Marks of Chaos

by James Wallis

  On the side of his neck the new mouth moved. He sensed it opening its lips, then closing its teeth with a slight snap. A part of him, the Karl Hoche part, filled with dread and hatred, but somehow that didn’t matter either.

  He lay motionless as the rain pelted him, plastering wet leaves against his body, and contemplated the futility of his existence. He could not think of anything he had ever wanted that had not been cruelly ripped away: his life as a soldier, his friends, his family, all his dreams for the future, and his sense of who he was. He was no longer the man he had thought he was. He was not a man at all.

  Karl Hoche did not have to die. Karl Hoche was already dead.

  A voice in his mind was telling him that this was ridiculous. It was the voice he had listened to for as long as he could remember, the voice he identified as himself. It sounded scared. How could Karl Hoche be dead, it was saying, if he was Karl Hoche?

  That was true enough. But Karl Hoche’s hopes and dreams were gone, all the truths that made up his view of the world had been shattered and turned upside down, his knowledge and experience had been proved useless. It was Hoche who had ended up in this place. Yet the last six months had not only ripped him apart, it had taught him new truths, shown him new enemies, and made him understand a new way of seeing the world—a world so alien to the old Hoche that he had fractured trying to understand it.

  Karl Hoche might try to deny what had happened to him, and prefer a quick death to life without hopes or dreams. The man on the ground could not do that. He had seen things he could not ignore, and had heard questions that demanded answers.

  Slowly, dispassionately, he looked into his own thoughts. He had been Karl Hoche from his first memory, but now he understood that what he thought of as Hoche, as himself, was only another mask. Something—someone—lay beneath it, some aspect of himself he did not know, but that knew him.

  He tried to concentrate, to understand what part of himself was separate from the part that was Karl Hoche. It was useless. Too much of his mind was still occupied by Hoche, and Hoche was terrified—by what was happening to him, by the unknown, by these thoughts. Terrified by the possibility that without the mask, what defined his humanity, controlled his emotions and gave his life shape and purpose, he might become the thing he feared most. It might not just be his body. He might be a creature of Chaos in mind and spirit too.

  He had a choice. Either he could remain as Hoche, and die here, wretched and alone. Or he could lift the mask and see what emerged, for good or ill.

  He did not know what to do.

  He had no strength to decide. He was too wrecked in body and soul. His injuries, his hunger, the strain of the last few months had left him too weak to make the choice. If he could not choose then Karl Hoche won and he died here, and crows would pick his bones.

  But that was not a decision, that was surrender, an acknowledgement that he was powerless and useless, and he knew that was not true. A spark of something still burned within him. He needed to find another source of strength. He was prepared to die here, but if he did then it must because it was the right path for him to follow.

  The rain had stopped. He barely noticed. His flesh was numb with cold and exposure, his breathing shallow. The cold mud leeched the warmth from his body. He had no strength to move, even if he had wanted to.

  He had no strength. Braubach had talked about strength. “You’ll find if Sigmar is your strength,” he’d said.

  This wasn’t about his faith in Sigmar, nor about the stories of the god he had learned at his father’s knee and recited in the temple every Festag. It was about the true aspect of the god himself.

  Sigmar, the warlord-king who had single-handedly defeated a war-party of goblins before his sixteenth birthday, who had united the tribes, built an empire and driven back the greenskin hordes. He had not lain back to die quietly, surrounded by grieving relatives. In his fiftieth year he had taken the great hammer Ghal-maraz and gone to Black Fire Pass, striding away into battle, history, legend and god-hood. Wherever it was he had faced death, he might have been alone but he had been on his feet and fighting.

  A warrior never gives up. A true servant of Sigmar never surrenders.

  “In the stretch,” Braubach had said, “he and your sword are the only true allies you have.” And he had no sword any more.

  “Sigmar give me strength,” he whispered. His lips were cracked and split, caked in dried blood and scabs. It hurt to move them.

  He opened his eyes. Rainwater had pooled in their hollows and he stared at the night sky through a film of blurred water that made the stars and constellations dance.

  Everything was silent and still for a timeless moment, and then a streak of light blazed across the black sky. A shooting star, the first he had ever seen. He tried to turn his head to follow its course. The movement rippled the water over his eyes, and for an instant before the star winked out it seemed to split into two.

  A two-tailed star in the heavens. The symbol of Sigmar’s birth. No sign could be clearer.

  He lay back. Calmly, without any fuss, he let the personality that had been Karl Hoche drop away to one side, falling like his sword from the Untersuchung roof, tumbling end over end into dark shadows. Maybe one day he would be able to put that mask on again, to become his old self, think the comfortable old thoughts, perhaps even achieve some of the long-cherished dreams. Maybe one day.

  First he had answers to find, a new purpose to fulfil. It was not about revenge, for himself or for his comrades burnt in Altdorf. Nor was it about completing his old life before he put it away. It was more simple. He no longer saw the world as Karl Hoche, with Hoche’s preconceptions and prejudices. His new sense of self, still raw and painful, gave him a new sense of perspective.

  Everything he did from this point on, he understood, was not beholden to any code of morals or ethics, any sense of duty, or honour, or loyalty. Sigmar had brought him to this place and given him the sign, but it was not Sigmar who would have to stand up and walk away, forging a new path through life. His sense of who he was had to come from within, and his sense of loyalty and honour must do the same. If you cannot be true to yourself, you cannot be true at all.

  He knew that the taint of Chaos in his flesh would kill him in the end, and he knew he could not fight that. He could still strike at its root, at the works of Chaos in the world, its followers and its schemes, and if he died in the struggle then that would save him from the agony of a longer, more painful death. But to fight Chaos he would have to understand it, to learn to recognise its workings and its methods. The Untersuchung had started him on the path, but he still had a long way to go.

  First he had to learn how to survive. He would have to learn how mutants lived.

  Dawn tinted the edge of the sky to the east. The long night was closing. He moved slowly, lifting himself up out of the mud, feeling the pain of every bruise and cut, brushing dirt and leaves from his body. He staggered out of the forest to the edge of the river, splashing the dark water over his face. It was cold and stung, but it refreshed him. He cupped his hands and drank it in slow mouthfuls, letting the overflow wash over his chest.

  Then he walked to the dilapidated hut he had seen the evening before and pulled open its rotted door. There was nothing inside except a battered chair, a mildewed straw mattress on a broken bed and a pile of dried leaves in a corner that had blown in through the splintered shutters. He pulled the door closed behind him, judged which corner was the least draughty and dragged the mattress over to it. He piled the leaves in a heap on its rotten canvas, curled up in them and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  He woke in the late afternoon. He rose slowly, examining his body, surprised at how fast his wounds were healing. He felt ravenously hungry, desperate for something to eat, but he had no way of finding food, catching a fish or trapping game. There was only one source of food nearby.

  He left the hut and walked into the forest, following the trail the mutants had left.

 
CHAPTER ELEVEN

  One Of Us

  The mutants had not gone far, and there were not many of them. His mind, clear of the blurred thoughts and interference brought by emotions and self-pity, knew these things. They had been practiced and coordinated, so they had used this location to ambush people before. They had said the horse would feed them for a fortnight, so there were unlikely to be others back at their camp. And horses were valuable: most thieves would steal one to sell or ride, not eat it. So they were a small, lone group with no use for transport or money.

  Which was the leader? He thought over his fleeting glimpses of their faces, bodies and attitudes, and the snatches of their speech. Not the bear-like one: he was muscle, nothing more. Nor the youth, he had the sullen aggression of adolescence and the demeanour of one who had suffered too much strong discipline. Probably at the hands of the one who had ordered the boy off, the one with the warts for skin.

  Their trail was easy to find and easier to follow, five humanoids and a horse left a lot of tracks, and they had made no effort to hide theirs. It was about an hour, something over a mile uphill through tangled undergrowth and brambles, before he heard voices and smelled wood smoke. He crouched down, moving slowly and silently, his bare feet touching the ground gently before each step.

  Their camp was a crude thing, a circle of low huts made from piled and woven branches, the walls daubed with mud and clay to keep the wind and rain out, the roofs crudely thatched from reeds and bracken. A stream ran along one side of the settlement, widening to a pool roughly dammed with stones. At the centre of the circle was a large rock with a flat surface. A fire burned beside it and the gang was gathered around the flames, roasting lumps of meat on sticks.

  He counted five of them. The warty one had ram’s horns and wore his jerkin, and the one with no head had his cloak thrown over his shoulders. That one had eyes where his nipples should have been, long arms, and his bare chest was split by a wide lipless mouth that moved strangely as it chewed. The great ursine one was there, and the woman, and another he’d not noticed before, with small wings like an owl’s and a face that seemed to change as he watched it. There was no sign of his horse, apart from the lumps on the sticks.

  From the darkness he observed them for half an hour, gauging the dynamics of the group, working out who deferred to who, and thinking of a plan. Then he stood and walked into the camp, splashing through the stream’s freezing water, making no attempt to hide his approach. They stood up to watch him. He knew he must be a gruesome sight with his smashed nose, his face bruised and cut, his body bloody and muddied.

  The headless mutant stood up, his thin arms hanging down almost to his knees. “He’s still alive,” he said in a voice like claws scratching.

  “Tougher than he looks,” said the woman. She had huge eyes, a mass of thick blonde hair and breasts as big as her head.

  “Too tough to make good eating,” said the wart-faced one, not moving from where he sat.

  The headless mutant stepped forward, waving the stick it had been using to cook meat as if it was a rapier, its gash of a mouth smiling to reveal a nest of thin pointed teeth. “What are you here for? Another beating?” it demanded.

  He stood his ground. “I am here by the will of the gods and I want my rain-cloak back,” he said.

  There was laughter. “You do, do you?” The headless figure stepped forward. “Then you’ll have to fight me for it.” It pulled the cloak higher so the collar sat tightly over its shoulders, and it made come-on gestures at him with its long hands. He raised his eyebrows and held his ground, his arms loose by his side. He hoped he was ready for this. He hoped he had the strength in his body to pull it off. He knew he had the strength of mind.

  “Get him, Walther,” called the woman. “Whip him back into the night.”

  The mutant Walther danced in, holding the stick in its right hand like a sword, making thrusts and sweeps with it. It was too light to be any use as a weapon, with no heft or point. He made a show of dodging it, but he knew it was a distraction. Even with its long arms, the mutant was holding back too far. The real attack was coming from somewhere else. That meant it was two against one, and he was too weak to try anything flashy or strenuous. Time to test the value of tactics.

  He turned to face the fire and lifted his head to expose his neck, letting his second mouth catch the light. “I’m one of you!” he declared. “I bear the mark of Chaos!”

  He’d been hoping for more of a reaction, but Walther stopped waving the stick for a second and that was long enough. He darted for it, grabbing its end and yanking it to the right, against the thumb to break the startled mutant’s grip. The stick flew loose. He whipped it around, twisting his body, spinning to see what was behind him.

  He had been right: the lanky youth with three arms had been coming from out of the darkness, carrying a knife in his right hand. The end of the stick caught the boy across the knuckles, knocking the weapon flying, its blade catching the light from the flames. It was his knife, the one the boy had taken from him.

  He dropped the stick and dived for it, scooping it up as he landed and rolling over on the soft ground so he ended up on his backside at the edge of the stream, facing towards the two mutants, his back to the forest and the night.

  He gestured in the air with the knife, and the boy stepped back a couple of steps. The group around the fire were jeering at them. “Come on, Walther,” called one, “or he’ll have that cloak off you as easy as he took your stick.” The headless figure shook its shoulders in annoyance, picked up a thick branch, swung it like a club and stalked forward.

  “What are you going to do with your little pigsticker, you dirt?” it asked, the mouth in its breast grinning wide, showing rows of yellowed teeth as it approached. Its club was drawn back to swing.

  He smiled for the first time in days, balanced the knife in his hand and threw it. It spun across the gap and buried itself blade-first in the mutant’s mouth, the hilt sticking out between its suddenly closed teeth. Walther’s weird eyes bugged wide as thick blood oozed between its lips. Its club dropped from its hands and it crumpled to the ground, kneeling, clutching at its mouth.

  Behind it the other mutants watched, silent. They couldn’t see their comrade’s Chaos-twisted face, but they knew something had happened, and the man they had been jeering a moment ago had proved he was more than a joke.

  He stood and walked to where Walther knelt, blood pouring down its chest, trying desperately to stem the flow with its hands. “Don’t bleed on my cloak, dead flesh,” he said and kicked the hilt of the knife with his bare foot, forcing it further into the creature, through the spot where a man’s heart would be. There was a final gout of blood and it collapsed backwards, limp, dead.

  He turned to where the blond youth stood, fixed to the spot, and gestured at him with a clenched fist. “You want the same? I’ll leave you dead beside him.” The youth stared for a second, then broke and fled into the darkness beyond the firelight.

  He went to the corpse and pulled his knife from its strange teeth. One had broken off in the polished wooden hilt, a jagged souvenir. He stuck the blade in the waistband of his trousers, then stripped his cloak off the heavy body and pulled it on. It felt warm and familiar, comfortable. As he fastened it, he glanced up to watch the rest of the group. They were standing, weapons drawn, in wary poses. Good.

  “What do you want?” the wart-skinned one said gruffly, trying to sound fierce, failing.

  He pointed at the corpse lying at his feet. “His hut.”

  The bed was squalid and too short, but it was a bed. He lay on it, picking at a piece of horseflesh stuck in his teeth, and thanked his strange luck that his smashed nose was blocked with clotted blood and he couldn’t smell the hut’s foulness. He was very tired but he dared not sleep: the pack would be certain to try to kill him while he rested.

  It had been a reasonable beginning. The others had sat, sullen and silent round the fire, as he had cut a lump off the carcass of his horse, roaste
d strips of it in the flames, and retired to eat it in his new hut. Now he could hear them talking outside in low voices. Let them talk. He could guess what they were discussing.

  Who would be first to try their luck? Bastard-boy was an obvious choice, looking to restore his damaged pride, but there was something in the youth’s demeanour that made him unlikely to be tonight’s visitor. It wouldn’t be the leader, and the bear-man was too large. That left two. Perhaps they’d try to fire the hut and kill him as he ran out. That was what he’d do. But he suspected a band like this would be looking for something with a little more bravado.

  He remembered an old trick. Standing, he stripped off his cloak and trousers and bundled them up, making a man-sized lump under the blanket on the bed. Then he moved to the corner of the hut closest to the thick cloth draped over the doorway, and waited, naked and cold.

  It took less than an hour. Soft footsteps came from outside and the door-cloth was pulled slowly aside, letting light from the fire spill across the earth floor. He held his breath. A figure crept in with careful steps—the one with wings, he guessed. It was holding a woodsman’s axe. It made its stealthy way to the side of the bed and raised the weapon.

  He stepped behind it, grabbed the axe-handle with both hands and pulled it from the assassin’s grip. As the figure turned he swung the flat of the blade at its head. The contact was messy but solid, sending the mutant flying sideways across the small room to hit the wall.

  “Go! Next time I see you, I’ll have your head!” he yelled. The stunned assassin staggered to its feet and ran. He waited a second and followed it outside, stark naked, hefting the axe in both hands. The night wind was bitterly cold on his bare skin. He didn’t care.