The End Times: The Return of Nagash
- Автор: Рейнольдс Джош
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd.
- Жанр: Боевая фантастика
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From somewhere far above him, he heard the shriek of his hunting hawk, Skaryn. Then he heard the chanting of the spellweavers, as they sought to bind the monstrous spirit that had plagued them so much in recent days.
He felt a pressure on his chest and grasped the locket the Everqueen had given him. It hummed urgently, pulling them ever towards the captive Everchild. But there were matters that needed dealing with before they could continue. Dead grass crunched behind him and he pivoted, his blade sliding upwards. The ghoul split apart like rotten fruit as his sword tore through its body. More of the grey-fleshed cannibals loped out of the trees, swarming like flies to a corpse.
‘Protect Keyberos and the others,’ he shouted, as his warriors retreated before the onrushing ghouls. ‘They must be given time to seal the beast in her lair.’ He glanced back at the small group of spellweavers who yet remained. Clad in dark robes, their flesh marked by savage tattoos, the mages flung every iota of the power that was theirs to command at the spectral creature that had emerged from the crumbling tower at the centre of the glen. Surrounded by a host of wailing spirits, the banshee drifted towards the spellweavers, her mouth open in a scream, which only Keyberos’s magics kept the other wood elves from hearing and succumbing to.
Of the ten spellweavers who’d volunteered to accompany him on his mission, only four remained now, including Keyberos. Three had died in the attempt to discover the lair of the creature their fellows now confronted, and three more had gone mad. Now those who remained pitted their magics against the fell power of the thing that had stalked Araloth’s warband since they’d crossed the border into Sylvania.
Blood-hungry spirits had shadowed the wood elves’ every step since they’d crossed the Corpse Run. Scouts had vanished into the dark woods never to return, or else were found strewn across the trail ahead, their bodies drained of blood. Terrible dreams of long-dead kin and courts of dancing corpses had haunted the survivors, and an unlucky few had been lost to those night-terrors, never to awaken again.
Those who remained were as tense as drawn bowstrings, their faces pale with something Araloth was unused to seeing on the faces of the warriors of Athel Loren – fear. He could not feel it himself, for fear had no purchase on his heart, thanks to his connection with his goddess and the gift she had shared with him the day that she had crossed paths with a callow lordling and made him into a hero. Since that day, he had shared a portion of her prophetic gift, and was blessed with the ability to see hope in even the most perilous of days.
But now, he saw nothing ahead save darkness. It did not frighten him, for all things ended, even his folk and their works, but it did make him more determined than ever to complete his mission. If the darkness awaited them, then it would not be said that the Lord of Talsyn had gone into it a failure. He would wring one last victory from the world or die in the attempt. Hope cost nothing, and it could be purchased on the edge of a blade.
His warriors arrayed about him, Araloth met the undisciplined charge of the ghouls. His blade licked out, glowing like a firebrand. Blood soaked the thirsty ground, and bodies tumbled upon one another in heaps as the warriors of Athel Loren reaped a toll from the inhabitants of Ghoul Wood. The ghouls were driven back again and again, but they always returned with slavering eagerness as their monstrous hunger overcame their natural cowardice.
A shrill sound rose up behind him. Araloth glanced back and saw a spellweaver topple over, black smoke rising from his eyes, nose and mouth. The banshee thrust herself forwards, as if she were trying to fly through a strong wind. Keyberos gestured, and the soil at his feet began to shift and shuffle. Vines and strong green shoots burst out of the seemingly dead ground. The nearby trees shed their withered bark and bent pale, strong branches down. Wailing spirits were brushed aside as branches and vines began to encircle the banshee. Some blackened and disintegrated as she tore at them, but others caught her insubstantial form somehow.
A second spellweaver stumbled, her hands pressed to her ears. She screamed and pitched forwards, her body turning black and crumbling to ash as she fell. The air reverberated with a faint hum, as the magics that contained the banshee’s wail began to crumble. Any moment now, he suspected that the creature would break free of Keyberos’s magics and launch itself at the hard-pressed wood elves. ‘Any time now, Keyberos,’ he shouted.
‘Keep your eyes on your own prey, Araloth,’ the spellweaver snarled, his fingers curling and gesturing. More vines and branches shot towards the struggling banshee.
A wash of foetid breath alerted Araloth to the wisdom of Keyberos’s words, and he turned. His sword separated a lunging ghoul’s jaw from its head. He used the crook of his arm to hook its throat as it stumbled past, and broke its neck before flinging the body aside. As it fell, the remainder broke and fled, scampering away with simian-like cries of dismay. A moment later, he felt a rush of noisome air and a clap of thunder. He spun, his sword raised to fend off an attack from the banshee.
His eyes widened as he took in the large cocoon of vines, bark and leaves that hung suspended above the ground. Steam rose from the mass, wafting up into the sunless sky. Keyberos sat on his haunches, his hands dangling between his knees and his head bowed. The other spellweaver sat nearby, her face covered in sweat and her eyes hollow with grief. Keyberos reached out and gripped her shoulder for a moment. Then he pushed himself to his feet and looked at Araloth. ‘It’s done.’
‘Will it hold?’
‘For as long as this forest lives,’ Keyberos said, his thin face twisting into an expression of grief. ‘Which will not be long, I think. Sylvania is dying, Araloth. I can feel its death rattle echoing through me.’
‘All the more reason for us to hurry,’ Araloth said. Keyberos gave him a look of dismay, and Araloth caught the back of his head. He brought his brow against the spellweaver’s in a gesture of brotherly affection. ‘We must press on, my friend. If for no other reason than I would not have the lives we have already spent in pursuit of this goal wasted.’
He caught the locket and held it up, so that all of his warriors could see it. ‘This is a promise, my brothers. A promise we made to our cousin, the Everqueen of Ulthuan. She has sworn to aid our queen in her hour of need and we must do all that we can to earn that oath. Even unto death…’ He trailed off, as he realised that no one was looking at him. Even Keyberos was looking away, at something that even now approached them through the trees.
Somehow, the moon had broken through the darkness above, and its silvery radiance illuminated the form of a slender elf woman, who moved towards the weary warband through the dark trees. The Ghoul Wood seemed to sigh and draw away from her, as if her presence pained it. She was paler than death, but beautiful beyond measure, and clad in robes that gleamed with starlight.
Araloth gave a great cry of joy. He knew her face, and her name – Lileath – echoed through him like the voice of a lover. He raced towards his goddess, all weariness forgotten, ignoring the cries of his fellows. She caught him, and began to speak before he could even begin to compose a greeting.
Her words were not things of sound, but rather fragments of memory, thought and image, which coalesced across the surface of his mind, showing him what had been, what was, and what must be.
Araloth could not say for how long they stood, minds and souls intertwined, but the moment passed and he knew then what she had come for, and what he had to do. He stared at her in disbelief, his every warrior’s instinct rebelling. ‘Is there no other way?’ he asked.