Warriors of the Chaos Wastes - C L Werner

by Warhammer

  Einarr lowered his axe and stepped forward. ‘What can you tell me of this mark?’ he asked, extending his hand toward the witch. ‘I have never given the Windlord cause to mark me as his own. Why should he place his sign upon my flesh?’

  The witch’s laughter wheezed through the few teeth left in her face. ‘The gods do not ask, they take!’ she sneered. ‘Tchar wants you, warrior. Therefore you are his!’

  It was Einarr’s turn to sneer. ‘I have asked nothing of the gods and they have given me nothing. They have little cause to demand my service now.’

  The crone shook her head. ‘Tchar guided me to you for a purpose. In the entrails of a pig, I saw this place. I saw a man with the mark of Tchar forged into his hand. My divinations told me that the man would not understand what was demanded of him. It would be Urda’s task to tell him, and to tell him what Tchar would be willing to give in return for his service.’ Urda looked past Einarr, staring at Vallac.

  ‘Let the Kurgan see to the renegade,’ she said, turning from the cave. ‘There are things I would say that only the ears of Tchar’s champion should hear.’

  ‘Am I some cowering thrall to take orders from an Aesling crone?’ Einarr growled back. ‘Do not think I will balk at cutting the head from a presumptuous old hag who has outlived her days.’ He brandished his axe menacingly at Urda. The witch simply smiled at him and turned away. Einarr felt a tremor of rage rush through him at the old woman’s haughty airs. Not even the bondsmen of Vinnskor had treated him with such disrespect! Yet even as the urge to strike her down for her arrogance swelled within him, Einarr knew that he would not touch her. He watched the old witch walk back down the slope for a moment, then tucked his axe back in his belt.

  ‘You don’t mean to follow that hag,’ Vallac said, disbelief in his voice. Einarr nodded his head.

  ‘I have little wit for riddles,’ he said. ‘If the witch can truly tell me why Tchar has chosen me, then I would hear her words. See to Orgrim, I will not be long.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  The old witch took Einarr a small distance from Orgrim’s cave, into a small stand of gnarled, twisted trees. Einarr found the writhing, tortured trunks unsettling, the resemblance of their thin limbs and scrawny branches far too close to skeletal talons to escape the Norscan’s superstitious attention. His skin crawled as the unnatural aura reaching out from the grotesque trees impressed itself upon him. It was the sensation of cold unearthly expanses, the aroma of sorcery and magic. Einarr felt foolish, allowing mere trees to unsettle him so. He tried to tear his gaze from them, but found them morbidly fascinating. Then, in his inspection of them, Einarr found a pale blue eye staring back at him from amid the bark of one trunk. There was anguished madness in that eye and while Einarr watched, pallid sap-like tears oozed from its corners.

  ‘Blood of the old-fathers!’ Einarr swore, drawing back from the stand of hideous trees. Beside him, Urda began to cackle.

  ‘Perhaps they were, once,’ Urda laughed. Einarr felt sick as he watched the old woman caress one of the branches with her own wasted hand, stroking it as a child might pet a cat. ‘Many lifetimes have they stood here, reaver. They came into these lands from the south, to loot and to plunder and to kill. But they offended Tchar the Changer and he brought them low, changing flesh into wood and blood into sap. And here they stand, living testaments to Tchar’s wrath.’

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’ Einarr demanded. The warrior did not look at the witch as he spoke, his eyes watching the tortured trees, half expecting the abominations to spring into unholy life, to avenge their ancient misery with Baersonling blood.

  Urda shook her head, giggling under her breath. ‘You don’t trust me, Einarr Steelfist?’ She laughed louder as Einarr momentarily shifted his suspicious gaze to the witch. ‘Good! Good! Trust is the first illusion. None who would navigate the web of Tchar’s wisdom should be so easily deceived.’ The crone began rummaging through an ox-hide bag, removing small black stones from it. She began pacing through the snow, kneeling and placing the stones upon the ground in a complex pattern.

  ‘Do not fear, reaver,’ Urda said. ‘I do not think it is Tchar’s will to add a new sapling to his grove of the cursed. I brought you here because this is a place strong with the power of Tchar. Places where the gods have left their marks forever draw strength from them. Those who serve can tap into that strength. We are drawn to such places, can feel their call in our bones. It is why that renegade makes his lair in the cave beyond the hill, because the power of this place beckons him.’

  Einarr clenched his hand, feeling the metallic flesh groan as he willed it close. ‘And what of the men upon whom the gods leave their mark?’

  ‘They beckon too,’ Urda said. She set the last stone in place upon the snow and reached into her bag once more. Something sleek and slimy coiled about her forearm as she withdrew it, something that looked to Einarr midway between slug and eel. The witch smiled with her empty mouth as she ripped the thing’s throat with her overgrown nails, splashing the snow between the stones with its treacle-like blood. A sharp, bitter smell struck against Einarr’s senses as the crone bled the loathsome mollusc dry. Urda tossed the carcass into the woods and turned toward Einarr again.

  ‘You can feel Tchar’s strength in you,’ she said. ‘Others can feel it too and they will be drawn to it, like moths to the flame. Why else do you think the Kurgan and the renegade sought you out? Why else do you think Tchar guided my steps to find you?’

  ‘You promised me answers, witch!’ Einarr snarled. ‘Not more questions! Tell me why Tchar has done this to me! Tell me what it is the gods expect of me!’ Urda stared long into Einarr’s furious eyes, then nodded and crouched down, her shrivelled hand reaching into the soiled snow. She approached Einarr, her fist closed around a handful of snow slimy with the life of the mollusc.

  Einarr stared at the pungent, soupy mess running between the crone’s fingers as the snow melted. It seemed to sizzle as it struck the ground, burning its way into the soil beneath the snow. He shifted his gaze back to Urda’s gleaming eyes.

  ‘Eat this, and all your questions will be answered,’ the crone said. She opened her fingers, displaying the melting filth that had been crushed into a ball by her grip.

  The warrior pulled away, swallowing against his revulsion. ‘Was it not you who said that trust is the first deception?’

  ‘So I did,’ the witch grinned back, still holding the repugnant mush beneath Einarr’s face. ‘Perhaps you are not so eager to find wisdom as you profess.’ Urda’s hollow laughter hissed from her face as she watched Einarr’s features twist with disgust as he continued to watch the icy filth melt in the witch’s hand. Einarr ignored her gloating, his mind flying as he tried to decide what kind of game Urda was playing with him. Did she mean to poison him, cast some baleful spell upon him? He found his eyes wandering again to the twisted, tortured trees. Perhaps that was what she intended, despite her assurances that such was not the will of Tchar. Sigdan had once told him that the most dangerous lies were those the liar did not bother to hide.

  The crone continued to cackle and into her laughter was mixed a menagerie of sounds, human and animal. Einarr felt his head spinning as the noise seeped down his ears. His skull felt on fire, a throbbing agony that echoed Alfkaell’s attack upon him. Sweat beaded upon Einarr’s brow as he fought to focus his thoughts. The eyes in the trees were wider now, watching him with an air of loathsome expectancy.

  Suddenly, amid the babble of the witch’s sounds, a set of syllables stabbed into Einarr’s mind like a burning blade. The fog of confusion vanished and Einarr lunged forward, his tainted hand closing around Urda’s scrawny throat, his other hand holding his axe high.

  ‘What did you say?’ Einarr’s voice thundered. ‘How do you know that name?’ Even with Einarr’s hand locked about her neck, there was a gloating quality in Urda’s toothless smile.

  ‘You know what you must do to find wisdom,’ the witch wheezed. Despite the violence of Einarr’s fury,
her hand still held the ball of filthy snow and she once more extended it toward the warrior’s face.

  ‘You said “Asta”!’ Einarr growled. ‘How do you know that name!’ His grip tightened about the witch’s throat, her shining eyes bulging in her withered face. Even with death reaching out for her, the smile remained locked on Urda’s countenance.

  ‘Daring breeds wisdom,’ Urda hissed. ‘Death brings only ignorance.’

  Einarr roared with frustration, releasing the witch, hurling his axe across the grove. The warrior raised his fists, shaking them at the black sky, hurling curses at the heavens. When he turned, he found Urda standing beside him again, holding the melting filth out to him once more, as though nothing had happened, as though he hadn’t come within an inch of snapping her scrawny neck. The rage in Einarr’s eyes collapsed into a miasma of defeat. The warrior’s shoulders slumped and he nodded his head weakly. Whatever trap the witch had set for him, he did not have the will to escape it.

  Urda pressed her hand against Einarr’s face. He could feel her paper-thin flesh against his lips as the slimy slush was pushed into his mouth. He could feel the filth burn as it slithered down his throat, could feel its abominable substance racing through his body. Einarr wilted to the ground, hacking as his body tried to vomit the corruption back into the snow. Urda watched his misery for a moment, then slowly made her way back to the ring of stones she had made. She lifted her staff from where she had laid it upon the ground. She stabbed its point into the tainted snow still remaining within the pattern marked out by the stones and began churning the filth like a house-thrall stirring a cauldron.

  ‘Asta…’ Einarr gasped as his body continued to heave and convulse.

  Urda looked back at the stricken warrior. ‘In time, reaver. But there are much greater things we must learn first. You are the chosen, it is upon your flesh that Tchar has forged his mark in steel. It is to you that the will of Tchar has been revealed, even if you are not wise enough to understand. The voice of the gods is spoken in the language of dreams. Tell me what visions have filled your sleep and their shapes will manifest in the blood of the changeling. Tell them to me, that we may both learn how we will serve mighty Tzeentch!’

  An icy tingle worked its way along Einarr’s spine as he looked down upon the images that had been captured in the tainted snow. It was not the loathsomeness of the medium, or the fact that Einarr could still taste the filth in his mouth. It was not any level of horrifying detail, for the images were more like the stylistic runes of the seers than pictures torn from life. No, it was the sense of familiarity they evoked as he looked upon them, the certainty that the repugnant ritual had done exactly what Urda claimed it had done. She said the tainted snow had drawn the images straight from Einarr’s mind, pulling them from that hidden place where the brain locked away unremembered dreams. Looking upon them, Einarr knew he had seen them before, knew that each figure and each scene had played its part in the long hours of slumber.

  Einarr studied each figure, trying to find some meaning, some understanding from them. There was a squat, daemon-like figure, its bearded face split in a wicked grin, its hands extended as though to make an offering of the sword laid between them, heavy chains drooping from its arms. Near the little daemon were two massive figures, their outlines suggesting immense strength, one of them leaning against a gigantic maul. Another figure was that of an armoured warrior, horns curling from his helm, the skull-rune of Khorne emblazoned across his chest.

  There were animals too, wild beasts each marked with peculiar signs. There was a griffon, its mighty frame enclosed in armour, great horns framing its visor face. There was a sinister-looking owl, its face sporting three eyes. There was a great falcon with arrows flying from its beak. A loping wolf, an axe clenched tight in its jaws. A shaggy horse, feathers braided into its mane and the mark of Tchar upon its brow. A mighty winged dragon, its wings tattered and torn, its jaws open in a great roar. Above everything, there was a monstrous eagle, its beak crooked, its wings unfurled. Einarr felt his eyes straying again and again to the avian figure, unable to shake the sense of belonging it provoked.

  There were scenes as well, places and things that were strange and sinister to Einarr’s eyes. He saw a great pillar, its surface covered in writhing figures, a gigantic worm coiled around it. The worm’s mouth was open, and strange things danced upon its tongue. He saw an enormous ship, far different from the longships of the Norse, listing badly to one side and with great fingers pulling at it from below. There was a tall cliff, its sides jagged and crumbling, seeming to twist and change even as Einarr looked at it.

  Einarr stared at the pictures for a long time, trying to make sense of them. But they were too many, too strange in their shape and form. Einarr was a warrior, not a seer or skald. Interpreting the meaning of the signs was beyond him, for all the emotion they evoked in him.

  Urda stood beside Einarr. The old crone jabbed at the snow images with her staff, pointing to the three-eyed owl. ‘This, I think, must be me.’ There was a note of pride in her voice as she made the observation. Einarr considered that for all the witch’s gloating, all her talk of conversing with Tchar, there had been doubt in her mind that she had really been guided to him by the gods. Seeing what could be a symbol for herself within the dreamscape of Einarr’s nightmares had reaffirmed her convictions.

  ‘If the owl is you, then the stallion is surely Vallac,’ Einarr said. He found himself looking once again at the symbol of the eagle. It had been such a creature that had found him in the ruins of Vinnskor that had set him upon this path. He could not deny the sense of kinship it evoked. ‘This one,’ he said, pointing at the eagle, ‘I feel is meant to be me.’

  The old crone’s face betrayed a moment of shock, her brow lifted in surprise. ‘The eagle is the symbol of Tchar,’ she pronounced with even more certainty than she had in her own representation among the symbols. As she spoke her words, Einarr felt a twinge of terror as a fragment of his dream seemed to return to him. Running, trying to hide upon a vast, empty plain while above him, its cruel eyes watching his every move, there circled the great black eagle. The horror of the memory caused Einarr’s pulse to quicken. Tchar, the Changer of the Ways. Einarr could almost feel the god’s eye upon him as he stared down at his symbol. Yet he still could not escape the sense of belonging the symbol made him feel. Somehow he was even more certain than Urda that the witch was wrong, that the eagle was meant to represent himself, not Tchar.

  ‘What of these others, then?’ Einarr wondered, trying to change the subject. ‘What might they mean?’

  ‘Beware, Steelfist,’ Urda cautioned. ‘There is both guidance and warning among these signs. Some you are to seek out, others you should avoid.’

  ‘But which are which?’

  Urda shook her head. ‘The gods are seldom so forthcoming. They leave it for men to find such wisdom for themselves.’ Einarr turned away from her and began staring at the symbols again. ‘Lock these signs in your mind’s eye, Einarr Steelfist. Keep them safe, do not forget them. They are the words of Tchar. When the time is right, you will understand their meaning.’

  Einarr digested Urda’s speech. Slowly the warrior turned back toward the witch. ‘This is how you answer the riddle of my dreams, crone. With more riddles! You promised me answers! You promised me wisdom! Where are my answers, old woman? Why has Tchar cast his mark upon me? What is it he would have me do?’ Einarr’s voice dropped into a deep snarl. ‘And how does the name of my wife come to be on an Aesling’s forked tongue?’

  The witch gestured at the symbols in the snow again. She indicated a particular cluster on the very edge of the ring marked out by the stones. There was what seemed to Einarr a vast and bleak swamp, from the centre of which rose an immense and crumbling tower. ‘Not all of these symbols are unknown to me, reaver. I told you that I understood why Tchar had chosen you and what he wanted from you. I do, but I had to be certain that you were indeed the one Tchar had chosen, that the same visions I had seen
in my dreams were also in yours.’

  The crone gestured to the figure of a man set beside that of the crumbling tower. The figure was corpulent and bloated, seated upon a lavish throne. ‘The Plague Lord Skoroth, favoured apostle of Neiglen the Corrupter, the god of pestilence and decay. This,’ she gestured at the tower itself, ‘is Skoroth’s fortress, the Palace of the Plague Lord. It lies deep within the Wastes, far beyond the lands of the Norse, beyond even the lands of the Kurgan, at the very doorstep of the realm of the gods. Skoroth’s palace is a temple to his god, a sacrament to the filth of his master. It is where the great treasures of Neiglen are kept, locked away behind walls of corruption and disease.

  ‘One of those treasures is a sacred relic, an artefact that Neiglen stole long ago from Mighty Tchar. The Windlord has waited many centuries for the time to be right to reclaim what was stolen from him. That time is now. Just as the Corrupter’s power waxes, so too does it wane. Neiglen is weaker now than he was when he dared steal from Tchar’s holy vaults.’

  ‘Why does Tchar not take his relic back himself?’ the blasphemous words were fuelled by Einarr’s smouldering anger. The witch was taking the long way around to answering anything.

  ‘Skoroth’s palace lies beyond the realm of the gods, existing within the world of mortals. A mortal may enter it and not draw the notice of Neiglen, a god could never do so.’ It was the sort of mysterious response Einarr had come to expect from the crone. The witch pointed at the symbols again, this time indicating a large, sickle-shaped claw. ‘This is the treasure that was taken from Tchar, the talon of his favoured servant, that which bears the title of “Dark Master”. It is a thing sacred to Tchar and filled with his might and power. For it to lie within the fastness of another god is a thing abhorrent and unclean.’