by Rob Sanders
As the infant dragons died, the faces set in the wall of the birthing canal screeched Flamefang’s horror. The beasts’ siblings hissed and hackled with reptilian hate. Two retreated momentarily to the walls, the monster that had come straight at him and its sibling runt, leaping from fleshy surface to surface, their savage senses driving them to find a weakness and exploit an opportunity. Archaon tried to get to his feet again but the dragon snaggling the back of his helm, his neck and his furs was anchored to his back. Tripping across an embedded ribcage and the grasping attentions of limbs snatching at his from the chamber floor, Terminus tumbled from Archaon’s grasp and the Chaos warrior once more fell to the floor. With the birthling snapping and clawing at him, the dark templar took the ragged length of his slime-drenched cloak and wrapped it about the monster. It had him but now he had it. He felt the muscles in his arms burn as he heaved at the cloak-fashioned noose, watching it tighten about the creature’s sinewy neck. Its larger sibling hissed at the Chaos warrior and leapt for his back but Archaon gave its surging snout an answer with his armoured elbow, batting the thing aside. With a roar, Archaon returned to the beast before him, heaving and strangling until finally he heard the bones within the monstrosity’s neck break and a final breath rattle from its choking maw.
Shaking the impact from its warped skull, the larger sibling came back at Archaon but the Chaos warrior was done with the abomination. As he rolled over to meet it, he hammered the creature in the face with the unrelenting force of one armoured fist, sending it coiling and hissing back at the wall. As he got to his feet, picking up his shield, the runt leapt at Archaon through a leathery curtain of flesh. Smashing the creature aside with the shield, Archaon batted it back, again and again until it lay senseless before him. Holding the edge of the shield above the trembling monstrosity’s head, Archaon watched it experience some kind of brain-dazed fit before bringing the shield down on the beast’s skull and ending the horror.
Turning, Archaon beheld the final monster before him, holding itself low to the fleshy floor, snaking this way and that. Snatching Terminus up from where it had tumbled from his hand and buried its tip in the chamber floor, Archaon came for the creature. The beast retreated, no longer feeling the advantage. No longer on the attack. When he had backed it up to the wall, with nowhere left to go and no option other than to attack, Archaon waited. He waited for the beast to give him everything it had. It did not disappoint. With the savagery of its parent abomination, the dragon sprang forth. With wings held close and neck extended, the monster shot forward with its fang-filled maw. Side-stepping and lifting his shield, Archaon allowed it in under his arm. Grabbing the back of its ferocious skull with one gauntlet he swept Terminus down with the other. The gore-smeared blade cleaved the dragon’s head from its shoulders, like a woodcutter’s axe to a branch.
With the dark metal of his chestplate and pauldrons rising and falling with the exertion of battle, Archaon took a moment before marching on through the birthing canal, towards the searing glow of the Eye of Sheerian. Around the next fleshy corner he found his treasure. The sorcerous jewel was embedded in the chamber wall, the burning inner darkness of its eye inviting Archaon to prise the artefact free. Bathed in its sapphire radiance, Archaon could feel the prophetic power of the artefact. He saw himself dig the gem from the wall of flesh and clean it with his cloak. Before the Chaos warrior knew what was happening, it was done. He saw himself slot the Ruinous treasure into the socket of his helm, feeling the potency of its predictive power close to his mind. And it was so. The Eye of Sheerian flooded him with possibility. He lived in the searing immediacy of the moment but also in the moments of others. As the dark eye of the jewel blinked, Archaon had other sights, other perspectives flash through his mind. With the eyes of so many victims embedded throughout the Chaos dragon’s body, the experience was a sickening whirl of disorientation. Like the fear of a fall from tree or cliff, the visions that preceded each blink of the jewel filled Archaon with a heart-sinking rush. He was privy to the darkest recesses of the daemon-dragon’s form: the suffering of half-assimilated unfortunates, the rage-tinged sights of slaughter-fuelled beastfiends and the preysight of daemons hunting Flamefang’s wounded progress through the bestial hordes of the ice-wept plain. He even saw through the Chaos dragon’s own eyes as it snapped up the monstrosities of the Southern Wastes in its mighty jaws and blasted the Dark God’s predacious daemonkin to oblivion with terrible streams of its warpflame.
Finally his wandering gaze came to settle on himself. Archaon, dressed in the dark armour of the Everchosen of Chaos, the Ruinous Star of Chaos on his shield and the greatsword Terminus in his hand. The Eye of Sheerian blazing back at him from its resting place in the leering skull of his horned helm. Willing the potent jewel closed, the sapphire radiance that lit up the chamber with its ghoulish glow died, returning the birthing canal to a womb-like gloom. Stepping forward, the Chaos warrior saw the eyes through which he had seen himself. A face in the flesh-sculpted wall of the chamber that he recognised. The naked suggestion of limb and curve that he had known. That he had touched and felt for.
‘Archaon…’
It stung to hear his name spoken by Giselle. Giselle Dantziger, the Sister of the Imperial Cross. Giselle Dantziger, who had shared his bed; had tried to save his soul; had failed. Archaon moved to her and knelt before her assimilated form. ‘Archaon,’ she begged. The Chaos warrior laid his gauntlet against the soft skin of her cheek. She begged him to perform the service she had failed to perform for him. She begged him to do what he did best. ‘Archaon… Kill me.’
Archaon stared at Giselle. The wretched hordes of Chaos, the beastmen, the murderous marauders, the treacherous champions of the Dark Gods. All who had betrayed him – as was their nature. They had deserved no fate better than the monstrous Flamefang had offered. The Swords. Hieronymous Dagobert. Gorst. Giselle. They had just been victims of the calamity Archaon had ordered the daemon sorcerer Sheerian to inflict on the world once more. He shook his head. Feelings, raw and unpleasant exploded in the Chaos warrior’s chest. He didn’t want to kill Giselle. He didn’t want her to live like this either. All he really knew was that he wanted the Chaos dragon dead. Archaon quaked in the Everchosen’s damned plate. He wanted to send its monstrous spirit howling back to its twisted master. He brought up Terminus. He would kill the beast of Tzeentch. He would kill it from the inside. Archaon plunged the greatsword into the ceiling of the fleshy lair. Tendons contorted and a ripple of agony passed down the length of the canal.
‘Yes…’ the warrior of Chaos hissed. He pulled the blade free and stabbed it through a nearby wall and into the organs beyond. He went mad, like a frenzied animal, skewering, gutting and stabbing any horrific thing inside the beast that looked important. Blood flooded the chamber and those beyond like a tide washing into a coastal cave. He buried Terminus in the assimilated wretches of lair walls and organs, releasing those that had betrayed him from their suffering. He sliced the dragon open, rending gashes in the beast’s belly and sides, cutting his way through from the inside out. As the great Flamefang flew, it roared its torment, funnelling flame through the labyrinthine butchery of its insides. The Chaos dragon was attempting to repair itself as fast as Archaon was taking it apart. About him the great caverns of the monster’s innards shook, as though the wounded beast had landed.
‘No,’ Archaon roared above the dragon’s furies. He plunged Terminus as deep as the blade would go into the creature. Then he forced it further and further, piercing his way through the monster. The greatsword sliced through organs and sinewy flesh. Archaon climbed in after the weapon – almost swimming through the dragon’s insides. He squirmed the blade onwards. About him he could hear the thunder of Flamefang’s heart and the rhythmic pulse of its beating in the raw horror about him. ‘You… Have… To…’ Archaon snarled as his exertions pushed the blade on. He suddenly felt it hit the tough resistance of muscle. He could feel the dragon’s lifeforce quaki
ng through the length of the blade. ‘Die…’
Archaon thrust the templar blade ahead of him. He felt it pierce deep into the thunder of muscle. He felt the great organ burst and shred itself in the futility of beating. He felt the Chaos dragon spasm about the failing organ in the serpentine death throes of a legendary beast. The Yien-Ya-Long – Flamefang – the terror of Grand Cathay, had been felled by the Chaos warrior. As he waded through the blood and back to Giselle, he felt its flesh quiver horribly about him as the monster began to die. Mouths in the walls and muffled deep within the flesh began to scream. Giselle was out of her mind. Flamefang was dying and as part of the horrific fusion, she too felt the approaching end.
‘I’ll get you out of here,’ he promised her. He meant it. But she was no sorcerer’s jewel. She would not be plucked from the dragon’s flesh. It was impossible to tell where her flesh began and that of other unfortunates emerged. He brought the gore-dripping Terminus up, producing from the girl a miserable sob. The sword dropped. He would kill her just trying to cut her out. The Chaos warrior looked about the chamber, powerless to act. Taking a life was simple. Saving one – one already taken by the Dark Gods for their entertainment and the feasting of souls – altogether impossible. Archaon thought on Father Dagobert, who had saved him more times than he cared to remember. Father Dagobert – who Archaon had been powerless to save. Archaon quaked with frustration. With rage. Then it came to him. A name.
‘Sheerian!’ Archaon roared, his fury echoing through the cavernous confines of the daemon-dragon. In the silence that followed, Archaon heard a grunt from the other side of the chamber. Cutting a leathery curtain out of his path, the dark templar found the sorcerer embedded in the flesh of the opposite wall. His age-mottled skull protruded from the slime-streaming wall of sinew, as well as the hobbling bird’s foot blessing of his master Lord Tzeentch. His withered arms and bone staff were lost to the dragon’s flesh and his mouth was covered by a film of stretched skin across his yellowing teeth. The daemon sorcerer watched him with his milky eyes. He couldn’t take his gaze from the Eye that sat in Archaon’s helm. The prophetic jewel that had been his.
‘Sheerian,’ Archaon said. ‘You snake. You devil. Save me from the dagger in my back, would you? While having me sharpening one of your own.’ Archaon gestured about him. ‘Only a sorcerer of the Lord Tzeentch would make the instrument of my salvation the very instrument of my destruction. It seems that your thrice-duplicitous lord had a surprise for you also, daemon. Didn’t expect to find yourself in the belly of the beast you unleashed, eh?’ Archaon rested the blade tip of Terminus under the ancient’s squirming chin. ‘You work for me now, do you understand daemon? I am Archaon, Everchosen of Chaos and Lord of the End Times. Your soul – like all others – belongs to me.’
Archaon watched the sorcerer blink his milky eyes slowly in acceptance.
‘Your treacherous god gave you the incantations to give this monstrosity life and form,’ Archaon spat. ‘Can you take away what you have given it, sorcerer?’ From behind his sinewy mask, Khezula Sheerian – sorcerer of Tzeentch – nodded from his prison of flesh. Drawing the blade tip of Terminus through the skin stretched across his mouth, Archaon tore away the obstruction. The sorcerer worked his ancient jaw and licked his cracked lips.
‘Archaon…’
The dark templar was in no mood for the daemon sorcerer’s cackling lies and entreaties.
‘Incantations,’ the Chaos warrior ordered. ‘Now!’
Sheerian went to work mumbling the enchantments, invocations and bindings that had harnessed the raging soul of the mighty Yien-Ya-Long in the flesh of men. As the powerful magic, learned from the lips of Lord Tzeentch himself, began to take hold, Archaon waded back over to Giselle. He sheathed the mighty Terminus and shouldered his shield. The dark templar took hold of two fingers of one hand that protruded from the wall of smeared flesh. ‘Hold on,’ he told his lover. His saviour. ‘Just hold on.’
The dying Flamefang instantly knew something was wrong. An agony that could not be felt nor described began to tear at its soul. It was a torment not known by man nor beast. It wasn’t like the freezing maelstrom of the Southern Wastes or the scorching embrace of molten rock. It was nothing like the raging of beastfiend hordes or the sinking of daemonclaw into its inconstant flesh. It wasn’t even the hot torture of armoured and indomitable souls upon which it had feasted, felt deep within. It was deeper even than that. Tzeentch was calling back its abomination. Archaon heard the Chaos dragon rage against its master. It roared across the icy plains, through the maelstrom and up into the black, boiling skies. The dragon’s flesh began to melt. To fall away. To disintegrate. The thousands of unfortunates that made up the great beast’s horrific form fell upon the creature, tearing it to pieces. Archaon looked about the chamber. The walls were alive, thrashing in their traumatic fury. Flesh dribbled from the ceiling and down the walls. Limbs emerged. Naked bodies. Howling victims, bereft of sanity. Men, women and beasts that had been through misery and back.
The floor of the birthing chamber began to give way. Archaon held onto Giselle, pulling the girl free of the shredding sinew and to him. As the dragon returned all that it had eaten, all it had consumed, Archaon stood atop a writhing mountain of bodies. There were screams of joy. Of pain. Of minds lost and never to return. Wrapping Giselle in the ragged length of his cloak, Archaon carried the girl in his arms. He stepped down through the bodies, out onto the icy expanse of the bestial swarming plain. As beastfiends set upon the victim mound, sinking their muzzles into fresh flesh, Archaon became aware of a commotion behind him. Turning to face the threat he discovered that throngs of beastmen were being slaughtered. The Chaos warrior saw the flash of bone swords and fountains of black blood erupt from the decapitated and limbless. From the brief butchery, Archaon watched his knights – his Ruinous honour guard – his Swords of Chaos emerge. Bereft of their armour, Eins, Zwei and Drei were a trio of dark angels. They were ashen of flesh, with gargoyle’s wings. Limping up behind them was the misshapen Vier. Archaon was glad to see him, despite the horrors the dragon’s flame had wrought on his form. Archaon nodded to himself as he came to realise that the bronzed bone that had grown about the heads of the Swords like helms matched his own helmet. Morkar’s helmet. The helm of the Everchosen. As he moved on, the winged warriors cut down the few beastfiends drawn to members of Archaon’s departing party rather than the feast-mound of defenceless victims before them. In silent subservience and with their wings enclosed about them against the bitter cold of the Southern Wastes, the Swords of Chaos followed their master.
As he passed Sheerian, the sorcerer was recovering his bone staff and rolling the corpse of a butchered beastfiend chieftain out of furs that had been skinned from its tribal foes. As the ancient hobbled with his bird’s foot and staff towards Archaon, his cloak of furs trailing through the ice and gore behind him, his milky eyes were downcast. He was no longer the daemon emissary of Lord Tzeentch. No longer the guardian of the Eye and surveyor of a thousand glorious sights. Like Archaon he had been betrayed by his gods. He was now slave-sorcerer to the Everchosen of Chaos, Lord of the End Times. The sorcerer usually had a lot to say for himself. But not today. He gestured to the mountain of tumbling bodies with his bone staff, the living, screaming corpse of the Chaos dragon.
‘Master…’
‘It will serve, sorcerer,’ Archaon said simply and walked on. The warlord would no longer play at politics. Lieutenants were not to be flattered and promoted to positions of trust and authority. Archaon would rather be feared than respected for his powers of leadership. Those that followed the herald of the apocalypse would please him with their service or they would die – it was as simple as that.
As he led the Swords and his slave-sorcerer out into the stormy maelstrom of the Southern Wastes with the girl Giselle in his arms, Archaon found his progress unimpeded. The savage beastfiends through which he would have had to hack were swarm
ing the bounty the warrior had left behind. He heard the crunch of bone on the wind, the slurp and flesh tearing of muzzles buried in bodies. He heard the screams of men and beasts being eaten alive. Archaon could think of no fate better for the champions of Chaos and marauder tribesmen that had failed him. In the swirling havoc ahead, Archaon sensed the predacious stalking of daemons in the furious darkness. He slowed to a stop.
‘Don’t,’ he warned them, calling into the storm. ‘Just don’t.’
As Archaon walked on he could not know it, but the daemons of the Southern Wastes were parting. Parting to clear the Chaos warlord’s dark path.
EPILOGUE
‘Who-e’er thou art these lines now reading,
Think not this world your gaze receding
I wander on, my doom to lead
Through daemontide and deserts drear
With dry eye and heart bereft of bleeding
I commit myself to damnation’s deeds
For them alone hath brought us here.’
