by Dan Abnett
He had no brother now, and precious few kin in this fading age of the world. But he would fight. Fight on. Against the darkness.
And so he fought now, plunging hard steel into misshapen bodies, severing limbs, scything through torsos and necks, disgorging the foul-smelling ichor and mortal fluids of the things. Gilead abhorred his enemies, bodies corrupted and twisted, infested with evil. From their stench and their symbols he knew them. Bestial, lasciviously decorated devotees of the abomination, Slaanesh.
Gilead fought on as the earth beneath his feet turned to gore-soaked clay. Dark water gathered in the prints left by the heavy footfalls of the enemy. Bodies fell in all directions as the screams and battle cries of the foe became fewer. With every fresh onslaught, with every breath taken after the kill, Gilead’s eyes swept the field. Fithvael was still nowhere to be seen.
Then it came. His concentration must have waned momentarily, his thoughts with Fithvael or perhaps with Galeth, instead of with the foe. He was felled. Felled by the last surviving enemy on the field. A foe, fatally wounded, but not yet dead. Gilead’s body reeled, parodying his own gymnastic battle-swings, and his startled face watched as his assailant collapsed to his knees. The foe’s cadaverous, drawn visage slapped into the cloying mud just before Gilead’s head came to rest on its dead back.
AS THE SUN began to rise, Fithvael led his horse out of the carnage to a green place with fresh water. He tethered her there and she contentedly began a hearty breakfast. She had earned it. But Fithvael needed more. He needed to find Gilead.
Fithvael did not remember the battle, nor did he recall the last time he had seen his partner. His intention was to follow the course of the battle, mapping its action as he went. He picked his way across the field, no more than a hundred yards or so wide and about the same long. He counted some three dozen bodies, but Gilead’s, thankfully, was not among them. The pair of elf warriors had taken on and utterly destroyed an entire band of the foul wights. There were no mounts, so wherever Gilead had gone, his trusted horse had gone with him. A second good omen.
Fithvael began to distinguish his own kills from Gilead’s. It wasn’t difficult. His own were neat and accurate enough, but Gilead’s were a sight to behold. With each group of bodies, Fithvael was able to track every move the elf warrior had made. His mind’s eye noted every pirouette, every firm stance. Each lunge, parry and faint came clearly to him. He felt nothing but immense respect for Gilead’s fighting skills. Every kill was clean. There were no false starts, no unnecessary swings, no butchery. One stroke, one swing, one plunging blade had destroyed each monster in its turn. Fithvael took in the wide variety of strokes that Gilead had brought to bear in the battle. He could almost hear the whistle of the blade through the air and could even detect where and when the elf had changed hands. His three-finger grip was as effective as the conventional four-finger grip of Gilead’s whole hand. Gilead had lost his finger, but Galeth had been there to save him on that occasion, so long ago.
The exercise of dissecting the battlefield began to clear and concentrate Fithvael’s mind. He remembered events from the day before and of the week, month and year, but nothing seemed important since Gilead was missing. The veteran warrior spent the rest of that day crossing and re-crossing the battlefield, breaking it down into a grid and searching each sector for clues of his friend. There were no footprints to be found, the earth was a mess of gore and tarry puddles and the enemies’ decaying bodies covered most of it in any case. So Fithvael began to look a little deeper.
He found his eyes continually drawn to the corpses of the foe. So like his own kind, so unlike. Elven forms corrupted from within, their ancient armour and weapons tarnished and overlaid with the dank remnants of satin swathes and gold-leaf. What had befallen these… these things? What misery had overtaken their lives, overcome them with rancorous passions and destroyed them?
He set it from his mind.
He could find no shreds or fragments torn from Gilead’s garments, no shards of armour, no hair. The elf had left nothing of himself behind in the carnage. Fithvael counted this the third good omen. Even his scent was absent. It would have been hard to detect over the heavy backdrop of malodorous Chaos, but if Gilead’s blood had been spilled, his old friend would have found the traces.
With the fall of his second night on the battlefield, Fithvael retired to the green haven where he had left his mare, content in the knowledge that Gilead was alive somewhere. All day he had used physical evidence to work out what had happened. All night he exercised his mind with suppositions and possibilities. He could only conjecture, but the one thing he could be sure of was that something had caused Gilead either to leave his old friend or to forget him. If Gilead had searched the battlefield, as Fithvael had done, he would have quickly found the veteran, in spite of the dark, cold and carnage. He would not have passed the old warrior off for dead. He would have rescued him and ministered to his needs. Of course, the old elf had suffered some amnesia, but his mind had never lost sight of Gilead. Evil was as thick in the atmosphere as the smell of the Chaos spawn, but surely the elf warrior’s mind was too strong to succumb to the dark influences?
So, Gilead was alive, unscathed, physically at least. Yet Fithvael knew that he must find his old friend, for something was sorely amiss.
GILEAD’S HEAD NODDED in the light slumber of semi-consciousness. He knew that he was mounted and could sense the reins in his hands, but he was unaware that a rope attached to the bridle was leading his horse. If he had realised, he would simply have assumed that he was being led by Fithvael, for there was no one else. He could not awake, he could not summon the energy to rouse himself. Yet neither could he quite comprehend his own complacency.
He slumbered on, unaware of time and space and unconscious of any needs, desires or appetites. He questioned nothing.
DAWN AGAIN. FITHVAEL had slept little. His mind would not still.
He rose to his elbows on the cold ground and resolved he would begin a new quest. A quest for Gilead, and if it took ten years, as the quest to the memory of Galeth had taken, then so be it. Pray that Gilead was lost to some other fate than death.
THE ROOM WAS softly lit with candle lamps, whose steady flames illuminated wall hangings, depicting epic battles between noble elf White Lions and Chaos beastmen. The rugs that covered the stone flags of the floor were deep and warm-looking in the muted colours of autumn and the heavy, rough-hewn items of furniture were rendered majestic by the gold and silver shawls and cloths that covered them and made them inviting. On a little table by his bed stood a pitcher of water and a bowl of sweet-smelling petals. Soft clothes for bathing his wounds half obscured an ornate little hand mirror in its gilt frame. The soft light of the candles flickered and reflected in the bright surface of the mirror, casting light on Gilead’s face.
Gilead rolled lightly over in the warmth of a clean, sweet-smelling bed, and awoke. He suddenly knew the kind of comfort that he had long denied himself. Fully alert for only a moment, he sighed and spread his limbs in the luxurious space.
‘Awake, warrior. Your slumber was both long and deep.’ He heard the low, soft cadences of his own people, spoken in the lilting, breathy tones of a young woman. Familiar, somehow. ‘Awake now and take a little sustenance, sir.’ Her voice was so beautiful, and so familiar, that he dared not open his eyes lest he be dreaming.
‘Let him sleep a little, daughter. There is time enough.’ The same voice, but male and lower, with the slight creak of age, but familiar, and elven - wonderful to Gilead’s ear.
He opened his eyes, not knowing how long he had slept, nor how he had come to this place. Comfort dulled his instinct to enquire. He felt clean and could sense the ointment on his bruises. He smelled, not of the battlefield, but of fragrant soaps and unguents and of sweet sleep. Someone had tended him gently and well.
‘Father, he wakes!’ That familiar voice rose slightly with delight, and a smile showed the neatest row of small, white teeth in a frame of perfect lips. G
ilead smiled back and adjusted the sheet around his torso.
‘Leave us, child.’ Her father dismissed her and she left the room, casting one last gaze down at Gilead. A gaze that showed him her entire face in all its elven glory. The wide-set eyes and lean, straight nose of his kind; the deep, intelligent brow and narrow jaw. Niobe! It was Niobe!
Her father smiled down at him. ‘Welcome, warrior. Welcome to the Tower of Talthos Elios.’
‘Then… I have found it?’
‘You were searching for us? We are… perhaps hard to find. We have secreted ourselves in the darkness of the forest for many years. These are lean, dangerous times.’
Gilead look up. ‘Who am I to thank for salvation?’
‘I am Gadrol Elios. I welcome you here.’
‘Your daughter-‘
‘She told me how you rescued her, son of Tor Anrok. I am in your debt. I am happy to have rescued you in return.’
‘But how did she escape… escape the Chaos scum, Ire?’
‘Niobe was never less than inventive. She slipped his bonds after you weakened him, and found her way home.’
Gilead remained in bed for several days, receiving visits from Lord Gadrol, and meals and other necessities from elf servants of the court. On the second day, Niobe reappeared and with her came the reassuring scent of the woods and herbs that she had gathered to tend him with. The same plants administered to his cuts and bruises when he would skirmish with Galeth as a child. The same he had used to restore Fithvael to health after the fool had come to the aid of a the human girl Betsen Ziegler, without Gilead’s help…
Fithvael?
Gilead became agitated.
‘Your friend fell on the field…’
‘I saw him. No, that’s not correct: I lost sight of him. I don’t truly know what happened,’ Gilead interrupted his nurse.
Niobe soothed the warrior’s mind with her gentle words and calm, lullaby tones. ‘The rescue party found only you alive on the battlefield amongst so many monsters. The carrion beasts had been at work. There was little left of any corpse. It must be your dear friend met a heroic death. To take on so many and to triumph. You two, alone, fought and killed three dozen of the dark ones.’
‘And what are they?’
‘The old curse. Half-formed ghouls from the barrow it is our duty to guard. Chaos once more raises its head in these gloomy forests.’
Gilead fell silent, not really hearing her as she spoke further. Fithvael was dead. Fithvael was dead.
Throughout the third day and the fourth, the Lord of the Court came to listen to Gilead’s story. Gadrol spoke too, in turn, of the rise of the dead things from beneath the barrow, rotting things that came stinking their way out of the earth to haunt the living. Dark beings from a vale beyond. Once more his tower’s garrison had armed to guard the land. The barrow-kind held a sway of fear across this region. Raids, murders and the like were common. One of Gadrol’s patrols had found Gilead. The warrior had countered a raiding pack from the barrow single-handedly.
He… and his fallen friend, of course.
Gilead was sad, but strong and resolute before the older elf. When he spoke to Niobe as she nursed him, his voice often broke and he openly mourned the loyal Fithvael, the last of his questing warriors. On the evening of the fourth day, Niobe took the little mirror from the table beside Gilead’s bed. ‘Look into the mirror,’ said Niobe, ‘see who you are and all that means for the future.’
Gilead looked into the mirror, and was surprised at what he saw there. His skin was clear and bright and he was clean-shaven. He looked like the carefree young warrior who had sparred with his twin and laughed and played and enjoyed life. He thought that time, his quest and the battlefield had aged him and made him cynical, but he did not see life’s scars in his face. It gave him hope, brought him calm.
AS DAWN BROKE, Fithvael awoke with a start. His dreams had brought him nothing but anguish. He was exhausted, fatigued by tortured sleep and restless nightmares; wracked with the aches and pains of an agile but ageing body punished on the field of battle; troubled by the ever-present stench of Chaos in the air and by Gilead’s absence. All of his faculties were compromised, but he hadn’t enough sense left to realise it. His body and spirit were broken and his tired mind increasingly obsessed.
Fithvael contented himself with a handful of clean water for his breakfast. He didn’t remember when he had last eaten a meal. He untethered the mare and began to lead her in a wide sweep around the battlefield. She whinnied and snorted and kept her muzzle upwind of the foul arena.
Only hours later did Fithvael find what he was looking for. He had been circling, resolutely, since dawn and must have passed the hoof prints several times already. He and Gilead had ridden into battle and Gilead had ridden out, but these were the only tracks the veteran had found and he would follow them, blind now to reason and probability.
Fithvael sat astride his horse hour upon hour, following whatever hoof-print trail he happened upon, regardless of direction or number. He did not feel useless now. He was on a quest.
GILEAD’S GRIEF WAS sharp and weighed heavy upon him. Heavier because he was surrounded by his own kind. He would see Fithvael’s wisdom in the old lord’s face, or recognise the old warrior’s tone in the words of a servant at the court. His pain dulled only with the kindnesses of Niobe. Her soft words were as effective a sedative as her sweet-tasting tonics. To find her again… it was a victory, a blessing.
A week passed, two, a month. He roused himself, first from his bed and then from his chamber, and soon he began to take his meals with the family and their courtly retinue. They made him welcome and celebrated his recovery, and also talked about the constant threat of the barrow. In turn he recounted for them stories of his quest and of his warriors’ unerring bravery. He told how, one by one, he had lost them all and he recounted for them the heroic death of each of his questing comrades.
For Niobe, Gilead saved the stories of his home, the tower he had abandoned before taking up his life-quest. He told her of his dead twin, Galeth, and of how he believed he had taken on his sibling’s life force to conquer evil. He talked of Fithvael, of the dead elf’s loyalty to the old traditions and ideals of Gilead’s ancient family. A family that would become extinct with his own death.
Niobe sat for many hours, head bowed over some piece of woman’s work, while she listened intently to Gilead’s epic tales. At these times, Gilead’s feelings would sometimes catch him unawares and he would find himself searching her face for signs of her response to him.
When he was alone Gilead would lift the mirror to his face and see there something new and positive, at last, for the future. He began to forget Fithvael and Galeth and the hard fight and pain of his past.
THE AIR WAS cold and moist and the dusk a dirty brown. Fithvael could not distinguish the dense, grey cloud from the murky, tumultuous sky. Night was falling, sluggish, heavy and moonless. There were no stars to navigate by, even if the old elf had known where he was or which way he needed to go. Fithvael was so tired that he had long since dropped the mare’s reins and was allowing her to meander through thickening woodland. Everything fell into a flat sepia-grey landscape, and he could no longer see colour or judge distance.
Days without food and with little water had taken its toll on Fithvael and his mount, and the mare slowed to an exhausted stop, bent her head and slowly grazed the woodland clearing. Fithvael slumped across her warm neck, then slowly rolled off her back, landing heavily on his empty, aching side. Sleep, he must sleep. Pulling his cloak around his head, Fithvael gave in to his fatigue, trusting that his horse would stand guard for him once more.
Who knows how long he slept? Dull, dark days wove seamlessly into cold, dark nights. There was no sun to wake him. The mare lay beside her master as the old elf sweated and twitched and cried out. Delirious dreams tortured his sleep. Awake, his mind had been full of Gilead, of tracking him, finding him, fighting for him. He’d thought of nothing else since waking on the
battlefield, but nothing of his rational mind was left in his slumber, and the nightmares raged.
Gilead was dead. Gilead was dying. Gilead was being torn apart by a horde of cannibal beastmen. Gilead was walking towards him, body slashed open, oozing decaying gore, trying to say something through broken, seeping lips. Gilead was coming back from the dead. Gilead was a monster.
Even Fithvael’s dreams did not wake him. He fought his way through them, killing Chaos beasts, reaching Gilead too late. Over and over again the dream circled round in his head and each time the veteran warrior fought harder and dirtier. He needed to get to Gilead faster. Each time he was too late.
Yet again the stench of Chaos was in the air and abruptly he was awake. Fithvael sprang to his feet, knees bent, arms wide. His staring eyes flicked around the clearing, penetrating the foliage, searching out the enemy. A shadow moved and the warrior plunged towards it, a weapon in each thrashing hand, arms flailing, a howl screaming from his dry throat. He threw himself on the adversary’s back, plunging twin blades into its collarbone, shoulders, arms, indiscriminately stabbing and scratching at the thing that had taken Gilead. At last the enemy, a corrupted echo of an elf warrior, sloughed off the berserk Fithvael, dropping him unceremoniously on his back and staggered away, trying to staunch a bursting gash in its neck.
Fithvael lay on his back in the failing brown sunlight, awake, breathing hard. The enemy had been real, and, fuelled by his dreams, the old warrior had injured it and sent it on its way. Tired and starved though he was, Fithvael found new purpose. He felt weak and winded and knew he must eat, but he also now had a beast to track. A direct lead back to Gilead. He had a chance. He had hope.
The mare had a full belly and was well rested. The old warrior gathered together some supplies and ate some of the fruits and nuts he had found. He shook out his dirty, crumpled cloak and washed away the ichor that had splashed from the foe’s random wounds. He took a little time, knowing that the beast would be moving slowly. He didn’t want to catch up with it. He didn’t want to have to kill it before he had found his friend. The pleasure of the kill would come later when he was fitter, when he had tracked it to its lair and to Gilead.