A fountain of molten metal gouted from the ground, dissolving the ruins of the temple and casting a sea of fire across the sands. Clouds of black smoke bloomed as the fire condensed into a gnarled hail of glowing metal. Chunks of superheated steel fell like daggers and Kron rolled away from a chunk of smouldering rock that thudded to the ground just a few metres away from him. He risked a look back and saw that in the heart of the fire was Ss’ll Sh’Karr, soaring on his bat-like wings and trailing fire like a falling meteor.
Kron knew Sh’Karr’s first instinct would be to kill. Once the exultations of his release were done with, the daemon would revert to the purpose for which the Blood God had created it—murder and violence, taking skulls for the throne of its god, spilling blood as an act of worship.
As Kron scrambled to his feet and ran further, he felt the spattering of warm rain against his face. He tasted it, and realised it was horribly familiar. The desert had once been a forest, before that a slab of ocean floor, and a hundred other landscapes before that. But now it would change again and become something terrible—because in the southern desert, it was raining blood.
Golgoth heard the scream, too, but it was of little interest to him. Nothing much mattered at all any more—the Emerald Sword had died long ago, perhaps even before Grik had taken the chieftain’s throne. But its death had been hidden, and Golgoth’s hope that he could save it was a lie only now revealed. The tribe that had once been proud and warlike he now knew to be nothing more than slaves and cattle, betrayed by its elders and headmen until it was just a hollow shell of the majesty that had once ruled from Arrowhead Peak.
Golgoth still stood on the outskirts of Grik’s city, within sight of the smoking ruins of the sorcerers’ lodge. The crowds had departed now the fire’s rage was spent, but it still smouldered, and Golgoth would wait here in the shadow of the mountains until it finally died. The sky above was agitated, unable to decide if it was day or night. The sharp white-edged light of the Slaughtersong clashed with the rosy glow of the Jackal-sun and a handful of hot red stars high in the black and red-streaked sky. The smoke still coiling from the sorcerer’s lodge made strange patterns in the mismatched shafts of light. Golgoth could smell the charred meat that filled the lodge, mixed with the smoke and the ugly taint of burned daemon’s flesh.
The elders had been herded into the lodge, hands bound, alongside the broken-bodied sorcerers that had survived Tarn’s purges. The daemonette had followed them, whimpering and pleading for its life even as it strained to shatter the chains that held it. Then firewood had been heaped over the lodge and all of them had been burned alive. The population of the city had been ordered to watch as the flames grew higher and the feeble screams filtered through the roar of the flames. The daemonette had burst from the side of the lodge, wreathed in fire, to be stuck with a dozen arrows by the guards Golgoth had posted on the watchtowers.
The patch of charred earth where the daemonette had fallen was still there, smouldering even after all these hours. Golgoth had been watching all the time—when the fire finally burned itself out, he would have his men open up the lodge and make sure his tribe’s murderers really were dead.
Hath approached from the city. “They’re packing up,” he called. “The whole city. The people have guessed we can’t stay here.”
“How much do they know?”
“That Grik was not to be argued with. That people disappeared, and he had daemons and sorcerers under his command.”
“They must have realised. How long has Grik been selling us? How long was it happening before Grik was even born?”
“No one can answer that, Golgoth. The question is, now you have the Emerald Sword, what are you going to make of it?”
Golgoth spat into the smouldering pit where the daemonette had died. “The Emerald Sword is dead, Hath. I’m going to make sure it knows it. Have all the warriors armed and the people ready to march to war.”
“Against who?”
“Against Lady Charybdia.”
It was the only way. The message Golgoth had found in the sorcerers’ lodge was a simple one—Lady Charybdia guaranteed the Emerald Sword safety, when it would take relatively little effort for her to eradicate it. In return, Grik would send the tribe’s healthiest newborns to the temples of the Pleasure God to feed the altar’s constant hunger for slaves, and the best of the Emerald Sword warriors to be indoctrinated into Lady Charybdia’s legions. The daemonette and sorcerous tricks were to sweeten the deal.
Grik had conspired with Lady Charybdia to turn the proud Emerald Sword into a farm growing a human crop, feeding the monstrous hordes that Lady Charybdia ruled over. The corruption of the betrayal had turned Grik into a monster and given him the power to speak with the daemons, and had robbed the tribe of the fire that once so nearly took it to dominion over the whole Canis Mountains.
“Not one of us will survive, Golgoth,” Hath was saying. “We won’t get past the first wall. We will find ten thousand legionaries against us, maybe even the Violators. They will summon daemons to face us.”
“I don’t care. I have always known I will die in battle, Hath. There is nothing left for us to fight for, and this is as good a battle as any. The people must be punished for letting their tribe die. And with the Sword finally gone, it will give Lady Charybdia no more cattle to slaughter. We must hurt her, Hath, it is the only cause left on this planet. This is the only way we can strike back.”
“You have my sword, Golgoth,” said Hath, “and you always will. But this will be the end. Do you wish to be remembered as the chieftain who led his tribe to extinction?”
“Grik already did that,” replied Golgoth bitterly. “I am putting the Sword out of its misery. Find some messenger birds and get Tarn to write down a proclamation. Every living thing in these mountains will know the Emerald Sword is going to war one last time.”
Lady Charybdia was agitated. When Lady Charybdia was agitated, Slaanesh did not get his due of pleasure from the great altar of the city, and hence Lady Charybdia’s unhappiness was a heresy in itself.
Ss’ll Sh’Karr was, of course, dead. The proof was nailed to the pillar in front of where Lady Charybdia now stood, in the nave of a chapel with soaring fluted walls and a vaulted ceiling so high it sometimes rained inside. The light from a million candles filtered through stained glass windows and filled the nave with shafts of beautiful, sickly colour.
Ss’ll Sh’Karr’s skull glared down from the pillar with its many empty eye sockets. The skull had been plucked from a seam of Lady Charybdia’s mines thick with the bones of daemons and those they had crushed. Sh’Karr’s reign had provided plenty of raw material for the city and the keep—the bones from those times lay in battlefields thicker than those from almost any other time in Torvendis’s history, redolent with the laughter of the killers and the screams of the killed. The skull could only belong to the daemon prince himself—séances and divinations held over it confirmed the imprint of Sh’Karr’s memories. Even now angry madness emanated from the relic, and Lady Charybdia could feel the lunacy all around her, like something boiling beneath the surface, a thousand tiny angry fists beating at her skin. Normally she enjoyed it in here, bathing in the warm malevolence to unwind, safe in the knowledge that no one else could even survive in here without her permission. But now there was much troubling her.
The chapel doors opened, letting the cold air sweep in. A gaggle of sages hobbled in, along with the walking nightmare that was Caduceia, commander of Lady Charybdia’s legions. One of the sages was probably Vai’Gar, the chief soothsayer, but Lady Charybdia had long ceased to bother remembering which underling was which.
The sages were men aged prematurely by the proximity to the keep—Lady Charybdia usually remembered to dull the sensory output of the building whenever lesser mortals like these had to enter, but even so the singing of imprisoned souls and the incense of distilled innocents took their toll on those who had to experience them. To Lady Charybdia’s jaded eyes people all looked the sam
e unless she forced her senses down to a normal mortal level, so she had them dress in distinctive colours to tell their various functions apart.
“My lady,” said the leader of the sages. He was dressed in white. This man was probably Vai’Gar, but it didn’t really matter to Lady Charybdia who he was as long as he did what she asked and gave her answers she wanted to hear. “We have answered your summons. It ails us deeply that you are so disturbed as to ask for our counsel.”
“Something has awoken in the south that claims to be a descendant of Ss’ll Sh’Karr. Strangers have come to my world and killed my priests. Torvendis feels threatened, and I want to know why.”
“The omens have proven complex,” replied another sage vaguely, whose robes were red.
Lady Charybdia glared at him. “You exist to serve,” she said sternly. “If you choose not to serve, then you choose not to live. Is there a power on Torvendis that threatens me? Are our uninvited guests conspiring to raise a force against the city?”
The white sage gesticulated grandly. “Fear not, my lady, we do everything within our power to soothe your concerns. We are merely… very aware of the importance of the task you have blessed us with.”
“Very aware,” said the red sage, smiling forcedly, and all the other coloured sages nodded in agreement.
“The Slaughtersong is particularly active,” continued the white sage. “As your Ladyship will of course be aware, it is a sign of change and conflict. The Vulture is high, too, and the Jackal has been seen in strange configurations. Everything points towards conflict, with much desperation.”
“Is the city in danger?”
“Nothing on this planet can threaten us, my lady. But… there is perhaps some ill will towards you from some of the satellite peoples.”
“I would be most upset if there was anything but ill feeling,” said Lady Charybdia. “Caduceia?”
The commander of the legions stepped forwards. Caduceia was half-daemon, and it was the better half—the rest of her was pure malicious human. It was said that when Lady Charybdia had ordered a great summoning of daemons, Caduceia had been one of the sacrificial victims. But Caduceia was anything but a victim and she had refused to let the daemon burst from her flesh, leaving the two melded into something that was quite horrible to look at and hence wielded a natural authority that only a true monster could. Caduceia had been a warrior before and there had never been a time when she didn’t have a weapon in each hand—the daemonic possession had continued the habit to the extent that one arm ended in the flaring barrel of a plasma gun and the other was a vicious claw.
Her body was subtly malformed by the daemon’s struggles to escape, but the daemon and the mortal had reached a truce. The body they inhabited together was powerful and lithe, with beautiful, pale, patterned skin and a hideous wide-eyed, sharp-toothed face. Caduceia wore Hide armour, not to display her disturbingly perfect body, but because for some reason her body warped to refuse any armour made to fit her. In the end it mattered little because it would take much more than a mortal wound to kill her.
“Your wish, my lady?” said Caduceia, a slight hiss in her voice as her snakelike tongue flickered over her lips.
“The western defences. Any news?”
“We anticipated your concerns, my lady. The guard has been doubled on the outer walls. We are pooling sacrifices in case summoning is required. Our tame harpies and spies have reported movement in the mountains. There is a suggestion that there is a new leader amongst the tribes people who may be less accommodating to your offers. Grik of the Emerald Sword is dead and judging from his treatment of the tribe’s headmen the new incumbent is unlikely to accept your generosity.”
Lady Charybdia smiled. The sages visibly cringed at the sight. “Ah, the barbarians. They have tough children, it would be a shame to lose such a resource. It doesn’t seem that long since I conquered them and it would be inconvenient to have to do it again.”
“Maybe so, but at your word we can scour the Canis Mountains until nothing larger than a corpse-rat survives.”
Lady Charybdia waved a dismissive, spider-fingered hand. “Such a campaign would cost us manpower. We might ill afford it if there really is a new daemonic force intending to make its presence felt. Keep up the guard to the west but make sure we can marshal our forces to wherever they might be needed.”
At any one time there might be a quarter of a million legionaries on the outer wall. Caduceia could marshal a full million to the walls if they were needed—if, somehow, the walls were breached, the invaders would only pour into a killing zone packed with Lady Charybdia’s legions. And even if something got through, Lady Charybdia had the Violators stationed on the keep’s battlements, waiting for the chance to plunge into the din of battle.
But still, she was distracted. Torvendis simply didn’t feel right, the echoes of the rocks around her were a semitone out and the fear in which the keep was steeped was more immediate somehow, sharper and keener. Lady Charybdia always relished a new flavour of experience, but was there something the planet knew that she did not?
She looked at the massive, bestial skull. “Ss’ll Sh’Karr is dead, is he not?”
The sages made noises of agreement.
“Good. See that my will is done, and keep me informed of the omens. I would not want our attentions diverted from the majesty of Slaanesh by some inconvenient war.”
The sages bowed and scuttled away, waves of relief flowing off them as they realised that none of them would die this time. Caduceia swept away with inhuman elegance.
Their echoes would stay for many hours, ringing where only Lady Charybdia could hear them. She was always suspicious of those around her—were their voices coloured by lies? She filtered through the remnants of the conversation—she felt they were afraid, and all but obsessed with pleasing her with meaningless counsel. This she knew already. But there was something else there, a bitter tang which she had not felt before.
Pity. They pitied her. Was it born of their horror at her unique appearance? No, there were more spectacular sights on every corner of the city. What, then? Was something going to happen to her that they did not wish to tell her? Something they didn’t think she would understand? She made a note to have a couple of them thoroughly interrogated to see if they had divined something they dared keep from her.
Lady Charybdia tutted in annoyance. More distractions. She had half a mind to exterminate the tribes who had the potential to cause such trouble, but it wasn’t worth the effort—if the tribes attacked, they would destroy themselves by marching into the teeth of her legions. When she looked at the whole picture, of her stranglehold on Torvendis and the inviolable defences of her city, there really was nothing worth worrying about.
But something had awoken, and it seemed to be calling itself Ss’ll Sh’Karr. Sorcerers were stalking her world uninvited. The suns and moons were leading a frantic dance, as if trying to communicate something to those living on the world below. How much of it mattered? Were these the Chaotic nature of the Maelstrom pulling on Torvendis, just to make sure that nothing on the planet was routine? Or omens of something more?
There were millions of legionaries that Lady Charybdia could call upon, howling daemon packs and the shock troops of the Violators. There was nothing she could not cope with, even if doing so broke the city’s concentration on the glories of the Pleasure God. A small sacrifice to be made if necessary, and then she could get back to doing the work of Slaanesh.
This is what Lady Charybdia told herself as she walked out of her chapel, trying not to feel the dead eyes of the daemon’s skull staring at her as she left.
Runners and messenger birds went in every direction across the mountains, from the salt-sprayed coastline of the far north to the baking volcanic peaks bordering the southern desert. They each bore the same message, written in blood and charcoal on flayed skin as a sign of the sender’s seriousness. They said that the Emerald Sword was marching to war against Lady Charybdia, and all blood-vengeance and
honour-debts would be cancelled with regards to those who would join them. The proposal even extended to the Sword’s traditional enemies, like the blood-drinking peoples who followed the Bear totem on the edge of the swamps and the pale-skinned, yellow-eyed Serpent tribes whose longboats raided the length of the northern seas.
When the replies began arriving at the site of Golgoth’s city, many of them were flat refusals or elaborate insults, reminding the Emerald Sword of long-distant battles or massacres that made any alliance impossible. But others were offers of warriors, or weapons, or the allegiance of whole tribes.
Word was spreading that the Serpent were willing to join with the Sword, for Lady Charybdia had decimated their raiding fleets and had even begun converting their members to the worship of the lust-god through the temples built on the northern shores. Lesser tribes who had not even been contacted began asking if they could have the honour of fighting and dying alongside Golgoth. Other tribes were thrown into rebellion as they discovered their leaders, like Grik, had sold them out to feed Lady Charybdia’s slave-mines. Others still were simply spoiling for a fight, and gravitated towards the growing encampments in the western foothills as if drawn by the scent of conflict.
Golden-eyed assassins from the edges of the desert rode northwards on pale horses. Pack-lizards carried howdahs of massively muscled thugs from the valleys in the heart of the mountains where the sun never shone. Over two weeks Golgoth’s army swelled until it was not an army any more, but the gathered anger of a new nation, the Canis Mountain tribes at last united not by a ruler’s conquest but by rage against Lady Charybdia.
She should have killed us when they had the chance, they said. She should have finished the job she started at Arrowhead Peak. Now, we’ll show her how the free tribes repay their debts.
By the time Golgoth had given the order to pack away the tented city and march, the army of the mountains was two hundred thousand souls strong.
[Warhammer 40K] - Daemon World Page 11
