Warhammer [Ignorant Armies]

by epubBillie

  The villagers were on them like carrion birds, stripping armour and weapons, throwing their booty into large wheelbarrows. He examined one catch, and found rings, a silver flask of some sweet liqueur, an unbloodied silk shirt, a bag of Gold Crowns, a jewel-pommelled axe, a leather breastplate of Elven manufacture, a good pair of Bretonnian boots. Anna was filling this barrow. She worked delicately with the corpses, robbing them as if she were a nurse applying a poultice. As he watched, she slipped the rings from the stiff fingers of a dandified altered, then progressed to his filigreed armour. Without pausing to appreciate the workmanship, she loosed the leather ties on his arm-plates, and pulled them free. His skin was rotten beneath, and had been even before the battle. She eased his dragon-masked helmet from his head, and a knotted rope of silky hair came loose with it. His features were powdered and rouged, but had decaying holes in them. His eyes opened, and his limbs spasmed. With a small, ladylike move, Anna passed a knife under his chin, and he slipped back, blood trickling onto his chest. He sighed away his life, and Anna worked his body armour loose.

  Sickened, he turned away, and saw Kleinzack. The dwarf was bundled up in furs, and wore a ridiculous hat. In daylight, the sword through him looked more bizarre than ever.

  "Good morning, excellency. I trust you slept well."

  He didn't reply.

  "Ah, but it's fine to be alive on such a morning."

  Mischa appeared, laden down with more religious tokens - some still wet - and bent low to whisper in Kleinzack's ear. The Mayor laughed nastily, and slapped the mad priest. Mischa scurried off yelping.

  "The gods have made him mad," said Kleinzack, "that's why they tolerate his sacrileges."

  Johann shrugged, and the dwarf laughed again. The mirth was begin to grate on him. He was unpleasantly reminded of Andreas' deathly laughter. Truly, he had fallen among madmen.

  Darvi and another man were building corpse fires. They couldn't hope to burn all the dead, but they were managing to clear the area nearest the hall. Those too big to be carried whole to the blaze were cut up and thrown on like logs. Katinka came to Kleinzack and offered him a bracelet she had found.

  "Pretty-pretty," he cooed, holding the bracelet up so its jewels caught the light. He slipped it over his wrist, and admired it. Katinka hovered, bowed down, waiting for an indulgence. Kleinzack reached up and stroked her ratty hair. She hummed to herself in idiot contentment, and he sharply tweaked her ear. She cried out, and he pushed her away.

  "Back to work, hag. The days are short, and the nights are long." Then, to Johann, "Our work is never done, you see, excellency. Each night there are more. It never ends."

  A hand fell on Johann's shoulder, and squeezed. He turned. Vukotich was up, a broken lance serving as a staff. His face had kept its greenish look, the scars standing out white and hard, and there was pain behind his eyes. But his grip was still strong. Even hobbling, he radiated strength. He was still the Iron Man who inspired terror even in Cicatrice's worst.

  "This is a Battlefield of Chaos, Johann. This is what Cicatrice has been heading for all along. It's nearly over. He'll be close by here, sleeping, with his creatures about him."

  Kleinzack bowed to Vukotich, shifting his sword slightly. "You know about the battle, then?"

  "I've heard of it," said Vukotich. "I was near here once, when I was younger. I saw the Knights coming here."

  "For over a thousand years, they've been fighting among themselves, proving themselves. All the Champions come here sooner or later, to see if they've got what they say they have. And most of them haven't. Most of them end up like these poor dead fools."

  "And that's how you live, dwarf," spat Johann. "Robbing the dead, selling their leavings?"

  Kleinzack didn't seem offended. "Of course. Someone has to. Bodies rot, other things don't. If it weren't for us, and for our forebears, this plain would be a mountain of rusting armour by now."

  "They sleep in great underground halls nearby," said Vukotich, "sleep like the dead. This is an important stage in their development, in their alteration. They lie comatose by day on warpstone slabs, changing form, ridding themselves of the last traces of humanity. And by night, they fight. In small groups, in single combat, at random, they fight. For a full lunar month, they fight. And if they survive, they go back into the world to spread their evil again."

  "And Cicatrice?"

  "He'll be here. Asleep now, as befits a General. We'll find him, and Wolf with him."

  Vukotich looked tired. From his eyes, Johann could tell it would be over soon, one way or another.

  "You," Vukotich addressed Kleinzack, "carrion crow. Have you found anything bearing this symbol?" He produced a cloak-clasp with the emblem of Cicatrice's band, the stylized human face deformed by a red lightning bolt in imitation of their leader's daemon-claw scar. The dwarf held up a hand, and rubbed his thumb against his fingers. Vukotich tossed him the clasp, and he made a great show of examining it as if appraising the workmanship.

  "I can perhaps recall some similar item..."

  Vukotich produced a coin and cast it at Kleinzack's feet. The dwarf looked exaggeratedly insulted, and shrugged helplessly. Johann dropped a purse of coins to join the single crown, and Kleinzack smiled.

  "It all comes back to me. The scar." He passed a finger diagonally across his face, kinking a little over his nose. "Very distinctive. Very unusual."

  "It's an unusual man we're after."

  "The man whose followers bear this design?"

  "Yes. Cicatrice, the bandit."

  Kleinzack laughed again. "I can do better than show you a man who bears the image of this scar..."

  The dwarf spun the clasp in the air and caught it.

  "... I can show you the man who bears the scar itself."

  A claw grasped Johann's heart, and squeezed.

  "Cicatrice?"

  The dwarf nodded, smiling, and held out his open hand. Johann gave him money. Kleinzack made a great pretence of examining his payment, biting into one Gold Crown, leaving shallow marks across the Emperor's face. He looked at Johann and Vukotich, savouring his momentary power over them.

  "Come," he said, at length, "follow me."

  Vukotich was still slowed by his wounds, but managed to hobble along with the dwarf. Johann felt frustrated by their measured pace as they went their way through the heaps of the dead, out onto the bloody steppe. For ten years, he had been waiting to confront Cicatrice. That scarred face - which he had never seen, but which eternally recurred on his men's emblem - had haunted his nights. He had never exchanged a blow or a word with the bandit, but Johann knew his history as well as he knew his own, and felt that by following in Cicatrice's tracks, he had become as close to him as to a brother. A hated brother. Now, he remembered their separate battles. He measured his bested foes against Cicatrice's, wondering whether he was truly the Chaos Champion's equal in battle. He supposed he would find out soon enough.

  Johann was impatient. Ten years was too long. It was well past time to get this over with.

  No. He slowed himself, keeping in step with Vukotich and Kleinzack, helping his tutor over the rougher patches of ground, reining in his unruly imaginings. He would not hasten now. He had stayed alive for this day, kept himself going beyond all human endurance. He would not fumble at the last, and chance Wolf's life. He found a calm in the centre of his heart, and let it seep through his being. The tightness in his chest eased. He began to see with a deadly clarity.

  Almost unconsciously, he checked his weapons. His knives were in their greased sheaths, his sword hung easily from his belt. The blades could be in his hands faster than a human eye could register. After ten years on the trail, he could kill sometimes faster than he could think. It was a habit of which he looked forward to purging himself.

  He remembered the initial arrow, brushing the deer's hide, proceeding with what had seemed like supernatural slowness towards his brother's shoulder. Johann hadn't used a longbow since, preferring to concentrate on hand-to-hand iron and st
eel.

  "It's not much further," wheezed Kleinzack. The dwarf was out of breath, and his sword shivered each time he filled his lungs. "Just over this ridge."

  The ridge was not a geographical feature, it was an arrangement of dead horsemen and their steeds, cut down by a row of cannons. The third or fourth charge had broken through, but the casualties had been appalling. Johann tried not to think of the ranks upon ranks of flesh underfoot as he helped Vukotich up over the obstacle. Kleinzack swarmed with surprising agility over the cavalry corpses, pulling himself along using belts and saddles as hand-holds.

  Darvi and a group of rangy, dead-faced men were hard at work, cutting valuables loose from the bodies with saws and shears. They were working on a pile of felled knights. One man was tugging at a plumed helmet whose owner was still feebly resisting, despite the depth and number of his mortal wounds. This one was in the latter stages of the changes, limbs barely recognizable as human, leathery batwings torn and crumpled benath him, torso swollen up by a breastbone that was thrusting through papery skin like a knifeblade. The tatterdemalion's head twisted this way and that with the helmet, but finally his robber got a good enough grip and with one determined tug pulled his prize away.

  The altered was old, his cheeks sunken and serrated, all his teeth gone save for two yellow tusks that had worn grooves in his lips. His hair was white and sparse, knotted in rat-tails on one side where he had once been partially scalped. And a red scar ran diagonally across his face, kinking a little over the nose.

  Their search was over.

  But this was not the Cicatrice Johann had pictured. This was a dying misfit, altered beyond practicality, lost even to himself.

  "I want to talk to him," Johann told Kleinzack.

  "That's of no mind to me, your excellency..."

  The dwarf wandered off, signalling Darvi and his men to follow. There were still pickings to be had. Something was screaming a few hundred yards away. Kleinzack's crew ambled towards it, their killing tools ready for use.

  Johann and Vukotich stood over the man they had followed for so long. He hardly seemed aware of their presence, being absorbed in the business of dying. Cicatrice was still vaguely trying to stand up, but ankles broken and swollen to the thickness of a normal man's waist wouldn't support him. Uncomprehending eyes opened and blinked on his bare shoulders, purposeless tendrils waved languidly in the flow of blood from the rib-deep wound over his heart.

  "Cicatrice," said Johann, feeling the syllables of the name on his tongue, "listen to me..."

  The old altered looked up with fast-dimming eyes, and managed a smile. Red treacle oozed from his mouth.

  "Cicatrice, I am the Baron von Mecklenberg."

  Cicatrice coughed, somewhere between a sob and a laugh, and turned his head to Johann. For the first time, the hunter and the hunted looked upon each other. Johann saw recognition in Cicatrice's eyes. The dying monster knew who he was. And he would know what he had come for.

  "Wolf. Where's Wolf?"

  Cicatrice raised a six-taloned hand, and pointed down at the earth, then made a general gesture, indicating the whole area.

  "Here?" Cicatrice nodded.

  "What have you done to him?"

  "What... have... I... done to... him!" Cicatrice gathered his voice, and forced the words out. "What have I done to him? Why, my dear Baron, surely you should ask... what has he done to me?"

  He held a claw to his opened breast, and dipped it in the blood.

  "Wolf fought you? Wounded you?"

  The laugh came again - the laugh Johann had been hearing from too many throats since this began - and Cicatrice's smile became cruel and indignant. Johann could see the shadow of the fearsome warrior chieftan's face over the shrunken and abused features of this poor creature.

  "Wolf has killed me."

  With a certain pride, Johann turned to Vukotich. The Iron Man was an iron statue, his face unreadable. "You see, Vukotich," he said, "Wolf resisted all these years. Here, in the heart of darkness, Wolf has turned on his captors, and escaped."

  "No," said Cicatrice, barely able to control his spasming now. These were his last minutes, last seconds... "No, he has not escaped. Wolf now leads my army. For two years now, he has ridden at the head of our columns, planned our raids. I'm an old man. I've been tolerated. Until now. Now the Scar is dead, and the Young Wolf will have his time."

  Cicatrice reached into his wound, and pulled at his beating heart, holding it up.

  "At least your brother chose to kill me face to face. His blade didn't come from the back."

  Blood ran through Cicatrice's talons. His heart puffed up like a toad, and then collapsed. With his last strength, the bandit squeezed out his own life.

  On the way back to the village, it was Vukotich who supported Johann, guiding him as an enchanter might one of the raised dead. Suddenly, the thousands of miles he had travelled in the past ten years weighed heavy upon him, as if each were a measure of time not distance. He had been concentrating so hard upon his search, his quest, that he had failed to perceive the shifting circumstances that now rendered the whole endeavour all but meaningless.

  Wolf was in no need of rescue. A few days ago, Wolf had sent four creatures to kill his brother. In the last two years, how many traps and schemes had he created? How he must wish him dead!

  "It's not Wolf," Vukotich said. "Whatever he has become, it's not Wolf. Your brother died a long time ago, in the woods, in Sudenland. He spilled his innocent blood. What we must find - find and destroy - is like the thing we burned in the forest, a monstrosity using what's left of his body."

  Johann had no argument.

  By the time they were back in the village, the sky was already darkening. Days really were short this far north. Johann heard distant thunder, in the ground, and imagined the hordes stirring from their sleep, examining themselves for new alterations, new improvements.

  Would he even recognize Wolf?

  Kleinzack was standing before his hall, surrounded by his people. Mischa was chanting, and dancing epileptically, invoking long-dead deities, calling for protection from all manner of perils. The villagers had stowed their day's prizes, and were preparing for another night of cowering.

  Johann would have to stay outside this night, and search through the carnage for his brother, seek to challenge him to mortal combat. He had no doubt that he could survive in the thick of a melee, but he wondered if he could come so close to the creatures of the warpstone, with their roiling auras of evil, without himself beginning the long, slow metamorphosis into monstrosity. If he were to start altering, he thought he could trust Vukotich to stick a spear through him.

  A circle noosed around his left ankle, biting into the leather of his boot, and he was pulled off balance. He saw the wire rising out of the earth as it was reeled in. Kleinzack jumped aside as the whirring machine behind him pulled the steel thread in yard by yard. Darvi was working a handle. Johann fell badly, jarring his back, and was dragged too fast across the ground to sit up and free himself. His clothes were abraded, and his sword-hilt dug into the ground like a plough. A net was thrown over him, and he felt a metal-tipped boot impact with his ribs. His arms were tangled in the net, and he felt heavy weights on them. Anna and Katinka were kneeling, pressing him to the ground as they hammered pegs down, pinning the net, limiting his movement.

  Twisting his head, he saw Vukotich spinning his broken lance, surrounded by six or seven of Darvi's brawny corpse-strippers. He gored one through, but his weapon was tugged out of his grip and the circle closed. He went down under it. Later, when they'd avenged their friend with a severe pummelling, they dragged him to the hall and pinned him out beside Johann.

  Approaching carefully, Kleinzack and Darvi extracted the weapons from Johann's sheaths. He tried to resist, but only got another kick for his pains. The dwarf made a great play of examining the sword, appreciating the workmanship, and then taking it away.

  All the while, Mischa danced, sprinkling foul-smelling liquid on Johan
n, daubing arcane symbols on the earth, and reciting from various scrolls of manuscript he kept about his person. Johann gathered he and Vukotich were being laid out to appease the gods. At least, that was what Mischa was telling the villagers.

  Eventually, the mad priest stopped, and went inside with the rest of the villagers.

  Above the net, the sky was nearly black. The subterranean sounds were louder now, and Johann could feel the earth under him shaking. He tensed all his muscles and exerted as much pull as he could. One of the pegs popped out of the ground, and his right hand was free. He strained again. The pegs were loosening, but it would take time to fight his way out of the net.

  Then a shadow fell over him, and he heard the now-familiar laugh. It was Kleinzack.

  "Happy now, excellency? You'll soon see your brother. I'm only sorry I shan't be here to witness your touching reunion, to see your first embrace after so many years..."

  The dwarfs hands were on him, patting pockets for coins.

  "Of course, your brother has already paid me well for arranging this little get-together, but I don't see why I shouldn't also extract some tribute from you. It's only fair."

  Kleinzack took the pouches from Johann's belt, and the amulet with the family crest from his neck. Then he tried to work off the signet ring from his right hand.

  Johann grabbed the dwarfs hand, and held tight. Kleinzack thumped him, hard, but was still held. He spat in the dwarfs face and, summoning all his strength, sat up. Pegs burst free - those driven by Anna seemed a shade less well-rooted than those Katinka had seen to - and the net gathered in Johann's lap as he fought loose of it.

  Kleinzack's gloating smarm had bubbled away, and his face was a mask of terror. He started blubbering, begging for mercy.

  The ground was trembling constantly now, and he could hear hooves, the clanking of armour, shouts of defiance, and other, barely human, sounds. A great many creatures were coming this way.

  He held Kleinzack at arms' length. The stubby legs kicked, but the mayor couldn't reach Johann's torso. He had adjusted his grip now, and held the dwarf by a fistful of jerkin, just under the protruding hilt of the sword.