A Tithe of Bone - Michael R Fletcher

by Warhammer

Swallowing his fear, the scribe hurried to follow Markash and his retinue of warriors into the night, attention darting as he tried to drink in every detail. No time for fear; he would witness, as commanded.

  The dead waited. They hadn’t moved, hadn’t shifted.

  The jade-clad corpse nodded, a slight tilt of its barren skull. ‘Many bones. Such a fine tithe.’

  Markash drew Ktchaynik and it sung a keening note of triumphant rage. Reality, savaged by its mad will, warped about the blade, giving it a twisted corkscrew appearance. For a score of strides around the Champion the grass died, turning brown as the colour leached away, curling into dry husks. The ever-present greasy green flies wobbled in mid-flight and then spiralled to the ground, tiny souls snuffed by the ravenous blade.

  The dead flinched back.

  Black fire crawled across the Champion’s armour, smoke leaking from every joint, bright eyes like blazing rubies piercing the damp heat of the night.

  Destiny.

  ‘As a Chaos Knight,’ Markash had said, ‘I dreamed of being Tzeentch’s greatest Champion. And now I dream of…’

  What could such a man dream? Palfuss reeled at the thought. Did Markash dream of attaining daemonhood? Did he dream of leading Tzeentch’s own dark legions?

  One of the larger corpses strode forward, raising its sword in greeting and challenge. No one else moved. Not the dead. Not Markash’s loyal troops.

  Palfuss took it all in. The squelch of heavy steps on damp ground. The rot-stench of piled corpses. The furnace roar of the Champion’s breath.

  Markash nodded greeting, one warrior acknowledging another.

  The two closed, circling. They feinted, testing the range and their opponent’s reactions. The dead warrior moved with grace and precision. Light on its feet, like a dancer – perfect balance, utter calm. Were it smarter, Palfuss thought, it would have feigned the jerky, shambling awkwardness so typical of the dead, and then surprised the Champion.

  When it finally lunged, foul sword stabbing forward, the scribe was still startled by its speed. The damned thing had been moving slower than it was capable of.

  Batting aside the attack, Markash cut the thing down, cleaving it from shoulder to hip so it fell in two directions. The gaunt jade-clad corpse who’d first addressed them straightened, that green fire deep in its gaping sockets surging brighter in what probably passed for surprise among the dead.

  ‘Destroy them,’ commanded Markash.

  Roaring their battle cries, his warriors charged the fell host.

  The corpse in the green retreated into the illusory safety of the dead warriors, and Markash cut down another corpse, Ktchaynik screaming its glee.

  It was a slaughter. But not the slaughter Palfuss anticipated.

  The lumbering beetle-like beast scythed through Markash’s Chosen, massive blades cutting men and women in half. Limbs like seething tongues flicked from within its carapace to catch the dying as they fell. The bodies were spun, some still screaming as the writhing tongue denuded them of flesh, shucked the bones like an angry child with a head of corn, and tossed the raw and dripping remains into the baskets on its back.

  Destiny.

  Palfuss knew a moment of nervous almost-fear. ‘No,’ he whispered.

  Markash, servant of Tzeentch, Architect of Fate, had a destiny. The dead did not. So the scribe told himself, as he stood rooted, bearing mute witness, unable to move.

  Screaming voices rose from behind, and Palfuss turned to see the gate fall back into place, leaving Markash and his handful of elite warriors trapped outside.

  Stayn Lishik grinned triumphantly down from atop the wall.

  The sounds of battle echoed from within the city, and the scribe knew they’d been betrayed. The Champion would deal harshly with Stayn once these dead were destroyed. His screams would last weeks.

  Markash faced a new opponent, a bipedal four-armed creature with an oddly misshapen skull. The uppermost arms bore long swords of heavy steel as if they were the lightest feathers. The two lower arms worked in tandem to wield a monstrous barbed spear of hooked bone. The creature wore a carved bone mask displaying the savage grin of a warrior.

  He knew that face. But from where?

  So teasingly familiar, but so out of place.

  Markash fought, spinning and slashing, stabbing and hacking. Moments of purest ballet pierced with savage flurries of vicious violence. The thing hooked Markash’s sword with two of its blades, dragging Ktchaynik aside so the spear could lash out in a disembowelling thrust. Twisting, he avoided the worst of it, but still felt a line of raw agony tear his side. It had slashed through his Chaos plate like it was nothing.

  It pressed the attack, feinting and stabbing, sword carving wicked patterns of death – somehow strangely familiar – into the screaming air.

  The grinning mask.

  Those familiar patterns of attack, learned as a youth, drilled into Markash over and over by–

  Everything clicked into place.

  Ammerhan, the Champion who had trained him all those years ago.

  Again Ammerhan tried to entrap Markash’s blade, but this time the Champion was ready. It had been years since the two had duelled, and Markash had learned a lot in that time. Twisting Ktchaynik, he sent one of his opponent’s swords spinning away, and lopped off that arm.

  Grind, click!

  The thing’s lumpen skull rotated and Markash faced a new mask, this one depicting the face of an aelven warrior caught in mid-scream. When it attacked, sword shearing through daemon plate like it was softest cotton and opening a long wound in Markash’s thigh, the Champion realised he faced an entirely new opponent.

  He fought.

  All around his warriors fell, cut down, stripped of flesh. Some bones were collected, thrown into the baskets. Others were tossed contemptuously aside, unworthy. The roar of battle became screams of terror became the wet sucking of flesh pulled from bone became the harsh sound of Markash’s own breath, the snarls of his pain, the ringing of steel on steel.

  In moments he was alone out here, surrounded by the dead. Only his scribe stood, unmolested, ignored by the dead, witnessing.

  Hundreds of faces watched from the Knazziir rampart, Stayn Lishik in the centre.

  This couldn’t be Markash’s destiny.

  A low spear thrust, hidden by a stabbing feint at his eyes with the remaining sword. Markash parried it, hacking the head of the spear from the bone shaft.

  Grind, click!

  He faced a new warrior – mask bearing the chiselled jaw and smug superiority of a Sigmarite champion – with an entirely new set of skills.

  Markash laughed. ‘I don’t care how many faces you have, I’ll best them all,’ he roared at the thing.

  It stabbed him in the gut with the tattered end of the spear, splintered bone tearing his insides, and he shattered another arm at the shoulder.

  Flesh was nothing.

  Blood was nothing.

  Markash was naught but war.

  Grind, click!

  Another mask, this one a cold-eyed woman. The remains of the spear spun in its hands and all of a sudden Markash faced a weapon master skilled with a quarterstaff. It lashed out, crushing his daemonic plate, leaving deep dents. The sword followed, a weird fencing style with fanciful flourishes like high-court calligraphy.

  Markash fought, parrying attacks, staggering back as the thing followed, weapons spinning and flashing, writing notes of pain in his flesh. He bled from a score of wounds, left a trail of blood.

  The dead watched, waiting, making no move to aid their four-faced warrior.

  One last face.

  This was not his destiny. He was Markash! Some day he would join the ranks of Tzeentch’s greatest daemon princes!

  The staff spun, cracked him in the ribs, snapping one like a damp twig, spun again, and shattered his left k
nee.

  Markash roared again and staggered, half-kneeling in the bloody muck. Each breath felt like a hot knife driven into his lungs.

  The four-faced corpse stabbed at Markash, and he caught the sword in his armoured fist. Twisting the blade aside, he felt it slice through his gauntlet, sever his fingers. There was a terrible moment when he felt the last of the strength in that grip fail. He drove his sword into the fourth and final face.

  It stood transfixed, shivers running the length of its body.

  ‘Destiny,’ Markash said, tearing Ktchaynik free.

  The dead warrior collapsed.

  Still kneeling, Markash raised his sword in victory, spitting blood and bits of broken teeth at the watching dead.

  The corpse in jade robes stepped forward. It now bore a viciously curved scythe.

  ‘Good tithe.’

  Then it sliced Markash’s head off in a smooth and effortless swing.

  His skull bounced once in the soft earth and then came to rest, one cheek against the cool muck. His fingers lay littered before his eyes like pale, undercooked sausages thrown into a midden pit. How long had it been since he’d seen his own flesh?

  Markash blinked at them, mouth moving. Somewhere out of sight something geysered blood into the air and then toppled over with a wheezing wet groan.

  His body.

  Blood puddled about his face, filling one nostril and turning his vision red.

  Blink.

  One of the dead noticed the scribe, strode to the unmoving man, and cut him down. A snaking tongue flicked from the monstrous beetle-like beast, collected the dead scribe, and began shucking him of flesh.

  Destiny.

  No.

  Movement.

  Swinging movement.

  They’re carrying me, thought some deep part of Markash, some dwindling spark.

  Opening his eyes, he saw that long limb-tongue or whatever the hells it was flick out and curl around the ankle of his headless corpse. He watched it drag his body closer, lift and rotate it about, peeling away the armour.

  Where was his sword? He wanted it.

  Armour gone, the tongue stripped his meat from his bones.

  Unable to escape into death, held at this teetering precipice between life and unlife, Markash was forced to bear witness to the harvesting of his loyal followers. He watched the gaunt dead sift through the grizzly remains, choosing bones by some alien metric he couldn’t understand. He saw men and women ground into meal, a sodden porridge stained pale pink, and be remade.

  Some were used to repair damaged undead warriors, applied like a salve, or twisted into limbs to replace those lost in battle. Some were whole new constructions: towering beasts, giant corpses built from the bones of scores of fallen men and women.

  And all the while Stayn Lishik watched from atop the wall.

  Markash saw his own bones reduced to sludge and shaped to create new limbs for the four-faced warrior he’d battled. Hanging there, vision swaying slightly as whatever held him by the hair moved, he bore mute witness as they hacked Ammerhan’s mask from the once-again-whole warrior and tossed it aside.

  Finally, they remembered him and he was brought closer. A great hand gripped his face, twisting it until the bone of his skull gave with a crack. Beyond pain, Markash finally lost himself to the nothing.

  The Bonereapers of Ossia.

  Markash knew them now.

  The Mortisan Boneshapers: the master craftsmen who took the raw material collected by the Gothizzar Harvesters, those huge beetle-like beasts, and crafted weapons and warriors. The Mortisan Soulreapers: the mouthless corpses harvesting the animus of Ossia’s enemies. The Mortisan Soulmasons: deciding what purpose to bend each soul towards, veritable surgeons.

  They carved apart the idea of Markash and found much of use. A lesser soul they would have turned to meal – soul porridge – much as they did the bones, rewritten it, painted something new by combining the harvested ideas of many. In Markash they found something special. Something rare and worth keeping: blind faith in himself, in his abilities, and in his god.

  Iron loyalty.

  Faith is but an idea, and the Soulreaper cut the idea of Tzeentch from Markash, left the shape of it intact, a hole in who he was. It then filled that hole with a new idea: Nagash.

  It also found another, stranger idea at the core of the man. Destiny.

  Standing over the Necropolis Stalker it intended to meld Markash with, the Soulmason considered its options.

  It could remove this foreign idea, but wasn’t sure what to replace it with. Leave a hole in the idea that is a man, and the man cannot be complete. That, in part, was the strength of the Ossiarch Bonereapers. Though made from many souls and the bones of dozens, each Mortek Guard was still a complete idea. It knew what it was, where it belonged. It knew its loyalties and its purpose. But the shape of this idea, this destiny, was unlike any the Soulmason had previously seen. What could fit such a hole? Digging, it found the idea itself was created to fill an even deeper hole, a wound from far back in Markash’s past.

  In the end, it left the idea. It was too integral to the idea that made Markash useful. To such an ancient soul as the Soulmason, the concept of destiny was pathetic, the kind of self-deceit the living were so fond of. There was only one fate. In the end, all things would share in it.

  Death and destiny.

  The two words meant the same thing in the Ossiarch tongue.

  Markash woke.

  Strong. Stronger than he’d ever been. Faster too. Unencumbered by sad flesh and muscle, scrubbed clean of life.

  A warrior. Battle writ bone-deep.

  He shared the body with three other mighty souls, united in purpose, existing in perfect tandem. One carved bone mask of four. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew the face it showed.

  And there, a dim spark in the background, lurked Palfuss, the scribe. Harvested, his bones and soul had been deemed worthy of use. Fragments of him existed within the living corpse.

  I witness, said that spark, still clinging to purpose. I still witness.

  A Necropolis Stalker, one of the Ossiarch Empire’s elite shock troops, Markash understood his own place and purpose. War against the enemies of Nagash. Bring them death.

  It was a glorious purpose!

  As a Stalker, he was a near invincible warrior. Each mask was that of a champion, a peerless warrior. Face a style you could not defeat, or one better countered by one of the other masks, and a different soul stepped forward, took charge.

  That– no. That was wrong. Someone else in charge?

  Why hesitation? asked Ghaanmast, who was once the First Sword of an empire long fallen to dust. We have task.

  And they did. Collect the Bone Tithe. Nothing could stop them. The tithe was everything, a holy command from Nagash himself.

  And yet…

  Ossiarch Bonereapers moved around him, each bent to its tasks. They marched to collect the tithe, tireless bone legs moving at a pace no mortal could match for long. The Mortek Guard moved in flawless formation; individuals, yet capable of fighting with impossibly unified precision. The Gothizzar Harvesters followed behind, their tongues lashing out to ensnare birds and any wildlife that dared approach too close. Most of the bones were useless, tested and tossed aside.

  Markash remembered this land. Hot and damp. Leather rotting so fast the armourers could barely keep up. Anything not magical or daemon-bound rusted. Insects everywhere. Biting, stinging, sucking, pestering. Those fat green flies swarming everything, getting in your eyes and mouth, tasting like rot. They still swarmed, but as a thing of clean bone he was of little interest. When they did land, he felt nothing. No tickling of little legs at the corners of lips and eyes. If it was hot or damp, he felt none of it. Not comfortable, just… existing. Such things were distractions the dead did without. Purity of purpose.

 
; The warrior most suited to defeat an opponent takes the fore, said Markash.

  He sensed the confusion of the others. There was nothing to discuss. They were one, servants of Nagash. They moved as one. Even though they took turns being in control, they fought as one. They would do whatever was needed, their individual desires unimportant.

  And yet…

  Something niggled, an idea. The memory of a memory.

  Markash knew his old life, understood what he had been, why he had fought. No need to carve away the past and all its valuable lessons when you can carve the idea. He remembered his loyalty to Tzeentch and cared nothing. He remembered wanting to be Tzeentch’s greatest Champion, hungering to rise through the ranks, to achieve true immortality.

  All pointless nothings.

  As an Ossiarch, he was forever. If he fell warring for Nagash, he’d either be rebuilt, repaired or replaced. Such was the way of things and the way brooked no questions.

  That hunger was gone.

  And yet…

  I defeated you, said Markash. I fought all of you, and I won.

  Ammerhan was gone, cut away, replaced by Markash.

  Destiny.

  Death.

  To the Ossiarch, they meant the same thing.

  He remembered thinking about destiny. He would have laughed, if such things mattered.

  I found it.

  Found what? asked Ghaanmast.

  My destiny. I am the best of us. I defeated you all and any opponent who could defeat me would beat any of you even faster.

  They were one, served one purpose. They could not argue because he was correct. He had defeated them all. He was the best of them.

  Markash knew then he would always be the mask that faced the world. It could be no other way. It was his destiny. He would rise until he commanded the Necropolis Stalkers. He would be the greatest of the Bonereapers. He would bring down the false gods, the pretenders. He would lay their flayed corpses at Nagash’s feet.

  I still witness. Palfuss. A thin thought at the edge of existence.

  It was, decided Markash, only right. The scribe would see it all, remember it all.

  Today he would collect the tithe, as was his sacred duty. But this was only the beginning.