Warriors of the Chaos Wastes - C L Werner

by Warhammer

  He would send riders to the Sul. There were questions he would have answered. He wanted to know what Enek Zjarr would say about the Seifan claims. He would hear what speeches the sorcerer would make to reassure him. He needed to hear these things, to know if they were truth or lies. If they were lies, then Dorgo was trapped in those lies, a captive of the Sul as surely as if they had cast him into the dungeons of their fortress.

  The smooth slopes of the stumpy hill made climbing difficult. There were no sharp edges to grip, no sure handholds to support a man’s weight. Every foot of the climb was a matter of luck and chance, with a long fall to the plain below as the price for relying too much upon capricious fortune. Even so, Dorgo preferred to take his chances on the reckless climb and the clean death of a broken neck to lingering upon the blighted plains of the borderland.

  Filthy red grass continued to sprout across the ancient battlefield. Suckled upon the blood of their victims, the crimson weeds burst with loathsome life. Pulpy flowers bulged from their stems, spitting barbed spores into the sky. As the spiny spores drifted through the air, blood dripped from their spikes, staining the grey earth. It did not take long for new sprouts to burst from the ground in answer to the summons of the drifting spores.

  Where the abominable plants had been clustered around the carcass of Devseh and the Tsavag warriors, who had fought to free the beast, now a crawling carpet of red weed was spreading throughout the plain. Dorgo could almost feel the vampiric hunger of the plants as he looked at them. Better a fall to destruction than the slow sucking death promised by the vile vegetation.

  The warrior’s few remaining comrades shared Dorgo’s feelings and followed his lead up the slopes of the hill. Dorgo had only three following him: Sanya the Sul witch, the huge Togmol, and Ulagan the scout. Ulagan had not been present to observe the hideous struggle against the weeds, but he had been sufficiently impressed by the grave expressions of his tribesmen to accept their abhorrence for the plain. Ulagan had been the first to try climbing the smooth slope, attempting to reach the height to keep a watch for the Seifan. He had just given up on the attempt when he found Dorgo and the others rushing towards the hill. Their alarm convinced him that he should try again.

  Long hours passed as the four survivors endured the dangerous ascent. The earth below them was alive with writhing crimson foliage, their wormy fronds quivering excitedly whenever a loose stone was knocked down the hillside. There was no illusion that it was anything but death to fall, but the prospect of a clean death of broken bones and shattered skull was in doubt. To fall, alive, into the trembling tendrils of the red grass was a thought that almost paralysed them all with fear.

  No thought, beyond escaping the red grass, had driven Dorgo to start the climb. So it was with great surprise that, as his hand discovered an uncharacteristically flat and even shelf of rock and he pulled himself over its edge, he found himself on a level rise, staring into the yawning cavity of a deep cave. He waited for the others to join him before approaching the opening. There was a rank, evil smell drifting out from its depths. Dorgo was not certain what could be worse than the red grass, but he had little desire to find out.

  The others shared Dorgo’s opinion of the cave when they joined him on the rocky shelf. Ulagan inspected the ground, finding scrapes and marks on the rocks that told him they were not the first to find this place. Whether whatever had disturbed the rocks was man or beast, Ulagan was unable to tell. That something had been there was all he could say.

  Sanya crouched close to the ground, removing the daemon-finger talisman from her belt. The clawed digit flopped to the rocks where she dropped it. The woman’s voice fell to a spitting whisper, struggling with sounds meant for no mortal voice. The finger twitched in response to the sorceress, scrabbling against the ground as though trying to crawl towards the cave. Sanya smiled and recovered the grisly talisman.

  ‘What do you find to be so gleeful?’ demanded Togmol, glaring at the witch.

  Sanya pointed to the cave, favouring Togmol with her most withering sneer. ‘Even a brute like you must appreciate our predicament. The plain has blossomed with the red scourge. To try to cross it would be certain death. To stay on this hill, however high we climb, is only to invite a slower death for want of food and water. Either way, we do not help our tribes against the Skulltaker.’

  ‘And you know another way?’ asked Dorgo. ‘Your magic has found a way past the weed?’

  ‘The talisman Enek Zjarr made will point the way to the Black Altar,’ she told him. ‘It cannot be deceived by time or distance, and will always point true. I have consulted the daemon’s spirit, asking it where we should go. You saw where it pointed.’

  Togmol laughed, shaking his head. ‘It is a poor enough choice to listen to a witch,’ he said. ‘Now we would trust her daemons?’

  ‘It would not lie,’ Sanya said. ‘Only its finger is here with me. If the daemon were to betray me, it knows what the Sul would do to the rest of it. There are tortures which even a daemon can be taught to fear.’ She looked across at each of the men, waiting for them to agree. Slowly, reluctantly, Dorgo and Ulagan nodded their heads.

  ‘We can’t follow her!’ protested Togmol. ‘March blindly into that cavern! Anything might be lurking down there!’ He rounded on Ulagan, tugging at his arm, pointing at the scarred stones. ‘You said you had no idea what made those marks, whether man or beast!’ He released his hold on the scout and turned to Sanya. ‘The witch means to lead us into a trap!’ he accused. ‘Lure us into the jaws of some daemon’s spawn!’

  ‘Enough!’ growled Dorgo. Togmol’s protests were becoming more panicked and ridiculous with each breath. He wondered at the warrior’s unrestrained display of fear. Togmol was one of the most renowned battlers in the tribe, a man who had faced enemies countless times in combat. Even the red weed had failed to make the man back away, yet he was almost overcome with terror. It was something more than the cold, evil stink of the cavern, something more than fear of daemons and monsters. Dorgo tried to appeal to the faltering warrior’s reason.

  ‘If Sanya meant to deal us false,’ he told Togmol, ‘why wait until now? The Sul could have attacked us on the Barrens as easily as the Seifan, and much more effectively.’

  ‘I’m not going down there,’ Togmol insisted, backing away and shaking his head.

  ‘Let the coward rot,’ Sanya snarled. ‘I am the only one you need to guide you to the Black Altar.’

  Dorgo spun around, glaring at the woman. ‘I’ve left enough men dead in this forsaken land, I won’t leave any more behind!’

  Sanya scoffed at his outburst. ‘You should be thinking of your tribe, your women and children, the ones who will be destroyed if the Skulltaker isn’t stopped! Beside that, what do the lives of a few warriors matter?’

  Dorgo clenched his fists. The witch was right, and he hated her for it. Togmol had been a friend since before he was old enough to hunt his first zhaga. Leaving Qotagir and the others to the red grass had been loathsome enough. Abandoning Togmol was something that made his flesh crawl. The lives of his entire tribe, the trust his father had placed in him, his friendship with Togmol could never overcome these things, but that understanding did not make it any easier to do.

  ‘Please,’ Dorgo said, appealing to Togmol one last time. ‘There is no other way.’

  ‘Go then,’ Togmol told him. ‘I won’t stop you, but I won’t go with you.’

  ‘The tribe is depending on us,’ Dorgo said. ‘Whatever might be down there, it can’t be worse than what will happen if we leave the Skulltaker free.’

  Dorgo’s words seemed to reach through Togmol’s fear. For an instant, the big warrior’s jaw became set in a grimace of determination. He forced his body forwards, following Dorgo as he led him towards the cave. Then, as the mephitic smell washed over them, as the shadowy gloom of the cavern closed around them, Togmol’s resolve broke. The warrior turned and retreated back to the shelf.

  ‘No good,’ Togmol said. ‘I can’t go do
wn there.’

  ‘We have to,’ Dorgo replied. Already Sanya and Ulagan had passed them, their outlines only dimly visible in the shadows that filled the cave. ‘There’s no other way.’

  Togmol smiled, nodding his head in grim agreement. ‘I can’t follow you,’ he said, ‘not if Khorne’s hound was snapping at my back. The gods watch over you, my friend. Fix that gaudy bauble and when you sink it into the Skulltaker’s gut, tell the bastard that Togmol is waiting for him in the Hunting Halls.’

  The gods watch over you as well, Dorgo thought as he turned and strode back into the cave. The evil stench of the place was overpowering, the shadows almost alive in their suggestion of malice. What feeble light existed within the cavern was provided not by the clean brilliance of the sun, but by the sickly green phosphorescence of glowing clumps of moss. The exact size of the cavern was difficult to determine, the roof lost somewhere in the darkness, the walls largely indistinct suggestions of shadow pockmarked with patches of luminescence.

  The drip of water falling from stalactites echoed from the unseen walls. A furtive, scratching noise tugged at the edge of Dorgo’s hearing. The cavern played strange games with the sounds, making it impossible to tell if whatever made them was smaller than a rat or larger than a wolf. Dorgo was reminded of the indistinct marks on the shelf. Clearly, whatever had made them would be an inhabitant of this black netherworld. He fingered his sword, but could take no comfort in the cold metal in his hand. This close to the Wastes, there was no guarantee that whatever haunted the darkness would respect sharp iron enough to die when it was struck.

  ‘This way,’ Ulagan said, his faint whisper crawling into Dorgo’s ears. He could just faintly make out the scout, a dim shape where he blocked the luminescence of the glow moss. He thought he could see the hunter’s hand extended before him, a feather dangling from his finger. It was an old trick, used to find the direction of the wind. Here, in this black ever-night, Ulagan was trying to use the same system to discover a current in the air, a current that might lead them through the cavern.

  Dorgo followed Ulagan’s lead, taking hold of Sanya’s arm and guiding the woman. He wasn’t going to risk losing her in the dark. Too much depended upon her. Too much had been lost just to bring her this far.

  The current Ulagan followed proved to emanate from a broad-mouthed tunnel at the rear of the cave. The opening stabbed down into the hill at such a steep angle that they were forced to stretch their arms wide and brace themselves against the walls as they made their descent. Dorgo could still hear the furtive, slithering whispers, sounds that almost seemed more suggestion than observation. The evil stink of the place rose as the tunnel stabbed its way deeper and deeper. Dorgo was reminded of the zhagas of the Prowling Lands and their musky reek.

  At last, the tunnel became reasonably level. Where before it had plunged straight into the hill, now it became a winding corridor, twisting and doubling upon itself in a maddening confusion of switchbacks and intersections.

  Ulagan suddenly called a halt. Dorgo was uncertain why the scout stopped so abruptly. Then he saw where the man’s hand pointed. Glow moss littered the floor of the tunnel in heaps. Something had scraped it from the walls, creating patches of almost perfect blackness. The reptile stink was more pronounced as well.

  Dorgo drew his sword, backing away from the sinister patches of darkness. Sanya caught his alarm. He could hear her fumbling among her amulets and charms. Ulagan lowered his spear, his ropy tentacle slithering around the haft to secure his grip.

  The furtive, scratching sounds returned, and this time Dorgo knew that they were no trick of his imagination. He could hear something scraping against the earthen floor of the tunnel, something that took laboured, hissing breaths, something that came not only from the tunnel ahead of them, but from the passageway behind.

  Yellow eyes winked open, shining from the nearest patch of darkness, reflecting the glow of the phosphorescent moss. Another set of eyes appeared beside the first, and then a third. Dorgo could see other eyes shining from further down the tunnel. The scrape of bodies surging down the passage behind them caused shapes to rush at them from the darkness ahead. Dorgo did not waste any effort trying to number their foes. It was enough to know that they were few against many.

  Too many.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Snapping, snarling, hissing, the fiends of the dark fell upon Dorgo and his companions like a black tide of shadow. Dorgo lashed out with his sword, feeling the blade chop through something too soft to be human flesh, like cutting into boiled mutton. Runny treacle, stagnant and cloying, spurted from the body of the shadow he had struck, spattering his face with syrupy filth. Dorgo gagged at the revolting stench, the smell of spoiled fruit and sour wine. The ichor burned where it touched him, sending a fiery numbness through his face.

  The haunters of the tunnel did not relent, surging over the ruin of their mangled kindred to close upon the stunned Tsavag. Dorgo rallied against the lethargy the smell of the creature’s treacle evoked in his limbs and in his mind. Through the warm, fuzzy cloud that closed around his thoughts, Dorgo imagined the vision of his people, of his father, being butchered by the Skulltaker. The hideous rune of Khorne flared from the helm of the Skulltaker, shining like sunfire in his brain.

  It was Dorgo’s turn to snap and snarl and hiss. His blade flashed through the gloom of the tunnel, hacking and tearing into the delicate meat of the things in the dark. Bubbling cries, half-human moans of death and agony, echoed through the blackness. A flare of purple fire blazed from somewhere behind him and a new smell filled the passageway, the stink of something burning in its own fat and the rancour of scales crumbling into ash.

  Dorgo heard Sanya gasp in fright, and he wondered what she had seen by the light of her spell. Then there was no time for questions as the nameless, hissing horde descended upon them once more.

  There was something, some vile suggestion of speech and intelligence in the susurrus that whispered through the darkness. Dorgo had the impression of arms and faces striking at him from the shadows, felt crude clubs of bone crack against his mammoth-hide hauberk. He felt claws clutch at his hair, stumbled as something thick and wormy tried to coil around his leg. Fangs ripped at his arm, sinking deep into his flesh as they stabbed through his armour. How many had he cut down? It seemed to him like dozens, hundreds, yet still there were more. Were these degenerate things men? Were they even mortal?

  Sanya’s voice rose in a piercing scream. Dorgo struggled to free himself from the clutching press of horrors clustered around him, clinging to him like flies on a carcass. Across from him, he could hear Ulagan struggling to do the same. It was more than their need for the sorceress, the desperate knowledge that without her the Skulltaker could not be stopped. The fact that she was human was enough to goad them on, to strive against the clawing mass of their numberless foes. Nothing human should be abandoned to such a fate.

  Trying to reach Sanya was like swimming against the tide. Her screams became faint, distant as she was borne away by her attackers, carried off down one of the side passages. The effort had taken a terrible toll on the two Tsavags. Their bodies were masses of cuts and bruises, battered and clawed by the violent attentions of the things in the darkness.

  With hideous clarity, Dorgo understood that the only reason they were still alive was because the things didn’t want to kill them. They had some other purpose, some vileness beyond ambush and murder in store for these men who had invaded their forbidden world. The realisation made Dorgo fight all the harder to free himself from the weak, wormy limbs that clung to him, trying to pull him down. His hand was an iron fist moulded around the hilt of his sword, defying the claws that strove to tear the weapon free.

  Again and again, Dorgo felt his legs buckle, felt his strength ebb. His endurance was failing against the merciless assault, and he knew that soon he must succumb. He spat curses on his foes, damning them by gods and ancestors both. Raspy laughter hissed from the throng. They knew that their victory w
as at hand.

  A fierce war cry roared through the blackness, drowning out the diseased mockery of the creatures. Dorgo’s flagging spirit lifted as he heard that piercing shout: a Tsavag war cry, the blood-howl of a Tong warrior. The shout was followed by the sound of metal sheering through flesh, and the whimpering moans of the things as their bodies were ripped apart by the avenging blade.

  Dorgo felt the clinging grip around his limbs abandon its hold abruptly as first one and then all of his attackers retreated into the darkness. A rustling, crawling noise fled down the tunnel as the creatures slithered back into their holes. With the retreat of the monsters, the meagre illumination provided by the moss on the walls was able to reassert itself, no longer blocked by the bodies of the degenerate horde.

  By the feeble light of the moss, Dorgo could see Ulagan leaning against the opposite wall, his spear a broken shaft around which his tentacle was coiled, his normal arm dripping from a grisly gash in his shoulder. The scout’s face was purple with bruises, one eye swollen shut. While he watched, Ulagan spat a tooth into the passage, and then stooped to recover it, fearful that some witch might collect it and use it to enslave his soul.

  Dorgo did not need a mirror to know that he was in little better shape than Ulagan. He could feel every cut and bruise flaring with pain as he moved. Somehow, despite the beating they had suffered, Dorgo felt that their rescuer managed to look even worse.

  Togmol stood almost in the very centre of the tunnel, his eyes so wide with fear that they looked like they belonged to an owl, not a Tsavag warrior. His breath came in short, hurried gulps, and his skin was so pallid that it was almost corpse-like. Togmol barely registered the presence of the men he had saved, looking instead at the walls and ceiling, turning his head in quick, panicked jerks. Finally, he dropped his broad-axe, slapping one palm against the wall and another against the ceiling of the tunnel. Veins popped out in his neck as Togmol exerted his tremendous strength against the unyielding stone.