by Rob Sanders
The firebrand that Archaon had come to appreciate amongst his horde of sycophantic savagery had steamed away to nothing in the ice and snow. Her sufferings had sapped her of everything but a miserable determination to go on. Now here, in the palace of a daemon lord, at the very bottom of the known world, she suffered still. No more. No more.
In the booming cacophony of the infernal throne room, Archaon searched for threats. Foes that would come to know the Chaos warrior’s cold steel. Daemonettes stood in the shallows. Armoured in spiked plate fashioned from the same strange metal as the tower, they carried the broad serrated blades of sickle swords and crescent shields bearing the sigil of their daemon lord, set within the Ruinous emblem of the Prince of Pleasure. Only parts of their chests were left exposed by curving chestplates – to honour their Lord Agrammon’s infernal sponsor. The daemonettes knelt in the shallows, horned heads down, the gauntlets of the left hands extended to cover their sister’s daemon breast in a formation of throne-honouring supplication. These were not keepers of the royal menagerie but Agrammon’s palace guard. The elite of his daemonic horde. Should the beasts outside gain entrance to the tower it would fall to them to be Lord Agrammon’s last line of defence. They would have to face Archaon first – as would their monstrous master.
Lord Agrammon was a monstrous creature indeed: a gangly, serpentine thing of desirous daemonflesh and dark appetite. Up close, Archaon appreciated that Agrammon was neither a he nor a she but a towering it.
A hermaphrodite horror, the daemon’s long face held an unspeakable beauty that trailed into two sweeping horns and a cranial nest of long tentacles that drooped down behind the nightmare creature. The appendages oozed and slithered about the daemon’s body, keeping it sickly and slick like an eel. The monster’s upper body clicked with chitinous claws and pincers that continually nipped at the thing’s smooth flesh, opening ichor-dribbling wounds that almost immediately healed in a perpetual frenzy of regenerative affliction. Its arms were slender but taut with the daemonic strength required to lift the spindly nightmare off its colossal talons. Each one presented a clawed hand, within a clawed hand, within a clawed hand. Its chest and torso bled some different kind of noxious poison or infernal potion. These ran the length of Agrammon’s serpent body, the slime-exuding coils of which ran around and around the sensual suggestion of the daemon’s throne. The Slaaneshi horror wore no clothes or armour but simply jangled with the studs, spikes and decorative rings that were hooked through its infernal flesh.
Shimmying along one of the poles that spanned the tower, Archaon reached the back wall of the chamber. Slowly… silently… Archaon began the careful climb down, using the filthy hooks and poison-smeared spikes that decorated it. Taking great care not to impale himself on the lethal points and even greater care not to attract the attention of Agrammon and the daemonettes in the throne room, Archaon descended through the murky twilight.
Between the obscene throne, the dungeon glow of the torches and the haze of drizzle falling from the unfortunates above, Archaon was largely hidden from view. With the thunder of the assault on the palace door drowning out the scrapes of boot and the exertions of climbing down with one arm, Archaon risked a little more speed. It was ill-advised and the Chaos warrior slipped from a curved barb and fell the rest of the way, splashing into the shallows. By the time the foetid spray of gloop had fallen about him, Archaon had already cleared Terminus from its fur scabbard. He expected to be set upon by Agrammon’s daemonette elite but the noise had attracted little attention. The daemonette herald continued to ring the tower bell. The booming assault on the door continued. The lesser daemons that made up Lord Agrammon’s personal guard kept their formation before the throne. Agrammon itself was distracted by another matter.
From the shadows nearby, Archaon heard the jangle of chains. Being careful of the spikes, Archaon backed to the wall, as though impaled there himself beside the hanging Giselle. Four long-snouts brought forth a hulking prisoner. The beastfiends each held the end of a chain attached to a single metal collar around the prisoner’s fat neck. Hauling at the chains, the long-snouts dragged the stumbling creature until he was presented before the throne. With the throne’s back to him, Archaon couldn’t see Agrammon’s reaction to the prisoner but noted that the nest of tentacles snaking down the throne’s back became twitchy and aggravated as though the daemon were displeased.
Looking back to the prisoner, Archaon instantly recognised him. He was looking at Jharkill, Agrammon’s hunter of rare and freakish specimens for its caged collection. The long-snouts – former members of Jharkill’s own team of handlers – pulled on the chains to bring the malformed ogre crashing down onto his knees in the shallows. One long-snout held the shaman’s crossbar staff, jangling the useless charms that dangled from it. Another held Jharkill’s great ivory bow. Both were tossed into the stinking slime before Agrammon’s throne. Jharkill’s skins were ragged and torn, his flesh a criss-cross of ribbons where he had suffered the barbed lash for his failures. Archaon pursed his cracked lips. He had brought the mighty Jharkill to this. He had slipped into the menagerie. He had started liberating exhibits. He had stolen one of Agrammon’s prized specimens and escaped with the Steed of the Apocalypse. Now the menagerie was in chaos and the daemon lord’s palace besieged by things that had been for so long imprisoned at Agrammon’s pleasure – to feed the daemon’s bottomless need to possess the rare, the abominable and the monstrous.
The daemon lord spoke. Its voice was the sound of a thousand souls in rapture. It was both chilling and thrilling to hear. Agrammon spoke in a damned language that Archaon did not understand. It was like crushed glass in the ear, but all the Chaos warrior needed to do was watch them speak with their bodies. Agrammon was demanding some kind of explanation for Jharkill’s failure – that much was clear. The monstrous daemon moved between the indulgent excess of slick fury, spoken with the voices of its thousand swallowed souls, to sultry invitations and encouragements that drew delight from the gathered audience of supplicating daemonettes. It seemed that even in the midst of calamity, enduring the sting of disappointment, the Prince of Pleasure’s daemon would still find something to enjoy. There were the myriad pleasures of new alliances to consider, with bell-drawn servants of darkness from nearby daemon palaces; a menagerie and collection to re-build – bigger, more exotic and ever more miserable that the first; delicious punishments to be issued among Agrammon’s own wretched servants for their disastrous failure.
The long-snouts hauled at the chains, bringing Jharkill’s head up before his daemonic master. It seemed to Archaon that the monstrous ogre wasn’t much for begging or supplication and looked on Agrammon’s obscene form with eyes shimmering with pain and dull hatred. The creature knew it was dead. Daemon lords did not make forgiving masters. The Slaaneshi abomination would find all manner of deviant uses for the monster’s flesh, however, before it allowed him to perish in its dark god’s honour.
Archaon watched as Jharkill’s silence was rewarded with sorcerous words spoken from Agrammon’s wet lips. Jharkill thrashed to one side as a malicious word from the daemon lord sliced his flesh across his belly and face in a single invisible stroke. The ogre’s blubbery hide gaped where the daemon had cut him. Jharkill remained silent. Again and again, Lord Agrammon spoke the words, slashing the monster once more across his mangled face and across the hunch of his back. Thrusting his chest forward, the hulk’s form rose and fell with the exertion of breathing and the relief of the unseen assault’s respite. Still he would not speak, simply glowering up at the perverse form of his former master.
New words issued forth from the throne and Jharkill bent over, clutching his barrel chest as though he was suffering some kind of internal torment. The ogre huntsman’s face contorted about his agony and the throne room echoed with a single, wretched scream. Once more the monster was allowed the Prince of Pleasure’s blessing and could not help a crooked smile of relief crack his contorted features. The pain
was over. The smile died on Jharkill’s ugly face. Pulling his ragged skins and furs aside, Archaon could see a death mask of agony fixed in the flesh of the ogre’s chest. With a single fell word, Lord Agrammon had murdered Jharkill’s malformed twin – his brother abomination and sharer of his flesh. Jharkill’s roar shook the throne room, sending ripples through the murky shallows of sweat and blood.
Archaon knew that he had to make the most of the distraction. Grabbing Giselle by the chin he lifted her head level with his own. The girl’s face was strangely serene for someone who had hung for hours – perhaps days – from spikes erupting from the palms of her hands. Her eyelids fluttered before the blank white of her eyes.
‘Giselle,’ the Chaos warrior said softly. ‘Giselle, it’s me.’
The girl’s thin eyebrows rose for a moment in recognition before her face screwed up in a moment of pain. Archaon felt her head fall as she lapsed back into unconsciousness. Lowering it he took the first of her hands and eased it as gently as he could off the filthy spike. There was blood. It leaked down the wall and dripped into the shallows, clouding the already murky water red. The metal at the spike point seemed discoloured, as though something had been smeared on it. As her hand juddered along the shaft of the spike, the girl stirred. Drawing his left hand back he smothered the scream of pain about to erupt from her mouth with his gauntlet. ‘Giselle, listen to me,’ Archaon told her, leaning the skull faceplate of his helm in close. ‘We’re in danger. No sound.’
The girl’s head suddenly came up as though woken from a dream. Her eyes opened and while bleary were still blank white. Her dirty face and the mask of agony into which it had tightened suddenly relaxed. She smiled even, which Archaon thought strange, until he remembered the variety of potions and poisons dribbled, painted and smeared onto every blade, point and surface in the palace. Giselle groaned. It was a warm intimate sound. The kind that she had made with him before.
‘Giselle, wake up.’
As he got the first hand off the spike and leant her body against his, he told her: ‘Listen girl, wake up. I need you on your feet if we’re going to make it out of here.’ Giselle moaned again, reaching out for Archaon with her mess of a hand. ‘No,’ Archaon said, holding her with difficulty and trying to get her other hand off the spike. There was more blood. The Chaos warrior assumed that the movement must have been agony but the girl let out a half-stifled whoop of delight. Whatever monstrous concoction was smeared on the spike was poisoning the girl’s mind, clouding it with reversals. In the palace of the Slaaneshi daemon lord, Giselle was experiencing pain as pleasure. With the girl leaning against his plate, Archaon could only hope such chemical enchantments worked the other way. Grabbing his helm by one of its great horns, Archaon pulled the helmet from his face and leaned in to kiss Giselle. The Chaos warrior knew instantly that he was right as the dreamy look was driven from the girl’s face. She reacted as though her lips had touched molten metal and drew her head back. Her expression fluttered through the tautness of pain, through wide-eyed shock and confusion. Her eyes were no longer the blank white of euphoria. She saw him and whimpered.
‘Archaon…’ she managed, bringing her exhausted arms limply up and wiping the ghostly burn from her lips. All she managed to do, however, was smear blood across the bottom half of her face. The Chaos warrior allowed her to look upon the dread fortitude of his face. His pale skin, shot through with networks of blue veins that coursed with unnatural power. His hairless head, scarred with marks from a thousand battles. His cracked lips, broken nose and the patch he wore over his ruined eye – in the socket of which was still the shard of wyrdstone that had given him his darksight and allowed him to see the monstrous truth of the world. He allowed the helm of Morkar to fall once more. He had to get her out of here. With any good fortune he might be able to recover the sorcerer Sheerian, Eins, Drei, Zwei and Vier from a similar fate. Giselle held on to him. He needed her to walk but she remained frozen to the spot. ‘Archaon,’ she said again, her voice a strangled whisper.
The Chaos warrior rotated. He had no good fortune and it seemed never would have. Holding Giselle to him in her furs, Archaon turned. With the cacophony at the thick metal door to the palace filling the throne room, Archaon had not noticed that the child-herald had stopped ringing the tower bell. That Jharkill was no longer roaring his fraternal fury. That the daemon lord Agrammon had stopped parting flesh with cutting words from his lips. He found Agrammon and his daemon court there, watching them both. The herald wore a deranged smile in expectation of the horror to come. The daemonettes were still in formation but had come forth, serrated swords presented, giving the Chaos warrior stabbing glares of predacious intent. The daemon Agrammon had simply heaved on the serpentine coils circling the dais and turned the metal obscenity of the throne around to face Archaon and Giselle.
Archaon decided that there was really only one thing to do and drew Terminus from its scabbard. The Sigmarite sword hissed as it cleared the fur. Holding the blade out in front of him, Archaon moved in front of Giselle, who was now standing bolt upright. Archaon was furious. Mostly at himself. The Slaaneshi daemon lord and its attendant monstrosities might not have heard the slip of his boot or the splash of his descent, but their unnatural senses were keenly sensitive to even the slightest moan of pleasure. That was undoubtedly why the holding spikes were coated with foul unguents and concoctions.
Agrammon said nothing at first. It merely watched him. His presence seemed to give the creature some sense of unearthly satisfaction. Once again, the daemon seemed unconcerned by the threat presented by such developments, instead reacting with the perversity of a ghastly smile. Perhaps it was impressed that the Chaos warrior had managed to breach the palace walls to rescue the prisoners. Perhaps it was looking forward to the rapture of old torments visited upon fresh victims. Perhaps the creature was ecstatic that the being responsible for the delight of its current woes had delivered himself before the daemon lord.
Archaon backed through the shallows and moved to the side, his footsteps sloshing through the bodily fluids. Daemonettes hissed at him. They licked their lips with forked tongues and stomped through the waters about him.
Agrammon nodded. Two of the daemonettes came at him. Archaon snarled. He was to be tested. The daemonettes’ movements were fast. They moved with a slick lethality – like predators striking. Their swordplay was exotic and the serrated sickle swords were wielded with a combination of diabolical confidence, skill and strength. The Chaos warrior did not have time for such games, however. He could not afford to be separated from Giselle – who was his, once again – or manoeuvred around into a more vulnerable position. He saw no point in concealing his own lethality, however, and despite being bereft of his shield and fighting with his left hand, put the daemonettes down brutally. Within moments, one creature’s head had been cleaved in two, while another lost a leg and was casually stabbed through both its hell-forged plate and its ample chest as it thrashed about uselessly in the shallows.
Another nod from Agrammon and three of its daemonic elite splashed through the waters at him. Archaon decided that if they were going to play the daemon lord’s game, he would at least try to work his way around to the door. The three daemonettes died faster and easier than their infernal sisters, the blessed steel of Terminus sizzling through the throat of the first, then after side-stepping the serrated bite of a sickle sword, the second, before messily braining the third with the broad flat of the templar blade. Keeping their backs to the spiked wall of the chamber, Archaon worked his way around to the door, despatching a group of four daemonettes with little more trouble than the corpses in the shallows, already bearing witness to his brute skill.
By the time Agrammon sent five of its lesser daemon elite to slaughter him for its entertainment and insanity, there were black hell-forged blades everywhere, sparking off Terminus, threatening to sink their teeth through his plate, open his throat with arcs of curved death or cut him clean in
half with the otherworldly strength behind the weapons. Archaon had begun to tire. Whereas the daemonettes could expect their sisters’ blades to parry and block for them, Archaon only had a single sword. A sword that more often than not was being turned aside by the crescent shields of the infernal elite and needed to be whipped back to turn away the exotic stabs and sweeps of other daemons. With its length and heavy blade, the greatsword was simply not designed for such lightning work – even in the gauntlet of one such as Archaon.
The Chaos warrior half hacked the first and stove in the head of a second, but they were desperate manoeuvres and less than satisfactory kills. He paid for such clumsiness by allowing a serrated blade through and having the hooked teeth of the murderous weapon find its way between his helm and breastplate to slice at his neck. Without a shield of his own and his broken arm aching uselessly at his side, Archaon had no choice but to work around with glancing parries and darting deflections. Exhausted, and with Giselle squealing and moving about his armoured form to avoid the spiteful swipes and thrusts of daemonettes behind them, Archaon knew that it was only a matter of time before he was bested.