Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [65]
Oone cried out and moved rapidly, dropping to one knee as a sword struck at her, then clattered against one of the great pointed pillars. So close together were the stalagmites that it was difficult for the swordsmen to swing or to stab and for a while both the albino and the dreamthief ducked and dodged the blades until one cut Elric’s arm and he saw, almost in surprise, that the man had drawn blood.
The Prince of Melniboné knew that it was just a matter of time before they were both killed and, as he fell back against one of the great rocky teeth, he felt the stalagmite move behind him. Some trick of the cavern had weakened the rock and it was loose. He flung all of his weight forward against it. It began to topple. Quickly he got his body in front of it, supporting the thing on his shoulder, then, with all his energy he ran with the great rocky spear at his nearest assailant.
The point of the rock drove full into the veiled man’s chest. The Sorcerer Assassin uttered a bleak, agonized shout, and strange, unnatural blood began to well up around the stone, gushing down and soaking into the warrior’s bones, almost reabsorbed by him. Elric sprang forward and dragged the sabre and the poignard from his hands even as another of the attackers came upon him from the rear. All his battle cunning and his war skills returned to Elric. Long before he had come by Stormbringer he had learned the arts of the sword and the dagger, of the bow and the lance, and now he had no need of an enchanted blade to make short work of the second Sorcerer Assassin, then a third. Shouting to Oone to help herself to weapons, he darted from rock to rock, taking one of the warriors at a time. They moved sluggishly, uncertainly now, yet none ran from him.
Soon Oone had joined him, showing that she was as accomplished a fighter as he. He admired the delicacy of her technique, the sureness of her hands as she parried and thrust, striking with the utmost efficiency and piling up her corpses with all the economy of a cat in a nest of rats.
Elric took time to grin over his shoulder. “For one who so recently extolled the virtues of words over the sword, you show yourself well-accomplished with a blade, madam!”
“It is often as well to have the experience of both before one makes the choice,” she said. She despatched another of their assailants. “And there are times, Prince Elric, I’ll admit, when a decent piece of steel has a certain advantage over a neatly turned phrase!”
They fought together like two old friends. Their techniques were complementary but not dissimilar. Both fought as the best soldiers fight, with neither cruelty nor pleasure in the killing, but with the intention of winning as quickly as possible, while causing as little pain to their opponents.
These opponents appeared to suffer no pain, as such, but every time one died he offered up the same disturbing wail of anguish and the blood which poured from the wounds was strange stuff indeed.
At last the man and the woman were done and stood leaning on their borrowed blades panting and seeking to control that nausea which so often follows a battle.
Then, as Elric watched, the corpses around them swiftly faded, leaving only a few swords behind. The blood too disappeared. There was virtually nothing to say that a fight had taken place in that great cavern.
“Where have they gone?”
Oone picked up a sheath and fitted her new sabre into it. For all her words, she clearly had no intention of proceeding any further without arms. She placed two daggers in her belt. “Gone? Ah.” She hesitated. “To whatever pool of half-living ectoplasm they came from.” She shook her head. “They were almost phantasms, Prince Elric, but not quite. They were, as I told you, what the Sorcerer Adventurers left behind.”
“You mean part of them returned to our own world, as part of Alnac returned?”
“Exactly.” She drew a breath and made as if to continue.
“Then why shall we not find Alnac here? Still alive?”
“Because we do not seek him,” she said.