In the half-light cast by the flickering torches, the daemons cast eerie, intimidating shapes, moving with lithe grace as they bounded from enemy to enemy. Their hellblades pierced and cut, sowing injury and death wherever they struck. The blades, encrusted with runes that glowed viciously in the darkness, moved with such speed that those unfortunates who got caught in their arc were torn apart instantly.
‘Steel yourselves,’ Eris shrieked at the top of her voice. She had already dodged and weaved her way through the onslaught. The blades of the bloodletters had, thus far, not found her body which was already streaked with blood from the wounds she had taken whilst facing the berserkers. ‘Muster all the courage you have. We are the people of the Vale. We are strong!’
So many of them, she thought desperately. So many of the daemonic creatures. Just when she had resigned herself to the likelihood that they were far outnumbered, things got worse still.
The first of the flesh hounds, which was easily half a length longer again than the tallest of the Schwarzvolf warriors, sprang on one of the shield bearers to Eris’s right. Razor-sharp teeth within the snapping jaws caught a hold of the unfortunate woman’s exposed neck and within seconds, tore her throat out. The hound threw back its head and bayed its pleasure before burying its snout in the woman’s body and taking its fill. It was evidently some kind of pack alpha as the sound of its victory summoned others. Four, five, six... perhaps more. They hurtled into the maelstrom, their milk-white eyes intimidating and horrific.
The moonlight glinted off the collars they wore around their thick necks and their hides took flurries of blows without so much causing a yelp. Not a nick appeared in their unnatural flesh, but Eris turned on the closest animal with fury, her own weapons flashing.
Whether the monster’s hide had been weakened by the blows it had withstood or not, it did not matter. Seconds after she launched her attack, Eris’s blade sank in through muscle and sinew and she sliced the tendons in the animal’s rear leg. She gave the thing a cursory glance, not even sure that it was an animal at all.
It gave an unearthly howl of pain and rage and turned to face this new attacker, its jaws slavering and snapping as it tried to crouch ready to pounce on Eris. The young woman feinted with her blade and struck forward with the shield she carried. The daemon hound was thrown off balance.
‘Now!’ Her cry came and her people obeyed. They turned on the stricken daemon hound and pierced its body, running it through a dozen times. It twitched and stopped moving and then with barely a pause, simply ceased to be. It did not even leave behind a puff of smoke. It simply... was not.
‘We can’t hope to defeat this enemy, Eris.’ She didn’t know who spoke the words, but they brought forth a blaze of fury. ‘We should retreat. Now.’ Raging, she struck out with her shield again and knocked the speaker away from her.
‘Do not say such things! Where is the fire? Where is the passion? We will fight until the last breath leaves our bodies! We cannot retreat, you fool. Where would we go? Now fight!’
And despite the futility of it, they fought. There was nothing more that they could do
Valkia could not help but admire the sheer determination of the enemy she faced. They could not have a hope of defeating the daemonic host and already their warriors were dying by the score. The trolls and other beasts were lumbering into the thick of the battle and as soon as they began employing their unique methods of self-defence, the battle would be all but over.
Her original plan to simply enjoy watching the slaughter of the tribe she had once called her own had not lasted beyond the first skirmish. The sheer lust for battle drove her down from the skies. She tossed Slaupnir up into the air and caught it so that the spear was pointing from above, ready to impale its next victim.
Whilst the Schwarzvolf were dealing with the threat of the flesh hounds, Valkia indulged her own need to spill the blood from her enemies. The first warrior whose life she took screamed like a child at the sight of her.
‘You know who I am.’ It was a statement, not a question and Valkia caught the warrior by the throat, her long-taloned fingers wrapping around his neck. She pulled him up and towards her so that they were nose to nose. The warrior lost control of his bladder and warm urine ran down his leg. He squeezed his eyes closed, too afraid and too ashamed to look his former queen in the eye.
‘Say my name, Schwarzvolf.’ The words came out as a sultry purr, oddly seductive and compelling, and his eyes slowly opened again. ‘Say my name.’
‘V... Valkia.’
‘Say it properly. It will be the last word that crosses your lips. Make it strong. Make your death count for something. Who am I?’
He found strength from somewhere and his voice rose, strengthening and increasing in volume.
‘Valkia!’
‘And I am your doom.’ The last thing the warrior saw were Valkia’s eyes, suffused with a crimson glow. The last thing he felt was the sharp stab of pain as Slaupnir slid into his gut and Valkia slowly eviscerated him. She enjoyed every second of the process, savouring the look of undisguised anguish on her former comrade’s face as she twisted the spear around in his bowels, tearing them out through the gash in his abdomen.
Then she just dropped him and trod on his skull as she passed by. The man’s head caved immediately and she rejoined the battle. She took personal death to many of those who she had once called friend. Each one died in a similar way. She would single out those who had travelled with her into the north and she wreaked slow, bloody revenge upon them. Most were methodically butchered, much like the first, their guts spilled in glistening ropes on the ground. One had his tongue torn from his mouth by her bare hands. She had thrown the still-twitching organ to one of the flesh hounds and the doomed warrior had watched the animal devour it whole before Slaupnir had punctured his chest and stilled his heart forever.
She felt Locephax’s desperation, the daemon’s desire to be a part of such slaughter tied to his perverse nature and insatiable lusts, but she did not unleash his brand of terror again. She would not sully these perfect moments with the disgusting touch of the prince of pleasure. She blocked out his endless pleading and she strode through the battlefield, her eyes raking the dead and the still-standing.
But she could not find her brother.
‘Edan!’ Valkia howled his name to the moon. ‘Come and face me!’
Spreading her wings, Valkia rose above the battlefield, her daemonic eyesight perfect in the darkness. She scoured the landscape for the telltale scamper of the rodent she sought.
Her attention was torn from her task by the sound of a voice below her. A voice that stirred memories she had put away.
‘Valkia!’
Glancing down, the winged warrior’s face spread in a slow, cruel smile and she allowed herself to descend once again. The young woman she faced bore a visage that was almost the double of her own; or at least how her own had been before Khorne had so gloriously re-shaped her in his desired image.
‘This must end,’ Eris said, staring at the mother she had once known. She was at once disgusted and in awe of what Valkia had become. She knew no grief for the loss of a parent but she felt fury at the death and destruction wrought by the creature’s hand.
Valkia considered her daughter carefully. If she knew her, or recognised her, she gave no acknowledgement of the fact. She hefted Slaupnir in her right hand and steadied Locephax on her left arm.
‘And who will end it, mortal? You?’
‘If I must.’
Without pausing to speak any further, Eris threw herself at Valkia.
Edan had fled the moment battle had been joined. Too cowardly to engage with the daemonic forces that were sure to destroy his niece and her army, he had turned tail and run away. It had been the only option left to the corpulent Godspeaker.
Branches whipped pitilessly against him as he stumbled blindly through the darkness, skirting the edges of the grove of trees that led eventually to the Vale. In his tumbling, breathless p
anic, they were like grasping fingers trying to take hold of him and haul him backwards to the battlefield. He plunged through bramble and bracken, never once daring to pause and look behind him. The hungry, avaricious branches caught in his clothes and his hair, lacerating the skin of his face. Stinging pain came and went almost unnoticed. He felt warm blood trickle down his cheek, dribbling its unmistakable coppery tang into his mouth, but he didn’t stop to wipe it away. Stopping was not an option. He had to run.
So he ran.
His breath was ragged, his heart pounding like a battle drum against his ribs. It had been many years since he had exerted so much energy and the tight, burning pain across his chest was excruciating.
Even as he fled, his jowls and belly flapping with the exertion, he knew that it was an exercise in futility. There was nowhere he could hide from his sister. There was nowhere he could ever call safe again. Even in his dreams she tormented him. The rational side of his brain mocked him ceaselessly and as he ran, propelled by the desire to live, he clamped his hands to his ears as though he could drown out the sound of his thoughts.
He had not gone far before his sprint slowed to a brisk walk and even that petered out after another half a mile or so. Behind him, even through his hands which were still tight against his head, he could hear the sounds of death as his people were torn apart.
He cried. He cried for the murder of his people. He cried for all that had gone wrong. He even cried for the sister in whom he had once believed without question and who he had ultimately betrayed for his own selfish reasons. But mostly, he cried for himself. The thought of his imminent death brought Edan no pleasure.
Pleasure…
Years ago, he had put his faith into the Reveller. He had listened to the whispers of the decadent god and had given his soul over willingly. His gluttony had been his chosen method of showing his devotion to his chosen deity. Death would rob him of all the pleasures in life he had come to expect and revel in.
For just a moment, Edan saw himself as he must appear to others. A pathetic shadow of his former self, bloated and warped into something almost unrecognisable and he felt deep shame.
A second burst of energy suffused his limbs and he began to run again, fleeing from the seeds of his own destruction.
EIGHTEEN
Bringer of Glory
As a battling pair, Eris and Valkia were poorly matched. Eris was a creature of rage and fury who attacked on impulse, hacking and slashing at her opponent blindly. She was also obviously, painfully mortal. Valkia dodged every thrust and avoided every blow her daughter attempted to bring down on her with ease. The Blood Queen knew that she could take down Eris with a single stroke if she so desired, and yet the final ember of humanity that glowed somewhere in her daemonic soul could not bear the thought of ending such sport so quickly.
So she toyed with the mortal for a while, her own movements with Slaupnir fluid and graceful. The two female warriors remained locked together in a mesmerising and deadly dance. Where Eris had to duck and weave, expending energy rapidly, Valkia’s movements were languid and lazy. She pre-empted every thrust and every attack was defended with hardly any effort.
The two warring women broke off for a moment.
‘I do not know what it was that happened to you,’ panted Eris, withdrawing from the fray briefly. Sweat trickled down her face, smearing the blood and the dirt that she had gathered during the course of the battle. In the moonlight, she was pale and her expression was one of pain. The wounds she had taken during the course of conflict were beginning to take their toll on her. ‘I do not know, nor do I care. You seek to destroy my people and I cannot let you do that.’
‘You cannot deny me,’ Valkia replied, her eyes fixed on the slender form of the warrior daughter before her. ‘The price of weakness and betrayal is death. When these cowards turned their back on me they turned their back on all they could have been. Now vengeance comes, and when I have claimed the skulls of every living Schwarzvolf warrior, I will raze the Vale.’
‘You would slaughter the infirm and our infants?’ Eris was shocked by the words. ‘You have no compassion at all?’
‘It matters not from whence the blood flows, Eris,’ Valkia said, leaning in close, her voice low so that Eris had to lean in to hear her. ‘So long as it does flow. Thus it must ever be.’
Before Eris could assimilate the words, Valkia’s skull met hers in a savage head-butt and she reeled backwards, stunned by the blow. The daemon princess spread her wings and stood straight, a truly awesome sight to behold and she lowered Slaupnir at her child.
‘Thus it will be!’
The spear lunged forward, its razor-sharp blade aimed directly at Eris’s heart. With a resounding clang, the young woman found a reserve of strength and brought her shield up to block the killing stroke. Her ability to hold her ground was fading rapidly and her breath came in ragged, pained gasps.
‘Not whilst I still live,’ she said and Valkia’s smile was one of pride.
‘You truly are my daughter,’ she said, and drew Slaupnir back for another strike. Her clawed hand slid down the weapon’s haft so that she was holding it just above the tip, as though she held a long dagger.
‘Yes,’ said Eris, struggling to draw breath. Her mouth was filled with the coppery taste of blood. Her ribs had broken against her lungs and if she continued to fight, she would not need to concern herself with her mother’s weapon. She would die anyway. ‘I am.’
‘Then in recognition of that fact, your death will be…’
The movement was so fast that Eris never even saw it coming. One of Valkia’s talons pierced her chest and drove through her heart. Pain, agonising and yet exquisite, shot through her and she dropped her sword and shield to the cold earth. She fell to her knees, blood dribbling from the corners of her mouth and stared stupidly down at the hand embedded in her chest.
‘Blood,’ she managed to eke out around her final gulps of life. ‘Blood for the…’
For a few moments after the light of life left Eris’s eyes, Valkia considered her. Then she withdrew her hand and let her daughter’s body slump face-down onto the ground. She considered the girl’s corpse without emotion and eventually gave a terse nod of acknowledgement.
‘You died well, Eris,’ she said. ‘I will bring you your reward in due course. But for now…’
Once again, the Blood Queen spread her wings and soared into the skies above the waning battle, raking the horizon for her brother. Like a bird of prey, she scoured the landscape and, when she saw what she was looking for, she swooped in for the kill. She crossed the distance between the battlefield and the small copse of trees with alarming haste.
Beneath her, the massed army of daemons and the handful of berserkers who still lived pressed onwards, moving ever-closer to the Vale. Kormak charged at their head, his massive armoured bulk little more than a huge silhouette in the moonlight.
Edan had fallen to the ground, his sweating body unable to keep him running any longer. He had simply dropped to his hands and knees, panting and gasping to get breath into his heaving chest. It was never meant to have ended this way. He had always had plans... great plans... and he would eventually have gotten around to carrying them out.
The sound of Valkia’s wings was soft and almost soothing up ahead and when their rhythmic beat ceased, he knew that she plunged towards him. Edan did not even have the strength to raise his head so remained where he was, on all fours with his eyes downcast. He remained there and waited for his death.
It did not come.
Slowly, he looked up to discover that a daemon who wore his dead sister’s face stood before him. She was staring at him with a look of hateful incredulity. The last time she had seen her half-brother, he had been a lean, tautly muscled young man. Now he was barely recognisable, his once-pleasant features lost in rolls of sallow skin. The redolent stench of alcohol and stale sweat that steamed from him was noxious. She put out one hoofed foot and kicked him on to his back. Unresisting, Edan
slumped over weakly.
‘Get up,’ she said.
‘Why?’ His response was weary and bitter. ‘Strike me down whilst I am kneeling or when I am standing. What difference does it make to me, Valkia? We both know that this cannot end any other way. Just take my head and end it.’
This was more like the Edan she remembered, even if only in part. The man who could play with words and turn them into weapons if he felt so inclined. In the face of death he lost none of his eloquence.
‘Get up,’ she repeated. ‘If you have any courage at all in that blubbery frame, you will face me like the warrior you once pretended to be.’
‘Why would I give you such satisfaction?’
Valkia hesitated no longer and reached down to drag the quivering mass of blubber to his feet. A soft chuckle started somewhere behind her and she realised that Locephax was laughing.
‘His mind was weak,’ said the disembodied daemon. ‘I put the seeds of suggestion into the minds of all your people, Valkia. At least one found fertile ground it seems. Congratulations, Godspeaker. My master will be pleased that you devoted yourself to him so fully.’
The heavy sarcasm that he placed on Edan’s title did not go unnoticed and Valkia scowled as her half-brother inclined his head in deep respect.
‘You have always been my enemy, Edan,’ she said eventually. ‘You wove the web of deceit that led my own people to turn from the glory that I offered them. For that alone I will have my vengeance. But you declare yourself a follower of the prince of excess and for that there can never be any mercy.’
‘I expect none,’ countered Edan. His composure in the face of his doom was boiling her blood.
‘To kill one of my master’s servants could be considered a feat of strength, Valkia.’ Locephax sounded deeply amused. ‘To kill two may draw his attention in a way you would not like.’
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