Warhammer [Ignorant Armies]

by epubBillie

  Blackness threatened to overcome the poet. Little silver points flared before his eyes. He felt an overwhelming urge to relax and fall forward into the dark. Somewhere far-off he heard Gotrek's bellowed war-cry. With an effort of will Felix jerked his dagger clear of its scabbard and plunged it into his assailant's ribs. The creature stiffened and grinned, revealing rows of eel-like teeth. He gave an ecstatic moan even as he died.

  "Slaanesh, take me," he shrieked. "Ah, the pain, the lovely pain!"

  Felix pulled himself to his feet as the clawed woman rose to hers. He lashed out with his boot, connected with her jaw. There was a crunch, and she fell backwards. Felix shook his head to clear the blood from his eyes.

  The majority of the cultists had concentrated on Gotrek. This had kept Felix alive. The dwarf was trying to hack his way towards the heart of the stone circle. Even as he moved, the press of bodies against him slowed him down. Felix could see that he bled from dozens of small cuts.

  Still the ferocious energy of the dwarf was terrible to see. He frothed at the mouth and ranted as he chopped, sending limbs and heads everywhere. He was covered in a filthy matting of gore, but in spite of his sheer ferocity Felix could tell the fight was going against Gotrek. Even as he watched a cloaked reveller hit the dwarf with a club and Gotrek went down under a wave of bodies. So he has met his doom, thought Felix, just as he desired.

  Beyond the ruck of the melee the cult-master had regained his composure. Once more he began to chant, and raised the dagger on high. The terrible shape that had been forming from the mist seemed once again to coalesce.

  Felix had a premonition that if it took on full substance then he was doomed. He could not fight his way through the bodies that surrounded the Trollslayer. For a long moment he watched the curve-bladed knife reflecting the Morrslieb light.

  Then he drew back his own dagger. "Sigmar guide my hand," he muttered and threw. The blade flew straight and true to the throat of the High Priest, hitting beneath the mask where flesh was exposed. With a gurgle, the cult-master toppled backwards.

  A long whine of frustration filled the air and the mist seemed to evaporate. The shape within the mist vanished. The cultists looked up in shock. The tainted ones turned to stare at him. Felix found himself confronted by the mad glare of dozens of unfriendly eyes. He stood immobile and very, very afraid. The silence was deathly.

  Then there was an almighty roar and Gotrek emerged from amid the pile of bodies, pummelling about him with ham-sized fists. He reached down and from somewhere picked up his axe. He shortened his grip on the haft and laid about him with its shaft. Felix scooped up his own sword and ran in to join him. They fought until they were back to back.

  The cultists, filled with fear at the loss of their leader, began to flee into the night and mist. Soon Felix and Gotrek stood alone under the shadows of the Darkstone Ring.

  Gotrek looked at Felix balefully, blood clotted in his crested hair. In the witch-light he looked daemonic. "I am robbed of a mighty death, manling."

  He raised his axe menacingly. Felix wondered if he were still berserk and about to chop him down in spite of their binding oath. Gotrek began to move slowly towards him. Then the dwarf grinned. "It would seem the gods preserve me for a greater doom yet."

  He planted his axe hilt first into the ground and began to laugh till the tears ran down his face. Having exhausted his laughter, he turned to the altar and picked up the infant. "It lives," he said.

  Felix began to inspect the corpses of the cloaked cultists. He unmasked them. The first one was a blonde haired-girl covered in weals and bruises. The second was a young man. He had an amulet in the shape of a hammer hanging mockingly round his neck.

  "I don't think we'll be going back to the inn," Felix said sadly.

  One local tale tells of an infant found on the steps of the temple of Shallya in Blutroch. It was wrapped in a bloody cloak of Sudenland wool, a pouch of gold lay nearby, and a steel amulet in the shape of a hammer was round its neck. The priestess swore she saw a black coach thundering away in the dawn light.

  The natives of Blutroch tell another and darker tale of how Ingrid Hauptman and Gunter, the innkeeper's son were slain in some horrible sacrifice to the Dark Powers. The road wardens who found the corpses up by the Darkstone Ring agreed it must have been a terrible rite. The bodies looked as if they had been chopped up with an axe.

  THE REAVERS AND THE DEAD

  by Charles Davidson

  Helmut Kerzer realized that he was going to die when he saw the ship. He'd seen the sail long before the ship itself was visible, but somehow it had lacked immediacy; it was an abstract warning, not the reality itself. Here be reavers. But now the ship itself was visible, a dark hull slicing through the waves less than a mile offshore. The day's catch was still in the nets of the fishing boats, and the village was five scant minutes inland, and Helmut felt his guts turn to water as he saw what was about to happen.

  The worst element of the situation was the most obvious. Helmut couldn't cover the short distance to the village to warn them, couldn't sound the alarm, and buy time to disperse the young and the ancient into the forest. Because - he gritted his teeth - if he did warn them they would only ask what he had been doing up on Wreckers' Point. And when they found out they would kill him.

  Necromancy was almost as unpopular as piracy in these parts.

  Not that Helmut was anything like a full-blown corpse raiser - oh no. He grinned humourlessly at the thought, as he watched the black sail of the pirates draw closer. Dead mice and bats! It was the unhealthy hobby of a youth who would have better spent his time mending nets, not the studied malevolence of a follower of dark knowledge. He looked down and saw, between his feet, the little contraption of skin and ivory that paraded there. The creature had died days ago; it seemed so unfair that it might cost Helmut his home or his life. His cheek twitched in annoyance and the vole fell over, slack and lifeless as any other corpse.

  Death. Here on the edge of the Sea of Claws they knew about death. It stared his father in the face every time he put out to sea to snare a living by the whim of Manann; it had taken his grandfather and uncles in a single gulp, to cough them up again, bloated and putrid on the beach three days later. He'd been a child at the time, too young for the nets and ropes; he'd hidden behind his mother's skirts as she, and his father, stood stony-faced in the graveyard when they laid three-quarters of the family's menfolk in the ground. It had been then that he'd wondered, for the first time: what if death was like sleep? What if it was possible to return from it, as if awakening to another grey, sea-spumed dawn? But he already knew that they had a word for such thoughts, and he stayed silent.

  Wreckers' Point was thickly wooded; shrouded by a dense tangle of trees and dark undergrowth that stretched south towards the great forest. It was a place of ill omen. In times gone by the wreckers had worked here, lighting beacons to guide rich traders onto the rocks of the headland. They were long departed, hounded by the Baron and his men of yesteryear, but the spirit remained; a tight-minded malaise that seemed to turn the day into a washout of greyness, waiting for the night and the lighting of deadly fires. Rumour had it nowadays that the hill was haunted - and the worse for any child who might wander up there.

  Helmut gritted his teeth in frustration as he thought about it. His dilemma. That Father Wolfgang might wonder what he'd be doing, and summon the witchfinder. That some lad might follow him, to see what he did alone and unseen in the undergrowth. That if such a thing happened he might never learn... Fingernails dug into his palms. The anger of denial.

  The ship was plainly visible now, rounding the headland and turning towards the beach where the boats lay. Any advantage had been squandered by the beating of his heart. Suddenly he realized that he was terrified; a cold sweat glued his shirt to his back as he thought about red-stained swords glinting in the light of the burning buildings. Reavers! If one of them should look up... could he see me? Feeling exposed, Helmut turned and pushed his way back into the tree
line. Where was it...? Ah yes. The path. A run, really, perhaps the work of a wild boar some time since - there was no spoor, or else Helmut's surreptitious use had scared the animals away.

  The path led downhill, at an angle that would miss the village clearing and the highway by more than a bowshot. Helmut trotted, trying to duck and brush beneath the branches in silence. Afraid of betrayal. If anyone sees me... he reminded himself. Warning ritual, a prayer to whatever nameless god watched over him. Going to live forever. Which meant not getting caught. Another fear gripped him; sick anticipation. That he should not warn the village, that the raiders might catch all unawares and kill them. He would see his mother and father and young sisters gutted, wall-eyed, flies crawling over black-sticky blood. His family he might spare, but some of the others...

  A memory rose to haunt him: Heinrich. Heinrich was a year older than he, and had marched off to join the Baron's guard two summers past. Heinrich and two nameless youths tormenting him. Bright light of spring in a meadow back of the Inn. Face pointed to the midden as they held his hands behind him. Childish chanting: "Helmut, Helmut, weakling no-man, eating flies and telling lies, sell his soul to Nurgle's hole." Did they mean it? No more than children ever did. But they'd made his life a misery.

  The other two meant nothing; but Heinrich had persisted, had appointed himself the dark messenger from the gods, sent to torment Helmut for sins unremembered.

  Then he arrived at the far end of the path, and slowed, panting slightly, to look carefully around for intruders. No-one else would normally visit this place... but it did no harm to check. He looked around.

  No, the graveyard was deserted.

  To call it a graveyard was to call the village shrine a cathedral; overstating the facts a little. Tilted, crudely-hacked slabs of slate bore mute witness to the cost of life on the edge of the sea. Moss-grown, age-cracked stones abutted new chunks hacked from the cliff face. Wee remember Ras Bormann and hys crew, lost these ten days at see. Canted away from its neighbour by subsidence and the gulf of decades. There was a small, decrepit shrine at one end, and a low wall around it; but nobody came here except for a funeral. Nobody wanted to be reminded. Other than Helmut.

  He glanced round swiftly, furtively, then made a dash for the shrine. It was little more than a hovel, with an altar and a rough table on which to lay the coffin; such vestments as the village possessed were kept by Father Wolfgang. But beneath the altar - which now, wheezing slightly, he struggled to move - Helmut had made covert alterations. He'd been twelve when he discovered the ancient priest's hole and found it to his liking. Since then...

  Ragnar One-Eye glared more effectively than many a whole-sighted man, even with his patch in place. When he chose to remove it, the contrast - livid wound and burning eye - rooted strong warriors in their boots like grass before a scythe. He was not known as Ten-Slayer for nothing among his followers. He leaned on his axe-haft and waited, knowing where the Rage would take him; red and fast and furious, a tunnel running from his ship to the village of the fisherfolk by way of severed necks and gutted peasants and blood everywhere.

  Where Ragnar trod, his bondsmen shivered, the whites of their eyes showing beneath the shadows of their helmets. Wolf-fur cloak and an axe that had shed rivers of gore, and a tread that had made many a foemans' blood turn to water. He stood in the bows as the fast, clinker-built raider ran for the shore, and turned to face his men.

  He raised his axe. "Listen!"

  The rays of the twilight sun caught the edge of his blade, flashing feverish highlights in their eyes. "We go to war, as ever. We will fight, we will loot, we will take honour and booty home when we leave, and the wailing of their women will be nothing in our ears. But. This time is not the same."

  He paused. Before him, the priest was readying his infusion, oblivious to the tension in the warriors around him. The cauldron bubbled as he stirred a handful of ground cinnamon into the ritual wine. Ragnar felt a great hollowness in his chest, a lightness in his head as he inhaled the fumes.

  "Listen!" he shouted hoarsely. "The fisher-rats have gone too far. Their desecration offends the gods. Their dark magic has brought famine to our coasts; the fish rot in our nets and the enemies of Ulric walk in the lands of man. This time is different! Let our swords be red and our arms strong as we punish them for their evil!"

  A roar answered him. If any of the soldiers had reservations they kept them well concealed. And soon, as soon as the priest was finished, they would have none.

  Ragnar looked down with his one eye, and the priest looked up. Black eyes glittered in the man's thin, pinched face; he opened his mouth and spoke impassively. "The host is ready, lord and master. Will you officiate?"

  Ragnar grunted impatiently. "Yes, by Ulric's blood. Now!"

  The priest wordlessly held up the bowl, and a long, small spoon. Ragnar took both, and holding them, intoned: "Blessed are they who drink the wine of Ulric, for they shall reign supreme in the field of battle, and dying shall experience the delights of heaven. Banish fear and doubt from our hearts and inner reins; make strong our hands to smite the enemy. Let us commence. Wulf!"

  Wulf, a hulking lieutenant, stepped forwards. Ragnar raised the spoon to his face; wordlessly Wulf sipped from it, and turned away. A queue formed, in rigid order of rank. Presently, all had drunk from the bowl; and the ship was running through the breakers. Ragnar raised the pot to his face and, glaring out towards the beach, drained the mouthful remaining in it.

  The slaughter was about to begin.

  Maria Kerzer was not a happy woman. She was not old, but time had attacked her savagely. Married young, she had given her husband only one son before the sea stripped his family from him; and that one had grown up sickly and introverted. And her husband's lot had sunk, for when the ship bearing his father and brothers was lost, so was much of their fortune. So he drank, and brooded, and Maria raised chickens and geese and vegetables and prayed that she might yet bear him another son; and meanwhile the years stole up on her with the harsh, scouring winds of the coast.

  That evening he returned from the beach early, stern-faced and angry. "Where's that layabout son of yours?" he demanded, seating himself heavily on the stool by the fireplace where Maria did her spinning.

  She shrugged. "He does as he will, that lad. What's he done now?"

  Klaus cast a black look at the door. "He was to have mended the trawls, but I've seen hide nor hair of him since noon. Doubtless the dolt's in hiding somewhere. If the net's not sewn he'll not eat, I promise you."

  Maria cast a critical eye at the hearth and poked it with an iron. "Needs more wood," she observed.

  "Then fetch it yourself. I'll not be trifled with by the whelp!" His indignation vast, he settled down on the stool until it creaked. Maria wordlessly opened the door and went outside. A few moments later she returned, bearing an armload of branches from the store.

  "I smell smoke," she said. "Can you believe some man be burning wood outdoors at this time of year?" Her shoulders hunched in disapproval, she bent to place a length of kindling on the fire.

  Klaus sighed. "Woman," he said, in an altogether softer tone of voice than he had used previously, "how long have we been married?"

  She answered without turning round, "'twill be a score years next summer." Still bent, she stirred the kettle of fish soup that hung on chains above the range.

  "'Tis long enough that I forget the oath that bound me to thee. The boy casts a long shadow." Maria turned, to see a distraught look cross her husband's face. It gave her pause to wonder. Gloom she saw there often - but sorrow?

  He stood up and reached out to take her hands. "Forgive me," he said roughly, "I should not blame you. But the boy."

  "The boy," she said, "worries me as well. Not the scribin' stuff he had from Father Wolfgang, but the other." She shivered. "Wanderings at night and never there when you call. That fever the other year. And then," she paused in recollection; "when we laid the stone for your father. His face itself might have been rock."
She looked up to meet her husband's gaze. "Good sir, I might rather he'd been some other's than mine."

  Klaus hugged her gently. "Be that as it may, there might be others yet. And - what's that?"

  They stood apart. Carried plainly on the wind was the noise of one bell tolling. There was only one bell in the village; and it only tolled for one reason. Danger.

  Helmut fumbled the flint but caught it before it hit the damp floor. A scrape, a spark, and there was a brief flare of light from the tinder that settled down into the thin, yellow glow of a candle. It smoked in the damp air of the crypt. The halo of light caught Helmut's face, casting stark shadows on the walls. He reached up and pulled the altar back into place with a tug; now there was no sign to betray his presence. Gingerly he ducked forwards, then inched down the time-worn steps that led into the bowels of the earth.

  Once there had been terror and evil in this crypt, but now there was only the oppressive weight of time, the press of centuries. Helmut knew about the Liche. Long ago, decades before some mendicant priest had consecrated this altar to Morr, it had seen sacrifice to another, darker deity. Perhaps time had withered the Liche away to dry bones and whispering dust, but in those long-gone days it had struck terror into the hearts of all who passed this isolated headland. Strange fruit rotted among the branches of the oak trees, and when the flesh of living things had perished the naked bones walked the moonlit earth once more. The sacrifices were not of blood, but of something altogether less innocent. And this was the burial crypt of that source of ancient evil.

  Impelled by some sense of urgency he only half-comprehended, Helmut headed for the nether reaches of the dark tunnel. It led downwards, dropping a step every yard or so; narrow enough that men might walk in single file only, low enough that their heads must be bowed. Ten yards inside the musty entrance, Helmut passed a pair of niches in either wall. Within them, pathetic and crumbled by time, lay two skeletons wrapped in cerements that had long ago assumed the texture of mummified skin.