Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [70]
“It is not an illusion?”
“It is not what you would call an illusion.” She made an effort to find words but eventually shook her head. “The more it seems an illusion to us, the more it becomes one. Does that make sense?”
“I think so.”
At last they were nearing the bottom of the stairway. They were on the last few steps when they looked up to see a horseman riding towards them across the plain, creating a huge pillar of dust as he came.
There was a cry from the people behind them. Elric looked back and saw them all rushing rapidly up the stairs and his impulse was to join them, but Oone stayed him. “Remember we cannot go back,” she said. “We must meet this danger as best we can.”
Gradually the figure on the horse became distinguishable. It was either the same warrior in the armour of mother-of-pearl, ivory and tortoiseshell, or one who was identical. He bore a white lance tipped with a point of sharpened bone and the thing was aimed directly at Elric’s heart.
The albino jumped forward in a manoeuvre designed to confuse his attacker. He was almost under the horse’s hoofs when he struck upwards with his swiftly drawn sword and cut at the lance. The force of the blow sent him reeling to one side while Oone, reacting with almost telepathic co-ordination, almost as if they were controlled by a single brain, leapt and thrust beneath the raised left arm, seeking their assailant’s heart.
Her thrust was parried by a sudden movement of the rider’s gauntleted right hand and he kicked out at her. Now, for the first time, Elric saw his face clearly. It was thin, bloodless, with eyes like the flesh of long-dead fish and a sneering gash of a mouth, opening now in a grimace of contempt. Yet with a shock he saw, too, something of Alnac Kreb! The lance swung to strike Oone’s shoulder and send her to the ground.
Elric was up again before the lance could return, his sword slashing at the horse’s girth-strap in an old trick learned from the Vilmirian bandits, but he was blocked by an armoured leg and the lance returned to thrust at him while he darted clear, giving Oone her opportunity.
Though Elric and Oone fought as a single entity, their attacker was almost prescient, seeming to guess their every move.
Elric began to believe the rider to be wholly supernatural in origin and even as he feinted again he sent his mind out into the realms of the elementals, seeking any aid which might possibly be available to him. But there was none. It was if every realm were deserted, as if, overnight, the entire world of elementals, demons and spirits had been banished to limbo. Arioch would not aid him. His sorcery was completely useless here.
Oone cried out sharply and Elric saw that she had been flung back against the lowest step. She tried to climb to her feet but something was paralyzed. She could hardly move her limbs.
Again the pale rider chuckled and began to advance for the kill.
Elric roared out his old battle-shout and raced towards their opponent, trying to distract him. The albino was horrified at the possibility of harm coming to the woman for whom he felt both profound love and comradeship and he was willing to die to save her.
“Arioch! Arioch! Blood and souls!”
But he had no runesword to aid him there. Nothing save his own wits and skills.
“Alnac Kreb. Is this what remains of you?”
The rider turned, almost impatiently, and flung the lance at the running man. His answer.
Elric had not anticipated this. He tried to throw his body aside but the haft of the lance struck his shoulder and he fell heavily into the dust, losing his grip on the unfamiliar sabre. He began to scrabble towards it even as he saw the rider draw his own long blade and continue towards the helpless Oone. He raised himself to one knee and threw his poignard with desperate accuracy. The blade went true, between the plates of the rider’s back armour, and the lifted sword fell suddenly.
Elric reached his sabre, got to his feet and saw to his horror that the rider was rearing over Oone, the sword