by Warhammer
The bounty hunter's words brought a gasp of alarm from the priestess, who for the first time noticed the slight limp in the bounty hunter's gait, the small flecks of crimson staining his leggings. At her side, Gramsci glowered at the armoured killer, suspicion in his eyes.
'And what became of these beastmen?' the soldier asked. Brunner favoured him with a cold stare.
'They will not trouble you,' he said, 'but I cannot speak for whatever friends they might have.'
'What causes you to be abroad in the wilds alone?' Gramsci persisted, trying to inch his hand towards the sword at his side. The bounty hunter's eyes locked upon the slight motion. Gramsci scowled and let his hand drift away from the hilt of his blade.
'My business is my own affair,' Brunner stated.
Elisia interposed herself between the two men.
'This fencing with words is pointless,' she declared. 'We are yet distant from our destination, are we not, Gramsci?' The soldier, eyes and scowl still trained on Brunner nodded his head reluctantly.
Elisia turned to face the bounty hunter. 'What you say about beastmen alarms me greatly, and it seems to me that you are just as far from shelter as we. Please, ride with us and make camp in our company this evening. We shall be safer with a second sword should the fell creatures chance upon us in the night. And I can tend your wound, for I see that you did not emerge from your combat unscathed.' The priestess's eyes were bright, pleading and hopeful. Brunner inclined his helmed head.
'I shall join you, at least for the present,' he said, striding back towards his animals.
'And what are you named?' Gramsci called at the bounty hunter, his voice betraying his belligerence and suspicion. The bounty hunter halted, one hand upon the horn of his saddle.
'I am named Habermas,' the bounty hunter said, raising himself into the saddle.
'Then be warned, Habermas,' the Tilean soldier continued. 'Do not think to take advantage of us.'
Brunner turned the head of his steed, facing the Tileans once more. 'If I did,' the bounty hunter's voice was as frigid as a Norse breeze, 'you would not stop me.'
Brunner sat beside the fallen rubble of a chimney, all that remained of a long-departed farmstead. He let his gaze pass warily from the dark shadows beyond the light of the fire the priestess and her companion had started. He locked eyes with the scowling Gramsci, then let his stare linger on the tired, frightened features of the priestess. He let his hand rest for a moment on the compress the woman had pressed against the injury in his leg. Elisia did good work, the bounty hunter had to admit as he flexed his knee, noting only the faintest trace of pain. It was just as well for her that he had discovered them. And just as well for him, if their destination was the one that he suspected.
'Still annoyed by my fire, Habermas?' Gramsci snorted from his place beside the fire pit.
'I have already told you that it is unwise,' the cold voice beneath the steel helm responded.
The Tilean soldier favoured the other warrior with a friendless smile, heedless of the fact that the man was not looking at him. 'A good fire will keep any animal away. They fear flame. Anyone knows that.'
'Your knowledge of woodcraft is quite good for a city dweller,' Brunner stated. He focused his attention on a patch of shadow. His keen ears could not be certain, but had there been the whisper of a sound from there? The bounty hunter fingered one of his knives.
'Is it possible that the question of the fire could be put to rest?' asked Elisia, her patient temperament worn away by the long verbal skirmish.
'This fool thinks the fire will drive away the haunters of the night,' the bounty hunter said, almost under his breath, his eyes still focused on the shadow. 'Beastmen are not so craven as wolves or wild cats. Far from keeping them away, your fire is attracting them. It is like a beacon letting them know that there is food to be had here.'
The priestess stifled a gasp as she heard Brunner's words, so firm and sure was his tone. Gramsci just scowled anew, tossing another branch into the blaze.
'If that is so,' the Tilean said, 'then where are they?'
In that instant, the darkness exploded into life as howls, bleats and whinnies sounded from the shadows surrounding the camp. The noise of hooves, feet and claws crashing through the underbrush told of the swift and hurried advance of many large bodies. A thin, whiny and inhuman voice shrieked above the clamour. 'Skulls for the Skull Throne! Blood for the Blood God!'
The first beastman broke from the patch of midnight. A wiry brute with a mangy pelt of tawny fur, its face like a housecat, save for the glittering, multi-faceted eyes that gleamed in the dancing light of the campfire like two diamonds. A massive stone-headed axe was gripped in its long-fingered, clawless hands, a ghastly skull rune worked into the crude edge of the blade. The creature let a snarl, like the drone of a wasp, emerge from its fanged mouth as it sprang into the clearing. A moment later, the axe fell from slackened hands and the droning challenge faded into a bubbling gurgle as Brunner's throwing knife sank into the fiend's throat.
But even as the cat-beast died, its fellows swarmed into the camp: things with goat-like heads, others with dog faces, and still others sporting a twisted, almost human form. Brunner did not hesitate. He fell back toward his horses, sending another throwing knife whirling into the Chaos throng. The blade embedded itself in the long snout of a slavering hound-headed creature. The beastman dropped its swords to tear at the steel that had bitten into its face. A towering brute turned a goat-like face in the direction of the bounty hunter as it heard its fellow cry out in pain. The monster roared, pushing its companions aside to charge towards the knife thrower.
Gramsci rose from beside the fire, sword in his hand. A small beastman, its form more human than many of its fellows, its lope more steady and regular, fell upon the Tilean, smashing at him with a bone club. Gramsci's blade slashed through the crude weapon, and bit through the forearm behind the cudgel. The beastman wailed in pain as gore slopped from the stump of its arm, a look of agony frozen on its features as a quick thrust of Gramsci's blade pierced the monster's heart.
But the soldier did not have time to savour the beastman's death, for already more of its fellows had surrounded him, jabbing at him with spears, gesturing at him with rusted swords and stone axes. Fanged mouths drooled froth and spittle as the creatures of Chaos promised the soldier a bloody death in their inhuman voices.
Elisia fled from the fire and ran towards Brunner, instinctively hurrying to the side of the more capable of her two defenders. As she did so, one of the beastmen, a smaller version of the goatheaded horror that led the throng, capered after her, snarling and snapping at her heels. The monster swung a heavy wooden club at the woman, missed, and raised its paw to try again. A cry of pain arrested its attack, and the brute rolled against the ground, clawing at the small crossbow bolt that had smashed into his breast. Elisia, with a last burst of speed, reached the bounty hunter, as he lowered the small crossbow pistol he had fired into the inhuman attacker.
'I had meant that for him,' Brunner gestured with the point of his sword at the huge goat-headed thing that was now so near that the stink of its lice-ridden fur brought tears to the priestess's eyes. The bounty hunter handed the pistol to Elisia, pushing her behind him. The beastman's yellow eyes narrowed as it watched its foe, its fanged mouth twisting in a parody of a smile.
'Blood for the Blood God,' it hissed, its voice low and rumbling. The monster stepped forward, the lengths of chainmail dripping from the crude hide armour that encased its twisted form swaying and clattering with its every step. A mask, daubed with the skull rune of Khorne clothed the monster's face. Small lengths of chain had been driven into the brute's horns, and from the end of each dripped a fresh human scalp. The monster slapped the massive axe into the palm of its left hand. No thing of wood and stone, but a weapon of bronze, haft and head, and it seemed to call out for blood.
Brunner gestured at the beast with his sword, a motion that he was certain this debased thing would interpret a
s challenge. The beastman showed the rows of fangs, wicked and sharp, gleaming in its muzzle. One of the smaller creatures that had gathered about their leader shrieked and leapt forward, a rusted sword in its hands. The hulking leader split its minion in half with a sweep of its axe, the bloodied debris thrown across the clearing. The meaning was clear: none but the goat-headed chieftain would be allowed to offer this skull before their gory god.
The beastman loped forward, its hooves punching into the ground with every step. Brunner stood defiant, his sword in a guarding position, his left hand held immobile at his side.
Brunner smiled up at the hulking brute. The chieftain raised its bronze axe, gripping it with both hands. With a last snarl it leapt forward. Brunner's left hand rose in tandem with the brute's attack.
A white cloud engulfed the masked face of the beastman as it charged. The bounty hunter had quietly worked the packet of salt kept in the sleeve of his tunic into his palm, puncturing the little pouch of sackcloth with his fingernail. Now the mineral did its work, stinging and biting into the Chaos monsters eyes. Brunner lashed out with his sword, taking advantage of his enemy's blindness and surprise. The sword stabbed at the monsters belly, but the bounty hunter's strike was deflected by the crude armour of hide and steel upon which had been carved all manner of strange and loathsome runes. Instead of opening up the monster's belly, Brunner's falchion gored a patch of the monster's thigh. The beastman let a howl of pain, terrifying like a human scream, rise from its throat before toppling backward. Its brutish followers stood in a stunned silence.
'Come on!' Brunner snapped, spinning and racing toward his horses, dragging the stunned priestess with him. 'They won't be confused for long, and they will be twice as enraged when they recover!' Brunner slashed the tether of his steed with the edge of his sword, spinning and doing the same for his packhorse. He scrambled into the saddle, pulling Elisia up behind him. The woman pulled at his arm, trying to direct him back toward the fire, back into the camp. He spared a look to where the Tileans' animals had been tied, seeing the swarm of beastmen upon them. His gaze canvassed the clearing, noting Gramsci holding off the press of monsters, though he was cut in both leg and arm, and his blade was not as quick in warding away adversaries as it had been.
'Do you know the way he was taking you?' Brunner asked.
'Y-yes,' Elisia muttered, her gaze wavering between Brunner, the beastmen and her embattled bodyguard.
'Good,' the bounty hunter said as he saw a beastman's spear puncture Gramsci's side. 'Because your guide is dead.' Brunner turned and quickly brought the horse to full gallop, dragging his packhorse behind them as they raced through the midnight wilds.
Behind them, a monstrous shape rose, snarling beneath its mask of flayed skin. The beastman chieftain watched as its chosen offering to Khorne escaped into the night. Infuriated, the monster reached out, snapping the neck of one of its fellows that had come closer to examine its master's wound. As the creature died, and the blood bubbled from its mouth, the wound in the beastman's thigh stopped bleeding. The masked brute turned its head, gazing at the still gaping wound. No, it thought, the wound shall remain until it is salved by the blood of a proper offering. The chieftain turned its head in the direction of the vanished bounty hunter. Its sharp bark of wrath and command brought the other brutes loping away from the gory, butchered bodies.
The hulking monster pointed its axe into the night, in the direction its prey had retreated.
'Blood for the Blood God!'
The villa crouched on the summit of a lonely round-topped hill. The overgrown ruin of the vinefields that had surrounded the estate formed a buffer zone between hill and forest, a few scraggly, thin trees ignoring the boundary and providing patches of shadow upon the grassy expanse. The crumbling remains of a wall appeared beside the dirt path that had once been a road, a narrow strip of dirt wending its way from the rotten wooden gate through the overgrown fields to the hill at their centre.
It had taken Brunner and his guide the better part of two days to reach this place, and once again the dark cloak of night was falling upon the land. They had ridden long and hard, with the bounty hunter pausing only long enough to give the animals such rest as they might require to keep up the pace. And even those brief stops had been forsaken since the afternoon, when Brunner had sighted the first of their pursuers. The beastman had loped off before the bounty hunter could get a shot at it. Not long after, the sound of many bodies crashing through the brush to either side of the path had lent speed to the horses' efforts. The beastmen were masters of the wild, and where the path turned and twisted like some serpentine river, the Chaos creatures could travel through the undergrowth and hidden trails known only to these children of the wild.
Many times, Brunner had heard hooting and snarling, and was certain that an ambush was about to be sprung. But the anticipated attack never came. Recalling the hulking chieftain's casual slaughter of its overeager follower, the bounty hunter could guess the reason for the reluctance of the monsters to attack.
Now, as they at last reached the villa, the sounds of pursuit had grown louder, and Brunner guessed that the entire pack had caught up with them now even the brute he had crippled during their brief encounter. The sanctuary of the ruined Bertolucci villa had come none too soon. Brunner whipped his steed into a final effort, the packhorse obediently following after the leading horse.
The villa had been opulent and splendid in its day. A two-storey structure, the upper floors had been devoted to bedchambers, music rooms, dining halls and the every pleasure of its noble owners, while the larger lower floor had served as quarters for servants, as stables and kennels, kitchens and storerooms. The villa's walls were still intact, but its wooden shutters and doors had long ago collapsed into rotten ruin. As Brunner rode up, he could see swarthy Tilean faces peering out at him from every opening. But a loud cry from the woods forced the attention of the watching men away from the bounty hunter and his companion for a moment all eyes were trained upon the treeline. Brunner rode his horse through the gaping maw of the old main entrance, whose double doors rotted on the floor just inside the portal. He lowered Elisia from the saddle, then dismounted after her and led the horses to where ten other steeds were tethered.
'Praise be to Shallya!', a voice cried out. A young man, wearing a suit of well-tailored clothes and a leather jupon studded with steel raced from one of the four doorways leading into the entrance hall. He was fair-featured, his black hair short, after the style favoured by the merchant princes themselves. He had the air of a man used to quality in his life, but as Brunner's gaze took in the newcomer's appearance, he noted the calluses upon his hands, the worn spots in the knees of his breeches, the abrasions on his boots. Here may be a man of quality, but he had not shirked from his part in labour, now that things were not so prosperous as before.
The young man strode towards the priestess. 'I feared that you would never come! My wife is very near her time, please hurry!' Then, as if noticing Brunner for the first time, the young man froze. Who are you? And where is Gramsci?'
'Questions which I was about to ask,' a second voice spoke from another doorway. The speaker was an older man, but shared the facial qualities of the younger. He was dressed like the other, his fine clothing perhaps not quite so well worn. His aged hands had been hardened by a life in which pleasure and comfort had been all too infrequent.
'His name is Habermas,' the priestess said. Your man and I met him on the road as we journeyed here. We were set upon by beastmen.' A sad look crossed Elisia's face and she bowed her hooded head in the direction of the older man. 'I fear that the monsters killed Gramsci. We barely escaped with our lives'
'We have not escaped yet,' the bounty hunter's cold voice sounded for the first time. He turned his helmeted head towards the elder man. 'The monsters that set upon us have followed us here.' The news brought startled and fearful expressions to both men's faces. 'Even now they surround this ruin.'
The older man quickly recover
ed himself. 'Alberto,' he snapped, 'lead the priestess to Giana, then find me! I'll get the men together.' He turned toward the bounty hunter. 'I am no soldier, sir,' he addressed Brunner. 'The house of Bertolucci has seldom produced military men. If you have any notion of how best we might defend this place, I would like to hear it.'
Seven bodyguards had remained loyal to Bertolucci after his fall from grace, and one of these had been Gramsci. That left only eight men apart from Brunner himself to hold the ruined villa. The bounty hunter snapped his orders as quickly as he could. Below, in the woods, the grunting and lowing of the monsters reached the villa's occupants, indicating that others were making their plans as well.
It was decided that those armed with crossbows would be positioned in the upper floor, descending when the brutes crossed the clear ground surrounding the hill. This accounted for five men. The remaining men, including Bertolucci and his son, were to stand with Brunner. They would guard two chambers: the larger entry hall where the horses were tethered, and the small parlour that abutted it and gave entry to the stairs leading to the upper floor. It was where the non-combatant servants and Alberto's expectant wife had retreated.
Hasty barricades were thrown across the windows and doorways, leaving only narrow places from which the defenders could peer out and Brunner could fire his own crossbows. It was a ramshackle defence, but it was the best Brunner could manage. Two things favoured their chances: the fact that most beastmen were too simple to manage even the most rude missile weapon, and the fact that the notion of burning the villa down about their ears would likewise not occur to them. The brilliant blue-silver light cast by a full and engorged Mannsleib did much to favour the defenders; it made the grounds of the villa almost as visible as under the noonday sun. Only beneath the surrounding trees were the shadows still long and the grip of darkness tight.
No sooner had the preparations been made, and the Tileans sent to their posts, than the beasts began their attack. Brunner watched as a number of the brutes loped from the edge of the trees, a lanky thing with a snake's head squirming from its shoulders bearing a standard of flayed skin. Brunner raised a clumsy-looking contraption of wood and steel. He aimed the tube-like barrel at the creature. The weapon sparked and a loud crack of thunder sounded with the brilliant flash of its discharge.