Elric_ The Sleeping Sorceress - Michael Moorcock [44]
“Theleb K’aarna,” Elric muttered. “We must get Theleb K’aarna . . .”
“Doubtless he has gone back with Urish to Nadsokor,” Moonglum said.
“I must—I must retrieve the Ring of Kings.”
“Plainly you can work your sorcery without it,” Rackhir said.
“Can I?” Elric looked up and showed his face to Rackhir who lowered his eyes and nodded.
“We will help you get back your ring,” Rackhir said quietly. “There’ll be no more trouble from the beggars. We’ll ride with you to Nadsokor.”
“I had hoped you would.” Elric climbed with difficulty into the saddle of a surviving horse and jerked at its reins, turning it towards the City of Beggars. “Perhaps your arrows will slay what my sword cannot . . .”
“I do not understand you,” Rackhir said.
Moonglum was mounting now. “We’ll tell you on the way.”
CHAPTER SIX
The Jesting Demon
Through the filth of Nadsokor now rode the warriors of Tanelorn.
Elric, Moonglum and Rackhir were at the head of the company but there was no ostentatious triumph in their demeanour. The riders looked neither to left nor to right and the beggars offered no threat now, not daring to attack but instead cowering into the shadows.
A potion of Rackhir’s had helped Elric recover some of his strength and he no longer leaned over his horse’s neck but sat upright as they crossed the forum, came to the palace of the Beggar King.
Elric did not pause. He rode his horse up the steps and into the gloomy hall.
“Theleb K’aarna!” Elric shouted.
His voice boomed through the hall, but Theleb K’aarna did not reply.
The braziers of garbage guttered in the wind from the opened door and threw a little more light on the dais at the end.
“Theleb K’aarna!”
But it was not Theleb K’aarna who knelt there. It was a wretched, ragged figure and it sprawled before the throne and it was sobbing, imploring, whining at something on the throne.
Elric walked his horse a little further into the hall and now he could see what occupied the throne.
Squatting in the great chair of black oak was the demon which had been there earlier. Its arms were folded and its eyes were shut and it seemed, somewhat theatrically, to be ignoring the pleadings of the creature kneeling at its feet.
The others, also mounted, entered the hall now and together they rode up to the dais and stopped.
The kneeling figure turned its head and it was Urish. It gasped when it saw Elric and stretched out a maimed hand for its cleaver, abandoned some distance away.
Elric sighed.
“Do not fear me, Urish. I’m weary of bloodletting. I do not want your life.”
The demon opened its eyes.
“Prince Elric, you have returned,” it said. There seemed to be an indefinable difference in its tone.
“Aye. Where is your master?”
“I fear he has fled Nadsokor for ever.”
“And left you to sit here for eternity.”
The demon inclined its head.
Urish put a grimy hand on Elric’s leg. “Elric—help me! I must have my Hoard. It is everything! Destroy the demon and I will give you back the Ring of Kings.”
Elric smiled. “You are generous, King Urish.”
Tears streamed down the filth on Urish’s ruined face. “Please, Elric, I beg thee . . .”
“It is my intention to destroy the demon.”
Urish looked nervously about him. “And aught else?”
“That decision lies with the men of Tanelorn whom you sought to rob and whose friends you caused to be slain in a most foul manner.”
“It was Theleb K’aarna, not I!”
“And where is Theleb K’aarna now?”
“When you unleashed those ape things on our Elenoin he fled the field. He went towards the Varkalk River—towards Troos.”
Without looking behind him Elric said, “Rackhir? Will you try the arrows now?”
There was the hum of a bowstring and an arrow struck the demon in the breast. It quivered there and the demon looked at it with mild interest, then breathed in deeply. As he breathed the arrow was drawn further into him and was eventually absorbed altogether.
“Aaah!” Urish scuttled for his cleaver. “It will not work!”
A second arrow sped from Rackhir’s scarlet bow and it, too, was absorbed, as was the third.
Urish was gibbering now,