[Darkblade 03] - Reaper of Souls Read online

  Malus muttered a dark curse, but had to admit that Hauclir was right. At first the crew’s spirits were high in the wake of the battle and the looting that had followed, but once they’d returned to the open sea the mood of the sailors had become increasingly tense. First it had been just the original men of the Harrier, but it had gradually spread to the other survivors as well, like a strange fever. Pain sharpened in time with his thoughts and the buzzing in his head was growing louder. The highborn gritted his teeth. There’s some purpose to these killings, Hauclir. If it’s not mutiny, then what is it? It’s too regular to be anything but a plan…” The highborn’s voice trailed off as his eyes narrowed in realisation.

  The pause brought Hauclir’s head around. “My lord?”

  “The killings,” Malus said. “How do you know one won’t happen before we reach Karond Kar?”

  Hauclir frowned. “Well, each man was killed about four days apart, just at…” The retainer’s eyes widened. “Just at the change of the moons.”

  Malus nodded, his expression turning murderous. “Exactly. This isn’t mutiny, Hauclir. This is sorcery! The highborn turned on his heel, striding quickly back the way he’d come.

  It took several moments for the full weight of Malus’ words to sink in. Hauclir’s eyes widened and he hurried after the highborn. “But what does it mean, my lord? Where are you going?”

  “To the source,” Malus said angrily. “My dear brother has some explaining to do.”

  The oak door had become a grisly shrine.

  At first it had been merely carvings—sailors incised their names into the door or the frame, hoping for a blessing, or inscribed small prayers for the death of their foes. Some of the prayers had been embellished over time as the carvers returned and sought to rededicate themselves to their god. Flowing lines of druchast, elegantly carved by calloused hands, were surrounded by vivid depictions of battle scenes comprised of scores upon scores of artful lines cut into the wood. Even Malus was impressed at the artistry and skill of the devoted sailors who had spent hours working their prayers into the steel-hard surface of the door.

  Later, however, the offerings became less artful and more direct. Names were painted in blood, or sometimes the aspirant merely pressed a bloody palm print to the door’s wooden surface. Then someone took a carpenter’s nail and put up a severed hand taken from a Skinrider. Severed ears became popular, as well as scalps.

  From there it was only a matter of time before the devout began piling severed heads at the foot of Yasmir’s door.

  The stench was profound. Malus had not been in this part of the ship since the Harrier had left the Isle of Morhaut and the gory spectacle had been gruesome even then. The highborn counted two score Skinrider heads before giving up in disgust. The pain in his head was much sharper now, beating against the back of his eyes like a drum and an invisible charge seemed to play over the surface of his skin, setting his hair on end. He suddenly found himself craving the taste of that damned sour wine.

  Malus paused at the blood-soaked door. As near as he could tell it hadn’t been opened in some time, possibly not at all since they’d left the island. During the few sober moments he’d had over the last few weeks it had seemed like a blessing not to have Urial haunting the main deck like some misshapen crow. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Urial had been in that room with his half-sister for weeks. Malus had no love whatsoever for Yasmir, but the realisation unsettled him nonetheless.

  I must still be drunk, the highborn thought sourly, rubbing a hand across his face. Yasmir was beautiful beyond words and as cunning as an adder. Back at Hag Graef she had held the young nobles of the court in the palms of her hands and made them bleed for her sport. Yet it was her love for her brother Bruglir that made her useful to Malus. He needed Bruglir’s fleet in order to reach the island and deal with the Skinriders and with Yasmir’s backing he could ensure Bruglir’s cooperation. Urial, on the other hand, was a bitter and twisted man who had just as much reason to hate his own family as Malus did. Having been given to the Temple of Khaine as a sacrifice, the deformed infant had survived immersion in the sacrificial cauldron—a sign of the god’s favour. He’d become a servant of the temple and had learned many arcane arts and for this reason Malus had need of him as well. So Malus had woven a web of promises and lies that had bound his siblings to him. Or so he’d imagined.

  With Urial’s influence as a servant of the temple Malus was able to persuade the Drachau of Hag Graef to issue a Writ of Iron, giving him the power to commandeer Bruglir’s fleet and seek the lost island. Yasmir’s influence was the real iron behind the writ, however; a force that Bruglir could not oppose. Urial, in turn, loved Yasmir and Malus promised that by the end of the campaign Bruglir would no longer stand in Urial’s way.

  In the end they were all betrayed to one degree or another.

  Bruglir was killed in battle with the Skinrider chieftain, but not before being betrayed by his sea mistress Tanithra. Yasmir was betrayed by Bruglir’s faithlessness and her hatred for him awakened a part of her that had lain dormant during her sheltered years at the Hag. Her desire for slaughter had transformed her into a living manifestation of death—in Urial’s words, a saint of the Bloody-Handed God. Even Malus was forced to admit that her ability to kill with her long knives was supernatural in its terrible grace and skill. The crew saw her fight during a desperate boarding action in the teeth of a late winter gale and afterwards her quarters became a shrine to the Lord of Murder.

  Malus raised his hand to the bloodstained door. There was sorcery at work within; he was starting to be able to sense it, like a stench burning at the back of his throat. The buzzing in his head began to take the shape of words, but he focused on the door and its bloody inscriptions instead.

  He paused, his hand inches from the dark wood. The skin prickled as it came into contact with currents of unseen power. After a moment, he withdrew his hand. Why knock, he thought? With all that power at his command, Urial no doubt already knows I’m here.

  Malus Darkblade raised his boot and kicked the door open in a shower of splinters and twisted metal.

  Chapter Two

  THE BRIDE OF RUIN

  Kicking open the cabin door was like piercing the side of a furnace. Fierce, rippling waves of heat and a blaze of crimson light flooded into the dimly-lit passageway. A sense of dislocation washed over Malus. He raised his hand without thinking, as if to ward off some unseen blow and the buzzing in his head fell silent. A familiar sensation, like a coil of serpents writhing beneath his ribs, constricted tightly around his heart.

  Beyond the doorway the air throbbed with otherworldly power. Complex runes and intricate sigils had been carved deeply into the floors, walls and ceiling and fresh blood poured into the channels to tie the mystical geometries together. When the cabin had been Yasmir’s quarters she had rarely left it during the voyage. At the far end of the room she’d raised a shrine of sorts, comprised of the crew’s first, crude offerings and meditated at its feet for hours on end. That crude construction was gone now; in its place was Yasmir herself. She sat in a kind of trance in the centre of the room, her body effortlessly poised and her face bearing the serene, merciless countenance of a queen.

  Malus stared in shock, heedless of Urial’s naked, prostrate form stretched at the feet of his regal sister. Yasmir wore a circlet of gleaming brass upon her brow and from her shoulders hung a mantle of bright red and shining black that pulsed with life in time with her beating heart. She wore a cloak of glistening organs, woven together with threads of dark veins and cable-like arteries. Fresh blood shone in the light like enamel upon her breast and a single drop glimmered like a ruby on one perfect cheek.

  The highborn looked upon his half-sister and in that moment he glimpsed her as Urial did: transcendent, sublime, a goddess clad in a raiment of slaughter and for the space of a single heartbeat he worshipped her. Words of devotion came unbidden into his mind. I will bow to you on a carpet of bones, he thought, his heart
aching. I will bathe you in the blood of nations and fill the air with the music of murdered innocents. I will beat out a dirge upon the surface of the world and bear you beyond, to stars unnumbered.

  Cold, cruel laughter, ancient as the bones of the earth, washed away the worshipful litany in his mind. A voice spoke, reverberating hollowly in his chest.

  “Look upon her and dismay, little druchii,” Tz’arkan said, his voice sinking like a razor into Malus’ brain. “She is your handiwork—a goddess of blood given form. But you cannot be hers. You belong to me.”

  Malus tore his eyes from Yasmir’s face, feeling bile rise in his throat. Mother of Night, how he needed a drink! “I belong to no one, daemon,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “Least of all to you.”

  Would that it were true, Malus thought bitterly. His hands clenched into fists and he felt the ruby ring upon his finger. He bore it like a shackle, no more able to remove it than he could pull off his own hand. Malus had worn it for almost five months, ever since he’d found it in a temple deep in the Chaos Wastes. He’d gone there in search of wealth and power, but too late he’d realised that he had fallen into a trap.

  The temple was also a prison for the great daemon Tz’arkan, bound there aeons before by a cabal of Chaos sorcerers and in a single rash act Malus had inadvertently become Tzarkan’s pawn. Every waking moment since then had been devoted to escaping the daemon’s clutches, for in a year’s time Tz’arkan would claim his soul for all eternity unless he found five relics of power that would free the daemon from his crystal prison. Two were now in his possession: the Octagon of Praan, stolen from the clutches of a clan of beastmen in the north and the Idol of Kolkuth, lifted from its resting place in the Tower of Eradorius on the lost Isle of Morhaut.

  Confronting the Skinriders who’d claimed the island as their lair had been nothing more than a ruse to gather the ships and men needed to reach the island and find the tower. The price in men and ships was nothing to the highborn, he’d grind entire continents to dust if that was what it took to win back his soul from the daemon—if any part of it still remained, that is.

  The daemon hissed in amusement, slithering around the highborn’s labouring heart. Tz’arkan’s mocking presence was always in the back of his mind, tempting him with powers far beyond mortal ken, but each time the cold, icy force of the daemon’s gifts flowed through his bones it left a stain inside him, corrupting him from within. Wine was the only refuge he’d found from Tz’arkan’s influence, but it was a fleeting, wretched kind of peace. There were times, late at night, when he wondered if he drank to escape the daemon’s taunting whispers, or to protect himself from the temptation of drawing on still more of Tz’arkan’s power.

  Just now, however, the thought of tearing his half brother into tiny pieces was very tempting indeed.

  “Hello, dear brother,” Malus said, his voice cold with anger. “You’ve been quite the recluse these last few weeks. Had I known you were down here knitting a robe from my sailors’ guts I would have paid a visit much sooner.”

  Urial made no reply. Slowly, purposefully, he climbed to his feet, rising carefully on his one good leg. The former acolyte’s naked form was slender, almost boyish. He was lean to the point of emaciation, muscles like steel cord standing out starkly beneath skin so pale as to be nearly translucent. Malus was surprised to see that nearly every inch of Urial’s body, from neck to toes, was incised with hundreds of arcane runes. His thick, white hair fell unbound to his waist and when he turned to face Malus his eyes shone in the reddish light like molten coins of brass. Malus’ eyes were drawn to Urial’s withered right arm and his twisted, foreshortened left leg and he fought a surge of revulsion. His disgust must have shown on his face, because Urial squared his shoulders and drew himself straighter, as though daring his half-brother to point out his weakness. There was a gleam in Urial’s eyes that Malus had seen before, on the deck of the Harrier during that battle in the winter gale when Yasmir had shown her terrible zeal for killing. He was transported in a kind of terrible ecstasy.

  The look of joy on his face unsettled Malus more than anything else.

  “Greetings, Malus,” Urial said in his sepulchral voice. “I had wondered when you would come. A few moments more and you would have been too late.”

  Malus’ eyes narrowed warily. “What in the Dark Mother’s name are you talking about?”

  “Do not blaspheme,” Urial said and this time there was the sound of steel in his voice. “Not here. This is a holy place, sanctified by the Lord of Murder.”

  “This is my ship, brother,” Malus said, taking a pointed step across the threshold into the cabin. “And my men you have slain.”

  Urial smiled. “Your men? I think not. If anyone on this ship can lay claim to being a mutineer, it is you. You murdered their rightful captain.”

  “Bruglir died at the hand of a Skinrider,” Malus snapped. “You were there. You saw it just as well as I.”

  The malformed druchii’s smile widened further. “Ah, but he was trying to kill you, as I recall. It was simply his ill luck that he got in the way of that monster’s axe.” Urial turned and limped to the cabin’s single cot, ostentatiously turning his back on his sibling. Black robes and kheitan were laid out on the horsehair mattress. You manipulated him for your own ends, just as you manipulated me.” He began to dress himself, casting a protective glance over his shoulder at Yasmir. “I might have tried to kill you myself, but I had other priorities. The point is, you are the usurper here, not I. In fact, if anyone can now claim to possess the crew’s unswerving loyalty, it is Yasmir. I don’t see the men leaving blood offerings at your door.”

  For a moment, Malus was taken aback. This was a side to Urial he hadn’t seen before. What had happened to the dour priest whose iron faith had prevailed against the Skinriders’ daemon hosts?

  Tz’arkan stirred. “Beware, Malus. There are dangers here you do not comprehend.”

  The highborn shook his head as if to clear the voice from his mind. “Why did you kill those men?” he asked, focusing once more on Urial.

  “Kill them? No. You misunderstand,” Urial replied, shaking his head. They were willing sacrifices, brother. They died for the glory of the living saint, to herald her arrival with offerings of slaughter as she steps through the Vermilion Gate.”

  “Stop speaking in riddles!” Malus snarled. “What are you babbling about?”

  Urial drew his belt tight, then slipped his kheitan over his shoulders. He turned back to Malus, tightening the kheitan’s side lacings and smiling his secret smile. “There is too much to tell,” he said. “And you are unworthy. But I will say this: in my own way I manipulated you as well.”

  Malus paused. He didn’t like where this conversation was leading. “Manipulated, how?”

  Urial finished his lacings and adjusted the fit of the leather, then turned and carefully picked up a dark object from the bed. He cradled it in the crook of his crippled arm and Malus saw that it was an ancient, yellowed skull, bound in brass wire. The white-haired druchii caressed the relic gently with a single fingertip, composing his thoughts. Finally he said, “Did you ever think it strange that I was born this way?”

  Malus frowned. “No. Some children are malformed. It is the way of things.”

  “The way of things? Look at her.” Urial gestured at Yasmir. “She is perfect—the blood of Nagarythe queens courses through her veins. Consider illustrious, betrayed Bruglir, a hero among men. They shared the same mother, the same father as myself.” His expression darkened. “My mother was pregnant with me when Lurhan returned from the black ark with that witch Eldire, your mother.”

  “You think she twisted your limbs in the womb?”

  “Of course,” Urial said. “She intended to kill my mother and take her place. She used metal salts from the forges and had them slipped into her food. Nothing else explains the wasting sickness that took hold of my mother and slowly sapped her strength for two long months. When she finally died, Lurhan had her s
ervants cut me from her belly in the hope I would survive.” The pale-haired druchii’s smile turned bitter. “According to the servants he took one look at me and said I was the cause of his wife’s terrible death. I was given to the temple straight away. I believe Lurhan would have thrown me into the cauldron himself if he could.”

  “And not even Khaine would have you,” Malus snorted in disgust. He was growing tired of Urial’s smug manner.

  To his surprise, Urial laughed. “You are a fool, Malus Darkblade. Do you think Khaine cares whose skulls adorn his throne? No! There are never enough offerings to sate his hunger. He only spares those who are meant for a greater destiny.”

  Malus stared incredulously at Urial. “You?”

  “There have been other men spared by the cauldron, but none as crippled as I. The priestesses at Hag Graef took that as a great omen and sent me to the elders at Har Ganeth, City of Executioners. It was there, years later, that I learned of the prophecy.”

  Something stirred within Malus. A vague feeling of unease crept over him. “Prophecy?”

  Urial took the skull in his good hand and looked deep into its shadowed eye sockets. “It is old, very old. Perhaps one of the first testaments given by the Lord of Murder to his believers, back in the dawning days of the world.”

  “And what does this prophecy speak of?”

  “It speaks of a man born to the house of chains, touched by the gods and forsaken by men.” Urial stared intently at the skull, as though daring it to contradict him. “His mother will be taken from him and his father will cast him out, yet by his hate he will prosper.” The former acolyte lowered the skull and turned his gaze upon Yasmir, his expression changing to one of pure desire. “And his sister shall take up the blades of the Bloody-Handed God and be blessed with his countenance and wisdom. She will be the Anwyr na Eruen and the Lord of Murder shall give her to him as his wife, as a sign that his destiny is at hand.”