by C. L. Werner
The beastman loped forward, its hooves punching into the ground with every step. Brunner stood defiant, his sword in a guarding position, his left hand held immobile at his side.
Brunner smiled up at the hulking brute. The chieftain raised its bronze axe, gripping it with both hands. With a last snarl it leapt forward. Brunner’s left hand rose in tandem with the brute’s attack.
A white cloud engulfed the masked face of the beastman as it charged. The bounty hunter had quietly worked the packet of salt kept in the sleeve of his tunic into his palm, puncturing the little pouch of sackcloth with his fingernail. Now the mineral did its work, stinging and biting into the Chaos monsters eyes. Brunner lashed out with his sword, taking advantage of his enemy’s blindness and surprise. The sword stabbed at the monsters belly, but the bounty hunter’s strike was deflected by the crude armour of hide and steel—upon which had been carved all manner of strange and loathsome runes. Instead of opening up the monster’s belly, Brunner’s falchion gored a patch of the monster’s thigh. The beastman let a howl of pain, terrifying like a human scream, rise from its throat before toppling backward. Its brutish followers stood in a stunned silence.
‘Come on!’ Brunner snapped, spinning and racing toward his horses, dragging the stunned priestess with him. ‘They won’t be confused for long, and they will be twice as enraged when they recover!’ Brunner slashed the tether of his steed with the edge of his sword, spinning and doing the same for his packhorse. He scrambled into the saddle, pulling Elisia up behind him. The woman pulled at his arm, trying to direct him back toward the fire, back into the camp. He spared a look to where the Tileans’ animals had been tied, seeing the swarm of beastmen upon them. His gaze canvassed the clearing, noting Gramsci holding off the press of monsters, though he was cut in both leg and arm, and his blade was not as quick in warding away adversaries as it had been.
‘Do you know the way he was taking you?’ Brunner asked.
‘Y-yes,’ Elisia muttered, her gaze wavering between Brunner, the beastmen and her embattled bodyguard.
‘Good,’ the bounty hunter said as he saw a beastman’s spear puncture Gramsci’s side. ‘Because your guide is dead.’ Brunner turned and quickly brought the horse to full gallop, dragging his packhorse behind them as they raced through the midnight wilds.
Behind them, a monstrous shape rose, snarling beneath its mask of flayed skin. The beastman chieftain watched as its chosen offering to Khorne escaped into the night. Infuriated, the monster reached out, snapping the neck of one of its fellows that had come closer to examine its master’s wound. As the creature died, and the blood bubbled from its mouth, the wound in the beastman’s thigh stopped bleeding. The masked brute turned its head, gazing at the still gaping wound. No, it thought, the wound shall remain until it is salved by the blood of a proper offering. The chieftain turned its head in the direction of the vanished bounty hunter. Its sharp bark of wrath and command brought the other brutes loping away from the gory, butchered bodies.
The hulking monster pointed its axe into the night, in the direction its prey had retreated.
‘Blood for the Blood God!’
The villa crouched on the summit of a lonely round-topped hill. The overgrown ruin of the vinefields that had surrounded the estate formed a buffer zone between hill and forest, a few scraggly, thin trees ignoring the boundary and providing patches of shadow upon the grassy expanse. The crumbling remains of a wall appeared beside the dirt path that had once been a road, a narrow strip of dirt wending its way from the rotten wooden gate through the overgrown fields to the hill at their centre.
It had taken Brunner and his guide the better part of two days to reach this place, and once again the dark cloak of night was falling upon the land. They had ridden long and hard, with the bounty hunter pausing only long enough to give the animals such rest as they might require to keep up the pace. And even those brief stops had been forsaken since the afternoon, when Brunner had sighted the first of their pursuers. The beastman had loped off before the bounty hunter could get a shot at it. Not long after, the sound of many bodies crashing through the brush to either side of the path had lent speed to the horses’ efforts. The beastmen were masters of the wild, and where the path turned and twisted like some serpentine river, the Chaos creatures could travel through the undergrowth and hidden trails known only to these children of the wild.
Many times, Brunner had heard hooting and snarling, and was certain that an ambush was about to be sprung. But the anticipated attack never came. Recalling the hulking chieftain’s casual slaughter of its overeager follower, the bounty hunter could guess the reason for the reluctance of the monsters to attack.
Now, as they at last reached the villa, the sounds of pursuit had grown louder, and Brunner guessed that the entire pack had caught up with them now—even the brute he had crippled during their brief encounter. The sanctuary of the ruined Bertolucci villa had come none too soon. Brunner whipped his steed into a final effort, the packhorse obediently following after the leading horse.
The villa had been opulent and splendid in its day. A two-storey structure, the upper floors had been devoted to bedchambers, music rooms, dining halls and the every pleasure of its noble owners, while the larger lower floor had served as quarters for servants, as stables and kennels, kitchens and storerooms. The villa’s walls were still intact, but its wooden shutters and doors had long ago collapsed into rotten ruin. As Brunner rode up, he could see swarthy Tilean faces peering out at him from every opening. But a loud cry from the woods forced the attention of the watching men away from the bounty hunter and his companion for a moment—all eyes were trained upon the treeline. Brunner rode his horse through the gaping maw of the old main entrance, whose double doors rotted on the floor just inside the portal. He lowered Elisia from the saddle, then dismounted after her and led the horses to where ten other steeds were tethered.
‘Praise be to Shallya!’, a voice cried out. A young man, wearing a suit of well-tailored clothes and a leather jupon studded with steel raced from one of the four doorways leading into the entrance hall. He was fair-featured, his black hair short, after the style favoured by the merchant princes themselves. He had the air of a man used to quality in his life, but as Brunner’s gaze took in the newcomer’s appearance, he noted the calluses upon his hands, the worn spots in the knees of his breeches, the abrasions on his boots. Here may be a man of quality, but he had not shirked from his part in labour, now that things were not so prosperous as before.
The young man strode towards the priestess. ‘I feared that you would never come! My wife is very near her time, please hurry!’ Then, as if noticing Brunner for the first time, the young man froze. ‘Who are you? And where is Gramsci?’
‘Questions which I was about to ask,’ a second voice spoke from another doorway. The speaker was an older man, but shared the facial qualities of the younger. He was dressed like the other, his fine clothing perhaps not quite so well worn. His aged hands had been hardened by a life in which pleasure and comfort had been all too infrequent.
‘His name is Habermas,’ the priestess said. ‘Your man and I met him on the road as we journeyed here. We were set upon by beastmen.’ A sad look crossed Elisia’s face and she bowed her hooded head in the direction of the older man. ‘I fear that the monsters killed Gramsci. We barely escaped with our lives.’
‘We have not escaped yet,’ the bounty hunter’s cold voice sounded for the first time. He turned his helmeted head towards the elder man. ‘The monsters that set upon us have followed us here.’ The news brought startled and fearful expressions to both men’s faces. ‘Even now they surround this ruin.’
The older man quickly recovered himself. ‘Alberto,’ he snapped, ‘lead the priestess to Giana, then find me! I’ll get the men together.’ He turned toward the bounty hunter. ‘I am no soldier, sir,’ he addressed Brunner. ‘The house of Bertolucci has seldom produced military men. If you have any notion of how best we might defend this place, I wou
ld like to hear it.’
Seven bodyguards had remained loyal to Bertolucci after his fall from grace, and one of these had been Gramsci. That left only eight men apart from Brunner himself to hold the ruined villa. The bounty hunter snapped his orders as quickly as he could. Below, in the woods, the grunting and lowing of the monsters reached the villa’s occupants, indicating that others were making their plans as well.
It was decided that those armed with crossbows would be positioned in the upper floor, descending when the brutes crossed the clear ground surrounding the hill. This accounted for five men. The remaining men, including Bertolucci and his son, were to stand with Brunner. They would guard two chambers: the larger entry hall where the horses were tethered, and the small parlour that abutted it and gave entry to the stairs leading to the upper floor. It was where the non-combatant servants and Alberto’s expectant wife had retreated.
Hasty barricades were thrown across the windows and doorways, leaving only narrow places from which the defenders could peer out and Brunner could fire his own crossbows. It was a ramshackle defence, but it was the best Brunner could manage. Two things favoured their chances: the fact that most beastmen were too simple to manage even the most rude missile weapon, and the fact that the notion of burning the villa down about their ears would likewise not occur to them. The brilliant blue-silver light cast by a full and engorged Mannsleib did much to favour the defenders; it made the grounds of the villa almost as visible as under the noonday sun. Only beneath the surrounding trees were the shadows still long and the grip of darkness tight.
No sooner had the preparations been made, and the Tileans sent to their posts, than the beasts began their attack. Brunner watched as a number of the brutes loped from the edge of the trees, a lanky thing with a snake’s head squirming from its shoulders bearing a standard of flayed skin. Brunner raised a clumsy-looking contraption of wood and steel. He aimed the tube-like barrel at the creature. The weapon sparked and a loud crack of thunder sounded with the brilliant flash of its discharge.
The standard bearer howled and fell, crushing its flag beneath its bleeding body. The other beastmen gave bleats of fright and capered back into the woods.
‘That should give them pause,’ the bounty hunter said. ‘Though I don’t think that leader of theirs will let them hide for long.’ As if in response, ten brutes stole from the trees once more. The bounty hunter watched as several of them cried out, dropping as crossbow bolts pierced their flesh. The wounded hastened back into the trees, leaving the dead ones lying in the field. The scene was repeated on each side of the villa, and soldiers shouted down news of the monsters’ advance and retreat in the face of each volley.
‘What are they doing?’ Alberto asked the bounty hunter, unable to find a reason for the beastmen’s tactics.
‘Testing us,’ replied Brunner. ‘They are trying to see what kind of defence we have, how many archers. Where we are strongest and where we are weakest.’
‘But their probing has cost them ten of their number,’ marvelled the elder Bertolucci.
‘No doubt they can spare twice as many,’ Brunner responded, watching the trees. ‘I had the ill fortune to face the thing that leads these animals, a worshipper of the Blood God. Like its god, it cares not whose blood it sheds.’
A loud cry of savagery rose from the darkness, and the beating of drums rolled from the woods. Horns sounded, their moans low and warped. Shouts both near-human and unhuman roared into the night sky. At the edges of the trees, shapes appeared.
‘Looks like our friends are done playing strategist,’ Brunner remarked, raising his crossbow. Then the frenzied, inhuman mob burst from the shadows.
The battle was short, but fierce. Ten more beastmen were wounded or slain by crossbow bolts before they could reach the hill. Brunner had added his own fire to that of the Bertolucci soldiers. As the monsters reached the ruin, Brunner gave the first one to try and batter down the barricade in front of the wide entry a blast from his handgun. The monster shrieked and toppled backwards, its chest a mass of chewed meat. Others were quick to follow it. A second beast perished, its body draped across the barricade as Brunner’s crossbow pistol sent a bolt slamming into its eye. Then he drew his sword and joined the other defenders.
Four of the bodyguards had descended, two of them joining Bertolucci and their other comrade in the far room to protect the stairs. The others joined Alberto and the bounty hunter in the makeshift stable. The horses whinnied in fear as the stench of blood and the mangy pelts of the beastmen reached them. One of the soldiers broke away to try and quiet the animals that were straining at their tethers.
‘Leave them to their fear,’ Brunner called to the man. ‘If you want to help, help us drive this scum away.’
Despite the best efforts of the men, the barricades were not holding. Great holes had been chopped and clawed into the wooden debris, and at each opening a slavering monster snarled. One hound-like thing with a spider-like assemblage of legs and a single clawed hand erupting from its belly leaped through an opening. It capered wildly about in the room, and snapped at the men with its claw before a blow from Alberto’s sword sent the deformed limb sailing away from its body. A stroke from the nearest bodyguard’s blade detached the snapping dog-head from its body. The thing’s abnormal corpse sagged, as a bubble of blood oozed from the stump of its neck.
One of the soldiers cried out. Brunner looked round to see the man’s torso fly away from his legs, and land in a bloody smear against the far wall of the chamber. A massive shape smashed its way through the barricade, its goat-like head craning from side to side, scanning the room for its prey. The monster now wore the severed head of Gramsci about its neck, a length of the man’s intestines tying the trophy to the monster’s neck.
The sight of the gruesome ornament caused Alberto and the remaining bodyguard to fall back in fear. Brunner met the monster’s gaze, his icy stare unflinching before the yellow orbs peering from the beastman’s mask. As the two locked eyes, the sounds of battle died away. The other beastmen fell back, their eyes gleaming in expectation and fear. Each howled for blood, but none of the beastmen wanted that blood to be their own.
The chieftain gestured with its gory bronze axe, a crude parody of Brunner’s own challenge. The bounty hunter raised his sword and closed upon the beast. He circled the monster, as it circled him, its steps uneven as it favoured its uninjured leg. Then it roared and attacked. The axe swung down in a gleaming arc of death—only Brunner’s quick reaction saved him from a blow that would have split him down the middle. Sparks flew as the axe bit into the tile floor.
The beastman recovered as Brunner lashed out at it, catching the killer’s strike on the haft of its great bronze axe. The beastman spat bloody phlegm into Brunner’s face, the gory drool trickling down the side of the bounty hunter’s helm. Brunner replied by kicking a steel-toed boot at the monster’s injured leg. The beast staggered, roaring in anger and pain. Brunner darted in once more, but the monster proved quicker than its great bulk would suggest, and the axe was slashing towards Brunner even as he began to move. The bronze blade scraped across the gromril breastplate, digging a deep scratch in the hard metal.
The bounty hunter arrested his charge; the beastman regained its feet.
Brunner glared at the monster, taunting it with his sword. The beastman snarled back and tensed itself, preparing for some brutal effort. Then it noticed Brunner’s left hand, lying slack and immobile at his side. A flash of warning widened the monster’s eyes and it raised both its hands to ward off the coming attack as Brunner thrust his left arm forward. This time, however, no cloud of salt enveloped the creature’s face. Instead, Brunner slashed the creature’s good leg, cutting through its knee with the blade held in his right hand.
The Chaos abomination screamed as it staggered from the maiming blow. It lashed out at Brunner once more, but the weight of the bronze axe overbalanced the crippled thing and it fell. The bounty hunter was quick to pounce upon his fallen adversary
, slashing its right arm with his sword as his left hand stabbed a dagger across the brute’s face. Thick blood streamed from the ruptured eye, and the beastman’s body twitched in spasms of agony. The Tileans watched in horror as it strove to rise again. But its right arm was nearly severed, and the terrible bronze axe slipped from its slackened grasp.
As the axe clattered to the floor, Brunner darted in once more, stabbing his blade into the monster’s throat, above the gruesome necklace it had crafted. The beastman’s head sagged forward as the bounty hunter withdrew the blade, and it crumpled to the floor like a wilting flower.
The mutant throng at the barricade watched in silence as their champion died. Then a few loped into the room, their clawed hands empty. Brunner and the Tileans watched warily as the creatures converged on the body of their leader. Gripping the carcass under the arms and by the legs, two brutes carried it back through the doorway. A third beastman, its face almost human but for the horns sprouting along the bridge of its nose, grabbed the bronze axe with its clawed arms and followed its comrades.
Slowly, the brutish throng retreated. When the horses at last grew quiet, the men knew that the last of their foes had truly gone.
Brunner made his way to the barricade and peered down on the moonlit clearing below.
‘I truly hate working for free,’ the bounty hunter muttered to himself.
Brunner watched as the silent beastmen bore the corpse of their champion into the gloom of the trees. He looked over at the younger Bertolucci leaning against the doorway. The young man’s face was smeared with dirt and dried bestial blood, his clothing ragged and torn, his leather tunic sporting a gash that had nearly penetrated the skin beneath.
‘Think they will come again?’ the merchant asked. ‘Slink back into the woods and rally?’