Blood of Aenarion

chapter TWENTY-nine

I am going to die.

The knowledge beat against Tyrion’s brain with utter certainty as he watched N’Kari rip one of the Phoenix Guard asunder with his great claw. There was no way he was going to survive this. He simply was not a match for the daemon, even weakened as it was by the magical radiance of Asuryan’s flame.

I am going to die.

N’Kari beckoned with his hand and some of the wounded soldiers abased themselves before him. N’Kari sprang forward walking on the backs of his newfound worshippers, the great claws on his feet tearing flesh and shattering bone with every stride.

Tyrion was not afraid. He was not angry. He was simply struck by the futility of any action he might perform. He knew in part this was a reaction to the languid vapours the daemon emitted and in part it was his own mind responding to the hopelessness of the situation.

I am going to die.

The remaining Phoenix Guard threw themselves forward to meet the daemon. Its blade reaped their lives like wheat. It laughed with soul-flaying mockery. Blood and brains splattered everywhere, hitting Tyrion on the face. Calmly he wiped them away to clear his sight.

It was all just information. His death was one of the rules of this game. Accepting the truth of it, he could still win. The goal was to distract the daemon until Teclis cast his spell. It was now simply a problem of tactics.

I am going to die.

The daemon gestured again. Polychromatic lightning surged from its extended claw. It hit one of the defenders and consumed his flesh even as he groaned in what might have been agony or ecstasy. The flare of the bolt cast the huge statues of the old god into stark, blasphemous illumination.

N’Kari was huge and very fast and enormously strong. Its claw was capable of shearing a fully armoured elf warrior in half with as little effort as a seamstress cutting thread. It could fire bolts of magic at its targets. It was all but invulnerable to mortal weapons.

I am going to die.

Blades shattered on N’Kari’s flanks or passed through flesh that knitted behind them. Whatever protected the daemon seemed random but it was effective.

The invulnerability did not matter. It was not his goal to kill the daemon. Only to waste its time. To draw its attention. His task was to keep himself alive as long as possible. To hold its attention. To save the life of Teclis until he could cast his spell. If he could cast his spell.

I am going to die.

The pitifully few remaining defenders threw themselves forward. The daemon pounced to meet them and rend them asunder.

Time was passing. Every second he did not do something was a second that brought N’Kari closer to victory and Tyrion closer to defeat. He needed to act soon if he was going to act at all. He raised his sword. His hand was steady. He considered wasting an instant to turn to Teclis and wave goodbye but that would merely draw N’Kari’s attention to the one he was trying to keep it from.

I am going to die.

He smiled. He had never expected to live forever. His life was going to prove a lot shorter than he would have wished.

Why was he hesitating?

There were things he still wanted to do and would never get the chance to and once he started he never would. No matter. It was too late for that now anyway.

‘Face me, daemon, and meet your master,’ Tyrion shouted. His voice was as steady as his hand.

Teclis felt the electric thrill of contact with the presence of the god. Knowledge surged into his mind, showing him where to put his hands, how to move his fingers, which words to say. He did what he was told, binding the power and shaping it into a weapon that he knew would prove inimical to the daemon.

He moved in the patterns shown, spoke the words he was told, adapted his mind to the sorcerous inflections demonstrated. The power flowed into him like wine poured into a cup. It thrilled him and it pained him. His life and soul were in danger, for mortal forms were not intended to act as conduits for god-like power. He was filled with so much magical energy that any elf who was not a sorcerer would already have been fried to a crisp. He wondered at how much he could bear. He knew it was going to have to be a lot more if he was to have any chance of harming the daemon.

The voice was the same, N’Kari thought. He paused for a moment in something that was almost shock. The face was the same. It might have belonged to Aenarion himself although a younger, less stern, less time-ravaged Aenarion. The scent was the same, flesh for flesh. The spirit was almost the same. It did not blaze so bright. It did not burn with the Flame of Asuryan. It was not corrupted by the Sword of Khaine. It was not dimmed by the shadow of that all-devouring blade.

Astonishingly, it was not afraid. It had not yet learned the meaning of fear as Aenarion had, even when he had his fears most under control.

This was indeed a bright tender morsel to offer up to Slaanesh. The spirit burned bright but it was not the only one of the Blood that N’Kari detected. There was another nearby. No matter. This one would do. It would give N’Kari the greatest of pleasure to teach this foolish mortal the meaning of terror before he killed it.

He would torment it as a cat torments a mouse.

He sprang forward, aiming just in front of it. The elf was quick indeed. N’Kari had intended to do no more than scratch it but the elf was already gone. A pinprick in his left side, near where the heart would have been in an elf told him his opponent even had the temerity to strike back.

N’Kari smiled. This might prove even more amusing than he had hoped.

‘I will start with your fingers and toes,’ he said. ‘I will snip them off so delicately you will not even miss them at first.’

The blade flicked at his eye. It stung. It did not really hurt. It merely interfered with vision for a moment until it healed.

N’Kari struck again, faster this time, certain that this time he would connect. The elf was no longer where he had aimed. Once again it eluded with a speed much greater than N’Kari had anticipated.

‘I thought daemons were to be feared,’ said the elf with the sword. ‘You cannot even hit me.’

It was already backing away though, as if it sensed that on the third attempt N’Kari would unleash his full fury. Tempting as it was, N’Kari resisted. He struck again and thought at first he had connected but then realised his claw had only hit the elf’s blade. It was not exactly a parry. There was no way the elf had the strength to either hold or deflect N’Kari’s blow. He had simply managed to evade.

It was only a matter of time, the daemon thought. Nothing mortal could defeat him.

Tyrion moved away as fast as he could. N’Kari was fast, faster than anything Tyrion had ever faced and he sensed that the daemon was not even exerting itself. It was over-confident. It knew it was going to win and that it had time.

Up close the creature was fearsome. It bulked much larger than him. Its hide was armoured. Its massive claw looked too heavy even for its mightily muscled arm but somehow was not. The scent of the thing was odd, musky and spicy and oddly disturbing. Aromatic sweat or some other secretion glistened on its armour.

That was wrong. Flesh sweats. Armour does not.

He pushed aside the thought as a distraction and aimed a blow at where the skin and armour joined, at a point which on any living thing would have been vulnerable. He ducked a blindingly fast claw sweep and lashed out with his blade. It pinked the daemon where he had aimed but the flesh knit behind the blade almost as soon as it was pierced.

N’Kari struck again, aiming low, trying to hamstring Tyrion. He leapt forward, feeling the wind of the displaced air below him, careering off the daemon’s side. He hit the ground rolling, let his momentum carry him to his feet and turned to face his foe again. N’Kari was already reaching for him.

Tyrion was glad that he had entered this fight with no illusions as to his chance of survival. It would have been very discouraging otherwise to discover just how fast and strong and powerful the daemon really was. He was outclassed completely. He began to have some inkling of just how mighty Aenarion had been. He had triumphed over this creature and others just as powerful.

Discouraging, he thought again. There was an understatement. Somehow the thought made him laugh.

This offended the daemon. It bellowed in incoherent rage then its surprisingly beautiful voice said, ‘Chortle all you like Blood of Aenarion. The last laugh will be mine.’

Tyrion did not doubt it. He kept fighting. He might not have any hope of victory but he did have a goal and it appeared he was achieving it.

He aimed a blow at the daemon’s eyes once again. It expected it this time and its riposte was so swift it took Tyrion by surprise. He ducked just in time. Its claw snapped shut just where his head had been. At first he thought it was trying to behead him but then he realised it was trying to grab him. If that happened, he knew things would go very badly for him.

Teclis burned. He felt sure his flesh was crisping and turning to ash but when he looked it was still intact. His hand glowed with a strange white light. The aura radiated out from his body. His vision had changed. He saw everything wrapped in shimmering auras.

Tyrion stood out golden and bright as the sun, fearless, unafraid, fighting calmly and methodically against an opponent he could not hope to beat, simply to give Teclis a chance.

N’Kari glowed lascivious purple and sickly green and radiated colours there were no mortal words to describe. There was a strangeness about the daemon’s aura. In a way he resembled a mobile version of the great well of power here in the shrine. His form somehow extended out of this world and was yet connected to it. It was as if the thing that was N’Kari was merely a finger-puppet on the end of a claw that had been poked through the walls of reality by some much greater being.

That was what daemons were, he realised. The mighty things we think we see and against which we were vain enough to imagine we fight were not the daemons themselves but the merest fraction of vast cosmic entities, constructs made from a tiny portion of their power and sent into this world to work their will.

He had no idea why it should be so – he was like an insect trying to imagine the motivations of an elf. These things operated on a different order of intelligence in a different scale of reality. It was a humbling thought but not, at that moment, a useful one.

Mighty as the thing was, he needed to sever its contact with this reality, break its link with its extra-dimensional creator. If that could be achieved the mortal shell that remained could be cracked and broken and killed.

He focused the energy that was flooding into every cell of his body, shaping it into a weapon. As he did so, every nerve burned with agony. His weak heart raced. The air filling his lungs burned. He unleashed a bolt of energy at his foe.

N’Kari decided that this little battle had gone on long enough. He had enjoyed toying with his foe but it was time to get on to the real meat of the experience. He had a mighty soul here to offer up to Slaanesh, one which he would have taken great pleasure corrupting into the ways of pain and pleasure, making it love and adore him before he offered its screaming spirit to his patron daemon god.

It was a pity he simply did not have time for this. The presence of the accursed Asuryan was making it more and more difficult for him to maintain his form here and somehow that presence was increasing.

There was another descendant of Aenarion present here and he was going to have to kill it before the pain became too great for him to endure. Of such little trials is life made up, he thought, and laughed.

He lunged forward with all his strength, catching the elf even as he tried to dance away from the blow. A moment later, N’Kari’s claws were on either side of the elf’s neck. The warrior looked up at him with a defiance that was amusing, and then spat in N’Kari’s eye.

‘Great and loving Slaanesh, I offer up this soul to thee,’ said N’Kari, twisting the currents of magic around him with his mind. The power thrilled through him. He felt an immense sense of satisfaction. His vengeance was almost complete.

All he had to was close his claw and twist and another descendant of accursed Aenarion would be gone. He paused for a moment to enjoy the sweet sensation of victory. After all there was going to be only one more opportunity to enjoy such a delicious sensation today.

He would make his last offering to his patron special he decided, something so depraved and unspeakable that the elves would remember it for the few paltry centuries their race would continue to exist. Yes, he thought, vengeance would be ecstatic indeed.

A wave of fire crashed into him and he screamed in agony. His claw spasmed open. The elf dropped from his grasp.

The power of Asuryan blazed through Teclis. It crackled like lightning, burned like volcanic flame. It struck N’Kari like a tidal wave. The daemon’s anguished howl was deafening. Its carapace blackened and cracked, greenish-purple pus leaked out and was consumed.

N’Kari turned his jewelled gaze on Teclis and beckoned lasciviously, using some sort of spell of compulsion and seduction. Filled as he was with the power of Asuryan it barely touched him.

Twin blazes of power emerged from his hands. The daemon howled and burned but it still lived. It moved towards Teclis, pushing against the blasts like a man pushing upstream against a strong river current. His great claw clicked together menacingly. Clearly, it intended to do with physical force what its magic had been unable to achieve – end Teclis’s life and cut off the source of the god-like destructive power aimed against it.

Teclis concentrated as hard as he could on burning it down, but he knew that he was too slow, and that he did not have time to achieve his goal.

Death came closer, step by step.

One moment, Tyrion knew he was doomed. The daemon was through playing cat and mouse with him. It was going to kill him.

The next moment the daemon was surrounded by a blaze of incandescent energy, screaming orgasmically in agony. It turned away from him towards Teclis. Its flesh was crisping, its carapace cracking like that of a crab baked too long in an oven too hot.

Tyrion took a moment to recover himself and assess the situation. Teclis had somehow conjured enough power to harm the daemon, if not to kill it, if such a thing was even possible. But something had not gone quite according to his twin’s plan. Perhaps he needed more time, which meant Tyrion was not done trying to get the daemon’s attention.

He sprang towards its back, aiming his sword at one of the cracks that had appeared in the carapace. This time the blade plunged home. He felt as if he were carving through flesh. The daemon was vulnerable.

N’Kari felt the sword blade slam into the gap in his armour. It hurt, but not as much as the magical flame did. He concentrated his mighty will on keeping himself moving forwards. The mage was the main threat. He could see that now. He had been duped into thinking only of one of the Blood of Aenarion while the other sought a way to destroy him.

This mage was another of the accursed descendants of the Phoenix King. Only one of them could channel so much of the god’s power unscathed. No other mortals could have endured such a divine contact for so long.

Perhaps this one would not survive it either. Mortals were so fragile. N’Kari could not risk the wait.

There would be no time to slay this one elegantly. Asuryan was using the mage as a vessel for his wrath, outraged as he was by N’Kari’s desecration of his shrine. The god would not care whether the mortal lived or died, only that his vengeance was fulfilled.

Five more steps, he told himself, and he would destroy the wizard and then take special pleasure in destroying the warrior to make up for the loss.

The daemon loomed over Teclis. Its great claw was wide open. Within moments it would lunge forward and snap him in two.

He would not survive that but it did not matter. He saw a way to save Tyrion. Swiftly he wove a knot of power and sent it arcing over the daemon to wrap itself around Tyrion’s blade, turning it temporarily into a new focus for Asuryan’s power so that even if he died, the god would be able to use it.

Tyrion’s sword glowed as if it had just emerged from the forge. For a moment, Teclis feared the surge of power would prove too much for it, that the metal would melt, that the blade would prove useless, but it was a good blade, of ancient elven make, and it endured.

The thing was done.

Tyrion’s sword blazed like a weapon of legend, like Aenarion’s Sunfang in the tales. He did not know how it had happened and he did not care.

He drove it down between the daemon’s shoulder blades. It burned through N’Kari’s flesh, scorching it. A sickly sweet stench of corruption and narcotic incense filled the air. Tyrion drove it home again with all his might, aiming towards where the heart would be in an elf.

He had no idea whether even this blade could kill a daemon, but he was going to find out.

Searing agony burned between N’Kari’s shoulder blades. He had thought the pain could not get any worse. He was wrong. The mage had done something new and terrible.

Even as the power of his onslaught decreased, he had transferred some of the god’s force to the warrior. N’Kari could kill the mage now but if he did so all the god’s power would flow into the sword. It already held more than enough to destroy this physical form. If he turned to defend himself, he might be able to slay the warrior but only at the cost of giving the mage a chance to escape.

It was a hard choice, to forgo part of his vengeance and wait for the time to recreate his form. The one good thing about the situation was that his victims were elves. If one of them survived it would most likely live through the hundred years it would take N’Kari to return to this world. He could take his vengeance then.

N’Kari decided to kill the mage. It was better to be certain under the circumstances.

The daemon did not turn. Tyrion knew why. It was going to slay his brother. It was determined to kill one of the Blood of Aenarion and that was the option most likely to succeed.

He leapt over the daemon, using its shattered shoulder carapace as a springboard, twisting in the air to bring himself down in front of the daemon, between it and Teclis. With his free hand he pushed his brother away even as he turned to strike.

He felt fast, faster than he ever had. The blade seemed to move of its own will in his hand. He drove the blazing sword forward, striking the daemon with the power of a thunderbolt. He struck it again and again. The daemon reeled back, howling and cursing, great chunks torn from its flesh by the power of the blade, wounds cauterised by the cleansing flame.

The twins drove N’Kari from the chamber of the sacred flame, through the long corridors until they emerged on a ledge in the side of the ziggurat, looking down upon the sea. Tyrion recognised it as the place he had come to after passing the test of the priests of Asuryan. It seemed appropriate. He felt as if he had passed another test.

The daemon seemed to be fading in the sunlight, mist emerging from its charred skin. Perhaps it sought to escape.

Tyrion kept pushing forward, smiting as he went. Teclis sent more bolts of magic crashing into the daemon. N’Kari staggered away, making for the great balcony overlooking the sea.

Tyrion struck again and again. N’Kari turned at bay, claw held high, bellowing defiance. He seemed to have given up on thoughts of escape. He was going to make his last stand and now he would be at his most dangerous.

Tyrion brought his blade down in a thunderous arc. The force of the blow, combined with the daemon’s enormous weight, drove it through the banister. It tumbled headlong towards the sea below, disintegrating like a meteor hitting air, burning up like a falling star and disappearing even before it had hit the waters far, far below.

Tyrion let out a long sigh of relief. Teclis limped into place beside him. He looked exhausted and his hair and clothing were scorched.

‘I think it’s over,’ said Tyrion.

‘It’s not over, you know,’ said Teclis. The two of them stood at the very top of the temple. The clouds had blown away and the sky was a clear, brilliant blue. Below them, the elves had begun to clear away the debris of the battle. With the demise of N’Kari, the will that had bound the remaining daemons to this world was lost, and they had vanished, unable to bear any longer the holy air of the shrine. Without their daemonic patrons the remaining cultists had proven no match for the elves. The battle was won.

‘You think the daemon will return?’ Tyrion asked.

‘Aenarion himself could not kill it. I don’t think we did. It will be summoned into this world again before too many years pass; and gain a new body, and it will return to finish its vengeance on us.’

Tyrion nodded. ‘He certainly seemed a very persistent fellow.’

Teclis laughed. ‘You are in remarkably good spirits for an elf who has just been told that he will have to spend the rest of his life being the object of a Keeper of Secret’s desire for revenge.’

‘I am happy enough just to be able to watch this sunset. I did not expect to see it.’

Tyrion laughed with the pure pleasure of being alive. Teclis leaned against the broken banister and wondered how long it would be before N’Kari returned.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A legend amongst Black Library fans, the first of William King’s sixteen novels for the Black Library was published in 1999. He is the creator of the much-loved Gotrek & Felix series and the Space Wolf novels starring Ragnar Blackmane. His English language novel sales for Black Library total over 750,000 copies and his books have been translated into 9 languages. After 8 years away writing a trilogy of novels based in a world of his own creation, William King’s much anticipated return to the worlds of Warhammer has brought to life some of the seminal characters from the Warhammer background, such as the twin brothers Tyrion, greatest living elven warrior and Teclis, mightiest mage of his era, and the heroic Imperial Guard general Lord Macharius.