Picking out the pile where the press of corpses was greatest, the birds plunged down amid raucous skrawks and the heavy beating of wings. The bulk of the flock had just settled down to picking at the body of a brilliant white horse and the tangle of bodies around it when something stirred next to them from the midst of the dead. One of the corpses, clad in what was once a white robe now stained with swathes of dried blood, shivered slightly and an arm shot upwards to grip thin air. A plaintive cry wailed across the field, sending the scavengers flapping into the air again.
Markus rose to consciousness with a shriek, awakening from a nightmare filled with hoarse battle cries and blood-chilling screams. His heart hammered on the anvil of his chest, and his breathing was laboured and heavy. His head reeled and a feeling of utter horror swept through him. Not daring to open his eyes for a moment, unsure of what might await him, Markus paused to take a deep breath and fumble the sweat from his brow with his aching arm. His sleeve was ragged and damp, and left a warm smear upon his forehead.
As his stomach settled and his nausea subsided, Markus opened his eyes slowly, terrified that the visions from which he had woken would be true. His attention was immediately drawn to the corpses scattered all around him and he knew that his nightmare was real. The crows had returned and he watched in disgusted fascination as they gnawed at bones and pecked at tender eyes and other soft delicacies. Markus felt his stomach heave at the sight, but as he retched nothing but bile rose up, burning his throat and leaving an acrid taste in his mouth.
Markus turned his head to take in the huge white shape lying alongside him and he groaned aloud. His beautiful war-horse had been a gift from a captain of the Tzarina’s Winged Lancers, given to him in grateful thanks for the many blessings he had bestowed upon the captain’s warriors. The white mare lay still, legs stiff and lifeless eyes open, a gaping, leaking wound in her side providing a feast for a swarm of vermin.
As he tried to rise, Markus whispered to his four-legged companion, though she would never hear his words. “Farewell, faithful Alayma…”
As he sat, pain lanced through Markus’ left leg, making him fall back, a startled cry ripped from his lips. The pain brought back a flash of memory.
The hideous war cries of the beastmen surrounded Markus on all sides. A rust-edged halberd blade thrust out of the swirling melee engulfing him and caught a glancing blow on his armoured shoulder. There was a movement in the press, like a wave coming towards him. The swordsmen all around him were being pushed back as an enormous bestial figure, a brutal mace gripped in its clawed hands, strode forward, crazed eyes fixed solely on the priest. Markus raised his hammer in defiance, but his heart quivered as he looked into that monstrous, bull-like face.
Then Alayma took over, his mount more highly trained in war than Markus himself. Rearing high on her back legs, her steel-shod hooves flailed into the beastman’s face, smashing it to a pulp. Twisting slightly as she landed again, the mare bucked, kicking out behind her with her powerful legs to send another mutant foe sprawling to the ground, its chest crushed. Without waiting for guidance the mare turned and leapt through the newly created gap, carrying Markus clear. As he dared a glance over his shoulder, he saw the last of the Imperial swordsmen falling beneath the blades of the Chaos beastmen and, as he had done so many times, silently thanked Alayma for saving his life.
More gingerly this time, Markus managed to raise himself up on his elbows and noticed for the first time the extent of his predicament. In her death throes, Alayma had rolled onto his leg, crushing it beneath her weight. The grim truth slowly dawned on him and he whispered a prayer to Sigmar.
He was all alone on this blighted field of death, trapped beneath the heavy body of the war-horse—and easy prey for whatever creatures the fast-approaching night would bring. The thought that Alayma, who had saved his life, would now be the cause of his death, lay bitterly at the back of Markus’ mind. With a sigh of despair, the priest of Sigmar tried to recall what twists of fate had brought him to such an unlikely end.
It had been a fine spring day when Markus had joined the Emperor’s glorious army. For weeks before there had been increasing rumours of a large enemy force marauding through the northern reaches of Kislev. Stories abounded of the depraved Chaos horde, emphasising its merciless butchering and unholy acts of destruction.
Word came through that the Tzarina herself had requested aid of the Emperor, and shortly after came the messengers of Elector Count von Raukov announcing the mustering of an army. The recruiters came to Stefheim a week later, calling upon all able-bodied men to join in this righteous fight.
Markus had not been drawn in by the well-crafted speeches, drafted to stir men’s hearts and make them feel honoured and courageous beyond their normal bounds. However, as he had watched the congregations of his sermons daily swell in size, and noticed the fervent look in his followers’ eyes, he felt his own faith in Sigmar strengthening. The sacrifice of the normally peaceful townsfolk and farmers stirred Markus far more than any amount of fiery rhetoric. The humble peasants had looked to Sigmar for guidance and protection, and Markus had felt beholden to help them.
Before the newly-recruited soldiers of the Empire marched off to war in their ill-fitting new uniforms, Markus sent a message to Altdorf notifying his superiors that a replacement would be needed. When the tramp of marching feet reverberated through the hills of Ostland, Markus’ tread had sounded with it.
A sudden movement close by made Markus snap out of his reverie. A fat, black rat, well-gorged on flesh and slick with the fluids of corpses, had tugged at his robe and was now attempting to gnaw at his shattered leg. The priest looked around for some form of weapon, but could find nothing close at hand. Flinging his arms about him, Markus shouted hoarsely.
“Begone! Feast upon the dead. I’m still alive, you vermin!”
Startled, the rat scuttled under the broken neck of Alayma in search of a quieter feast. Seeing his mare’s neck so strangely angled brought back another rush of memory to Markus.
With a rousing blare of horns sounding the attack, the Knights Panther and Tzarina’s Winged Lancers charged the vile black-clad horde, spitting hundreds of deformed adversaries on their lances within a few minutes. As the impetus of the knights’ charge was spent, the crazed enemy army surged back. A wave of deformed creatures bellowing in bizarre tongues smashed into the Empire and Kislev’s finest cavalry and a sprawling melee erupted.
To Markus, things looked grim, as they were assailed from all sides by the demented followers of the Dark Gods. However, the armour of the knights was holding out and they smashed and thrust at the enemy with their swords or the butts of lances, holding the sudden onslaught.
Then something unimaginably ancient and terrible rose up amongst the ranks of Chaos warriors and beastmen. The hideous creation, born of the darkest nightmares, stood thrice the height of a man and bellowed orders in some arcane tongue that did not need to be understood to strike fear into the hearts of all who heard it.
“Blood of Sigmar…” whispered the leader of the halberdiers deployed to Markus’ right.
The priest turned in his saddle and scowled at the hoary veteran. “Watch your tongue, sir! This unholiness has nothing to do with Sigmar, but is the spawn of depraved and mindless enemies.”
The daemon’s massive horns gouged armour apart while its claw-tipped hands wreaked a red swathe through all who tried to stand before it. The almost tangible aura of violence and malevolence that preceded it caused the Knights to retreat rather than face its unnatural vigour and savagery.
Faced with such unholy wrath, the men of the Empire began to give ground. As the monstrosity continued to carve a bloodied path of destruction through the ranks, the retreat turned into a rout and the brave soldiers turned to flee. Markus stood up in his stirrups and tried to rally the desperate men with prayers of courage and steadfastness. He had sworn to Sigmar that he would face these foes, and even if all around him was anarchy he would fight on, alone if he must
.
“Hold fast!” he cried. “As your lord and protector, Sigmar will see you through this carnage!”
It was to no avail and the panicked horde swept around him, embroiling him in a tumult of screams and pressing bodies. As the crying mass of men packed tighter and tighter, Alayma panicked and tried to force a way free, but there was no line of retreat.
Suddenly hands were grabbing at the reins and desperate faces lunged out of the throng, intent on stealing what they thought was the only route to safety—Markus’ steed. Gnarled fingers closed around the priest’s robes and tugged at him, and he felt himself falling. Markus kicked out at a bearded face and it disappeared into the crowd. He tried one last attempt to restore sanity.
“Hold! Sigmar is with us! These abominations cannot harm us if our faith is strong. Victory to the Empire! Attack!”
Markus’ last words were drowned out by an unearthly bellowing and the screams of the dying came ever closer. Over the heads of the Empire soldiers he glimpsed the scaled form of the daemon prince. Its massive eyes were pits of darkness and a pile of battered bodies was heaped around it. It was so close now that Markus could smell the fear that crept before it.
A blade caught Alayma and she reared, whinnying. Knocked off balance by the press of fleeing soldiers, she toppled to the ground, crashing men beneath her weight. Markus heard a cracking sound, audible even over the hoarse cries of the panicked mass. He was scrabbling about in the blood-soaked mud when a boot struck his forehead. Darkness descended beneath unseen trampling feet.
With a start, Markus realised that the blow that had torn a rent in his horse’s side must have come much later, when the victors spilled across the battlefield, hacking and ripping at everything they could find. Sigmar had been merciful and somehow he had avoided a killing blow while he lay oblivious to the world. At that moment, though, the baying of wolves reverberated across the surrounding hills and Markus corrected himself—he was not safe yet.
A shadow crossed him as something blotted out the setting sun. Turning his head in surprise, the priest saw a bulky figure silhouetted against the western sky, picking its way through the carnage. Markus’ throat was too dry to call out but he managed a croak and lifted his arm to wave at the approaching figure, silhouetted against the deep red glare.
“Over here, friend!” he called. “Thank Sigmar, I thought none alive but myself.”
The man turned abruptly and strode towards Markus. However, far from relaxing, the priest tensed as the figure came closer. He walked directly towards Markus with a determined stride that unnerved the priest. Markus thought that anyone wandering this blighted place would surely be wary of more Chaos followers lurking nearby.
As the shadowy figure came closer, the priest could pick out more details. The man was clad in thick armour and a horned helmet, and all about him were hung dire symbols of power, sigils of the Ruinous Powers proclaiming his status and allegiances. Otherworldly runes were engraved into the black enamelled chest-plate, inscriptions of protection and power that writhed with their own energy, written in a language no normal mortal could speak. It was plain the newcomer was no saviour.
Markus’ heart fluttered and he straggled frantically to pull himself clear from Alayma’s heavy corpse. Pain lanced through Markus’ leg again and he collapsed on his back, whimpering despite himself.
Muttering entreaties to Sigmar, Markus tried to calm his ragged breathing and studied the approaching figure, who was just ten strides from him. He tried to speak, but his throat, dry with fear, just made a cracked, croaking noise. The dark warrior now stood perhaps three paces away, not moving at all. Dark eyes glittered inside the helm’s strangely shaped visor, staring at the priest with unblinking intensity.
As his own eyes took in the immense scabbard hanging at the warrior’s waist, Markus recoiled in fear, expecting a deathblow to come swinging down with every thunderous beat of his heart.
Markus flinched when the warrior reached up with a gauntlet-covered hand, but the death blow did not fall. The stranger gripped the single horn protruding from the forehead of his helmet, then wrenched the helm free and let it drop to the ground.
Markus blinked in disbelief. The man in the bizarre armour was startlingly normal. His chin and nose possessed an aristocratic line, his dark eyes more amused than menacing without the confinement of the helmet’s visor. The warrior looked straight into Markus’ eyes and smiled. An icy shiver of fear ran through the priest. That seemingly benign expression terrified him more than the slaughter that had occurred earlier, or even the horrifying carnage wrought by the daemon prince.
The terror he felt was wholly unjustified and unnatural, and his spine tingled with agonising horror, though Markus could not fathom why the warrior was so frightening. This was no vile daemon from the Liber Malificorum, but a normal man. For some reason, this just increased Markus’ panic and his whole body trembled with every shallow breath he managed to gasp.
When the Chaos warrior spoke, he found himself listening carefully and—despite the awful predicament he was in—trying to place the man’s accent. He thought it might be from the Reikland, but the intonation and phrasing of the stranger’s words seemed slightly mispronounced and somehow archaic.
“Are you afeared?” the sinister figure began. “Does your blood coldly run with the sight of myself?”
Markus swallowed hard, and tried to look as defiant as possible. “You don’t scare me, foul lapdog of evil! My master protects me from the ravages of your desperate gods.”
The dark warrior laughed, a deep, disturbing sound. “But of course you must have divine protection.” He looked around himself extravagantly. “Amongst this slaughter you alone lie alive and breathing, spared the fate ordained for your countrymen. However, could it not be that someone other than your master has stayed the hands of your attackers?” The warrior lowered one knee into the crimson-stained earth and leaned forward to whisper in Markus’ ear. “Is your master so strong he could hide your presence from the gaze of the Lords of Chaos?”
This time it was Markus who laughed coldly, shaking his head in disbelief. “Sigmar watches over his faithful followers; he loves them now as he loved them in life. Of course it is Sigmar who has spared me from death. My soul is pure. Your loathsome gods have no hold on me.”
The warrior laughed in mockery and stood up, wiping the filth from his armour with a rag torn from a corpse’s jerkin. Markus ignored the disbelieving look directed at him.
“Sigmar provides my life and soul with every contentment they desire,” he spluttered bravely. “There is nothing I want from your dark masters.”
The stranger moved across to Alayma’s corpse, kicking at the rats that scurried underfoot. With a sweeping gesture, the Chaos warrior unhooked his dark blue cloak and laid it across the wide curve of the dead horse’s body. After smoothing out a few creases, he sat down on the carcass, causing it to shift slightly and send more pain roaring along Markus’ leg. The priest gasped. When his tear-misted eyes focused on the warrior once more, the strangely armoured man was still staring straight at Markus, with the same amused, almost playful look in his eyes, his mouth twisted in a slightly crooked smile.
“Did that hurt?” he said in a low voice. “Or did mighty Sigmar prevent your mind exploding with agony for a moment? They say pain focuses one’s mind. In my long experience, however, I have found pain to be a constant distraction, whether in the suffering or the infliction. You say your soul is pure—yet you have had doubts, no?”
Markus shifted uneasily, trying not to move his leg. As he looked away from the warrior’s constant stare, the man laughed shortly, an unpleasant noise like the yap of a small dog.
“Was it pain or guilt that averted your gaze from mine?” the Chaos warrior continued smoothly. “I once heard a philosopher say that life was a constant series of questions, with each answer merely leading to more questions, and only death provided the final answer to which there were no more questions.” The warrior paused and hi
s brow briefly knitted in thought.
“Jacques Viereaux of Brionnes, I think.” He waved a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t matter. I have many such questions, and I expect you have even more. Shall we live a little, and exchange our questions for yet a little more of life? How come you here, Sir Priest? You are ageing. Nearing forty? Why would a slightly overweight, peaceful priest be found lying as a casualty on this forsaken field? What brought you forth from your shiny temple?”
Markus was confused; the stranger’s words were baffling his pain-numbed mind. Gritting his teeth, he felt compelled to ask the questions burning in his mind. “Just who are you, foul-spawned deviant? Why not kill me now? What do you want with me?”
The warrior’s eyes almost glowed with triumph, the setting sun reflected in those dark orbs. “Now you see! Questions and answers, answers and questions! This is life!” The warrior laughed again, slapping his hands on his knees. He calmed himself and his face took on a veneer of sincerity. “I am called Estebar. My followers know me as the Master of Slaughter, and I have a Dark Name which you would not be able to pronounce, so ‘Estebar’ will suffice. As for my being here? I have come for your soul!”
“Lord Sigmar, Father of the Empire, Shield of Mankind, protect me from evil…” That chilling horror Markus had felt when first seeing Estebar returned with even greater strength and he whispered a prayer to Sigmar, asking for guidance again and again.
Tales of the Old World Page 35
