01 - Empire in Chaos

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  Eldanair dropped another of them with an arrow through the base of his skull, and Annaliese heard three sharp blasts from a hunting horn. At the sound, Eldanair instantly rose, dragging Annaliese to her feet, and began pulling her by the arm down the hill, cutting left away from the wagons. She lost sight of them as she was half-dragged around a raised hillock covered in twisted thorn bushes and rocks.

  Annaliese shook free of his grip.

  “We have to help them!” she shouted, pointing towards the wagons. Eldanair said something sharp in his own tongue, and made to grab her wrist once again, but she stepped away from him, her face defiant.

  “No!” she shouted. “We are going to help them!”

  A stream of words spat from Eldanair’s lips, and he made an encircling motion that she did not understand.

  “These are my people,” said Annaliese. “I have to help them.” She turned away from Eldanair, and began moving around the hillock back towards the wagons.

  A monstrous bestial roar, something akin to that of a bear but filled with malice, echoed loudly down into the dip, and Annaliese faltered, looking around her fearfully. Scanning the area with wide eyes, she saw a pair of the fur-clad figures standing on the ridge they had just left, their horned heads scanning the area. One of them snarled as it spotted her, and the pair of them began leaping down the incline towards her, kicking powdery snow out around them.

  They were not wearing furs, she realised, and they were not human. The one in the lead was roughly the same size of a man, but its face was a bestial mockery of humanity. A pair of short horns jutted from its forehead, and small, feral eyes fixed hungrily on her. It whooped in excitement, exposing an array of stubby fangs, and began closing the distance to her with terrifying swiftness. Its two legs were back-jointed like those of a goat and covered in shaggy, dark fur.

  And yet, it was not some mindless, mutated beast of the forest, that much was clear. Its baleful eyes blazed with animal cunning, and there was the hint of a feral intelligence working there, and it wore a semblance of clothing. A loincloth of rough leather was secured by strips of sinew tied around its waist, and tokens and bones hung from this crude belt. Bracers of beaten copper protected its forearms, and in its clawed hands it clasped a pair of weapons—a savagely barbed spear decorated with plaited hair soaked in blood, and rusted cleaver.

  The second of the creatures was much more heavily built, and thick matted fur hung down over the rippling muscles of its torso. It stood easily a head taller than six feet in height, and its brutish face was broad and hateful, a pair of thick horns covered in beaten copper curling from the sides of its head. Around the thick, corded muscles of its neck hung strings of bones and teeth. An obscene symbol had been smeared in blood upon its massive chest, and it carried a massive axe in its hands. Its skin, the colour of wet earth, was pierced with studs and rings of metal, and it bellowed deafeningly as it charged towards her, hefting its axe over its heavy head.

  The first creature drew back its arm and hurled its heavy spear.

  Eldanair slammed into Annaliese from behind, knocking her to the ground, and the deadly missile streaked over her head to imbed itself into the snow. He was up instantly, loosing an arrow from his bow.

  Annaliese scrambled to her feet, her shaking hands fumbling for her sword. The first creature fell as if pole-axed as Eldanair’s arrow thudded into its neck, but the second was barely slowed as another arrow embedded itself deep into the slab-like muscle of its chest.

  Then it was on them, towering over Eldanair, swinging its axe down in a powerful blow that would have split him in two had it connected. He ducked beneath the wild swing and leapt past the creature, rolling neatly and coming up to one knee, an arrow nocked. He fired, and such was the power of bow at close range that the arrow sank almost to its feathered flight into the creature’s back, and it roared as it was knocked forward a pace by the force.

  Still it did not fall, and it swung towards him, spittle dripping in thick ropes from its maw.

  With a scream, Annaliese surged forwards and the blade of her elven shortsword pierced the creature’s side. With one hand upon the pommel she drove the blade in with all her strength and weight, pushing it deep into its body. Blood, dark and hot, poured from the wound and the creature roared in pain and fury. It spun around and the haft of its giant axe caught Annaliese a glancing blow to the side of the head, sending her reeling backwards into the snow. It stepped over her, axe raised for the killing blow. The beast shuddered as an arrow punched through the back of its skull, piercing its brain. It toppled into the snow beside Annaliese, blood leaking from its wounds.

  Annaliese rose shakily to her knees, wincing as she touched a hand gingerly to her temple. She felt a wave of nausea overcome her, and she coughed and retched the contents of her stomach onto the pristine white snow. The stink of the creature was overpowering.

  Three sharp blasts were blown on a hunting horn, and Eldanair loosed several more arrows, though Annaliese, her head pounding, could not focus on what he was firing at. She gathered a handful of snow and held it against her head; the cold numbed the pain.

  Wiping her mouth, she stared bleary-eyed at the corpses of the two creatures. Shuddering, she looked away. Eldanair was kneeling at her side, concern on his face, and he gently pulled her hand away from the rising lump on her head, inspecting the wound carefully. Apparently satisfied, he nodded his head, and went to the bodies of the dead beastmen, wrenching his arrows free from their dead flesh and studying their tips, testing them on his thumb. He pulled free Annaliese’s sword, and wiped the gore from it with a handful of snow. Spinning it around in his hand, he presented it hilt first to the fallen woman.

  When she was able to stand, her legs shaking, Annaliese saw that the battle was over. Milling people surrounded the wagons, and she heard the wailing of women and the cries of children. She motioned to Eldanair that she was going towards the wagons, and he nodded, pulling the hood of his cloak over his head to hide his elven features. He moved out across the open ground to retrieve his other arrows.

  As she drew close, she saw women crying over the bodies of dead men: husbands, brothers or fathers. Others were binding the wounds of those lucky enough to have survived, and a team of soldiers was struggling to get the lead wagon moving, as it was stuck in a snowdrift.

  She saw a flicker of movement, and cried out when she saw a small boy, no more than five years old, crawling through the snow towards a corpse on the ground. Fresh blood was trailing behind the boy.

  No one was moving towards the child, and Annaliese ran to him. The man he was crawling towards had the look of a farmer about him, and his head had been all but severed from his body by a vicious blow to the back of his neck. Blood soaked the snow around him.

  Kneeling, Annaliese took the boy in her arms, carefully turning him over. He cried out, straining to see the corpse, and Annaliese felt tears spring to her eyes as she saw the blood soaking the child’s tunic and the expression on the child’s face as it contorted in pain. She clasped him to her, tears rolling down her cheeks, soothing him with gentle words.

  “Da?” gasped the boy, his wide blue eyes fearful.

  “Shh,” soothed Annaliese, wiping her hand over his brow, brushing back his sandy hair.

  “Where is Da?” the boy said again, blood frothing on his lips.

  “At peace,” said Annaliese softly. The boy cried out in pain, and Annaliese’s heart wrenched. “Be brave, little warrior,” she said.

  She closed her eyes and prayed then, silently mouthing words to Sigmar. Angry and bitter, she raged against the cruelty of the world, and beseeched the warrior-god for mercy, tears running down her face.

  When she opened her eyes she saw that the boy was asleep, his heart beating strongly against her.

  Annaliese laid him back against the ground, and ripped open his blood-drenched tunic. She rubbed her hand across the flesh of his stomach, expecting to find a deep wound, but the skin was unbroken. Her eyes widened in sho
ck.

  “You should leave him,” said a voice. “I saw the cursed spear strike him. It was a cowardly blow, but not even a full grown man could have survived it.”

  Annaliese looked up into the sad, grim eyes of a farmer and smiled. “He is not even wounded,” she said breathlessly, shaking her head. The farmer stared at her as if she were mad.

  “I saw it myself, girl,” he repeated, a pitying expression coming over his face. She shook her head, and wiped away more of the blood on the boy’s skin.

  “Look—there is no wound! The boy lives!” she said, louder this time. She was certain that the boy had been close to death, but she could now see the rise and fall of his chest as he rested peacefully.

  The farmer looked at the boy, then at her, fear in his eyes.

  “Witchcraft,” he muttered.

  “What?” said Annaliese. “What are you talking about? It must not have been his blood. The spear must have missed him!”

  “Don’t look at me, witch!” cried the farmer, shielding his eyes from her gaze. More people looked over at her, fear and suspicion on their faces. They muttered beneath their breath.

  Annaliese stood up, wiping the tears from her face. “No,” she said emphatically, shaking her head. “You are mistaken. The boy is well.”

  “Where did she come from?” said a fearful voice. Several of the soldiers tightened their grips on their halberds uneasily, stepping towards her.

  “She wasn’t with us before the attack. She led them to us!” declared an elderly woman, to the accompaniment of angry mutterings.

  Lifting the boy protectively in her arms, she stepped backwards away from the angry group, shaking her head. She felt the reassuring presence of Eldanair behind her, his bow in hand.

  “Leave her be,” snapped one of the soldiers. “She and her companion killed several of the beasts.”

  “That child was dead, I tell you. He should be journeying to the halls of Morr, alongside his father,” said the first farmer, his voice raised. “She brought him back to life! She’s a witch!”

  “Enough,” roared the soldier. “There will be no more bloodshed this day. Go get those wagons moving.” The farmer stared at the man darkly. “Go!” the soldier barked. Then he marched towards Annaliese.

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “I… I don’t understand it. I too thought he was close to death. But… I must have been mistaken.”

  The soldier was middle-aged, and his armour dented and scarred from use and repair. His face was grim, and his eyes dead as they flicked from Annaliese to Eldanair, who tugged his hood down lower over his face. He shrugged.

  “I don’t want to see any more people hurt,” he said.

  “Where are the boy’s parents?”

  “His mother died in childbirth. Her father lies dead at your feet. He has no family.”

  “Someone must take him in,” Annaliese said. The soldier looked at her blankly.

  “He has no family,” he said slowly. “There is no one to take him in.”

  “Surely someone amongst these people will care for him? Some relative, or friend?”

  The soldier shook his head. “These people are starving,” he said, his voice lowered. “There are not enough provisions as it is—he is just another mouth to feed, another back to clothe. There is no one, I’m sorry.” He turned away from her, and began marching back towards the wagons.

  “But you cannot leave him here to die!” she said, going after him. The soldier turned back to her, his face hard.

  “It might have been better for him if he had died,” he hissed. “I saw him struck as well—it was a mortal blow I don’t know what power it was that you used to heal him, but I will not allow you or the boy to travel with us. Care for him yourself.”

  The anger faded from him and he seemed to slump, exhaustion overcoming him. He sighed, running a hand across his unshaved jaw, and Annaliese realised that this was the real reason why they would not accept the child—they feared that she had healed him with sorcerous power, and that perhaps he had been tainted by the power of Chaos.

  “There is a temple of Shallya, some twenty leagues to the north-east. Follow the road, and you will find it. The gentle sisters of that order will take the boy in. I wish you well.”

  With that, he turned away.

  Eldanair glared at the humans from within his deep cowl, and loosened the tension on his bowstring, though he kept an arrow nocked. He couldn’t understand the words spoken during the exchange, but he guessed at their meaning. These humans were barbarians, he thought, turning on each other in their ignorance and fear.

  He had hoped to escort the woman to her people, to see her safe and then he could return to hunting the Druchii and enact his vengeance. He touched a long finger to his cheek, following the thin black tattoo design. Thalui was the name for the rune and it represented hatred and vengeance. Many of his people, the Shadow Warriors of ruined Nagarythe, bore such symbols so that the atrocities perpetrated by the hated Dark Elves, the Druchii, would never be forgotten. But he saw now that she would not be safe with these people, for they clearly could not even protect themselves.

  To see the beastmen herd so far from the dense forests where they bred was surprising. To see them emboldened enough to venture forth, and in daylight no less, spoke of the threat that the human realm was in. With the human armies engaged elsewhere, the beasts of the deep forbidden places where man feared to tread had become bold, striking out against ones likes these, weakly protected and vulnerable. He doubted that many of the humans even realised that their world, their Empire, teetered on the brink of destruction.

  Guilt wracked him. Had he been with his kin, he would surely have seen signs of the Druchii war party. His kinsmen would not have died. If he had not gone to the aid of the human child, then he would never have been captured. If he had left Annaliese to her fate, then he would have covered the ground back to his kin far swifter, and their massacre would have been averted.

  The weight of their deaths was upon his shoulders. Annaliese had lived at the expense of his kin, and for that he may have hated her. But he did not. No, if she were to die, then the deaths of his kin were for nought, and he now swore to himself to protect her, to see her safe until such a time as he deemed her ably protected.

  A human would have difficulty understanding his honour, he knew, but that mattered little to him. They were a strange people, and before he met Annaliese he had discounted them all. But she was different, he saw that, and as much as he desired his vengeance against the Druchii, he knew that it could wait. When the human woman was safe, then he would resume his blood-quest against them. Only then, when all those who had slaughtered his kin had perished, would his soul be unburdened by guilt and remorse.

  He would take Annaliese to the south. War wracked the north—though, as they had seen, no place was safe—the southern lands of the Empire would be the least affected in the dark days to come. He sighed, for she seemed to have adopted the human child. Though it would slow their progress further, he could not expect her to abandon the child, as it seemed the others had done.

  “Annaliese,” he said, indicating that they should get moving. He was wary of the beasts of Chaos nearby, and he reckoned that once they had recovered their nerve, they would attack again, probably under the cover of darkness. With certainty, he knew that the humans with the wagons would be dead by sunrise.

  He motioned again for her to come, to resume their travel, but she merely shook her head, pointing along the road, to the east. It was the direction that the wagons had come from. What was she thinking? He shook his head, but saw the determined set of her mouth, and knew that she would not relent. By the gods of the Asur, she was a headstrong woman.

  “Upon the spirits of my murdered brothers of the Asur, I swear that I shall see you safe,” he snapped in his native tongue. “But I cannot protect you from your own innate human stubbornness, child.”

  She pointed fiercely to the east, and he shook his head resolutely. She s
napped something in her crude, guttural language, and turned to watch the wagons rolling away, shifting the weight of the sleeping child to her hip, his head on her shoulder. They could have been mother and child, he thought, for they both glared the same sandy blonde hair.

  How old was she? Perhaps eighteen? Long past the time when most human women would have spawned children of their own, he thought with some distaste. Rare was it amongst his own people for a child to be born of an elf maiden less than a hundred and fifty years old. Humanity is a race of children, no wonder they bickered and turned on their own with such frequency. It was also no wonder that they were so susceptible to the wiles of Chaos, he thought darkly, for with their foreshortened, largely futile lives, the tempting lure of a shortcut to power must be attractive.

  When she turned back to him, there were tears in her eyes. She indicated to the sleeping boy, and pointed to the east once more, though this time the movement lacked anger. Eldanair did not move a muscle. Annaliese stepped in to him, and raising herself up onto her tiptoes, she placed a sad kiss upon his pale cheek. She said something else that he guessed was a parting goodbye, and she turned away from him and began walking along the road, heading to the east.

  Thunder rolled, and vast arcs of lightning could be seen flashing in the sky. Vaul was at his anvil, as was said amongst his people of Nagarythe to describe such weather.

  He glared at the departing figure of Annaliese, and began walking to the east, following in her wake.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Udo Grunwald swore and gritted his teeth as the gruff voice behind him continued its slow, rhythmic, mournful song, if that dire sound could be classed as song, he thought.

  He didn’t understand the words of course, but it sounded like some relentless requiem that droned on and on monotonously without end. When occasionally it stopped, Grunwald closed his eyes and listened to the blessed silence. It never lasted long.