03 - The Hour of Shadows Read online

  Nashrik thought their only chance for victory was to tarry until winter. Such a belief only betrayed the grey seer’s ignorance. Only during the Hour of Shadows could the power within the Golden Pool be released. Only during the Hour of Shadows would the dark power of Dharr be stronger than the faerie magic of the elves and their forest. No, to delay would bring disaster. Only by striking now could there be any hope of triumph!

  A squeal of terror echoed down from the cliffs. Huskk reached to his belt and removed a pair of strangely-tinted lenses, setting them across his eyes. When they were in place, the Black Seer peered out over the lip of the gulley. Turning his gaze upwards, he saw a mangled body tumbling down into the valley. A second, then a third followed, though these fell with a speed and violence more appropriate to a rockslide than anything of flesh and bone.

  Training his gaze still higher, Huskk could see a monstrous shape flying about the cliff, flapping its leathery pinions as it scratched at the rocks with its enormous talons. Clearly a few of Vermitt’s spies had squirmed into a crevice where the monster’s claws couldn’t reach them. Huskk hoped they had the good sense to keep their eyes closed.

  “ls-is that the kill-beast?” Nashrik asked, blinking behind his own set of tinted lenses.

  “That is it,” Huskk hissed. “The vermin of Clan Grubrr call-name it ‘Deathwatcher’. Man-things say-speak of it as the cockatrice.”

  The flying monster suddenly uttered a shrill, ghastly cackle, wheeling away from the side of the cliff. Either it had tired of trying to reach the skaven lodged in the crack or it had satisfied itself that they were all dead. Whatever its motivation, the cockatrice began to soar across the valley, its head snapping from side to side in jerky movements as it watched the earth below.

  Perhaps it was looking for the skaven who had fallen. Perhaps the cockatrice was merely seeking prey. If there was a motive behind its flight, the monster soon forgot whatever it was. An updraft must have brought Weekil’s scent to it, for the bird-beast abruptly swung around, another shrill cackle rising from its throat. The cockatrice stared down at the bound adept, then folded its mighty wings close against its sides. Warbling its weird shriek, the monster dove straight towards Weekil.

  Weekil thrashed against his bonds, frantically trying to tear himself free. His muffled scream sounded from behind the iron bit in his mouth.

  The cockatrice landed a few yards from the bait. It presented a fearsome aspect, an enormous bird with dun-coloured feathers dappled with black whorls, mottles and slashes. A ruff of bright red surrounded its throat, the neck above naked and wrinkled, the skin an ugly pinkish hue. A crest of black feathers sprouted from the top of the creature’s head, leading down into a sharp, vulturine beak and massive, owlish eyes. The monster folded its leathery, batlike wings against its sides and marched towards the bound ratman, the massive talons on its feet clawing the rocky ground with each prancing kick of its powerful legs.

  “Try not to look straight into its eyes,” Huskk warned Nashrik. “The glasses are not strong enough to protect-guard from a direct look.” The grey seer shuddered beside him, slapping a paw against his left eye, as though by blocking half his vision, the intensity of the cockatrice’s gaze would likewise be halved.

  The cockatrice continued to approach the bait. It cocked its head to one side, then another, staring in perplexity at the bound skaven. The monster wasn’t stupid, but it was confused, unable to decide which sense to trust. Its eyes told it there was only a miserable little prey creature here, but its nose told it there was another cockatrice. The muck that had soaked into Weekil’s shaved skin had excited its instincts, mimicking the scent of one of its own kind, an intruder into its territory.

  The cockatrice decided to trust its keen sense of smell. The spiky feathers around its throat fanned out, bristling with malice. The taloned feet scratched at the ground. The leathery wings flapped angrily against the beast’s sides.

  The threat display continued for several minutes, a low hiss rumbling from the monster’s wrinkled throat. Sometimes the cockatrice would pause, tilting its head in confusion, waiting for Weekil to react in some way. When the bound ratman failed to either retreat or attack, the cockatrice began its menacing exhibition once more.

  Finally, the creature’s patience wore thin. Uttering a loud cackle, the cockatrice lunged at Weekil, slashing at him with its talons. Black skaven blood bubbled up from Weekil’s torn hide. The ratman shrieked in pain, the sound fighting its way past the iron bit in his mouth.

  The cockatrice did not relent in its attack, buffeting Weekil with its wings, smashing the wooden frame to the ground. The adept writhed among the wreckage, his bones breaking along with the poles to which he was tied.

  The monster loomed above the mangled skaven, at last deciding that Weekil wasn’t another cockatrice. Its owlish eyes glared balefully down at the torn ratman for a moment. Then the beast’s beak snapped down, ripping into Weekil’s body, tearing a great sliver of flesh from his broken bones. The cockatrice threw its head back, choking down the gory meat at a single swallow. Then it bent down to feed some more.

  Huskk chittered malignantly as he watched the cockatrice become ensnared in his trap. The beast was eating more than just Weekil’s body, it was consuming the spell carved into the ratman’s skin. Careful planning had been needed to ensure the spell was not destroyed by the monster’s petrifying gaze, but since a cockatrice was immune to its own power Huskk had reasoned that it would not waste its energies trying to turn another cockatrice into stone. Nor would it use its power once it realized its mistake, for by that time, Weekil would no longer be any possible kind of threat, only a pile of fresh meat lying at the monster’s feet.

  “Did plan-plot work?” Nashrik asked, still peering at the cockatrice through one eye.

  “We will see-learn,” Huskk said. The necromancer snapped his claws. In response, the decayed shape of Tisknik stumbled up from the floor of the gulley. The zombie skaven stared blindly at its master, its eyes sewn shut as a precaution against the gaze of the cockatrice. Huskk had a certain affection for Tisknik, it had, after all, been the first undead his magic had created. There was a certain connection between the necromancer and the zombie, a sympathy which made Tisknik more capable than the other zombies. Tisknik could carry out complex orders and even display rare instances of initiative. Both qualities were useful to the necromancer, making him almost loath to put Tisknik at risk. Of course, if things didn’t work out, he could always try to resurrect whatever the cockatrice left.

  Huskk pointed his claw at the cockatrice. Tisknik bobbed its head and crawled over the lip of the gulley. From their concealment, Huskk and Nashrik watched the zombie approach the feeding monster. The undead creature didn’t need its eyes to sense the monster, its decayed nose still capable of guiding it to the bird-beast’s scent.

  The cockatrice rose from its meal, its beak dripping with blood, ribbons of flesh dangling from its serrated jaw. The owlish eyes fixed upon the approaching zombie. The watching skaven held their breath. If the petrifying membranes slid down over the monster’s eyes, they would know that the spell had failed, that the cockatrice was still a wild beast.

  Tisknik continued to shuffle towards the cockatrice. The zombie’s paws awkwardly removed the burden tied across it back. Its rotting fingers fumbled with the ratgut straps, eventually unfolding a bag-like mass of leather.

  The cockatrice continued to stare at the zombie, but made no motion to attack. The beast acted as though it were mesmerised by Tisknik’s slow, stumbling approach. Even when the zombie stood only a few feet from it and set the heavy leather hood over its head, the monster remained docile. Tisknik pulled at the drawstring dangling from the bottom of the hood, tightening it about the cockatrice’s head and locking its cruel beak and lethal eyes behind a shapeless mask of leather.

  Only when the cockatrice was successfully restrained did Huskk and Nashrik emerge from the gulley. The grey seer tugged at his whiskers, cackling over the ease with w
hich the monster had fallen into their trap. The binding spell which Huskk had carved into Weekil’s skin had smothered the monster’s spirit, forcing it to submit to the will of its new master.

  Huskk paid little attention to Nashrik’s gloating, and even less to the now servile cockatrice, dismissing it from his thoughts the moment he was certain it was in his power. His paw closed about the skull of Nahak. He turned and stared at the landscape below. From the mountain valley he could see the green expanse of Athel Loren and the blue ribbon of the Grismerie River.

  Within that forbidding wilderness was the Golden Pool and the almost limitless power which had drawn Nahak from the desert wastes of Nehekhara to his destruction at Razac Field. Now that power was again within reach. This time, the forest would not defy the darkness.

  “Bring-take Deathwatcher,” Huskk snarled at the rest of the grave rats lurking in the gulley. The zombies and skeletons crawled out from beneath the camouflage, converging on the cockatrice, looping leashes of rope about its neck. Obediently, the monster followed the zombies as they led it away, its ferocity shackled under the blinding hood.

  “Good-good,” Nashrik chittered. “Now no elf-things can stand against us!” The grey seer cast a sly look at Huskk. The necromancer didn’t need to read Nashrik’s mind to know what scheme was percolating in his twisted mind. He was thinking that, given enough time, he might wrest control of the cockatrice from his ally and use it against the renegade. Then he could forget about attacking the elves and all the dangers that would entail.

  “Fetch-bring Fangmaster Vermitt,” Huskk growled, annoyed by the transparency of Nashrik’s plotting. There was an easy way to foil the grey seer’s plans. He would simply advance the timetable. Instead of attacking in the dead of night, they would strike at twilight.

  He could already feel his powers waxing as the Hour of Shadows approached. His magic would only grow stronger as day faded into night. True, an earlier attack would increase the casualties among Huskk’s forces, but that was inconsequential beside the power he would wrest from the Golden Pool.

  Huskk petted the pate of Nahak’s skull as he watched Nashrik scurry off to summon Vermitt. The grey seer, unfortunately, was going to be one of those casualties.

  Ywain hurried through the overgrown copse, sprinting across the fallen logs, leaping across the narrow streams, gliding past the shadow-choked hollows. Spiders watched her from their grey webs, ravens croaked from the fire-blackened limbs of scarred old oaks and withered ash. A wolf prowled among the weeds, sniffing about in search of prey. Twice her steps lighted upon mouldering bones, the fanged skulls of orcs and the wizened skeletons of goblins.

  This part of the forest had fallen prey to marauding orcs only a few dozen winters past. It had taken great effort and great sacrifice to exterminate the greenskins. Despite the magic of the spellweavers and treesingers, it would take many decades for the scars to heal.

  Few things dwelt in this part of the forest. Only the wildest of the fey haunted places such as this, the most malicious of spites and the most ferocious of dryads, spirits that were a danger to any asrai they caught alone. Were it not for the special protection serving the Warden of the Wood conveyed upon her, Ywain would never have dared enter this place alone. But even the most feral of the forest spirits, those who most despised the elves and would see them removed from Athel Loren, even these deferred to the power of the Warden.

  The ground here was truly barren. The orcs in their brutal belligerence had descended upon the forest with no thought in their savage brains beyond wanton destruction. Unlike men who came to make homes or dwarfs who came to cut fuel for their cruel machines, the orcs wanted to deliberately destroy the forest. As they burned and ravaged, the greenskins had strewn the cinders with salt, tainting the ground and making it impossible for anything to grow. Only the orcs’ lack of thoroughness had kept the destruction from being complete, leaving isolated patches among the desolation where life might thrive.

  Ywain approached one of those refuges of life, an island of green amidst a blighted sea. Fresh young saplings grew among the charred husks of dead trees, their leaves standing stark against the background of destruction. Ferns and moss carpeted the loamy ground, thriving in the cool shadows.

  Towering above all the new growth was an immense maple tree. Only a few of its branches still bore leaves, the rest scratching at the sky like claws. Its bole was scarred and blackened, marked by torch and axe. The rusty hilt of an immense sword jutted from the trunk, a great crack spreading from the old wound.

  Ywain knelt before the old maple tree, the soft murmur of a spell rising from her lips. Light flickered about her as she drew upon the magic of the forest, a pale glow that seemed to rise from her own body. Ywain’s voice lifted into a crooning song, rippling through the little stand of saplings.

  A low groan sounded from among the trees, a dull pulsation that made the saplings shiver. By degrees, the sound was repeated, gradually taking up the cadence of Ywain’s spell. After a time, the spellweaver observed a change come over the old maple tree. Hollows had opened in its trunk, forming into the semblance of glowering eyes and a great gash-like mouth with jagged fangs of wood.

  “Daithru, awaken,” Ywain cried out. “There are enemies in the forest and Athel Loren needs your strength.”

  The great maple tree stretched its upper branches, the limbs closing upon one another to form two mighty arms with claw-like talons. The hollows in the trunk opened and closed with a rapid flutter, as though blinking away the haze of sleep.

  “Ywain of the Golden Pool calls Daithru from his slumber,” a rumbling voice boomed from deep within the tree.

  “The Warden of the Wood sent me to call you,” Ywain explained, frightened that the ancient spirit might take offence at her summons. The treemen were the oldest and most powerful of the forest spirits and their wrath was a thing no elf courted.

  Daithru’s mouth snapped wide, as though the treeman were yawning. It stretched its wooden arms, listening to the creak and groan of its branches. “You call me to my doom, little one. I march to my last battle.”

  Guilt filled Ywain. The Warden had told her to seek out Daithru only after she had refused to leave Thalos to fight alone. The thought that she might cause this ancient being’s death was one she could not reconcile with what she knew was her selfish desire.

  “Forgive me for disturbing your slumber,” the spellweaver said. “I did not know what I was asking. I will find some other to aid me.” She rose to leave, but the ground suddenly trembled beneath her feet. She looked up to find Daithru lurching forwards, the lower part of its trunk splitting into two pillar-like legs.

  “You cannot cast aside a fate which is not your own,” the treeman said. Its wooden arms reached down, caressing the spindly branches of the saplings. “When the burners came with their axes, I tried to stop them. Many I crushed beneath my roots and struck down with my branches, but there were too many. I saw my friends cut down, uprooted without any purpose except destruction. It is a heavy burden to bear.” A low sigh shuddered through the enormous maple. “There will be a new copse here, one day, but it will not be the same. It will not be the one I knew and nurtured.”

  Daithru stared down at Ywain. “The asrai saved what they could. Your people avenged the destruction of my trees. They are the protectors of the forest now. It is only right that I should help them.”

  “But you know you will die,” Ywain objected.

  “My death is a small thing,” Daithru told her. “From my death, a great good will grow. Do not mourn my passing. Athel Loren will endure.” The treeman took a lumbering step, making his way into the desolation. “Now I must leave you, for there is much I should do while there is time.”

  Ywain stood in silence as she watched the treeman stride through the burned remains of his copse, lingering beside each charred husk, kneeling over each fallen timber. Spites flittered about Daithru as he made his way through the ruined landscape, settling in his branches and crouching
upon his shoulders. The spellweaver felt shame as she watched the noble treeman walking through his forest, paying his final farewells to the trees he had watched over for so long.

  “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten,” Ywain swore.

  As darkness stole across the land and the sun began to sink into the horizon, the skaven army emerged from their burrows in the foothills and began their march upon Athel Loren. Thousands of chittering, squealing ratmen formed into packs of vermin bristling with spears and swords. Small teams of specialists, weaponeers from Clan Skryre, scuttled about the flanks of the formations, their ghastly instruments of death held at the ready.

  At the head of the army strode a horde of Huskk’s deathless warriors, skeletons summoned from the catacombs of the Black Seer’s lair. The fleshless horrors tromped their way into the forest in silence, only the rattle of rusty armour against bleached bone sounding from their ranks. Each of the skeleton warriors clenched a corroded blade in its claws and in their empty eye sockets shone a weird green glow, growing more intense the deeper they progressed into the trees.

  Having Huskk’s undead leading the way eased some of the dread gnawing at the hearts of his living minions, though he could tell from the stink of fear-musk rising from them that they would still have preferred to abandon this dangerous expedition entirely. The necromancer had foreseen such cowardice and prepared for it. A second, even larger horde of undead warriors marched behind the living skaven, cutting off any hope of retreat. Certainly, the ratmen could try to escape, but the zombies and skeletons at their rear would show them no mercy. It would be troublesome to expend the magic needed to animate those his undead were forced to kill, but living or dead, Vermitt’s warriors would serve Huskk’s cause.

  The Black Seer positioned himself at the centre of the army, surrounded by his macabre bodyguard of grave rats, the hooded cockatrice being led on its leash by Tisknik. Huskk wanted to be close to the fighting when the elves inevitably challenged the invasion of their forest, but not so close that he would be caught up in the fighting himself. His role was to guide the army and use his magic to support the frontline fighters, not dodge elf arrows.