The Island of Blood

by Darius Hinks - (ebook by Undead)

  As he reached the cabinet there was a grinding, wrenching sound of colliding energy fields. The blaze became so intense that Ratchitt’s leather mask began to smoke and droop down around his neck. He knew he had seconds at most before the warpfire tore him apart, but there were so many loose screws and ruptured pipes that he didn’t know where to start. He let out a screech of frustration and punched one of the few panels that was still intact. The grinding sound stopped immediately and the light dimmed to a steady glow. Ratchitt yelped in shock, then collapsed to the ground, giggling hysterically. “Fixed-fixed,” he cried, looking up at the stars wheeling overhead. Then he closed his eyes for a minute to savour the quiet, stable hum of the device’s whirring gears.

  “Ratchitt?” called a voice from out of the darkness.

  The engineer leapt to his feet and saw hundreds of bulky shapes scuttling across the moonlit fields. They were black-furred stormvermin, with thick plate armour and long halberds. At their head was an even larger skaven. His brutish, scarred muzzle shone out in the darkness, underlit by the baleful glow of a warp talisman dangling beneath his jaw. The sight of Warlord Verminkin filled Ratchitt with panic and he turned quickly back to the machine. “Almost ready!” he called back, pressing down with all his weight on a rusted cogwheel. There was a scream of grinding metal and a rattle of slowly turning gears. Then the humming of the machine’s generator suddenly stopped.

  Ratchitt stiffened with panic as the light in the glass sphere vanished.

  “Ratchitt?” snapped the warlord, now just a few feet away.

  The engineer turned to Verminkin with an explanation on his lips, but before he could speak, the machine let out a piercing, deafening whine and lit up the night sky with a brittle blossom of lightning bolts. The skaven were all thrown clear by the force of the blast and tumbled across the grass with a chorus of screams and curses.

  Skreet Verminkin rose to his knees and cursed, shielding his eyes from the sudden glare. Squinting through his claws, he watched lightning arc out over the crashing waves and head straight towards the mist-shrouded shape of the distant island. The lightning moved with unnatural precision: twelve slender needles of light, knifing through the bloody haze and heading straight for the crimson beacons.

  Ratchitt climbed to his feet, dazed from his fall, and weaved his way unsteadily to the warlord’s side. He pawed desperately at Verminkin’s armour. “My lord! Don’t be concerned! I just need to make a few more tweak-tweaks, then everything will be fine. I know I can make it work!”

  The warlord did not seem to register the engineer’s words as he shoved Ratchitt to one side, scampered to the edge of the cliff and looked out over the sea at the island.

  He grunted in surprise.

  Ratchitt frowned and dashed to his side, wondering why Verminkin had let him live. As he reached the clifftop he had his answer: the island had vanished from the horizon. It had been plunged into darkness.

  The red beacons were no more.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kortharion grimaced with distaste as he saw small, white flashes of movement up ahead. The elves had never found any descendants of the island’s original settlers—the deranged beings who built its bizarre, scalene temples and altars—but the place was far from uninhabited. The ground was soaked with the memory of dark sorcery and over the centuries, strange mutations had transformed the island’s flora and fauna. No mammals could survive for long in such a tormented environment, so other creatures had scuttled from beneath the blasted rocks to fill the void: anaemic, chitinous things that gleamed and rattled like bones as they scattered from the approaching horses. The elves watched the shadows carefully for signs of danger. Lack of natural predators had allowed some of the ghostly insects to grow to grotesque proportions. Several unwary elves had found themselves on the wrong side of their milky, translucent carapaces.

  “The path is already becoming overgrown again,” said Kalaer, hacking at the strange undergrowth with his greatsword. “It was only cleared two days ago. Such vile fecundity. It seems to be getting worse.”

  Kortharion nodded, raising his blazing staff a little higher to illuminate the jagged rocks and twisted thorns. The garrison maintained a path around the coastline of the island; a narrow passage that encircled the madness of the island’s rotten heart. It was never an easy ride, but now it was nearly impassable. “Something is wrong,” he replied. “Something is stirring.”

  As Kalaer struggled to steer his horse over the difficult terrain, he snatched a quick glance at the mage. “What do you see, old friend?”

  Kortharion shook his head in disgust. “Chaos. I feel its presence more than ever before. Chaos in everything: in the rocks, in the plants, in the air. It clouds everything until I can’t be sure what’s real and what’s not. In my dreams I see the largest of the Ulthane—the one that faces out towards the mainland. He looks down at me, filled with despair and pity. I feel that if I could just see him, maybe I would have an answer of some kind.”

  Kalaer flicked his boot to dislodge a pallid worm that was trying to twist around his calf. It was over a foot long and he realised with disgust that it had already sunk countless spines into his flesh. He peeled it away with the tip of his sword and shook his head at the trail of slime it left behind.

  After a slow tortuous journey, they finally reached their goal. As they reached the top of a small incline, Kortharion paused and pointed his staff at the ruptured horizon. “There it is,” he muttered.

  Kalaer reined his horse in beside Silvermane and peered at the distant, red statue. “I’m not sure what you expect to find out here, Kortharion.”

  “Neither am I,” replied the mage. He turned to Kalaer with doubt in his eyes, but before he could say any more, the horizon lit up in a fantastic display of green lightning and the heavy silence was sliced open by a long, screeching cry.

  “What in the name of Aenarion was that?” cried Kortharion, trying to control his panicked mount.

  “Look!” cried Kalaer, pointing to their destination. The light of the distant beacon flared suddenly and then died, plunging that part of the island into a darkness even more profound than before. “And there!” Kalaer pointed out the other red lights that circled the island. One by one they all vanished. “The Ulthane. What’s happening to them?”

  The mage shook his head as he watched the lights vanishing. “What a fool I’ve been. I should have learnt by now not to ignore my own dreams. Why did I wait so long?” He clicked his horse into a gallop, continuing in the direction of the now invisible sentinel. “We’ve no time to lose,” he said, as Kalaer rode after him. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. It would take sorcery of the most incredible power to blind the Ulthane. And that was like no lightning I’ve ever seen before.”

  The two elves drove their horses as fast as they dared over the uneven rocks and dismounted at the foot of the ancient sentinel. The marble statue towered over the surrounding rocks and trees, surveying the forest with huge mournful eyes and resting its hands on the hilt of a greatsword that was a thirty-foot replica of Kalaer’s.

  “By the Gods! Its fire has been put out,” breathed Kortharion as he looked up at it.

  Each of the Ulthane wore a stone circlet around their lofty, regal brows, with a huge red stone mounted in it. As long as the elves had inhabited the island, the stones had burned with inner fire: a powerful warning to those few trespassers who reached the coast. To see one of the ancient crowns grown dark and lifeless chilled the elves profoundly.

  Kortharion dropped from Silvermane’s back and leapt up the steps of the statue’s vast, crumbling pedestal. He placed his hands on the Ulthane’s legs and closed his eyes. After a few moments, the mage turned back to Kalaer, his face twisted with anguish. “Nothing,” he muttered. “All trace of life has been extinguished. This is just a piece of rock.”

  Kalaer dropped from his own horse and looked around warily, levelling his long sword at the shadows. “Could there be some simple explanation?” he replied,
peering up at the statue’s face. “What kind of power could stifle such ancient magic? Perhaps if we wait a moment, the light will return?”

  Kortharion gripped his friend’s shoulder and spoke with dawning horror in his voice. “The power of the Ulthane stems directly from Ulthuan. What if this is a sign of some greater catastrophe? What if the vortex itself is under attack?”

  The swordmaster raised his eyebrows. “Calm yourself, Kortharion. Remember who you are, student of the White Tower. We are the heirs of Aenarion. What threat could possibly challenge the majesty of the Asur? We must simply return to the temple and send a signal.” He climbed calmly back down from the statue. “Come. We must sound the alarm.”

  As he reached the bottom step, he froze. There was a new source of light in the forest. Dozens of red lights were glimmering beneath its twisted boughs, a tide of glinting eyes, rushing towards them with horrible urgency.

  “Khitons?” asked Kortharion, stepping closer to the swordmaster.

  Kalaer shook his head. “I’ve never seen the insects move like that, not with such a sense of purpose.” He fastened his helmet a little tighter and nodded to his friend’s delicately carved staff.

  Kortharion closed his eyes and muttered a brief incantation. For a few seconds, he allowed the winds of magic to pour through him and into his staff. Dazzling white light poured from the stone embedded in its head and flooded the clearing that surrounded the statue.

  The mage gasped.

  Hundreds of mangy, hump-backed creatures were caught in the glare, shielding their eyes from the sudden blaze as they cowered beneath the trees. They were almost as tall as men, but with wiry, fur-clad bodies and long, drooling snouts. Every one of the creatures carried some kind of cruel blade and many of them wore thick plates of battered, serrated armour.

  “By the Everqueen,” hissed Kortharion, lifting his staff higher to reveal even more of the monsters. “Skaven.”

  At the sight of the two tall, dazzling figures, the rat-things paused, hovering nervously at the edge of the clearing and looking back over their shoulders with a chorus of screeching, snarling sounds. An acrid stink of sweat, excrement and rotting meat poured out of them.

  Kalaer sneered imperiously and assumed a fighting stance, shifting position with the languid ease of a dancer. “There’s nothing here to concern us,” he said. “These wretched vermin will flee at the first sign of danger.” He swung his sword in a complicated series of arcs and levelled the long blade at the skaven. “Let them come.”

  Kortharion nodded in reply, trying to assume the same scornful expression, but as he looked up at the blank-eyed stare of the Ulthane he felt a profound unease.

  There was a deep, bellowing cry from further back beneath the trees and the creatures rushed forwards. They moved with incredible speed, scampering out into the clearing with a series of frenetic leaps and bursts.

  As they reached the foot of the pedestal, they paused again, snarling and spitting at the elves and brandishing their crude weapons. The calm poise of their prey seemed to unnerve them. A large shape emerged from the forest, howling with rage. The leader of the skaven was a couple of feet taller than the others and its bulky, hunched frame was knotted with scarred muscle. It jabbed at its troops with a vicious-looking halberd and snarled insults through gritted fangs, ordering them forwards.

  The creatures were even more afraid of their leader than the elves and they leapt to attack.

  As the first of the monsters darted up onto the broad steps, Kalaer stepped silently amongst them, swinging his greatsword as lightly as a dagger in a blinding series of thrusts and slashes. The skaven screamed in panic as he created a spray of blood and severed limbs. With their leader still snarling and cursing behind them, however, they had no option but to press forwards, clambering desperately over their fallen kin and leaping up at the grim-faced swordmaster.

  As the frenzied creatures surrounded him, Kalaer’s calm demeanour became even more pronounced. His body was almost motionless as the huge sword twirled around him, spinning with dazzling, effortless speed. The sculpted plates of his armour were quickly stained red as dozens of the skaven disintegrated in a blur of steel.

  Kortharion, meanwhile, had backed slowly up towards the statue’s feet, still holding his staff aloft and muttering incantations under his breath. As he reached the top step of the statue’s pedestal, he let out a musical cry and slammed his staff down against the ancient stone, opening his mind even further to the winds of magic. At his command, a circular wall of white flames leapt up around the statue, lighting up the clearing and engulfing dozens of the skaven.

  The rat-things screamed in panic and some turned to flee, but the warlord hacked them to the ground with his meat cleaver and bellowed again, summoning another figure to its side. This skaven was wearing a hideous leather mask that stretched over its narrow snout. Its armour was cluttered with dozens of clockwork contraptions and vials of green liquid, and as it entered the clearing the strange-looking creature raised a long pistol and took aim.

  Kortharion gave a nod of satisfaction as he saw his wall of fire devouring the hideous vermin. Kalaer’s lethal artistry was making short shrift of the trapped skaven and their nerve was already breaking. He saw that his old friend had been right; a few more minutes and the whole sorry lot of them would be fleeing for the cover of the forest. He raised his staff and prepared to slam it down for a second time, raising his voice to a fierce crescendo as torrents of energy pulsed through the sculpted ivory.

  A shot rang out across the clearing and the masked skaven tumbled backwards—cursing as its pistol disintegrated in a cloud of smoke and broken metal.

  Up on the pedestal, the mage cried out in pain and toppled backwards. He collapsed against one of the statue’s feet and saw a dark stain spreading quickly across his chest. The agony that gripped him was so intense that for a few seconds he failed to register what the mark was. Then he pulled at his robes and revealed a thick, ragged tear below his shoulder. The image seemed so surreal that he almost laughed.

  “Kortharion,” cried Kalaer, looking back at the mage with horror on his face.

  As the mage slumped even lower against the statue, a sickening nausea washed over him and his staff was suddenly too heavy to hold. As it clattered away down the steps, the light of its stone pulsed once and then vanished.

  There was a raucous cheer as the wall of fire disappeared and the skaven pressed forwards.

  The swordmaster’s unrelenting strikes continued, even as he saw Kortharion collapse, spilling fresh blood down the steps towards him. But with the falling of the mage, the skaven’s fear evaporated and they clambered towards Kalaer with renewed determination. More of the creatures were pouring from the trees all the time and Kalaer let out an indignant roar as he realised that there were too many for him to hold back alone. Slowly, reluctantly, he began to retreat towards his groaning friend.

  As Kortharion’s life rushed out of him, his head clunked back against the stone and he found himself looking up at the face of the Ulthane. It was a scene he recognised immediately—the noble, haunted features of the statue, gazing down at him with a look of profound sorrow. “It’s my dream,” he gurgled, as his throat filled with blood. “This is my failure.” He suddenly saw the full scale of his mistake. Without its mage or swordmaster, the elven garrison would be greatly weakened. With the Ulthane disarmed, and no magic to aid them, half of the island’s defences would be gone. By bringing Kalaer out into the forest, he had risked everything. This was the failure he had dreamt of. The premonition had pointed to this very moment. An awful grief knifed through him and he cried out in anguish, reaching towards the unheeding Ulthane with a desperate plea.

  Kalaer appeared at his side. He was still swinging his sword with incredible speed and precision, but his face was ashen. The gleeful skaven pressed around him in their dozens and however many he sliced apart, crowds more rushed to replace them. “We must warn the others,” he gasped, casting an anxious glance at th
e blood pouring from Kortharion’s chest.

  The mage shook his head, and managed to raise himself up on one elbow. “You must warn the others,” he answered, nodding to the horses tethered on the far side of the clearing.

  Kalaer’s eyes widened in horror at his friend’s words and he shook his head fiercely, lashing out at the creatures with even more vigour.

  The mage’s face was a ghastly white as he pulled himself into a sitting position, but there was a glint of determination in his eyes. “You must leave now. You cannot sacrifice yourself so needlessly. Think of the others—they must be warned that we’re under attack.” He began to stumble over his words as the pain worsened. “The-they will need your leadership to def… to defend the temple.”

  The swordmaster shook his head again as he hacked and lunged.

  “Think of what is at stake!” cried the mage with sudden vehemence. “The temple must… it must not fall to these monsters.”

  The swordmaster stumbled backwards as the weight of bodies pressed against him. He was now standing right over the prone mage, defending him with a bewildering display of swordsmanship. But as the circle of skaven crowded around him, the sheer volume of blades and teeth began to tell; gashes and dents appeared on his armour and his footing became less sure as the enemy finally began to land blows on his slender body.

  “Flee now, or you could risk everything,” gasped Kortharion. Then he began to mutter another incantation.

  The mage’s words were thick and slurred by blood, but Kalaer recognised their intent. As the spell began to take shape, he felt powerful tides of magic eddy and swirl around the pedestal, rattling through the scales of his armour and rippling through his flaxen hair. He risked a brief glance at his fallen comrade and saw that light was pouring from his eyes. Even the mage’s skin was gleaming with power. “No!” he cried. “I will not let you do this. You must—”

  “Now!” cried Kortharion, lurching to his feet and raising his hands above his head.