Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [138]
Moonglum was beyond speech. Wordlessly, he drew both his own charmed blades, knowing he must fight and vanquish his own fears before he could encounter the men who ran at him.
With a wild howl that drowned out the screams from the statues, Stormbringer climbed from the scabbard and stood in Elric’s hand, waiting in anticipation for the new souls it might drink, for the lifestuff which it could pass on to Elric and fill him with dark and stolen vitality.
Elric half-cringed at the feel of his blade in his damp hand. But he shouted to the advancing soldiers: “See, jackals! See the sword! Forged by Chaos to vanquish Chaos! Come, let it drink your souls and spill your blood! We are ready for you!”
He did not wait but, with Moonglum behind him, spurred the Nihrain horse into their ranks, hewing about him with something of the old delight.
Now, so symbiotically linked with the hellblade was he, that a hungry joy of killing swept through him, the joy of soul-stealing which drew a surging, unholy vitality into his deficient veins.
Though there were over a hundred warriors blocking his path, he smashed a bloody trail through them and Moonglum, seized by something akin to his friend’s mood, was equally successful in dispatching all who came against him. Familiar with horror as they were, the soldiers soon became loath to approach the screaming runesword as it shone with a peculiarly brilliant light—a black light that pierced the blackness itself.
Laughing in his half-insane triumph, Elric felt the callous joy that his ancestors must have felt long ago, when they conquered the world and made it kneel to the Bright Empire. Chaos was, indeed, fighting Chaos—but Chaos of an older, cleaner sort, come to destroy the perverted upstarts who thought themselves as mighty as the wild Dragon Lords of Melniboné! Through the red ruin they had made of the enemy’s ranks the pair plunged until the gateway gaped like a monster’s maw before them. Without pausing, Elric rode laughing through it and people scuttled to hiding as he entered, in bizarre triumph, the City of Screaming Statues.
“Where now?” gasped Moonglum, all fear driven from him.
“To the Theocrat’s Temple-Palace, of course. There Arioch and his fellow dukes no doubt await us!”
Through the echoing streets of the city they rode, proud and terrible, as if with an army at their backs. Dark buildings towered above them, but not a face dared peep from a window. Pan Tang had planned to rule the world—and it might yet—but, for the moment, its denizens were fully demoralized by the sight of two men taking their huge city by storm.
As they reached the wide plaza, Elric and Moonglum pulled their horses to a halt and observed the huge bronze shrine swinging on its chains in the centre. Beyond it rose Jagreen Lern’s palace, all columns and towers, ominously quiet. Even the statues had ceased to scream, and the horses’ hoofs made no sound as Elric and Moonglum approached the shrine. The blood-reddened runesword was still in Elric’s two hands and he raised it upwards and to one side as he reached the brazen shrine. Then he took a mighty sweep at the chains supporting it. The supernatural blade bit into the metal and severed the links. The crash as the shrine dropped and smashed, scattering the bones of Jagreen Lern’s ancestors, was magnified a thousand times by the silence. The noise echoed throughout Hwamgaarl and every inhabitant left alive knew what it signified.
“Thus I challenge thee, Jagreen Lern!” Elric shouted, aware that these words would also be heard by everyone. “I have come to pay the debt I promised! Come, puppet!” He paused, even his triumph not sufficient fully to quench his hesitation at what he must do now. “Come! Bring Hell’s Dukes with you—”
Moonglum swallowed, his eyes rolling as he studied Elric’s twisted face, but the albino continued:
“Bring Arioch. Bring Balan. Bring Maluk! Bring