touched that strange, living iron, light came brawling into the cave. A mounted man with a brand. Another behind him. And another.
Our own horses whinnied and pranced in recognition. The other horses snorted and stamped on the floor of the cave. A coarse voice said something in German.
My fingers closed on the sword's familiar hilt. The torchlight half blinded me, but I climbed to my feet, using the sword to help me. I looked up and recognized the armored outline. Gaynor, of course, had found us. No doubt he or one of his men had seen my foolish light or the panther leaving the cave entrance and investigated.
Gaynor's unhappy laughter boomed in his helm. 'This will make a splendid tomb for the pair of you. A shame you will lie here unknown and forgotten for the rest of eternity.'
He was a splendid figure in his silvery armor, a black sword on his left hip and the mysterious ivory sword on his right. He had a glow about him that I could only believe was supernatural. His flesh had a look of exaggerated health. He swaggered in the joy of it all and mocked the feeble thing I was. Or had been.
My anger outweighed my fear. I reached and drew Ravenbrand to me. I held my old sword in my two hands. I felt its familiar balance, coupled with an unfamiliar power. I snarled at him. As I gripped the sword, some of that filthy, stolen vitality coursed into me. It filled my veins with dark energy. It filled them with evil strength. Now I was laughing, also. Laughing back at my cousin Paul Gaynor von Minct and relishing his doom.
Part of me was troubled by how I was behaving, but something of Elric was in me now and the sword responded to that.
'Greetings, Gaynor, ' I found myself saying. 'I thank you for your courtesy in saving me the trouble of tracking you down. Now I shall kill you.'
Gaynor laughed in turn as he saw the prone Melnibonean. I suppose I must have looked a little odd, dressed in my tattered twentieth-century clothes, holding the great iron battle blade in two hands. But his laughter wasn't as confident as it might have been and Klosterheim, beside him, was not at all amused. He had not expected to find two of us.
'Well, cousin, ' Gaynor said, leaning on his pommel, 'you've come to prefer the darkness to the light, I see. Selective ignorance was always a trait of your side of the family, eh?'
I ignored this. 'You have done a great deal of killing since we last met, Prince Gaynor. You appear to have slaughtered an entire race.
'Oh, the Off-Moo! Who's to tell, cousin? Who's to tell? They suffered the delusion common to all isolated peoples. They decided that because they had never been conquered, they were invulnerable. The British have the same delusion in your world, do they not?'
I was not here to discuss imperial delusions or the philosophy of isolationism.
I was here to kill him. A completely unfamiliar bloodlust was rising in me. I felt it take me in its grip. Not a pleasant sensation for one of my basic disposition. Was it a response to Gaynor's threats? Or was the sword transferring to me what it had earlier transferred to Elric?
I trembled with the excess energy which pulsed through me. Now came unexpected desires of all kinds, all forming one single directive in my mind-kill Gaynor and any who rode with him. I anticipated the sweet slicing of the sword into flesh, the impact of the bone as it shattered under sharpened steel which slipped through muscles and sinew as smoothly as a spoon through soup, leaving red ruin behind. I anticipated the relish I would know as a human life was taken to feed my own greedy soul. I licked my lips. I regarded Gaynor's followers as so much food and Gaynor himself the tastiest choice of all. I could feel my own hot breath panting in my throat, the saliva, blood as salt, on my tongue and I had begun to scent at the men and beasts before me, recognizing each individual by their specific smell. I could smell their blood, their flesh, their sweat. I could even smell the tears as I took my first Nazi and he wept briefly for his mortal soul as I sucked it from him.
The yelling in the cave, the stamp of the horses and the clash of metal, echoed everywhere. It was impossible to tell where all my enemies were. I killed two before I realized it and their souls went to strengthen me, so that I moved with even greater speed, the sword writhing and turning in my hands like a living creature, killing, killing, killing. Killing, while I laughed my wolf's laugh and dedicated my victims to eternal service with Duke Arioch of Chaos. Gaynor, typically, had thrown his men to the front. Within the confines of that cavern I could not easily reach either him or Klosterheim. I had to hack my way through men and horses.
I saw my cousin pull something from within his clothing. A golden staff, raging with fiery light, as if all the life of all the worlds was contained within. He held it before him as one might hold a weapon and then, from his scabbard, he drew Stormbringer, the blade he had stolen from my doppelganger, brother to the Raven Sword I now held.
It did not alarm me. I leaped and sliced and was almost upon my cousin as he took in his reins, cursing at me, the Runestaff returned to his shirt, the black blade howling. I knew that the blade could not be resheathed until it had taken souls. That was the bargain one always made with such a sword.
Urging his men forward, the Knight of the Balance turned his great pale horse back into the tunnel and yelled for Klosterheim to follow. But I was between him and Klosterheim, who was grappling at his horse's reins. I swung my sword upwards, trying to get through his guard. Every time I struck, the Raven Sword was countered by Stormbringer. By now both swords were howling like wolves and shrieking as they clashed, their red runes rippling up and down the black iron like static electricity. And that hideous strength still flowed into my veins. Gaynor was neither laughing nor cursing. He was screaming.
Something happened to him every time the two swords crossed.
He began to blaze with an eerie crimson fire. The fire burned only briefly, and when it went out, Gaynor looked even more drawn.
Metal met metal with a terrible clang and every time the same fire raged through Gaynor.
I did not understand what was happening, but I pressed my advantage. Then, to my astonishment, my cousin let go of the Black Sword and his left hand reached for the ivory blade, scabbarded on his opposite hip.
For some reason this amused me. I swung a further arc of iron and he bent backwards, barely avoiding it. The ivory sword met the black and for a moment it was as if I had hit a wall at sixty miles an hour. I was instantly stopped. The Black Sword continued to moan and its remaining energy still passed into me, but the white sword had countered it. I swung again. Gaynor, untri-umphant but clearly glad enough to survive, spurred his horse into the darkness of the passage, Klosterheim and the remains of his band fast behind him.
I was suddenly too weak to continue after them. My own legs buckled. I was paying the price for all that unexpected power.
I tried to keep my senses, knowing that Gaynor would immediately take advantage of me if he knew that I, like Elric, had collapsed.
I could do nothing to save myself.
I stumbled deeper into the cavern, now a charnel house of dead horses and human corpses, and tried to reach Elric, to revive him, to warn him of what was happening.
My pale hand reached out towards his white, unresponsive face, and then I was absorbed by darkness, vulnerable to anything that now desired my life. I heard my name being called. I guessed it was Gaynor, returning to have his revenge upon me.
I took a fresh grip on the sword, but the energy no longer filled me. I had paid my price for what it had given me. It had paid its price to me.
I remember thinking, sardonically, that the account was now fully closed. But I looked up into Oona's face, not Gaynor's. Had any time passed? I could still smell the blood and torn flesh, the ordure of savage battling. I could feel cold iron against my hand. But I was too weak to rise. She lifted me. She gave me water and some kind of drug which set my veins to shaking before I drew a long, deep breath and was able to get to my feet.
'Gaynor?'
'Already witnessing the destruction of his army, ' she said. She had an air of satisfaction. I had the impression her lips were bloody. Then she licked them, like a cat, and they were clean.
'How so? The Off-Moo?'
'Meerclar's children, ' she said. 'All the panthers were revived. They wasted no time hunting down their favorite prey. The troogs are dead or fled and most of the savages have gone back to their old territories. Gaynor can no longer protect them against their traditional enemies. They would be going to their instant doom if they followed him into the Grey Fees.'
'So he cannot conquer the Grey Fees?'
