“True—but you can designate a representative to act as your executor,” the captain said, offering a faint smile. A signed writ presented to the Vaulkhar would free your retainers from his control.”
Malus regarded the man with narrowed eyes. Was there no end to his temerity? “And who would you suggest assume this role?”
The captain smiled. “I would consider it an honour to serve, dread lord.”
“Despite the fact that the two most powerful highborn in Hag Graef want me dead and the Temple of Khaine besides? Despite the fact that I’ve just returned from a journey that cost the lives of each and every one of my retainers?”
“Even so, dread lord. Honestly, it’s a much better reward than a bag of gold or a handful of gems. There are far better chances for advancement serving a highborn than commanding a barracks of guardsmen.” The captain winked knowingly. “I have a feeling there will be plenty more opportunities for coin serving in your household anyway.”
Malus shook his head. He had no reason to trust the conniving druchii whatsoever. But for the moment he could be useful, he thought. “Your ambition is going to get you killed, captain…?”
“Hauclir,” the druchii answered, bowing his head.
“Hauclir? Like the famous general?”
“The one the Witch King later executed for treason, yes. My father had poor judgement when it came to choosing patrons, it seems.”
“Indeed,” Malus said. “I’d venture to say you suffer from the same affliction. But nevertheless,” the highborn said wearily, reaching over and drawing his sword, “I have a need and you will fulfil it.” He rose and Hauclir followed suit.
“The Dark Mother watches and knows what lies in our hearts,” Malus intoned, placing the tip of his blade in the hollow of Hauclir’s throat. This steel is sworn in her service. Do you swear to pledge your life to mine, to serve as I command and to die at my call?”
“Before the Mother of Night, I swear it,” Hauclir answered. “Let her steel strike me down if I am false. I shall wear your collar until you release me from it, in death or in reward.”
Malus nodded. “Very well, then, Hauclir. You are mine now. May you live long enough to regret it.” He tossed the naked blade on the carpet. Tomorrow, you and I will create this writ you spoke of. “For now,” the highborn said, sinking back onto the rugs, “I intend to drink every last drop of wine in the room and sleep like the dead. Get out.”
The retainers bowed as one and slipped quietly from the room. Malus reached for his bottle and drained it dry, savouring the silence.
A whisper of sound brought Malus out of dreamless slumber. Weeks of travelling alone in the Wastes had honed his senses to a razor’s edge and conditioned his reflexes for instant action. At first the highborn held perfectly still, listening intently for the sound to repeat itself. When he heard it again—the faintest brush of a bare foot across the piled rugs—he opened his eyes ever so slightly, focusing on its source.
The braziers had burned low, filling the centre of the room with a faint reddish glow and leaving the walls in impenetrable shadow. Malus lay against a mound of cushions, bare feet pointed at the nearest brazier and empty wine bottles strewn around his legs. Another empty bottle was still clutched in his right hand. After his erstwhile retainers had left, Malus had drunk himself into a stupor. Now, only a few hours later, the highborn was faintly surprised at how little of the alcoholic fog remained.
Across the room a druchii servant cleared upended cups and plates with swift, silent movements. The slave worked his way quickly through the detritus. Within moments he was carefully pulling away the bottles around Malus’ knees.
The highborn suppressed a flash of annoyance at his own paranoia, forcing his eyes to shut and trying to sink back into sleep. It’s going to take some effort to start ignoring the servants again, Malus thought sourly.
He sank back into slumber. Then suddenly he remembered: Mistress Nemeira didn’t keep druchii slaves.
Malus bolted from the cushions just as the assassin’s dagger struck home, its keen blade sliding through the silk robe and sinking into his shoulder instead of opening his throat. It felt like a shard of ice—suddenly the highborn’s left hand went numb. The assassin loomed over Malus, his eyes shining like molten brass. An acolyte of the temple, Malus thought furiously, fighting a surge of panic.
The assassin jerked his dagger free—Malus felt the hot flow of blood stain the fine robe and plaster it to his chest—and the highborn caught the man’s wrist. Malus lashed at the man’s head with the wine bottle in his other hand, but the assassin grabbed the highborn’s wrist with effortless speed and then they were rolling across the rugs in a flurry of kicks, bites and head-butts.
Teeth sank into Malus’ right forearm. He drove his knee into the assassin’s groin and bashed his forehead into the man’s temple until he felt the killer’s jaws loosen. Malus jerked his weapon-arm away, hoping to pull free and land a blow, but the assassin responded by biting at the highborn’s throat. Malus twisted, trying to use his weight to turn the assassin’s dagger towards its wielder and drive it into the man’s chest, but the numbness in his hand was intensifying and he could feel his grip start to weaken.
The acolyte twisted sharply at the waist and they rolled again. Malus’ right shoulder struck something hard and unyielding and waves of heat beat at his face and arm. With a cold grin the assassin loomed above him, drawing his knife blade inexorably higher, the light from the brazier painting the acolyte’s face with a daemonic leer. The blood on the knife-blade seemed to glow in the sullen light and Malus could feel his grip starting to give way.
Roaring with desperate fury Malus twisted his body with all his strength and threw the acolyte against the iron brazier, knocking it over in a shower of angry sparks. Caught off-balance, the assassin rolled onto the hot coals and Malus let go of his bottle to grab the man’s chin and hold his head to the fire. The assassin stiffened and smoke curled around his shoulders. His black hair blazed into bluish flame, but still he struggled to pull his knife-arm free and plunge the blade into Malus’ chest. Malus felt his strength fading with every moment, but the assassin’s eyes remained fever-bright and focused on his destruction. Then without warning the acolyte let out a tortured scream and dropped his knife, his hands groping for the flames searing his skull.
Malus let go and rolled away, his eyes darting about the room for his sword. The rugs had started to burn and the air was full of acrid smoke. The highborn’s left arm hung uselessly at his side. Where did I put that damned blade, he thought furiously, trying to cudgel his wine-fogged memory into focus.
Three sharp, stabbing pains in his right shoulder tore a shout from the highborn’s throat. At once, searing pain blossomed at each of the tiny wounds, blazing like a fire wasp’s sting. Malus staggered, his right hand groping at his back and pulled three slim, brass needles from his shoulder. He heard the crackle of burnt leather and turned to see the assassin rolling to his feet. The acolyte’s hair was gone, his scalp blackened and his face grey with pain, but his pale eyes shone with murderous intent.
Malus leapt for the door, shouldering the thick oak aside with a hiss of pain and raced down the dimly lit corridor. There were no guards or servants about; few guests stayed overnight at the flesh house and the highborn reckoned it was close to dawn. The muscles in his chest spasmed as the needles’ venom spread—it was difficult enough to breathe, let alone sound an alarm. Even if he could, he found himself wondering who, if anyone, might respond. Had Nemeira betrayed him after all? Had the acolyte followed Silar and Arleth Vann?
It won’t matter if I’m dead in the next few minutes, he thought angrily. Revenge is the luxury of the living.
The highborn couldn’t hear the assassin behind him, but Malus knew that didn’t mean anything and he wasn’t about to waste energy looking over his shoulder. He plunged on down the corridor, fighting for each ragged breath. For a moment he was tempted to call out to Tz’arkan, willing to beggar another
piece of himself if the daemon could burn the poison from his body, but for once he found that he couldn’t focus on Tz’arkan’s presence. Damn that wine, he thought angrily.
Within moments the corridor began to turn to the right and angle slightly upwards. Malus turned the first corner and stumbled over the body of a naked slave. The human’s face was turned to the ceiling, staring sightlessly with one blue eye—the other was a red ruin, pierced by the single thrust of a dagger. Malus fell headlong, scraping his forehead on the stone floor, but got his feet back underneath him and lurched on, fearing the bite of that selfsame dagger in his back.
He followed the curve of the corridor until it emptied into the main room of the flesh house, a circular chamber offset with dozens of veiled niches and set with plush divans that surrounded raised daises or delicately-wrought cages. Witchfire globes burned dimly around the perimeter of the empty room, shedding a pale greenish glow. At once, Malus caught sight of two druchii sprawled on the floor, both wearing the dark leather kheitans of Nemeira’s guards. Both lay on their stomachs and judging by the huge pools of blood their throats had been expertly slit.
The highborn saw the curved swords at their hips and for a moment was tempted to grab one, but he knew that in his present state he couldn’t possibly survive another fight with the acolyte. At the far end of the chamber the house’s double doors stood open to the night air and the caustic yellow nightfog spilled across the threshold, filling the house’s vestibule.
Gritting his teeth, Malus charged for the doorway. The fog would burn in his open wounds, but the assassin would be hard-pressed to find him in Hag Graef s twisting, shadowy streets.
Just as Malus crossed the threshold something buzzed past his ear and two more of the acolyte’s brass needles struck the wooden door-jamb to his right. The highborn risked a quick look over his shoulder and saw the burned man at the far end of the room, leaning against the wall for support. Without hesitation he charged out into the fog-shrouded street, trying to remember if there was a connecting lane or alley mouth on the opposite side.
He reached the opposite side of the street and immediately saw the shadow of an alley mouth just a few yards away. Without skipping a beat Malus angled from the opening—and failed to notice the robed shapes rising from the shadows of a nearby shop front until it was too late.
There was a hissing sound in the air and a fine net of steel wire wrapped around Malus’ torso. Fine hooks sank into his skin, binding the net to his body and then the acolyte jerked back on the thin chain attached to the net and pulled Malus off his feet. He roared in pain as he hit the slick cobblestones, the hooks sinking deeper into his flesh. The highborn tried to roll to his feet, but the acolyte pulled him onto his back with a flick of the wrist.
The second robed acolyte rushed forward, grabbing Malus’ ankles and pressing them to the cobbles with all his weight. The druchii looked surprisingly young—little more than a child really—evidently an initiate accompanying the assassin and providing assistance where required. They had him trussed like a blood moon sacrifice and Malus watched helplessly as the burned acolyte staggered from the fog, his dagger held high.
There was a sharp pop pop pop as three crossbow bolts punched through the brittle leather kheitan the assassin wore and dug deep into his vitals. The killer looked down uncomprehendingly at the black fletching sprouting from his chest and then toppled onto his side.
Cloaked shapes rushed out of the fog like nighthawks, glittering steel clenched in their hands. The acolyte at Malus’ feet started to rise, his hand going for his dagger, but a curved sword sliced into his neck and the boy’s severed head bounced into the highborn’s lap. The shapes rushed past and then Malus heard a brief struggle behind him. Steel clashed on steel and for a moment the chain attached to the net pulled painfully tight. Then came the sound of a keen edge biting into flesh and the tether went slack.
Malus couldn’t move. He wasn’t sure if it was the tension of the net, or the fact that his muscles were frozen by the assassin’s poison. The highborn fought for every searing breath, his eyes searching the fog for signs of his rescuers. Then the cloaked figures returned, their silver nightmasks gleaming beneath the shadows of their black hoods.
“The Dark Mother smiles upon us tonight, brothers,” one of the figures said, his deep voice rumbling from behind the mask of a leering daemon’s face. “A moment later and our lord would have been very wroth indeed. Instead the temple has flushed our prey for us and wrapped him in silver for the Vaulkhar’s pleasure.” The daemon’s face lowered until it was inches from Malus’ own. He could see the druchii’s black eyes behind the silver eye sockets and hear the man’s breath whistling through the slits carved between the daemon’s fangs. Then darkness crowded at the edges of his vision, rising like a black tide and Malus knew nothing more.
Chapter Three
DREAMS OF BLOOD
AND MADNESS
It seemed as though he fought on a raging sea of blood, beneath a sky that writhed and thundered and rained bone and ash. He stumbled and lurched across the twisted landscape and a horde of angry ghosts clawed and gibbered at him every step of the way.
They reached for him with their misshapen hands and howled in tongues of fire, their eyes nothing but orbs of nacreous light. A withered elven sorceress leapt upon his back, sinking her cracked nails into his chest and tearing at the side of his face with her jagged teeth. A hulking, slithering creature formed of naked, roiling muscle undulated across the ground and lashed him with saw-edged tendrils of ropy flesh. A pack of hounds circled him hungrily, their gaping mandibles dripping green threads of venom.
He roared his fury at the storm and lashed at the ghosts with his blade, but their bodies parted like jelly beneath each stroke and flowed back together again.
The maelstrom dissolved in a blaze of pale light. Dark clouds coalesced out of the haze, taking the shape of faces. A woman bent over him, propping one eyelid open.
“His wounds are mending, dread lord.” The woman’s lips were moving, but her voice didn’t quite match their movements.
A man regarded him from an impossible distance, his face cruel and cold. “More hushalta then,” the man said, harshly. “I tire of waiting.”
Cold fingers pried open his lips and a thick fluid tasting of burnt copper poured down his throat. He choked, his body spasming, but strong hands pinned him in place.
The light dimmed, the faces receding into a reddening mist. Red faded to black and a familiar voice spoke in the darkness.
“You fool,” Tz’arkan said.
He lay upon a bed of writhing bodies. Pale hands bore him up, caressing his body, clutching him in their hungry embrace. Lips pressed against his skin, tasting him, worshipping him. The air hung heavy and still, fragrant with incense and trembling with the moans and sighs of a hundred rapturous voices.
Faces rose around him, haunting sirens with hungry looks in their depthless eyes. They reached for him, running their hands across his bare chest, each delicate fingertip leaving a trail of heat across his flesh.
One siren climbed languidly onto him, her dark hair seeming to float around her fine-boned face. She stretched across him like a cat, long fingers reaching for his face. Her red lips twisted in a sensual smile as she laid her long nails against his cheeks and sank them deep into his skin.
Blood ran cold and thin down the sides of his face. She dug deeper, taking handfuls of flesh and pulling downwards, like skinning the hide from a hare. Flesh, muscle and tendons pulled away in a glistening mat, exposing his neck and the upper part of his chest.
He writhed in the grip of the sirens, but they held him fast. Now they tore at him as well, pulling away hunks of bloody skin. He felt the flesh of his entire left arm slough away like a soggy sleeve and when he wrenched it away he saw that the limb beneath was corded with muscle and wrapped in a pebbly, greenish-black hide. Then the pebbles ruptured into hundreds of tiny mouths, lapping at the streaks of blood running from wrist to elbow-
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Something was dragging at his feet. Malus opened gummy eyes and saw his toes scuffing along smooth flooring stones. Two druchii held him by his arms, dragging him easily along a passage lit by witchlights.
It was a struggle to raise his head and take in his surroundings. His mouth felt like dried leather. Hushalta, he remembered. They had been feeding him hushalta for days. His skin felt taut and slightly feverish, but whole. It’s a wonder my mind is still intact, he thought dimly.
“That remains to be seen,” a faint voice echoed in his head.
Cool wind played across his face, stirring his lank hair. Chains clinked softly; pure crystal tones that made his blood run cold. Then the strong hands holding his arms released him and Malus fell to his knees on the slate tiles of a large, circular chamber. Globes of witch-light gleamed from ornately worked iron sconces around the perimeter of the room, illuminating bas-reliefs worked into the stone walls depicting a series of famous massacres from the long wars against the elves of Ulthuan. A mass of chains tipped with cruel hooks depended from the high ceiling in the centre of the chamber. The metal links clinked softly together in the cool air.
He could feel the eyes of others upon him. The highborn drew a shuddering breath and straightened, meeting the reptilian stares of the druchii who awaited him.
Lurhan Fellblade, Vaulkhar of Hag Graef, stood bare-chested before his son, his powerfully muscled upper body marked with dozens of scars from his service to the Witch King. His black hair was pulled back from his face, accentuating his fierce eyes and prominent, aquiline nose. The warlord’s sheer presence filled the chamber, eclipsing every other person in the room.
Two broken men stood in Lurhan’s shadow, their eyes gleaming with hate. One was tall, nearly as imposing as the Vaulkhar himself, though the druchii’s right arm was hidden beneath layers of black robes. Urial had the same sharp, angry features as his father, but his face was gaunt and his pale skin had an unhealthy, bluish cast. His thick hair had been almost completely white since returning from his years in the Temple of Khaine and his eyes were the colour of molten brass.