Warhammer Anthology 13

by War Unending (Christian Dunn)

  Reassured, at last, I returned to my horse, and rode back through the stanitsa to inform the company. As I passed through the streets thereof, I saw a curious thing.

  It was the girl, the beautiful girl from the causeway. She had been dressed in a long blue shift of silk that seemed too slight for such a bitter day. Silver combs had been placed in her black tresses, and kohl applied around her eyes. About her shoulders, she was garlanded with strings of small white flowers, like moon drops or pfennig-worts. I wondered where such flowers had grown in the sparse cold hills.

  Long ribbons of golden satin had been tied around her wrists, and by these lengths, she was being led through the town from ibza to ibza by the womenfolk of the village. The girl, I realised, was to play some role in the ritual to come, and this was part of her ceremonial preparation.

  The womenfolk, old matrons mostly, were wrapped in skins and dark hooded tunics, their feet bound up in fur. They chattered and chided as they led the girl. Her feet were bare. I saw them beneath the hem of her shift as she walked unflinching through the crisp, snowy mud.

  At each hut, she was greeted by the homeowner, who fed her a hunk of bread or a dry biscuit or a spoonful of meal, and also a bowl of mare's milk or koumiss. Her face was expressionless, as if she was dreaming, no smile and yet no frown. I found I was transfixed, in part by her beauty, and in part by her strangeness. As they led her on across my path, clucking to her and ringing little hand bells, she looked up at my face, and a tiny quizzical furrow made a little wrinkle between her eyebrows. There was a look - and then she had moved on. I rode to the yurt. Markovo was grilling a breakfast of fish and root pottage for the company over the fire. As we ate, we saw the Kzarla rota, in full gear, ride out from the gates, with Pyotr Gmelin at the head. They made off towards the west. The Kul warband, Baibek told us, had been sighted at dawn, in renewed force.

  Night came. The rota had not returned. I stood in the doorway of the yurt, gazing out across the flatness of white that the full moons were illuminating like the finest bleached parchment. In nearby Kzarla, great fires had been banked up along the shores of the lake, burning away, it seemed to me, a whole winter's supply of arguls. Braziers and rush-lights glowed along the distant causeway, and out onto the islet, half seen to me beyond the stanitsa's fence. We could hear singing, and the beat of drums, also the clash of cymbals. The ritual had begun.

  In the yurt, the company were all of readiness. Everything was packed, and they had donned their wargear, intending to sleep in it so that we could depart without delay at first light. By the firelight, they sat and waited, some drowsing, some occupied at dice or jacks. I had moved amongst them, making sure all was well, before withdrawing to the tent door.

  The distant singing had turned to chanting. A sense of disquiet filled me. It seemed as if the world was skewing out of joint, like a sundial that has been turned so its gnomon reads not true the hour. There was magic upon the night air.

  A screech-owl called, and made me start. Then, from the edges of my eye, I made of a motion out in the snowfield beyond where the company horses were tethered.

  It was a dog-fox, its coat already white for winter, and it came padding in across the snow's blanket, tongue twitching, sniffing for scent so that steam showed at its snout.

  I watched it as it scurried on towards the stanitsa, snuffling the ground as it went. Then, in a moment, it lay down flat upon its belly, and set its chin upon the ground, and there lay, looking towards the village and its fires, as if waiting. As if drawn to something as old and feral as itself.

  Subarin came out to bring me a thimble cup of samogon. I swigged it against the cold, and then said: 'Do you see?'

  He did not, for the fox had gone, but I told him of it and he shook his head. He could not explain it but he look toward the village as if resisting the impulse to go there.

  'What is it?' I asked of him.

  He was about to answer when we heard the sobbing. It was quite distinct, despite the uproar from the stanitsa, for it was closer at hand. Subarin and I exchanged glances, and then took off at once towards the gate.

  Four or five of the womenfolk were crouched in the snow outside the ditch-fence, making a great show of sorrow. We came to them, and little sense could we make.

  'They lament,' Subarin said, translating for me the best as he could understand their broken whimpers. 'They lament for tonight it must be really done and she will be gone from them.'

  He looked at me. 'What might that mean?'

  'Get the horses,' I said. 'Rouse the company and get the horses.'

  He looked upon my visage for a moment, and then nodded, as if what he had seen there convinced him. He ran back across the snow towards the yurt.

  Despite the prohibition on strangers, I hurried into the town. All activity was at the far end by the islet. The longhouse was a silhouette against the orange dance of the ritual fires. I ran on, along the boardwalk, and down towards the causeway.

  The night was filled with flame and chanting. Sparks flew, and the foetid stench of burning dung was strong. Reflected flames fluttered out across the surface of the lake. The ruddy faces of all the villagers were about me in the smoky heat. My eyes watered. I pushed on.

  I looked out towards the islet. My heart beat hard.

  The tent upon the island had been taken down, revealing a stone block which looked to me like one of the heathen stones Subarin had shown to me in the forest around Svedora. This block reclined upon the platform of the cromlech, like an altar. Torches blazed around the rim of the islet, and by their light I saw the shaman capering about the stone. He was clad in a suit of bearskin, and had upon his scrawny head a crown of antlers and a mask of beaten silver. In his upraised right hand rattled a sistrum. In his upraised left glinted a silver dagger.

  And on the stone, garlanded with flowers, lay the girl.

  Then I saw Sire Jochrund, his long cloak billowing in the wind, walking out across the causeway towards the islet, with Sigert jumping and dancing like a court fool in his wake. The bastard clerk was stripped unto his breeks, and his puffy skin painted like a heathen. He was banging on a drum.

  I refused to believe what I was seeing with my own eyes.

  The crowd fell to a hush as Sire Jochrund - no, I will not write his name thuswise any more - as Jochrund reached the shaman and took from his hand the silver dagger. This was done with the exchange of many arcane speeches, accompanied by the beat of the clerk's infernal drum.

  Jochrund raised the blade, and blessed it.

  I had seen enough. I broke a path through the crowd and ran like a hare towards the causeway. A great cry went up from those about me, startled and alarmed. Two of the ataman's swordsmen rushed to arrest my path, but I knocked them down with my fists and laid them flat in the snow of the shore.

  Then I was upon the causeway, and running still, my sword out in my hand. I bellowed the wizard's name, and cursed him in the power of holy Sigmar. He looked towards me, as if mystified to see me there. The shaman howled. Behind me, I could hear the raging tumult of the townsfolk.

  I reached the islet.

  'Jozef...' the wizard began. All I could see was the ritual dagger in his bare hand. Bare hand! All this time his cursed hands had been gloved and covered.

  'Leave her!' I yelled.

  The shaman screamed and - I'm quite certain - laid a curse on my soul that will last until the end of my days. He flew at me with a handaxe. I lashed out to meet him with my left hand, and caught him such a blow, his silver mask broke away and he went tumbling back off the platform's edge into the black water with a shriek and a flailing of limbs. He went under, and for an instance, I glimpsed his white form through the rippled water as it sank into the gloom. The shock of icy water had no doubt killed him in a second.

  I cared not. I grabbed the girl up and dragged her backwards towards the causeway. She stumbled, as if sleeping, or drugged. Jochrund bellowed at me, using words I did not understand. I felt my hair stand up and my skin prickle. H
is clawing, bare hand gestured at me in intricate patterns, fluid and evil, and I knew that his magic was about to be unleashed upon my person. There was indeed a flash of green light, and smell like unto spoiled curds, but no great magical doom afflicted me.

  Sigert, however, that base fool, had snatched up the silver dagger cast aside by his master, and came at me, cutting me deep across the meat of my right thigh with its razor edge. The pain was like a fire-burn. I yelled out, and my sword swung out instinctively, dividing Sigert's miserable head from his neck in a fountain of blood.

  Holding the girl and limping, sword ready, I backed down the causeway towards the shore, as Jochrund, his face set all of manifest hatred, advanced after me. Glancing behind, I saw the shocked and frightened faces of a hundred villagers in the firelight. Shocked and frightened they might be, but still they blocked my line of escape.

  'Jozef!' the wizard hissed, his hands circling and dancing once more.

  'You will call me Sire von Kallen,' I corrected bluntly.

  Jochrund spat and raised his hands above his head. Blue flame, like a crown of lightning, encircled them, gathering fury. I heard the thunder of hooves, the glorious sound of Sigmar's heavenly host come to carry me to my eternal slumber.

  A golden javelin punched through Jochrund's left hip and threw him over onto the causeway. He screamed out an awful note of pain. The blue fire slipped off his hands like melting ice and dropped onto the lake, where it burned and spat malevolently like a marsh fire until it was spent.

  I turned. The villagers were scattering in panic. The company was riding hard down the shore and along the boardwalk. At its head was Schroder, and Subarin, who was pulling a second throwing lance from his saddle boot.

  'Come on! Come on, sire!' Schroder yelled. My horse's reins were pulling in his hand. I picked up the girl, as best as I could in spite my pain, and ran to my horse, throwing her up upon it and climbing up myself.

  Then we rode. Down through the stanitsa of Kzarla, past the gates and the ditch, past our abandoned yurt, and into the darkness, kicking up snow and flints with our hooves.

  Subarin led us to a hilltop where the remnants of a sunken mound formed a simple ditch which we might defend, and there we waited until the sun rose. Brendel bound my wound, and we lit a fire. It would be seen, I knew, but the biting night was too cold to bear. I moved the girl near the heat of it, and gave her water in her stupor, hoping she would rouse.

  At length, as dawn filmed the east with a pearly glow, she woke, and began chattering with alarm and distress. Subarin came to her, for I was unable to calm her, and talked to her in soothing wise until she settled again.

  He came to me then. 'She is chosen born.'

  'What is meant by that?' I asked.

  'Her lineage, Sire. It is born to supply the krug with offerings if the needs be.'

  'You speak of it like it is human to do such a thing!'

  Subarin smiled and shook his head. 'Only in these remote places do the oldest of old ways survive. This is as she has told it to me. At the coming of every winter, the folk of Kzarla krug make ceremony upon the islet. It is ritual and symbolic. A maiden is offered to the god of winter to make perforce the coming snows mild and not harsh.'

  'A girl is slaughtered?'

  'Not at all. A girl is offered. It is symbolic, as I said. There is a mumbled ritual involving the dagger, some flowers cast upon the water. She has done it three winters yet.'

  'They do not kill her?'

  'Of course not! Sire von Kallen, do you think we are barbarians out in these wilds?'

  I made no answer.

  'But the ceremony has its origins deep in the past, in other ages when men were not so fussy. The Scythians who raised that cromlech would indeed cut open a maiden every year-end and cast her body into the lake to fend off winter's cruelty. It is from that the Kzarla ritual derives.'

  'So... what was that we saw?'

  'She says, my friend, that your wizard had heard about the rite, and came to Kzarla to convince the shaman that it must be done the old way.'

  'Why?'

  'Because only a rite performed in the way of the old magic could enforce a true conjuration.'

  I shook my poor, unknowing head. 'What?'

  Subarin grinned. 'The folk of Kzarla perform the ritual symbolically every year. If it staves off winter's might, so much the good. But their Scythian forebears conducted the rite in all reality, with sacrifice, and conjured such magic as truly kept the force of winter at bay. Your lord-'

  'My lord no longer!' I snarled.

  'Mayhap. Your wizard persuaded the shaman, by means that cannot be known, that the rite should be performed actually this winter, as it was done in the old days. For a mild winter, he said, was the only thing that would safeguard Kislev and the Empire both.'

  'He said that much? What did he mean?'

  Subarin took out a skin of koumiss, and offered unto me the first draw. It warmed my bones greatly. He drank too, and then said:

  'The girl says your wizard told the shaman a great threat is rising in the North. Its name is Archaeon, and beneath its fury, all of the kingdoms of the world might perish. But if the winter was mild, the armies of the Empire could advance early, prepared as they were, and lay waste to the Archaeon's hordes while they were still in their winter camps.'

  'What is her name?'

  'What, sire?'

  'The girl. What is her name?'

  'It is Mariya.'

  THERE ARE NO such plans. As a knight of the Reiksguard, I would know, or at least have some inkling. Though the Empire is aware that a threat is rising in the wastes north of Kislev, it has made no plans to muster armies or draw them up to the Ostermark or the southern provinces of Kislev this year. There are no great regiments encamped upon the Linsk or the Upper Talabec in readiness for a sudden early thaw. If they move and muster, move and muster at all, it will be in the springtime, when the campaign season begins.

  Jochrund was lying. A mild winter and early thaw would benefit only one side: the hosts of Chaos pouring down, early and unexpected, from the North.

  This is the matter I must convey to you, and for which I have troubled to write this account. Heed it well, I beseech you. Be warned, be ready. Do not tarry. The North is coming. Archaeon is coming. Unless you prepare, the world will be set aflame. For Archaeon's talons are dug in everywhere, even into secret places, like the brittle soul of an Imperial wizard, whose villainy knows no bounds, and who would, corrupted by whatever means I know not, undermine the security of our realm, with a casting of rituals and a stab of silver.

  AS DAWN CAME up upon the terraces of our ancient fort, we saw the Kul. Four score and more besides, gathering at the foot of the slopes where the snow had drifted thick. They were ominous black shapes against the blazing white, furnished for war in pitch-black armour and iron. Their tattered banners flew and snapped in the wind. Drums beat. Jochrund had called them, I was sure. Cursed Jochrund had called them to his aid.

  And I knew then why he had not interceded in the fight in the valley.

  These animals were his kin.

  Horn blew, and echoed down the vale. The Kul clattered their shields against their spear-hafts, and began to advance up the slopes towards us. Through a spyglass, I saw Jochrund - cursed wizard! - slumped as if ailing upon his steed, commanding the warriors on.

  He wanted the girl. He wanted to finish his infernal rite and pave the way for Archaeon's victory.

  I hallooed up my men, and Subarin and his two comrades stood with us. We had broke most of our spears in the battle before, so now we drew out our swords. Swords of the Empire, clean-forged and true. Subarin unsheathed his golden sword, and Baibek and Markovo slid out their sabres. Even with these fine blades, I doubted it would be enough.

  Our breaths furled the high air. Hawks swooped about the hilltop in the brightness of the cold daylight. As the sun reached its quarter place, they came for us.

  At ten paces, I had the handgunners fire, splitting bone a
nd helmet cases, dropping brutes onto the slope. Then it was down to swords; swords and spears against the axes and blades and shields of the Kul.

  I took off a skull clean at the jawline, and then ran another warrior through, ripping out my blade to meet the next and the next again, chopping aside venturing sword-points and shattering shields about their bosses. Cloven and bleeding, the bodies of Kul rolled and slithered down the steep slope of our makeshift fort. Markovo launched his last javelin, and impaled a horned foe who went cartwheeling down the hillside. Then he raised his sabre and slashed at neck and breastbone.

  Baibek cut into sundry shields and took away a Kul's throat in a patter of blood, before smiting a skull-masked fighter through the chest. His blade stuck there, arrested by the breastbone, and he was still trying to free it when the boar-spears of the invaders stuck him through.

  Konstanz died with an axe between his eyes and a Kul upon his sword, writhing. Zebluck was speared through the gut, and let out a great stain of blood upon the snow.

  Mottsdan cut and hacked, and set forth upon the singing of a hymn, a verse of the Empire at full throat, which many others of the company joined with, and continued long after Mottsdan himself was cut asunder.

  Lieber died upon a spear. Bahr, two dead by his sword, was ripped apart by an axe that struck him above the right hip.

  Erhle, bloodied by a blow to the scalp, kept fighting until his own blood blinded him and Kul swords ripped through his vitals.

  Kenserhaus brought down one Kul with his last spear and then took out his sword, but a heathen axe took his sword arm away at the wrist, and he fell back, weaponless, drenching himself with his own spurting blood, and fending off blows with his left arm, which shortly was chopped and splintered into pieces. Then he was finished, with a Kul sword through the heart and into the earth beneath.

  Borchers, who was always of a fine spirit and indomitable heart, buried his sword in through the chest of a Kul warlord, who cut away his head with his dying spasm.