Elric_ The Sleeping Sorceress - Michael Moorcock [17]
“So you are Theleb K’aarna’s slave,” said Elric. He reached for Stormbringer and the sword seemed to spring into his hand at its own volition. “Must I kill you, or will you be gone now?”
The creature bellowed again, but it did not move.
The albino said: “I am Elric of Melniboné, last of a line of great Sorcerer Kings. This blade I wield will do more than kill you, friend demon. It will drink your soul and feed it to me. Perhaps you have heard of me by another name? By the name of the Soul Thief?”
The creature lashed its serrated tail and its bovine nostrils distended. The horned head swayed on the short neck and the long teeth gleamed in the darkness. It reached out scaly claws and began to lumber towards the prince of ruins.
Elric took the sword in both hands and spread his feet wide apart on the flagstones and prepared to meet the monster’s charge. Foul breath struck his face. Another bellow and then it was upon him.
Stormbringer howled and spilled black radiance over both. The runes carved in the blade glowed with a greedy glow as the thing of hell slashed at Elric’s body with its claws, ripping the shirt from him and baring his chest.
The sword came down.
The demon roared as the scales of its shoulder received the blow but did not part. It danced to one side and attacked again. Elric swayed back, but now a thin wound was opened in his arm from elbow to wrist.
Stormbringer struck for the second time and hit the demon’s snout so that it shrieked and lashed out once more. Again its claws found Elric’s body and blood smeared his chest from a shallow cut.
Elric fell back, losing his footing on the stones. He almost went down, but recovered his balance and defended himself as best he could. The claws slashed at him, but Stormbringer drove them to one side.
Elric began to pant and the sweat poured down his face and he felt desperation well in him and then that desperation took a different quality and his eyes glowed and his lips snarled.
“Know you that I am Elric!” he cried. “Elric!”
Still the creature attacked.
“I am Elric—more demon than man! Begone, you ill-shaped thing!”
The creature bellowed and pounced and this time Elric did not fall back, but, his face writhing in terrible rage, reversed his grip on the runesword and plunged it point first into the demon’s open jaws.
He plunged the Black Sword down the stinking throat, down into the torso.
He wrenched the blade so that it split jaw, neck, chest and groin and the creature’s life-force began to course along the length of the runesword. The claws lashed out at him, but the creature was weakening.
Then the life-force pulsed up the blade and reached Elric who gasped and screamed in dark ecstasy as the demon’s energy poured into him. He withdrew the blade and hacked and hacked at the body and still the life-force flowed into him and gave greater power to his blows. The demon groaned and dropped to the flagstones.
And it was done.
And a white-faced demon stood over the dead thing of hell and its crimson eyes blazed and its pale mouth opened and it roared with wild laughter, flinging its arms upward, the runesword flaming with a black and horrid flame, and it howled a wordless, exultant song to the Lords of Chaos.
There was silence suddenly.
And then it bowed its head and it wept.
Now Elric opened the door to the eastern tower and stumbled through absolute blackness until he came to the lowest room. The door to the room was locked and barred, but Stormbringer smashed through it and the Last Lord of Melniboné entered a lighted room in which squatted a chest of iron.
His sword sundered the bands securing the chest and he flung open the lid and saw that there were many wonders in the chest, as well as the pouch made from cloth-of-gold, but he picked out only the pouch and tucked it into his belt as he raced from the room, back to the battlements where the bird of silver and gold stood pecking with its steel beak at the remnants of Theleb K’aarna’s servant.
It looked up as Elric returned. In its eyes was an expression almost