[Daemon Gates 03] - Hour of the Daemon

by Aaron Rosenberg - (ebook by Undead)

  Dietz wanted desperately to believe that.

  A week later they were still walking.

  “Don’t these beastmen have a camp somewhere?” Alaric muttered as they stomped down a small hill, pushing their way through a thick clump of tangled brush that snagged at their clothes, their packs, and their hair. “Or are they simply planning to walk forever?”

  He was irritable. He was tired, cold, damp, and hungry. The weather had alternated between overcast gloom and glaring sun, with most nights miserably dank and cold. They’d fought off wild animals and scared off a few bandits, although they’d been fortunate not to encounter anyone worse thus far. His head was aching again, his eyes burning, and the sunlight was like thin slivers of white-hot metal jabbing through his eyes and into his brain. Every glance burned, every blink provided short-lived but blessed relief. He wanted to lie down, to close his eyes and not open them again until the sun vanished below the horizon or the pain ceased, whichever came first.

  On top of that, he had noticed a blur to his vision along the right edge, as if the scenery there were wavering somehow, shifting ever so slightly when he was not looking directly at it. He was worried that the strange visions might be starting again. He had been free of them since leaving Nuln, except for the glowing tracks, and had started to hope the bloody, crazed images were a thing of the past. Now he was not so sure.

  Alaric tried hiding his discomfort from Dietz, but as usual the older man saw right through him. “Head hurting?” he asked, and Alaric nodded slowly, afraid that more rapid movement would unleash a fresh wave of agony. “We should camp,” he continued, and Alaric nodded again. The heavily forested hill had bottomed out into a wide, flat valley, the trees thinning until the basin had only some bushes, a few small groves, and sparse, greying grass. A wide, shallow gouge ran across the valley, meandering here and there, darker grass poking up within it, and Alaric guessed that it had once been a river. He and Dietz exchanged a glance. Both men knew without speaking that this would not be a good place to stop for the night.

  “We’ll camp on those hills just beyond,” Alaric decided, gritting his teeth. He would not let this discomfort conquer him. He began walking again, determined to reach the far side, and Dietz fell into step beside him.

  As they walked, a shadow fell across them. At first, Alaric thought some massive bird or colossal bat must have flown overhead, its wings blocking out the sun, but when he glanced up, he saw that the entire sky had become hazy, the sun only a burning white disc behind a gauzy curtain. The light did not hurt as much, now that it was diffuse, and he was able to see their surroundings more clearly, which was ironic since tendrils of grey mist were beginning to blanket the land.

  “Beware the fog,” he said softly, watching as the mist spread rapidly, creating a vast plain of pale grey. His foot caught on something unseen beneath the mist, and he stumbled, remembering the second half of the villagers’ warning, even as his hands brushed the ground, and something curved and solid and smooth that jutted up from beneath the dirt and grass. Even without being able to see it, Alaric’s agile fingers could tell that what they were feeling was a bone. A human one, or at least humanoid, if the rusty metal bracelet still wrapped around it were any indication.

  “Particularly near the bones,” he recited. His words echoed and vanished, were bounced around through the fog and then swallowed whole. “Well, perhaps not so stupid after all,” he admitted, straightening up.

  “We have to camp,” Dietz said. He let his pack fall to the ground, and Alaric nodded and dropped his own, sinking to the damp ground beside it. Dietz was right; they could kill themselves trying to cross this place in the fog. Better to sit tight and move on once the fog had passed.

  After a few moments, Alaric roused himself again.

  “I’ll gather some firewood,” he told Dietz, clambering back to his feet. “We’ll need it on a night like this.”

  His friend nodded slowly. “Be careful,” he warned. “Don’t go far.”

  “I won’t,” Alaric assured him.

  He walked away slowly, cautiously, feeling his way along the ground, peering through the fog in search of trees or old branches. His feet kept bumping against things hidden in the fog. Some of them felt like lumps of smooth stone, while others rang hollow like old metal. The ground was littered with them, or at least it had been long ago. Enough time had passed for the dirt to have piled up around and over the shapes, grass growing atop many of them, as the earth sought to reclaim what organic matter remained.

  “It must have been a great battle,” Alaric whispered, stopping to free his foot from something he suspected had been an axe or a hammer at one point. He straightened again, only to discover that he was surrounded on all sides by the soft fog. He was alone.

  “Dietz?” His call carried oddly.

  “Alaric?” came the reply an instant later. “Where are you?”

  “Here,” Alaric answered, knowing even as he said it that such a statement was worse than useless.

  “I’ll come find you.”

  “No.” Dietz had not dealt with fog and mist often, but Alaric had, his homeland was often covered in such shrouds, and he had been taught their dangers at an early age. “You will lose all sense of direction the minute you step away from our packs,” he warned, “and sound is strange within this fog, it will mislead you.”

  “What should I do, then?” Dietz’s voice seemed to come from all around him.

  “Stay where you are,” Alaric instructed. “I’ll find you, or I’ll just sit and wait for the fog to pass. Don’t worry.”

  He heard no reply, but assumed that Dietz was following his directions. His friend was far too sensible not to. Alaric shrugged and started walking again. He knew that it probably wasn’t the best idea, but he still hoped he could retrace his steps and stumble back upon Dietz somehow. At least his head did not hurt anymore.

  No, that was not quite true; it still ached, but with a dull throbbing, rather than the sharp stabbing pain of before. His eyes still burned with the same sensation he got when he had been staring during bright daylight for too long. The fog was all around him, and its softness would have seemed comforting if not for the cloying moisture it added to every breath, and the sticky closeness of it upon his flesh. It was like being swaddled in an enormous blanket soaked in water, and Alaric could feel it clinging to his limbs as he struggled to push through it and reach the safety of the hills beyond.

  Then two figures charged him out of the fog: a pair of warriors astride massive armoured chargers. Their armour, heavy plate ornately inscribed, the shoulder pieces shaped like lion heads and the gauntlets like massive paws, matched descriptions and even drawings that Alaric had seen in old tapestries. Yet here these men were, galloping across the plain, their great swords in their mailed hands, their heavy shields strapped to their forearms, bellowing as they surged forward.

  Startled, Alaric threw himself to the ground, gasping as the impact slammed the breath from his lungs. He curled up into a ball, arms raised over his head, tensing for the weapons to fall… and glanced up when they didn’t.

  The men had galloped on past without stopping. Puzzled, Alaric got to his feet, wincing at the new bruises he had acquired. If he wasn’t their target, who—

  Dietz!

  Alaric leapt after them. He wasn’t sure if he could catch them, much less do anything against such powerful figures, but he wouldn’t let them attack Dietz without at least trying to intervene.

  “Dietz,” he shouted as he ran. “Dietz, look out!”

  Suddenly Alaric felt a sharp pain in his right eye, and stopped short, rubbing at it fiercely. He had shut both eyes automatically and opened them again, only to gape at the sight before him, for the fog was melting away, revealing the plain he had been walking through a moment before, only not as he had ever seen it.

  The grass was thicker than it had been earlier, and greener. It looked smoother as well, lacking the strange bumps and protrusions he had felt along
his path. At the same time, much of the grass was flattened by the weight of the creatures moving across it, and there were a great many creatures.

  Alaric stumbled back to avoid being trampled by more warriors, armed and armoured like the first pair he had seen. They ignored him, however, and swept across the field, weapons raised, shouting as they rode in to confront their foes.

  And the foes: the sight of them made Alaric stagger and drop to one knee, one hand going to his sword, although he knew it would not be enough to fend off the approaching onslaught. A wave of creatures swept towards him, loping and bounding, and shambling and crawling across the broad valley. He saw creatures he recognised, beastmen with their shaggy coats, goat-like legs and heavy horned heads, and ratmen with their scuttling gait and long whiplike tails. But there were other creatures in the horde, things he had only heard about, things he had successfully managed never to imagine, now before him in the twisted, mutated, diseased flesh: enormous beasts with twinned heads, glowing eyes, and writhing tentacles instead of hair: giants, three times the size of a man, with crude features that seemed only half-formed, and rough limbs and hands as large as their heads: centaurs, their lower halves four-legged and hoofed, the upper halves humanoid, but covered in scales or ridges or thick fur. It was an army, an army of Chaos.

  The figure that led them from atop a monstrous, mutated Chaos steed was truly terrifying, for he was clearly human, clearly unmutated. That meant he marched at the head of this army of his own free will. He had willingly given himself to Chaos, and it had made him its champion.

  He was tall and broad, this man, and powerfully built, and his movements were those of a warrior, heavy yet lithe. His armour was thick, red plates warring with bronze and black for dominance, and every possible surface was covered with barbs and hooks, or decorated with runes and tiny screaming skulls. Chains hung everywhere, barbs at their ends, and even the links seemed sharp. His helm was high-crested and bore at its top a plume of some dark, coarse fur that seemed almost to writhe of its own accord. In his hands, he held a massive battle-axe, its twin blades stained a permanent crimson that seemed to shimmer, like the stains and smears Alaric had seen so many times since Hralif’s shop in Middenheim.

  Alaric knew what he was looking at, at least roughly. Men had been fighting Chaos ever since the Great War, when the forces of Chaos rose up and swept across the Empire, and indeed all the nations of the world. Men had united to battle them, as had the elves and the dwarfs, and eventually they were victorious, although at a steep price. He was somehow witnessing one such battle, the one that had taken place upon this plain, and had left the bones and other remnants he had stumbled across earlier.

  Yet the warriors and their twisted opponents were not ghosts, nor figments of the fog. They had substance and colour, as if they were real, as real as anything. Alaric could hear the men groaning, the beasts growling and snarling, and the horses whinnying. He could smell the bitter tang of fresh blood, the sour scent of sweat, and the over-ripe smell of decayed flesh. He was not just watching the battle, he was experiencing it, and he crouched down, doing his best to avoid notice. He was not sure he could be seen or touched by these long-dead fighters, but he did not want to take that chance.

  So, he stayed low and watched, as Chaos beast collided with human warrior, as the men fought against abominations. One warrior in particular caught Alaric’s attention, a sturdy fellow of average height, but broad of build, with a thick red beard and heavy brows over piercing blue eyes. The man wore armour chased in silver, and it gleamed like moonlight, casting a cool white light upon the battlefield. The heavy plates had been carved into patterns, and although most of them were abstract swirls and loops, Alaric recognised the symbol of Sigmar’s hammer woven into each piece. The same powerful sigil was emblazoned upon the man’s shield and etched into every side of his massive war hammer.

  Alaric knew at once who, or at least what, the man was. He was a member of the Order of the Silver Hammer, one of Sigmar’s holy warriors, part priest and part fighter. The man moved easily, as if he were well used to his own armour’s ponderous weight, and even as Alaric watched, he lashed out with his hammer, catching a frightening mutated dwarf in the head, and crushing his skull with one blow, before knocking the body into two others and sending them all to the ground. A glow seemed to surround the Sigmarite warrior, and several of the Chaos beasts charging him had to turn away, shielding their eyes and hesitating just long enough for the warrior to cut them down.

  The two leaders, the Sigmarite and the Chaos Champion, were moving inexorably towards one another, circling as they closed the distance, dispatching lesser foes along the way. Just as a clean white glow surrounded the Sigmarite, so a strange, unwholesome feeling emanated from his rival, and the air around the dark figure seemed filled with soot and shadow, and the sound of a hundred voices screaming in terrible pain. Alaric shuddered. He had heard such cries and seen such distortions before. A daemon had laid his mark upon the Chaos champion.

  Finally, after what seemed hours of bloody, savage battle, the two leaders confronted one another. Bodies lay all around them, and the carnage continued unabated, men hacking and slashing at beasts and creatures, which slashed and bit, and tore at them in return. There was blood everywhere, the ground was slick with it, the grass flattened and stained. Some small part of Alaric’s mind noted that he had not been spattered, that somehow the gore filling the air had missed him entirely, which proved that he was not really on this battlefield. He took some small comfort from that, but the larger part of him was focused upon the epic confrontation unfolding before him.

  “I know you, Deathmaul,” the Sigmarite shouted, his voice cutting through the mayhem. “Your foul stench has stained this good land for far too long. That ends today, and your master’s taint with it.”

  “You boast too quickly, Reinhardt Talbek,” the man called Deathmaul snarled, idly swinging his heavy axe and shearing a man’s head from his shoulders in the process. “Yes, I know you as well, Sigmarite fool, cowering behind your weak little warrior-god. The Blood God laughs at your pathetic would-be deity. He was ancient when Sigmar was still a mewling babe, and will continue long after that fool and his weak exploits have faded from memory!”

  “Sigmar may be young compared to your twisted daemon-god,” Talbek replied sharply, beard bristling, and eyes almost sparking with rage, “but his virtuous might will wipe away the filth of your dark master’s touch.” He leapt forward, his hammer raised high and gripped tightly in both hands, its gleaming silver head catching the early morning light.

  “For Khorne!” Deathmaul bellowed in reply, his axe sweeping forward as he too charged to close the distance. Everyone else on the battlefield seemed to fade into the background, and many paused in their combat to witness the clash of these two mighty titans, each backed by the power of a god.

  Talbek’s hammer struck first, crashing, not into the Chaos Champion, but into his steed, striking the beast’s horned head with enough force to shatter a mountainside. The Chaos steed staggered back a step, blood streaming from its ruined brow, and toppled to the ground. Its master pulled himself free just before the creature’s side struck the earth, leaping forward, and the blades of his axe moaned as they sliced the air, to slam down against the Sigmarite’s upraised shield. Talbek sank to one knee from the force of the blow, but his shield was undented, and in an instant he was upright again, his hammer swinging up from his side to slam hard into his foe’s midsection. Deathmaul retaliated by backing away a step and lashing out with his axe, which would have removed Talbek’s head if he had not blocked the blow.

  They traded blows back and forth, each one denting the other. Blood flowed freely, but neither fell nor even staggered for long, and the force of their impacts was enough to send those near them scurrying to safety. Alaric could feel the blows, shaking his body and ringing through his blood, and he winced each time a strike connected.

  Then he noticed something that made him shiver. Deathmau
l turned to grapple Talbek, removing one hand from his axe to grab the Sigmarite’s forearm just past the haft of his hammer, and as he did so the Chaos champion turned. The side of his helmet, where an earlier blow had nearly felled him, was no longer crumpled. It was dented, true, but no more than that, as if the blow had been less than it was. Alaric had seen the damage when it had first been inflicted and knew he had not imagined its extent.

  Deathmaul was healing, and his armour was healing with him.

  If Talbek noticed, he did not comment, being too busy freeing his hammer from his rival’s grasp, but Alaric could see the signs. Talbek was still wounded, blood seeping from several minor gashes, his shield and breastplate dented, but Deathmaul was strong again, his body undamaged, and that gave him a clear advantage in the conflict.

  Nor was the Chaos Champion slow to press the advantage. His next attack struck Talbek hard in the chest, driving the air from the Sigmarite’s lungs, and as he doubled over, Deathmaul stepped in again. He caught the hammer arm once more, this time in an unbreakable grip, and wrenched back hard. Even from his safe vantage point Alaric could hear the snap as bones broke and ligaments tore, and he heard Talbek’s cry of pain. The hammer dropped from his shattered grip, and Deathmaul loomed over him, gloating in his imminent victory.

  But the Chaos champion had underestimated his foe, and Talbek was not yet defenceless. His embossed shield was battered, but intact, and as he rose to a crouch, Talbek swung it like a weapon, its gleaming edge arcing upward like a scythe. It took Deathmaul in the neck, where only chain protected the gap between breastplate and helmet, and the Sigmar-blessed shield sliced through that tainted metal as if it were paper. Blood gouted from the wound, and Deathmaul lurched away, hands flying to his ruined throat as a gasp spread through his army.