Stormbringer - Michael Moorcock [1]
Elric clove the skull of the first as others grappled with him. His body was spattered with the thing's blood and brains and he gasped in disgust at the fetid stuff. He managed to wrench his arm away and bring the axe up and down into the collarbone of another. But then he felt his legs gripped and he fell, confused but still battling. Then there came a great blow on his head and pain blazed through him. He made an effort to rise, failed and fell back insensible.
Thunder and lightning still disturbed the night when, with throbbing head, he awoke and got slowly to his feet using a bedpost as support. He stared dazedly around him.
Zarozinia was gone. The only other figure in the room was the stiff corpse of the beast he had killed. His black-haired girl-wife had been abducted.
Shaking, he went to the door and flung it open, calling for his guards, but none answered him.
His runesword Stormbringer hung in the city's armoury and would take time to get. His throat tight with pain and anger, he ran down the corridors and stairways, dazed with anxiety, trying to grasp the implications of his wife's disappearance.
Above the palace, thunder still crashed, eddying about in the noisy night. The palace seemed deserted and he had the sudden feeling that he was completely alone, that he had been abandoned. But as he ran out into the main courtyard and saw the insensible guards he realised at once that their slumber could not be natural. Realisation was coming even as he ran through the gardens, through the gates and down to the city, but there was no sign of his wife's abductors.
Where had they gone?
He raised his eyes to the shouting sky, his white face stark and twisted with frustrated anger. There was no sense to it. Why had they taken her? He had enemies, he knew, but none who could summon such supernatural help. Who, apart from himself, could work this mighty sorcery that made the skies themselves shake and a city sleep?
To the house of Lord Voashoon. Chief Senator of Karlaak and father of Zarozinia, Elric ran panting like a wolf. He banged with his fists upon the door, yelling at the astonished servants within.
"Open! It is Elric. Hurry!"
The doors gaped back and he was through them. Lord Voashoon came stumbling down the stair into the chamber, his face heavy with sleep.
"What is it, Elric?"
"Summon your warriors. Zarozinia has been abducted. Those who took her were demons and may be far from here by now—but we must search in case they escaped by land."
Lord Voashoon's face became instantly alert and he shouted terse orders to his servants between listening to Elric's explanation of what had happened.
"And I must have entrance into the armoury," Elric concluded. "I must have Stormbringer!"
"But you renounced the blade for fear of its evil power over you!" Lord Voashoon reminded him quietly.
Elric replied impatiently. "Aye—but I renounced the blade for Zarozinia's sake, too. I must have Stormbringer if I am to bring her back. The logic is simple. Quickly, give me the key."
In silence Lord Voashoon fetched the key and led Elric to the armoury where the weapons and armour of his ancestors was held, unused for centuries. Through the dusty place strode Elric to a dark alcove that seemed to contain something which lived.
He heard a soft moaning come from the great black battle blade as he reached out a slim-fingered white hand to take it. It was heavy, yet perfectly balanced, a two-handed broadsword of prodigious size, with its wide crosspiece and its blade smooth and broad, stretching for over five feet from the hilt. Near the hilt, mystic runes were engraved and even Elric did not know what they fully signified.
"Again I must make use of you, Stormbringer," he said as he buckled the sheath about his waist, "and I must conclude that we are too closely linked now for less than death to separate us."
With that he was striding from the armoury and back to the courtyard where mounted guards were already sitting nervous