[Warhammer] - Blood for the Blood God

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  The black waters of the pool bubbled and boiled as the light continued its rise. Dorgo’s entranced march had brought him past the altar, past the gloating serpent-priests and their captive. He felt the icy water of the pool splash against his feet, yet even this sensation, the knowledge that some loathsome doom was about to consume him, could not break the siren-spell that held him.

  Blindingly, the light burst from the depths. It was light without form or shape, burning like some carnal star in the dark below the world. Water crashed around it, swirling in a spout of violence and fury. If the light was without shape, the tempest was not. Wraithlike, bodies took form within the coils of the tempest, contorting and writhing in lascivious obscenity, a spectacle of revulsion born from the madness of a depraved god. These were the spirits of those trapped by the lies of Shornaal, bound forever in the emptiness of their corruption.

  The swirling water spout rose from the pool, wrapping itself around the shapeless luminescence. Tighter and tighter, faster and faster, the water and the spirit-shapes bound within it closed around the light, binding it within a shell of foulness. The light infused the waters, leeching the darkness from them, turning them from black to yellow. The liquid shape became firm, solid, a thing that looked to Dorgo to be flesh and bone. With horror, he realised that this thing was not unknown to him. Many terrible daemons were recorded in the legends of the Tsavags, but none so foul as Ya’sheen, the Yellow Worm.

  It was more serpent than worm, a great viper with six eyes of glistening pearl and a vast body, smooth and shiny with slime. What Dorgo thought were knots of purple veins showing beneath the daemon’s smooth flesh proved to be the writhing figures of its slaves, locked in their unending abominations. The daemon’s face was pulled into a tapering snout, narrow and somehow insect-like. A great, lash-like tongue oozed from the thing’s toothless mouth, flicking through the darkness.

  The tongue of Ya’sheen flashed across the water. Dorgo felt its sting against his cheek as it whipped around his head. The oily, slimy evil of the thing made his flesh crawl with foul excitement. He could actually feel the envy of the snake-men, the resentment of Togmol and Ulagan, that he had been embraced by this living fane of Shornaal. Dorgo knew he was lost, knew he was damned, and knew that he did not care.

  The wetness of the daemon’s tongue slithered through his hair, down his face. He felt its dampness against his mouth, against his eyes, against his mind. Thoughts and memories drained out of him as the daemon drank them, savouring every experience that had marked his young life. He saw his first love vanish into the daemon’s hunger, and the face of the first man he had killed devoured by the daemon’s appetite. Every meal, every smell, every touch, all of it faded into the Yellow Worm’s lust.

  Then the daemon shuddered. Dorgo could dimly see the twin rows of eyes on Ya’sheen’s head darken, fading from pearl to amber. Beads of crimson trickled down its ophidian face, tears of blood. The tongue, once so warm and enticing became dry and leathery. It recoiled from Dorgo, shooting back into the daemon’s tapered snout. He felt his memories crash back into his mind. First among them was the one that had struck the daemon with such horror. It was the memory of a lone warrior with a skull-faced helm and bronze antlers that formed the rune of Khorne.

  The returned memory was clouded by the perception of Ya’sheen. Where Dorgo had seen a man, the daemon had seen the power within. Dorgo could see a great shadow surrounding the Skulltaker, and a ravenous hunger that made the appetite of Ya’sheen tawdry by comparison. There was rage and fury and havoc, and the iron stamp of terror and carnage. Now Dorgo understood. He knew what it was that hunted his tribe.

  Slackened fingers became a fist of steel around the hilt of his sword. No longer did the seductive musk of the Yellow Worm hold him in its clutches. That power had been burned from his mind by the image of the Skulltaker. Before the wrath of that power, the fury of Khorne, all the lies and promises of Shornaal were but wisps and illusions.

  The Yellow Worm reeled from the hostile force it had drawn into itself. A thing of emotion and thought, the memory it had drawn from Dorgo was more deadly than any blade. The daemon did not bother to discard its shape, to become once more a thing of light and shadow. It sank back into the depths with shameless abandon, the clinging stink of its terror filling the cavern.

  Dorgo spun as something launched itself at him from the side. His sword crunched through the breast of one of the serpent-priests. The creature scrabbled madly at him as its syrupy blood bubbled from its chest. Dorgo ripped his weapon free as the dying monster flopped into the turbulent pool, sinking after its fleeing god.

  All around the cavern, the hissing chant of the snake-men had been broken. A cacophony of fear echoed from the glowing walls, the near-mindless terror of degenerate horrors that had forsaken the right to be called men. Bound body and soul to the seducing musk of the daemon, they were similarly consumed by the daemon’s fear. A slithering, wailing mob scattered into the gloom, pursued by the vengeful blades of Togmol and Ulagan. The routed snake-men offered no resistance to the Tsavags. It was butchery, not battle.

  Dorgo leapt up the uneven blocks of stone that formed a crude stairway behind the altar. Alone of the snake-men, the priests had been immune to the numbing perfume of their god. So too had they proven immune to Ya’sheen’s terror. One had ended its life gamely on Dorgo’s blade. The other moved with more cruel purpose in its mind. It had guessed why the men had invaded its sanctuary, what they had hoped to accomplish. It did not know how Dorgo had hurt its god, but it knew how it could hurt Dorgo.

  The serpent-priest was poised above Sanya, a dagger of bone in its hand. The thing turned its head in the warrior’s direction, its scaly lips pulling back in a contemptuous sneer of hate. Dorgo despaired as he saw the monster’s arm sweep downwards, striking for the woman’s pale breast.

  The bone dagger never struck. Before it could sink into Sanya’s heart, a blaze of sapphire light gathered around the snake-man’s head. The snake-man seemed to soak up the burning light, absorbing the blue brilliance into its skull. An instant later, the skull exploded, splashing blood and brains across the altar. The priest’s body collapsed against Sanya, twitching and writhing as life drained out of it. Dorgo kicked the squirming carcass off the woman, watching as it fell over the side of the platform.

  “Get me free!” snarled Sanya. The sorceress tugged at the strips of scaly hide that bound her to the stone. Dorgo smiled at the woman. For a moment, he was almost able to forget that she was both a Sul and a witch.

  “I’ll look better with this filth washed off me,” Sanya complained, scowling at him.

  Dorgo’s sword slashed through the thongs, freeing her arms. He left the legs for her to see to. He pointed to a disordered heap lying beside the altar, the jumbled pile of her clothes and equipment.

  “Your belongings are over there,” Dorgo said, turning his back on Sanya. He started to climb down, to catch Togmol and Ulagan before they chased the snake-men too far into the tunnels.

  “Sanya?” he called out. He looked back and saw the woman watching him. There was something uncomfortable about her expression, and he reminded himself again that she was a Sul.

  “If you take a bath, I’d advise against dipping into the pool,” he said, and then hurried to find his kinsmen. Facing all the snakes under the mountain was safer than the things he was turning over in his mind.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Hutga could see the enemy forces fall into formation as they marched into the valley. From his vantage point high in the howdah of his mammoth, he watched in brooding silence as the Seifan horsemen and Vaan infantry manoeuvred through the narrow gap between the hills.

  The presence of the Seifan riders meant that he could not withdraw into the maze of passes deeper in the mountain range, a rearguard would need to stay behind to keep the horsemen at bay while the rest of the tribe lost themselves in the labyrinth. Once in the passes, the Tsavags could fight the running battle that Hutga had envisioned
when he brought his people into Ikar’s Refuge, but to do that, they had to hold the Seifan back long enough to allow such an escape.

  The Seifan spread out across a wide front. A small number of chariots were scattered along the centre and right flank, a ploy to gull Hutga as to where the Hung were concentrating their strength. With his view of the enemy deployment, he could see the heavy numbers of war chariots gathering behind a loose screen of cavalry on his left. Unused to fighting the Tsavags and their mammoths, the Seifan kahn didn’t appreciate the better view of the battlefield the height of the towering beasts afforded the Tong. He would learn soon enough, Hutga thought, snapping orders to his warriors, redeploying his men to meet the brunt of the Seifan attack.

  Hutga saw something else the new kahn had failed to take into account. The infantry marching forwards to support the Seifan were light skirmishers, warriors with much poorer armour and arms than the regular Vaan force. He could see the muscle-swollen masses of Muhaks and the tattooed faces of Gahhuks among the skirmishers.

  Ratha wasn’t committing his best troops to the fight, he was sending forward the dregs of his army: slaves, prisoners and refugees. The heavy troops, the true fighting force of the Vaan was hanging back, moving into the valley at a snail’s pace, content to allow the Seifan and the conscripts to draw further and further away.

  The Seifan weren’t the only ones with a mind towards treachery. Zar Ratha was too cagey a warlord not to see an opportunity when it presented itself. He saw the coming battle as a chance to rid himself of both the Tsavags and the Seifan. He would let the Hung engage the mammoth riders and bear the brunt of the fighting. Deceived by the presence of the skirmishers, in the thick of battle the Seifan would not realise until too late that the Vaan army was not with them. Even if they did realise Ratha’s strategy, it would be too late. The Seifan would be trapped between the iron wall of the Vaan line and Hutga’s mammoths. There would be no escape for the Hung.

  Hutga knew, then, that Ratha’s skirmishers would start the battle, seeking to force the Seifan into action before they had any opportunity to discover the zar’s ploy. The Vaan would allow the Tsavags and Seifan to slaughter one another, and then sweep forward in a wall of iron to cut down the exhausted victor.

  With their spear-throwers and long axes, and the devilish tactic of scattering iron caltrops across the battlefield, the infantry of the Vaan would be the true fight ahead of Hutga’s mammoth riders. A war mammoth was, at its core, a weapon of terror, depending as much upon the panic it could inflict upon an enemy’s ranks as it did upon its immense size and strength.

  Looking out upon the sea of blackened iron that was Ratha’s army, Hutga could not imagine the formidable force shattering like some ill-disciplined rabble. Iron resolve was the weapon in Ratha’s arsenal that the Tsavags had to fear more than any other.

  Yet, even as Hutga looked upon the imposing army, he saw confusion rear its head among the rearmost ranks. Warriors scattered, pressing back into the valley, pushing the forward ranks deeper into Ikar’s Refuge.

  Shouts of alarm and, yes, fear, sounded from the rearguard, drowning out the furious commands of war chiefs and officers. Something had happened; some new threat had emerged to sow disorder among Ratha’s disciplined troops.

  Hutga dared to hope that Enek Zjarr and the Sul had finally arrived. Striking at the rear of the Vaan, Ratha would be trapped, caught between the mammoths of the Tsavags and the sorcery of the Sul. As the rearguard of the army continued to scatter, however, as the solid ranks of the Kurgans began to disintegrate, Hutga felt a knot of terror rise in his throat.

  The mouth of the valley was strewn with Vaan corpses, dozens at the very least, but it wasn’t sorcery that had felled the warriors, it was steel. Not the steel of a rescuing army, but the steel of a lone man, a red phantom that stalked relentlessly through the ranks of the dead.

  Another army had arrived, an army of one, an army called the Skulltaker.

  After the brooding horror of the snake tunnels, Dorgo thought there was nothing beneath the clean sky that could be so abominable. He was more wrong than he could have believed possible. When Ulagan led their small group out of the other end of the tunnel, following the draught of air, Dorgo knew that they were no longer in the Shadowlands. However strange the borderland had been, it had still been a place at least anchored in reality as a mortal mind understood it.

  What he looked out upon was madness. The sky was burnt orange, the clouds lazily drifting across it like splotches of rust. The sun was red, casting a crimson shadow across the land. Such a land Dorgo had never seen, a vast expanse of apparently endless marsh, its unmoving waters revoltingly blood-like in hue. The warrior reflected that a blood-bog was not the most impossible thing chronicled in the legends and myths of the Wastes. The thought did nothing to put him at ease.

  The tunnel opened out upon the slopes of a mountain, despite the impossibility of ascending to such a height when every tunnel in the underworld had been descending. It was an even stranger formation than the hill they had entered in the borderland. The mountain was black, its stones sharp and displaying angular facets. It seemed to be constructed of obsidian, though Dorgo resisted calling it such. Certainly no natural mountain had ever been formed from pure obsidian.

  From his vantage point, Dorgo could see the sprawl of the land for leagues in every direction except south, or at least where south should be if the strange red sun was where it should be. He could see nothing he recognised, not even the faintest speck on the horizon that might be the weird borderland they had left behind.

  “We are in the Wastes,” Sanya told them, as if there were any doubt. She fingered her amulets, taking some visible comfort in their promise of protection. “Watch your thoughts as well as your feet,” she advised as she started to climb down the sharply faceted slope.

  “A misstep in either can be death, and worse than death.”

  Dorgo watched Sanya start her descent. At least her ordeal in the tunnels hadn’t diminished her arrogant self-assurance.

  “I’ll give her some thoughts,” Ulagan hissed. The scout was watching Sanya with a great deal less detachment than Dorgo. There was a lascivious gleam in his eye as the woman made her awkward descent. Her robe had been torn to tatters by the snakemen, and the crude garment she had improvised from the remains left little to the imagination, though it seemed that the scout’s mind was still willing to accept the challenge.

  “Haven’t we enough trouble already?” Dorgo asked, sighing.

  Ulagan smiled at his leader. “Not of the right kind,” he said. The wiry scout almost doubled-over as Togmol’s huge hand slapped him on the back.

  “When she turns you into a toad, I promise to step on you,” Togmol said. The big warrior was almost jubilant to be out under the open sky again, even if it was a different sky than the one that hung over the lands of their birth. “Though it might be hard to tell,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

  Ulagan curled his lip in a sour expression of distaste, and then suddenly became alert. He started forwards, staring at an outcropping of rock. His wormy tentacle slithered across the sharp facets of the obsidian, eyes peering suspiciously at the stone.

  “What is…?”

  Dorgo never finished asking his question. A shape, a phantom form rose up from within the stone, like some ghostly fish rising from the depths of a black ocean. It was pale and putrid, dripping with blood and slime, only a mocking semblance of decay proclaiming its kinship to anything that might once have been alive. Dorgo got the impression of a great, limpid eye, of a leathery, snout-like beak and flabby reptilian claws. Then he was much too busy to see anything more.

  Ulagan screamed and lurched forwards. Dorgo could not be certain if the scout had slipped or been pulled. The impossibility of his distress was enough to confound the warrior. By some incredible process, Ulagan had sunk into the obsidian, and was being dragged down into its black depths!

  Dorgo seized the hunter’s waist, throwing his arm
s around the man as he desperately tried to pull free. Already, Ulagan’s right shoulder had vanished into the black face of the rock. The force pulling on the hunter was immensely strong, and Dorgo could feel his feet sliding as he was dragged after Ulagan. The man’s face was sinking into the stone, his screams becoming muffled as he faded into the shiny obsidian facet.

  Powerful arms wrapped around Dorgo’s waist. He heard Togmol roar as the big warrior threw his strength and weight into a massive effort. Inch by agonising inch, Togmol’s brawn tilted the balance. Slowly, Ulagan began to emerge from the ghastly angel trying to devour him. First, his terrified face emerged, and then his vanished shoulder. Finally, the ropy length of his mutated arm was free, but it was not alone.

  A slimy, leathery claw was clenched tightly around Ulagan’s limb, fingers like bloated slugs tearing into the man’s flesh. The snout-like beak pushed free from the face of the rock, snarling and spitting its ghastly hunger. Dorgo could see the thing’s swollen eye staring at him from the shadowy world within the stone, could feel its evil malignity glaring at him with timeless hatred.

  Then there was a resounding crash, like the roar of an avalanche. The stink of ozone filled the air and a terrible, slobbering shriek stabbed at the Tsavags’ ears. The men fell to the ground as the terrible grip on Ulagan’s arm was broken. The scout looked in alarm at the dismembered claw still fastened to his limb. Panicked and disgusted, the hunter brushed the offending filth from his body. On the ground beside the empty face of obsidian, the severed trunk of a snout-like beak dripped and oozed.

  “I said to watch your thoughts,” Sanya scolded the men. One of the amulets around her neck gave off a purplish glow as whatever power the sorceress had invoked withdrew back into the talisman. “The Wastes have their own kind of life. Some of it feeds on flesh, some of it feeds on emotions and ideas. All of it can bring death. Remember that if you want to survive.”