[Warhammer] - Guardians of the Forest

by Graham McNeill

  The haunted copse of dark trees beneath the plateau was a bloodbath as elf and man and beast clashed in furious combat. Leofric hacked his sword through a thickly furred limb and deflected an axe strike away from his body, turning and slashing his silver sword across his foe’s back. A spear thudded into his breastplate, spinning him around and he backed into a tree as a bestial horror with monstrously wide jaws and a frill of reptilian skin around its neck lunged for him.

  He roared and thrust his sword into its mouth, stabbing the point up into its brain. The monster bellowed in pain, its jaw snapping shut on the blade. Leofric wrenched it clear and beheaded the creature as Kyarno moved to stand beside him, firing arrow after arrow into the mass of beastmen.

  The young elf was unbelievably swift with his bow, nocking and firing almost without pause and sending shafts into the eyes and vitals of every beast he shot at. The two forged a path through the beastmen, Kyarno loosing deadly accurate arrows and Leofric hacking them down with his brutal swordwork.

  Cairbre fought like no one Leofric had ever seen before, twisting, stabbing and cutting with a skill unmatched by any other. He fought to protect Naieth, a wild wind of bright power weaving around her as she smote the beastmen with her magic. Though twisted into new and vile shapes, the trees of the copse arose to her bidding, a storm of razor-sharp missiles of jagged wood engulfing any beastmen who drew near her.

  The venerable Cairbre was always in motion, never stopping or slowing as he slew the foul children of Chaos, the Blades of Midnight cleaving through unclean flesh with ease as he fought to protect the prophetess.

  The elves of Coeth-Mara fought side by side, swords and spears cutting down beastmen by the score, but always there were more howling monstrosities to take their place. Bestial and elven blood mingled on the rocky ground as elf after elf was torn down by the brute savagery of the beasts and Leofric knew that such losses could not be maintained.

  Even as he thought this, Leofric chopped his sword through the face of a baying monster with myriad eyes and mouths as a snapping, red-furred hound with two heads leapt upon him, its claws scraping down his pauldron and ripping it from his armour.

  The hound bore him to the ground, one set of its bloody fangs closing on his visor and crushing it in its powerful jaws as the other sought his throat. Leofric cried out and slammed his armoured head into one of the hound’s faces, rolling as he struggled to remove his helmet. A squeal of pain came from the hound and as he tore off his ruined helmet, he saw two of Kyarno’s arrows buried in its ribs.

  He clambered to his feet and drove his sword into its flank to finish it off as he heard a great clamour from the ridge above him and yet more beastmen came charging towards them.

  “Kyarno!” he yelled. “There are more!”

  “I see them!” called back the elf as he retrieved arrows from the corpses of the dead.

  “We must get past them,” said Cairbre, panting and out of breath from the exertions of the battle. The white blades of his spear were streaked with black blood and he bled from a number of minor wounds, but the Hound of Winter’s courage was undimmed.

  The charge of the monsters was almost upon them when Leofric saw a spectral mist of sparkling lights form around his feet. It oozed from the bark of the trees, a whisper of things unseen rustling nearby, and as he readied his weapon to fight once more, he shook his head to clear it of the ghostly apparitions he thought he saw. Had the two-headed monster’s attack stunned him more seriously than he had thought?

  A ululating war cry, wild and passionate, burst from the trees and, with a wild howl, the ghostly apparitions suddenly resolved themselves into solidity as Cu-Sith and his wardancers appeared from the mist.

  The Red Wolf leapt amongst the beastmen, a sword and short-hafted spear cutting and stabbing. The painted wardancers smashed into the beastmen with weapons spinning around them in blindingly swift cuts — beheading, disembowelling and cleaving them with a speed and viciousness that was breathtaking.

  No matter where the bestial monsters attacked, the wardancers evaded them, somersaulting and bounding aside from their clumsy attacks before darting in with a graceful pirouette to ram a blade into an exposed throat or eye socket.

  While the monsters reeled from this unexpected attack Leofric, Cairbre and Kyarno pushed on towards the plateau.

  But before they could do more than gather their wits, they heard a monstrous bellow of rage and power that sent a wave of terror through every one of them.

  Leofric looked up through the leaping wardancers to the plateau and saw the monolithic form of the waystone towering above them. Crude symbols had been daubed upon it, blotting out the elven runes carved there. Before it stood a beastman of colossal proportions, its hide dark with blood and scaled in bronze. Its horned head was scarred and burned, but its flickering, multi-coloured eyes burned with purpose and power.

  Thick, hooked chains looped across its chest and it wore spiked shoulder guards crudely fashioned from beaten breastplates. It carried a massive, double-headed axe, its blades rusted, but with a potent magical aura surrounding them.

  In front of it thrashed a diabolical creature that defied any recognisable shape or form, its limbs a slashing web of thorned pseudopods, its fluid form shifting and roiling in constant motion. A cadre of similarly gigantic monsters surrounded the waystone, hulking bull-headed monsters, slavering wolf creatures and drooling, slack-jawed trolls with tough, warty hides and great stone clubs.

  Naieth cried out in anger as some unseen force drained her skin of colour, and she cried, “The Corrupter… it is here!”

  “Where?” asked Cairbre, rushing to her side.

  “Upon the mountain!” gasped Naieth, pointing to the cave mouth.

  Leofric looked into the darkness of the cave, feeling an instinctual dread of the dark claw its way up his spine as he saw something lurch from the depths. A powerful beast with a dark miasma of power swirling around it like black mist emerged into the sunlight, though a shadow crept with it, as though unwilling to allow such an abomination to bask in its light. Gibbering, screeching wails accompanied the monster, skulls woven within its fur and horns screaming in anguish.

  Leofric dropped to his knees in pain as a powerful nausea clamped his gut. All around him elves fell to the ground, assaulted by the dark forces surrounding this monster.

  Naieth reached up to grip Cairbre’s wrist and shouted, “Quickly, now is your time! The white hound, the red wolf and the hawk, I see it now!”

  “Prophetess,” said Cairbre. “What—”

  “No time!” cried Naieth. “If the Corrupter reaches the waystone then all will have been for naught, the magic will be perverted to serve the Dark Gods and it will be lost to us. Go now! Destroy the beast!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Cairbre ran from the tearful prophetess and made his way uphill, gritting his teeth against the rising pain and dark energies he felt assail him. Behind him the elves of Coeth-Mara began climbing to their feet as they fought against the power of the Corruptor, but their advance was slower and more painful than his.

  He felt his flesh answering the dark call of the Corruptor’s foulness and exerted every last ounce of his will to resist its vile imprecations. Before him, the wardancers carved apart the last of the beasts between them and the waystone, but rather than continue their bloody rampage up the mountainside, they gathered around their painted leader, the wolf tattoo on his chest writhing and snapping beneath his skin as it revelled in the bloodshed.

  The corpses of beastmen surrounded the bloodied troupe, but their victory had not been won without loss, fully half of their number lay gored on the dark rocks. Cu-Sith met Cairbre’s stare and the wardancer nodded, “It is our time then? The white hound and the red wolf?”

  The Hound of Winter frowned at the Red Wolf’s familiar turn of phrase and nodded, saying, “Yes, the prophetess—”

  “Cu-Sith knows,” interrupted the wardancer with a wild grin of feral anticipation on his gory featu
res. “Loec knows all and Loec tells Cu-Sith what he must do.”

  “But how did—”

  “No time!” said Cu-Sith as more packs of wild beastmen charged towards them from the plateau above. Cairbre nodded again, glancing into the sky at the vicious battle being fought above them as winged monsters clashed with the warhawk riders and the mighty Beithir-Seun.

  Arrows slashed past the Hound and the Wolf as the elves of Coeth-Mara and the human fought through the Corruptor’s power to make for the waystone. The odds had been evened by Cu-Sith’s arrival, but there were still many scores of beastmen to slay before victory could be won.

  The Red Wolf set off up the mountain, his sword and spear spinning in his grip, but Cairbre could see that even the mighty Cu-Sith was in great pain from the touch of the Corruptor’s dark magic.

  Once again the beasts of Chaos and the Asrai clashed in the shadow of the waystone, but Cairbre did not stop to fight them, cutting himself a path through their motley ranks to follow the Red Wolf towards the terrible beast that advanced from the mouth of the cave towards the waystone.

  * * *

  Leofric could barely hold off the agonising pain wracking him as he fought to climb uphill. His flesh seethed with rebellion, and it took all his rage and anger to hold himself true to his form. He slew beasts without mercy, channelling all his emotion into each blow.

  Axes struck him and his own blood ran from his body, but he cared not, striking down his foes with each sweep of his gleaming sword. Beside him Kyarno screamed with each arrow loosed, his movements supple and swift despite the battle he fought against his own unquiet flesh.

  They fought their way alongside a score of elves, their blades and bows reaping a fearsome tally of their bestial foes. But each yard gained was paid for in blood and the dead were left to fall in their wake. Only victory would grant them eternal life in the funeral glades of the forest, and Leofric just hoped they could give them such a memory.

  At last, awash with blood and death, they reached the plateau and the waystone.

  Cairbre and Cu-Sith had already broken through the beastmen and were working their way up the steep rocks towards the cave mouth above them. Leofric wished them the blessing of the Lady, but could ill afford to spare them more than a glance as he took in the scale of the foes before them.

  Surely this massive, bull-headed monster must be the leader of this herd, its terrible bulk greater than any beast they had slain thus far. As they stood before it, the monster gave out a deafening bellow and raised its massive axe in a defiant challenge.

  An arrow from Kyarno’s bow slashed towards it, but it batted it aside with its axe blade, the weapon moving impossibly swiftly for its bulk. Another arrow slashed towards the Beastlord — this time from above — thudding into the meat of its shoulder and Leofric looked up to see Morvhen circling above them, bloodied and riding a ragged, scarred warhawk.

  Brutish trolls lumbered forward with the Beastlord and with another fearsome bellow, it released the chained spawn creature towards them. Faster than Leofric would have believed such a malformed abomination could move, it slithered and lurched towards them, howling and screeching in blind, lunatic hunger.

  Its thorned limbs ended in snapping mouths of razored fangs and bladed hooks, and ripping claws seethed in its riotous flesh. Arrows hammered into the soft meat of its body, but if it felt any pain from them, it gave no sign.

  Leofric charged to meet the beast headlong, his sword cleaving into its rippling body. The blade parted the skin easily, slicing through warped muscle and bone, but before he could bring his sword back for another blow, a fanged jaw surged from the spawn’s flesh and snapped shut on his vambrace. He cried out as the metal compressed on his arm, stabbing his sword into the mouth and ripping his arm free as a club-like limb smashed him from his feet. A clutch of stabbing, bladelike appendages writhed from its body and reached for his face.

  Another blade slashed above him and the creature screeched as Kyarno dragged him back, his sword stabbing at each of the beast’s grasping limbs as they snatched at them. More arrows thudded into its flesh as the elves overcame their horror at the vile beast and rushed to aid them.

  Leofric and Kyarno attacked together, their swords hacking great lumps of greasy fat and gristle from the heaving spawn’s body. Its struggles grew weaker and weaker, but still it would not die until its flesh was carved to bloody chunks.

  But by then it had served its purpose as the Beastlord and its monstrous acolytes smashed into the elves. Three were killed instantly as it clove its axe through their bodies with one mighty blow, another two smashed to bloody ruin by the return stroke.

  It bellowed as it slew, red-flecked spittle flying from its jaws and a dark light flaring in its eyes. Yet another arrow thunked into the great, bull-headed monster, but it ignored the wound as it turned to face Leofric and Kyarno.

  Perhaps a dozen elves still stood with them, and each loosed a shaft towards the mighty beastman as it hacked yet more of their number down in a welter of blood and bone. Leofric raised his sword and darted in to slash it across the Beastlord’s side, his blade biting an inch before sliding clear.

  Kyarno rolled beneath a scything blow of its axe and drove his sword into its gut with all his might. The blade penetrated a handspan before snapping off in his hand and Kyarno threw himself back as the huge axe swept towards him, the edge of the blade coming within an inch of gutting him.

  Leofric took advantage of the Beastlord’s distraction to chop at his foe’s arm, his sword slicing into the meat and rebounding from the bone beneath. The Beastlord roared and its wounded arm slashed down to break him in two.

  But instead of tearing him to pieces, a dazzling white light erupted from Leofric’s gauntlet and the Beastlord’s claws simply carved a series of parallel grooves diagonally down his breastplate and hurled him back across the rocks. The terrible creature’s blood splashed his vambrace and cuirass, burning through them like engraver’s acid.

  He rolled to his knees as fragments of white crystal fell from his gauntlet, and he silently thanked Tiphaine for her favour, knowing it had just saved his life.

  Despite their courage and Morvhen’s arrows, Leofric saw that while the Beastlord lived, this fight could have but one outcome. The bull-creatures were killing them one by one and every elf slain brought them closer to defeat. The wardancers had joined the fight, cutting down the trolls with deadly grace, but it was slow, brutal work, their enemies able to withstand even the most terrible wounds before finally succumbing.

  But such things did not matter anymore. They had to fight and if that meant they had to die, then so be it. They fought because Chaos had to be opposed wherever it was found.

  Leofric rose to his feet once more and charged back into the fray.

  Cairbre struggled to keep up with Cu-Sith as the more nimble wardancer bounded from rock to rock, climbing the slope towards the Corruptor as it closed on the waystone. He heard wild howls below him and saw that around forty of the more agile creatures were following them, rushing to defend their despicable leader.

  Every step and every breath was pain, the dark power of the monstrous beastman above him threatening to change him into something vile and terrible. Only his indomitable will kept his form constant, though he knew that should he falter for an instant he would be lost.

  “Come on!” shouted Cu-Sith from above as he vaulted onto the ledge in front of the cave mouth. Cairbre bit back an angry retort and forced himself to climb faster as the yelping howls of the creatures behind him intensified.

  His breath came in sharp bursts, his muscles burning with fatigue and their continued resistance to the power at work on this mountain. His hand closed on the rock of the ledge and he hauled himself upwards, but as he pulled, the rock melted beneath his fingers and he felt himself falling backwards.

  A hand shot out and gripped his wrist, pulling him onto the ledge as claws snatched at him from below. He had no time to thank Cu-Sith as a horned head appeared
at the lip of the ledge and roared in fury at him. The Blades of Midnight flashed and the headless beastman spun through the air to dash itself on the rocks below.

  Cairbre ran after the Red Wolf, glancing up to see more of the black-winged creatures dropping through the air to come to the defence of the Corrupter, which now halted its advance upon the waystone to face this new threat.

  The terrifying creature turned its burning gaze upon them and both elves groaned in pain as they fought the full force of its corrupting powers. It threw back its head and let loose an ear-splitting roar of hate and bloodlust, the twisting staff it held rippling with smoky magic.

  “Loec says they will talk of this battle for centuries,” said Cu-Sith, giving Cairbre a sly wink.

  “I look forward to hearing it,” answered Cairbre, as they hurled themselves towards the howling beastman. Wardancer and Eternal Guard attacked the Corrupter from either side, flashing swords and spears stabbing for its unclean flesh. But for all its lumpen appearance, the Corruptor was a terrifyingly powerful beast and fought with all the ferocity and cunning its kind were famed for.

  Its thick hide turned aside their every blow, its deadly staff turning in midair to intercept their attacks without apparent effort. Its claws smashed Cairbre from his feet, sending him skidding to the very lip of the ledge. The Hound of Winter grunted in pain and clutched his chest where he knew at least one rib was broken and his flesh burned with the touch of the beast.

  He climbed painfully to his feet, seeing that they were now cut off from the rest of the elves, a mass of chanting, bellowing beastmen surrounding their struggle on the ledge. They knew better than to approach the Corruptor too closely and seemed content to let their master fight this battle alone.

  Cairbre watched as Cu-Sith leapt and spun around the vile beastman, his sword and spear batted aside at every turn. No matter where his blades struck, its dark staff blocked his every attack. A shadow flashed overhead and Cairbre looked up to see one of the winged beastmen slash through the air towards the Red Wolf.