Archaon: Lord of Chaos

by Rob Sanders

  Within moments the palace gate was before them. The barbican was a smashed mess of twisted metal. Within the palace walls, a stampede of liberated monstrosities had grown and grown as it was corralled along the spiralling, concentric pathway that led through the menagerie. Great horned beasts, things of tusk and monstrous bulk tore through the bars of adjacent cages in the raging hope of escape and the terror of being recaptured. Creatures and captives from such cages were swept up in the stampede, swelling its force and number as charms were torn from their necks and the hold of Jharkill’s primitive magic broken. As Dorghar swept Archaon up and over the palace walls, the Chaos warrior could see the monstrous horde of former exhibits pouring through the breached barbican with many helplessly impaled on the metal spikes that faced both inward and out from the metal wall.

  Sweeping from side to side with the flock, the screeching swarm took him over the devastation of the menagerie. The broken bars of cages lined the gravel walkways. The long cavalcade that had brought Archaon in previously was now just ivory splinters stomped into the earth. Daemonettes had been stamped to death and crushed against the bars of the cages they had formerly patrolled. While many creatures had fled the palace menagerie at their first, terrified opportunity, the more savage and intelligent had remained. Predacious monsters stalked the walkways and demolished enclosures, their freedom – both from their cages and the sorcerous charms that enslaved them – allowing old instincts to return.

  Creatures of claw, fang and sabre-tooth savaged their former keepers, tearing apart shrieking daemonettes between them like packs of voracious wolves and feasting on the carcasses. Long-snouted hounds ran for their lives, cowering in the demolished cages they had formerly been charged with guarding, as chimeric predators hunted them down and savaged the infernal watch dogs. Half-breeds, daemonkin and warrior spawn snatched broken bars, bones and abandoned weaponry, moving between cages to free further monsters and setting upon daemonic keepers whose slashing whips and shrill warnings did little to keep them from slaughtering Lord Agrammon’s sultry servants.

  Like a flock of bats, Dorghar began a circle of the tower palace. The inner enclosures had suffered the worst of the damage. Now that the daemon lord’s most prized exhibits were free they visited their dangerous abilities on the tower and the structures about it. A glowing blaze danced about the ruined enclosures and scorched the spiked side of the metal tower, as a dread phoenix-like monster of feather, flame and flesh-shearing beak flapped about the structures, fanning the destruction. A shovel-nosed dragon waddled straight through the enclosures, the mighty crystal spines that covered its body dripping with the blood and torn flesh of shredded daemons. An octopoid monstrosity tore itself into pieces as the colossal beast attempted to haul the spiked tower down at its base.

  Multi-limbed spawn gibbered and climbed like tree-top mammals, desperate to find a way inside, while carnivorous splice-creatures scrambled up through the twisted forest of poison-tip spikes with grapnel-like claws. The undead colossus, the green curselight burning bright within the towering rot of its carcass, tore the twisted mess of tangled enclosures up in its great mummified hands and smashed at the side of the palace citadel. At the huge entrance to the tower was the crumpled metal of a thick door. The unleashed fury of the abominate slaughterbrute smashed at the door. Horns, crushing jaws, hooves, clawed fists, the chitinous armour of spiked shoulders: the blood-crazed monstrosity could smell prey inside the tower and would not be denied deaths and the wanton destruction that was its only reason for being. It would pound the great metal door of the palace tower down or pound itself to a messy, god-honouring death in its attempt to do so.

  As the shrieking flock of imps banked and circled the tower, Archaon could see the structure shake under the assault. The huge, cloud-scraping crescent that sat atop the bell spire honouring Lord Agrammon’s patron power wobbled, toppled and tumbled down the side of the building. It fell down the considerable height of the citadel before bouncing off the downward angled spikes of the tower, spinning and smashing into the flame-racked menagerie. As he circled, the Chaos warrior would have liked to have seen the tortured exhibits and former captives tear down the tower of the daemon but with Giselle, the sorcerer Sheerian and the Swords of Chaos trapped within he could not risk such wanton havoc. He needed to do what every other former exhibit of Lord Agrammon’s was failing to achieve. He needed to get inside.

  From within, watch-daemons were blowing their horns to call reinforcements back from the Wastes outside the palace, not knowing that Ograx the Great and Archaon’s bestial horde were keeping them busy with their deaths. From the inner part, the huge and bulbous bell tower crowned the spiked shape of the citadel, and the Chaos warrior could hear the ecstatic moan of the bell there. With his slave soldiers and daemonettes trapped inside, caught up in the chaos of the menagerie or being slaughtered outside the palace walls, Agrammon had become desperate. The groaning boom of the bell could mean only one thing as its peeling madness rolled through the Gatelands and the dread palaces crowding the ruin-spewing portal set in the bottom of the world. The daemon lord was appealing to other servants of Slaanesh, infernal royalty and infernal overlords also pledged to the Prince of Pleasure. For all Archaon knew, he was calling for assistance from the daemon lords in service to other Chaos Powers, in the perverse hope that they might assist him for their own diabolical reasons. That, Archaon could not allow.

  Spiralling up and around the tower, Archaon guided the shrieking flock of tiny furies up towards the churning clouds above. The heights were featureless and devoid of windows, openings or even arrow slits. It was a barbed nightmare of black, otherworldy metal all the way to the top, glistening with all manner of deviant toxins designed to inflict pleasure, madness and death – in that order. Only the twisted columns of the metal belfry seemed to allow any admittance, with the bombastic boom of the citadel bell allowed to travel unhindered by thick metal wall or nest of spikes. Dorghar seemed to know what Archaon was planning to do and swooped straight in on the bell tower. The Chaos warrior thought he might leap to the structure but the Steed of the Apocalypse had other ideas, the flock screeching straight through the belfry. Archaon turned his helm, expecting to hit the unforgiving metal of the bell tower or even the bell itself.

  As the tiny, winged monsters shrieked and streamed through the columns, Archaon found his boots reach the belfry floor. Grabbing out for the twisted metal of the structure, Archaon steadied himself. He slid down onto his knees, poked his head between the columns and stared down the serrated lethality of the citadel. With the bell tower buffeted by the perverse gales and tinged by the broiling clouds about the Southern Gate, it appeared to be one hell of a drop. To make matters worse, the monstrous assault being mounted at the base of the tower caused the structure to sway with a sickening motion. The Chaos warrior watched the swarm of furies weave, spiral and surge away. Turning, he found one of the imps clutching to a twisted metal column beside him.

  ‘Never,’ Archaon told it, catching his breath, ‘never, do that again.’

  The imp chittered cheekily to itself before flapping its wings and swooping off after the rest of the flock. Getting once more to his feet, Archaon found himself in the presence of the tower’s great bell. Everything about its daemonic craftsmanship seemed darkly suggestive, and even the rapturous moan of its peeling was a soul-splitting sound that passed straight through the Chaos warrior and his plate in its attempt to stir him.

  Looking under the bell and down through the tower interior, Archaon found it to be surprisingly devoid of structures. He had expected to fight his way through well-guarded chambers and twisting stairwells. Instead, he found a largely open space within the metal walls of the citadel – a colossal, vaulted single throne chamber housed within the soaring monstrosity of the palace tower. Archaon flared his nostrils. The twilight within was lit with torches dribbling with the fat of skinned half-breeds while the stench of the interior smelled like a torture ch
amber.

  As he peered down through the darkness and distance of the tower interior, Archaon had to rely not only upon the sight of his good eye but also his darksight, and the piercing visions granted to him by the Eye of Sheerian. The wretched light of the torches danced their dull radiance off the expanse of metal below. Tower-spanning blades. Spear-tipped poles. A twisted nest of razor-edge shafts, serrated beams and inward pointing spikes. There were bodies everywhere. Things that had shafts of metal straight through them. Things hanging from hooks and sharpened spines. Things in a state of perpetual disembowelment. Things suspended from spikes running through limbs, hearts and skulls. Exotic half-breeds. Daemonforms that could barely be looked upon. Monstrosities of every variety – chimeric fusions, warped titans, spawn tortured by their many godly gifts. A personal collection and private pleasure. Something Lord Agrammon reserved for himself. The throne room was a twisted cage turned inside out – one in which the captives were impaled on the very bars that imprisoned them and through some warped damnation, were never allowed to perish. Archaon listened to the doomed specimens groan their agonies and ecstasies away, reaching out for one another with hands, claws and deformed appendages that trembled with the torture of the effort.

  With a snarl of distaste curling his lip, Archaon climbed through, under the booming bell and down through the twisted nest of blades and spikes. The crowded criss-crossing of black metal shafts made the descent a long but easy one – even with the use of only one arm. As he moved down through the spider’s web of lethal skewers, the Chaos warrior took care to avoid the grasping bodies of the impaled and the myriad spines, hooks and spikes that seemed designed to find their way in through his armour. He did his best to negotiate shafts and poles that were slick with the never-ending drizzle of blood, sweat and tears that fell down through the twisted nest of the afflicted like rain. Some spikes glistened with painted poisons or potions that would visit upon bare flesh only the Prince of Pleasure knew what. Other shafts were supernaturally sharp blades designed to shear off hand or foot. It was a death trap like no other Archaon had encountered.

  As he descended, Archaon could see the throne room proper below him. The nest of skewering death merely existed as a private exhibit to be enjoyed at any time, the falling drizzle of bodily fluids helping to feed the shallows that flooded the floor of the chamber. The cacophony of the assault drowned out even the distant peeling of the bell, which Archaon now saw was being rung by some kind of daemonic herald – a child-like daemonette wearing its horns like a twisted crown. The herald hauled on a razored chain that ran the distance between the huge ground floor chamber and the bell tower. Meanwhile outside, the slaughterbrute and a growing number of other monstrosities were fighting their way into the tower. Pounding at the metal walls and door. Tearing, scratching and biting. Bathing the tower base in flame, the glow of which could be seen even inside the chamber.

  Peering down through the dungeon twilight of the chamber, the miserable drizzle and the bars, Archaon looked for Giselle and the others. It did not take him long to find them. Even below the nest of skewers and blades in which he was perched, the interior walls of the throne room were carpeted with smaller spikes and hooks. Spread out around the chamber, Archaon could see that Agrammon had ordered the newly taken prisoners cruelly hung from such adornments. He saw Eins, Zwei and Drei hanging limply from a nest of piercing spines, their impaled hands and wings spread out so that the warriors could not reach their precious bone swords. Archaon could see the ancient sorcerer Sheerian hanging from a single wicked hook by his hunch, while the misshapen Vier was suspended nearby.

  Then he saw her. Giselle, still draped in skins and furs, her head drooping to one side within her shaggy hood, and her body hanging from wicked barbs embedded cleanly through her delicate hands. Sheerian and the Swords had been hooked at intervals about the wall, with Giselle situated at the rear of the throne room.

  As he stared at her, Archaon didn’t quite know what was happening inside him. His chest fluttered with something approaching genuine feeling. Something that wasn’t anger, scorn or some dark expression of his black heart. It felt light but stung deep, like a stiletto blade so sharp that it had passed unknowingly through the flesh to stab the organs within. Archaon knew he wasn’t feeling the burning need for revenge – although he understood that would come. It wasn’t that the daemon lord had taken something precious from Archaon and had to pay. That notion too would come to pass.

  It was the ghost of some kind of responsibility that haunted Archaon. Something the doomed warrior thought he was long past. Something that he feared was unacceptable weakness in a champion of the Ruinous Powers, in he who would be the Everchosen of Chaos. Archaon knew it was more than just a fear. He looked about the nest of daemons he had crept into. If it were not for Giselle, he probably wouldn’t have risked such a suicidal endeavour. Sheerian and the Swords had sold their souls to the Dark Gods – whatever their fate was, Archaon was confident that the Tzeentchian sorcerer and the winged warriors of Chaos had it coming. The lost and the damned that followed in Archaon’s exalted footsteps only respected strength. In time they would rally to the banner of some other dark champion or worse butcher than Archaon for the Ruinous treasures he possessed. It had happened before, and the Chaos warrior had every intention of those lost souls losing their lives in his dread service long before they entertained such an inclination.

  Kneeling above their bodies, their blood leaking down the walls and into the shallows, Archaon did come to wonder why he had kept the Swords and Sheerian around so long. The sorcerer certainly had his uses and the Swords had appointed themselves his bodyguards long before he knew who he really was. While damnation had cost him almost everything – a damned soul and a cold heart to go with it – he still felt some strange attachment to Giselle. Long after he had given himself to his dark fate and the necessities of his search for the treasures of Chaos, he had hardened to the afflictions of common men. He had loved the God-King and his service to Sigmar as a templar knight. Such love had been swallowed by the flames of his anger. A soul-scarring sense of betrayal so powerful that it had sent Archaon into the service of Dark Gods. In serving himself, he would destroy the cold majesty of all those foolish enough to call themselves god.

  He had loved Dagobert – the priest who had raised him like a father. Frozen to an agonising numbness on the Southern Wastes, Archaon had felt little or nothing at the priest’s death. A man who had loved him so much his loyalty had endured through heresy and madness, loved him so much that he had followed him on a doomed crusade to the other side of the world. Had tried to save him from his dark fate, from himself and the Yien-Ya-Long – and the only flame Archaon could keep stoked in the icy wilderness of the Wastes and his own heart was the burning desire to realise his dark and all-dominating destiny. Archaon could not save Dagobert from the abominate dragon, however, and although he made the monstrosity pay the price with its own life, he simply filled the emptiness Dagobert had left behind with his indomitable will to survive, to succeed and to see the dark days of the End Times silence man and god alike.

  Giselle. Giselle. Had he come to love Giselle? To truly love her? From a young and foolish Sister of the Imperial Cross – and she had barely been that when he first saved her from the forest beastmen – she had become his prisoner. Like Dagobert she had tried to save him and save the world from his fate. She had poisoned him with the pure silver of her god. She had repeatedly tried to slip steel into his flesh. She had failed, but for all Archaon knew she still intended to do so. In the cold, dark insanity of the Northern Wastes, with nought but death to keep a traveller company, they had found one another. An unspoken need – at first physical – sprung from their shared hate.

  To Giselle, Archaon was an abomination. A man tainted by fate, whose bottomless detestation for all the world would be the end of it. A man who hated his sponsors as much as his enemies and would stop at nothing to realise his destiny. To Archa
on, Giselle was anathema. It was an exquisite agony to press his lips to her. To touch her. To share her bed. Her professed faith in her God-King had burned impossibly bright in the darkness at the top of the world. Of all those who shared Archaon’s journey, she alone seemed to have kept her sanity. The corruptive influence of the Shadowlands seemed to have no effect upon her. While all else in Archaon’s horde grew uglier and more unsightly with the passing years, their ageing flesh a patchwork of scars new over old and the gifts of darkness changing them from the inside out, Giselle had remained as pure and young as the day Archaon had met her. He had thought of her as plain at first and perhaps even tedious in the blindness of her beliefs. In the hideousness of the Wastes, however, he had come to truly see her beauty. Her devotion to the God-King that had formerly been an object of sour derision and hatred had become a wonder to Archaon. A faith held with such indomitable conviction that it buried even his own in its shadow.

  He knew he should have killed her long ago, for it would have been a mercy. He knew he should have cut her loose, but like Terminus he could not bear to be parted from his past. Saving Giselle had been the last truly noble thing Archaon had done in the world. This need was a small, toxic part of himself that he was unwilling to let go. Giselle had become part of that. Archaon had to confront the possibility that in keeping her with him, some scintilla of his soul desired saving and that deep down, under the darkness, hate and the weight of dread expectation, he reserved a kind of hope that might one day lead the way to redemption. Perhaps Giselle Dantziger might save him still. Perhaps that was the reason Archaon had kept her close. So very close. Did he love her? He didn’t know if after all the terrible things he had done and would do, he was capable of such a feeling. He knew he couldn’t be without her. He knew, in dragging her to the other side of the world in the company of Ruinous and evil men, that despite her simple faith she had changed. While her skin was as soft as ever, her eyes were hard. Since coming to the bottom of the world, since the horror of the Yien-Ya-Long, she had changed. Her affections were not so much cold as absent. She walked through the frozen nightmare of the Wastes among beasts and daemons in a silent daze. Like her soft fingertips across his doomed flesh, Archaon had enjoyed her scorn, her challenges and their little war of words. She had said little in the months spent traversing the Southern Wastes. Like his Swords of Chaos, she had become silent.