Daemon Gates Trilogy (24 page)

The transformed beastlord snarled at the Chaos cham­pion, his face twisted in rage, his voice a deep rumble that sent shivers through Alaric. 'Now I regain leadership of my herd!'

'You have stolen that gauntlet and its power from me,' Deathmaul bellowed in reply. 'For that you will suffer a thousand deaths, and this will be the first.'

The massive Chaos champion leapt forward, his axe spinning in a great arc. Bloodgore caught it just below the twin blades, his gauntleted fingers clamping down around the handle and pulling the weapon from the surprised Deathmaul's grasp.

'It is you who shall die,' the beastlord shouted, tossing the weapon aside and slamming his other hand into his foe's helm.

Still bound to the altar, all Alaric could do was watch helplessly as the two titans collided, each one burning with the power of Chaos, each one determined to destroy the other. All he could do was watch, and hope they did not crush him between them.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

'Onward, men! Sigmar
will guide us to victory!'

Wilcreitz brandished his sword and pistol, and led the eight mercenaries he'd chosen across the last few feet to the ruins. An elf jumped out of the smoke, long slender blade already in motion, and Wilcreitz shot the creature in the head, kicking its corpse to one side and continu­ing on. He felt no remorse; elves were almost as unnatural as beastmen, and just as dangerous to right- thinking men.

They were not his main concern, however. Kleiber and the remaining mercenaries would handle the rest of the battle. His task was to locate and retrieve the stolen black- powder weapons.

'How will we find them in all this?' Jarl asked. The burly mercenary carried a large axe and swung it from side to side as they ran, sweeping beastmen aside like blades of grass. 'Do we have an idea where the monsters might have hidden them?'

'None/ Wilcreitz admitted, skewering a beastman who leapt at him, jaws wide to bite and claws poised to tear. He used the butt of his pistol to shove the dead creature back off his blade, paused to reload, and continued on, 'But Sig­mar will grant us a sign.'

He studied the wide path or road they were on. Stone buildings, or what was left of them, lined both sides; many had no roof, and their walls were crumbling, but here and there a structure seemed to be intact.

They will keep the weapons in one of those,' the short witch hunter announced, indicating the first whole building along their path. They are too valuable to leave exposed to the elements. Search each undamaged building we find.' He shot another beastman, found himself up against an elf and a beastman locked together, and stabbed them both, his blade piercing both chests with a single powerful thrust.

His mercenaries nodded and spread out, checking the buildings. Pieter died when he stuck his head in the sec­ond intact doorway, shrieking and pulling back to reveal that his face and forehead were gone. A beastman followed him out onto the path, its monstrous jaws dripping with fresh blood, bits of Pieter's flesh still clinging to its long sharp teeth. Wilcreitz stepped up, placed his pistol against the creature's left eye and pulled the trigger. The blast sent the beastman reeling backward, and it slammed into the wall behind it, and then slid down to lay in a crumpled heap with the others in the street.

A second mercenary, Ralf, died a moment later, an arrow in his throat. It had come from an elf bow, and the same elf also shot the beastman next to Rolf, before disappear­ing around a corner without a word.

'Sir.' Heimlich was tugging at a door several buildings away. 'This one's locked!'

Ah, excellent, Wilcreitz thought. The only thing these sorry creatures might possess worth locking up would be the blackpowder weapons.

'Move aside' he told Heimlich, raising his loaded pistol. He set the muzzle tip into the spot where the door and the doorframe met, right about where he would put a bar or a lock upon a door. Then he pulled the trigger.

The report was almost deafening. It echoed all along the strange street, reverberating from all the old stone build­ings. Wilcreitz pushed on the door and it swung open easily. Peering in, he saw barrels, casks, chests, and several long bundles wrapped in heavy blankets.

'Sigmar be praised/ he said, stepping into the building quickly. 'We have found them.' He pulled one of the rifles from the bundle and tossed it to Heimlich. Another went to Jarl, and then one to Otto, and so on, followed by pow­der and ammunition, until all of them were armed with blackpowder weapons as well as their own weapons of choice.

'What shall we do now?' one of the mercenaries asked then. "We have the weapons, should we bring them back to camp?'

Wilcreitz was still looking around inside the small build­ing, and especially towards the boxes and crates. 'We cannot carry those from here, but we cannot leave them to the beastmen, either.' He glanced up at Jarl and the others, and grinned. 'I believe Sigmar has shown me the way.' He stepped back into the building, leaving his men to defend it and him, but emerged a minute later. 'There, I am ready' was all the explanation he gave. 'Now let us find our fel­lows and see how they fare.' He raised his new rifle to his cheek and shot down a beastman leaping across rooftops to reach them. 'I believe' Wilcreitz told the others, 'that we will be able to lend a hand.'

Dietz and Lankdorf
had fought their way into the ruins, and were battling their way through the hordes of beast­men gathered there. Kleiber and his men were beside and around them, and the shattered stone buildings resounded

with the clash of metal on metal, the thud of wood and stone on metal and bone, and the meaty thunk and wet hiss of weapons striking home.

There was still no sign of Alaric.

'He's got to be here somewhere,' Dietz muttered. He took a blow on one arm from a sturdy club, the impact numb­ing him from shoulder to wrist, and dropped his mace. He still had the knife in the other hand, though, so he stabbed that into his opponent's eye, and then reached down and reclaimed his mace, in time to straighten and pluck the knife free as the dead beastman toppled.

'He'll turn up,' Lankdorf assured him, firing a crossbow bolt into a beastman a short distance away, and then club­bing another with the weapon butt. 'Keep going!'

Dietz nodded. There was no point in turning around, or in splitting off to search the rest of the buildings for Alaric. If he wasn't in the battle, he would be safe until it was over, safer than they were, anyway. Right now, he needed all his concentration just to stay alive.

They rounded a corner, and saw a vast central courtyard beyond the next building. Several figures milled about near the centre, including two that seemed locked in bat- de. Behind and between them, tied across some sort of broken table or sculpture, was a man with fair hair and once-fine clothes.

'Alaric!' Dietz knew his friend couldn't hear him, but that didn't stop him from shouting. At least it got Lankdorfs attention, and the bounty hunter followed his gaze.

'We know where he is, at least,' Lankdorf pointed out. 'We just have to get over there and cut him loose.'

That proved easier said than done, however. A tall, dark man stood near Alaric and the two combatants, and as Dietz reached the edge of the square the man gestured towards them. His mouth moved and Dietz felt a chill, even though he couldn't hear the words. The air before

him seemed to thicken somehow, shimmering like oil on water, and Dietz found he could not go any farther. It was like trying to walk through stagnant water.

'Dark magic,' Lankdorf spat, also stuck. Then the tracker turned his head. 'Herr Kleiber,' he called, 'they have fouled the very air!'

The witch hunter was beside them in a second. He frowned and put a hand forward, testing the disturbance. 'Indeed they have, Herr Lankdorf' Kleiber replied gravely, 'but such taint will not stand in our way.' Holding his sword before him, Kleiber uttered a short prayer. 'Oh holy Sigmar, let your divine light shine through my blade and part this evil, that we might rid this land of its foul cre­ators!'

It was hard to tell in the bright daylight, but Dietz thought the witch hunter's blade did indeed begin to glow, albeit faintly. There was no mistaking the effect, however. Kleiber swung his sword before him in a crisp downward arc, and the shimmering air parted like a curtain. He charged through, and Dietz and Lankdorf were right behind him.

As they closed the distance, Dietz got a better look at the two figures battling near Alaric, and almost skidded to a halt. One was a massive warrior, with armour that looked as if it was carved from night and shaped from blood, and torn from a vein of gold. Every inch of the heavy plate was sharp or hooked, or both. The other was a beastman, the largest Dietz had ever seen, with huge curling horns from his forehead, matted fur everywhere, and bone spikes pro­truding from his shoulders, chest, back, and arms. The creature also wore a rune-carved object covering one hand, a relic that Dietz knew he would never forget: the gauntlet from the liche king's tomb.

'Is that-?' Lankdorf started to ask, staring at the creature's arm.

'Yes.'

'Myrmidia's spear,' the bounty hunter whispered in reply. This just gets worse and worse.'

Dietz nodded, then shook himself. 'Come on.'

The two figures had stepped away from Alaric, the beast­man smashing his gauntleted hand into the warrior's armoured chest and denting the heavy plate, the warrior responding by slamming his own fist into the creature's throat and tearing at it with the spikes along his armour. Dietz took the opportunity to skirt them and kneel beside Alaric, who seemed dazed, but happy to see them.

'It was the only way,' Alaric was muttering as Dietz cut the ropes and helped him slip down from what he now realised was a shattered fountain. 'Sigmar forgive me, it was the only way.'

'I'm sure he will,' Dietz said sharply, 'but only if we get out of here alive.'

'Yes.' Lankdorf handed Alaric a crossbow he must have liberated from one of the beastmen, and Alaric accepted it absently. There was nothing distracted about the way he loaded a bolt and shot down a beastman loping towards them, however.

The rest of the beastmen had entered the square, and the battle raged all around them. 'What happened to the elves?' Alaric asked, shooting another foe, but only catch­ing it in the shoulder. His rapier was missing, and Dietz assumed the beastmen had taken it at some point.

'No idea,' Lankdorf replied, shooting a charging beast­man in the face, and then smashing another with the crossbow's heavy wooden stock. 'Don't much care, either.'

'You'd better care,' Alaric replied sharply, firing his cross­bow at a beastman some way away, and taking the ugly brute in the head. There were others closer in, and Dietz wasn't sure why his friend had targeted that one, until Alaric ducked another's rush, sprinted over to the dead beastman, and lifted something from the body. 'Got it!' he shouted as he returned. He had his rapier in his hand.

Dietz shook his head, using his mace to block another beastman's attack and cave in its skull on the return stroke. This is as bad as Vitrolle' he muttered.

'Not quite,' Alaric corrected, skewering a beastman through the eye, and then swiftly pulling back so he could block another of the creatures from gutting him with a long jagged blade. 'There we had four different armies, and none of them particularly liked us;' he reminded him. 'Here it's just beastmen versus humans, nice and neat, unless the elves show, in which case it could get ugly. That's why you should care.'

Dietz considered that. 'Fair enough,' he agreed after a second, 'but I-' He forgot what he had been about to say, however, as a large figure suddenly reared up behind them, its shadow enveloping all three of them in sudden dark­ness. 'Move!'

The massive armoured figure and the towering beastman were grappling, neither able to overwhelm the other, and in their fury they trampled across the courtyard right by where Dietz, Alaric and Lankdorf were standing. The three of them darted to the side, narrowly avoiding being stepped on, but the two titans barely noticed.

'I shall carve your flesh from your bones, and offer up your soul to the Blood God, who will drink it as if it were fine wine!' the armoured figure growled. His adversary did not dignify the threat with any reply beyond a savage snarl.

'Who is that, and how do we stop him?' Dietz asked Alaric as they stepped further away from the two combat­ants, but apparently the armoured figure heard him.

'I am Deathmaul, the chosen champion of the Blood God and his servant,' the warrior snarled, head swivelling to glare at Dietz through the slits in his horned helm. He drew himself up to his full height and glowered down at them. 'I have dedicated slaughters to his name since the Great War, and I will continue to do so long after your

rotted corpses have fallen to dust, and your souls have become but a memory in my master's belly!'

Dietz heard Alaric gasp, but was too busy staying beyond both figures' reach to see what had troubled his friend. 'It's you,' he heard Alaric say slowly. 'I saw you!'

'Yes, and I shall be the last sight you see,' Deathmaul snarled, scowling at them, before returning his attention to the beastman still pounding on him. 'You disrupted the ritual, but I shall tear out your eyes and swallow them whole, along with your still-beating heart. Perhaps my master will smile upon such a sacrifice.'

Ritual? Sacrifice? Dietz didn't have time to figure out what the Chaos champion was talking about. A pack of beastmen neared them, and he grabbed Alaric by the arm and tugged him out of the way just in time. His friend had stood frozen, still staring at Deathmaul, and the first beast- man's axe just missed cleaving him in two. Dietz slammed his mace into the beastman's head, sending the creature to the ground with a loud crack, then hurled his knife at another and took it in the throat. Glouste, disturbed by all the commotion, stuck her head out of his jacket, took one look at the massive armoured figure before them, and dis­appeared back inside, whimpering. Dietz could hardly blame her.