by C. L. Werner
'The sorcerer is powerful, yes.' snarled Hroth at Borkhil, out of the earshot of the approaching sorcerer, 'but one day soon I will be more powerful even than him. On that day I will cut you down, Borkhil, and offer your skull up to the Blood God.'
'If such a day was to come, then I would welcome the chance to face you, Hroth of the Khazags,' intoned the black armoured figure, before stepping aside for his Lord Sudobaal. The other chieftains bowed their heads at the approach of the sorcerer.
The sorcerer threw back his hood, exposing his ancient, pinched face. His features were hard, cruel and fierce despite his age, and he exuded menace. Power emanated from him in throbbing waves, as if the invisible, ever-present winds of magic responded to every beat of his heart. Deep sigils were cut into the skin of his cheeks - runes of power that made Hroth's eyes hurt. The sorcerer's unblinking, snake-like yellow eyes conveyed no emotion, and his mouth was set in a deep scowl.
'You have the staff?' the sorcerer asked, his voice deep and sepulchral. Though Hroth stood almost a full head and a half taller than the sorcerer, the smaller man oozed menace and power. Hroth could feel the power of the sorcerer beating upon him, urging him to fall to his knees. Gritting his teeth, he waved the warrior Thorgar forwards. He bore a heavy fur pelt in his arms. Laying it on the ground, Thorgar drew the furs back, exposing the twisted staff within, careful not to touch it. The inside of the fur was singed, and the smell of burning hair rose from the pelt.
Sudobaal stared unblinking at the staff, and his mouth twisted into a savage grin. He stepped forwards eagerly and crouched beside it, his talon-like hands feeling the air above the staff. The runt can barely contain himself, thought Hroth, as the sorcerer became flushed, and his breathing quickened.
'Yes.' whispered the sorcerer. 'This is it.' He licked his dry, pinched lips, and reached towards the twisted shaft. He picked it up gingerly in both hands, cradling it gently as a mother would her babe. He rose to his feet, eyes shining.
The staff began to move, very slowly, and the uncoiling root-like tendrils wrapped themselves around Sudobaal's hand and forearm. The sorcerer watched transfixed as the sharpened ends of the branches pierced his skin and entered his veins. He felt a pull at his heart as his blood began to flow into the staff, travelling up its twisted length and pumping around the stylised Chaos star at its tip. It burst into flames suddenly, blue and green fire that rippled and flickered along the entire staff.
Sudobaal smiled cruelly as he came to understand and master the staff. With a single thought he made the blue-green flames flare up angrily, changing hue to a deep purple-red, lighting up the entire clearing with the daemonic glow. With another thought, he made the flames dissipate almost completely, their flicker almost imperceptible.
'You have done well, chosen.' said Sudobaal, his features once more set grimly. Turning towards Borkhil and the other chieftains, who were clearly awed by the display, Sudobaal spoke, his deep voice authoritative. 'My plans are soon to be fulfilled. Torben Skull-splitter, take your Norsemen northwest tonight. Travel by road and clear the way of any enemies you discover. Torch any buildings you find, and slay any within. I will send a message to you within the week. Dharkon Gar, you and your cousin will take your tribes south. Plunder and pillage all that you can, be a wound in the side of the Empire that they cannot ignore. They will divert some forces to deal with you, for your warriors are many - too many to be ignored.' The two Kurgan chieftains nodded their heads. Sudobaal turned towards the cloven-hoofed, shorter chieftain.
'You, Ghorbar Beast-kin, will travel the dark paths to the northeast, two weeks' march from here. Seek out the beast tribes hidden there. Prepare the gibbet tree for my coming.'
The chieftain bowed his head, and marched off, barking orders.
Turning back towards Hroth and Borkhil, Sudobaal was silent for a moment. He inclined his head to one side, as if listening to a voice no one else could hear. Then he nodded to himself, and spoke. 'Hroth the Blooded, you and your warband will accompany me. I name you my warlord, chieftain amongst my chieftains. You have proven your worth to me, and the gods favour you.' With that, Sudobaal turned on his heel and moved off, climbing the rocky ground back towards the cave.
Borkhil dropped to one knee before Hroth. 'My blade is yours, warlord.' intoned the black-clad warrior. The other remaining chieftains did likewise.
Hroth the Blooded smiled, exposing his sharp teeth. Flames burnt furiously in the eyes. Yes, he thought, I have proven my worth.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER NINE
For two arduous weeks of hard marching, the soldiers of Ostermark trudged towards the north coast of the Empire. The lands they passed through had suffered much during the previous three years. Although the main force of Asavar Kul's army never crossed the borders of Kislev into the Empire itself during the Great War, hundreds of warbands did, sent to sow terror and dissent amongst the Empire's populace.
While Asavar Kul marched into Kislev at the head of the greatest Chaos force the world had ever seen, these warbands struck at isolated, rural Empire villages and towns, burning them to the ground and sacrificing the inhabitants to their Dark Gods. The Empire, divided by four hundred years of internal struggle and civil war, did not react in any orderly fashion. Deep division between the provinces meant that there was no unified defence, and as each elector acted independently, doing what he saw as best for himself, the forces of Chaos flourished within the dark forests of the Empire.
Over the previous four hundred years, as civil war and unrest plagued the Empire, the elector counts had grown lax at rooting out the evil creatures that lurked in the forests that surrounded their cities, and so when the forces of Chaos began their assault, countless thousands of beastmen from the forests joined them. Their ranks were swollen with those who had been cast out of their homes - for consorting with Dark Powers, or for being unable to hide hideous mutations from the societies they lived in. Many that had slunk away into the darkness now arose, eager to cast down those who had oppressed them. They had been lurking for generations, awaiting their time to rise and slaughter those they had hidden from.
Witchcraft and sorcery had long been forbidden in the Empire, and all who dabbled in its dangerous arts, or were accused of doing so, were ruthlessly hunted down, tortured and burnt to death. Those fearing persecution also fled into the concealing darkness of the forests. Most were slaughtered by the dark things that lurked there, but some survived, for their dark magic skills were true. These magisters and witches also rose up when the waves of Chaos energy rippled from the far Northern Wastes, and they attacked the Empire from within its own borders alongside the Chaos warbands, the mutants, the cultists and the uncountable beasts of the forest.
The lands they had marched through still bore the mark of this devastation. It would take generations before the wounds healed, thought Stefan, although he doubted whether the Empire had generations to spare. The Great War had been won, but in his darker moments, he wondered whether the conflict would ever end. He had never voiced such doubts and never would, but sometimes in the dead of night they crept up on him. Or they came at him when he walked silently through yet another deserted village, the skeletal remains of its occupants nailed to barn doors, long since picked clean by carrion-eaters.
The northern lands had perhaps suffered the most of all the lands in the Empire. They were far from any of the great cities, and far from the protection that they yielded. Many of the people that had lived this far north had no idea of what was occurring in the outside world before the hordes of Chaos descended upon them, hacking and slaying, and ravaging and burning.
The villages that Stefan and his army discovered that were still miraculously inhabited were overrun with plague and pestilence. He ordered his soldiers to pass by these infected settlements in wide arcs, not venturing too close. Still, many of the sick and dying villagers would cry out to the men of Ostermark for aid or food, for they were starving as well as plague-ridden.
Many of the men
of Ostermark had wished to aid the wretches, but they were sternly ordered not to do so by the sergeant, Albrecht. 'It won't do them or us no good, lads.'
Still, a steady stream of ragtag hangers-on attached themselves to the marching military force. At first, it was just a few frightened families whose homes had been destroyed, and they quickly made themselves useful around the camp, cleaning and cooking to earn some food. Stefan cast a blind eye to this, for it had no damaging effect. However, the rabble grew steadily as the days passed, and soon there had been hundreds of the pathetic hangers-on following the army. Most could not match the exacting pace set by Stefan and the reiksmarshal, and they were encouraged to head south, towards Wolfenburg. As the days passed, most were left behind to face the dangers of the wilderness. Many took the captain's advice and began to make the perilous trek towards Wolfenburg, but Stefan knew that most would never make it. Still, for every family group that was left behind another attached itself to the cavalcade, and they were joined by more unsavoury elements.
Dozens of doom-laden zealots had joined the mob: men and women who had been driven to the point of madness by the horrors they had witnessed over the last years. They screamed and ranted that the end of the world was nigh, and beat themselves with whips, chains and spiked clubs. They were terrifying to the other hangers-on, and disturbing to the soldiers. Their ranting and raving, proclamations of doom and wanton masochism was bad for morale. 'No man needs to be reminded of his own mortality quite so blatantly.' the reiksmarshal had commented, eyeing the flagellants warily when they had first started to band together behind the baggage trains of the army.
Stefan's face was grim as he and Albrecht marched through the camp, passing by the campfires of his soldiers. The men ate in relative silence, and there was no laughter or mirth. Some soldiers called out to Stefan in greeting, and he acknowledged them with a nod or a word.
Thirty greatswords picked from Stefan's elite bodyguard marched behind the pair as they moved away from camp, heading towards a bonfire that raged some way off in the distance. The greatswords carried their massive two-handed swords over their right shoulders, and wore flamboyant feathers in their hats. They wore heavy armour, and marched in perfect, disciplined unison behind Stefan and Albrecht. They were awesome warriors, fearless and skilled, and they had never faltered in the face of the enemy. Still, even they were uneasy as they marched towards the ranting madmen.
Stefan could hear the raised voices of the flagellants, and could see ragged figures capering around the rising flames. The green moon Morrslieb could be seen hanging high in the sky, much larger than its pure, pale sister moon of Mannslieb. Nights when the green moon hung so large were bad for the Empire, for strange and unnatural things tended to occur. Some said the dead walked the land on such nights, and others that it heralded evil to come. The flagellants were most certainly responding to it, working themselves up into a frenzy as the moon climbed its way across the heavens.
'Damn it, captain, they are pitiful figures, but I cannot hate them.' said Albrecht, referring to the crazed zealots.
Stefan knew what he meant. The hardships of the previous years had made these people what they were.
'Handy in a fight, though.' added Albrecht. Stefan had to admit that this was also true. Having long since confronted their own vision of the world's destruction in their mind's eye, they were fearless of death.
Only two days past, the convoy had been attacked by greenskins. Although essentially stupid creatures, Stefan recognised that they were cunning, for they had waited in ambush until the Reiklandguard and the bulk of the warriors of Ostermark had passed through a narrow valley before launching their attack. The rearguard was too far back to be able to intercept the whooping creatures as they had sprung the ambush and streamed from the rocks to attack the seemingly defenceless artillery trains, baggage wagons and ragtag hangers-on who struggled to keep pace.
The first to reach the Empire column were the vicious, smaller greenskins riding massive, slavering wolves. The demented flagellants had thrown themselves at the enemy, and proceeded to rip them apart, ignoring their own often-fatal wounds. They hurled themselves onto the spears of the foe in order to close with them and smash them to the ground with their flails and crude hammers. This assault had so stunned the ambushers that they had lost their momentum, and Stefan was able to organise a counter-attack quickly. The greenskins were slaughtered in droves by the black powder handguns of the men of Ostermark and the powerful bolts of their crossbows. Those greenskins that did manage to survive these lethal volleys, and reach the Empire convoy, were met by Stefan and his halberdiers, and were cut down with ruthless efficiency.
As they drew closer to the crazed zealots capering and screaming around the bonfire, Stefan ordered his greatswords to a halt. With just Albrecht at his side, he marched towards the flagellants.
There were about seventy of them, dressed in filth-encrusted robes and tattered clothing. Several had ripped the clothing from their bodies, despite the deepening cold of the approaching winter, and he could see great bloody wounds upon their backs from their self-flagellation. Some had carved statements of repentance and doom into their own flesh. Others had put out their own eyes, and pranced around the fire blindly, great bronze bells hanging around their necks tolling mournfully. Others wore spiked collars that cut into their necks, their bodies slick with blood. One had a battered parchment nailed into the flesh of his chest, a page ripped from a holy book of Sigmar, which Stefan frowned at. A pair of men cried out ecstatically as they flayed the skin from each other's backs.
A towering man wearing battered plate armour stood in the centre of the group, loudly extolling his vision of doom and despondency. His hair and beard were grey and unkempt, and his eyes were wild. Around his waist he wore a string of skulls. Bizarrely, a dead fish, its mouth incredibly distended, had been pulled over the cranium of one of the skulls. Carved into his forehead was the image of a twin-tailed comet, the symbol of Sigmar, and he stood upon the back of another man lying prostrate in the mud, froth dribbling from his mouth. Stefan recognised with surprise that the breastplate the figure wore was the same as those worn by the Reiklandguard, probably scavenged from the dead, he reasoned. Seeing the two men warily approaching, the madman turned towards them and raised his hands into the air.
'Join with us, my children! Give up yourselves to the end of humanity! The day draws near, the end times are upon us! Abase yourselves before great Sigmar, pledge your soul to him and beat the fear from your bodies!'
Albrecht threw the captain a dark look. Stefan folded his arms and planted his feet firmly, looking into the crazed eyes of the self-proclaimed prophet.
'I am already a devout worshipper of great Sigmar. I have no need to abase myself, nor beat myself to prove it to him.'
'Repent, my child. There is darkness within you. Let that darkness out. Be free. Burn it from your soul!'
A cheer from the flagellants greeted that proclamation, and several of them raised their burning braziers high into the air. Others scrambled over each other to lift burning brands from the fire. The air was suddenly filled with the stench of burning flesh, as one of the zealots reversed his brand and held its flaming end to his abdomen. One of the crazed followers of the doom-laden prophet stepped towards Stefan, holding a burning brazier before him.
'Burn it from your soul!' he shouted, repeating the words of the prophet, and he thrust the brazier forwards. Albrecht stepped in front of his captain and swung a meaty fist into the man's face. He dropped the brazier and fell to his knees, clutching at Albrecht's leather tabard. 'Thank you!' he screeched. Albrecht kicked him away, a look of disgust on his face.
'The end does approach.' said the prophet quietly, his voice sounding more lucid. 'We cut down the Everchosen, Asavar Kul, on the battlefield of Kislev, but it matters not. Another will rise. Even now, another is growing in power. Perhaps he will have the power to unite the scattered tribes. A new era of horror and death is upon us. We will never esca
pe it.' He glanced at his demented followers. 'These men and women have seen that it is inevitable.'
'I do not believe that the end is inevitable,' said Stefan, 'and if it is, it would not change my resolve. Where there is evil, it must be fought. There is always hope. To give up on that is to give up completely.'
'I believed so once myself.' chuckled the preacher humourlessly, 'but thereis no hope, for I have seen the future. Sigmar has granted me the vision. I see blood and fire and death. There is nothing more. Blood and fire and death.'
'You fought well against the greenskins.' said Stefan, changing the subject as he saw the gleam of madness returning to the preacher. 'Had you and your followers not reacted so quickly, many people would have been slain.'
'There is no future for these people.' said the prophet, indicating the flagellants. 'There is no future for me. In death, we can lend our aid to Sigmar and to the Empire.' He lowered his voice before he continued. 'Their homes have been destroyed, their families slaughtered before their eyes. They have witnessed things that would drive any man insane. They have nothing, nothing but the memories that haunt their every living minute. No, were they to travel to Wolfenburg, or even distant Nuln, they would have no life. Penniless, their minds ravaged by horror, they would die, starving to death and alone in their madness. Together, they are a family, and if we can find death while aiding our Empire, then we have done something.'
'What is your name? You rode with the Reiklandguard once, true?' said Stefan. He had no doubt, now, that this man was once a knight, and had not scavenged the breastplate from a corpse, as he had first thought.
'Aye, I rode with the reiksmarshal, it is true. A fine man. We crushed the Chaos fiends of the north,' he said, 'and I have no name. I gave it up long ago. I have no family, no home, and have no need of a name. I will burn brightly, and kill for the Empire, and I will die nameless.' 'Why do you ride with them no longer?' 'I fell in battle, ambushed. A red devil cut my horse from beneath me, and I was trapped beneath it. The devil had wanted to kill me then and there, I knew, but a vile sorcerer stopped him. I was taken alive. My legs were useless, broken at the hip. For five days and nights I was their prisoner. My head was filled with visions.