relish.
Things were going well. Vengeance would soon be his.
The elves were proving troublesome. A storm of arrows had descended on N’Kari’s troops, along with a hail of spells. His warriors had been thrown back again and again. The greater daemons in his retinue, loath to be the first forward in case it was a trap, were holding off from the attack. The lesser ones were not powerful eough to clear the walls on their own. It was time for another tactic. He called his army back and ordered them to cease attacking, to give their foes an hour to rest, to snatch sleep, to dream...
He breathed deeply and exhaled, emptying his lungs in a cloud of narcotic perfume that all but stunned Elrion and the other cultists who watched him with bright, mad eyes. He extended one of his claws and inscribed runes in the dirt. He indicated to a cultist that she should bow her head, and took it off with one clean sweep. He breathed in again as the huge jet of blood spouted into the air. All of the crimson fluid was sucked into his chest, bringing with it the faint taste of its supplier’s tainted soul.
Swiftly N’Kari worked his spell, changing the blood within him, adding some of his own eternal essence, drawing corrupt phantasms from the Chaotic netherworlds. He added visions of sin from his extensive memories and lustful dreams taken over the centuries from the souls he had devoured.
He breathed in again through his nostrils, drawing on the winds of magic and adding power to the witch’s brew he exhaled through his mouth. An army of phantoms emerged in his breath, beautiful elf maidens and boys, translucent, dancing seductively.
His worshippers reached out and tried to embrace them but N’Kari shooed them away. These things were not for them. These wraiths were half-formed, malleable, responsive to dreams and whims. He did not want them shaped by the demented drives of his worshippers. These were meant for other beings. They would offer temptation to the guardians of the wall.
N’Kari aimed a coruscating bolt of energy at the weakest point in the spell walls. Even weakened the defences were still powerful. It took effort to blast even the smallest chink in them, but that small gap was all he needed to create. The wraiths flowed through the gap like water seeping in through a small hole in a ship’s hull, carrying within them a freight of dreams, desire and demented horror.
CHAPTER TWENTY-eight
The sky was dark with thunderclouds. Rain poured down. The heavens themselves seemed angry. Lightning split the night.
From the top of the temple, a soaked Tyrion looked down on the onrushing horde illuminated by the sudden stark light of the thunderbolt. This looked bad. The attacking force was far larger than anyone had ever imagined it would be, and it had arrived far sooner than anyone had expected.
Tyrion was not frightened. He was rationally aware that there was a very strong possibility that he was going to be dead before this day ended but that did not scare him. He was fascinated. Below him were creatures out of legend – daemons the likes of which had not been seen since the time of Aenarion.
If the stories were true, the howling horde of attackers throwing themselves at the walls were led by N’Kari, a being who had commanded the attack on Ulthuan in the dawn ages of the world and who had twice faced Aenarion himself. He thought he could make out a monstrous four-armed figure that might be the Keeper of Secrets ordering his troops forward.
He had certainly seen with his own eyes a Lord of Change’s fire blasts of multi-hewed Chaotic energy directed at the archers on the walls. Its magic carving through the protective enchantments and then the flesh of the defenders. Its raptor-screams of triumph echoing across the battlefield, their very sound freezing the weaker-willed in fear.
He wished Teclis were here to see this. He felt sure his brother would be at least as fascinated by the sight as he was. Tyrion did not need his brother’s gift to see that there was powerful magic at work here on behalf of the elves as well as the daemons. Elven weapons harmed hell-things that ought, according to the legends, to have been invulnerable to them. Something shielded the defenders from many of the daemon’s spells. He felt sure that the greater daemons were holding back because of the presence of something they feared although