While the conflict on the pyramid raged, filling the night sky with crackling light and fire, Ardal went deep down into the bowels of the building, his glowing blade lighting the gloom. He came to a corridor, and a Murughel warrior stepped out of the darkness, partially surprised by the Valenar’s silent appearance. A second’s advantage was all Ardal needed. He sliced the Murughel’s head from his shoulders.
Along the corridor, two more guards met him, and again he had the advantage of surprise. He ripped open the first of them, but the other turned, meaning to flee. Ardal flung a long dirk, and the sheer force of the throw took the blade clean through the neck of the Murughel, snapping the spinal cord. The warrior stumbled into the wall, falling to his knees. Ardal was on him in seconds, cleaving his head open with merciless fury.
A few yards farther on was a door, slightly ajar. Ardal heard soft voices and saw a dull glow beyond. Pausing only for a moment, he pushed his way in. Two Murughel garbed in long robes flung up their hands in a shower of scarlet sparks. Their hasty spells exploded impotently against Ardal’s blade, and in a blur he rammed it into the guts of the first, elbowing him aside before exercising a swift backward slash of his blade that severed the head of the second Murughel.
Zemella was tied to the heavy chair on which she sat, wrists behind her.
“Ardal!” she gasped.
In spite of their situation he grinned as he went to her and began carefully severing her bonds. “Can you fight?”
Nodding fiercely, she stood up, massaging her wrists. She winced as the pain of the returning circulation hit her. “Murughel sorcery! Their spells restrained me.” She paused, like a hound scenting the air. “Is Vaddi d’Orien with you?”
Ardal’s face betrayed no sign of emotion. “Yes, he’s above, destroying Murughel with the best of them.” But even in this poor light, he saw her catch her breath.
“Does he carry the talisman?”
Ardal nodded.
“He should never have come here! The enemy seeks him and the talisman. If they claim both—”
On the pyramid above, the Deathguard had at last been forced back from the stair head. Sheer weight of numbers had shoved them on to the flat top of the pyramid as the Murughel, spurred on by their grim masters and utterly careless of their own destruction, pressed forward. Fallarond and his Deathguard formed a solid knot of defense, close to the very lip of the pit. To Vaddi their position seemed helpless.
Mad with frustration, he watched as Ardal and Zemella emerged from the opening and onto the pyramid. Ardal unslung his bow and released half a dozen arrows as he and the sorceress ran to their companions. His arrows had a deadly effect, but the Murughel swarmed like flies in spite of the huge losses they had suffered. Zemella unleashed a bolt of white light that blasted several assailants asunder. Half blinded by the glare, Vaddi redoubled his own efforts, recklessly carving a path through the Murughel. Then he was closer to Zemella, whose teeth were barred in a feral grin.
She was but a few yards away when Vaddi saw Ardal stumble behind her, his own look of horror mirrored in Zemella’s eyes as she turned to see what had happened. Ardal had dropped to one knee, but he staggered up. A length of steel, a barbed javelin, protruded from his side. His fingers, already bloody, groped at it with ebbing strength.
“No!” cried Vaddi, leaping forward.
He pushed past Zemella and stood over the fallen Valenar, lifting him to his feet, hardly conscious of the blazing white bolt of light that Zemella had flung about them to drive back their attackers. He watched despairingly as waves of agony broke over Ardal’s face.
“It’s no use, Vaddi,” he gasped. “The steel is in deep. If it stays in me, I die. Remove it and it will be the same. Protect Zemella.” He stumbled again.
“You’ll not die here!”
“Save Zemella. My life for hers, as I told you.”
Vaddi could see the light in Ardal’s eyes fading. The Valenar’s life was trickling away like water. Vaddi swung round. Zemella was behind him, eyes filled with tears.
“We must help him!” Vaddi cried, but beyond her, Fallarond was frantically urging them both back to the group. It was the only place they could hope to defy the Murughel now.
Zemella reached out and gripped Vaddi’s hand, tugging him reluctantly away from the fallen Valenar. Ardal had slumped forward, head on the stone as if in prayer. They both knew he was already dead.
They rejoined the company and prepared for a final, desperate defense, but the assault eased and the Murughel drew back, their own numbers severely depleted. They formed a wide semi-circle around the Deathguard, surrounding them. From across the huge pit, Caerzaal’s voice pierced the sudden lull in an incantation, but it was not to the jewelled skies that the vampire prayed.
“Sethis!” said Fallarond. “Caerzaal is summoning the serpent god.”
“Then they mean to sacrifice us all,” said Nyam. “Vaddi included.”
Zemella’s fist flared, a white glow of defiance. “They’ve killed Ardal. Let him be the last.”
Vaddi’s attention switched to the darkness of the pit and the stones around it. To his amazement, the Murughel who were wounded, several dozen of them, some critically, dropped their weapons and shields from suddenly nerveless fingers. They staggered, stumbled, and crawled to the very lip of the pit. Expressionlessly, like zombies raised from their graves, they gathered around the pit, and then at a command from their hooded leader, they simply fell forward into the darkness.
“Sethis!” said Tallamorn. “It is below us. I feel it writhing.”
“Ardal!” cried Vaddi. “We must not let him be used.”
Fallarond reached to restrain him, but Vaddi broke the circle and made for the body of the fallen Valenar. Nyam rushed after him, and a wedge of Deathguard, led by Zemella, followed. In moments they had ringed Ardal’s form, lifted him up, and bore him back to the main body of the Deathguard. None of the Murughel had moved. Their own ranks were motionless, the warriors lined up like statues, all their attention on the pit.
Vaddi felt Fallarond’s withering gaze. “You put all our lives at risk!”
Before he could retort, a voice cut through the night air. “Vaddi d’Orien!” came the taunting cry of Caerzaal. “Give yourself and what you carry to me now, and all your companions will walk free. We will make you a god! You will know power beyond imagining.”
Vaddi cursed under his breath. “I have to use the horn,” he said, fingers reaching inside his shirt for it. “I have no other choice.”
“Wait!” said Zemella, pushing his arm away. “That is what he wants! If you use the horn now, the power will be warped. It will flow into his designs! He will control you, and you will be damned. Vaddi, you must trust me in this.”
Vaddi stared at her in frustration. “Then what can we do?”
“It rises!” said Nyam.
In the pit they heard a tremendous rushing sound, as though all the air from the subterranean depths was being forced upward. It presaged something far more terrible, for the shuddering of the stone around the company warned them that Sethis was responding to the invocation.
Vaddi turned and glared across the vast mouth of the pit to where Caerzaal and his hooded companion waited. Vaddi could see the scarlet eyes of the vampire, lit with triumph and eager for blood. Within him, Vaddi felt a fresh surge of fury, and more of the supernatural chains that Cellester had set about him snapped like dry twigs.