2 Defiler of Tombs

  “If that is your idea of a joke, you have a strange definition of humour.”

  “So I have been told.” She sounded thoughtful. “Perhaps it was what he desires.”

  “Death?”

  “Somehow you do not sound as surprised as I would have expected you to be.”

  “I have fought many Old Ones. It seemed to me that many of them desired death.”

  “You know us better than most mortals. Ennui overcomes the best of us at the end. Age-long lives weigh heavily sometimes.”

  “Do you feel that way?” Kormak asked.

  “No. I have my mortal pets to amuse me.” She did not sound entirely certain, he thought, but who was he to judge?

  “Is that what those people down there are?”

  “They are fascinating in their smallness and their greed and their need to believe in something greater than themselves.”

  “The Old Ones believe in the Lady.”

  “The Lady is greater than us, even though she has turned her face from us. I once basked in her light. Some day I may do so again. Life is long and there are many pleasures yet.”

  “Not if the servants of the Shadow conquer all.”

  “The Shadow has conquered before, Sir Kormak. It will conquer again. In the end it passes. All things do.”

  “The Shadow enslaves more than mortals. We both know that.”

  “The Shadow raises some up, Sir Kormak,” said a much deeper voice. Kormak looked up to see another Old One. He was tall and slender and yet much more broad-shouldered than his sister. There was a family resemblance in their features but Kormak was not sure that meant much in beings who could change their shape. “It lends power to some. It takes it away from others.”

  He smiled, and it was the smile of a great predator revealing its teeth. That smile and the glint in the Old One’s eyes almost had Kormak reaching for his sword. Fierce madness glittered in his gaze. Of course, none of the Old Ones were sane as mortals measured sanity but this one was more obviously mad than most.

  “Come now, Malion, be polite. Sir Kormak is our guest and a most honoured one.”

  Malion swept closer, his tread that of a great panther. He raised a hand to claw at his face, as if his skin itched. He had no nails, only long talons. They ripped at his flesh, drawing blood. The skin knitted together after a heartbeat leaving no sign of scars. A long tongue licked out, too long to be human, and washed away the droplets of silvery-black blood that glistened on the once-torn cheeks.

  As Malion came closer Kormak caught a strange unpleasant scent of rot, unusual in an Old One. Malion sank into a chair and stared at Kormak for a moment. His face was human-like but his pupils were slit like those of a cat and much larger than those of a man.

  “Of course, sister, where are my manners?” He reached forward and poured wine into Kormak’s goblet. “See! Now I am being polite. I am serving him with my own hands.”

  Kormak felt sure that the Old One only meant to make him flinch by bringing his claws so close. His talons looked like they could rip through armour as well as flesh. Kormak had no doubts that the Old One was strong enough to do so. Malion smiled and this time revealed fangs, pronounced canines like those of a wolf.

  Kormak raised the glass in a toast. The Old Ones did too. The wine was rich and strong and there were odd undercurrents in it. He doubted it had been created by any normal process of fermentation. It tingled on his tongue.

  “If one of your Order was to die accidentally, Sir Kormak, say of food poisoning would your people swear one of their famous vengeance oaths?”

  “Malion!” Tarina said, reproachfully.

  “It was merely a joke,” said Malion, watching Kormak closely.

  “If it was at the table of an Old One, I fear they would,” said Kormak. “Also, they have ways of determining whether our deaths are accidents of Fate or the work of enemies.”

  “Do they?” Malion asked.

  “Did you invite me here to make childish threats or to talk?” Kormak asked. “Your sister spoke earlier of Old Ones who grow tired of living. Perhaps she knows one personally.”

  Malion pushed back his chair and flexed his clawed hands. “Do you threaten me, Guardian?”

  “No more than you threatened me earlier.”

  Malion laughed. It was cold, cruel laughter without much humour in it, but the tension around the table somehow lessened. “You must be very confident of your skill with that blade,” he said.

  “Brother!” said Tarina. She looked at the two of them.

  “In answer to your question, Sir Kormak, I did not invite you here. My sister did. She is curious, shall we say, about you. She is often curious about mortal men.” He gave a salacious smile. “For myself I could have lived quite happily through this Age of the World without making the acquaintance of one of your Order.”

  He rose from the table. “But I have made your acquaintance now and, honour satisfied, I can withdraw. With your permission, Sir Kormak. With yours, sister. I shall bid you goodnight and leave you to your pleasures. I have business to be about before the Great Enemy rises once more above the horizon.”

  He rose from his chair, sketched an elaborate bow and stalked from the room, leaving Kormak and Tarina looking at each other in silence. Tarina tilted her head to one side as if listening to something so quiet no human could possibly hear it. After a few moments, she sighed and said, “He is not well. My brother has spent a lot of time in the Cursed Lands. It has changed him.”

  “The taint of the land has affected him, has it not?”

  “Even you can see it then,” she replied. “It has progressed far.”

  “I have seen others like him,” Kormak said. “Soon he will begin killing randomly and for pleasure, if he has not done so already.”

  She shrugged. “You may be right.” The implication was that she did not care.

  “Why were you at Hungerdale?” Kormak asked. She took a step closer. He was suddenly aware of her narcotic perfume and the depthless glitter of her huge eyes. The wine burned in his stomach now. A sort of madness flowed through his veins. He fought down an urge to reach out and touch a strand of her hair.

  “You are certain I was?”

  “I saw you flying overhead there, as I saw you tonight. You take the form of a great bird of prey. It is a gift that some of the Old Ones have. If it was not you it was your brother.”

  “You think you know so much about us, don’t you?” She touched his hand with hers. Her fingers were cool but the sensation was not unpleasant. His skin tingled.

  “If a man spends the whole of his life hunting certain creatures, he learns all he can about them. His life often depends on that knowledge.”

  “You see yourself as a hunter, Sir Kormak. You have something in common with my brother.”

  “You have not answered my question.”

  “I do not have to.” She shook her head.

  “But you will…” His fingers encircled her wrist. He looked down into her eyes. Her full lips parted slightly.

  She smiled and it was almost a human smile. There was something like humour in it. “I was curious as to what was going on. I often fly over the hills at night. As my brother had taken to doing of late. I sensed something unusual as I neared Hungerdale and I investigated it. And what did I find? The walking dead and a Guardian fighting them. Life is not so exciting in these hills that I could ignore that.”

  “Was your brother flying that night?”

  “Perhaps. I do not track all his comings and goings.” He could tell that she was lying and that she knew he knew it and did not care.

  “Someone is breaking open barrows,” Kormak said. “And freeing the things within them.”

  “Obviously, Sir Kormak. I doubt they free themselves. They were too well bound to begin with.”

  “The man I believe is responsible for freeing them has been a guest of yours.”

  “I would not believe everything I hear in the taverns of Elderdale, if I were you. You are liable
to be misled.”

  “I was told Morghael was here.”

  “He was but not as a guest. He begged an audience and it was granted.”

  “You talked to him then? You talked to Morghael.”

  “My brother talked with him. It was he whom Morghael asked to see. I…chanced… to overhear them.” She smiled as if she had made a joke.

  “What did they talk about?”

  “You ask many, many questions, Sir Kormak, and you offer nothing in return.”

  “Is there something you want from me?” She eyed him speculatively, leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. Her breath tasted of wine.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “There is something.”

  She took his hand and led him to her bedchamber. He allowed himself to be taken.

  Afterwards Kormak lay naked in the cold bed. His sword was still close at hand. Tarina lounged naked save for a fur stole on her side beside him. She did not look all that different from a human woman. The room looked something like the bedrooms of noblewomen he had been in. The furnishings were luxurious if archaic. There was a tapestry on the wall, depicting a silver eagle; it seemed to have been woven in some metallic thread and it shimmered in the light of the everburning lanterns.

  Tarina reached out and touched his face. It was not a gesture of affection, more like that of a woman stroking a favoured pet. Her eyes caught the light and glittered as much as the tapestry. Kormak followed her gaze. She was looking at the sword.

  “The dwarves hated my people,” she said. “Truth to tell, they hated everybody, but my people most of all. That is why they made those blades for your Order.”

  Kormak looked at her. “They had a debt to us and they made the blades so that my Order could protect our people.”

  “Is that how they tell the story now?” She seemed amused.

  “You know a different version.”

  She reached out absently and ruffled his hair as if in response; her gaze was inward looking now. “It would have been better for all the Houses of the Old Ones to have united when the Sun worshippers first appeared. But we were too concerned with our own wars and rivalries. No one could take such short-lived creatures seriously. We did not know how quickly you would breed or how you would spread across the lands. Or, in the end, how well you would learn what the dwarves taught you. That was a true betrayal.”

  “A betrayal?”

  “The dwarves were our servants once, before they broke their oaths.”

  “They claim no dwarf ever broke an oath.”

  She laughed, the tinkling of tiny silver bells. “I am sure they have found some legalistic quibbling that justifies that claim. Dwarves are good at that.”

  “They say the Children of the Moon oppressed them for millennia.”

  “They are probably right about that. They were our bondsmen. They kept our written records, one of their clans. They worked such metals we could not. They mined for us. They made things. They were always good with their hands and their tools.”

  She glanced at the blade again. “You know how good.”

  “You were going to tell me about your visitor, Morghael.”

  She smiled at him. “And you are as concerned about payment as a dwarf would be.”

  “This was not a service rendered,” he said reaching out to touch her hair. “This was a pleasure, for me at least. But I have a duty to perform.”

  “And with your sort, duty is always there.”

  “Yes.”

  She began to dress. “Very well then, let us discuss your necromancer.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THEY RE-ENTERED the dining hall. The table had been cleared. They sat on chairs on either side and looked at each other. Tarina sipped at wine. Kormak did not touch his. He had drank enough of this stuff for one night, perhaps for a lifetime.

  “He is called Morghael, the man who visited my brother,” Tarina said at last. “Morghael is not his true name of course. He is one of those who thinks that his enemies cannot curse him if they do not know his true name.”

  “He may be right,” Kormak said. “I have seen many strange things.”

  “Yes,” she said. “So often in sorcery things depend on the beliefs of those who work it or those who it is worked upon.”

  “You would know more about these things than I.” It was true too. Working magic came naturally to the Old Ones. It was in their blood.

  “What does he want and where is he going?” Kormak asked.

  “He wants to find the Palace of the Defiler and he seeks Torghul’s Mask.”

  “He seeks the Defiler’s mask?”

  “Torghul took a good deal of his strength from his mask. It was a mystical artefact of great power. It allowed him to raise the Black Sun. It gave him the strength to curse the land.”

  “Morghael knows this, of course.”

  “He believes it will make him first among the sorcerer lords of your people, that he will become a new Lord of Death, that he will be able to command the Black Sun to rise.”

  “Is that why is he opening the barrows?”

  She shook her head.

  “He is collecting the torques that Torghul gave to his chief disciples. They too are artefacts of some mystical significance. More to the point they are the key to opening the Defiler’s tomb. Morghael knew the location of the disciples’ burial places. He has opened them and acquired what he wanted.”

  “That is madness. To attempt to open Torghul’s tomb. To take control of the Black Sun. Why awake some ancient undead horror?”

  “Morghael has a vision of building a new empire with legions of the dead.”

  “What did he want with your brother?”

  “He wanted to know the location of the Palace and how he might find the entrance to the crypt.”

  “And he thought your brother would know.”

  “My brother does know. I know too. I have dwelled in this land since before ever the necromancers of Kharon came. I witnessed their rise to power. I talked with the Defiler when he walked among men.”

  That gave Kormak pause. He knew intellectually that it must be true but it was still hard to accept, that someone sitting in the same room as him had talked with a legendary ancient evil. “I saw his overthrow as well. I watched the Solari kill his disciples and overthrow his priesthood and eventually drive him back into his Palace Tomb, a massive black ziggurat in the heart of the city. I watched the Black Sun rise over Forghast.”

  She noticed his expression. “If you live long enough you witness everything or almost everything. You learn to accept it as well.”

  “Why would your brother help Morghael? He hates humans now.”

  “That is exactly why he would do so. If a new Defiler were to arise, it would cause chaos and many deaths among your people. It might bring down your kingdoms and the old wild days might return, the days when men worshipped Old Ones like gods. He longs for those times, I think.” She sounded wistful as if she too longed for them but did not want to admit it even to herself.

  She remained quiet for a very long time, as if considering something carefully then said, “It may even be he has given himself to the Shadow, as Morghael has.”

  “And you don’t care?”

  “Everything changes. Everything passes. Each must find their own path.” She moved her head to one side and suddenly he was reminded of the movements of a bird of prey, something fierce and wild and predatory, completely lacking in any connection with humanity. He knew then that she did not see anything wrong in what her brother had done. She was looking at it from a point of view completely alien to him, that of a bored immortal seeking amusement, one who could simply fly away from the consequences of her actions. She did not care whether the Defiler returned or her brother served the Shadow. It would not affect her one way or the other.

  “You have not yet showed me where the Defiler’s Palace is,’ he said.

  The servant entered unsummoned. He was carrying two rolled up scrolls that must have been maps.
>
  “That is a matter easily rectified,” she said, untying the ribbons that bound one and rolling it flat on the table.

  She stabbed at a point on the map with one fingernail. It seemed longer now than it had earlier and more like a talon. “This is Elderdale.” She indicated a point further north. “This is all that remains of the Defiler’s capital.”

  She moved her finger to sketch a line to another place marked as a town on the map. “These are the ruins of Forghast City…to reach them you must pass into the Cursed Lands. That is not an easy journey if you cannot fly. The Shadow is strong there and its minions are many.”

  She rose and yawned. It was a parody of a human gesture. “It has been a pleasure, mortal, but I have business to be about.”

  He had been dismissed.

  Kormak trudged back down from the Keep in the rain.

  The lights of the Inn blazed below and he walked towards it, chilled and weary. As he approached he heard the sound of raucous laughter and singing. He stepped through the doorway and was surprised to see some of the Tinkers playing on the balaika and the flute while men and women danced and Shade and his one-eyed companion looked on.

  Aisha and Sir Brandon sat by the common room fire. Brandon’s sword was propped up against the hearth. His size, his weapon and the wolf lounging on the rug was enough to make even the most boisterous of the revellers keep their distance. Shade strolled over to them.

  “I am surprised to see you back so soon,” he said. “Most men who go up to the Keep stay the night at least. Some never come back at all.”

  There was something insinuating about his manner. Kormak stared and the dark man was the first to look away. He glanced into the fire then at Aisha and said, “Give us another song! The lads will be glad to hear it and I would be grateful too.”

  Aisha shook her head but looked pleased to be asked.

  “The lady is a very fine singer and knows how to do the old ballads right,” said Shade by way of explanation. “You missed that earlier, but I suppose you found other ways to keep yourself entertained.”

  Brandon took a swig from a tankard of ale and said, “What exactly does he mean by that?”