02.1 - Rest Eternal

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  Mouthing a curse, Calard began to slide past his horse, moving to the peasant’s aid as quickly as was safe to do so. With his back to his towering warhorse, nothing but open space filled with swirling snow in front of him, he shimmied his way back. His feet were precariously close to the cliff edge, and he prayed silently to the Lady.

  There came another roar in the storm, and a monstrous, winged creature appeared out of the blizzard.

  It came from below, rising up the sheer cliff face with powerful beats of its immense wings. Its serpentine eyes blazed like embers, and Calard stared back in shock.

  For a second he was sure that it was the same beast that he had already fought, but that was madness. No, he had killed that one, there could be no doubt of that; he’d cut its head off and put out one of its eyes. This beast had both its eyes, and its broad, heavy head was firmly attached to its muscular neck.

  A second wyvern then, Calard thought. The mate of the first?

  Buffeted by the strong winds and borne aloft upon its mighty wings, the beast lunged, huge mouth gaping. Calard’s horse reared, whinnying in terror, and he was knocked to the ground, scrambling frantically not to slip over the cliff edge.

  The monster’s mouth clamped shut around his horse, and with a wrench of its neck it dragged the noble steed from the mountain path. One of its hooves clipped Calard’s shoulder, and he slid further over the cliff’s edge. The horse’s arterial blood sprayed, staining the snow, and the wyvern shook its head from side to side. Even through the gale, Calard heard the horrible snap as his steed’s spine was broken. The beast’s wings beat faster to compensate for the additional weight, and it dropped half a dozen feet. A sudden gust dragged it further out from the cliff face, and it disappeared in the storm.

  Calard’s hand closed around a jutting rock and he gripped it tightly, forestalling his fall. His legs were dangling over the seemingly bottomless expanse. With a grunt of effort he hauled himself back onto the mountain path, clambering to his feet and unsheathing his sword. He turned and pressed his back against the cliff wall as the wyvern reappeared.

  It descended on him, massive hind claws extended. Calard hacked with his sword double-handed, severing two talons, and the beast bellowed. Its other leg raked downwards, carving three furrows in the rock where Calard’s head had been a moment earlier.

  The questing knight turned his face away as a shower of rock and snow struck him, and as the wyvern kicked at him again he threw himself further down the path. He landed on his chest in the snow, and slid half a dozen yards before coming to a halt, turning and rising to one knee, his sword at the ready.

  The wyvern beat its wings and disappeared into the blizzard overhead once more, and Calard risked a glance back along the path. Chlod had clambered from the edge of the precipice, and was staring at him fearfully. The peasant shouted something that was swallowed by the roaring winds and pointed, and Calard glanced movement out of the corner of his eye.

  The wyvern was coming down at him again, its wings buffeting him with wind and snow. Its tail stabbed for him and he slashed with his sword as it plunged for his chest, knocking it aside and carving deep into the bony sting.

  The beast came in to land, one foreclaw clutching onto the cliff face for balance as it gripped the narrow path with its hind talons. One of them slipped off the edge, dislodging a landslide, but the beast regained its balance and began making its way towards him, moving crab-like along the narrow path with surprising dexterity.

  Calard began backing up, seeking to get under the overhang, where the wyvern’s bulk would make it almost impossible for it to come at him. Seeing what he was doing, the wyvern hopped towards him faster, closing the distance in two bounds.

  Its jaw snapped towards him, slamming shut less than half a foot away, and Calard slipped, falling to one knee. The beast hopped nearer, its foreclaw and left wing clutching at the cliff face, balancing itself as it leant upon its other wing.

  Knowing that he couldn’t get away from the beast, Calard took the only other option that remained for him—he attacked.

  With a shout, Calard leapt forward and slammed his sword into the beast’s wing, breaking several of the slender bones that fanned out from its claw. The beast roared, and brought its other wing around in a sharp arc. With no room to move, Calard was smashed into the cliff face by the force of the blow, striking the back of his head hard.

  The beast grabbed him around the ankle with one of its foreclaws, dropping him to his back and pulling him through the snow. He fought it, kicking and struggling as he tried to bring his blade to bear, but he was dragged helplessly towards the wyvern.

  He kicked the beast hard as its mouth opened, striking one of its tusk-like teeth. If the wyvern felt any pain it gave no indication, and it stretched its neck forward to bite him in half.

  Calard managed to thrust the blade of his sword forward, and the beast stabbed itself in the gum as it strained towards him. Blood ran down the blade, and the wyvern hissed and pulled its head back. Calard managed to kick his foot from the monster’s grasp, and he scrambled back away from it as it lunged again.

  Part of the cliff path gave way beneath the wyvern’s weight suddenly, and it scrabbled for purchase. Its body slammed into the path as a boulder slipped under its hind legs, and one foreclaw gripped the rock tightly, less than two feet from Calard’s position.

  With a shout, he brought his sword down hard upon it, breaking bones.

  With a roar, the wyvern lost its grip and fell, tumbling backwards over the precipice. Its left wing would not work properly, the wing-bones broken by Calard’s first strike, and the wyvern tumbled down the cliff face, unable to keep itself airborne. It was gone almost instantly, careening off the cliff face once before being swallowed by the blinding snow.

  “Is it dead, master?” shouted Chlod in his ear, coming up behind him. Calard shrugged.

  “We must move on!” he shouted. “We’ll be dead if we don’t find shelter.”

  With that, Calard stumbled on, fighting through the blizzard, Chlod and his mule close behind.

  If anything, the storm had worsened by the time they reached the cave, and they were exhausted and half-frozen as they staggered inside.

  They moved to the back of the cavern in an effort to escape the biting winds. Calard couldn’t feel his fingers or his toes, and he had stopped shivering, which he knew was a bad sign. He felt incredibly tired, and the desire to just lie down on the floor and sleep was strong. The rational part of his mind knew that to do so was to die, but another part of him whispered that he would just close his eyes for a moment.

  Chlod had collapsed on the ground, a huddled ball of misery, and Calard prodded him with his foot.

  “Fire,” Calard managed on the third attempt, forming the word with difficulty; his lips were completely numb.

  The peasant groaned something indecipherable, and Calard kicked him hard in the side. That got a reaction. The peasant’s face was blue, but the colour started to come back as he prepared a fire.

  Ten minutes later, the peasant had a small blaze going, and they crouched over it, warming frozen hands. Calard’s fingers began to tingle painfully as sensation returned. He removed part of his armour, unhooking the iced-up greaves as he attempted to rub some warmth into his limbs.

  With his body finally thawing, the firelight casting its orange glow across the interior of the cavern, Calard realised for the first time that the headless corpse of the wyvern was not here.

  Frowning, he lifted a burning brand from the fire and stood up, turning on the spot.

  This was most definitely where he had fought the beast; he could see evidence of the battle. Dark, rust-like patches marked the floor, and there were cracks in the wall where its monstrous sting had struck, but of the body itself there was no sign.

  “Devoured by scavengers?” he said, speaking aloud.

  “Master?” said Chlod, looking up from beside the fire, but Calard ignored him.

  The questing knight fr
owned. It had been only yesterday when he had killed the beast. Surely no scavenger could have devoured it in that time, bones and all, leaving no evidence of it ever having been here except for the bloodstains on the floor. Not even the other wyvern could have eaten it in that time.

  Thinking about the immense, crushing jaws of the wyverns, however, he could well believe that they would be fully capable of consuming bones. A brood of wyverns? There had been at least two of the creatures. Could there be more?

  The thought was not comforting. The stink of the beast still lingered in the cave even if its body did not, a potent animal smell that made his stomach heave.

  Holding his burning brand aloft, Calard ventured deeper into the cave. It went back further than he had thought, and as he advanced the flame of his torch sent flickering shadows across its uneven walls. There were bones scattered within naturally formed alcoves, and he knelt beside them, lifting them up for inspection. Most of them were human, but there were others that were shorter and denser. He found a shattered, fanged skull tucked away in a hollow.

  “Greenskin,” he said, kicking the skull away.

  There were strange markings on the walls, he realised, and he stepped up close to one of them, lifting his torch. Underneath a layer of rock dust and grime he could see that something had been daubed onto the walls. Frowning, he brushed his hand along the crumbling granite, revealing a crude depiction of a warrior: a warrior fighting a winged beast that was unmistakably a wyvern.

  “What in the name of the Lady?” said Calard.

  Stepping back, he saw the walls were covered in similar pictures. Everywhere he looked he saw depictions of wyverns. They were devouring people and shaggy mountain cattle, flying over crudely rendered mountains with blood dripping from their exaggerated teeth and stings. In many of the pictures, there was a solitary warrior fighting the beast. Sometimes this lone warrior stood victorious over the wyvern, his sword plunged into its heart, or its severed head lying at his feet. Sometimes the warrior lay dead at the beast’s feet.

  Calard followed the images further back into the cave, intrigued and horrified.

  Was this the remnant of some cult, venerating the Chaos beasts? Had there been wyverns in this area for hundreds, even thousands of years? Was there something here, in this cave, that drew them to it, like slivers of metal drawn to a lodestone?

  The pictures led him further away from the entrance, and the howling of the wind outside faded. Soon, even the flame of Chlod’s fire had ebbed. Abruptly, the cave ended. The floor sloped downwards, hinting at a deeper cavern, and the images too followed this descent, but he could go no further, for the way was blocked by a pool of dark water.

  Ice had formed a fragile crust around the edge of the pool, though its centre was clear. The water was black. Calard cracked the skin of ice with the heel of his boot; it was not thick. He stood there for some moments, wondering where the passage led, before shrugging and turning away. He was hungry and tired. He would have Chlod cook him a meal and then settle down to wait out the storm.

  From behind him came a splash, and Calard looked around to see the surface of the black pool rippling.

  His sword was drawn and at the ready, the heavy blade held two-handed; the flaming torch was left burning on the ground. His gaze flicked left and right, seeing movement everywhere in the shadows cast by his flaming brand, but his attention snapped back to the pool as it began to bubble, as if it were boiling.

  Not taking his eyes off the pool, Calard moved towards the edge.

  “Master?” called Chlod from some way back, his voice muffled and echoing off the walls. “Master?”

  Calard ignored the peasant, gripping the hilt of his bastard sword tightly.

  Something began to rise from the water; something large.

  The tip of its wings emerged first, then its massive head breached the surface, water spraying out as it exhaled sharply from its nostrils and sucked in a deep breath.

  Mouthing a curse, Calard saw that it was another wyvern, easily as big as the last two. Black water ran off its grey-green scales, and secondary eyelids flicked back from its hateful orbs. Its pupils contracted as it swung its head towards the bright light of Calard’s fallen torch, and it blinked in the glare.

  This must have been where the foul things were originating from. Was there some foetid brood lair in a deeper cave, and this pool was the entrance?

  He had been lucky to kill the others, he knew that. Weak and half-frozen, he knew that he would not be able to best this one if he allowed it to emerge from the water fully. It seemed not yet to have noticed him, and so Calard leapt forward as the monster began pulling itself out of the pool. Before the monster could react, he had plunged into the icy water and thrust the tip of his sword straight into one of its eye sockets.

  The wyvern shrieked in agony and thrashed its head, ripping the blade out of Calard’s hands and knocking him backwards. Blood was running from the horrible wound, forming an oily film across the surface of the black pool. Bellowing deafeningly, the beast began retreating, dragging itself back the way it had come.

  Calard heard Chlod arrive behind him, holding another flaming torch, and the peasant gasped as he saw the wyvern half-submerged in the cave pool. The beast was pulling itself back down the waterlogged cavern, first its curving back disappearing, then its wingtips. Finally, its head ducked under the water, taking Calard’s sword with it.

  Determined not to let the beast escape, Calard sucked in a deep breath and dived under the water. His armour weighed him down considerably, and he struggled not to sink. The water was dark, though the flickering light of the torch allowed him to see the vague, shadowy form of the monster as it slipped away from him. In frustration, Calard came up, knowing that to go any deeper was to drown, weighed down as he was.

  He swore loudly, and began wading to the water’s edge, unbuckling his breastplate as he did so.

  The Lady had led him here for a reason. Perhaps that reason had not been to kill one wyvern, but to butcher the entire brood.

  “Fetch me wood, tinder and flint,” he ordered Chlod. “Wrap it tightly in oilskins. I want it waterproof.”

  Chlod’s eyes boggled. “Master, surely you are not…” he began.

  “Do as I say, peasant,” snapped Calard, before lowering himself to one knee and praying. “Quickly!”

  He inspected Chlod’s work when he returned and, satisfied, he slung the bundle over his shoulder. He had stripped off his armour and was armed only with his knife, still glowing with a faint light of its own. Chlod was hopping from foot to foot, wringing his hands nervously.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” said Calard. Then without further delay, he clenched the knife between his teeth and dived into the icy water once more. As far as he understood, wyverns breathed just as he did—or at least he hoped they did—and he judged that there must be air somewhere further along the submerged tunnel.

  Kicking out strongly, he passed beneath the rock, and a moment of panic washed through him as he realised that he could not now merely swim to the surface to breathe. He continued on, deeper into the cavern.

  His lungs began to burn, but he pushed on, swimming further. He continued on blindly into the darkness, his panic rising. He had gone too far to turn back now.

  It took him a moment to realise that he could see light again, a red glare from up ahead, and he kicked towards it in desperation as the last of his air turned to poison in his lungs. There was a ruby glow infusing the water, originating further along the tunnel, and with a final burst of strength Calard kicked towards it.

  He came up quickly, breaking the surface of the water and sucked in a deep breath.

  He was blinded for a moment by the red light, and he blinked as his eyes adjusted to the glare, all the while treading water to keep afloat. There was a metallic taste that filled his mouth and nose, and his eyes were stinging.

  “Lady above,” he breathed as he looked around.

  He was no longer underground. He was no
longer anywhere that even vaguely resembled the Grey Mountains bordering Bretonnia and the Empire.

  A sky of fire burned overhead, and the heat was oppressive.

  He was in hell.

  His heart beating frantically, his mind reeling, Calard swam to the edge of the pool. The water had changed consistency, turning viscous, and he realised in horror that it was not water at all, but congealing blood.

  He clambered up onto the gore-slick rocks that rimmed the blood-pool, removing the knife from between his teeth as the contents of his stomach rose into his throat. He doubled over and was violently ill.

  Wiping his mouth, his mind rebelling, Calard straightened and turned in a slow circle, taking in his surroundings. A featureless, barren wasteland of red sand and rock spread out as far as the eye could see in every direction.

  Rippling flames consumed the heavens, the sky burning from one horizon to the other, an inferno in constant flux.

  It was ungodly hot, a merciless dry heat that scorched his lungs with every breath. The horizons shimmered with heat haze, and Calard could feel the moisture on him drying up, leaving a scab-like crust of blood across his skin.

  “Where in the name of the Lady am I?” he breathed.

  He heard laughter nearby, the mocking sound carried to him on the wind, and Calard spun around, his knife at the ready. There was no one there.

  The Lady is dead, breathed a haggard voice and Calard jerked in shock, feeling the speaker’s breath in his ear. He turned, but again there was nothing there. Mocking laughter came at him from several sides as he looked around warily, eyes wide in fear.

  We’re all dead, said a different voice.

  “Who are you?” said Calard, his voice cracking.

  You’ll soon be dead too, said another voice.

  “Show yourselves, cowards!” said Calard.

  The laughter assailed him from all sides at that, and he heard a multitude of mocking voices.

  Show ourselves, he says! laughed one, rough and masculine.