Gilead's Blood Read online

  The elves put up their bows and surged into close combat behind their young master, who had already sheared one neck with his longsword and was splintering the flail of his second target. Some of the elves had longswords and bucklers, with a knife brandished in the shield-arm’s fist. The others swung long-hafted axes. All wore scarlet cloaks and hauberks of glinting, blue-black ithilmar mail. Their hair and their skins were as white as ice. Their eyes were dark with fury. Smoke, and a mist of spittle and blood hung in the damp air. The roar of fighting shook the buried vault.

  Fithvael, his axe sweeping, cut through the belly of a visored swordsman and was first into the tunnel to Gilead’s cell. As the fighting raged behind him, he pulled the keyring off a nail and slammed open the cage door. Noble Taladryel, Cothor’s counsellor, soaked in the blood of others, was at his side a moment later, and together they eased Gilead down from the chains and swaddled a cloak about him.

  ‘We have him! He lives!’ Taladryel bellowed, but Galeth already knew this. He and the other three warriors from Tor Anrok cut down the last of the routed Carrion Band. A few survivors, no more than four or five, had fled into the Warrens.

  Fithvael and Taladryel carried Gilead out into the vault to a cheer from the bloodied elf raiders. Galeth knelt by his twin and embraced him, tears streaming from both brothers’ eyes. Gilead noticed the red weal that circled the fourth finger of Galeth’s right hand.

  Fithvael put the place to the torch, then they formed up to move out the way they had come, wary of any harrying from the reavers who had fled.

  No one had noticed that the wretch brought down across the table by the first flight of arrows was still breathing. No one saw him stir in the billowing smoke and flames behind them as they moved out beyond the titan arch.

  The crossbow made just a tiny snap as it fired.

  Gilead froze the souls of his kin as he screamed.

  And Galeth fell, a steel bolt transfixing his heart.

  GILEAD WOKE.

  The moon gazed down at him, full and ghost pale. Somewhere in the forest a wolf howled and was answered. The tree bole against his back was hard and cold like iron. In the valley below, the stockade lights had been put out.

  Gilead shivered. Even after ten years, the dreams came down at night and fell on him like robbers, murdering his sleep.

  He got to his feet and stooped to poke at the thin fire. Pine cones had been the main source of fuel, and a thick pungent scent filled his nostrils as he raked at the embers.

  Pine, astringent and cleansing, always made him remember the infirmary at the tower where the veteran Fithvael had nursed him back to health. Fithvael had prepared pine water and hagleaf to clean Gilead’s wounds and to soothe his weals and bruises, using the old skills of Ulthuan. His skill at healing was exceeded only by his talents as a soldier and ranger. But he had had nothing to nurse the wound in Gilead’s mind.

  Gilead had shared his brother’s death, a pain that defied sanity. And after it, he had survived the lingering emptiness left in his mind. Some said he was dying too, that the bridge of thought that he had shared with Galeth was allowing the slow, cold stain of death to seep through into his body from the other side.

  If that was true, Gilead Lothain had been a long time dying - a decade of slow pain since Galeth had fallen to treachery and spite in the Warrens. Ten years of wandering and blood.

  There had been mourning when Gilead left the Tower of Tor Anrok. Ageing Cothor bewailed the loss of both sons to one crossbow quarrel. Was he to be left with no heir? Was the old house of Lothain, which had existed ever since his kind had come to the Old World from Tiranoc, to fall at last?

  Gilead had not replied. He had set out. He would return, he told himself, one day when his work was done. But he hadn’t returned after five years, when news that his father was stricken with a wasting illness had reached him. Neither had he after nine when a messenger brought word of Cothor’s death. His inheritance awaited. Still now he did not turn back.

  Fithvael came out of his tent and found Gilead by the fire. The five warriors who had formed Galeth’s raiding party had all voluntarily followed Gilead on his mission. Now only the veteran Fithvael was left. Gilead thought of the lonely, godless places where they had buried the others, each one in turn.

  Fithvael looked at the sky. ‘Dawn in two hours,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow… that will be the day, at last. Will it not?’

  Gilead breathed deeply before answering. ‘If the spirits will it.’

  Fithvael crouched beside Gilead. Even now, after ten years, it pained him to see his lord’s face, pale and cold as alabaster, his dead eyes sunk like glittering chips of anthracite in deep, hollow orbits, his hair silver like frost. Gilead the Dead, they called him, those that met him on the way and spoke of him in taverns. They said it with a shudder. Gilead the Haunted, the walking dead whose mind was tied into the hereafter.

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ Fithvael murmured. Gilead nodded. ‘I have never spoken this before, and only now do I feel it. Ten years we’ve been, ten years hunting the stinking Foe. Ten years, and every second of it your poor brother deserves. But will it be enough?’

  Gilead looked round sharply. ‘What?’

  ‘When tomorrow comes and your slice your blade through that rat-kin’s fur… will it be enough?’

  Gilead smiled, but it was not a smile that Fithvael liked. ‘It will have to be, old friend.’

  THE FOE. THEY didn’t know his face. And he had many names - Gibbetath, or the Darkling One, or Skitternister. He had first come to Gilead’s attention a month or so after Galeth had been laid to rest in the sacred grove, when Taladryel and Fithvael had captured one of the fugitives of the Carrion Band hiding out in the woods. The human had been questioned, and it was he who told them of the Darkling One and his secret empire.

  Gibbetath was a skaven. The rat-kin, his mind as sharp a dagger, was never seen, but his money, his ideas and his schemes orchestrated dozens of clandestine operations that riddled the southern parts of the Empire.

  Black market spices ran through his networks and the skimmed revenues filled his coffers. He arranged mercenaries and spies, and dealt in intelligence to the highest bidder. It was said he had started two wars and stopped another three. His bawdy houses in the border towns ran the finest women, and took the fattest cuts. An entire guild of thieves answered to him and his assassins, shadows all, were the finest gold could purchase. It was an empire of filth, a vermin’s enterprise, a hidden fraternity of thieves and killers and sinners running scams and turning tricks in a dozen Old World cities to line the pockets of the Darkling One, the mind behind it all.

  The Carrion Band and their ruthless cycle of crime had been one of Gibbetath’s profitable schemes. He had outfitted the men, furnished them with supplies, presented them with information on likely targets, and took ninety percent of the ransoms. It was his decision that no hostage be returned alive. It made the band vulnerable.

  It was said that the Darkling One was most annoyed when Galeth’s raiders exterminated his Carrion Band.

  So just think, Gilead had told himself more than once, how annoyed he would be when scything elf steel split his head in two.

  The Darkling One was his target, his prey. For ten years the elf had stalked him. The rat-kin was ultimately responsible for Galeth’s death and Gilead swore he would not rest until the skaven bastard was dead too. He was - and his regret over this was beyond words - fulfilling belatedly the very quest that Galeth had wanted, to drive the evil out of the Warrens and destroy its source. If he had but listened back then, if he had only agreed…

  In ten years he had followed every clue to the Darkling One’s whereabouts, destroying every one of the skaven’s operations he uncovered as he slowly closed the noose on his quarry.

  In the last three years the Foe had fought back, sending assassins and warbands to halt the relentless elf avenger. To no avail.

  After ten long, bloody years, Gilead was at his door.

  DAWN CA
ME. GILEAD STRUCK.

  He had not really been sure of what to expect, but the wooden stockade in the forest was not quite the stronghold he had pictured for the Darkling One. He mused that a surface stronghold seemed unlikely for a creature that dwelt beneath the earth. But the Darkling One had ever been just such a mystery, just such a contradiction… no one had seen him, or knew him, no one even knew what infernal lusts drove his relentless power-building enterprises.

  A tub of dwarf black powder took out a ten yard stretch of the timber wall, and Fithvael picked off the sentries from cover with his bow.

  Pikemen with mail charged Gilead as he strode in through the smoking gap, but his longsword was a blur. He fought as Galeth had fought. At Galeth’s death, his skills with bow and blade had flowed across that cold bridge in Gilead’s mind to merge with Gilead’s prowess.

  One son in two bodies, Taladryel had said. Now, for certain, two sons were in one body.

  Blood flecked the avenger’s corselet of ithilmar mail. He was shadowfast, a killing wraith that sliced through the defenders without mercy or pause.

  The human guards - those that weren’t cut to tatters - began to break and flee. Pushing through them, two ogres came at Gilead. Nine feet high, the ogres’ great bulk rose like a buttress wall to block him, foam snorting from their flaring nostrils. One had an axe, the other a vicious morning star.

  The axe-ogre moved, swinging his huge, flat blade at Gilead. The son of Cothor leapt sideways and, before he could swing again, the hulking beast stumbled back, squealing, a red-flighted arrow embedded in its left eye. From cover by the breach in the stockade, Fithvael loosed two more arrows that dropped the brutish thing dead. The other roared and spun his star at Gilead, but the elf pressed his attack, closing with the huge foe rather than retreating. He let the enemy’s charging weight do the work and impaled him on his sword.

  Silence. Smoke drifted across the smashed stockade and the twisted bodies. Somewhere, a wounded man moaned. Bow ready, Fithvael joined Gilead and they looked around, their scarlet cloaks fluttering in the wind. The defence was shattered. The doors of the blockhouse beckoned.

  Fithvael made to move forward but Gilead stopped him. ‘This is the last act,’ he said. ‘I will face it alone, Fithvael te tuin. If I fall here, someone must take word back to my father’s house.’

  His companion swallowed hard, but he nodded.

  Gilead stepped forward alone.

  THE BLOCKHOUSE WAS a long hall and woodsmoke clung to the rafters. The interior was dark, deep and full of dancing shadows thrown by the torches in the wall brackets.

  Gilead paused for a heartbeat then entered, his blade ready.

  His eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. He saw the empty sacks and coffers that littered the floor of the hall. Was this really the heart of the Darkling One’s empire?

  As if it had heard his thoughts, a voice said, ‘Not much, is it?’

  Gilead moved into the gloom, and saw at last the thin, miserable human who sat hunched on a high-backed seat at the far end of the hall.

  ‘You are Gilead, the elf?’

  Gilead made no answer.

  ‘My guard said there were only two of you. You and a bowman. You took my stockade alone, the pair of you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gilead said after a long pause, answering in the clumsy human language with which he had been addressed. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You really don’t know?’ the ragged, sick-looking man looked round at him. ‘I am… whatever you call me. The Darkling One. Skitternister. Gibbetath…’

  ‘But-‘ began Gilead.

  ‘I’m not the rat-kin monster you think you’ve been hunting? Of course not! Rumours… myths… they help to keep me, and the truth, safer. Or they did.’

  The man looked around himself pensively. ‘In some towns I was a rat-thing, in others a beast of Chaos, in others still a sorcerer. Whatever suited the local superstitions. I was anything and everything. I was a myth.’

  ‘A myth…’

  ‘The land is full of them.’ The man smiled.

  Gilead wanted the blood to race in his head, the anger to come so he would surge forward and—

  But there was nothing. He felt the emptiness, the dismal finality of this wretched blood debt. Was this what Fithvael had tried to speak of the night before around the fire?

  The puny man got to his feet. Gilead could see how the wretch shook, with a palsy or an ague. He was frail and thin, and his limp hair was greying. There were bald patches on his scalp and sores on his skin. He shambled forward and fixed Gilead with rheumy eyes.

  ‘I was richer than kings, Gilead Lothain. My name was just a whisper in the back streets, but for three decades I was more powerful than monarchs. I had palaces, mansions, coffers of gold, an army at my beck and call…’

  He paused. ‘Then I made the mistake of killing your brother.’

  Gilead’s hand tightened on his sword hilt.

  The man sat down on a stool, his brittle joints cracking. ‘We meet for the first time, but you have destroyed me already. When I first heard you were coming for me, years ago, I thought nothing of it. What did I have to fear from a band of elf revengers? You would be dead or tired of the quest long before you came close to me.’

  ‘But you did not give up. I began to spend money and effort hiring men to dispose of you, setting traps, laying false scents. You avoided them. Still you came. My health began to suffer… nightmares… nerves…’

  ‘Do not expect me to feel sympathy,’ Gilead said icily.

  The man held up his thin hands in dismay. ‘I do not. I merely thought you would appreciate knowing how fully you have broken me. One by one, you’ve burned my palaces and houses, looted my reserves, put my minions to the sword. My empire has crumbled. I have run from fastness to fastness, pouring away my wealth to keep my deserting warriors loyal. And behind me, always, you have come, leaving destruction in your wake.’

  He gestured around them at the grim blockhouse. ‘This is all that’s left, Gilead Lothain. This last humble outpost, those last few soldiers you have killed. I spend half my life scheming my fortune, and then I spend every coin I have trying to protect myself from you.’

  He straightened his head to expose his saggy, wizened throat. ‘You bastard elf. Take your shot. End my misery.’

  Gilead trembled, his blue-steel sword heavy suddenly.

  ‘Do it!’ rasped the Foe, leaning closer. ‘Finish your revenge and a plague on you! Give me peace!’ Gilead wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Do it!’ screamed the frantic, wretched ruin of a man, sliding off the stool to his knees.

  Gilead stared down at him. ‘You want me to end your misery? Cutting your throat won’t end mine. Ten years ago, I thought it might.’

  He turned and stepped towards the door. Behind him, the Foe wailed. ‘Finish me! I have nothing left!’

  ‘Neither have I,’ Gilead said simply. ‘And living with that is the true price.’

  OUTSIDE, THE COLD mountain sun burned down through the stands of pine. Gilead spiked his sword in the soil outside the stockade and sat down on a slanted log.

  ‘Is it over?’ asked Fithvael. Gilead nodded. ‘The Foe is dead?’

  Gilead shook his head. Fithvael frowned, but knew better than to ask any more.

  A meadowlark sang. Somewhere deep in Gilead’s mind, a lingering pain refused to ebb away.

  I KNOW FOR a fact that the Tower of Tor Anrok stands yet, hidden amidst the forests beyond the town of Munzig, though no one may ever find it. Its grounds are rambling and overgrown, and its windows are empty, like the eyes of a skull. It is just another pile of dead stones in the wilderness.

  Some say there is one last Lothain alive, the lost son of Cothor, who will return from the wilds one day and unlock the old doors of the hall. They say he roams the furthest edges of the Old World, a deathless daemon with a sleepless blade, howling out his pain to the moon and warring with the tribes who follow the dark ways of Chaos. Some say that death is in his eyes. Per
haps it is just a myth. The land is full of them.

  2

  GILEAD’S FATE

  I will not stir from here until Death comes for me.

  SO YOU WOULD hear more of my tales?

  Well, this land is full of stories, but to be sure most of them are foolish prattle. In Munzig, away in the forests, they’ll tell you of a magic songbird that haunts the woodland glades and sings your future in sad trills as it flies from clearing to clearing. If the hour is late, too, they’ll speak of a dark shape that hunkers in the graveyard and eats the marrow from bones living and dead. Nurses and watch-mothers, old guard captains and innkeepers, they are all alike. They keep a store of tales to entertain the children, amaze the passing travellers and intoxicate the locals after hours.

  Lilanna was wetnurse to the Ziegler family, wealthy merchants from Munzig. A dumpy woman with silver hair in a bun and starchy black clothes, she would tell her stories to the Ziegler children at bathtime and before bed. Gleefully, they would wriggle down and beg for ”just one more”. The best were of the elf-folk, the pale watchers of the forests, haunters of the glades and waterfalls.

  Lilanna had two good stories about such folk. The first was of a tower, the tower of Tor Anrok, which was older than time and lay deep in the forests beyond the town, out of reach of man. It only appeared when the moons’ light fell upon it, she insisted. She wasn’t sure why, to be honest, but it gave the story some charm.

  The other was of a pool. Its exact position was not fixed, and that made the details of her yarn easier. The pool was called Eilonthay, she swore, and its waters were still and translucent like glass. In time of need, according to the old woman, the people of Munzig could go down to this pool and beg a wish from the elf-folk of Tor Anrok. They were bound to help, she said. The dwellers in the moonlit tower had watched over the people of Munzig for centuries. They would answer any call, honestly asked. It was their way.