Born of Darkness (William King) - William King Page 0,30

insect-brief life against an existence intended to be eternal. Vorkhul could win this struggle by walking away. The human would die of disease or mischance or old age.

His soul screamed a protest against giving ground to this two-legged worm. He wanted to make it grovel and beg. He wanted to make it suffer. Nonetheless with every step the man took, Vorkhul took a step back. He kept to the shadows, watching the sword as if hypnotised.

Behind him he heard the sound of running water, smelled the stink of human excrement. He backed through a doorway and realised he had made a mistake. He was inside a cell. Massive chains dangled from one wall. An open metal sarcophagus, its inside lined with spikes, stood in one corner. It was a crude instrument of torture. The victim was placed inside and the coffin lid closed. Spikes would pierce flesh. It made him think about the way he had been entrapped and for a moment rage threatened to drown his mind. A plan formed. He could lurk within the metal case and spring out to take his foe by surprise.

The greenish light was close. The humans were almost upon him and there was little he could do but make a stand.

He felt something cold beneath his paws. He looked down and saw a metal grill. Beneath it he saw running water, a means of escape. He did not want to use it. He wanted to slay his pursuers. His pride demanded it.

Fight or stay? Wager eternity for a moment of revenge? He began to change.

***

Fang slunk forward on his belly, sniffing the ground and whimpering. The trail led into a cell. The sound of running water and the sewer stink became more intense. Rodric and Rhiana were right behind Kormak. He gestured for them to step back, to give him room to move and he was relieved when they did so.

The chamber looked empty except for the massive metal shape of an iron maiden standing in one corner. The lid was half-open. Perhaps the Old One lurked within, waiting in ambush.

Kormak stalked closer, blade held ready. He slid his swordpoint into the gap between the walls of the iron maiden and the lid. It creaked open. Nothing was there.

Fang stopped and gave a puzzled whimper. He sniffed the air and bared his fangs and began to move in circles around something metallic in the floor.

“What is it, boy?” Rodric asked. The Shadowhound stopped and started pawing at the grill. The dog growled in frustration.

“It has gone down there,” Rhiana said.

Kormak looked at the grill. The narrow grating lay at the end of a groove in the floor leading to the instrument of torture. Its purpose was to let blood or the water used to clean it away flow out. It was far too small for anything human-sized to have passed through it, but that meant nothing to an Old One. It could change into a long thin serpent or an aquatic worm.

There was no other way out of this cell and he felt sure the monster had not passed him in the darkness.

He strained all his senses, trying to find any trace of his vanished foe but he could not. It might as well have melted into thin air.

He let out a long breath and gave his heart rate time to slow. He was keyed up tight, ready to strike in any direction, ready to kill. It was hard to pull back from the edge of that precipice.

“What now?” Rodric said.

Kormak considered his options. They could wait here until their torches ran out but no doubt the Old One would find another way out of the water-channels. They would end up hungry and vulnerable and sitting in the dark waiting for the Old One to return.

“We go back,” Kormak said. Failure tasted bitter in his mouth.

***

They trudged back to where Gerd had fallen. The abbot lay there, a thing of flesh that had once been alive and was no more. Kormak closed the abbot’s eyes.

Just this morning, they had joked and bickered and remembered old comrades. Now Gerd had gone to join the others in the grave.

No. He had gone to join them in the Light. Looking at the torn meat at his feet, Kormak found that difficult to believe.

He felt at once bereft and angry. Another face from the past was gone. Another voice had been silenced by an Old One Kormak had failed to kill. This was his fault. He had