The Warlord's Domain by Peter Morwood Read Free Book Online Page B

matter how useless their answers might now be. About belief in tales to frighten children, and Voord’s strange, twisted fervor; about the why and the how of such sorceries as even the darkest of old stones only hinted at.
    As Voord crossed to the books that were strewn across the floor and squatted down as though to begin putting them to rights, Etzel drew breath to ask the first of all his questions, but it caught in his throat when Voord turned to face him. He was holding one of the books, cradling its opened weight like a child in his arms while his mouth silently shaped words from its handwritten pages, and his speculative gaze at Etzel was that of a butcher sizing up a joint of meat. “Hault,” he said without looking at the guard, “go outside. Let nobody in. Don’t come back until I call you. Understood?”
    “Understood, sir.” There was something terrible about hearing Hault’s relief at being sent away, and about the haste with which he left the room.
    Etzel wanted to look after the soldier, to take this one last chance of escape as Hault went through the door and out into the world where none of this had happened and where he, Etzel, was still a man of power and influence, but he was unable to tear his eyes away from Voord’s corpse-pale face. The
hautheisart
was muttering something in the hasty monotone of a priest hurrying through the familiar part of a boring litany, but Etzel could still make sense from the slipshod tumble of syllables and that sense turned his belly sick within him.
    “... call upon thee O my lord O my true lord O my most beloved lord O Granter of Secrets I pray thee and beseech thee hearken now unto thy true and faithful servant…”
    The book was balanced on Voord’s right forearm now, leaving his left hand free to creak dryly as he spread the remnants of its fingers, obscenely aping a priestly sign of benediction. “... O Dweller in the Pit Jeweled Serpent Flower of Darkness I give now unto thee this offering this blood-offering this life-offering O Lord Devourer…”
    Voord’s voice stumbled on the words of the invocation and began a gasp he couldn’t finish. Some Power beyond that of its withered sinews was straightening his hand, twisting it from the curled and broken claw it had become five months before into a poised fork of bone and leather, twisting it with such violence that it took away his breath and even his ability to scream.
    It was Etzel who closed his eyes and screamed, but only very briefly and in a small, lost voice before the thing that had been Voord’s hand reached out and pulled his face off.
    Woydach
Etzel, erstwhile Grand Warlord of the Drusalan Empire and would-be maker of emperors, was grateful for the shock that stopped his heart an instant later and permitted him to die…
    When Voord’s nausea had faded, all that remained was the tremble of realization that his offered sacrifice had proven so acceptable that the Old Ones had used his hand to take it for themselves. “Their gifted power of deathlessness was freshly renewed in his body, the corpse of an enemy lay at his feet and the insignia of still more power glittered about that corpse’s neck.
    En sh’Va’t’Chaal
was its formal name in the inventories of State Regalia;
t’Chaal
, the Jewel, so much a symbol of the Grand Warlord that it had been incorporated into the sigil and cresting of the rank. Voord stooped to fumble with the catch of Etzel’s collar of office, undid the snap at last and lifted the Jewel from the puddle of blood and slime where it had lain…
    Then swore at the sudden freezing chill of the thing, stabbing through his leather glove, and all but dropped it again. Glove or no glove, had the Jewel not been crusted almost an inch thick in frozen gore it would have taken the flesh off his hand. Voord’s studies had taught him about many objects which radiated such appalling cold, but none of them were things that any Imperial-race Drusalan of the Central Provinces would