Stormbringer - Michael Moorcock [33]
And also around the island a peculiar darkness hovered shifting and changing.
They entered the darkness as the Nihrain steeds pounded up the steep, rocky beach of Pan Tang, a place that had always been ruled by its black priesthood, a grim theocracy that had sought to emulate the legendary sorcerer-emperors of the Bright Empire of Melniboné. But Elric, last of those emperors, and landless now, with few subjects, knew that the dark arts had been natural and lawful to his ancestors, whereas these human beings had perverted themselves to worship an unholy hierarchy they barely understood.
Sepiriz had given them their route and they galloped across the turbulent land towards the capital: Hwamgaarl, City of Screaming Statues!
Pan Tang was an island of green, shiny, obsidian rock that gave off bizarre reflections; rock that seemed alive.
Soon they could see the looming walls of Hwamgaarl in the distance. As they drew nearer, an army of black-cowled swordsmen, chanting a particularly horrible litany, seemed to rise from the ground ahead and block their way.
Elric had no time to spare for these, recognisable as a detachment of Jagreen Lern's warrior-priests.
"Up, steed!" he cried, and the Nihrain horse leapt skywards, passing over the disconcerted priests with a fantastic bound. Moonglum did likewise, his laughter mocking the swordsmen as he and his friend thundered on towards Hwamgaarl. Their way was clear for some distance, since Jagreen Lern had evidently expected the detachment to hold the pair for a long time. But, when the City of Screaming Statues was barely a mile away, the ground began to grumble and gaping cracks split its surface. This did not overly disturb them, for the Nihrain horses had no use for earthly terrain in any case.
The sky above heaved and shook itself, the darkness became flushed with streaks of luminous ebony, and from the fissures in the ground, monstrous shapes sprang up!
Vulture-headed lions, fifteen feet high, prowled in hungry anticipation towards them, their feathered manes rustling as they approached.
To Moonglum's frightened astonishment, Elric laughed and the Eastlander knew his friend had gone mad. But Elric was familiar with this ghoulish pack, since his ancestors had formed it for their own purposes a dozen centuries before. Evidently, Jagreen Lern had discovered the pack lurking on the borders between Chaos and earth and had utilised it without being aware of how it had been created.
Old words formed on Elric's pale lips, and he spoke affectionately to the towering bird-beasts. They ceased their progress towards him, and glanced uncertainly around them, their loyalties evidently divided. Feathered tails lashed, claws worked in and out of pads, scraping great gashes in the obsidian rock. And, taking advantage of this, Elric and Moonglum walked their horses through them, and emerged just as a droning, but angry, voice rapped from the heavens, ordering, in the High Tongue of Melniboné, still the speech of all sorcerers: "Destroy them!"
One lion-vulture bounded uncertainly towards the pair. Another followed it, and another, till the whole pack raced to catch them.
"Faster!" Elric whispered to the Nihrain horse, but the steed could hardly keep the distance separating them. There was nothing for it but to turn. Deep in the recesses of his memory, he recalled a certain spell he had learned as a child. All the old spells of Melniboné had been passed on to him by his father, with the warning that, in these times, many of them were virtually useless. But there had been one—the spell for calling the vulture-headed lions, and another spell . . . Now he remembered it! The spell for sending them back to the domain of Chaos. Would it work?
He adjusted his mind, sought the words he needed as the beasts plunged on towards him.
Creatures! Matik of Melniboné made thee
From stuff of unformed madness!
If thou wouldst live as thou art now,
Get hence, or Matik's brew again shall be!
The creatures paused, and, desperately, Elric repeated the spell, afraid that he had made a small mistake,