Liandra breathed in deeply, looking around her, sucking in air that tasted of damp and rot. ‘So what would you do, Alviar?’
‘I would not presume to have an opinion.’
Liandra smiled. ‘None?’
‘You are a mage of the House of Athinol. You require the counsel of princes, not stewards.’
‘Princes may be fools, stewards may be wise. But you speak truth — I’ve been starved of equals ever since…’
She trailed off. It was still hard to say his name.
‘Enough,’ she said. ‘Return. Tell them they will have their answer soon.’
Alviar bowed and withdrew, retracing his steps down the shallow slope towards the city.
Liandra watched him go. When he was gone she resumed her vigil, alone at the summit, watching over the city of her father as the cold wind whipped at her robes.
Now finish the task, she mused.
Sevekai ghosted through the deep dark. His movements were silent. Years in the wilds of Elthin Arvan had only honed his already taut physique; his reactions had always been sharp, now they verged on the preternatural.
The others were still on his heels, just as they had been on every fruitless trail since leaving Naggaroth: Verigoth with his pallid skin and dewy eyes; Hreth and Latharek, the brutal twins, their glossy hair as slick as nightshade. The two sorceresses, Drutheira and Ashniel, prowled ahead, lighting the way with purple witch-light. Malchior, their counterpart, brought up the rear.
A whole party of assassins, gaunt from the wild, buried deep in the twisting heart of the Arluii. They were lean from hunger, their skin drawn tight over sharp bones. Elthin Arvan had not been kind to them. Why should it have been? After what they had done to it, a measure of hatred was richly deserved.
Only Kaitar looked untouched. Kaitar the enigma, Kaitar the cursed. Sevekai loathed him. There was something deeply wrong with Kaitar. His eyes were dull, his manner disquieting. None of the others liked Kaitar; he himself seemed to care little either way.
Sevekai avoided Kaitar’s gaze, just as he had done for all the years they had suffered one another’s company. It had been surprisingly easy to work with someone and barely exchange words. Their routine tasks — slitting throats, administering poisons, squeezing tender flesh — lent themselves to a cold, mute kind of pragmatism.
Now, though, after so long without word from the Witch King, Drutheira had taken matters in hand. It could not continue as it had been. They had done what was required of them and had now been forgotten. So she had taken them south, then up into the peaks, then down again, deep down, burrowing through cold, lost shafts of feldspar and granite. Sevekai could only guess how far they were underground now. He liked the chill of it, though. It cooled his limbs and made him feel languidly murderous.
‘Be still,’ whispered Drutheira from ahead.
The druchii froze. Her witch-light died away, plunging them into darkness.
Sevekai switched to a state of high awareness. Twin blades slipped soundlessly into his hands. He tensed, feeling the muscles of his arms tighten and the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
For a few moments, nothing changed. Then, from far away, from far down, he heard it — a long, low rumble, as if the mountain itself stirred. Then silence.
‘What is this, witch?’ whispered Kaitar. His voice gave away his uncertainty. That in itself was unusual; Sevekai had never heard him sound uncertain before.
‘I told you,’ replied Drutheira. ‘The weapon.’
‘The weapon,’ he repeated. ‘I asked you before what it was.’
Drutheira’s voice remained perfectly calm, perfectly poised. Sevekai had to hand it to her: she knew her craft. ‘Do you doubt me, Kaitar?’
Sevekai smiled wolfishly. He could just make out the ivory glow of her bleached-white hair. She was savagely beautiful, as cruel and fine as an ice-goad.
‘No more than you doubt me,’ said Kaitar. ‘Tell me what you know, or I go no further.’
‘Just what have you sensed down here, Kaitar?’ asked Drutheira, her voice intrigued. As she spoke, a soft blush of colour spun into the void, lighting up her alabaster cheek. ‘What worries you?’
‘You do not wish to provoke me.’
‘Nor you, me,’ she said, before relenting. ‘It is a relic, one that will cause the asur more pain than we have ever caused them. If that does not stir your curiosity then maybe you are in the wrong company.’
Sevekai saw Kaitar’s face flicker between doubts.
‘Maybe I am,’ Kaitar said, ‘but you could retrieve it yourself. There is no reason for me to be here.’
‘Why do we wait?’ hissed Malchior from the rear of the party, unable to hear what was being said. ‘We need to move.’
‘Yes we do, so do not be foolish!’ snapped Drutheira to Kaitar. ‘Without me to guide you, you’d stumble down here for days. I’d happily watch you starve but I need every blade for what’s to come. If you had doubts you should have voiced them on the surface.’
Kaitar hesitated. Still, the uncertainty; Sevekai enjoyed that.
‘So be it,’ Kaitar muttered at last, drawing a curved knife. ‘Take us down. But this blade will be at your back.’
‘And this one at yours,’ said Sevekai, shifting his weight just enough to prod the tip of a throwing dagger into Kaitar’s tunic.
Kaitar turned to glare at him. Sevekai shot him a frigid smile.
‘Watch your step,’ Sevekai warned. ‘The stone’s slippery.’
Slowly, deliberately, Kaitar sheathed his blade again.
‘Very good,’ said Drutheira mockingly. ‘Now, if we may?’ As she turned back down the tunnel Sevekai caught the look of capricious enjoyment she gifted him.
They crept onwards, going near-silently, treading with feline assuredness in the black. The tunnel wound ever deeper, switching back and plunging steeply. It became narrow, barely wide enough to take two abreast, clogged with stalagmites and glossy tapers of dripping rock.
A second rumble ground away in the depths, then faded. Sevekai’s heartbeat picked up. He knew something of what they sought, but not everything — Drutheira was miserly with information even with her allies. Kaitar said nothing further, but Sevekai could sense the tension in him. He kept his daggers to hand, poised for use. Slipping one between Kaitar’s shoulders would be no hardship — he just needed the faintest of excuses.
The air began to heat up. Sweat ran down Sevekai’s temples. He felt minuscule trembles in the rock as he walked, as if the entire underworld shivered in anticipation.
‘It lies in the chamber beyond,’ said Drutheira. ‘Go silently. Follow my lead.’
Then she set off, creeping through the pitch darkness.
The tunnel floor sloped downward steeply, then levelled out. Sevekai could sense the roof opening up. The floor became flatter, as if made level by mortal hands.
‘Go no further,’ said Drutheira, halting them. ‘This is the place. I think we may risk a little magic — the sight is worth it.
Her staff flared, throwing out a curtain of purple-blushed illumination. Sevekai shaded his eyes against the glare, then peered cautiously through his fingers.
They were on the lip of a vast, perfectly circular chasm. It must have been a hundred feet across, as dark and clotted as the maw of Mirai. A narrow ledge ran around the perimeter, barred by cracks and heaps of rubble. Other tunnel entrances were visible at intervals, leading off to Khaine-knew-where. The cavern roof soared away above them, lost in shadow.
One by one the druchii crept out onto the ledge, going warily. Latharek hung back, hugging the near wall, looking sickened by the precipitous drop.
‘Behold its chamber!’ cried Drutheira, sweeping her staff-tip around her and throwing light up the walls.
Huge pilasters loomed up over them, each one carved with immense runes of containment. Sevekai could sense the magic bleeding from them like a physical smell, sulphurous and metallic.