Part 24 (1/2)

'Elionbel. Elionbel,' it whispered as softly as a gentle breeze in the treetops. Louder now it called her name, forcefully

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laughing from the darkness, 'Elionbel. I have come to take you!'

Elionbel shrank into a tight ball, the palms of her hands trying to press the sound of the Nightbeast voice out of her ears. Martbel took a defiant step towards the door, her sword arm raised, but the voice turned to shrieking laughter that froze her to the flagstones. The door frame shook, the door bulged and rattled.

'Elionbel! I have come for you with a gift from Thanehand, the Gallopersp.a.w.n!' screamed the voice. 'Come, stand before me, the Master of Darkness, and take the gift!'

The great door shook again, the wood tearing away from the iron studding' splitting across the main beam brace.

Krulshards drew back his arm and punched at the door, shattering the timbers apart. His bone black hand appeared through the jagged hole, delicately holding the silver finger bowl by its broken chain. The hand flexed and threw the silver cup across the great hall, bouncing it on the flagstones.

'Thane!' Elionbel cried, watching the cup come to rest. For a long moment she stared in silence at her love token, seeking in it Thane's pale blue eyes and laughing lips. 'Thane,' she whispered again as the picture faded and she shuddered to think of his death at the Nightbeast's hand.

'I promised him that I would come for you!' sneered the Nightmare voice of Krulshards. Elionbel looked up across the hall at the skinless, beckoning hand that had blackened and despoiled her love token, and felt anger swell up, pus.h.i.+ng back the despair, and giving her strength. For a moment she had more strength than ten Granite Kings.- 'I love you, Thane,' she whispered, pulling a white hot fire-iron out of the flames, 'and I will avenge your death!'

Springing forwards, both hands holding the hot iron in front of her, she rushed headlong down the stairway, glittering tears of rage and hate streaming down her face. She charged blindly across the hall, plunging the fire-iron deep into the centre of the Nightmare hand. Black, acrid smoke

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billowed up from the rotten flesh as the fire-white metal seared through to the bone. Krulshards screamed with pain, shutting his fingers on the dull red-hot iron shaft, cooling it in his grasp before s.n.a.t.c.hing it back through the hole in the door.

'Elionbel!' he thundered, swelling the malice with rage and

throwing it against the entrance to the Wayhouse. With one devastating blow it destroyed the door and wall in a shower of crumbling masonry. 'Elionbel!' he hissed, dribbling her name across the flagstones as he entered, 'You shall pay dearly for this, just as Thanehand paid for daring to enter the City of Night.'

'You can take nothing more than my life!' answered Elionbel coldly, the strength fading as she retreated to the foot of the stairs and took a Marcher long spear from the server who was crouched, defending the first stair-riser.

'Living death in the darkness. Life without light,' laughed Krulshards, advancing towards her. 'I bring darkness to all Elundium, but to you, Elionbel, I bring the key to the City of Night.'

Elionbel tightened her grip on the smooth polished spear shaft and hurled it at the centre of the Nightmare, shouting as it left her hand, 'Die, foul Nightdemon. Die!' but Krulshards laughed, stretched out his smouldering hand and caught the spear long before it reached the malice. He turned the blade and drove it through the first server kneeling beside Elionbel.

Elionbel stared, open-mouthed, at the quivering spear shaft and retreated as Krulshards stepped forward, his shadowy foot on the first step. 'I want you, Elionbel, it is payment for the love token I took from Thanehand. You have hurt me with a power that I do not understand, but only a king can kill me and he is far away in Granite City. Come to me!'

'No!' Elionbel hissed, proudly lifting her head, 'My power

comes through love, and with that love I shall defend this house against you.' Bending, she took the second server's spear and turned it towards Krulshards.

'You are as weak as Thanehand,' cackled Kerzolde, creeping forward in the shadow of the malice. Elionbel spun round angrily and flung the spear at Kerzolde, catching him a glancing blow on the shoulder. He snarled and leapt at the stairway, hooking his broken claw in the second server's cloak and pulling her through the splintered bannisters. One sweeping stroke from his cruel curved scythe cut short her screams.

Elionbel hesitated, poised to take a spear from the third server. Krulshards now had his foot upon the second step.

'Thane is dead, Elionbel,' whispered the Nightmare, casting back the malice, 'and to prove it I have a second gift for you. Here, hold his hand once more.'

Laughing, Krulshards unhooked from his belt one of the Archer's hands, severed in the Tower at Stumble Hill and threw it at Elionbel. She screamed, stumbling backwards, as the hand fell on to the flagstones below, rolled once and touched the hem of Martbel's skirt. Martbel spun round, the spell from Krulshards' shout broken, and looked carefully at the severed hand.

'Mghtmare!' she cried, sweeping her sword at the bulk of the malice. Krulshards snarled, s.n.a.t.c.hed Sethot from beside Elionbel, turned and used her as a s.h.i.+eld against the sword stroke. Elionbel cried out as Martbel's thrust cut into the server.

'Enough!' she shouted. 'What do you want of me if not my death?'

Krulshards grinned, a trickle of saliva wetting his chin and let Sethot's lifeless body fall and tumble its way down to the great hall. 'You!' he hissed, reaching out, 'I want your life in payment. Your death would be nothing but a moment's pleasure!'

'You choose wrongly!' cried out Martbel, slipping between them. 'I am Elionbel. It was my love token you brought here!'