“You got your breath back yet?”
“I never lost it.”
“No. You were just letting me take a break, weren’t you?”
“I am generous that way.”
“You know how to open a postern gate?”
“I can slide a narrow blade through the gap at the edge of the door and lift the bar. If I can’t, we have some more climbing to do.”
“Let’s get on with it then.”
Kormak slid his dagger under the bar and lifted it up. He put his weight on the door and it swung open. There was a flight of stairs leading up: tight, narrow, spiralling and easily defensible. The sort of place where only one man could fight abreast at a time and a small group of defenders could hold a larger force for ages. He pushed on up them until he came to a landing, then paused and listened.
The howls and roars still echoed through the keep. He touched the Elder Sign on his chest. It was warm with the eddy currents of magic swirling around him. He put it back under his tunic so that if the magic became strong enough to light up the threaded moonsilver star in the talisman, it would not be visible and give his position away in the darkness.
Petra was behind him now, her knife in her hand. She moved cautiously and quietly along. Kormak stuck his head round the corner and looked along the corridor. It was empty. Torches flickered eerily, sending shadows dancing.
“Not a lot of guests here,” said Petra. Kormak kept his mouth tightly shut and gestured for her to do the same. This was not the time or place for flippant jokes. A mistake here could cost them their lives.
What did she expect anyway? There was a reason why Massimo’s army was camped in the valley below. Mortal men would not want to share the keep with a sorcerer and the monsters he was creating. Anyone they encountered here was likely to be strange and dangerous.
He stepped out into the corridor and began to walk confidently along it. He had long ago learned that just the sight of someone doing this in a place where they should not have been could disarm suspicion for crucial seconds.
The howls echoed through the corridors and seemed to resonate within his bones. He guessed that whoever Massimo was transforming was not enjoying the process. This sort of magic was rarely painless and always unpleasant. He followed the sounds as best he could, moving towards the centre of the keep.
Eventually, they came to what must once have been a temple chamber. There were still statues in alcoves around the walls. A series of inscribed Lunar circles intended to channel power had been etched into the floor and filled with moonsilver. It glowed as the light of the moon flooded the room through the open shutters in the ceiling. It illuminated a naked man chained to the altar. He was the one doing the howling.
Around the chamber men stood stone faced as sentries, their faces like stone, the effort of concealing their emotions engraved on their features. A youth with a more than passing resemblance to Petra watched as a tall, powerful man stood at the altar and chanted.
Massimo was robed all in black and his hair was jet black save for two patches of white at the temples. His beard was long and black with a badger stripe of white in it, and it flowed to his waist. In his hand he held a staff which was tipped with a silver crescent moon. Runes glowed along its length as he chanted. Witchfire danced from the staff to the chains holding the man as power was transferred from one to the other.
The cloying smell of essence of nightbloom incense filled the air, along with something else, the heady, hallucinogenic reek of powdered black lotus as it burned.
“That’s Tam,” Petra said, pointing to the youth standing beside the wizard. He stood full in the moonbeam and Kormak could see their faces had a family resemblance. He could have picked the youth out as her brother even if she had not told him.
Kormak unsheathed his sword.
“You’re ready to kill someone now, aren’t you?” Petra’s voice was very quiet and he could hear the fear in it. The runes on his blade glowed. The amulet was warm against his chest. Powerful magic was at work here.
A shadow detached itself from a nearby wall. It belonged to a man. He had obviously seen Kormak. His outline blurred, there was strange stench in the air and suddenly he was larger than he had been, part man, part wolf. It opened its mouth and howled as it sprang.
The wolf-man’s jaws were open, slaver dripped from its fangs. Its arms were outstretched to claw. Kormak stepped forward and struck. Its flesh sizzled as his blade bit through its neck and severed its head from its shoulders. Its still thrashing body flopped to the ground one way, its head rolled off in another. A pool of pink pus was already starting to surround the body as it transformed back.
More of the wolf-men bounded forward. Kormak counted at least six. The largest of them, a giant with a white ruff around its grey neck and bright mad eyes, howled and gestured and the pack bounded forward.
Kormak struck left and right, severing a limb, hacking through a chest. They slashed at him with their steel-hard claws, ripping his tunic, breaking links in his mail. He felt a pain in his side as one of them drew blood. Time and again they struck at him and he bounded to one side, chopping and stabbing as he weaved through their attacks, blocking blows with cuts that severed limbs and left wolf-men clutching at stumps.
It was obvious they were overconfident, not used to being hurt. They had never encountered anything that could break their magical protections before. One of them got close enough to try and rip out his throat with its great jaws. Kormak wedged his forearm between its jaws and brought his blade forward into its stomach. He heard it sizzle as it pierced flesh. The wolf-man howled this time in agony and Kormak pulled his arm free and punched it in the snout. It fell backwards.
In the interim two more Wolves had bounded forward. Each took him by the arm, claws digging into mail and threatening to tear through the leather undershirt. Kormak felt the enormous strength of the creatures and knew he was helpless against it. He allowed himself to fall backwards pushed by the creature’s momentum. His sword dropped from his hand but he managed to get one arm free. He pulled out his amulet from beneath his tunic. The five pointed star of the Elder Sign glowed hot in its setting. He jammed it into the eye of one wolf-man. It let go as it roared and clutched its eye in a pain-filled gesture that was peculiarly human.
The other wolf-man had him by the throat. Kormak looked into its blazing hate-filled eyes and in that moment knew he was dead. The creature was stronger than he was and it was lowering its snout to rip out his throat. He threw all his strength against it, but it was useless, a child wrestling with an adult. Suddenly the wolf gave out a piercing, high pitched scream of agony. The glowing runes of a dwarf-forged blade passed through its neck. The flesh burned where it touched and the wolf dropped Kormak. He saw Petra standing there, holding the blade in her hand.
“I did good,” she said. “I’ll make a Guardian yet.”
“Maybe you will,” Kormak said, snatching the blade out of her hand and bringing it down on the wolf-man that still clutched its wounded eye. He gazed around; there was only Massimo, Razhak and the pack leader now. Kormak smiled at them.
“Who wants to die next?” he asked. His smile was very cold.
Massimo stood illuminated in the moonbeams. He looked shocked. Tam looked appalled. The giant wolf-man leader did not look at all troubled. It flexed its huge arms and stretched its hands and long talons emerged from them. It opened its mouth revealing dagger-like teeth.
“You have slain Jaro’s minions, Champion of the Sun,” said Massimo. “But you will find Jaro is a completely different proposition. I used most of my magic to bring him back from the edge of death and filled him with the mightiest of the Shadow wolf spirits. He is the first and strongest of my creations. “