Trollslayer

by William King

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘Nothing! After full dark they’ll breach the walls and then charge us. The beasts can see in the dark. The villagers cannot.’

  ‘That sounds too sophisticated for beasts.’

  ‘It’s not just beasts we fight, manling. It’s a Chaos Champion and her entire retinue. They do not lack intelligence. Believe me, I have fought their kind before.’

  Felix tried to estimate the number of beastmen in the forest but could not. They kept too well out of sight, knowing that lack of knowledge of their numbers would frighten the defenders even more. Fear of the unknown was another weapon in their armoury. Felix felt his heart sink.

  ‘Maybe we should sally forth and spike the cannon,’ Felix suggested.

  ‘That’s just what they’re waiting for. The killing ground out there will work just as well for them as it would for us.’

  ‘Do they have bows, though – they’re beasts.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. There’s too many traps out there for comfort. Someone would be bound to blunder into them.’

  ‘I thought you wanted a heroic doom?’

  ‘Manling, if I just stand here and wait it will come to me. Look!’

  Felix glanced in the direction indicated by the dwarf’s stubby outstretched finger. He saw the black-armoured Chaos Warrior ride up beside the huge cannon. He could see now that a horde of bestial faces glared out from under the edges of the trees. As he watched, a veritable tide of horned figures flowed out from under the eaves of the forest, and began to form up in units, just out of bow-shot. Somewhere deep in the forest a huge drum began to beat. It was answered by the blast of a horn and the beating of another drum somewhere off to the south. A chorus of screams and bellows filled the night. Somehow, within the rhythmic cadences of the strange words he began to sense a meaning. It was as if the understanding had been bred into his ancestors in ancient times, and it had taken only this event to waken it. Blood for the Blood God. Skulls for the skull throne. He shook his head to clear the hallucination but it did not matter. Whatever he did, it seemed like the thread of understanding would come back.

  The noise reached a crescendo, fell silent for a moment and then started again. It grated on the nerves and set the butterflies fluttering in Felix’s stomach. Looking out, Felix could see that the chanting served a dual purpose. It worked to undermine the morale of the beastmen’s enemies and it helped work the followers of Chaos up into a frenzy. He could see them clashing their weapons against their shields, gnawing the edges of their blades, slashing themselves. They danced insanely, raising their legs and then stomping the earth as if they were crushing the skulls of an enemy beneath their hooves.

  ‘I wish they would just come on and get it over with,’ Felix muttered.

  ‘You’re about to get your wish,’ Gotrek said.

  The Chaos Warrior raised her sword. The horde fell suddenly silent. She turned and spoke to them in their own bestial tongue and they answered her with cheers and growls. She turned to the armoured figures atop the siege engine and gestured with her blade. One of them capered for a moment, then lit a fuse. After five long, silent heartbeats the mighty war engine spoke with a voice of thunder. There was a loud whistling sound and then a section of the wall near to Felix exploded, sending fragments of wood, torrents of earth and gobbets of flesh erupting into the air. The beastmen cheered and howled like the hordes of hell unleashed from torment.

  Felix flinched as the cannon’s barrel began to traverse on its mount. He could see that there was no way these wooden walls could withstand the sorcerous power of that awful weapon. They had just not been built to stand up to anything like this sort of punishment. Perhaps the best thing to do would simply be to leap down from the wall and take cover deeper within the township.

  Gotrek seemed to sense his thoughts. ‘Stay where you are, manling. They will hit the watchtower next.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I have worked with cannons in my time, and this one is no different from any other. I can tell the trajectory they are shooting at.’

  Felix forced himself to stand where he was, despite the way the flesh crawled down his back. He felt certain that he was virtually looking down the muzzle of the weapon. It spoke once more. Flame and smoke gouted from the barrel. Once more the whistling noise sounded. One of the legs of the great wooden watchtower was blasted away as the shot smashed a hole in the palisade in front of it. The tower teetered backwards and fell. One of the sentries fell from his post, arms wheeling, to crash to the ground below. His long wailing cry, audible even above the noise of the beasts, was cut off by his sudden impact on the earth below.

  Felix smelled smoke and heard the crackle of burning from behind. He cast a glimpse over his shoulder and saw that one of the buildings and the remains of the tower had started to blaze. He could not tell whether it was as a result of the blast or not. Somewhere in the distance someone started shouting to others to bring water. He cast a glance along the wall where what seemed like a pitifully few defenders waited with their bows clutched near at hand. He exchanged glances with the nearest, a lad of not much more than sixteen years, his face white with dread.

  Felix stared out desperately in the gloom, wondering how much longer this could go on, before either the morale of the defenders was broken or the town was reduced to a flattened ruin.

  Justine watched as the great cannon smashed a third gap in the town’s wall. It was enough, she judged. They needed to save powder for the next fortress they came to. The gaps were large enough for her force to flow through. The defenders were tired and rattled. It was time. She gestured to her trumpeter. He sounded the call to advance. Marching in step to the beat of their human-skinned drums, the beastmen started forward.

  Justine felt the bloodlust grow within her, and her desire to offer souls to the Blood God along with it. Tonight she would make him a mighty offering.

  Felix watched as the tide of beastmen advanced across the open ground. From the walls, the archers began to fire. Calmly, methodically and efficiently they chose their targets, and let fly. Arrows flashed through the gloom and found homes in bestial breasts and throats and eyes. The blood-crazed Chaos worshippers came on relentlessly, their infernal drums beating. They chanted their call to their foul god in time to the music. Once again, he thought he could pick out the words: Blood for the Blood God. Skulls for the skull throne!

  His grip felt slick on the hilt of his sword. Felix felt useless crouched here behind the parapet while others did the fighting and killed their advancing foes. His heart beat faster in his chest. His breath came in short gasps as if he had already run a mile. He fought down a sense of panic. He knew that soon enough it would be time to descend into combat. For now he had a bird’s eye view of the struggle. In the distance he saw the black-armoured she-devil urging them on. She looked like a daemonic goddess from the dawn of time come to exact tribute in blood and souls.

  He saw one goat-headed beastman fall, his legs caught in the steel jaws of a bear-trap. His companions did not even slow down. They marched on, crushing him to bloody pulp beneath their iron-shod hooves. Casualties did not seem to affect them. They showed no sign of fear. Perhaps it was true. They were soulless daemons immune to all normal emotion. Or perhaps, he told himself, they simply knew that their chance for revenge would soon come.

  The beasts were almost upon them now. Felix could see the gleam of firelight reflected in their eyes. He could see the bloody froth on their lips where they appeared to have bitten their own cheeks and tongues in their frenzy. He could smell the musty, furry stench they emitted. He could almost make out the crude runes etched into individual weapons.

  All around, the archers were letting fly with their last shafts and seizing up their swords and axes. Some had already taken to the ladders and moved to join the units of axe-men on the ground between the buildings. Some were lowering themselves do
wn from the platform on which they stood, dangling at arm’s length before dropping the last few strides to the earth below.

  ‘Come, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘It’s time for bloodletting.’

  Felix forced his locked limbs to move. It seemed to take some time to get them to obey him.

  Justine smiled as the beastmen picked up their pace and surged through the gaps the great cannon had blown in the walls. She heard the sound of weapon on weapon, steel on steel as they encountered the defenders within. She touched her knees to her steed’s flanks. It responded at once with its more than animal intelligence and bore her towards the fray.

  Felix blocked the sweep of a beastman’s axe. The shock felt like it would dislocate his arm. He dropped to one knee and stabbed upwards, taking the surprised beastman under the ribs and putting the ancient Templar’s blade through his victim’s heart. Ripping the weapon free, he jumped back just in time to avoid being knocked over by a ranger and a beastman locked in a deadly wrestling match. The two of them fell to the ground in front of him, grunting with effort.

  It was obvious to Felix that, given time, the beastman’s superior strength would prevail. For a moment he watched appalled, unsure of what he should do. He did not want to simply flail into the combat with his sword. Instead, he came to an instant decision. He ripped his dagger left-handed from the scabbard, dropped down and stabbed it into the beastman’s broad back. It rose from the fight, howling its agony, and as it did so Felix slashed its head from its shoulders with his blade.

  Its former opponent rose to his feet, nodding his thanks to Felix. It was the pale-faced boy Felix had seen on the battlements. He had just time to shrug before another wave of beastmen raced towards them. Somewhere in the distance he thought he heard the sound of thunderous hoofbeats.

  Justine charged into the mass of bodies around the middle entrance, lashing about her with her hell-blade, killing a man with every stroke. Her horse trampled the wounded beneath its hooves, and whinnied triumphantly as the smell of blood filled its nostrils. She held herself easily in the saddle, knowing that nothing could stand against her.

  ‘To me!’ she shouted, and the beasts rallied about her, forming a wedge and driving their human opponents back into the streets of their town. Behind her, reinforcements poured through and began to flood through the lanes and alleys. She felt triumphant. Many souls would be offered screaming to the Lord of Battles this evening.

  The sense of triumph diminished slightly as her horse vented a bestial scream. She looked down to see an arrow protruding from its eye. Even dying, with uncanny discipline the animal did not rear and try to throw her; instead it sank down on its haunches, allowing her time to vault clear from her saddle.

  Blazing rage filled her. Shadow had carried her all the way from the Chaos wastes and finding another steed would not be easy. She swore that whoever killed it would pay with his life, even if she had to slay every living thing in this pitiful dungheap. Then she smiled, revealing her long sharp teeth. Mad laughter bubbled from her throat. She was merely swearing to do what she had already decided upon, long before the battle.

  Felix paused in the shadow of a building and glared around desperately. His breath came in ragged gasps. His clothing was soaked with blood and sweat. His sword arm felt numb. Where was Gotrek? They had become separated earlier in the battle without him realising it, when the fury of the action had prevented him from noticing anything except the movements of his current foe.

  Now, he had a breathing space and the Slayer was nowhere to be seen. Felix knew that it was important that he find the dwarf, that his chances of surviving would be greatly increased in the presence of the Slayer’s mighty axe. And if all else failed, he felt called upon to be present when the dwarf made his last stand, to perform his sworn task to witness it, even if he himself died shortly thereafter.

  All around, the buildings were alight, and the flames added a hellish illumination to the scene. Amid billowing, reeking clouds of smoke the battle raged on. Felix saw shadowy beastmen fighting with the wraiths of human warriors in the mist. He could hear the bellow of the monsters, the screams of the dying and the clash of weapon upon weapon. All semblance of formations had been lost in the vast melee. It was kill or be killed, in a brutal struggle to the death.

  Somewhere off in the distance, he thought he heard the Slayer’s warcry. He gathered his strength and courage and forced his legs to move in the direction from which he thought it had come. He offered up a brief, hopeless prayer to Sigmar, asking the Lord of the Hammer to protect himself, the Slayer, Kat and all the others. For a moment, he wondered where the girl was.

  Lost in the howling madness of the battle, Kat could see no escape. She had not wanted to remain within the Temple, knowing as she did that it was doomed. She needed a place to hide from the beasts. She still had not found it.

  She ducked to one side and crouched behind a rain barrel. Nearby, two young men wrestled with a beast. One held it round the legs while the other dashed its brains out with a large boulder. Kat had never witnessed anything like this; the sheer insensate ferocity was appalling. All of the participants seemed possessed by a kind of madness that drove them to acts of hideous cruelty and lunatic bravery.

  No quarter was given. No quarter was asked.

  A great tide of warriors swept down the main street, carried along by their own fury and bloodlust. Screams of dying men and beasts filled the air. The clash of steel on steel rang out through the burning night. The muddy earth, churned by the feet and hooves of the mob, became slippery with blood.

  A beast howled with triumph as it spitted a man on its spear. Its cry turned to a bellow of rage and fear as the man’s friends chopped it to pieces. A circle of men surrounded a bull-headed giant. As it reached for one, another would leap in from its blind side and stab it. Soon it bled from a dozen small cuts; with a fierce bellow, it charged at the nearest warrior and by sheer weight bowled him off his feet, breaking out of the circle and into the mob.

  Kat nearly screamed when the black-armoured woman strode through the throng. She feared that the Chaos Champion had come for her. Then Gotrek stepped from the shadows to issue his challenge. The woman snarled, revealing bloodstained fangs, and lashed out at the Slayer. The blow was a blur, nearly too fast for the eye to follow. She did not know how the Slayer got his axe in the way but he did. Black steel clashed with blue starmetal. Red sparks flew amidst the smoke.

  The Slayer returned the woman’s blow with one of his own. The axe flashed towards her with the irresistible force of a thunderbolt. The woman ducked beneath the stroke and thrust forward. Somehow the Slayer’s axe was there, blocking the blow. They stood straining against each other, blade pressed against blade, inhuman strength measured against daemonic power. Neither gave. Great ropes of muscle bulged in Gotrek’s arms and shoulders. Sweat ran down his face, great veins standing out in his neck and forehead. The woman stood as immobile as an ebon statue. Her armour seemed locked in place. Her pale face was a bone-white mask, a frozen image of bloodlust. The whites of her eyes had vanished; her eye sockets shone with red balefire.

  Seconds raced by as the two of them stood locked in titanic conflict, each unable to budge the other. From the corner of her eye Kat spied a host of beastmen approach. They raced towards the battle, clearly intent on butchering the Slayer. Without thinking, Kat screamed a warning. Gotrek glanced to one side as the beastmen reached him. At the last moment he stepped back and parried a swing which would have split him in two. Kat feared that the woman would take the opportunity to stab him but she need not have worried. The tide of battle swirled around the combatants and the Champion of Khorne and the Slayer were dragged apart in the melee. Kat breathed a sigh of relief.

  Then she noticed that the woman was staring at her. She met the red gaze straight on and her heart nearly stopped. She wanted to scream, but when she opened her mouth no sound came out. The dark-clad warrior-woman marched
closer.

  The killing lust thundered in Justine’s brain. The darkness rooted in her soul threatened to take over completely. Madness bubbled through her veins. The bloodlust filled her like a drug; she took ecstatic pleasure in the carnage. She wanted to find the dwarf and kill him. Of all the foes she had ever faced he had been the mightiest. A worthy offering to the Blood God indeed. At the last second, as she had been going to push aside his axe and slaughter him, fate, in the shape of her own idiotic followers, had intervened and torn them apart. She wanted to find him again and end the struggle.

  Then she saw the girl. As if against her will, she saw the small scared face peeking out from its hiding place. She knew what she had to do. It was time to end this thing once and for all, to set her foot on the path that would end in eternal life, to seize her chance at a glorious destiny in the sight of Khorne. The dark thing that had been growing within her howled in triumph, knowing that its moment had come at long last.

  Forgetting all about the dwarf, she marched towards her destiny.

  Felix tore around the corner. He was instantly thrown into battle once more. The heat of the burning buildings warmed him. The acrid smell of smoke filled his nostrils. The clamour of battle rang in his ears. He could hear Gotrek’s shouts as he hewed his foes down but his eyes were drawn with instinctive, unthinking horror to the Chaos Warrior – and the child who cowered in the darkness before her.

  He could see the resemblance as plain as day now. It went beyond the white stripe in the hair. They had similar features: the same wide eyes, the same narrow jawline. Seeing the warrior raise her blade to strike, he ran forward, bellowing, knowing in his heart that he was going to be too late.

  Justine watched her shadow fall on the child in front of her. She saw the look of fear in its eyes. The pallor of the face. She saw the resemblance to herself and wondered how it was that after all these years she truly felt nothing.

  ‘What is your name, girl?’ she asked quietly.