The Stealer of Souls (26 page)

“I’ll tell you the truth—we need your aid to halt the barbarian’s bloody progress. We have a common enemy. If we can help you regain your soul, will you help?”

“Help—of course. All I do is plan the way I’ll avenge myself. But for my sake be careful—if he suspects that you’re here to aid me, he’ll slay the cat and slay us, too.”

“We’ll try to bring the cat to you. Will that be what you need?”

“Yes. We must exchange blood, the cat and I, and my soul will then pass back into my own body.”

“Very well, I’ll try to—” Elric turned, hearing voices outside. “What’s that?”

The sorcerer replied fearfully. “It must be Terarn Gashtek—he comes every night to taunt me.”

“Where’s the guard?” The barbarian’s harsh voice came closer as he entered the little tent. “What’s…?” He saw Elric standing above the sorcerer.

His eyes were puzzled and wary. “What are you doing here, Westerner—and what have you done with the guard?”

“Guard?” said Elric, “I saw no guard. I was looking for my own tent and heard this cur cry out, so I entered. I was curious, anyway, to see such a great sorcerer clad in filthy rags and bound so.”

Terarn Gashtek scowled. “Any more of such unwary curiosity my friend, and you’ll be discovering what your own heart looks like. Now, get hence—we ride on in the morning.”

Elric pretended to flinch and stumbled hurriedly from the tent.

A lone man in the livery of an Official Messenger of Karlaak goaded his horse southwards. The mount galloped over the crest of a hill and the messenger saw a village ahead. Hurriedly he rode into it, shouting at the first man he saw.

“Quickly, tell me—know you ought of Dyvim Slorm and his Imrryrian mercenaries? Have they passed this way?”

“Aye—a week ago. They went towards Rignariom by Vilmir’s border, to offer their services to the Ilmioran Pretender.”

“Were they mounted or on foot?”

“Both.”

“Thanks, friend,” cried the messenger behind him and galloped out of the village in the direction of Rignariom.

The messenger from Karlaak rode through the night—rode along a recently made trail. A large force had passed that way. He prayed that it had been Dyvim Slorm and his Imrryrian warriors.

In the sweet-smelling garden city of Karlaak, the atmosphere was tense as the citizens waited for news they knew they could not expect for some time. They were relying on both Elric and on the messenger. If only one were successful, there would be no hope for them. Both had to be successful. Both.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

The tumbling sound of moving men cut through the weeping morning and the hungry voice of Terarn Gashtek lashed at them to hurry.

Slaves packed up his tent and threw it into a wagon. He rode forward and wrenched his tall war-lance from the soft earth, wheeled his horse and rode westwards, his captains, Elric and Moonglum among them, behind him.

Speaking the Western tongue, Elric and Moonglum debated their problem. The barbarian was expecting them to lead him to his prey, his outriders were covering wide distances so that it would be impossible to lead him past a settlement. They were in a quandary for it would be disgraceful to sacrifice another township to give Karlaak a few days’ grace, yet…

A little later two whooping outriders came galloping up to Terarn Gashtek.

“A town, lord! A small one and easy to take!”

“At last—this will do to test our blades and see how easy Western flesh is to pierce. Then we’ll aim at a bigger target.” He turned to Elric: “Do you know this town?”

“Where does it lie?” asked Elric thickly.

“A dozen miles to the south-west,” replied the outrider.

In spite of the fact that the town was doomed, Elric felt almost relieved. They spoke of the town of Gorjhan.

“I know it,” he said.

Cavim the Saddler, riding to deliver a new set of horse furniture to an outlying farm, saw the distant riders, their bright helmets caught by a sudden beam of sunlight. That the riders came from off the Weeping Waste was undoubtable—and he recognized menace in their massed progress.

He turned his mount about and rode with the speed of fear, back the way he had come to the town of Gorjhan.

The flat, hard mud of the street trembled beneath the thudding hoofs of Cavim’s horse and his high, excited shout knifed through shuttered windows.

“
Raiders come! ’Ware the raiders!
”

Within a quarter of an hour, the head-men of the town had met in hasty conference and debated whether to run or to fight. The older men advised their neighbours to flee the raiders, other younger men preferred to stay ready, armed to meet a possible attack. Some argued that their town was too poor to attract any raider.

The townspeople of Gorjhan debated and quarreled and the first wave of raiders came screaming to their walls.

With the realization that there was no time for further argument came the realization of their doom, and they ran to the ramparts with their pitiful weapons.

Terarn Gashtek roared through the milling barbarians who churned the mud around Gorjhan: “Let’s waste no time in siege. Fetch the sorcerer!”

They dragged Drinij Bara forward. From his garments, Terarn Gashtek produced the small black-and-white cat and held an iron blade at its throat.

“Work your spell, sorcerer, and tumble the walls quickly.”

The sorcerer scowled, his eyes seeking Elric, but the albino averted his own eyes and turned his horse away.

The sorcerer produced a handful of powder from his belt pouch and hurled it into the air where it became first a gas, then a flickering ball of flame and finally a face, a dreadful unhuman face, formed in the flame.

“Dag-Gadden the Destroyer,” intoned Drinij Bara, “you are sworn to our ancient pact—will you obey me?”

“I must, therefore I will. What do you command?”

“That you obliterate the walls of this town and so leave the men inside naked, like crabs without their shells.”

“My pleasure is to destroy and destroy I shall.” The flaming face faded, altered, shrieked a searing course upward and became a blossoming scarlet canopy which hid the sky.

Then it swept down over the town and, in the instant of its passing, the walls of Gorjhan groaned, crumbled and vanished.

Elric shuddered—if Dag-Gadden came to Karlaak, such would be their fate.

Triumphant, the barbarian battlemongers swept into the defenseless town.

Careful to take no part in the massacre, Elric and Moonglum were also helpless to aid the slaughtered townspeople. The sight of the senseless, savage bloodshed around them enervated them. They ducked into a small house which seemed so far untouched by the pillaging barbarians. Inside they found three cowering children huddled around an older girl who clutched an old scythe in her soft hands. Shaking with fear, she prepared to stand them off.

“Do not waste our time, girl,” Elric said, “or you’ll be wasting your lives. Does this house have a loft?”

She nodded.

“Then get to it quickly. We’ll make sure you’re unharmed.”

They stayed in the house, hating to observe the slaughter-madness which had come upon the howling barbarians. They heard the dreadful sounds of carnage and smelled the stench of dead flesh and running blood.

A barbarian, covered in blood which was not his own, dragged a woman into the house by her hair. She made no attempt to resist, her face stunned by the horror she had witnessed.

Elric growled: “Find another nest, hawk—we’ve made this our own.”

The man said: “There’s room enough here for what I want.”

Then, at last, Elric’s clenched muscles reacted almost in spite of him. His right hand swung over to his left hip and the long fingers locked around Stormbringer’s black hilt. The blade leapt from the scabbard as Elric stepped forward and, his crimson eyes blazing his sickened hatred, he smashed his sword down through the man’s body. Unnecessarily, he clove again, hacking the barbarian in two. The woman remained where she lay, conscious but unmoving.

Elric picked up her inert body and passed it gently to Moonglum. “Take her upstairs with the others,” he said brusquely.

The barbarians had begun to fire part of the town, their slaying all but done. Now they looted. Elric stepped out of the doorway.

There was precious little for them to loot but, still hungry for violence, they spent their energy on smashing inanimate things and setting fire to the broken, pillaged dwellings.

Stormbringer dangled loosely in Elric’s hand as he looked at the blazing town. His face was a mask of shadow and frisking light as the fire threw up still longer tongues of flames to the misty sky.

Around him, barbarians squabbled over the pitiful booty; and occasionally a woman’s scream cut above the other sounds, intermingled with rough shouts and the clash of metal.

Then he heard voices which were pitched differently to those in the immediate vicinity. The accents of the reavers mingled with a new tone—a whining, pleading tone. A group led by Terarn Gashtek came into view through the smoke.

Terarn Gashtek held something bloody in his hand—a human hand, severed at the wrist—and behind him swaggered several of his captains holding a naked old man between them. Blood ran over his body and gushed from his ruined arm, spurting sluggishly.

Terarn Gashtek frowned when he saw Elric. Then he shouted: “Now Westerner, you shall see how we placate our gods with better gifts than meal and sour milk as this swine once did. He’ll soon be dancing a pretty measure, I’ll warrant—won’t you, Lord Priest?”

The whining note went out of the old man’s voice then and he stared with fever-bright eyes at Elric. His voice rose to a frenzied and high-pitched shriek which was curiously repellent.

“You dogs can howl over me!” he spat, “but Mirath and T’aargano will be revenged for the ruin of their priest and their temple—you have brought flame here and you shall die by flame.” He pointed the bleeding stump of his arm at Elric—“And you—you are a traitor and have been one in many causes, I can see it written in you. Though now…You are—” the priest drew breath…

Elric licked his lips.

“I am what I am,” he said, “and you are nothing but an old man soon to die. Your gods cannot harm us, for we do not pay them any respect. I’ll listen no more to your senile meanderings!”

There was in the old priest’s face all the knowledge of his past torment and the torment which was to come. He seemed to consider this and then was silent.

“Save your breath for screaming,” said Terarn Gashtek to the uncomprehending priest.

And then Elric said: “It’s bad luck to kill a priest, Flame Bringer!”

“You seem weak of stomach, my friend. His sacrifice to our own gods will bring us good luck, fear not.”

Elric turned away. As he entered the house again, a wild shriek of agony seared out of the night and the laughter which followed was not pleasant.

Later, as the still-burning houses lit the night, Elric and Moonglum, carrying heavy sacks on their shoulders, clasping a woman each, moved with a simulation of drunkenness to the edge of the camp. Moonglum left the sacks and the women with Elric and went back, returning soon with three horses.

They opened the sacks to allow the children to climb out and watched the silent women mount the horses, aiding the children to clamber up.

Then they galloped away.

“Now,” said Elric savagely, “we must work our plan tonight, whether the messenger reached Dyvim Slorm or not. I could not bear to witness another such sword-quenching.”

Terarn Gashtek had drunk himself insensible. He lay sprawled in an upper room of one of the unburned houses.

Elric and Moonglum crept towards him. While Elric watched to see that he was undisturbed, Moonglum knelt beside the barbarian leader and, lightfingered, cautiously reached inside the man’s garments. He smiled in self-approval as he lifted out the squirming cat and replaced it with a stuffed rabbit-skin he had earlier prepared for the purpose. Holding the animal tight, he arose and nodded to Elric. Together, warily, they left the house and made their way through the chaos of the camp.

“I ascertained that Drinij Bara lies in the large wagon,” Elric told his friend. “Quickly, now, the main danger’s over.”

Moonglum said: “When the cat and Drinij Bara have exchanged blood and the sorcerer’s soul is back in his body—what then, Elric?”

“Together, our powers may serve at least to hold the barbarians back, but—” he broke off as a large group of warriors came weaving towards them.

“It’s the Westerner and his little friend,” laughed one. “Where are you off to, comrades?”

Elric sensed their mood. The slaughter of the day had not completely satiated their blood-lust. They were looking for trouble.

“Nowhere in particular,” he replied. The barbarians lurched around them, encircling them.

“We’ve heard much of your straight blade, stranger,” grinned their spokesman, “and I’d a mind to test it against a real weapon.” He grabbed his own scimitar out of his belt. “What do you say?”

“I’d spare you that,” said Elric coolly.

“You are generous—but I’d rather you accepted my invitation.”

“Let us pass,” said Moonglum.

The barbarians’ faces hardened. “Speak you so to the conquerors of the world?” said the leader.

Moonglum took a step back and drew his sword, the cat squirming in his left hand.

“We’d best get this done,” said Elric to his friend. He tugged his runeblade from its scabbard. The sword sang a soft and mocking tune and the barbarians heard it. They were disconcerted.

“Well?” said Elric, holding the half-sentient blade out.

The barbarian who had challenged him looked uncertain of what to do. Then he forced himself to shout: “Clean iron can withstand any sorcery,” and launched himself forward.

Elric, grateful for the chance to take further vengeance, blocked his swing, forced the scimitar back and aimed a blow which sliced the man’s torso just above the hip. The barbarian screamed and died. Moonglum, dealing with a couple more, killed one but another came in swiftly and his sweeping sword sliced the little Eastlander’s left shoulder. He howled—and dropped the cat. Elric stepped in, slew Moonglum’s opponent, Stormbringer wailing a triumphant dirge. The rest of the barbarians turned and ran off.