Van Horstmann

by Ben Counter

  Its path took it through the exorcists’ chambers, ripping apart protective circles and obliterating the frescoed ceiling beneath which the senior magisters had met Emperor Eckhardt III. It blasted through Magister Vek’s old chambers, and many of the magisters gathered there were ground to pulp by the dragon’s scales as it rushed by.

  The top of the pyramid erupted as the dragon’s flame punched out through its pinnacle. Great blocks of stone tumbled down the pyramid’s side, smashing into the square below. Beyond the fold in space, the whole Buchbinder district shuddered, and ever after the inhabitants would speak of the earthquake that had struck without warning, toppling buildings and setting fires that claimed dozens of houses before the flames were doused with the waters of the Reik.

  The force of the dragon’s escape ripped through the folded space and it emerged high above Altdorf, its shadow passing over the Reik, the burned district around the Bright College and the city walls. Then it was past the city, soaring over the hills of Reikland, every beat of its mighty wings taking it further from Altdorf. The Empire rushed by, forests and farmlands, province by province, towards the north of Sigmar’s land.

  The cold and speed almost robbed van Horstmann’s throat of breath and he had to fight to stay conscious, such was the din and the battering of the freezing air.

  He crawled, handhold by handhold, towards the dragon’s ear. He could not be certain where he was, but with the incredible speed of the dragon he must have left Reikland far behind.

  ‘To Norsca,’ he yelled as loudly as he could, although he could not hear his own words. ‘To Norsca, and you will have your freedom!’

  The dragon’s other head, the bestial one, turned to face van Horstmann.

  With a fury and speed impossible for its size, Baudros’s bestial head darted forwards, jaws bared. Van Horstmann let go of his handhold and slid down the dragon’s neck, finally grabbing another scale before he was thrown completely clear of the dragon.

  Where he had clung a moment before, the bestial head’s fangs sank into the neck of its second head. Baudros yawed to one side and the dragon began to tumble, wings flailing, as it plummeted from the sky towards the lands of the northern Empire.

  Van Horstmann was in the pit of snakes again. This time he was not a child, and Lizbeta was not with him – he was a man, and she had died long ago.

  He knew that this was not real. He was not really in that pit. The snakes were not snakes at all, but what his mind made of the unconsciousness that had fallen on him. He could fight it if he chose to. That was what he had done all his life – he had chosen to fight what other men would accept as inevitable. He had not accepted that revenge against a wizard, against a magister of the Light College, was impossible, nor that he could not master the magic of Light and Dark as was needed for his vengeance to come to pass. He would not accept that he should fall insensible now, not when he was so close to escaping and starting his life anew.

  He fought. He kicked and struggled. And finally he dragged himself over the edge of that pit, left the snakes behind, and returned to the real world.

  He was lying in a barren stretch of the Empire, sparsely scattered with clumps of trees. Perhaps he was in Troll Country, where the Empire’s people had struggled to forge their northern frontier. It depended on how fast Baudros had flown. Certainly van Horstmann had not yet reached the Sea of Claws or the lands of Norsca beyond, a place far removed from the eyes of the Silver Hammer or the orders of magic.

  The sound of crashing and flesh against flesh was coming from beyond a low, forested hill. As van Horstmann watched, Baudros crashed through the trees, rolling down the hill and coming to rest in the scrub nearby. The two heads were battling, thick purple-red blood spattering down from the wounds down both its necks.

  The bestial head gained the upper hand for a moment, battering the skinnier head down to the ground. It looked up at van Horstmann, and again its eyes focused on the wizard.

  ‘We had a deal!’ yelled van Horstmann.

  The dragon’s lips peeled back, revealing its rows of titanic fangs. When it spoke, it was an earthquake, channelled and turned into sound that rumbled up through the ground into van Horstmann’s soul.

  ‘You made a deal with Baudros,’ snarled the dragon. ‘But I am Splinterwing. I am that which Baudros once was. I walked in darkness, but I heard my name again and now I remember. Your gods made me into this abomination. I will make them pay. I will begin with you.’

  Van Horstmann yelled out, a wordless sound of desperation and abandonment. It was drowned out by the gale of black fire that erupted over him.

  The flames charred van Horstmann’s skin. His hands blackened before his eyes. He toppled over into the layer of ash that remained of the ground beneath him.

  Somehow, his heart still beat. Somehow his mind still thought. But that was all he had. The black flame seared his skin, then his muscles and organs, then his bones, leaving him a blackened husk to which life could barely cling. One eye socket was scooped clean by the fire – the other remained open, watching.

  The cunning head took the moment’s distraction as an opening. It struck as fast as a snake, sinking its fangs into the back of the other head. The other head bellowed and was driven down into the ground, shuddering as the cunning head bit down deeper.

  The cunning head now looked at van Horstmann. Its voice was a slithering whisper, like a sharp, cold wind knifing through the mountains.

  ‘Tzeentch is my master,’ it said. ‘And has been since I was pledged to it. What remained of Splinterwing is dead. And so will you be. In a few moments your heart will stop and there will be nothing more. But there is hope. Tzeentch brings hope even to you.’

  Van Horstmann wanted to answer, but he could not. It was not just that he could not speak. He did not know what to say. Somewhere, beneath the panic and the pain, there sparked the feeling that he had not been the only one planning, manoeuvring in the shadows, making sure all things were to rights.

  ‘Serve Tzeentch, give yourself to him, and you will live. Or, you will die, and only oblivion waits for you.’

  Van Horstmann tried to raise a hand, but the bone cracked and the flesh flaked away.

  ‘I will take you to a forge in the mountains of Norsca, where the forge masters of our god will create a suit of armour to sustain you,’ continued Baudros. Van Horstmann knew by some instinct that it was not the dragon itself that spoke, but a power far more distant and powerful, one that rarely moved its hand directly, preferring always to move through proxies and pawns. Pawns like Egrimm van Horstmann. ‘In return Tzeentch will have your soul. You will not refuse, for you will not suffer your genius to be snuffed out. And you always knew, van Horstmann, that one day you would pay Tzeentch his due.’

  Van Horstmann’s neck and tongue firmed up, the flesh restored just enough to let him speak. He croaked out the only two words that his mind could form in that moment.

  ‘I obey,’ he gasped.

  For the tenth day, or the hundredth, or the millionth, Master Chanter Alric stared at the wall.

  He could see his wife, decaying. Sometimes it was slow and cruel. Sometimes it was so rapid the horror barely had time to develop in her eyes before she was gone. Maybe he had only seen it once, and it echoed again and again in his mind, rattling around like a pebble in a bucket until it became all mixed up into one terrible vision of her, in pain.

  He could see the organ in the Chanter’s Hall. It was broken and crumbling after the destruction wrought by the dragon that thundered through the hall. Then it was patched up half-heartedly, hardly a priority. Some cared for it and tried to have it restored, others neglected it. Everyone forgot why it was there. Eras of history hurtled by, and days seemed to last forever, each speck of dust settling on the pipes another hammer blow. Those pipes were Alric’s own guts, rotting away, and he kept forgetting who he was each time the organ was torn down or put back up again, unfinished.

  He saw Altdorf. The city was alive. And it hated him, for wh
y else would it mock him by growing, changing, suffering sieges and hosting triumphs, without him? Had he never existed? Had there never been a man named… named what?

  In the sanctum, which by now he was certain was the only world he had ever known, the man without a name continued to weep.

  From the far north, at the head of an army, came a champion of Chaos who wielded magic as deftly as a duellist wielded a sword. Whose armour was impervious to harm, and who rode to battle on a mighty two-headed dragon that could devour whole armies in its maws. Of all the warlords who had taken the Chaos Gods as their patron, it was said that he was perhaps the greatest. He ruled the Silver Cabal of corrupted wizards who had promised their souls to Tzeentch in return for forbidden knowledge. His was the God of Change, the Liar Prince, and he was that god’s hand in the world when trickery and deceit were not enough.

  Some said he could not die, for Tzeentch owned his soul and would not give it up to anything so mundane as death. Others said he had already died, many times, and was not permitted to rest. No one knew the whole truth, for wherever Tzeentch’s shadow was cast, there could be no such thing as the truth.

  And so this champion embarked on a dozen wars, a hundred battles, untiring in the name of his god.

  So began the story of Egrimm van Horstmann.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BEN COUNTER is the author of the Soul Drinkers and Grey Knights series, along with two Horus Heresy novels, and is one of Black Library’s most popular Warhammer 40,000 authors. He has written RPG supplements and comic books. He is a fanatical painter of miniatures, a pursuit which has won him his most prized possession: a prestigious Golden Demon award. He lives in Portsmouth, England.

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

  Map by Nuala Kinrade.

  Cover illustration by Cheoljoo Lee

  © Games Workshop Limited 2013. All rights reserved.

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  ISBN 978-0-85787-810-6

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