by Death
“No, no, you’re speaking lies! Daemon! Sorceror!” said Orderic.
“I’m sorry,” said Calard, edging towards the blood-pool, away from the pitiful sight of the tortured knight.
He knew why the Lady had brought him here.
Calard did not know how much time had passed before the thunder began, and the blood clouds raced once more across the burning heavens. Orderic had disappeared. Calard hoped that the knight had finally moved on, his soul passing to Morr, but he knew that was not the case. The knight would never attain that while his body dwelt in this realm of Chaos.
Calard truly felt sorry for him, but had faith that he was doing the right thing. This was the reason the Lady had brought him here. It was not a test of arms as he had first thought. He had not been brought here to kill the wyvern, or at least not directly. No, he had been brought here to give Orderic his rest eternal.
He had removed the armour from the dead knight’s skeleton and bundled the bones up into a satchel, which he now slung over his back as the blood rain began to fall. Half carrying Chlod, he moved towards the bubbling pool.
The wyvern was in the process of reforming itself, glistening muscles building up over its skeleton, but this time Calard did not draw his sword. He merely waited as veins and sinew grew from blood, and grey-green skin encased its flesh. Fully reborn, it slipped into the bubbling pool.
“What are you doing?” yelled Orderic, reappearing suddenly, his sword drawn. “It will pass through! It must be stopped!”
“No,” said Calard, moving to intercept the knight, drawing his own blade. “It is the only way to get back to Bretonnia; the only way that you can attain peace.”
“You would draw your blade against me?” said Orderic. “You truly are a daemon!”
“No,” said Calard, sheathing his sword. “I will not fight you. If you wish to cut me down, do it, but I will not stand aside.”
For a moment, Calard thought the shade was going to do it, to run him through then and there, but Orderic relented, dropping to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” said Calard, “but this is the only way. May you soon find peace, Orderic of Montforte.”
He turned away, and moved quickly towards the blood-pool, dragging the whimpering peasant Chlod along with him. He reached its edge just as the wyvern disappeared beneath the bubbling surface, its spined tail flicking, and he shoved Chlod roughly into it. The peasant was babbling something indecipherable, and Calard was not sure if he had any real understanding of what was going on.
“Dive!” he shouted. “Dive, you stupid peasant!”
“You would abandon me here?” called Orderic, his voice filled with longing and despair, but Calard ignored the plaintive cry. “Don’t leave me here alone!”
“I’m sorry,” he said under his breath as he waded out into the blood-pool. Praying that this was going to work, he sucked in a deep breath and dived. He had no idea if Chlod was following.
He swam down and down. It was pitch-black, but he was swimming through water now rather than blood.
At last he came up, breaching the surface of the water and he breathed in deeply. The air was freezing, but he smiled broadly, overjoyed to be away from the burning hot otherworld. He was within the beast’s cavern lair, and he thanked the Lady. Still, the wyvern was loose, and more people would likely die if he did not hurry.
Chlod came up after him, half-drowned, spluttering and coughing, and Calard hauled him to the shallows.
“Come, peasant!” said Calard, hurrying towards the cave entrance.
He stepped out into the bright daylight, blinking against the glare. There was not a hint of cloud in the bright sky, and Calard smiled up at it, never more thankful to see it. The flaming heavens of that corrupted realm of Chaos had been driving him slowly insane.
The snows had all but gone, only patches of it remaining in the shadowed lee of pine trees and rocks. He shook his head, wondering how long they had been trapped in that hellish realm.
With Chlod in tow, Calard scrambled further up the mountain until he came to a glade within the pine trees. The view was spectacular, overlooking the mountains and down towards the lowlands of Bretonnia, towards Montforte. Bluebells spread out across the grass beneath the trees. It was a place that Orderic would have liked, he decided.
Calard dug a shallow grave and placed Orderic’s bones reverently within. Chlod offered to help, but Calard refused. This was something he had to do alone. He filled the grave with soil, and then spent the better part of the afternoon gathering and heaping stones on top of it in order that wolves and other scavengers did not dig it up.
Atop the burial mound, Calard erected a small tri-frame of pine branches. Around the top of it, he wound Orderic’s necklace, so that the little bronze statuette of the Lady hung above his resting place. It wasn’t much, but it seemed appropriate.
“Be at peace, Orderic of Montforte,” said Calard as he knelt before the grave.
The next day, weary and footsore, Calard and Chlod passed a pair of hunters, fresh kills draped across their shoulders. From those simple men, Calard heard a strange tale. They said that a wyvern had been seen abroad the day before, flying above the mountain peaks, but that it had turned to dust mid-flight, to be dispersed on the breeze.
“What does it mean, master?” said Chlod after they had bid farewell to the hunters. His eyes were still haunted from the sights he had seen in the Chaos otherworld.
“It means that my task here is done,” said Calard. “In life the wyvern defeated Orderic, yet he refused to accept death or failure. He became locked in an eternal loop, seeking always to defeat it; sometimes he would win, sometimes he would lose. Granted final rest, perhaps it too was allowed to move on, once and for all.”
Chlod’s brow furrowed, and he picked his nose.
“Do wyverns go to Morr’s hall too, master?” he said.
“It is like speaking with an orc,” said Calard, shaking his head. The peasant grinned and dribbled.
“Where do we go now, master?” Chlod said after a few minutes.
“For now, homeward,” Calard said. “After that? Wherever the Lady leads us.”
The Miracle at Berlau
Darius Hinks
Ratboy awoke to a world of silence and pain.
Charred rafters were tumbling from a temple roof to reveal a heavy, pewter sky. Stone lintels were smashing across flagstones, pulling down walls and windows as they went. Fragments of skin, teeth and bone were bouncing across the floor, while overhead, flaming pages of the Deus Sigmar drifted beneath what remained of the vaulted ceiling. But none of it made a sound.
Other senses quickly returned to him. He felt the hard stone of the temple floor pressing into his blistered back, and he could clearly smell the meaty aroma of embers, smouldering on his upturned face; but nothing reached his ears.
He lurched up from the blood-slick floor and noticed something moving through the chaos. A figure was dragging itself through the tumbling masonry. It kept to the shadows and was hard to see clearly, but its awkward, jerking movements unnerved him. He shuddered and closed his eyes. When he looked again it was almost gone. A single, glistening thread was briefly visible, as it slid out through the temple door, then it disappeared into the growing morning light.
A whistling began in Ratboy’s head as he stumbled through the smoke and confusion. He pounded his skull, pummelling the side of his face with his bloodied fist and, to his surprise, this seemed to help. He felt something shift in his left ear and finally, with a fizzing, popping screech, sound returned to him.
As the agony in his head eased, he began to notice other pains: his left side was badly scorched and the leather of his coat had merged with his arm like new skin. Blisters were erupting all over his scrawny neck. He lifted a hand to his face and winced at the smell of burnt flesh, but as he flexed his fingers he smiled. Still works, he thought. He picked the glowing embers from his face, ran a nervous hand over his aching skull and laughed with relief. ‘I�
�m alive,’ he muttered.
Memory came back to him with a rush of adrenaline. Brother Wolff, he thought, scanning the room. He quickly spotted the old priest, slumped awkwardly beneath a pile of rubble and he limped to his master’s side. ‘Jakob,’ he whispered, taking his hand, ‘My lord.’ The priest’s chest armour was scorched and dented and the grey stubble that covered his head was dark with blood, but he still lived. ‘It’s a miracle,’ said Ratboy, helping him to his feet.
Wolff looked down at his torso and shook his head in despair. ‘I’ve failed,’ he muttered. Then, his bloodshot eyes focused on Ratboy. ‘What are you doing here?’ he snapped, grabbing the boy’s arm.
Ratboy was about to reply when a large section of the roof erupted with fresh flames and they were forced to flee, stumbling punch-drunk from the building.
They fell out into the grey Ostland dawn and clambered slowly up to the edge of the forest. From there, the temple looked a little more stable: one of the walls had given way and the tower was slumped at a slightly odd angle, but it looked mostly intact. The flames were already subsiding. Wolff examined his torso again and began to gingerly remove a row of pouches that was strapped to his chest.
‘They didn’t all explode,’ said Ratboy. ‘That’s why you survived.’
Wolff nodded, then scowled at his servant. ‘Did you follow me from the camp last night?’ Then he took his servant’s head in his hands and peered intently at him. ‘Your ears – are you hurt?’
Ratboy noticed a gentle warmth flowing down his neck and realised he was bleeding from the side of his head. The priest ignored his murmurs of complaint and clasped the boy’s head even tighter. Eventually, a different kind of heat blossomed behind Ratboy’s eyes and he slipped into unconsciousness.
When Ratboy came to, the midday sun was already warming the grounds of the temple. He lay there for a while, looking down across the little clearing and listening to the harsh cawing of ravens perched on the temple roof. He ran a hand over his battered, skinny limbs, struggling to believe they were still intact. The pain in his side had eased a little and he smiled with the simple joy of being alive. Something about the birdsong seemed odd though. He listened to the sounds of the forest; sounds he had thought lost to him. Beneath the birdsong and the creaking of branches, he thought he heard words: soft, singsong voices, calling to him. ‘Firefirefire,’ they whispered. Then an odd smell reached him – an acrid, offal stink that had no place in such an idyllic scene.
He climbed to his feet, suddenly afraid, and limped quickly back down to the temple. ‘Brother Wolff?’ he called, peering cautiously into the gloom. There was no reply. A faint haze of smoke still lingered in the air, but the roof was no longer falling and he decided it was safe to enter. In a far corner, he saw the priest’s shadow, thrown across the wall by a flickering oil lamp. The old man was clearing dust off a headstone and peering closely at an inscription.
‘Brother Wolff,’ he said, crossing the temple, ‘did you kill him? I thought I saw something earlier. I think it was a man, but it didn’t look, well
’
The priest gave no reply and continued staring at the headstone.
‘Lord?’
Wolff looked up at Ratboy with despair on his face. ‘What? What did you say?’
‘The Reaver – did he die?’
The priest frowned for a few seconds, then raised his eyebrows in recognition. ‘Oh, the Norscan, no, I found parts of him over there,’ he gestured to a crumpled mound near the altar, ‘but he survived the blast. Not for long though, I think. Nearly half the powder detonated. He must be burned beyond recognition.’ He looked around at the ruined building and frowned. ‘I seem to have lost my warhammer though. I think it may have been destroyed by the explosion.’
Ratboy knew what such a loss would mean to the priest. The hammer was more than just a weapon – it was a powerful icon of his faith. Wolff would feel lost without it. He could not help smiling at the sight of his master’s familiar scowl however. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again,’ he said.
‘You spied on me?’ replied Wolff.
Ratboy nodded, with a rueful smile. ‘I wondered what had dragged you from your tent so early. Even you don’t usually rise until dawn, so I crept through the moonlight to see what you were up to. I don’t know what you said to those poor engineers, but it seemed to wake them up pretty sharpish.’
Wolff gave a short bark of laughter. ‘What a bunch of rogues. I think they’d only stopped drinking a couple of hours earlier.’ He shook his head. ‘And on the eve of such an important battle.’
‘Well – you seemed to sober them up pretty quickly. I saw them give you those black powder weapons, but I couldn’t understand why you hid them beneath your cloak. Or why you crept out of the camp like that. Why would you head off into the forest on your own, with the enemy camped so close by?’
Wolff sighed. ‘You’ve seen the way the marauders rally at the site of their champion – the Reaver as you called him.’
‘Of course – and I’ve seen the way he watches your every move.’
Wolff nodded and smiled. ‘You have your wits about you boy. Yes, you’re right – he knows me. Even in that pit of corruption he calls a brain he knows what I represent to the regiment: hope. Ever since I rallied Maximillian’s pistoliers at the Battle for Hogel Bridge, he’s had me in his sights. Even then, as I led the charge across to the west bank, I realised he was desperately trying to separate me from the others, but our firepower was too great.’
‘I remember,’ said Ratboy with a grimace. ‘He lashed the marauders half to death trying to get to you, but they just fell in their dozens, their bellies full of shot. The river ran red before he finally gave up.’
‘Yes – and so it’s been in every battle of the campaign, leaving us at this bloody impasse. And he knows this deadlock will continue until one of us dies, but so far he’s been unable to corner me.’ Wolff looked away, as though he were suddenly embarrassed. ‘So, I thought I’d give him the chance he’s been looking for. He knew as well as I did that there was a Sigmarite temple in the heart of this wood; the kind of temple a priest might be foolish enough to visit.’ He paused and took a long breath. ‘I knew I couldn’t survive an encounter with such a creature, but that fitted in with my own plans.’
Ratboy laughed, trying to hide his shock. ‘You wanted to die?’ He noticed that Wolff was not listening, but staring at the headstone again. ‘Brother Wolff?’
‘What kind of a miracle,’ muttered the priest, ‘could happen here?’
Ratboy edged closer to the headstone to get a better look. Most of the engraving was scorched beyond recognition, but the names were still just about legible: Hieronymus and Margarethe Wolff.
‘Wolff?’ asked Ratboy. ‘Are these your relatives?’
The priest looked up at him. ‘My parents.’ He sat down heavily next to the stone and massaged his bloody, shaven scalp. ‘As soon as I led the Reaver into this clearing, I knew I had the right place. He was on me so fast though, I hardly had the chance to look around. I had no intention of surviving, as you guessed, but I was determined not to die alone.’ He paused, and looked up at Ratboy with a feverish look in his eye. ‘My faith has always been a means to an end. Its usefulness was always going to be finite.’
Ratboy’s thin, beak-nosed face flushed a deep red. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’
‘Of course you don’t.’ A dull clang rang out as Wolff kicked the headstone with his ironclad boot. ‘This is a mark of my inescapable sin. A sin beyond reckoning. A sin against my own parents. My faith has never been anything more than atonement and today was to be my final penance.’ He snapped the silver hammer that hung around his neck and threw it to the floor in disgust. ‘But now I see that there is no penance. Nothing can atone for what I’ve done. I’ve failed. I can’t even die.’ He looked up at the ruined ceiling. ‘I think my willingness to die gave me an edge though. The Reaver thought me easy prey, out here in the woods, away from our
guns and cavalry. His gods have bestowed many gifts on him,’ he grimaced, ‘many gifts.’ He tapped the scorch marks on his breastplate and gave a grim smile. ‘If it wasn’t for my final trick, he would’ve finished me.’
Ratboy’s mind was cast back to the odd figure he saw crawling from the temple, and he shuddered, relieved he had seen no more of the creature. He looked back at the stone. ‘But if these are your parents then this must be–’
‘My home, yes. A place so banished from my thoughts I flinched when I saw it on the general’s campaign map. So great is my shame.’
‘Why should you be ashamed, Brother Wolff? You’re an inspiration to the entire regiment. Your faith shines out of you. How can you dismiss it so easily?’
‘My faith? Oh yes, my faith has always inspired, but to what end? And anyway, what’s the use?’ His voice cracked. ‘What use is a religion so powerless it can’t even erase my own crimes? How could it lift this darkness that hangs over us?’ He sighed and clenched his broad, powerful hands, until the old scars that networked them throbbed a deep red. Then he began to speak in a loud voice, as though addressing a crowd. ‘At the age of ten my parents sent me to a local priest, Aldus Braun, boasting of my piety and learning. Even at that tender age I possessed an unusual, infectious fervour. The priest taught me to read, and I quickly surpassed him. Within a year I had devoured every text in his library. At the age of eleven, I could quote the Deus Sigmar in its entirety, and with such conviction it would make you weep to hear it. It could have ended there, the happy tale of a devout childhood, but my parents wanted more.
‘My older brother, Fabian was a useless wastrel, as is most of our aristocracy. He did no real harm: gambling, duelling, womanising and the like; nothing unusual for a young duke, but he was an embarrassment to my parents, so they focused all their energies on me: their perfect, pious, prodigal son. Soon, I was the sneak of the village. Every suspicious look or deed reported back to Brother Braun, until there wasn’t a crone within fifteen miles who would dare pluck a herb.’
