Footsteps whispered along the stone in Malus’ wake. Something hard rapped against his back, but the strong steel turned aside the hurled dagger and sent it ringing along the floor. The ramp curved and Malus raced around the corner, momentarily out of the line of fire.
The ramp switched back upon itself and now he was just one level above the street. Here the outer wall of the arena was pierced by tall windows that let in shafts of pale daylight to relieve the gloom. On impulse Malus leapt for the nearest window, turning as he jumped and tried to force his way through the tight space. He crashed through the thin glass, cold air rushing against his face as he plummeted to the street below.
Malus rolled slightly in mid air, taking the fall on his armoured back. The impact jarred him to the core and knocked the wind from his lungs, but the instant his vision cleared he was rolling on the paving stones, trying to regain his feet. There were shouts of surprise and muffled curses from passing druchii nearby, but Malus paid no heed, gasping for breath and groping about for his sword. Even now he could imagine Urial’s retainers racing down the ramp to ground level, swords ready at their sides.
When the highborn staggered to his feet, however, it wasn’t a skull-faced retainer standing in the arena’s open gate, but Urial the Forsaken himself, his eyes burning like molten brass.
Like Malus, Urial wore full armour for his visit to Yasmir. Two short, slender swords were buckled to his waist, looking more like an adolescent’s practice blades than true weapons of war. Sheathed in steel, his deformities were almost invisible unless one knew where to look. There was no one in between them; for a fleeting instant Malus was tempted to rush at his malformed half-brother and fulfil Yasmir’s wish then and there. But then Urial raised his good arm and pointed at Malus and his thin lips moved in silent incantation.
The highborn turned, his mind driving him to panicked flight even though Malus knew that it was too little, too late. Pain flared along his body in a wave. Malus staggered, his mouth opening in a silent scream. Every nerve, every fibre hissed like red-hot iron.
Dimly he sensed a presence rushing at him. Finding his voice, he uttered a bestial snarl and lashed out with his blade. The retainer was caught by surprise, hurled backward with his throat gaping wide. The highborn turned and forced his limbs to work, stumbling, then lurching, then shambling down the paved street as fast as he could.
The streets of the Highborn Quarter teemed with groups of servants going about the business of their masters, their arms laden with parcels bought from the craftsmen’s shops that filled the area. There were few highborn about; this late in the day many of the city’s nobles had already retired to their towers, preparing themselves for whatever diversions the night promised. Small groups of druchii retainers and lesser nobles strolled along the narrow streets, busy on errands or scheming quietly to themselves.
The searing pain was fading. Malus gasped for air with lungs that seemed full of jagged glass. Druchii stepped from his path, many placing hands to sword hilts or spitting curses as he passed. Keep going, he thought. Keep going. Find a large retinue and mingle with them, turn a corner, find an alley. Keep moving.
Malus looked about wildly, trying to find his bearings. By sheer good fortune he’d gone the right way outside the arena; the Hag’s towers loomed above him less than a quarter-mile distant. He continued to run, shoving through huddled clusters of slaves, weaving around groups of low-born druchii and looking for another group of highborn he could lose himself amongst. Just ahead was a corner and a large number of armoured druchii. He was almost upon them when they stepped left and right, clearing a path before him—and the knot of armed temple acolytes running towards him from farther up the street.
“Mother of Night,” Malus gasped, his eyes widening. He fumbled his second sword from its scabbard as well. It looked like close to a dozen holy warriors, wearing dark red robes and silver breastplates. Each one held a gleaming draich in their hands—the two-handed executioner’s sword favoured by the warriors of Khaine and wielded with terrible skill. Their expressions were fierce in the fading light and Malus knew that his running was at an end.
“Damn you all!” Malus roared back, raising his blades defiantly. “Come ahead then and pour out your blood upon my steel!”
The highborn readied his weapons as the acolytes came on and the highborn saw death glinting in their brass-coloured eyes. Then a sharp blow struck him at the base of his skull and the world dissolved in a flare of white light.
The air shook with the howls of the damned.
Once more he ran across a heaving plain of blood-red earth, while the sky churned and vomited ash and bone dust from its depths. Multitudes of ghosts surrounded him, reaching for him with gnarled hands and clashing jaws. Already his fine armour was rent and pierced in dozens of places, though no blood flowed from the cold wounds beneath.
His sword passed effortlessly through them. Gelid, pulpy bodies and misshapen skulls all turned to sickly vapour as his blade bisected them, only to coalesce once more in the wake of the blade’s passing. At best, he could only clear a path before him with each stroke as he ran, pushing ahead towards a goal he only dimly understood.
The horizon before him was a flat, featureless line as dark as old brick, standing out sharply against the swirling grey sky. A single tower stood there, square and black, silhouetted against both earth and sky alike. It seemed impossibly far away and yet it radiated a solidity that the rest of the alien landscape did not. It was a source of sanity in a vast plain of madness and he fought his way toward it with the manic intensity of a drowning man. Yet no matter how hard he struggled or how many steps he took, the tower grew no closer.
“Awaken, Darkblade! The sons of murder approach and the time of your death is at hand!”
Malus opened his eyes, yet for long moments he could not tell if he was indeed awake. There was a red haze to the air, a kind of indistinct shimmer that blurred the geometry of walls, doorways and ceilings. Even the solidity of objects seemed inconstant; one moment the dark stone surrounding him was dense and oppressive, then it became pale and translucent, lit from behind by an angry red light. There was a buzzing in the air, harsh and somehow metallic. If he focused on it he could make out the sound of voices: bloodthirsty, exultant, agonised.
There was pain. It came and went with the shifting solidity of his surroundings. Strangely, the less distinct things were, the sharper his pain became. He lay against a rack of brass needles of varying lengths, holding him nearly upright in the centre of a small, octagonal room. Each beat of his heart trembled through the scores of thin needles and reverberated back along his bones. When the walls faded to smoke, the agony was indescribable, leaving him gasping for breath when tangible reality wavered back into place. He could not move an inch; the needles were artfully placed to paralyse his muscles, pinning him like a living specimen in a display of grotesqueries.
He faced a set of double doors with iron hinges and brass facings. At the archway above the door were set a pair of faces worked in gleaming silver. The faces were exultant and bestial, their eyeholes were black voids; empty and yet somehow aware. He looked into those depthless pits and knew at once where he was.
“May the Outer Darkness take you, daemon!” Malus said, his words coming out in a hoarse whisper. “You sat silent while Urial’s men surrounded me!”
“This half-brother of yours is not like your zealous but self-absorbed sister,” Tz’arkan replied acidly. “His sight is sharper than most. Had he sensed my presence he would have spared nothing to destroy you then and there and no aid I could have given you would have made any difference.”
“So you deliver me into his hands instead? You allow him and his damned temple lackeys to drag me to his tower? We stand at the gateway to the realm of murder! What would you have me do now?”
“I would have you save yourself, fool!” The daemon’s voice was more agitated than Malus had ever heard it. Was there fear in the daemon’s voice? “Urial and his priests draw
near, Malus. If they take you through the doorway standing before you, that will be the end. You will not emerge from the red place they will take you.”
Malus gritted his teeth and forced himself to move, pouring every ounce of his black will into drawing his right arm free from its bed of needles. Veins bulged from his temples and neck and his entire frame quivered with the strain, but his limbs would not budge. When the next wave of torment washed over him the sensation was so intense Malus was certain his heart would burst. The fact that it didn’t was likely another testament to Urial’s infernal skills.
“Spare me your insults and help me, cursed spirit! Lend me the strength to overcome these blasted needles, if nothing else! I can’t get away if I can’t move!”
“I cannot, Darkblade. Not here. It is too dangerous.”
Malus managed a bitter laugh. “Too dangerous? For whom?”
But Tz’arkan did not reply. The doors swung open, the iron hinges groaning in torment. A group of blood-soaked druchii waited at the threshold, their hands bearing bowls and brass knives. Slowly and silently they filed into the room, half turning left, half turning right. As they surrounded him the room grew less and less distinct and a tide of irresistible pain swelled where each brass needle pierced his skin.
Urial was the last to enter the crowded room. Like the priests, he wore thin robes of white, soaked with blotches of fresh blood that somehow steamed in the thick air. Without the concealment of armour or heavy clothes there was no disguising Urial’s gaunt physique. Muscles like thin steel cords stood out sharply across his narrow, bony chest and angular shoulders, lending his face an even more cadaverous cast than normal. His ruined sword arm was clutched tightly to his side. Even more shrunken than the rest of his body, Urial’s right hand was twisted into a gnarled, paralysed claw, the palm turned upwards and the fingers curled inward as though shrivelled by an open flame.
The former acolyte of Khaine walked with a pronounced limp, dragging a crippled left foot, but his eyes were bright and he held himself proudly, like a king rather than a cursed cripple. Strange runes had been incised into the skin of his chest and arms. His white hair had been bound in a thick braid that lay over his right shoulder, hanging down almost as far as his waist. A third of its length was red with blood. In his left hand Urial held a long, broad-bladed dagger, its blade worked with fearsome sigils. There was a red haze around the weapon, as though blood coalesced from the very air around its sanctified edge. Heavy crimson drops fell from the blade’s wicked point, spattering heavily on the stone tile below.
The tide of pain rose with every step Urial took. Once more focusing every iota of his will, Malus made his head bow in greeting. “Well met, brother,” he wheezed through clenched teeth. “It’s… an honour to be invited into your sanctum, but you needn’t put on such… a show for my sake.”
No emotion showed on Urial’s face. His eyes regarded Malus with the same kind of dispassion as a priest inspecting a sacrificial slave. When he spoke his voice was resonant and harsh, like the penetrating note of a cymbal or bell. “The honour is mine,” Urial said, without the slightest trace of modesty or compassion. There is no greater offering to the Lord of the Blade than to sacrifice one’s own kin. I have been patient and dutiful in your pursuit and now Khaine has provided by placing you in my hands.”
“Blessed be the Murderer,” the priests intoned.
“I… I have wronged you, brother,” Malus said, his mind working furiously for a way to distract Urial from his deadly purpose. “And the blood of your possessions lies on my hands. I wish to make amends.”
Urial paused, his brow furrowing ever so slightly. “You will,” he replied, sounding faintly bemused. “Your severed head will rest on a great pyramid of skulls, where you will gaze adoringly upon the glory of Khaine. I will see to it.”
“Blessed is he who slays in Khaine’s name,” the priests intoned.
“But… is it not said that all warriors look upon the face of Khaine in the fullness of time?” Again, Urial paused. “Yes. That is so.”
“Then what need is there to hurry things along?”
“You broke into my tower. You stole my possessions, killed my slaves and defiled my sanctum with your unclean presence,” Urial answered harshly. “And there is the matter of the blood debt to the temple. An oath sworn before the Lord of Murder cannot be denied.”
“The call of blood is answered in sundered flesh,” said the priests.
“But it was a debt that you invoked against me,” Malus countered. And thus you could absolve it if you desired. I was deceived…”
Now Urial’s expression became one of complete puzzlement. “I did not invoke the blood debt,” Urial said. “Nagaira did.”
For a moment, Malus couldn’t speak. He struggled to accept what Urial had said and realised the full scope of the deception that had been built around him. “Blessed Mother,” he said to himself, “she played me at every turn. Everything she said was a lie.”
Urial nodded gravely. “Such is the way of all flesh—a path of weakness and deception redeemed in the blood of the slain.” He stepped forward, raising the dagger. “Soon you will know the truth, brother. The blessing of steel wipes all deception away.”
But Malus was no longer listening, caught up in a wave of cold, clear fury that washed his pain and fear away. “Take this blessing from me and save it for one more deserving. It was Nagaira who made me her cat’s paw, who told me of the skull in your keeping and who provided the means to violate your sanctum. She is the one who deserves your attention. I was merely the sword in her hand.” As he spoke, a plan took shape in his mind. “I wish to atone for my crimes, brother. I wish to cleanse my soul with the blood of the unbeliever. If you will stay your hand, I will reward you and the temple with a rich gift of slaughter that will grant you the favour of Khaine.”
A stir went through the assembled priests, but Urial’s expression was stern. “You beg for mercy from a servant of Khaine?”
“No! I ask for the chance to serve his cause and provide a greater sacrifice in his name.” He looked his brother in the eye. “What if I were to tell you that the Cult of Slaanesh is thriving within the very walls of the Hag itself?”
Urial’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “The temple has long suspected this. Our agents search for signs of the apostates in the Hag and elsewhere.”
“The stain runs deeper than you know, brother. It reaches into the most powerful houses in the city,” Malus replied. “Stay your hand and I can deliver them to you—our sister Nagaira stands high in their esteem. Think on that. Imagine the sacrifice she would make.” After a moment, he added, “and there is more.”
Whispers filled the air as the priests reacted to the news. Urial silenced them with a look. “More? What more can you offer?”
“Yasmir.”
Urial stiffened. He rushed at Malus, surprisingly swift for the deformities that warped his body. “Do not dare impugn her honour, Darkblade! She who is pure and beloved before the god!”
“No! I did not mean that, brother—stay your hand!” Malus lowered his voice so only Urial could hear. “I mean to say that I can bring her to you.”
Urial stared at Malus, his eyes wide and uncomprehending. “Her thoughts are for Bruglir alone,” he said woodenly. “And she refuses to give him up.”
“Of course,” Malus agreed. “Of course. You know that as well as I. But all warriors see the face of Khaine in time, do they not?”
Urial stared hard into Malus’ eyes, his expression unreadable. “They do. They do indeed,” he whispered.
“This can be arranged, brother. I can see to it. But I would need your help. My plan requires a sorcerer of great skill.” He attempted a shrug but forgot the paralysing effect of the needles. “I confess that I had planned to use Nagaira in my schemes, but this is so much more fitting. One might even see the hand of Khaine at work in this.”
After a long moment, Urial lowered his blade. Something glittered in his eyes, but whet
her it was desire or madness, Malus couldn’t say. Perhaps there was little difference between the two.
“Perhaps,” Urial said at last. “I cannot deny that your offer would make a glorious gift to Khaine. I also cannot deny that you have more twists in you than a viper. This could all be a lie.”
Once again, Malus bowed his head respectfully. “That is so and I cannot convince you otherwise. So you must ask yourself: what have you to lose if I’m lying and what do you stand to gain if I’m telling you the truth?”
Urial’s expression changed. It was not a smile, but rather a slight softening of his severe features. “Well said, brother,” he replied, gesturing to the priests. “I have little to lose by sparing you a little while longer. But tell me, how will you deliver the apostates into our hands?”
The priests of Khaine surrounded Malus, gripping him with their bloodstained hands and lifting him from his bed of pain. His cry of pain transmuted itself into a harsh laugh of triumph.
“Did I not mention it before, brother? I am to be initiated into their cult tomorrow.”
Chapter Nine
THE WITCH’S GIFT
Malus waited in shadow, preparing for the battle to come. Nagaira had been furious upon learning of his escape. It was well past nightfall by the time he had completed his plans with Urial and left his half-brother’s tower. After that there had been nothing for it but to cross the grounds of the fortress and enter his own tower to inform his men of the part they would play in his upcoming initiation. The Octagon of Praan was left behind, locked in an ironwood chest within his own quarters, leaving the highborn to cross the narrow, windy bridge connecting his spire with his sister’s. The guards were not surprised to hear his knock. They had been given orders to keep a watch for him the moment Nagaira realised he had gone.
Malus leaned back in his chair, his face twisting in a smile at the thought of his sister’s wrath. He had never seen her so angry before—she hurled questions at him like thunderbolts, demanding he account for every step he’d taken upon leaving her tower. He’d mollified her somewhat when he told her that he was ready to undertake the initiation. For a moment she’d been pleased—and then her interest had become sharper than a razor as the witch demanded to know how he’d made his way from her demesne without her being any wiser. That had led to a string of threats and curses, both real and implied, that had lasted much of the night, until finally she summoned her retainers and banished him to his chambers, there to await his time before the anointed of Slaanesh.