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Reflections in Steel – C L Werner
About the Author
An Extract from ‘The Red Feast’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
Reflections in Steel
By C. L. Werner
The kick that sent Kenji sprawling was so powerful that teeth cracked when his head slammed against the ground. He struggled to rise, but a boot smashed him down again. He could feel the iron nails of the sole stabbing into his skin. He shuddered as he felt rivulets of his own blood trickling down his back.
All around the youth was calamity. His ears rang with the roar of flames, the anguished screams of the doomed, and the barbarous shouts of the invaders. The smell of smoke filled his nose and the salty taste of blood was in his mouth. His flesh cringed in the heat from the fires that ran rampant all around him. Kyoshima was dying. The town that had withstood the travails of plague and starvation, the depredations of grot wolfriders and feral ghouls, the vile hexes of the witch Baga-Yar, had now been claimed by a catastrophe it couldn’t endure.
Kenji twisted his head and stared up at the man whose boot was planted in his back. He was a terrifying sight. His armour was forged from dark iron and cast into daemonical shapes, so that monstrous faces stared from each sabaton and the breastplate was the snarling visage of an inhuman fiend. The helm that encased the invader’s head sported great horns of bronze and the mask resembled a leering skull. The exposed mouth beneath the mask was twisted into a savage snarl, displaying teeth that had been filed down to sharp points. Upon his pale chin, the warrior sported a tattoo, a crimson stain that depicted an eight-pointed sigil.
Clenched in the invader’s upraised hand was a brutal axe, its edge serrated and its back sporting a hooked spike. Blood already stained the weapon and Kenji cried out when some of it dripped down onto him. He knew it was the blood of his family, slaughtered like animals by the raider.
Fury blazed up inside Kenji. He struggled to free himself, but all he managed to do was writhe helplessly under the warrior’s boot. His efforts amused the raider, provoking ugly laughter that was more like the yapping of a hyena than a sound that should rise from a human throat. The cruel eyes that stared from the sockets of the skull-mask glared down at the youth. Kenji knew that the next moment would see his own life extinguished by the bloody axe.
Kenji turned his head so that he wouldn’t see the descending blow. His eyes fixated upon a shining object, a mote of brilliance in the grimy clamour of battle. He could see himself reflected in the polished steel of a broad-bladed sword with his captor standing over him. The axe started to swing downwards, sweeping for his head.
A voice barked out and the axe faltered in its strike. Kenji couldn’t understand the harsh, guttural language, but he knew whatever had been said was some sort of command. He lifted his gaze from the reflective steel to the one who bore it in his hand.
The swordsman was another of the barbaric invaders. Taller and more broadly built than the warrior who had Kenji beneath his boot, he had dusky skin marked by innumerable tattoos and scars. His armour was a ruddy colour and sported many thorny spikes across its vambraces and greaves. The breastplate was festooned with nails, from which dangled an assortment of grisly trophies: shrivelled ears and severed fingers, desiccated eyeballs and leathery tongues. The helm the raider wore was dark in colour, seeming to shift between deep green and pitch-black, and was cast into the image of a wolf’s head with the curled horns of a ram. The eyes that gazed from behind the helm’s mask were cold and grey, characterised by an intensity that struck Kenji like an electric shock.
The wolf-helmed raider called again to Kenji’s captor. Again, the youth knew from the tone it was some sort of command. This time the axeman bristled with defiance. He spat on the boy and snarled a vicious oath. Kenji could see in the reflective steel that the butchering axe was being raised again.
In a blur of motion, the wolf-helmed raider sprang at the axeman. The shining sword flashed forward in a strike that was like lightning. Kenji felt blood spray down on him. He saw the serrated axe fall to the ground – along with the arm that held it. He glanced up to see the warrior clutching at the stump of his severed arm. The next moment, the raider’s sword came sweeping down, cleaving through both the skull-mask and the skull behind it. The pressure on Kenji’s back vanished as his captor collapsed into the dirt. He felt a murderous elation as he watched the killer of his family slaughtered like a dumb brute, and savoured the sight of the barbarian’s boots kicking in a final death spasm.
The youth expected to feel the bite of the raider’s sword and tried to brace himself for the blow. Instead the swordsman just stared down at him. Kenji shivered when he saw that despite the brutal killing of the axeman, the polished blade was unmarked by blood and remained as bright and clear as when he’d first seen his reflection in it. He didn’t need to be told that there was sorcery within the weapon. To die upon normal steel was one thing, but to die on an enchanted blade was another. The people of Kyoshima had always believed a victim of witchcraft forfeited their soul to the thing that killed them.
Death, however, wasn’t the intention of the wolf-helmed raider. For the third time Kenji heard the barbarian’s guttural voice call out. In answer, a dark-skinned man came rushing forward. He was shorter than the other invaders Kenji had seen, and wore less armour. His face was horribly scarred and his lips had been pierced by slivers of bone, so that it seemed he had two sets of teeth. His head was shaved and when he turned to speak with the raider, Kenji could see that a skull had been painted onto the back.
The two invaders spoke for only a moment, then the wolf pointed at Kenji. Only at that moment did it occur to the youth to try to flee, such was the disorder of his thoughts. It was already too late, however. The bald barbarian sprang at him and wrestled him back to the ground even as he tried to rise. He pinned Kenji under his knees and snapped a thick iron collar around his neck. While the youth struggled to break away, the invader shouted at him, his voice shifting in tone and cadence. Finally, there came not gibberish but words Kenji could understand.
The barbarian noted at once the difference that came upon Kenji. ‘You understand me?’ he repeated, a note of cruel laughter punctuating his words. ‘It is foolish to fight now. The time for that is over. You belong to us now.’
The slaver rose to his feet and pulled the chain fastened to Kenji’s collar. The youth gasped until he managed to pick himself up. He glared at the grinning barbarian. He swung around and started towards the axe lying on the ground. As he did, he noted the wolf-helmed warrior still watching him.
Kenji froze with his fingers just inches from the axe. His moment of hesitation gave the slaver the chance to react. The barbarian jerked on the chain and pulled Kenji back. He drew a ripple-bladed knife from his belt, but a word from the swordsman stayed his hand.
‘You’re fortunate,’ the slaver hissed in Kenji’s ear. ‘Gharm has told me to let you live.’ The barbarian chuckled darkly as the wolf-helmed raider walked off into the smoke of Kyoshima’s burning homes. ‘Don’t think that means I am to keep you alive.’ He tugged on the chain again. ‘You’re plunder now, thrall of Kravoth’s Reavers. You’ll survive only as long as you’re useful. When your strength fails, we’ll grind you up into meal for our horses.’
Kenji glared into the slaver’s eyes. ‘I’ll live long enough to see you dead,’ he vowed.
The slaver twisted the chain in his hand and forced Kenji closer. ‘Many have made me that same promise, boy. I’ve left their bones for the vultures. Don’t think Gharm will pr
otect you. Strange moods come upon him sometimes, but they pass just as quickly. You’re nothing but a whim of the moment. When the moment passes… you belong to me.’
With practised ease the slaver drew Kenji’s hands into a set of bronze manacles. Chuckling darkly, he led the youth through the burning town and past the triumphant barbarians despoiling its homes.
Kyoshima was dead. Kenji wondered how long it would be before he joined the rest of his people in Nagash’s underworlds. How long he could depend on the whim of the Champion with the enchanted sword to keep him alive.
‘Get that slop ready for the horses!’
The order came from the shaven-headed slaver, Sazaal. He used the crack of his whip to punctuate his words. Kenji felt it rake across his shoulder and bite into his skin. After months as a thrall, he’d become somewhat inured to the lash. Where once the kiss of the whip would bring tears to his eyes, now there was only a grunt of discomfort. But if the sting to his flesh had lessened, the insult to his pride hadn’t. Each blow was another seed of hate. A hate that kept him alive where others perished.
Kenji was in the muddy fields on the outskirts of the Reavers’ encampment, the chain of his collar fixed to a post. The warriors led by Gharm represented but a single raiding band of the immense warhost that swore allegiance to Kravoth. Dozens of groups left the army each day to maraud and pillage, returning with the spoils of decimated settlements. Hundreds of slaves shivered in the fields, fettered like animals. The hardy were set to the tasks the barbaric warriors considered beneath them. Those who were weak and faltered were culled with ruthless abandon.
The ‘slop’ Sazaal wanted rendered down for the horses was human. Many times Kenji had been given the foul chore of carving up a fallen slave, rendering them into thin slivers of meat and pulverised meal to be fed to the fearsome mounts used by the Reavers. The barbarians believed the charnel diet made their steeds more vicious and bloodthirsty, horses fit for their murderous conquests.
This time, however, Kenji knew Sazaal had especially singled him out for the task. Few slaves had been taken when Gharm’s warband attacked Kyoshima. The slave sprawled at his feet now was one of them. Though her body was emaciated from malnutrition and her skin was scarred by the mark of the lash, Kenji recognised her face. She’d been a potter and often he’d passed her working clay into bowls on his morning walk to the woodcutter. Then she’d been hale and hearty; now she was wretched and wasted, crushed by the cruelty of the barbarians.
There was one more difference, however, and it was a difference that made Kenji’s heart sicken. Unlike the other slaves he’d butchered for the raiders, there was still a flicker of life in the woman. When he realised that, he looked at Sazaal. There was a gloating expression on the slaver’s face.
‘Get to work,’ Sazaal chuckled and cracked the whip across his skin once more. Kenji’s fingers curled tighter about the bone flensing knife he held. To rake it across the slaver’s throat!
The whip snapped at him once more, its tip drawing blood from Kenji’s cheek. ‘The horses are hungry… or maybe you’d rather feed them?’ Sazaal sneered as he made the threat, switching back to his own brutish language. Over the course of his captivity, Kenji had quickly learned the savage tongue of his masters.
Kenji turned his eyes to the woman lying in the mud. She was watching him with an empty gaze. All hope was gone… Even fear was gone. There was only bitter resignation. The fatalism of the damned.
Sazaal lashed him with the whip again. It disgusted Kenji to know the enjoyment the slaver took from hurting him. The only thing he could do to deny him that satisfaction was to obey. No good would come from making a show of resistance. All he would do would be to weaken himself, to squander some of the strength he’d been slowly gaining. The woman would die, nothing he could do would change that. If not by his hand, then by another. Perhaps one with no thought of mercy for her plight.
Kenji leaned down. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered as he brought the knife raking across her throat. There was neither forgiveness nor condemnation in her eyes as he killed her, only that same look of empty weariness.
The whip cracked across Kenji’s back again. ‘No talk,’ Sazaal ordered. ‘Work or scream. Those are your choices.’
Kenji glared at the slaver, but said nothing. He rolled the dead woman over and started his hideous work. He locked away the rage boiling inside him, saving it for when the opportunity came to pay Sazaal back. A reckoning that was now his only purpose. His only reason to survive.
Sazaal coiled his whip around his arm. The bald barbarian lifted his gaze and turned towards the Reavers’ camp. Kenji looked for what had drawn the slaver’s attention. A confusion of hide tents and leather yurts stretched away across the fields almost as far as he could see. Tendrils of smoke wafted up into the air from hundreds of fires. The smell of blood and sweat and flame rolled away from the bivouac, the condensed reek of the gathered horde. Kenji could see the brutal banners and standards of the various chieftains and Champions. Set upon a pole taller than all the others was that of Kravoth himself, a grim totem of flayed skin across which had been inked the face of a snarling daemon. Kenji had seen the warlord himself a few times and knew he was even more inhuman than the beast depicted on his banner. The leader of the Reavers stood as tall as two men and had the musculature of an orruk overlord. Sharp claws sprouted from his fingers and horns bulged from his forehead. Kravoth had been born mortal but by the infamy of his deeds he’d been favoured by the Dark Gods of Chaos and transcended the limitations of human form. He was more daemon than man now, a profane reward towards which every Reaver aspired.
Kenji’s attention drew away from Kravoth’s standard to that of Gharm. A tall pole adorned with bones and topped by the oversized skull of a one-eyed wolf, it was easy enough for him to find. He was surprised to see that it was moving, being carried away from the Champion’s tent.
‘Hurry up and finish,’ Sazaal snapped at Kenji, this time not bothering to use his whip to motivate the thrall. ‘Lord Gharm will be going on another raid.’ A crooked smile spread the slaver’s bone-pierced lips. ‘This time you’ll go with me. If we take too many slaves, I’ll let you decide who lives and who dies.’ He laughed and spat into the mud. ‘You’re good at that kind of work.’
Sazaal laughed harder when he saw the anger in Kenji’s eyes. One day, Kenji promised himself, I’ll be the one laughing.
The raiders rode hard through the river valleys well into the night. Those without steeds struggled to maintain the pace, discarding gear as they jogged after the riders. Unburdened by armour and weapons, Kenji found himself better able to cope with the unforgiving demands Gharm set upon his followers. Nor was unforgiving an inappropriate description. He saw exhausted warriors drop to the ground gasping for breath, only to be callously dispatched by their fellow Reavers. The barbarians made no allowance for weakness in their slaves. They were even less tolerant when it came to their own marauders.
‘Keep going,’ Sazaal wheezed, slapping Kenji’s back with his rolled-up whip. The slaver was exasperated by the thrall’s endurance, something that brought a grim smile to Kenji’s face.
‘Heed your own advice,’ Kenji said. He waved his chained hands at a fallen warrior, another barbarian ready to stab him in the throat if he failed to resume the march. ‘I don’t want any of them killing you.’ His smile broadened when the prone raider was dispatched by his comrade. ‘Nobody gets to kill you except me.’
Sazaal struck him from behind. Kenji stumbled but kept on his feet. ‘You’ll fall before I do, I promise you.’ He gave Kenji another shove that almost sent him sprawling. The slaver might have tried again, but at that moment a rider came galloping back towards the footmen.
‘The village the scouts found is ahead,’ the rider declared, waving a spiked flail off towards a rocky branch that opened into the valley. ‘There is a wall but the gates are open. Gharm says he will lead us in and hit
them before they can shut their gates. You will follow us to secure the plunder.’ He raised his fist in salute. ‘Glory and gold to Kravoth Daemonstruck!’
The infantry returned the salute, ragged declarations of fealty to Kravoth rasping from their throats. The messenger turned his steed and rode away to rejoin Gharm and the horsemen. Kenji glanced at the faces of Sazaal and the other raiders. Each of them had a bitter expression, one that had the effect of blotting out the weariness dragging at their bodies. As much as they’d sworn gold and glory to Kravoth, each of the warriors expected to take a measure for themselves. With the riders charging in ahead of them, the footmen anticipated little of either when they reached the end of their march.
‘By the Blood God and the Plague Father, are we dogs to snap up the leavings?’ a hulking barbarian raged, shaking his axe and shield at the sky. He turned and started sprinting after the departed messenger. The other warriors followed his example, greed and envy pouring new strength into their limbs. Kenji was caught up in the surge, goaded onwards by the revived Sazaal.
‘I’ll have a full coffle, horse-feeder,’ the slaver jeered. ‘If you live, you’ll have plenty of company on the march back.’
Kenji offered no retort. It was enough for him to try and keep moving. Now it was he who was at risk of falling behind. Unlike the barbarians, he didn’t have the lure of pillage and plunder to grant him a second wind. Yard by yard, he found himself losing pace. Sazaal’s threats couldn’t spur him to a new effort. He was weakening. Soon he would fall. And then he would die.
Kenji thought it was a trick of his fatigued mind when he saw the blur of motion that slipped through the bushes dotting the valley. Day was fast deserting the land and long shadows were stretching across the terrain. He tried to tell himself it was some trick of light and dark. Even in the camp of Kravoth’s Reavers he hadn’t seen anything so abhorrent as what he imagined he’d seen sneaking around in the undergrowth.
