Until they saw the steps. Vast, uneven slabs of glossy green stone that could not have been cut by mortal hand piled atop one another, reaching toward the fractured heavens.
Valkia, walking at the front of the diminishing army saw the flight of stone stairs first and her heart leaped into her mouth at the sight of it and what waited at the top.
The portal was vast, seeming far too huge for the span of the stairs themselves. It stood out from the velvet blackness in a way that could not be expressed; it was something beyond darkness and veined with crackling streamers of arcane light. And Valkia felt its irrefutable draw. It pulled her onwards even as the things beyond her understanding attempted to push her back.
‘I come, my master,’ she screamed into the darkness. Her voice sounded dead and lifeless, swallowed by the sucking emptiness.
He does not care. He never cared.
It was the first time since she had stepped across the point of no return that Locephax had spoken. The daemon’s voice in her mind was crystal clear and somehow stronger than it had been until now.
You are in my realm, the space between worlds. And soon, Valkia, very soon there will be the exacting of my revenge. It will taste sweet, my love. Even as you draw your last breath, I will savour your doom. My master already senses my presence. Already he sends his children to avenge me. Your life is marked in minutes, Valkia. Your god, the idiot-thing that he is, does not hear you.
She would not listen to his words.
You have one final chance, Valkia. Be mine for eternity and my master will show you mercy. Prostrate yourself at his feet and swear allegiance to his banner and your reward will be eternal. Continue this search for a god who does not care for you and die.
Valkia’s entire body was shaking with a mixture of emotions that she could not describe. There was no fear, of that she was certain. But she was here at the foot of a staircase that would bring her to the realm of the gods. She had made that journey she had promised her father so long ago.
If anybody could make that journey, it would be you. That had been his reply. Would he have been proud of her, had he lived? Valkia hardened her resolve. She had long ago given up the right to wonder what could have been. She had manipulated her own destiny and she would continue to do so.
They come, Valkia. I sense them. This is your last chance. Lay one foot on those steps and your life is forfeit. Lay down your pride now and become a child of Slaanesh. There was something oddly pleading, almost regretful about the offer, but she shook her head.
‘Blood,’ she said to the shield. It hurt to speak; the darkness was pressing against her ribs, crushing her and just getting words out took an age. ‘Blood... for the... Blood God!’
So be it.
The daemon-head mounted on her shield twisted into life and let out a shrill scream that caused several of the warriors to wail in madness as their minds finally snapped. Valkia was aware that blood was running from her ears and nose as well. Her head felt as though it would explode with the pressure, but she took one further step, placing her foot on the bottom-most stair. There were eight stairs in all. Eight between Valkia and her ultimate goal.
Hepsus raised a hand to stop the handful of survivors, holding them back. This was the moment that Edan had foreseen. This was the sign that he had told Hepsus to spread around the camp. This was the boy’s proclamation. That when Valkia defied the gods themselves, then – and only then – would her reign end. Hepsus had sworn his loyalty to Edan that he would get her there. Standing here, at the edge of creation, staring into the abyss, the Warspeaker could feel himself unravelling. But in the corner of his mind’s vision he could still see the dead eyes of his son, and they anchored him to life like nothing else. They were his rock, his salvation and his deliverance. He stood there, his hollow gaze fixed on the woman who would damn them and he held the Schwarzvolf back. Edan had promised him he would live to see it done. And so he had.
Valkia’s interest in her half-brother had been so light that she had never even noticed the moment at which he had stopped following her. She had not noticed the moment at which all those men who had switched allegiance during the journey had stayed with him. Her arrogance, her need to succeed, had prevented her from turning back and now it would cost her.
Behind her, before her, around her... the entire swathe of absolute night suddenly came to grim, chilling life. She felt the press of invisible force lift suddenly, only to be replaced by an onslaught of daemonic creatures like she had never seen before. They poured from the portal at the top of the staircase like a tide. They came in their tens, their hundreds, maybe even their thousands. They came at Locephax’s call and finally she turned, to give the order to her army to attack.
Nobody stood by her side. Only one man, the one-armed Kormak who had pledged to fight at her right hand until he fell doing so remained with her. His face was lined with determination mingled with stark terror at the legion boiling toward them, but he would not relent. He was the only one of barely a hundred who had remained with her to the very end.
She knew. It was as if she had always known that they would betray her at the last. Hepsus stood, some distance away, his arm still raised. Their eyes met for a final time and she watched, unable to vocalise the pure hatred that rose within her as he fled and left her to die.
The daemon tide that had gushed out of the portal was holding back. Waiting for her to come to them as they knew she must. Her foot was upon the stair. She could not turn back now even had she wanted to. Not when she had come so far. Not when she had given up so much.
‘Kormak.’
‘My queen.’
‘Leave. Leave me now. You can do no good here. You may as well live. Go and take the heads of those traitors in my name.’ Hepsus and his followers – she could no longer think of them as hers – were gone, swallowed by the dark. She had no idea if they would live or die and she frankly did not care. This betrayal could spell the end of her people, but she was finally able to acknowledge that she had ceased caring about them years ago.
‘Go, Kormak. You can do nothing. This fight is mine alone.’ She raised her head and lifted her shield high. ‘You see this?’ The last was addressed to the daemon horde. ‘This is what became of the last creature of the Reveller who tried to stop me from reaching my goal.’
Locephax’s laughter was a terrible thing to listen to and behind her, Kormak trembled. He was not much more than a boy, she realised, and she reached out to touch him on the shoulder, once.
‘The prize will be ours, Kormak,’ was all she said. She paused, realising that here, at the end of all things, how angry she was with the lies. All those who had feigned loyalty to her and to her cause. Cowards, every last one of them. Kormak was the only truly loyal warrior and it was right and just that he should stand by her side. But there was no time to linger on the matter.
With a concerted effort, fighting valiantly against every instinct that was telling her to turn and flee, Valkia took another step upwards. Kormak stood at the foot of the stairs, gazing upwards into the depths of infinity. He was mesmerised; rooted to the spot and completely unable to move.
He never went further than the lowest step. Without Valkia’s iron will and determination, he was easy prey for the daemons. They flowed past Valkia, who struck out with her spear, viciously hacking and slashing at them, but they did not stop for her. They went straight for Kormak.
At that moment, she learned the final truth of what she had committed to. She could not turn back. She physically could not retreat down the steps. She would reach the realm of the gods or she would die. There was no third option. She had to watch, helpless and enraged as the daemons swarmed around the most loyal of all her people and hacked him down.
Blood flowed from countless wounds as Kormak fell, but she noted with some small satisfaction that he died with a curse on his lips and his axe buried in the skull of a clawed fiend.
You see how it ends, Valkia. Locephax laughed aloud, the sound echoing acr
oss the blighted nightmare landscape.
She took a third step upwards and stared up at the abyss. Five more such stairs, each one as wide as a cart track, stood between her and the gateway to her master’s side.
Five.
Behind her, Kormak’s terrible dying screams; the gurgling of his final, furious cry to the Blood God. Ahead of her, the very portal where she knew her destiny lay.
Another step.
Kormak died in agony; alone at the foot of the steps. She hardened her heart against the sounds of the daemons feasting upon his mortal flesh. He had been the bravest and the best of all her people, but she had been unable, at the last, to save him. She could not afford to feel remorse. In seconds, the daemons would be upon her as well. She had to take advantage of Kormak’s death... of the distraction it offered...
Another step.
Three to go.
Welcome to the hereafter, Valkia, said Locephax and once again, he voiced the scream that had caused her ears and nose to bleed. The daemons currently sating their hunger on Kormak’s body raised their heads at the sound and returned the cry.
She was subsumed by them. Within moments, their physical forms were on top of her. Sickening musk, cloying and sweet drifted like mist, a living thing that coiled about her with lewd tendrils. It filled her nostrils, her throat. She sank to her knees, clawing at her face as though she could tear them from her in that manner. All the while, she kept a tight hold of Slaupnir. She thrashed helplessly against the insubstantial embrace; the suffocating fog was choking her, dulling her senses, tempering her killing rage. Her eyes met those of one of the daemons, a bizarre, two-headed creature with one head that was like that of an ivory woman whilst the other was some kind of pale reptile. A forked tongue flickered from its mouth and stroked against her cheek in the parody of a kiss.
These are my brothers and sisters, Valkia. They are angry with you.
Still she struggled against her inevitable demise. Hardly able to breathe, she crawled up another step, dropping both Slaupnir and the shield so that she could better grab at the step. She tried to call out, but nothing more than a gurgle left her throat.
Her master. Her god. He had abandoned her at the last. She had come all this way. She was...
...angry.
Her god had not abandoned her. He was with her. He had always been with her. He was calling to her.
Come to me.
I come, my master!
Rage filled her to bursting point and with what would prove to be a final, inhuman surge of strength, she rose to her feet one last time and hurled the daemonic host back far enough to climb one last stair.
She felt no pain as the slithering claw pierced her back and exited through her belly. She merely stared down at it before falling once more to her knees. She threw out her arms and held her head back.
‘Khorne!’
Blood welled up in her mouth as claws and talons tore at her skin, silencing her. But she did not scream or beg for mercy. She took her death with stoic pride. As the final bubble of blood burst on her crimson-stained lips, it carried with it the final whisper to a god she had come so close to reaching.
‘Khor...’
Valkia fell forward on the steps, her left arm outstretched towards the portal. Her broken body twitched a few times and then she was motionless, her heart forever stilled in sight of her destiny.
And the world was shaken by the wrath of a god.
TWELVE
Rebirth
The world trembled in the wake of the bellow of rage that thundered from the realm of Chaos. A catastrophic shockwave of fury erupted from the roof of the world and expanded outwards, laying waste to all in its path. Exposed to the terrible force of such rage, the daemons swarming around the body of Valkia were vaporised instantly, the stuff of their bodies dissolving into insubstantial mist and sent screaming back into the abyss. The few survivors were flung in all directions, howling and wailing in their unnatural voices.
Most of them crashed to the ground beyond the steps, stunned by the Blood God’s wrath, but the ripple of intense ire continued to spread outwards, flattening anything it encountered. It crushed the black rocks that lined the route to the portal into nothing more than fine powder, which was thrown up as a billowing cloud of grit and dust.
Already some distance from the maw of Chaos, Hepsus and the remainder of Valkia’s army were thrown off their feet as the very ground beneath them was torn asunder by the sheer force of Khorne’s anger. Cracks and fissures split the earth’s surface as the land shook. With desperate yells of panic and terror, the betrayers picked up speed, running in an effort to get ahead of the unseen wave of destruction.
A second roar of fury burst forth, this one perhaps even more terrible than the first. The few remaining daemons, which had crawled with determination back onto the steps in a concerted effort to seize the body of the fallen queen, were obliterated. The head of Locephax, still mounted on Valkia’s shield, writhed and contorted in terrible agony. It was unable to block out the awful sound of the Blood God’s fury and it was suffering.
The ruptures that had been torn in the plain split further, the ground shaking beneath the feet of the Schwarzvolf as they fled. Many fell, unable to maintain their balance and the slowest of them were swallowed by the earth, falling without hope of rescue into the bowels of the world.
Above them, the God Lights bled. A spreading corona of baleful crimson the colour of blood, the colour of anger, flooded the sky. Across the Northern Wastes, far beyond the epicentre of the furious shock wave, tribesmen stared up at the shifting lights that finally burned scarlet and spoke of omens and horrors beyond imagining.
As far away as the dwarf strongholds, the ground was felt to shake as Khorne, the Blood God, made his primal anger known. The countless daemons, both visible and invisible who had previously swarmed over Valkia’s body dared not approach.
The figures that spilled from the abyss were also moving towards the still corpse, but they did so with a curious reverence, their black blades held low in their bloody claws. Regardless of this fact, the daemon servants of Slaanesh who slunk from the darkness in the wake of Khorne’s fury dared not approach. They hissed and howled, screeching their displeasure at being denied their feast, but even the urgent promises of Locephax would not call them forth.
One of the new arrivals, a creature with the obvious physical form of a woman, but with scarlet flesh and the cloven hooves of a beast stooped to pick up the shield that had Locephax’s head nailed to it. The herald studied the nails, each one worked with the symbol of Khorne and a smile flickered onto her terrible face.
‘Do not touch me, child of Khorne!’
Had Valkia lived, she would have been forgiven for mistaking the tone in Locephax’s voice for that of fear. The daemonic head was not afraid. He was terrified.
Without speaking, the bloodletter slid the shield onto her arm and held it aloft, letting out a cry of triumph. Locephax’s voice rose in a scream of terrible anguish and then nothing but silence reigned across the Chaos Wastes. The daemons of Slaanesh watched sullenly as the legion of bloodletters took up Valkia’s body, hoisting her on their knotted shoulders with reverence.
The leader, the one bearing the shield of Locephax, nodded in satisfaction. She glanced at the bottom step where the unrecognisable, half-chewed body of Kormak lay and then bellowed a command. Without further hesitation, the line of bloodletters walked their burden up the remaining steps and moved through the portal.
The herald was the last to step through and when she had gone, the skies once again shifted to the ever-changing colours of the north. The creatures and people of the Chaos Wastes and beyond released their collective breath and the world continued to turn.
She had heard from the elders of the tribe that no single person could recall the precise moment of their birth. The shock would kill them, it was said. The sheer memory of the trauma of being brought into the world was something that the mind blanked out.
&nbs
p; Strange then that it was this very thought that jolted her to wakefulness.
Valkia opened her eyes with a gasp, her heart hammering in her chest and terrible, agonising pain wracking her body without forgiveness. She was struggling to draw breath, as though she were drowning, or if a great weight was on top of her and she clawed desperately, trying to gain purchase on whatever it was that was crushing her.
There was nothing to hold and her fingers closed on empty air.
Awareness, such as it was, slowly began to take control of the sheer horror that she had felt on opening her eyes. Her entire body was in pain. Her head, her chest, her limbs... all ached and throbbed. She had fought a battle. An epic battle that...
...she remembered the sensation of the claw that had eviscerated her and she put a hand to her belly, half-expecting her bowels to slither out through her fingers. Sure enough, she felt the gaping wound there, the cleaving gash where her intestines threatened to spill. Blood ran freely from countless injuries and she lay still, knowing that if she moved too much, whatever life she had remaining in her would be forfeit. She was blind in one eye and she felt more of her own life running down her cheek. She had lost one eye. Her face was lacerated; her beauty rendered into a visage of horror and shredded flesh that hung in strips from her skull. With each drawing of breath, there was a single thought that ran around her mind.
I died.
She was in so much pain from her terrible injuries that she did not notice at first that she had been stripped of her armour and lay naked in the insubstantial gloom of this non-place. Some part of her insisted that she should be freezing, but the void of sensations made mockery of her instincts. Her hand rested against the bare flesh of her stomach, again feeling the slimy presence of her internal organs. She had watched countless hundreds die slowly from such injuries.
But I died.
‘I do not understand,’ she said. Her voice sounded cracked and broken, and was harsh in the silence that permeated everything. ‘I died. Is this the beyond?’
Valkia the Bloody Page 20