They were getting close now and Asea gestured for them to halt. “We’re very near now and I want you all to be ready. You will have to protect me while I close the Gate. You’ll know when it’s done.”
“What if something goes wrong?” Tamara asked nervously.
“Then flee,” said Asea.
“I don’t like the look of this at all,” said Handsome Jan. A huge mob of walking dead surrounded the cottage. It was quite clear they sensed the presence of the living and were hungry.
“This is it,” said Toadface. “We’re all going to die. If we are lucky.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said the Barbarian. He had drawn his blade and laid it on the remains of the table. He was pouring powder into the barrel of his rifle. “We’ve been in worse situations. We’ll get into others.”
“What are they waiting for?” asked Handsome Jan.
“For us to die of boredom,” said the Barbarian.
Sardec shook his head. The big man’s stupidity had rarely seemed so impenetrable. Sardec realised then that he was merely scared and nervous, and rightly so. They were all going to die in the next few minutes. There were far too few of them and far too many of the walking dead.
Hopeless as it seemed, they needed to do something. He was not just going to stand here waiting to be slaughtered. They were going to take a few of those monsters out there with them. He almost laughed at that. How did you kill the dead? He told himself it did not matter.
“You lot, prop more of that furniture against the door. Watch the windows. I want a man at every one and some of you upstairs, shooting down into the mob. If they break in, we’ll retreat upstairs and make a stand there.”
He did not need to say last stand. Everybody understood that. He could see all the men exchanging looks at once pitiful and bold. Marcie and Rena shepherded the children upstairs so that they could not hear the rest of this discussion. He was glad of that.
Toadface looked at him, licked his lips with his long tongue and said in a choked voice, “If things don’t work out well, sir, I think I speak for all the lads when I say it’s been an honour to serve under you.”
Sardec found himself surprisingly touched by the chorus of ayes that echoed round the ruined cottage. He hid the emotion behind a stern facade and said, “No need to be emotional, Toadface. We’re not dead yet.”
“Never say die, eh, sir?”
“That’s right. Now load up and get ready to show those stinking bastards what for. We’re still among the living so let’s try to remain here.”
A shout from upstairs got Sardec’s attention. It was Weasel from his sniper’s position on the roof. “Something’s happening, sir. They are starting to move.”
Rik did not like this at all. The corridors were silent. It was as if this part of the great labyrinth beneath the Palace had been abandoned.
It was too easy. Things had gone too well. They had penetrated the most heavily defended part of the Dark Empire and so far no one had been able to stop them.
He told himself not to worry too much, to save his fears for when things really went wrong. Both he and Tamara were skilled in the arts of breaking and entering, and had powerful sorceries to aid them beside. Tamara knew her way round this Palace, as did Asea from the days before the Schism. They had advantages that he had never enjoyed during his career as a sneak thief. It was not so surprising that they had managed to come as far as they had undetected.
He took a deep breath and concentrated on his surroundings, reaching out through the shadows. His perceptions flowed in the direction of the Gate and as he did so he felt them altering, being changed by the powerful sorcery of the place. The shadows seemed thicker, curdled like old milk, denser and sourer, charged with an evil energy.
He looked into a great chamber and saw the Black Mirror. He understood at once why it was so called although it was not a mirror at all. It was an arch of stone in the middle of which was a field of force so dark and brilliant it reflected its surroundings. At the centre of it he sensed an absence, a hole in the fabric of space-time that was growing larger in infinitesimal increments and which might, if not closed, eventually grow large enough to swallow the world. It was like a wound in the surface of the universe which was, with glacial slowness, being torn ever wider.
A group of black-robed sorcerers knelt at the five cardinal points of sorcery around the Black Mirror. Their eyes were closed and their lips writhed as they chanted. They seemed oblivious to all that happened around them, locked in a world of their own by chains of sorcerous energy binding them to the Mirror. Around them at a distance from the gateway stood others, who looked powerful and alert. These would be the guardians and he sensed a subtle wrongness about them that made his heart sink.
He remembered Tamara’s tale of the creatures she had fought. Even with the advantage of surprise and his sorcery could he beat such a thing? If it had power akin to a Nerghul, he could think of only one way. It came to him then that the real reason he had agreed to come along on this suicide mission was that it gave him an excuse to feast again, to drain life using thanatomantic magic, and feel the indescribable ecstatic burn that it provided.
He was like those men he had known back in Sorrow who were addicted to drink or dreamdust, the ones who somehow always managed to find a reason to go back to the bar or dealer no matter what promises they had made or how much resolve they claimed to have. There was part of him that wanted to use that tainted magic and always would. The path that had led here was the path that gave him the excuse he needed.
He studied the sorcerers of the Mirror and the unholy energies that infused them. They burned with power bled from that flowing into the Gate. They were very strong.
“It’s behind that doorway,” he heard Asea say from by his side.
“Yes,” said Tamara. “Rik and I can clear a path. You can follow if you can pass the spells binding the Gate.”
“That I can do,” said Asea.
“Are you ready, Rik?” Tamara asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“On the count of three then, let us go.”
Rik’s stomach lurched. The moment was upon him at last; within the next few heartbeats he might be dead. His remaining breaths might be numbered to only a few more than Tamara’s count. Nonetheless excitement burned in him too, and he felt so eager to get to grips with the enemy that he could barely restrain himself from making the shadow — walk.
“One,” said Tamara. Rik slid his blade from the scabbard and focused his mind back through the shadows into the Gate chamber.
“Two.” He tightened his grip around the blade, picking the spot from which he would emerge and planning exactly how he would strike.
“Three.” He stepped forward into the shadows and fell through the whispering void towards his target, one of those assigned to protect the sorcerers. Emerging on the far side he reached out with one hand. Instinctively, guided by the knowledge of the Quan, he lashed out, draining life from the guardian.
Tendrils of dark energy burrowed into his foe through vein and muscle and bone and he became aware of just how altered the Terrarch was. Strange things had been added to him. His bones had been strengthened, his heart altered and that which flowed through his veins was not blood but something clotted and black and oily.
There was little resistance; his prey had not been expecting the attack. Energy flowed into Rik, feeding him strength and driving him onwards.
The sensation of vampirism was ecstatic. The flow of power enabled him to drain his victim all the faster. The Terrarch’s skin turned pale and grey and ashen and began to flake off. He took on a withered mummified look. A strange whistling moan emerged from his lips as life fled from him.