‘Well met, Imrik,’ Teclis said. The Dragon Prince of Caledor looked as tired as Teclis felt, and worse besides. His once-proud bearing was bent beneath the weight of exhaustion, and his fine armour was hacked and torn and covered in gore. Imrik nodded curtly.
‘The beasts are retreating, for now at any rate,’ he said. His voice was hoarse from strain. He pulled off his helmet and ran a hand through his sweat-matted hair. ‘They will return, though. In a matter of days, if not hours.’ He turned his helmet over in his hands. ‘There are more of them every time. It is as if every beast left in the world has gone mad, and come to Athel Loren.’
‘You’re not far wrong,’ Teclis said. He looked up at the blistered sky, where the clouds seemed to congeal into leering faces which came apart as soon as he caught a glimpse of them. ‘The Dark Gods muster their strength for some final blow – one which I fear will fall here, and soon.’ He looked at Imrik. ‘Can you hold them, if they come again?’
Imrik looked away, across the glade. ‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment. ‘After that, however…’ He trailed off. He shook his head. ‘Your brother fought well, mage. He helped turn the tide here, as he did when the daemonspawn attacked the Oak of Ages. Hard to believe… what he was. It is almost as if it didn’t happen.’
‘Is it, Prince of Caledor? I find it all too easy to remember,’ Teclis said. He watched as Tyrion picked his way through the carnage, sword held loosely in his hand. Even now, suffused by Light, he looked as if he belonged nowhere else.
‘Aenarion come again,’ Imrik said. ‘And gone as quickly.’ He looked at Teclis. ‘Something must be done, mage. And soon… My forces are bled white while the Eternity King consorts with savages and worse things,’ he muttered, casting a wary glance at Nagash.
‘I know,’ Teclis said. He leaned against his staff. His limbs felt like lead. ‘I know.’
ELEVEN
Mannfred’s eyes opened slowly. He had not been sleeping. His kind did not sleep, no matter how much it might have passed the time. He had been thinking, plotting his course should the opportunity for freedom present itself.
There were few paths open to him. Sylvania was a trap that would be his unmaking, if he dared cross its borders. Neferata would send his fangs back to Athel Loren without hesitation. The rest of the world was being consumed in a conflagration the likes of which even he had never seen, and he had no intention of dying alone and forgotten in some hole. No, there was only one route that promised even a hint of a chance at victory.
Middenheim, he thought bitterly. Middenheim, the heart of enemy territory. Having been rejected by his allies, he had no place to go but the arms of his former foes. Would they welcome him? He liked to think so. How could they not? Was Mannfred von Carstein not a pre-eminent sorcerer and tactician, a master of life and death? And did he not know many valuable secrets?
Indeed I do, he thought. So many secrets, including the presence of the goddess of the moon herself. He smiled cruelly. His brief association with the branch wraith Drycha had yielded much, including the revelation that the Lady so assiduously worshipped by the Bretonnians was, in fact, the elven goddess Ladrielle, albeit in disguise. And since Ladrielle had kindly revealed that she and Lileath were one and the same, in the King’s Glade earlier, it wasn’t hard to see the weapon such information could be in the right hands.
But first, he would have to escape. And he judged that the opportunity to do so had just presented itself. A faint stirring of the air had brought him fully alert, and now his gaze roamed the shadows. There was a new smell on the air, indefinable but nonetheless familiar. Something was watching him. ‘I smell you, daemon,’ he said, acting on a hunch.
A shape moved out of the shadows on the other side of the bars. Great wings folded back as a horned head bent, and a voice like the grinding of stone said, ‘And I smell you, vampire. You stink of need and spite.’
‘And you smell like an untended fire-pit. What’s your point?’ Mannfred asked. ‘I’d heard that the elves had chased you out of the forest with your tail between your legs, Be’lakor.’ He gestured. ‘They cast you out, as is ever your lot. It must get tiring, being thrown out of places you’d rather not leave. Shuffled aside and forgotten, as if you were nothing more than an annoyance.’
Be’lakor cocked his head. ‘You are one to speak of being forgotten, given your current situation,’ the daemon murmured.
‘True, but you have fallen from heights I can but dream of,’ Mannfred said. ‘Be’lakor, the Harbinger, He Who Heralds the Conquerors, the Foresworn, the Dark Master. Blessed at the dawn of time by all four of the dark powers, you ruled the world before the coming of the elves. And now look at you… a shadow of your former glory, forced to scrabble for meaning as destinies clash just out of reach.’ He smiled. ‘One wonders what victory you seek here, in my guest quarters.’
‘No victory, vampire. Merely curiosity,’ Be’lakor said. ‘And now that I have satisfied that, I shall take my leave.’ The daemon prince turned, as if to vanish back into the shadows. Mannfred recognised the ploy for what it was. For an ageless being, Be’lakor had all the subtlety of a brute.
‘Free me, daemon,’ Mannfred said.
‘And why would I do that, vampire?’ Be’lakor asked. He stopped and turned. ‘Will you promise to serve me, perhaps?’ Obsidian claws stretched out, as if to caress the roots of Mannfred’s cage. ‘Will you sign yourself over to me, and wield those not inconsiderable powers of yours at my discretion?’
Mannfred laughed. ‘Hardly.’ He smiled. ‘I know you, First Damned. I know your ways and your wiles, and our paths have crossed more than once. I saw you slip through the streets of comet-shattered Mordheim, and I watched from afar as you tried to break the waystones of a certain foggy isle in the Great Ocean. Your schemes and mine have ever been woven along parallel seams, though until now we have not met face to face.’ Mannfred sniffed. ‘I must say, I wasn’t missing much.’
‘You mock me,’ Be’lakor rumbled.
‘And you mock me, by implying that you would free me in return for my loyalty. We both know that such an oath, made under duress, would be no more binding than a morning mist.’
Be’lakor’s hideous features twisted into a leer. ‘Even if it were not made under duress, I would no more trust you than I would trust the Changer of Ways himself. You are a serpent, Mannfred, with a serpent’s ambition. Power is your only master, and you ever seek it, even when it would be wiser to restrain yourself.’
‘Ah, more mockery… Be’lakor, hubris made manifest, warns me of overreach. Did I not say that I know you, daemon? I have read of your mistakes, your crimes, and you are the last being who should warn anyone of the perils of ambition. There is a saying in Sylvania… grave, meet mould.’ Mannfred chortled. ‘I leave it to you, to decide which you are.’
‘Are you finished?’
‘I’m just getting started. I have nothing but time here, and nothing to do but to sharpen my wit. Shall I comment on your many failures next?’
Be’lakor growled. Mannfred subsided. He sat back, and smirked at the daemon. He’d planned to provoke the creature into attacking, and thus freeing him, but he had the sense that Be’lakor was too canny for such tricks, despite his lack of subtlety. ‘No, instead, I think I shall offer thee a bargain. A titbit of some rare value, in return for thy aid in shattering the cage which so cruelly detains me.’