Slaves to Darkness 02 (The Blades of Chaos)

by Warhammer

  Each was twice as tall as the Chosen warrior, and their bronze weapons glinted cruelly in the desert sun. They advanced soundlessly, covering the ground with long strides, their movements somehow fluid yet jerky, moving effortlessly from one position to the next, and then pausing for a half-second before moving again. The stilted yet graceful advance transfixed Kurt and it was a few seconds before he realised the danger; he drew his sword and assumed a wide-legged stance in the middle of the street. One of the animated statues strode directly towards him, with its characteristic step-pause-step-pause gait. In its hands was a weapon the like of which Kurt had never seen before. It was an elegantly curved blade easily as long as a man is tall, but it had no hilt like a sword. Instead, the creature gripped a haft set along the back of the blade and swung the weapon in wide arcs during its erratic advance. A green glow emanated from the sockets of its crocodile skull head, an evil gaze that even Kurt could not meet without a shiver of fear.

  The other was advancing directly along the street, ignoring Kurt altogether. Taking the initiative, Kurt leapt towards this one, his sword held over his shoulder for a back-handed sweep. The creature did not notice him at first and Kurt slashed at its neck with all of his might. The blade bit deep into metallic bone, sending splinters of gold showering into the air. The creature stumbled, its head lolling sickly to one side attached by twisted strands of metal. Liquid bronze spilled from the wound and hissed on the ground.

  Kurt pulled his sword free and raised it to the attack again. A shadow of movement caused him to turn and the attack turned to a parry as the second statue swung its blade up towards his stomach in a low disembowelling arc. Steel rang on bronze, scoring a deep scratch along the Nehekharan guardian's blade. Spinning on his heel, Kurt danced away from the attack of the wounded statue-beast, the eyes in its hanging head still burning with the same wytchfires. Kurt could feel magic prickling on his skin, and the same sense of dread that had struck him when they had first entered the city returned, more concentrated, almost paralysing him for a second.

  Breaking free from his fear, Kurt hacked the leg off the already injured attacker, toppling it to the dust. It lay there, flailing erratically as it tried to right itself and crawl towards him. Ducking beneath the swishing blade of the other, he gripped his sword in both hands and rammed the point up into the space just under the creature's gilded rip cage. The swordpoint burst through its chest in a fountain of unnatural metallic blood, spattering hot droplets across his face and arms. Biting back the pain, Kurt shouldered the beast on to its back, one end of its weapon cutting across Kurt's left leg, biting through the armour and scoring a wound across his calf. With a yell, Kurt ripped his sword upwards, tearing through the creature's chest, and, using the momentum of the blade, swung the sword around again, chopping cleanly through the statue's spine.

  Glancing up the road, he saw the corpse of Snarri lying on the ground in a pool of blood seeping into the rocky sand. His left leg from the knee down lay several yards away in its own crimson puddle. The hawk statue also lay in pieces across the street, its head at Lina's feet as her sword parried the attacks of the remaining guardian. A powerful blow knocked her weapon aside and the creature struck with a backhanded attack, slashing the tip of its blade across her stomach. She stumbled to one knee, one hand clutching the wound, the other fending off the next blow.

  It was then that Kurt saw how Lina had come by her name.

  The creature raised its blade high above its head for the deathblow. At the same moment, Kurt sensed a ripple of energy exploding out of Lina. In the space of two heartbeats her sword dropped from her hands, which elongated into savage claws, and long hair erupted from her arms and back. Twisted muscle ripped through her leather jerkin and she launched herself forward, her steel-like nails tearing into the creature. With savage fury she ripped off an arm, bowling the creature backwards. Her claws punctured and lacerated the statue's gold body, scattering chunks and slivers of metal across the sand.

  Beyond her, more Norse were running back down the street, some of them encountering other groups of the animated guardians, others heading towards Kurt. Lina stood up over the still form of the statue and let out a piercing howl. She broke into a loping run, claws dripping hot bronze, and disappeared down a side street.

  Another shout from Bjordrin called for Kurt, and he turned and ran towards the square. He found the chieftain's brother and a group of ten others clustered around him. Pushing through them, he saw what was causing them so much alarm.

  A gateway had opened up in the ground of the square, and a host of dead warriors were marching up the steps from below. They moved in perfect unison, the tramp of rotten sandals on sandstone steps mixed with the rattle of their scale armour. They carried long shields on their left arms and curved blades similar to the scimitars of the Arabians. Their armoured skirts hung to their knees, covering bone and withered flesh, and the same green light shone from empty sockets beneath their helmets. At their head, one of them carried a standard wrought from gold, inscribed with pictograms and faded symbols.

  They advanced ten wide and six deep, moving with precision and coordination that made the most disciplined mortal soldiers look like clumsy children. The crunch of sand beneath their tread echoed from the giant pyramids.

  The phalanx stopped about twenty paces from the terrified Norse, and the two groups of warriors stood facing each other. A few more Norse joined Kurt's group, muttering curses and prayers to the gods as they caught sight of the unliving regiment arrayed in front of them.

  'We should leave now,' suggested Bjordrin, taking a step backwards.

  'No!' snarled Kurt. 'We must give the others time to get our treasure aboard the ships.'

  'We have enough,' argued Bjordrin, eyes wide with fear. 'It is useless to us if we die!'

  'Coward!' roared Kurt, striking Bjordrin across the chin with the back of his hand, sending him tumbling to the ground. 'I will not skulk away like a whipped cur!'

  Though it was weak here in the south, Kurt could still feel the tendrils of energy that poured from the lands of the gods in the far north. It was not like the invigorating rush he normally felt in battle, but it was strong enough. He opened himself up to its power, allowed the breath of the gods to flow into his bones, his muscles, his inner organs, fuelling them with unnatural strength and vitality.

  With a wordless roar, Kurt charged forwards, sword held aloft.

  For a moment the rest of the Norse stood and watched, and then broke into a charge as well, their own war cries drowning out the stamp of dead feet.

  Kurt crashed into the front of the undead like a comet, his sword hacking left and right, smashing aside shields, tearing free skull-like heads and chopping through ancient bronze swords. A dozen of the walking corpses fell to his first assault. His blade erupted into flame that ignited tinder-dry rags and pitch-covered bones, turning the centre of the regiment into a raging conflagration.

  As the tomb guardians closed around him, weapons biting into Kurt's armour, Bjordrin arrived with the rest of the Norse, their axes, maces and swords hammering into the undead.

  The unliving soldiers did not react to their casualties, striking back with millennia-old blades that hewed through flesh and bone as if newly-forged. Bjordrin was barely missed by a thrust towards his chest, turning aside the blow at the last moment, but he lost his footing. The others closed around him, those with shields raising them to protect their chieftain's brother.

  His initial impetus faltering, Kurt's blows came slower as the magic leaked from his body. He felt a moment of desperation as his sword felt heavy in his hands for a heartbeat, a Nehekharan blade glancing off his cheekbone. Fighting back his momentary fear, he whirled his sword around his head in a wide circle, clearing an area around himself for a few precious seconds of respite.

  Over half of the unliving warriors were strewn across the ground, decapitated or dismembered. Though their attack had slowed, and seven of their number lay dead or writhing in pain amongst
the fallen enemy, the Norse held the upper hand.

  Kurt swept his sword low, severing both legs of an enemy warrior at the knees, tumbling it into the dust.

  Raising his blade for another strike, he paused. His sixth sense detected a magical presence, an arcane energy that leeched up from the ground. The fiery eyes of the undead blazed more brightly for a moment and, to Kurt's horror, those that had fallen began to stir. Torn limbs knitted themselves to severed joints, gaping wounds closed over seeping black blood. The warriors of Nephythys pulled themselves to their feet, clutching for discarded weapons, pulling battered shields from the sand.

  'Come on! Fight harder!' bellowed Kurt, smashing his sword through a shield and chopping one skeletal warrior from shoulder to ribcage. It stood there for a few heartbeats, Kurt's blade lodged in its torso, and then crumbled into dust.

  Bjordrin, blood streaming from a cut to his forehead, fought through the melee to stand beside Kurt.

  'We cannot win against foes who do not die!' rasped the Norseman.

  'We can win!' Kurt barked back, blocking a sword with the crosspiece of his own weapon and spinning the blade from his enemy's hands. He chopped the creature's head off with a twist of his wrists and looked at Bjordrin. 'We can!'

  Bjordrin shook his head and pulled Kurt back a few steps. He pointed out past the scrum of Norse and undead towards the largest of the pyramids. From a dozen concealed gateways, a host of skeletons marched forth. Some were armed with spears, others with bows. From a wide portal at the centre of the pyramid's nearest side, a company of dead warriors mounted on skeletal steeds cantered forth, their standards shining like miniature suns in the mid-morning light.

  There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of warriors marching up from the depths beneath the ancient city. Kurt stared at them for a moment.

  'Fall back to the ships!' he cried, waving his sword back down the boulevard towards the gate they had entered by. 'Get to the ships, take what treasure you can!'

  The Norse broke quickly, easily outpacing the animated dead, and Kurt ushered them on with shouts and slaps with the flat of his blade. As they ran down the boulevard, they stopped to pick up what loot they could, but this slowed their retreat. They were joined by other stragglers from different parts of the city, many of them wounded, others half-mad with terror.

  Glancing down a sidestreet at one junction, Kurt saw dozens of horsemen riding parallel to them, trying to cut them off from the wall ahead.

  'Faster, move faster!' he urged his men, breaking into a sprint. The Norse warriors needed no further encouragement, and the retreat quickly became a rout.

  A little way along, three chests lay on the ground, their lids split open, gold coins spilt on to the ground. Kurt grabbed Bjordrin and two others, and pointed to the chests.

  'Leave them, they'll slow us down,' Bjordrin argued, but Kurt pushed the Norsemen towards the treasure. He sheathed his sword and hefted one of the chests to his shoulder. Checking that the others had picked up all the scattered coins, he then led them onwards.

  They were now two or three hundred paces behind the main group, perhaps a quarter of a mile from the gate itself and half a mile from the beach. Kurt's lungs burned with the effort of running and carrying the chest but he pressed on.

  Kurt felt a flood of a relief as they passed through the shadow of the gate. He stopped and looked back down the boulevard. Not far behind them, the legion of Nephythys marched down the wide road. At their front, in macabre parody of the statue Kurt had seen, was the king himself riding in a chariot, his golden blade held forward. His robes were tattered and hung from shallow shoulders, his face a decayed mask of rotten flesh and exposed bone. He had no eyes, the sockets glimmering with unearthly light. A dozen light chariots flanked him, and a hundred horsemen followed close behind. Phalanx after phalanx of skeletal spearmen tramped forwards, their speartips waving as a synchronous mass. A volley of arrows soared into the air, but clattered down harmlessly on the buildings and roads, fifty yards short of their target.

  'By the gods, if I had an army like that...' whispered Bjordrin.

  'Keep hold of that chest and we will,' grinned Kurt. 'Imagine it. All the Norse for fifty miles all sailing under the banner of the Fjaergard! We'll come here and show this king what the men of the north are like. He may have been mighty once, but there is a new power now. A power even he can't stand against.'

  'Let's just make sure we get back, eh?' suggested Bjordrin, setting off at a trot. Kurt and the others followed. Ahead of them, Kurt's ship was already full and was pulling out into the bay with long strokes of its sweeps. Men were still hauling themselves and the treasure up ropes and planks to Jarlen's ship. They were halfway across the dunes when the keen-eyed Bjordrin stumbled and gave a gasp.

  To their right, another undead army was marching along the beach, easily a thousand strong. The Norse at the water's edge panicked as light horsemen galloped forward, loosing arrows at the ship, a few plucked from the deck and falling into the water.

  'We're cut off!' yelped Bjordrin, pointing to another host that was closing in on their position from the left.

  'The headland!' Kurt snapped, pointing up to the cliffs that flanked the bay. 'Come on!'

  They broke into a slow run, weighed down by the chests. Their pace slowed further as the slope steepened, and a small detachment of horse archers broke from the main column and headed after them. Their arrows whistled past, hissing like snakes and burying themselves in the sand. There was no cover, and soon Kurt was struck, the barbed tip of an arrow punching through his armour and burying itself in his left shoulder. Snarling in pain, he dropped the chest, which tumbled down the slope.

  Kurt took a step after it, hand reaching to reclaim his treasure, but Bjordrin grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him back.

  'It's worthless if you're dead!' Bjordrin warned. The other two Norsemen had already discarded their burdens and were racing up the slope, foundering through the sand as arrows fell around them. One of them gave a shriek and fell forward as a missile plunged into his back, piercing his spine. He lay there for a moment, dragging himself through the sand, and then fell flat.

  The archers were close now, only a hundred yards away, and Kurt and Bjordrin dug into their last reserves of energy as they sprinted up the slope.

  Just ahead of them, the sand seethed with a life of its own, causing the other Norseman to stumble.

  In a shower of sand and rocks, the ground erupted beneath him, and a nightmarish creature burst forth. Fashioned in the shape of a gigantic scorpion, the back of its carapace higher than Kurt's head, the strange construct lashed out with its barbed, gold-covered tail, its sting caving in the man's face, tearing his head loose. Its insectoid body was carved from blocks of marble and it's claws fashioned from bronze inlaid with jade, which snapped forwards, cutting through limbs in a gory explosion. Turning on legs built from the bones of dead desert creatures, the monstrous scorpion faced Kurt and Bjordrin, a skull set into its torso, eyes blazing with the same unholy light that animated the warriors behind them. Baleful light glowed from an opening in its back. Kurt drew his sword and ran forwards.

  Bjordrin shouted a warning as the creature's tail lashed forward, and Kurt dived under it rolling under the blow and back to his feet. His sword blocked a slashing claw and he caught the other in his left hand. The muscles of the Chosen strained against the unnatural vigour of the construct, but the power of the gods flowed into him and, with a yell, he ripped the claw free.

  His sword rattled harmlessly off the creature's marble skin, and Bjordrin joined the fight, his blade hacking at the tail which darted towards him. Sparks erupted from Kurt's blade as it clattered harmlessly off the creature's stone body, shavings of steel spraying into the sand.

  Bjordrin was thrown to his back by the creature's remaining claw and it turned and raised a dagger-tipped leg to stamp on him. The blade punched through Bjordrin's arm, pinning him to the ground.

  Ignoring the agonised screams of his
adopted kinsman, Kurt saw that the scorpion had left itself open. He leapt forwards on the creature's back, fingers finding a hold in the eye sockets of the skull that was in place of its face.

  He saw that the opening in its back was a little larger than a coffin. Within were the withered remains of a man dressed in similar robes to those Amen-athep had worn. It was from this corpse that the unearthly energy emanated, bathing the inside of the sarcophagus-cavity with green light. Kurt plunged his sword down into the opening, the blade passing through the chest of the withered body with a sound like tearing parchment.

  The eyes of the mummified priest snapped open with horror and black sludge gurgled up from it's throat. Green light spilled from the wound and the scorpion collapsed to the ground, its body parts separating as the magic binding it together dispersed into the air.

  Bjordrin was trapped beneath the bulk of the scorpion's thorax, his arm still pinned by the creature's foot. Arrows screamed into the sand close by and Kurt turned to see the horsemen galloping closer. They lowered their bows and drew forth bronze-tipped spears for the final charge.

  Kurt met them head on, his blade smashing through the neck of the closest steed, toppling the rider to the sand. Ducking beneath a spear point, he punched an armoured gauntlet up through the exposed ribcage of the next skeletal horse, ripping chunks from its spine.

  A spear thrust towards his abdomen, but Kurt knocked it aside with his sword and grasped the shaft in his left hand, dragging the dead warrior to the ground. Stamping down on the creature, its skull shattered under his boot and the spear came free.

  Kurt hurled the spear at the next, the weapon smashing through its chest and flinging it from its dead horse. The steed continued forward and barrelled into Kurt, its skull face biting at him with teeth sheathed in bronze, tearing flesh from Kurt's raised left arm and knocking him backwards into the sand. A hoof struck him in the head and he was dazed for a moment.