And then a ball of fire formed in the sky above him and the very sky seemed to shake and sway around it Then, with a roaring crash two bolts of lightning slashed down, pulverising the stones and releasing Elric.
He got to his feet, knowing that Arioch would demand his price, as the first ghouls reached him.
He did not retreat, but in his rage and desperation leapt among them, smashing and flailing with the lengths of chain. The ghouls fell back and fled, gibbering in fear and anger, down the hill and into the barrow.
Elric could now see that there was a gaping entrance to the barrow below him; black against the blackness. Breathing heavily, he found that his belt pouch had been left him. From it he took a length of slim, gold wire and began frantically to pick at the locks of the manacles.
Veerkad chuckled to himself and Zarozinia hearing him was almost mad with terror. He kept drooling the words into her ear: "When shall the third arise? Only when other dies. When that other's blood flows redwe'll hear the footfalls of the dead. You and I, we shall resurrect him and such vengeance will he wreak upon my cursed brother. Your blood, my dear, it will be that released him." He felt that the ghouls were gone and judged them placated by their feast. "Your lover has been useful to me," he laughed as he began to enter the barrow. The smell of death almost overpowered the girl as the blind madman bore her downwards into the heart of the Hill.
Hurd, sobered after his walk in the colder air, was horrified when he saw where Veerkad was going; the barrow, the Hill of the King, was the most feared spot in the land of Org. Hurd paused before the black entrance and turned to run. Then, suddenly, he saw the form of Elric, looming huge and bloody, descending the barrow slope, cutting off his escape.
With a wild yell he fled into the Hill passage.
Elric had not previously noticed the Prince, but the yell startled him and he tried to see who had given it but was too late. He began to run down the steep incline towards the entrance of the barrow. Another figure came scampering out of the darkness.
"Elric! Thank the stars and all the Gods of Earth! You live! "
"Thank Arioch, Moonglum. Where's Zarozinia?"
"In there-the mad minstrel took her with him and Hurd followed. They are all insane, these kings and princes, I see no sense to their actions."
"I have an idea that the minstrel means Zarozinia no good. Quickly, we must follow."
"By the stars, the stench of death! I have breathed nothing like it-not even at the great battle of the Eshmir Valley where the armies of Elwher met those of Kaleg Vogun, usurper prince of the Tanghensi, and half a million corpses strewed the valley from, end to end."
"If you've no stomach..."
"I wish I had none. It would not be so bad. Come..."
They rushed into the passage, led by the far away sounds of Veerkad's maniacal laughter and the somewhat nearer movements of a fear-maddened Kurd who was now trapped between two enemies and yet more afraid of a third.
Hurd blundered along in the blackness, sobbing to himself in his terror. __
In the phosphorescent Central Tomb, surrounded by the mummified corpses of his ancestors, Veerkad chanted the resurrection ritual before the great coffin of the Hill-King-a giant thing, half as tall again as Veerkad who was tall enough. Veerkad was forgetful for his own safety and thinking only of vengeance upon his brother Gutheran. He held a long dagger over Zarozinia who lay huddled and terrified upon the ground near the coffin.
The spilling of Zarozinia's blood would be the culmination of the ritual and thenThen Hell would, quite literally, be let loose. Or so Veerkad planned. He finished his chanting and raised the knife just as Hurd came screeching into the Central Tomb with his own sword drawn. Veerkad swung round, his blind face working in thwarted rage.
Savagely, without stopping for a moment, Hurd ran his sword into Veerkad's body, plunging the blade in up to the hilt so that its bloody point appeared sticking from his back. But the other, in his groaning death spasms, locked his hands about the Prince's throat. Locked them immovably.
Somehow, the two men retained a semblance of life and, struggling with each other in a macabre deathdance, swayed about the glowing chamber. The coffin of the Hill-King began to tremble and shake slightly, the movement hardly perceptible.
So Elric and Moonglum found Veerkad and Hurd. Seeing that both were near dead, Elric raced across the Central Tomb to where Zarozinia lay, unconscious, mer cifully, from her ordeal. Elric picked her up and made to return.
He glanced at the throbbing coffin.
"Quickly, Moonglum. That blind fool has invoked the dead, I can tell. Hurry, my friend, before the hosts of Hell are upon us."
Moonglum gasped and followed Elric as he ran back towards the cleaner air of night.
"Where to now, Elric?"
"We'll have to risk going back to the citadel. Our horses are there and our goods. We need the horses to take us quickly away, for I fear there's going to be a terrible blood-letting soon if my instinct is right."
"There should not be too much opposition, Elric They were all drunk when I left That was how I managed to evade them so easily. By now, if they continued drinking as heavily as when last I saw them, they'll be unable to move at all."
"Then let's make haste."
The left the Hill behind them and began to run towards the citadel.
FOUR
Moonglum had spoken truth. Everyone was lying about the Great Hall in drunken sleep. Open fires had been lit in the hearths and they blazed, sending shadows skipping around the Hall. Elric said softly:
"Moonglum, go with Zarozinia to the stables and prepare our horses. I will settle our debt with Gutheran first." He pointed. "See, they have heaped their booty upon the table, gloating in their apparent victory."
Stormbringer lay upon a pile of burst sacks and sad dlebags which contained the loot stolen from Zarozinia's uncle and cousins and from Elric and Moonglum.
Zarozinia, now conscious but confused, left with Moonglum to locate the stables and Elric picked his way towards the table, across the sprawled shapes of drunken men of Org, around the blazing fires and caught up, thankfully, his hell-forged runeblade.
Then he leaped over the table and was about to grasp Gutheran, who still had his fabulously gemmed chain of kingship around his neck, when the great doors of the Hall crashed open and a howling blast of icy air sent the torches dancing and leaping. Elric turned, Gutheran forgotten, and his eyes widened.
Framed in the doorway stood the King from Beneath the Hill.
The long-dead monarch had been raised by Veerkad whose own blood had completed the work of resurrection. He stood in rotting robes, his fleshless bones covered by tight, tattered skin. His heart did not beat, for he had none; he drew no breath, for his lungs had been eaten by the creatures which feasted on such things. But, horribly, he lived...
The King from the Hill. He had been the last great ruler of the Doomed Folk who had, in their fury, destroyed half the Earth and created the Forest of Troos. Behind the dead King crowded the ghastly hosts who had been buried with him in a legendary past
The massacre began!
What secret vengeance was being reaped, Elric could only guess at-but whatever the reason, the danger was still very real.
Elric pulled out Stormbringer as the awakened horde vented their anger upon the living. The Hall became filled with the shrieking, horrified screams of the unfortunate Orgians. Elric remained, half-paralysed in his horror, beside the throne. Aroused, Gutheran woke up and saw the King from the Hill and his host. He screamed, almost thankfully:
"At last I can rest! "
And fell dying in a seizure, robbing Elric of his vengeance.
Veerkad's grim song echoed in Elric's memory. The Three Kings in Darkness-Gutheran, Veerkad and the King from Beneath the Hill. Now only the last livedand he had been dead for millennia.