There was no reason to go on, but this was not a matter for reason. Like the village where he had grown up, the area around the mine had become his home. He belonged here, the invaders did not.
He resumed his previous speed, running into the valley of death.
He reached the first bodies, beastmen that had been slain by the arrows of the defenders. The nearer he came to the fortifications, the more bodies lay sprawled in the dirt, wallowing in their own blood.
It was noon, and they had been dead for hours, but Konrad slowed his pace, picking his way warily amongst the corpses. He was well versed in the tactics of mankind’s treacherous enemies. Most of the creatures were brainless, often literally, but others could be feigning death in the hope of snaring an unwary victim.
The very word “death” had no meaning to some of the unholy beings. He had slain creatures in the past, only to see them rise up again a while later, like a human refreshed by a few hours’ slumber.
The very fact of a living being passing by could trigger a reflex in some of the corpses, reanimating them for one last frenzied attack. They could sense the warm red blood of a man, although the liquid that flowed within their own veins, even when they had been the bestial equivalent of alive, might be as cold as a lizard’s — and could be any colour.
The shapes of those he moved amongst were as disgusting as ever, travesties of both the animal and human, of the insect and reptilian and avian forms, cobbled together as if at random from pieces of other creatures. It must have been so difficult for such unlikely beings even to have survived that it was no surprise that they were hard to slay. They were tough.
But the ones out here had been mown down by flight after flight of arrows aimed from the ramparts, just as Konrad himself had been able to slay a handful of attackers five years ago…
He closed his mind to the thought. The past was gone, as dead as the monsters he had killed so long ago. He must concentrate on the present — and upon surviving through it.
Cautiously, Konrad advanced through the dead, his eyes focused on what lay ahead of him. He blinked as the astringent smoke stung his eyes, and held his shield in front of his face as protection from the raging heat. He kept the heavy axe in his right hand, while his sword remained sheathed.
The triple peaks were linked by a solid wooden palisade, three times the height of a man. Forward of that lay a deep ditch lined with sharpened stakes, jutting upward at a sharp angle. It would take a determined army to breach these lines of defence — and the beastmen had been determined indeed.
The tree trunks that composed the wall were afire, but the main gate was still barred and firmly closed, further barricaded by the raised drawbridge. The malignant invaders had not entered by that route. Instead, a ramp had been constructed across the ditch, over the stakes and into the fortress — a ramp of corpses…
In the past, Konrad had noticed how the beastmen would often attack in swarms, not caring how many of their number died, in the hope that a few of them might endure long enough to slay one of their human foe. Ten dead, twenty, a hundred, such numbers were as nothing in their insane frenzy. They had no thought for themselves, no instinct for self-preservation, and this was what made them so dangerous.
And now hundreds and hundreds of the crazed beings must have sacrificed themselves, piling their bodies one on top of another, wedged so tight that they had suffocated to death in order that their comrades might penetrate the outer ring of defences.
Konrad tried to avoid the hideous route, to enter by scaling the wall, but the intensity of the fire drove him back. The only way in was via the same bridge of flesh over which the assault had taken place. He began to climb the slippery slope, his feet sinking as he trod upon impossible limbs and torsos, squashing repulsive faces beneath his boots. His feet came up slowly with every step, squelching and sticking in the alien slime.
He was almost at the top when a scaled fist reached from the mound of corpses and seized his ankle. His response was instant, his axe slicing down and cleaving through the warped arm that had grabbed his leg. But the severed hand gripped ever more tightly, and he had to knock it free with the blade. It dropped onto the stack of bodies, its taloned fingers clenching. He kicked it aside and leapt forward.
Then he was over the palisade, peering through the smoke and gazing down into the area beyond. As an unwilling spectator to the attack on his village, he had seen many barbaric sights — and in his five years on the frontier he had witnessed far worse — but as the scene below became clear, he tasted bile at the back of his throat.
He swayed, feeling dizzy; he closed his eyes, fighting back the urge to vomit; he opened his mouth, trying to breathe in fresh air. Yet there was none. The atmosphere was befouled by the stench of carnage, the odours of burning flesh and spilled blood.
The ladders had all been burned, and Konrad leapt down into the compound. He swung his shield over his shoulder, drew his sword, and advanced into the killing ground.
There was not a square yard that was untouched by blood, that did not have a body lying there — human or inhuman. Or if not a body, then the parts of one. The victims had not merely been slain. That was only the beginning — or the end…
The murdered and mutilated, the maimed and massacred, were everywhere: nailed to walls, hanging from posts, pinned to the ground. They had been ripped apart, half eaten, flayed, set ablaze — and the lucky ones had been dead when that happened.
Some had been strangled with their own entrails, others choked with their innards. Heads cut off, limbs ripped from their sockets, eyes gouged out, fingers sliced off, faces peeled away… the list of barbarities was endless.
The anatomies of many corpses had been rearranged, as if in some macabre joke. The head of a dwarf had been embedded in a woman’s body, resting in the cavity where her belly had been. A miner’s severed legs were replaced with a pair of arms torn from a child. A foot protruded from the chest of a mercenary. Another had his slit throat stuffed with eyeballs, like a necklace of giant pearls. Each corpse had been desecrated in a more obscene fashion than the next. This was more than simple killing, more than vengeance, more than blood lust: it was evil, absolute and total evil.
The essence of Chaos, Konrad realized.
The troops who had defended the mine, the convicted prisoners who dug out the ore, the overseers who guarded them, the dwarfs who worked as engineers, the women who lived here, their children — dead, all dead.
Despite the unspeakable atrocities inflicted upon them, Konrad recognized many of the mercenaries. They were warriors from every corner of the Old World and from even further away. Soldiers of fortune who had died countless hundreds, thousands of miles away from home — and who would never find the fortune of which they had all dreamed.
Natives of Kislev defending their own land, fighting men from every province in the Empire, every city, others from the Estalian kingdoms and Bretonnia, from the Tilean City States and the Border Princes, from the mythical lands beyond the ocean, Araby and Afric, even far Cathay and Nippon, all had been welded together into Wolf’s crack military force. They had become allies against the common foe. They had fought together, and now they had died together. Died very slowly, most of them, and in great pain.
Konrad bit his lower lip, feeling the warm coppery taste of blood in his mouth where he broke the skin. He clenched his fists around the hilts of his axe and his sword. He wanted to fight, to kill, to throw himself into the fray, to vent his rage and anger against the despicable foes — but there was no one to fight, nothing to kill.
Except for the fires, all was still, all was silent, and even the flames were slowly diminishing. Flies buzzed around the corpses and fed on the blood. A few crows and vultures circled above, waiting for Konrad to disappear. A rat ventured out from the debris of the collapsed stables, then scuttled back inside. Soon the wolves and other predators would arrive, drawn by the scent of death to the feast that awaited them.
For every dead human there were
several ugly corpses of the attackers, and they came in every form imaginable. As with their assault on Konrad’s home village, they had put aside their rivalries, uniting in a single assault. Whether they had turned upon each other after victory, as they had done before, Konrad neither knew nor cared.
The bodies of the beastmen were of the type he had fought and slain on many an occasion: the mutated offspring that slithered and crawled down from the Northern Wastes. Impossible beings that had no right to exist, that could not have existed, that stole human lives in order to survive because they had no true life of their own.
Creatures that were feathered and furred, spined and scaled, taloned and fanged, beaked and clawed, winged and tailed, whose limbs were made of weapons, whose bodies were gaudily coloured or cleverly camouflaged, whose faces were upside down or totally featureless, whose eyes were on stalks or without pupils and could mesmerize a man with their apparent charms — but who had none.
Konrad had seen them all, killed them all.
And then there were the others, those whose mutations were far more subtle and could almost pass for human. Sometimes they did — because that was what they had once been…
Just as beastmen appeared to aspire to humanity, it seemed some humans wished to become beasts, to sacrifice their birthright, preferring to worship the Dark Gods and mutate into creatures which were far less than human. Many of these also lay amongst the dead, the effects of their foul metamorphosis hidden beneath the armour in which they were clad.
Konrad stepped amongst the corpses, his weapons poised, wishing that just one of the enemy would show a sign of life so that he could allow his frustration some release. But there was nothing, and even the carrion eaters would not settle while he prowled the death zone.
For the second time, Konrad realized, he had survived such a total attack. Once again, he had been away when the battle had commenced; once again, he had lived.
The village had been erased from the face of the world. When he had returned a few days later, there had hardly been any trace of habitation. Every building had gone, only their faint outlines remaining. If such a cataclysm were about to overtake the mine, he ought to leave while he still had a chance, but there was something he must do first — something he had tried not to consider ever since he had seen the first trace of smoke on the horizon.
The entrance to the mineshaft itself seemed to have caved in, the massive wooden supports were torn away, leaving a huge pile of rock and mangled bodies — human and not human.
Every building within the compound had been ransacked. Bodies hung from every window, were stacked up at every doorway. Most of the wooden fabrications had been burned down or otherwise demolished. The inn was nothing more than charred beams and blackened bones.
There was only one place that concerned Konrad now, which was the gallery above the mercenary barracks, and the room where Krysten had lived. He had avoided looking in that direction as long as he could, but at last his gaze was drawn towards the irregular construction that jutted out from the side of the steepest of the three crags.
Although smoke drifted from most of the windows, the central part of the top floor appeared intact. Konrad almost wished that were not the case, that the whole structure had collapsed into ashes and dust. Then he would not have had to venture up the narrow steps to discover what he knew he must inevitably find.
Slowly, reluctantly, he made his way towards the barracks.
The hallway was packed with corpses, human and otherwise; the stairway was awash with blood, red and otherwise.
It was much darker inside, full of pungent smoke, and Konrad removed his helmet. He left it with his axe and shield in the entrance, then proceeded through the debris and fallen timbers, pushing the corpses aside. Human or not, he kicked them away or shoved them back with his sword. The mutilated flesh was no more than raw meat. The essence of humanity had long fled, their spirits taken by the gods they had worshipped.
He recognized almost all the bodies, those that were still distinguishable. They were troops he had commanded and trusted, girls he had known and loved.
But nowhere did he see a trace of the small figure with blonde wavy hair, although the further he pressed through the carnage, the more likely it was that he would find her.
Every step became harder, and his heart was beating faster than it had during his race towards the blazing mine compound. Earlier, he had stopped himself from being sick — but now he was unable to prevent the emotion building up within him, and the sadness overflowed into a single tear that rolled from his left eye and down his face.
A few days ago it had been Krysten’s salty tears he had tasted when he leaned across her slumbering shape to kiss her farewell. Because they both knew they would never see each other again, she had pretended to sleep; but she had been betrayed by her tears.
That was when Konrad thought he would not return, when he had left with Wolf and Anvila in search of the lost dwarf temple and its hoard of treasure. They had discovered the former, but not the latter. He had left Krysten as he had found her, alone. She had managed well enough before Konrad entered her life, and he believed she would do so again; but no one could survive such an unprecedented attack by the combined legions of the damned.
Or almost unprecedented.
It was not only Krysten that he mourned. The memory of Elyssa was forever in his mind, and because of the present circumstances, her memory was once again prominent in his thoughts.
She had also been slain by the beastmen, murdered when the village had been invaded. And, exactly like Krysten, Konrad had abandoned her to die…
With Krysten, he had not known; but with Elyssa, he had seen her death — known that she would be destroyed, although he had been unaware when or how.
But he had also foreseen that Elyssa would bring about his own downfall, and in that respect he had been wrong. She had died, while he continued to live.
Elyssa and Krysten, Krysten and Elyssa. They were exact opposites in so many respects. Was that one reason why he had been attracted to the Kislevite, because she was so radically different that she could not remind him of Elyssa? Elyssa had been tall and dark-haired, whereas Krysten was small and fair. Yet now they were identical, Konrad realized. They were both dead.
He pushed aside the blood-stained curtain and stepped into Krysten’s room. A corpse lay on the straw mattress: the corpse of a yellow-skinned beastman, its catlike features frozen into a mask of pain, the hilt of a knife sticking out from the centre of its furry chest.
Konrad stood without moving, his eyes scanning the wrecked room. Dead or alive, there was no sign of the girl. He recognized the blade. It was a stiletto he had won at cards, that he had given Krysten for her protection. It seemed to have fulfilled its purpose. She had escaped, or so it appeared, but how far?
He moved further into the room, prodding the supine creature with his sword, its point slicing into the cold dead flesh. He withdrew the blade, wiping it on the corpse’s pale fur. Then he tipped up the mattress, rolling the creature onto the floor, not wishing it to desecrate Krysten’s bed for one moment longer.
Konrad knew every inch of the small room, and there was nowhere that the girl could be hiding. He bent down and picked up the tiny figurines that she had kept on a shelf by the bed, the handful of ornaments and trinkets that were her only treasures. The shelf was splintered and torn away, and so he held onto Krysten’s mementoes. It was as if he held all that remained of her in the palm of his left hand.
As he rose, he noticed the mirror, another of Konrad’s gifts to the girl. It had been cracked when he gave it to her, but now it hung crookedly from the wall, even more splintered and shattered.
He stared at the fractured glass, and he remembered another mirror, Elyssa’s mirror — the mirror in which he had first seen his own image, and in which he had then seemed to observe a different reflection gazing back, a reflection of himself not as he was, but as he would be…
Because of its tilted a
ngle, Konrad was unable to see himself in Krysten’s mirror, and neither did he wish to. His consciousness had been snared by the past, but suddenly he saw a movement in the fragmented glass — and the glint of light on a blade!
He sprang back, throwing himself down, and a knife embedded itself in the wall laths above his head. Had he moved a fraction of a second later, the steel would instead have lodged in his throat.
He was through the door immediately, chasing his would-be assassin. He bellowed out a war cry as he charged after the hunched figure that scurried along the darkened gallery. The creature tripped over a dismembered corpse and fell. It tried to crawl away, but its route was blocked by more dead bodies, human and bestial.
“Die!” snarled Konrad, his sword raised.
“No!” screamed the figure. “No! I’m human, I’m human!”
CHAPTER THREE
Thought you was one of them, sir. Sees you climbing up there and figured it was me only chance to take revenge for what they done to all me mates, didn’t I?”
Konrad had dragged his attacker out into the open to take a proper look at him, and now they stood together in a corner that was relatively clear of bodies, where the stench of death was not so overpowering.
He was one of the miners, apparently the only survivor of the attack. He stood five foot high, but would have been taller had his body not been so curved from all the years working below ground. His small head seemed to be sunk into his shoulders, as if he had no neck. He had aged prematurely and the thick hairs on his limbs and torso, and those of his scalp and chin, were grey; even his skin looked grey from all the dust that had settled on his flesh during his time underground. His head kept twisting nervously around, as though he were afraid that the marauders were about to return.
“Why are you alive?” asked Konrad. He kept his sword at the ready, not trusting the grey-haired miner.
[Konrad 02] - Shadowbreed Page 3