Warbeast, p.15
Warbeast, page 15
The way was impassable but for the remains of a duardin road that led down to the ruins Arkas had seen before meeting Katiya. Made of seemingly imperishable stone, the dark grey ribbon ran alongside the Black River, sometimes crossing over it on steep arches, in other places heaping up on thick piles to run across the surface of the cliffs and the clifftops themselves. The river itself was not in full flood, for when it was even the road was barred. Had it been the short spring, the host of the cursed ones would have been forced across the snow fields and exposed to the bitter winds and blizzards, not to mention the hidden chasms and ambushes of the Ursungorans. They had learnt to tread warily across the Bear’s Pelt, and so they approached through the Bear’s Teeth, sure of the ground beneath their feet and confident in their numbers.
The Bear’s Teeth had been, in Arkas’ mortal time, a pair of high rock pillars that flanked the river at its narrowest point – black columns each nearly a quarter of a mile high. Making his way towards them, Arkas saw that the landscape had changed, as Katiya had warned. The river now spread into a deep pool half a mile across, and more rock pinnacles speared from the black depths at its edge, curving towards each other to form a boundary of immense rock fangs, leaving the original Bear’s Teeth as monstrous canines.
The lake was not impassable though, for a maze of boulders and walkways stood proud of the water, slick but broad enough for the Stormcasts to use them as stepping stones and bridges if needed.
‘They were not here before,’ gasped Ajfor, pointing to the wetted boulders. He looked in amazement at Arkas. ‘The lands form to your command, Uniter!’
Even as he watched, Arkas saw another rock push forth in a welter of bubbles, capping the end of a bridge-like spur. Rocky steps led down from the cliff-like banks to the waters.
‘So it seems,’ he grunted, unsure of this revelation. Ursungorod had always been erratic, but this behaviour reminded him of the touch of Chaos. Could he trust the land enough to cross the lake?
From the clifftops, Arkas could see further down the river. As he had suspected, the arithmetic of crows and hawks left something to be desired – the Chaos army numbered several thousands, but no more than ten thousand. Even so, it was a formidable sight, a snake of black and red and leather-brown, of silver and bronze mail that snaked for some distance along the canyon below.
Pennants stitched with vile symbols fluttered above the host, alongside wooden placards burnt with runes or daubed in blood with symbols of Chaos and the Pestilens. The tramp of their feet was louder even than the roaring of the Black River, echoed and amplified by the defile walls. Harsh laughter, the baying of mutant hounds and monstrous bellows of lumbering, blood-coloured khorgoraths added to the din.
‘So many,’ whispered Ajfor, his hand shielding his eyes against the low sun. He crouched behind a pillar of rock jutting from the cliff edge, a little way ahead of Arkas who stood in the column’s heavy shadow. ‘They usually fight each other, raid and steal from their camps. They blood and burn each other in sacrifice! Why have they become allies?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Arkas. ‘I don’t know what the skaven have offered them, or what threats demanded this loyalty.’
It was a lie. The Warbeast knew exactly what had finally brought the tribes together, for it was the same thing he had exploited to become the Uniter. Fear. The skaven perhaps had instigated the union, and fuelled it with promises and payments, but it was fear that welded it together. The Stormcasts and news of their victories had moved swiftly through the mountains, doubtless made all the speedier by verminous messengers. One by one, the tribes of Chaos could be crushed, but together...
As Arka Bear-clad, he had sent the same message to free men and women, warning of the danger of the skaven in the deeps. The rewards for alliance coupled with the dangers of isolation meant that when a few clans had joined, the rest saw more benefit in friendship than enmity.
The tribes of Chaos were afraid of the Stormcasts, and had been promised the City of Ice. Their rivalries and hostility put to one side for a time, now was an opportunity to take that which they had desired for an age – to rid themselves of the thorn that had worried them for so many generations. Slay the Stormcasts and sweep into the City of Ice to kill the free people. And the skaven could happily trust that once their foes had been destroyed, the tribes would quickly fall back to old ways, fighting each other over the spoils.
‘See how they still march as tribes and warbands?’ he said to Ajfor. He could see where the different factions kept to themselves, each a distinct section of the whole, fault lines that could be exploited. ‘They are uncoordinated, and will fight piecemeal. They have no commander, just competing warlords. Some will try to let the others take the brunt of the fighting, some will be eager to earn themselves glory in the eyes of the Dark Gods.’
‘That does not lessen their number, Uniter,’ said Ajfor. ‘There are still many to kill.’
Arkas took a deep breath, still eyeing the approaching army. He let free some of the celestial energy inside his immortal body, his warhammer and runeblade flaring in his fists. He looked at Ajfor and smiled, though the Ursungoran could not see it.
‘Not too many.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
The crackle of thirteen vast firepits and the smoke from their flames filled the immense cavern of the undercity. The fires fizzed and popped with multicoloured light as wood, hide and warp-saturated flesh burned.
By the dim light of the fires, the huge structure of the Great Shrine loomed over the proceedings. The hammer of the great gong was pulled back, ready to strike and pronounce the beginning of the festivities. From every rickety balcony and pole hung banners of human skin and slave hide, decorated with the symbol of the Withered Canker, the thrice-slashed claw mark of Felk himself.
A hundred slaves laboured at the enormous turnspits erected over the pits, roasting the flesh of the diseased captives. Limbs and ribcages were pierced on the raw wooden stakes, while in mighty cauldrons tended by a further army of ragged slaves, organs and fat bubbled away, stirred by Felk’s watchful plague priests.
A barricade had been erected around the new enclosure, piled from brick and stone taken from the excavation of the realmgate, and supplemented with mouldy planks and boxes, tattered sacks stuffed with sand and gravel, and sheets of crudely flattened brass and bronze. Skarth and his spitevermin patrolled the perimeter, hissing and snapping at any that approached, hurling stones and darts at those that did not heed those warnings.
The floor of the cavern was layered with deep filth from many years of occupation. Through the accreted effluent of the undercity, trenches had been dug, waist-high to the slaves that had carved them from hardened excreta and filth. The trenches were arranged in an angled circle, with branches and offshoots running off at strange angles – the rune of the Great Horned Rat, the name of the Great Witherer, given shape.
The bottom of the trenches had been lined with the bodies of those that had dug them, the corpses so fresh that the blood was still drying in the wounds from the spitevermins’ halberds. From the banks of the trenches, plague monks poured out libations from cracked pottery urns and amphorae. The line of skaven passed dented golden goblets, stained porcelain vases, tin cups, glazed pots, silvered jugs and crystal pitchers all the way back from the skewed gates of the Great Shrine. Filled from the festering pits beneath the shrine, every receptacle brimmed with noxious fluid gathered over many years, faintly glowing with power from the warp deposits at the Great Shrine’s heart.
The plague monks breathed deep of the fumes that emanated from the frothing brew of corruption. Their tails twitched with excitement, eyes saucer-like with narcotic delirium, chattering and squeaking without words as they laboured to fill the trenches.
Felk prowled at the centre of it all, alternating between triumphant hand-rubbing and nervous twitches as his thoughts and moods shifted from his excitement about the feast to his concerns over the metal giants.
A shape ghosted out of the fire-shadows and resolved into Thriss, a splintered human thighbone in his claws. There were scratches on the bone, written in a code unknown to the gutter runner. Felk could smell rotting leaves and sensed the dissipating aura of Ghryan, the Realm of Life. He took the bone and quickly read the inscription. It was a simple statement explaining that it was not known where in the Realm of Life Felk’s portal would open, but assuring him that his agents would be prepared when it happened.
‘And other thing? The skull-skull?’ Felk demanded, beckoning with impatient claws. ‘Have it, yes-yes?’
From beneath the folds of his cloak, Thriss produced a skull, yellowed and much cracked. A prominent break pierced one temple. Felk could smell the dried blood ingrained in the bone. The holes had been stoppered with fatty-smelling wax. The skull was slender in the jaw, high in the cheeks, with a pronounced forehead and shallow brow. The head of an aelf. Not just any head. It had been taken from its owner by none other than Felk’s master, the verminlord Skixakoth.
Felk shook the artefact and was satisfied by the dull rattle of something within.
‘It is still inside, yes-yes? The Tooth of Skixakoth?’
‘Yes-yes,’ snapped the gutter runner. ‘As promised. Clan Darkclaw never fails.’
Felk cocked an eye at this ludicrous claim, but chose not to list the numerous times both Thriss and his Eshin companions had been total failures. The Poxmaster was too excited by his new acquisition.
‘Life-life and death-death,’ he crowed, stroking a claw across the top of the skull. He sniffed, taking in the heady scent of depraved magic, the raw Chaos of the verminlord fang still trapped in the skull. ‘Much magic! Power of Great Witherer itself! Yes-yes, glorious feast tonight.’
‘What is it for?’ asked Thriss, eyeing the skull with a dubious look. ‘What does it do-do?’
‘Is talisman,’ said Felk, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. He clutched the skull to his ear as if listening. ‘Is key to the gnaw-ways. Is symbol of Skixakoth. Is many things. Is greatest channel, opening, window to highest and lowest places.’
‘Channel where?’ Thriss’ eyes darted in all directions as though he expected some portal to open immediately. Felk hissed with irritation.
‘To burrows of the gods, to Great Horned Rat!’ he spat. ‘When dismal feast is done, we speak to Great Witherer and with blessing take all Whiteworld Above.’
‘What of metal giants? Humans not stop them.’
‘No-no, but metal giants come too late. Trap set.’ Felk lifted the skull in triumph and then, realising all of the plague monks could see it, snatched it back and hid it in a ragged fold of his robe. ‘Great Horned Rat will destroy metal giants. Felk will rule all Whiteworld Above. Open the gate, we will, and Withered Canker will destroy sylvaneth. All bow to Felk’s power!’
Thriss muttered something.
‘What say?’ demanded Felk. ‘Say-say again!’
‘Praise mighty Poxmaster Felk,’ Thriss intoned flatly. ‘Great leader of Withered Canker.’
Felk eyed the Eshin agent for a time, until thoughts of the dismal feast distracted him back to a more pleasing topic. The plague monks had filled the ditches, tossing the broken pots and jugs into the noisome soup. At a gesture from Felk, the plague priests started a low chant, uttering praises to the Great Horned Rat, invocations of pestilence and decay. The lower ranks took up the hymnal, swaying forwards and back, left and right, caught in drug-fuelled throes of elation.
Stalking between the undulating lines of robed skaven, Felk raised his staff, signalling to the slave-masters at the firepits. Whips cracked and voices were raised in command, ordering the slaves into action. Teams of bent-backed skaven lifted up the great skewers and pots and brought them across to the site of the feast, eyes rolling in fear, pink tails lashing.
Trenchers of rough-beaten brass and iron had been set up in long rows, forming a triangle around Felk. While the chanting of the plague monks grew louder and louder, the slaves bore their loads to the trenchers. Using broken, filthy claws, they tore away hunks of meat, corroded bonesaws severing thighs, shinbones and ribs, immense ladles filling the trenchers with thick, greasy stew.
Their tasks complete, the slaves cowered together, fearful of their masters’ goads. Felk walked amongst them, staff and empty hand upraised.
‘No fear-fear!’ he told the quivering mass of poxy fur and scabbed skin. ‘Tonight is dismal feast. Slaves no more! Eat-eat! Strong you will be, blessed by the Great Witherer.’
The slaves eyed him with suspicion, glancing nervously at the trenchers and then back to the Poxmaster.
‘Eat!’ Felk snarled, grabbing the closest slave by a ragged ear, pulling it towards the food. ‘Fill bellies!’
Starvation won over distrust and the skavenslaves broke en masse to the trenchers, gorging themselves on the roasted and boiled meat. They squabbled and snapped, raked their claws across each other’s muzzles and bit the tails of their neighbours in their desperation.
While the slaves feasted, the plague monks turned, chanting still, lining the sigil of the Great Horned Rat. Felk’s priests disappeared into the gloom and emerged with thirteen bound humans. They were stripped to the skin, revealing lesions and boils, open sores and ruddy clusters of buboes. They were the most diseased, the greatest tribute to the power of the Great Witherer. Gibbering and sobbing they stared in horror at their hellish surrounds, recoiling from the frenzy of gluttony and depravity as they witnessed the fate of their former companions.
Unresisting, the humans were pushed to the ground, forced to kneel facing each other, Felk at the centre of the circle. The Poxmaster licked the air to taste their abhorrence. It was sweet nectar.
The activity at the trenchers was slowing, the slaves sated, staggering and groaning with bloated bellies. The plague monks continued their dirge, the rhythm starting to quicken, staves rising and falling to thud softly on the packed detritus that covered the ground. Faster, harder came the beat, and through it Felk could sense the magic of Ghur shifting, responding to the ritual.
The monks panted, gasping for air but unable to stop the liturgy. Possessed by the rising spirit of the Great Horned One, they continued to pound with their staves, the rhythm becoming more ragged, the chant discordant.
Felk was mesmerised by the chorus of mewling captives, moaning slaves, shrieking monks and thundering staff beats. He slowly turned on the spot, marvelling at the way the sound changed as he spun, the acoustics of the massive cavern twisting, rebounding and changing the music of the Horned Rat.
Arms still held high, he closed his eyes, his natural paranoia dropping away for an instant to allow him a moment of pure intoxication. He felt his heart juddering in his chest, could smell the musk and sweat and the taint of warpstone.
The sensation passed and he opened his eyes, wobbling to a dizzy stop. His vision swam for a while longer, the faces of his priests blurring in and out of focus, sometimes leering jealously, other times concerned and fearful.
‘Great Witherer!’ Felk declared, regaining his equilibrium. ‘Horned One of Decay! Felk offers you Whiteworld Above. Grant me this boon, grant me bounty, and Felk gifts all lands to your praise. Bless Poxmaster Felk, bless Withered Canker in your name. Felk beseeches Great Horned One, hear our prayers, hear laments of your victims! Plague we are. Pox and infection we spread. In your name, for your praise. We are Pestilens. Harbingers of the Doom of Worlds. Gnawers of vitality. Swift bringers of your filthy blessings.’
Felk pointed his staff at the human captives, who recoiled as if struck.
Their depressed moaning turned into wailing and crying.
‘See these offerings! Most foul, most touched by your divine hand. Back to the Great Horned One we send them.’ Felk skittered over to the prisoners and grabbed the hair of the nearest, dragging her head back. His thin tongue licked along her neck, leaving a trail of thick saliva in the crusted dirt, blood and pus. ‘Feast as we have feasted! Eat-eat, mighty lord of the thirteen plagues.’
Felk stepped back as his plague monks set about messily sacrificing the captives to their horned deity.
Now was the time. Now was the moment of his glorious triumph.
Felk snatched out the skull taken from the lair of Skixakoth. The daemonic fang within was rattling and bouncing of its own accord. The green glow of warp energy seeped through the wax and cracks, bathing Felk in its light.
The Poxmaster dashed the skull against the ground, releasing the power of the verminlord’s tooth.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Green lightning arced with violent snaps, leaping from the broken skull to the corpses of the sacrifices. The bodies jumped and jittered as though given fresh life. Limbs spasmed, chests heaved, eyes darted to and fro while twitching, bloodied fingers grasped at open wounds and shattered bones. Engulfed by the torrent of power, the cadavers rose to their feet, listless puppets sustained only by malicious magic.
Warp energy surrounded the sacrifices with an aura of sickly roiling magical fumes, like the vapours that rose from the sigil of the Horned Rat carved around the feast. The air grew thick with power, clinging to Felk’s claws and teeth, matting his fur. The noxious liquid in the mark of the Great Witherer started to bubble and boil of its own accord.
Still the magic grew in strength. It pooled into the engorged slaves, who were now lying in torpid piles beside the trenches. It filled them with unnatural vitality. They staggered to their feet with jerky movements and started to writhe and dance, distended bellies swinging, emaciated limbs shuddering and twisting.
