by C. L. Werner
‘Seek sport when you are your own man,’ Urbaal warned the zealot. ‘Until we have secured the relic and cast open the Portal of Rage, your flesh and soul belong to Urbaal the Corruptor. Forget that, and it will not be a Norscan marauder who spills your heart’s blood.’
Tolkku tried to scowl at the threat, but it was impossible to keep the fear out of his eyes. Slowly he replaced the desiccated head in the manskin bag, the flanged dagger to its feathered sheath. ‘It is the will of Tzeentch,’ he proclaimed.
‘Then you must thank the Raven God for his protection,’ Urbaal said. The Chosen slammed his sword back into its scabbard. ‘How near are we to the Bastion Stair?’ he asked, turning towards Vakaan once more.
The foetal familiar was gibbering and wailing, tugging at the magus’s robes and hair. Vakaan tried to fend off its outburst. ‘Near,’ he warned. ‘The Wastes may deceive mortal senses, but they cannot trick their own.’ Vakaan pushed the familiar’s dripping mouth away from his ear. ‘My imp knows that we are near the realm of the Blood God.’
‘It seems frightened, sorcerer,’ Kormak said.
Vakaan’s weird face grew grim. ‘The world of the Blood God is fear, Norscan. All the terror of the spheres, all the nightmares and horrors of worlds within worlds, drawn to the Brass Throne and the Temple of Skulls. The Bastion Stair is the gateway to the kingdom of Khorne himself, Master of Battle, Lord of Slaughter!’ The sorcerer’s thin frame trembled as he evoked the dread name. ‘Yes, my familiar fears. It fears because it knows what is near. We will share its fear soon enough.’
The magus brought the butt of his staff cracking against the side of his daemonic mount. The disc growled in protest but relented, drifting where Vakaan guided it. The antics of the imp became still more desperate. The disc had floated only a few yards away when the imp’s body suddenly became bloated, like a bladder filling with wine. It swelled until it burst in a spray of purple light and shrieking fire. Blue ichor splattered magus and steed. Vakaan’s eyes turned skyward, then shifted to stare in horror at the thing now perched on his shoulder.
The monkey-imp was gone. In its place was a dwarfish thing of claws and fangs no bigger than a man’s finger. The blood-black daemon cackled and hissed at the magus, then threw itself into Vakaan’s face. The sorcerer shrieked as the malice tore at him, its burning hands sizzling through his cheek to rip teeth from his mouth. He lifted his hand, an incantation dribbling from his mangled face. Jade lightning burst from his fingers, enveloping the malice, casting the imp of Khorne from his shoulder. The thing crashed to the snow, smouldering and writhing until its unnatural substance collapsed into a scarlet foam.
‘By the Raven God!’ Tolkku muttered, fumbling at his charms and talismans. Cautiously, Urbaal and Kormak approached the maimed Vakaan. As they approached him, they soon shared Tolkku’s awed fright.
It was only a matter of a few steps, but it was enough. The world they saw, the snowy valley that an instant before they had seen Vakaan cross, melted before their stunned eyes. Now they stood upon a plain of ice, great craggy mountains rising into the distance. Even more shocking was the change in the sky. Gone was the weird luminance of the clay marsh. Now the sky was a sullen red, as though painted by all the fires of hell. The sun was disfigured and sullen, ugly spots leering down at them like the empty sockets of a celestial skull. They could feel the baleful influence of this land clawing at them, whispering to them with words of blood and battle.
‘The realm of Khorne,’ Vakaan said, daubing at his mangled face. ‘The power of the Blood God was too great for my familiar. Its essence was usurped by a malice. We may thank Tzeentch its essence was not enough to sustain a more powerful daemon.’
Urbaal nodded, then gestured at Tolkku. The zealot rummaged among his talismans for a potion to fix Vakaan’s injuries. The magus commanded his steed to descend so he could be treated.
Kormak gave the ministrations of the zealot small notice. His eyes were riveted to the great wall stretching between two mountains. Its steps were enormous, looking as though they could have been torn from the earth only by the gods themselves. Immense spikes of iron projected from the top of the wall, and upon each Kormak could faintly discern the rotting things impaled upon them. One body spitted upon the stakes was more distinct than the others. Kormak felt his stomach quiver when he understood why. It was clearer because it was so much larger. Not the impaled body of a man, but that of a giant.
At the top of the steps an archway split the wall, two great horns of brass that curved towards one another. Their facades were a black that was not simply devoid of light, but seemed to devour light into itself. Kormak could see faces writhing and screaming beneath the darkness, wailing their eternal suffering to the Wastes. A great flock of vultures circled the ramparts, sometimes descending to investigate the spitted trophies on the walls, but never daring to peck at them. Even the lowest beasts knew not to steal from the Blood God’s table.
‘The Bastion Stair,’ Kormak whispered.
Vakaan fixed a chilling smile on him and shook his head. ‘No, only the gateway to the land where it will be found.’ The magus spat a shattered tooth into the snow.
‘The Bastion Stair is far less pleasing to the eye.’
Prince Inhin’s warriors held their crossbows at the ready, keeping the weapons trained upon the mob of monsters scavenging the encampment of the Grey Lancers. The elves watched as the brutes squabbled over the equipment Dolchir’s allies had abandoned. Goblins greedily defended kegs of beer and ale while grotesque orcs barked and snarled at one another as they looted armour and salted meat from the Imperial stores.
‘I say it is a mistake to allow these beasts the pick of the plunder,’ Inhin snapped. ‘There will be nothing left by the time they are through.’
Pyra laughed at the noble’s concern. ‘There is nothing down there of value to us. Dolchir has escaped, and with him he has taken the Spear of Myrmidia. Let the orcs take what they want. It will convince them of our sincerity and goodwill.’
Inhin looked away from the shambles of the Imperial camp and pointed a commanding finger at the sorceress. ‘This had better work, my dear. I do not trust these animals.’ He wrinkled his nose in distaste, blinking his eyes. ‘Their smell is offensive.’
‘We lost many warriors in the ambush, my prince,’ Pyra’s voice purred. ‘We need allies if we are to capture the artefact now.’ She gestured to the jagged, snow-capped mountains all around them. ‘The warriors of the Raven Host will not thank us for our presence here, nor is Tchar’zanek’s rabble the only barbarians in this accursed land. Enemies are all around us. We must exploit whatever help we can find.’
Inhin might have said something more, but a stiffening of his closest crossbowmen made him turn around. He coughed as the stench of greenskin assailed his senses. Sauntering towards the dark elves with the swaggering bravado of a drunken corsair was the black-skinned beast that led the orc mob. At his heels hobbled a spindly goblin cloaked in a patchwork robe.
‘Warlord Gorgut Foechewer,’ Pyra addressed the orc, her tongue curling around the feral speech of the greenskins.
Gorgut snorted at her subservient words, missing the ironic inflection behind them and the mocking smile on the mouth that spoke them. He coughed as he passed the druchii guards, sneering at their weapons, laughing at the thin arms and delicate frames of the bowmen. The black orc paused before one guard, flexing his arm into a knot of muscle bigger than the elf’s head. Gorgut laughed again, then swaggered towards the sorceress and her patron.
‘The fairy-lady and the prince,’ the orc’s guttural voice rumbled. He punctuated his insolent greeting with an amused snort. ‘I decided my boys did most of the fighting. I want all of the loot.’
‘Insolent cur!’ Inhin snarled, his hand flying to his sword. Pyra gripped his arm, thankful that her patron’s outburst had been voiced in their own language, a tongue unknown by the greenskins. The noble resisted her restraint, then slowly relented.
Gorgut’s ugly
visage split in an even wider smile when he saw Inhin relent. A part of him was disappointed; he would have enjoyed splitting the elf’s head like an egg. He made a point of turning away from the red-faced prince and focusing his attention on the sorceress. She was clearly the one in charge here. That meant she was the only one he needed to bother about.
‘Think that ain’t fair?’ Gorgut demanded.
Pyra shook her head. ‘No, mighty Gorgut. Indeed, you are right. Your warriors did fight magnificently. Prince Inhin’s soldiers were late adding their effort to the fray.’
‘They fought like a bunch of gits,’ Gorgut declared, spitting a blob of phlegm into the snow. ‘Let my lads take all the risks and do all the dying!’
‘We had to see how well you animals could fight,’ Inhin snarled. This time he spoke in words the orc could understand, the mongrel slave patois of the quarries of Naggaroth. Pyra rolled her eyes as she watched Gorgut’s brow knot with concentration as he tried to work out the meaning of the insult. To her surprise, it seemed the orc failed to take it as such.
Gorgut slapped his knee and barked with laughter. ‘Trying to learn how to grow a spine, eh? Watch how real warriors do in a scrap?’ He shook his apish head. ‘Won’t do no good. This poncy lot is too scrawny to do any real fighting!’
Pyra’s knuckles turned white as she tightened her grip on Inhin’s sword-arm. ‘That is why we need your warriors, Warlord Gorgut. We hunt a traitor, one of our kinsmen.’
‘The fancy twit who makes the sparkly lights?’ Gorgut growled. ‘You better find him before I do.’
‘That is my point,’ Pyra said quickly, seizing Gorgut’s words before the thought behind them had a chance to dissipate inside his thick skull. ‘Together we can find him much faster.’
Gorgut shook his head. ‘No. You promised me magic. That’s what I want.’
‘And you shall have it,’ Pyra assured the black orc. ‘The traitor has much magic with him. Help us, and you shall take your share of the spoils.’
Gorgut leaned forwards, displaying his fangs before the face of the sorceress. ‘Fine and nice, fairy-lady. We’ll help you lot find this git. Just remember the way we split the loot.’ He jabbed a thick thumb at his armoured chest. ‘Me and the lads take the dragon’s share. You lot get what’s left. You don’t like it, you can bugger off.’
Pyra could feel Inhin’s body trembling with rage beneath her hand. ‘Agreed, Warlord Gorgut.’
The black orc snorted his contempt as he turned and started to stroll back to his scavenging warriors. He turned back around suddenly, shaking a threatening fist at the sorceress. ‘Don’t think to cheat me, neither!’ Gorgut stabbed a finger at the cloaked goblin following him. ‘This git is a shaman. He’s got magic of his own. He’ll tell me if you try anything.’
Pyra’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Snikkit. The shaman made every effort not to meet her gaze. She could sense the paltry magical power of the shaman in the aura that swirled about him. Even more, she could sense the fear bordering on panic that gripped the petty conjurer. Terror of elf-kind was something, it appeared, that was shared by goblins even beyond the shores of Naggaroth.
‘We would not dream of betraying you,’ Pyra assured the warboss. Gorgut gave her a last smirk of disdain, then marched back towards his own kind, Snikkit hurrying after him with indecent haste.
‘I will peel every inch of skin off that animal’s bones,’ Inhin swore as he watched Gorgut lumber off.
‘Patience, my prince,’ Pyra said, releasing her hand from the noble’s arm. ‘The orc is useful to us. When he is not, I ask only that you allow me to watch the beast suffer.’ She turned her eyes from the departing warlord as she noticed the red-robed figure of Naagan approaching. A cruel smile worked onto her angry features as she saw the bundle the priest bore. ‘In the meantime, I have something here that will improve your humour.’
Naagan bowed before the sorceress and her prince, extending his hands towards them. Cupped in the palms of his hands was an object wrapped in reptilian leather. Inhin stared at the offering, an edge of suspicion in his eyes. Pyra noticed his hesitancy and bent down to unwrap the present.
‘I know this will please you, my love,’ she said.
The folds of flayed cold one hide peeled back to expose the shrivelled features of a decapitated head, the shrunken skull of a dark elf. Even after Naagan’s profane rites of preservation, there was a look of shock in the dead features of Sardiss.
‘I am afraid he outlived his usefulness,’ Pyra explained, stroking the shrivelled lips of her murdered lover.
The bodies of Wolfscar’s men continued to form a morbid trail through the snowy wasteland. No longer did they bear the marks of lance and sword. Now they were torn and mangled, gored by horns, hacked by crude axes and run through by primitive spears. Many showed the marks of bestial teeth upon them, flesh stripped from their bodies even as they fought against their killers.
Kormak rose from inspecting the husk of one brawny warrior who might once have been a Kurgan warchief from the quality of the armour that clung to his gnawed bones. The wolf-claw symbol of the warband of Jodis Wolfscar was carved into what remained of his forearm. The marauder turned and regarded his comrades. ‘Whatever killed them, it was not the southlings.’
Urbaal nodded his armoured head. The Chosen strode to Kormak’s side, glaring down at the frozen carrion. ‘These are the marks of beasts. Even the lowest Hung does not fight in so debased a manner.’
‘They may have fallen prey to flesh hounds, or even worse daemons of the Blood God,’ Vakaan cautioned. The magus hovered above the scattered corpses, his attention drawn to the horizon rather than the bodies, keeping a careful vigil for the malignant forces his sorcerous sight told him were near. ‘This place exists between worlds, half mortal, half the realm of the Blood God. In such a place, daemons become things of flesh and with appetites of flesh.’
‘They can die like flesh?’ Urbaal mused.
‘As much as such things can ever die,’ Vakaan said.
Kormak stiffened as he listened to the magus. The Norscan’s steely gaze swept over the heaps of butchered humanity. He could see Tolkku picking among the dead, looking for interesting skulls to add to his collection. The marauder also saw a faint hint of movement close to the zealot. A fanged grin split his face. One of the dead was not quite as dead as the zealot believed. Kormak continued to watch as Tolkku’s hunt brought him ever closer to the non-corpse.
The Kurgan cried out in surprise as the body sprang at him. Before the priest could bring either dagger or magic into play, a powerful arm was wrapped around his neck, locked in a choking embrace. Tolkku’s assailant spun him around, using the zealot as a shield against his comrades.
Kormak could see now that the attacker was a woman, strongly built with dusky, sun-beaten skin and the broad features of a Sarl. Thick brown locks dangled over the left side of her face while a tiny horn protruded from the right side of her brow. Her eye was a malignant gash of amber that blazed from her darkened flesh. Only a brief halter of leather, sealskin leggings and mammoth-hide boots guarded the woman against the elements. Below the halter, running from rib to belly, were the grey slashes of a wolf’s paw, monstrous furrows that were gouged deep into the meat of the woman’s body.
‘Go ahead and kill him,’ Kormak grunted at the Sarl. ‘He’s no friend of mine.’
Urbaal glowered at the marauder, then raised his hand in a placating gesture. ‘Peace, Jodis Wolfscar. We are warriors of the Raven Host. Sent by Prince Tchar’zanek to secure the Bastion Stair against our enemies.’
The woman continued to glare suspiciously at the survivors of Urbaal’s warband. At length she reached a decision. With a none too gentle shove, she released Tolkku. Instantly she retrieved a heavy axe with a blade of blackened bone from the snow. She continued to study the men, especially keeping her attention on the venom-eyed Tolkku.
‘You are Jodis Wolfscar?’ Vakaan asked. ‘Ljotur Arason said we might find you.’
The woman shrugged. ‘If you were sent by Tchar’zanek, where is your army?’
‘Tchar’zanek already sent an army,’ Urbaal said. There was challenge in the Chosen’s voice. His next words left no doubt of his meaning. ‘Where is your army?’
Jodis shook her head and laughed bitterly. ‘They are all around you, and in a hundred nameless ravines and gorges. The Bloodherd betrayed us when we found the Bastion Stair. They swore allegiance to Khorne and fell upon my warriors like wolves.’ She spat the hateful words, trembling with anger at the memory. ‘They have made Thar’Ignan their beastlord and made the Trail of Carnage their lair. The minotaur sent some of his beasts in pursuit of those who escaped. They followed us this far before we beat them back. I sent the survivors back to Arason to inform the Raven Host of the Bloodherd’s betrayal.’
‘None made it back,’ Urbaal said. ‘They were ridden down by southlings who also seek the Bastion Stair.’ The Chosen stared hard into Jodis’s half-hidden face. ‘They must not find it first.’
Jodis nodded as she considered Urbaal’s words. ‘There is some dark force that feeds the Bloodherd, the same force that turned them from the Raven God. It gives them strength, strength beyond that of mere beastmen.’
‘If they are mortal, they will die,’ Kormak boasted, fingering the edge of his axe. He had gone through too much to be frightened by the words of a Sarl.
The woman studied him with a sceptical look. ‘I will enjoy watching them chew on your bones, hero,’ she told him. A last cautious glance at Tolkku, and Jodis started to walk through the scattered remains of her warband. ‘Follow me,’ she told the men. She pointed with the head of her axe at the black mouth of a distant gorge.
‘The Bastion Stair is beyond that ravine.’
Prince Inhin had his pavilion erected well up-wind of the orcs and goblins. Even with a half-mile between them, the drunken roars of the brutes was an ear-rattling din. Not for the first time, the noble contemplated sending one of his soldiers down to poison the captured beer.
