Warhammer [Ignorant Armies] (17 page)

"You have your map. I've been paid. That's it."

The Slann walked up to him, pasted feathers rustling. "But I want you to travel with me. Follow this map; find the ancient treasure."

"Venture into the Wastes, for an idle frog dream?"

Cotza showed no reaction to the insult. He said smoothly, "I offer you riches."

"You offer me death."

The Slann stared into his eyes, white throat working. "I offer you salvation, Erik. A way to face the Wastes... a way to face yourself. Are you afraid of that?"

Anger and disgust boiled in Erik. His fists bunched. The Slann stepped back rapidly.

Erik breathed hard, tried to remain composed. "Cotza," he spat, "I've fought with Slann. You're like no Slann I've ever heard of. Slann are ritualistic. Governed by arcane practices. For a Slann there is no looting; no individual glory. But you - you're greedy. Ambitious. Selfish. Grasping. Devious." Erik barked contemptuous laughter. "Almost human... What are you, Cotza?"

Cotza shook his wide head impatiently. "Must all Slann be alike? Are all humans alike? How little of the world you have seen, Norseman. How little you understand."

Erik studied the quivering Slann for a few more seconds, then turned once more. "Goodbye, Cotza."

"Norseman! I leave Ragnar in six days. Remember my offer..."

Another murky dawn broke over Ragnar. Erik left his lodgings, holding his furs closed against the chill. He walked through frosted streets towards the harbour.

Ragnar was unusually busy. Lights shone already in the Husthing. Carts clattered along the cobbled roads, grease lanterns making arcs of light in the darkness. Mist billowed from the nostrils of horses.

Erik reached the harbour. All along the waterfront metal clanked, wood thumped, men swore. Light moved over a row of ten longboats. Today Cotza was leaving for the north, and he was creating quite a spectacle.

Erik walked along the rough harbour wall and stood over a longboat and its crew, relishing the familiar sight of their preparations for departure. The boat was at least fifty paces long. It rode high in the brisk waves; as it pitched Erik could see water streaming off the boat's overlapping timbers. Strands of seaweed clung to iron bolts with heads as big as his fist.

A forest of oars now sprouted from the boat's sides; shouting sailors dipped them into the grey water. The light caught the boat's dragon prow. The wooden beast stared into the sea.

A team of mighty warhorses, towering over their human handlers, was led onto one boat. The handlers' overseer was a bluff, plump Norseman. He cursed his men continually.

He turned at Erik's approach.

"Bjorn..."

The big Norseman grinned and clapped Erik's shoulder. "Ah, my mysterious friend! You are joining our crazy voyage with the frog man?"

"I... don't know yet," Erik admitted. "But if I do I'll be glad you're there."

Bjorn shook his hand, then returned to his work.

The sky brightened and the square sails of the boats were furled and unfurled. The sails all bore a brilliant sun-symbol.

"The emblem of the Emperor Mazdamundi," a voice hissed behind Erik. "The ruler of the sun. Shining over these frozen barbarians."

Erik turned. Cotza stood there in a fresh cloak of purple; he tossed back the hood to reveal a wide grin. Jets around his neck sprayed mist into his face.

"Why the horses?"

"You will see when we land on the coast of the Wastes." The Slann pulled his hood over his head and walked along the harbour wall. Then he stopped, turned his face to Erik, waiting.

Erik glanced towards Ragnar, his mind a whirl. Not one person on all this stretch of coast, he reflected, would wonder where he was this morning. None would miss him -

"Chaos," Cotza whispered. "It's in your blood, Erik. Face it, man. You have no choice."

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Erik walked after him.

The convoy of longboats pushed cautiously through the ice floes. The fur-clad Norse sailors respectfully mucked out the warhorses, shifted and lashed the tons of cargo. They laughed, joshed and wrestled each other; for the first few days Bjorn's tongue was rarely idle.

But as they moved further north the men grew subdued. A sheet of darkness fluttered like a flag across the northern sky, even at noon. It was a constant reminder of their destination, and many a blond head turned to that mysterious gloom.

They made landfall on a beach crisp with ice. Erik clambered into the water with the rest. The cold stabbed through the wool and fur that swathed his legs. Swearing, the Norsemen hauled their longboats high up the beach. The warhorses clattered through the wavelets, snorting, utterly fearless.

The coast was a sheet of barren rock. The wall of darkness loomed over the beach, dwarfing the tiny Norse camp.

Using their war axes the Norse broke up one of the longboats and built a series of fires. The flames cast little puddles of light into the hostile darkness. That first night Cotza let them break open casks of mead, and the foreign shore rang with songs of the Norse warrior gods. But, despite the drink, few slept easy.

The next morning Cotza began to reveal his plan. First sweating workers carried bricks from the longboats and began to construct a crude smelting oven. Then, some yards away, another longboat was taken apart and the fat timbers of its keel laid out in a rectangle about twenty paces long. Erik worked with the rest as a framework twice as tall as a man was erected over the rectangle.

Cotza stalked about the site, his flat face poking out from under a woollen cap. His jaw was wreathed in steam. He pointed and hissed instructions to the cursing Norsemen.

After some hours he let the men take a break and began patrolling around the hut-like construction, poking and pulling at joints. At last he seemed satisfied and stood back.

Erik walked up to him. "You are constructing an elegant little house, Slann. What do you intend to do? Grow flowers on the ice?"

The Slann spread his mouth wide in his parody of a grin. "The best is to come, my friend. You are a fighting man. There is a battle formation called the 'turtle'. Do you know of it?"

Memories returned to Erik. Of a dozen men huddled under a carapace of upheld shields, cutting their way into an enemy horde -

"Yes. I know the turtle."

"Well, then. This hut is to be our turtle. We will ride inside its shell into the mouth of darkness... all the way to the star treasure. Now, the armour!" He clapped his gloved hands.

Grumbling, the Norsemen got to their feet and began hauling metal plates from the longboats.

Cotza brought a sample of the armour to Erik. It was a helmet. The Norseman turned it over in his hands. It had a lustre like old silver.

"Mithril armour," hissed Cotza.

"I know what it is. I've seen it. Never held a piece before. Too damn expensive."

Cotza hauled his coat higher around his neck. "Mined by the Dwarfs of the smith-city of Zhufbar. Too hard to work - except by magical means."

Erik handed back the helmet. "So they say."

"And shot through with charms against the Powers of Darkness."

"And on this legend you're going to gamble our lives?"

Cotza did not reply. Steam puffed from his slit nostrils. Erik turned. The pile of unloaded armour had grown taller than a man. "I'll say one thing, Slann. You're not short of resources."

"As you say, Erik, I am gambling my life. I have no interest in economy."

Now Cotza's design became clear. Under the Slann's direction the Norsemen began to plate the armour over the structure. The mithril was too hard to work or pierce, so they used huge iron clips to staple it to the wood.

The smiths carried ladles of iron from their oven. They poured the iron like toffee into the gaps between the armour plates. Metal dripped to the ground; snow flashed to steam.

Snow was packed over the cooling joints. Then the smiths beat at the hardening metal with massive hammers. Walls of metal began to build up, shining softly in the low polar sunlight. Even the floor of the turtle was lined with armour.

The labour continued for a day and a night.

Erik touched one twinkling wall. The armour had retained its curved forms - here he could recognize a chest plate, there a broad helmet pushing out of the surface. It gave the plating a crusted look oddly reminiscent of a real turtle shell.

He stood there, pulling at his moustache. Then he stepped inside the turtle and began kicking at the mithril plates. Iron seals cracked and plates tumbled to the snow. The Norsemen stood back and watched, bemused. Cotza came stamping into the turtle. "Norseman! What in the name of the Under-Light do you think you're doing?"

Planting, Erik faced the Slann. "I'm saving your life, frog."

"By kicking apart my turtle?"

Erik bent and picked up a back-plate. A rough rim of iron clung to it. "Mithril armour might stop the assaults of the Powers. But this pig-iron certainly won't." Cotza stared at him, his throat working. "Then what do you suggest?" he rasped.

"Clinker-build."

"What?"

"Overlap the mithril armour. As we overlap the planks that make up a longboat's hull. Caulk it with iron, as we caulk our boats with animal hair. Then you will be surrounded by an unbroken shell of mithril."

For long seconds Cotza's breath sawed through his nostrils. Then he turned and stamped out of the turtle. He summoned Bjorn. "Do as he says."

When all but one wall of the turtle had been finished, the warhorses were led in. They were divided into two teams of six and were made to stand on twin belts of thick leather. The belts were crusted with strips of mithril, and they passed in continuous loops over heavy wooden rollers. The horses, stamping and neighing, were tethered into place by a web of leather harnessing.

Erik stared at this arrangement and scratched his head. "I admit to being baffled, Slann. How can the horses draw the turtle if they themselves are carried within it?"

Cotza laughed and patted the nose of one of the huge animals. "You will see, my friend."

The warhorse peered at him with contempt, and after a few moments the Slann shied away.

Now provisions were lugged into the turtle: lamp grease, furs, tight bales of hay, Cotza's trunk, food and skins of water. Erik noticed the Slann's heavy bath being dragged from the boats.

The irreverent Norsemen fixed a longboat's dragon head to the box-like turtle. Its wooden eyes peered into the mists of the Wastes.

At last Erik took his place with the Slann inside the machine. The last plates were stapled into place. The molten iron caulking filled the turtle with smoke. Erik coughed until Cotza produced a ring of gold about a foot across, which he fixed to an overhead beam. A cool breeze played out of the ring and over Erik's face. He watched wisps of smoke disappear out of the ring.

"Just a little gimmick," Cotza murmured.

Now the arctic daylight was shut out. Cotza and Erik lit grease lamps and suspended them around the cabin. In the lamps' yellow light the turtle seemed an absurdly cosy place, the hulking horses reduced to fireside pets.

Three heavy bangs on the shell. Bjorn, Erik realized, signalling that all was finished.

Cotza opened his mouth wide. "It begins! Now, Erik. The horses!"

He handed a bemused Erik a heavy crop, and together they began to work the horses. The beasts neighed and dipped their heads, but at last their huge hooves began to move, pulling at the leather belts. With a sudden jolt the turtle lurched forward.

"You see it now!" Cotza cried. "The horses drag the belts -

and the belts drag the turtle, inch by inch to our prize - "

Erik heard a cheer from the watching Norsemen. He made out Bjorn's muffled voice. "I will wait for you here, my mysterious friend. Bring me back a Slaanesh love daemon!" There was ribald laughter.

Excitement growing in him, Erik urged the horses harder. With the sunlight glittering from its enchanted shell the turtle began to crawl northwards.

The warhorses worked tirelessly, apparently not needing sleep. As he fed them Erik patted their great nuzzles and talked to them seriously.

Cotza took a disc from his trunk. He showed it to Erik. It was polished and black, about the size of a dinner plate. The disc was obsidian. It bore a dim representation of a landscape, of piles of grey ice. The picture looked to Erik like an etching, a drawn thing of lines and shading. Then Cotza wiped off the picture with his sleeve and returned the disc to Erik, grinning.

The picture slowly redrew itself. It reminded Erik of watching frost gather on glass. But the view it showed was slightly changed, as if drawn from a different place.

"An obsidian mirror," the Slann explained. "As used by the great emperor Mazdamundi, to study his empire as if through the eyes of a flying bird. It will serve as a window in the wall of our turtle."

Erik peered into the murky plate. Silently he promised himself that if it ever looked as if they were about to drive into a crevasse he'd kick a hole in the damn wall and see for himself.

Cotza spread his map over the turtle's floor and squatted over it, legs folded under him. He pored over the map, comparing details with what he saw in his disc. He used his mirror and map to pick a way through the jumbled landscape. If he wanted to steer the turtle he would goad one team of horses harder; the turtle would swing about with a teeth-jangling scrape.

The polar cold lanced through the thin metal of the turtle's shell. Erik hung furs over the inside surface of the shell; the furs trapped the horses' body heat and the temperature became tolerable.

Cotza had Erik set up his metal bath and light a small fire below it. Steam filled the turtle. The horses snorted complainingly and tossed their heads; to Erik's disgust, Cotza discarded his suit of tubes and stripped to his yellow-grey skin. He squatted happily in the water, his nostrils poking above the surface.

Erik spent long hours working at his muscles, keeping them hard and fast, or resting with his back to the wall of mithril armour. When he slept he wore his weapons.

As they headed further north the sun disappeared from the sky. When the obsidian plate was turned towards the Wastes the sky turned into a thing of whirls and jagged lines.