by C. L. Werner
‘They were testing us,’ Urbaal said, sheathing his sword as he stepped away from the corpse of the champion. ‘Slaurith’s dogs, the least of his warriors. Something to put the smell of blood in the air.’ He patted the Spear lashed across his back and stared hard into the face of Tolkku. ‘The ones that escaped will tell him we are here and what we carry. Perhaps he did not know what Thar’Ignan had, or perhaps he was not ready to take it from him. Whatever the reason, Slaurith will come for it now.’
‘You sound certain of yourself,’ Pyra said. ‘Since you have the Spear, why do we not leave and forget this Lord Slaurith?’
‘Dat be a poncy elf fer ya!’ grunted Gorgut, his tusks jutting as he thrust his chin at the sorceress. ‘Run when ya shud be fightin’ and stick a shiv in yer back when ya ain’t lookin’!’ The black orc’s debased Reikspiel was more growl than speech, but its meaning was understood well enough by the dark elves.
‘Mind your tongue, orc,’ Beblieth warned, fingering her daggers. ‘Or it will be your back with a knife in it.’
‘Enough!’ Vakaan’s voice boomed through the corridor, cracking like thunder against the bronze walls. ‘Test or not, the Skulltakers are in retreat. Now is the time to strike.’ He stared down at Pyra. ‘We will not leave until the Portal of Rage has been cleansed,’ he told the sorceress. ‘We will not leave until the winds of magic have been unchained and Kakra the Timeless is free.’
Pyra’s face twisted into a sullen pout. She had expected that the humans would try something like this. She shared a hard look with Naagan, understanding passing between them. They would have to act before the humans reached the Portal of Rage. First, however, they would need to restore the balance of power and remove the menace of the orcs.
‘These halls must run for miles,’ the sorceress said, gesturing with her staff. There were dozens of side-passages and archways opening in the walls, each more forbidding than the next. Skull-strewn stakes jutted from the flagstones, brass effigies of daemons and the arrows of Chaos marked each doorway. Everywhere were piles of rotting heads and heaps of bones. Urns smouldered in the shadows, the horns of Khorne carved into their pedestals. ‘It will take many warriors to scout the right path, more than I have. We will need to split Gorgut’s mob and send his brutes hunting for Slaurith.’
‘No,’ Urbaal said. ‘We will not split our numbers.’
Pyra’s eyes blazed in her pale face. ‘Then where do you propose we start?’
The Chosen did not hesitate but pointed his armoured hand towards a brass-framed archway marked by a grinning daemon’s face. ‘When the Skulltakers broke, they fled in every direction but one.’ His voice dropped into a menacing chuckle. ‘If you were a coward, would you seek mercy from Lord Slaurith, a man who has sold his soul to bear the mark of the Blood God upon his flesh?’ He did not wait for Pyra to answer his question. Marching away, Urbaal swung his arm in a beckoning gesture.
‘We go this way,’ he said.
The orcs and men ambled after Urbaal, the goblins, many loaded down with fresh loot from the dead berserkers, staggering like drunken children. The dark elves lingered behind and watched the procession.
‘We can’t allow them…’ Naagan began. Pyra raised her hand, motioning him to silence.
‘We won’t,’ she assured him. ‘If they throw open the Portal, the Spear is useless to us. We will have nothing to bargain with.’
‘Why not kill them now?’ Beblieth asked, staring coldly at Kormak as the marauder passed through the archway.
‘In good time,’ Pyra said. ‘First we get rid of the greenskins, then the humans. The magus knows some way to corrupt the Spear’s enchantment. We will let him. Then it will be time for them all to die.’
The bronze halls wound like the coils of a vast serpent through the depths of the Bastion Stair. The marks of the Blood God were everywhere, picked out in gruesome altars of bone or taking the shape of metal gargoyles leering from steel-spiked columns. Lines of stakes flanked many of the halls, a grinning skull spitted upon each, the skull-rune burning in each forehead. These, Vakaan whispered, had been victims of the real Skulltaker, their heads regarded as sacred talismans by the tribe that bore his name. Tolkku had tried to pull one of the trophies down, thinking to add it to his collection. The dead thing had come alive at his touch, snapping at his fingers with creaking jaws.
Sometimes, the warriors of the Skulltakers would appear, giving battle to the invaders. Always they were beaten back, always the survivors scattered down every side-passage except one. Only Gorgut and his orcs didn’t find the abortive attacks and extravagant retreats suspicious.
‘They mean for us to follow a certain path,’ Kormak warned Urbaal.
The Chosen stared at the brass embossing on the walls, tracing the complex lines of arrows with his gaze. ‘They mean for us to find Slaurith,’ he said.
‘But it is a trap,’ Kormak insisted.
‘Even if it is a trap, Slaurith will be there,’ Urbaal stated. ‘A slave of Khorne will not stray far from a battlefield. He will be there, and that will be his undoing.’
Kormak considered Urbaal’s words, but could not understand how he could be so certain the chieftain of the Skulltakers would act the way Urbaal thought he would. He wondered about the way Urbaal spoke of Slaurith, calling him traitor and southling. He asked as much of the Chosen.
‘I know him from long ago,’ Urbaal answered. ‘Longer than you might believe. He was Grandmaster of the Knights of the Blazing Sun, General of the Order of the Griffon. He led his army to the Bastion Stair, to fight and cleanse it of the Blood God’s evil. As the Blood God’s endless hordes slowly bled away his command, he despaired, and in his despair he welcomed a new god into his heart. He cast aside Myrmidia and the weak southling gods and became a servant of Khorne. He betrayed his men to the denizens of the Bastion Stair, sparing only those who would join him in damnation.’ Urbaal’s fist tightened until Kormak thought his gauntlet would break.
‘Few escaped into the Wastes,’ Urbaal added with a snarl.
Kormak nodded grimly, feeling the hate in Urbaal’s voice. Slaurith had made a terrible enemy in the champion of Tzeentch. He wondered dimly at who Urbaal had been before he became Chosen and at this glimpse of a history the man himself had almost forgotten.
‘We will kill him,’ Kormak told Urbaal.
‘Yes,’ the armoured champion replied. ‘We will kill him. For a start.’
The two men turned as they heard the raucous barks of the orcs sounding throughout the passage. They turned to find a knot of goblins kicking and punching one another. The scrawny greenskins were arguing over a barrel of ale they had discovered against one of the walls. The orcs were shouting their encouragement, clearly enjoying the violent diversion. Urbaal marched over to Gorgut.
‘Control your rabble,’ he told the black orc. Even Urbaal was forced to raise his head to stare into the warlord’s beady eyes.
Gorgut coughed and scratched at his ear. ‘Naw, da ladz is jus’ havin’ a bit o’ a laff.’
‘There isn’t time to waste on these antics,’ Urbaal warned him.
The black orc threw out his chest, glaring down at Urbaal. One of his thick fingers pushed against the Chosen’s breastplate. ‘Don’t get pushy, oomie,’ Gorgut growled. ‘Nagdnuf’s got lotz a’ wayz ta cook pushy oomies.’
Vakaan again interceded between the two warchiefs. ‘This arguing accomplishes nothing!’ he chastised them. ‘The Skulltakers will kill us all if we start fighting among ourselves. Then where will your quest be, Urbaal? How will you return to your tribes with glorious trophies and weapons of magic, Gorgut?’
‘Wez’ll find ’em wid or widout oomies showin’ da way!’ Gorgut barked back, but with a note of doubt in his bellow. The black orc smashed a fist into the head of the warrior nearest to him. ‘Break that scrap up!’ he growled at Dregruk. ‘Tell them gits dat the next one starts a fight I’m going to drown ’im in that booze!’ Dregruk massaged his swollen ear and hurried off to do as his c
hief told him. Gorgut scowled at the two northmen, then loped off to find something to distract him from his troubled thoughts.
‘The orcs will be a problem,’ Urbaal said.
Vakaan gestured towards the dark elves, lurking against one of the walls, every eye watching the tense exchange between man and greenskin. ‘They will be a bigger problem if we lose them,’ he cautioned. ‘Gorgut can be managed. Even I, a magus of Tzeentch, cannot fathom the crooked plots of these elves.’
Urbaal nodded his understanding. ‘They can still help us,’ he said.
‘Unless they betray us first,’ was Vakaan’s reply.
The Skulltakers attacked the motley warband as they entered a wide chamber that looked as though it had been converted into a drinking hall. Tables and benches crafted from redwood were strewn throughout the room, chandeliers crafted from bones and brass swung overhead. It was an attack in force this time, a small army of the black-armoured barbarians charging the intruders from every side.
The warband fell into the now familiar defence that had broken six Skulltaker attacks already. Kormak and Urbaal took the point, fighting alongside Gorgut and his orcs. The dark elves surrounded Vakaan, Tolkku and their own spellcasters. The goblins scattered, keeping well back from the front lines, sending arrows stabbing into whatever target of opportunity presented itself. Zagbob, the wiry squig hunter, circled the battleline, sending poisoned arrows into wounded enemies then setting his slobbering squigs after the crippled men. Snikkit kept close to Gorgut, using his weird magic and fungus powders to heal the warlord’s wounds. Beblieth kept to the shadows, circling behind the attackers. Those who earned her attention never saw the dagger that slit their throats.
The leader of these barbarians was another armoured monster, a mammoth brute seven-feet tall encased in bronze armour, only his reddened eyes betraying the existence of the man inside the plate. Kormak wondered if the warrior might not be Chosen like Urbaal, a man who had been consumed by the mark of his god. Certainly the bronze warrior took a deadly toll from the orcs, butchering three of their number before he was himself pulled down by Gorgut’s axe. The black orc ripped the helmet from his crippled foe, then smashed the champion’s face into pulp with his boot. Proudly, Gorgut lifted the trophy above his head, bellowing for all of his minions to see.
The Skulltakers saw as well. They despaired when they saw their champion dead. As one they turned and retreated. This time there was no scattering of berserkers down a dozen hallways. They retreated in a suspiciously orderly fashion, careful to keep contact with the orcs eagerly pursuing them.
‘They lead us into a trap!’ Pyra cried out.
‘They lead us to Slaurith,’ Urbaal snarled back.
The warband pressed on, pursuing the Skulltakers as they fought their slow withdrawal. Down a hallway lined by columns of piled skulls, past the stone effigies of horned daemons, the barbarians drew them on. The heat grew, a shimmering haze gathering at the end of the hall. Over the heads of the Skulltakers, they could see a great archway and beyond it a vast chamber that glowed with the very flames of hell.
Their course took them through that archway and into the infernal chamber beyond. It was incredibly vast, its bronze walls chased in brass. The floor was of the familiar black basalt, but the middle of the room was gouged by a wide fissure through which a glowing stream of molten metal bubbled and churned. A narrow bridge curled over the fiery chasm, joining the near side of the chamber with the far. This was marked by a monstrous wall of granite blocks, its surface pitted by barred gates ranging from only slightly larger than a man to the truly gigantic.
At the top of the granite wall, nearly eighty feet above the chamber floor, was a wide balcony bordered in steel. A cluster of figures stood upon the balcony. Most of these were wretched, pallid things, once-men whose arms had been amputated and replaced with dangling clumps of chain. Their faces were locked behind featureless masks of leather, banished along with their sanity.
It was the other figure standing upon the balcony that drew the attention of the invaders. He was a tall man encased in crimson armour adorned with bronze and brass. Steel spikes jutted from his shoulder pads, desiccated skulls impaled upon each. The skull-rune of Khorne was embossed in gold upon his breastplate and beneath it were the gilded skull and ribs of some honoured victim. The warrior wore no helm, only an elaborate circlet fashioned into bronze antlers that towered over his head. The head itself was a ghoulish thing, a withered skull, its grey skin clinging tightly to the bone. Upon the forehead, glowing like an ember, the rune of Khorne had been branded.
This, all knew, was Lord Slaurith.
At Slaurith’s gesture, grinding gears turned within the bronze walls. A spiked portcullis dropped from the roof of the archway, sealing the hall behind the invaders, cutting off their only avenue of retreat. Now the fleeing Skulltakers leapt to the attack again, howls of fury once more rising from their throats. The invaders found themselves being pushed back, driven towards the portcullis.
‘I warned you!’ shrieked Pyra. The sorceress lifted her hands, trying to draw upon her arcane powers. She gasped and clutched her stomach as sickness boiled up inside her.
Upon his hovering disc, Vakaan was similarly stricken. The magus lifted his head, waving his hand before his eyes. Upon the ceiling far overhead, imprinted upon the rock, was a gigantic iron skull-rune of the Blood God. The dark metal gleamed evilly in its setting, the churning fury of the chasm casting weird reflections upon it.
Lord Slaurith’s diseased laughter shuddered across the chamber. ‘This is the Arena of Fury!’ he shouted. ‘Here there is only strength and steel, the slayers and the slain. There is no room for sorcerers’ tricks here!’
Urbaal glared up at the champion of Khorne. He redoubled his attack against the Skulltakers, his sword glowing with a thousand colours as he carved a bloody path through them. Even Gorgut stared in open amazement at the Chosen’s fury. Barbarians dropped before him like flies, the dead and the dying smashing against those who would yet defy Urbaal. The Chosen was upon them before they could push away their own wounded, sending limbs and heads flying into the air with each slash of his blade. Kormak followed close behind Urbaal, protecting his back from the mangled men he left after him. Like a wolf ravening through a herd of elk, Urbaal drove the Skulltakers before him.
At last the carnage was too much even for the slaves of Khorne. They broke into a retreat, scrambling across the bridge, racing for the far side of the arena. Urbaal did not relent, but fell upon the fleeing barbarians with the same fury, pushing the wounded into the molten chasm in his remorseless march upon their comrades. Urbaal stopped in the middle of the bridge, staring up at Slaurith.
‘You bring me a present, I see,’ Slaurith observed, pointing his clawed gauntlet at the Spear lashed across Urbaal’s back. ‘Thar’Ignan was a fool to try to hide it from me.’
‘Thar’Ignan is dead,’ Urbaal growled back. ‘Soon you will join him.’
Slaurith’s laughter rolled down from the balcony. ‘I think not,’ he said.
Another gesture from Slaurith and the groan of gears shuddered through the arena once more. This time it came from the far end of the chamber. Several of the gates set into the wall were rising. From each, a black armoured figure emerged. The barbarians who had escaped Urbaal rushed towards the rising gates.
The emerging fighters did not give ground before the retreating Skulltakers. Instead they held up their arms, transforming them into a staggering array of bony bludgeons, axes and claws. They met their cowardly tribesmen with violence, splashing their guts against the wall as they ripped at their vitals. When the carnage was over, they marched through the spreading mire of gore, a dozen strong and each with the corruption of mutation twisting his flesh.
Urbaal stared at the advancing marauders, unmoving, unafraid. No man could cheat the doom laid out for him by the Raven God.
But perhaps he could help some of his enemies share in it.
Chapter Sixteen
The first of Slaurith’s marauders met Urbaal upon the bridge, his arm fused into a great club of bone and sinew, a spiked flail clenched in his fist. The marauder lashed out with the flail first, the chains coiling about Urbaal’s sword. The mutant pulled the Chosen towards him, bringing his club-arm smashing down.
Urbaal’s sword tore free of the chains, slashing through the marauder’s arm. The Skulltaker screamed as polluted blood streamed from the trembling stump. Even as he staggered back, Urbaal wrapped his gauntlet in the broken chains of his foe’s flail, using it as leverage to swing the cripple around. The marauder’s eyes went wide with horror as Urbaal’s sword stabbed through his chest. The champion kicked the sagging wreckage off his blade, spilling the dying Skulltaker into the molten chasm. There was a searing gurgle, a splash of fiery brass, and then the gladiator was gone.
Roaring orcs now swept past Urbaal to crash into the charging marauders. The gladiators met the greenskins with a fury almost equal to their own. Men who lived their lives only to fight and kill, they fought the orcs on their own savage terms. It was slaughter without mercy or quarter, the primitive butchery of monsters and beasts.
Kormak joined the orcs in the bloodletting. He watched as a horn-helmed gladiator, his sword dripping with the entrails of an orc, finished his foe with a decapitating sweep of an arm that had already fused itself into the grisly blade of a serrated axe. The barbarian howled his triumph as the hulking orc crashed at his feet. His eyes locked with those of Kormak, his mutant arm rippling, sprouting spines along its back. Kormak pointed at the other marauder with his axe, then, a war cry on his lips, he charged the gladiator.
Steel ground against steel as Kormak caught the gladiator’s sword in the hook of his axe. Kormak’s arm, split into the snapping maw of a great claw, closed about the other marauder’s axe-like arm, breaking bony spines as it pressed close. The gladiator raged and roared, trying to free his trapped arm, trying to twist his pinned sword from the axe. Kormak snarled back at the mutant, then drove his horns into the man’s breast. A ripping turn of his neck and the horns gouged a gaping hole in the gladiator’s chest, punctured lungs gleaming from the rent. Still the gladiator struggled to fight back, trying to lower the horns of his helm to mimic Kormak’s attack. The Norscan drove his forehead into the gladiator’s throat, sending the other man’s head snapping back. Kormak’s fangs lengthened as they sank into the gladiator’s neck. In a spray of gore, he pulled back. The mangled gladiator fell limp in his grasp. Kormak waited until the last pained flicker of life faded from the eyes of his foe, then released the twitching corpse. Almost as soon as it struck the floor, a pair of goblins, a massive barrel of ale tied to each of their backs, descended upon the body, rifling through its armour in search of loot.
