A huge dire wolf paced alongside the stallion. Rotting flesh hung from its frame. Rib bones were exposed, yet its musculature, viscous and grey, was still powerfully corded. Its head swayed heavily from side to side as it sought the scent of prey. The Unmade were downwind of the beast.
‘They do not see us yet,’ Bulsurrus whispered.
‘There are many,’ said Skarask. There were three times as many undead as there were Unmade.
‘Does that trouble you?’ Gravskein asked.
‘Only that there are so few living to teach.’
Gravskein nodded. The dead that marched had left pain behind. They had forever lost their chance to know the true glory of the gift. ‘But there is still one,’ she said. The blood knight was not beyond pain. He was not beyond scarring.
Gravskein looked to Bulsurrus, awaiting his signal. He was the most transformed, and so the most enlightened, of the hunting party. He waited as the blood knight reached the dais of the Realmgate. The vampire turned his horse around slowly, scanning the wooded hills that embraced the gate on three sides.
He will see us, Gravskein realised. The vampire was gazing at his surroundings with something greater than mere sight. She looked again at Bulsurrus, and he nodded. He saw the danger too.
With the nod, the Unmade rushed out of concealment and charged, howling, down the hillside.
There was little art to their attack. Once, in the lost time, there would have been. Now, there was only the direct charge, the straight line to the prey and to the evangelism of pain.
The hunting party came down on the left flank of the undead, midway between the rear of the skeletons and corpses and zombies and the Realmgate. The blood knight saw them at once. He shouted, and with a thrust of his sword he commanded his troops to meet their attackers. The infantry ran forward, and they met the Unmade just before the base of the slope. Gravskein’s comrades had the advantage of speed and momentum, and they slashed into the blood knight’s troops.
Bulsurrus whirled once, his arms outstretched, decapitating the skeletons closing with him, and then he turned, flying over the ground in his ecstatic sprint to reach the vampire. Gravskein followed. She had a flail-headed chain in one hand, a sword in the other, and she whipped the chain into the corpses. She moved swiftly, only a few paces behind Bulsurrus. She had little interest in the things without pain. She would fight to hold them off, but they were not important.
Behind her, the rest of the band was not as fast, and plunged deeply into the struggle. Skeletons and zombies fell without a sound. Screams of rage and shouts of joyful agony reached her ears, though. Her comrades were dying too, but not without a final burst of blessed pain.
The blood knight charged, the dire wolf at his side. He made for Bulsurrus. The Joyous One leapt high to meet the vampire, attacking with the swiftness of the wind, but the vampire was faster. He batted Bulsurrus’ blades aside with a contemptuous blow of his sword, smashing the Unmade away. Bulsurrus landed hard, one leg twisting badly beneath him.
The dire wolf leapt at Gravskein before she could run to Bulsurrus’ aid. The massive beast flew through the air, a battering ram of fur and muscle. It slammed into her and brought her down, its paws crushing her chest with its weight. It snarled and opened its jaws wide. Hot, foetid breath washed over Gravskein, and she stared into the darkness of its maw and at its curved-dagger teeth. She jabbed up with her sword, and the wolf reared back, evading her blow. Released, she scrambled back, but the beast came at her again, its jaws gaping to tear out her midsection. She kicked at it, jerking its head away once, but the animal was bigger, stronger and faster than she was. She was doing nothing more than delaying its meal by a few seconds.
Then, with joy and exultation, she saw what she must do.
She kicked again, this time aiming for the maw itself. The jaws snapped shut on her leg. The dire wolf’s teeth came together, severing muscle and snapping bone in a single, monstrously powerful bite. The wolf sank its teeth deeper, pulverising her limb. The pain was enormous, consuming, glorious. It was, since the removal of her face, the greatest pain she had experienced.
The greatest gift.
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A Black Library Publication
First published in Inferno! Volume 4 in Great Britain in 2019.
This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
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Cover illustration by Paul Dainton.
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ISBN: 978-1-78999-318-9
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The Serpent's Bargain Page 4