by C. L. Werner
Beblieth opened the vial of coatl venom. Deadliest of the serpents of Lustria, it was one of the most potent poisons known to the assassins of Naggaroth. It was death for any dark elf discovered with it, testament for its killing power. The witch elf kept her blade well clear from her body as she coated it in the viscous syrup. She grinned as she stared at the hindquarters of the behemoth. It would never know why it was dying.
The witch elf sprang at Azuk’Thul, sinking her dagger up to the hilt in its hind leg, just above its monstrous hoof. For a moment, it seemed the beast was oblivious to both her attack and the poison. Then its quaking roar rumbled through the corridor. Beblieth was dashed aside as Azuk’Thul’s thorny tail slammed into her. She dropped clear before she could be crushed against the heated wall, rolling across the floor, narrowly eluding the beast’s stamping hooves.
Beblieth pressed back against the hot wall, feeling her bare skin blister at the contact. Azuk’Thul was still moving, trying to force its gigantic bulk free from the ruptured bronze. Impossible as it was, the behemoth was defying the venom from her dagger, poison she had used before to burst the heart of a dragon on the bleak shores of Naggarythe. She could still see her dagger embedded in the abomination’s flesh, buried to the hilt in one of the beast’s arteries. She could even see the black taint of the poison spreading around the wound. Yet still the bloodbeast raged.
The tail came slamming down again, denting the bronze wall as she ducked beneath its battering sweep. Beblieth slashed at the limb, digging at the leathery flesh. Wormy blood squirmed from the wound, dropping against the floor like tears of flame. Azuk’Thul shook the corridor with another of its deafening roars.
Her ears ringing with the bloodbeast’s howl, Beblieth did not hear the barbarian as he charged at her. Only her combat instincts saved her from the slashing sweep of Grakthar’s axe, the double blade cutting hair from her head as she rolled beneath it.
‘We meet again, witch,’ Kormak growled from behind the axe.
Beblieth sneered at the marauder. ‘You should feel honoured,’ she spat. ‘There are not many animals I need to kill twice.’
Before the witch elf could make good her threat, the hoof of Azuk’Thul came smashing down between the two enemies, throwing both off their feet.
‘Forget the elf, Norscan!’ Tolkku was shouting. ‘We have bigger problems.’ The zealot gestured frantically at Azuk’Thul. Vakaan hovered beside the priest, weaving his hands in a complex pattern before him, drawing upon his magic to defy the behemoth. Urbaal simply drew his sword, marching resolutely towards Azuk’Thul, the thousand names of the Raven God a whispered mantra on the champion’s lips.
Kormak shook his head, jumping back as Azuk’Thul’s tail came smashing down again. The marauder chopped at it with his new axe, bringing a spurt of sizzling blood from the monster. The bloodbeast roared, redoubling its efforts to break free from the wall. The marauder ignored it, his eyes searching only for the mocking elf warrior.
She was already in motion. Against Kormak alone, she would have stood her ground, but she knew better than to face the entire warband. There was only one path of retreat, and she took it. She turned her dodging roll as the bloodbeast’s tail lashed out at her into a graceful flip that carried her onto the behemoth’s leg. She stabbed her dagger into its flesh, using the blade to anchor her position. She looked down at Kormak, pausing to blow the enraged marauder a kiss before scrambling from her precarious perch onto Azuk’Thul’s back.
Kormak gnashed his teeth, racing after her before Urbaal could stop him. The marauder brought his axe smashing against Azuk’Thul’s side. He was torn from the ground by the behemoth as its entire body lurched forwards. Unable to pull back through the gaping hole it had made, the bloodbeast had decided to push into the hall where the embattled dark elves and beastmen continued to fight it.
Azuk’Thul’s massive hooves shook the ground, each step making the axe slip a little more in Kormak’s hand. The marauder tightened his hold, bracing himself for that moment when he would inevitably fall to the floor and be pulped by the bloodbeast’s smashing hooves. As he resigned himself to death, he cast his gaze upward, scowling as he saw Beblieth crawling along Azuk’Thul’s back, using the thorny forest of its spines to pull herself towards its armoured neck.
Hate gave the Norscan strength when he needed it most. His arm became again the pincer of some crustacean horror, black and chitinous. He let the axe slip away and stabbed his claw into Azuk’Thul’s flank. The monster turned on him, snapping its fangs at him. Kormak lunged up the brute’s side, leaping onto its back, clearing the behemoth’s vengeful jaws. Azuk’Thul glared at him with its dull eyes, its thick tongue striking at him like the tail of a scorpion. The marauder parried the purple, slimy appendage, gashing it with his claw, sending milky ichor spurting across him.
Azuk’Thul relented in its persecution of Kormak, drawn away by the renewed assault of its other enemies. Kormak could see Urbaal, his sword again blazing with the power of Tzeentch, slice at the beast’s leg, a fountain of blood spraying from the wound. He saw a glowing pentacle take shape beneath the beast’s shoulder, and a gruesome blue thing with apelike arms manifested as Vakaan called one of his daemons from the void. He saw ranks of dark elves spraying bolts from their crossbows into the monster. Behind the elves stood one of their women, a lissom figure clad in a tight black gown slit along one side. She raised her staff and a frosty wind battered the behemoth. Everywhere beastmen of every shape and form chopped, stabbed and clawed at the monster.
The odds still seemed to favour the monster. With one smash of its claw, Azuk’Thul scattered the crossbows, pulverising three dark elves in the attack. It lowered its head, twisting the bronze horn above its snout from side to side, battering beastmen into mush with each grinding turn of its neck. Its huge pincer snapped open and closed, dealing mutilating death with each strike. Entrails and severed limbs were heaped about its feet, its body was sticky with the blood of its many victims. The damage being dealt to it was hideous, but instead of weakening it, Azuk’Thul seemed to take strength from the havoc. Kormak thought of the croaking gasp of Grakthar. ‘Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows.’ Neither, it seemed, did this abomination spawned by the Blood God’s madness.
Kormak dug his feet into the flesh of the beast’s back, steadying himself by grabbing onto the spines. If the beast had any weakness, then it would be its head. Anything mortal would die with steel in its brain. The marauder willed his arm to become a metallic axe with a cruel spike of bone jutting above the blade. It was time for Azuk’Thul to learn that fleas bite back.
He made his way forward, his footing slipping as he found himself on the thick bronze plates smelted to Azuk’Thul’s neck and head. The barding was almost red hot as he dropped and struggled to keep from falling. His hand found a purchase between two of the plates. Slowly, he began to creep forwards. His gaze darkened as he found Beblieth ahead of him. The witch elf was pressed into the space between the barding and one of Azuk’Thul’s horns, using the narrow gap to brace herself as she applied poison to one of her daggers. She looked up and sneered as she saw Kormak.
‘Persistent,’ she hissed. She glanced at her dagger and the half-empty vial of venom. ‘I should have enough for you and him.’
‘Take some yourself,’ Kormak growled back. His mutant arm bristled as dozens of bone spikes suddenly sprouted from the axe. ‘It will hurt less, I promise you.’
Beblieth laughed, rising to face the marauder. Carefully, Kormak made his way towards her. The witch elf watched him come, then suddenly she threw the vial at him. The vessel struck the bronze barding beneath his feet, shattering. The already slippery metal became like glass under Kormak’s boots. He cried out as his feet gave beneath him and he went sliding down the armoured face of Azuk’Thul.
‘No time to waste on animals,’ Beblieth laughed as she watched him slip away.
The marauder fought for a handhold as he slid down the behemoth’s face. His hand fina
lly locked on the gigantic bronze horn above its snout. Even as he struggled to tighten his hold, his perch shook. He clung tight as he was pushed through the air. Azuk’Thul was grinding more beastmen beneath its horn. Kormak scrambled to keep on the upturned side of the behemoth’s face. As the huge head rose once more, he stared into the eyes of the monster. Azuk’Thul glared back at him, primal fury boiling in its gaze.
Suddenly, the bloodbeast’s eyes turned a frosty white. Little slivers of ice began to spread over its brows, but the spell was too feeble to entomb the entire monster in ice. Its power petered out, leaving Azuk’Thul blinded but alive. The abomination’s crazed brain associated its plight with the man clinging to its horn. It threw back its head, raging, trying to fling Kormak off of it, to smash him against the walls of the hall.
It was impossible to retain his precarious hold against the monster’s fury. Kormak was falling once more, sliding off the beast’s head. His scrabbling hand locked around the first thing that offered safety. Kormak looped his arm around the bronze ring set into Azuk’Thul’s snout. He clung there, his dangling legs kicking against the beast’s fangs.
The monster’s frenzy swelled, its entire body shivering with frustrated fury. Kormak could see Beblieth crouched upon its head, leaning down from the safety of her perch in the crook of its horn to rake her poisoned dagger across its ear again and again. The sight added to his own rage. He brought his axe lashing out, chopping into the massive snout.
Azuk’Thul reeled back, wailing in pain as its sensitive snout was struck. It snapped and clawed at the empty space before it. In its blindness, it could not see what had hurt it, it only knew from whence the blow had come. Kormak braced himself until the beast’s fury lessened. Then he struck the nose again. Once more, Azuk’Thul railed against an invisible enemy, lurching forwards and gnashing its fangs.
Kormak craned his neck, taking note of the boiling pit of metal and the fiery cascade falling from the suspended cauldron. A dangerous plan suggested itself to him, one made all the more pleasant by its chance of taking the witch elf with the monster.
Kormak struck the nose a third time, only this time waiting until Azuk’Thul was in the direction he wanted, facing towards the cauldron. The bloodbeast rushed forwards, gnashing its fangs. The marauder slashed its snout again, its sizzling blood scalding his flesh as it poured over him. He clenched his teeth against the pain and repeated the attack. Again, Azuk’Thul lunged forwards, snapping and clawing at the invisible enemy. Now the heat of the cauldron and the pit was hot against Kormak’s back. He grinned at the blind eyes of Azuk’Thul and struck one last time.
Azuk’Thul sprang forwards, the entire hall shaking with the fury of its lunge. But this time there was no hard floor beneath its claws. The behemoth gave a piercing wail as its claws sank into the molten metal, as its side was scorched by the searing cascade from the cauldron. Kormak braced his boots against the monster’s snout. There was no time to judge distance, only to act and pray that he would clear the pit. The marauder launched himself from Azuk’Thul, hurtling across the fiery gap. He crashed with a grunt against the lip of the middle tier, his hands coiling around a steel stake. It was almost a shock to him when the groaning stake held his weight and he found that he was not going to join Azuk’Thul in its fiery tomb.
The beast roared and shrieked. Its forelegs already burned into ash, the rest of the monster toppled into the pit, crashing into the bronze lake. Azuk’Thul struggled to pull itself clear, but it was a hopeless fight. Like fiery tar, the metal dragged at the monster, pulling it down even as it melted its flesh.
Kormak stared down at the dying monster, a satisfied smile on his face. He started to pull himself up onto the landing. A shadow fell across him. The marauder froze. Raising his gaze, he found that there was already someone on the landing.
Beblieth stared down at Kormak and leaned against the already weak stake. The steel groaned even louder as she pressed against it.
‘Impressive,’ she told Kormak, nodding to the burning husk of Azuk’Thul. ‘But I am afraid you missed one.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Beblieth!’ a sharp voice rang out. The witch elf shifted her gaze from the struggling marauder below her to the one who had cried out. She saw Naagan, the disciple’s robes splattered with blood, clenching his dagger in his fist. Naagan was rushing up the steps towards her.
‘Beblieth!’ he called out again. ‘Do not kill the barbarian.’
The witch elf scowled as she heard the cadaverous priest’s words. She looked beyond Naagan, staring out over the havoc of the hall. The mangled carcasses of beastmen were strewn everywhere, but mixed in with them were the armoured bodies of druchii. Far too many druchii. Of the warriors who had followed Pyra into the Bastion Stair, perhaps six were still standing. They stood in a protective ring as Pyra conversed with a hulking armoured human. Behind the first human were two others. One was the tattooed magician she had tried to kill in the rocks. The other was a sorcerer clad in feathered robes and standing upon a strange disc that hovered several feet above the floor.
‘Do not kill him!’ Naagan implored again. ‘Pyra seeks alliance with the humans.’
Beblieth’s scowl darkened. She sneered down at Kormak. ‘Fall or fly as you will, barbarian,’ she hissed. With a sinuous twist of her lithe body, she pushed herself back from the steel stake. The shifting of her weight caused the already weakened metal to shudder, grinding downwards as it lost its tenuous grip.
Kormak lunged at the lip of the landing just as the protesting stake was bent out of all semblance of shape. His mutant arm stabbed into the floor, digging deep into the crimson stone. Snarling with effort, veins bulging in his neck, the marauder lifted himself from the pit.
Beblieth folded her arms across her chest, smirking as the panting Norscan pulled himself onto the ledge. She laughed as the spent warrior crashed in an exhausted huddle on the bloody steps.
An instant later her laughter was smashed from her body as the huddle suddenly pounced upon her like a raging tiger. Kormak’s fatigue had been partly feigned, a deceit to lull the nimble elf, to play upon her arrogant disdain for what she considered a mere animal. The feint worked and Kormak’s powerful arms wrapped about Beblieth’s body, trapping her hands against her chest. Kormak’s teeth lengthened into fangs as he tightened his hold, squeezing the elf, crushing her like some jungle python. He could feel each breath gasp from her body, his arms closing, pressing, smashing the slender body still more tightly.
‘I am going to send you into the halls of the dead,’ Kormak growled through his fangs. The face of the witch elf was turning blue, all arrogance and pride gone from her eyes as they bulged in their sockets. ‘I am going to enjoy doing it,’ the marauder snarled.
Cold steel pressed against his neck. From the corner of his eye, Kormak could see the red-garbed elf priest. ‘If I so much as cut your skin, barbarian,’ Naagan hissed, ‘the poison on this blade will kill you.’
Kormak didn’t answer Naagan, instead tightening his hold on Beblieth.
‘I have called off my dog, Urbaal,’ Naagan shouted down to the lower hall. ‘Call off yours before I kill it!’
Urbaal raised his armoured head, glaring at the enraged Kormak. ‘Release the she-elf, Kormak!’ he growled. The Chosen clenched his fist when the marauder ignored him. ‘Release her, or when the elves kill you, I will let Vakaan feed your soul to his daemons!’
The threat pressed upon the only fear left in Kormak’s mind. To die was no evil, but for his soul to be fed to daemons, never to enter the halls of his ancestors, this was a horror to unman even the marauder. He knew that it was within Vakaan’s power to work such evil, just as he knew Urbaal would not hesitate to allow such a fate for one who had defied him. With a snarl of frustration, Kormak threw the witch elf down. He spat on the prone murderess, then turned and stalked down the stairs to rejoin his warband.
‘When he doesn’t need you anymore,’ Kormak growled as he marched off, ‘then you will die.�
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‘When you feel a knife in your back, know it is mine,’ Beblieth snarled back between ragged gasps.
Kormak found Urbaal in close conference with the robed she-elf he had noticed before. It quickly became apparent that Pyra was the leader of her people and that she was indeed intent upon capturing the Spear.
‘Alone, neither of us is strong enough to challenge this place,’ the sorceress told Urbaal. ‘Our shared enemies have the relic and if allowed to remain unchallenged, who can say what havoc they can cause both our peoples.’
‘Where are your orcs?’ Urbaal asked, suspicion in his voice. ‘We watched you from the rocks. You had quite a mob of them helping you.’
Pyra’s expression flickered, darkening with both embarrassment and anger. To be tricked by a stupid, slobbering orc was an indignity that chafed her pride. ‘The greenskins betrayed us. They intend to capture the Spear for themselves, even if they cannot understand its true purpose. All the more reason why we must work together.’
‘You can’t mean to trust these creatures?’ Kormak snarled as he joined the leaders. The marauder leaned down and ripped a huge axe with a horn handle from the dead fingers of a goat-headed beastman. He swung the weapon idly in his hand, testing its awkward balance.
Urbaal shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on Pyra. ‘I am not fool enough to trust an elf,’ he said. ‘But there is truth in her words. Our chances are long enough without the added menace of the orcs. We can use any help we can get, no matter what shape that help wears.’ The Chosen thrust out his armoured hand. Pyra stared at it for a moment, trying to remember the crude rituals of the slaves her family had kept when she was small. At last, she put her hand out and gripped the champion’s gauntlet.
‘A pact then,’ Pyra said. She looked from Urbaal’s steel mask to the sullen features of Kormak. ‘Death to the first one who betrays this alliance,’ she added with a cold smile.