Swords & Dark Magic - By Jonathan Strahan Page 0,40
and pleased, and Morlock cursed. The singing tone rose and fell and rose again, like a bell, like the baying of a dog. Andhrakar would kill again, and soon.
The spear lashed out. Morlock ducked away from the spearhead and grabbed the shaft just above Viklorn’s lifeless hand. Morlock brought down his dark blade and slashed off Viklorn’s spear-hand at the wrist. The severed hand still clutched the shaft of the spear in an unbreakable grip. The spear still sang, louder than ever now, drowning all other noises. Morlock spun the business end of the spear about. As Viklorn stood there, blinking at the gushing stump of his arm, Morlock buried the dark shining spearhead in his neck. Viklorn fell backward to the ground and the singing spear fell silent, slaked by his death.
Morlock! The voice of the demon Andhrakar sounded in his head. Will you free me now from this prison you made for me?
Morlock laughed harshly as he cleaned and sheathed his dark blade. “Hope springs eternal in the demonic breast. Learn despair, Andhrakar: I won’t free you to hunt human souls. I can’t understand how you caught this one. I bound you in the spearhead, then buried you in a crypt full of traps, and then posted a warning outside the crypt. How did you get free?”
Warning—or advertising? the demon whispered in his mind. Generations of heroes died seeking the lost treasure left by Morlock the Maker. Finally one succeeded. His people would be making songs about him now—if I hadn’t persuaded him to kill them all.
Morlock scowled and turned away to bury Leen. He laid him in the ground and put the still and a few gold pieces beside the butchered corpse, then covered him up. He broke some boards from the wagon and made a grave-sign for the dead innkeeper. He supposed the people that Leen had died to save would come back eventually, so he wrote the grave-message to them, in the great, sprawling runes of Ontil: LEEN DIED HERE. WHERE WERE YOU?
He returned to the dead body of Viklorn. He kicked it furiously several times, then grabbed the shaft of Andhrakar and drew it from the wound. Morlock let the dead pirate’s hand stay where it was, gripping the shaft, as he carried the spear away. He looked back once from the ridge: a few carrion birds were already circling the pirate’s unburied body.
Will you at least keep me and use me? the demon whispered. I am a powerful weapon. If you feed me human lives, I can give you vengeance on your enemies.
Morlock said nothing, but carried Andhrakar back to the village where the Broken Fist stood. He found the town abandoned: everyone had fled to escape Viklorn and Andhrakar. Morlock broke into the blacksmith’s shop, kindled a fire in the forge, and assembled a set of tools at the anvil.
You cannot destroy my prison in a primitive smithy like this, the demon said, sounding somewhat uneasy.
“You don’t know what I can do,” Morlock disagreed. “Nor have you guessed what I’m going to do.”
He fashioned a spearhead, exactly like Andhrakar in form. He even managed to give its surface a glassy basaltic glaze, something like the dark crystalline surface of Andhrakar. He tempered it, hammered it, let it cool, and polished it. He unfixed Andhrakar from its shaft and put the new spearhead on the shaft, with Viklorn’s severed hand still attached. Then he took the greatest hammer in the smithy and he struck the new spearhead until it lay in fragments.
Morlock took a chisel and carved on the side of the anvil: HERE I, WHO MADE ANDHRAKAR, DESTROYED IT, BECAUSE IT KILLED MY FRIEND LEEN. FORGIVE ME AND REMEMBER ME: MORLOCK AMBROSIUS.
Liar! the demon screamed inside his mind.
Morlock shrugged. “The world thinks I made you, which is a lie. I only imprisoned you. If I could have imprisoned you in a spittoon, or a wooden doorstop, or something not obviously deadly I would have done so. The magical laws which govern imprisoning demons limited me. But I can negate one lie with another. These fragments of the accursed spear Andhrakar will become cherished heirlooms, perhaps to be reforged as a new weapon someday—”
They’ll know! They’ll know it’s not me!
“—not as effective as the old weapon, of course, but they don’t make anything like they used to. And no one will go looking for Andhrakar, since everyone knows where it is. There will be no advertising for your new resting place. You will