“I know your allegiance,” the senior cultist continued, stopping several feet from Braechen’s reach as his brethren attacked again. “Your master is not welcome here! We worship Slaanesh!”
Braechen took a step towards him, slow and menacing, but the cultist did not retreat. “Begone,” he said again, “before I call upon our master’s power to destroy you!”
The daemon-infested soldier took another step. “Very well,” the cultist said, paling slightly but still standing his ground. “Ss’I’biart’ah!” he shouted, tilting his head back, the word echoing around the room, “your servant calls upon you! Ss’I’biart’ah! Aid me!” His hands began to glow, a soft green that matched the statue’s scales, and violet light poured from his eyes. The room grew noticeably colder, and Alaric felt a wind tug at his hair and clothes, carrying the too-sweet scent of decaying flesh.
Braechen actually paused at the first utterance of the name. Then he threw back his head and howled, both mouths emitting wordless cries of defiance, rage, and perhaps fear? Did the daemon really fear this Ss’I’biart’ah? Alaric didn’t know and right now he didn’t care. All he knew was that Braechen was distracted and his body was his own again. He began to creep forwards, trying to get closer to the daemon-possessed soldier without drawing attention to himself. Dietz and Lankdorf had clearly had the same idea, and all three of them advanced quietly, trying to find an approach that would sidestep the cultists and put them within striking range of Braechen.
Fortunately the priest was keeping both Braechen and the other cultists distracted. “Kneel before the Prince of Chaos!” he commanded, his hands snapping forwards as if punching. The green glow shot across the gap and struck Braechen in the chest, sending the daemon-infested man staggering, and again he howled, this time clearly in pain and rage. Again the priest struck and again Braechen reeled, blood and some other liquid dripping from tears and cracks across his battered chest.
“Yes!” shouted the priest, stepping forwards. His eyes were the brightest spots in the chamber and Alaric could still see their pinpoint glows when he blinked. “Bow before the greatest of the gods,” the cultist demanded, raising his hands, the glow intensifying. “Cower for mercy from Slaanesh and his servants!”
In his exultation the priest had gotten too close. Braechen suddenly straightened, growling like a maddened beast, and his gauntleted arm shot forwards, grasping the cultist by the neck and squeezing. The captured cultist gasped, his face turning dark and his hands flailing, but their green energy washed over the gauntlet like water, unable to harm it or make Braechen release his grip. The cultists lunged at his other side, but the mutated warrior laughed and brushed them aside. They did distract him, however.
“Now!” Alaric shouted. He took a quick step forwards and lashed out, his rapier slicing across Braechen’s forearm right above the gauntlet. Dietz and Lankdorf had not missed the opportunity, and both of their blades also landed, carving deeper into the flesh. The mutated warrior shrieked and tried to pull away, but the priest grasped Braechen’s arm right where the gauntlet ended. The barbs sank deep into his flesh but the cultist ignored the wounds, focusing upon the forearm in his grip. The glow around his hands intensified, turning a searing greenish white, and Braechen screamed as the strange fire burnt away his mutated flesh, and his hand clenched in response, preventing him from pulling loose.
Alaric, Dietz and Lankdorf were on both sides of the arm and continued hacking at it. The cuts had turned to deep gouges, and Alaric saw bone through the blood. Just as Braechen managed to wrench his fingers open, the priest falling to the cushion-strewn ground, Dietz struck one last mighty blow and his axe sheared through the bone. With a resounding splintering sound the arm separated and Braechen’s own convulsive jerk sent the gauntlet flying. It disappeared somewhere behind the statue, lost in the shadows.
Alaric glanced over at Dietz. “We have to make sure it’s destroyed,” he said, starting to turn away. He didn’t get very far.
Alaric had hoped that with the gauntlet gone, the daemon would also disappear. He soon realised that wasn’t the case, as Braechen struck at them, knocking the three of them off their feet. The daemon-infested soldier staggered back several paces, shoving aside the gathered cultists, blood and ichor dripping from the ruin of his arm, but he still stood, and his eyes still blazed as he gnashed his teeth at them and roared his defiance.
“Ulric preserve us,” Dietz said, shoving cushions aside as he stood and grasped his axe again. “Now it’s angry.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dietz shook his head, trying to clear it. Braechen’s last punch had made his head ring and his vision was still slightly blurred, but he didn’t have time to be groggy. The daemon-possessed warrior was clearly enraged at the loss of the gauntlet—not to mention his forearm—and it was lumbering towards them, murder glinting in its glowing eyes.
“Die, Chaos spawn!” Lankdorf had been faster to recover and was already back on his feet, sword in one hand and ever-present crossbow in the other. He fired a bolt into Braechen’s head, where it protruded from the temple like a strange, feather-edged horn, and swung with his sword.
The mutated man merely laughed that chilling laugh again and knocked the blade aside with his stump. His remaining hand lashed out, slicing across the bounty hunter’s chest, the long barbed nails sprouting from the fingers carving through cloth, leather, and flesh. Lankdorf groaned and dropped to his knees.
Braechen growled, the horrible second mouth drooling in anticipation, and raised his clawed hand. Then he abruptly dropped his hand and turned away, wading into the cultists instead.
What? Dietz shook his head to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. No, the daemon really had turned away from Lankdorf, leaving the bounty hunter wounded but alive, but why? He stepped quickly to the other man’s side and knelt beside him.
The cultists, for their part, swarmed Braechen like angry bees, clearly incensed at his presence in their temple and outraged by his treatment of their high priest. Even though they wore no armour—and little clothing, for that matter—the cultists made up for their vulnerability with grace and speed, dancing around Braechen, darting in to stab him and then ducking away again before he could strike. Dietz hoped they would at least keep the creature busy for a while.
“Get off me! I’ll be fine!” Lankdorf tried to shove him away, but his injury left him too weak to resist as Dietz quickly examined it. The wound was nasty but not life-threatening. He saw a row of gashes across the chest that would probably scar, and he could see the bounty hunter’s flesh beneath the tatters of his shirt and jacket. Then he saw something else.
“What’s this?” It was a gleam of silver and emerald and as Dietz reached out to touch it he remembered—the amulet! The one Glouste had found in the tomb, over the burial chamber door. Lankdorf had taken it when they’d first met and he’d forgotten all about it. It had been hidden beneath the bounty hunter’s shirt, but the blow had exposed it. Was this why the daemon had backed away?
“You want it back?” The bounty hunter laughed weakly, and then groaned as the movement shifted his torn flesh. “Take it, then.” He bowed his head to let Dietz slip the chain free.
“Alaric!” Dietz glanced up and saw his friend nearby, clearly torn between going after the daemon, going after the gauntlet, and coming to their aid. “Look at this!” He tossed the amulet to the nobleman, who caught it, and almost dropped it when he glanced at it fully.
“That’s a mark of the Dark Gods!” Alaric said, studying the piece, and Dietz’s blood ran cold. “It’s the sign of the Lord of Pleasure,” he continued, and then glanced up at the wall hangings all around them. “Look, the same mark is on these banners!” Of course! He’d heard of the symbol—the signs for male and female combined—but had never seen it, and he’d thought that the layers of the amulet had slipped loose from age or damage.
“This has runes all around it,” Alaric continued, holding the amulet up to examine it more closely. “I wonder,
perhaps this too is enchanted?”
Another enchanted item, maybe even another artefact, and Glouste had found it and brought it to him! Dietz couldn’t stop himself from groaning. Of all the times for his pet to be generous!
“It didn’t like it,” Dietz said, gesturing towards Braechen, who was still battling the cultists. He also noticed that two had helped the priest to his feet and the tall man’s eyes were glowing again, albeit weakly. Despite his revulsion for the cult and its practices, Dietz hoped the priest was capable of fighting again. They needed all the help they could get.
“No? Strange, it’s a Chaos artefact and he’s a daemon,” Alaric mused. Then he brightened. “Of course, it’s what that one cultist said, about allegiances. This is dedicated to Slaanesh and carries that god’s power. The daemon answers to Khorne. The two are opposing forces, rivals, and so their power counteracts one another, like fire and water.”
“So that thing will keep him away?” Dietz asked. He was helping Lankdorf to his feet as they spoke. The bounty hunter was a little unsteady but he’d bound what was left of his shirt around the wound and seemed to be doing better. Behind them the cultists were down to a handful, although Braechen had at least a dozen cuts that should have been mortal, mute testament to their skill. The high priest was standing unaided, and his hands were glowing again, although not green this time. They shone with a pale purple light that danced around his fingers almost like butterflies. It was very pretty, almost hypnotic, but Dietz had a feeling the effect was a lot nastier than a flying insect.
“It may do more than that,” Alaric replied. He glanced at Dietz, and then at Lankdorf, and at something at the bounty hunter’s waist. “Here!” he pitched the amulet back and Dietz caught it, though only barely. “Lankdorf!” The bounty hunter glanced up. “Can you still wield that sling?”
Lankdorf nodded brusquely. “I could use it blind and limbless and still take out a man’s eye at a hundred paces.”
“Never mind the eye,” Alaric replied. “Aim for the mouth, the lower one.”
The bounty hunter nodded. Dietz stepped back to give him some room as he freed his sling, dropped the amulet into it, and began to whirl it over his head. “Ulric guide you,” Dietz whispered as he readied himself for whatever might happen next. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, he figured, to have the Winter Wolf looking out for them. He thought he saw Alaric mouth something suspiciously like a prayer, and suspected that his friend was invoking Sigmar’s blessing.
“Your time on this plane has ended, foul beast!” the priest was shouting as the last of his cultists fell, but the air seemed thick and his words were quickly muted. “You have trespassed upon our master’s property, and for that you must pay the penalty!” He raised both hands, and the glow from them intensified, growing almost too bright to look at.
“Hey, K’red’lach!” Alaric shouted. He had backed up and was almost directly in front of Lankdorf and Dietz, between them and Braechen. The daemon-infested soldier had torn the last cultist in half, turned back to the statue and had just reached up, its remaining hand grasping the bottom edge of the sceptre despite the statue’s towering height. Had Braechen grown somehow, or did the normal rules of distance simply not apply to the creature within him?
At the sound of that word—its name? Dietz wondered—the mutated man turned towards Alaric, and spat something at him, a curse or just a shout of defiance, as he tugged the sceptre from the statue and grasped it firmly. The glowing warpstone cast a strange glow upon his twisted face. The daemon-corrupted warrior grinned in triumph, his mouths opening wide, and Lankdorf let fly the amulet at the same time as the priest hurled his magic.
The bounty hunter’s aim was perfect, and the rune-inscribed missile shot into the daemon’s mouth: its real mouth, not the one it had stolen from Braechen. Purple bursts of energy hit it, striking it in the head and chest and leaving pinpricks of light where they had pierced the skin. The daemon swallowed convulsively, threw back its borrowed head and howled in rage, a sound that changed rapidly to a shriek of inhuman pain.
“Return to your own world!” the priest bellowed, his words gaining volume suddenly as the air turned thin and cold like the air of the mountain peaks. “This body will hold you no longer!”
Braechen began writhing, his body mutating rapidly and uncontrollably, spines, barbs and tentacles, and even tiny limbs sprouting at random and disappearing just as quickly. He staggered and glared not at Lankdorf or the priest but at Alaric, and both mouths moved in unison.
“Soon,” the Braechen-mouth said, slurring the word badly, “I come for you.”
Then energy exploded outwards from the daemon, waves of light and shadow crashing across one another, the very air in the cavern flickering from their passage. Violet light lanced out from his eyes and incandescent blood gushed from his mouth as shards almost like black crystal burst from various parts of his body. The daemon-infested soldier dropped to his knees, his body shredded, and then collapsed further, as if his bones had all been splintered into tiny fragments. He was still clutching the sceptre somehow, but it too was bathed in strange light, and as he dropped, its base struck the ground. The entire sceptre vibrated from the blow, shaking free from his weakened grasp, and then the jewel at the top shattered with a tinkling sound, its glow dispersing into the cavern’s gloom. The rest of the sceptre, blackened as if by intense flames, crumbled as it hit the floor.
“Nice shot,” Dietz commented, stepping forwards just in case, the axe he’d claimed at the ready. He was too numb to register what had happened. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the priest sway and then collapse, apparently drained by the use of such potent magic. Good. Hopefully he’d stay unconscious for long enough for them to leave unnoticed.
“Thanks.” Lankdorf was right beside him, his sword in his hand as they approached the fallen daemon. The bounty hunter looked dazed and Dietz suspected he bore a similar expression. Had they really just defeated a daemon? The body before them certainly confirmed that.
Only it wasn’t a daemon anymore. They could see that right away. It was Braechen again. A shattered, torn, maimed Braechen, who shuddered and died before they could reach him.
“He wouldn’t have survived,” Alaric said, sounding as if he was trying to reassure himself. “The daemon twisted his body too much. Its magic was all that was keeping him alive. Once it left he was doomed.” Dietz could see that his young friend was shivering, not that he blamed him. It had taken them days to recover from the shock of facing a daemon back in Middenheim and that time it had only been able to peer through the gate. This time it had looked full upon them and had fought against them, even if it had only by using a man’s body for a host.
“Brought it on himself,” Dietz pointed out wearily, and Lankdorf nodded. Braechen had been offering the gauntlet to that man Strykssen when they’d spotted him. He had to have known what it was. He was probably a Chaos worshipper himself, which meant he’d given himself willingly. He had no one but himself to blame for the outcome.
Alaric started to say something but was interrupted by a shower of dust and tiny rock fragments. Glancing up, Dietz saw cracks spider webbing across the cavern ceiling. A quick survey showed similar damage appearing along the walls.
“We need to go,” he urged, taking Alaric by the arm and leading him back towards the staircase at a quick walk. The numbness was pushed aside by more immediate panic. The bounty hunter was ahead of them, limping but moving quickly despite that, and had somehow retrieved his crossbow.
“The gauntlet!” Alaric argued, trying to twist free. “We have to make sure it’s destroyed!”
A chunk of stone the size of a horse’s head narrowly missed them, triggering a small avalanche from above. The statue was hit by another chunk that shattered the right side of its face and sent a long crack down through its impressive torso. Several other pieces fell, one of them near where the priest had collapsed. Dietz thought he heard a grunt as it struck the ground, but he wasn’t sure. “It’ll be
buried,” he assured Alaric, “and so will we, if we don’t move!”
Dietz half-led, half-dragged his friend to the stairs and they raced back up, taking the steps two at a time. Several more cultists had just descended the stairs, apparently intent upon aiding their brethren, but they turned and fled when they saw what was happening. Dietz and Alaric were right behind them. He heard more crashes as they neared the top of the stairs and a thick cloud of stone dust rose from the cavern, choking him for a second before they burst back onto the main level and gulped in fresh air from outside.
Lankdorf was waiting for them by one of the building’s entrances, leaning against the wall for support. “We’d better get out of here,” he said. “No telling how much damage that’ll do. The entire town could collapse into the ground.” Alaric shuddered and Dietz, remembering his young friend’s fear of enclosed spaces, knew the bounty hunter had found the perfect motivation to get him away from this place and quickly.
“Fine,” Alaric said, pulling free of Dietz’s hand and dusting his sleeve. “Let’s go.”
Alaric staggered out of the building and into the street, Dietz and Lankdorf right behind him. None of them could resist glancing back as they left the building, but the stairs were quiet. Even the dust had settled, and they heard nothing from below. The earth had reclaimed the cavern and everything in it, hopefully for good.
He was so thrilled to be alive that it took him a second to register the activity occurring all around them. The shouts, thuds and groans finally got his attention, however.
The walls had apparently been breached and the attacking armies had entered the town proper. As Alaric glanced around he saw soldiers from all three forces battling cultists and each other. It was the same scene they’d witnessed on the way into the town, only now it was all around them. So far they hadn’t been noticed because they were still in the shadow of the temple, but Alaric knew that it was only a matter of time before they were seen, and this time they didn’t have Braechen wading through the conflict in front of them, clearing the way.
02 - Night of the Daemon Page 23