Trollslayer

by William King

To cover his anxiety, he leaned forward and tossed more wood on the fire. Little stalks shrivelled and caught ablaze. Sparks drifted lazily upward. Acrid smoke stung his eyes as the lichen-covered branches smouldered.

  He wiped away the smoke tears and spoke to fill the silence. ‘What do you know of the man-beasts? Do you believe the girl’s story about them attacking the village?’

  ‘Why not? The beasts have inhabited these woods since my people drove the elves out nigh on three thousand years ago. Many times in history huge hordes of them have marched forth to attack the cities of dwarf and man.’

  Felix felt some wonder at the way the dwarf so casually alluded to events three thousand years ago. The war he referred to preceded the founding of the Empire and recorded human history by many centuries. Why had not human scholars paid more attention to the dwarfs when they compiled their records? The part of Felix which had been a student regarded the dwarf as a first-rate repository of obscure lore. He listened carefully, trying to memorise all that Gotrek said.

  ‘I thought the beasts were simply mutants, human exiles devolved into man-beasts, altered by the power of warpstone. Certain of our learned professors claim as much.’

  Gotrek shook his head as if despairing at the folly of mankind. ‘Such mutants follow the hordes as lackeys or camp followers but the beastmen proper are a separate race, with origins back in the Age of Woe. They date from the time of the first incursions of Chaos into this world, from when the Dark Powers first ventured through the Polar Gates to trouble this sad planet. They may well be the first-born children of Chaos.’

  ‘I have heard tales of them aiding human champions of Chaos. It is said they made up the bulk of the troops that assaulted Praag two centuries ago. Part of the great host driven off by Magnus the Pious.’ Felix remembered to make the sign of the Hammer when he mentioned the Sainted One’s name.

  ‘That is not surprising, manling. Beastmen worship strength almost as much as they worship Chaos. The champions of the Ruinous Powers are among the greatest warriors to walk this world, Grimnir damn them! I hope the girl-child’s tale is true and that I may soon face this black armoured she-devil. It would be a worthy trial of arms and if ordained, a worthy death.’

  ‘That it would be.’ Felix fervently hoped it would not come to that. Any circumstance he could imagine which involved Gotrek dying at the hands of the Chaos Warrior would surely involve his own demise fairly soon thereafter.

  ‘And what of the girl?’ he whispered. ‘Do you think she is what she claims? Could she not be in league with the attackers?’

  ‘She is only a child, manling. She has not the stink of the Dark about her. If she had, I would already have killed her.’

  To his horror Felix noticed that Kat’s eyes were wide open, and she studied the two of them fearfully. Their gazes met. Felix was ashamed to see such fear in the eyes of one who had already suffered so much. He got up and walked around the fire. He placed his worn cloak over her and wrapped it round her.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he said. ‘You’re safe.’

  He wished he could believe it himself. He saw that Gotrek’s eye was closed but his axe was gripped firmly in one hand. Felix lay down on the leaves he had piled for bedding and for a long moment gazed upwards at the stars glittering coldly through the branches. He slept fitfully and old nightmares stalked him.

  ‘You have failed, beloved,’ the Daemon Prince Kazakital said calmly. He looked at her through his stolen eyes and Justine felt a shock pass through her to the core of her being.

  She flinched, knowing well the punishments her patron could inflict when displeased.

  Instinctively her fingers closed on the ruby pommel of her black war-blade. She shook her head. Her great mane of white-striped black hair swayed. She felt powerless. Even though she had a small army of beastmen within earshot, she knew they could not help her. In her master’s presence no one could help her, no one. She was glad that the old beastman shaman, Grind, and his acolytes had withdrawn beyond the Black Altar after the summoning. She wanted no one to witness her discomfiture.

  ‘Everyone in the village is dead. As we both desired,’ she lied, knowing even as she did so that it was futile. Her ornate armour already felt clamped around her like a vice. Faint hints of pain tickled her nerve endings. If the daemon so desired she knew that she would soon swim in an ocean of agony.

  ‘The child lives.’ The daemon’s beautiful voice remained flat, uninvolved, emotionless.

  Justine tried to keep from looking at it, knowing the effect that the sight of it would have upon her. She knew that it would already have started to change the body of the sacrificial victim into something that more resembled its true form.

  She gazed around. Overhead the two moons glared down in evil conjunction. Morrslieb, the Chaos moon waxed full. Mannslieb was at its smallest. For tonight and the next two nights, the power of Chaos would be strong in the land, strong enough to summon her daemonic patron from his hellish home in the realms beyond reality. Strong enough to let it possess the body of the man which they had offered up on its altar here in the deep woods.

  Through the thick red cloud surrounding the altar she could see the campfires of her followers, the flames smudged by the sweet red mists that stained the night. They were tiny stars compared to the bright sun of the daemon’s aura. She heard it shift its weight, recognised the leathery creak of the wings emerging from the corpse’s back. She focused her attention on the impaled heads that flanked the altar. The pale faces of Count Klein and his son, Hugo, looked back at her. They brought back the memory of last night.

  The old count had been a fighter. He had come to meet her in the courtyard wielding a spiked mace, half-garbed in hastily thrown-on mail. He had cursed her for a hell-damned whelp of darkness. She had seen the fear written on his face, as he saw the bestial horde of gors and ungors at her back, pouring through the shattered gate of his castle. She had felt almost sorry for the moustached old fool. She had always liked him. He had been worthy of a warrior’s death and she had granted him it quickly.

  The youth stood behind his father, pale faced with terror. He had turned and fled through the blood-soaked courtyard where her followers were slaughtering the half-awake men-at-arms. She had followed him easily, relentlessly, the black armour fused to her flesh granting her extra endurance as well as strength.

  The chase through the darkened castle had ended in Hugo’s bedchamber, where she had always known it must. That, after all, was the place where it had all begun. He had bolted himself inside and howled for the gods to save him. She had splintered the door with one kick of her armoured foot and strode in like an avenging daemon.

  The place looked much the same as she remembered it. The same huge bed dominated it. The same fine Bretonnian rugs covered the floor. The same stags’ heads and hunting trophies filled the walls, along with the same pennants and weapons. Only Hugo had changed. The intense thin-faced youth had grown into a blubbery man. Sweat ran down his jowled cheeks. His face looked babyish even as the eyes squinted in terror. Yes, he had changed. Another might not have recognised him after so much time but Justine did. She would never forget his eyes, those glassy eyes which had followed her from the very first day she had arrived in the castle, over seven years before.

  A long sword was grasped awkwardly in his pudgy paw. He raised it feebly and she effortlessly batted it aside, sending the blade spinning across into the corner. She put the point of her sword to his chest and pushed slightly. He had been forced to back away until he had tripped over the foot of the bed and lay sprawled on the sheets. The smell of excrement pervaded the air.

  The bloated pink maggot wet his lips.

  ‘You are going to die,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ he managed to gasp. She removed her helmet then. He moaned aloud as he recognised – at last – her face, her long distinctive hair.

  ‘Because I told you that you would, sev
en years ago. Do you remember? You laughed then. Why are you not laughing now?’ She pushed on her blade a little harder. Blood blossomed on the white silk of his shirt. He stretched out his hand in entreaty.

  For the first time in years, tears of passion stung her eyes. She felt again the hot surge of rage and hatred. It raced through her veins and transformed her face into a mask. She pushed the sword down, revelling in the shock of impact and the clean slice of hell-metal through flesh. She leaned forward, pinning him to the bed where he had forced himself upon her seven years before. Once again blood stained the sheets.

  She had surprised herself. After long years of planning so many, slow, deliberate, delicious tortures she had dispatched him with a single stroke. Revenge had seemed less important somehow. She had turned and left the chamber and went to oversee the sacking of the town. She had ignored the pleas of the two men that the beasts were raising on the gallows in one of their incomprehensible macabre jokes. It had been down there, in the village, that she had encountered the child.

  She strove to forget the child.

  ‘You should not have spared the girl, beloved.’ The daemon allowed a hint of its anger to glitter in its voice. The promise of eternities of pain emphasised its every word.

  ‘I did not spare the child. I left it for the beasts. I am not responsible for the slaying of every dreary village urchin.’

  The lash of the daemon’s words stung her. ‘Do not lie, beloved. You spared it because you were too soft. For a moment you allowed mere human weakness to stay your hand, to push you from your chosen path. That I cannot allow. Nor can you, for if you change course now you have lost everything. Believe me, if you let the girl live, you will have cause to regret it.’

  She looked up at it then and, as always, was struck by the thing’s polished, chitinous, beauty. She saw its black armoured form, the brutally beautiful face glaring out from beneath the rune-encrusted helmet. She met its redly glowing eyes and saw its strength. It knew no weakness, no mercy. It was without flaw. One day she could be like it. It plucked the thought from her mind and smiled in apparent pleasure.

  ‘You understand, beloved. You know the nature of our pact. The path of the Chaos Warrior is but a trial. Follow the path to the end and you will find power and immortality. Deviate from it and you will find only eternal damnation. Great Khorne rewards the strong but he abhors the weak. The battles we fight, the wars we wage are but tests, crucibles to burn out our weakness and refine our strengths. You must be strong, beloved.’

  She nodded now, hypnotised by the beauty of its molten voice, seduced by the promise of knowing neither pain nor weakness, of being flawless, perfect, of allowing no chink in her armour for the horror of the world to seep through. The daemon reached out with one clawed hand and she touched it.

  ‘An age of blood and darkness is coming, an era of terror and rage. Soon the armies of the four Great Powers will march forth from the polar wastes and the fate of this world will be decided with steel and dark sorcery. The winning side will own this world, beloved. To the victors will belong eternal dominion. This planet will be cleansed of filthy humanity. We shall remould everything in our own image. You can be on the victorious side, beloved, one of its privileged champions. All you must do is be strong and lend our lord your strength. Do you wish that?’

  That moment gazing into the creature’s burning eyes, hearing the silken persuasiveness of its voice she felt no doubt.

  ‘Do you wish to join us, beloved?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she breathed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then the child must die.’

  Justine marched through the crowds of her followers to take her place on the carved wooden throne. She placed her bare blade across her knees, confronting the mightiest of her followers, the gors. The sword was a reminder to them all of how she ruled here, a naked symbol of her power. She had the favour of their daemon god and the expression of that favour was her might. The beastmen might not like it but they would have to tolerate it until one of them could, according to their primitive code, best her in single combat. And none would challenge her if they had any sense: they all knew of Kazakital’s prophecy, made when she had been elevated to the ranks of the Chaos Warriors. They all knew what the daemon had said – that no warrior would ever overcome her in battle. They had all witnessed its truth. Yet they were beastmen, and challenging their leader was an instinct.

  This night she almost hoped that one of them would try; the bloodlust was strong in her tonight as it always was after she confronted her patron. She glanced at what the beastmen rested upon: a huge tapestry she remembered once covering an entire wall. It depicted scenes of battle and hunting from Klein’s family’s past. Now it was covered in mud and leaves from the floor of the forest glade and the filth of the beastmen’s own excrement. She would order it burned. She wanted nothing left to remind anyone of the Klein family.

  Seeing the huge animal-headed forms of her followers lolling on Lord Klein’s favourite possession was a reminder to her of how her world had changed since that fatal morning when she fled Hugo’s chamber into the depth of the woods.

  The scene that confronted her now was like something from the nightmare engravings of the mad artist, Teugen. Great horned animals clad in armour walked among the twisted trees of the darkened forest. They looked like an evil parody of the chivalric ideal, an upset in the natural order of things, as if the brutes of the forest had risen to oust upstart man. As one day they would. The servants of Chaos would send all the kingdoms of men toppling into the dust. She had made a small start here. It would grow. As word of her victories spread, more and more servants of Chaos would flock to her banner. Soon she would have a great army and all the might of the Empire would tremble. Somehow that prospect did not excite her as once it would have. Disgruntled, she pushed the thought aside.

  She gazed on the captains of her future army and wondered what orders she should give them. She ran her measuring gaze over them, wondering when and from where the challenge to her leadership would come from. It could be from any of them. They were all gors, the largest and most powerful type of beastman, and the most violently ambitious.

  She saw posturing Hagal, his goat-horns burnished with gold, his brilliant blond fur gleaming in the firelight. Of all the beasts who followed her she thought him most likely to challenge her, to instigate the Clashing of Horns. Her spies told her that it was he who grumbled most loudly around the campfires, complaining that it was unnatural to have a female lead them. He was the most surly, always questioning her orders but never to the point where she would have to initiate the challenge. At the moment, though, he was biding his time until perhaps she weakened. If it came to a fight now he knew that she would win.

  Against Lurgar she would have been less certain of victory, had it not been for the prophecy; the great red-furred bull-head was the most savage of her warriors in battle, a blood-drinking berserker whose appetite for carnage was exceeded only by his hunger for man-flesh. He was a deadly fighter when battle madness came on him. She almost feared a challenge from him, but thought it unlikely unless someone put him up to it. The man-bull was too stupid to have much ambition and was content to follow any leader who promised him foes to face and food to eat. Not a leader himself, he would be the perfect tool for someone to rule from behind.

  Beside him sat one who obviously thought so: the old shaman, Grind. For a beastman, Grind was clever, possessed of low cunning and much of what passed for learning among the warped ones. He could cast bones and read omens, talk to spirits and intercede with the Ruinous Powers. In the time before Justine came to power it had been he who made the sacrifice to the Daemon Prince, Kazakital. But the fat, white-maned bull was too old now to father many sons in the Great Rut and so could not become leader of the warband. Justine knew it didn’t stop him from resenting her pre-empting his position of spiritual authority in the tribe or simply hating her for being female. Justine could not
afford to underestimate him, that much she knew. The shaman was full of spleen and malice, and his words swayed many of the rank and file beasts in her army.

  Tryell the Eyeless was no real threat; a great warrior of heroic stature but marked by warpstone. He had no eyes, yet he could see as well as anyone. As one who had been marked by Chaos he had a great fear of Justine, who he saw as specially favoured by it. He lived only to kill and add new eyes to his collection.

  Then there was Malor Greymane, whose father she had killed to assume leadership of this horde. If the youngling felt any resentment he hid it well. He followed her instructions to the letter, fought well and exercised sound judgement. Often his plans were better than those of war-leaders twice his age. He was already a great warrior, although not yet come into the full strength of his prime. Let the others grumble that he was a member of the council only because of his friendship for her. She knew that some had even been whispering the abominable lie that, secretly, he was her mate. She knew that he had earned his place on merit and his position was justified by his prowess.

  Of all those she commanded, she felt she could place a measure of trust only in the black-armoured Chaos Warriors that she had recruited in the Wastes, long before she had returned here. They were sworn to her service. In a way she wished they were here now, to provide her with a measure of support, but they were not. This evening they were off in the depths of the woods, performing their own rites, propitiating the daemonic engine which they crewed with blood and souls, making it ready for the hard battles to come.

  The beastmen looked up at her expectantly, a half-circle of animal faces whose eyes held both human intelligence and inhuman lusts. She was suddenly glad that her blade was easily accessible. She felt isolated and out of place here. As always, before she began the council she felt a sense of anticipation. Would it happen now? Would the challenge come?

  Justine wondered what orders she should give them. She had never thought past this point. The doubts that she had felt earlier returned, redoubled. She had lived for her vengeance. Now that it was achieved she felt empty. When she spoke to Kazakital it was easy to be firm of purpose, to feel allegiance to his cause. The Daemon Prince had an almost hypnotic effect on her. But when he wasn’t there, doubt set in.