01 - Empire in Chaos (31 page)

They smelt it before they saw it. It stank of rotting meat, but there was the
nauseating, cloying vapour of Chaos hanging about it. The stench was strong, and
as one they rose from their seats around the bonfire, drawing weapons. Grunwald
felt his stomach clench, and tasted bile upon his tongue.

“Gods, what an unholy stink,” said Karl, spitting, and Grunwald knew that the
power of Chaos was clawing at all of them. He alone amongst them had often faced
the minions of the dark gods and felt this sickening, corrupting essence of
Chaos. “I can feel it… twisting inside me.”

“Speak aloud the prayers of your order,” said Grunwald to the knights. “Your
faith will be your shield.”

As one the knights began reciting a prayer in the language of the men to the
south of the Empire, from where the faith of Myrmidia originated. Grunwald began
speaking a prayer of Sigmar aloud, and Annaliese joined him, their voices
speaking together. Eldanair was clearly distressed, and he tried to rise to his
feet, but sank back to the ground, sweat appearing on his forehead. Only Thorrik
seemed unaffected, standing still and grim, awaiting whatever drew near.

The air seemed to shimmer as if with heat, though they could see coiling
shapes writhing in the corner of their eyes, ghostly figures that lunged at them
with widespread mouths and clawed, long-limbed arms. The knights spun left and
right to face these daemons, but when they looked straight at them there was
nothing there. Disturbing and ethereal, these images seemed unable to harm them,
for they turned to smoke as they reached forward, though strange cackling
screeches and giggles could be heard all around them.

The warriors closed together in a circle around the fire facing outwards,
their eyes darting back and forth at the maddening images surrounding them.

“They are nothing,” said Grunwald, trying not to be distracted by these
apparitions. “Creatures of shadow—they cannot harm us.”

Still, it was impossible to ignore the shifting shapes that writhed, blurring
and mutating just beyond their vision. But they were merely heralds of the beast
that came forward out of the shadows. Indeed even as they watched, more of the
wisp-like spirit-creatures were exhaled from the giant beast, flowing from its
nostrils to encircle the group.

The ground shook as it stepped forth, and it rose up on its hind legs,
standing almost twenty feet tall. It was covered in thick, matted black fur,
though its underbelly was furless, the heavily scarred skin an icy blue colour.
It raised its legs high into the air, each tipped with long scythe-like talons,
and bony spikes and protrusions extended from its forelegs, gleaming and deadly.
Its head may once have been that of a bear, but it had grown and mutated out of
all proportion, spikes of dark bone erupting from its brow like a crown, and
immense curving tusks protruded from its slavering maw.

It opened its jaws, which seemed to have a double set of hinged joints so
that they opened far wider than any natural creature’s, and when it roared the
air shimmered before it, and the warriors staggered, nausea washing over them,
and their vision wavering. Spines jutted from its chin, and as the monster
bellowed, Grunwald could see that blue fire flared from deep within it. Its eyes
too, small and round, were rimmed with this fire, which was blotted out for a
moment as they blinked shut, four eyelids closing over each of the hateful orbs.

It roared again, and several of the knights staggered to their knees,
grabbing at their heads. Grunwald too felt light-headed, as if he had drunk too
much wine or imbibed noxious, mind-altering fumes. The shadow-spirits circling
around the group closed in, as if feeding on this confusion, fear and
disorientation. They began to circle madly, creating sickening patterns with
their ethereal bodies, forming hateful, ruinous symbols, and mesmerising shapes.

“Begone, foul beast of Chaos!” roared Grunwald, breaking the spell abruptly.
He levelled one of his precious wheel-lock pistols at the towering monster, and
the sound of it as it fired cut through the ghostly whispering of the dim
manifestations of Chaos.

The shot impacted with the beast’s cheek, but it ricocheted off its flesh as
if it had struck stone, leaving not a mark or a weal. The creature drew in a
deep, rattling breath, and the spirit creatures were sucked back through the
beast’s nostrils, disappearing in an instant. However, they were not gone—they
could be seen within the beast’s flesh now, pushing against the skin of its
chest and belly, forming mouths and eyes and clawed limbs in its flesh.

It dropped to all fours, and charged at the group, the stone cracking beneath
the impact of its massive clawed paws. Grunwald leapt to the side of the
monstrosity, firing his other pistol as it closed the distance with sickening
swiftness. The shot took it behind its left foreleg, but again he may as well
have been firing on stone, and the lead shot dropped to the ground, flattened,
as if it had been fired against a wall of stone.

One knight was too slow to react, and the beast drove a tusk through his
body, the thick bony spur punching through the metal of his breastplate and out
the other side. He was lifted high into the air, and hot blood splattered into
the roaring fire, making it spit furiously. The beast shook its head, hurling
the dead knight far across the cavern to smash into the wall before sliding to
the ground.

Karl roared a battle cry as he drove his sword at the flank of the beast, and
his knights too surged towards its rear, swords slicing through the air. They
clanged off the beast’s haunches. Redoubling their effort they attacked again,
but the beast seemed impervious to harm.

The beast swung around, tusks knocking two men flying, and another was
swatted to the ground beneath a sweeping foreleg. The monstrous creature reared
up onto its hind legs as it turned on the fallen knight, lifting him towards its
maw. With one savage bite, the warrior was bitten in half as the other knights
fell back from the monster, rising panic on their faces.

Thinking quickly, Grunwald lifted a burning brand from the fire and hurled it
end over end towards the beast. It struck the creature in the small of its back,
and the thick fur caught fire instantly. The stink of burning hair filled the
cavern, and the monster dropped back to all fours, snarling fiercely, thick
rivulets of blood and saliva dripping to the ground. The flames on its back rose
for a moment, but then changed hue from orange to blue, then to purple, and then
they faded altogether.

Thorrik and Annaliese charged at the beast. Thorrik swung with all his
strength, but his blow rebounded. Annaliese smashed her hammer into the
creature’s leg, and it seemed to feel some pain, though it was far from truly
injured. It swung around viciously, talons lashing out. The blow caught Thorrik
in the chest, the span of the beast’s paw reaching from his neck to his groin,
and he was sent flying. He took the brunt of the blow, but Annaliese too was
sent hurtling backwards, striking her head hard against a rocky outcrop, and she
fell limp to the ground.

“Annaliese!” shouted Karl, and he charged back at the beast, and Grunwald
joined him, screaming a prayer to Sigmar. With his mace held in two hands the
witch hunter attacked, and he grunted as put all his weight behind the blow. It
was like striking a castle wall, and he staggered back, the blow jarring all the
way up his arms.

The creature rounded on him, and he hurled a vial of sanctified water into
its face. The glass shattered on impact, showering the contents over one side of
the beast’s face. The flesh blistered and sizzled as it burnt, and he saw one of
the creature’s eyes dissolve in a liquefied mess of tissue.

The beast roared in pain, and staggered, shaking its head. It crushed a
knight underfoot as it stepped backward, and lashed out blindly at another, the
knight barely avoiding the slashing paw.

“Got any more of that stuff?” shouted Karl.

“No,” replied Grunwald. His other vials on his person were shattered from the
fight against the greenskins.

“This is it then,” said Karl, as he stared up at the monstrous beast that was
clearly readying itself for another charge.

“Looks like it,” replied Grunwald.

The beast exhaled, and the ghostly creatures surged around them. One of them
reached for Grunwald but pulled its hand back as if burnt, and it was then that
he realised the pendant hung around his neck was glowing faintly.

He gripped the pendant tightly in his hand, and prepared himself for death.

Thorrik blinked his eyes and pushed himself to his knees. It felt like
several ribs were broken, but he ignored the pain. His axe was gone. He glanced
around and saw the witch hunter hurl the vial into the beast’s face, saw it reel
backwards, and heard the swift exchange between the two humans.

His eyes locked on something propped against the cavern wall, something he
had placed there before the fight against the greenskins outside. An object
wrapped in oilskin.

He flicked his gaze back to the beast, and saw a pair of knights reel back
from it, their weapons useless. One of them died a second later, ripped in two
as it was caught in the massive paws of the Chaos-warped beast. His gaze flicked
back to the ancient heirloom he had carried across the Empire and back, and he
swore as he realised what he needed to do.

He scrambled across the cavern floor towards it, and lifted it in his hands,
discarding his shield. Whispering the forgiveness of the ancestors, he ripped
the oilskin from the shape and held the ancient warrior heirloom
Karagaz
reverently in his hands, awe upon his face.

It was a beautiful, immaculate, rune-inscribed war axe, forged six
generations past by the finest war-smiths of Zhufbar, and inscribed by the
runesmith Beorik Silverfist. It was a double-headed axe, its thick haft
inscribed with runes of power and inlaid with gold and gromril. The axe blades
themselves were forged in the likeness of twin dragonheads, and they gleamed in
the firelight. Never would such a weapon need sharpening, and never would the
axe blades tarnish or chip.

Many were the old tales of beasts of the deep that were immune to all but the
strike of a rune weapon, mighty wyrms of the dark places and dragons of the
treacherous elves.

With a heavy heart he lifted the revered blade, turning it before him, and
his eyes fell on the massive beast of Chaos. The monster dropped to its four
legs and charged at the few remaining standing humans, and Thorrik felt the fire
in his belly become a roaring inferno of rage.

Crying out to Grimnir, Thorrik charged at the beast, swinging the gleaming
rune-axe back over his shoulder as he ran. The runic script up its haft blazed
into light, white hot and eager, and with one mighty blow, Thorrik severed one
of the beast’s back legs. Hot blood sprayed from the wound, and spirit-wraiths
poured from the wound, their emaciated, ghostly faces twisted in pain and fear.
They faded into nothingness as they dissipated into the air, and the monstrous
beast collapsed to the ground, a piercing roar of pain bursting from its throat.

Chanting the war cries of his clan and hold, Thorrik stepped closer to the
thrashing beast, and hacked deep into its neck. Then he stood back away from the
mortally wounded monster, still chanting, and watched as the life slipped from
it.

Blood boiled and spat upon the stone cavern floor, pouring from its wounds as
it continued to thrash madly. Claws ripped up great rents in the stone, and more
spirit shapes poured from the wound at its neck, screaming faintly and
disappearing into the air.

The beast’s flesh rippled as uncontrollable mutation went through it, and
spiked bones burst through the skin over its backbone, twisting and coiling
together. A gaping mouth complete with teeth and a pair of whip-like tongues
opened up on the flank of the dying beast, and one of its forelegs melted to
become a grotesque, bloated flipper that slapped against the stone floor,
splattering bubbling blood. The blue skin on its chest peeled away to expose
ribs and pulsing organs covered in a film of blue fire, and this fire rose up
high as the beast let out a final dying roar, spiderwebs of mutating flesh
spreading across its face.

At last it was silent, and the blue flames died away. All that was left was a
foul lump of rancid smelling meat and fur, a sickening corpse that spoke of the
horrid touch of Chaos.

“Burn it,” said Grunwald, his voice hoarse, and he joined the others in
stacking wood around the foul creature before hurling flaming brands upon it.

With his heart heavy, Thorrik stomped away from the others and began to
meticulously clean the powerful rune-axe, his face grim.

To use this weapon, the heirloom that he had sworn and failed to deliver to
its one and only living rightful owner, was a sacrilege that he would be forced
to atone for. He polished the weapon in silence until, at last satisfied, he
rewrapped it in oiled leathers, binding it tightly with knotted twine. Then he
placed it back against the cave wall, and drew his pipe.

Surrounded by smoke, he sat in silence, brooding and lost in his own dark
thoughts.

As the first rays of dawn pierced the cave mouth, the knights ventured
cautiously outside. The orcs and goblins had gone, leaving behind crude totems
perhaps to honour the beast of the cave. Their dead were left where they had
fallen, and the cawing of carrion birds was loud in the morning’s silence as
they fought over the richest pickings. Many of the knights’ corpses had been
mutilated almost beyond recognition.

Exhausted and bone-tired, Karl ordered his templars to scout the area, and
they found another cave, thankfully free of the sickening stench of Chaos. There
they transferred their dead and their wounded. Those who had perished were laid
to rest at the back of the cave, their hands grasping their swords, and the
wounds of the injured were tended. Then the group rested, falling into a
dreamless, healing sleep, the watch rotated every three hours.