‘I think you are too old for such toys,’ said Malekith, drawing Avanuir.
‘I am,’ snarled Morathi, her face contorting with genuine anger.
Something invisible scythed through the air and connected with Malekith’s legs. He felt his shins crack and his knees shatter and a howl of pain was wrenched from his lips as he crashed to the floor. Letting Avanuir fall from his grasp, he clutched at his broken legs, writhing and screaming.
‘Stop making such a noise,’ said Morathi irritably.
Making a fist, she wove a spell that clenched Malekith’s throat in its grip, choking him. The pain befuddled his mind, and as he flailed and gasped he could not muster the concentration to counter the spell.
‘Focus, boy, focus,’ spat Morathi as she stalked forwards, her fist held out in front of her, twisting it left and right as Malekith squirmed in her mystical grasp. ‘You think you are fit to rule without me? I expect such ingratitude from the likes of Bel Shanaar, but not from my own kin.’
The mention of the Phoenix King’s name acted as a lightning rod for Malekith’s pain and anger and he lashed out, a sheet of flame erupting from him to engulf the queen. She was unharmed, but had released her spell to protect herself. Malekith rolled to his side, coughing and spluttering.
The prince was then flipped to his back and he felt a great weight upon his chest. Numbness enveloped him as the weight pressed down harder and harder, and Malekith fought against losing consciousness. As black spots and bright lights flickered in his vision, he thought he glimpsed a shadowy, insubstantial creature crouched upon his chest, a slavering horned daemon with a wide, fang-filled maw and three eyes. Pushing aside the aching of his body, he tried to focus his mind to break the spell, but still his body could not move.
Morathi stood beside her son, looking down dispassionately. She reached down and grasped Malekith’s helm in one hand and pulled it from his head. The queen regarded it closely for a moment, her eyes analysing every scratch and dint in its grey surface, her fingers lingering close to the circlet but never touching it. Gently, she crouched beside Malekith and placed the helm behind her, out of reach. Malekith fought back a surge of panic. He felt strangely naked and powerless without the circlet.
‘If you do not know how to use it properly, you should not have it,’ she said gently. She laid a hand upon his cheek, caressing him, and then placed her fingers upon his forehead as a mother soothing the brow of a fevered child. ‘If you had but asked me, I would have helped you unlock its real power. Without it, your magic is weak and unrefined. You should have paid more attention to what your mother taught you.’
‘Perhaps,’ Malekith said. With a shout of pain, he swung his gauntleted fist at Morathi, punching her clean in her face and sending her slamming to her back. ‘I learned that from my father!’
Stunned, Morathi lost her concentration and her spell evaporated. Malekith felt the invisible weight lifting from his body. With an effort, he drew magic down into his ruined legs, fusing bone back into place, knotting ruined muscle and sinew together.
Whole again, the prince stood, looming over Morathi. With a flick of his hand, Avanuir jumped from the floor and landed in his grasp, its point a finger’s breadth from Morathi’s face, unwavering.
His face grimly set, he swung Avanuir over his left shoulder and brought it down in a backhand sweep towards Morathi’s neck.
‘Wait!’ she shouted and Malekith’s arm froze, the blade no more than a hand’s span from the killing blow.
Here, in her stronghold, the sorceress was far from defenceless, but that did not mean she relished the prospect of testing her skill against that of her progeny. Any such contest would turn Ghrond into a blasted ruin before a winner was determined.
‘Why have you come?’ she asked, a sharpened fingernail resting on her slender chin.
‘You gave no warning of the northlander invasion, as was your duty,’ Malekith intoned, savouring each damning syllable. ‘Moreover, you have held back from Naggaroth’s defence. I should be quite furious with you. Indeed, for a long time, I cherished no thought so well as your broken body beneath the lash.’
The Witch King rose from the throne and began to pace the room, pausing before each statue in turn to gaze into its eyes. Some he recognised, past members of his council, watch commanders and generals that had assisted Morathi in one way or another. He could sense the life energy still trapped within the statues and wondered if any of his mother’s favourites had ever escaped her gorgon-like wrath when the relationship inevitably became too much of a burden for her.
‘Because of you, Naggaroth is all but fallen.’ He did not look at her, but stopped before the image of Cruidahn of Hag Graef, who had been Morathi’s consort more than a thousand years earlier. ‘Before the year is out, it will be but another ruin in a world already full of them. Yet I find that I feel no sadness for the loss.’
‘Pathetic! You disgrace your father’s memory.’ Morathi spat, unexpectedly flushing with anger.
‘Not at all. Indeed, I intend to honour him as never before. Our folk had fallen into weakness and squalor.’ Malekith snorted with derision. ‘We had grown fat and lazy, a herd of dull-witted beasts no longer fit for the great destiny I shall provide.’ He turned to face his mother and spread his hands expansively. ‘Now the herd has been thinned, the weak slaughtered by the northlanders’ axes. I have you to thank for that, though I am sure you did not intend matters to unfold thus. Those who remain are warriors and survivors all. They will be my army, and Ulthuan’s ruin, for they will survive only through seizing the land that is theirs by right. The throne of the ten kingdoms will at last be mine.’
‘I have heard you say such things before,’ Morathi sneered.
‘Before, I did not have aid. The Phoenix King is already slain, betrayed by one of his closest advisors. He died broken and screaming, his last dignity a memory before I choked the life from him.’
‘The Five Gates will defeat you, as they have in the past.’
‘They will not,’ Malekith assured her, ‘for I now hold the key to those fortresses, placed in my hand by one of their own. Besides, Ulthuan is as beset as we. While I do not doubt that our cousins will endure, they will not have the good sense to let the times purge their weaklings.’
‘If victory is so assured, what do you wish of me?’
‘You are my mother and, despite your myriad treacheries, you yet command my regard. Join your armies to mine, and the past will be forgotten. You shall be Ulthuan’s queen once more – glorious, regal and beautiful as the night.’
Morathi sighed contemptuously.
‘You still think like a mortal, when you should aspire to be a god.’
‘You are many things, mother, but you are no goddess.’
‘And who is to say that? The power of Hekarti pulses through my veins. As the magic rises, I can be anything I wish, and that is all that matters as the Rhana Dandra begins.’
‘You’re not the first to speak to me of the End Times, yet I remain somewhat unconvinced.’
‘The mage, I suppose,’ Morathi said, her contempt clear. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t hear him whispering to you during your journey? What lies did he tell you?’