Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [21]
Elric ignored Yyrkoon’s threats and looked at the narrow window to the room. It was just large enough for a man’s body to pass through. He bent down and kissed Cymoril upon the lips, then he went to the door and silently withdrew the bolts.
There came a crash as a soldier flung his weight against the door. It swung open, pitching the man forward to stumble and fall on his face. Elric drew his sword, lifted it high and chopped at the warrior’s neck. The head sprang from its shoulders and Elric yelled loudly in a deep, rolling voice.
“Arioch! Arioch! I give you blood and souls—only aid me now! This man I give you, mighty Duke of Hell—aid your servant, Elric of Melniboné!”
Three soldiers entered the room in a bunch. Elric struck at one and sheared off half his face. The man screamed horribly.
“Arioch, Lord of the Darks—I give you blood and souls. Aid me, great one!”
In the far corner of the gloomy room, a blacker mist began slowly to form. But the soldiers pressed closer and Elric was hard put to hold them back.
He was screaming the name of Arioch, Lord of the Higher Hell, incessantly, almost unconsciously as he was pressed back further by the weight of the warriors’ numbers. Behind them, Yyrkoon mouthed in rage and frustration, urging his men, still, to take Elric alive. This gave Elric some small advantage. The runesword was glowing with a strange black light and its shrill howling grated in the ears of those who heard it. Two more corpses now littered the carpeted floor of the chamber, their blood soaking into the fine fabric.
“Blood and souls for my lord Arioch!”
The dark mist heaved and began to take shape, Elric spared a look towards the corner and shuddered despite his inurement to hell-born horror. The warriors now had their backs to the thing in the corner and Elric was by the window. The amorphous mass, that was a less than pleasant manifestation of Elric’s fickle patron god, heaved again and Elric made out its intolerably alien shape. Bile flooded into his mouth and, as he drove the soldiers towards the thing which was sinuously flooding forward, he fought against madness.
Suddenly, the soldiers seemed to sense that there was something behind them. They turned, four of them, and each screamed insanely as the black horror made one final rush to engulf them. Arioch crouched over them, sucking out their souls. Then, slowly, their bones began to give and snap and still shrieking bestially the men flopped like obnoxious invertebrates upon the floor: their spines broken, they still lived. Elric turned away, thankful for once that Cymoril slept, and leapt to the window ledge. He looked down and realized with despair that he was not going to escape by that route after all. Several hundred feet lay between him and the ground. He rushed to the door where Yyrkoon, his eyes wide with fear, was trying to drive Arioch back. Arioch was already fading.
Elric pushed past his cousin, spared a final glance at Cymoril, then ran the way he had come, his feet slipping on blood. Tanglebones met him at the head of the dark stairway.
“What has happened, King Elric—what’s in there?”
Elric seized Tanglebones by his lean shoulder and made him descend the stairs. “No time,” he panted, “but we must hurry while Yyrkoon is still engaged with his current problem. In five days’ time Imrryr will experience a new phase in her history—perhaps the last. I want you to make sure that Cymoril is safe. Is that clear?”
“Aye, Lord, but…”
They reached the door and Tanglebones shot the bolts and opened it.
“There is no time for me to say anything else. I must escape while I can. I will return in five days—with companions. You will realize what I mean when that time comes. Take Cymoril to the Tower of D’a’rputna—and await me there.”
Then Elric was gone, soft-footed,