[Warhammer] - The Corrupted

by Robert Earl - (ebook by Undead)

  They burned in the shadows, the details lost in pale blue phosphorescence. Jubska wondered if Grendel was even aware of the mutation. It was certainly a great gift from their lord, for wasn’t azure the favoured colour of the Changer of the Ways?

  “The thing is,” he began, warily squatting down in front of the sorcerer, “that we have found the spoor of some prey animals.”

  “Oh yes,” Grendel nodded distractedly. His gaze kept flitting around the room as if following some invisible fly, and as they did so, faint blue edged shadows danced around the inside of the tent.

  “Anyway,” Jubska tried to ignore the sight, “where there are animals there are also herders. We think that we should be upon them in about two days.”

  Grendel looked at him, and his mouth opened stupidly.

  “I’ve just realised,” he whispered, “how to make a man dance as if he was a marionette: how to make him dance until his feet wear down to stumps and his heart explodes right out of his chest.”

  Jubska licked his lips and swallowed.

  “That might come in handy,” he said. “This far north, it is not like Kislev. There is no trade, and no mercy, just kill or be killed.”

  “Or,” Grendel had become suddenly wistful, “be transformed.”

  He looked speculatively at Jubska. The horseman tried to meet the blue glow of his eyes, but found that he couldn’t; his own eyes teared up and twitched shut of their own accord.

  Grendel giggled.

  “So when we fight for these animals,” the horseman said, steeling himself to look back in the sorcerer’s direction, “will you ask our lord to help us?”

  “Of course,” Grendel nodded, “as long as he so desires, and as long as the sacrifices are made afterwards.”

  “Oh, I think that there are at least twenty of the beasts, including the kids.”

  “No,” Grendel looked scandalised, “not animals. Where would be the fun in that? I want people, human beings. I want to see the power of transformation coursing through them.”

  “As you say, lord,” Jubska said, his mouth suddenly drying up at the realisation of quite how eager this sorcerer was. “Just as you say.”

  With that, his nerve failed him and he hastened from the tent.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Anywhere else, and the herd that picked its way through this twisted land would have been slaughtered. The carcasses would have been burned and, beneath the incantations of priests, the bones would have been ground to dust. Then, perhaps, they would have been burned again.

  Had the things once been goats? Jubska wondered about that as he watched them graze. Somehow, he doubted it.

  Most of them were more or less the right size, it was true. Some had fur that was coarse and black, just like the animals he remembered from his childhood. The herd had even retained horns, although they had grown into grotesque shapes, razored and lumpy.

  Even as he watched the things graze, he realised that their mutation went deeper than their appearance. It wasn’t the sparse vegetation that they nipped at, but the scurrying things that lived amongst it. Needle teeth snapped after insects and rodents, and even at this distance, Jubska could hear the occasional squeal of pain.

  Not that he cared. It had been so long since he had a full belly that he would happily have devoured the rats himself.

  The rest of the column had come to a stop behind him, and he waved them back. No point having the whole group outlined on the ridge. He dismounted as they fell back, and studied the animals more closely. They were feeding in a circle that got gradually smaller so that the creatures that fled were trapped between them, victims of a thousand toothed noose.

  Clever.

  “Are those the animals you’re after?” Grendel called out, and Jubska turned to hush him.

  “Yes, they are indeed,” he whispered. “Best not to talk too loudly, though. Don’t want to spook them.”

  Grendel nodded and studied the animals. After a moment, his brow furrowed and he frowned.

  “I don’t see their owners anywhere,” he complained. Despite the fact that he spoke in a hoarse whisper, the volume still made Jubska wince. Even as he watched, one of the herd lifted its misshapen head and turned its three beady eyes towards them.

  “No,” Jubska met the animal’s gaze, “there don’t seem to be any herders. Strange, or maybe not, they must be wild; a gift from our lord, perhaps?”

  He forced himself to look into the glowing pits of Grendel’s eyes, but there was no answer there, far from it.

  Grendel frowned.

  “This is not good. It would be well to pay our lord his due sacrifice. If he gets impatient…” the sorcerer trailed off, suddenly a little nervous himself. Last night’s dreams had been full of the need for sacrifice. Quite insistent about it, in fact.

  He glanced back over his shoulder to the men who were waiting patiently behind, and his look of anxiety became one of speculation. Jubska hastened to stop whatever idea was forming in Grendel’s head.

  “We will find plenty of captives soon enough,” he promised. “With your powers, we can go south and take a caravan, perhaps even a village.”

  “No, I want to go north,” Grendel said, his voice brooking no argument.

  “We all value your judgement, oh chosen one,” Jubska said, shifting uneasily, “but let’s kill some of these things first. We can eat, and talk.”

  Grendel shrugged.

  “As you like,” he said.

  “Would you like to help in the slaughter?” Jubska asked, nodding towards the herd. Animals or not, he wasn’t fool enough to think that this hunt was going to be easy.

  “No, no. I won’t interfere in your sport,” Grendel said.

  Jubska thought about telling him that sport was the last thing slaughtering these things was going to be, but to the hells with it, he decided. He would rather face those razored horns than look again into the burning pits of the sorcerer’s eyes.

  He returned to his men and gave his orders. Just as the herd was circling its prey, so the horsemen would encircle it in turn. Jubska returned to watch the herd as two flanking parties trotted back the way they had come, getting ready to slip away and gallop the miles needed in order to achieve surprise.

  Surprise, he knew, was the key to any victory. It was a lesson he understood as well as any general. The brutality of his hunted life had taught him the truth, over and over again: surprise and aggression.

  He was still contemplating these harsh lessons when his comrades drew back in towards the herd. Jubska waited until they had paused, perfectly positioned for the charge, and then vaulted onto his mount. He signalled the charge, and with a last look towards Grendel’s sulking figure, he hurled himself towards the herd.

  A moment later and he realised, with a feeling like a knife in the guts, that he wasn’t the only one in this cursed land to understand the value of surprise.

  By then it was too late, and all he could do was watch in horror as the trap was sprung.

  It wasn’t that Vaught or his pack had thought of a plan, they hadn’t. They didn’t think of anything much anymore.

  This, Vaught knew, was good. It showed that, as their bodies had grown stronger, so had their minds. The pointless chatter of human consciousness had withered and died. In its place there remained only instinct, a killer instinct that was driven by a rage that throbbed as constantly as the pain of a broken limb.

  When they had found the herders in their path, they had known what to do. The slaughter had been sudden and complete, the weapons of Vaught’s victims no match for his followers feral strength.

  After the feeding frenzy, the victors had instinctively burrowed into the frozen steppe, acting with all the idiot wisdom of ticks on a hound. The fire in their blood kept them warm, even when the hard frost bit, and when the night grew blisteringly cold they remained as comfortable as the herd that grazed amongst them.

  Then, as they had known he would, the man they were hunting had come to them.

&nb
sp; It was a joyful moment. Vaught and his followers burst from their hiding places, as eager as some terrible spring. Their fangs were bared in glee and their claws were outstretched. After so long spent buried, their eyes watered in the sunlight, but that was all right.

  They could see the bulky shapes of the galloping horsemen easily enough.

  Vaught gurgled with joy as he loped forwards to meet the first of Grendel’s new allies. The man started with surprise. Then instinct took over and he levelled his spear at his attackers chest.

  He was too slow. Vaught was already past the tip of the spear, and as it jabbed past him he grabbed the haft. He leapt up, using it to swing himself up behind the rider. The man yelped as his head was pulled back. The yelp was silenced by the talon that sliced through his jugular.

  Vaught gurgled with unholy joy as the rider’s life splashed out in a fountain of red. When the body went limp, he let it fall and snatched at the reins. The horse was bucking hysterically, desperate to be free of the thing that had killed its rider.

  Vaught instinctively tried to hold on, his claws burrowing into horseflesh. The animal screamed and bolted, its hoofs blurring as it thundered through the scattering herd of goats. Snarling with rage, Vaught leaned forwards to claw at the animal’s throat and, slavering with a sudden hunger, bit down into its spine.

  Even as the horse died it ran, adrenaline fuelling its dying stampede. By the time it finally collapsed, it had carried its savage rider perhaps half a mile from the atrocities that his followers were committing.

  Vaught, bruised from the fall he had taken, dragged himself from beneath the carcass of the animal and sprinted back towards the carnage.

  To the yellow slits of his new eyes, it was a beautiful sight.

  A horse lay crippled on the ground, blood spurting in time with its heart.

  A rider, his skull cracked open as neatly as the top of a boiled egg, thrashed around on the ground, dancing as he died.

  A rally and a charge disintegrated amongst the leaping bodies of Vaught’s brethren. The ambushers leapt nimbly, fangs and claws tearing riders from saddles.

  By the time Vaught, his bare skin slicked with blood and sweat, reached the battle, it was virtually over. The torn remains of the horsemen and their mounts lay scattered about, and only three survivors remained. They were on foot, and they huddled together so tightly that even their bloodied weapons couldn’t stop them from looking like a flock of sheep.

  Vaught counted his brethren as he joined them. They were all there. One was sporting an arrow, the feathered shaft growing from his shoulder like an extra limb. Others had been hacked open. Their wounds smiled as their muscles flexed.

  Nothing serious.

  “So you are the herders,” one of the surviving riders sneered at him. Although he was speaking to Vaught, his eyes kept turning towards a nearby ridge, as if he was looking for some new dawn.

  The man managed to drag his eyes back to Vaught.

  “You would do better, herder, to follow your animals. You have no idea of who our lord is, or of the proficiency of our shaman. He is a great man, a chosen…”

  Vaught had tired of such pleasantries, and his only reply was a guttural snarl and a blur of movement. His brothers closed in around him, their fangs tearing the three men to pieces even before their hearts had stopped beating.

  It was in the midst of this joyful frenzy that Grendel, the noise of battle finally penetrating the fog of his own thoughts, found them. He peered over the top of the ridge that he had been waiting behind, blinking blue fire as he started to work out what he was seeing on the ground below.

  When he did understand what had happened, he smiled. Although twisted, the creatures that were feeding on his erstwhile comrades would make excellent sacrifices.

  His fingers twitching, he began to chant.

  In spite of himself, Kerr couldn’t take his eyes off the stream. Although the edges were rimed with ice it still flowed, gurgling merrily along through the tundra.

  That was all right. For a while, he had even taken comfort from the sight. In a world of burning skies and living stones it was reassuringly normal. Then he had noticed how the water flowed, how it always raced exactly north, even when that meant running uphill.

  As the carriage rattled and bounced its way over the carpet of frozen heather, he found himself wondering if it always headed north. Perhaps it changed direction from time to time, the serpent of water turning hunter, and writhing across the landscape in search of prey.

  Kerr tried not to dwell on such thoughts. There was no point in worrying about things like that. Even so, he had found his imagination growing increasingly morbid over the last week. The sickness that blighted these lands had also, it seemed, blighted his imagination.

  As for what was happening to Titus… Well, he didn’t want to think about it. He would rather watch the stream as it wriggled its way up and over a tumble of boulders than contemplate what that might mean.

  “Know what?” he asked the horses as they plodded along. “For the first time, I’m actually looking forward to meeting Grendel, just to get it over with, you understand, and get back home.”

  The horses whinnied with what Kerr was sure was agreement.

  “Why shouldn’t you understand?” he asked bitterly. “Boulders that spring to life, clouds that burn, water that won’t behave itself—why not talking horses too?”

  But if the horses had an opinion they kept it to themselves, and Kerr was left to face this horrible new world all by himself.

  Any doubts Kerr might have had about his master were dispelled that evening. The wizard had staggered out of the carriage and, his mouth open, but his eyes closed, he had walked straight past his apprentice and towards the flaming skies of the north.

  Kerr had watched him go, and for a moment, a single heartbeat of a moment, he had considered leaving him to whatever insanity had gripped him. It would be easy enough. He could kick out the fire, climb back up onto the carriage, and just go.

  Of course, Titus might try to pursue him, but somehow he doubted it. In fact, he more than doubted it. He knew that the wizard would no more turn away from his goal than a moth would from a flame. Until they had left Praag, this had been a pursuit, but now things were different. Now it seemed that Titus wasn’t a hunter so much as a fish on a hook.

  “Not that that’s a reason to stay with the old fool,” Kerr told himself, but it was no good. Ignoring the horses’ look of disgust, he trotted after Titus.

  “Hey boss, boss!”

  He caught up with the wizard and placed a hand upon one hamhock of an elbow.

  “Boss, it’s me. Wake up. You’re sleepwalking.”

  Titus’ eyes flickered open, and Kerr recoiled. They were as dead as the coins he had stolen from the dancing corpses that had begun this terrible journey.

  Then the flash of conscience was gone and Titus was blinking, scowling with confusion as he looked around.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “You were sleepwalking. Look, there’s our camp, see?” Kerr spoke softly, as if to a child or a fool. Titus recovered enough to resent it.

  “Yes, I can see that. Well get back to it then. I was just stretching my legs.”

  Liar, Kerr thought.

  “My mistake,” he said.

  “Put that fire out.” Titus grumbled, and wiped a sleeve across his brow. For the first time, Kerr noticed that, despite the chill, he was sweating. “We’ve wasted enough time already,” said Titus. “He is close, now. I can feel it.”

  “The horses need to rest,” Kerr argued. “If we push them any harder…”

  “Silence!” Titus roared, and raised his hand. Kerr dodged to one side and the two men looked at each other in surprise. Titus looked at his fist as if amazed to find it on the end of his arm. Then he dropped both his hand and his eyes.

  “Just get the horses ready to go,” he muttered, and sighed, “I can’t stand to waste any more time.”

  “No,” Kerr sai
d. “I don’t suppose you can.”

  This far north, the aethyric winds were strong enough to outshine even the blue sky above. For a while, Kerr had taken to wearing a hood, the thick cloth shielding him from the sight of the sickly colours. They made his head throb and his heart ache. He also kept almost seeing things from the corner of his eyes, scurrying things that hadn’t been there before he’d looked.

  Eventually, he’d thrown the hood back again. However nauseating, it was better to see this sickly world than it was to wander blindly through it. Safer, at least.

  That was why he saw the first signs of the battle ahead, even while it was still a mile distant. There were flashes, dazzling arcs of energy and distant rumbles of energies. In the south, he would have dismissed the commotion as lightning, perhaps even fireworks. Here, he had no such illusions.

  A minute after he had seen the first flash, Titus thumped on the carriage. Kerr reined in the horses, and the wizard leapt out. He lost his footing in his eagerness, and tumbled into the frozen sand of the place. Bouncing back to his feet, he staggered to a halt and looked at the lights.

  “Look at that,” he exulted, gesturing towards a column of purple flame that suddenly shot up. It left after-images dancing in Kerr’s eyes, and he blinked away tears. Titus, wide eyed with excitement, let tears run down his chubby cheeks.

  “Such power!” he cried as happily as a child. “Isn’t it splendid? Isn’t it magnificent? With power like that a man could remake the world. What do the colleges have to offer by comparison?”

  Kerr had more practical concerns than Titus’ rhetoric.

  “Is it Grendel?” he asked, “or something else?”

  Titus seemed not to hear. Then he shook himself and started to hoist himself back into the carriage.

  “Come, let’s go. Straight ahead.”

  “Straight ahead!” Kerr yelped. “Isn’t that a bit dangerous?”

  “Nonsense. You seem to forget that nobody can see us. Now stop talking and go.”