Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [109]
Two Chaos warriors, with spiked armour half-hiding skin like barnacles, struck at him together but were too slow for Elric and his hellblade—their heads flew like buckets at a sideshow and one spiked an eye in a second pair who came against him, confusing them both so that they slew each other, but meanwhile Elric galloped beside a wading half-reptile as it clambered over the ruined flesh towards the Rose and with two quick strokes had severed secret tendons and brought the Chaos beast crashing upon the bodies of its fallen fellows, roaring out its impotent anger, its stupefied astonishment at this discovery of its own mortality …
Yet more insistent now was that faint, familiar sound …
“Elric! Elric! Chaos awaits thee, Elric!” A high, keening sound; a vengeful wind.
“Elric! Soon we shall see an end to all thine optimism!”
Up a mound of Chaos carrion rode Elric on his war-trained steed, to take stock of their battle …
Wheldrake on his balcony saw Elric’s horse climb that rise in the carpet of the conquered, saw the Black Sword raised in the albino’s black-gauntleted right hand, saw the left hand lifted against the blazoning rays which still sprang from every direction, wherever the crystal trees were broken. That dazzling intermixture of colour and light gave still more distance to the scene and Wheldrake, seeing what Elric did not yet see, offered up another prayer …
… Gaynor, carving his way through a pile of already rotting corpses, his armour now almost wholly encrusted with the remains of his warriors, plunged forward, still snarling Elric’s name, still obsessed with nothing but vengeance …
“Elric!”
A thin sound, like the warning cry of a faraway bird, and Elric recognized the voice as Charion Phatt’s.
“Elric! He is close to you. I can sense him. He has more power than we suspected. You must destroy him somehow … Or he will destroy us all!”
“ELRIC!” This last a great grunt of satisfaction as, through the piled corpses, Gaynor broke at last, to stand with his horrid eyes trained upon the face of his greatest enemy, the black-and-yellow sword, the ragged sword, flickering in his hand like lava fresh from some volcanic maw. “I did not think I would have need of this new power of mine, as yet. But here you are. And here am I!”
With that Gaynor lunged at Elric and the albino brought up Stormbringer easily to block him. At which Gaynor, surprisingly, laughed and lingered in the attitude of his failed stroke until, suddenly, the albino realized what was happening and tried to pull back, dragging Stormbringer free of the leechblade now seeking to suck all life from it. Elric had heard of blades which fed, in some strange manner, on the energies of such as Stormbringer—a parasite on whatever occult force emanated from the alien iron out of which these swords were forged.
“You resort to some ungentlemanly sorcery, it seems, Prince Gaynor.” Elric knew that much of the power still remained in his blade, but could not risk further leeching of that energy.
“Honour has no place in my catalogue of useful qualities!” Gaynor spoke almost lightly, feinting with the black-and-yellow leechblade. “But if it did, I would say, Prince Elric, that you lack courage to face a foe, man to man—each with a singular sword to aid his work. Are we not fairly matched, Prince of Ruins?”
“Well enough, well enough, I suppose, sir,” said Elric, hoping that the sisters would understand the urgency of their joint predicament. And, expertly, he made his horse sidestep another almost playful feint.
“You fear me, Elric, eh? You fear death, do you?”
“Not death,” said Elric. “Not that ordinary death which is a transition …”
“What of that death which is sudden and everlasting oblivion?”
“I do not fear it,” said the albino. “Though I do not desire it, either.”
“As you know I desire it!”
“Aye, Prince Gaynor. But you are not permitted to possess it. You never shall suffer such easy release.”
“Maybe.” Gaynor the Damned became