by Warhammer
No, he told himself, it was not the stones themselves that were evil; it was the stuff that seeped through them. Here was pure dark magic, the raw stuff of Chaos, a radiation that could twist mind and body in many ways. The spells built into the arch had been designed to contain it, but he could see now that they were ancient, flawed and unravelling, and that it was their weakness that allowed the sinister energy to flow through.
This was why ward spells were placed around this site, and his people were forbidden to enter. The whole area would eventually become tainted and corrupt, a cancer at the heart of Ulthuan, a stain of darkness that would slowly spread across the land. For now, though, he had other worries. If he did not solve the mystery of what was causing the quakes, there would be no need to worry about the corruption of anything but a few deep sea fishes, for his homeland would vanish beneath the cleansing waves. He must seek out the Oracle of the Truthsayers and find out what must be done.
He reached out and touched the surface of one of the stones. It was not smooth – strange angular runes had been carved on it, pictographic glyphs similar to those that elven explorers had brought back from the lost continent of Lustria and the steaming, jungle-girt cities of the lizard folk. Beneath them he could feel the magic flow, strong currents, powerful and deep. From his readings he knew this was not supposed to be the case. The ways were supposed to be dormant, sealed. This amount of power should not be passing through them.
He knew his suspicions were correct now. This place, and the others like it, were the source of the imbalance that threatened Ulthuan. Their activation was draining power from the watchstones, unsettling the precarious balance of the spells that protected the land. They were drawing massive amounts of magical energy out of the system and if they were not stopped, it would only be a matter of time before they caused a catastrophe.
Who could have done this thing, he wondered? It was always possible that it was all a colossal cosmic accident, or that the ancient wards had simply worn away. With a system so complex and ancient and fragile you could not rule such a thing out. Still, his instincts told him that such was not the case. He mistrusted anything to do with the dark power of Chaos. Too many other things were happening in the world for him to be happy with the thought that all of this was coincidence.
In the Old World, the armies of darkness swept across the land like a crimson tide, leaving red ruin in their wake. The seas had become dangerous, as monsters rose from the depths and the black ships of Chaos ravaged all they encountered. In the north, the ancient enemy stirred. War was coming to Ulthuan, just as it had already come to the rest of the world. At times like these, it was foolish to believe in coincidence.
He strode around the last and deepest arch buried deep below the earth, studying the runes, and the underlying pattern of magic that they channelled. He spoke a spell of divination that laid the entire intricate pattern bare. A work of breathtaking genius indeed, he thought, as he looked on the lines of magic. It was as if a million spiders had spent a thousand years spinning a web of near-inconceivable complexity. For all his centuries of study, this was a work that dazzled him.
He did not need to understand how the thing was created, any more than the drinker of a virility potion need understand the alchemical process by which it was made. He needed only to understand what the thing was used for, and that seemed clear enough.
Some of the spells were wards, designed to block passage through them. They were mostly frayed and gone now, no longer potent enough to fulfil their maker’s purpose. It was what they guarded that interested him now. The wards guarded a doorway, an opening into somewhere else. Elf sorcerers had long known that these things existed but the ancients had closed them for their own incomprehensible reasons and the old elves had thought it best to leave them undisturbed. In these later ages they could only be opened at certain times, when the stars were right, when the flaws in the old spells were temporarily revealed. Until now, Teclis reminded himself. Now someone or something had clearly found a way to open them again.
He sat down cross-legged in the centre of the chamber. He considered the ancient network of spells his ancestors had built to keep the island continent stable. It was commonly assumed that they had been the creation of elves, a unique product of elvish genius. Was it possible those ancient mages had simply built on top of the work of the ancients, tapping its power for their own purposes? Now that someone had reactivated these artefacts of the Old Ones, they would draw power out of Ulthuan’s magical wards. Yes, he thought, it was entirely possible that such was the case. It was a road to catastrophe.
There was only one thing to do now, he must find the source of all this and reverse it. He must find a way of passing through the gate, and shutting it down again. Teclis closed his eyes and began to meditate. He knew time was getting short.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I wish this weather would ease up,’ said Felix Jaeger, drawing his faded red Sudenland wool cloak tighter about himself, and leaning closer to the small sputtering fire. It just about lit the whole cave. Felix was glad of it. Another few minutes in the snowstorm would have done for him.
‘It’s winter, and it’s Sylvania, manling, what do you expect? It’s supposed to be as cold as an elvish heart.’
Felix looked over at the Slayer. If the massive dwarf felt any discomfort at the biting chill, he showed no sign of it. Snow clustered in his massive crest of bright orange hair, and covered the tattoos of his shaven skull, but he was still dressed as always only in his thick leather waistcoat, britches, and boots. His massive rune-covered axe lay close at hand. He drew a little further from the fire as if to emphasise his toughness. There were times when Felix hated travelling with dwarfs. He looked over at Max to see how the wizard was taking this display of rugged outdoor toughness, but he was lost in thought, staring into the fire as if he could discern some mystical pattern there.
He had been like this ever since they had discovered Ulrika’s fate back at the keep. He had responded only to Felix’s request to use his magic to light their fire when even the dwarfs’ attempts with flint and tinder had failed. The wizard looked like a man caught in a particularly evil waking dream. Felix could understand that. Just the thought of Ulrika and what had happened to her drove a knife blade of conflicting emotions into his own heart. Whatever had once lay between them, it was over now, her transformation into one of the undead had seen to that. He tried to push the thought away. These were things he did not want to consider here in these dark woods in this ancient haunted land.
‘Snorri was hoping there was a bear in this cave,’ observed Snorri. He did look disappointed as well. An almost comic look of dismay passed over his broad, stupid face. He reached up with one massive paw and stroked the painted nails that had been driven into his skull. Like Gotrek, Snorri was almost as broad as he was tall and he was solid muscle, although in Snorri’s case that included the space between his ears, thought Felix.
‘Why?’ Felix asked. ‘Did you want to skin it and wear it for a cloak?’
‘What would Snorri need a cloak for, young Felix? This is like a summer picnic compared to winter in the Worlds Edge Mountains.’
If I hear that line about summer picnics once more I will hammer some more nails into your head, thought Felix sourly. He had listened to the dwarfs’ cheery comments on the worsening weather with increasing hostility for some days now.
‘You think this is cold, manling?’ said Gotrek. ‘You should have been in the High Passes in the Grim Winter. Now that was cold!’
‘I am sure you are going to tell me about it,’ said Felix.
‘Snorri remembers that,’ said Snorri. ‘Snorri was with Gurni Grimmson’s warband chasing orcs. It was so cold that one night Forgast Gaptooth’s fingers all turned black and dropped into the soup he was stirring. Good soup it was too.’ He laughed as if at a fond memory. ‘So cold that his beard froze solid and broke off in chunks like icicles.’
‘You’re making this up,’ said Felix.
‘No, Snorri isn’t.’
Probably true, thought Felix. Snorri didn’t have the imagination to make anything up.
‘Very proud he was of that beard too; when he came home his wife didn’t recognise him. He was so ashamed he shaved his head. A troll ate him at the end. Course, he choked it on the way down.’
‘Now there was a Slayer,’ said Snorri approvingly. Gotrek nodded. Felix was not surprised. The Slayers lived only to die in combat with the nastiest and largest monsters, to redeem themselves for crimes or sins they had committed. Felix was not sure that he would count choking a troll to death as it ate you a heroic death, but he was not about to mention that now.
‘Wish there had been a bear in this cave,’ said Snorri wistfully. ‘A big one. Maybe two. Good eating in bears.’
‘You would know,’ said Felix.
‘Better than squirrels, or rabbits, or hares,’ said Snorri. ‘Wish there was a bear in this cave.’
‘Some say the caves about here are haunted,’ said Max. It was his first contribution to the conversation in a long time, but it seemed to suit his gloomy mood.
‘What do you mean?’ Felix asked.
‘In Legends of Sylvania, Neumann mentions that the caves around Drakenhof were meant to be haunted. The locals avoided them. Some claim that their roots went all the way down into Hell.’
‘Perhaps you should have mentioned this before Snorri and Gotrek led us into these caves,’ said Felix.
‘It’s only a story, Felix. And considering the alternative was freezing to death, would you really have let it put you off?’
Felix supposed not, but he still felt peeved. ‘You think there is anything to these stories, Max?’
‘Some stories contain hints of truth, Felix.’
‘Is there anything else you forgot to tell us?’
‘They say folk who went deep into the caves went missing, never to be seen again.’
‘Maybe there was bears in them,’ said Snorri. ‘Bears could have eaten them.’ He was glancing at the back of the cave hopefully, as if expecting to see it run deeper. Felix was glad he had already checked it earlier. The cave ran just a few more strides back under the hill.
‘And there were lots of altered ones who sometimes used them for shelter.’
‘The bears?’ said Snorri, confused.
‘The caves,’ said Max.
Felix noticed that Gotrek had stopped listening, and was glancing over his shoulder out into the night. His fingers had tightened on his axe. Max was sitting up and glancing out into the darkness too.
‘What is it?’ Felix asked, already fearing the worst.
‘Something is out there,’ said Gotrek. ‘I smell beasts. There is the taint of Chaos on the wind.’
Snorri cheered up at once. ‘Let’s go get them.’
‘Yes,’ said Felix sarcastically. ‘Let’s not worry about little things like how many of them there are, or whether they might be ready for us.’
‘Course not,’ said Snorri. ‘Why would Snorri do that?’
‘There is magic out there,’ said Max, and his voice sounded sepulchral. ‘Dark magic. The winds of Chaos blow strong this night.’
Felix groaned. Why was it, that just when he thought a situation could not get any worse, it always did? Sitting in a frozen cave by a sputtering fire with two death-seeking dwarfs and a gloomy wizard while a blizzard raged outside had been bad enough. Now, it seemed like the forces of Chaos and dark magic were about to take a hand. Why do the gods hate me so, Felix wondered?
‘And there’s something more,’ said Max. His gaunt face looked strained and there was a feverish light in his eyes.
‘I am no longer capable of being surprised,’ sneered Felix. ‘But do tell, anyway.’
‘I don’t know what it is. There is a power here the like of which I have not encountered before. There is a strange magic at work. I sensed it an hour ago.’
‘Nice of you to mention that too,’ said Felix. The two dwarfs stared at them impatiently.
‘There was no sense in disturbing you while you rested, until I had a clearer idea of what it was. It might have had nothing to do with us.’
‘Apparently it does.’
‘Yes. Why else would the beastmen be coming this way? How could they have found us on a night like tonight?’
‘You are saying they are coming for us?’ said Felix, drawing his sword.
‘They are already here, manling,’ said Gotrek. Felix looked past the Slayer into the blizzard. He could see massive forms that bore only the vaguest resemblance to humans, and mighty black armoured warriors the likeness of which he knew only too well.
‘Did they follow us all the way from Praag?’ Felix asked, curling his lip.
‘If so, then they’ve come a long way to die, manling.’
‘Snorri thinks Snorri should go first,’ said Snorri, suiting actions to words and charging out, brandishing his axe in one hand, and his hammer in the other. Within heartbeats he was amid the beastmen, cleaving through them like a thunderbolt, raising a tempest of snow around his booted feet. The look of glee on his simple, brutal face reminded Felix of children snowball fighting.
Gotrek moved in his wake, moving through the snow as if it was not there, no more slowed by the deep drifts than the beastmen or the Chaos warriors. Behind him, Felix heard Max begin to chant a spell. He knew better than to look around. A lapse of concentration in combat was often fatal, and he did not take his eyes from his opponents.
There were at least a score of beastmen. As always, they were shambling parodies of humanity, with the heads of goats or wolves or oxen. They clutched a variety of crudely made weapons in their mutated hands and talons. Their shields bore the symbol of Chaos, eight arrows radiating out from a huge cat-like eye. A monstrous Chaos warrior led them, quite the biggest Felix had ever seen. He was as huge as an ogre – perhaps he had once been one. He was more than half again as tall as Felix, and Felix was a tall man. Felix guessed the Chaos warrior outweighed him by a factor of four, and that was not counting the rune-encrusted armour that covered his massive form.
There was nothing else for it. He had put off entering the fray quite long enough. It was either fight or be cut down. And though a few minutes ago he might have thought that a mercy compared to the tedium of dwarfish conversation, he found that now his life was at risk, even Snorri’s banalities were not without charm.
Howling like a madman, he charged at the nearest beastman, swinging his dragon-hilted blade as hard as he could. The beastman raised his spear to parry. The sharp blade bit chunks from the shaft. Felix brought his boot up, catching the beastman between the legs. The thing howled in agony, and bent over. Felix’s next strike separated its head from its shoulders.
He did not wait for another beastman to come to him, but lunged forward, hampered by the snow and the slickness of footing beneath it. He had learned his fighting in the arms houses of Altdorf’s sword masters, on floors of hard wood and stone. I wonder why my fencing masters never bothered to tell me that most fights would not take place under those ideal circumstances, he thought bitterly.
Briefly, he wished he had a pistol, but then realised that in the damp and wet he would have been lucky to get one to work. He crossed blades with a massive beastman, a head shorter than he was but twice as wide. One of the creature’s hands ended in a mass of slimy suckered tentacles. When it lashed out at his face, he could see a leech-like mouth in the middle of the palm. Once, the horror of the sight might have frozen him, but he had become used to such things over the past few years. In his time travelling with the Slayer, he had seen far worse things.
The tentacles slapped his face, and he felt something sting. The slime was corrosive, he thought, or worse – poisoned. Loathing and fear made him lash out all the harder. His blade took the creature in the wrist, shearing away its mutated paw. His next blow split the thing from breastbone to groin.
Something bright hissed and sputtered overhead. He knew enough to cover his
eyes. There was a brilliant explosion of golden light. A blast of steaming snow scalded his face. He looked up to see that a crater had been cleared from the snow by Max’s fireball, and many of the beastmen stood shaking their heads and blinking stupidly as they tried to clear their vision. A couple of roasted bodies lay in a pool of steaming meltwater at the centre of the crater.
Now was not the time for fighting honourably, Felix realised, particularly not since by the light of a few sputtering bushes he could see scores more beastmen approaching. He raced forward, lashing out with his blade, killing as many of the blinded beastmen as he could. Snorri and Gotrek moved among them doing the same as they headed towards the oncoming mass. Only the mighty black armoured giant held his ground. Overhead something strange moved, orbiting it. A magical gem of some sort, Felix guessed.
More fireballs arced overhead, bursting among the oncoming mass of beastmen, turning one or two into blazing torches of melting flesh, knocking others to the ground with the force of impact. Knowing it was madness but unable to think of anything else, Felix shouted, ‘Follow me, Snorri. Let’s get them!’
There was method in his madness. Snorri followed him with a will, ignoring the huge Chaos warrior, unable to allow a mere human to get ahead of him in the race to kill the beastmen. So far, so good, Felix thought. At least my back is covered. He knew that if anybody could take care of the huge Chaos warrior, it was Gotrek. The dwarf had yet to lose a fight, and Felix doubted that he intended to start now.
Felix aimed at the wounded and the fallen as he ploughed into the beastmen, picking off the easy targets, lashing out at any that were blinded. Snorri showed no such discrimination. He attacked whatever was closest, whether it was wounded, unwounded, sighted, blind or running away. He laughed as he killed, happy as a child with a new toy.
Max sent more fireballs arcing overhead. Their explosions turned night briefly to day, and snow to steam. Felix saw one beastman fall, his face a mass of blisters, skin falling away from flesh and flesh falling from bone like an overcooked ham-hock. He took a second to orientate himself and then threw himself forward, following Snorri into the deepest mass. Behind him, an enormous clanging sound told him that Gotrek’s axe had met the blade of the huge Chaos warrior.