The captain, a stocky man with blue, humorous eyes, came struggling along the deck towards him. He had a cup of hot wine in his hands. He steadied himself by clinging to a piece of rigging and gave the cup to Elric.
«Thanks, » said the albino gratefully. He sipped the wine. «How soon before we make the port of Banarva, captain?»
The captain pulled the collar of his leather jerkin about his unshaven face. «We're sailing slow, but we should sight the Tarkesh peninsula well before sunset, » Banarva was in Tarkesh' one of its chief trading posts. The captain leaned on the rail. «I wonder how long these waters will be free for ships now that war's broken out between the kingdoms of the west. Both Dharijor and Pan Tang have been notorious in the past for their piratical activities. They'll soon extend them under the guise of war, I'll warrant.»
Elric nodded vaguely, his mind on other things than the prospect of piracy.
Disembarking in the chilly evening at the port of Banarva, Elric soon saw ample evidence that war darkened the lands of the Young Kingdoms. There were rumours rife, talk of nothing but battles gained and warriors lost. From the confined gossip, he could get no dear impression of how the war went, save that the decisive battle was yet to be fought.
Loquacious Banarvans told him that all over the Western Continent men were marching. From Myyrrhn, he heard, the winged men were flying. From Jharkor, the White Leopards, Queen Yishana's personal guard, ran towards Dharijor, while Dyvim Slonn and his mercenaries pressed northwards to meet them.
Dharijor was the strongest nation of the west and Pan Tang was a formidable ally, more for her people's occult knowledge than for her numbers. Next in power to Dharijor came Jharkor, who, with her allies Tarkesh, Myyrrhn and Shazar, was still not as strong as those who threatened the security of the Young Kingdoms.
For some years Dharijor had sought an opportunity for conquest and the hasty alliance against her had been made in an effort to stop her before she had fully prepared for conquest. Whether this effort would succeed, Elric did not know, and those who spoke to him were equally uncertain.
The streets of Banarva were packed with soldiers and supply trains of horses and oxen. The harbour was filled with warships and it was difficult to find lodgings since most inns and many private houses had been requisitioned by the army. And it was the same all over the Western Continent. Everywhere, men strapped metal about them, bestrode heavy chargers, sharpened their arms, and rode beneath bright silken banners to slay and to despair.
Here, without doubt, Elric reflected, he would find the battle of the prophecy. He tried to forget his tormented longing for news of Zarozinia and turned his moody eyes towards the west Stormbringer hung like an anchor at his side and ho fingered it constantly, hating it even as it fed him his vitality.
He spent the night in Banarva and by morning had hired a good horse and was riding through the sparse grassland towards Jharkor.
Across a war-torn world rode Elric, his crimson eyes burning with a fierce anger at the sights of wanton destruction he witnessed. Although he had himself lived by his sword for many years and had committed acts of murder, robbery and urbicide, he disliked the senselessness of wars such as this, of men who killed one another for only the vaguest of reasons.
It was not that he pitied the slain or hated the slayers; he was too remote from ordinary men to care greatly about what they did. Yet, in his own tortured way, he was an ideal who, because he lacked peace and security himself, resulted - the sights of strife which this war brought to him. His ancestors, he knew, had also been remote, yet they had delighted in the conflicts of the men of the Young Kingdoms, observing them from a distance and judging themselves above nidi activities; above the morass of sentiment and emotion in which these new men struggled. For ten thousand years the sorcerer-emperors of Melnibone had ruled this world, a race without conscience or moral creed, unneedful of reasons for their acts of conquest, seeking no excuses for their natural malicious tendencies. But Elric, the last in the direct line of emperors, was not like them. He was capable of cruelty and malevolent sorcery, had little pity, yet could love and hate more violently than ever his ancestors. And these strong passions, perhaps, had been the cause of his breaking with his homeland and travelling the world to compare himself against these new men since he could find none in Melnibone who shared his feelings. And it was because of these twin forces of love and hate that he had returned to have vengeance on his cousin Yyrkoon who had put Cymoril, Elric betrothed, into a magic slumber and usurped the kingship of Melnibone, the Dragon Isle, last territory of the fallen Bright Empire. With the aid of a fleet of reavers, Elric had razed Imrryr in his vengeance-taking, destroyed the Dreaming City and scattered forever the race who had founded it so that the last survivors were now mercenaries roaming the world to sell their arms to whomever bid highest. Love and bate; they had led him to kill Yyrkoon who deserved death and, inadvertently, Cymoril, who did not. Love and hate. They welled in him now as bitter smoke stung his throat and he passed a straggling group of townspeople who were fleeing, without knowledge of their direction, from the latest depredation of the roving Dharijorian troops who had struck far into this part of Tarkesh and had met little hindrance from the armies of King Hilran of Tarkesh whose main force was concentrated further north, readying itself for the major battle.
Now Elric rode close to the Western Marches, near the Jharkorian border. Here lived sturdy foresters and harvesters in better times. But now the forests were blackened and burnt and the crops of the field were mined.
His journey, which was speedy for he wasted time took him through one of the stark forests where remnants of trees cast cold silhouettes against the grey, seething sky. He raised the hood of his cloak over his bead so that the heavy black fabric completely hid his face, and rode on as rain rushed suddenly down and beat through the skeleton trees, sweeping across the distant plains beyond so that all the world seemed grey and black with the hiss of the rain a constant and depressing sound.
Then, as he passed a ruined hovel which was half cottage and half hole in the earth, a cawing voice called out: «Lord Elric! »
Astonished that he should be recognised, he turned his bleak face in the direction of the voice, pushing his hood back as he did so. A ragged figure appeared in the hole's opening. It beckoned him closer. Puzzled, he walked his horse towards the figure and saw that it was an old man, or perhaps a woman, he couldn't tell.
«You know my name. How?»
«Thou art a legend throughout the Young Kingdoms. Who could not recognise that white face and heavy blade thou art carrying?»
«True, perhaps, but I have a notion there is more to this than chance recognition. Who are you and how do you know the High Speech of Melnibone?» Elric deliberately used the coarse Common Speech.
«Thou shouldn’t know not all who practise dark sorcery use the High Tongue of those who are pastmasters in its arts. Wouldst thou guest with me a while?»
Elric looked at the hovel and shook his head. He was fastidious at the best of times. The wretch smiled and made a mock bow, restoring to the Common Speech and saying: «So the mighty lord disdains to grace my poor home. But does he not perhaps wonder why the fire which raged through this forest a while ago did not, in fact, harm me?»
«Aye, » said Elric thoughtfully, »that is an interesting riddle.»
The hag took a step towards him. «Soldiers came not a month gone-from Pan Tang they were. Devil Riders with their hunting tigers running with them. They despoiled the harvest and burnt even the forests that those who fled them might not eat game or berries here. I lived in this forest all my life, doing a little simple magic and prophecy for my needs. But when I saw the walls of flame soon to engulf me, I cried the name of a demon I knew—a thing from Chaos which, latterly, I had dared not summon. It came.