Agrin met Krondi’s gaze across the litter of dwarf and elf dead.
‘A great doom…’ he mouthed before three tentacles like the arms of some kraken forged of eternal darkness impaled him and then tore him apart. Even meteoric armour couldn’t spare the runelord that fate, and so another ancient light of the dwarf race was snuffed out.
Krondi slumped, his final breaths coming quick and shallow. A chill was upon him now, but he heard singing, the crackle of a hearth and the voices of dwarfs he knew but had never met. They were calling his name, calling him to the table where his place was waiting. But as he descended, leaving the world above to embrace those that came before, Agrin’s words lingered and seemed to travel through Gazul’s Gate itself into the dwarfen underworld.
A great doom…
Sevekai slumped, the pain in his chest from the two broken ribs besting him finally. He scowled at Kaitar who was still lying on the ground, though now more reclining than upended by the dwarf’s crude magicks.
‘Why did you not aid me?’ Sevekai’s tone was accusatory. He still held the bloodied sickle blades unsheathed.
‘Don’t threaten me, Sevekai,’ said Kaitar, rising and dusting off his tunic. ‘You wanted to kill the runt, you said as much to me with your eyes. If it proved tougher prey than you had first envisaged that is no fault of mine.’
‘I heard you laughing when he struck me.’
‘From sheer surprise that the runt landed such a blow. You grew overconfident, but it gave you the focus you needed to finish it.’
Sevekai wanted to kill Kaitar. He should kill him, plunge his sickle blades into his heart and end the impudent little worm, but he didn’t. He told himself it was because they had lost too many of their number already but that wasn’t the truth, not really. The truth was that he was afraid of the warrior, of the fathomless black in his eyes, the kind of ennui only shared by converts of the assassin temples, the devotees of Khaine.
Cursing in elvish, Sevekai let it go and turned to the slain dwarfs.
As before on the Old Dwarf Road he was careful, ensuring there was nothing in the murders that would suggest anything other than asur involvement. He suspected most of the stunted creatures wouldn’t be able to tell druchii from asur anyway, but it still paid to be careful. Couple this most recent carnage with the acts of killing and sabotage happening all across the Old World and the prospects for continued peace looked bleak. It should have satisfied him. It did not.
Touring the massacre he was genuinely dismayed to see the charred corpse of Numenos amongst the dead, if only because it meant he’d need to find another scout from whoever was left. Including Kaitar and Sevekai himself, only five of the shades remained. Enough to do what still needed to be accomplished but preciously short on contingency. There were other cohorts, of course there were. Clandestine saboteurs were hidden the length and breadth of the Old World.
In his private moments, the few he was afforded and only when he was certain the dark lord wasn’t watching, Sevekai wondered at the sagacity of the plan. Unfolding perfectly at present, it would allegedly do much to further druchii ambition but Sevekai could not see that end, not yet. His doubt troubled him more than the thought all of this might come to naught.
‘You appear conflicted, Sevekai,’ a female voice purred from in front of him. Masking his emotions perfectly, Sevekai averted his gaze from the blank stares of the dead and met her equally cold expression.
She was darkly beautiful, wearing a form-fitting robe of midnight black. Her skin was porcelain white but she carried a countenance that was hard as marble with a stare to rival that of a gorgon. Hair the colour of hoarfrost cascaded down her slender back as she near paraded in front of him, her spine exposed in a long, narrow slit down robes that also barely cupped her small breasts. She was lithe and ravishing but sorcery had stolen what youth and immortality had given her. Ashniel, her little protégé witch, had the same snow white hair, but did not carry the subtle weight of age about the eyes, neck and cheekbones.
Lust and wariness warred ambivalently in Sevekai, for the last time he had shared her bed he had left with a blade wound from a ritual athame in his back. Not lightly did one consort with Drutheira of the coven, especially if you ever questioned her prowess as a lover. It was meant as a tease, a playful rejoinder, but Drutheira was not one for games. Some scars, Sevekai knew, went deeper than a blade.
The sorceress’s mood was predictably belligerent.
‘You also look weathered, my love.’ No druchii could say ‘my love’ with such venom as her. A deadly adder could not achieve the same vitriol should it be given voice to speak. ‘Are those ribs cracked by any chance? Has your peerless talent with your little knives finally been exposed for the parlour trick it really is?’
‘I have missed you too, dearest.’ Sevekai’s smile was far from warm, and had more in kind with a snake than an elf. ‘I expected to see you sooner.’
‘Other matters required my attention that I do not have to explain to you.’
Though it pained him, Sevekai gave a mocking bow. ‘I am your servant, mistress.’
Drutheira was gaunt from spellweaving, but she was also injured. A red-raw scar like an angry vein throbbed on her forehead.
Sevekai gestured to the wound. ‘Seems I am not the only one not to have escaped the battle unscathed.’ Her hands were also hurt, burned by the dwarf’s bound magic.
Drutheira touched the scar, her hands already healing from the minor incantation she’d silently performed, and snarled. Her mood changed again, sarcasm lessening in favour of hateful scorn.
‘Little bastard ripped it from my head.’
‘Ripped what?’ asked Sevekai, briefly regarding the dwarf’s corpse.
