“Batter the walls ’til the crack of doom!” snarled Csaba. He leered down at the frustrated killer. “Armies have broken against these walls! Giants and daemons have failed to breech this fortress! The Iron Keep knows its own and will suffer no intruder! Stay out there and rot, Skulltaker, you won’t take this head for one of your trophies!”
The Skulltaker’s lupine steed dropped back onto its feet, its black eyes glaring up at the jeering chieftain. The Skulltaker leaned back in his bronze saddle, the mask of his helm turning towards the battlements overhead. Csaba flinched as he saw the monster stare at him, the security of his stronghold’s iron walls suddenly seeming fragile and weak. His cringing reaction, his instinctive retreat before the Skulltaker’s gaze was all that preserved the zar’s life.
With a single motion, the killer hurled his smouldering blade at the chieftain. The black sword flashed before Csaba’s face as he recoiled, crashing to the flagstones of the courtyard beyond. Csaba could see the weapon trembling, shrieking where it had stabbed deep into the flagstones. As he watched, the fires within the sword blazed into hellish life. Gahhuks fled from the flaming blade, retreating before the weapon’s sorcery as quickly as their chief had from the monster who had thrown it. The fires consumed the weapon, crumbling it into a mass of ash and cinder.
A spectral gale burst across the courtyard, gathering up the ashes and sweeping them through the air. The stream of cinders billowed upwards, flying over the walls. Csaba dared to look over the battlements once more, watching in terror as the Skulltaker stretched forth his armoured hand. The stream of ashes swirled around the killer’s gauntlet, spiralling faster and faster around his hand. A shape began to form, a long thick shape, bearing a cruel edge. Csaba cringed away from the wall as he saw the ashes re-form into the Skulltaker’s shrieking blade.
The Skulltaker could hear Csaba’s voice shouting at his tribesmen behind the walls of the fortress. More spears rained down upon him as he urged his mount to circle the castle, looking for any break in its unnatural metal walls. As before, they dealt no lasting harm, the wounds on his monstrous steed too shallow to penetrate its heavy hide. Csaba’s voice became more desperate and more outraged with the passing of each breath.
New voices rose in answer to Csaba’s terror. Sharp and clear, the new voices lifted above the walls of Iron Keep in a deep, murderous chant. The Skulltaker paused in his prowl around the stronghold, listening to the brutal prayers. He urged his canine mount to withdraw from the base of the walls. The brute backed away, both beast and rider keeping their eyes trained on the walls. The Skulltaker kept his black sword at the ready, an expectant hiss escaping from behind his mask.
The chanting voices continued to rise, growing louder and harsher, like knives stabbing at the sky. Csaba’s gloating laughter rang out from behind the walls, mixing with the chants of his shamans. Once again, the iron walls oozed open, this time not to allow something in, but to let something out.
Two immense shapes thundered out from the two tunnels in the iron wall. As big as a bull rhinox, built like gigantic oxen, the creatures were things of bronze and brass rather than flesh and bone. Gigantic, hound-like heads jutted from their thick, armoured shoulders, sporting fangs the size of daggers and eyes that burned like fire. Steam sizzled from their jaws, rising into the air in puffs of scarlet mist. The stench of blood and death was upon the creatures, an aura of dread echoing that of the Skulltaker. Upon each of the bronze dog-heads, etched across muzzle and forehead, was the skull-rune of Khorne, the mark of the Blood God upon his fearsome daemons.
The juggernauts pawed at the ground, their clawed hooves slashing the earth into bloody grooves. The skull-rune blazed with the fiery rage of the daemons as they drew the scent of their foe into their huge bodies. The Skulltaker’s steed growled at the daemons, its rider silently awaiting the coming attack.
There would be no quarter given between these creatures of Khorne, no sense of kinship or shared purpose that would subdue their wrath. Destruction of the foe was the only outcome that would appease man or daemon. The Blood God would settle for nothing less.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The first juggernaut charged the Skulltaker like an avalanche, its heavy hoof-claws churning the earth as it thundered towards him. The warrior waited, watching in silence as the huge bulk rumbled over the ground, its steaming breath hissing between its fanged jaws of brass. The juggernaut roared, a sound like grinding steel, and lowered its head as it made ready to smash into its enemy.
The instant the daemon’s head lowered, the wolf-beast was in motion, leaping from the juggernaut’s path. The Skulltaker’s sword lashed out, hacking at the brute as it barrelled past. Molten blood burst from the daemon’s bronze hide as the sword bit home, crimson steam spurting from the grisly wound carved into its side. The juggernaut’s body ploughed through the earth as its foreleg buckled beneath its weight, severed nearly in half by the Skulltaker. Its enormous mass gouged a deep trench as its momentum drove it onwards until at last it vanished behind a cloud of dust and steam.
The second juggernaut lingered behind, letting its fellow daemon initiate the attack. As the Skulltaker struck the kindred horror, the other daemon stamped its clawed hooves and charged. Again, the warrior’s lupine steed tried to leap from the daemon’s hurtling path, but there was more than a brute’s cunning locked within the bronze shell of the juggernaut. It anticipated the wolf-beast’s leap and was prepared for it. Even as the Skulltaker’s mount leapt, the juggernaut changed its path, smashing into the creature as it landed upon its broad paws.
Bones cracked under the jarring impact as the juggernaut’s thick metal skull rammed into the Skulltaker’s steed, hurling it a hundred yards through the air. The steed landed in a broken pile, snarling and snapping as it tried to force its splintered body to rise.
The juggernaut did not give the wolf-beast any chance. It sprinted across the ground with another burst of frenzied speed, roaring its metallic shriek. Its clawed hooves trampled the wolf-beast beneath them in a ferociously savage display, shattering bones beneath its colossal weight and shredding flesh with its razor claws. Brass fangs tore chunks of meat from the mangled mass, blood sizzling as the heat of the daemon’s inner fires consumed it.
An armoured shape reared up behind the raging juggernaut. With powerful strides, the Skulltaker sprinted towards the bronze daemon, fury shining behind the sockets of his skeletal mask. Thrown when the brute struck his steed, the warrior had swiftly recovered from his violent descent, the unholy power bound within his body sustaining him where a mortal should lie smashed and broken. He rushed at his terrible foe, the smoking darkness of his sword clenched tightly in his fist.
The juggernaut sensed its peril, turning reluctantly from the mash of bones and blood that its hooves had made of the Skulltaker’s steed. Its burning eyes glared balefully at the charging warrior, its maw opening in a steaming roar. The daemon’s fierce display did not cause the Skulltaker to falter. He lunged at the metal monster, and with a single tremendous leap he landed upon its broad bronze back. Powerful legs locked around the daemon’s midsection as the juggernaut strove to unseat the sudden burden, its savage bellows searing the air.
The Skulltaker was oblivious to the daemon’s wrath. Both hands locked around the hilt of his blade, he lifted the black sword high above his head. In a single, brutal thrust, he brought the weapon flashing down. Bronze shrieked as the blade bit through the metal hide of the juggernaut, molten blood exploding from the wound in a burst of steam.
The Skulltaker ignored the burning molten ichor that spattered across his armoured frame, but kept his hands locked around his sword, working it savagely across the wound he had struck. The tear he had gouged in the back of the juggernaut’s head ripped wider as the black sword worried at the cut. Fiery blood cascaded from the wound, the raging daemon frantically trying to buck its tormentor from its back.
The Skulltaker held fast, wrenching his blade back and forth. Crimson steam filled his vision, bu
rning ichor dripped from his arms, his ears rang with the tortured metal shrieks of the daemon, and still he would not relent. Mercilessly, he hacked away at the juggernaut’s neck, ripping wide the wound he had carved. The daemon reared back, trying to press its head against its shoulder and protect its neck.
The motion caused the wound to tear wider, and with a searing wail of rage, the juggernaut lurched forwards. The weight of its massive bronze head was too much for its mangled neck and it tore free, thudding to the earth in a shower of steaming ichor that burned like molten fire upon the ground, a hollow bell-like ring following it as it rolled away.
The headless body staggered, struggled, and then sagged to the earth liked a weary child. The Skulltaker leapt from the bronze hulk as it started to shift, jumping clear before the heavy mass crashed onto its side.
A seething roar singed the air as the Skulltaker paced away from the bronze husk of the juggernaut. The warrior spun around, ready to confront his enemy. The first juggernaut stomped forward, its movements awkward and clumsy. He could see the great dripping wound that had been gouged in its side, one of the daemon’s forelegs held away from the ground, the limb nearly cut through by the Skulltaker’s sword. Even crippled, the smouldering rage of the Blood God still filled the daemon, still drove it to attack and to kill.
The Skulltaker gestured at the bronze monster, waving it forwards with a contemptuous curl of his fingers. The daemon threw its head back, brass jaws chewing the sky as it bellowed its fury.
With berserk frenzy, the juggernaut thundered towards the warrior, crushing rocks beneath its pounding hooves. The warrior’s body grew tense as he lowered into a crouch. The earth trembled beneath his feet as the daemon’s heavy limbs struck the ground. The Skulltaker held the monster’s fiery gaze, eyes locked upon the hellish flames flaring from the juggernaut’s hound-like face. Closer and still closer the bronze titan sped towards him, like the descending hammer of death.
Just before the juggernaut reached him, the Skulltaker pounced, throwing himself at the charging daemon. Smoking steel stabbed into the broad, doglike head, puncturing the bronze snout just beneath the skull-rune etched across it. The Skulltaker held fast to the embedded sword as the juggernaut reared back, lifting him from the ground. The daemon lashed its head from side to side, trying to throw the man clinging to the sword. Steam sizzled from its jaws and fire flared from its nostrils as the daemon’s fury swelled.
Molten ichor bubbled up around the sword as the monster’s efforts caused the blade’s edge to saw into the bronze skin, widening the wound. At last, as the juggernaut whipped its head around, the sword was torn free, hurling man and weapon into the dirt. The Skulltaker slid across the ground in a tumble of armoured limbs, the black sword rolling free of his fingers. Like the juggernaut before him, he was lost in a cloud of billowing dust.
The juggernaut spun around, its rage a volcanic flame roaring through its bronze body. The brute’s head swung from side to side until it spotted the cloud of dust and the dark figure slowly rising within it. The daemon bellowed its bloodlust, stamping its hooves as it prepared to charge again.
In its wrath, the daemon forgot its mangled limb. It lowered the injured leg, letting too much of its weight rest upon it. The hollow bronze shell snapped like a rotten tree limb, spilling the juggernaut onto the ground. The daemon’s hooves pawed at the ground, trying to secure a grip, trying to right its immense body. Seething grunts of enraged frustration hissed from the juggernaut’s bronze jaws while burning ichor spurted from its severed leg.
Before the daemon could recover, the dark figure of the Skulltaker loomed over it. The juggernaut turned its head, trying to snap at the man, to crush him in its brass jaws. As it tried to bite him, the Skulltaker brought the point of his sword stabbing forwards, thrusting the smoking blade into its fiery eye. The bronze hulk shuddered as the screaming steel stabbed at its very essence. A dull, grinding moan wheezed from the gigantic daemon.
With a final, wracking shiver, the juggernaut was still, its infernal essence cast from the mortal world by the Skulltaker’s sword. Crimson steam seeped into the air as the daemon’s unnatural life fled from its metal shell.
Screams of disbelief and horror echoed from the walls of Iron Keep. The Skulltaker rose from the husk of the juggernaut and turned to face the stronghold of the Gahhuks. He could see Csaba’s face, pale and sweating, among the frightened ranks of the Gahhuks. He gestured at the man with his sword, the man the Blood God had marked for death. Csaba’s voice rose in a stream of frantic commands, a litany of snarled curses and dire threats. Spears clattered around the Skulltaker as the Gahhuks cast them at him.
The Skulltaker turned his back on the Gahhuks. It was not their spears or their numbers that concerned him, it was the unnatural walls of their stronghold that kept him from his prey. Csaba, however, had been too crafty in his attempt to kill the Skulltaker. By unleashing his caged daemons against his enemy, Csaba had given him the tools he needed to breech the unassailable walls of Iron Keep.
For long hours, the Skulltaker laboured over the carcasses of the juggernauts. When he turned again to the walls of the fortress, the black sword was sheathed. In its place he held an immense weapon, a gigantic maul that made Lok’s mattock look like a cobbler’s hammer. The bronze skull of one juggernaut formed the head, the iron spine of the other served as the haft. With his new weapon, the Skulltaker stalked towards the walls. Frightened cries and desperate shouts sounded from the stronghold, the screams of women and children rising above the voices of the warriors on the battlements. Spears and stones rained down around him as he strode to the smooth, unbroken iron barrier.
Iron Keep shuddered as the Skulltaker brought his daemon hammer cracking against it. The malevolence and destructive power of two juggernauts of Khorne had been bound into the grisly maul, the fury of two vanquished daemons eager for revenge. The concentrated malice caused the walls to shiver as the Skulltaker smashed the maul against them. On the third hit, cracks appeared in the unmarred surface, cracks that the living iron did not ooze up to repair. On the fifth strike, flakes of quicksilver exploded across the length of the stronghold’s perimeter as the walls began to fracture. On the seventh blow, the structure rocked as though the entire rise had been shaken by an earthquake.
When the maul cracked against the walls for the eighth time, Iron Keep broke beneath it. Towers shattered like broken glass. Like a crashing glacier, the walls toppled. Gahhuks wailed in horror as their fortress collapsed around them, burying them in mounds of twisted iron, crushing them beneath the weight of their fortress.
As the walls tumbled down, the Skulltaker cast aside the maul and drew his sword. The blade flared into life, screaming hungrily as it smelled the blood of the vanquished Gahhuks, as it heard the moans of the maimed and the dying. The Skulltaker ignored the broken wretches crawling from the rubble as he stalked into what had been the courtyard. Only one Gahhuk concerned him this day.
Wherever he was, Zar Csaba Daemontamer would not escape the Skulltaker.
The tension within Hutga’s yurt was scarcely less intense than that of the disastrous council at the monolith. A dozen of the Tsavag’s best warriors stood at the ready, weapons bared, each face filled with hate and suspicion. They had good reason to be anxious. The Sul had sent no lesser sorcerer than Enek Zjarr to meet with their khagan this time.
The sorcerer-kahn of the Sul stood before Hutga’s ivory throne, a sinister figure cloaked in black, the dreaded naginta of his tribe clutched in his bony hand. “Soulchewer” the weapon had been named by those who had faced it in battle, for its cruel edge was said to strike not merely a man’s flesh, but his spirit as well. More forbidding even than the sacred weapon were the unseen powers that lurked within the sorcerer, the ghastly spells and magics only a sorcerer could master. The Tsavag warriors had reason to be tense, each of them wondering if his blade could strike faster than Enek Zjarr’s sorcery.
Alone among the Tsavag warriors, Dorgo kept his attention no
t upon Enek Zjarr, but on the woman who had accompanied him to the encampment. She was the same raven-haired companion who had been with the sorcerer at the council. Now he had time to look at her closer, he was struck by the beauty of her slender features, her narrow emerald eyes and full red lips.
Enek Zjarr had introduced her as Sanya and she was both apprentice and consort to the sorcerer. Like her master, she wore a long robe of black silk, a riot of talismans and amulets draped around her neck and across her rounded chest. Her hands, when they emerged from the confines of her robe’s embroidered sleeves, were slim and almost childishly smooth, sporting an array of jewelled rings and bracelets of silver and gold. Around her waist, a heavy chain of silver circled her body, pouches and flasks of strangely hued liquid dangling from its links.
If Enek Zjarr’s face was one of serene indifference, that of his apprentice was even more inscrutable, her smile as empty as it was enigmatic. Dorgo could not shake an impression of lurking danger around the woman and knew that his tribesmen were wrong to restrict their wariness to the sorcerer. The witch could just as easily work magic as her master could and probably with no less dire consequences. Indeed, with everyone focused upon the kahn, Dorgo regarded Sanya as the more immediate threat.
“Prosperity and security be yours, most beneficent khagan,” Enek Zjarr said, his words slithering through the tent. For all the humility of his speech, there was an undercurrent of withering scorn in the sorcerer’s voice, a note of mocking contempt that caused Dorgo’s hair to bristle. The temerity of the Sul was second only to their perfidy. “I am pleased you have allowed an audience to this most unworthy one.”
Hutga scowled at the sorcerer’s feigned deference. “Speak your words, magus,” the khagan said. “You did not come here to play lickspittle and I weary of listening to a jackal play at courtesy. What causes you to bring your foul magics to the land of the Tsavags? Surely you do not intend another council?”
[Warhammer] - Blood for the Blood God Page 11
