Born of Darkness (William King) - William King Page 0,46

Prince Taran said. “Now, if you please!”

“No need,” King Aemon said. He concentrated for a moment, placed his hand against the door, and spoke a word of power.

Kormak felt a surge of magic. The timbers bent and creaked. The lock broke and the bar jumped out of its brackets. The King hit the door again with his open hands and it flew open. Over by the window stood a figure in monk’s robes.

Kormak sprang into the room, blade in his hand.

***

Vorkhul felt the surge of magical energy just before the door leapt from its hinges. Through the window, the baleful glow of the sunstone illuminated part of the sky. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the tall warrior striding forward. The runes on his dwarf-forged blade glowed with reflected light. Determination showed in the set of his jaw and fury in his eye.

Vorkhul did not like fleeing from these insects. He wanted to show the creature who was master. Yet the mortal was armed with a deadly weapon and armoured in an alloy that would burn Eldrim flesh. It was pointless to remain and fight. If he was successful he would soon have the means to teach these worms a lesson.

Vorkhul stretched his arms, transforming them. He extended his newly extruded wings and leapt through the window and into the sky. Behind him he heard the mortal curse.

***

Kormak raced across the room, blade in hand. The Old One’s form writhed and blurred. The sleeves of its robes ripped as its arms became enormous bat-like wings. It threw itself forward, smashing through the glass and rising out of sight.

***

Vorkhul banked away from the window. The giant sunstone atop the palace burned him. It was a bonfire of magic that sucked in the sun’s light through the day then released it into the darkness.

His skin blistered. Strength leeched from him. If he did not evade the killing light soon he was going to die.

Flying was painful. His wing-beats barely kept him in the air. He needed to find a way out of the light. He needed to find an escape route from his deadly pursuers. The agony made it difficult for him to think.

He must escape from the killing light.

***

Kormak reached the window and leapt. He caught a brief, vertiginous view of the courtyard far below him. His fingers closed on Vorkhul’s leg. The extra weight slowed the Old One. Its pinions beat furiously but it could not rise. It writhed and changed shape. Kormak swept his blade around, striking a glancing blow that caused flesh to blacken and sizzle.

The Old One screamed. Its legs flowed together. Its body became the trunk of a great serpent, a huge coil of muscle that lashed and flexed and sought to throw Kormak clear.

***

Vorkhul cursed the mortal. He was determined as a hound on a trail and no more likely to give up his prey once his jaws sunk into it. The light of the sunstone burned. The sight of elder signs blazing on the nearby buildings filled him with nausea.

The mortal’s truesilver armour seared Vorkhul’s flesh like poison. He ignored the pain and squeezed even as he altered his upper body, making it longer and stronger.

Elder signs. The mortals were protecting something. Stolen memories came to him. He knew that building. The things he sought were in it. Some of those elder signs were more decorative than practical, emblazoned in fragile glass. If only he could break them, he might yet reach his goal. There had to be a way. Yes. Yes. There was.

He pulled himself once more into the blinding sky, through the burning light. He did not have long but if he could endure a few more moments . . .

***

A coil of the serpentine body wrapped round Kormak’s torso, threatening to squeeze the life out of him. The smell of sizzling flesh filled his nostrils, mingling with the musty rot the Old Ones emitted when hurt.

Looking up he saw a face of nightmare and horror. Fangs filled its mouth, dripping with a black stuff that could only be poison. Mad eyes glared down at him. He struggled with all his strength to get his arm free, to strike at the Old One.

Wings beat louder in his ears. The ground reeled in his field of vision. The snake jaws came closer. He writhed an arm free and forced a mail-clad forearm into that gaping maw.

Vorkhul gained height, burning from the beams of the sunstone. Had the Old One gone