“I really do not like you, Sir Kormak,” said Malion.
Kormak beheaded him. Flickering sparks danced from his form. His flesh melted into a black pool and then bubbled away. The others looked at Kormak appalled.
“He had surrendered,” said Brandon. He looked appalled. “You took his parole.”
“He was tainted by the Shadow, he had broken the Law” said Kormak. “He would kill and kill again.”
“You are not a nice man,” said Lucas. He shrugged. “But I am glad you are here.”
“Odds of hundreds to one are not good odds,” said Kormak. “Let’s take a look at those wounds now.”
He leaned forward. Brandon did not look well.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“WHY DID YOU go and interfere?” Brandon asked. “I had him right where I wanted. He fell right into my trap.”
The armour on his chest and upper arms was tattered. His flesh was shredded. He was bleeding badly. Aisha knelt beside him. She had produced some herbal ointment from within her bag and was applying it to the wound. Kormak watched her. She seemed to know what she was doing.
“They say the claws of Old Ones are infected sometimes,” Aisha said. She had taken a spare shirt and was ripping it into bandages. There was still a lot of blood flowing from Brandon’s mangled flesh.
“The orcs gave me worse,” he said. He looked pale and grim. Kormak wondered whether he was going to make it. He had seen men die from smaller scratches inflicted by Old Ones.
Somewhere out in the night, thunder rumbled. “What was that?” Lucas asked.
A cold wind blew, scattering fragments of the mist, bringing with it a strange smell like ozone and sulphur and rot. A loud crackling hiss sounded. Off in the darkness, black lightning danced above the city, flickering from the ground to the sky in an eerie reversal of a normal storm. All of the bolts converged on one point. That point grew darker and expanded with every strike, at first a small black dot, growing.
“Morghael has opened the final doorway.” Aisha looked at Kormak. “It seems we have run out of time. The Black Sun is rising again.”
“I can still ride,” said Sir Brandon. “Get me on horseback and let’s go.”
Kormak considered just leaving him there but that did not seem either fair or wise. Aisha finished tying off his wounds. She gave him some herbs to chew on to kill the pain.
They rode through the dark streets of the dead city with a foul wind from hell blowing into their faces. The buildings shimmered oddly as the black sphere above the ziggurat grew in power. Streamers of shadow leapt from it, surged outwards, settled into the bones of the long dead. They stirred and twitched.
Spinal columns slithered like snakes along the street. Bones clattered together, meshing like interlocking fingers. Skulls rolled as if tumbled by the black wind.
The sediment of bone and desiccated flesh scattered over the city was becoming imbued with a fearful animation.
The skeleton of an ancient legionary, still wearing his breastplate and armed with his short stabbing sword, rose in front of them. Kormak’s horse reared. Brandon’s enraged warhorse attacked, smashing the animated skeleton to the ground with his hooves. Still the old bones tried to rise. Kormak lashed out with his blade. It blazed in his hands. The bones burned with black flames where he hit it, the oily shadows slithered away as if trying to escape its burning touch.
Kormak gentled his horse. The others stared at him, their eyes wide with panic.
From all around came the sound of moving bones, of the ancient dead coming awake into an eerie parody of life. The defenders of the city and those who had slain them alike were rising. Kormak wondered if they were too late. If all the bones were reanimated, Morghael would have an invincible army, far too many to be overcome. All around ghouls howled. It was a terrifying sound and the most frightening thing about it was the fear the cry contained. The ghouls were fleeing the city.
Ahead of them now, skeletons were piling up in the street, a mountain of skulls and spines and limbs, binding themselves together into a massive, tangle. Long limbs of linked bones and vertebrae thrashed, a skeletal kraken with a central mound of skulls. A massive column of knitted bones the size of a tree trunk smashed down on the ground next to Kormak.
He gestured to the others to go left, to find another street to go round the obstruction. They did not have the time to fight it even if they could overcome it, which was far from certain.
The monster pushed itself upright, becoming an awful parody of the human form, a knitted mesh of bone, skulls, vertebrae and withered flesh, lumbering along with great slow-seeming strides that were yet capable of keeping up with a galloping horse, or of overhauling it.
A massive arm, ending in a spiked, mace-like fist smashed into the ground beside Brandon’s horse.
“Ride on! Ride on!” Kormak called. Desperately the others followed. The gigantic monster wheeled to pursue them but a great dragon-like beast wrought from fused skeletons emerged from a side-street and sprang upon it. They fought in a great clatter, trying to absorb each other’s very substance.
All around was roaring chaos as the city sprang to a horrible kind of animation. All the old bones, all of the old corpses, were being brought back to life by the power of the Black Sun. Not all of them were reassembling in their original forms. Skulls floated surrounded by cloaks of shadow. Things that resembled man-sized crabs made from the contents of an ossuary scuttled around them.
There was no rhyme nor reason to their actions. Skeletons danced and fought and ran aimlessly through the street. Monsters made from bone fought until they had smashed their opponents and then integrated their components into themselves. A horrible mating seemed to take place when some met and a larger amalgamation of boneyard junk moved away from the spot.
At the moment, there was no sense of any intelligence guiding the evil magic. All was a maelstrom of dark energy and chaotic activity. Kormak suspected it was only a matter of time before Morghael took control.
His Elder Sign amulets glowed brilliantly. They gave off heat as they strove to protect him from the shadowy beams of the Dark Sun.
They rode into a square, where a company of animated corpses with skin like parchment were assembling around a dried up ancient fountain. Its spout was a leering death’s head. They swept by the monsters, heading towards the great black ziggurat over which a black sun glowed through the night’s darkness.
“We need to find Morghael and stop this before it’s too late,” shouted Kormak. Above them the black ziggurat loomed. Dark lightning flickered across the sky. Thunder spoke in the voice of an angry god.
Ahead of them a great archway rose out of the side of the pyramid. Reflections of the black lightning flickered on its surface.
Kormak could see massive stone doors had swung open. He knew without having to be told that they had been closed until recently. A hideous stench came through them, rising from deep below. All around them greenish lights pulsed, long chains of sickly illumination ran into the depths of the building, shadows dancing in time to their movement.
They dismounted and led their horses into the building. At least here, at this moment, it seemed quiet. No skeletons danced. The light of the Black Sun did not shine into the place directly beneath. Beads of foam dropped from Shae's mouth. His fur stood on end. Brandon’s face looked awful, contorted with pain. Lucas’s features were blank, like those of a man who has seen too much too quickly, whose mind has abdicated control of the body to instinctive responses. Kormak had seen that before in those called on to face ancient horrors.
“Morghael has opened the way. What will you do now, Guardian?” Aisha asked.
“I will kill him.”
The ziggurat shivered, as if it has been hit by a giant hammer.
“This whole pyramid is a focus of power and he has woken it.”
“Can you stop what is happening?” Kormak asked.
She moved her hands through the air, made an intricate gesture. Shadowy energy curdl
ed on her finger tips forming an evil parody of an Elder Sign. “The scale of the energy here is too much for me to control. Whatever magic I try here is likely to be corrupted.”
“What were you doing?”
“A divination.”
“Learn anything?”
“There is something wrong with the magic Morghael is casting, I think. The pyramid is old. The spells have become eroded. I am not sure anyone can control what my brother has wakened, not even him.”
“We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” said Kormak. “Take the oil flasks and the lanterns with you. We’re going to need them.”
The others took the stuff from their saddlebags. Brandon offered up a prayer to the Holy Sun and collapsed. His face was white as a corpse’s. His eyes were feverish. He tried to push himself up but could not. It looked like the wounds the Old One had given him had finally taken their toll.
Kormak offered him his hand. Brandon clutched it and tried to pull himself upright but his grip was weak and his legs gave way before he was halfway to his feet. He fell in a clatter of metal.
“Damn,” he said. Kormak saw the marks of death appearing on his friend’s bluff face. “Leave me. Get the bastard who killed Olaf. Tell Gena and the kids, I’m sorry, I lo….”
“I told you to go back,” Kormak said, but Brandon did not answer. “But you had to prove how brave you were. And you did…”
A cold fist clutched at Kormak’s heart and cold rage filled his heart. Aisha tugged at his shoulder. She said, “We need to go. Now!”
Lucas picked up the flask of oil that Brandon had dropped. “She’s right.”
Kormak nodded grimly. His sword was in his hand now. Anything that got in his way was going to straight to hell.
They moved off down the revealed tunnel into the dank, shadowy interior of the Tomb Palace. There was a smell of corruption in the air that reminded Kormak of that beneath a barrow only a hundred times worse and there was a feeling of something else, of ancient evil and leashed power as strong as anything he had ever faced. The walls here were made of old stone peeking out from behind peeling plasterwork. Frescoes on that showed scenes of ancient hunts. Some of the creatures being hunted bore a resemblance to men. Skeletons danced through graveyards. The moon watched with her cold silver eye.
The people depicted in the frescoes wore rich clothing, dark in colour, of an unfamiliar cut. The nobles wore masks of silver that hid their faces. Some of those masks had been moulded to their features, some of them were little more than blank ovals, some of them were downright monstrous. Kormak knew he was looking on the Death Lords of Kharon.
The corridor was a ramp sloping down. There was only darkness ahead of them until that was dispersed by their lanterns. A hot wind blew from the depths, carrying the sound of strange chanting.
They came to a crossroads. Kormak looked at Aisha. She stroked Shae's head. The wolf whimpered uneasily but it picked the rampway running directly ahead, straight down into the gloom.
As they ran Kormak tried to imagine the last journey that had been made down this corridor before today. It would have been the acolytes of the Defiler carrying the great necromancer down to his tomb before being sealed in forever. Outside their world was burning and the Solari rampaged through their city. He wondered if they could have even have heard it. Judging by the thickness of those exterior doors, he doubted it.
His heart started to beat faster. He was close to his goal. Soon he would find the necromancer he had pursued for so many days and who had caused the Northlands so much trouble. Soon, one way or another, this thing would be over. He’d have vengeance for Olaf and Brandon.
Lucas held the lantern in one hand and his long knife in the other. Aisha held her staff as if she was expecting to deflect a blow. Shae looked as if at any moment they would need to force him to take another stride downward.
Ahead of him, he could see lights and silhouetted against those lights were humanoid figures. Blades glittered in their hands. It seemed like Morghael had anticipated their arrival and sent some of his disciples to greet them.
As he got closer he could see the figures were robed in black and masked in silver. They had long cold blades in their hands and they looked as if they knew how to use them. Kormak was almost grateful. He was in the mood to cut someone down.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE ACOLYTES RACED closer, brandishing their curved silver swords. They were lean men, stringy and muscular but they looked as if they still belonged among the living. Lucas put down his lantern and aimed an arrow at one. It feathered the man through the throat. Aisha stood beside him, flask of oil in one of her hands, lantern in the other. Shae crouched at her feet.
Kormak stepped forward and slashed the leading acolyte across the throat. Another blow opened the stomach of a second. A third aimed a blow at his head. Kormak ducked under it and slashed the back of the acolyte’s calf, cutting a tendon. As the man fell, Kormak kicked him in the head. He struck again and again and within heartbeats had cut his way through. The last of the acolytes fled. Lucas put an arrow into his back and Kormak overhauled him as he fell. His blow took off the man’s head.
“Look out!” shouted Lucas. Something massive lumbered towards Kormak. He caught the scent of embalming fluid and strange spices, saw glittering green eyes looking out of an ancient bandaged face. A bony fist smashed into his ribs and sent him flying. He let himself ride the force of the blow and land rolling. Kormak knew instinctively that this was the creature Lucas and his brothers had met on the road outside Hungerdale.
Lucas fired two arrows into the monster but it did not slow it down. Kormak leapt forward, driving his blade into the undead thing’s breast. It burned, bandages catching fire, sere flesh taking flame, like summer dried grass taking a spark. Kormak drove the creature backwards, slicing its dead flesh with every blow, driving it back into the chamber from which it had emerged.
Massive stone doors had swung open to reveal a huge chamber. In the centre was a large plinth on which rested a massive open sarcophagus. On the floor, lay the lid. It had been carved to represent a masked man. Standing beside it was a robed and hooded figure. He wore a silver mask and on his arm were three glowing torcs. Kormak knew he had found Morghael at last.
Overhead a green disk glowed, the moon and skull symbol of Kharon reproduced in mystical flames as wide across as the body of a tall man. All the pulsing green energy from the pyramid seemed to flow into it. Straight overhead was a massive shaft. A column of shadow rose from the symbol flowing upwards to the Black Sun. Morghael turned to face Kormak. “So the Old One did not lie,” he said. His voice was cold and cruel and confident. “You have caught up with me, Guardian, but too late. I have the Mask of the Defiler and all his power and knowledge will be mine. The Dark Sun is rising and soon I will have a new army with which to conquer Taurea. I will have my revenge on those who defeated me.”
“You’ll soon be as dead as the Defiler,” Kormak said, racing forward.
The mage stepped back behind the carved coffin and spoke words in the tongue of the Old Ones. The air crackled with energy. A cold light rippled across the room. A monstrous, wizened arm emerged from the coffin to be followed by a giant body. The Defiler’s corpse emerged from its tomb. In one hand it held a long black blade, carved with vile runes. It interposed itself between Kormak and Morghael.
Kormak struck. The liche raised its blade. Its movement was jerky but its speed was sight-blurring. The two blades came together with a hellish clangour.
“Torghul was a mighty king in his time,” Morghael said. “The greatest warrior of his age. His long sleep has not made him any weaker.”
The black blade flickered towards Kormak. The Guardian barely managed to leap clear. Torghul was stronger and faster by far than any wight had been. “This is only the beginning,” Morghael said. “There is a whole city of corpses out there, a nation. I will build an army great enough to overcome kingdoms. The whole of the Northlands will kneel before me. I will defy
even death itself.”
The mask glowed with its own internal light, glowing bright as the moon; against the background of Morghael’s black-hooded robes it seemed like a disembodied, demonic face just floating there.
Morghael chanted and magical energies swirled all around him. The lids of the upright sarcophagi lining the walls sprang open, more tall animated corpses emerged, an honour guard of the walking dead, to accompany an undying king through all eternity. Each held a blade that was a replica of the one the long dead king bore. Each wore a torque that was like a lesser version of the ones that emblazoned Torghul’s own arm. In the sockets of every skull face witch fires burned. With great pacing strides they moved towards Kormak.
Torghul himself loomed over Kormak. His blade descended with all the force of a thunderbolt. Kormak sprang to one side. The black sword sparked where it hit the floor, sending chips of stone flying. The Guardian did not want to think about how strong his foe must be to do that. His movement brought him closer to the rest of the animated corpses. They lashed out at him with their blades and it was all he could do to keep himself alive, dancing among the lashing swords. Morghael kept chanting.
From all around the great sunken palace came the sound of coffin lids being thrown open, of the dead emerging from their final resting places. Kormak sensed his doom approaching.
He moved like lightning but there were too many of his foes and he could not avoid them forever. Already he was starting to feel tired. From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of grey and heard a fearsome howling. Shae leapt on one of the walking corpses and tugged it off balance. It fell sprawling and started to rise while the wolf worried at its throat. Something flew headlong at the nearest liche, splashing it. Aisha was tossing the contents of the flasks they carried at the walking dead.
At least she had remembered the plan, Kormak thought. The question was whether it would work now. A blade slashed out of nowhere. He moved too slowly and it cut his arm, even through the armour. Pain seared his muscles. Instinctively he lashed out with a counterblow. The dwarf-forged blade cut through dried, mummified flesh and severed a limb. Its owner kept coming. The separated hand crawled like a great spider towards him.