Magestorm

by Jonathan Green - (ebook by Undead)

  The insane daemon-worshippers had not destroyed all of the ancient weapons. One monstrous cannon stood on its wooden wheeled frame at the centre of the quarry. It was at least five spans in length and as tall as a man. It must have been the greatest of the Schmiedorf guns, but now it looked little like the mighty Imperial weapon it had once been. Huge metal spikes had been driven into the belly and barrel of the cannon. It had been banded with belts of ruddy brass, and strange shapes, possibly letterforms, had been engraved into the metal.

  Gerhart looked away, his eyes stinging and gorge rising in his throat.

  Chaos runes, he thought. Their blasphemous form twisted the very fabric of reality around them and made them unbearable to look at.

  Not too far from where he was lying Gerhart heard one of the soldiers lose the contents of his stomach. He too must have looked too long upon the hellish graffiti etched into the great gun.

  This wasn’t all the Chaos warband had done to transform the cannon. The last remaining survivors of the party that had set out from Schmiedorf had been bound with chains to the body of the foul construction. The men were bloodied and beaten, but they were not dead. The bright wizard had a horrible suspicion that the warband was intending to use the men as sacrifices.

  Amongst those strapped to the massive cannon was one man who stood out thanks to his attire. Gerhart could see the tendrils of power writhing around him. The man had luxuriant blond hair and a beard of yellow-gold curls. His tattered yellow robes were made of a material that sparkled and shimmered as it reflected the incandescent glow of the fires. The sigils and runes embroidered on the cloth reflected back to Gerhart.

  This poor wretch could only be one man: the metallurgist-sorcerer of the Golden order who was supposed to have been travelling with the cannon train: Eisen Zauber.

  Surveying this work was the overseer of this particular warband. The creature stood on an outcrop of rock, looking down on the mutilated form of the great cannon. He was tall and lean, easily as tall as the armour-clad warriors. His entire body was covered in a robe of strange, shifting-hued material, the hood of which entirely hid his face. Gerhart could see two red, antler-like horns protruding from holes in the cowl of the cloak and he had a sickening feeling that they weren’t simply part of some helm or other head adornment.

  The figure held an ivory rod tightly in one brass-gauntleted hand. It was surmounted by a cut black gem, a substance unknown to the fire wizard.

  Gerhart spotted something moving at the figure’s feet which looked horribly like a hairless human head attached to a pink-fleshed worm-like body.

  This was one of the blasphemous warp-mages who had dedicated their lives, their service, their very souls to the immortal gods of disorder and destruction. This was a sorcerer of Chaos and writhing languidly at its feet was his familiar, a creature formed from the very stuff of magic.

  The fire mage shivered at the sight. It was all becoming clear to him now.

  The warband had no great guns of its own, so the Chaos sorcerer was doubtless intending to use his own devilish powers to turn the artillery piece into some kind of monstrous hell-cannon. Such a transformation demanded a thrice-cursed ritual.

  “We have to stop this,” Gerhart hissed to Captain Reimann.

  “I agree,” Karl replied quietly, “but how do you suggest we accomplish such a thing?”

  “Your men outnumber the sorcerer’s warband.”

  “Yes, they do, and they are brave men. I am not one to put down my own men, but one Reiklander halberdier can hardly hope to prevail against a fully-armed and armoured warrior-servant of the Dark Gods.”

  “But this ritual must be stopped,” Gerhart growled.

  Gerhart was suddenly aware of a guttural chanting coming from the quarry. The words being uttered by the Chaos sorcerer were in a language that no human tongue was ever meant to speak.

  As the sorcerer intoned his daemonic incantations, Gerhart could feel the air thickening around him and an uncomfortable pressure building in his ears. He looked down into the quarry with his mage-sight. His eyes began watering, as he saw the throbbing waves of black power emanating from the Chaos sorcerer and the magic-suffused cannon.

  And as the sorcerer continued to chant, the Chaos warriors collected blades that had been heated in the white-hot coals of the forge and formed a circle around the cannon.

  As the pitch of the sorcerer’s corrupt chanting reached a crescendo, the Chaos warriors stepped forward, plunging their glowing blades into the bodies of the men strapped to the cannon. Several jerked into life only to scream a death-agony into the night as their lifeblood poured from their bodies over the cannon.

  Steam rose from the men’s bodies as the blades cooled in the blood of the victims. Eventually the mist obscured everything from Gerhart’s view.

  Shaking his head, as if trying to shake himself free of the oppressive feeling pressing down on him, he pushed himself up onto his feet and made to move for the gully leading into the quarry.

  “The time for talk is over!” the wizard snarled. “If you will not act, then I must. Alone, if necessary. Something must be done!”

  Then the sky exploded and Gerhart was thrown to the ground.

  A coruscating bolt of jagged crimson lightning tore the sky asunder as it streaked out of the benighted heavens and struck the body of the alchemist who was tied to the top of the cannon. The gold wizard’s corpse writhed as the infernal energies drove into it, straining against the heavy iron chains holding it in place.

  “Something has been summoned,” said Captain Reimann in his gruff voice. The wizard had picked himself up and was back at the commander’s side. “The gold wizard’s glittering soul must have been the tasty morsel the sorcerer was intending to use to lure a daemon of Chaos into blasphemous metallurgical creation.” The wizard seemed keen to share his knowledge with the halberdier.

  Karl couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene in the quarry beneath him. In all his years of service as a soldier, he had never witnessed such a horrific event.

  Even a man with a resolve as strong as his would need a moment to compose himself before he could act. As he gathered his wits, Karl became aware of a strengthening wind whipping around the hilltop and the quarry. The blood-daubed cannon and the writhing corpse bound to it was obscured from view by billows of filthy black smoke and steam. The wind continued to rise, tugging at the halberdiers’ clothes, hair and helms as they hugged the ground at the edge of the quarry cliff.

  “What’s happening?” Karl shouted over the roar of the spiralling wind.

  “As I said, something has been summoned,” the bright wizard called back, the gale-force wind whipping his straggly greying hair around his face. “The sorcerer has completed his foul begotten ritual. Let us hope we can still defeat the daemonic spirit he has brought to this world while it is still vulnerable.”

  The wizard staggered to his feet, staff in hand, his ruddy robes flapping around him.

  Karl knew the sorcerer was right.

  “Wait!” Karl shouted after the wizard. “What you need is a distraction.”

  With an apocalyptic boom, the black-powder barrels exploded on the far side of the quarry. The wagon that had been holding them was blown apart by the explosion, sending barrels shooting up into the night sky blazing trails of sparks after them, like giant fireworks. A roiling cloud of fiery smoke rolled across the Chaos encampment.

  Shouts went up from the Chaos warriors as they ran to recover their weapons. Gerhart could hear the shrieking of the Chaos sorcerer as he strode into the quarry, through the chaos and confusion. Then he was aware of another sound: the agitated shouts of Captain Reimann’s men as they piled into the Chaos camp to engage the enemy.

  Gerhart saw two halberdiers cut down one of the black-armoured warriors just as the Chaos-worshipper was pulling a mace from a stand of weapons. One of the men cut his legs from under him. He hooked his halberd in behind the warrior’s knees where there was a gap between his armoured greaves, whil
e the second Reiklander thrust his blade up under the gorget of the warrior’s breastplate and gutted the foul thing with a twist of the long blade.

  The distraction had worked: a couple of scrambling Empire soldiers had entered the camp unseen and made use of a tinderbox, flints and powder barrels that had not yet been put to use.

  The fire wizard could have ignited the barrels himself but the evil atmosphere pervading the quarry was making it hard to focus his power. They all had their roles to play. Captain Reimann had made it clear that he and his men would engage the Chaos warriors in combat while Gerhart attempted to reach the hellish machine and use his magic to destroy the daemon-imbued contraption.

  The commander of the Reiklanders himself was in the thick of the fighting. Gerhart saw him find his mark in the eye-slit of a warrior’s helmet. There was a gargling barking cry and the warrior lurched backwards. Reimann flicked the caught helmet from his opponent’s head.

  For a moment Gerhart caught sight of the snarling dogface that was exposed beneath. Then he shook the helmet free of his weapon’s blade and as the Chaos warrior raised his own jagged-edged broadsword, he thrust forwards again, slicing into the warrior’s neck and pushing out the other side. Holding the twitching Chaos-mutant at arm’s reach on the end of his halberd, Reimann unsheathed his sword and, stepping forward, brought it up into the Chaos warrior’s side, finding an opening in his armour beneath his armpit. The dog-faced mutant crumpled to its knees, gasping its last, blood bubbling from the opening in its throat.

  Striding through the choking pall, Gerhart drew the tendrils of Aqshy’s crimson energies to him, the candle flame in his mind’s eye becoming a raging conflagration. The billowing clouds of spark-shot smoke parted and Gerhart found himself in front of the blasphemous hell-cannon.

  The weapon that stood before him was barely recognisable as an Imperial cannon: it had become an appalling amalgam of metal and living flesh. Its long barrel was black iron banded with brass with bony-metal spikes protruding along its length. The muzzle of the great gun now resembled a misshapen, fanged maw and as the wizard watched, a purple whip-like tongue darted from it.

  The wheeled gun carriage had been changed by the ritual too. The rear axle and wheels appeared the same, except that now they had spiked teeth around their rims. The front wheels of the carriage had gone, transformed into clawed feet that gripped the ground with scaly, iron talons.

  The most horrifying thing about the transformation was what had happened to the poor souls sacrificed to the Chaos powers to bring about the hideous metamorphosis. Little was still visible of the cannon-crew and Eisen Zauber. The men had become fused with the cannon and Gerhart could see their agonised faces screaming from amidst the pulsing, veined metal of the gun’s belly. Scalded arms writhed and twisted from the surface of the hell-cannon and clawed at the air.

  Gerhart heard a belching rumble from somewhere within the construction and saw the sides of the cannon expand momentarily. What should have been flesh and blood had become armour-skinned and what should have been solid iron had become as living flesh.

  The fire wizard knew what he had to do. Somehow, the vile contraption had to be destroyed while the daemonic spirit now imbuing the gun with its warping essence was still exposed. Before he could even get near to the awakening daemon engine, there was the Chaos sorcerer to contend with.

  Gerhart saw the sorcerer lower the tip of his ivory staff. The black gem began pulsing malignantly as a twisted spell began to form, but the bright wizard was ready for him. Gerhart had the advantage: the Chaos sorcerer was not expecting the arrival of another wizard into this maelstrom of a Chaos camp.

  A cone of fire jetted from the tip of Gerhart’s outstretched staff. The furious flames enveloped the antlered sorcerer, and seemed to consume him. Power blazed for several long seconds before the wizard cancelled the conjuration, knowing that he would be in further need of his powers later.

  He felt drained after the expenditure of magical energy. The magic had its price and took its toll without regard for the wizard. His cheeks felt drawn and he had a haggard, hollow-eyed look about him now.

  There in front of him stood the sorcerer, seemingly unharmed. He shook the last of the dying flames from his cloak as if they were water.

  Dispel, Gerhart thought, and let out an angry growl.

  As his anger built, so did the fiery power burning within him.

  The tip of the wizard’s staff caught alight with an audible whoomph. Holding the oak rod in his right hand like a javelin, Gerhart drew his arm back and hurled it forward with all his might. The blazing staff soared from his hand, trailing fire, until it found its mark. The sorcerer screamed as the burning brand struck him full in the face, and remained there. The cowl of the sorcerer’s robe burst into flame and soon his whole head was wreathed in fire. The screams died and the sorcerer toppled forwards, tumbling from the rock onto the ground and remained there, motionless.

  Gerhart recovered his staff and turned its still blazing tip on the monstrous contraption before him. Sheets of flame poured from the smouldering oak, dousing the cannon in hot, purifying fire. But against the hellish contraption Gerhart’s fiery spell seemed to have little effect. The cannon had been forged in fires hotter than this and to the daemon now possessing the machine, fire was of no consequence at all. The fires of hell were hotter, after all.

  Gerhart was suddenly aware of a hissing sound close to his feet and felt something brush against his leg. He looked down to see the slithering pink coils of the sorcerer’s familiar wrapping around his leg. He lashed out just as the hairless, human head opened distended snake-like jaws and sank inch-long fangs into his calf. Shaken free, the familiar landed in the hot coals of a glowing bonfire. There it died, shrivelling to nothing more than a fire-blackened husk.

  The bite stung, but it did not feel as if any noxious poison had been injected into his bloodstream, for which Gerhart was profoundly grateful. With the familiar dealt with, the bright wizard turned his attention back to the hell-cannon.

  There was a throaty belching sound and a flame-wreathed cannonball blasted from the fanged maw of the gun. Clouds of putrid black smoke emitted from oil-dripping orifices at the rear of the contraption. Gerhart inhaled a great lungful of the reeking emission and began coughing violently. His eyes began streaming again.

  Blinking away the tears, Gerhart saw the ruin of a Reiklander lying beside the wreckage of a wagon. His bones were broken and his body had been blasted open by the deadly cannonball that was now embedded in the wall of the quarry. There was a second belching boom and the gun fired at another corner where the Imperial soldiers were still holding back the Chaos warriors. The machine had hauled itself around to locate a fresh target.

  Gerhart had not even known the cannon had been loaded, and now he wondered whether it was creating its own ammunition from within. It had to be stopped!

  He ran forward, drawing the tempered steel of his sword. He dropped his precious staff so that he could hold the blade firmly in both hands. The fire mage was not a confident swordsman. Gerhart thought he could see a crack in the bulging side of the cannon. It was a possible vulnerable spot, a weak point in its construction. He swung his sword in a mighty arc at the engine. The blade struck the spot and, to Gerhart’s dismay, shattered. Casting the useless hilt of the weapon aside he closed his eyes and reached into his mind.

  There, in the dark void, the fire of his wizardly power blazed, only now the flames tapered and twisted as they burned, taking on a new form; something like a sword.

  Gerhart opened his eyes. There in his hands was a sword of flame. The mystical weapon warmed the palms of his hands but did not burn the fire mage. He prepared to swing this conjured fiery blade at the same point of apparent weakness on the wheezing cannon.

  Then it hit him.

  It was like a wave of sickening nausea only it was backed by a sinister sentience of its own. Suddenly all Gerhart could focus on was the blood pumping from the cannon and the writhing of
its perverted metal-flesh limbs. Whatever it was that resided in the warped weapon would not have the wizard thwart it so easily.

  Gerhart could feel the bile rising in his throat as steel-tipped claws scraped at the inside of his skull. He felt overwhelmed. The sights, sounds and smells of the battle raging all around him ruined his concentration even more. The cries of the Reiklanders as they fell to Chaos blades. The obscene monstrosity that was the hell-cannon filling his field of vision. The smell of the smoke and the crackling of flames.

  Flames.

  Fire.

  The whirling wind of Aqshy. The very essence of his power.

  With an almighty bodily effort and a roar born of anger, pain and desperate fear, the bright wizard swung the blazing blade.

  As the flame-wreathed sword hit the groaning metal body of the daemon engine, its tip pierced the machine’s iron hide. Human hands emerged from the metal barrel, and clutched at the wizard. It seemed as if the blade was cutting into hot, pumping flesh and blood. The body of the gun-engine swelled and Gerhart forced the fiery sword in still further, twisting it with all his strength—physical and magical.

  An agonised squeal howled from the muzzle of the hell-cannon and the hands emerging from its sides became palsied clenching claws. Gerhart had a fair idea what would happen next. He pulled the magical weapon from the belly of the daemonic cannon and ran, the flaming blade evaporating into ether.

  The explosion drowned out the cacophony of battle raging in the quarry, and the force of it threw halberdiers and Chaos warriors flat. The daemon bound within the cannon was being thrown back to the Realm of Chaos that had spawned it—the hellish alchemical construction could no longer contain the writhing, warping energies. Chunks of smouldering, twisted metal and gobbets of half-cooked meat rained down across the encampment. Red smoke washed across the floor of the quarry like a bloody fog.

  Gerhart picked himself up—as did the survivors of Captain Reimann’s halberdiers and the last of the Chaos warband. His ears rang with the deafening roar of the daemon engine’s apocalyptic demise.