BLACK SWORD’S BROTHERS

In which a million blades decide an issue between Elric and the Lords of Chaos…

CHAPTER ONE

ONE DAY THERE came a gathering of kings, captains, and warlords to the peaceful city of Karlaak in Ilmiora by the Weeping Waste.

They did not come in great pomp or with grandiose gestures. They came grim-faced and hurriedly to answer the summons of Elric, who dwelt again in Karlaak with his lately-rescued wife Zarozinia. And they gathered in a great chamber which had once been used by the old rulers of Karlaak for the planning of wars. To this same purpose Elric now put it.

Illuminated by flaring torches, a great coloured map of the world was spread behind the dais on which Elric stood. It showed the three major continents of the East, West and South. That of the West, comprising Jharkor, Dharijor, Shazaar, Tarkesh, Myyrrhn and the Isle of Pan Tang, was shaded black, for all these lands were now the conquered Empire of the Pan Tang-Dharijor alliance which threatened the security of the assembled nobles.

Some of the men who stood armoured before Elric were exiles from the conquered lands—but there were few. Few also were Elric’s Imrryrian kinsmen who had fought at the Battle of Sequa and had been defeated with the massed army that had sought to resist the combined might of the evil alliance. At the head of the eldritch Imrryrians stood Dyvim Slorm, Elric’s cousin. At his belt, encased in a sturdy scabbard, was the runesword Mournblade, twin to the one Elric wore.

Here also was Montan, Lord of Lormyr, standing with fellow rulers from the Southlands—Jerned of Filkhar, Hozel of Argimiliar, and Kolthak of Pikarayd, adorned in painted iron, velvet, silk and wool.

The sea-lords from the Isle of the Purple Towns were less gaudily clad with helms and breastplates of plain bronze, jerkins, breeks and boots of unstained leather and great broadswords at their hips. Their faces were all but hidden by their long shaggy hair and thick, curling beards.

All these, kings and sea-lords alike, were inclined to stare at Elric suspiciously, since years before he had led their royal predecessors on the raid of Imrryr—though it had left many thrones clear for those who now sat on them.

In another group stood the nobles of that part of the Eastern Continent lying to the east of the Sighing Desert and the Weeping Waste. Beyond these two barren stretches of land were the kingdoms of Eshmir, Chang Shai and Okara, but there was no contact between Elric’s part of the world and theirs—save for the small, red-headed man beside him—his friend Moonglum of Elwher, an Eastern adventurer.

The Regent of Vilmir, uncle of the ten-month-old king, headed this last group made up of senators from the city-states comprising Ilmiora; the red-clothed archer Rackhir representing the city of Tanelorn; and various merchant princes from towns coming under the indirect rule of Vilmir as protectorates.

A mighty gathering, representing the massed power of the world.

But would even this be sufficient, Elric wondered, to wipe out the growing menace from the Westlands?

His white albino’s face was stern, his red eyes troubled as he addressed the men he had caused to come here.

“As you know, my lords, the threat of Pan Tang and Dharijor is not likely to remain confined to the Western Continent for much longer. Though barely two months have passed since their victory was achieved, they are already marshaling a great fleet aimed at crushing the power of those kings dependent, largely, on their ships for livelihood and defense.”

He glanced at the sea-lords of the Purple Towns and the kings of the Southern Continent.

“We of the East, it seems, are not regarded as so much of a danger to their immediate plans and, if we did not unite now, they would have a greater chance of success by conquering first the Southern seapower and then the scattered cities of the East. We must form an alliance which can match their strength.”

“How do you know this is their plan, Elric?”

The voice was that of Hozel of Argimiliar, a proud-faced man inclined it was said to fits of insanity, the inbred offspring of a dozen incestuous unions.

“Spies, refugees—and supernatural sources. They have all reported it.”

“Even without these reports, we could be sure that this is, indeed, their plan,” growled Kargan Sharpeyes, spokesman for the sea-lords. He looked directly at Hozel with something akin to contempt. “And Jagreen Lern of Pan Tang might also seek allies amongst the Southerners. There are some who would rather capitulate to a foreign conqueror than lose their soft lives and easily earned treasure.”

Hozel smiled coldly at Kargan. “There are some, too, whose animal suspicions might cause them to make no move against the Theocrat until it was too late.”

Elric said hastily, aware of age-old bitternesses between the hardy sea-lords and their softer neighbours: “But worst of all they would be best aided by internal feuds in our ranks, brothers. Hozel—take it for granted that I speak truly and that my information is exact.”

Montan, Lord of Lormyr, his face, beard and hair all shaded grey, said haughtily: “You of the North and East are weak. We of the South are strong. Why should we lend you our ships to defend your coasts? I do not agree with your logic, Elric. It will not be the first time it has led good men astray—to their deaths!”

“I thought we had agreed to bury old disputes!” Elric said, close to anger, for the guilt of what he had done was still in him.

“Aye,” nodded Kargan. “A man who can’t forget the past is a man who cannot plan for the future. I say Elric’s logic is good!”

“You traders were always too reckless with your ships and too gullible when you heard a smooth tongue. That’s why you now envy our riches.” Young Jerned of Filkhar smiled in his thin beard, his eyes on the floor.

Kargan fumed. “Too honest, perhaps, is the word you should have used, Southerner! Belatedly our forefathers learned how the fat Southlands were cheating them. Their forefathers raided your coasts, remember? Maybe we should have continued their practice! Instead, we settled, traded—and your bellies swelled from the profits of our sweat! Gods! I’d not trust the word of a Southern—”

Elric leaned forward to interrupt, but was interrupted himself by Hozel who said impatiently: “The fact is this. The Theocrat is more likely to concentrate his first attacks on the East. For these reasons: The Eastlands are weak. The Eastlands are poorly defended. The Eastlands are closer to his shores and therefore more accessible. Why should he risk his recently united strength on the stronger Southlands, or risk a more hazardous sea-crossing?”

“Because,” Elric said levelly, “his ships will be magic-aided and distance will not count. Because the South is richer and will supply him with metals, food—”

“Ships and men!” spat Kargan.

“So! You think we already plan treachery!” Hozel glanced first at Elric and then at Kargan. “Then why summon us here in the first place?”

“I did not say that,” Elric said hastily. “Kargan spoke his own thoughts, not mine. Calm yourselves—we must be united—or perish before superior armies and supernatural might!”

“Oh, no!” Hozel turned to the other Southern monarchs. “What say you, my peers? Shall we lend them our ships and warriors to protect their shores as well as ours?”

“Not when they are so ungratefully spurned,” Jerned murmured. “Let Jagreen Lern expend his energies upon them. When he looks towards the South he will be weakened, and we shall be ready for him!”

“You are fools!” Elric cried urgently. “Stand with us or we’ll all perish! The Lords of Chaos are behind the Theocrat. If he succeeds in his ambitions it will mean more than conquest by a human schemer—it will mean that we shall all be subjected to the horror of total anarchy, on the Earth and above it. The human race is threatened!”

Hozel stared hard at Elric and smiled. “Then let the human race protect itself and not fight under an unhuman leader. ’Tis well-known that the men of Melniboné are not true men at all.”

“Be that as it may.” Elric lowered his head and lifted a thin, white hand to point at Hozel. The king shivered and held his ground with obvious effort. “But I know more than that, Hozel of Argimiliar. I know that the men of the Young Kingdoms are only the gods’ first mouldings—shadow-things who precede the race of real men, even as we preceded you. And I know more! I know that if we do not vanquish both Jagreen Lern and his supernatural allies, then men will be swept from the boiling face of a maddened planet, their destiny unfulfilled!”

Hozel swallowed and spoke, his voice trembling.

“I’ve seen your muttering kind in the market places, Elric. Men who prophesy all kinds of dooms that never take place—mad-eyed men such as you. But we do not let them live in Argimiliar. We fry them slowly, finger by finger, inch by inch until they admit their omens are fallacious! Perhaps we’ll have that opportunity, yet!”

He swung about and half-ran from the hall. For a moment the other Southern monarchs stood staring irresolutely after him.

Elric said urgently: “Heed him not, my lords. I swear on my life that my words are true!”

Jerned said softly, half to himself: “That could mean little. There are rumours you’re immortal.”

Moonglum came close to his friend and whispered: “They are unconvinced, Elric. ’Tis plain they’re not our men.”

Elric nodded. To the Southern nobles he said: “Know this: Though you foolishly reject my offer of an alliance, the day will come when you will regret your decision. I have been insulted in my own palace, my friends have been insulted and I curse you for the upstart fools you are. But when the time comes for you to learn the error of this decision I swear that we shall aid you, if it is in our power. Now go!”

Disconcerted, the Southerners straggled from the hall in silence.

Elric turned to Kargan Sharpeyes. “What have you decided, sea-lord?”

“We stand with you,” Kargan said simply. “My brother Smiorgan Baldhead always spoke well of you and I remember his words rather than the rumours which followed his death under your leadership. Moreover,” he smiled broadly, “it is in our nature to believe that whatever a Southern weakling decides must therefore be wrong. You have the Purple Towns as allies—and our ships, though fewer than the combined fleets of the South, are smooth-sailing fighting ships and well-equipped for war.”

“I must warn you that we stand little chance without Southern aid,” Elric said gravely.

“I’m doubtful if they’d have been more than an encumbrance with their guile and squabblings,” Kargan replied. “Besides—have you no sorcery to help us in this?”

“I plan to seek some tomorrow,” Elric told him. “Moonglum and myself will be leaving my cousin Dyvim Slorm in charge here while we go to Sorcerers’ Isle, beyond Melniboné. There, among the hermit practitioners of the White Arts, I might find means of contacting the Lords of Law. I, as you know, am half-sworn to Chaos, though I fight it, and am finding increasingly that my own demon-god is somewhat loath to aid me these days. At present, the White Lords are weak, beaten back, just as we are on Earth, by the increasing power of the Dark Ones. It is hard to contact them. The hermits can likely help me.”

Kargan nodded. “’Twould be a relief to us of the Purple Towns to know that we were not too strongly leagued with dark spirits, I must admit.”

Elric frowned. “I agree, of course. But our position is so weak that we must accept any help—be it black or white. I presume that there is dispute among the Masters of Chaos as to how far they should go—that is why some of my own help still comes from Chaos. This blade that hangs at my side, and the twin which Dyvim Slorm bears, are both evil. Yet they were forged by creatures of Chaos to bring an end, on Earth at least, to the Masters’ rule here. Just as my blood-loyalties are divided, so are the swords’ loyalties. We have no supernatural allies we can wholly rely upon.”

“I feel for you,” Kargan said gruffly, and it was obvious that he did. No man could envy Elric’s position or Elric’s destiny.

Orgon, Kargan’s cousin-in-law, said bluntly: “We’ll to bed now. Has your kinsman your full confidence?”

Elric glanced at Dyvim Slorm and smiled. “My full confidence—he knows as much as I about this business. He shall speak for me since he knows my basic plans.”

“Very well. We’ll confer with him tomorrow and, if we do not see you before we leave, do well for us on Sorcerers’ Isle.”

The sea-lords left.

Now, for the first time, the Regent of Vilmir spoke. His voice was clear and cool. “We, too, have confidence in you and your kinsman, Elric. Already we know you both for clever warriors and cunning planners. Vilmir has good cause to know it from your exploits in Bakshaan and elsewhere throughout our territories. We, I feel, have the good sense to bury old scores.” He turned to the merchant princes for confirmation and they nodded their agreement.

“Good,” Elric said. He addressed the gaunt-faced archer, Rackhir, his friend, whose legend almost equaled his own.

“You come as a spokesman of Tanelorn, Rackhir. This will not be the first time we have fought the Lords of Chaos.”

“True,” Rackhir nodded. “Most recently we averted a threat with certain aid from the Grey Lords—but Chaos had caused the gateways to the Grey Lords to be closed to mortals. We can offer you only our warriors’ loyalty.”

“We shall be grateful for that.” Elric paced the dais. There was no need to ask the senators of Karlaak and the other cities of Ilmiora, for they had agreed to support him, come what may, long before the other rulers were called.

The same was true of the bleak-faced band who made up the refugees from the West, headed by Viri-Sek, the winged youth from Myyrrhn, last of his line since all the other members of the ruling family had been slain by Jagreen Lern’s minions.

Just beyond the walls of Karlaak was a sea of tents and pavilions over which the banners of many nations waved sluggishly in the hot, moist wind. At this moment, Elric knew, the proud lords of the South were uprooting their standards and packing their tents, not looking at the war-battered warriors of Shazaar, Jharkor and Tarkesh who stared at them in puzzlement. Sight of those dull-eyed veterans should have decided the Southern nobles to ally themselves with the East, but evidently it had not.

Elric sighed and turned his back on the others to contemplate the great map of the world with its shaded dark areas.

“Now only a quarter is black,” he said softly to Moonglum. “But the dark tide spreads farther and faster and soon we may all be engulfed.”

“We’ll dam the flow—or try to—when it comes,” Moonglum said with attempted jauntiness. “But meanwhile your wife would spend some time with you before we leave. Let’s both to bed and trust our dreams are light!”

CHAPTER TWO

Two nights later they stood on the quayside in the city of Jadmar while a cold wind sliced its way inland.

“There she is,” Elric said, pointing down at the small boat rocking and bumping in the water below.

“A small craft,” Moonglum said dubiously. “She scarcely looks seaworthy.”

“She’ll stay afloat longer than a larger vessel in a heavy storm.” Elric clambered down the iron steps. “Also,” he added, as Moonglum put a cautious foot on the rung above him, “she’ll be less noticeable and won’t draw the attention of any enemy vessels which might be scouting in these waters.”

He jumped and the boat rocked crazily. He leaned over, grasped a rung and steadied the boat so that Moonglum could climb aboard.

The cocky little Eastlander pushed a hand through his shock of red hair and stared up at the troubled sky.

“Bad weather for this time of year,” he noted. “It’s hard to understand. All the way from Karlaak we’ve had every sort of weather, freak snow-storms, thunder-storms, hail and winds as hot as a furnace blast. Those rumours were disturbing, too—a rain of blood in Bakshaan, balls of fiery metal falling in the west of Vilmir, unprecedented earthquakes in Jadmar a few hours before we arrived. It seems nature has gone insane.”

“Not far from the truth,” Elric said grimly, untying the mooring line. “Lift the sail will you, and tack into the wind?”

“What do you mean?” Moonglum began to loosen the sail. It billowed into his face and his voice was muffled. “Jagreen Lern’s hordes haven’t reached this part of the world yet.”

“They haven’t needed to. I told you the forces of nature were being disrupted by Chaos. We have only experienced the backwash of what is going on in the West. If you think these weather conditions are peculiar, you would be horrified by the effect which Chaos has on those parts of the world where its rule is almost total!”

“I wonder if you haven’t taken on too much in this fight.” Moonglum adjusted the sail and it filled to send the little boat scudding between the two long harbour walls towards the open sea.

As they passed the beacons, guttering in the cold wind, Elric gripped the tiller tighter, taking a south-westerly course past the Vilmirian peninsula. Overhead the stars were sometimes obscured by the tattered shreds of clouds streaming before the cold, unnatural blast of the wind. Spray splashed in his face, stinging it in a thousand places, but he ignored it. He had not answered Moonglum, for he also had doubts about his ability to save the world from Chaos.

Moonglum had learned to judge his friend’s moods. For some years before they had traveled the world together and had learned to respect one another. Lately, since Elric had near-permanent residence in his wife’s city of Karlaak, Moonglum had continued to travel and had been in command of a small mercenary army patrolling the Southern Marches of Pikarayd, driving back the barbarians inhabiting the hinterland of that country. He had immediately relinquished this command when Elric’s news reached him and now, as the tiny ship bore them towards a hazy and peril-fraught destiny, savoured the familiar mixture of excitement and perturbation which he had felt a dozen times before when their escapades had led them into conflict with the unknown supernatural forces so closely linked with Elric’s destiny. He had come to accept as a fact that his destiny was bound to Elric’s and felt, in the deepest places of his being, that when the time came they would both die together in some mighty adventure.

Is this death imminent? he wondered, as he concentrated on the sail and shivered in the blasting wind. Not yet, perhaps, but he felt, fatalistically, that it was not far away, for the time was looming when the only deeds of men would be dark, desperate and great and even these might not serve to form a bastion against the inrush of the creatures of Chaos.

Elric, himself, contemplated nothing, kept his mind clear and relaxed as much as he could. His quest for the aid of the White Lords was one which could well prove fruitless, but he chose not to dwell on this until he knew for certain whether their help could be invoked or not.

Dawn came swimming over the horizon, showing a heaving waste of grey water with no land in sight. The wind had dropped and the air was warmer. Banks of purple clouds bearing veins of saffron and scarlet, poured into the sky, like the smoke of some monstrous pyre. Soon they were sweating beneath a moody sun and the wind had dropped so that the sail hardly moved and yet, at the same time, the sea began to heave as if lashed by a storm.

The sea was moving like a living entity thrashing in nightmare-filled sleep. Moonglum glanced at Elric from where he lay sprawled in the prow of the boat. Elric returned the gaze, shaking his head and releasing his half-conscious grip of the tiller. It was useless to attempt steering the boat in conditions like these. The boat was being swept about by the wild waves, yet no water seemed to enter it, no spray wet them. Everything had become unreal, dreamlike and for a while Elric felt that even if he had wished to speak, he would not have been able to.

Then, in the distance at first, they heard a low droning which grew to a whining shriek and suddenly the boat was sent half-flying over the rolling waves and driven down into a trench. Above them, the blue and silver water seemed for a moment to be a wall of metal—and then it came crashing down towards them.

His mood broken, Elric clung to the tiller, yelling: “Hang on to the boat, Moonglum! Hang on, or you’re lost!”

Tepid water groaned down and they were flattened beneath it as if swatted by a gigantic palm. The boat dropped deeper and deeper until it seemed they would be crushed on the bottom by the surging blow. Then, they were flung upwards again, and down, and as he glimpsed the boiling surface, Elric saw three mountains pushing themselves upwards, gouting flame and lava. The boat wallowed, half-full of water, and they set to frantically baling it out as the boat was swirled back and forth, being driven nearer and nearer to the new-formed volcanoes.

Elric dropped his baling pan and flung his weight against the tiller, forcing the boat away from the mountains of fire. It responded sluggishly, but began to drift in the opposite direction.

Elric saw Moonglum, pale-faced, attempting to shake out the sodden sail. The heat from the volcanoes was hardly bearable. He glanced upwards to try and get some kind of bearing, but the sun seemed to have swollen and broken so that he saw a million fragments of flame.

“This is the work of Chaos, Moonglum!” he shouted. “And only a taste, I fancy, of what it can become!”

“They must know we are here and seek to destroy us!” Moonglum swept sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Perhaps, but I think not.” Now he looked up again and the sun seemed almost normal. He took a bearing and began to steer the boat away from the mountains of fire, but they were many miles off their original course.

He had planned to sail to the south of Melniboné, Isle of the Dragon, and avoid the Dragon Sea lying to the north, for it was well-known that the last great sea-monsters still roamed this stretch. But now it was obvious that they were, in fact, north of Melniboné and being driven further north all the time—towards Pan Tang!

There was a no chance of heading for Melniboné itself—he wondered if the Isle of the Dragon had even survived the monstrous upheavals. He would have to make straight for Sorcerers’ Isle if he could.

The ocean was calmer now, but the water had almost reached boiling point so that every drop that fell on his skin seemed to scald him. Bubbles formed on the surface and it was as if they sailed in a gigantic witch’s cauldron. Dead fish and half-reptilian forms drifted about, as thick as seaweed, threatening to clog the boat’s passage. But the wind, though strong, had begun to blow in one direction and Moonglum grinned in relief as it filled the sail.

Slowly, through the death-thick waters, they managed to steer a south-westerly course towards Sorcerers’ Isle as clouds of steam formed on the ocean and obscured their view.

Hours later, they had left the heated waters behind and were sailing beneath clear skies on a calm sea. They allowed themselves to doze. In less than a day they would reach Sorcerers’ Isle, but now they were overcome by the reaction to their experience and wondered, dazedly, how they had lived through the awful storm.

Elric jerked his eyes open with a shock. He was certain he had not slept long, yet the sky was dark and a cold drizzle was falling. As the drops touched his head and face, they oozed down it like viscous jelly. Some of it entered his mouth and he hastily spat out the bitter-tasting stuff.

“Moonglum,” he called through the gloom, “what’s the hour, do you know?”

The Eastlander’s sleep-heavy voice answered dazedly. “I know not. I’d swear it is not night already.”

Elric gave the tiller a tentative push. The boat did not respond. He looked over the side.

It seemed they were sailing through the sky itself. A dully luminous gas seemed to swirl about the hull, but he could see no water. He shuddered. Had they left the plane of Earth? Were they sailing through some frightful, supernatural sea? He cursed himself for sleeping, feeling helpless; more helpless than when he had fought the storm. The heavy, gelatinous rain beat down strongly and he pulled the hood of his cloak over his white hair. From his belt pouch he took flint and tinder and the tiny light was just sufficient to show him Moonglum’s half-mad eyes. The little Eastlander’s face was taut with fear. Elric had never seen such fear on his friend’s face, and knew that with a little less self-control, his own face would assume a similar expression.

“Our time has ended.” Moonglum trembled. “I fear that we’re dead, at last, Elric.”

“Don’t prattle such emptiness, Moonglum. I have heard of no afterlife such as this.” But secretly, Elric wondered if Moonglum’s words were true. The ship seemed to be moving rapidly through the gaseous sea, being driven or drawn to some unknown destination. Yet Elric could swear that the Lords of Chaos had no knowledge of his boat.

Faster and faster the little craft moved and then, with relief, they heard the familiar splash of water about its keel and it was surging through the salt-sea again. For a short while longer the viscous rain continued to fall and then even that was gone.

Moonglum sighed as the blackness slowly gave way to light and they saw again a normal ocean about them.

“What was it, then?” he ventured, finally.

“Another manifestation of ruptured nature.” Elric attempted to keep his voice calm. “Some warp in the barrier between the realm of men and the realm of Chaos, perhaps? Don’t question our luck in surviving it. We are again off-course, and,” he pointed to the horizon, “a natural storm seems to be brewing yonder.”

“A natural storm I can accept, no matter how dangerous,” Moonglum murmured, and made swift preparations, furling the sail as the wind increased and the sea churned.

In a way, Elric welcomed the storm when it finally struck them. At least it obeyed natural laws and could be fought by natural means. The rain refreshed their faces, the wind swept through their hair and they battled the storm with fierce enjoyment, the plucky boat riding the waves.

But, in spite of this, they were being driven further and further north-east, towards the conquered coasts of Shazaar, in the opposite direction to their goal.

The healthy storm raged on until all thoughts of destiny and supernatural danger were driven from their minds and their muscles ached and they gasped with the shock of cold waves on their drenched bodies.

The boat reeled and rocked, their hands were sore from the tightness of their grip on wood and rope, but it was as if Fate had singled them out to live, or perhaps for a death that would be less clean, for they continued to ride the heaving waters.

Then, with a shock, Elric saw rocks rearing and Moonglum shouted in recognition: “The Serpent’s Teeth!”

The Serpent’s Teeth lay close to Shazaar and were one of the most feared hazards of the shore-hugging traders of the West. Elric and Moonglum had seen them before, from a distance, but now the storm was driving them nearer and nearer, and though they struggled to keep the boat away, they seemed bound to be smashed to their deaths on the jagged rocks.

A wave surged under the boat, lifted them and bore them down. Elric clung to the side of the boat and thought he heard Moonglum’s wild shout above the noise of the storm before they were flung towards the Serpent’s Teeth.

“Farewell!”

And then there was a terrifying sound of smashing timbers, the feel of sharp rock lacerating his rolling body, and he was beneath the waves, fighting his way to the surface to gasp in air before another wave tossed him and grazed his arm against the rocks.

Desperately, encumbered by the life-giving runesword at his belt, he attempted to swim for the looming cliffs of Shazaar, conscious that even if he lived, he had returned to enemy soil and his chances of reaching the White Lords were now almost non-existent.

CHAPTER THREE

Elric lay exhausted on the cold shingle, listening to the musical sound that the tide made as it drew back over the stones. Another sound joined that of the surf, and he recognized it as the crunch of boots. Someone was coming towards him. In Shazaar it was most likely to be an enemy. He rolled over and began scrambling to his feet, drawing the last reserves from his worn-out body. His right hand had half-drawn Stormbringer from its scabbard before he realized that it was Moonglum, bent with weariness, standing grinning before him.

“Thank the gods, you live!” Moonglum lowered himself to the shingle and leaned back with his arms supporting his weight, regarding the now calm sea and the towering Serpent’s Teeth in the distance.

“Aye, we live,” Elric squatted down, moodily, “but for how long in this ruined land, I cannot guess. Somewhere, perhaps, we can find a ship—but it will mean seeking a town or city and we’re a marked pair, easily recognized by our physical appearance.”

Moonglum shook his head and laughed lightly. “You’re still the gloomy one, friend. Be thankful for your life, say I.”

“Small mercies are all but useless in this conflict,” Elric said. “Rest, now, Moonglum, while I watch, then you can take my place. There was no time to lose when we began this adventure, and now we’ve lost days.”

Moonglum gave no argument, but allowed himself immediately to sleep and when he awoke, much refreshed though aching still, Elric slept until the moon was high and shining brightly in the clear sky.

They trudged through the night, the sparse grass of the coast region giving way to wet, blackened ground. It was as if a holocaust had raged over the countryside, followed by a rainstorm which had left behind it a marsh of ashes. Remembering the grassy plains of this part of Shazaar, Elric was horrified, unable to tell whether men or the creatures of Chaos had caused such wanton ruin.

Noon was approaching, with a hint of weird disturbances in the bright-clouded sky, when they saw a long line of people coming towards them. They flattened themselves behind a small rise and peered cautiously over it as the party drew nearer. These were no enemy soldiers, but gaunt women and starving children, men who staggered in rags, and a few battered riders, obviously the remnants of some defeated band of partisans who had held out against Jagreen Lern.

“I think we’ll find friends, of sorts, here,” Elric muttered thankfully, “and perhaps some information which will help us.”

They arose and walked towards the wretched herd. The riders quickly grouped around the civilians and drew their weapons, but before any challenges could be given, someone cried from the enclosed ranks:

“Elric of Melniboné! Elric—have you returned with news of rescue?”

Elric didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew his face was a legend, with its dead white skin and glowing crimson eyes.

“I’m seeking rescue myself, friend,” he said with poorly assumed cheerfulness. “We were shipwrecked on your coasts while on a journey which we hoped would help us lift the yoke of Jagreen Lern from off the Westlands, but unless we find another ship, our chances are poor.”

“Which way did you sail, Elric?” said the unseen spokesman.

“We sailed to Sorcerers’ Isle in the south-west, there to invoke the aid, if we could, of the White Lords,” Moonglum replied.

“Then you were going in the wrong direction!”

Elric straightened his back and tried to peer into the throng. “Who are you to tell us that?”

There was a disturbance in the crowd and a bent, middle-aged man with long, curling moustachios adorning his fair-skinned face broke from the ranks and stood leaning on a staff. The riders drew back their horses so that Elric could see him properly.

“I am named Ohada the Seer, once famous in Aflitain as an oracle. But Aflitain was razed in the sack of Shazaar and I was lucky enough to escape with these few people who are all from Aflitain, one of the last cities to fall before Pan Tang’s sorcerous might. I have a message of great import for you, Elric. It is for your ears only and I received it from one you know—one who may help you and, indirectly, us.”

“You have piqued my curiosity and raised my hopes,” Elric beckoned with his hand. “Come, seer, tell me your news and let’s all trust it is as good as you hint.”

Moonglum took a step back as the seer approached. Both he and the Aflitainians watched with curiosity as Ohada whispered to Elric. Elric himself had to strain to catch the words. “I bear a message from a strange man called Sepiriz. He says that what you have failed to do, he has done, but there is something which you must do that he cannot. He says to go to the carved city and there he will enlighten you further.”

“Sepiriz! How did he contact you?”

“I am clairvoyant. He came to me in a dream.”

“Your words could be treacherous, designed to lead me into Jagreen Lern’s hands.”

“Sepiriz added one thing to me—he told me that we should meet on this very spot. Could Jagreen Lern know that?”

“Unlikely—but, by the same reckoning, could anyone know that?” He nodded. “Thanks, seer.” Then he shouted to the riders. “We need a pair of horses—your best!”

“Our horses are valuable to us,” grumbled a knight in torn armour, “they are all we have.”

“My companion and I need to move swiftly if we are to save the world from Chaos. Come, risk a pair of horses against the chance of vengeance on your conquerors.”

“Aye, very well.” The knight dismounted and so did the man beside him. They led their steeds up to Elric and Moonglum.

“Use them with care, Elric.”

Elric took the reins and swung himself into the saddle, the huge runesword slapping at his side. “I will,” said he. “What are your plans now?”

“We’ll fight on, as best we can.”

“Would it not be wiser to hide in the mountains or the Marshes of the Mist?”

“If you had witnessed the depravity and terror of Jagreen Lern’s rule, you would not make such an enquiry,” the knight said bleakly. “Though we cannot hope to win against a warlock whose servants can command the very earth to heave like the ocean, pull down floods of salt water from the sky, and send green clouds scudding down to destroy helpless children in nameless ways, we shall take what vengeance we can. This part of the continent is calm beside what is going on elsewhere. Dreadful geological changes are taking place. You would not recognize a hill or forest ten miles north. And those that you passed one day might well have changed or disappeared the next.”

“We have witnessed something of the like on our sea journey,” Elric nodded. “I wish you a long life of revenge, friend. I myself have scores to settle with Jagreen Lern and his accomplice.”

“His accomplice? You mean King Sarosto of Dharijor?” A thin smile crossed the knight’s haggard face. “You’ll take no vengeance on Sarosto. He was assassinated soon after our forces were vanquished at the battle of Sequa. Though nothing was proved, it is common knowledge that he was killed at the orders of the Theocrat who now rules unchallenged.” The knight shrugged. “And who can stand for long against Jagreen Lern, let alone his captains?”

“Who are these captains?”

“Why, he has summoned all the Dukes of Hell to him. Whether they will accept his mastery much longer, I do not know. It is our belief that Jagreen Lern will be the next to die—and Hell unchecked will rule in his place!”

“I hope not,” Elric said softly, “for I won’t be cheated of my vengeance.”

The knight sighed. “With the Dukes of Hell as his allies, Jagreen Lern will soon rule the world.”

“Let us hope I can find a means of disposing of that dark aristocracy, and keeping my vow to slay Jagreen Lern,” Elric said and, with a wave of thanks to the seer and the two knights, turned his horse towards the mountains of Jharkor, Moonglum in his wake.

They got little rest on their perilous ride to the mountain home of Sepiriz, for, as the knight had told them, the ground itself seemed alive and anarchy ruled everywhere. Afterwards, Elric remembered little, save a feeling of utter horror and the noise of unholy screechings in his ear, dark colours, gold, reds, blue, black, and the flaring orange that was everywhere the sign of Chaos on Earth.

In the mountain regions close to Nihrain, they found that the rule of Chaos was not so complete as in other parts. This proved that Sepiriz and his nine black brothers were exerting at least some control against the forces threatening to engulf them.

Through steep gorges of towering black rock, along treacherous mountain paths, down slopes that rattled with loose stones and seemed likely to start an avalanche, they pressed deeper and deeper into the heart of the ancient mountains. These were the oldest mountains in the world, and they held one of the Earth’s most ancient secrets—the domain of the immortal Nihrain who had ruled for centuries even before the coming of the Melnibonéans. At last, they came to the Hewn City of Nihrain, its towering palaces, temples and fortresses carved into the living black granite, hidden in the depths of the chasm that might have been bottomless. Virtually cut off from all but the faintest filterings of sunlight, it had brooded here since earliest times.

Down the narrow paths they guided their reluctant steeds until they had reached a huge gateway, its pillars carved with the figures of titans and half-men looming above them, so that Moonglum gasped and immediately fell silent, overawed by the genius which could accomplish the twin feats of gigantic engineering and powerful art.

In the caverns, also carved to represent scenes from the legends of the Nihrain, Sepiriz awaited them, a welcoming smile on his thin-lipped ebony face.

“Greetings, Sepiriz,” Elric dismounted and allowed slaves to lead his horse away. Moonglum did likewise, a trifle warily.

“I was informed correctly,” Sepiriz clasped Elric’s shoulders in his hands. “I am glad for I learned you were bound to Sorcerers’ Isle to seek the White Lords’ help.”

“True. Is their help, then, unobtainable?”

“Not yet. We ourselves are trying to contact them, with the aid of the hermit magicians of the island, but so far Chaos has blocked our attempts. But there is work for you and your sword closer to home. Come to my chamber and refresh yourselves. We have some wine which will revitalize you and when you have drunk your fill I’ll tell you what task Fate has decided for you now.”

Sitting in his chair, sipping his wine and glancing around Sepiriz’s dark chamber, lighted only by the fires which burned in its several grates, Elric searched his mind for some clue to the unidentifiable impressions which seemed to drift just below the surface of his conscious brain. There was something mysterious about the chamber, a mystery that was not solely created by its vastness and the shadows that filled it. Without knowing why, Elric thought that though it was bounded by miles of solid rock in all directions, it had no proper dimensions that could be measured by the means normally employed; it was as if it extended into planes that did not conform to the Earth’s space and time—planes that were, in fact, timeless and spaceless. He felt that he might attempt to cross the chamber from one wall to the other—but could walk for ever without ever reaching the far wall. He made an attempt to dismiss these thoughts and put down his cup, breathing in deeply. There was no doubt that the wine relaxed and invigorated him. He pointed to the wine-jar on the stone table and said to Sepiriz: “A man might easily become addicted to such a brew!”

“I’m addicted already,” Moonglum grinned, pouring himself another cup.

Sepiriz shook his head. “It has a strange quality, our Nihrain wine. It tastes pleasant and refreshes the weary, yet once his strength is regained, the man who drinks it then is nauseated. That is why we still have some of it left. But our stocks are low—the vines from which it was made have long since passed from the Earth.”

“A magic potion,” Moonglum said, replacing his cup on the table.

“If you like so to designate it. Elric and I are of an earlier age when what you call magic was part of normal life and Chaos ruled entirely, if more quietly than now. You men of the Young Kingdoms are perhaps right to be suspicious of sorcery, for we hope to ready the world for Law soon and then, perhaps, you’ll find similar brews by more painstaking methods, methods you can understand better.”

“I doubt it,” Moonglum laughed.

Elric sighed. “If we are not luckier than we have been, we’ll see Chaos unleashed on the globe and Law forever vanquished,” he said gloomily.

“And no luck for us if Law is triumphant, eh?” Sepiriz poured himself a cup of the wine.

Moonglum looked sharply at Elric, understanding that much more of his friend’s unenviable predicament.

“You said there was work for me and my sword, Sepiriz,” Elric said. “What’s its nature?”

“You have already learned that Jagreen Lern has summoned some of the Dukes of Hell to captain his men and keep his conquered lands under control?”

“Yes.”

“You understand the import of this? Jagreen Lern has succeeded in making a sizable breach in the Law-constructed barrier which once kept the creatures of Chaos from wholly ruling the planet. He is forever widening this breach as his power increases. This explains how he could summon such a mighty assembly of hell’s nobility where, in the past, it was hard to bring one to our plane. Arioch is among them…”

“Arioch!” Arioch had always been Elric’s patron demon, the principal god worshipped by his ancestors. That matters had reached such a stage conveyed to him, deeper than anything else, that he was now a total outcast, unprotected either by Law or Chaos.

“Your only close supernatural ally is your sword,” Sepiriz said grimly. “And, perhaps, its brothers.”

“What brothers? There is only the sister sword Mournblade, which Dyvim Slorm has!”

“Do you remember that I told you how the twin swords were actually only an earthly manifestation of their supernatural selves?” Sepiriz said calmly.

“I do.”

“Well, I can tell you now that Stormbringer’s ‘real’ being is related to other supernatural forces on another plane. I know how to summon them, but these entities are also creatures of Chaos and therefore, as far as you’re concerned, somewhat hard to control. They could well get out of hand—perhaps even turn against you. Stormbringer, as you have discovered in the past, is bound to you by ties even stronger than those which bind it to its brothers who are lesser beings altogether, but its brothers outnumber it, and Stormbringer might not be able to protect you against them.”

“Why have I never known this?”

“You have known it, in a way. Do you remember times when you have called to the Dark Ones for help and help has come?”

“Yes. You mean that this help has been supplied by Stormbringer’s brethren?”

“Much of the time, yes. Already they are used to coming to your help. They are not what you and I would call intelligent, though sentient, and are therefore not so strongly bound to Chaos as its reasoning servants. They can be controlled, to a degree, by anyone who has power such as you have over one of their brothers. If you need their help, you will need to remember a rune which I shall tell you later.”

“And what is my task?”

“To destroy the Dukes of Hell.”

“Destroy the—Sepiriz, that’s impossible. They are Lords of Chaos, one of the most powerful groups in the whole Realm of Chance. Sepiriz, I could not do it!”

“True. But you control one of the mightiest weapons. Of course, no mortal can destroy the dukes entirely—all he can hope to do is banish them to their own plane by wrecking the substance which they use for bodies on Earth. That is your task. Already there are hints that the Dukes of Hell—namely Arioch, and Balan, and Maluk—have taken some of Jagreen Lern’s power from him. The fool still thinks he can rule over such supernatural might as they represent. It suits them, perhaps, to let him think so, but it is certain that with these friends Jagreen Lern can defeat the Southlands with a minimum of expenditure in arms, ships or men. Without them, he could do it—but it would take more time and effort and therefore give us a slight advantage to prepare against him while he subdues the Southlands.”

Elric did not bother to ask Sepiriz how he knew of the Southerners’ decision to fight Jagreen Lern alone. Sepiriz obviously had many powers as was proved by his ability to contact Elric through the seer. “I have sworn to help the Southlands in spite of their refusal to side with us against the Theocrat,” he said calmly.

“And you’ll keep your oath—by destroying the dukes if you can.”

“Destroying Arioch, and Balan, and Maluk…” Elric whispered the names, fearful that even here he might invoke them.

“Arioch has always been an unhelpful demon,” Moonglum pointed out. “Many’s the time in the past he has refused to aid you, Elric.”

“Because,” Sepiriz said, “he already had some knowledge that you and he were to fight in the future.”

Though the wine had refreshed his body, Elric’s mind was close to snapping. The strain on his soul was almost at breaking point. To fight the demon-god of his ancestors…The old blood was still strong in him, the old loyalties still present.

Sepiriz rose and gripped Elric’s shoulder, staring with black eyes into the dazed and smouldering crimson ones.

“You have pledged yourself to this mission, remember?”

“Aye, pledged—but Sepiriz—the Dukes of Hell—Arioch—I—oh, I wish that I were dead now…”

“You have much to do before you’ll be allowed to die, Elric,” Sepiriz said quietly. “You must realize how important you and your great sword are to Fate’s cause. Remember your pledge!”

Elric drew himself upright, nodded vaguely. “Even had I been given this knowledge before I made that pledge, I would still have made it. But…”

“What?”

“Do not place too much faith on my ability to fulfill this part, Sepiriz.”

The black Nihrain said nothing. Moonglum’s normally animated face was grave and miserable as he looked at Elric standing in the mighty hall, the firelight writhing around him, his arms folded on his chest, the huge broadsword hanging straight at his side, and a look of stunned shock on his white face. Sepiriz walked away into the darkness and returned later with a white tablet on which old runes were engraved. He handed it to the albino.

“Memorize the spell,” Sepiriz said softly, “and then destroy the tablet. But remember, only use it in extreme adversity for, as I warned you, Stormbringer’s brethren may refuse to aid you.”

Elric made an effort and controlled his emotions. Long after Moonglum had gone to rest, he studied the rune under the guidance of the Nihrainian, learning not only how to vocalize it, but also the twists of logic which he would have to understand, and the state of mind into which he must put himself if it were to be effective.

When both he and Sepiriz were satisfied, Elric allowed a slave to take him to his sleeping chamber, but slumber came hard to him and he spent the night in restless torment until the slave came to wake him the next morning and found him fully dressed and ready to ride for Pan Tang where the Dukes of Hell were assembled.

CHAPTER FOUR

Through the stricken lands of the West rode Elric and Moonglum, astride sturdy Nihrain steeds that seemed to need no rest and contained no fear. The Nihrain horses were a special gift, for they had certain additional powers to their unnatural strength and endurance. Sepiriz had told them how, in fact, the steeds did not have full existence on the earthly plane and that their hoofs did not touch the ground in the strict sense, but touched the stuff of their other plane. This gave them the ability to appear to gallop on air—or water.

Scenes of terror were everywhere to be found. At one time they saw a frightful sight; a wild and hellish mob destroying a village built around a castle. The castle itself was in flames and on the horizon a mountain gouted smoke and fire—yet another volcano in lands previously free of them. Though the looters had human shape, they were degenerate creatures, spilling blood and drinking it with equal abandon. And directing them without joining their orgy, Elric and Moonglum saw what seemed to be a corpse astride the living skeleton of a horse, bedecked in bright trappings, a flaming sword in its hand and a golden helm on its head.

They skirted the scene and rode fast away from it, through mists that looked and smelled like blood, over steaming rivers dammed with death, past rustling forests that seemed to follow them, beneath skies often filled with ghastly, winged shapes bearing even ghastlier burdens.

At other times, they met groups of warriors, many of them in the armour and trappings of the conquered nations, but depraved and obviously sold to Chaos. These they fought or avoided, depending on circumstance and, when at last they reached the cliffs of Jharkor and saw the sea which would take them to the Isle of Pan Tang, they knew they had ridden through a land to which Hell had come.

Along the cliffs they galloped, high above the churning, grey sea, the lowering sky dark and cold; down to the beaches to pause for a second time on the water’s edge.

“Come!” Elric cried, urging his horse forward. “To Pan Tang!”

Scarcely stopping, they rode their magical steeds over the water towards the evil-heavy island of Pan Tang, where Jagreen Lern and his terrible allies prepared to sail with their giant fleet and smash the seapower of the South before conquering the Southlands themselves.

“Elric!” Moonglum called above the whining wind. “Should we not proceed with more caution?”

“Caution? What need of that when the Dukes of Hell must surely know their turncoat servant comes to fight them!”

Moonglum pursed his long lips, disturbed, for Elric was in a wild, maddened mood. He got little comfort, also, from the knowledge that Sepiriz had charmed his shortsword and his sabre both, with one of the few white spells he had at his command.

Now the bleak cliffs of Pan Tang rose into sight, spray-lashed and ominous, the sea moaning about them as if in some special torture which Chaos could inflict on nature itself.

And also around the island a peculiar darkness hovered, shifting and changing.

They entered the darkness as the Nihrain steeds pounded up the steep, rocky beach of Pan Tang, a place that had always been ruled by its black priesthood, a grim theocracy that had sought to emulate the legendary Sorcerer Emperors of the Bright Empire of Melniboné. But Elric, last of those emperors, and landless now, with few subjects, knew that the dark arts had been natural and lawful to his ancestors, whereas these human beings had perverted themselves to worship an unholy hierarchy they barely understood.

Sepiriz had given them their route and they galloped across the turbulent land towards the capital—Hwamgaarl, City of Screaming Statues.

Pan Tang was an island of green, obsidian rock that gave off bizarre reflections; rock that seemed alive.

Soon they could see the looming walls of Hwamgaarl in the distance. As they drew nearer, an army of black-cowled swordsmen, chanting a particularly horrible litany, seemed to rise from the ground ahead and block their way.

Elric had no time to spare for these, recognizable as a detachment of Jagreen Lern’s warrior-priests.

“Up, steed!” he cried, and the Nihrain horse leapt skywards, passing over the disconcerted priests with a fantastic bound. Moonglum did likewise, his laughter mocking the swordsmen as he and his friend thundered on towards Hwamgaarl. Their way was clear for some distance, since Jagreen Lern had evidently expected the detachment to hold the pair for a long time. But, when the City of Screaming Statues was barely a mile away, the ground began to grumble and gaping cracks split its surface. This did not overly disturb them, for the Nihrain horses had no use for earthly terrain in any case.

The sky above heaved and shook itself, the darkness became flushed with streaks of luminous ebony, and from the fissures in the ground, monstrous shapes sprang up!

Vulture-headed lions, fifteen feet high, prowled in hungry anticipation towards them, their feathered manes rustling as they approached.

To Moonglum’s frightened astonishment, Elric laughed and the Eastlander knew his friend had gone mad. But Elric was familiar with this ghoulish pack, since his ancestors had formed it for their own purposes a dozen centuries before. Evidently, Jagreen Lern had discovered the pack lurking on the borders between Chaos and Earth and had utilized it without being aware of how it had been created.

Old words formed on Elric’s pale lips, and he spoke affectionately to the towering bird-beasts. They ceased their progress towards him, and glanced uncertainly around them, their loyalties evidently divided. Feathered tails lashed, claws worked in and out of pads, scraping great gashes in the obsidian rock. And, taking advantage of this, Elric and Moonglum walked their horses through them, and emerged just as a droning but angry voice rapped from the heavens, ordering, in the High Tongue of Melniboné: “Destroy them!”

One lion-vulture bounded uncertainly towards the pair. Another followed it, and another, till the whole pack raced to catch them.

“Faster!” Elric whispered to the Nihrain horse, but the steed could hardly keep the distance separating them. There was nothing for it but to turn. Deep in the recesses of his memory, he recalled a certain spell he had learned as a child. All the old spells of Melniboné had been passed on to him by his father, with the warning that, in these times, many of them were virtually useless. But there had been one—the spell for calling the vulture-headed lions, and another spell…Now he remembered it! The spell for sending them back to the domain of Chaos. Would it work?

He adjusted his mind, sought the words he needed as the beasts plunged on towards him.

“Creatures! Matik of Melniboné made thee

From stuff of unformed madness!

If thou wouldst live as thou art now,

Get hence, or Matik’s brew again shall be!”

The creatures paused and, desperately, Elric repeated the spell, afraid that he had made a small mistake, either within his mind, or in the words.

Moonglum, who had drawn his horse up beside Elric, did not dare speak his fears, for he knew the albino sorcerer must not be hindered whilst spell-making. He watched in trepidation as the leading beast gave voice to a cawing roar.

But Elric heard the sound with relief, for it meant the beasts had understood his threat and were still bound to obey the spell. Slowly, half-reluctantly, they crawled down into the fissures, and vanished.

Sweating, Elric said triumphantly: “Luck is with us so far! Jagreen Lern either underestimated my powers, or else this is all he could summon with his own! More proof, perhaps, that Chaos uses him, and not the other way about!”

“Tempt not such luck by speaking of it,” Moonglum warned. “From what you’d told me, these are puny things compared with what we must soon face.”

Elric shot an angry look at his friend. He did not like to think of his coming task.

Now they neared the huge walls of Hwamgaarl. At intervals along these walls, which slanted outwards at an angle to encumber potential besiegers, they saw the screaming statues—once men and women whom Jagreen Lern and his forefathers had turned to rock but allowed them to retain their life and ability to speak. They spoke little, but screamed much, their ghastly shouts rolling over the disgusting city like the tormented voices of the damned—and damned they were. These sobbing waves of sound were horrifying, even to Elric’s ears, familiar with such sounds. Then another noise blended with this as the mighty portcullis of Hwamgaarl’s main gate squealed upwards and from it poured a host of well-armed men.

“Evidently, Jagreen Lern’s powers of sorcery have been exhausted for the meantime and the Dukes of Hell disdain to join him in a fight against a pair of mere mortals!” Elric said, reaching for the hilt of the black runesword.

Moonglum was beyond speech. Wordlessly, he drew both his own charmed blades, knowing he must fight and vanquish his own fears before he could encounter the men who ran at him.

With a wild howl that drowned out the screams from the statues, Stormbringer climbed from the scabbard and stood in Elric’s hand, waiting in anticipation for the new souls it might drink, for the lifestuff which it could pass on to Elric and fill him with dark and stolen vitality.

Elric half-cringed at the feel of his blade in his damp hand. But he shouted to the advancing soldiers: “See, jackals! See the sword! Forged by Chaos to vanquish Chaos! Come, let it drink your souls and spill your blood! We are ready for you!”

He did not wait but, with Moonglum behind him, spurred the Nihrain horse into their ranks, hewing about him with something of the old delight.

Now, so symbiotically linked with the hellblade was he, that a hungry joy of killing swept through him, the joy of soul-stealing which drew a surging, unholy vitality into his deficient veins.

Though there were over a hundred warriors blocking his path, he smashed a bloody trail through them and Moonglum, seized by something akin to his friend’s mood, was equally successful in dispatching all who came against him. Familiar with horror as they were, the soldiers soon became loath to approach the screaming runesword as it shone with a peculiarly brilliant light—a black light that pierced the blackness itself.

Laughing in his half-insane triumph, Elric felt the callous joy that his ancestors must have felt long ago, when they conquered the world and made it kneel to the Bright Empire. Chaos was, indeed, fighting Chaos—but Chaos of an older, cleaner sort, come to destroy the perverted upstarts who thought themselves as mighty as the wild Dragon Lords of Melniboné! Through the red ruin they had made of the enemy’s ranks the pair plunged until the gateway gaped like a monster’s maw before them. Without pausing, Elric rode laughing through it and people scuttled to hiding as he entered, in bizarre triumph, the City of Screaming Statues.

“Where now?” gasped Moonglum, all fear driven from him.

“To the Theocrat’s Temple-Palace, of course. There Arioch and his fellow dukes no doubt await us!”

Through the echoing streets of the city they rode, proud and terrible, as if with an army at their backs. Dark buildings towered above them, but not a face dared peep from a window. Pan Tang had planned to rule the world—and it might yet—but, for the moment, its denizens were fully demoralized by the sight of two men taking their huge city by storm.

As they reached the wide plaza, Elric and Moonglum pulled their horses to a halt and observed the huge bronze shrine swinging on its chains in the centre. Beyond it rose Jagreen Lern’s palace, all columns and towers, ominously quiet. Even the statues had ceased to scream, and the horses’ hoofs made no sound as Elric and Moonglum approached the shrine. The blood-reddened runesword was still in Elric’s two hands and he raised it upwards and to one side as he reached the brazen shrine. Then he took a mighty sweep at the chains supporting it. The supernatural blade bit into the metal and severed the links. The crash as the shrine dropped and smashed, scattering the bones of Jagreen Lern’s ancestors, was magnified a thousand times by the silence. The noise echoed throughout Hwamgaarl and every inhabitant left alive knew what it signified.

“Thus I challenge thee, Jagreen Lern!” Elric shouted, aware that these words would also be heard by everyone. “I have come to pay the debt I promised! Come, puppet!” He paused, even his triumph not sufficient fully to quench his hesitation at what he must do now. “Come! Bring Hell’s Dukes with you—”

Moonglum swallowed, his eyes rolling as he studied Elric’s twisted face, but the albino continued:

“Bring Arioch. Bring Balan. Bring Maluk! Bring the proud princes of Chaos with you, for I have come to send them back to their own realm for ever!”

The silence again enfolded his high challenge, and he heard its echoes die away in the far places of the city.

Then, from somewhere inside the palace, he heard a movement. His heart pounded against his rib-cage, threatening to break through the bones and hang throbbing on his chest as proof of his mortality. He heard a sound like the clopping of monstrous hoofs and, ahead of this noise, the measured steps that must be those of a man.

His eyes fixed themselves on the great, golden doors of the palace, half-hidden in the shadows that the columns threw. The doors silently began to open. Then a high-shouldered figure, dwarfed by the size of the doors, stepped forth and stood there, regarding Elric with a horrible anger smouldering in its face.

On his body, scarlet armour glowed as if red-hot. On his left arm was a shield of the same stuff and in his hand a steel sword. He had a narrow, aquiline head with a closely trimmed black beard and moustache. On his elaborate helm was the Merman Crest of Pan Tang. Jagreen Lern said, in a voice that trembled with rage: “So, Elric, you have kept part of your word, after all. How I wish I’d been able to kill you at Sequa when I had the chance, but then I had a bargain with Darnizhaan…”

“Step forward, Theocrat,” Elric said with sudden calm. “I’ll give you the chance again and meet you fairly in single combat.”

Jagreen Lern sneered. “Fairly? With that blade in your hands? Once I met it and did not perish, but now it burns with the souls of my best warrior-priests. I know its power. I would not be so foolish as to stand against it. No—let those you have challenged meet you.”

He stepped to one side. The doors gaped wider and, if Elric expected to see giant figures to emerge, he was disappointed. The dukes had assumed human proportions and the forms of men. But there was a power about them that filled the air as they moved to stand, disdainful of Jagreen Lern, upon the topmost step of the palace.

Elric looked upon their beautiful, smiling faces and shuddered again, for there was a kind of love on their faces, love mingled with pride and confidence, so that, for a moment, he was filled with the wish to jump from his horse and fling himself at their feet to plead forgiveness for what he had become. All the longing and the loneliness within him seemed to well up and he knew that these lovely beings would claim him, protect him, care for him…

“Well, Elric,” said Arioch, the leader, softly. “Would you repent and return to us?”

The voice was silvery in its beauty, and Elric half-made to dismount, but then he clapped his hands to his ears, the runesword hanging by its wrist-throng, and cried: “No! No! I must do what I must! Your time, like mine, is over!”

“Do not speak thus, Elric,” Balan said persuasively, “our rule has hardly begun. Soon the Earth and all its creatures will be part of the Realm of Chaos and a wild and splendid era will begin!” His words passed Elric’s hands and whispered in his skull. “Chaos has never been so powerful on Earth—not even in earliest days. We shall make you great. We shall make you a Lord of Chaos, equal to ourselves! We give you immortality, Elric. If you behave so foolishly, you will bring yourself only death, and none shall remember you.”

“I know that! I would not wish to be remembered in a world ruled by Law!”

Maluk laughed softly. “That will never come to pass. We block every move that Law makes to try to bring help to Earth.”

“And this is why you must be destroyed!” Elric cried.

“We are immortal—we can never be slain!” Arioch said, and there was a tinge of impatience in his voice.

“Then I shall send you back to Chaos in such a way that you shall never have power on the Earth again!”

Elric swung his runeblade into his hand and it trembled there, moaning quietly, as if unsure of itself, just as he was.

“See!” Balan walked partway down the steps. “See—even your trusted sword knows that we speak truth!”

“You speak a sort of truth,” Moonglum said in a quavering tone, astonished at his own bravery. “But I remember something of a greater truth—a law that should bind both Chaos and Law—the Law of the Balance. That balance is held over the Earth and it has been ordained that Chaos and Law must keep it straight. Sometimes the Balance tips one way, sometimes another—and thus are the ages of the Earth created. But an unequal balance of this magnitude is wrong. In your struggling, you of Chaos may have forgotten this!”

“We have forgotten it for good reason, mortal. The Balance has tipped to such an extent in our favour that it is no longer adjustable. We triumph!”

Elric used this pause to collect himself. Sensing his renewed strength, Stormbringer responded with a confident purr.

The dukes also sensed it and glanced at one another.

Arioch’s beautiful face seemed to flare with anger and his pseudo-body glided down the steps towards Elric, his fellow dukes following.

Elric’s steed backed away a few paces.

A blot of living fire appeared in Arioch’s hand and it shot towards the albino. He felt cold pain in his chest and he staggered in the saddle.

“Your body is unimportant, Elric. But think of a similar blow to your soul!” The façade of patience was dropping from Arioch.

Elric flung back his head and laughed. Arioch had betrayed himself. If he had remained calm, he would have had a greater advantage, but now he showed himself perturbed, whatever he had said to the contrary.

“Arioch, you aided me in the past, aided me to live. You will regret that!”

“There’s still time to undo my folly, upstart man!” Another bolt came streaking towards him, but he passed Stormbringer before it and, in relief, saw that it deflected the unholy weapon.

But against such might they were surely doomed, unless they could invoke some supernatural aid. But Elric dared not risk summoning his runesword’s brothers. Not yet. He must think of some other means. As he retreated before the searing bolts, Moonglum behind him whispering almost impotent charms, he thought of the vulture-lions he had sent back to Chaos. Perhaps he could recall them—for a different purpose.

The spell was fresh in his mind, requiring a slightly changed mental state and scarcely changed wording. Calmly, mechanically deflecting the bolts of the dukes, whose features had changed hideously to retain their previous beauty but take on an increasingly malevolent look, he uttered the spell.

“Creatures! Matik of Melniboné made thee,

From stuff of unformed madness!

If thou wouldst live, then aid me now.

Come hither, or Matik’s brew again shall be!”

From out of the rolling darks of the plaza, the beaked beasts prowled. Elric yelled at the dukes. “Mortal weapons cannot harm you! But these are beasts of your own plane! Sample their ferocity!” In the bizarre tongue of Melniboné, he ordered the vulture-lions upon the dukes.

Apprehensively, Arioch and his fellows backed towards the steps again, calling their own commands to the giant animals, but the things advanced, gathering speed.

Elric saw Arioch shout, rave, and then his body seemed to split asunder and rise in a new, less recognizable shape as the beasts attacked. All was suddenly ragged colour, shrill sound and disordered matter. Behind the embattled demons, Elric saw Jagreen Lern running back into his palace. Hoping that the creatures he had summoned would hold the dukes, Elric rode his horse around the boiling mass and galloped up the steps.

Through the doors, the two men rode, catching a glimpse of the terrified Theocrat running before them.

“Your allies were not so strong as you believed, Jagreen Lern!” Elric yelled as he bore down upon his enemy. “Why, you foolish latecomer, did you think your knowledge matched that of a Melnibonéan!”

Jagreen Lern began to climb a winding staircase, labouring up the steps, too afraid to look back. Elric laughed again and pulled his horse to a stop, watching the running man.

“Dukes! Dukes!” sobbed Jagreen Lern as he climbed. “Do not desert me now!”

Moonglum whispered. “Surely those creatures will not defeat the aristocracy of hell?”

Elric shook his head. “I do not expect them to, but if I finish Jagreen Lern, at least it could put an end to his conquests and demon-summoning.” He spurred the Nihrain steed up the steps after the Theocrat who heard him coming and flung himself into a room. Elric heard a bar fall and bolts squeal.

When he reached the door, it fell in at a blow of his sword and he was in a small chamber. Jagreen Lern had disappeared.

Dismounting, Elric went to a small door in the farthest corner of the room and again demolished it. A narrow stair led upwards, obviously into a tower. Now he could take his vengeance, he thought, as he reached yet another door at the top of the stair and drew back his sword to smite it. The blow fell, but the door held.

“Curse the thing, it is protected by charms!”

He was about to aim another blow, when he heard Moonglum’s urgent calling from below.

“Elric! Elric—they’ve defeated the creatures. They are returning to the palace!”

He would have to leave Jagreen Lern for the meantime. He sprang down the steps, into the chamber and out onto the stair. In the hall he saw the flowing shapes of the unholy trinity. Halfway up the stair, Moonglum was quaking.

“Stormbringer,” said Elric, “it is time to summon your brothers.”

The sword moved in his hand, as if in assent. He began to chant the difficult rune that Sepiriz had taught him. Stormbringer moaned a counterpoint to the dirge as the battle-worn dukes assumed different shapes and began to rise menacingly towards Elric.

Then, in the air all about him, he saw shapes appear, shadowy shapes half on his own plane, half on the plane of Chaos. He saw them stir and suddenly it seemed as if the air was filled with a million swords, each a twin to Stormbringer!

Acting on instinct, Elric released his grip on his blade and flung it towards the rest. It hung in the air before them and they seemed to acknowledge it. “Lead them, Stormbringer! Lead them against the dukes—or your master perishes and you’ll not drink another human soul again!”

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The sea of swords rustled and a dreadful moaning emanated from them. The dukes flung themselves upwards towards the albino and he recoiled before the evil hatred that poured from the twisting shapes.

Glancing down, he saw Moonglum slumped in his saddle and did not know if he had perished or fainted.

Then the swords rushed upon the reaching dukes and Elric’s head swam with the sight of a million blades plunging into the stuff of their beings.

The ululating noise of the battle filled his ears, the dreadful sight of the toiling conflict clouded his vision. Without Stormbringer’s vitality, he felt weak and limp. He felt his knees shake and crumple and he could do nothing to aid the Black Sword’s brothers as they clashed with the Dukes of Hell.

He collapsed, aware that if he witnessed further horror he would become totally insane. Thankfully, he felt his mind go blank and then, at last, he was unconscious, unable to know which would win.

CHAPTER FIVE

His body itched. His arms and back ached. His wrists pounded with agony. Elric opened his eyes.

Immediately opposite him, spreadeagled in chains against the wall he saw Moonglum. Dull flame flickered in the centre of the place and he felt pain on his naked knee, looked down and saw Jagreen Lern.

The Theocrat spat at him.

“So,” Elric said thickly, “I failed. You triumph after all.”

Jagreen Lern did not look triumphant. Rage still burned in his eyes.

“Oh, how shall I punish you?” he whispered.

“Punish me? Then—?” Elric’s heartbeat increased.

“Your final spell succeeded,” the Theocrat said flatly, turning away to contemplate the brazier. “Both your allies and mine vanished and all my attempts to contact the dukes have proved fruitless. You achieved your threat—or your minions did—you sent them back to Chaos for ever!”

“My sword—what of that?”

The Theocrat smiled bitterly. “That’s my only pleasure. Your sword vanished with the others. You are weak and helpless now, Elric. You are mine to maim and torture until the end of my life.”

Elric was dumbfounded. Part of him rejoiced that the dukes had been beaten. Part of him lamented the loss of his sword. As Jagreen Lern had emphasized, without the blade, he was less than half a man, for his albinism weakened him. Already, his eyesight was dimmer and he felt no response in his limbs.

Jagreen Lern looked up at him.

“Enjoy the comparatively painless days left you, Elric. I leave you to anticipate what I have in store for you. I must away and instruct my men in the final preparations for the war-fleet soon to sail against the South. I won’t waste time with crude torture now, for all the while I shall be scheming the most exquisite tortures conceivable. You shall take long years to die, I swear.”

He left the cell and, as the door slammed, Elric heard Jagreen Lern instructing the guard.

“Keep the brazier at full blast. Let them sweat like damned souls. Feed them enough to keep them alive, once every three days. They will soon be crying for water. Give them only sufficient to sustain their lives. They deserve far worse than this and they’ll get their deserts when my mind has had time to work on the problem.”

A day later, the real agony began. Their bodies gave out the last of their sweat. Their tongues were swollen in their heads and all the time as they groaned in their torment they were aware that this terrible torture would be nothing to what they might expect. Elric’s weakened body would not respond to his desperate struggling and at length his mind dulled, the agony became constant and familiar, and time was non-existent.

Finally, through a pain-thick daze, he recognized a voice. It was the hate-filled voice of Jagreen Lern.

Others were in the chamber. He felt their hands seize him and his body was suddenly light as he was borne, moaning, from the cell.

Though he heard disjointed phrases, he could make no sense of Jagreen Lern’s words. He was taken to a dark place that rolled about, hurting his scorched chest.

Later, he heard Moonglum’s voice and strained to hear the words.

“Elric! What’s happening? We’re aboard a ship at sea, I’d swear!”

But Elric mumbled without interest. His deficient body was weakening faster than would a normal man’s. He thought of Zarozinia, whom he would never see again. He knew he would not live to know whether Law or Chaos finally won, or even if the Southlands would stand against the Theocrat.

And these problems were fading in his mind again.

Then the food started to come and the water and it revived him somewhat. At one stage, he opened his eyes and stared upwards into the thinly smiling face of Jagreen Lern.

“Thank the gods,” said the Theocrat. “I feared we’d lost you. You’re a delicate case to be sure, my friend. You must stay alive longer than this. To begin my entertainment, I have arranged for you to sail on my own flagship. We are now crossing the Dragon Sea, our fleet well-protected by charms against the monsters roaming these parts.” He frowned. “Thanks to you, we haven’t the same call for the charms which would have borne us safely through the Chaos-torn waters. The seas are almost normal for the moment. But that will soon be changed.”

Elric’s old spirit returned for a moment and he glared at his enemy, too weak to voice the loathing he felt.

Jagreen Lern laughed softly and stirred Elric’s gaunt white head with the toe of his boot. “I think I can brew a drug which will give you a little more vitality.”

The food, when it came, was foul-tasting, and had to be forced between Elric’s mumbling lips, but after a while he was able to sit up and observe the huddled body of Moonglum. Evidently, the little man had totally succumbed to his torture. To his surprise, Elric discovered he was unfettered and he crawled the agonizing distance between himself and the Eastlander, shaking Moonglum’s shoulder. He groaned, but did not otherwise respond.

A shaft of light suddenly struck through the darkness of the hold and Elric blinked, looking up to see that the hatch-cover had been prised aside and Jagreen Lern’s bearded face stared down at him.

“Good, good. I see the brew had its effect. Come, Elric, smell the invigorating sea and feel the warm sun on your body. We are not many miles from the coasts of Argimiliar and our scout ships report quite a sizable fleet sailing hence.”

Elric cursed. “By Arioch, I hope they send you all to the bottom!”

Jagreen Lern pursed his lips, mockingly. “By whom? Arioch? Do you not remember what ensued in my own palace? Arioch cannot be invoked. Not by you—not by me. Your stinking spells saw to that.”

He turned to an unseen lieutenant. “Bind him and bring him on deck. You know what to do with him.”

Two warriors dropped into the hold and grasped the still-weak Elric, tying his arms and legs and manhandling him onto the deck. He gasped as the sun’s glare struck his eyes.

“Prop him up so he may see all,” Jagreen Lern ordered.

The warriors obeyed, and Elric was lifted to a standing position, seeing Jagreen Lern’s huge, black flagship with its silken deck canopies flapping in a steady westerly breeze, its three banks of straining oarsmen and its tall ebony mast, bearing a sail of dark red.

Beyond the ship’s rails, Elric saw a massive fleet surging in the flagship’s wake. As well as the vessels of Pan Tang and Dharijor, there were many from Jharkor, Shazaar and Tarkesh, but on every scarlet sail the Merman blazon of Pan Tang was painted.

Despair filled Elric, for he knew that the Southlands, however strong, could not match a fleet like this.

“We have been at sea for only three days,” said Jagreen Lern, “but thanks to a witch-wind, we’re almost at our destination. A scout ship has recently reported that the Lormyrian navy, hearing rumours of our superior seapower, is sailing to join with us. A wise move of King Montan—for the moment, at any rate. I’ll make use of him for the time being and, when his usefulness is over, I’ll kill him for a treacherous turncoat.”

“Why do you tell me all this?” Elric whispered, his teeth gritted against the pain that came with any slight movement of his face or body.

“Because I want you to witness for yourself the defeat of the South. The merchant princes sail against us—and we shall easily crush them. I want you to know that what you sought to avert will come to pass. After we have subdued the South and sucked her of her treasures, we’ll vanquish the Isle of the Purple Towns and press forward to sack Vilmir and Ilmiora. That will be an easy matter, don’t you agree? We have allies other than those you defeated.”

When Elric did not reply, Jagreen Lern gestured impatiently to his men.

“Tie him to the mast so that he may get a good view of the battle. I’ll put a protective charm around his body, for I do not want him to be killed by a stray arrow and cheat me of my full vengeance.”

Elric was borne up and roped to the mast, but he was scarcely aware of it, for his head lolled on his right shoulder, only semi-conscious.

The massive fleet plunged onwards, certain of victory.

By mid-afternoon, Elric was aroused from his stupor by the shout of the helmsman.

“Sail to the south-east! Lormyrian fleet approaches!”

With impotent anger, Elric saw the fifty two-masted ships, their bright sails contrasting with the sombre scarlet of Jagreen Lern’s vessels, come into line with the others.

Lormyr, though a smaller power than Argimiliar, had a larger navy. Elric judged that King Montan’s treachery had cost the South more than a quarter of its strength.

Now he knew there was absolutely no hope for the South and that Jagreen Lern’s certainty of victory was well-founded.

Night fell and the huge fleet lay at anchor. A guard came to feed Elric a mushy porridge containing another dose of the drug. As he revived, his anger increased, and Jagreen Lern paused by the mast on two occasions, taunting him savagely.

“Soon after dawn we shall meet the Southern fleet,” Jagreen Lern smiled, “and by noon what is left of it will float as bloody driftwood behind us as we press on to establish our reign over those nations who so foolishly relied on their seapower as defense.”

Elric remembered how he had warned the kings of the Southlands that this was likely to happen if they stood alone against the Theocrat. But he wished that he had been wrong. With the defeat of the South, the conquest of the East seemed bound to follow and, when Jagreen Lern ruled the world, Chaos would dominate and the Earth revert to the stuff from which it had been formed millions of years before.

All through that moonless night, he brooded. He pulled his thoughts together, summoning all his strength for a plan that was, as yet, only a shadow in the back of his mind.

CHAPTER SIX

The rattle of anchors woke him.

Blinking in the light of the watery sun, he saw the Southern fleet on the horizon, riding gracefully in hollow pomp towards the ships of Jagreen Lern. Either, he thought, the Southern kings were very brave, or else they did not understand the strength of their enemies.

Beneath him, on Jagreen Lern’s foredeck, a great catapult rested, and slaves had already filled its cup with a large ball of flaming pitch. Normally, Elric knew, such catapults were an encumbrance, since when they reached that size they were difficult to rewind and gave lighter war-engines the advantage. Yet obviously Jagreen Lern’s engineers were not fools. Elric noted extra mechanisms on the big catapult and realized they were equipped to rewind rapidly.

The wind had dropped and five hundred pairs of muscles strove to row Jagreen Lern’s galley along. On the deck, in disciplined order, his warriors took their posts beside the great boarding platforms that would drop down on the opponent’s ships and grapple them at the same time as they formed a bridge between the vessels.

Elric was forced to admit that Jagreen Lern had used foresight. He had not relied wholly on supernatural aid. His ships were the best equipped he had ever seen. The Southern fleet, he decided, was doomed. To fight Jagreen Lern was insanity.

But the Theocrat had made one mistake. He had, in his gnawing desire for vengeance, ensured that Elric’s vitality was restored for a few hours and this vitality extended to his mind as well as his body.

Stormbringer had vanished. With the sword he was, among men, all but invincible. Without it, he was helpless. These were facts. Therefore he must somehow regain the blade. But how? It had returned to the plane of Chaos with its brothers, presumably drawn back there by the overwhelming power of the rest.

He must contact it.

He dare not summon the entire horde of blades with the spell, that would be tempting providence too far.

He heard the sudden thwack and roar as the giant catapult discharged its first shot. The flame-shrouded pitch went arching over the ocean and landed short, boiling the sea around it as it guttered and sank. Swiftly the war-engine was rewound, and Elric marveled at the speed as another ball of flaring pitch was forked into its cup. Jagreen Lern looked up at him and laughed.

“My pleasure will be short. There are not enough of them to put up a long fight. Watch them perish, Elric!”

Elric said nothing, pretended to be dazed and frightened.

The next fireball struck one of the leading ships directly and Elric saw tiny figures scampering about, striving desperately to quench the spreading pitch, but within a minute the whole ship was ablaze, a gouting mass of flame as the figures now jumped overboard, unable to save their vessel.

The air around him sounded to the rushing heat of the fireballs and, within range now, the Southerners retaliated with their lighter machines until it seemed the sky was filled with a thousand comets and the heat almost equaled that which Elric had experienced in the torture chamber. Black smoke began to drift as the brass beaks of the ships’ rams ground through timbers, impaling ships like skewered fish. The hoarse yells of fighting men began to be heard, and the clash of iron as the first few opposing warriors met.

But now he only vaguely heard the sounds, for he was thinking deeply.

Then, when at last his mind was ready, he called in a desperate and agonized voice that human ears could not hear above the noise of war: “Stormbringer!”

His straining mind echoed the shout and he seemed to look beyond the turbulent battle, beyond the ocean, beyond the very Earth to a place of shadows and terror. Something moved there. Many things moved there.

“Stormbringer!”

He heard a curse from beneath him and saw Jagreen Lern pointing up at him. “Gag the white-faced sorcerer.” Jagreen Lern’s eyes met Elric’s and the Theocrat sucked in his lips, deliberating a bare moment before adding: “And if that doesn’t put an end to his babbling—best slay him!”

The lieutenant began to climb the mast towards Elric.

“Stormbringer! Your master perishes!”

He struggled in the biting ropes, but could hardly move.

“Stormbringer!”

All his life he had hated the sword he relied on so much; which he was relying on more and more, but now he called for it as a lover calls for his betrothed.

The warrior grasped his foot and shook it. “Silence! You heard my master!”

With insane eyes, Elric looked down at the warrior who shuddered and drew his sword, hanging to the mast with one hand and readying himself to make a stab at Elric’s vitals.

“Stormbringer!” Elric sobbed the name. He must live. Without him, Chaos would surely rule the world.

The man lunged at Elric’s body—yet the blade did not reach the albino. Then Elric remembered, with sudden humour, that Jagreen Lern had placed a protective spell about him! The Theocrat’s own magic had saved his enemy!

“Stormbringer!”

Now the warrior gasped and the sword dropped from his fingers. He seemed to grapple with something invisible at his throat and Elric saw the man’s fingers sliced off and blood spurt from the stumps. Then, slowly, a shape materialized and, with bounding relief, the albino saw that it was a sword—his own runesword impaling the warrior and sucking out his soul!

The warrior dropped, but Stormbringer hung in the air and then turned to slash the ropes restraining Elric’s hands and then nestled firmly, with horrid affection, in its master’s right fist.

At once the stolen lifestuff of the warrior began to pour through Elric’s being and the pain of his body vanished. Quickly he grasped a piece of the sail’s rigging and cut away the rest of his bonds until he was swinging by one hand on the rope.

“Now, Jagreen Lern, we’ll see who takes vengeance, finally,” he grimaced as he swung towards the deck and dropped lightly upon it, the unholy vitality from the sword surging through him to fill him with a godlike ecstasy. He had never known it so strong before.

But then he noted that the boarding platforms had been lowered and only a skeleton crew remained on the flagship. Jagreen Lern must have led his main strength onto the ship which was now held fast by grapples.

Close by was a great barrel of pitch, used to form the fireballs. Close to that was a flaring torch used to ignite them. Elric seized the brand and flung it into the pitch.

“Though Jagreen Lern may win this battle, his flagship shall go to the bottom with the Southern fleet,” he said grimly, and dashed for the hold where he had been imprisoned, aware that Moonglum lay helpless there.

He wrenched up the hatch-cover and stared down at the pitiful figure of his friend. Evidently, he had been left to starve to death. A rat chittered away as the light shone down.

Elric jumped into the hold and saw, with horror, that part of Moonglum’s right arm had been gnawed already. He heaved the body onto his shoulder, aware that the heart still beat, though faintly, and clambered back up to the deck. How to ensure his friend’s safety and still take vengeance on Jagreen Lern was a problem. But Elric moved towards the boarding platform which he guessed the Theocrat to have crossed. As he did so, three warriors leapt towards him. One of them cried: “The albino! The reaver escapes!”

Elric struck him down with a blow that required only a slight movement of his wrist. The Black Sword did the rest. The others retreated, remembering how Elric had entered Hwamgaarl.

New energy flowed through him. For every corpse he created, his strength increased—a stolen strength, but necessary if he was to survive and win the day for Law.

He ran, untroubled by his burden, over the boarding platform and onto the deck of the Southern ship. Up ahead he saw the standard of Argimiliar and a little group of men around it, headed by King Hozel himself, his face gaunt as he stared at the knowledge of his own death. A deserved death, thought Elric grimly, but nonetheless when Hozel died it would mean another victory for Chaos.

Then he heard a shout of a different quality, thought for a moment that he had been observed, but one of Hozel’s men was pointing to the north and mouthing something.

Elric looked in that direction and saw the brave sails of the Purple Towns. They were fighting ships, better equipped for battle than those of the merchant princes. Their brightly painted sails caught the light. The only rich decoration the austere sea-lords allowed themselves was upon their sails. Elric’s old friend Kargan must command them.

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But they had arrived belatedly. Even if they had sailed with the other Southern vessels it would have been unlikely that they could have turned the day against Pan Tang.

At that moment, staring around him, Jagreen Lern saw Elric and bellowed at his men who moved forward warily and reluctantly, approaching the albino in a wide semi-circle.

Elric cursed the brave sea-lords who had added a further factor to his indecision.

Menacingly he swung the moaning runeblade about him as he advanced to meet the half-terrified Pan Tang warriors. They dropped back, some of them groaning as the blade touched them. The way was now clear to Jagreen Lern.

But the ships of the Purple Towns were drawing closer, almost within catapult range.

Elric looked directly into Jagreen Lern’s frightened face and snarled: “I doubt if my blade has the strength to pierce your burning armour with one blow, and one blow is all I have time for. I leave you now, Theocrat, but remember that even if you conquer all the world including the unknown lands of the East, I’ll have my sword drink your black soul at length.”

With that he dropped Moonglum’s unconscious body overboard and dived after it into the choppy sea.

The blade gave him superhuman strength and he swam towards the leading ship of the sea-lords, which he recognized as Kargan’s, dragging Moonglum’s body after him.

Now, behind him, Jagreen Lern and his men saw their own flagship blazing. Elric had done his work well.

That, too, would serve to divert attention from Kargan’s fleet.

Trusting to the sea-lords’ famed seamanship, he swam directly in the path of the leading galleon, shouting Kargan’s name.

The ship veered slightly and he saw bearded faces at the rail, saw ropes flicker towards him and grasped one, letting them haul him upwards with his burden.

As the seamen pulled them both over the rail, Elric saw Kargan staring at him with shocked eyes. The sea-lord was dressed in the tough brown leather armour of his folk. He had an iron cap on his massive head and his black beard bristled. “Elric! We thought you dead—lost on your voyage south!”

Elric spat salt water from his mouth and said urgently: “Turn your fleet, Kargan! Turn it back the way it has come, there is no hope of saving the Southlanders—they are doomed. We must preserve our forces for a later struggle.”

Hesitating momentarily, Kargan gave the order which was swiftly relayed to the rest of his sixty-strong fleet.

As the ships turned away, Elric noted that hardly a Southern ship remained afloat. For more than a mile the water burned and the sputtering of the flaming, sinking ships was blended with the screams of the maimed and drowning.

“With the Southern seapower crushed so decisively,” Kargan said, watching the physician who was tending to Moonglum, “the lands will not last long before Pan Tang’s marching hordes. Like us, the South relied too much on its ships. It has taught me that we must strengthen our land defenses if we are to have any chance at all.”

“From now on we’ll use your island as our main headquarters,” Elric said. “We’ll fortify the whole place and from there keep in close touch with what is happening in the South. How is my friend, physician?”

The physician looked up. “These are no battle-made wounds. He’s been hurt sorely, but he’ll live. He should recover to perfect fitness given a month or so of rest.”

“He’ll have it,” Elric promised. He gripped the runesword at his belt and wondered what other tasks lay in store for them before the last great battle between Law and Chaos was joined.

Chaos would soon rule more than half the world, in spite of the powerful blow he had dealt it in forever sentencing the Dukes of Hell to their own plane; the more power that Jagreen Lern gathered, the more the threat from Chaos would increase.

He sighed and looked northwards.

Two days later they returned to the Isle of the Purple Towns, the fleet remaining in the largest harbour of Utkel since it was thought wise to have it at hand and not disperse it.

All that following night, Elric talked with the sea-lords, ordered messengers to Vilmir and Ilmiora and, towards morning, there came a polite knock on the door of the room.

Kargan got up to open it and stared in astonishment at the tall, black-faced man who stood there.

“Sepiriz!” Elric cried. “How did you come here?”

“On horseback,” smiled the giant, “and you know the power of the Nihrain steeds. I had come to warn you. We have, at last, managed to contact the White Lords but they can do little as yet. Somehow a path to their plane must be made through the barricades which Chaos has constructed against them. Jagreen Lern’s ships have vomited their contents on the Southern shores and his warriors swarm inland. There is nothing we can do now to stop his conquests there. Once consolidated, his earthly power increased, he will be able to summon more and more allies from Chaos.”

“Then where does my next task lie?” Elric asked softly.

“I am not sure yet. But that is not what I came for. Your blade’s sojourn with its brothers has strengthened it. You notice how swiftly it pours power into your body now?”

“True. Yet I seem ever more reliant upon that power.” He spoke flatly. “The power is stronger, but I am weaker, it seems.”

Sepiriz said gravely: “That power is evilly gained and evil in itself. The blade’s strength will continue to increase but as Chaos-begotten power fills your being, you will have to fight yet more strongly to control the force within you. That also will take strength. So, you see, you must use part of the strength to fight the strength itself.”

Elric sighed and grasped Sepiriz’s arm.

“Thanks for the warning, friend, but when I beat the Dukes of Hell, to whom I formerly pledged allegiance, I did not expect to escape with a mere scratch or a flesh-wound. Know this, Sepiriz,” he turned to the watching sea-lords, “and know this all of you.”

He drew the groaning runeblade from its scabbard and held it aloft so that it shone and flared in its awful power.

“This blade was forged by Chaos to conquer Chaos and that is my destiny, too. Though the world crumbles and turns to boiling gas, I shall live now. I swear by the Cosmic Balance that Law shall triumph and the New Age come to this Earth.”

Taken aback by this grim vow, the sea-lords glanced at one another and Sepiriz smiled.

“Let us hope so, Elric,” he said. “Let us hope so.”