Part 2 (1/2)

'You lied me into ignorance, Captainbeast! You knew of her ties with the Thanehand and kept it a secret.'

'No, Master! I knew nothing of the love between them. I

had captured her as a delicacy for your table.'

'The truth!' Krulshards roared, casting back the malice to expose the raw sinews and rotten flesh of his shadowy body.

'Only the truth.'

'Master, it was when you sent us after the messenger who rode towards the Granite City. We had chased him far across Elundium and almost overtaken him on the edge of the Black Forest but he escaped the circle of Nightbeasts we set against him and sought refuge in the Wayhouse at Woodsedge.

Under cover of darkness, in the eye of a blizzard, we attacked and sacked the Wayhouse, but the messenger had gone, his tracks hidden beneath the snow. We killed all the Marchers we could find and stole Elionbel, Master. I was afraid to return empty-handed. I was going to bring her to you for torture, but the foul Gallopersp.a.w.n, Thanehand, and Elionbel's father, Tombel, overran us as the sun was rising and took her back. Great Master, I know nothing more.'

'You dared to keep this a secret and lie to me about the messenger's death?' Krulshards screamed, tearing his fingernails in deep plough lines across Kerzolde's face. 'In better times I would have stripped back your armour and thrown your skinless body on to the high plateau, to die when the sun rose. But I have some need of you now.'

'Master,' Kerzolde cried, crawling forward, 'fear of your rage made me lie to you. The Gallopersp.a.w.n has plagued me, Lord. I could not kill him. He is a true nightmare that follows me everywhere.'

Krulshards turned towards the entrance, licking at his dagger blade, curling his tongue around it as he looked out

across the battle-strewn plateau. 'You say every warrior in Elundium was gathered here?' he asked. 'Even Tombel, the Marcher?'

'Yes, Master,' Kerzolde cried, rising to his knees. 'Perhaps the messenger died in the snow and never reached the Granite City.'

Krulshards turned harshly on his Captainbeast where he knelt, huddled against the tunnel wall, and pressed the dagger blade into the coa.r.s.e hairy skin below his jaw.

'You fool,' he hissed. 'The messenger escaped. I know it now, and he warned the Granite King that my Nightbeasts were once more loose in Elundium. Why else would the King have gathered the Marchers, Gallopers and Archers into a great army. He was weak, terrified of the dark, and strangled by indecision; but the messenger must have given him strength and purpose, and the time to march against me.

Unless . . .'

Krulshards hesitated, curling his lips back across his ragged teeth, 'Unless Nevian, the Master of Magic, warned him.'

'But he did not march, great Lord,' Kerzolde whispered.

'He is siege-locked in the Granite City, and nowhere to be seen on this battlefield.'

Krulshards shrank back into his malice, wrapping himself in dark thoughts.

-'There is a new power in Elundium,' he whispered, turning his hooded eyes towards the gates. 'It is more powerful than the Granite King's. And this power does not fear the dark.'

'Thanehand, the Gallopersp.a.w.n!' cried Kerzolde. 'He

brought the warriors to our doors, following the bright banner of the sun that he carries.'

Krulshards laughed, drawing Kerzolde so close to him that their foul breaths mixed, filling the tunnel with yellow sulphurous fumes.

'Captainbeast,, he whispered, 'you have stumbled on the truth, blindly. He is the one I must destroy, and you have

brought me his weakness. This foul finger-bowl will be his undoing, and in time will lure him alone, into the darkness.'

'How, Master?' Kerzolde asked in a nervous voice.