The Stealer of Souls (49 page)

With yells of terror, his companions discovered the same thing. These leaves were being directed and he knew where the direction came from—the tree itself. He clambered up the remaining steps, fighting off the leaves which swarmed like locusts around him. With grim intention he began hacking at the trunk which gave out an angry groaning and the branches sought to reach him. He slashed them away and then plunged Stormbringer deep into the tree. Sods of earth spattered upwards as the roots threshed. The tree screamed and began to heel over towards him as if, in death, it sought to kill him also. He wrenched at Stormbringer which sucked greedily at the sentient tree’s lifestuff, failed to tug the sword out and leapt aside as the tree crashed down over the steps, barely missing him. One branch slashed his face and drew blood. He gasped and staggered, feeling the life draining from him.

He stumbled to the fallen tree and saw that the wood was suddenly dead and the remaining leaves brown and shriveled. “Quickly,” he gasped as the three came up, “shift this thing. My sword’s beneath and without it I’m dead!”

Swiftly they set to work and rolled the tree over so that Elric could weakly grasp the hilt of Stormbringer still imbedded therein. As he did so he almost screamed, experiencing a sensation of ecstatic power as the tree’s energy filled him, pulsed through him so that he felt like a god himself. He laughed, as if possessed by a demon, and the others looked at him in astonishment. “Come, my friends, follow me. I can deal with a million such trees now!”

He leapt up the steps as another shoal of leaves came towards him. Ignoring their bites, he went straight for the second elder and drove his sword at its centre. Again, this tree screamed.

“Dyvim Slorm!” he shouted, drunk on its life-force. “Do as I do—let your sword drink a few such souls and we’re invincible!”

“Such power is scarcely palatable,” Rackhir said, brushing dead leaves from his body as Elric withdrew his sword again and ran towards the next. The elders grew thicker here and they bent their branches to reach him, looming over him, their branches like fingers seeking to pluck him apart.

Dyvim Slorm, a trifle less spontaneously, imitated Elric’s method of dispatching the tree-creatures and soon he too became filled with the stolen souls of the demons imprisoned within the elders and his wild laugh joined Elric’s as, like fiendish woodsmen, they attacked again and again, each victory lending them more strength so that Moonglum and Rackhir looked at each other in wonder and fear to see such a terrible change come over their friends.

But there was no denying that their methods were effective against the elders. Soon they looked back at a waste of fallen, blackened trees spreading down the mountain side.

All the old, unholy fervour of the dead kings of Melniboné was in the faces of the two kinsmen as they sang old battle-songs, their twin blades joining the harmony to send up a disturbing melody of doom and malevolence. His lips parted to reveal his white teeth, his red eyes blazing with dreadful fire, his milk-white hair streaming in the burning wind, Elric flung up his sword to the sky and turned to confront his companions.

“Now, friends, see how the ancient ones of Melniboné conquered man and demon to rule the world for ten thousand years!”

Moonglum thought that he merited the name of Wolf, gained in the West long since. All the chaos-force that was now within him had gained complete control over every other part of him. He realized that Elric was no longer split in his loyalties, there was no conflict in him now. His ancestors’ blood dominated him and he appeared as they must have done ages since when all other races of mankind fled before them, fearing their magnificence, their malice and their evil. Dyvim Slorm seemed equally as possessed. Moonglum sent up a heartfelt prayer to whatever kindly gods remained in the universe that Elric was his ally and not his enemy.

They were close to the top now, Elric and his cousin springing ahead with superhuman bounds. The steps terminated at the mouth of a gloomy tunnel and into the darkness rushed the pair, laughing and calling to one another. Less speedily, Moonglum and Rackhir followed, the Red Archer nocking an arrow to his bow.

Elric peered into the gloom, his head swimming with the power that seemed to burst from every pore of his body. He heard the clatter of armoured feet coming towards him and, as they approached, he realized that these warriors were mere human beings. Though nearly a hundred and fifty, they did not daunt him. As the first group rushed at him, he blocked blows easily and struck them down, each soul taken making only a fraction of difference to the vitality already in him. Shoulder to shoulder stood the kinsmen, butchering the soldiers like so many unarmed children. It was dreadful to the eyes of Moonglum and Rackhir as they came up to witness the flood of blood which soon made the tunnel slippery. The stench of death in the close confines became too much as Elric and Dyvim Slorm moved past the first of the fallen and carried the attack to the rest.

Rackhir groaned: “Though they be enemies and the servants of those we fight, I cannot bear to witness such slaughter. We are not needed here, friend Moonglum. These are demons waging war, not men!”

“Aye,” agreed Moonglum, disquieted. They broke out into sunlight again and saw the castle ahead, the remaining warriors reassembling as Elric and Dyvim Slorm advanced menacingly with malevolent joy towards them.

The air rang with the sounds of shouting and steel clashing. Rackhir aimed an arrow at one of the warriors and launched it to take the man in the left eye. “I’ll see that a few of them get a cleaner death,” he muttered, nocking another arrow to the string.

As Elric and his cousin disappeared into the enemy ranks, others, sensing perhaps that Rackhir and Moonglum were less of a danger, rushed at the two. Moonglum found himself engaging three warriors and discovered that his sword seemed extraordinarily light and gave off a sweet, clear tone as it met the warriors’ weapons, turning them aside readily. The sword supplied him with no energy, but it did not blunt as it might have and the heavier swords could not force it down so easily. Rackhir had expended all his arrows in what had been an act of mercy. He engaged the enemy with his sword and killed two, taking Moonglum’s third opponent from behind with an upward thrust into the man’s side and through to his heart.

Then they went with little stomach into the main fray and saw that already the turf was littered with a great many corpses. Rackhir cried to Elric: “Stop! Elric—let
us
finish these. You have no need to take their souls. We can kill them with more natural methods!”

But Elric laughed and carried on his work. As he finished another warrior and there were no others in the immediate area, Rackhir seized him by the arm. “Elric—”

Stormbringer turned in Elric’s hand, howling its satiated glee and clove down at Rackhir. Seeing his fate, the Red Archer sobbed and sought to avoid the blow. But it landed in his shoulder blade and sheared down to his breastbone. “Elric!” he cried. “Not
my
soul, too!”

And so died the hero Rackhir the Red Archer, famous in the Eastlands as the saviour of Tanelorn. Cloven by a treacherous blade. By the friend whose life he had saved, long ago when they had first met near the city of Ameeron.

And Elric laughed until realization came and he tugged his sword away though it was too late. The stolen energy still pulsed in him, but his great grief no longer gave it the same control over him. Tears streamed down Elric’s tortured face and a great, racking groan came from him.

“Ah, Rackhir—will it ever cease?”

On opposite sides of the slain-strewed field, his two remaining companions stood regarding him. Dyvim Slorm had done with killing, but only because there was none left to kill. He gasped, staring around him half in bewilderment. Moonglum glared at Elric with horrified eyes which yet held a gleam of sympathy for his friend, for he knew well Elric’s doom and knew that the life of one close to Elric was coveted by Stormbringer.

“There was no gentler hero than Rackhir,” he said, “no man more desirous of peace and order than him.” Then he shuddered.

Elric raised himself to his feet and turned to look at the huge castle of granite and bluestone which waited in enigmatic silence as if for his next action. On the battlements of the topmost turret he could make out a figure which could only be the giant.

“I swear by your stolen soul, Rackhir, that what you wished to come to pass
shall
come to pass, though I, a thing of Chaos, achieve it. Law will triumph and Chaos will be driven back! Armed with sword and shield of Chaos forging I shall do battle with every fiend of hell if needs be. Chaos was the indirect cause of your death. And Chaos will be punished for it. But first, we must take the shield.”

Dyvim Slorm, not realizing quite what had happened, shouted in exultation to his kinsman. “Elric—let’s visit the sad giant now!”

But Moonglum, coming up to gaze down on the ruined body of Rackhir, murmured: “Aye, Chaos is the cause, Elric. I’ll join in your vengeance with a will so long as,” he shuddered, “I’m spared from the attentions of your hellblade.”

Together, three abreast, they marched through the open portal of Mordaga’s castle and were immediately in a rich and barbarically furnished hall.

“Mordaga!” Elric cried. “We have come to fulfill a prophecy!”

They waited impatiently, until at last a bulky figure came through a great arch at the end of the vast hall. Mordaga was as tall as two men, but his back was bent. He had long, curling black hair and was clad in a deep blue smock belted at the waist. Upon his great feet were simple leather sandals. His black eyes were full of a sorrow such as Moonglum had only seen before in Elric’s eyes.

Upon the sad giant’s arm was a round shield which bore upon it the eight amber arrows of Chaos. It was of a silvery green colour and very beautiful. He had no other weapons.

“I know the prophecy,” he said in a voice that was like a lonely, roaring wind. “But still I must seek to avert it. Will you take the shield and leave me in peace, human? I do not want death.”

Elric felt a kind of sympathy for sad Mordaga and he knew something of what the fallen god must feel at this moment. “The prophecy says death,” he said softly.

“Take the shield,” Mordaga lifted it off his mighty arm and held it towards Elric. “Take the shield and change fate this once.”

Elric nodded. “I will.”

With a tremendous sigh, the giant deposited the Chaos Shield upon the floor.

“For thousands of years I have lived in the shadow of that prophecy,” he said, straightening his back. “Now, though I die in old age, I shall die in peace and, though once I did not think so, I shall welcome such a death after all this time, I think.”

“The whole world seems to sigh for death,” Elric replied, “but you may not die naturally, for Chaos comes and will engulf you as it will engulf everything unless I can stop it. But at least, it seems, you’ll be in a more philosophical frame of mind to meet it.”

“Farewell and I thank you,” said the giant, turning, and he plodded back towards the entrance through which he had come.

As Mordaga disappeared, Moonglum dashed forward on fleet feet and followed him through the entrance before either Elric or Dyvim Slorm could cry out or stop him.

Then they heard a single shriek that seemed to echo away into eternity, a crash which shook the hall and then the footfall returning.

Moonglum reappeared in the entrance, a bloody sword in his hand.

“It was murder,” he said simply. “I admit it. I took him in the back before he was aware of it. It was a good, quick death and he died whilst happy. Moreover, it was a better death than any his minions tried to mete to us. It was murder, but it was necessary in my eyes.”

“Why?” said Elric, still mystified.

Grimly, Moonglum continued: “He had to perish as Fate decreed. We are servants of Fate now, Elric, and to divert it in any small way is to hamper its aims. But more than that, it was the beginning of my own vengeance taking. If Mordaga had not surrounded himself with such a host, Rackhir would not have died.”

Elric shook his head. “Blame me for that, Moonglum. The giant should not have perished for my own sword’s crime.”

“Someone had to perish,” said Moonglum steadfastly, “and since the prophecy contained Mordaga’s death, he was the one. Who else, here, could I kill, Elric?”

Elric turned away. “I wish it were I,” he sighed. He looked down at the great, round shield with its shifting amber arrows and its mysterious silver-green colour. He picked it up easily enough and placed it on his arm. It virtually covered his body from chin to ankles.

“Let’s make haste and leave this place of death and misery. The lands of Ilmiora and Vilmir await our aid—if they have not already wholly fallen to Chaos!”

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

It was in the mountains separating the Sighing Desert from the Weeping Waste that they first learned of the fate of the last of the Young Kingdoms. They came upon a party of six tired warriors led by Lord Voashoon, Zarozinia’s father.

“What has happened?” Elric asked anxiously. “Where is Zarozinia?”

“I know not if she’s lost, dead or captured, Elric. Our continent has fallen to Chaos.”

“Did you not seek for her?” Elric accused.

The old man shrugged. “My son, I have looked upon so much horror these past days that I am now bereft of emotion. I care for nothing but a quick release from all this. The day of mankind is over on the Earth. Go no further than here, for even the Weeping Waste is beginning to change before the crawling tide of Chaos. It is hopeless.”

“Hopeless! No! We still live—perhaps Zarozinia still lives. Did you hear nothing of her fate?”

“Only a rumour that Jagreen Lern had taken her aboard the leading Chaos ship.”

“She is on the seas?”

“No—those cursed craft sail land as well as sea, if it can be told apart these days. It was they who attacked Karlaak, with a vast horde of mounted men and infantry following behind. Confusion prevails—you’ll find nothing but your death back there, my son.”