The Daemon's Curse (Malus Darkblade Book 1) by Dan Abnett & Mike Lee

Author:Dan Abnett & Mike Lee [Abnett, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2010-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Fields of Despair

The ghostly prince’s helmeted head turned to regard Malus, the weight of his burning gaze falling on the highborn like the blow of a sword. He reeled from the wight’s baleful stare, feeling his heart turn to ice. Around him he could dimly sense his warband pulling up, the druchii hauling back on their reins in shock and fear. One of the men let out a wail of terror, and the ranks of the dead lunged a half-step forward at the sound, as if hungry to set themselves against a foe who would bleed and die beneath their blades.

Before Malus could master his own tongue and make a reply to the fearful apparitions, Beg took a measured breath and spoke in a loud, strained voice. ‘We are but travellers on the road, mighty prince! Forgive us our trespass, and we will honour you with obeisance… and sacrifice.’

Sacrifice! Malus’s mind raced. Now the Urhan’s scheme was all too clear.

The prince took another step towards the terrified warband with a creak and rattle of harness and ancient steel. ‘Sacrifice!’ The wight whispered hungrily. ‘Who will stand atop my cold, stone bier and warm my bones with a libation of hot blood?’

With a cry of desperate rage Malus tore his eyes from the prince’s paralysing stare and ripped his sword from its scabbard. Before Beg could reply, the highborn rose in his saddle and raised his blade high. ‘Ride!’ he called to his men. ‘Ride for death and ruin, warriors of the Hag! RIDE!’ The highborn clapped his spurs to Spite’s flanks and the nauglir charged at the ghostly horde with a thunderous roar. A heartbeat later the unearthly air rang with the war-howls of Hag Graef as the cold one knights bared their steel and charged the fearsome host at the command of their lord.

The air filled with the shrieks of the damned as the spectral host charged to meet its foes. Malus lost sight of the banner-wielding prince amid a mob of howling wights as the two forces met with a great, rending crash. The charging cold ones ploughed into the elf army in a rough wedge, shattering ancient bodies and flinging bits of armour and bone in a gruesome shower back upon the ranks of their fellows.

Swords flickered and scythed through the frenzied ranks of the dead, shearing through limbs, torsos and skulls. Withered flesh and sinew parted in white clouds of rot; bleached bone was ground to powder beneath the stamping tread of the cold ones. A mortal host would have reeled in shock from the sheer ferocity of the warband’s charge, but the howling dead swept around the druchii like a flood. Every warrior torn asunder was instantly replaced by another, all of them hammering at the armoured warriors with blades, spears, axes and claws.

‘Forward!’ Malus roared into the din, his blade hacking left and right at the frenzied horde. Spite tossed his head and snapped at his attackers, biting rotting corpses in two and scattering their remains in a wide arc.

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