by Warhammer
No more the furtive scuttling, no more the quick forays for food and firewood. As though coated in armour of impervious steel, the painter made his way towards the treeline, ignoring the stench of rotted flesh as he passed the crude arrangement of animal cadavers. He had taken what he could to eat but there was far too much and every night the contributions from the gor-folk grew a little more rancid.
As he reached the first shadows of the trees he stopped and smiled. Something new. On the path he saw several dozen branches, snapped and stripped, and a pile of smaller twigs beside it.
Firewood.
He glanced back up to the cave and the trickle of smoke that leaked from its entrance now that he was no longer afraid to reveal his presence. He took an armful of the branches and headed back, dumping them on the floor of the outer cave before returning for more. Four trips were needed to convey them all back to his dwelling, but it was a far less laborious task than scouring the woods for the fuel.
Before he moved back into the darkness, he took a last look around. The sun was heading towards the tree-filled horizon, bathing yellow and pale green leaves with russet tones. It had been a dry season, drier than he had known, and the air was thick with a latent storm that never broke. This too, he knew, was a sign, not merely weather. It was a physical accumulation of the pressure he felt inside his head, a symptom of a fire that yearned to burn being held back.
He was part of it somehow, he knew. The dreams, the drawings, were important. He did not know the details, but he knew he had to keep painting until he was finished. Then the truth would be revealed to him.
The painter dumped the firewood down another crack, too narrow for a person to enter but perfect for letting branches drop to the lower cave. He sent down enough just to keep the fire burning that evening; the rest he pushed to the back of the cave before he descended.
The light was better now that he did not have to ration every twig. Leaving the access hole uncovered allowed the morning sun to add its own gleam to the illumination, though this late in the day he needed the firelight to see his work. He snapped a few of the thinner branches over a knee and tossed them onto the dwindling flames, the sun-dried wood flaring immediately. In the sudden burst of wavering light the images on the walls seemed to come alive.
He turned first to the image he had started that morning, but on a whim his gaze continued around the great cavern until it fell upon the first painting. It was crude, even by the standards of his zealous daubing, and his mind’s eye filled in much detail that was lacking in the execution.
The painter approached, eyes drawn to the spots of detail, the features of a child wrapped in a blanket, laid between his parents. Around them were sketched the vague shapes of others, kneeling in supplication whilst raising their arms aloft to a sky filled with many colours. He stepped closer still, hand outstretched towards the infant, caressing the dried paint on the warm stone.
He ran a finger over it as though through the boy’s blond hair and heard the laughter in his dreams, accompanied by a thunderous drumming and the chanting of the surrounding audience.
To be close to the image connected him again to the child in the dreams, bringing to life the dormant recollection of it.
Swiftly he moved along the cave wall, the blur of images charting the boy’s growth; each scene bled into the next to give an illusion of time and movement. In his slumbering thoughts the events had played out over and over, jumbled and intertwined, but from his fingers the shapes had instilled a chronology on the anarchy. A king-to-be amongst his people, surrounded by stern warriors in mail shirts. Destiny hung like a halo upon the boy’s brow, an anointment by powers that the painter did not understand.
Episodes from a young life charted the rise of a legend: the confrontation with the bear; the freeing of the prisoners; the first time he laid his fingers around the handle of the weapon that was to be his fate.
The painter reeled back from the image he had made of that sword. He could not quite remember the frenzy of activity, only dim impressions of first painting a monstrous creature and then obliterating it with black before he sketched out the lines of the blade, curved jags and slender outcrops, unlike any weapon of the Flamescar.
And runes.
He traced them again now, the disturbing half-formed shapes that had spilled unbidden from the red paint on the end of his finger. It had dribbled like blood and dried the same, but the runeshapes were still there, burning into his thoughts. The trails of crimson were long dried but he bent forward and drew his tongue along them as though he might savour the blood, wanting to take its power into himself.
He longed to take its strength into him and pressed his head against the hard stone, teeth bared like a hungry wolf. He pushed harder, the pain of the unflinching rock focusing his thoughts.
So broken and disjointed. The visions he had purged covered a large expanse of the cave but still many remained, keen to be poured out into the firelight.
Dragging himself away from the sword with a lingering stroke over the smooth stone, he stepped back, hands forming fists, ragged nails digging into his palms. Hunger rumbled in his gut but he ignored it. There was cooked meat on the rough pallet in the corner but he did not want the distraction. He rarely looked at what he had drawn, constantly pushed towards expelling the next froth of prophetic imagery. The review of his work steadied his thoughts. The procession of scenes both heroic and grotesque reminded him that he was part of the journey, the pictorial narrator of an unfolding tale that would change the world.
Why he had been chosen he did not know, nor really care. He gave as little thought to whom might have done the choosing. He was simply the painter and this was his task.
His eye slid to the culmination of the first chapter in the tale. Standing proud with baleful sword aloft, clad in armour wrought from dark metals the painter had never heard named, the king of the white wastes stood before his people.
For many a storyteller that would have been the end. The rise from crying infant to lord of his tribe was a tale worthy of any fireside. Foes defeated, monsters slain, treasures won. But it was not the whole story, just a beginning.
The painter smiled and turned fully around to look at his latest work. Onion-domed towers burned and a horde from nightmare poured through shattered city walls, all at the behest of the king-of-kings.
Invigorated, he moved back to the paints, hand trembling with the need to release the pictures inside.
CHAPTER NINE
Having trained, washed and eaten, Athol prised Serleon away from Eruil to show him the Last Forge. The Bataari – or was it Aquitan? He wasn’t sure now – showed only passing interest in the rest of the camp and reacted little to Athol’s explanations as he led him through the bivouacs. It was only when they were nearly at the site of the tribe’s relic furnace that Serleon finally made an observation.
‘You tell me you come through gate from other place, yes?’
‘That’s right. The Khul came to the plateau from beyond the Black Flames.’
‘But no city before? No city in other place?’
It took a moment for Athol to understand what the other man meant.
‘No cities. The Khul were an army. We marched, and we fought. Our children marched with us. No home to protect, no supplies to guard. No weaknesses.’
‘No base. No build. No growing.’ Serleon looked around, shielding his gaze against the rising sun. Near-identical shelters stretched out in every direction, their neat rows highlighted by the long, stark shadows. ‘What is point?’
‘To survive,’ Athol replied, confused by the question. ‘You said it yourself, Aquita is now part of Bataar. In time, Bataar will fall to someone else. Ten generations from now all of this will have changed. But not the Khul. The Khul will always remain.’
‘Pfah, is nothing forever.’ Serleon rubbed a hand through his short hair crest. ‘Khul just other tribe.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Athol told him. ‘The Khul have a long memory. We remem
ber stories from before all of this. Not in books, but in our hearts and words.’
‘Time before is myth. Child story, maybe? Only now. Only here.’
‘The one that led us through the Black Flames knew. He was the one that carried the stories of the Khul with him.’
‘Where he now?’
‘Dead.’ Athol shifted uneasily, realising he had brought up a poor topic. ‘He killed some people he shouldn’t have, before the peace with Aridian. He was cut and left bleeding out in the wastes to die.’
‘Nice.’ The Aquitan’s expression showed that he thought very different. ‘We chop off head. Is quick.’
‘Why should punishment be quick?’ asked Athol.
Serleon did not reply, for they had come to the centre of the camp, the site of the Last Forge.
It had been part of the Khul for as long as anyone could remember, a physical link to their earliest ancestors – folk that, the legends claimed, were carved from ice in a land where the sun shone only for one day a year. Those same stories had spoken of a time when such wonders as the Last Forge were commonplace, gifts from an unspoken benefactor. Yet now only the Last Forge remained, hence its name.
In form it was not so different to the furnace of a normal foundry, though somewhat smaller in size than even the portable forge-works used by the Aridians. Its casing was moulded in such a fashion that it seemed to be made of brazen bones and heaped skulls, entwined and piled upon each other. When it was in use, the eyes of the fleshless heads gleamed with power and sometimes Athol thought he heard whispers from the artefact.
‘Is magic?’ asked Serleon, eyeing the grotesque device suspiciously. ‘Look… strange.’
‘Yes, it is magic. Powerful sorcery from the earliest days of the Khul.’ Athol stepped forward, picking his way past the racks of tools and three anvils that had been set up close to the Last Forge, the furnace-device dormant. He put his fingers into the eye sockets and mouth of one particular skull that served as a handle. ‘It’s not dangerous.’
He pulled and the front of the Last Forge opened, two doors swinging out and up like the spreading wings of an eagle. Inside was shadowed, but the edges of a ragged gemstone larger than Athol’s fist could be seen within, nestled in a bed of salt-like crystals.
‘How it work?’
Athol cast his gaze around and saw an ingot of bronze that had been left close at hand. He picked it up and placed it inside a long-handled crucible, which he slid into the Last Forge, close to the centre but not touching the main crystal.
‘Nothing happen.’ Serleon’s curiosity became confusion. ‘Perhaps it broken?’
‘Everything we forge is bound to us,’ explained Athol. ‘The Khul and the Last Forge are as one. We and our weapons are forged together, the blade an extension of our bodies, our bodies an extension of the blade. This is why.’
On the top of the Last Forge was a slender spike, spiralled like the horn of the nordeer. Athol touched his wrist to the point, which seemed to give him the lightest of scratches, but from the cut oozed a thimbleful of blood. He withdrew his hand, a thumb pressed against the wound. The blood separated into droplets, each running down the spiral of the spike until they disappeared into the body of the Last Forge.
A couple of heartbeats later a blood drop fell from the ceiling of the interior, directly onto the central crystal. The jagged-edged stone started to glow with an odd greenish-black hue, the intensity growing and spreading to the surrounding crystals as more blood dripped onto it.
Within moments, the heat washing from the open doors had sweat beading on Athol’s skin. He heard Serleon muttering something under his breath, most likely swearing in his native tongue.
‘No spark, no coals, no bellows. Just a drop of blood will power the Last Forge for a morning.’
He waited a short while and then with a hand wrapped in a hide strip he pulled out the crucible and showed Serleon the molten contents. He nodded towards a variety of moulds and formers – shield bosses, sword and knife shapes, spear tips and arrowheads.
‘It is more than just a quick, easy fire,’ he continued, pouring the molten bronze back into an ingot mould. Using a pair of tongs, he set the mould upon an anvil where it started to cool. ‘Watch.’
Serleon looked past him at the solidifying metal. At first it looked like any molten bronze, a shimmer of silver appearing through the red-hot liquid. As time passed a deeper red started to form flecks on the surface alongside the hardening alloy. Shapes appeared, fleeting but unmistakable, of runic letters in a language none amongst the Khul could decipher. He heard Serleon gasp and knew that the Bataari had seen them too. They faded quickly, reformed into new shapes and then they too disappeared, seeming to sink into the metal as it became solid once more.
‘Better than Bataari steel, I think,’ said Athol, returning the tools to their proper places. From a box he lifted up the cast blade and tang of a knife, still awaiting the final work that would add the hilt and pommel. ‘Sharpens easily and keeps an edge for a long time.’
‘It fix steel?’ said Serleon, holding up his breastplate, the greenish gleam of the Last Forge dancing along the edges of the clean cut left by Athol’s spear stroke.
‘It’s a forge. It heats. The work comes from the smith, same as always. Gailth will be here soon. She’ll repair that for you, or one of the other smiths.’ Athol pointed at the glowing crystals and leaned closer. ‘And I’ve already started the forge, so you don’t even have to give up your blood for it…’
‘Me… Thank you, Athol Khul. You be very kind to me.’ Serleon set the breastplate down, slightly nonplussed. ‘Me give coin.’
‘Coins mean nothing to the Khul. You are my guest.’
‘In Bataar all things have price.’
‘They do here, too,’ Athol said quietly. ‘We just don’t measure it in gold or coin. We judge a person by how they conduct themselves. Honour, pride, achievement. These are our currency. You fought well, behaved honourably. This is your reward from me.’
The Bataari scratched his chin, brow furrowed, still trying to get his head around the concept.
‘If it makes you feel better, I’m sure Gailth wouldn’t be offended by the gift of a bottle of Aquita red.’
Serleon smiled.
‘Me understand that.’ Serleon looked up at the sky, one eye closed. ‘Time going. You are leaving, yes?’
‘Yes, I will have to get ready to return to the royal city soon if I’m going to arrive by noon.’
He had quite forgotten the coming journey, and the reminder of its uncertain purpose must have shown in his expression.
‘Is not happy meeting,’ said Serleon. ‘Not another trial so soon?’
‘I don’t know what it is, Serleon,’ replied Athol. ‘The lawsmith, Orhatka, has sent for me. An emissary from… somewhere I can’t work out.’
‘Best run along, spear-carrier,’ said the Bataari. He said it jovially but the tone irritated Athol, as though he were a child being summoned by a parent, or a dog called to the hand of the hunter.
‘I will see you later,’ he managed to say. He took a few strides and then looked back at the other warrior. ‘Don’t let Eruil boss you around all day.’
‘Me not,’ said Serleon.
‘And you are here under my protection. If anyone acts poorly, tell Marolin and she’ll put them straight.’
‘Me will.’
‘But try not to say anything too outrageous, I don’t want you insulting any of my people either.’
‘You think so bad of me?’
‘No, just be wary.’ Athol returned a couple of paces. ‘Nobody should give you a hard time but I’m not as popular as you might hope at the moment. As my guest some of my people might try to turn you into something to use against me. Give them a chance and they might be quick to take offence.’
‘Me not spoil your good name,’ Serleon replied with mock seriousness. ‘Mother.’
Athol knew how it looked, and was probably creating enemies from thin air, but h
e liked Serleon despite what Marolin had said about his mercenary outlook.
‘Just stay out of trouble, please?’ Athol directed a stare at the Bataari. ‘If someone thinks you have insulted them they will challenge you to a trial. And, unlike me, they will kill you.’
Serleon’s smile faded under the intensity of Athol’s look. He nodded sombrely.
‘Go,’ said the warrior. ‘Me be safe.’
Athol headed back towards his shelter, almost instantly forgetting any concerns for the Bataari as he turned his mind to what awaited him in the royal city.
As Athol neared the outskirts of the royal city, a young man emerged from the mass of pavilions and headed quickly towards him. It was Rosati, one of Orhatka’s apprentices. He looked exasperated.
‘The lawsmith expected you this morning,’ said Rosati, hurrying Athol with a waved hand. ‘He was not happy with your reply.’
Athol stopped in his tracks and planted his spear in the dirt, eyes narrowed.
‘Perhaps I should just turn around and head back?’
Rosati gaped with horror at the suggestion, hands falling to his sides.
‘Is this the way to greet Queen Humekhta’s spear-carrier?’
‘I’m sorry,’ blurted Rosati, moving from one foot to the other, glancing back towards the royal city. ‘My master… He has been vexed by your absence.’
‘That’s his problem,’ replied Athol. The young man bobbed around a little longer, biting his lip. Athol relented, pulling up his spear. ‘Run back and tell them to expect me soon. I will attend the queen directly.’
Rosati nodded his thanks with an absurdly grateful smile and jogged away, disappearing into the royal city.
Athol waited a few heartbeats despite his promise to continue with all speed. He should have asked Rosati what was happening, but instead the lawsmith’s apprentice had distracted him with his agitation and now Athol would be arriving at the court no wiser than when he had left the Khul.