But there was to be one last turn of allegiance. No mere horse was Malhandir, but descended from the father of horses in the time before the Everqueen. He had borne Tyrion across countless battlefields and almost died a dozen times for his master, but now at the last the Lord of Steeds sensed that it was not Tyrion he carried but a far darker creature.
As Malekith dropped like a comet, Malhandir pranced, tossing Tyrion from his back to fall onto the hard rock of the outcrop where the bases of the lodestones met. The Dragon of Cothique lashed out with the icefang but Malhandir was already galloping away. The Widowmaker in his grasp, Tyrion stalked on, eyes fixed on Teclis.
Malekith smiled as Seraphon flexed her claws. Enslaved to the rage of Khaine, Tyrion had turned his back on the Phoenix King, possessed by the thirst for vengeance against his brother. He was but moments from death.
A piercing shriek cut across the clamour of battle, a warning scream that caused Tyrion to turn when Seraphon was but a heartbeat from snatching up the Dragon of Cothique. Malekith recognised the voice as his mother’s but had no time to curse her interference as Tyrion spun with supernatural speed and speared the Widowmaker towards the diving black dragon, rolling beneath the outstretched claws.
Seraphon needed no command and banked fast, pouring forth a billow of noxious vapour from her maw.
Purple lightning erupted around the dragon and her rider, crackling across scales and armour. Screeching agony from Morathi’s spell, Seraphon spasmed, wings folding as she fell. Malekith leapt clear a moment before she hit the rock, wings and spine cracking, scales and flesh torn by the jagged stone upthrusts.
Landing lightly, Malekith turned to find Tyrion almost upon him. The Widowmaker flashed for the Phoenix King’s throat. Asuryath moved as though of its own accord and the two godly blades clashed with a shower of icy sparks and white fire.
So did Malekith and Tyrion, Asuryan and Khaine, finally meet to decide who would prevail.
Thirty-Five
One King to Rule Them
Tyrion’s sword was in constant motion, but no slower was Malekith’s blade. Ice and fire wreathed the pair, the toll of enchanted steel sounding out with every heartbeat as the two demigods fought.
Malekith was aware that the winds of magic were almost undone, and in this moment stuck true to his task, defending and engaging Tyrion rather than forcing the fight for a kill one way or the other. For Tyrion the duel was a venting of a bloodlust long in the making, his red eyes fixed on his foe, every lick and lash of the Widowmaker intended to maim and kill, only centuries of unthinking instinct moving the Godslayer in defence when Malekith counter-attacked.
Malekith was wounded first, taking a cut to his left arm that bit deep to the bone. Had it not been for Hotek’s craft the arm would have been lost altogether, though the limb hanging dead at his side caused the Phoenix King some difficulty. In retaliation Malekith swept his sword towards Tyrion’s throat. The avatar of Khaine eluded the blow but at the expense of his jaw as the tip of Asuryath raked across his face.
They parted for but a moment and then flew at each other again, their swords a blur to all that watched. Malekith circled, keeping his good side presented to his foe, while Tyrion unleashed a blistering set of strikes both high and low, seeking any gap in the Phoenix King’s defences.
Each was cut a dozen times and more from glancing blows, their suits of armour streaming with blood, their blades hissing with magic. Malekith renewed his efforts, sensing that he was tiring, knowing that he had to overwhelm Khaine’s incarnation quickly. The vortex was almost freed, and in a few more heartbeats Teclis’s spell would be complete.
Tyrion weathered the Phoenix King’s offensive with hasty parries and dodges, always just ahead of the next blow. Malekith could not help but remember the result of their earlier encounter and fear crept into his heart as he looked into the unthinking, raging gaze of his foe. The dread crept through his body like ice, seeping from the wounds inflicted by the Widowmaker, sapping his spirit as well as his stamina.
It was then that Malekith knew he could not win.
The efforts of his earlier sorcery and the wounds he had received had taken too much of a toll. He could defend himself for a time more, but not long enough, or he could try to end Tyrion with one last effort.
His first blow took the avatar of Khaine back a step, his second rang against Tyrion’s helm, almost shearing through his skull. The armour of Aenarion held against the blow, however, and the impact sent shock tingling up Malekith’s weary arm.
As before, Malekith became aware of a presence near at hand – a familiar coiling of Ulgu that he now recognised as the shadow-walking of Alith Anar. Between flurries of sword strokes, he scanned the piles of dead and dying heaped upon the lodestones, searching for the Shadow King.
He finally spied Alith Anar in the shadow of a waystone, calmly watching the fight with the moonbow drawn, an arrow unerringly following Malekith’s heart. Distracted, the Phoenix King could manage only a clumsy parry of Tyrion’s next attack, and to his horror Asuryath shattered from the blow.
Tyrion’s backswing caught Malekith across the breastplate, rending through the armour of midnight and slicing open his fire-ravaged chest. Hurled to his back, Malekith gasped for air, sucking in hot lungfuls, hands scrabbling in the blood and mud.
Spitting blood, he pushed himself to his feet, the remnant of Asuryath still in his hand.
‘I regret nothing!’ snarled Malekith, raising the bladeless hilt of his sword in mocking salute.
Tyrion replied with a salute of his own, cross-hilt to his chin, before raising the Widowmaker high above his head for the deathblow. As his arm extended, Tyrion turned, and right before Malekith was revealed a tear in Aenarion’s armour where Imrik’s lance had wounded the prince.
Alith had seen it also. While Morathi’s triumphant laughter echoed over the killing ground, a black shaft sped from the shadows and buried to the fletching in Tyrion’s chest. Malekith’s strength fled as he fell back, mirroring Tyrion’s fall as his last life’s blood spurted from the mortal wound.
Morathi’s laughter became a drawn-out shriek of despair, but her cries sounded distant, muffled.
Crashing to the ground face-first, Malekith barely felt his fall. There was a pain in his back, but soon all he felt was numbness. Overhead the winds of magic danced and writhed, finally freed from the vortex.
His heart fluttered and then stopped.
A lifetime and a moment later, Malekith felt himself lifted up, elevated into the sky upon Ulgu the Wind of Shadow. It wrapped about him and pierced him, passing through limb and artery, becoming part of him.
He opened his eyes, still lying on the ground, and felt different.
The winds of magic were no more. As though the sun had burned away a morning mist, their presence had been washed from the world. Inside he felt Ulgu writhe, trapped within his immortal flesh, bound to his body as it had once been bound to the waystone.
All had become still, the sounds of fighting washed away by a clear sea breeze. He heard footsteps and though there was no sensation yet in his body, he swivelled his eyes to see Alarielle picking her way through the falling waystones to hasten to the spot where Tyrion and Malekith lay. Her face was distant and unreadable, while around her the eyes of elves who had hovered on the brink of death snapped open as the Everqueen passed, their broken bones reknitting and their agonies receding.