Archaon: Everchosen

by Rob Sanders

  Another knight of the Dark Gods swept in with an axe, which he ponderously swung at Horrwitz. No less ponderously, Horrwitz moved to one side of the weapon. Moving his eye-slits between the kneeling knight and his attacker, Horrwitz brought his blade down hard on the axe-wielder. The expert and cleaving force of the sword, which he had initially intended for the defenceless warrior, cut down through his attacker.

  Hissing through clenched teeth, Horrwitz kicked the demolished knight back off his blade before swinging it about him and cutting down a thrice-cursed altered form. As he completed the turn he found the knight still kneeling before him. He had not moved. He had not taken his chance to escape. He seemed to welcome death.

  Horrwitz felt the white heat of his arm. His templar blade was weighty and in his armoured plate it helped to keep the blade moving. His conscience doused the instinct like ice water. He would not become that which he had sworn to destroy. He was a templar of Sigmar. A knight of the Twin-Tailed Orb. He would not become a mindless killer in the Wastes. He would not join the ranks of the lost and the damned.

  ‘Fight me!’ Horrwitz roared, but the warrior would not. The templar stomped forward and landed a kick on the kneeling knight, who crumbled with a clatter. Horrwitz smashed the tarnished blade aside with his own before stepping over the prone and armoured figure. Horrwitz turned his blade around and held it over the smashed helm of the warrior. The sword point dangled above his blood-washed face. ‘You will oblige me, damn you…’

  The Chaos warrior looked up at Horrwitz along the length of his Templar blade.

  ‘I was once a man,’ the warrior said, his lips red with blood. ‘An honourable man, like yourself. Do me the honour of ending this. I beg of you. Grant me peace.’

  Horrwitz went to lean into the thrust, to put his whole weight behind the blade, but he felt suddenly weak. Exhausted. Battle-drunk. He swayed for a moment. The warrior blurred before him but then came back into searing focus. He looked up and about him. His Sigmarite knights had broken the warband. Their unstoppable advance had crushed the corrupted. Their champion had fled and all about them templars were finishing the enemy: bludgeoning with blades, stabbing the last of the life out of felled warriors, bringing peace to the altered and half-breeds where they lay. He turned back to the dark warrior at his feet. He was begging for death. A snarl crossed Horrwitz’s features behind his helm.

  ‘I wouldn’t waste my honour on you, filth,’ Horrwitz told him. ‘I won’t serve at the pleasure of a man who himself has been a heretic servant of the Dark Gods. You will get no swift and merciful death from me, friend.’

  Horrwitz brought up his blade and stepped back. The two warriors stared at each other. ‘If you won’t fight me then you can take your chances with the Witch Hunter General.’ Helmut Horrwitz grunted. ‘See if you find any mercy with him.’

  Horrwitz was dragging blade-mulched corpses and twitching sacks of warped flesh to the fiery mounds they had built on the edge of the Sigmarite camp. Even with blessed oils, the crackling tongues of flame that felt their way through the twisted limbs were finding it difficult in the plummeting temperature. Above the torment of the fire, Horrwitz could hear the sound of warherds in the distance, the furious braying of beastmen on the wind. The dreadful sound seemed to follow the Sigmarites everywhere, as if the creatures knew the God-King’s servants didn’t belong in the hellish environs of the Wastes and could smell the purity of their purpose.

  Horrwitz dropped the butchered carcass before Sieurs Stenzel and Oberndorff. It was work for menials, but the camp had precious few to service such needs, leaving men of noble birth to stack corpses and stoke burning flesh. The servants had been first to lose their battle with the Shadowlands, either succumbing to the madness the place had to offer or being dragged off into the frozen maelstrom by things that defied description. Anyone not living by the blade or the vigilance of their hate-honed faith became prey. As a result, the camp of gale-savaged tents and wagons was largely made up of hammer-wielding priests of Sigmar, whose ceaseless consecrations made the frozen earth beneath their boots split, Eisenkramer’s dour witch hunters and the knights of the Twin-Tailed Orb.

  Stenzel and Oberndorff took the corpse Horrwitz had been hauling and, between them, threw it onto the smouldering mound, which was no easy feat in full plated armour. The templars were exhausted and miserable.

  ‘Sigmar’s blood!’ Sieur Oberndorff spat with the effort. ‘I can’t stand the god-forsaken noise of those mongrels.’

  ‘It’s always there,’ Sieur Stenzel said. ‘Like it’s part of the place itself.’

  ‘Whatever possessed the gods to make such a place?’ Oberndorff groaned.

  ‘The Wastes were not made,’ Horrwitz told them grimly. ‘They were unmade.’

  For a moment, the templars said nothing.

  ‘You’ll speak to Eisenkramer?’ Stenzel asked. Horrwitz nodded slowly, his eyes downcast.

  ‘I’ll talk to him.’

  After checking in with the knight-sentries and Father Gerschel, who had taken over the quartermaster’s duties, Horrwitz made his weary way across to the tabernacle. The canvas of the large tent was filthy with ash, dust and blood, which sometimes fell as rain from the angry heavens. It was supposed to be a holy place. A mobile temple to house the God-King’s war altar that Eisenkramer had insisted they transport through Kislev, the Troll Country and into the Northern Wastes. The tabernacle didn’t smell very holy, Horrwitz decided as he pushed through the canvas and entered the stale darkness beyond.

  Within the altar chamber, braziers bathed witch hunters and priests in an infernal glow as they conferred in conspiratorial whispers. Father Sternthal, the Witch Hunter General’s most senior and surviving priest, swung an incense burner about him on a pair of chains in honour of the twin-tailed comet that heralded the birth of Sigmar. Horrwitz walked through the smoke and knelt before the war altar, the care and attention having been paid to its immaculate workmanship at odds with the mulch-splattered wheels of its wagon flat-bed. The Master of Blades bowed his head and traced a hammer across his heart, asking the God-King for his blessing in this most benighted of places.

  The templar’s devotions were interrupted by sounds from beyond the canvas partition at the rear of the altar chamber. Behind it he could hear one of Eisenkramer’s prisoners being tortured and interrogated. He could hear the harsh, honeyed insistence of the witch hunters, guiding heretic hearts through the trials of forced attrition. He could hear the thunder of the Witch Hunter General himself, compelling his victims to live on through their tortures, so that they might endure more and welcome the light of God-King back into the miserable excuse for their lives. Getting back to his feet, Horrwitz approached one of Witch Hunter General’s men. Eisenkramer’s torturer put up a filthy hand and gave the templar a surly look before ducking in to inform his master of Horrwitz’s arrival. The templar had little taste for the necessities of torture and secretly welcomed the insult.

  A few moments later, Wolfram Eisenkramer came forth from the shadows and stood between the flapping curtains. Despite the filth of corruption that he was usually up to his elbows in, the black velvets and white silks that made up Eisenkramer’s plain finery were taintless. He ran the finger and thumb of a gloved hand down his starched length of lustrous grey moustache and into a beard that he kept neat. He gave Horrwitz the flint of his eyes from beneath the brim of his conical hat and lit a long-stemmed smoking pipe with an equally long taper.

  ‘A word with you, general?’

  Eisenkramer said nothing. He received the questioning glances of exiting witch hunters and a scribe who had been charged with taking down prisoner testimonials in a black, leather tome. The Witch Hunter General dismissed them all with a slow nod, but took the tome from the departing scribe.

  As Eisenkramer’s staff pushed through the canvas curtains, Horrwitz caught a glimpse of the torturer’s equipment that cluttered the chamber beyond.
As the witch hunters walked by, he caught the scent of sweat and the fug of blood and violence.

  ‘Master Horrwitz,’ Eisenkramer said, drawing on his foul tobacco. He picked up the leather tome and opened it before tapping on the page with his pipe. ‘The prisoner you brought me for interrogation…’

  The templar ignored him.

  ‘General, there are matters of grave import that demand your attention,’ Horrwitz told him.

  ‘Oh, there are,’ Eisenkramer said, flicking through the pages and replacing the tome, ‘are there?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘See, I thought the only matter of import here was the hunting down and destruction of the thrice-cursed abominate known as Archaon.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Horrwitz agreed. The templar bridled. Eisenkramer puffed on his pipe.

  ‘You have news?’

  Horrwitz hesitated. It was nothing the Witch Hunter General didn’t already know.

  ‘The half-breeds close on us, general.’

  ‘That is not news,’ Eisenkramer told him. ‘The beastmen are the very children of Chaos. This ruinous land is the cradle of their degenerate civilisation. What else?’

  ‘Bar the altar steeds,’ the templar told him, ‘we have eaten all of the other horses.’

  ‘The men are strong,’ Eisenkramer said. ‘They shall endure. Sigmar wishes it so.’

  ‘The quartermaster doesn’t think we can trust the local food sources.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘He suspects the water is contaminated.’

  ‘Then it would be a mistake to drink it,’ Eisenkramer insisted, relighting his pipe. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Eschenback and Strauss are dead,’ Horrwitz said. ‘As well as your priest, Lowinger.’

  ‘Lowinger… was found wanting,’ the Witch Hunter General informed him.

  Horrwitz hesitated. Then he told Eisenkramer, ‘General, I think that we have pushed north into the Wastes in pursuit of Archaon as far as our resources will allow us. I recommend that we turn back and return to more civilised lands.’

  Eisenkramer’s eyes narrowed. Smoke coiled like an angry serpent from his pipe. Horrwitz added cautiously, ‘At least until we can re-supply, take on horses and replace our losses.’

  ‘You think he will stop?’ Eisenkramer asked him. ‘For water? For horses? You think he’ll run for the safety of more civilised lands, Master Horrwitz?’

  ‘No, general, I do not,’ the templar admitted. ‘But the men–’

  ‘Send you as the emissary of their cowardice?’ Eisenkramer hissed.

  ‘No, general,’ Horrwitz cut back.

  ‘There is dissention in your ranks, master…’

  ‘There is fear,’ Horrwitz admitted. ‘Not fear of the traitor Archaon, for whom their hatred burns bright and in whose end lies the hard-won honour of their order. Nor is it for foes faced across the blade in the feverish madness of this place. It is fear that those who lead them in this endeavour have caught such a fever that they lead them about in circles to their doom. But perhaps, God-King willing, we can acquire fresh steeds to speed our progress, and provisions and water to sustain us. We can pick up the trail–’

  ‘The monster is here now,’ Eisenkramer seethed. ‘Don’t you see? We’ve never been closer. We’ll have him. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. We’ve come too far to abandon the rank scent of his dark deeds, to turn back. This beast is the harbinger of the apocalypse. We take him now, for if we don’t, if we let slip the days and fail in this most sacred and required of duties, we shall run out of todays and tomorrows. I will have this heretic under a Sigmarite sword. This star that has fallen so far. I will. I’ll give him the cold comfort of Sigmar’s vengeance.’

  ‘Your threats are no comfort to my men, general,’ Horrwitz said, interrupting Eisenkramer’s venom.

  ‘Your men,’ the witch hunter spat, ‘will only find comfort on their estates, safe within the borders of their motherland.’

  ‘I’m going to require more than that,’ the templar told him with steel in his voice.

  ‘Or what?’ Eisenkramer dared. ‘You and your men will turn your back on your duty and your God-King? Succumb to the madness of this place? There would be a terrible price to be paid for such heresy…’

  The Witch Hunter General’s gloved hand snatched at the brace of pistols that sat cross-holstered on his thick leather belt, but the palm of the Master of Blades’s gauntlet was already resting like a casual threat on the pommel of his sword.

  ‘As there would be for indulging madness in the one that leads us,’ Horrwitz told him. The two men burned into each other. Somehow, Horrwitz had known it would come to this.

  It would take time to clear the crusader blade of his scabbard. Perhaps too much time. Eisenkramer’s pistol would be ungainly out of its holster and sluggish in its priming. Then there was the question of whether it would deliver its charge at all, the damned things being so unreliable. In truth, Horrwitz didn’t want to know who would be swifter in the awkward draw. He didn’t want to find out whether his cleaving blade out of its sheath would cut the witch hunter down faster than he could punch his lead shot through Horrwitz’s breastplate and chest.

  Across the twilight fug of the chamber, the pair heard a dark chuckle. Someone was laughing, the sound slow and shot through with pain. They turned to find that the brawny warrior that Horrwitz had spared out on the Wastes was standing between the curtains, in the entrance to the altar chamber. He looked a mess. Eisenkramer’s men had not bothered to clean the prisoner up. He still wore the remains of his plate, including his smashed helm. His face was caked with blood and his ragged beard was sticky and matted. By the look of him, and the slow fashion in which he limped into the chamber, Horrwitz suspected that Eisenkramer’s witch hunters had long gone to work on him with their barbarous instruments of interrogation and torture. He jangled as he moved. Thick chains of blessed iron weighed him down, winding about his arms, shoulders and buckled plate like a great metal serpent. A robust lock dangled from the back of the prisoner’s neck. Horrwitz had seen heretics in Altdorf imprisoned for months in such crushing restraints before being hung by them from the cathedral walls. Beneath the chains, Horrwitz could see the charms, medallions and dread symbols of the prisoner’s many Dark Gods.

  ‘The degenerate mocks us,’ Eisenkramer said dangerously. His hand came off his ugly pistol. Horrwitz allowed his palm to slip from the pommel of his sword. The Witch Hunter General narrowed his eyes at the templar again.

  ‘The degenerate is free,’ Horrwitz indicated.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t call him free.’ Eisenkramer took a fat key from a chain about his neck. He tossed the key to Horrwitz. ‘Here, he was your prisoner.’

  The templar looked down at the key. ‘You are finished with him?’

  The question was genuine. He had seen very few prisoners walk away from Eisenkramer and his witch hunters, whether they were guilty or innocent.

  ‘Far from it,’ the Witch Hunter General said. ‘Master Horrwitz, may I introduce Rhaanoc.’

  ‘I don’t need to know the heretic’s name,’ Horrwitz said shuddering. ‘And he certainly doesn’t need to know mine.’

  Eisenkramer ignored him. ‘Rhaanoc here is a turncoat,’ he told Horrwitz. The witch hunter pointed at the tangled collection of talismans, charms and medallions hanging about the marauder’s neck with the bit of his pipe. ‘He moves from warband to warband, champion to dark champion, offering his talents to any and all of the Ruinous Powers.’

  Eisenkramer tapped the bowl of his pipe out on a scrap of plate still dangling from the marauder’s shoulder, before re-filling it with foul-smelling tobacco from a pouch on his belt. ‘This is not double-dealing or cowardice. Ruinous champions rise and then they inevitably fall – and when they do it does not go well for their followers. No, what we have here is not cowardice. It’s stubborn pragmatism. A most I
mperial virtue,’ Eisenkramer said, directing the insult at the Chaos warrior.

  ‘He has given you information?’ Horrwitz asked.

  ‘Of all my miserable specimens,’ Eisenkramer said, speaking of his prisoners and torturer’s devices, ‘this wasteland wretch tested us, and himself. He screamed, but did not speak. He thrashed, but did not yield. He bled, but did not break. No, Rhaanoc is no coward.’

  ‘Then why waste time torturing him?’ the templar asked. ‘Why not simply grant him the God-King’s peace?’

  ‘That was your duty, sir,’ Eisenkramer warned. The witch hunter pointed with the length of his pipe at a talisman in the shape of an eight-point star. It was a variation on a symbol Horrwitz had seen on a number of savages from the Shadowlands.

  ‘This mark, in this crude design, has been observed by my priests and witch hunters on the dead and dying left behind in the wake of Archaon’s progress. It is found about the necks, on the armour and in the flesh of his fell followers.’

  ‘This wretch has travelled with Archaon?’

  ‘Aye,’ Eisenkramer confirmed. ‘For a time.’

  ‘And he confessed to this truth?’ Horrwitz asked. Eisenkramer moved around the chained Rhaanoc. He nodded his acknowledgement as he re-lit his pipe.

  ‘A witch or heretic is a receptacle of lying flesh, containing the treasure of secrets within, like a chest. And like a chest, an interrogator need only find the right key to unlock the secrets inside. But there are oh so many keys.’

  Eisenkramer was suddenly animated as he spoke about his work. His passion. His calling. Horrwitz’s knew his face was a mask of disgust. Eisenkramer nodded to the templar, and a little to himself.

  ‘I know you’re upset about Eschenback and Strauss. Strauss particularly,’ Eisenkramer said. He moved over to the black leather tome his scribe had been writing in and flicked through the pages. ‘But you can blame prisoner… two hundred and thirty-two for that. He claimed that his master…’ Eisenkramer consulted the confessional entries. ‘…Diomedyss the Faceless, believed himself to be the Everchosen of the Dark Gods. That he attempted to bring Archaon’s warband to battle in the frosted highlands from which we have descended. At the standing stones of Akhorax. According to the Faceless One’s acolyte, Archaon and his brutes ambushed them en route, leaving naught but this miserable wretch alive.’