Valkia the Bloody

by Sarah Cawkwell

  She did not recall the cave drawings that had held her fascination so many years before. The iconography of the winged creature that had appeared countless times in the poorly-drawn images.

  Delighting in this unconditional devotion, Valkia accepted their service freely and without reserve. They were scrappy fighters; many of them were like wild animals who fought with their fingers and teeth. The many and varied weapons that they sometimes wielded however, were curious works of stone and iron. Their maker was a man of no words, his tongue having been cut out many years before during a particularly heated argument with one of his brethren. But he was also a man out of place among an unruly mob of savages. He had been born with an ability to work metals and stone and fashion the most magnificently balanced weapons, a fact that had undoubtedly given the mutant tribe it superiority over its neighbours.

  ‘My army needs weapons and armour worthy of Khorne,’ Valkia decreed to the smith after declaring his work far superior to any that she had seen since setting foot in the wastes. The tribesman glowed briefly under her praise and grunted his acknowledgement of her command.

  Wordlessly, he took one look at the seething horde already snapping at each other in agitation. In that single glance, he took in the scale and needs of the army with the skill that those so highly practised in the art of weapon making possessed. He nodded in satisfaction and turned to his forge to begin work. Kormak glanced at Valkia and clanked after him.

  The two warriors took a certain comfort in their mutual silent state, and whilst Valkia set the tribesmen upon one another in an orgy of bloodshed to earn her favour, the champion would stand motionless for long hours in the corner of the smith’s forge. Were it not for the occasional shift of position, he might simply have been a display of armour.

  Within days, a steady stream of raw iron armour and cruel stone weapons began to stream from the forge, the beast-kin and twisted humans of her army revelling in the killing power it granted them. The clash of arms, the scream and howl of daemons and the agonised cries of the dying surrounded the growing horde and while blood flowed daily to appease their queen, word of the coming slaughter brought fresh warriors to her banner.

  What the lone smith had begun soon became the work of many as arms and armour poured from the forge-fires and were spread amongst the war bands that now sprawled across the hills. Hundreds of skulls adorned lines of stakes that spread from the heart of the camp in eight-pointed stars. At the centre of it all Valkia sat on a throne of green stone, watching men and beasts butcher each other for her amusement while Kormak and his towering mount stood at her right hand.

  Far, far away from the energy and rising hunger of Valkia’s growing army, what remained of the Schwarzvolf lived on in ignorant bliss. Reduced to endless in-fighting and squabbling, the once mighty barbarian tribe was a paltry shadow of its former self.

  Soon, it would no longer matter.

  FIFTEEN

  Death or Glory

  ‘We are weak.’

  ‘What? I apologise, Eris. I was lost in thought.’

  ‘You were ignoring me.’

  Edan had long trained his ear to tune out his niece’s continual complaints. For so many years he had worked hard to turn a friendly, kindly, even paternal face towards the twins. But since Bellona’s death, Eris had become unbearably difficult.

  ‘I was not ignoring you.’ Edan shifted position on the throne – Valkia’s throne – and gave her his most charming smile. Eris scowled in return. ‘You were discussing our strategic position.’

  ‘I said we were weak,’ she retorted, folding her arms across her chest. She despised it when Edan sat upon the throne of the Schwarzvolf in a casual, idle manner. His legs were resting over the arm of the seat and his indolence infuriated her. As far as she could tell, it was an open challenge on her unofficial position.

  ‘The same thing,’ replied Edan, still with that same smile on his face. ‘Only worded differently.’ He enjoyed watching the flare of anger that flickered across her eyes. For ten years he had played her like a finely tuned instrument, inciting her anger with a carefully placed word and sending her to war on a whim. Not as skilled a leader as her mother had been, Eris made bad decisions that had seen many good warriors lose their lives. When Bellona had no longer been present on the battlefield, it had gotten worse.

  Eris returned from campaigns with fewer and fewer warriors at her back, but rarely took more than superficial injury herself. She continued to live and thrive.

  More was the pity.

  Still, Edan thought, a sigh on his lips, she was probably right this time. The last raid had been unexpected and for the first time the Schwarzvolf had faced the very real risk of total defeat. Fortune had favoured them however and an abrupt turn in the weather had given them the final advantage. Eris still bore the fresh wounds and bruises from the fight and she was evidently in no mood for word games.

  ‘Edan!’

  It was serious this time. Eris only ever called him by name when she was ready to launch into him with one of her barbed and frequently violent temper tantrums.

  ‘Eris, calm yourself.’ Swinging himself round, Edan rose with unexpectedly lithe grace from the throne. He stood head and shoulders above her, but she did not even flinch at his proximity. She took in his form with a sneer on her face. In the past two years, the Godspeaker had run to fat. Inactivity and gluttony had padded him out considerably. He had not wielded a weapon in those two years, claiming that he had been visited in a vision. He had been told to step away from the battlefield by the gods themselves. He was too important to the people of the Schwarzvolf to be lost in the fires of war.

  They had not dared question the words of the gods. The last person who had done that had been Bellona. Murdered by a man who had arrived at the camp claiming he sought her hand in marriage, Bellona’s life had bled out on the floor of the tent, her infant child stolen away from the tribe. Despite having delivered justice herself, Eris had never really gotten over her sister’s death and had always strongly suspected Edan’s hand in the matter.

  ‘I will not calm myself.’ She may have said the words, but Edan could tell by the way that her shoulders shook that she was doing her very best to do just that. ‘The next raid that comes will see the end of our people. Can’t you see it?’

  ‘They got lucky. There will be no next raid.’ Edan moved away from his wildcat of a niece and moved to a small wooden table on which stood a flagon of wine. He poured a generous measure and took a long drink. He recalled his manners and waved the flagon at Eris. She stormed across behind him and swept the remaining goblets off the table. They tumbled to the ground with a loud clatter.

  Placing her palms down on the surface, she leaned in towards him, her eyes flashing with those same fires as before.

  ‘There will be another raid, you fool. And another. And another. And our forces are dwindling. Do you want to lose everything that my mother fought for all her life?’ She saw immediately by his expression that she had hit the mark with her first shot. She stood up straight, triumphant.

  ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Don’t be such an idiot, girl. Of course I do not want to see the Schwarzvolf fall. But... well...’ The hesitation was carefully studied; a master stroke. Whatever else he may have been, Edan was a superlative dissembler.

  ‘Well?’ Eris prompted the rest of his sentence and he raised his head to look at her sadly. His eyes were sunken in slightly yellowing skin, a by-product of failing organs that were accustomed to too much food and wine.

  ‘I do not wish our people to be defeated. But it is not me who leads the warriors, is it? You are the one who is failing your mother’s dream, Eris. Not I.’

  She was incandescent at his words and as her hands clenched into fists, he wondered if perhaps he should have ensured he had a bodyguard detail whenever she came to see him. He let his moment of concern show as little more than a slight twitch under the right eye, which Eris was too angry to care about.

&n
bsp; ‘I can’t help it if the men under my command are weak and spineless. It is your feeble suggestion that we learn to till the land and harvest its bounty. It is you who is turning us into a weak tribe of wasted grass-eaters. I should lead my own army against your beloved farmers.’

  That was it. That was the moment he had been waiting for. He pounced on it eagerly, his fat jowls wobbling with affected anger.

  ‘You speak of open rebellion, Eris. You would rise up against your own uncle? I have always been the better choice to lead this tribe and you know it. You are impetuous, like your mother before you, but you are not gifted with her quick mind. That was your sister’s gift, may the gods protect her in the hereafter.’

  ‘Never mention her in front of me.’ Eris clenched and unclenched her hands until they ached. ‘And in whose eyes are you the better choice, Edan?’ Eris fingered the hilt of her dagger. ‘I’ll tell you. Yours. That’s whose. There are none within this camp who would follow your call to battle and even if there were, they would be the farmers and the fools. And my warriors would slaughter them where they stood.’

  ‘Are you challenging me?’ He raised his voice slightly. It would not take much to alert others to any potential predicament he found himself in.

  She thought about it. She thought about it seriously. If the fat old bastard would not let her take control, she could simple reach out and snatch it away from him. But before Bellona had been taken away, she had always told Eris to wait. She heard her sister’s voice in her head as clearly as though her beloved twin stood beside her once again.

  A fool like Edan will eventually dig his own grave, my sister. All we have to do is wait until he stands at its edge… and then we push him in.

  How easy it would be to push right now.

  The two of them stood there in silence, both too stubborn to back away from the brewing argument. In the end, it was Eris who capitulated.

  ‘I hope when you die, Edan, that I am there to witness it. I will savour every moment of your demise.’

  ‘Are you threatening to murder me?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Because then, I wouldn’t be able to watch and enjoy it. You are safe from death at my hands, Godspeaker.’

  With that, she spun on her heel, marching out of the tent and leaving the Godspeaker to dark thoughts.

  Rumours of a gathering army in the north had already begun to cross the mountains. This pleased Valkia greatly, for she had ensured it was the case. It had been easy enough for her to fly beyond the borders of the frozen peaks, allow herself to be seen.

  It was a glorious thing to ride the winds and soar with the creatures of the sky. She invariably chose night time to make her appearance, understanding with intuitive malevolence that terrifying as she may be to the soft-bellied people of the south during the day, her true terrible beauty was only enhanced by the velvet cloak of night. Those who saw her read the omens and spread the word of the monster in the north. The monster, they said, that was coming for them.

  She built the effect gradually and when she allowed herself to scream that she would seek and slaughter the Schwarzvolf, the rumours became frenzied. Soon, word of Valkia’s existence would spread further to the south. Soon, her former people would be aware that the daemon princess was seeking them. She knew that there were those amongst the tribe who would have wisdom enough to fathom out who the monster might be. The thought filled her with warm, spiteful pleasure. That feeling swiftly became an all-consuming hunger to spill their blood.

  It would be a wondrous thing to tear them apart, limb from limb.

  She wanted the Schwarzvolf to know that they were being hunted. She wanted them to live in constant fear of the retribution that blew with untempered force from the roof of the world. She would hunt them down until the tribe was wiped from existence.

  Such thoughts of revenge occupied her almost constantly and during battles with the warped marauders of the wastes, she killed more than one unfortunate she imagined wore the face of the cowards who had left her to die.

  By day she sat upon her graven throne and watched as ever more followers flocked to her banner, eager to spill blood for Khorne and gather skulls in his name. It was not a harmonious existence as rival war bands drew together in the sprawling camp and came to blows, warring for supremacy amongst the horde and dragging the defeated before Valkia to offer her their heads. Grisly trophies adorned every tent and banner pole.

  This woman-creature was idolised by the marauders who were harbouring her and she revelled in their adulation to the point of decadence. There was one individual who took pleasure in observing this.

  Such indulgence, Valkia. What a disappointing bride you must be for the Lord of Blood. I will always maintain that you made the wrong choice of patron, no matter what you say.

  The voice had come into her mind, dusty, dry and deeply sarcastic whilst she had been enjoying the battles of her new subjects.

  ‘Locephax!’

  She spat the daemon prince’s name and snatched up her shield. Since Khorne had taken his hand to it, the crude nails that had held his head rigid had been removed. Now, Locephax was an integral feature of the shield, which had grown in size and stature. The face of the monster stared out from its eternal prison, locked in swathes of the same daemon leather that covered the plates of Valkia’s armour.

  The cruel mouth turned upwards in a smile at the warrior queen’s attention and Locephax spoke aloud.

  ‘You look different,’ he observed. ‘Did you change your hair?’

  ‘Still your tongue, slave,’ she countered, her eyes blazing with red fury. ‘You are mine to command. You would do well to remember that before you speak. It would take but a stitch to close your mouth permanently.’

  But I can always speak to you, Valkia. I may be enslaved by your child-god, but I am not without power of my own.

  She was quiet for a long period as she gathered her thoughts together. She had all but forgotten the infuriating nature of the Slaaneshi daemon that she held in thrall, but was quietly grateful that he had spoken up. He was right. Caught up in the wave of fanatical worship, she had forgotten herself. But not any longer.

  ‘Enough,’ she said. ‘Speak no more. I have an army to raise.’

  With a smirk, Locephax closed his eyes and was still once more. He may be forever bound to the consort of Khorne, but he had been considerably powerful in his own right. Just because he had to serve her, he did not have to do so willingly.

  None could agree on a description. Some said that the airborne daemon that flew on wings of night from the realm of the gods was a faceless creature. Others swore that the monster possessed a very definite feminine shape. No single person claimed to have looked upon its visage and lived.

  She – he – it – appeared only at night, a silhouette against the light of the moons and these sightings were rarely corroborated. From the whispered rumours, exaggerated stories evolved with an alacrity that defied belief.

  Without solid facts, the story of the winged beast became something uncontrollable. It grew in size, picking up speed as grave tales were told around camp fires. Within days, it had spread to neighbouring tribes, growing and becoming more terrible with each retelling. Small children believed that if they were punished, the ‘crimson daemon’ would come for them and feast on their flesh or make off with their soul.

  Within days, the tale had a life of its own.

  Within a few more, they would stop being stories and start to become harsh, terrifying realities. After Valkia and her army surged from the north, there would be no more stories. There would only be bloody slaughter.

  There had never been any doubt at all that the marauders would follow her into battle and as Valkia had watched them stream up the pass, wearing an assortment of crude armour made by their own mad smiths and that which they had scavenged over the years, she felt a swell of pride. These were warriors who may not have possessed the sense of unity of a disciplined fighting force like she had groomed the
Schwarzvolf to be, but who were wild and savage in their ferocity and bloodlust.

  In the course of a few short days, barely two weeks, she had wrought them from a manic force of disparate tribes and war bands into something entirely more terrible. The most formidable warriors she set as squad commanders and they embraced the role with eagerness, frequently doling out surprisingly creative punishments to their less intelligent underlings.

  They fought viciously and were entirely without fear. More than one of the influx had seen fit to challenge Kormak’s position at the head of the army. All of them, man, woman or beast, had died without coming remotely close to making so much as a dent in the warrior’s armour, but their efforts had been pleasing.

  Valkia found herself fascinated by her champion. Her memories of Kormak as a human were fragmented and disjointed by the inconstant passage of time. She knew that he could not have been as imposing as he was now. That she had created something so physically impressive and intimidating was testament to her sheer potency. When Kormak took his place at the head of the horde, ready to lead the march south, he struck an impressive figure.

  Valkia rose into the air, her wings barely moving, and gazed down on the serpentine, irregular line. It was a formidable gathering of warriors and she knew that there would be many battles on the way. She also knew that some of the beings and creatures that called the storm-lashed mountains home would instantly give her their allegiance, recognising in her the same thing that the Chosen had done.

  Many of these warriors, mutated and warped into monstrous things that could barely pass as human, would die on the journey south. The fact they not only didn’t care but were eager to do so was more than satisfactory.

  It matters not whose blood is spilled. Only that it is spilled.

  ‘Your wish is my command, my lord and master,’ she murmured aloud before screaming the order to march. They would gather allies and numbers as they travelled. Everything else would be incidental.