the first tier railing and pointing a long finger at Malus. They’ve already sent assassins against us once. Perhaps they sent this loudmouth to draw us to the sanctum so they could slay us all!”