by Warhammer
The other soul was weak and she hated it. It was sickened by the unending violence of her life and just wanted it to stop. It was the side of her that felt pain, and the urge to give in to pain and not allow pain to befall others. It had been long submerged and twisted almost out of all recognition by the events of her life. Up until the death of Hugo, she had not even allowed herself to know that it still existed. The thought was too horrible, her need for revenge too strong and urgent. She had made her pact with the daemon seven long years ago; and she had needed to keep it in order to gain vengeance. Now her purpose had been fulfilled and once again she knew doubt.
The doubt centred upon the child. She could remember carrying it within her. She could remember feeling it grow and kick. She had borne it during the long, sick period of wandering in the wild, when she had scrabbled for roots and grubs, drunk from streams and slept in the hollows beneath trees. It had been her only companion in the wild days after she had run off in fear and horror. It had been a growing presence within her as hunger, hardship and horror had driven her slowly mad.
She doubted that she or it would have survived if she had not encountered the beastwomen in the forest; if they had not taken her in and guarded her and fed her. She remembered them as being oddly shy and gentle compared to the gors and ungors. They had acted on the instruction of their daemonic patron, that was now clear, but she was no less grateful to them for that. They had taken the child away from her on the day of its birth and she had not seen it from that day to this. She knew now, had earned the right to know through long years of tests and battle, that this had all been part of her patron’s plan, a daemonic strategy designed to allow her to transcend her mere humanity and join the ranks of the Elect. She knew it was her last tie with frail humanity and she despised it – and wondered at it too.
She recalled how it had all begun. The beasts had dragged her before that great black altar in the forest. They had brought her to bow before the black stone inscribed with dreadful runes. They had laid her down on the rock and Grind had slashed her throat and wrists with his razor-edged obsidian blade while his acolytes chanted the praises of the Blood God.
She had expected to die then, and she would have welcomed it as an end to her suffering. Instead she had found the darkest of new lives. Her blood had burst forth, to be caught in the depression on the altar’s surface. She had somehow pushed herself upright, kept on her feet by rage and defiance and a strangely serene hatred that blossomed within her. That was when she had sensed the presence. That was when she had seen the face.
In the pool of her own blood she had seen the daemon’s form take shape. Crimson lips had emerged from the red liquid and mouthed questions and answers and promises. It had asked her whether she wanted revenge on those who had brought her to this. It had told her that the world was as corrupt and evil as she thought. It promised her power and eternal life. It had spoken its prophecy. Somehow she had stood, swaying and filled with pain, throughout the ordeal. Afterwards she seemed to remember that her own blood, blackened and smoking, had somehow flowed back from the altar and returned to her veins. The wounds slurped shut, while poison and power blazed through her.
For days she had lain in burning dreams while her body changed, touched by the daemonic essence carried within her own tainted blood. Darkness twisted her and made her strong. Her fangs grew in her mouth. Her eyes changed so that they could see in the dark. Her muscles grew far stronger than a mortal man’s. She had emerged from her trance knowing that it was not chance which had brought her to this concealed altar in the forest’s depths, it was a dark destiny and the malign whim of a daemon’s will.
From somewhere the beastmen produced a suit of black armour, covered in runes. At the following full Morrslieb they had repeated the ritual. Once more her wrists had been cut, once more the daemonic presence appeared. This time the armour was fixed to her body. The blood had flowed and congealed between its plates, forming a network of muscles, veins and fleshy pads which made the armour a second metal skin. The process had left her weak. Once more she had dreamed, and in that dream she had seen what she must do.
She had left the beasts for long years of wandering. Her trek took her ever northwards, through Kislev, through the Troll Country, to the Chaos Wastes and the long eternal war fought between the followers of Darkness. She had battled and fought for the favour of her Dark Gods and in every combat Kazakital’s prophecy had proven true. She had overcome Helmar Ironfist, the bull-horned champion of Khorne. She’d sacrificed Marlane Marassa, the flame-hearted priestess of Tzeentch, on her own altar. She had torn Zakariah Kaen, the grossly obese champion of Slaanesh, limb from perfumed limb. She had fought in minor battles and great sieges. She had stalked her humanoid prey in the ruined mines beneath the lost dwarf citadel of Karag Dum. There she had recruited the servants of the Thunderer.
Each skirmish had brought her new gifts and powers. She had acquired her steed, Shadow, by challenging its owner, Sethram Schreiber, to single combat and tearing out his heart as an offering to Khorne. She had taken her hellblade from the mangled corpse of Leander Kjan, the leader of the Company of Nine, after the great battle at Hellmouth. She had overcome mutated beasts and monsters, and grown in skill and power until her patron had told her the time was right to return and take vengeance. And during all that time, as she felt the thrill of triumph and the exultation of victory and the sheer joy of battle sing in her tainted blood, she had sometimes wondered what became of the child, and whether the beasts had spared it.
It was nothing to her now, she knew. There was no connection. It was just another piece of flesh cast loose to live and die hopelessly amid the flotsam of this terrible world. It was the final pawn to be sacrificed in the game which would win her immortality. That was all.
So she told herself. But she knew that Kazakital did nothing without reason, and that the child had been spared for a reason. Perhaps this was the final test. Perhaps the daemon hoped to reveal some ultimate flaw within her for its own perverse reasons. In that case, it was doomed to disappointment. She would prove in the end that she was harder than stone. And let the Dark Gods take any who thought to stand in her way.
Felix watched the clouds overhead. They bolted across the sky, a tumbling billowing mass driven by the fierce wind. The hue of the forest changed from light green to a darker, more ominous shade. It seemed that the trees, like everything else, were waiting.
He stood on the parapet atop the wooden barricade. He stared out over the fields, straining to catch any sight of movement in the undergrowth. He guessed that it was late afternoon. Beside him stood Gotrek, studying his axe disinterestedly. Every ten paces along the walls edge stood an archer – one of the foresters, men who could hit a bullseye at two hundred paces. Beside each were three quivers full of arrows. Measuring the distance to the edge of the trees, Felix realised that the space was a killing ground. Any attackers would get bogged down in the ploughed fields and be easy prey for the archers.
He tried to let the thought reassure him; it did not. Night in the forest was not like the night in the well-lit thoroughfares of Altdorf. When darkness came it was absolute. A man six paces away was a blurred outline. After dark, only the moons provided any light to see by and the clouds would block them out.
Earlier that day the foresters had lined the forest’s edge with traps: sharpened branches bent back and tied that would snap forward when a tripwire was triggered; pits to trap the ankles of the unwary, some filled with sharpened stakes and covered with patches of turf; bear traps and mantraps, spring-driven steel jaws ready to bite any interlopers were there too. If the villagers survived the attack they would have their work cut out disarming their own devices. Perhaps the thoroughness with which they had saturated the wood reflected a belief that they would not survive, he thought.
Felix drummed his fingers on the top of the wall, feeling the rough touch of the lichen-covered wood against his fingers. Gotrek hummed tunelessly to himself, ignoring the irritated sta
res of the woodsmen. The waiting was always the worst of it. No fight he had ever faced had been as bad as the premonitions he had before it. Once action began he would be fine. He would be scared but the simple business of keeping alive would occupy his mind. For now he had nothing to do but stand and wait, and face the spectres his imagination conjured.
He pictured himself wounded, a great beastman standing over him. He imagined himself facing the woman in black and shuddered. He remembered the slaughter at Kleindorf and his terror strained against its leash of self-control. To comfort himself he tried to remember how he had felt after surviving the battle with the beastmen; the memory was pallid. He tried to envisage a scene after the battle with himself and the Slayer as the heroes who had rallied the troops and driven off the beasts. It seemed unconvincing.
‘They’ll be here soon enough, manling,’ Gotrek said. He sounded almost happy.
‘That’s what I’m worried about.’
Nightmare shapes drifted to the edge of the wood. In the pale light, Felix thought he could see a great horn-headed figure among the trees. An arrow rushed out from the parapet and fell short. Yes, they were there. More beast silhouettes became visible. Something disturbed the undergrowth. It rustled and moved like water displaced by great behemoths beneath its surface. The clouds parted and the moons leered down. Their glow illuminated a hellish scene.
‘Grungni’s bones!’ Gotrek cursed. ‘Look at that!’
‘What?’
‘There, manling! Look! They’ve got a siege machine. No wonder Kleindorf fell.’
Felix saw the black-armoured figures. They surrounded a great long-snouted machine, like a many-barrelled siege cannon. With whips they drove back a crowd of snarling mutants. As he watched he saw their twisted leader climb up into a seat at the engine’s back. Other dark warriors hurried round the machine’s base, pulling out metal legs to secure the thing in place. As the leader turned a great crank the weapon swivelled to bear on the village. Its barrel was moulded in the shape of a dragon’s head. Even at this distance Felix could hear the creaks from its mounting. More arrows hurtled towards it but again they fell short. Jeering cries echoed from the woods.
‘What is it, Gotrek? What will it do?’
‘Damn them – it’s a cannon of some sort! Now we know what did for the fortifications at Kleindorf.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Nothing! After full dark they’ll breach the walls and then charge us. The beasts can see in the dark. The villagers cannot.’
‘That sounds too sophisticated for beasts.’
‘It’s not just beasts we fight, manling. It’s a Chaos Champion and her entire retinue. They do not lack intelligence. Believe me, I have fought their kind before.’
Felix tried to estimate the number of beastmen in the forest but could not. They kept too well out of sight, knowing that lack of knowledge of their numbers would frighten the defenders even more. Fear of the unknown was another weapon in their armoury. Felix felt his heart sink.
‘Maybe we should sally forth and spike the cannon,’ Felix suggested.
‘That’s just what they’re waiting for. The killing ground out there will work just as well for them as it would for us.’
‘Do they have bows, though – they’re beasts.’
‘Doesn’t matter. There’s too many traps out there for comfort. Someone would be bound to blunder into them.’
‘I thought you wanted a heroic doom?’
‘Manling, if I just stand here and wait it will come to me. Look!’
Felix glanced in the direction indicated by the dwarf’s stubby outstretched finger. He saw the black-armoured Chaos Warrior ride up beside the huge cannon. He could see now that a horde of bestial faces glared out from under the edges of the trees. As he watched, a veritable tide of horned figures flowed out from under the eaves of the forest, and began to form up in units, just out of bow-shot. Somewhere deep in the forest a huge drum began to beat. It was answered by the blast of a horn and the beating of another drum somewhere off to the south. A chorus of screams and bellows filled the night. Somehow, within the rhythmic cadences of the strange words he began to sense a meaning. It was as if the understanding had been bred into his ancestors in ancient times, and it had taken only this event to waken it. Blood for the Blood God. Skulls for the skull throne. He shook his head to clear the hallucination but it did not matter. Whatever he did, it seemed like the thread of understanding would come back.
The noise reached a crescendo, fell silent for a moment and then started again. It grated on the nerves and set the butterflies fluttering in Felix’s stomach. Looking out, Felix could see that the chanting served a dual purpose. It worked to undermine the morale of the beastmen’s enemies and it helped work the followers of Chaos up into a frenzy. He could see them clashing their weapons against their shields, gnawing the edges of their blades, slashing themselves. They danced insanely, raising their legs and then stomping the earth as if they were crushing the skulls of an enemy beneath their hooves.
‘I wish they would just come on and get it over with,’ Felix muttered.
‘You’re about to get your wish,’ Gotrek said.
The Chaos Warrior raised her sword. The horde fell suddenly silent. She turned and spoke to them in their own bestial tongue and they answered her with cheers and growls. She turned to the armoured figures atop the siege engine and gestured with her blade. One of them capered for a moment, then lit a fuse. After five long, silent heartbeats the mighty war engine spoke with a voice of thunder. There was a loud whistling sound and then a section of the wall near to Felix exploded, sending fragments of wood, torrents of earth and gobbets of flesh erupting into the air. The beastmen cheered and howled like the hordes of hell unleashed from torment.
Felix flinched as the cannon’s barrel began to traverse on its mount. He could see that there was no way these wooden walls could withstand the sorcerous power of that awful weapon. They had just not been built to stand up to anything like this sort of punishment. Perhaps the best thing to do would simply be to leap down from the wall and take cover deeper within the township.
Gotrek seemed to sense his thoughts. ‘Stay where you are, manling. They will hit the watchtower next.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I have worked with cannons in my time, and this one is no different from any other. I can tell the trajectory they are shooting at.’
Felix forced himself to stand where he was, despite the way the flesh crawled down his back. He felt certain that he was virtually looking down the muzzle of the weapon. It spoke once more. Flame and smoke gouted from the barrel. Once more the whistling noise sounded. One of the legs of the great wooden watchtower was blasted away as the shot smashed a hole in the palisade in front of it. The tower teetered backwards and fell. One of the sentries fell from his post, arms wheeling, to crash to the ground below. His long wailing cry, audible even above the noise of the beasts, was cut off by his sudden impact on the earth below.
Felix smelled smoke and heard the crackle of burning from behind. He cast a glimpse over his shoulder and saw that one of the buildings and the remains of the tower had started to blaze. He could not tell whether it was as a result of the blast or not. Somewhere in the distance someone started shouting to others to bring water. He cast a glance along the wall where what seemed like a pitifully few defenders waited with their bows clutched near at hand. He exchanged glances with the nearest, a lad of not much more than sixteen years, his face white with dread.
Felix stared out desperately in the gloom, wondering how much longer this could go on, before either the morale of the defenders was broken or the town was reduced to a flattened ruin.
Justine watched as the great cannon smashed a third gap in the town’s wall. It was enough, she judged. They needed to save powder for the next fortress they came to. The gaps were large enough for her force to flow through. The defenders were tired and rattled. It was time. She gestured to her trumpeter. He sounde
d the call to advance. Marching in step to the beat of their human-skinned drums, the beastmen started forward.
Justine felt the bloodlust grow within her, and her desire to offer souls to the Blood God along with it. Tonight she would make him a mighty offering.
Felix watched as the tide of beastmen advanced across the open ground. From the walls, the archers began to fire. Calmly, methodically and efficiently they chose their targets, and let fly. Arrows flashed through the gloom and found homes in bestial breasts and throats and eyes. The blood-crazed Chaos worshippers came on relentlessly, their infernal drums beating. They chanted their call to their foul god in time to the music. Once again, he thought he could pick out the words: Blood for the Blood God. Skulls for the skull throne!
His grip felt slick on the hilt of his sword. Felix felt useless crouched here behind the parapet while others did the fighting and killed their advancing foes. His heart beat faster in his chest. His breath came in short gasps as if he had already run a mile. He fought down a sense of panic. He knew that soon enough it would be time to descend into combat. For now he had a bird’s eye view of the struggle. In the distance he saw the black-armoured she-devil urging them on. She looked like a daemonic goddess from the dawn of time come to exact tribute in blood and souls.
He saw one goat-headed beastman fall, his legs caught in the steel jaws of a bear-trap. His companions did not even slow down. They marched on, crushing him to bloody pulp beneath their iron-shod hooves. Casualties did not seem to affect them. They showed no sign of fear. Perhaps it was true. They were soulless daemons immune to all normal emotion. Or perhaps, he told himself, they simply knew that their chance for revenge would soon come.