01 - Empire in Chaos (4 page)

Thorrik turned as the axe-man to his right darted forwards, and he deflected
the descending axe blade with his own. Twisting the blade, he knocked the
axe-man off balance and into the path of the outlaw leader who had stepped
forwards swinging his greatsword murderously. The outlaw pulled the blow with
some difficulty, and stopped just short of cleaving his comrade in two.

The dwarf stepped forwards and smashed his axe into the brigand’s knee, and
he fell heavily.

The leader of the outlaws spun, feeling a presence behind him, turning to see
a pistol levelled at his head. He stood frozen for a moment, like a deer caught
in the light of a lantern, his eyes wide and staring. Then the trigger was
squeezed and the man’s head was blown apart in a spray of bone and blood.

There were no more outlaws standing, though several of them were moaning in
pain from their prone positions in the snow.

“I didn’t need your damn help,” growled Thorrik, squinting up at the
shaven-headed man.

“And I didn’t come to your aid,” replied the man, holstering his smoking
pistol. “I have been hunting these men for several days.”

“Rob you, did they?” asked Thorrik. The man nodded his head.

“Stole my horse.”

The dwarf grunted in response.

“Get it back?”

“No,” came the reply. The man moved to one of the wounded men who was moaning
in pain. Without ceremony he slashed the outlaw’s throat with his knife, and
moved on to the next. “These bastards ate it.”

“Ah,” said Thorrik, wiping the blood from his axe head on the tunic of one of
the dead men. “Good eating, horse.”

The man glared at Thorrik, but the dwarf ignored the manling and sat down
heavily, stirring his steaming broth.

He glanced up from his now overcooked supper, scowling, and watched as the
man found the last of the living outlaws. The injured deserter had tried to
crawl away, leaving a bloody trail behind him, and Thorrik watched in silence as
the dark-clad man placed his knee in the small of the outlaw’s back, and pulled
the brigand’s head back. It was grobi-face, and he whimpered in fear. Without
hesitation, his throat was cut.

Leaving the dying outlaw where he lay, Grunwald picked his way back through
the snow and retrieved his heavy crossbow from where he had dropped it before
joining the fight in-close. The dwarf was sitting smoking an ornate,
dragon-headed pipe when he returned.

“May I?” he asked, indicating towards a large stone opposite the log where
Thorrik sat.

The dwarf grunted, which Grunwald took as assent. He sat down heavily, and
began wiping and blowing the snow from the firing mechanism of his heavy
crossbow.

“You fight well,” he said when it became clear that the dwarf was not going
to initiate a conversation.

Again the dwarf grunted.

“You as well,” he said eventually. “For a manling.”

“My name is Udo Grunwald.” He extended a black-gloved hand towards the dwarf,
who gave a long puff on his pipe before he extended his own hand, ensconced
within his heavy gauntlet. To Grunwald, the dwarf’s grip felt like it was
crushing the bones of his hand.

“Thorrik Lokrison, Ironbreaker of the mining Clan Barad of Karaz-a-Karak,
guardian of the Ungdrin.” Grunwald noted that the dwarf had a strong grasp of
Reikspiel, the language of the Empire, though it was heavily accented.

“Karaz-a-Karak…” said Grunwald, forming the strange dwarfen words with some
difficulty. Clearly his pronunciation was inadequate, for Thorrik scowled.

“It is the greatest of all the dwarfen holds, the seat of the High King
himself. In the tongues of men it is known as the Everpeak.”

“Ah,” said Grunwald, recognising the name. “That is far across the Worlds Edge and Black Mountains to
the south-east, is it not?”

“Such are the names known by manlings, aye,” said Thorrik gruffly.

“You are a long way from home, Thorrik.”

“Thank you for reminding me,” said the dwarf sharply He took a long pull on
his pipe, eyes glittering angrily. He sighed heavily. “It has been eight years
since I have seen the great hold.”

Grunwald’s eyebrows rose. “A long time to be away.”

“To your kind, manling. But aye, it has been too long.”

“What has kept you from returning these past eight years?”

“A throng was raised from Karaz-a-Karak at the High King’s order nine years
ago. The warriors of Clan Barad responded to this call, and I was a part of
their muster. For seven years we have been engaged in the north of your Empire,
bolstering your defence against the hordes massing in the north.”

“You have been fighting within the Empire, to protect our border?” asked
Grunwald. His estimation of the dwarf and his kin rose steeply.

“Aye. The High King takes the oath sworn by King Kurgan very seriously.”

“King Kurgan…”

He knew the name, for it was said that the king fought alongside blessed
Sigmar in his battles against the greenskins.

“That was… thousands of years ago.”

“An oath is an oath,” growled Thorrik. “Enough talk.” He retrieved a heavy
metal bowl, spooned out a generous portion of his stew and handed it to
Grunwald, who thanked him with a nod. The dwarf spooned out his own portion, and
began to eat noisily. Grunwald stabbed the pieces of meat on the end of his
knife. The food was heavy and simple, but flavoursome. Thorrik grumbled about it
being overcooked.

“Wasn’t much meat on this goat,” he said into his stew. “Wish it was horse.”
He punctuated this statement with a snort, and Grunwald wondered if he were
making a joke.

After the meal, Thorrik offered Grunwald a spare pipe, but he politely
declined, hoping that was not some breach of dwarfen etiquette. Thorrik merely
shrugged and grunted, and took up his own pipe once more.

Cracking his neck to either side, Grunwald pushed himself to his feet,
shouldering his heavy crossbow.

“I wish you well, Thorrik Lokrison,” he said. “And I thank you for the food.”

The dwarf did not stand, but merely squinted up at him. He grunted what may
have been a farewell, and took another long pull on his dragon-headed pipe.

Thorrik watched as Grunwald disappeared into the darkness. He seemed solid
enough for a manling, and at least he did not talk as much as most of them. They
were usually incessant with their inane chatter—as if they needed to cram too
many words into their short lifetimes. He had long ago given up trying to
understand the ways of the humans, and his eight years in the northern states of
the Empire had only reinforced this.

But an oath was an oath.

He brushed the light dusting of snow off the oiled leather that protected the
precious item he bore from harm.

Aye. An oath was an oath.

Annaliese slammed into the doorframe as she scrabbled frantically backwards.
She tried to push herself to her feet, but fell backwards out into the living
area of the cabin in her haste to escape the horrific creature clawing its way
towards her.

It pulled itself forward upon wasted, skeletal hands. It was still half
wrapped in blankets, and it dragged them along behind it. Still it smiled its
deathly grin, its eyes blazing with icy fire fixed on her.

“Father!” she cried out as she kicked backwards out of the grasp of the
creature as it made to snatch at her leg. “Father, it’s me!”

It spoke then, but the voice was not the one she knew so well, nor did the
creature’s lips move in time with the words that were spoken.

She could not comprehend the garbled torrent of words, and with horror she
realised that it was not a single voice at all—it sounded as though a
multitude of creatures were attempting to speak to her at once, their voices
blurring and overlapping.

“Tzch’aaaarkan gharbol’ankh’ha mesch’antar’mor,” drawled the strongest of the
voices, a sound that made Annaliese’s skin crawl.

Rising to her feet finally, she ran into the small, stone kitchen and slammed
the heavy door behind her. Her terror granted her strength, and she dragged the
heavy wooden counter in front of the door. She backed away and leant up against
the shuttered window, breathing hard.

That
thing
was no longer her father. She prayed to Morr and to Sigmar
that her father’s soul had passed on, that this truly was just his abandoned
flesh and that his soul did not live on in torment within the foul creature. The
idea was horrific, and she wished she had not thought it.

There was the wet sound of rotten wood smashing, and a cold hand grabbed her
around the throat. Splinters of damp wood sprayed in from the window behind her.

Annaliese tried to scream, but found she could not, as the cold strength of
the hand tightened its grip. She grabbed at the arm, her fingernails tearing at
flesh. She felt her fingers go numb against its unearthly cold.

A sibilant whispering came from behind her. It was the same host of voices
that had whispered forth from the throat of the creature, only this was spoken
right into her ear.

“Sth’aaark Tzch’aaaarkan,” it hissed.

She scrabbled around frantically as her vision began to waver, and her hand
closed on a bone handled knife in an instant, she lifted the knife and hacked at
the arm that pinned her to the wall, feeling ice-cold blood begin to flow. The
grip did not relent, and she sawed frantically against the wrist of the
creature. Cold blood washed over her, making the knife so slippery that she
almost lost her grip on it. The blood made the creature’s hand slippery as well,
and with a lurch, Annaliese freed herself from its grasp, pushing away, gasping
for air.

A heavy weight threw itself against the door leading to the living area, and
the wooden counter rocked from the blow. She threw her weight against it, and
turned to stare wide-eyed at the smashed shutters of the window. A heavy arm
swept the remainder of the wood away, and she flinched.

She saw the shape of the monster silhouetted against the pristine white snow
outside. She could see nothing of its features except for its eyes, blue flames
that flickered and burned coldly. It reached forward and ripped the shattered
shutters from their hinges, not noticing the thick splinters of wood that
pierced its flesh.

“Always have a weapon to hand,” her father had always told her. “And never
allow yourself to be cornered—always have an escape route.”

Yet here she was, backed into a corner with nothing more than a carving
knife. She cursed, knowing that on the other side of the wall was her father’s
precious sword, agonisingly out of reach. No matter how poor they had become, he
had never even considered selling the blade, and Annaliese had never broached
the subject. It was the last link he had to his former life as a soldier, and
she knew that he missed those times. But one accident had taken all of that away
from him when the thumb of his right hand, his sword hand, had been severed.
There was no soldiering work for a warrior that could not hold a sword.

Flipping the knife around in her hand so that she held it downwards like a
dagger, Annaliese leapt forward as the deathly creature began to clamber through
the window frame, a ceaseless cacophony of hateful gibberish spilling from its
throat. She slammed the knife into the side of creature’s neck, the blade
sinking to the hilt before ripping it free once again.

What would have been a fatal blow to any man barely slowed its advance.
Reaching a blue-tinged arm further into the kitchen, it pulled itself through
the window, falling with a limp thud upon the stone floor, dark, matted hair
falling over its face.

Still, Annaliese didn’t need to see its face to recognise that this creature
was once Jonas Scriber, the farrier’s apprentice. Its once ruddy,
furnace-reddened face and arms were bereft of colour, and it pushed itself
heavily to its feet, towering over the slight framed teenage girl. Its face,
too, was set in a deathly grin, its broad features daemonically lit by flaming
orbs. Its shirt was ripped open, and it bore several wounds, deep gashes in its
skin that exposed the red muscle beneath. It lurched towards her, as if trying
to embrace her in its massive arms.

She ducked and slashed her knife across its gut, slicing the skin open. She
was knocked to the side as the wooden bench blocking the door was wrenched away
by a powerful push from the other side of the door, and she stumbled towards the
monster that had been Jonas.

One of its heavy arms clubbed her to the ground, the blow numbing her
shoulder and arm.

The multitude of voices seemed to get more excited, and they spoke quickly,
the garbled words spilling from its mouth in a horrid torrent of foul,
insensible words.

Pushing up with all her force, she rammed the knife into the soft flesh
beneath the monster’s chin. The blade punched up through the roof of its mouth,
sliding on into its brain.

It twitched for a second, transfixed, and with a push with her shoulder she
sent the creature sprawling backwards, the gore-covered knife still clasped in
her hand.

She felt another presence behind her and turned blindly, her bloody knife
slashing out, carving an arc towards the creature that was her father. Too late
she realised who it was, and though she tried to pull the blow, the knife bit
deeply. Its head was knocked to the side by the force of the blow, and it
stumbled into the door frame, falling to its knees.

With a cry, Annaliese dropped the knife and knelt by its side. Its head
rolled around to fix on her once more, and she recoiled from its blood-drenched,
smiling visage. It reached for her, but she surged up, sprinting into the
cabin’s living area.

Her gaze settled on her father’s short-bladed sword. She pulled it from its
display hooks in the log-wall, and turned grimly towards the dark shapes moving
towards her, the pale witch-lights of their eyes casting a cold blue tinge
across the room. She ripped the scabbard from the sword, and stood with the
glinting blade held ready before her.