Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [112]
To which the Rose replied, in similar speech, while Elric sang his own tale to her, in a melody she found tolerable. It seemed that she concentrated her woven branches more thickly about her and looked with a certain sternness towards Gaynor and the remains of the Chaos army which had come full stop to stare at her before, at Gaynor’s lifting of his black-and-yellow sword, a shard of raging energy, they began to race to the attack!
And the sisters clutched hands, linked with Charion and Elric and the Rose, and they held tight for security and power, for they somehow informed the Tangled Woman in her primitive soul—they directed her as she bent and reached a many-branched hand towards Gaynor, who barely yanked his horse aside in time and rode beneath her, slashing at the wood which, because the energy which enlivened it was of a kind that no power could suck out nor any mortal weapon damage, was scarcely marked and, where it was marked, healed immediately.
With calm deliberation now, as if she performed some unwelcome household task, the Tangled Woman stretched her long fingers through the attacking ranks of Chaos, oblivious to their hacking swords and jabbing pikes, their bitings and their clawings, and wove her fingers thoroughly amongst them, twining and twisting and bending and entangling them until every Chaos warrior and every Chaos beast still living was embraced and fixed by her bramble fingers.
Only one figure escaped, riding like fury from the bloody crystals of that battlefield, slashing at the horse’s rump with the satiated leechsword.
Tangled Woman reached thin tentacles out towards the disappearing Gaynor but had little strength left; just enough to flick, with a thin, green branch, the sword from his flailing hand and bear it triumphantly up, to fling it away, deep into the forest where a black pool began to spread, turning all the surrounding crystal to the consistency of coal.
Then the leechsword vanished and they heard Gaynor’s furious yell as he forced the sweating stallion up out of the valley and rode, without looking back, down the other side, to vanish.
Tangled Woman had lost interest in Gaynor. Slowly she withdrew her brambly fingers from the field, from the bloody corpses her thorns had pierced, from the flesh from which life had been crushed, her victims knowing a cleaner death than any Elric offered.
But now Elric pulled himself into his saddle and, while the others refused to look, he went about the business of slaughtering the wounded, letting the sword feast and renew his energy. He was determined to find and punish Gaynor for the evil he had done. And as he passed among what remained of the living, their imploring wails were ignored. “I must steal from you what your master would have stolen from us,” he explained. And that killing had neither honour nor satisfaction in it. He did only what was necessary.
When he returned to his companions the Tangled Woman had gone, taking whatever payment she required, and all that were left were the dead.
“The Chaos army is defeated,” said Princess Shanug’a. “But Chaos still dwells within our realm. Gaynor still has power here. He will soon come against us again.” She had recaptured her horse.
“We must not let him come again,” said the Rose, cleaning Swift Thorn upon a scrap of satin surcoat. “We must drive him back to hell and ensure he never more threatens your realm!”
“It is true,” said Elric, moody with his own unquiet thoughts, “we must track the beast back to its lair and it must be confined, even if we cannot kill it. Can you find the way, Charion Phatt?”
“I can find it,” she said. She had several minor wounds, which the others had helped her dress, but there was a kind of breathless pleasure in the way she moved, as if she were still exulting in her unexpected salvation. “He has returned, without doubt, to The Ship That Was.”
“His stronghold …” murmured the Rose.
“Where,” said Princess Mishiguya, settling herself in her saddle, “his power must be greatest.”
“There is a power there, to be sure,” agreed Charion, drawing her brows together