Warriors of the Chaos Wastes - C L Werner

by Warhammer

  ‘The touch of a daemon is vile,’ she said, her words heavy with the experience of abuse. ‘There is nothing so filthy in this world or the next as the petty splinters of a god’s magnificence. But they are a necessary evil, a bridge between mortals and the power of the gods.’ She pressed forward again, cupping Dorgo’s chin in her hand. This time he did not pull away. Her face was a soothing mask, her eyes limpid pools. There was invitation in the curve of her lips as she smiled down at him.

  ‘Come,’ she said, guiding him from the floor with the delicate pressure of her hand, ‘see what your suffering has done.’

  Dorgo allowed himself to be led back to the forge by the enticing lure of the sorceress. The obscene feeling of the daemon crawling inside him, the bloodthirsty foulness of its murderous spirit was forgotten. He was oblivious to the heat and the stench, the clammy taint of evil in the air. All he could see was Sanya, the slender curves of her body moving beneath the tatters of her robe, the smouldering glow of the forge dancing through her hair.

  A change had come upon the forge. The teeth lining its surface had gnashed together, forming a flat, circular disc of polished bone above the mouth of the forge. While he watched, a ripple of motion passed through the disc, the bone surface trembling like the skin of a pond.

  A depression began to form in the centre of the strange anvil, a surface that soon bore the unmistakable outline of a sword.

  ‘Fit the shards to the shape,’ Sanya told him, letting her hand slide from his chin to the side of his neck.

  The woman’s touch thrilled him, exciting him, making him forget all his doubt and suspicion. He could only dimly feel the heat rising from the forge, the mephitic haze that rippled across the surface of bone.

  One by one, he removed the crimson shatters from their pouch, setting each piece of the Bloodeater into the mould. Somehow, he was not surprised when the pieces fitted perfectly into place.

  Sanya led him away from the forge, as mouth-like orifices slobbered open all along its sides. The mouths sucked great draughts of air into the forge’s unseen furnace, feeding its hellish fires. The bone skin above the fire began to glow, first red and then white.

  Dorgo was amazed when he saw the ruby fragments of the blade melt into crimson liquid. A fire so hot it melted gemstone was unimaginable. Dorgo had thought that the forge would somehow knit the pieces back together, bind them with some daemon’s trick.

  He understood better now. The bloodthirster was too much of a warrior to allow a blade with such weakness into the world. The Bloodeater would be remade from its destruction, like the fabled fire dragon of Cathay. There would be no spider-thin fractures and weaknesses where shard joined shard, but a whole blade cast from a single ingot of ruby, just as it must have been shaped when Teiyogtei first forged it.

  While the shards melted, knobbly tendrils of flesh began to ooze from the lip of the forge, rising like boneless arms above the glowing anvil of bone. The tips of the tendrils hardened, becoming stumps of black, shining stone. They were still for a time, waiting for the heat and the fire to do their work. Then, with eerie precision, the fleshy bludgeons came smacking down, pounding against the daemon-bone disc.

  Despite the otherworldly surroundings, despite the horrific nature of forge and hammer, despite the impossible substance being worked, the sound that filled the Black Altar was jarring in its normalcy: nothing more than would rise from any mortal smithy.

  How long the daemon hammers worked the molten ruby, neither Sanya nor Dorgo could ever say. Hours or days, time meant less than little in the bizarre limbo of the Wastes. At last, however, the hammers no longer struck against the anvil of daemon bone.

  Exhibiting the same eerie precision, they were absorbed back into the fleshy substance of the forge. Gradually, the heat began to abate, and then a scorching, searing noise rose from the mouth of the disc. Blood, dark and stagnant, began to bubble up from the depths of the forge, slopping over the sides of the fleshy stump and running across the floor. The anvil and the blade were drowned beneath the rising tide. As steam rose from the mouth of the forge, Dorgo realised that the daemon was using this macabre method to quench the new-born blade.

  When at last the bubbling tide of blood abated, Dorgo approached the forge once more. He found himself staring down into a pool of black blood that completely obscured the fang-like teeth and the sword they had held. He thought again of the depthless pit, the unfillable void into which he had poured bucket after bucket of fiery pitch. He felt a twinge of fear, imagining that yawning darkness.

  The touch of Sanya’s hand against his arm reassured him. Boldly, he thrust his hand into the still warm mire of blood. His fingers groped through the blackness, brushing against the rough surface of the fangs. Then his hand touched something that was smooth and cold against his skin.

  His fingers tightened around the unseen object, clenching into a firm fist as he pulled his arm back and ripped the reborn blade from its daemonic womb.

  Bloody filth dripped from the Bloodeater, spattering the floor of the Black Altar. Somehow, the covering of blood could not hide the power and magnificence of the weapon he held. Dorgo knew that all the suffering, all the pain and violation, all the horror and fear had been worth it. He could feel strength pulsing through his arm, throbbing through his body.

  He swung the sword through the empty air, shocked by how good it felt in his hand, as if it had always been there. A shimmer of power, like little sparks of crimson light, danced behind the blade as he thrust and slashed at unseen enemies. The warrior laughed, a pure sound, filled with wonder, the voice of a simple, child-like joy.

  For the first time, it was not doom that ruled his heart, but hope. He had seen the Skulltaker, had seen what the champion could do. Dorgo had never truly believed that the Bloodeater could destroy the monster. Now, with the blade’s power flowing through him like a fiery river of strength, he did not believe anything could stand against him, even if it was the Skulltaker.

  There was hope for his people and his father. There was hope for the entire domain.

  ‘The Skulltaker will die!’ Dorgo vowed, smiling as he gazed into the scintillating depths of his blade. ‘We will seek him out and destroy him!’

  Sanya shook her head. ‘No,’ she told him. ‘If we stay here, the Skulltaker will come to us.’ She pointed at the Bloodeater clenched in his fist. ‘He will know what we have done. He will remember the sword that vanquished him once before. We do not need to seek him out, Dorgo, Hero of the Tsavags. If we wait, he will seek us.’

  The wait was not a long one. Even as Dorgo was contemplating Sanya’s plan, trying to weigh its wisdom against his fears for his people, against the desperate need for haste that gripped him, a familiar and unforgettable chill swept through his body. He could see that the sorceress sensed it as well, turning to face the doorway where the bronze panels had once stood.

  A figure emerged from the shadows, a hulking shape encased in crimson steel and a horned, skull-like helm. In its mailed fist, the black blade smoked and snarled. Across its chest, the chain of trophies hung, their sightless sockets staring blindly across the Black Altar.

  There was a hideous, triumphant quality about the way the Skulltaker marched across the metal, blood-soaked floor. Sanya blanched, growing pallid before the imposing apparition, her arrogance and pride withering in the champion’s grim presence. She retreated behind Dorgo, placing the warrior between herself and the monster. The Skulltaker hesitated for an instant, his deathly mask studying the Tsavag warrior.

  Dorgo brandished the Bloodeater, making certain that the Skulltaker recognised the blade he held. He could sense that the champion did. The Skulltaker would remember the power of that weapon better than anyone or anything, the blade that had vanquished him once before. If anything could make him know fear, it was this.

  The Skulltaker turned away from Dorgo, looking past him to the Sul sorceress. Dorgo felt his ire rise. Did the monster think so little of him that he looked to the woman as a grea
ter threat?

  The Tsavag rushed the Skulltaker, a Tong war cry rising from his throat as he charged. The Skulltaker blocked the warrior’s stabbing sword, knocking the Bloodeater aside with a backhanded sweep of his smouldering blade. Dorgo heard the daemon steel scream in protest as the Bloodeater bit into its otherworldly edge.

  Dorgo feinted a jab to his foe’s left, and then thrust at his right, stabbing at the join between torso and pelvis. Again, the Skulltaker’s blade came sweeping down, swatting aside the striking sword. This time the monster followed the block with a sweeping slash from his blade. Smoke stung Dorgo’s eyes as he ducked what would have been a decapitating blow.

  The deadly dance began in earnest, thrust and parry, slash and block. The Bloodeater filled Dorgo with such strength that he barely felt the Skulltaker’s intercepting blade as it crashed against his own. He knew that if he could just get through the monster’s defences, if he could once stab his crimson blade into the body beneath the plated mail, that the Skulltaker would be finished. The power of Teiyogtei’s sword would destroy him as it had so long ago.

  Against the strength of his arm and the power of his sword, Dorgo was forced to concede his vulnerability. The Skulltaker was far and beyond any foe he had ever faced, combining speed and power in a way that even a formidable adversary like Tulka didn’t come close to matching.

  Unlike the champion of Khorne, Dorgo had no daemon-forged armour to guard his body. He had shed his armour before carrying Sanya across the pit. Beside the metal plates encasing the Skulltaker, he was as naked as a babe. It was a sobering thought, when the Skulltaker’s screaming blade came flashing inches from his skin, to consider how deep it would cut him if it struck home.

  Dorgo’s sword crashed against the Skulltaker’s breastplate, scouring a deep gash in the dark armour. He quickly pulled back, turning aside the stabbing thrust of the champion’s blade with the hilt of his sword. Even as he knocked the deadly weapon aside, Dorgo felt his ribs explode with pain, the Skulltaker’s armoured knee slamming into him, pitching him to the floor. Hastily, Dorgo lifted the Bloodeater to block the murderous, descending strike of the Skulltaker’s steel.

  Then he saw it, hanging from the chain alongside the other trophies lashed across the Skulltaker’s chest: a human skull, disfigured by lumps of metal protruding from forehead and scalp. Like all the others, it bore the brand of Khorne upon its brow.

  Long-nourished hope withered and died as Dorgo saw his father’s skull grinning at him from the Skulltaker’s gruesome collection. They had found the Black Altar, and drawn the Skulltaker to them, but it was all done too late. Hutga Khagan had already joined the monster’s victims.

  Seven heads: seven vanquished tribes. The strength and power that had filled him when he took up the Bloodeater faded as he felt his stomach turn. It didn’t matter that he had no proof of the thought that burrowed into his brain, he knew his suspicion was right. He knew which head the Skulltaker hadn’t claimed.

  The champion’s sword came flashing down in a murderous sweep. The Bloodeater was all but torn from Dorgo’s nerveless clutch as he instinctively lifted his weapon to block the strike. The Skulltaker pulled back for another attack, towering over the fallen Tsavag like some gruesome avatar of death.

  Suddenly, coils of blazing blue light crashed around the Skulltaker’s body, sizzling against his armoured plate. The champion spun, glaring at the almost forgotten sorceress. Sanya saw the timeless malice burning behind his mask as he stormed after her. Another blast of eldritch power smashed into the Skulltaker’s body. The monster kept coming, protected from the woman’s magic by the dread power of his god.

  Sanya retreated, circling behind the forge, clutching her bag against her breast. The Skulltaker pointed a metal claw at the woman, an imperious gesture that brooked no defiance. He had nothing to fear from her magic, no spell known to man or daemon could penetrate the armour he wore.

  Somehow, the sorceress lifted her head, all the hubris of her tribe etched across her features. ‘Work for it,’ she spat scornfully.

  A bestial growl rasped from behind the Skulltaker’s mask. With swift, furious steps he closed upon Sanya. Desperately, Dorgo fought to his feet, determined to finish his enemy himself. Then he noticed something strange. Sanya had positioned herself behind the nest of pulleys and chains. Dorgo knew the spot well, having laboured so long to raise buckets from the pit. There should be a great hole in the floor only a few feet from where she stood, yet to his eyes, all that could be seen was the blood encrusted metal floor of the chamber.

  Dorgo’s eyes were not the only ones deceived. The Skulltaker did not hesitate in his brutal rush towards the woman. His path carried him straight over the hole, the emptiness that Sanya had cloaked in her magic. With a great, wolf-like howl, the hulking champion, the blood-soaked slaughterer of the domain, plummeted down, hurtling into the burning pit far below.

  ‘That solves the problem of the Skulltaker,’ Sanya laughed, setting down her bag. There was an ugly, gloating quality to her voice, her features twisted into a harsh scowl. ‘It appears that we didn’t need the Bloodeater after all, just a bit of Mighty Cheen’s power employed in a judicious fashion.’

  Dorgo wiped blood from his forehead, trying to keep it from running down into his eyes. He wanted to see the witch, wanted to see the terror in her eyes when she understood that she was going to die. He knew that she had worked some kind of enchantment on him, drowning out his suspicions of her with a slavish ardour. It was gone now, shocked out of him by the sight of Hutga’s skull hanging among the other trophies.

  Sanya smiled when she saw the merciless hate in Dorgo’s eyes. She folded her hands together, contemptuous in her display of unconcern. ‘Try,’ she said. ‘Just try to strike me down. You can’t. Ever since we left the domain, I’ve been working my magic on you, whispering to your soul while you slept. You’d sooner destroy yourself than destroy me.’

  Dorgo roared, rushing at the sneering Sanya. She continued to grin at him even as the Bloodeater came chopping down. Dorgo struck sure and true, aiming for the woman’s pretty face. Instead, he found his arm twisting around, the blade sweeping harmlessly past her shoulder. He tried again, chopping at her neck. The muscles in his arm grew tense, freezing solid the instant he pulled the sword back to deliver the blow.

  Sanya stepped inside his murderous reach, her soft lips brushing against his cheek. ‘You see,’ she told him, ‘I have nothing to fear from you, my mighty warrior.’

  ‘You lied to me!’ Dorgo snarled, his rage only emboldened by the witch’s mockery. ‘You used us. You used my father and my tribe! You never intended to save anyone except yourself… Enek Zjarr!’

  The name of the kahn of the Sul hung in the air, foul with scorn and disgust. Dorgo should have suspected, if he’d considered such cowardly deception possible even for a Sul. If the kahn could make doppelgangers of himself, surely cloaking his form in that of another would come easy to him. The Skulltaker hadn’t been drawn to the Black Altar because of the Bloodeater. He’d been drawn by the one thing he needed to complete his pact with Khorne: the last chieftain’s skull, the head of Enek Zjarr!

  Hard laughter rippled from Sanya’s lips as she danced away from the glowering Tsavag. She shook her head, favouring Dorgo with a look that she might bestow on a drooling idiot. ‘Enek Zjarr?’ she laughed. ‘For too long I allowed that worm to use my body. Do you think I’d let him defile it further to hide from the Skulltaker?’

  ‘You cannot trick me, sorcerer!’ Dorgo snarled. He lowered his arm as feeling returned to it, further enraged by his frustrated helplessness. ‘The Skulltaker needed one more head. Tell me he didn’t need the head of Enek Zjarr! Tell me that isn’t what brought him here!’

  Sanya nodded, condescending to applaud the warrior’s reasoning. ‘Oh yes,’ she agreed, ‘it was Enek Zjarr’s skull he needed, but I’m afraid someone already took it.’

  Dorgo stared in disbelief as Sanya’s slender hand reached into the bag slung around he
r shoulder, the bag she had been so determined to keep with her. She pulled from it the secret treasure that she had carried with her for so very long: the dry, fleshless skull of Enek Zjarr, the rune of Khorne branded into its forehead.

  ‘He’s been dead since before we left the domain,’ Sanya told him, ‘murdered the very night we returned from the tomb of Teiyogtei. His weakness emboldened those who would see him fall. The legacy of Teiyogtei is such that no enemy can kill a chieftain, but as the king was slain by his warlords while he languished from his wounds, so his heirs may be brought to destruction by the hand of a kinsman. Enek Zjarr never saw the dagger I stabbed into him, but I assure you he felt its venom!’

  ‘But the Skulltaker would simply hunt for the head of the new kahn,’ Dorgo protested.

  ‘Not if there was no kahn,’ Sanya corrected him and the full treachery of that statement was like a physical blow to the Tsavag. ‘If no one claimed Enek Zjarr’s legacy, if none drew the flesh of Teiyogtei from his heart, then the power would remain bound in his corpse. The head of Enek Zjarr would remain the trophy sought by the Skulltaker. We Sul are smarter than the other tribes. We alone understood that our survival and that of our kahn were not the same. So long as the domain endured, we would endure. Once the Skulltaker killed the chiefs of the other tribes, there would be none to oppose us.’

  ‘And now the Sul will enslave what is left of the tribes,’ Dorgo growled through clenched teeth. ‘They will bring the entire domain under their rule.’

  ‘It is the destiny of those with wisdom to rule,’ Sanya said.

  ‘Not wisdom, witch,’ Dorgo spat. ‘Treachery and trickery! That is the coin the Sul know best!’

  Sanya sighed, shaking her head sadly. ‘I could have used you, Tsavag. Thaulan Scabtongue and the other elders will need to be culled if I would be queen.’

  ‘And you’d make me your king,’ scoffed Dorgo.