Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [89]
Only as they crowded around him, axes, maces, spears and swords lifted to attack, did Elric understand that Oone’s action had not been one of mere desperation. These half-shades moved sluggishly, their eyes were misted, they stumbled and their blows were feeble.
The slaughter now became sickening to him. Following her example, he hacked and stabbed from side to side, almost mechanically. Heads came away from bodies like rotten fruit; limbs were sliced as easily as leaves from a stick; torsos collapsed under the thrust of a spear or sword. Their viscous blood, already the blood of the dead, clung to weapons and armour and their cries of pain were pathetic to Elric’s ears. If he had not sworn to follow Oone, he would have ridden back and let her continue the work alone. There was little danger to them as the veiled men continued to pour through the walls and be met by sharp steel and cunning intelligence.
Behind them, around the column of the Pearl, the courtiers watched. These clearly did not know what a mediocre threat the two silver-armoured warriors confronted.
At last it was done. Decapitated, limbless bodies were piled all around the hall. Elric and Oone rode out of that slaughter and they were grim, unhappy, nauseated by their own actions.
“It is done,” said Oone. “The Sorcerer Adventurers are slain.”
“You truly are heroes!” Queen Sough came down the steps towards them, her eyes bright with admiration, her arms outstretched.
“We are who we are,” said Oone. “We are mortal fighters and we have destroyed the threat to the Fortress of the Pearl.” Her words had taken on a ritualistic tone and Elric, trusting her, was content to listen.
“You are the children of Chamog Borm, Brother and Sister to the Bone Moon, Children of Water and Cool Breezes, Parents of the Trees …” The seneschal had dropped his bags of gold and was shaken by his weeping. He wept with relief and with joy and Elric saw how much he resembled Raik Na Seem.
Oone, down from her horse again, was embraced by Queen Sough. Meanwhile, a shuffling and cackling announced the approach of the Pearl Warrior.
“There is no more for me,” he said. Alnac’s dead eyes had nothing but resignation in them. “This is for dissolution …” And he fell forward onto the marble floor, his armour all broken, his limbs sprawling, and there was no longer any flesh on him, only bone, so that what was left of the Pearl Warrior resembled little more than the inedible remains of a crab, the supper of some sea-giant.
Queen Sough came towards Elric, her arms outstretched, and she seemed much smaller than when he had first encountered her. Her head hardly reached to his lowered chin. Her embrace was warm and he knew she, too, was weeping. Then her veil fell away from her face and he saw that she had lost years, that she was little more than a girl.
Behind Queen Sough the Lady Oone was smiling at him as astonished understanding filled him. Gently he touched the girl’s face, the familiar folds of her hair and he drew in a sudden breath.
She was Varadia. She was the Holy Girl of the Bauradim. She was the child whose spirit they had promised to free.
Oone joined him, placing a protective hand upon Varadia’s shoulder. “You know now that we are truly your friends.”
Varadia nodded, looking about her at the courtiers who had assumed their earlier frozen stances. “The Pearl Warrior was the best there was,” she said. “I could summon none better. Chamog Borm failed me. The Sorcerer Adventurers were too strong for him. Now I can release him from his exile.”
“We combined his strength with our own,” said Oone. “Your strength and our strength. That is how we succeeded.”
“We three are not shadows,” said Varadia smiling, as if at a revelation. “That is how we succeeded.”
Oone nodded agreement. “That is how we succeeded, Holy Girl. Now we must consider how to bring you back to the Bronze Tent,