by epubBillie
"There is a trail. It runs from the road. I will take you to its start."
"Good," said Gotrek. "This is too good an opportunity to miss. Tonight I will atone my sins and stand among the Iron Halls of my fathers. Great Grungni willing."
He made a peculiar sign over his chest with his clenched right hand. "Come, manling, let us go."
Felix picked up his pack. At the doorway the old woman stopped him and pressed something into his hand. "Please, sir," she said. "Take this. It is a charm to Sigmar. It will protect you. My little Gunter wears its twin."
And much good it's done him, Felix was about to say but the expression on her face stopped him. It held fear, concern and perhaps hope. He was touched.
"I'll do my best, Frau."
Outside, the sky was bright with the green witchlight of the moons. Felix opened his hand. In it was a small iron hammer on a fine-linked chain. He shrugged and hung it round his neck.
Gotrek and the old man were already moving down the road. He had to run to catch up.
"What do you think these are, manling?" said Gotrek, bending close to the ground. Ahead of them the road continued on towards Blutroch and Bogenhafen. Felix leaned on the league marker. This was the edge of the trail. Felix hoped the innkeeper had returned safely home.
"Tracks," he said. "Going north."
"Very good, manling. They are coach tracks and they take the trail north to the Darkstone Ring."
"The black coach?" said Felix.
"I hope so. What a glorious night! All my prayers are answered. A chance to atone and to get revenge on the swine who nearly ran me over." He cackled gleefully but Felix could sense a change in him. He seemed tense as if suspecting that his hour of destiny were arriving and he would meet it badly. He seemed unusually talkative.
"A coach? Does this coven consist of noblemen, manling? Is your Empire then so corrupt?"
Felix shook his head. "I don't know. It may have a noble leader. The members are most likely local folk. They say the taint of Chaos runs deep in these out-of-the-way places."
Gotrek shook his head and for the first time ever he looked dismayed. "I could weep for the folly of your people, manling. To be so corrupted that your rulers could sell themselves over to the powers of darkness, that is a terrible thing."
"Not all men are so," said Felix angrily. "True, some seek easy power or fleshly pleasure but they are few. Most people keep the faith. Anyway the Elder Race are not so pure. I have heard tales of armies of dwarfs dedicated to the Ruinous Powers."
Gotrek gave a low angry growl and spat on the ground. Felix gripped the hilt of his sword tighter. He wondered whether he had pushed the Trollslayer too far.
"You are correct," said Gotrek, his voice soft and cold. "We do not lightly talk about such things. We have vowed eternal war against the abominations you mention and their dark masters."
"As have my own people. We have our witch-hunts and our laws."
Gotrek shook his head. "Your people do not understand. They are soft and decadent and live far from the War. They do not understand the terrible things which gnaw at the roots of the world and seek to undermine us all. Witch-hunts, hah!" He spat on the ground. "Laws! There is only one way to meet the threat of Chaos."
He brandished his axe meaningfully.
They trudged wearily through the forest. Overhead the moons gleamed feverishly. Morrslieb had become ever brighter till its green glow stained the sky.
Fog had gathered and the terrain they moved through was bleak and wild. Rocks broke through the turf like plague spots breaking through the skin of the world.
Sometimes Felix thought he could hear great wings pass overhead, but when he looked up he could see only the glow in the sky. The fog distorted and spread so that it looked as though they walked along the bed of some infernal sea.
There was a sense of wrongness about this place, he decided. The air tasted foul and the hairs on the nape of his neck constantly prickled. Back when he had been a boy in Altdorf he had sat in his father's house and watched the sky grow black with menacing clouds. Then had come the most monstrous storm in living memory.
Now he felt the same sense of anticipation. Mighty forces were gathering close to here, he was certain. He felt like an insect crawling over the body of a giant that could at any moment awake and crush him.
Even Gotrek seemed oppressed. He had fallen silent and did not even mumble to himself as he usually did. Now and again he would stop and motion for Felix to stand quiet then he would stand and sniff the air.
Felix could see that his whole body tensed as if he strained with every nerve to catch the slightest trace of something. Then they would move on.
Felix's muscles all felt tight with tension. He wished he had not come. Surely, he told himself, my obligation to the dwarf does not mean I must face certain death. Perhaps I can slip away in the mist.
He gritted his teeth. He prided himself on being an honourable man, and the debt he owed the dwarf was real. The dwarf had risked his life to save him. Granted, at the time he had not known Gotrek was seeking death, courting it as a man courts a desirable lady. It still left him under an obligation.
He remembered the riotous drunken evening in the taverns of the Maze when they had sworn blood-brothership in that curious dwarven rite and he had agreed to help Gotrek in his quest.
Gotrek wished his name remembered and his deeds recalled. When he had found out that Felix was a poet he had asked Felix to accompany him. At the time, in the warm glow of beery camaraderie, it had seemed a splendid idea. The Trollslayer's doomed quest had struck Felix as excellent material for an epic poem, one that would make him famous.
Little did I know, he thought, that it would lead to this. Hunting for monsters on Geheimnisnacht. He smiled ironically. It was easy to sing of brave deeds in the taverns and playhalls where horror was a thing conjured by the words of skilled craftsmen. Out here though it was different. His bowels felt loose with fear and the oppressive atmosphere made him want to run screaming.
Still, he consoled himself, this is fit subject matter for a poem. If only I live to write it.
The woods became deeper and more tangled. The trees took on the aspect of twisted uncanny beings. Felix felt as if they watched him. He tried to dismiss the thought as fantasy but the mist and the ghastly moonlight only stimulated his imagination. He felt as if every pool of shadow contained a monster. Felix looked down on the dwarf. Gotrek's face held a mixture of anticipation and fear. Felix had thought him immune to terror but now he realized it was not so. A ferocious will drove him to seek his doom. Feeling that his own death might be near at hand, Felix asked a question that he had long been afraid to utter.
"Herr Trollslayer, what was it you did that you must atone for? What crime drives you to so punish yourself?"
Gotrek looked up to him, then turned his head to gaze off into the night. Felix watched the cable-like muscles of his neck ripple like serpents as he did so.
"If another man asked me that question I would slaughter him. I make allowances for your youth and ignorance and the friendship rite we have undergone. It would make me a kinslayer. That is a terrible crime. Such crimes we do not talk about."
Felix had not realized the dwarf was so attached to him. Gotrek looked up at him as if expecting a response.
"I understand," said Felix.
"Do you, manling? Do you really?" The Trollslayer's voice was as harsh as stones breaking. Felix smiled ruefully. In that moment he saw the gap that separated man from dwarf. He would never understand their strange taboos, their obsession with oaths and order and pride. He could not see what would drive the Trollslayer to carry out his self-imposed death sentence.
"Your people are too harsh with themselves," he said.
"Yours are too soft," the Trollslayer replied. They fell into long silence. Both were startled by a quiet, mad laugh. Felix turned, whipping up his blade into the guard position. Gotrek raised his axe.
Out of the mists something shambled. Once
it had been a man, Felix decided. The outline was still there. It was as if some mad god had held the creature close to a daemonic fire until flesh dripped and ran, then had left it to set in a new and abhorrent form.
"This night we will dance," it said, in a high-pitched voice that held no hint of sanity. "Dance and touch."
It reached out gently to Felix and stroked his arm. Felix recoiled in horror as fingers like clumps of maggots rose towards his face.
"This night at the stone we will dance and touch and rub." It made as if to embrace him. It smiled, showing short pointed teeth. Felix stood quietly. He felt like a spectator, distanced from the event that was happening. He pulled back and put the point of his sword against the thing's chest.
"Come no closer," he said. The thing smiled. Its mouth seemed to grow wider, it showed more small sharp teeth. Its lips rolled back till the bottom half of the face seemed all wet glistening gum and the jaw sank lower like that of a snake. It pushed forward against the sword till beads of blood glistened on its chest. It gave a gurgling, idiotic laugh.
"Dance and touch and rub and eat," it said, and with inhuman swiftness it writhed around the sword and leapt for Felix. Swift as it was, the Trollslayer was swifter. In mid-leap his axe caught its neck. The head rolled into the night; a red fountain gushed. This is not happening thought Felix.
"What was that? A daemon?" asked Gotrek. Felix could hear the excitement in his voice.
"I think it was once a man," said Felix. "One of the tainted ones marked by Chaos. They are abandoned at birth."
"That one spoke your tongue."
"Sometimes the taint does not show till they are older. Relatives think they are sick and protect them till they make their way to the woods and vanish."
"Their kin protect such abominations?"
"It happens. We don't talk about it. It is hard to turn your back on people you love even if they change."
The dwarf stared at him disbelievingly, then shook his head.
"Too soft," he said. "Too soft."
The air was still. Sometimes Felix thought he sensed presences moving in the trees about him and froze nervously, peering into the mist, searching for moving shadows. The encounter with the tainted one had brought home to him the danger of the situation. He felt within him a great fear and a great anger.
Part of the anger was directed at himself for feeling the fear. He was sick and ashamed. He decided that whatever happened he would not repeat his error, standing like a sheep to be slaughtered.
"What was that?" asked Gotrek. Felix looked at him.
"Can't you hear it, manling? Listen! It sounds like chanting." Felix strained to catch the sound but heard nothing.
"We are close, now. Very close."
They pushed on in silence. As they trudged through the mist Gotrek became ever more cautious and left the trail, using the long grass for cover. Felix joined him.
Now he could hear the chanting. It sounded as though it was coming from scores of throats. Some of the voices were human, some were deep and bestial. There were male voices and female voices mingled with the slow beat of a drum, the clash of cymbals and discordant piping.
Felix could make out one word only, repeated over and over till it was driven into his consciousness. The word was Slaanesh.Felix shuddered.
Slaanesh, dark lord of unspeakable pleasures. It was a name that conjured up the worst depths of depravity. It was whispered in the drug dens and vice houses of Altdorf by those so jaded that they sought pleasures beyond human understanding. It was a name associated with corruption and excess and the dark underbelly of Imperial society. For those who followed Slaanesh no stimulation was too bizarre, no pleasure forbidden.
"The mist covers us," whispered Felix.
"Hist! Be quiet. We must get closer."
They crept slowly forward. The long wet grass dragged at Felix's body, and soon he was damp. Ahead he could see beacons burning in the dark. The scent of blazing wood and cloying sickly-sweet incense filled the air. He looked around, hoping that no latecomer would blunder into them. He felt absurdly exposed.
Inch by inch they crawled forward. Gotrek dragged his battleaxe along behind him and once Felix touched its sharp blade with his fingers. He cut himself and fought back a desire to scream out.
They reached the edge of the long grass and found themselves staring at a crude ring of six obscenely-shaped stones amid which stood a monolithic slab. The stones glowed greenly with the light of some luminous fungus. On top of each was a brazier which gave off clouds of smoke. Beams of pallid, green moonlight illuminated a hellish scene.
Within the ring danced six humans, masked and garbed in long cloaks. The cloaks were thrown back over one shoulder revealing naked bodies, male and female. On one hand the revellers wore finger cymbals which they clashed, in the other they carried switches of birch with which they lashed the dancer in front.
"Ygrak tu amat Slaanesh!" they cried.
Felix could see that some of the bodies were marked by bruises. The dancers seemed to feel no pain. Perhaps it was the narcotic effect of the incense.
Around the stone ring lolled figures of horror. The drummer was a huge man with the head of a stag and cloven hooves. Near him sat a piper with the head of a dog and hands with suckered fingers. A large crowd of tainted women and men writhed on the ground nearby.
Some of their bodies were subtly distorted; men who were tall with thin, pin heads; short fat women with three eyes and three breasts. Others were barely recognizable as once having been human. There were scale-covered man-serpents and wolf-headed furry creatures mingling with things that were all teeth and mouth and other orifices. Felix could barely move. He watched the entire proceeding with mounting fear.
The drums beat faster, the rhythmic chanting increased in pace, the piping became ever louder and more discordant as the dancers became more frenzied, lashing themselves and their companions till bloody weals became visible. Then there was a clash of cymbals and all fell silent.
Felix thought they had been spotted, and he froze. The smoke of the incense filled his nostrils and seemed to amplify all his senses. He felt even more remote and disconnected from reality. There was a pain in his side. He was startled to realize that Gotrek had elbowed him in the ribs. He was pointing to something beyond the stone ring.
Felix struggled to see what loomed in the mist. Then he realized that it was the black coach. In the sudden shocking silence he heard its door swing open. He held his breath and waited to see what would emerge.
A figure seemed to take shape out of the mist. It was tall and masked, and garbed in layered cloaks of many pastel colours. It moved with calm authority and in its arms it carried something swaddled in brocade cloth. Felix looked at Gotrek but he was watching the unfolding scene with fanatical intensity. Felix wondered if the dwarf had lost his nerve at this late hour.
The newcomer stepped forward into the stone circle.
"Amak tu amat Slaanesh!" it cried, raising its bundle on high. Felix could see that it was a child, though whether living or dead he could not tell.
"Ygrak tu amat Slaanesh! Tzarkol taen amat Slaanesh!" The crowd responded ecstatically.
The cloaked man stared out at the surrounding faces, and it seemed to Felix that the stranger gazed straight at him with calm, brown eyes. He wondered if the coven-master knew they were there and was playing with them.
"Amak tu Slaanesh!" He called in a clear voice.
"Amak klessa! Amat Slaanesh!" responded the crowd. It was clear to Felix that some evil ritual had begun.
As the rite progressed the coven-master moved closer to the altar with slow ceremonial steps. Felix felt his mouth go dry. He licked his lips. Gotrek watched the events as if hypnotized.
The child was placed on the altar with a thunderous rumble of drum beats. The six dancers now each stood beside a pillar, legs astride it, clutching at the stone suggestively. As the ritual progressed they ground themselves against the pillars with slow sinuous movements.
Slowly the knife was raised, high over the cultist's head. Felix forced himself to look. An ominous presence hovered over the scene. Mist and incense seemed to be clotting together and congealing, and within the cloud Felix thought he could make out a grotesque form writhe and begin to materialize. Felix could bear the tension no longer.
"No!" he shouted.
He and the Trollslayer emerged from the long grass and marched shoulder-to-shoulder towards the stone ring. At first the cultists didn't seem to notice them, but then the drumming stopped and the chanting faded and the cult-master turned to glare at them, astonished.
For a moment everyone stared. No-one seemed to understand what was happening. The cult-master pointed the knife at them and screamed; "Kill the interlopers!"
The revellers moved forward in a wave. Felix felt something tug at his leg and then a sharp pain. When he looked down he saw a creature half woman, half serpent gnawing at his ankle. He kicked out, pulling his leg free and stabbed down with his sword.
A shock passed up his arm as the blade hit bone. He began to run, following in the wake of Gotrek who was hacking his way towards the altar. The mighty double-bladed axe rose and fell rhythmically and left a trail of red ruin in its path. The cultists seemed drugged and slow to respond but, horrifyingly, they showed no fear. Men and women, tainted and untainted, threw themselves towards the intruders with no thought for their own lives.
Felix hacked and stabbed at anyone who came close. He put his blade under the ribs and into the heart of a dog-faced man who leapt at him. As he tried to tug his blade free a woman with claws and a man with mucous-covered skin leapt on him. Their weight bore him over, knocking the wind from him.
He felt the woman's talons scratch at his face as he put his foot under her stomach and kicked her off. Blood rolled down into his eyes from the cuts. The man had fallen badly, but leapt to grab his throat. Felix fumbled for his dagger with his left hand while he caught the man's throat with his right. The man writhed. He was difficult to grip because of his coating of slime. His own hands tightened inexorably on Felix's throat and he rubbed himself against Felix, panting with pleasure.
