Reflections in Steel - C L Werner

by Warhammer

  Then he saw it again, or at least another like it. For only an instant it was exposed to Kenji’s sight, slipping between patches of darkness. His skin crawled at the image. A lean, crook-backed figure covered in grimy rags and verminous fur, a scaly tail trailing behind it and the long, pointed head of a rat perched upon its shoulders.

  ‘Run, you dog,’ Sazaal snapped, his whip cracking against Kenji’s back.

  Kenji spun around and grabbed the lash to prevent Sazaal from drawing it back and hitting him again. ‘Listen to me, fool. There’s something following us.’ He nodded his head towards the bushes.

  Sazaal glowered at Kenji and strained to free the whip with one hand while reaching for the club hanging from his belt with the other. His eyes darted for just a moment towards the bushes. At once his expression changed. ‘Skaven!’

  The inhuman pack charged the barbarians. A second mob of the vermin sprang from the opposite side of the raiders, their fur wet from creeping along the riverbank. Kenji saw that some of the ratmen wore armour and carried weapons of iron and bronze that looked familiar to him. It took only a moment to recognise them as the gear the raiders had been discarding on the trail and leaving upon the bodies of their murdered comrades. He understood now why the skaven were following them. Scavengers, they’d been snatching up whatever the warriors left behind. Now, with Gharm and his riders gone, the monsters felt themselves numerous enough to overwhelm those who remained.

  ‘Skaven!’ The shout was taken up by the warriors as the ratmen fell upon them. For an instant, Kenji had a view of the battle. The powerful barbarians set their axes and swords cleaving through their bestial foes; their mauls and flails shattered skulls and pulverised limbs. Around them, the ground was soon littered with the bodies of the dead and maimed. But for every skaven they struck down, two more rushed in to take its place.

  Sazaal fell back and used his whip to fend off the attentions of three ratmen who came for him. The creatures chittered angrily, baring their chisel-like fangs and waving their curved swords. A concentrated effort would have overwhelmed the slaver, but none of the skaven wanted to be the one to take the lead and withstand the whip.

  Kenji had no time to spare for Sazaal or the other Reavers. A brown-furred ratman with a ring through its nose and studs in its hairless ears lunged at him, a sword clenched in its paws. The thing swung at him with a speed that was terrifying. Only luck saved Kenji. He stretched his hands out in a futile gesture to stop the blade. While his hands would have only made themselves a target, the chain of his manacles was made of stouter material. By a caprice of fate, the skaven sword missed his fingers and instead struck the metal links.

  The skaven was as surprised as Kenji when its blade didn’t sink into flesh. It looked uncertain what to do, twitching its head from side to side. Kenji suffered no such dilemma. He flung himself at the skaven, bowling it over with his greater size and weight. The monster writhed under him, lashing him with its tail and scratching him with its claws. Beside the punishment he’d endured as a thrall of Kravoth’s Reavers, the skaven’s efforts were nothing to him. He swung his hands forward and got the chain of his manacles across the vermin’s throat. Then he pulled back and used every ounce of his strength to break the thing’s neck.

  Kenji grabbed the dead ratman’s sword. He looked over to where the main fight was unfolding. Several of the Reavers were down now, their bodies being looted by skaven. Other ratmen continued to harry the survivors, trying to separate them and then converge on all sides. Sheer numbers favoured the vermin. He supposed the reason only one of the monsters had charged him was because he presented a poor prospect for loot.

  Kenji swung around and looked back to Sazaal. The slaver was surrounded now by four skaven. A creature armed with a spear had joined the others and its efforts were taking their toll on Sazaal. Whenever the barbarian cracked his whip at one of the others, the spear-rat would dart in and stab him. Sazaal was bleeding from half a dozen wounds and his left arm hung limp at his side.

  The wise course for Kenji was to flee. He had no friends in this fight. Whichever side won, he would lose. Hate, however, made him stay. If he didn’t have friends in the fight, he certainly had an enemy.

  ‘You won’t have him!’ Kenji roared as he charged the ratmen from behind. He held the stolen sword in both hands and swung it like a cleaver into the spear-rat’s back. The creature crumpled under the blow, its spine broken. The other skaven jumped back, startled by the abrupt dispatch of their comrade. Again, though their swift reflexes gave them an advantage, indecision squandered that advantage. Kenji rushed at the closest of the vermin and swung his blade at its face. Black blood spurted from a snout cut to the bone. The ratman shrieked and stumbled backwards. Kenji’s sword came chopping down once more, slashing the skaven from shoulder to belly.

  One of the remaining skaven lunged at Kenji, its sword cutting him along the side as he turned to meet its attack. The pain of his wound barely registered in his mind, a hurt he shifted behind that mental partition where all the abuse and torture inflicted on him by his captors was relegated. He struck out at the ratman, his blade clipping the tip from one of its ears as it ducked under the attack. The vermin dived in at him, thinking to stab him before he could recover. Kenji didn’t even try. The moment he saw his enemy duck he brought his arms crashing downwards. The pommel of his sword and the chains hanging from his wrists slammed into the ratman’s head like a hammer. The stunned skaven collapsed at his feet. Before it could try to rise, Kenji brought the pommel and his chain slamming down again. He repeated the attack until he felt the creature’s skull crack under the flurry of blows.

  Spattered with the blood and brains of his foes, Kenji rose. He saw Sazaal standing above the carcass of the last ratman. The slaver gave him an uncertain look and his fingers tightened about the sword he bore. The sounds of battle continued to rise from the other raiders as they tried to resist the skaven ambush, but no more of the monsters were nearby. Slaver and thrall were alone.

  ‘You saved my life,’ Sazaal said, something like incredulity in his voice.

  ‘No I didn’t,’ Kenji spat at the slaver. Without warning he threw his sword into Sazaal’s face. The weapon crashed into the barbaric visage, breaking several of the bones piercing his lips and mashing his nose in a scarlet explosion.

  Before Sazaal could think of anything but his wound, Kenji ploughed into him. The thrall’s drive spilled both men to the ground, but with the slaver underneath him it was his tormentor who took the brunt of the impact. Sazaal’s sword went spinning away as his hand lost its grip.

  Kenji whipped his chains across Sazaal’s face, the metal links ripping his skin like razors. The slaver’s fingers tore at him, trying to throw him off, but he wouldn’t be denied. Over and over he lashed his chains against the barbarian’s head. The shaved pate was gashed, a sheet of blood streamed from the man’s forehead and turned the dusky visage into a crimson mask. One eye darkened with blood and the orbit around it fragmented into splinters of bone. However brutal the havoc, it wasn’t punishment enough to satiate Kenji’s rage.

  Dimly Kenji was aware that the sounds of battle had changed. The feral snarls of the skaven had turned to shrill squeals of terror. Barbaric voices roared in triumph as the sound of pounding hooves rumbled ever closer. Gharm and his riders had returned.

  The rescue of the barbarians counted for little with Kenji. All that mattered to him was exacting the last measure of vengeance from the mangled thing beneath him. The head was less human than the verminous faces of the skaven before he stopped lashing out with his chains. He didn’t know when Sazaal had died and cursed himself for letting that moment pass without savouring it properly.

  The snort of a nearby horse caused Kenji to rise to his feet. There was no thought of running. It would do no good to run. The barbarians would just ride him down. Besides, he’d settled his score with Sazaal. He was ready to die.

 
When Kenji turned, he found his eyes staring into the gleaming steel that he knew could belong only to Gharm’s enchanted blade. His reflection was the very image of savage violence. From head to toe he was coated in blood: his own, that of the skaven and the gore from Sazaal’s spattered head. The cut from the ratman’s sword flowed freely, as did the furrows where the slaver’s desperate fingers had raked his skin.

  Gharm studied Kenji a moment. He spurred his horse forward. Kenji didn’t run from the fanged steed’s approach. He didn’t cower when the Champion raised his gleaming sword and brought it flashing towards him.

  The centre link of Kenji’s chain was severed by Gharm’s strike. The Champion leaned back in his saddle. ‘Run, if such is your want.’ He nodded at the carnage of which Kenji was the sole survivor. That Sazaal was among those killed didn’t seem to matter to him. ‘I don’t think you are such to run.’

  ‘You destroyed my home. Killed my people.’ Kenji glared defiantly at Gharm.

  ‘I cut the strong from the weak,’ Gharm said. ‘Those strong enough to prevail and seek the power of a daemon. Those who would fight.’ He pointed his sword at Kenji. ‘You would fight. Fight then. March to the village. Seize your measure of plunder and glory.

  ‘Or stay here.’ Gharm spoke as he turned his horse and started back towards the rest of his warriors. ‘It may be you’ll die of your wounds whatever your choice. Fight with us, and you’ll become a Reaver.

  ‘If you survive.’

  The heat wafting up from the pit was withering. Kenji could see the sweat dripping from the joins of his bronze armour. The griffon-hide wrappings around the grip of his sword had turned black from his perspiring palm. He’d removed one of the trophy scalps from his spiked pauldrons and tied it under the rim of his helm’s visor to keep the sweat out of his eyes, though he could still feel drops sliding into his eyebrows.

  No glory without ordeal. Kenji’s mind rolled over what might be called the creed of Kravoth’s Reavers. The horde believed the Dark Gods didn’t value anything a man did that was not hard won. Kravoth had endured and suffered much before he finally rose to daemonhood. All those who would emulate him were fully aware how difficult the path would be. The weak were nothing but resources to be utilised by them. It was only in the strongest enemies that they could find an ordeal worthy of being noticed by the gods.

  The pit below offered such enemies. It was a colossal gorge that plunged deep into the crust of the rocky plain. One of dozens that stretched across the mephitic desert. The land here shimmered with the gleam of diamonds, topazes and turquoise, the gemstones lying exposed on the surface, spat up by the volcanic vents that spewed greasy brown smoke into the sky. Yet there were none who dared brave these lands to gather the unclaimed wealth. None who dared to challenge those who’d made the great pit their home.

  None except Kravoth’s Reavers.

  Kenji could see the winding road cut into the sides of the pit, winding round and round as it descended towards its molten depths. Far below, perhaps a thousand feet or more, a lake of lava bubbled and roared, its hellish light lending the black stone around it an orange glow. Along the walls, structures had been cut into the sides of the pit. Near the surface they were few and far between, but closer to the fiery pool they became so numerous as to seem a veritable city. A city of stone hidden in the maw of a volcano.

  ‘This is a battle worthy of the gods,’ Gharm told his raiders. The Champion had left his savage steed in the charge of thralls as had most of the Reavers. To plunge into the lava because of a bucking horse was an insulting death when a much more glorious end offered itself. His eyes roved across the persons of his raiders. ‘The gods are watching you. Shame yourself before them, and you’ve no need to fear their wrath. I’ll gut you myself and feed your entrails to the ghorgons.’

  Drums and horns rumbled up from the pit. Kenji could see a solid block of enemies marching up the road. The path was a solid wall of armed foes, from the side of the pit to the sheer drop down into the lava below. In another life, when he’d existed in Kyoshima, he’d seen the short and stocky duardin when they’d come to trade goods with the town. The army that now marched to meet Kravoth’s horde was a similar breed, but unlike any duardin he’d encountered before. Their skin was black and glistened like onyx, their physique brawny and robust. Their hair was pulled up into great crests that towered above their heads like the comb of a cockatrice, and their beards were plaited into long braids that fell almost to their knees. Hair and beards alike had been dyed a bright and vivid orange that echoed the glow from the lava below. Kenji could see the glimmer of gold shining from many of the duardin, the precious metal stuck directly to their dark skin. Each of them carried an axe with a wide blade, and Kenji had no doubts that all of them had both the strength and skill to wield the cumbersome weapons.

  ‘Gold and glory.’ The words were snarled by the raider standing closest to Kenji. She was a hulking blonde-haired marauder from some distant part of Ghur, a devotee of the Dark Gods who had sought to join the Reavers with her whole village. Of two hundred, only herself and ten others had been found strong enough to be worthy of serving Kravoth.

  ‘Seek glory, Vanya,’ Kenji advised her. ‘Gold and plunder will wait until the enemy is carrion beneath our boots.’

  The barbarian flipped back her scalp-lock so that it curled around the back of her horned helm. ‘I’ll take your share then, if you don’t want it,’ she said. ‘The clans may question your deeds in battle, but none can argue with the plunder you bring back.’

  Kenji shook his head, but didn’t bother to contest her claim. She didn’t understand. Most didn’t. What counted wasn’t what others believed you’d accomplished, but what you knew you’d accomplished. In the carnage of war, the only heart that kept a true record of how you’d fought was the one inside your own chest. That was the only place where a warrior’s worthiness was measured.

  From the depths of the pit there now rose shouts in the blunt duardin tongue. Kenji reasoned that it must be a king giving final encouragement to his army, or a priest invoking the protection of their ancestor-spirits. The shouts faded away and were replaced by a dirge-like song, a cadence as hard and relentless as the volcano itself.

  ‘To war!’ A voice that sizzled more loudly than the smouldering lake below rippled through the horde. Kravoth raised his blade in his clawed hand with a flourish, then stabbed it downwards at the duardin road. A savage howl rose from the horde and the Reavers hurtled forward to charge into the enemy.

  Gharm’s raiders were just behind the vanguard. The role of smashing the duardin front line had been given to the crimson-armoured warriors of Thurr the Dravgoli, cannibals from the misty wastelands of Shyish. Kenji watched them as they sprinted towards the enemy, their fanged mouths open in hungry wails as bloodlust consumed their minds. He’d seen the defenders of towns and villages buckle under the fearsome sight, but the duardin remained steadfast. Their front shifted and scores of skirmishers emerged from the ranks. Kenji thought they were going to close with Thurr’s savages, but instead of moving to meet the barbarians they hurled their axes at them. The heavy iron and bronze of the armour offered no obstruction at all to the weird, gold-flecked blades as they slammed into the humans, slicing through the metal plates like hot knives through butter. The skirmishers made a second cast with spare axes they bore before withdrawing back into the duardin line.

  Thurr’s warband had numbered a hundred and more, but when the last axe was thrown there wasn’t a single cannibal still on his feet. As Kenji advanced over the dead and dying warriors, he could smell the stench of burnt meat rising from the fallen. Their loss, however, didn’t matter nearly as much as what they’d gained for the rest of the horde. They’d bought both time and distance for the Reavers. A second line of skirmishers came out to inflict damage on the humans. A score of warriors fell, but this time the duardin didn’t strike with impunity. Javelins and arrows answered the
attack. As they saw their skirmishers struck down, a mighty roar rose from the duardin. They didn’t wait to meet the oncoming humans. In a great surge they rushed upwards to meet the raiders.

  There wasn’t further opportunity for lesser engagements. Kravoth’s Reavers slammed into the charging duardin in a crash of steel. Kenji’s sword lashed out, shearing through the brawny arm of a bearded foe and sending both him and the axe he held spinning off towards the molten lake below. He kicked his mutilated enemy full into the face of the duardin behind him. Both stumbled for a moment and while they were unbalanced, he whipped them with the chain he gripped in his other hand. The duardin recoiled instinctively from the lashing metal. The reaction turned their stumble into a sideways plunge over the edge of the road.

  From the corner of his eye, Kenji caught the reflective shimmer of Gharm’s sword. The Champion was locked in combat with a duardin wielding a poleaxe, his body so encrusted with gold that he almost seemed a being of living metal. Even from so fleeting a glance, Kenji could tell the leader of the raiders was confronted by a skilled and powerful enemy. It might be that Gharm’s quest for daemonhood would end in a volcanic pyre.

  Kenji was confronted by a burly duardin carrying a massive two-headed axe. The vicious blade swept downwards as he spun around to avoid the attack. His sword delivered a glancing blow to his foe, deflected from more grievous harm by the gold runes embedded in the onyx skin. He flipped the length of chain in his other hand, sending it licking at the duardin’s eyes. The action caught the enemy by surprise and he recoiled as blood streamed from his cut forehead.

  The duardin with the double-axe had no chance to attack again. Vanya rushed at him before he could recover and chopped him down with her own axe blade. He collapsed in a heap at the edge of the road. Vanya crouched over him and began cutting the golden ornaments from his skin.

  ‘Leave the plunder for later,’ Kenji snapped at Vanya. She gave him a defiant look and continued to loot the corpse.