by C. L. Werner
The Chosen roared, a sound magnified into metal thunder by his helm. ‘Kill the faithless traitors my sons of ruin!’ Urbaal drew his sword, staring into the spidery eyes of the daemon. ‘I shall deal with their noisy puppet!’
Hulking, brutish shapes clad in strips of mail and heavy furs, the Baersonlings maintained a relentless pace through the frozen landscape of their barren homeland. Rage and revenge were etched into each man’s fierce heart, twisting hard faces into harder scowls. They had seen firsthand the massacre the dark elves had made of their kinsmen, the degenerate sport the inhuman fiends had taken as they slaughtered helpless children and women. Death and cruelty were common enough in Norsca, but the elves had displayed a depth of malevolence and sadism that offended even the jaded hearts of the northmen.
The revenge of the Baersonlings had fallen like the fist of a titan upon the elf corsairs. Some had been cut down before they could reach their ship, most had died in the waters of the fjord when that same ship had mysteriously sunk beneath the waves, as though the decaying hand of Mermedus had reached up from the depths to drag it down into his watery domain. The waterlogged survivors had been pulled from the surf, dealt with in such fashion as they had treated their own victims. The thin, piercing screams of the elves still echoed in the ears of the Norscan warriors, haunting wails of agony that each man knew he would never forget.
The wretch ahead of them was the only one they had spared, buying his life only by promising to lead the Norscans to more of his kin that had set out for the mountainous interior. The elf was kept leashed like a dog, a grizzled Norscan whaler following close behind him, stabbing his flanks with the barbed tip of a harpoon whenever the elf displayed signs of reluctance or fatigue. They would let this lithe fiend believe he could save himself by betraying his own to them. It would gain him the honour of being the last to die. The seers would be happy to offer his soul to the Raven God. Nothing pleased Great Tchar so much as the heart of a traitor, fresh and bloody upon his altar stone.
Rafn Sharkstabber pulled the whetstone from the pocket of his bearskin cloak and ground it against the edge of his axe for the umpteenth time. Blue sparks danced from the stone as it rubbed against the metal. He wanted the blade keen enough to shave a vulture’s beard when they found the elves. There would be gory work for his weapon then and he wanted it to be equal to the task.
The brawny warrior turned his head to boast of some of the havoc he would visit upon the elves. The boast never left Rafn’s bearded lips. He stared in confusion, trying to understand where the man beside him had gone. Melkolfr had been there only a moment before. Rafn studied the terrain, looking for bushes or outcroppings the warrior might have withdrawn behind to relieve himself. There was nothing, only the howl of the wind and the line of their own footprints behind them.
Rafn tucked the whetstone back in his pocket and took a wary step back down the valley. He watched the jagged crags of the mountains, studying them with a practised eye. There were many things in the mountains of Norsca that could set upon a lone man and snatch him away without a trace. The ice-tiger, the ymir, even an exceptionally cunning troll. But the Baersonling did not think what had gotten Melkolfr was a simple predator. Anything quiet enough to grab a man from the midst of comrades was also smart enough not to risk attacking such a large group.
The warrior turned his head as something caught his eye. A small crimson stain in the snow, its very smallness unsettling to him. He bent, dipping his finger into the dark patch. He put the icy muck to his mouth, tasting its bitter saltiness. The familiar taste told Rafn it was human. He stared even harder at the ground, but could find only the marks of Melkolfr’s boots in the snow. Even an ice-tiger would have left paw marks behind if this had been the work of a beast.
Rafn spun about, cupping his hand to shout to his fellows. Now that he was aware of the menace, he could see that others were missing. Nefbjorn Half-Sarl, Olfun Red Spear and Faksi Shieldbreaker. All three men were gone, vanished as completely as Melkolfr! Rafn’s mind whirled with images of daemons and the restless dead, spectral horrors that struck from their invisible world beyond the understanding of men.
A wet gargle was all that came from Rafn’s mouth as he tried to shout warning to his fellows. So sharp was the blade that had transfixed his throat that he hadn’t even felt its touch. Slender fingers twisted the weapon then pulled it free with a savage tug. Rafn’s axe fell from his hands as he clapped his fingers about the spurting wreckage just below his chin. Through pain-wracked eyes, he saw a lithe shape slowly circle him, licking blood from one of the silvery daggers she held. Rafn felt his pulse quicken as he saw his attacker, the seductive twist of limb and carriage that melded into her every motion. There was horror mingled into the ethereal beauty, a malicious taint that was inhuman and alluring. The warrior felt his body throb and his gorge rise as the elf leaned towards him.
‘Why do they even think beasts like you can be useful?’ Beblieth mused. Faster than Rafn’s eye could follow, the witch elf’s blades flashed at him, slashing through both of his knees. The Norscan tumbled into the snow, crashing on his face.
‘Crawl, little worm,’ Beblieth told him, slicing one of her wickedly sharp daggers along his spine. ‘Warn your little friends that they are all going to die. It might make them more challenging.’
Rafn’s mutilated body heaved as he tried to go after his oblivious kinsmen, a wretched rattle of despair bubbling from his throat.
Trying to staunch the blood dribbling from his throat, Rafn used his elbows to pull himself through the snow. Each foot was an agony of frozen suffering, each yard an impossible effort. Always he could see the backs of the other Norscans marching farther and farther away, oblivious to the fiendish menace stalking them.
Rafn prayed to his gods for strength, for the endurance to go on. He could not feel his lower body now, blood loss had rendered his legs into icy lumps of meat dragging at him. His entire body shivered as warmth continued to drain from between his fingers. He slumped into the snow, his face crashing into the icy powder. How easy it would be just to accept, just to let death steal over him. Then he remembered the mocking seductive lure of the witch elf, the unspeakable way the druchii had massacred the village. He thought of his comrades, butchered, murdered without chance to die deaths the gods would smile upon.
The warrior forced his body up from the snow. Like a bleeding slug, he slithered through the ice. He could only just make out the cloaks of the Norscans ahead of him, with every second they seemed to march a league further into the valley. He tried to squeeze the ruin of his throat together, to muster the voice for one shout of warning. Nothing came of his effort except a rasping cough.
The witch elf stepped before him, pinning him to the frozen ground with one of her knee-length leather boots. Unseen, unheard, she had followed Rafn during his wretched attempt to reach his comrades, never more than a few paces behind. Beblieth’s merciless eyes stared down into those of the dying man. She cupped Rafn’s face in her gloved hand, lifting it so that he could look into her eyes.
‘Amusing,’ she told him, her words twisted by the cruelty of her lips. ‘But I fear I do not have the patience to watch the rest of the performance. Your friends are waiting after all.’
The last thing Rafn Sharkstabber saw was the flash of Beblieth’s dagger as she brought it slashing across his eyes. The witch elf did not bother to finish him off, but left him to writhe and suffer, perhaps to be found by the main body of the Baersonling warband. Perhaps to offer a lively meal for whatever scavengers were still abroad in the Norscan winter.
It made little difference to Beblieth. The fate of a dumb animal was less than nothing to her. The fate of the druchii traitor who had set the beasts on them, however, was something she would need to consider quite carefully.
An elf, after all, should be shown some dignity when he met death.
The flamer hissed, little fangs sprouting from the cusp of its beak. The daemon was not a mindless abomination. It understood
the boastful words of the shouting mortal. Feeding on terror and despair, it found Urbaal repugnant, like the dung of a fly upon a slice of sweetbread. The daemon would remove the offensive blight, then resume its interrupted repast.
Crackling daemon fires engulfed Urbaal as he charged at the beast. The Chosen’s steed screamed as it was enveloped in searing hellfire. Rider and mount vanished within a pillar of coruscating smoke and flame, the dying wail of the horse devoured by the hissing crackle of burning flesh. The daemon sizzled with villainous joy as it watched its victim burn.
Spidery eyes glimmered in shock as something emerged from the pillar of glowing smoke. The flamer shrank before the steady advance of the vengeful figure. Ash dripped from Urbaal’s smouldering armour with each step, smoke wafted from the crusty reminder of cloak and surcoat. Runes, blazing like snakes of lightning, crawled beneath the surface of his armour, like termites burrowing into wood. Thick, carapace-like growths of cartilage and bone slowly melted back into the Chosen’s armoured body.
Urbaal lifted his sword, the long fang of steel flaring into malefic life as a putrescent inner light erupted from within the blade, transforming it from an instrument of metal into a blinding sliver of starlight. Howling energy rippled from the sword, a terrifying radiance of inimical power that made even the daemon tremble.
Urbaal pounced upon the recoiling beast like a cat springing upon a mouse. He drove his blazing sword into the flamer’s stalk-like body, skewering it upon the shaft of starlight. Like the tooth of Tzeentch himself, the sword slashed through the flamer’s ethereal essence. The daemon withered upon the Chosen’s blade, wilting like a dried-out flower, its ropy arms crumbling into twig-like sticks, its face collapsing into the husk of its body. Urbaal shook the daemonic offal from his blade, grinding the desiccated wreckage beneath his boot.
Even as he crushed the daemon’s husk into dust, a purple circle of runes flickered into life beside Urbaal. The shifting figure of another daemon began to form in the second summoning circle.
There was a blinding burst of light as Urbaal slaughtered the daemon. Kormak hid his eyes from the display, then returned his attention to the chains that bound him. Impelled by the horrific energy of the daemon, his mutant limbs had grown strong, able to cheat the mutable metal of his bonds. He worked one hand free just as the first of the attacking warriors reached him. Kormak willed his hand to assume a crab-claw shape, the huge scything edge of the claw slashing through his attacker’s wrist, sending his hand rolling across the broken earth. Before the stunned warrior could react, Kormak caught him between the pincers of his claw. The man struggled in the marauder’s grip, fighting to break free of the pincers. Kormak sneered at the effort and willed his arm to change again, becoming an axe-head. As the pincers of the claw flowed together to form the new mutation, they slashed through the foeman’s waist. The severed halves flopped about on the broken ground like fish in the bottom of a boat.
The Norscan battered the other manacles that bound him, keeping his eyes fixed upon the battle raging around him. The Kurgan attackers had fallen upon Urbaal’s warband and were now thickly mixed with the knights. Urbaal’s men fought well, but not well enough to overbalance the numbers of their enemy. Beyond them, Kormak could see the shadowy shape of the laughing sorcerer who commanded them. Snakes of burning red light whipped from the robed sorcerer’s hands to rend and slash the knights, cleaving through flesh and armour like a hot knife through butter.
Opposing the sorcerer was Urbaal’s magus, the bird-like Vakaan. Perched upon his daemonic disc, the magus sent his own spells raining down upon the ambushers. Kormak saw one Kurgan flayed alive by a wailing whip of daemonic lightning, another torn asunder by a blue bolt of mutating energy. Sometimes the two mystics would turn their attention upon each other, sending blasts of power searing at their opposite. Each time the spell would shatter against the counterspell of the other magus, leaving only an acrid smell and a residue of smoky light.
‘Traitor!’ Vakaan wailed at the sorcerer. ‘You would break the word of Prince Tchar’zanek?’
‘You are not worthy of the honour!’ Odvaha raged back. ‘You are not worthy to profane the Bastion Stair and free Lord Kakra from the Bloodthirster! The Raven God will smile upon me when I succeed where you could only fail! Then will Tchar’zanek know it was I he should have chosen, not worthless wasteland scum!’
Kormak saw Odvaha hurl another of his withering spells against Vakaan. This time, instead of being destroyed by the magus’s counterspell, the magic seemed to take greater strength from it. Glancing from the unseen shell of protection Vakaan had woven about himself, Odvaha’s spell instead smashed into the line of fighting warriors. A dozen men, Kurgan and knight alike, were caught in a shimmering explosion of orange light and purple fires. The warriors screamed as their bodies were twisted and corroded by the sorcerer’s exalted magic. Flesh melted and popped as new organs sprouted and old ones collapsed. Bones stabbed through skin, skin thickened into scaly leather. A mad infection of uncontrolled, undirected mutation swept through the fighters, ripping their bodies apart in a horrific display of the Changer’s might.
The Norscan snapped his attention away from the men dying only feet from him. His eyes settled upon the hated shape of Tolkku. The tattooed zealot was beset by one of the Kurgans that had not been caught in the treacherous magic of Odvaha. The mystic was falling back, his puny dagger no match against the heavy axe of his foe. There was a pleasing expression of terror in the eyes of the zealot, yet even in his fear, Tolkku maintained a white-knuckled grip upon the painted skull he held in his left hand.
Kormak threw off the last of his chains, charging the Kurgan. The flesh of his mutant arm flowed into the shape of a bony sword. He drove the iron-hard limb into the Kurgan’s back, impaling him upon a blade of bone. Kormak threw down the dying warrior, snapping his neck with a brutal kick of his boot. He stooped and tore the axe from the Kurgan’s dead fingers.
‘I saved you so I could kill you myself,’ Kormak snarled at Tolkku.
Instead of cowering, the zealot snickered, displaying the painted skull in his hand. The weird pattern of pink swirls and jade diamonds drew Kormak’s gaze and refused to release it. ‘Fool! You killed that wretch because I commanded it! I am the master!’ The zealot turned his head, his eyes narrowing as he saw Odvaha unleash another barrage of magic against Vakaan. ‘Now, I want you to kill the sorcerer.’
Kormak struggled to resist the impulse that burned through his brain. Against his own volition, he turned towards the warring sorcerers. ‘This is not over,’ he growled through clenched teeth.
‘Of course not,’ Tolkku chided him. He pointed a bony finger at the Norscan. ‘It will end when I add that pretty skull of yours to my collection!’
Kormak glared at the priest, then was forced to look away. His treacherous body, subsumed to the will of Tolkku and his hypnotic skull, had carried him into the gory mush left behind by Odvaha’s change storm. Shattered limbs twitched and flopped upon the ground while broken bodies continued to pop and burst. There was an unclean life clinging to the mire as the mutating energy of the spell slowly dissipated. Kormak stepped wide around the mash of loathsome fluids and molten flesh, not trusting even his mutant constitution against the horrible residue of the spell.
Something huge and bear-like rose from the mire, bellowing at him with its tri-fold mouths. Kormak struck out at the grisly horror, the stolen axe of the Kurgan slashing through a foreleg and toppling it snout-first into the gory earth. Tentacles of raw muscle sprouted from the patches of brown hair on the spawn’s back, slapping at the marauder with blind fury. One clutch of tentacles coiled about Kormak’s arm, clinging to him with bone-breaking strength. The marauder brought his axe chopping down, hacking through the oozing tendrils like cordwood. His arm shifted into a new shape, slipping free from the coils that remained.
The bony claw of Kormak’s arm snapped tight about the tentacles as he pulled free. The marauder drew upon every ounce of power in his
mutant body to drag the ghastly Chaos spawn towards him. The bear-like thing slowly crawled at him, its dripping jaws slobbering open to bellow and growl. Kormak lifted the stolen axe, then brought it slashing across the nest of slug-like eye-horns that peppered the beast’s scalp. The thing shrieked, its entire body shuddering as it tried to retreat, one club-like paw severing its own trapped tentacles in its urge to flee.
Kormak started to follow the blinded abomination, but again his body rebelled, the commanding magic of Tolkku’s mind crashing over him like a tidal wave. He felt himself turn towards the sorcerer once more. The magic duel between Vakaan and Odvaha had shifted, and it was the magus who was reeling. Odvaha had summoned another of his daemons, a gruesome thing of pink light with dangling ape-like limbs and the fanged sucker of a leech acting as its face. Trying to defend against both sorcerer and daemon, Vakaan was finding it impossible to do either.
The Norscan spat into the dust. Breaking free of Tolkku’s magic would wait. He had seen the way Odvaha’s enemies died. It was time to show the sorcerer how a marauder killed his.
Chapter Six
Beads of blood dripped down the dusky face of Odvaha as the sorcerer struggled to maintain the withering magical assault against his foes. Trying to keep both of the daemons he had summoned from slipping free of his control was taxing his concentration to its utmost. Odvaha knew that if the daemons broke free of his control their one desire before they faded back into the Realm of Chaos would be to tear the flesh from his own bones! The servitors of the gods did not suffer servitude to mortals lightly.
Odvaha saw the horned marauder charging towards him from the corner of his eye but could not spare the attention to crush him with one of his spells. The sorcerer snarled a command to the pair of Kurgan warriors he had held back as bodyguards. The armoured reavers growled with satisfaction, eager to thrust themselves into the fray. Odvaha watched them lope off, then was forced to restore full concentration as the binding circle around the pink horror began to flicker.
