‘Yes, Nakor. Can I go now?’
‘Yes, go,’ said the spry little gambler.
They rounded the hallway and at the far end could see a vast courtyard opening up to the heavens. Even from where they stood they could see that a fairly impressive fight was in progress. From the blinding flashes of energy and deafening sounds reverberating down the hall, Nakor judged that Pug and Magnus must be there, which was as he wanted things to be. He sensed that the time was fast approaching when all of his plans, plans that had been years in the making, were at last about to come together.
The only concern he had left was, would Ralan Bek, a total madman, play his part? Everything Nakor needed to have happen, the fate of three worlds, and the lives of everyone he had come to care about over the last hundred years, would come to nothing if Leso Varen did not do as Nakor expected him to do. There were times, thought Nakor, when being a gambler was not necessarily a good thing.
CHAPTER TWENTY - Return
PUG CAST HIS SPELL.
An explosion of brilliant illuminations confounded the Deathpriests for a moment, which was all the time Magnus needed to lash out with another enchantment. Sparkling lights exploded from the palm of his outstretched hand as if he had cast ten thousand minute gems – diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. But the beauty of the spell was in stark contrast to its effect, for it shot through the Dasati Deathpriests like minuscule razors. Orange spots of blood appeared first on their faces and exposed arms, but such superficial signs were irrelevant, for to a man their eyes went vacant as dozens of tiny holes were ripped through their brains.
Half a dozen more Deathpriests now hurried into the room. They paused, cautious, and then as one began an assault on the rear of the Talnoy guard. Pug noticed that each man wore a white sash that had hastily been tied around his waist.
Valko turned as another figure raced into the room: a massive Talnoy guard, but this one was not wearing any helmet.
‘Wait!’ shouted Pug. ‘That’s Bek!’
Valko hesitated for an instant, then stepped back as Bek hurried past him, an expression of demented glee on his face as he raised his massive sword and swung it like a woodsman chopping timber. A Talnoy who had been aiding another in pressing back two of Valko’s Deathknights was sundered from shoulder to crotch and the two halves of his body fell apart in an explosion of orange blood. Bek grabbed another Deathknight by the back of the neck, as if he were a fractious puppy and turned rapidly, in almost a dancer’s pirouette, throwing him hard against a third warrior half-way across the room. With a sudden reversal of his spin, he completely cut through another Talnoy, his blade sundering the warrior’s armour with the shrieking sound of tearing metal and a shower of sparks from the blow.
Pug stood back, awed. Bek was now a force of nature, something worse even than the most terrible warrior Pug had ever seen. Pug had heard from Tomas what a challenge Bek had been when they had first encountered one another, but now Pug wondered if even the legatee of the Dragon Lord armour would survive an onslaught of this war god incarnate. Certainly there was more to Bek than he had ever suspected, for it seemed that whatever was hidden inside him was now coming to fruition.
Valko circled around to where Pug stood and said, ‘No mortal can do this. What is he?’
‘I don’t know,’ Pug said. He could see that the situation was rapidly approaching victory, as the knights of the White were disposing of those Talnoy guards who were not throwing themselves at Bek to protect the TeKarana. Taking a deep breath, he continued, ‘When we first found him, he seemed a strange young man, possessed by some… agency, and we thought perhaps we understood his nature, but since coming here… I don’t know. It’s as if he’s a Dasati soul in a human body’
‘He’s terrifying,’ said Valko, completely unaware of making the most profoundly alien admission possible for a Dasati Deathknight to utter.