by Warhammer
He froze as he reached the main hallway. One of the mammoth grubs loomed before him, only inches from his face. He could see the thing’s beady black eyes, the chitinous parts of its mouth rubbing together. Man and insect stared at one another, neither moving. Finally, Einarr jumped back, bringing his sword up to the ready, prepared to lash out at the grotesque grub. The insect paid him no notice, turning and proceeding into the side passage. Its immense companions followed after it, scuttling away to repair the damage the Norscan had caused.
Einarr breathed a sigh of relief. The grubs didn’t have any concern for intruders, only for their own tedious task. He looked down the corridor, smiling when he saw it free of bloated insects. His trick had worked, he had drawn the right grubs. He turned and grabbed Birna’s arm.
‘We should hurry,’ he told her. ‘Who can say how many of those things are prowling these halls?’
Birna shuddered at the thought, staring with new horror at the walls around them. ‘Promise me a clean death, Einarr,’ she said. ‘Don’t let me wind up like these.’
Einarr looked into her eyes, her words slicing into him like a knife. ‘I promise, Birna. If it comes to that…’ He didn’t need to finish, Birna understood that he would do what had to be done.
Scouting ahead, Einarr found their advance through the palace was interrupted when the corridor was suddenly split by a great trough that curled between its walls. The channel bisected the passage, sinking a few feet below the level of the floor. He could see the passage continue on the other side some twenty feet beyond, the walls beyond lined with grimy nodules of stone rather than the whimpering bodies of plague-thralls.
It was what filled the trough that caused Einarr to cringe. What filled it was not water or pitch, but a bubbling porridge of what he could only describe as rancid meat. Grey chunks of indescribable filth bobbed about the churning filth, while thick clouds of flies buzzed about it. The warrior muttered an oath to his ancestors as he saw one of the flies touch the surface of the stew and be pulled down into its molten depths. He turned from the trench, to tell his comrades what he had found, and advise that they find some other way around. He was startled to find Birna already behind him. She looked past Einarr, eyes wide with loathing as she gazed upon the pestilential soup.
‘Orgrim is growing agitated,’ she told the warrior, forcing her eyes away from the pit. ‘I think we are being followed.’ As if to emphasise her words, a terrible howl echoed down the corridor. It was not the wolfish cry of the ulfwerenar, but a lower, cackling snicker, at once malevolent and wretched.
‘We’ll have to cross it,’ Einarr decided, but there was no conviction in his voice. He doubted the chances for healthy men to cross that filth, much less the injured and the infirm. He reached out across the pit, feeling the surface of the walls. They were warm, moist to the touch. The revolting impression came to him that somehow, against reason and nature, what was beneath his hand was living meat. Birna removed a small steel spike from a pouch on her belt, handing it to the warrior. It was a climbing piton, a tool not uncommon to the hunters among the Sarls, who knew how easily the role of hunter and prey could change and appreciated the value of keeping a safe distance above snapping fangs and flashing claws.
Einarr nodded and pressed the spike against the quivering wall. ‘This is neither stone nor timber,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how well it will hold.’ The cackling howl again came to them from up the corridor. This time it was not one voice, but an entire chorus of bestial whines.
‘Either way we die,’ Birna told him. Einarr gave her a grim smile and turned back to the wall. He pressed the spike once again into the meat, then drove the hilt of Alfwyrm against it. The walls shuddered with pain, syrupy blood drooling around the spike. Einarr froze, almost expecting the entire palace to reach out and crush him for injuring it. When nothing happened, he grabbed the spike and tested its hold. Despite the ghastly substance that encased it, the piton held firm.
‘At least something in this hole favours us,’ Einarr said. He took another spike from Birna. One hand clenched around the first spike, he swung himself over the bubbling filth. Refusing to consider the abominable death that lurked just inches beneath his dangling feet, Einarr stretched his other arm out, stabbing a second spike into the wall. He swung back then drove forward once more, pounding the spike in with the palm of his hand. Once again the wall quivered and shuddered, threatening to spill him from his precarious perch. Sap-like gore dribbled from around the piton, sizzling as it flowed down into the trench. Einarr took a deep breath and swung his body out over the pit once more. This time he closed his hand around the second spike. Closing his eyes, he braced himself, half expecting the piton to tear free. Against his fears it held.
‘Give me the rest!’ he called to Birna, his momentary exhilaration fading as he considered the distance that still separated him from the far edge. He’d need at least five spikes to cover the entire distance, finding the thought of repeating the daring manoeuvre far from appealing. Yet he knew it was the only way.
He had just driven the third spike home when the sound of snarling animals and ripping flesh echoed from up the corridor. Einarr looked back to Birna and hastily swung back across the moat of disease. Their foes had reached Orgrim.
The warrior drew Alfwyrm as soon as his feet touched the floor. Birna already had her blade drawn, bracing herself for the onset of their foes. Einarr shook his head. ‘Stay here and guard the way out,’ he told her. The huntress started to argue, but her protest was lost in a fit of coughing. Einarr turned away and ran back up the passage to join Orgrim.
The werewolf was at the centre of a snarling maelstrom of violence and savagery. His pelt was torn in a dozen places, bloody strips of fur hanging from his wounds. Around him, a mob of cackling things that looked to be some loathsome mixture of swine and hound snapped at him. Every time the ulfwerenar turned to claw at one of the snivelling mongrels, one from the other side would dart in and sink its fangs into him. Einarr could almost see Orgrim’s strength being leeched out of him with each cowardly assault.
‘Laugh at this, cur!’ Einarr roared, bringing Alfwyrm slashing through the back of one of the carrion-hounds. The crippled beast flopped against the floor, its back smashed by the attack. Einarr did not pause, but swept his sword in a murderous arc that sliced the leg from another hound and opened the muzzle of a third. Plunged into confusion by the Norscan’s sudden arrival, the hyenas forgot their old foe. Orgrim lunged at them, sinking his fangs in the throat of the pack leader. The werewolf shook his head from side to side, worrying the wound. The hound struggled in his grip, trying desperately to pull away. Finally, with a wet ripping sound, the hound’s throat was torn open, blood cascading from the wound. The maimed beast cringed away, then fell. The remainder of the pack turned, tails between their legs, and galloped back up the passage.
Orgrim shook shreds of meat from his jaws, spitting the taste of polluted blood from his mouth. Something white and sharp clattered across the floor to land beside Einarr’s foot. The Norscan was alarmed to find it was a fang, torn from Orgrim’s mouth during the battle.
The werewolf sagged against the wall, snapping at the wasted arms as they reached down for him, then started to lick his wounds. Cautiously, Einarr walked toward Orgrim, but the deep growl that rumbled from the werewolf’s throat warned him back. He could see the animal fury glowing in the ulfwerenar’s eyes, the barely restrained urge to rend and kill. He didn’t want to consider what tremendous effort of will allowed Orgrim to restrain himself and keep from attacking the Baersonling.
Orgrim raised his head, sniffing at the air. Far up the corridor, Einarr could hear the cackling howls of the plague-hounds. The craven creatures had recovered from their surprise and were already loping back to glut their bellies and sate their lust for revenge. Einarr started to move down the corridor to meet them. Orgrim pounced ahead of him, snarling at the Norscan.
‘Gggooo,’ the werewolf rasped through his fangs. Without waiting
to see if Einarr would obey, Orgrim turned to meet the charge of the hounds. Einarr hesitated, then stooped and retrieved Orgrim’s broken tooth from the floor.
‘Die well, Aesling,’ Einarr told the werewolf as he turned and ran back to join Birna. He did not know how long Orgrim could hold the plague-dogs back, he could only hope it would be long enough for them to cross the pit.
Einarr rounded the corner and once more found himself gazing upon the putrid quagmire of boiling meat and frothing pestilence. At first he did not see Birna, then his eyes focused on her, hands clutched around the last of the pitons. He watched as the huntress tried to swing herself forward, trying to emulate Einarr’s feat and drive the fourth spike into the wall. The warrior cursed aloud. The woman was having trouble standing, the fever must have seeped into her mind for her to think she could muster the coordination to sink pitons into the wall.
He yelled at Birna, ordering her to stay still. Einarr slammed his sword into its sheathe and leapt at the wall, his hands closing around the first two spikes. He shifted his weight, letting one hand go free and swung himself around. His hand closed on Birna’s, then slipped around them to fasten onto the spike.
‘Grab onto me,’ he ordered. Birna nodded weakly. Einarr did not need to tell her she was too sick to set the piton, she had discovered that for herself. The warrior grunted as Birna’s arms snaked around his neck and his body felt her weight dragging on it. He ignored his protesting muscles. Gripping a stake in his hand, he moved to drive the piton home, to get them a few feet closer to safety. The sound of battle in the passage behind them told him there was not much time.
How little time was borne home when a spindly figure crept from the corridor on the far side of the pit. Yellow robes that smelled as though they’d been soaked in urine dripped from the scrawny apparition. The thing was a man, though the scabs that covered almost every exposed inch of his frame made it impossible for Einarr to decide if the man was Hung, Kurgan or even Norse. Upon the chest of the robe, he could see the fly-rune of Nurgle drawn in excrement, upon the man’s bald scalp a similar rune had been branded. The miserable thing turned eyes black with disease in their direction and a sharp-toothed grin split his scabby face. The man lifted his fleshless hand and sickened words slobbered from the sorcerer’s mouth as he began his incantation.
Einarr could feel the air around him growing hot and heavy, sticking to him like dampened rags. Birna coughed loudly, her bile dripping down his chest. He could feel her hands growing slick with sweat as the spell strengthened the disease gnawing at her. The wall of meat behind them began to turn green and panic flared through the Norscan as he felt the piton shift slightly. Everything seemed to be withering under the sorcerer’s malign magic, everything except Einarr himself. He felt a flash of heat against his arm, watching as the band he had taken from the ship began to grow a bit more corroded with rust and decay. The observation did little to reassure him. The wall would decay and pitch him into the quagmire long before the armband’s power was consumed, and long before then, Birna’s strength would fail completely.
The sorcerer saw the hopelessness in Einarr’s eyes and his grin grew. Filled with unending despair, the last joy for the slaves of the plague god was to see another overcome with the same misery. The warrior felt outrage swell within him, fury that this gloating wretch thought he could overcome the last son of Vinnskor. With one hand, he firmed his hold on the stake, struggling to maintain his grip. The other hand fell to his belt, drawing Alfwyrm in one fluid motion. The plague-wizard’s eyes narrowed with dismay and his incantation took on a more rapid, hurried quality.
Einarr glared at the sorcerer, even as he felt the spike shift under his hand. He hefted his sword, tossing it so that he could grip it at the centre of the blade. Then, with a swift pull he crooked his arm forward and hurled Alfwyrm at his foe. Like a spear, the blade plunged through the wizard’s chest. A look of disbelief filled the man’s features, then with a groan he toppled to the floor, his hand dangling over the edge and into the stinking stew that filled the pit. Smoke rose from the corpse as the volatile filth devoured its flesh.
Birna gave a gasp and Einarr could feel her slipping away. His arm circled her, crushing her against him. Bellowing like a blood-mad troll, Einarr braced his legs against the sickening wall and launched himself across the pit. Huntress and warrior crashed against the floor of the corridor, the diseased bones of the sorcerer cracking beneath their weight. Einarr recovered quickly, glancing down the passage to ensure they were alone. Satisfied, he turned to Birna, doing what he could to comfort her, then stooped above the sorcerer’s broken corpse.
‘This belongs to me,’ he spat, ripping Alfwyrm free and kicking the rest of the sorcerer into the bubbling mire. He looked back across the pit, to the passageway where the sounds of ferocious battle continued to rage. Briefly he considered crossing back and helping Orgrim, but before he could act, the werewolf himself appeared. Not a patch of fur on the Aesling was grey. Every hair on his body was stained with blood. A mob of the plague-dogs continued to vex him, the curs swarming about him like terriers baiting a bear.
The werewolf was pressed to the very edge of the pit. Unable to back away further, he slashed at his adversaries, his claws ripping open the flank of one too slow in making its escape. Orgrim turned, looking over at Einarr, then faced the cackling pack once more. Throwing back his head in one final, defiant howl, Orgrim met their charge, dragging two of them with him as he plunged into the caustic filth. Werewolf and carrion-hounds vanished beneath the boiling soup, steam rising from where they had fallen. The remainder of the pack, torn and mangled by Orgrim’s claws and fangs, stared into the pit, even their cackling growls silenced by the spectacle.
Einarr reached into his belt and removed the fang he had lifted from the floor. While he watched the smoke slowly rise, he threaded Orgrim’s tooth onto the neckband. Aesling or were-kin, Einarr hoped Orgrim’s ancestors received him well when he entered their halls.
Einarr and Birna hurried away from the gruesome moat, the sound of Skoroth’s baying carrion-hounds bellowing behind them. The huntress struggled to keep pace with Einarr, the corrupt energies unleashed upon her by the warlock sapping her endurance. As they rounded the corner of the slobbering passageway and the sound of the hyenas faded into the distance, Birna sagged against the wall, coughing blood against the squirming meat. Einarr watched her, the woman’s suffering cutting through him as though it were his own. As the wracking attack continued, he looked down at his arm, at the band of pitted steel that had guarded him against the diseased sorcery. He stepped towards Birna, reaching to his arm to remove the band. The huntress laid a restraining hand against his wrist.
‘No,’ she told him. ‘It is too late.’
The Norscan shook his head, struggling to deny the truth in her words. ‘It will protect you,’ he said. Birna turned her face as another wracking cough seized her. Black fluid dribbled from the corners of her mouth as she looked back at him.
‘It is you it must protect,’ she said. ‘If you fall, then we have all failed.’ Her grip grew firm around Einarr’s wrist. ‘You must win your way through to the shrine, seize the Claw from the Plague Lord! Earn the glory that is your right! Only then can I hold my head high in the halls of my ancestors. I will look in the eyes of my forefathers when they ask me what right I have to sit among the Sarls. I will tell them “I was there when Einarr Steelfist conquered the Palace of the Plague Lord and claimed the favour of Mighty Tchar!”’
Einarr saw the admiration, the fervour in Birna’s eyes, undimmed even by the sickness that gnawed at her vitality. He crushed the huntress against him, kissing her fevered face. He held her close, trying to will his own strength into her flagging body, trying to drive the clammy chill from her with his passion. Only when the sound of rushing bodies echoed down the corridor did he allow his hold to weaken. He tightened his grip on Alfwyrm and turned to face whatever new foes Skoroth had sent to die upon his blade.
‘Even Eina
rr Steelfist cannot kill all the plague god’s thralls,’ Birna warned him. Despite her words, her own sword was in her trembling hand. Einarr looked over at her and nodded.
‘We must keep ahead of them,’ he told her. He helped her pull away from the wall, then set her running down the corridor. Birna did her best to match the Baersonling’s long strides, but Einarr was forced to slow his pace and help her along. Behind them, something howled and the sound of their pursuit grew still louder as whatever beast guided the plague-thralls picked up their scent.
The dripping corridors of meat gave way to halls of bone, diseased-wracked skeletons clinging to one another in a riotous defiance of gravity and architecture. Insects peeked from the pits of skulls, rats chewed splinters of bone within decaying rib cages. The floor was a carpet of loam-like marrow that squelched beneath their feet, bleeding a milky treacle as their boots bruised it. Ahead, two great yawning pits opened in the floor, stagnant vapours rising from their depths.
