Elric half-cringed at the feel of his blade in his damp hand.
But he shouted to the advancing soldiers: «See jackals! See the sword! Forged by Chaos to vanish Chaosh! Come, let it drink your souls and spill your blood! We are ready for you! »
He did not wait but, with Moonglum behind him, spurred the Nihrain horse into the ranks, hewing about him with something of the old delight
Now, so symbiotically linked with the hell-blade was he, that a hungry joy of killing swept through him, the joy of soul-stealing which drew a surging, unholy vitality into his deficient veins.
Though there were over a hundred warriors blocking his path to the still-open gate, he smashed a bloody path through them and Moonglum, seized by something akin to his friend's mood, was equally successful in dispatching all who came against him.
Familiar with horror as they were, the soldiers soon became loath to approach the screaming runesword as it shone with a peculiarly brilliant light-a black light that pierced the blackness itself.
Laughing in his half-insane triumph, Elric felt the callous joy that his ancestors must have felt long ago when they conquered the world and made it kneel to the Bright Empire. Chaos was, indeed, fighting Chaos-but Chaos of an older, cleaner sort come to destroy the perverted upstarts who thought themselves as mighty as the Dragon Lords of Melnibone!
A bloody trench had formed in the enemy's ranks and through this the pair plunged until the gateway gaped like a monster's maw before them.
Without pausing. Elric rode laughing through H and people scuttled to hiding as he entered, in bizarre triumph, the City of Screaming Statues.
«Where now?» gasped Moonglum, all fear driven from him.
«To the Theocrats Temple-palace, of course. There Arioch and his fellow duke no doubt await us»
Through the echoing streets of the city they rode, proud and terrible, as if with an army at their backs. Dark buildings towered above them but not a face dared peep from a window. Pan Tang had planned to rule the world - and it might yet-but for the moment its denizens were fully demoralised by the sight of two men taking their huge city by storm.
They pulled their horses to a halt as they reached the wide plaza and saw the huge bronze sepulchre swinging on its chains in the centre. Beyond it rose Jagreen Lern's palace, all columns and towers' ominously quiet
Even the statues had ceased to scream and the horses' hooves made no sound as Elric and Moonglum approached the sepulchre. The blood-reddened runesword was still in Elric's hand and with it he took a mighty sweep at the Chains supporting the sepulchre-the holiest vessel of this unholy place. The supernatural blade bit into the metal and severed the links.
The crash as the sepulchre dropped and smashed was magnified a thousand times by the silence. The noise echoed throughout Hwamgaarl and every inhabitant left alive knew what it signified.
«Thus I challenge thee, Jagreen Lern! » Elric shouted, aware that these words would also be heard by everyone. «I have come to pay debt I promised! Come, puppet! » he paused, even his triumph not sufficient to fully quench his nervousness at what he must say now. «Cornel Bring Hell's Dukes with you-» Moonglum swallowed, his eyes rolling as he studied Elric’s twisted face. The albino continued:
«Bring Arioch, and Balan, and Maluk! Bring the proud princes of Chaos with you for I have come to send them back to their own realm forever! »
The silence again enfolded his high-challenge and he heard its echoes die away in the far places of the city.
Then, from somewhere inside the palace, he heard a movement His heart pounded against his rib-cage^ threatening to break through the bones and hang throbbing on his chest as proof of his mortality.
He heard a sound like the clopping of monstrous hooves and ahead of it the measured steps that must be those of a man.
His eyes fixed themselves on the great golden doors of the palace, half-hidden in shadows that the columns threw.
The doors began to open silently.
Then a figure, dwarfed by the size of the doors, stepped forth and stood there regarding Elric with a horrible anger smouldering in its eyes.
On its body scarlet armour glowed as if red-hot. On its left arm was a shield of the same stuff and in its hand a steel sword.
Jagreen Lern, said in a voice that trembled with rage:
«So, King Elric, you have kept part of your word, after all.»
«And I plan to keep the rest of it, » Elric said with sudden calm. «Step forward, theocrat I’ll meet you fairly in single combat»
Jagreen Lern gave a sneering, hollow laugh.
«Fairly? With that blade in your hand? Once I met it and did not perish, but now it bums with the blood and souls of a score of my best warrior-priests. I would not be so foolish. No-let those you have challenged meet you.»
He stepped to one side.
The doors gaped wider and if Elric expected giant figures to emerge, he was disappointed. The dukes had assumed the forms of men.
But there was a power about them not filled the air as they moved to stand, disdainful of Jagreen Lern, upon the topmost step of the palace.
Elric glimpsed their beautiful, smiling faces and shuddered again, for there was a kind of love on their faces, a kind of pride-a kind of confidence so that, for a moment, he was filled with the wish to jump from his horse and fling himself their feet to plead forgiveness for what he had become.
«Well, Elric, » said Arioch, the leader, softly. «Would you repeat and return to us?» The voice was silvery in its beauty and Elric half-made to dismount.
But then he clapped his hands to his ears, the runesword hanging by its wrist-throng, and cried:
«No! No! I must do what I must! Your time, like mine, is over! »
«Do not speak for us, Elric, » Balan said persuasively, his words passing Elric's hands and whispering in his skull. «Chaos has never been this powerful on Earth-not even in earliest days. We shall make you great-we shall make you a Lord of Chaos, equal to ourselves! We give you immortality, Elric. If you behave so foolishly as you behave now, you will bring yourself only death and none shall remember you.»
«I know that! I would not wish to be remembered in a world ruled by Law! »
Maluk laughed softly.
«That will never come to pass. We block every move that Law makes to try to bring help to Earth.»
«And this is why you must be destroyed! » Elric cried.
«We are immortal-we can never be slain! » Arioch said, and there was a tinge of impatience in his voice.
«Then I shall send you back to Chaos in such a way that you shall never have power on the Earth again! »
Elric swung his runeblade into his hand and it trembled there, moaning quietly as if unsure of itself, just as he was.
«See! » Balan walked part-way down the steps. «See-even your trusted sword knows that we speak truth.»
«You speak a sort of tnidi.» Moonglum said in a quavering tone, astonished at his own bravery. «But I remember something of a greater truth-a law that should bind both Chaos and Law-the Law of the Balance. The Supreme Spirit holds that balance over the earth and it should be that Chaos and Law war to keep that balance straight Sometimes the balance tips one way, sometimes another-and thus are the ages of the Earth created. But an inequal balance of this magnitude is wrong. In your struggling you of Chaos may have forgotten this! »
«We have forgotten it for good reason, mortal. The balance has tipped to such an extent in our favour that it is no longer adjustable. We triumph! »
Elric used this pause to collect himself. Sensing his renewed strength, Stormbringer responded with a confident purr.
The dukes also sensed it and glanced at one another.
Arioch's beautiful face seemed to flare with anger and his pseudo-body glided down the steps towards Elric, his fellow dukes following.