Gilead was a consummate warrior elf, and he was everything that a knight should be and more.

  After several minutes of striding back and forth, and of watching each other, Laban began to relax, wondering if anything would happen, after all. Then the Vampire Count spoke.

  ‘If I am to die, this night,’ he said, ‘I die with honour at your hand.’

  Laban stood up straighter and opened his eyes wider.

  ‘If I should die before dawn comes,’ said Gilead, ‘I die at the sword-edge of a worthy opponent.’

  The Count’s statement was not a matter or form, however, not one of the many rituals he adhered to so fervently to make him feel human again.

  ‘The skaven,’ said the Count.

  ‘What of the skaven?’ asked Fithvael. ‘What of the ratmen, bloodless one?’

  It was too late, Fithvael’s words were lost in the first crash of steel on steel. The first slide of blade against blade. The first exhalation of breath, the first dance of feet through the dust of the arena.

  Gilead turned the Count’s attacking blade, lowering it, and causing his opponent to pull it back closer to his body to prepare for another attack. The second time that swords crossed they did so high. This time, the Count thrust his weight into Gilead, breaking the contact, but the elf was too deft for the knight, and his second blade crossed the first, its tip hooking into the basket hilt of his opponent’s secondary weapon. The Count had to adjust his balance and hold hard to his dagger to prevent its loss.

  He escaped and turned, arcing his dagger through the air. Gilead did not try to make weapon contact, he simply moved his head three inches, and the blade whistled past his face, cutting through a thick lock of his white hair. He was inside the Count’s reach, and his opponent had clearly forgotten that he was without his armour. The Count had left his left flank exposed from the armpit to the hip. Gilead drove him the advantage, slicing through the fine linen shirt and into the creature’s tough flesh. There was no blood. Gilead had expected none, but he knew that his blade had hit its target. The Count appeared to feel no pain, but he close his guard and brought both of his blades up in a defensive posture.

  Less than a second later, Gilead and the Count were nose to nose, looking through the V-shaped gaps their long blades made in front of their faces.

  ‘Came you in search of me, my lord?’ Gilead asked, exhaling, and then clenching his teeth as the Count continued to bring pressure to bear on the impasse.

  ‘I came in search of death,’ said the Count, breaking and bouncing away, out of reach of Gilead’s blades.

  The combatants circled one another again, kicking through the mass of footprints left in the dust, marking their combat as if it were a dance.

  ‘I followed the curse,’ said the Count, lunging forward on his right leg, against the elf’s expectations, catching the deep fold of linen under the arm of Gilead’s shirt, rending a long slit in it, but not touching his skin.

  Gilead’s response was a less-well-judged slice of his short blade that tangled with the Count’s sword, the tip of which, embedded in the fabric, did rather more damage to the shirt than was strictly necessary.

  Gilead stepped to the side, defending his left arm, and clearing the Count’s reach.

  ‘The curse?’ asked Gilead. ‘Who is the curse?’

  ‘Think not whom,’ said the Count, adjusting his grip on his long sword, and resting his left hand on his hip before swinging at the shoulder.

  Gilead registered that the left shoulder had some weakness he had exploited by accident and decided that his next move must be to rid the Count of the second of his blades.

  Meantime, the Count came forward on his left leg, extending his knee joint and pushing his right shoulder forward into a punishing thrust with the sword. Only Gilead’s slender frame saved him from a potentially fatal injury. The blade pierced skin for the first time, but only skin and an inch thickness of flesh.

  ‘Think what,’ said the Count. ‘Think of the cursed plague that rids the lands of their riches. Think of the barrenness of the beasts of the field and of the womenfolk.’

  Gilead brought his attack heavily to the Count’s left side, wielding both weapons: his sword in a direct attack, his short blade across his body. The Count had no option but to recoil, and withdrew his bloody sword.

  Gilead turned his narrow form with his right side, his bloody side, facing the Count, and came in with only his sword, thrusting, parrying and driving onward, forcing the Count to back away across the arena, ensuring that he rely on his right leg, attacking the left shoulder, the weak point.

  The Count defended well, parrying hard and rallying for a counter-attack, but a third forward thrust forced him back onto his right leg, and he felt the stiffness of his left shoulder. He must do something to force Gilead to fight on his other side. He tried to turn, but his right leg would not hold, so he shuffled clumsily, and dropped his sword below waist height. Gilead came in fast and strong, flicking the Count’s shorter blade out of his left hand, and catching it by its basket hilt on his sword.

  There was a sharp breath sound from the edge of the arena, over Gilead’s shoulder to his right, as Laban gasped. The elf thought his young cousin might even applaud, and it made his lip curl slightly as if in a smile. He raised his sword and flicked the Count’s secondary blade over his shoulder for Laban to hold for him.

  ‘We call it the plague,’ said Gilead, turning the tip of his sword in small circles at arm’s length, pointing it high at the Count’s head. ‘What know you of it?’

  The Count took hold of his sword in a double-handed grip and began to swing it in a great circle from the ground at his right boot-toe to high above his left shoulder. The momentum behind the swing was vast, and the blade arced towards Gilead’s shoulder, making the air sing.

  Gilead stepped lightly away from the swing and then brought his own sword down on the Count’s at the bottom of its arc, while driving in at neck level with his dagger. Gilead drove the point of his short blade down inside the Count’s collar bone at an angle, but the small amount of flesh there was dense and leathery, and penetration was not deep enough to do fatal damage.

  ‘It matters not,’ said the Count, sliding off Gilead’s knife and backing away, rolling the hilt of his sword between his hands, and preparing for a new onslaught. ‘The amulet is buried for all time. It no longer carries its mortal threat.’ With that the Count feinted, and then lunged forward on his strong left leg, attacking low, plunging his blade into Gilead’s thigh. There was a short, sharp spurt of blood, and for a moment, the Count looked painfully disappointed, if, indeed any expression could be read on his undead face.

  His disappointment was short-lived. Had Gilead been human and his femoral artery had been as exposed as a man’s was, he might have met his death, but an elf’s artery is protected deep in his thigh in a fine, but virtually impenetrable sheath of cartilage and bone. The damage was superficial.

  The Count had made the mistake of taking a step back, thinking that he had bested his opponent, and Gilead quickly drove his advantage, attacking high to the left again, exposing the weakness in the Count’s shoulder.

  As Gilead forced the Count backwards, defending wildly, his sword beginning to weigh heavy, even in his experienced hands, the elf spoke again.

  ‘What if it is not buried?’ he asked.

  ‘Not buried?’ asked the Count. ‘The Rat King forsook the jewel? Broke faith with his master?’

  The Count staggered backwards, blocking another vicious onslaught of paired blades. His hamstring gave way, and he found himself on one knee, leaning away from the blades that must surely finish him.

  Laban took a step closer to the Count, watching him carefully, looking for any trick he might still deploy against his cousin. Gilead took a step back from his fallen adversary and thrust his shorter blade into his cousin’s hand.

  ‘But…’ began Laban.

  ‘We fight on equal terms,’ said Gilead.

  He offered the Vampire Count his hand, and helped him to his feet. His hand was cool and dry and smooth. The grip was strong and firm and the knuckles stood proud, but Gilead felt no revulsion touching it; it was less horrifying than touching the sweaty, flaccid palm of a terrified human.

  Gilead swung the Count to his feet and stood back. They had been in close combat for some time, neither had proven stronger than the other. They were at an impasse, except that the Count clearly had information that would be useful to Gilead, and he wanted to tease it out of the undead knight.

  Keeping his eyes firmly on the Count, and his blade high, held firmly in his right hand, Gilead teased the fingers of his left hand into his boot and withdrew the stone. He flicked it into the air, and watched as the Vampire Count followed its trajectory with his staring red eyes.

  He did not catch it, but let it fall in the dust before him.

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Gilead.

  ‘I know not,’ said the Count, adjusting his two-handed grip to one hand, as his eyes flicked back and forth between the amulet and Gilead’s stare.

  ‘The Rat King wore it around his neck on a hair ribbon,’ said Gilead. ‘It wove a spell around him, and around his people. It altered the very rock that his great hall was hewn from.’

  ‘Then it is everything his master claimed it must be,’ said the Count. He rocked his weight from one foot to the other, as if limbering up to defend himself from the coming attack, but Gilead stayed where he was, his sword up, but his feet firmly planted.

  ‘You talk of a master? Another great skaven king? A ratman more powerful than the holder of the charm?’ There was a sneer in Gilead’s voice, as if he didn’t believe the Vampire Count, as if this might be some kind of trick, some form of dissembling. ‘I think not. Are you the master, then, come to claim your prize?’

  ‘There is no prize,’ said the Count, his gaze dropping and staying low. ‘I followed power, and yet…’

  ‘And yet?’ asked Gilead, growing impatient, raising his blade in jerking movements, an inch at a time, menacing.

  ‘I followed power that I might die, and yet…’ said the Count. His voice was fading, as if he were remembering. ‘I wished to honour my liege lord, and more liege lady. I wished only to perform one noble act before I died at the hand of the greatest warrior to ever meet with me in mortal combat.’

  ‘What noble act?’ asked Gilead.

  ‘The noble act that you performed in my stead,’ answered the Count. ‘You were taken, and it mattered not, for I knew that you would best the skaven thugs, that you would outwit and outfight them. I knew that you would recognise the amulet for the evil that it might do, for the plague that it has spread through the skaven horde, and I knew that you would destroy it, or return it. I could not restore the world, as you could. I have not the honour nor the nobility I once had.’

  ‘Return it?’ asked Gilead.

  The two warriors were circling each other again. They paced out the arena, watching one another. Laban and Fithvael stood on either side of the space, watching, unable to intervene, but silently praying for Gilead’s life. The battle had been hard-fought in flashes of brilliant swordsmanship, punctuated by long periods of walking and watching, circling and preparing.

  Then they were both at the centre of the arena; once more, blades screaming against each other in a flurry of attacks and counter-attacks, of lunges, thrusts, ripostes and parries. One leg of the Count’s breeches was cut away, almost entirely as Gilead turned and drew his sword violently upward and outward, missing his target by the depth of the cloth and leather it was clad in. The Count was faster than Gilead had anticipated without his armour, and nimble too.

  Gilead’s reach was longer, so he was at the advantage on the attack, but the Count’s defence was impenetrable. When Gilead did penetrate, the Count’s hide was tough; he did not bleed, and he appeared to feel no pain.

  Gilead had a graze on his chin, as if he had shaved badly, his hair was partly shorn away and his shirt was irreparable. The blood in his thigh had clotted quickly, and a clean scab had formed almost instantaneously, or so it seemed to the Count. Other creatures bled long and profusely, even the smaller mammals had served as a decent meal for him, but this elf did not bleed. He could not find his veins and exploit their weaknesses.

  Laban had thought to help, to do something, and made to throw his cousin his second blade, but Fithvael, ever watchful, caught the boy’s eye, and slowly shook his head. Laban’s eyes flicked back to the fight; the astonishment on his face made Fithvael turn in the direction that he was looking.

  Suddenly, Gilead was no longer visible in one place. He was high and low, wide and fast, close, and then away again. Laban could see the Vampire Count swinging his weapon, always too slowly, never in the right direction. Gilead’s sword had a new momentum. He took a piece of flesh out of an upper arm, carved a hole in a shoulder, hacked away a cheek, and thrust right through the gut.

  Gilead was shadowfast. The world and everything in it seemed to stand still. He could not only see every move the Count would make before he made it, he could counter it and exploit it. The Count was good, his instincts sound, so this would be no easy kill, but Gilead knew, at last, that he would kill the unnatural being.

  Laban sat heavily on his backside. He had not seen a shadowfast elf before. He had known it was part of his family legend, had heard the tales, the old myths, but he had never seen it, and had never thought to see it as long as he lived. He pinched himself, wondering if he was dreaming, at the same time, trying to catch sight of the whirlwind that was his cousin.

  The only light was from twin moons suspended high in the sky above. There were few clouds, and nothing more than a breeze in the air, but, in the darkness, Laban could hardly see Fithvael on the other side of the arena, and could see only the glints and flashes of Gilead’s blade. He wondered if the Count could see anything.

  And then it stopped.

  The Count and Gilead stood as close as two beings can stand one to the other. Laban noted that he could see no blood on the Count’s clothes, and then remembered that the Count did not bleed. The young elf got to his feet and took a careful step closer to his cousin. He almost tripped over the Count’s sword, sticking out of the earth at a low angle, close to his feet.

  Laban took the sword by its hilt and freed it from the earth. He held it high in the air that Fithvael might see it, but the old elf was already drawing close.

  Gilead had the blade of his sword hard against the Vampire Count’s throat, ready to sever the creature’s head from his body.

  ‘Do it,’ said the Count, his cold, red eyes, staring into Gilead’s, willing him to end his miserable existence. ‘Raise a pyre for me, that I may not return. Dismember and decapitate my corpse, leave no chance that I might escape this fate.

  ‘I will do all of those things,’ said Gilead. ‘It will be my honour to serve you in death, but first, tell me what I need to know.’

  ‘What need you of my knowledge?’ asked the Vampire Count. ‘My tale is apocryphal at best. Trust me not, for I fear, to trust me will do you nothing but harm.’

  ‘I have nothing else,’ said Gilead. ‘Tell me simply, tell me truly, only that which you know. Embellish nothing. Give me only your truth.’

  ‘It was always the skaven,’ said the Vampire Count. ‘They spread the plague, but it only resides in them, uses them, and disables them. It originates elsewhere, in the hearts and minds of the southern places, in the lost souls of the sands, in the broken people of the stone sarcophagi, and in their golden leaders.’

  Gilead’s hold on the Vampire Count strengthened as the creature began to lose all sense of itself in the bliss that was its demise.

  ‘Kill me,’ it said. ‘Kill me now. I have nothing more for you. Nothing more to say.’

  Gilead gestured to Laban, beckoning him to bring the sword.

  When he was close, Gilead let go his grasp on the Count, and, in that same movement, took the warrior’s sword from his cousin and pressed it into his adversary’s hands.

  Then Gilead swung, bringing the hilt of his sword from his left shoulder, throwing the blade in a gleaming arc. By the time the hilt of the sword, still held in both hands, was resting against his right shoulder, the Vampire Count’s body was falling.

  Gilead had felt the flex in the blade of his sword as it cut through leather and petrified sinew and on through empty veins and a calcified trachea. Then he felt the jarring sensation in his arms as the blade hit something that it could not strike through. The vertebrae still holding the Vampire Count upright were harder than the steel of his sword, and would not be divided by it in one swing.

  The Count’s head did not separate from his body, but lolled like some grotesque doll’s head, bloodlessly. The legs buckled beneath the Count, the right first, tilting his torso awkwardly to one side as his head bounced for a moment at the extremity of his spine.

  Gilead turned and walked away. He handed his sword to Fithvael and approached the hedgerow, which he began to rip away with his hands, quickly gathering large amounts of dry twisting twigs and lengths of half-dead wood.

  ‘We must build a pyre,’ said Gilead. ‘We must honour our dead, and when we have held vigil and seen the bones scattered, we turn south.’

  Chapter 9

  Every tale must take its twists and turns where they may fall. I have no say in the unfolding of this story, and can only re-tell the events told to me. Gilead’s saga is a long and complex one. He has lived too many life-spans, fought too many foes and saved too many lives, for these tales to take a simple course. The Rat King was dead, and the noble Vampire Count dispatched, and yet the threat was not expunged from the land, and Gilead and his faithful companions made their way to Nuln in pursuit of they knew not what.

  Gather round, listen closely, and take heed. A tale has only the value of its telling and of its message, and you might all learn something from Gilead te tuin Tor Anrok. I know that I have.

  In a matter of days, Gilead was on the road again with Fithvael and Laban at his side. He had not thought to travel with an entourage, but then he had been confident that he would find his quarry in the great north lands, and was not a little surprised to find he was travelling south again, back through the Empire to the great city of Nuln.