Warriors of the Chaos Wastes - C L Werner

by Warhammer

  Einarr tested the feel of the axe in his hand, ignoring the flicker of nervousness that raced through his mind. His father had spoken much of the dwellers in the forest and their savage ways, how it was better for a man to fall on his own blade than be taken alive by such monsters. He laughed at his own disquiet. Many years and much blood separated him from the child he had been. His eyes had seen much, his body had suffered much, his spirit had endured much. He would not let his manhood falter before half-remembered terrors.

  ‘Ten,’ Orgrim growled, the sound low and brutal as it hissed between his clenched teeth. Einarr nodded as he heard the woodsman speak. Orgrim continued to count the monsters prowling the camp, making a mark in the snow with his finger each time he spied a new set of horns or his nose caught an unfamiliar scent. Soon, there were more marks than could be easily counted. They were odds that would set the soft men of the south quaking in their boots, praying to their feeble gods for salvation. The Norse were not so weak. The foe was what it was, the odds already set, the will of the gods already made. If a man would prevail, then he must prove to the gods that he was worthy of victory.

  ‘The beast-kin are simple of mind,’ Einarr said. ‘If they think we are many, they may lose the stomach for battle and flee.’ He stabbed a finger at Vallac, pointing to the east. ‘Circle among the trees, position yourself on the right and attack when I attack. Take care to make no sound, and beware that your scent does not drift towards their camp.’ The Kurgan smiled grimly, drawing his crooked sword in a slashing motion through the air. He cast one last suspicious look at Urda, then crept into the snowy veil of the pines.

  ‘You will take the left,’ Einarr continued, pointing at Orgrim. The Aesling renegade shook his shaggy head.

  ‘The strongest of the beast-kin will be near the fire,’ Orgrim protested. ‘The fighting will be the hardest at the centre of the camp.’

  ‘That is why I have saved the centre for myself,’ Einarr said. Orgrim cocked his head in puzzlement. Einarr turned his hand to display the metal sign forged to his flesh. ‘I bear the mark of Tchar. Let us find, here and now, if the god is truly watching over me or if his favour is simply an empty promise.’

  ‘Do not think the beast-kin will show you honour,’ the hunter said. ‘They will think to draw the god’s favour into themselves by devouring your flesh.’

  ‘Then I will teach them fear before I send them to grovel before their ancestors,’ Einarr swore.

  Orgrim looked anything but convinced by the warrior’s words, but still turned and slowly stalked through the trees towards the west of the encampment. Einarr watched him go and breathed deep. It would be a battle worthy of the sagas, if any survived to tell the tale.

  ‘You should not bait the gods.’ Einarr turned as he heard Urda’s scratchy voice reprimand him. ‘It is a terrible vengeance they visit upon those who test their power.’ The old witch placed her thin hand on his arm. ‘Be careful, Steelfist, lest you tempt the wrath of Tchar.’

  Einarr pulled away, turning his head. ‘There is nothing worse the gods can do to me that has not already been done.’

  Urda’s cackling laughter wheezed from her scrawny frame. ‘There is always something worse,’ she said. ‘Even in your misery, respect the might of the gods lest their power bring you so low that even your misery becomes a thing of envy.’ Einarr was silent, staring down into the snow as he considered the witch’s warning. When he spoke again, his voice was soft.

  ‘You know what has been promised me. If Tchar will not let me save one woman, how can I have faith he will allow me to save my village?’ Einarr clenched his hand into a fist, the knuckles cracking under the pressure. He felt the hot rush of anger burn through his body. ‘I would have that answer now, not when I stand over Skoroth’s broken corpse!’

  Rage coursing through him, Einarr launched himself through the trees, his axe at the ready. The corrupt blood of the beastmen would do little to quench his fury, but that would not stop him from trying.

  Urda watched the warrior charge through the trees, an enigmatic smile slowly spreading across her features.

  With a roar, Einarr burst through the trees and into the clearing. His eyes swept the squalor of the beast-kin encampment, the piles of excrement festering at the edges of the camp, the bundles of mangy hides and furs scattered about the clearing, the heaps of broken bones, cracked and split where the gors had shattered them to suck out the marrow. At the centre of the clearing, ringed by several large stones, the beasts had piled old branches and bits of dead brush to form their fire. At either end of the fire ring, the monsters had built stands from wood and the antlers of elk, and across the pit a large, blackened pole rested. To this a lithe, pale shape had been tied with tethers of sinew and gut. The captive moaned through the mess of fur scraps that had been shoved down her mouth to gag her and struggled feebly at her bonds. Beneath her, the orange flames of the fire licked up at her flesh.

  The beastmen turned away from their cooking meal, staring at the warrior with dull eyes that were cloudy with confusion and surprise. The beast-kin were a mongrel display of animal loathsomeness and human corruption. Their bodies were, for the most part, not unlike that of a man in shape and build, powerful muscles rippling beneath their furred flesh. But these things were no men. Their heads suggested the savage and the inhuman, the faces of many pulled into the long snouts of beasts, their skulls sprouting the horns and antlers of animals. Feet ended in hooves more often than toes and hands might end in claws as easily as fingers. Some of the brutes sported tails and tentacles, others exhibited almost human features made all the more ghastly for their setting amid furred flesh and beneath jagged horns.

  The Norscan did not allow the monsters time to gather their wits, but charged straight at the nearest of his foes. The creature, a hulking monster with a goat-like head and elk-like antlers, was cut down almost before it could bleat out a cry of alarm, black blood spraying from the beast-kin’s chest as the axe clove it apart. Einarr chopped again into the creature as it crumbled into the snow, breaking its back with the blow.

  The death of their pack-mate settled the confusion that had struck the monsters. With brutal roars and high-pitched wails, the grotesque mob lunged into action, some diving for the rusty axes and crude spears scattered about the encampment, others rushing towards Einarr with only their bared fangs and sharp claws. Einarr roared his own defiance at the monsters and charged to meet them.

  Before the first of the beastmen could close with Einarr, shouts of alarm and despair sounded from the edges of the encampment. Orgrim and Vallac charged from the trees, their weapons slashing through furred bodies and spraying black blood across the snow. True to the woodsman’s statement, the beast-kin on the edges of the camp were small, wiry creatures, their horns mere stubs on their brows. They were a far cry from the massive brutes clustered about the fire. Runts or no, Orgrim tore into them with the same mindless ferocity that had characterised his battle with the ymir, the woodsman’s axe crushing bone and cleaving flesh with maniacal abandon. Vallac displayed more restraint, challenging his foes from the edge of the camp, the Kurgan maintaining a position close to the trees and making his enemies come to him. Vallac’s curved blade was soon slick with the stinking blood of the beastmen.

  While some of the brutes turned to answer the new threats on their flanks, the majority of them still rushed toward Einarr, their bloodlust aroused by the warrior’s challenge. A huge beast with the face of an ox and the jaws of a bear closed with Einarr, slashing at him with its long claws. Einarr’s axe caught one of the monster’s hands, slicing the fingers off. The other claw raked ineffectively across the Norscan’s armour, unable to penetrate the tough leather and mail. Einarr answered the creature’s attack by chopping into its shoulder, nearly severing its arm. The ruined limb flopped limply at the monster’s side as it continued to batter Einarr with the bloody stump of its other hand, an anguished howl that was equal parts pain and hunger bleating from the gor’s throat. Einarr silenced t
he beastman’s howls with a slash of his axe, sending its head dancing across the clearing.

  Others followed close behind the decapitated brute, their attacks no less feral. One creature with a grinning face and a mass of horns running down the back of its head jabbed at Einarr with a spear of oak and flint while another, bigger beastman snapped at him with its powerful jaws and tried to wrap the slimy rope-like tentacle that served it as an arm around his neck. The warrior found himself pressed to answer the challenge of both creatures when a third howling thing leapt towards him, a crude club of bone clutched in its paws. The howling thing never landed its blow, however. Screaming in agony, the thing dropped into the snow, its body cracking and twisting as its bones and organs shifted and stirred beneath its skin. Before he looked away, Einarr saw the thing’s rib cage collapse, then turn in upon itself, pushing one of its lungs through the brute’s furry hide.

  The tentacled beastman wrapped its noxious limb around Einarr’s arm as the warrior turned from eviscerating the spear-wielding bray. Einarr felt the entire arm instantly turn numb as the poisonous member slithered against his flesh. Only by force of will did he maintain his hold upon his axe, refusing to let it slip from his unfeeling fingers. He drew the jagged length of Fangwyrm from his belt. The beastman twisted its body, tightening its hold upon Einarr’s arm, almost popping it from his shoulder. Einarr ground his teeth against the pain and surged toward the beastman. The brute tried to protect its tentacle, twisting still further. But Einarr had no intention of cutting the tentacle away, driving Fangwyrm instead deep into the gor’s chest, skewering its putrid heart. A great blob of black blood slobbered free of the beast’s mouth as it fell to its knees, the tentacle releasing Einarr’s arm as the strength left it.

  Einarr had no time to watch the beastman spit its life into the snow, already another of the growling monsters was closing on him. Einarr forced his still tingling arm up, catching the rusty weapon of his new foe against the haft of his own axe. The warrior twisted his body around, tearing the rusted flail free from the grip of the goat-faced gor that held it. As he turned, he drove the peen of the axe against the side of the beastman’s skull, stunning it and causing it to stagger. Before the brute could recover its wits, Einarr’s axe chopped down into its leg, cleaving its knee and spilling the beast into the snow. A kick to its face shattered the beastman’s snout, driving bone into its brutish brain.

  For the moment, Einarr was not beset by foes. He could see a few beastmen harassing Vallac, but as he watched, the larger of Vallac’s foes reeled back as the Kurgan spat into its face. Einarr was struck by the thing’s anguished wails and the black smoke running between its paws as it clutched at its features. Yellow grease oozed between the monster’s paws as the melted residue of its eyes drooled down its charred face. Vallac did not bother to finish his blinded foe, but focused his attention on his unmarred adversary. Across the clearing, Orgrim continued to slash and rip into the wiry ungors and hulking gors that threatened him, splashing their reeking blood across the snow and howling like a beast himself whenever he sent another foe to find the gods. While Einarr watched, he saw a hornless bray swat at Orgrim with a club only to have the berserker lunge at the creature and tear its throat out with his teeth, seeming to relish the sensation as the filthy blood spilled down his chin.

  With the remaining beastmen focused on Orgrim and Vallac, Einarr rushed towards the fire and the captive strung over it. The woman continued to struggle feebly at her bonds, straining to turn her head and observe the battle she could hear unfolding all around her. Her dark eyes went wide with astonishment as Einarr suddenly appeared over her, kicking kindling from the circle and sawing away at the sinew ropes that bound her to the pole. For an instant, Einarr found himself lost in the woman’s deep, lustrous eyes, drawn into the enigmatic depths of her gaze. But reason and instinct quickly reasserted themselves, and Einarr attacked the ropes with renewed ferocity. A battlefield was no place to dally over a pair of pretty eyes.

  Einarr had barely cut the first hand free when he felt himself struck from behind. The warrior was cast down by the force of the blow, tossed across the snow like a child’s toy. He tensed his body and sprang back to his feet, heedless of the pain throbbing from the wound in his back. To let the backstabber slink away without repaying it for its craven assault would hurt him more than torn flesh and bruised bone.

  Einarr’s attacker had no intention of slinking off, however, but stood boldly beside the fire circle, its gory sword clutched in its massive paw. It stood a head taller than even the largest of the creatures Einarr had killed, its body swollen with its brawn. The monster’s head was like that of a goat, a pair of huge fangs not unlike those of a sabretusk jutting from its jaw. Two massive antlers sprouted from the sides of its skull and at the centre of its forehead a great knotted horn curled upwards. The brute already bled from wounds in its arm and belly, but if its injuries pained it, the monster gave no sign. Einarr could tell that the thing was the leader of this pack, that it was determined to defend the prize morsel Einarr had sought to free.

  The beastlord snarled and shook its head, its massive hooves stomping against the frozen ground. Einarr cocked his arm back, poising his axe for a mighty strike and gestured for the monster to charge him if it dared. The beastlord bellowed its anger into the darkened sky and ploughed across the ground towards Einarr, its horns lowered. His body shuddered as the monster’s immense weight slammed into him and the Norscan was pushed back across the frozen earth, his boots skidding through the snow. He heard the brute’s right horn scrape against the side of his helmet, felt the sharp edge of its sword dig into the meat of his shoulder, saw the monster’s fangs snap close only inches from his face. But the creature did not assault him with impunity. Einarr’s axe raked down the side of its head, obliterating its eye and shearing one of its antlers from its head.

  The beastman recoiled from its attack, wailing in shock as it pawed at the dripping nub of its antler. Einarr slashed at the reeling creature, but the wound in his shoulder made the strike sloppy and slow. The beastman reacted with a quick swipe of its sword and batted Einarr’s blade aside as easily as it might have swatted a fly. Reminded of his presence, the beastlord roared its fury and made to lunge at the warrior once more.

  Suddenly, a sharp, trilling sound echoed across the clearing. Einarr watched in amazement as a black storm of feathers and talons engulfed the beastlord’s head. The murder of crows gathered in the trees had descended in a cawing, clawing mob, attacking the monster with an amok ferocity. The beastman staggered back, trying to shield its face from the enraged birds. Einarr forced himself to overcome his wonder. Taking his axe in both hands, a war cry shrieking past his lips, he charged through the swirling swarm of birds to bury his blade in the monster’s skull. A look of almost human horror filled the beastlord’s face as it suddenly saw Einarr’s steel slashing down at it through the blinding veil of black feathers. The edge of the axe bit deep as it crunched through bone, splitting the beastman’s face like a wormy log.

  Einarr turned away as the crows swarmed over the beastman’s twitching carcass. He clutched at the dripping wound in his shoulder, feeling the blood already beginning to crystallise in the frigid Norscan night. He tried to probe the wound with his fingers to see how deep he had been cut, gritting his teeth against the pain. A hissed reprimand pulled him away from his investigation, Urda’s scrawny hands pushing his own aside as she examined his hurt.

  ‘Fool of a Baersonling!’ she spat. ‘I hope this will be a lesson to you that it is madness to test the gods!’ The witch fumbled about in her bag, producing an evil-smelling paste, which she pressed into the wound. Einarr looked away as she ministered to him, his gaze canvassing the battlefield. It seemed the beastlord had been the last of its pack, the others of its kind having fled or fallen. He could see Orgrim sitting atop a heap of mangled beast-kin, the berserker’s body caked in blood. Vallac was kneeling amid the snow, studiously cleaning his blade with a scrap of fur while e
laborate Kurgan prayers dripped from his tongue.

  ‘I should have fared worse had you not worked your sorcery when you did,’ Einarr told her between grunts of pain. ‘The beast-kin was a worthy foe. If you had not sent the birds when you did…’

  Urda paused in her ministrations. ‘I did not call the crows,’ she said. ‘I should not have had the strength to work such a spell after invoking the power of Tzeentch to destroy the one that thought to smack your stubborn brains from your thick skull.’

  Einarr felt a thrill of dread race down his spine. If the witch had not summoned the birds…

  ‘Then who did?’ The warrior’s question lingered in the air for a moment. When it found an answer, it was not in the scratchy tones of the witch.

  ‘I called them.’ The words were spoken in a thick, rich voice. Einarr felt his pulse quicken as he set his eyes on the woman who had spoken them. He had found her striking enough even lashed across the cook-fire of the beastmen. Now standing before him, her pale bare body gleaming in the starlight, the wind pulling at her long platinum hair, Einarr found even the dripping wound in his shoulder slipping from his mind. Her lean, feminine shape was the supple, sinuous figure that drove men mad on long sea voyages, filling their minds with vices too long denied. Yet there was strength in her body as well as lure, this was no simple freeholder or farm wench. Even as he admired the curve of her shape, the slope of her thighs and the fullness of her breasts, Einarr noted the grey slashes of old scars and the puckered residue of old wounds. No, this was no meek village wench content to bask in the glory of whatever champion warmed her bed, but a shield maiden of the old sagas, a woman who seized her own glories with her own hand.