The Black Tower (27 page)

Ghul had won.  Even with the loss of the ice cannon, the rest of the war machines and the Black Army’s superior numbers had turned the tide of battle to their favor.

To think these ridiculous creatures actually beat us in the Rift War.  Pathetic.

Of course, things had been different then – Jlantria and Den’nar had both commanded legions of Veilwardens, seasoned and battle-hardened mages acclimated to the rigors of combat, not the soft aristocrats the Empires peddled out now.  Three decades of recovering from the War had left humanity fragile and weak, and even continued battle against the disorganized Tuscar hordes to the south had done little to prepare them for the coming storm. 

Ghul’s well-trained Black Army and their engines of destruction would sweep across the land like wildfire.  Even the White Dragon’s trolls would be of little use, for they died beneath the spike launchers just as easily as any others. 

The Voss ordered the war chariot to accelerate.  The men on the lower deck snapped their chained whips and sent the
drad’mont
charging, and the thunderous vehicle tore through the human ranks.  Everyone in its path was crushed into grisly anonymity beneath the massive wheels.  Ghul stood up top with a handful of elite Tuscar warriors and cast spears and stones from behind the bladed deck shields, skewering enemies on the ground.  Sharp wires weighted with metal and stones were cast out to drag through the melee and snare men around the necks or torsos; those unlucky enough to survive the wires were dragged behind the chariot, their flesh ground away by the sand as they were forcefully pulled in the vehicle’s wake. 

Ghul saw the Jlantrian commander die, and he’d already received word of the Den’nari commander’s death at the hands of his artillery.  The enemy troops were done, and with little magical support or cavalry remaining the battle was as good as finished. 

The field was thick with bodies and torn steel.  Everything smelled of blood and intestines, piss and fear.  The noise gradually died down, and the clang of steel and battle cries was soon replaced by wails of suffering. 

There was nowhere to move on the sands south of Corinth without wading ankle-deep in remains, and up on the north ridge there was still some combat going on where the humans stubbornly refused to retreat in spite of repeated bombardments by the spike tower.  Ghul stood on the deck of the chariot and watched as the Jlantrians released another hail of arrows, cutting down many of his mercenaries and Tuscars as they swarmed in around the last of the valiant White Dragon soldiers. 

Ghul led the final strike force himself, commanding a squad of Tuscar elites.  It was slow and tedious work, and it took the assistance of one of the Iron Eggs to blast away a human catapult so the Black Army units could close the gap; even then, the humans turned their position on the ridge to their advantage, and they dug in with far more efficacy than he’d thought them capable of.  Once they broke the lines Ghul exacted vengeance on a dozen archers himself, cleaving their heads from their torsos with his massive broadsword or smashing them to bloody meat beneath his boots.

Losses on the Black Army’s side were many, but his ranks could always be replaced – there was no shortage of human scum willing to sell out their own kind for money, and the Tuscars in both the Black Hills and the Reach were enumerate.  The loss of the ice cannon hurt more than any living casualties – Ghul had personally overseen the reconstruction of the artifact – but there were more to be found in the forgotten siege-cities beneath Malzaria’s surface, and while the setback was unfortunate the weapon
could
be replaced.

We have failed
, said a voice inside his head.  By the J’ann, he hated the Arkan.

Jaendrel materialized, his tall and lanky frame bent in pain.  The bottom half of his body dripped pale blood and dangled sinew and sickly tissue, and Ghul noted with some surprise that the monster had been torn in half.  Its long teeth were gritted in pain and its eyes were wide with panic.  Only its command of the Veil and its telekinetic powers were keeping it alive and above the ground.

“
You
failed,” Ghul said in a deep growl.  “The humans have been routed.”

But the gate to Chul Gaerog has been destroyed
, Jaendrel hissed telepathically. 
It is gone, and Mezias Crinn is dead.

Ghul was surprised.  He’d liked Crinn, where few others in the Cabal had.  The man had a sense of ambition and a streak of abject cruelty rarely seen in his race, and Ghul respected the human for it.  Regardless, it was probably best he died now, for eventually Ghul would have been forced to do the deed himself. 

But the loss of the portal
to the Black Tower was unacceptable.  They’d risked much to get so far, and they’d brought the Black Army into the open precisely because they knew a show of force would be necessary to retain control of Corinth once access to the Blood Queen’s demesne was opened.  Now, they were an army without an objective.

Ghul walked to the edge of the ridge.  The Black Army soldiers were in the long and bloody process of eliminating the wounded: there were no prisoners to speak of, and those few Jlantrian or Den’nari scum who’d thrown down their arms were thrown down themselves. 

He looked into the valley and across the bloody field of battle.  Broken bodies and broken weapons were everywhere, horse corpses, drifts of smoke, fogs of blood and ash.  Hard winds out of the west carried the stench of ripe cadavers.  Ghul shook his head as anger built in his heart – what had moments ago felt like such a vital victory suddenly seemed vapid and meaningless.

“So what now?” Ghul growled.  He watched the Arkan with disgust and contempt – he had nothing but loathing for the entire race, and he was happy to see the telepath dangling there in pain. 

We have no access to Chul Gaerog
, Jaendrel thought. 
All our plans have fallen apart.  Without the Dream Witch or agents inside we have no way of seizing control of the Blood Queen’s power.

Ghul stood silently.  The sounds of the dying faded, and his eyes were locked on the dark shadow of Corinth to the north.

“There is still one more Skullborn,” he said slowly.  “The Witch Mother of the Chul.”

Yes....
Jaendrel hissed. 
But we have to find a way to enter the Black Tower...

“We mobilize the rest of the Black Army,” Ghul said, not a request or a suggestion, but a decree.  “There are hordes waiting in the Heartfang Wastes.  If the Dream Witch is inside, she might have inadvertently breached Chul Gaerog’s seals.  Perhaps we can take the Tower by force.”

The rest of the Cabal must be consulted
, Jaendrel said, his mental voice uneasy. 
The forces in the Wastes are meant...

“Then consult them!” Ghul barked. “We have to seize this chance while we can!  Otherwise, dispatch agents to find more Scarstones!”

The chances of locating another set of intact Scarstones were next to impossible, and they both knew it.  Ghul smiled – Jaendrel knew he was right, but the bastard would never admit it.  Getting things done was one way to advance in the ranks of the Cabal.  Another was to murder your rivals.  Ghul wasn’t quite there yet, especially since Crinn had just gotten himself killed, but if it came to that there was little question who was next on his list. 

What of Corinth?
Jaendrel asked.

“Forget Corinth,” Ghul said coldly.  “There’s no point in taking it now.  We’ll use the
cutgates
to return to Ironclaw Keep.  The Jlantrians will surely come seeking some measure of revenge.”

That is dangerous.  You’re inviting them to attack you.

“Such as they did today?” Ghul said with a sadistic smile.  Dank wind scoured the giant’s black flesh.  He held his massive sword before him as he watched the ruins to the north.  “We have the power, Jaendrel.  Our time is now.”  He turned and regarded the dying telepath.  “We must find the Witch Mother.”

There is much that can go wrong
, Jaendrel thought after a long pause.

“And much that can go
right
,” Ghul said.

Jaendrel dissipated in a stream of black smoke, leaving Ghul alone on the ridge.  The giant’s thoughts drifted beyond Corinth, beyond Ironclaw Keep and finding the Witch Mother, and to his ultimate goal: to seize Meledrakkar.  He coveted control of his home more than anything else, more than all of the power or gold or magic he could obtain in Chul Gaerog.  It had been far too long since he’d laid eyes on his birthplace.  He would return to Meledrakkar and be welcomed as a hero.  If not, he’d take it by force.

Ghul steeled himself.  The road ahead was long, but for the first time in many years he felt a sense of hope.  The war had begun.

She gazed into the depths of Chul Gaerog, a labyrinth of stone and steel.  It stood miles high and ran miles deep, burrowing deep into the crust of the Heartfang Wastes like a sick worm escaping the light.  Its vast halls were filled with bones and shattered bodies, cold chambers and mad experiments locked in iron cages, areas of magic so corrupt that if a human were to breathe that vile air they’d be dead before they even hit the floor.  The Veil pulsed and pushed through the dark corridors like diseased blood pumping through a dying man’s body.

Every wall was crumbling – the metal support beams and walkways had deteriorated over the years, and the structure groaned beneath its own weight.  Shadows hung as thick as cobwebs.

She heard voices in those halls, lonely and forlorn whispers.  They echoed up from the depths, the cries of the lost, and they’d go on screaming until the end of time.

The deeper she went, the darker it became.  She delved deep into bitter realms that had never seen light, and never would.  The blackness was thick, a choking presence like pressing through hot mud. 

Deeper still she came across black pools of oil and blood.  Headless corpses floated in corrupted waters, torn apart by rot.  The slimy cadavers bobbed and slithered in the murk like a host of rancid eels.

She couldn’t make a sound as she descended, couldn’t scream or cry out.  All she could do was sink.

Glass pits of petrified blood; wolf skulls forming archways into passages of flesh; waterfalls of grease and gore; totems made of heads; razorblade passages and spiked thrones; bloody arms which reached out for her as she slid down the vertical shaft, an endless tunnel to the depths of hell. 

Whatever Vlagoth had been, whatever her purpose, madness ruled the tower now.  A mind had shattered and turned to violent delusions, and the Black Tower was the physical manifestation of that descent into insanity. 

The same path I’m following now.

At last, after what felt like years, she reached the nadir of Chul Gaerog.  She stood in a chamber of smoking skin.  The air was bitterly cold and glazed with dark and icy gel.  Black muck dripped from the ceiling and walls, and the atmosphere smelled like a freshly opened corpse.  Each drop of fluid that struck her flesh stung like an insect’s bite and sent a chill down her spine.

The voices were still there, whispering like leeches in the back of her mind, and as she entered the foul heart of the nightmare citadel they slid together and coalesced into a collective, a single speaker given shape from the chaos.

No
, it said, a nail through her brain. 
You are safe with me.

She saw the tree.

If it had been there before it had somehow eluded her vision, but now it was impossible to miss.  It seemed to take up the entire world, dominating the Tower’s hollow heart, a bulwark of twisted black wood at least a hundred feet high.  The dark blood of a thousand lost souls fell from its gangly limbs.

Her eyes were heavy.  She felt as if she could fall into a deep sleep from which she’d never have to wake.

He’s failed.

You must live.

Live, so all can die.

Somewhere in the depths of the Veil’s bitter core a thousand voices joined in a song of suffering and pain.  Her own was among them.

All die...

Slayne was no longer wounded, a side effect, Dane knew, of making the transformation from wolf to human and back again.  Even in his human form the mercenary moved with incredible speed and agility, and he was as deft and nimble on that network of shifting chains as if he walked on solid ground.  The rattle of metal filled the air like a hailstorm, and Dane swore some force was tugging on them from the darkness below. 

Marros Slayne leapt through the air with his short sword in hand and a snarl on his lips.  Icy wind scaled against them, and the air seemed to freeze like a held breath.  The chains shifted.  Argus’ screams echoed up from the distant dark.

Dane raised his
vra’taar
just in time to block Slayne’s attack, but the force of the blow nearly threw him off balance, while Slayne landed on a stretch of chain with the grace of a cat.  Everything rattled and shook.  He tried to keep his balance as Slayne slashed at him, and though he deflected the strike the motion sent him backwards and through a gap in the web. 

Barbed hooks ripped into his legs and arms as he fell.  Darkness enveloped him like he’d been pulled underwater, and he cried out as everything gave away.

He landed hard on his back on the next level of chains, which bounced up and down beneath his weight and scraped his exposed flesh.  Slayne jumped down, a pale raven in flight, and Dane barely had time to grab his blade and deflect another blow.  Steel rang through the air.  Sparks lifted where the weapons collided. 

Slayne swung, again and again, a relentless barrage of flashing edges.  Dane brought his foot up and kicked Slayne in the side, knocked his opponent back long enough to get on his feet.

“I’ve dreamed of killing you,” Slayne hissed.  He showed no signs of fatigue.  “I want my wife back!”

Dane waited for the attack, timed his deflection so he could knock the short blade aside and jab forward with his
vra’taar
, but his awkward balance made the motion too slow, and Slayne was easily able to find an opening and strike Dane’s face hard with the palm of his hand.  Pain flashed across Dane’s jaw as he nearly fell again, this time into open air, but he spun around and found his balance at the last second.  The chasm below was dizzying, and the stench of death wafted up from the depths. 

Slayne lifted his sword over his head, turned it so the tip was aimed at Dane’s heart.  Dane’s foot shot forward and smashed Slayne’s knee with a sickening crack, and Slayne fell onto him. 

They tumbled off the side, weightless as they plummeted into the deep dark.

Metal slammed against Dane’s back.  He screamed as hooks tore at his scalp.  Slayne was on top of him, weapon still in hand.  Dane brought his gauntlets up to block the blow. 

Slayne snarled.  Spittle fell from his lips, red with blood and madness.  The blade snuck through and sliced into Dane’s stomach, right into the old wound.  He screamed as fiery pain shot through his abdomen.  Blood seeped from the tear in his armor. 

They grappled there on the chains, fingers bloody and muscles strained.  Dane smashed his fist into Slayne’s jaw again and again while he used the other to hold the sword at bay.  His helmet was gone, so he rammed his forehead against Slayne’s face. 

The chains buckled beneath them.  The web they were on appeared to be the last one – the network stretched out overhead, but when Dane glanced over the side all he saw was utter darkness.  Smoky cold gripped them, and the air bled with moisture. 

The web dropped a foot, fast, a rapid descent before the chains snapped taut again, snagged on whatever distant and invisible walls held them in place.  The two men fell up, and back down. 

Hooks gnarled into Dane’s arm as he was twisted about, and his feet dangled over the side. He held on, hands bleeding.  His elbow locked and felt ready to snap, and something in his shoulder gave.

“You killed her!” Slayne shouted, his eyes dull with darkness.  “You took her from me!”

Dane said nothing.  Slayne leaned in low, somehow still clutching the blade, and positioned it to shove down into Dane’s face.  Bits of chain fell away. 

He reached up and took hold of Slayne’s thick white hair.  The sword fell into the darkness, but Slayne smashed his forehead against Dane’s face.  Pain flared from his bloodied nose.  He felt like his brains had been knocked against the back of his skull.

With his left hand painfully clinging to the chains, Dane let go of Slayne’s hair and took hold of his throat.  He squeezed as hard as he could.  The other man grunted, his face turning purple. 

Die.

That voice.  Dane realized he’d heard it before, when he’d been taken by the madness of the tower.  He only dimly recalled being tortured by Ijanna, making love to her, trying to kill Argus like he was his worst enemy.  It was all a nightmare, a haze of sharp smoke and black skies. 

He tried to strangle Slayne.  Dane’s arms pulsed with exhaustion and pain.   Hurt pounded down his torso.  His boots kicked at open air, and a sense of panic flooded up around him as he realized he was moments from falling.  Slayne was coming with him. 

All die.

No.

Two voices, the same voice.  Both were the voice of Ijanna, to who he’d devoted what was left of his pathetic and useless life.  The voice of the woman he had to help, even if that meant killing her.

Slayne leaned forward and bit Dane in the neck.  Teeth ripped at meat and blood gushed forth.  Dane screamed and threw Slayne back, hoping against hope he’d forced him off in time.  Holding on for dear life, Dane growled and hauled himself up before Slayne could recover.  Blood poured from his torn skin.  Somehow he was still breathing – Slayne had missed the jugular, if only by inches. 

Dane wiped away blood and blinked through waves of pain.  Every breath was drawn out and rasping.  Haloes of hurt surrounded his vision.  Something glinted and caught his eye.

My sword. 

Dane’s
vra’taar
lay at the edge of the chain bridge, hanging there by the same hooks that had torn his flesh to ribbons.  Slayne was on his feet, growling with rage.  Dane saw the fur bristling, heard the inhumanity behind that familiar voice.  Slayne’s body stretched to monstrous proportions as he dove forward.  Darkness melted across his skin.  His bones snapped, and fangs and claws sprouted from a bed of blood and flesh. 

Dane ducked just in time, felt air rush at the back of his neck as claws slashed past him.  He rolled across the chains and found the hilt of his
vra’taar
, and in a fluid motion he turned, rose and swung.  He took  Slayne’s head off at the shoulders. 

A thunderous crack sounded, the breaking of metal.  The suddenly lupine body had proved too much for the bridge to handle.  Dane’s heart slid into his throat as the chains gave away.

He threw out his hands and fell with the bridge.  His fingers caught in the chains, and he held on for dear life as the world passed by in slow motion, links of chain and blade dancing through the darkness like broken stars. 

Dane plummeted with one end of the split bridge, sailing like a dying bird.  Emptiness engulfed him, poured through him.  Icy wind scaled his wounds.  His legs kicked out.  He anticipated the impact, waited for it. 

He slammed hard against the wall.  The air blasted from his lungs and blood sprayed from his torn skin.  Hurt shot down his arms. 

He held on tight.  The darkness pulled at him, sucked him down into its frightening emptiness.  He saw Slayne’s inhuman head and body plummet into nothingness.

Dane dangled for what felt like hours.  He lacked the strength to move.  He was in so much pain he was beyond feeling it.  He was reminded of his time in the Razortooth, after the killings, when he’d exiled himself to the cold caves and had wished for death, even though he’d lacked the courage to do what needed to be done.  He’d spent days in a fugue of frostbite and hurt, madness and delirium.  Now, his ruined and exhausted body hung from a metal net like he was a piece of bloodied meat. 

I’m where I belong.

He lost sense of direction.  He vaguely knew that he needed to go up, but he could no longer recalled which way that was.  His arms felt ready to pull out of the sockets. 

Dane held on, his body beyond weary.  The path of chains stretched on endlessly, vanishing into the shadows above, and below him the void just stretched on and on.  There was no way out – even if he hauled himself up the chains he wasn’t sure he’d ever reach the top, if there was even a top to be reached. 

He climbed.  The going was slow and laborious, but once he managed to find purchase with his boots it got easier.  He took it slow, knowing he couldn’t really afford to lose any time but even more aware that to push himself would lead to falling.

You can’t help her if you’re dead.

His vision faded in and out.  Sweat poured down his face.  His thoughts drifted, and he tried to recall with some sense of clarity what had happened since they’d entered Chul Gaerog.  Some dismal spell had taken hold of both he and Ijanna, and he vaguely recalled doing battle with Calladar, but most of the rest was broken and vague.  Part of him still wondered if he wasn’t dreaming, trapped in some dripping nightmare of darkness and smoke.

After a time he stopped.  The chains swayed back and forth, and his body gently struck the wall.  He held tight and stared off, his eyes melting into the black. 

He was adrift, distant.  He felt as if some part of himself had been laid bare and cast down to the shadows, where it drifted now, a swimmer lost in a dark sea.

There was no way out.  If that vertical shaft even had a ceiling – and he was sorely beginning to believe it didn’t – he was in no physical shape to reach it.  It wasn’t as if he could fly.

Dane hung there.  He thought he could fall asleep, and just fade away.

Visions of the battle flashed through his mind.  The Veil had allowed him to move in ways he never had before as he and Argus

Argus? Why was I fighting Argus?

had fought up and down the length of the chain bridges.  In his mind’s eye he saw himself floating, barreling, twisting through the air like a bird.  Not flying, not truly, but some of the things Dane had done in that duel had come close.

Argus?

The more Dane thought about Argus, the more his memory returned.  His blood ran cold.  It was like the Razortooth all over again – the reality blurred, held at arm’s length, his mind refusing to grasp the truth for fear that it would break. 

He saw blood, heard howls in the night, and screams.  He saw her face, felt her nails rake his naked flesh.  The angel of razors, the bridge of bones.  The tree.

This is only the beginning.

Bit by bit Dane’s mind re-created those past several days, and as each piece slid into place he felt himself fall deeper into despair.  He saw the battle with Calladar, the painful subjugation to Ijanna’s will, saw as she surrendered herself to the Veil, the same corrupting presence that had turned a young girl into a monster.  He saw his slavish devotion to a woman who was little like the one he’d crossed the Bonelands to help, and a brutal battle with a man he knew to be noble and good. 

He heard the voice.  It had saved him from the wolf disease, had tried to reason with him even as he fell under the new Blood Queen’s control.  The same voice that had begged him to kill her.

How?  Why?

Two voices, but the same.  One told him to serve, the other to kill.  Both were desperate, both were Ijanna, and neither was of his world. 

“If she dies...” he said out loud.  “She fails.”

No.

Yes.

To live, she must die.

To become.

To become the Blood Queen.  Of course.  The transformation hadn’t taken her, not entirely, not yet.  The voices were hers and the Blood Queen’s, two beings not quite merged, in a state of becoming, a shifting from an old identity to something new.  It was the Tower that was truly in control, or some aspect of it – he understood that now.  Vlagoth had been transformed by her own magic, but the stories also said her magic had been used to construct the Black Tower, that her own soul had been bled dry and used to pave its walls, to erect its ramparts and dig its impossible passageways. 

Had there been something else here, even before that?  Was the Blood Queen ever in control at all?

One voice had felt as old as time, ancient and cracked like the flesh of a petrified being. 

But the other voice...that voice had begged him to kill her.

Ijanna doesn’t want this, and never has.  She would rather die than become this thing that will destroy Malzaria. 
She wished for death to keep herself from killing everyone else.  The beast that had beaten and dominated him wasn’t Ijanna, not really, even if it used Ijanna’s rage and fears to give her strength.  It was something else, something more corrupt even than Vlagoth. 

She needs my help.  She wants me to kill her, to release her.

That was why she’d saved him, he realized, and his heart clenched like he’d been stabbed.  She didn’t want a protector, or a guardian – she wanted the man who’d murdered her son to finish what he’d started.  All the measure of his worth, all he’d done to redeem himself, and again the need for him came down to his capacity for slaughter.