Sword of Caledor (29 page)

Tyrion shook her. ‘You are alive. And while you are alive there is hope. What chance do we have? I don’t know. I do know we will have no chance at all if we give up.’

She nodded but she did not seem to understand. Tyrion had seen the same look and same reaction written on the faces of young warriors after their first battle in which they had lost friends and comrades.

It must be worse for her. She was the Everqueen. She had grown up in luxury. She had never expected to see war or its aftermath.

‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘You are our queen. You were chosen by the gods. You are the heart of our realm. If you give up, we may as well all just surrender to Malekith. He will become king after all these millennia of waiting. Is that what you want?’

Slowly understanding came back into her eyes. He saw a powerful will begin to reassert itself. The moment of weakness and panic had passed. She was herself again.

‘There is no need to clutch me so tightly, Prince Tyrion. You have made your point.’ He let go of her arm. He could see he had grabbed her so tightly that he had left his the print of his hand on the flesh of her arm. ‘You have a plan?’ she asked.

Tyrion shrugged. ‘I never thought beyond making sure you were alive and getting you out.’

‘I have heard people say you had a gift for strategy,’ she said. ‘That you are a war leader of great cunning.’

‘I did get you out,’ he said.

She seemed to come to a decision.

‘Where did you get that armour?’

‘I stripped it from a corpse.’

‘We need another set.’

Tyrion nodded. He understood what she was thinking.

‘They might take us for deserters.’

‘It will be enough if it gets us clear of this awful place. And I would feel somewhat less vulnerable.’

‘Have you ever worn armour before?’

‘I can learn.’

Tyrion knew how easy it would be to allow themselves to stand here discussing things until they were captured. It was a natural reaction. They had found a small island of safety. Their instincts told them to cling to its shores. Tyrion knew how easily such instincts could betray them.

‘Wait here!’ he told her. ‘I’ll be back.’

‘What?’

‘If someone sees me, I am just another dark elf soldier. If they see you…’

He did not need to explain any more. Behind him he could hear the sound of one voice rising over the babble. It seemed like someone was taking charge of the situation. It would not be long before the hunt began in earnest.

Dorian rolled over. His side hurt immensely. When he touched it, it was wet but with a clear pus instead of blood. The burning blade had cauterised the wound even as it made it.

He had no idea whether he would live or how much internal damage there really was. Looking around the chamber he could see he was lucky to be alive. Every other druchii that had been present was dead, including Cassandra. She lay on her back, eyes open, but glazed as if she was staring in wonder at the tent ceiling. Her face looked normal but her body was ruined.

Dorian crawled over to where she lay and took her hand. It was cold. Soldiers flooded into the room, glaring around at the scene of carnage.

‘What happened, general?’ one of them asked. Dorian struggled to answer them.

‘An elf with a burning sword,’ he said. ‘He killed us all and took the Everqueen.’

His soldiers looked at him as if he were raving, but they could not see any other explanation. ‘Find him,’ Dorian ordered. ‘Find him or you are all for Malekith’s torturers.’

He was already for that himself, he realised. The stranger had done him no favours letting him live. He lay there on the ground, holding Cassandra’s cold hand, and found that he did not care all that much.

‘
Put those on,’ Tyrion said.

He pointed to the body of the dead elf soldier he had dragged into the undergrowth. Alarielle looked at the corpse in distaste but she began to strip it of the wargear.

‘Did you kill her?’ she asked.

‘I cut her throat,’ said Tyrion. She looked at him with distaste.

‘That was not very chivalrous,’ she said. He understood why she was saying it. She understood the necessity of what he had done but she was still shocked by it. She felt the need to vent her feelings, to do something to relieve her tension and fear. If that meant she despised him, so be it. He could live with that.

‘This is not a tournament,’ he said. ‘This is war. People will die. You will send them to their deaths and you will smile while you do it.’

‘I already caused a death, didn’t I?’ She indicated the dead warrior with her foot. ‘I killed her when I sent you to get me a disguise.’

‘Get used to it,’ he said, knowing he was being brutal, but knowing also that he needed to make her understand the reality of the situation. ‘It will be the first of many.’

‘You enjoy this, don’t you, Prince Tyrion?’

The answer was too complex to be gone into here so he just said, ‘Yes. It is what I was born for.’

‘Blood of Aenarion,’ she said softly. He was surprised to hear pity in her voice. She stripped and put on the soldier’s undergarments then her leather tunic and then her armour. Tyrion stood close and helped her do it. She had no experience with this sort of gear, so much was obvious. As he helped lace up the jerkin, they were close as lovers. He was suddenly very aware of her presence.

They stepped apart. ‘We need to go,’ he said. ‘They will be looking for us now.’

What had been a place of pleasure had become a place of terror. Corpses were strewn everywhere, cut down in flight, in combat, while they had slept, while they had been drunk. The dark elves had spared no one. They had killed like maniacs, as senselessly as a wolverine in a henhouse.

Tyrion felt his heart become colder. A great rage was building up in him. This was not how a war should be fought. His expression became as cold and grim as a true son of Naggaroth. The Everqueen looked upon his face and shuddered. He did not care and he did not want to explain to her how he was feeling.

‘This was not war,’ she said. Tyrion agreed with her. This had gone far beyond war. It was a murderous venting of long suppressed rage.

‘It is now,’ he said. ‘This is what war looks like now.’

She shot him a sidelong glance. ‘Do they really hate us so?’

‘Apparently.’

They followed a path deeper into the woods. Tyrion had no idea where they were going. He was not familiar with this place. He was merely trying to get as far away from pursuit as possible. ‘Do you know where we are?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘We are on the old game trail to the Glade of Promises.’

‘Beyond that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We must find refuge for you. A place where you will be safe.’

She looked as if she wanted to cry. ‘Avelorn was safe. If I was not safe in the heart of my own realm where will I be?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tyrion said. ‘But we will need to find somewhere.’

‘You sound very angry, Prince Tyrion.’

‘And you are not?’

‘I have not had time to feel very much of anything, except afraid.’

‘It is our enemies who will be afraid by the time we are finished,’ Tyrion said. He knew he sounded petulant, like a small boy telling his friends that one day he would get even with a bully, but he meant it. One day there would be a reckoning for the carnage here. He would make the Witch King and all his minions pay.

‘How could this have happened?’ Alarielle asked.

‘We were too confident,’ Tyrion said. ‘We thought the threat of Naggaroth had ended. It had not. There is only one way it ever will be. When the Witch King and all who follow him are dead.’

‘I meant how did they find me? How did they get such a force into the heart of Avelorn? It should have not been possible. Our scouts should have seen them. The Eagles would have spotted them from afar.’

‘Magic would be my guess, but what sort I do not know. It is a subject I know very little about. My brother would know more.’

‘Chaos has returned to the world,’ Alarielle said. ‘I feel it. It is always there now, far in the distance, a great cancer eating away at the heart of the world. The winds of magic are tainted. Shadows lengthen, even here in Avelorn.’

‘You think this has someth
ing to do with the invasion?’

‘All things are connected. There is more power and more evil in the air than there has been for a very long time.’

How would you know? Tyrion wanted to ask. You are younger than me and I am not old as elves measure time. He kept his mouth shut. He would have sounded foolish anyway, for the Everqueen inherited more than a title when she was crowned. Who knew what hidden knowledge was available to her? Who knew what magical powers?

‘Can you help us? Can you use your magic to shield us?’ he asked.

‘I will do what I can,’ she said. ‘My powers were not intended for warfare.’

‘Anything you could do would help. We are on our own here.’

She seemed to realise the pressure that was on him. ‘You have done your best for me, Prince Tyrion, and I will be forever grateful.’

‘My best may not be good enough. There is an army out there and they are hunting for you. Who knows what they will do when they find you?’

‘Let us pray I never find out,’ she said.

‘Who shall we pray to?’ Tyrion asked. ‘Our gods seem to have deserted us.’

‘One of your gods is still with you,’ she said.

‘Let us make sure it stays that way,’ he said. They set off deeper into the dark woods. Behind them Avelorn burned.

The first of
William King’s
sixteen novels for the Black Library,
Trollslayer
, was published in 1999. He is the creator of the much-loved Gotrek & Felix series and the Space Wolf novels starring Ragnar Blackmane. William King’s much anticipated return to the worlds of Warhammer has brought to life a new trilogy, the Tyrion & Teclis series, for which the first novel,
Blood of Aenarion
, was shortlisted for the
David Gemmell Legend
award. His novel
Angel of Fire
features the legendary Warhammer 40,000 hero, Lord Solar Macharius.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Raymond Swanland

© Games Workshop Limited, 2012. All rights reserved.

Black Library, the Black Library logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2011, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All rights reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-85787-757-4

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise except as expressly permitted under license from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See the Black Library on the internet at

blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at

www.games-workshop.com

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 You attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.