Warriors of the Chaos Wastes - C L Werner

by Warhammer

  ‘The fire was my idea,’ Urda said, the witch warming her scrawny frame on the other side of the flames. ‘Though I should have just let you freeze. It would be no more than you deserve.’

  ‘Thanks for the kind thought, crone,’ Einarr remarked. ‘I figured you’d be safe from the hawks. Even a bird knows when something is simply too tough to eat.’

  The witch shook her head and tossed another branch into the blaze. Einarr could see that she had quite a collection piled beside her. He wondered how long she had been tending the blaze, how long they had been asleep. Birna’s keen eyes found a different question.

  ‘Where did you find this wood?’ the huntress asked. She reached forward, taking one of the branches from Urda’s collection of kindling. She stared at it in disbelief. Einarr could not understand her anxiety. It was enough to simply be thankful for the fire. Birna made the source of her discomfort clear to him, showing him the tiny green leaf clinging to the side of the branch.

  ‘Noticed that, did you?’ the witch cackled. ‘I guess there is a brain in that sweet little head of yours after all.’ She turned her head and looked across the fire at Einarr. ‘It came from down there,’ she said, pointing into the distance. Across the flat, featureless expanse of snow-swept plain, Einarr could see a dark, indistinct mass. ‘You can’t really appreciate it from here,’ Urda elaborated. ‘But that’s a forest… of sorts.’

  Einarr stared at the distant mass, trying to pick details from the gloom. ‘What is in there?’ he wondered aloud.

  ‘That, I decided, was something I would let you find out,’ Urda said. ‘I have a feeling there is more wrong with the place than green leaves in the dead of winter. Even your ogre felt it, wouldn’t go more than a few feet into the trees to collect wood. There is a power there, something older than my magic. Something much more powerful.’

  Einarr nodded. ‘I’ll face your daemons, old hag,’ he said. ‘But if this is one of your tricks, then pray to the gods I do not return.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Einarr could feel his skin crawl as he entered the forest, the primordial core of his being sickened with every step he took. Beneath his feet, the soft white snow shimmered with the eerie light of the aurora, yet above him stood mighty oaks, their branches as green and vibrant as the heart of spring. Flowers and wild grass pushed up from beneath the snow, displaying an impossible vitality. Einarr saw tysbast shrubs, luxuriant and ripe, frost dangling from their stems. He saw gigantic marisko orchids, their lush leaves heavy with snow, their roots stabbing deep into the icy ground. So far north of the shores of his own land, even in the depths of summer it should not be warm enough for such flowers to bloom, yet here they thrived with ice dripping from their petals.

  A rustling among the shrubs brought Einarr spinning around, Alfwyrm gripped tight in his hand. He had told the others to stay behind at the camp, that he would face whatever secret the forest held alone. It was something he felt he had to do, to show to them that he was without fear. To show them that he was truly the chosen of Tchar. To show them why they should be led by him.

  He half expected to see Birna emerge from the undergrowth, defying his command in her eagerness to serve him. He knew the affection she held for him, knew also that much of the emotion stemmed from her own lust for glory and power. By attaching herself to a mighty champion of the gods, she would be able to share in his deeds and his glory. Einarr did not blame her for her ambitions, every relationship grew from the seed of selfish desire. He could not deny that he was tempted by her. She was all a Norscan could want, beautiful and strong, blessed by the kiss of the gods. But she was more, she was strong and fierce, a valiant warrior in her own right. Just being near her, he could almost forget the gruesome memory of Asta’s torn remains.

  As he thought on Birna’s deep, mysterious eyes, Einarr was snapped back to reality when something emerged from the shrubs. It wasn’t the lovely huntress he had been half expecting. Instead he found himself looking upon further evidence of the grotesque unnaturalness of his surroundings. The thing crawled along the ground, pushing the snow with its fins, its scaly body caked in tiny crystals of ice. The gills on its neck fluttered rapidly as it sucked air into its abnormal shape. Einarr’s mind rebelled at the sight as the beast crawled towards one of the oaks, using its fins to claw its way up the trunk. Only when it had vanished into the verdant branches was Einarr able to tear his eyes away. He had heard tales of the maddening sights the lands of the gods held, now he knew they were more than mere stories. He almost wished he had never left Norsca, where fish understood they were creatures of the water, not of the land.

  After his encounter with the tree-fish, Einarr pressed deeper into the lush forest. The deeper he walked, the stranger and more otherworldly the sights that assailed his eyes became. Stones that scuttled from his path, flowers that devoured the tiny bats that came to drink their nectar, feathered frogs that sang his name as he passed them in their frozen ponds. And always the nameless, crawling evil hovering about the place grew, souring the very air, smothering him with its malignity. Einarr could feel the power of his gods all around him.

  He fought down the urge to run, the shrieking fear that slithered through his veins. He was dead and damned already, Einarr reminded himself, nothing in this world held any terror for him now. He bulled his way through the impossibly green shrubs, crushing the lush flowers beneath his boots. Whatever force lurked within this forest, he would not run from it.

  The forest finally opened into a clearing and Einarr’s breath caught in his chest, his eyes widening with awe. Twice the size of a man, floating a few feet above the ground, was a wondrous prism of crystal. The countless facets of the stone swirled with every colour in creation, bathing the clearing with magnificence. Einarr felt himself overcome, staring with lust and wonder at the incredible manifestation. For a moment he felt the desire to throw himself to the ground, to make obeisance to the apparition. Gods and quests, women and ancestors, all were forgotten as the swirling colours washed over him. All that existed was the prism. All that he wanted to exist was the prism.

  Einarr felt his hand growing warm, but he ignored the sensation, dismissing it beside the mystery of the prism. The sensation grew, his flesh throbbing with agony as the heat intensified. He struggled to ignore the pain even as part of him struggled to embrace it. His hand felt as though the mark of Tchar were searing its way down to the bone. His nose filled with the stink of his own burning flesh. With a scream of pain, Einarr tore his eyes from the prism, plunging his hand into the soothing cold of the snow. The snow steamed as the white-hot steel sank into it.

  As Einarr tended his hurt, he became aware for the first time of what lay scattered all around him in the clearing. Bones and armour littered the ground all around the prism. He could see the horned helms of Kurgans and the scale vests of Norsemen. He saw the rude, savage weapons of orcs and the fanged skulls of goblins, the twisted remains of beastmen and the carcasses of at least a few Hung. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds of bodies scattered across the clearing, all curled down against the ground as though in worship.

  Einarr’s eyes were drawn away from the corpses, pulled back to the prism. He felt its power pulling once again at his mind, but the pain in his hand kept it from taking hold. He sensed now that it was alive, alive in some way he could never truly understand. Perhaps it had been a god once, or something that had wanted to become a god. The thought gave Einarr pause. If the thing was a god, even a forgotten one, then how could any man oppose it?

  With his eyes still drawn to the prism, Einarr began to back out from the clearing. As he did so, he suddenly noticed a dark figure watching him from the trees on the other side of the clearing. It was little more than a silhouette, a massive shape of darkness when he first saw it, two fires burning where its eyes should be. Slowly it came forward, emerging from the gloom and into the starlight.

  It was a man, or at least something masquerading as a man. Taller than Einarr, encased in a suit of armou
r so dark that it seemed to devour the light that fell upon it. Einarr could see the intricate runes carved into the pauldrons, the jewelled gauntlets that encased his hands, the skull-shaped poleyns that encased his knees. Upon the cuirass Einarr was surprised to find the eye-rune of Tchar staring back at him, the symbol picked out in bronze and azure. The warrior’s head was hidden within the helm he wore, its crown marked with a set of curling horns, its mask forged in the crude image of a bird’s beak. From behind the mask, the eyes of the guardian continued to glow red in the darkness. As he stalked into the clearing, the armoured knight threw back the heavy black cloak he wore, exposing the enormous mace swaying at his side. Cruel as death, studded with a riot of spikes and blades, the weapon was as thick around as Einarr’s leg, yet the knight hefted it with effortless ease.

  Einarr waited for the dark guardian to come to him. There was no thought of flight in the Norscan’s mind. He would rather face this foe here than try to elude him in his own forest. A Baersonling died with his wounds to the fore, not in the back.

  As the knight advanced, his pace increased, pushing his steel-encased mass forward in a thundering charge. Einarr braced himself for the attack, rushing in just as the knight swung his gigantic mace at his head. Alfwyrm scraped along the elaborate fauld that covered the knight’s waist and hips. The armour screamed as Alfwyrm dug a deep groove through its steel skin, molten blood flying from the edge of the warrior’s sword.

  If the armour that encased the knight knew pain, the man within did not. The huge mace came crashing down toward Einarr, whistling past his face as it narrowly missed him. In mid strike, the knight corrected, driving the tip of his weapon into Einarr’s chest. One of the bladed, claw-like flanges on the mace tore into Einarr’s armour, gouging the flesh beneath. Einarr was thrown back by the blow, skidding across the snow and nearly falling over the frozen husk of a Kurgan.

  The knight rushed after him, swinging the mace once more for the Norscan’s head. Einarr caught the blow with his sword, but strained to hold the force of it. The knight used his greater height and armoured weight to press his advantage, slowly, relentlessly driving the spiked head of the mace downward. Einarr roared his defiance, lashing out with his boot. The kick smacked against the knight’s knee, causing him to stagger and nearly toppling him into the snow.

  Einarr was quick to capitalise on the knight’s momentary weakness, lunging at him with a savage thrust that bore through the join between breastplate and fauld. Again, the sorcerous armour cried out as Alfwyrm chewed through its skin. Blood exploded from the wound as Einarr’s sword ploughed through the man inside. He pressed the weight of his entire body behind the thrust, seeking to skewer the guardian’s vitals.

  Red pain cracked against the side of Einarr’s face, knocking him back as the knight’s mailed fist cracked against his jaw. The knight swung his mace after the reeling warrior, the weapon smashing against his side and hurling him like a rag doll. Einarr crashed into the snow, feeling skeletons crumble beneath his impact and jagged shards of bone stab at his flesh. His entire side was damp with his own blood where the steel thorns of the mace had stabbed him.

  Einarr rolled onto his side, spitting teeth into the snow. He could see the knight stalking towards him once more, the wound in his side steaming as the molten ichor from his armour cauterised his injury. The glowing eyes of the knight regarded Einarr with a cold malevolence as he marched forward. Einarr groped in the snow, his fingers closing around the desiccated skull of a goblin. He twisted his body around, hurling the morbid missile at his foe. The knight didn’t pause, merely lifting his left hand. In mid air, the skull exploded into a thousand fragments, a weird blue flame accompanying its destruction.

  Grunting with effort, Einarr rose from the ground, hand locked around the hilt of his sword. He quietly prayed to his ancestors, asking them to prepare a place for him in their sacred halls. He spit the blood from his mouth and glared at the approaching knight. ‘Mortal, sorcerer or daemon,’ Einarr snarled, ‘if you want my head, you’ll have to earn it!’

  The knight rushed forward again, swinging his mace at Einarr’s skull. Einarr spun away from the strike, hacking at his enemy’s arm as he turned. Alfwyrm slashed deep into the vambrace, chewing into the meat within. Again, the enchanted armour screamed its metallic wail, molten ichor spurting from the torn steel. Einarr followed up his strike by cracking the pommel against the mask of the knight’s helm. His foe staggered back before spinning around, a ronard now gripped in his left hand. He punched the round dagger into Einarr’s bicep, the searing agony paralyzing his right arm. Alfwyrm tumbled from his now nerveless hand.

  Even as he screamed in pain, Einarr drove his helm into the knight’s mask, the bear’s horns scraping against the steel. The knight recoiled from the head-butt, then locked his hand around Einarr’s shoulder, his steel fingers digging into Einarr’s flesh. The knight brought the mace smashing into Einarr’s back as he held him, the spikes stabbing through the heavy cloak. Einarr felt the electric shock of his agony jolt through him, his vision blurring as black dots circled through his gaze.

  Choking back his suffering, Einarr pressed his finger into the wound in the knight’s side, sinking it past the knuckle in his enemy’s dripping flesh. The knight recoiled, flinging Einarr from him. The Norscan smacked into the frozen ground, the skeletons doing little to lessen the impact. Einarr snarled in rage, forcing his tortured body to obey him. He groped among the bodies, his numb arm twitching with spasms of pain even as he willed his hand to close around the rusty axe of some long-dead Hung.

  The knight glared at Einarr as the Norscan struggled to find a weapon. He swung his mace through the air in a gesture of menace, then began to stalk towards his fallen adversary. Einarr felt a slight sense of satisfaction that as he moved, the knight’s other hand clutched at the wound in his belly. Perhaps he was mortal after all.

  With a howl of pain, Einarr lifted himself to his feet once more and waited for the knight to attack. For his part, the knight seemed to have learned some caution. Instead of bulling his way through, he began to circle Einarr, his glowing eyes giving no hint of the thoughts boiling within his mind. Einarr decided to take the initiative away from him.

  Roaring a death cry, Einarr lunged at the knight, chopping at him with the axe. The knight blocked the attack with his mace, the rusted axe head shattering as it smacked against the metal. The force of the impact threw Einarr back and he crashed down into the snow once more. The knight rushed after him, driving his mace down towards the prone man. Einarr’s hand slid across the ground, hurling snow into the face of his attacker. The knight flinched, instinctively raising his arms to protect his face. Einarr scrambled back across the snow, kicking old weapons and bones as he went, anything that might impede the knight’s advance. The guardian wiped the snow from his steel mask and slowly stalked after his foe.

  Dimly, Einarr became aware of something above his head. He reached up with his hand, thinking to use the branches of the tree to pull himself back to his feet. But what loomed above him was no tree, but rather the floating prism. As Einarr’s hand connected with it, the mark of Tchar exploded with a pallid light. Einarr screamed as searing suffering shot down his arm, more intense and piercing even than the pain that had broken the prism’s spell. He tried to pull his hand back, but it refused to obey, stuck to the scintillating surface of the prism. The colours flooding the clearing strobed with maniacal intensity, ebbing and flowing with every breath. Einarr screwed his eyes shut against the flickering madness, but the insane whirl of colours continued to flash through his mind.

  Just when he thought he must go mad, when he thought the colours could not flicker any faster, the world faded into darkness. Einarr felt the prism shatter beneath his hand, soundlessly crumbling away beneath his fingers. He opened his eyes, finding the clearing littered with shimmering fragments of crystal. The fiery glow on his hand began to slowly fade. For the first time since entering the forest, Einarr felt the crawling sense of evil
abandon him.

  A dark shadow loomed above Einarr and the Norscan sighed. The knight stared down at him with his burning eyes and his steel mask. The spiked mace gleamed wickedly in the starlight and Einarr noted the knight held Alfwyrm in his other hand. He decided he was too exhausted even to rebel against the indignity of being slain with his own sword. He muttered another prayer to his ancestors and waited for the final blow.

  Instead, Einarr felt something cold and metal being pushed into his hand. Almost automatically his fingers assumed their familiar grip around the hilt of Alfwyrm. The knight reached down and pulled Einarr from the snow. The Norscan fought to keep standing as he found his feet. The knight watched him, making no move to attack.

  ‘You have my gratitude,’ the knight said at length.

  ‘You have a strange way of showing it,’ Einarr replied, gritting his teeth as he ripped the knight’s dagger from his shoulder. The exertion almost sent him back into the snow.

  ‘I did what the Soul-eater demanded of me,’ the knight said. ‘Only those strong in the favour of Tzeentch can oppose its will. Only the mightiest of his champions could bring about its ruin.’

  ‘It was luck,’ Einarr said, staring at his hand. The glow had faded completely from the metal sigil, taking with it the burning pain it had evoked. Even so, it felt warm to his touch.

  ‘There is no luck,’ the knight’s steely voice intoned. ‘Only fate and the will of the gods. I am Ernst von Kammler, Acolyte of the Purple Talon and Warlord of the Khaigs, if there are any left.’ He pointed at Einarr’s hand, then slapped the symbol engraved upon his breastplate. ‘We are brothers in faith, Norscan, champions of the Change Lord.’