The last but one — or two…
The girl kicked off her sandals, shrugged out of her robe, let her necklace of fingerbones fall, untied her blood-red hair and shook it loose. She stood naked, armed with her knife; she was ready to kill. She spoke a few words. Konrad recognized the command. She was telling him to get up, but he ignored it. She sprang towards him, her blade at his throat. The tip drew blood.
She repeated her order.
She would not kill him, he knew, but she was an expert in pain. With a few swift and accurate knife strokes, she could inflict excruciating agony. Instead, she transferred her attentions to the boy, jabbing him in the shoulder. He cried out in agony. She gestured for him to rise, and he obeyed. She swiftly cut away his garments, and he was naked, his hands still tied around his back.
She looked at Konrad, then she slowly drew the point of her blade diagonally down the boy’s chest, right to left. He screamed as the blood began to flow. She did it again, left to right, her red eyes watching Konrad. She was carving the mark of Khorne on the boy, he realized, and she would continue unless Konrad obeyed. He did so; he stood up. But Silk did not cease her mutilation. With two rapid strokes, one to the left, one to the right, she completed the pattern. The boy’s torso glistened with trickles of blood.
He swayed, as though he were about to faint, but he held himself upright. His screams had ceased, and now he sobbed. He was not badly hurt. Silk had not wanted him dead. Not yet.
Now she stepped towards Konrad, and her knife flashed. He winced as she sliced his cheek for disobedience. Her blade kept working, and after a few seconds he was also naked. She growled a command, and Konrad began walking slowly towards the shrine. She pushed the boy, and he also began to move.
The worshippers awaited them, dark silhouettes who encircled the armoured effigy of Khorne. One of the shadows stepped forward. “Delighted that you could accept our invitation,” said Kastring. “Is this your guest?”
The boy stood motionless, dazed, his eyes fixed on the shrine, staring at the skulls and fresh heads at the feet of the seated brass figure.
“I’m going to kill you, Kastring,” Konrad hissed.
“You seem to misunderstand the situation,” Kastring replied. “The only killing you are going to do involves this young gentleman. Neither do I believe this is the most appropriate time for you to threaten me. I’m the one who issues the threats. And, as I once promised, I will have you killed. Eventually.”
Silk’s knife severed Konrad’s bonds, and Kastring held out a dagger to him, hilt first. Konrad accepted the blade, and as he did he felt the tip of the girl’s knife at the base of his skull. As Kastring stepped back, so did Silk.
Konrad and the boy were left in the centre of the area, in front of the altar. The ground beneath their feet was wet with blood.
The boy turned away from the shrine to look at him, at the knife, then at Konrad’s face.
“I knew you was one of them,” he said, very quietly, and he lowered his head.
Konrad wanted to deny the accusation, to tell him that he would dispatch him swiftly whereas any of the others would have slain him slowly and horribly. But there was no point. He would only have been speaking for his own benefit, not the youth’s.
The idolators began to chant their hymns of blood.
“Do it!” Kastring commanded, his voice louder than all the sacrilegious prayers.
Konrad gazed at the shadowed shape which had spoken, and he held the knife loosely in his hand, testing its balance, weighing it for its flight through the night — and into Kastring’s throat.
Before he could act, the blade was suddenly knocked from his hand. Silk had hurled herself silently at him, and she shouldered him aside. Unbalanced, Konrad fell into the mud. He instantly rolled away, believing that the blood girl was about to dive on him. Instead, her target was the young Ostlander.
Her blade plunged into his chest, and his cry was terrible, long and ear-piercing. He fell, and Silk went down with him, her knife carving deep into his torso. After a few seconds, she sprang up. In one hand she held her knife, in the other was a lump of raw human flesh. It was the boy’s heart.
His beating heart!
There was a roar of approval from the worshippers, and she reverently placed the gory organ at the feet of the brass figure.
Konrad had been unable to find the dagger and was back on his feet, and he became aware of a dark shape moving towards him. He heard a sword being drawn from its oiled scabbard, and he knew it was the sword with a coiled serpent as its hilt.
He backed slowly away, glancing quickly over his shoulder for another potential assassin. When he looked back a moment later, there was a slim figure between himself and Kastring. It was Silk, but she was facing her leader, threatening him with the reddened blade she held.
Kastring halted, said something in the heathen language. Silk said nothing, but neither did she move aside.
“She really does like you,” said Kastring. Then he forced a contemptuous laugh, sheathed his sword and turned away.
Silk looked at Konrad, and their eyes met. For some reason of her own, she had killed the boy when Konrad had refused, and she had defended him from Kastring’s wrath. But she had also saved Kastring’s life by knocking the dagger from Konrad’s hand. Konrad had no idea why she had interfered in the ceremony, protecting him from Kastring. Whatever the reason, it must surely spell doom for both of them.
The dark shapes around them melted away into the deeper darkness, leaving them alone, alone with the body of the young Ostlander and the corpses of all the other victims who lay as gory offerings to Khorne’s bronze altar.
As they gazed at each other, Konrad suddenly realized what she must once have been: human.
And he also knew that this was the moment he had been awaiting. It was the time of his awakening.
Konrad walked away and Silk followed. She was a pace behind him when he reached the spur of land above the river. He turned as the girl raised her knife, standing motionless while she thrust the point of the weapon into the trunk of the tree next to him. The blade glinted as it vibrated. Mannslieb had begun to rise, a sliver of brilliance on the horizon, already shedding a radiant light far greater than the dull glow created by Morrslieb. The river lay far below, and on the edge of his vision Konrad noticed another glimmer further down in the valley. It was also the reflection of moonlight on metal.
And he finally became aware of what he must do.
The girl pressed herself hard against him, turning her face up to his. No matter what, he hated her absolutely, but for a moment he remembered what he had thought when he first saw her and Satin: that they were the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
Until now he had always refused the temptations of her body, no matter what torments she inflicted upon him in reprisal. Because of tonight he owed her this one final tribute to her lost humanity, to her forgotten femininity.
Her flesh felt warm and soft, and that surprised him. He tried to ignore the blood on her skin, her feral eyes, her forked tongue and tail. He sank to the ground, allowing her to assume the ascendant role, as if still accepting his subservience to her.
She was at her least animal, he at his most. When she cried out, it was not the rutting call of some bestial mutant but the sounds a woman made at the peak of passion. He was the one who growled primitively, driven by his deepest instinct.
This was the way life was created, the way of Konrad’s unknown origins, the way that Silk herself had begun her true existence, before her body had become corrupted by Chaos, her spirit stolen and twisted.
Konrad reached up to her, beyond her, and for the first time he allowed her lips to touch his. Again, so warm, so soft. They kissed — and it was the kiss of death.
Silk sighed as he slipped the dagger into her back and plunged it deep into her heart. Their eyes met for one last time, and the girl’s were wet with tears. She leaned back and smiled and she died as easily as if she were still human.
Konrad caught her as she fell, and he rolled free. He withdrew the blade and stared down into the valley, searching for what he had observed a few minutes ago, the glint of moonlight on armour. On bronze armour.
CHAPTER SIX
Konrad hurled himself headlong over the edge and down into the darkness, clutching the dagger in one hand. He was finally escaping his barbarous captors, but more importantly he was in pursuit of the mysterious bronze knight.
This was why he had stayed with Kastring’s clan for so long. It was almost like seeing, but he had been totally unaware of the nature of the vision until now because the event had been so far ahead.
There was no longer any sign of the armoured rider below, but that was because of the conditions. The light was not as good as it had been at the top of the slope, and there were too many trees obstructing his vision.
He had killed Silk; she had allowed herself to die at the moment when she had recaptured the essence of her humanity.
Konrad’s only regret was that he had not been able to slay Kastring. Although free of his red shadow, there had been no time to creep through the night and take his revenge against the leader of the evil outlaws. It was infinitely more important that he find the bronze figure he had seen at the bottom of the valley. He must reach the knight before he could ride out of range.
He slipped and stumbled, rolled and crashed against one of the trees which grew from the side of the valley. Ignoring the pain, he was back on his feet almost at once and plunged onwards, immediately colliding with a sapling which blocked his route. It splintered, and Konrad’s hectic descent continued. As he recklessly threw himself down the steep slope, he again lost his footing and tripped, but this time there was no tree trunk to block his fall. He rolled over and over — and over a precipice.
As he dropped through the air, he saw the rocky ground rushing up at him. But the narrow river was also below, and he plunged into the cold waters, narrowly missing a sharp pinnacle of rock. He sank below the surface, then kicked himself to the top. He trod water for several seconds before taking a long drink from the icy river. He swam to the edge and hauled himself onto the stony bank.
He sat there for a few seconds, regaining his breath and examining his cuts, scrapes and bruises. The dagger was still in his hand. This was almost an exact recreation of how he had kept a tight grip on his kris when he had fled by river from his village; but now a knife was all he had.
How could he confront the bronze rider when naked, armed with only a dagger? He neither knew nor cared, not at the moment. First he had to locate the enigmatic figure.
Five years ago he had escaped from an army of beastmen; now he had made a getaway from a smaller band of the bestial marauders. And, as he thought this, he heard the noise of pursuit from high above.
They were coming after him, yelling out their war cries, howling their animal fury, the savage sounds slicing through the night air just as the blades they carried would slice into Konrad’s flesh once they found him.
He glanced around, finding his bearings in the dimness. He had seen the glint of light to the left, and that was the direction he took.
He dashed along the river’s edge in pursuit of the figure he had first seen half a decade ago. The fast waters raced past him as he headed upstream, and he leapt the dark roots which fed from the water. He had a few minutes’ start on his enemies. They would come down the slope far more cautiously than he had. Others would try to find a different way to the river, attempting to cut him off at either end of the valley. Before he was trapped, he must find his elusive quarry.
Konrad sprinted through the night, all his senses alert: feeling the hard ground beneath his feet, tasting the cold air on his tongue, hearing the river rushing past, watching the twisting valley ahead, sniffing for the pungent scent of the beastmen tracking him — and seeing, seeing…
His extra awareness gave him no warning of trouble; he was in no immediate danger. Either that or his future vision was once more betraying him.
Then he came to a sudden halt, and he dodged behind the trunk of a wide tree, because far ahead he had seen the reflection of moonlight on metal. Cautiously, he peered out from the side of the tree. A hundred yards away stood a horse, a horse completely covered in bronze armour. But there was no sign of the rider.
Konrad climbed the slope and used the woods as camouflage while he paralleled the river, closing the gap between himself and the horse. He moved slowly and silently, and it seemed to take forever until he was above the animal.
There was no doubt it was the same mount he had first seen over five years ago. He recognized the elaborate armour in which it was clad, encasing the steed from head to hoof. There was not an inch of horseflesh in view. Its skull was covered by an intricate chamfron from which two horns protruded, horns that matched those on the rider’s own helmet, he remembered. The shield still hung from the horse’s armoured flank, and the long lance stood vertically next to it, strapped to the back of the saddle.
Even the leather of the straps and the saddle were bronze, as if dyed somehow.
The rider must have dismounted, and that meant he was more vulnerable. Weighed down by the bulk of his armour, he could not move as fast. If Konrad could surprise him, he could slip his dagger between the helmet and gorget and into his throat.
But it was not his intention to kill the bronze warrior. He was not sure, however, what he really did want from the knight. He needed to interrogate him, ask all sorts of questions. Was he really Wolf’s twin brother?
And where was he this very moment?
He could not be far away. Konrad kept watching, his eyes scanning the darkened river valley as far as he could see. There was something odd about the horse, he noticed. It had not moved; it was in exactly the same position that it had been when he first saw it. Standing like a statue, a yard from the riverbank, it reminded him of those equestrian monuments to great chieftains he had occasionally observed, except here the rider was missing. It was also like the altar to Khorne, he thought, an empty armoured shape.
Under other circumstances, Konrad could have watched and waited for as long as it took the knight to appear, but time was of the essence. Kastring’s marauders would arrive at any moment. He glanced back up the hillside, and thought he could make out the dark silhouette of the spur from which he had noticed the bronze warrior. Judging by the angle, this was exactly the same place from which Mannslieb’s light had been reflected. It seemed he had only seen the horse, not the rider.
Could the rider have fallen into the river? The horse might have thrown him, or stumbled in the dark, and he had rolled into the water. Because of the weight of armour, perhaps he had been unable to rise and thus drowned.
Konrad moved down the slope, towards the horse. And there, by one of the trees that grew from the water, he saw the armour. The knight’s helmet and gauntlets, breastplate and backplate, pauldrons and rerebraces, couters and vambraces, cuisses and poleyns, chausses and solerets, sword belt and scabbarded blade, all lay upon on the ground. It seemed that the outfit had been abandoned, cast aside. Where could the knight be? Had he stripped off his heavy suit in order to sleep, or perhaps to bathe?
Stepping warily forward, Konrad knelt to examine the bronze. He glanced at the horse. Wolf had said that the steed was the twin of Midnight, his own mount, and Konrad knew that the white horse had been a killer in its own right. But the animal continued to remain absolutely motionless.
Konrad heard a sound, a shout in the distance. He stood up swiftly and retreated a few paces. If it were the unknown warrior who had called, he was defenceless without his armour and weapons, and Konrad felt confident. Then there came an answering yell, and he realized that it was his pursuers. A handful of the blood beasts were a few hundred yards away, heading towards him.
He glanced down at the sword and began to reach for it, then he paused, studying the armour. During the attack on his village, he had disguised himself in the flayed skin of a beastman. This would be far more
than a disguise, he realized.
Dropping the dagger, he began to pull the armour over his naked skin. He should have worn protective clothing beneath the suit, to prevent the metal rubbing his flesh, but there was none. The armour was not cold, as he had expected, perhaps because his skin was chilled by the night.
It was usually very difficult to get into a suit of armour, and assistance was needed to tie the straps and buckles and help with the weight; but Konrad was in a hurry, and his haste seemed to make every item easy to fit. Breastplate and backplate were joined together as a cuirass, complete with taces and tassets. The parts for each arm and leg were similarly linked into whole pieces, simple to pull on and attach.
He buckled the swordbelt around his waist, fastened the gorget to his throat, drew on both gauntlets. Like everything else, they were the ideal size. Because bending down would have been difficult, he had previously placed the spiked helmet on a boulder. He picked it up.
During his years on the frontier, he had usually worn armour of some type during combat, but never the full panoply. He found it too heavy, too restrictive. The bronze armour, however, seemed completely different. Already he felt comfortable, and he could hardly feel any extra weight.
He did not have time to question this, because he heard a howl not far away. He turned in time to see two bulky figures rushing along the riverbank: dog-faced degenerates of Kastring’s command, moonlight glinting off their weapons as they charged towards him.
Konrad lowered the helmet over his head, pushed down the visor and started to draw his sword. Then he glanced at the horse. It remained motionless. He noticed there was a sloping rock by its side which he could use to climb into the saddle, but he had only just managed to clamber up the rock and haul himself onto the horse’s back when the first of the beastmen attacked.
The sword stroke caught his arm, the power of the blow denting the armour and almost unseating him. He slipped his spurred feet into the stirrups, grabbed the reins, and as he did so the horse suddenly moved for the first time. It reared up, bronze hooves flailing, pummelling Konrad’s assailant and then trampling the ugly creature underfoot.
[Konrad 02] - Shadowbreed Page 8
