Warriors of the Chaos Wastes - C L Werner

by Warhammer

  Given a respite from the sorcerer’s stinging tendrils, Einarr plumbed the depths of his being to summon whatever vitality remained within him. He felt the now empty neckband, the last charm now used. All of his comrades had left him now. Now there was only Einarr of the Baersonlings, and somehow he doubted that would be enough. He turned his head to where Vallac’s body lay upon the floor, the cold blade of Alfwyrm still buried in the Kurgan’s chest. Painfully, Einarr dragged himself toward Vallac. The Norscan’s ravaged body screamed in protest, urging him to lie still and accept death. He fought back the weakness of his flesh. A Norscan fought until his last breath, and beyond if need be. He did not sit back and quietly let death claim him like some miserable southlander. To do so was insult both to the gods and his ancestors. Now, so close to the grim halls of the afterworld, now was the time when it was most important to be strong.

  Like a worm, Einarr slithered across the staring floor, fingers gouging eyes as he gripped their sockets to pull his body forward. Vallac’s body slowly came nearer, inch by agonising inch the carcass of his treacherous comrade came closer. Einarr risked a look back at the pillar of chains that had encased Skoroth. The sorcerer’s struggles no longer caused the pillar to sway. Instead, Einarr could see a green mist rising from the column, the links rusting and corroding within the cloud. Desperation swelled the flagging strength in the Norscan’s body. If he did not reach Vallac’s body before the chains encasing Skoroth rotted away, he knew that he never would.

  Einarr refused to look back at Skoroth, forcing himself to keep his eyes on his goal. Slowly, ever so slowly, the body of the Kurgan drew nearer. Vallac’s caustic blood stung Einarr’s maimed body as he crawled through the pool of gore trickling from the carcass. The burned floor crumbled beneath his fingers as he dragged himself onward. Finally, his hand closed around the Kurgan’s leg. His muscles aflame with pain, Einarr pulled himself up Vallac’s body.

  For a moment he stared down into the mutated face of the traitor. Einarr lurched back in alarm as Vallac’s eyes flashed open. The Kurgan croaked and gagged, trying to summon a gout of fire to incinerate his killer. All that came was a dry, hacking gargle. Acidic phlegm slobbered over the Kurgan’s lips, searing his skin.

  ‘Come… to… take back… your… sword,’ Vallac hissed. His eyes closed on the neckband around Einarr’s throat. His broken face contorted into a sneer. ‘What… what trophy… do… you steal… from Vallac…?’

  Einarr glared down at the Kurgan. He heard the first rusty links of chain clatter to the floor as Skoroth’s prison began to collapse. The Norscan’s features darkened into a mask of stone. The symbol of Tchar on his hand glowed with power. ‘From you, Vallac of the Khazags…’ Einarr slammed his glowing fist into the Kurgan’s chest, feeling ribs crack beneath his hand, flesh split before his fingers. ‘From you, I take everything!’

  The Kurgan’s shriek echoed through the chamber as Einarr ripped his fiery soul from Vallac’s body. The marauder’s eyes collapsed into cinders, his flesh blackened and crumbled into ash. Einarr tore his hand from the smoking corpse, his fist wrapped in Vallac’s inner fire. He watched the ghostly flames swirling about his hand for a moment, then spun about, staring at the corroded pillar of chains.

  With a final, mournful crack, the chains shattered, spraying across the room in an explosion of rusted iron and putrid mist. Skoroth’s bloated body emerged from the shambles of his prison, his skeletal face hideous in his rage. Then his eyes fastened onto Einarr. The rheumy orbs grew wide with fear as Skoroth saw the wraith-fire pulsing around the Norscan’s fist.

  ‘Burn, sorcerer!’ Einarr spat. ‘Burn with all your filth and horror!’ He threw his hand forward, the ghastly fire leaping from him to streak across the room. The flames slammed into Skoroth’s obese bulk, engulfing him in a spectral inferno. The sorcerer’s shrieks thundered through the shrine, causing veins to burst and rotten slabs of flesh to fall from the ceiling. Einarr glared at Skoroth’s blazing figure as he writhed in torment. He stooped once more to Vallac’s mangled body and pulled Alfwyrm free from the ashes. In his mind’s eye, he saw Thognathog, consumed by the pestilential fumes of Skoroth’s dragon. He saw Orgrim, dissolving in the bowels of Skoroth’s palace. He saw Birna’s bloodied face, her body pierced by Skoroth’s trap. He saw Asta and Spjall and Sigdan, all awaiting him in the halls of their ancestors.

  Even with his body enveloped in flame, Skoroth tried to summon his magic to protect him as the Norscan stalked grimly back across the shrine, murder in his eyes. The fleshy floor snapped and snarled beneath Einarr, struggling to bite his feet as he strode across the faces. Maggots rained from the ceiling, burrowing into his flesh as he passed beneath the oozing fly-rune of Nurgle. Tiny daemons, like a stream of living excrement, slithered from the walls and wrapped slimy arms about the Norscan’s legs. From Skoroth’s fingers, black tentacles lashed at him, searing his flesh where they struck, sending disease sizzling through his body.

  Like a juggernaut, Einarr strode through everything the sorcerer cast upon him. Pain was banished from his mind, fatigue and injury vanquished by the adamantine will that thundered within his soul. Hope and despair, fear and courage, these were things that had lost all meaning for him. The only thing left in him was the determination that he would see his quest through to the bitter end. If he could not offer the Claw to Tchar, then he would offer the skull of Skoroth to his ancestors.

  Skoroth watched Einarr advance upon him, disbelief in the sorcerer’s eyes. He opened his mouths, spewing a stream of worm-infested bile from his bloated innards. The corruption sizzled against Einarr’s skin, gnawing through flesh and muscle. The gleam of bone shone from the festering wounds, yet still the Norscan came. No scream sounded from him; no cries of agony and pain. Only a quiet, whispered litany as the names of his forefathers found purchase one last time upon his lips. Soon, the name of Einarr Sigdansson would be among them.

  Panic seized the sorcerer as Einarr forced his tortured body towards him. The warrior pulled his arm back, Alfwyrm’s blade reflecting the dancing flames that swirled about Skoroth. With his concentration fully broken, the magics that kept the worst of the fire’s fury at bay vanished and the greedy flames began to consume his obscene bulk. Einarr sent his sword driving down into Skoroth’s withered head.

  The sorcerer exploded beneath the blow, his body disintegrating into thousands of flies. The fire continued to engulf the noxious insects as they flew through the air, darting back into the nest of veins that formed the wall of the shrine. Einarr roared in fury, slashing his sword through the retreating flies, refusing to let the stricken sorcerer escape.

  As the flies burrowed back into the gaps between the pulsing veins, the rune upon Einarr’s hand glowed once more. Something beyond his own will compelled him to stagger to the wall, to stretch his hand and seize the last of the flies before it could vanish.

  Words formed on his tongue, but the voice was not his. Sounds rumbled from his throat, but they were not those of a man. The syllables that left his mouth scorched the air, blazing with power as they transformed from idea into purpose. Somehow, without understanding the ghastly sounds, Einarr knew their meaning. Be flesh, the shrieking notes said. Be flesh.

  Beyond all the other horrors he had experienced, the wailing scream that sounded from within the nest of veins stabbed into Einarr’s mind, offending his very soul with its unearthly depths of agony. A gory paste of meat and bone oozed from the gaps in the wall, dripping down the lattice of veins in a runny slime. Putrid blood fell from his hand and opening it he found that where once had been a fly, now he held a decayed human finger. Disgusted, he let the digit drop to the floor. Even for one of the plague god’s slaves, Einarr could not help but be sickened by the horror of such a death.

  The Norscan turned from the loathsome ruin that had claimed Skoroth and sagged to the floor. His last foe vanquished, now he felt the weight of his wounds, the enormity of his suffering. He let Alfwyrm fall from nerveless fingers. His vision became a fog o
f weariness, the shrine and everything within it fading into grey shadows. Only the sound of the throbbing heart and the diseased sludge pulsing through the vein-walls remained clear and distinct to him.

  His hand burned with energy once more, and Einarr forced his tired eyes to focus on the now numbed member. The metallic symbol that had been seared into his flesh was moving, slithering across his skin with a life of its own. He watched it drip from his arm, pool on the floor and continue to crawl away. Gradually he became aware that it was growing larger, the metal sheen darkening to the black of pitch. He blinked away the shadows as feathers sprouted from the sludge, as the oily tendrils formed into wings. Rising from the slime, he saw a great black eagle, its beak crooked like a sickle. He had seen such a bird before, the carrion eater that had perched upon his chest after the destruction of his village, the scavenger who sat atop the boulder and thought to feast upon the sabretusk he had slain .

  Even as the memory came to him, the black bird was changing again. Its beak opened in a savage cry, its shape swelling like a gathering storm. The eagle’s scaly legs grew, rippling with energy as they expanded. Tiny gemstones twinkled from the pillar-like limbs, a scintillating skin of sapphire and diamond. The eagle’s body stretched and twisted, the feathers folding in upon themselves until they vanished back into the creature’s leathery skin. Hundreds of eyes blinked from the mottled chest, no two sharing a kindred colour. Flames of white fire flashed through the raptor’s wings and its thin bones thickened into the clawed arms of a giant. New wings, translucent, almost glass-like, spread from the eagle’s back, tinkling like tiny bells as they snapped open. Einarr could almost see landscapes and creatures moving within the smoky depths of the wings, and turned his eyes away, lest he discover his impression to be true.

  Only the eagle’s head resisted the change that consumed the rest of it. Throughout the metamorphosis, it retained its cruel avian shape. Though he could not say he had seen it grow, somehow the bird’s head remained in proportion to its body. Its eyes, changing size and shape with each passing breath, stared down at Einarr, an air of amusement in the daemon’s pitiless gaze.

  Einarr looked again at his hand, the hand that no longer bore the curled sign of Tchar upon it. Now he understood, now he knew why he had been chosen. This was why he had not claimed a talisman from Berus’s torn body. The berserker was not a part of them, they had already been nine when Einarr had freed Berus from the Hung. The ninth warrior, the one who completed the sacred number of Tzeentch, that one he had carried within himself. From the moment the foul thing’s blood had seeped into his skin, it had been there inside him. Guiding him. Manipulating him. Protecting him. All the foes he had faced, the trials he had overcome, he had conquered only with the daemon’s unseen help. The comrades he had gathered, the enchanted talismans he had claimed from their mangled bodies, these had been nothing but tools in the daemon’s game, puppets dancing upon its strings.

  Einarr felt his soul crack as the enormity of the deceit crashed around him. Everything had been a lie, everything he had been told had been a trick. The rune he had seen in the snow, the image plucked from his own dreams – the black eagle had not represented the man, but the thing the man carried inside him. The quest had never been about recovering the Claw, it had been about bringing the daemon into the shrine. He was not the champion, not the hero who would claim glory from the gods themselves! He was nothing more than a horse to carry his master whither he willed.

  Did you really think you could come so far alone, little mouse? The daemon’s words scraped against Einarr’s consciousness like a knife across bone. Did you think flesh and steel were enough to challenge the gods themselves?

  Einarr’s head swam as the daemon’s voice crawled through his skull. The abomination seemed to still be growing, its impossible enormity filling the entire shrine. Or perhaps it was the room itself that was expanding, growing to accommodate the daemon’s power. His senses rebelled against the violation of perception that the daemon embodied and he ground his hands against his eyes, trying to block out the awful sight.

  One more thing you will do for me, little mouse. The thing I brought you so very far to do. Einarr’s body trembled in revulsion as the daemon’s gigantic claw closed around him and he was lifted from the floor. He could feel his flesh running between the daemon’s talons, his blood curdling as its ghastly essence seeped down into his veins. You refused to leave an offering before my monolith. Now you shall make amends.

  ‘But the Claw is not here!’ Einarr protested through trembling lips. The daemon laughed.

  Of course not, little mouse! It is safe with my master as it has been for thousands of your years. It is a different prize that brings me here, little mouse, one I did not see fit to trust to the weak mind of a mortal, lest some other daemon tease the knowledge from your fragile flesh.

  The daemon set him down in the little alcove. Einarr fell to his knees, his body twisted and mangled by exposure to the daemon’s aura. His arms were curled like the horns of a ram, his legs buckled and bent, the bones melted beneath his dripping skin. Einarr struggled to move, but his muscles refused to work in the ways he knew.

  The heart, little mouse. Give it to me and then I will let you die.

  Einarr felt the daemon’s malice lash through him, a sensation a thousand times more terrible than even the sorcery of Skoroth. He tried to force his body to move, sliding across the alcove like some dripping snail. Tears wept from his eyes as he willed his crippled arms to lift, only succeeding in making the hands flop uselessly against his chest. He screamed as he felt the daemon’s talon stab into his back, as he felt flesh and bone erupt from his wound, flowing together in some new and abominable growth.

  Reach with your paws, little mouse. Do not make me ask again.

  The Norscan wailed with impotent fury, crying in agony as he tried to force his maimed body to obey him. Despair flooded through him, the despair of the damned. Before him, the knot of muscle quivered, pulsating in tune with the tiny heart that pounded within it. Einarr stumbled forward on his useless limbs, flopping against the side of the alcove. He watched as the heart faltered, skipping a beat before resuming its pulsations. Even in the pits of desolation that filled him, Einarr noted the change in the rhythm, a change that vibrated throughout the shrine and the palace beyond. The disembodied heart now beat in time with his own!

  Now, little mouse, take it now.

  Einarr’s crooked arm slapped uselessly against the knot of flesh. Straining, he lurched closer to the heart, craning his head against the quivering, throbbing obscenity. Its oozing skin slapped against his face, its dull pounding throbbing in his ears. Weeping from the effort, Einarr brought his mangled arm up, pinning the heart between it and his head.

  Good little mouse. A mortal placed it there, it needs a mortal to take it away. Take it now, little mouse, and your suffering will be at an end.

  Einarr screamed as he pulled his twisted body away from the greasy mass of muscle. For an instant, the heart held fast, clinging stubbornly to its fastenings of sinew and artery. Then, with a wet tearing sound, it ripped free. Einarr crumbled upon the floor of the alcove, the still beating organ gripped in his teeth. Black filth cascaded from the ruptured veins, showering the Norscan in diseased sewage. All around the shrine, the throbbing, quivering life faded, the walls grew still as the sludge no longer shot through the vein-like coils.

  You have done well, little mouse. Now bring it to me.

  Einarr lifted his head, forcing his eyes to fasten onto the daemon’s grotesque presence. His disfigured face curled into a snarl of defiance.

  ‘No,’ he spat through clenched teeth.

  The daemon’s wings opened wide, the images struggling for substance within their smoky depths turning into tongues of flame. The eyes that glared at Einarr from its mottled chest turned red with inhuman fury. The floor beneath the daemon’s clawed feet screamed in horror as its unholy rage thundered across the shrine.

  The little mouse dar
es to defy me, Yth’nitzzilik the Maleficent! Yth’nitzzilik the Enduring! Yth’nitzzilik the Great Abomination!

  ‘You made a promise to me, daemon,’ Einarr snarled, teeth falling from his mangled jaw. ‘Black claw or festering heart, you will keep your oath to me.’

  The daemon’s eyes glowered down at the tiny, broken mortal.

  You cannot begin to imagine the paths that have led to this moment, little mouse. The many centuries that have faded away waiting to bring me here. From the instant when the plague god crowned the first Plague Lord and built from his mortal shell this palace, the strands of fate have conspired to give shape to this moment. My master waits to feel the Festerheart in his hand. The gods plan their great war, little mouse. They need only the Festerheart to bind the plague god to their cause. All existence waits upon this moment, and one heartsick mortal thinks to stand in the way?

  ‘You promised to turn back the hours, to open the gate between days! You swore to send me back, back to Vinnskor, back to the time when the bloodbeast attacked my village! I can save my people this time! I can save Asta and Spjall and all the others! I can save my people! I can stop Birna and the others from ever coming to this pit of death and horror! I can change it all!’

  Yth’nitzzilik stepped closer to Einarr, its enormous shadow falling over him, making his skin crawl with unclean changes. Despite the burning torment in his eyes, Einarr continued to glare at the daemon. The crooked beak twisted, impossibly forming itself into a smile.

  So like a mortal, obsessed with such petty dreams. There is a jest here even the eternal can appreciate. The daemon’s mocking laughter shuddered all around Einarr’s broken body. Very well, Einarr Sigdansson, I shall keep my promise.