Then the glow deepened, turning darker. The light shifted to darkness, shadows roiling across it, and the mere sight of that swirling caused Dietz’s stomach to heave and his eyes to burn. He tried to look away, but could not. Neither could anyone else. Everyone in the room stared, barely breathing, as the shadowy disk widened, its colours dimming until it resembled blood and ash, and blackened sludge all teeming about one another in mid-air.
Then, through that strange swirling mass, a shape advanced. A limb pierced the curtain: a great scaled foot settling onto the stone floor, its claws digging into the rock.
The gate was open. Khorne’s champion, a daemon of Chaos, was loosed upon Middenheim, and the world.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Aaah!”
The cultist Dietz had thrown had rolled over onto his hands and knees, and shaken the blood from his face. Unfortunately that meant he saw the daemon standing before him. His scream was high, almost girlish, and quickly faded away, leaving nothing but an odd tittering sound to issue from his slack lips. The cultist’s eyes were wide but unfocused and blood dripped from his ears and nostrils as he turned in a circle, around and around, never stopping, still tittering. The sight had driven him mad.
Alaric, lifting his head as he struggled to regain his senses, could hardly blame the man. He could feel his own sanity fighting to break free, desperate to run screaming from the sight before him. The daemon had most of its leg through, and a hand emerged as well—if he could call it a hand. It perched at the end of what must be an arm and it had several of what could be fingers, but surely fingers did not writhe like maddened snakes, wriggling every which way? Surely fingers did not pulsate, widening and thinning along their length? Nor did they have barbs at the end, which widened into circular teeth-filled apertures that could only be called mouths? Nothing had hands like that, at least, nothing from this world.
Think rationally, Alaric told himself desperately, levering himself up on one arm and then getting one knee beneath him as well. Keep your mind focused on the small details. Do not let it overwhelm you.
The skin… that was something. He concentrated on the skin, what he could see of it. It was scaled, but not like a snake or a fish. More like—well, more like a shingled roof, each scale overlapping the one before it and protruding above it a bit. Except that these scales were sharp and curved outward, creating little hooks all up and down the creature’s limbs. And the colour! His mind tried to rebel again, but he forced it back. That colour was like nothing he had ever seen, like nothing in this world. It was dark and his mind screamed red, but his eyes claimed black or perhaps green or sometimes brown. When he tried to name the colour he could think only of death and blood, and war and pain. That was the colour it bore.
One of the cultists behind him had collapsed, foaming at the mouth, at the creature’s appearance, and as he reclaimed his rapier and stood, Alaric saw the one by the statue spinning in circles. For some reason the sight helped calm him. Is this what you expected, he wanted to ask them? Is this what you hoped for? You summoned this creature. Are you displeased with the results?
At least one cultist was not disappointed. “My lord,” Kristoff moaned, clutching his chest, but still struggling to sit up. Alaric cursed—apparently his aim had been off. It was a good job his father and old Mardric were not here to see that. “We welcome you in the name of Khorne! We salute you! We praise your strength and rejoice in your aid!”
“Oh shut up,” Alaric told him, kicking idly at Kristoff as he walked past him to approach the creature. It was still emerging from the strange dark-lit disk, moving as slowly as a large man manoeuvring his way through a tight doorway. The rest of the arm was visible now, up to the barbed shoulder and the strange overlapping plates across the shoulder and upper chest. Its lower chest was covered in thick hairs or perhaps they were tentacles since they waved about wildly, but at least it was not armoured. If the creature possessed vital organs then some of them would be in the hairy abdomen, Alaric hoped. Not letting himself think about what he was doing he stepped forward and lunged, his blade sliding between several of the squirming hairs and sinking deep into the daemon’s flesh.
It shuddered, and then made a strange deep gasping sound, wet and raspy, that stabbed at Alaric’s head. The sound came again and again, and Alaric felt his own blood run cold as he realised the creature was laughing at him. He had stabbed it, delivering what would have been a mortal blow for any man, and it laughed.
The hand swooped in, faster than Alaric could clearly see, and grasped his rapier a foot below the guard, just before the point where it entered the body. The hand turned suddenly, a sharp motion, and his sword snapped, leaving him holding a hilt with a foot of jagged metal above it. The other portion disappeared within the creature, sucked in as if the daemon was made of brackish black water and the sword tip had been tossed in from above.
“Yes!” Behind him Kristoff had managed to regain his feet and tottered forward, swaying, face still pale from blood loss. “Display your strength, great one! Teach this unbeliever the folly of opposing you! With your power this city will fall and the Lord of Skulls will feast upon the blood we provide! He will know us as his favoured servants and—urk!”
Kristoff stopped suddenly, his words choked off as the daemon’s hand lashed out for a second time, this time catching him by the throat. It lifted, raising him so his feet dangled above the ground, and then those wriggling fingers tightened. The trader-turned-cult leader gasped for breath, his face going purple, both hands beating uselessly at those monstrous fingers. Then something long and thick and sinuous—a tail? A tentacle? Alaric forced his mind back to smaller details—whipped through the portal and wrapped around Kristoff’s waist. It tugged down while the hand yanked up and as Alaric looked away hastily the trader’s head was torn from his body. Blood fountained from his neck and the tentacle disappeared back through the portal, taking the body with it. Alaric heard a loud throaty noise, punctuated by gulps, and realised that the daemon was drinking Kristoff’s blood. The trader’s head had fallen to the floor and rolled up against the nearest wall, its eyes still wide with surprise. Perhaps, thought Alaric, this was not what he had expected either.
The remaining cultists were certainly not thrilled at the daemon’s response to Kristoff’s greeting. They fled, screaming and crying, and pleading for their lives, leaving only Alaric and Dietz behind to watch as the daemon continued its advance. The tentacle had returned and part of what would be considered a hip had emerged as well.
“What can we do?” Dietz shouted, running over to Alaric, and for an instant Alaric wanted to hug the older man. Dietz’s face was pale, his eyes wide and he had been muttering something as he rushed over, but his voice was level and his movements normal. He was keeping his sanity tightly leashed as well.
“I don’t know,” Alaric admitted, still unable to look away from the horrid sight of the daemon’s emergence. “I stabbed it—”
“I saw,” Dietz confirmed. “Weapons won’t work.”
“No they won’t,” Alaric agreed, “and we couldn’t fight it anyway. Look at the size of it! You saw what it did to Kristoff.” He shuddered at the recent memory. Much as Kristoff had deserved to die for his crimes no one deserved that. “It’s too powerful for us,” he finished softly.
“We could get help,” Dietz pointed out, but Alaric shook his head.
“No time,” he said. “We’d have to navigate the tunnels again and then make our way back to the surface. Then we’d have to find someone who would believe us. Kleiber might, but by the time we found him and convinced him, and he marshalled some troops the daemon would have completed his entrance. Once he’s fully in this world he’ll be invincible.”
“Then we can’t let him enter,” Dietz argued. Alaric started to laugh, and then stopped.
“It shouldn’t take this long,” he said, not realising he had said it out loud until Dietz responded beside him.
“What, you’d hoped it would be faster?�
�� He laughed, a short, bitter sound that was a relief from the madness nonetheless, and Alaric managed a weak chuckle in return.
“No, of course not,” he replied, “but the process should have been much quicker. The gate opens and the daemon steps through. Why is it inching through one piece at a time?”
The daemon was now almost halfway through—the tentacle was revealed as sprouting from its shoulder just below the neck, and one powerful, bat-like wing had edged through as well, fluttering as if eager to take flight.
Dietz pointed to the statue where it lay on the floor. “It fell over,” he said. “Did that alter the gate?”
Alaric frowned as he thought about everything he’d learned about Chaos back in school and added in what he had deduced recently about the statues and their function. “It shouldn’t have,” he said finally. “Not just laying it down. The portal would still open normally.” He studied the statue instead. Even with its strangely deformed edges and its partially melted base it was reassuringly solid and normal compared to the daemon it had summoned.
“It’s the blood,” he decided after a moment. “It only received blood along one side.” He gestured towards the statue and the markings they could now see carved upon it—the ones on the side against the floor were glowing with the same dark light as the portal itself. “The portal is only partially open,” he told Dietz. “That’s why the daemon has to enter so slowly.”
“What if we smash it?” asked Dietz, reaching down to pick up a club that one of the cultists had dropped. He indicated the cracks across the statue’s side. “It’s damaged already.”
“That might be slowing the process as well,” Alaric admitted. He thought about it and nodded. “Yes, breaking the statue might close the gate, but we’ll have to act quickly, before the daemon can stop us.” He frowned, glancing around. “It would be best if we had a distraction.” Then his gaze fell upon the cultist still turning in circles. “Right, leave that part to me.”
“What will you—?” Dietz started to ask, but Alaric pushed him away.
“No time,” he admonished, gripping his shattered rapier. “Get ready!”
Dietz nodded and moved, walking quickly but quietly around the room to approach the far side of the statue. His lips were moving again and Alaric, catching the words “Sigmar protect,” realised his friend was praying. Well, he’d never known Dietz to be religious, but this was certainly a good time to start. Perhaps that was how he’d held onto his sanity despite the daemon’s presence. Alaric whispered a quick prayer to Sigmar himself, deciding it couldn’t hurt. Then he waited until Dietz was halfway across, and strode forward, ruined blade in hand.
“Here, piggy, piggy,” he whispered to the cultist as he approached. This would be easier, he’d decided, if he thought of the creature before him as a pig rather than a human. Not that the cultist was able to understand what was about to happen.
Reaching the cultist, Alaric glanced up and then away again quickly. The daemon’s head was starting to emerge from the portal, and even the brief glimpse he’d received had been enough to send his mind scurrying away in a panic. Think about something else, Alaric urged himself, anything else. He held his rapier desperately before him and studied its truncated length. Forged in the mountains, he told himself, by the dwarf smiths. It was my sixteenth birthday present from my father. “You’re a man now,” he’d said. “You’ll need a man’s weapon.” Thinking about the blade and its history and the many times he’d used it, Alaric took another step. He was right beside the spinning cultist. Then in one swift motion he reached down, grabbed the cultist’s hair near the front, and lifted. His other hand lashed out and the edge of his shortened rapier slid across the deranged man’s throat, sending a spray of blood before him.
The cultist gasped, gurgling and choking on his own blood, as Alaric dropped his rapier and hauled the dying man up by the shoulders. “Here, take him!” he shouted to the daemon, eyes tightly closed, and shoved the bleeding man forward. He felt a swoosh and knew the creature’s tail or tentacle, or hand had darted forward to seize the cultist. Alaric himself stumbled back, crouching to present less of a target, eyes squinting open as he heard the same gulping sounds as before with Kristoff. The daemon had accepted the offering.
“Now,” Alaric whispered, but he needn’t have bothered. Dietz had already crept forward and, with the daemon distracted, he raised his club and brought it down hard on the statue. The heavy wood struck with a loud thud and the cracks widened, sending flakes and chips of stone everywhere. Dietz struck again in the same spot and now a large rent appeared across the body, and another smaller gap above one shoulder.
The daemon had tossed aside the drained cultist and now it turned, seeking the source of the noise. Its eyes fixed upon Dietz, who refused to look up and struck the statue a third time. The daemon shrieked, realising what he intended, and struggled to pull itself the rest of the way through the portal, even as its tentacle flailed towards Dietz.
“Over here!” Alaric shouted, leaping out into the centre of the room and waving his arms. The daemon paused and then its head swivelled on its impossibly long neck, those glowing, glittering rows of eyes turned towards Alaric instead.
“That’s right,” Alaric said loudly, keeping his gaze fixed on the daemon’s broad chest instead and studying the pulsating red object erupting forth as if the creature’s heart had burst through its skin. “I am the one you want.” He tried to sound brave and tough, but his voice wavered. I have to keep going, he reminded himself, hearing another dull impact as Dietz struck the statue a fourth time. I have to give him enough time to break the statue and close the gate.
“I closed the other gates,” he called out. “I shattered the other statues and stopped you from crossing.” The daemon roared, whether in rage or recognition or something else he did not know, but it was still fixated on him. He had to dance back several steps as that strange hand reached forward, the fingers snapping and biting only a foot from his face.
“I stabbed your high priest,” he continued, neglecting to point out that the daemon itself had been responsible for Kristoff’s death. It did not seem to care much, however, and so he tried again. “I defy you and your god!” he shouted, almost looking into those stacked eyes and stopping himself just in time. He knew somehow that if he met the daemon’s gaze he would never look away again. It roared again, this time definitely in rage, and he forced himself to go on. “I defy Khorne!”
That shattered the daemon’s self-control and it lunged forward as best it could, a hand, a tentacle and a barbed tail all struggling to reach him. The creature’s second wing was still trapped on the other side of the portal and caught as it thrashed, holding it back mere inches from its goal. Alaric, for his part, stood frozen, unable to move now that he had finally succeeded in earning the daemon’s rage.
Fortunately Dietz had not been idle all this time. He had struck the statue again and again with his borrowed club, each time widening the cracks and loosing small shards. Finally, as the daemon twisted to free its second wing, he slammed the club down again and was rewarded with a deep splintering sound.
“Rrraargh!” If it was a word it was in no language Alaric had ever heard, but the rage and frustration was clear enough, and startled Alaric enough that he glanced up without thinking. His eyes locked with those of the daemon, sinking into its burning gaze, and he felt his mind being stripped away by layers. His feet moved without his control, first one stepping forward and then the other as he marched slowly but surely towards his own doom.
The daemon had little time to spare him. It whirled about, seeking Dietz and the statue, but far too late. Even as its hand whipped towards him the statue shattered at last, falling into several chunks upon the floor. Instantly the portal began to fade, its whorling darkness slowing and dimming.
The daemon screamed again, shrieking its denial. Its hand lashed out at Dietz, knocking him away from the statue, but already the damage was done. Its tentacles lashed out, not towards
Dietz, but at Alaric, determined to claim at least one of the foes that had foiled it. But even as the tentacle’s barbed tip flashed past his neck the daemon began to withdraw, its body sucked back into the narrowing disk.
“K’red’lach!” it wailed at Alaric and then it was gone, pulled back into its home dimension. The disk vanished, leaving a stink of burning flesh and spoiled milk. The torches, which had burned unnoticed on the wall, gave off ample light now that the dark-emanating disk had disappeared, and the flow of blood had stopped, leaving the grating to spill warm sunlight onto the floor below. The room was empty once more, save for Alaric and Dietz, and several bodies.
“Done?” Dietz asked, hauling himself back up from where the daemon had sent him sprawling and eyeing the rubble that had been the last statue.
“Done,” Alaric agreed, rubbing a weal on his neck absently. His mind still shuddered from the memory of the daemon’s gaze and its final cry, but he forced it away, locking onto mundane details instead.
“We’ll have to report this, of course,” he said, earning a groan from his friend. “Someone will have to be told.”
“Who’s going to believe it?” Dietz asked, dusting himself off and walking slowly over to his friend, skirting a fallen cultist along the way.
“Oh, they’ll believe it,” Alaric replied, his gaze landing on something that lay off to one side. “We’ll bring them proof.” Reaching down he hefted Kristoff’s head, raising it to show Dietz.
“I think they’ll want to talk to him,” he said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“That was certainly interesting,” Alaric said, plucking a stray hair from his cloak.
“Humph,” was all Dietz said in reply.
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