Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [161]
“Our Theocrat does not need to protect himself by means of lies, doom-fostered one!” sneered a young officer, braver than the rest.
“Perhaps not,” Elric’s voice was low and menacing as he rushed towards the youth, swinging Stormbringer in a shrieking arc, “but at least I’ll have your life before I put the truth of your words to the test.”
The man put up his blade to block Stormbringer’s swing. The runesword cut through the metal with a triumphant cry, swung back again and plunged itself into the officer’s side. He gasped, but remained standing with his hands clenched.
Elric laughed. “My sword and I need revitalizing—and your soul should make an appetizer before I take Jagreen Lern’s!”
“No!” the youth groaned. “Oh, no, not my soul!” His eyes widened, tears streamed from them and madness came into them for a second before Stormbringer satiated itself and Elric drew it out, replenished. He had no sympathy for the man. “Your soul would have gone to the depths of hell in any case,” he said lightly. “But now I’ve put it to some use, at least.”
Two other officers scrambled over the rail, seeking to escape their comrade’s fate.
Elric hacked at the hand of one. He fell, screaming, to the deck, his hand still grasping the rail. The other he skewered in the bowels and, as Stormbringer sucked out his soul, he hung there, pleading incoherently in an effort to avert the inevitable.
So much vitality flowed into Elric that, as he rushed at the remaining group around the commander, he seemed to fly over the deck and rip into them, slicing away limbs as if they were flowers-stalks, until he encountered the commander himself. The commander said weakly: “I surrender. Do not take my soul.”
“Where is Jagreen Lern?”
The commander pointed into the distance, where the Chaos fleet could be seen creating havoc amongst the Eastern ships. “There! He sails with Pyaray of Chaos whose fleet that is. You cannot reach him there for any man not protected—or not already dead—would turn to flowing flesh once he neared the fleet.”
“That cursed hellspawn still cheats me,” Elric grimaced. “Here’s payment for your information—” Without mercy for one of the men who had wasted and enslaved two continents, Elric stuck his blade through the ornate armour and, delicately, with all the old malevolence of his sorcerer ancestors, tickled the man’s heart before finishing him.
He looked around for Kargan, but couldn’t see him. Then he noted that the Chaos fleet had turned back. At first he thought it was because Straasha had at last brought aid, but then he saw that the remnants of his fleet were fleeing. Jagreen Lern was victorious. Their plans, their formations, their courage—none of these had been capable of withstanding the horrible warpings of Chaos. And now the dreadful fleet was bearing down on the two flagships, locked together by their grapples. There was no chance of cutting one of them free before the fleet arrived. Elric yelled to Dyvim Slorm and Moonglum whom he saw running towards him from the other side of the deck.
“Over the side! Over, for your lives—and swim as far as you can away from here!”
They looked at him, startled, then realized the truth of his words. Others, from both sides, were already leaping into the bloody water. Elric sheathed his sword and dived. The sea was cold, for all the warm blood in it, and he gasped as he swam in the direction of Moonglum’s red head, which he could see ahead and, close to it, Dyvim Slorm’s honey-coloured hair. He turned once and saw the very timbers of the two ships begin to melt, to twist and curl in strange patterns as the Ships of Hell arrived. He felt very relieved he had not been aboard. He reached his companions.
“A short-term escape this,” said Moonglum, spitting water from his mouth. “What now, Elric? Shall we strike for the Purple Towns?” Moonglum’s capacity for facetiousness had not, it seemed, been limited by witnessing the defeat of their fleet and the advance of Chaos. The Isle was too far away.
Everywhere, the Chaos ships were disrupting