A huge fire-blackened throne was set into the stern of the longship, and from it rose a giant of a man, silver-haired and fork-bearded. He was the warlord Styrbjorn, High Jarl of the Skaelings, and while he looked perhaps sixty, he was in truth far, far older. Nevertheless, his arms were still strong and thick, and his battle-fury as potent as ever. Twin axes were strapped across his back, and he nodded as he saw the lone knight awaiting him upon the beach, as if he had expected him.
Only when this towering warrior approached did the knight rise to his feet.
An old hunched shaman cloaked in matted fur stood at the Norscan’s side. He spat on the ground at the Bretonnian knight’s feet.
‘It is good that you are here,’ said High Jarl Styrbjorn, his words translated by his shaman, who spoke Breton in a thick but recognisable accent.
‘I said that I would be waiting,’ said Calard of Garamont, his eyes shining with the light of the Lady, ‘and I am not a man who breaks his word.’
For more than fifty years Calard had fought the enemies of Bretonnia as a grail Knight, and his deeds and exploits were renowned across the lands. Nevertheless, his face was as unlined as it had been since the day he had supped from the grail, and there was no hint of silver in his hair.
Over the past half a decade he had seen sights that few men ever dreamed of, and had mourned the death of many brave and honourable men.
He thought of his old friends often, though they had long since passed over into Morr’s eternal realm: Raben, who had risen to become a respected nobleman before he had disappeared seeking the grail in the arid sands of Nehekhara; the Empire nobleman, Dieter Weschler, who had married his Bretonnian mistress in something of a scandal and gone on to become an extremely wealthy and powerful political attaché in the king’s court; and even his lowly manservant Chlod, who had risen far beyond anyone’s expectations.
The High Jarl’s gaze wandered past Calard, surveying the vast Bretonnian army that waited on the grasslands beyond the beach. Thousands of knights and peasant men-at-arms were gathered there, watching and waiting, just as behind the jarl waited his own army, blooded in decades of brutal warfare.
The icy wind continued to howl from the north, and thunder rumbled. Lightning flashed. It was a good omen.
‘The eyes of my gods are upon us,’ said High Jarl Styrbjorn.
‘And the goddess of this land is with me,’ said Calard. ‘Let us finish this, Norscan.’
‘As you wish,’ said Styrbjorn. He turned and waved one of his men forwards.
Calard watched the warrior approach, his expression grim. He was not as large as some of the Norscan huskarls, but he was no less impressive for that. His skin had a strange coppery sheen to it, and his eyes were disconcerting, black with silver irises. He stared at Calard unblinkingly.
Calard could feel the daemon writhing within this warrior’s flesh, but more disturbing still was the fact that he could see the features of Elisabet, the woman he had once loved, reflected in the creature’s face.
This was the offspring of Stybjorn and Elisabet, the daemon-child for which so many had died.
‘Fight well, my son,’ said Styrbjorn, stepping aside.
The daemon came towards Calard, unsheathing the massive double-handed cleaver from a scabbard strapped across his back. Dark flames rippled along the length of the blade.
Calard drew the Sword of Garamont and stepped out to meet him, his own sword wreathed in pale fire.
‘Lady guide my blade,’ murmured Calard.
Thunder rumbled across the heavens, and under the watchful gaze of the Bretonnian and Norse armies, the two champions of the gods came together.
MANBANE
Andy Hoare
Stinking cold mud gushed into Duerr’s mouth as he crashed to the root-choked ground, his ankle turning on a twisted stump. He coughed, spewed the bulk of the vile liquid from his mouth and blew through his nose to clear his nostrils. Gasping, Duerr cursed, invoking dread spirits only one of his calling could name. Duerr was a wizard, a student of the amethyst arts, what some might in their ignorance call a necromancer. Right now, stumbling through the night-shrouded depths of the Drakwald Deeps, he felt he was closer than ever to joining those spirits he had so foolishly named but a moment before.
Up! Gritting his teeth Duerr hauled himself erect, his grasping hands finding purchase on the clammy trunk of a thoroughly rotten tree. He cast around to regain his bearings, then looked directly up into the sickly green orb of Morrslieb. The Dark Moon was high overhead and, as such, little use as a navigational aid. But Duerr was gifted of the arcane sight, perceiving the questing tendrils of raw Chaos that seethed around it like a slithering halo of snakes. Breathing deeply, he turned west, knowing that his one, precarious hope of survival lay in reaching one of the scattered settlements along the Altdorf-Middenheim road before his pursuers overtook him.
As if to underscore his predicament and drive him onwards, the dark woods suddenly echoed to a coarse, braying war cry. Duerr cursed once more, feeling his guts turn to ice as they threatened to void themselves there and then. The sound was unmistakably that of the savage beastmen, the Children of Old Night, of Chaos itself. Beasts that walked and talked like men, or men that fought and rutted like beasts, the nature of the vile creatures that haunted the deep woods of the Old World mattered not. The only thing Duerr cared for was that his pursuers were closing on him, the scent of man-flesh and mortal fear sending them into an animal frenzy.
Another cry split the cold night air, and Duerr was spurred to movement. He pushed through the undergrowth in search of the path he had lost what seemed an age ago. The way ahead was even denser than the path he had already travelled, the trees more twisted and gnarled and the bracken ever more thick and treacherous. Thorns caught on his trailing robes, the deep purple fabric he had paid so much for soon tattered and stained with patches of crimson blood. His breath came in ragged gasps as he stumbled ever on, his arms flailing blindly before him to ward away branches that stabbed for his eyes from the darkness.
Another cry, far closer than the last. Duerr hurtled through the undergrowth, barely keeping his footing as he imagined hot, stinking breath on the back of his neck and razor-sharp, jagged fangs sinking into his flesh. A heavy thud sounded from somewhere behind, as if a body ten times his own mass had shouldered into, and through, the rotten tree he had just skirted. Heavy footfalls thudded hollowly across the moss-carpeted ground, but Duerr knew they were no normal feet. These were cloven hooves, trampling the undergrowth to pulp with their passage.
A hideous screech sounded from somewhere off to Duerr’s left, and he knew that some smaller, faster variety of beastman was attempting to outflank him or to herd him into a trap. Desperation welled inside him and his vision closed down to a tunnel. His every footfall seemed like it would be his last, for now the woods behind were filling with the cacophony of uncounted braying creatures. His imagination populated his wake with fanged, tentacled horrors slithering and stampeding through the undergrowth, every one of them intent upon dragging him to the ground and plunging their teeth into his belly to haul out his guts and suck them dry before his dying eyes. And worst of all, the small part of him that had not yet surrendered to terror knew such visions were, if anything, but the least part of the horrible truth.
Now shadows darted amongst the trees to left and right, little more than darker patches against the black woodland backdrop. Upright creatures, agile and sinuous upon reverse-jointed legs dashed from tree to tree. The nearest beast-thing was little more than a loping silhouette, but Duerr could see it was carrying a short, crude bow in a one of its clawed hands and an arrow in the other. The thing halted, setting arrow to cord and aiming directly at Duerr.
A guttural, incomprehensible, sound escaped Duerr’s throat as he flung himself to the ground at the exact moment the arrow sliced the air where his head had been. He rolled as he struck the ground, his hands sinking into the foetid mud almost up to his elbows. Gritting his teeth, Duerr r
olled over onto his back, kicking against the leaf-strewn ground as he backed away from his pursuers.
In an instant, they appeared. Though little more than shadows, the green light of Morrslieb glinting dully from rusted metal cleavers and ragged mail, the beastmen were mighty brutes, a head taller than most human warriors. Duerr was not a large man, and they towered over him as he desperately backed further away, his mind almost shot.
The nearest slowed as it approached, its every movement imbued with savage, raw, animal power. It cast its head, shaped not unlike that of an ox, left and right and huffed, its foul breath billowing in the cold air. Other shapes lurked in the undergrowth behind, but backed away, evidently warned off by this mighty creature of muscle and horn.
Silence hung heavy in the damp air, disturbed only by the ragged gasps of Duerr’s breathing and the slow, steady tread of the beast as it approached. Duerr felt a damp tree trunk at his back, and he knew that he was cornered. He knew that he was about to die.
The thing turned its silhouetted head to look down at the form before it, and Duerr saw that one of its four curved horns was broken, snapped off at the tip in some challenge or fight for dominance. The beast halted not ten yards from Duerr’s supine form, and the breath caught in the wizard’s throat.
‘Morr deliver my soul–’ Duerr began. Something sharp and fast zipped through the air, cutting a stinging furrow across Duerr’s cheek. He caught movement in the undergrowth to his left, and saw there the kneeling form of the creature that had shot at him moments earlier. Already, it was notching another arrow, which this time must surely strike home and bury itself in Duerr’s flesh. In a flash, part of him recognised such a death as vastly preferable to what he could expect at the beast-leader’s hands…
But the twisted wretch of a creature never loosed its third arrow, for the leader took a deep breath that seemed almost to draw the canopy down towards it, then unleashed such a dirge of a war cry that Duerr was forced back against the rotting tree. As the breath was forced from his lungs he screwed his eyes tight shut against a sudden gale that stank of mould and the earth between dead roots. Mindless with terror and deafened to all but the pounding of his own heart, Duerr scrambled around the trunk he was backed against. He stumbled against a looped root, lost his grip and struck his head against the hollow tree, the sudden impact bringing him somewhat back to his senses, though terror still threatened to overwhelm him. He looked desperately around and saw that a wide, open space lay behind the tree, though he had no time to gaze into the inky darkness.
The bellowing of the beast-leader had continued all the while, a steady drone of animal fury, but now it cut out with shocking abruptness. The damp air was silent once more, and Duerr could not help but peek cautiously around the tree trunk, holding his breath so as not to be betrayed by his own fear.
The smaller creature cringed at the leader’s feet with its forehead, studded with two nub-like horns, pressed firmly into the soft ground in abject supplication. The leader reared above its underling, each half of the broken shortbow held in a clenched fist. Duerr’s eyes widened in horror as the leader slowly raised a cloven foot over the smaller creature’s head, the whipcord muscles of its leg tensed in readiness.
With a start, Duerr realised that he had a chance of escape, and he turned his head from the gristly scene to the open space at his back. At that very instant, he heard the leader’s hoof come down with a wet thud, and he knew that the smaller beastman had received the ultimate punishment for the crime of interjecting in its lord’s kill.
That very thought spurred Duerr to push himself from the tree trunk and power forwards blindly into the darkness. The instant he was moving he heard the unmistakable sound of the beastmen pursuing. He turned his head as he ran, glimpsing the brute rounding the tree, following after him. His attention elsewhere than on the ground he was crossing, Duerr lost his footing on the wet soil, his momentum propelling him forward several more steps before he slammed painfully down, the breath driven from his lungs by the force of the impact.
Duerr lay stunned for a moment, his face in the mud, knowing that he would be fortunate indeed to die as the twisted underling who had shot at him had. In what he assumed would be his final moments, Duerr found some peace.
After what felt like an age, death was yet to come. Duerr opened his eyes, not having realised that they were shut. He blinked and strained his ears, but all he heard was the sound of the forest: the swaying of branches in a light wind and the creaking of ancient bowers. He glanced around but saw no sign of any murderous beast-thing nearby. Blinking more rapidly, he dared look up then rolled onto his side and looked about.
Duerr was lying in an expanse of rough ground, a glade or clearing of some sort, though he could not tell if it was natural or manmade. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the tree line a scant twenty yards before him was lined with beastmen, dozens of heavily muscled, horned, beast-headed abominations, all stood in silence with dark eyes glowering straight at him. The stillness was quite shocking in the aftermath of the desperate pursuit through the forest, and more disquieting still because at any moment the beasts could simply stride forward and tear Duerr limb from limb. Why, Duerr thought as his mind struggled to take in the scene, did they not simply do so?
‘They fear this place,’ a dry, death-rattle voice sounded from somewhere behind Duerr. That voice injected ice water directly into his veins, yet the effect upon the beastmen was greater still. They visibly shrank back from it like cringing animals, cornered and desperate for an escape route.
‘And most of all,’ the unseen speaker continued, ‘they fear me.’
At that, the assembled beastmen backed away from the shadowed tree line, slowly at first, as if retreating from a foe that might lash out at any moment. Then they were gone, melting into the undergrowth silently without disturbing so much as a leaf. Duerr watched for long minutes, unwilling to trust that his would-be murderers were gone. He studied the shadows beneath the canopy and then turned slowly to locate the source of his deliverance.
The centre of the wide clearing was dominated by a tower: circular and tall, crooked and ramshackle. Its blocks were rough-hewn and irregular, black and glistening damply in the wan light of the Dark Moon. Ivy crept upwards, the leaves shimmering with silvered spider’s webs and wet moss clothed vast swathes of the surface. As Duerr’s glance climbed upwards, he saw dark, slit-like windows, their stone frames engraved with ancient devices rarely seen in the architecture of the Empire. At the summit, he could just make out an open-topped, crenulated turret set apart from the main structure, seeming like it must surely fall away and topple to the ground far below.
‘You’d better come in,’ the dry voice crackled from the base of the tower. Duerr looked to a dark portal set in its base and the door – heavy oak, iron-reinforced – swung partly inwards. ‘Before they return.’
Galvanised to sudden motion by the thought of the beastmen reappearing from the trees, Duerr climbed shakily to his feet and stumbled towards the doorway. Glancing over his shoulder one last time, he passed through, the door swinging on screeching hinges and slamming shut behind him, plunging him into darkness far deeper than the moonlit night outside.
Only as Duerr had begun the ascent up the winding spiral stairs within the tower had he realised just how bone weary he truly was. The events of the last few hours had blurred into a terrible, confused melange of desperation and panic, which he was unable to string together into a coherent chain of events. How long ago had it been since the sun had set? How long since the beastmen had discovered him wandering lost through the haunted glades of the Drakwald Deeps?
As he climbed the stairs, one leaden step at a time, he gave up trying to make sense of any of it. He looked around as he climbed the narrow flight, which turned every few steps so that he became increasingly dizzy the higher he climbed. The stairs were so narrow and steep that he could set his hands upon them without bending over, which was fortunate because he was so tired he was almost re
duced to climbing up on hands and knees.
At length, Duerr came upon a landing. It was dark, but the wan, sickly light of Morrslieb spilled in through an ached window, lending a half-light glow to the numerous objects strewn all about. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, Duerr saw that the walls were hung with all manner of artefacts, from blades of truly ancient pattern to shields the likes of which he had only seen in the most esoteric tomes of the Colleges of Magic. Fragments of armour were set in nooks, each coated in a layer of dust that had clearly not been disturbed in decades, perhaps even centuries. One floor to ceiling nook contained row upon row of glass containers, ranging from tiny phials to huge bell jars, the shoulders draped in the grey dust of ages and the contents dark and obscured.
A coldness settled upon Duerr’s soul as his eyes grew more used to the gloomy interior and he took in the collection of objects arranged about the landing. As a student of Amethyst magic – the realms of the spirit, of dark dreams and of death, Duerr was well used to dabbling in matters most would find more than a little unsettling. But there was something else here, something old, something…
‘Welcome…’ the same parchment-dry voice that Duerr had heard earlier intoned. He cast about the dark landing, but saw nothing more alive than the spiders that haunted the dusty webs strewn across every surface. His breath quickening, Duerr prepared to answer, but was interrupted before a word had left his lips. ‘The uppermost chamber, boy,’ the voice said, a note of impatience evident. ‘Don’t keep me waiting.’
‘Sit,’ the old man ordered as Duerr came finally to the topmost chamber in the tower, excepting a small turret which he saw was accessible from a low side door. ‘Rest.’
Hammer and Bolter Year One Page 91