Warriors of the Chaos Wastes - C L Werner

by Warhammer

  ‘My immortals will be back soon enough,’ Khorakk said. ‘They will attend to this rabble.’

  At Khorakk’s gesture, the bald dwarf pulled a lever jutting from a box-like contrivance standing at one corner of the platform. In response, the chains began to withdraw, pulling the platform and its occupants towards the roof of the ziggurat.

  Wulfrik glared up at the retreating dwarfs and shook his sword. ‘Khorakk! Fatherless mongrel of a vulture!’ The violence in the champion’s voice sent his words thundering through the cavernous temple. ‘Your ancestors were oathbreakers and kinslayers! Small surprise their descendant doesn’t have the guts of a jackal, much less a man!’

  Uttered in the harsh tones of the dwarf tongue, Wulfrik’s scathing challenge cut at Khorakk’s pride. The dwarf would have liked to reach the roof of the ziggurat, then have the floor of the temple flooded with magma. He’d risen far by being petty, vicious and above all careful. The human’s words, however, stung him in a way that went beyond reason, touching the primal essence of his being. He did not know about the Gift of Tongues, but he felt its power when he turned towards the bald dwarfs and ordered the platform to descend.

  ‘Manling,’ Khorakk snarled at Wulfrik. ‘I will feed your spine to Hashut – if I can find it!’ The dwarf thegn clenched his fist and a curved blade shot outwards from the heavy vambrace on his arm. He gestured menacingly at the Norscan with the sword-like weapon. ‘You’ll cry to your gods before I’m done!’

  ‘I’ll cry now,’ Wulfrik called back at him. ‘I asked my gods to send me a worthy foe, not the village idiot!’

  Khorakk’s face turned red as anger swelled up inside him. For a moment, it seemed the dwarf would hurl himself from the platform, so great was his wrath at Wulfrik’s mocking tone. He was used to respect and fear, demanded it from all who stood in his presence. He would not suffer temerity from this barbarian!

  While the platform was still a few feet from the floor of the temple, Khorakk lunged at Wulfrik. Jets of steam hissed from pistons fastened to the thegn’s armoured legs, the machinery endowing his leap with force far beyond that of mere flesh. The Norscan scrambled as Khorakk’s body came crashing down at him, clearing the dozen yards between himself and his prey in the blink of an eye. The dwarf smashed into the floor with such force that the basalt block cracked beneath the impact. Coiled wires fitted into the steel legs absorbed the shock of his violent descent, allowing Khorakk to recover immediately from his leap. The dwarf’s crooked blade flashed out at Wulfrik, glancing across the champion’s scalp as he ducked beneath the sudden assault.

  The dwarf’s armour made him taller than Wulfrik and about as massive as a troll. When the hero’s sword stabbed at him, Khorakk laughed, the blade scarcely scratching the thick marble breastplate.

  ‘Where is your bragging now?’ Khorakk growled, pursuing his attack on the northman. The steam-powered arms of his armour gave the dwarf incredible speed, his blade slashing at Wulfrik as though it were crafted from lightning. Only the rage-ridden clumsiness of Khorakk’s attack allowed the hero to defend himself, dodging and weaving his body as the crescent blade sliced at his body.

  In dodging the blade, however, Wulfrik exposed himself to the dwarf’s other hand, the steel gauntlet that had crushed the slaver’s skull. The metal fingers ripped at him, cutting through his armour as though it were Cathayan silk. Shreds of mail dangled from Khorakk’s hand when Wulfrik squirmed out of the dwarf’s tightening grip. Blood rose to fill the deep gouges the thegn’s talons left across the northman’s chest.

  Wulfrik snarled in pain, staggering back as Khorakk flung the tatters of his armour into one of the fiery canals. The dwarf’s legs spewed jets of steam as he pressed his attack and forced the hero to give ground before him. Khorakk glanced about him to ensure himself that he would not be flanked by the barbarian’s comrades.

  The other humans were busy fighting the robed acolytes. Each of the bald dwarfs had seized a heavy hammer and followed their thegn into battle. The northmen were shocked to find that their foes were women. Dwarf mothers too old to produce children, their only purpose now was to defend the temple of their unforgiving god. They wielded their hammers with the maddened zeal of fanatics, the burned stumps of their tongues wriggling in silent cries of hate. Seldom had the veteran marauders ever battled foes who fought with such crazed disregard for their own lives as these viragos.

  Khorakk’s hideous face grinned as he saw the dwarf harridans take down one of the humans, bringing him low with a bone-crushing blow to his leg. The thegn wasn’t overly concerned that two of the acolytes had died on the northman’s blade to get that close to him. To his thinking, the barren viragos were almost as worthless as a hobgoblin in the grand scheme of things.

  The dwarf’s momentary distraction as he watched Stefnir fall before the acolytes gave Wulfrik the opportunity he had been watching for. Clenching his fangs, Wulfrik suddenly sprang at the gloating thegn. His blade scraped across the steel gorget the dwarf wore, failing to find the weak join between neck and breastplate. As his sword turned, Wulfrik twisted his hand, slamming the crosspiece into Khorakk’s face. The dwarf howled in pain as his ugly visage was smashed into bruised wreckage.

  ‘Swine! Dog!’ the thegn swore, raising a hand to shield his face while swiping blindly at Wulfrik with his blade. Khorakk cursed again as the hero ducked beneath his sweeping steel to slash at the cables and pistons fitted to his legs. Screaming steam exploded from ruptured lines, venting across the floor in a boiling cloud. Wulfrik retreated from the steam, his flesh scalded by the burning vapour.

  Khorakk stumbled back, the injured leg of his armour sluggish and jerky in its movements. As the cloud of steam jetting from the pipes dwindled, the dwarf’s leg lost all of its remaining flexibility, at last becoming completely immobile.

  ‘You’ll suffer for that!’ the thegn promised. He pressed his hand against a stud affixed to his breastplate. Puffs of smoke vented from the armour around his neck as two steel hinges sprang into motion, raising a horned helm from where it had rested against the dwarf’s back and lowering it over his head. Khorakk’s hate-ridden eyes glared from behind the grilled visor set into the helm’s golden mask.

  Wulfrik ran his hand across his bleeding scalp, flicking scarlet beads onto the dwarf’s mask. ‘Too late to spare your looks,’ the northman said. ‘They looked like troll vomit before I touched them!’

  The dwarf thegn rushed at Wulfrik, chopping at the champion with his curved blade. The crippled leg of Khorakk’s armour made the attack clumsy, almost unbalancing him as he struck. The northman rolled with the blow, letting the edge of the blade pass inches from his heart. As he rolled, he turned, driving his sword full-force against Khorakk’s helm. The sturdy helm resisted the blow, but the gilded mask, its strength compromised by extravagance and hubris, crumpled. Khorakk cried out in shock as the dented slats of his visor were thrust inwards, almost crushing his eye.

  Half-blinded, Khorakk slapped at a second stud fitted to his breastplate. From his right forearm, a steel plug suddenly popped free from the end of a pipe. Wulfrik had assumed the pipe was another piston designed to give the dwarf extra strength in his arm. Now he learned its real purpose. The dwarf clenched his fist. In response, a jet of fire exploded from the mouth of the pipe, billowing out at his foe in a sheet of flame.

  Wulfrik leapt from the path of the fire, sliding across the floor. His momentum carried him to the very brink of one of the canals, the miasma of the bubbling magma singeing his beard. The hero didn’t have time to consider how close he had come to destruction. As he arrested his slide, he threw himself to one side. Fire from Khorakk’s armour blasted the floor where he had lain, the stones glowing red with heat as the flame played across them.

  Awkwardly, Khorakk turned, trying to catch the agile barbarian in his sights. Unable to see through the left side of his helm and unable to bend his right leg, the hunt became an exercise in frustration for the thegn. A stream of curses echoed from his helm as he al
ternately cut at Wulfrik with his blade and shot at him with his fire-thrower. The curses faded into a gloating chuckle when the slow chase caused Khorakk to turn towards the ziggurat’s main hall.

  ‘You are doomed, barbarian!’ the thegn laughed. ‘My immortals are coming back, and against them you have no hope!’

  Wulfrik did not need Khorakk’s words to tell him more dwarfs were coming. He could smell the immortals as they rushed down the hall, feel their rage in their scent. Not many of them had survived Zarnath’s spell and the attentions of Tjorvi and the others afterwards, but enough of them had endured to overwhelm the remaining Norscans.

  Wulfrik ducked beneath another blind sweep of Khorakk’s blade. Before the dwarf could turn his fire-thrower in his direction, the northman brought his sword sweeping down in a double-handed stroke that had all of his strength behind it. The blackened sword did not strike at Khorakk’s blade, but at the metal housing behind it. The housing crumpled beneath the impact, springs snapping as the metal around them was crushed. Khorakk’s blade wobbled against his arm, loosened from its fittings. When the dwarf struck back at the hero, Wulfrik’s sword crashed against it, knocking it free and sending it bouncing into one of the molten canals.

  ‘You’re right, dwarf,’ Wulfrik snarled at Khorakk. ‘I don’t have time to play with you any more!’ Howling like an animal, the champion lunged at Khorakk’s legs. His sword crashed against the pistons set into the thegn’s still-functioning leg. The blade failed to work the same kind of havoc it had before, only a small spray of steam rewarding his effort.

  The real impact of his attack was upon the dwarf inside the armour. Half-blind, his blade gone and with one leg already crippled, Khorakk appreciated how vulnerable he would be if he lost full control of the other. Fear gripped the overlord’s dark heart. He turned away from Wulfrik, stiffly dragging his injured leg after him. As he retreated, he cried out to the dwarf acolytes for aid. Wulfrik was forced to ignore his quarry as a pair of hammer-wielding viragos rushed him. A low sweep of his sword slashed across the knees of one of the acolytes, spilling her to the ground in a bleeding heap. The second nearly caught him with an overhanded strike of her hammer, but when the blow failed to connect, the wizened old virago found herself staring at her own body as her head rolled across the temple.

  ‘Stop the thegn!’ Wulfrik roared at his surviving men. The marauders were scattered across the temple, defending themselves as best they could against the remaining viragos. Even so, they answered their captain’s call, extricating themselves from their enemies to charge the retreating Khorakk.

  Wulfrik could see Khorakk’s goal. The thegn was making for the platform. Once there, he would be able to raise it to the roof of the ziggurat and escape. Even if he was able to fight his way clear of the immortals, Wulfrik knew his chances of catching the fleeing thegn would be poor. Those chances became worse when a stream of black fire erupted across the temple, narrowly missing Wulfrik’s head.

  The immortals were not the only ones who had survived the battle with Zarnath. Stalking down the hall was the dwarf sorcerer and his lammasu. The sorcerer and his beast looked the worse for their experience, the lammasu’s wings tattered, one of its hind legs painfully curled against its side. But without a warlock of his own to fight them, Wulfrik knew even a weakened sorcerer was enough to finish his warband.

  The only hope lay in using Khorakk’s own escape route. Wulfrik wasn’t going to die when he was so close to victory.

  ‘Make for the platform!’ he howled to his warriors. Wulfrik matched deeds to words, rushing towards the heart of the temple. He could see Khorakk limping onwards. The thegn stopped a dozen yards from the platform, his armour groaning and creaking as the pistons in its legs shuddered into action. Like some steel locust, Khorakk sprang from the floor of the temple, flinging himself up onto the dais. The dwarf landed badly, his damaged leg buckling under him and throwing him onto his side.

  Wulfrik could see Khorakk was still moving, however, lifting himself with his arms. There would be only a matter of moments before the thegn reached the mechanism which controlled the platform. The northman’s heart was hammering against his chest, his breath burning in his lungs by the time he reached the platform. Already in motion, he flung himself at the rising dais, his hands catching the edge. Below him, Wulfrik could feel the blistering heat of the molten pool. Had his hands missed the platform, the pool of fire would have been his tomb.

  As the dais continued to rise, Wulfrik lifted himself onto the platform. He could see Njarvord and Haukr running towards him to help him up. Angrily he waved them away, pointing a fist at Khorakk. ‘Just make sure he doesn’t get away,’ he told them. He retrieved his sword from its sheath, glaring murder at the thegn.

  Khorakk glanced up at the roof of the ziggurat, then glared at the approaching northman. ‘Hashut damn your bones, barbarian!’ the dwarf growled. His armoured hand tore one of the crystal eyes from the side of the platform. There was a ghastly shriek, something like purple smoke flashing from the ruptured mechanism. Khorakk ignored the freed daemon. Lifting the heavy mass of bronze and crystal over his head, the dwarf hurled it at Wulfrik.

  Wulfrik threw himself forwards as the cumbersome missile crashed against the platform, causing the entire dais to sway. His leap carried him just beyond the crystal eye as it rolled past him and over the edge of the platform. He could hear the sizzle as it splashed into the magma below.

  More curses streamed from Khorakk’s mouth. The dwarf took a lumbering step towards his foe, raising the arm equipped with the fire-spitter. Suddenly the thegn took a cautious step back.

  ‘Watch out for the beast!’

  The alarm came from Tjorvi, who like Wulfrik had only just managed to catch the edge of the dais as it rose above the temple. Slower to climb onto the platform, the Graeling had seen the frustrated immortals shaking their fists at them from the floor below. He had also watched a monstrous shape lift into the air in pursuit of the retreating dais.

  Wulfrik dropped to the floor of the platform as he heard the warning. Claws swept through the empty air above him, the stench of brimstone and sulphur filling his nose, shimmering smoke clouding his eyes. Instinctively, Wulfrik rolled onto his back, slashing with his sword at the lammasu looming over him.

  The monster reeled back, roaring in pain, one of its paws savaged by the champion’s keen blade. The beast snarled down at him. Over its shoulder, Wulfrik could see the sorcerer’s bloodthirsty grin.

  Before either monster or sorcerer could strike, each found himself engaged from a different quarter. The pair had fixated too fully upon slaughtering Wulfrik, forgetting for the moment their other foes. They soon had cause to remember Njarvord and Haukr as the two warriors drove their axes into the lammasu’s black hide. Haukr’s blade cleaved deeply into the monster’s leathery wing, smashing through the finger-like bones and ripping the membrane. Njarvord’s hacked through the monster’s flank, biting deep into its side. The beast reared back, forcing the sorcerer to forget about casting hexes as he struggled to stay mounted. The massive, club-like tail whipped around, smashing into Njarvord, flinging him like a ragdoll across the platform to crash into the side of the idol. The hollow statue rang like a bell from the impact of the marauder’s body.

  Haukr backed away from the raging lammasu, using the weird machines mounted beside the idol to duck behind as the beast swept its claws at him. Tjorvi jabbed at the monster with his own axe, trying to keep it distracted and divide its efforts between the two men.

  Wulfrik left his warriors to keep the lammasu occupied. He had not forgotten Khorakk and knew that the thegn still posed a formidable threat in his own right. Backed into a corner, the dwarf might not care overmuch if he caught his own minions in a blast from his fire-thrower.

  The thought gave Wulfrik another idea. There was a cruel smile on his face as he scrambled away from the lammasu and hurled himself towards Khorakk. The thegn was waiting for him, clenching his fist and sending a sheet of flame shooting
from his armour at the charging hero. Khorakk imagined Wulfrik had made the last mistake he would ever make. The dwarf’s fire would either immolate him or force him off the side of the platform. Either way the barbarian would burn.

  The fire did drive Wulfrik off the side of the platform, but that was as the champion had planned. The northman sheathed his sword and lunged forwards, hurtling out over the side of the dais. As he leapt, his arms reached out, catching the chain fastened to the corner of the platform. Wulfrik felt his entire body shudder, felt the hot steel of the chain bite into his palms, but his grip held. The moving chain lifted him up and above the dais. Using the momentum of his leap, Wulfrik spun his body around and launched himself at Khorakk.

  Like a bolt cast from a ballista, Wulfrik smashed down into Khorakk’s chest. Striking from the dwarf’s blind side, he caught the thegn completely by surprise. Believing Wulfrik had fallen down into the temple, a vindictive chuckle had been bubbling behind the dwarf’s golden mask. Now the chuckle collapsed into a grunt of pain as Khorakk’s heavy armour crashed onto his back.

  Sprawled across Khorakk’s chest, Wulfrik drove a dagger into the join between the armoured shoulder and his left arm. The Norscan sawed the edge across the tangle of pipes and cables until something broke and a jet of steam spurted out into the gloom. He wasn’t sure if he’d cut the dwarf inside the armour. At the moment, he didn’t care.

  Wulfrik set his legs against the dwarf’s left arm, hoping he’d damaged it enough that he would be able to pin it in place. Viciously, he seized Khorakk’s right arm with both hands, straining to raise it. He could feel the dwarf struggling to pull free, pistons throbbing as they drove the armour’s mechanisms. It took every ounce of his strength to hold the arm.

  And aim it in the direction he wanted.

  The lammasu had ripped apart one of the machines flanking the idol. Oily chemicals spilled from the ruptured machine, spilling across the beast. Wulfrik could see the dwarf sorcerer crawling through the mess. Thrown at last from the raging monster’s back, the sorcerer was frantically trying to get to safety, dragging his legs behind him as though they were lumps of granite. Wulfrik grinned to see the dwarf’s panic.