Warriors of the Chaos Wastes - C L Werner

by Warhammer

  Einarr drew Fangwyrm and prowled across the bowl. The abrupt action of their leader drew the attention of Vallac and Birna. They rose from where they had been tending to their armour and weapons and followed Einarr. The forgemaster’s attention was fixed on the feeding ogre and the first he was aware of Einarr’s approach was when the warrior kicked him in the side, flipping him onto his armoured back. Before the little man could right himself, Einarr planted his boot on his chest and pointed the jagged edge of Fangwyrm at the man’s throat.

  ‘Trying to cheat Thognathog of his supper?’ Einarr asked. The forgemaster groaned in horror and tried to slither out from beneath Einarr’s boot. Einarr pressed his full weight down against the smith’s chest, pinning him in place.

  ‘Let me go or you’ll suffer for it!’ the forgemaster snarled. Einarr smirked at the man’s bravado, reaching down and pulling the skull-faced helmet from his head. He immediately wished he hadn’t, the smith’s face was one of the ugliest he had ever seen. The man’s hair was black and greasy, coiled into elaborate rings and festooned with tiny, shrunken skulls, his beard was coarse and wiry, and likewise coiled into rings with little skulls woven into his beard locks. Hoops of gold pierced the thick, hairy brow that shaded the villain’s beady orange eyes and gold nails studded his big bulbous nose. Sharp fangs gleamed in the smith’s mouth as he spoke, giving his words a hissing, weasel-like tone.

  Overall, the man’s features were too thick and broad to be human. Einarr was reminded of the dwarfs who sometimes came down from the mountains to trade in the largest Baersonling villages, but the resemblance was as different as that between a falcon and a raven.

  ‘Interesting, little worm,’ Einarr laughed. ‘Near as I can tell, I am the one holding the sword!’ The comment caused Vallac and Birna to join in Einarr’s laughter.

  ‘The curse of Hashut will fall on any who dare bring harm to the Dawi Zharr!’ the forgemaster snarled, trying to squirm out from beneath Einarr’s boot. Einarr’s brow wrinkled at the unfamiliar names. He looked aside to Birna, but she was just as ignorant of their import as he.

  ‘He’s a follower of the Dark Father,’ Vallac explained. ‘One of the Fire Dwarfs of the Great Skull Land. My people sometimes trade slaves with his kind for the armour and weapons they make. Strange that one of them should be so far from home.’

  Einarr pushed the jagged edge of Fangwyrm against the tip of the dwarf’s bulbous nose. ‘Well, burrow-rat, what are you doing here? What strange road brings you to the black north and a life among the Aeslings?’ The dwarf simply glared at Einarr, his fiery eyes smouldering with hate. Einarr pushed the sword deeper, drawing a bead of blood from the forgemaster’s nose.

  ‘The star-metal,’ the forgemaster snarled, nodding his head toward the quarry and the pitted cliff. ‘But it is useless to you!’ he added with venom dripping from his tongue. ‘Only the Dawi Zharr have the craft to work it. To barbarian animals like you it is nothing but worthless rock!’

  Einarr grinned down at the dwarf, pulling his sword away from the forgemaster’s face. ‘I have no interest in your black rocks, maggot-breath,’ he said. ‘And less interest in the curses of your gods.’ The warrior turned his head, whistling sharply. The sound caused Thognathog to raise one of his heads away from his gruesome meal. The ogre’s other head soon followed, both faces filling with a wrathful loathing as they saw the figure pinned beneath Einarr’s boot. The dwarf’s eyes went wide with terror as Thognathog stood and began to stomp toward him.

  ‘No!’ the dwarf wailed. ‘Keep that thing away from me!’ Einarr just smiled down at his captive. After the cowardly way the dwarf had fought him, he was of no mind to be merciful. The forgemaster began to shake with horror as the dark shadow of Thognathog fell across him.

  ‘I’ll do anything,’ the dwarf hissed. ‘I have treasure! Kurgan gold, hidden in the mountains! I can show you where the Aeslings have been sending the weapons I have made for them! I’ll teach you the secret of the star-stones!’ The dwarf’s words trailed into a shriek of absolute fear as the ogre reached down for him with a hand almost as big as the dwarf’s entire body. He could see the vengeance burning in Thognathog’s eyes and he knew that his death would not be a quick one.

  Before the ogre could take hold of the dwarf, Einarr pushed against the monster’s hand. Thognathog turned one of his heads to look at Einarr, a questioning look on his monstrous face. ‘Just a moment,’ Einarr told the ogre. ‘Perhaps this scum can be of use to us.’ A sudden thought had occurred to him, echoes from the dream-signs Urda had drawn in the snow outside Orgrim’s cave.

  ‘You say you make weapons?’ Einarr asked the dwarf. He held the broken length of Fangwyrm up for the captive to see more fully. ‘Think you could remake this?’

  The dwarf nodded his head enthusiastically, his eyes still locked on Thognathog’s towering frame. ‘Spare Zhardrach’s life, and I’ll make you whatever you want!’ The ogre sneered down at the forgemaster, shaking his enormous heads.

  ‘No!’ the brute’s voice rumbled. ‘Little man makes many screams before he fill Thognathog’s belly! Thognathog give little man’s liver to Great Maw and let worms eat little man’s eyes!’ The violence in the ogre’s voices made Vallac step back and Birna draw her blade. Einarr smiled indulgently at the immense brute, tapping Fangwyrm against the great steel shackle that still circled the brute’s massive wrist. He could see the ogre’s leathery flesh was chaffed and scarred by the tight metal band, that the weight of the chains dangling from it caused the ogre no end of discomfort.

  ‘Thognathog,’ Einarr said, his tone like that of a parent speaking to a stubborn child. ‘If you don’t eat the dwarf, he’ll take those chains off of you.’ Thognathog scowled as his mind slowly turned over Einarr’s words. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice? Make you feel better?’ The ogre scratched one of his foreheads, trying to weigh the value of having his chains removed against the pleasure that slowly dismembering Zhardrach would bring him. ‘You will remove my friend’s chains, won’t you?’ Einarr added, turning his attention to the dwarf beneath his boot.

  ‘Of course! Of course!’ Zhardrach exclaimed. ‘It was all the Aeslings’ idea anyway! I’d never want to bring any kind of hurt to the big fellow!’

  Einarr turned back to face Thognathog again. ‘See? He’ll take your chains off, make them stop hurting you. Then you can watch him make nice new chains to go around his own wrists.’ A sinister look came across Einarr’s face. ‘Besides, if he decides to try and trick us, you can always eat him later.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Night settled over the Aesling quarry, darkening the already brooding shadows. Einarr stood upon the cliff overlooking the grey, lifeless world that was the Frozen Sea. Beneath the gibbous light of the swollen moons, it seemed to dance and sway as he gazed upon it, slithering across his vision with sinuous grace. The impression caused his blood to chill. He was reminded of the stories an old reaver had told him while they sailed across the Sea of Claws to sack the city of Erengrad. In his youth, the veteran sea wolf had been part of a voyage to the dark shores of Naggaroth, the land of the elflings. Among the horrors he had related was that which they had encountered as they neared the beaches of Alfland. Great black rocks rose from the sea just beyond the shore, making the approach to the coast perilous. But worse than the rocks themselves had been the things which made their rookeries within the wave-beaten stone. Hideous witch-wraiths with the bodies and faces of nubile young elf wenches, but with the wings of great bats and the clawed talons of enormous vultures. The crew saw the horrible witch-birds as they drew near to the rocks, and the creatures saw them. The reaver had told Einarr how the things had swayed and crooned, how their bodies had gyrated and twisted with lascivious abandon. He related how many of the crew had been powerless to resist the sensuous dance of the fiends, how they had leapt into the sea and swum to the rocks all the while screaming their terror. For even as they surrendered to the call of the sirens, every man of them knew he swam to his death.

&nbs
p; The Frozen Sea reminded Einarr of the old reaver’s harpies. It beckoned to him, mesmerised him with a serpent’s stare and a lover’s kiss. Yet even as he felt it working its spell over him, the Frozen Sea could not hide its menace from him. He knew it for what it was – a place of icy oblivion and doom, a place from which no names returned to fill the sagas, where no deeds escaped to grace the songs of the skalds. But even knowing, he could not break free from its call.

  They would cross the Frozen Sea.

  Einarr turned from his contemplation of the lifeless waste when he heard heavy footfalls crunching through the snow. He smiled as he saw Birna’s striking figure stalking up the slope to join him. After contemplating something as forbidding as the Frozen Sea, the sight of the Sarl huntress was a most welcome one indeed. Behind her loomed the immense hulk of Thognathog, his body now freed of its chains, all save the one he now held clenched in one of his mighty fists. The other end of the chain circled the chest of the black-garbed, cursing creature the ogre dragged behind him. Einarr felt a twinge of alarm. If there were any more Aeslings about, they would be able to hear the dwarf’s invective from leagues away.

  Einarr glared down at Zhardrach as the small procession approached him. If the dwarf noticed the warrior’s annoyance, the observation did nothing to stem the tide of abuse and spite spewing from his mouth. Einarr was not the only one who seemed tired of the dwarf’s voice. As they came to a halt, Thognathog gave a swift jerk on the chain he held, causing Zhardrach to stumble and crash face first into the slope. The dwarf rose, even more colourful obscenities screeching from his bruised features.

  ‘Still that tongue, burrow-rat!’ Einarr snapped. ‘Or I’ll let Thognathog pull it from that filthy mouth of yours!’ The dwarf bit down on the stream of venom he was hurling at the ogre and turned his hate-ridden eyes on the Baersonling.

  ‘We had a deal!’ the dwarf spat. He turned his hostile gaze on Birna. The woman shook her head contemptuously at Zhardrach, then stepped towards Einarr, a fur-wrapped bundle clutched in her hands.

  ‘The slaver,’ she said, the word heavy with spite, ‘says that he has finished what you told him to make. He insisted he be freed as soon as it was done, but I reasoned that you had best inspect his work for yourself.’

  ‘Norsling bitch!’ Zhardrach snarled, his fangs gleaming in the moonlight. ‘You dare insult the craft of the Dawi Zharr!’ The fresh stream of threats and abuse was cut short when Thognathog pulled on the dwarf’s chain again, spilling him onto his backside.

  Einarr paid little notice to Zhardrach’s antics, his attention riveted to the bundle Birna held. Gently, almost reverently, he took it from her. Slowly, with the care a mother might show with her newborn child, he unwrapped the furs from that which they covered. The cool, elegant shine of steel winked at him as it caught the moonlight.

  After the first teasing glance, Einarr ripped the remaining furs away, exposing the full length of the weapon. The blade of Vinnskor had been reborn, restored from the jagged stump it had been. Einarr held Fangwyrm above his head, as though to show it to the gods themselves. He laughed as he swung it through the empty air, testing its balance, letting his hand become accustomed to the feel of the weapon. It felt purer than any weapon he had ever held, more like a part of his own body than a thing of metal and fire. He knew he was meant to bear this sword, that he had always been meant to carry it into battle. Like the lure of the Frozen Sea, it was a sensation that was beyond the mind, something baser and more primal, something too compelling to doubt.

  As Einarr turned the blade through the frosty air, he was impressed by the lightness of the sword, by the ease with which it slashed through the night. He was struck too, by the eerie, silvery sheen that flickered through the metal and was reminded that the sword was Fangwyrm no longer. There had not been enough of the sword left to reforge on its own, Zhardrach had needed something more. Einarr was still uncertain what had moved him to give the dwarf the elf knife he had taken from Alfkaell. It had been a compulsion that had seemed to ignite his brain, almost as though it came from somewhere beyond himself. Once the idea had come upon him, it had been impossible to deny. All of Zhardrach’s protestations, his reluctance to have anything to do with the ‘devil steel’, had fallen on deaf ears. Whatever the difficulties, he knew that joining the elf dagger and Fangwyrm was meant to be. Now he understood. Fangwyrm had been a formidable weapon, but it was like a bread knife beside the sword he now held. He would call it Alfwyrm, he decided, in recognition of the two weapons that had joined to become something still greater.

  Zhardrach was silent as he watched Einarr test the blade the dwarf had forged. He scratched at his hairy chin and a sly smile crawled onto his grotesque face. He knew the warrior would be suitably impressed. ‘I see my work pleases you,’ he said. ‘In all the lands of your people, none make finer blades than Zhardrach of the Skull.’ The dwarf’s face filled with an imperious pride and he held his chains towards Einarr. ‘Now, if you are satisfied, as I see you are, I will be on my way.’

  Einarr shook his head, sheathing his new sword. ‘You do good work, dwarf. So good in fact, I am changing the terms of our agreement.’

  Zhardrach lunged for the Baersonling, his fanged face twisted into a savage snarl. ‘You back cheating grobi cur!’ he roared, hands splayed into claws. Before he could reach Einarr, he was pulled short on his chain by Thognathog, causing the dwarf to nearly strangle himself.

  Einarr glared down at the snarling dwarf, staring into the forgemaster’s fiery eyes. ‘I had intended to make a present of you to Thognathog once you were finished,’ he hissed, meaning every word. ‘Now, however, I have taken it in mind to keep you around. Whatever gods you honour in the land of the Skull, I suggest you thank them.’ Einarr looked away from the cursing dwarf, directing his gaze to Thognathog. ‘Tell everyone to make ready, we have tarried here too long already.’ The ogre nodded his heads, lumbering back down the slope, dragging the fuming Zhardrach after him. ‘And see that his chains are tight,’ Einarr called after the hulking brute, knowing that he could trust him to be very attentive about that particular detail.

  Birna watched Thognathog go, then stepped closer to Einarr. When she spoke, it was in a tremulous voice. The tone surprised Einarr, until he found that her eyes were not on him, but the vast wastes of the Frozen Sea.

  ‘You still mean to cross it?’ she asked.

  Einarr was quiet a moment, letting the question dissipate into the frosty air. ‘I have seen it in my dreams,’ he said. ‘This is where they have shown me that I must come if I would do what they would have me do.’

  Birna seemed to consider his answer, but the words brought no reassurance to her. ‘The Aesling witch says that what the gods show us in our dreams are not only to guide us, but also to warn us. How do you know they did not mean to warn you to stay far from here?’

  ‘How did you know the falcon that spoke to you, that told you to find me, was to be trusted?’ Einarr countered. ‘We must trust what is inside us, must trust that what our hearts tell us is true, is true. It is all we have, in the end. All the seers and witches in Norsca with all their sorcery and wisdom cannot fathom the riddles of the gods. We must simply accept what we feel to be true or be lost to our own doubts and fears.’

  The Sarl huntress nodded. ‘I have come this far, I will trust your wisdom, Steelfist,’ she said. ‘And I will remember what you have said, about placing faith in what our feelings say is true.’

  Einarr saw a familiar gleam in Birna’s eye as she spoke, an inviting look that had never failed to send a thrill through his blood. But now, somehow, it repulsed him. Perhaps it was the pain of losing Asta, or nothing more than the nearness of something as forbidding as the Frozen Sea. Or perhaps it was the suspicion that it was not he himself that drew Birna’s ardour, but what the huntress imagined him to be – the chosen champion of Tchar. Whatever the source, Einarr found himself ignoring the favour of the huntress.

  ‘Check that the provisions are gathered,’ he told he
r. ‘I doubt there will be anything to hunt once we walk that wasteland so what we would eat we must carry with us. Be certain there is extra for the ogre to carry. I doubt his appetite is small.’

  ‘What the ogre would eat, none of us would touch in any event,’ Birna answered, a ring of petulance in her voice. ‘Except perhaps Orgrim.’

  ‘See to it just the same,’ Einarr said. Birna nodded again and turned to make her way back down the slope. She had gone only a few steps before she turned back towards him.

  ‘What about the other slaves?’ she asked. Einarr barely gave his answer any thought. For days the Aesling slaves had clustered about the quarry and the kitchens, lurking in the shadows like whipped curs, watching Einarr and his companions rummage through the possessions of their former masters with dull, disinterested gazes. Not once had one of them made any move to seize any of the Aesling weapons littered about the snow, nor made any move to approach the forge where Einarr had set his camp.

  ‘Leave them,’ he declared. ‘They did nothing to remove their chains, why should I do it for them? Let them stay here and rot, they are already dead. They have been since the moment they accepted their chains.’

  The chill of the Norscan winter was even more pronounced upon the bleak, undulating expanse of the Frozen Sea. Einarr had never felt such cold before, not in all his years at sea or on land. It was almost as though unseen phantoms were stabbing him with blades of ice every time he took a step, trying to drag him down into their chill world of frozen death with every numbing touch. The blasts of icy wind that smashed into their faces caused their flesh to become as rigid as stone, the spit to freeze inside their mouths and their hair to turn brittle with frost. They found themselves using the rolling landscape to shield them from the northern wind, sheltering within the frozen overhand of the unmoving waves that marked the surface of the plain.