David Gemmell - Morningstar

I did as he asked and slowly he stood. ‘There is no door,’ he called.

‘There must be.’

‘Piercollo is not blind, Owen. There is no door.’

Moving back from the hole, I made my way to where Mace was slowly adding fuel to the small fire. ‘He is all right,’ I told him, ‘but there is no way out of the cellar.’

‘That makes no sense,’ muttered Mace. Leaving Ilka to tend the fire, he returned to where Piercollo waited. The sphere was less bright now and my concentration was fading. ‘Is there anything down there you can use to climb out?’ called Mace.

‘Many boxes, but they are rotten. There is a broken table, and some weapons. No. Nothing I can use.’

Wulf returned and stretched out alongside Mace. ‘There’s no stairs down. Nothing.’

‘How are we going to get him out?’ I asked.

Both men ignored me. Mace sat up and looked around the hall. There was no furniture, save a broken chair covered in cobwebs and a few threadbare cushions thick with dust and mildew. Standing, he made his way to the far wall and lifted an ancient torch from its iron bracket. Dusting off the charred, loose strands from the tip, he held it over the fire and it caught instantly, flaring up with long tongues of flame.

‘Move aside,’ he ordered us and walked to the edge of the hole. ‘Stand back,’ he told Piercollo. Then he jumped into the cellar, landing easily with knees bent to take the impact of the ten-foot drop. A few sparks fell from the torch, but these he stamped out. With this new light we could see the full area of the cellar; it was no more than twenty feet long, and about half as wide. Weapons and armour had been piled around the walls — helms, bows, swords, daggers, axes. All of them jet-black and unadorned.

Holding aloft his torch Mace studied the ceiling, examining the remaining joists. They seem sound,’ he announced. ‘I don’t think they’ll give way.’ Moving to the Tuscanian’s pack he hefted it, then passed it to Piercollo. ‘Throw it through the hole,’ he said. The Tuscanian swayed to his left, then sent it sailing up over the rim.

Placing the spluttering torch in an upturned black helm, Mace moved beneath the hole, cupping his hands. ‘Come, my large friend,’ he said, ‘it is time for you to leave this place.’You cannot take Piercollo’s weight,’ the Tuscanian warned him.

‘Well, if I can’t then you’ll just have to sit down here until you grow thinner. Would you like us to come back in a couple of months?’Piercollo placed his huge hands on Mace’s shoulders, then lifted a foot into the cupped palms. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked.

‘Do it, you big ox!’

Piercollo tensed his leg, pushing his weight down on to Mace’s locked fingers. Mace groaned but held firm and Piercollo rose, his right arm stretching towards the rim of the hole, his fingers curling over the edge. I gripped his wrist to give him support while Wulf took hold of the Tuscanian’s jerkin and began to pull. At first there was no discernible sign of movement, but with Mace pushing from below and the two of us pulling from above Piercollo managed to get one arm over the rim. After that we dragged him clear in moments.

Mace sank to the floor of the cellar, breathing heavily. ‘One more minute and he would have broken my back,’ he said at last. Then he rose and, torch in hand, moved among the weapons.

‘A new bow for you, Wulf,’ he called, hurling the weapon through the opening. This was followed by several scabbarded swords, daggers and two quivers of black-shafted arrows. Lastly a small box sailed over the rim, landing heavily and cracking open.

‘Keep back!’ yelled Mace. ‘I’m coming up.’ Dousing the torch and stamping out all the cinders he leapt to grab the rim, then hauled himself smoothly clear of the hole. He was covered in dust and cobwebs, but his grin was bright as he dusted himself down. ‘Let’s see what treasure is in the box,’ he said. The wood was rotten, but what appeared to be bands of bronze held it together. Mace ripped away the lid and pulled clear a large velvet pouch. The leather thongs were rotten, the velvet dry and ruined, but something creamy-white fell clear, rolling from his hands to bounce on the wooden floor.

‘May the saints protect us!’ whispered Wulf, backing away.

On the floor at our feet was a skull, the lower jaw missing but the upper intact. Teeth were still embedded in the bone, most of them apparently normal. But the two canines on either side of the incisors were twice as long as the others and wickedly sharp.

Mace picked up the skull, turning it in his hands. ‘These teeth are hollow,’ he said, tapping the canines.

‘Leave it be, Mace,’ hissed Wulf. ‘You can see what it is, damn you!’

‘It’s a skull,’ said Mace. He swung to me. ‘Vampyre?’

I nodded dumbly. ‘I would say so.’

‘Well, well! Do you think it’s worth anything?’

‘Not to me,’ I told him.

‘Throw it back into the cellar,’ urged Wulf. ‘It is a thing of evil.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Mace, dropping the skull back into the shattered box. Picking up the bow he had found for Wulf, he crossed to where the hunchback stood. ‘Take a look at this. It’s metal, but it weighs next to nothing and I cannot see how it was strung.’

Wulf, with one last nervous glance at the box containing the skull, took the weapon and I moved forward to examine it with him. Much shorter than a longbow, but longer than the hunting-bows used by Angostin scouts, it was sharply curved, the string disappearing into the bow tips.

‘No range,’ said Wulf. Pulling an arrow from his quiver he notched it and drew back the string, aiming the shaft at the frame of the door. The arrow leapt from the bow, struck the beam and shattered.

‘Try one of these,’ offered Mace, pulling a black-shafted arrow from one of the quivers he had thrown from the cellar. The arrow was of metal; even the flights, which looked like raven feathers, were in fact metallic and stiff.

Wulf drew back on the string once more and the shaft sang through the air, punching home into the wood of the frame and burying itself deep.

Not one of us, not even the mighty Piercollo, could pull it loose.

‘Have you ever seen weapons like these, Owen?’ Mace asked me.

‘No. According to legend, the swords and arrows of Rabain’s men were of the purest silver, in order to slay the Undead. They were said to shine with starlight when Vampyres were near. I doubt it was true. More likely Horga cast an enchantment, an illusion to lift the spirits of the warriors.’

For some time Wulf and Mace examined the weapons. The swords and daggers were lighter than any I had seen, and incredibly sharp. Mace put aside his own longsword, replacing it with a black blade and scabbard. The hilt was wound with black wire, and there was even a dark gem in the pommel that reflected no gleam of light from the fire. Wulf took two short swords and I acquired a long hunting-knife, double-edged. Piercollo refused a weapon, but Ilka also chose a short sword, curved like a small sabre, which she belted to her slim waist.

We ate sparingly, for our supplies were low, and then sat talking for a while. Mace asked me to tell a story about the Elder Days, one he had not heard. I could think of nothing new and so I told him of the death of Rabain, murdered by his son two years after the Great Battle and the ending of the reign of the Vampyre Kings. The son died soon after — slain, some fables have it, by Horga the Enchantress. And the land descended into bloody civil war.

‘That’s a fine tale to end a day with,’ grumbled Mace. Piercollo and Wulf were already asleep, while Ilka sat staring into the dying fire, lost in thoughts she could not share.

‘I am sorry, Jarek. My mood is dark. What would you like to hear?’