Blood for the Blood God

10

Trees shivered as the giant’s steps pounded the earth. Each fall of Korg’s immense hooves sent a trembling boom rolling through the forest. Birds rose skittishly into the air, scattering before the giant’s path. Such small game as lingered in the Grey scrambled through the brush, driven from their burrows by the quaking footsteps.

Ahead of the giant, the bestial shapes of brays and ungors crept through the mists, stalking through the bush in search of their prey. Korg’s senses were no less keen than those of the smaller beastmen, but its primitive brain was far slower interpreting the information conveyed to it by those senses. The brays would react faster to an unusual scent, an incongruous sound or a disturbed patch of earth. Then they would be able to guide Korg to the man who had invaded their territory.

Nhaa followed close behind the giant. The beastlord was determined to see its creature destroy the Skulltaker, to smell the blood of Khorne’s executioner as it dripped from Korg’s fingers. Then Nhaa would know it was safe, that the menace to its life was gone. Then the chieftain could turn its mind to other thoughts, such as expanding the range of his warherd beyond the confines of the Grey.

The tribes already decimated by the Skulltaker would be easy prey for the gors.

The pack had not gone far into the wilds of the Grey before ungor scouts gave voice to a chorus of sharp barks and growls. They had caught the scent of the human, had found his trail in the spongy ground. Nhaa howled back at the beastmen and they set off at a run to bring down the enemy.

Korg bellowed and followed the smaller beastmen, the giant reacting on an instinctive level to the excitement of its brutish kin. Nhaa raked the blades of its fighting claws together, salivating as its cruel mind considered the Skulltaker’s destruction. If Korg left enough of the man, the beastlord intended to claim his head as a trophy.

As Nhaa pursued the lumbering giant and the prowling beastmen, it did not occur to the chieftain to wonder at the direction of the chase. The Skulltaker had first been seen close to the edge of the Grey, and then his trail had been discovered no small distance from the herdstone at the centre of the forest. Now, the warrior’s scent led them back towards the edge of the Grey once more.

It was a question that might have risen to prominence in a mindless feral than Nhaa’s.

The answer to that question came with a bleating scream. The first cry was quickly followed by other animalistic shrieks of pain. Nhaa froze as it heard the screams, the chieftain’s body growing tense as it tried to discern from what quarter danger had struck the beastmen. Through the haze of mist and the milky veil of its vision, Nhaa saw a bray vanish, sinking into the earth. A sharp squeal of agony rose from where the bray had been, carrying with it the tang of fresh blood.

Understanding came quickly to the beastlord, and it knew the deadly trap into which the man-scent had carried them. Nhaa had expected the Skulltaker to explode into the midst of the warherd like a blood-crazed Vaan berserker. It had not considered that the warrior would use craft as well as brawn to claim his prize for the Blood God.

Nhaa began to back away, drawing towards where the man’s smell was weakest, where the Skulltaker had not lingered to dig pits to claim his hunters. Carefully, testing every step, Nhaa retreated into the pines.

Korg was slower to understand what had happened than its chieftain. To the giant’s brain, the screams told of battle joined and its plodding pace quickened. The giant rushed forwards to confront the enemy that Nhaa had summoned it to kill, eager to feel the human’s bones crack inside its fist.

Not once did the concept of danger occur to Korg, for the giant had never encountered anything that could threaten it. Even the smell of blood, the sight of beastmen writhing in shallow pits, their bodies impaled upon crude wooden stakes, did not impress the giant. When Korg’s hoof landed upon one of the concealed pits, it broke through, crushing the wooden spears beneath its thick mass. The giant grunted at the trap, barely slackening its pace to lift its foot free from the shallow hole.

The giant lurched onwards, stumbling as its hoof smashed into another pit. Korg growled its annoyance, a sound that shook nearby trees. Distracted, Korg did not see a dark shape rush out from the mist, a shaggy fur cloak draped around wide, powerful shoulders.

No war cry, no shout of aggression or warning came from behind the figure’s skull-shaped mask. Only the rattle of armour accompanied the warrior’s charge. The first Korg was aware of the Skulltaker’s attack was when the champion’s black sword slashed at the enormous brute. The smoking steel screamed as it ripped into the giant’s leathery flesh, biting deep into the tarsus above its hoof. Greasy blood bubbled behind the blade, strips of fur and meat hanging from the jagged tear.

Korg’s immense jaws opened in a howl of pain, and the giant bent double, reaching down for its injured leg. The brute’s hands clamped around the bleeding, trying to press the wound closed. Its nostrils flared at the smell of its own blood and at the lingering trace of the scent that was already vanishing back into the mist.

The Skulltaker had not lingered to prosecute his attack against Korg. The warrior knew that to try to stand in open conflict with such a foe was useless. After making his strike, he had withdrawn back into the shadows to await a new opportunity.

Korg was not alone in witnessing the Skulltaker’s attack. Witnessing the warrior’s retreat, Nhaa felt emboldened by it. The man knew fear, and it was his turn to feel terror. The beastlord loped towards the giant, snapping orders to the brute.

“Follow!” Nhaa howled, pointing a claw at the retreating warrior. “Korg! Follow! Kill! Kill!”

The giant lurched back to its feet, its face twisting into a snarl. Korg reached towards the nearest pine, its massive fist closing around the trunk. Almost without visible effort, Korg ripped the tree from the ground. It pounded the pine against the ground, knocking clumps of earth from the tangle of roots. The giant roared, its anger rippling throughout the Grey.

“Follow!” Nhaa repeated. “Kill!”

Korg lurched after the beastlord, stripping bark from its makeshift club as it lumbered on. The giant wanted a tight grip when it brought the weapon crushing down into the man who had hurt it.

As the scent of their prey grew stronger, Nhaa allowed the giant to range ahead. It would serve no purpose for the chieftain if Korg were to kill the man after the Skulltaker had already claimed the beastlord’s head. Nhaa had not reigned so long as chief of the warherd by taking chances it could just as easily pass on to others.

The giant limped on through the fog, sniffing at the air for its prey, its enormous eyes watching for any trace of motion within the misty shroud of the Grey. Slowly, Korg stopped, the giant’s head lifting as it drew a deep breath down its nose. Its brain processed the information of its senses lethargically. The same heaviness of thought conveyed itself into the giant’s enormous body as Korg turned to glare at the pines to its left.

Something moved in the branches of a tree taller even than the giant. Korg was just raising its huge club when that motion launched itself at the brute. Sharp, stabbing pain flashed through the giant’s body as daemon steel crunched through flesh and bone. The Skulltaker kept a tight hold upon his sword as the blade ripped into the giant’s breast.

Momentum and the warrior’s armoured weight dragged the edge down, digging a wide gash down the monster’s breast and ribs. Bone splintered, muscle tore and veins burst beneath the champion’s screaming blade.

The giant’s howl was deafening. The pine club dropped from its hand, crashing against the ground.

The Skulltaker ripped his sword from the wound, falling to the ground thirty feet below. An instant after his leap, Korg’s huge paws slapped at its chest, trying to crush its tormentor. The giant’s fur dripped with gore, the brute swaying drunkenly as the ten-foot long gash bled copiously, but the Skulltaker had missed his mark. Intending his steel for the giant’s heart, he had missed the vital organ by a foot and more.

Wounded but not slain, Korg’s fury was terrible, elemental in its magnitude. The giant’s hooves smashed into the ground, trying to stamp out the man who had struck it. Narrowly, the Skulltaker leapt from the path of the descending pillars of bone and fur, his blade scraping ineffectively against the solid hooves.

Korg bellowed again, one immense hand shooting downwards to seize the lone warrior. The Skulltaker spun as the huge clawed fingers reached for him, the black edge of his blade licking out, slashing through a finger larger than his own leg, all but severing it from the monster’s hand.

The giant howled again at this fresh wound, recoiling instinctively from the blow. It lifted its hand to its face, intending to lick the gushing cut. Korg did not smell the tiny figure clinging to the dangling flesh of its mangled finger. Too late, the giant’s shocked senses registered the sensation of the Skulltaker as he pulled himself onto the back of the hairy fist. Before Korg could swat the man, the Skulltaker’s sword flashed out, cutting across the giant’s snout.

The giant’s hands clapped automatically to the deep cut against its sensitive nose. As the huge paws shot upwards, the Skulltaker jumped. Armoured gauntlet and spiked boots fought for purchase in Korg’s mangy, shaggy hide. The Skulltaker struggled to keep his hold on the giant’s shoulder. Even as he felt air rushing past him, as he felt Korg’s hand swinging down to slap him from the giant’s body, the Skulltaker’s sword licked out.

Flesh and fur parted like parchment beneath the gnawing edge of the blade. A stream of bright crimson spurted into the gloom as the smoking daemon sword severed one of the giant’s thick arteries.

The giant’s fist threw the Skulltaker through the air as though he’d been struck by an avalanche. The warrior crashed into the pines, branches snapping and bursting beneath his weight as he plummeted downwards.

Korg clenched its mangled hand to its neck, trying to staunch the arterial blood streaming from its wound. The giant reached down, reclaiming its abandoned club. Bellowing and roaring, the brute lashed out, smashing down the trees where it had thrown the Skulltaker. Ancient pines cracked and fell beneath the giant’s blows, the earth trembling beneath its pounding hooves. Korg’s rage and pain clawed at the sky like the roar of an angry mountain. The entire vastness of the Grey seemed to tremble before the giant’s wrath.

Yet with each passing instant, the strength of the giant’s blows lessened and the power of its smashing feet weakened. The club fell once more, bouncing against the loamy earth as it tumbled from slackened fingers. Korg’s steps became awkward, its body swaying with every effort to move.

Blood continued to shoot from between its fingers as its enormous body continued to pump fluid through its severed artery. Spots danced before the giant’s eyes and dull ringing sounded in its ears. Korg lurched forwards again, and this time its legs buckled beneath it. With a quaking crash, the giant slammed into the earth, trees splintering beneath Korg’s massive body. The forest shuddered when the giant fell, a dire echo that rolled through the whole of the Grey.

Nhaa crept towards the fallen giant, unable to believe that Korg had been struck down. The beastlord could hear the giant’s heavy, laboured breathing as air rasped through its immense lungs. Nhaa had heard the Skulltaker crash into the trees when Korg threw him. It had seen the giant’s rampage through the same trees, smashing and crushing everything before it.

Even if Korg had been slain, there was still every reason to believe that the giant had served its purpose.

As Nhaa drew closer to the giant’s body, the laboured breathing finally stopped. The beastlord’s senses were overwhelmed by the stink of the giant’s blood. Everywhere, the crimson stain of Korg’s life was spread across the ground in streams and puddles. As the sound of the giant’s lungs faded, Nhaa could discern another sound, a sound that had been drowned out by Korg’s breath. The beastlord backed away from the sprawled carcass, fear shining behind its milky, swollen eyes.

The faint rattle of armour grew. Nhaa could see the Skulltaker emerge from behind the giant’s corpse. This time his sword had not failed to strike the monster’s heart. The man’s body was torn, mangled by his brutal fall through the trees, but where Korg had weakened with every step, the Skulltaker grew stronger. Nhaa could see bones knitting together and wounds close. The torn armour of the Skulltaker melted together, forming once more into smooth crimson plates.

Nhaa backed away, the dreaded fighting claws fastened to its hands feeling small beside the awful power of the warrior. The Skulltaker glared at the beastlord, the eyes behind the champion’s mask terrible in their cold promise of doom.

“Run,” the Skulltaker’s grinding voice hissed. The black blade was a smoking ember in his hand, lines of fire showing beneath its surface as it consumed the blood that stained its length. “Run,” the champion repeated as Nhaa turned and fled from him. “You cannot hide from doom.”

The sun stood bright and burning in the brown, dusty sky as a lone mammoth lumbered across the plain. The Barrens of Nuur were named for the enormous lake that had once filled its expanse. In the aftermath of the king’s death, the powers of the gods had turned the lake to steam, leaving behind a terrible desolation of dust and ruin.

Few things even tried to force an existence from the parched, unforgiving wasteland. Biting winds tore across the Barrens, polluting the air with choking dust. Ghastly wind-daemons whirled across the sunken basin of the ancient lake, threatening man and beast alike with gruesome death. Beneath the caked layers of dried mud, gigantic toads yet slumbered, twisted and perverted by the mutating touch of the gods. The slightest tremor in the ground was enough to rouse them, to bring them bursting up from the earth in a frenzy of rapacious hunger.

Qotagir had assured Dorgo that at least they would not need to fear the toads. The amphibians were ravenous, but not stupid. They knew that a mammoth was too large to eat, and knowing that, they would keep to their underground burrows. Wind-daemons, of course, were another matter. They would need to trust to the spells of their shaman, Yorool’s apprentice Gashuun, and perhaps the magic of the Sul sorceress Sanya. Dorgo did not find such recommendations reassuring.

The presence of the Sul witch might be a necessary evil, but it did not make Dorgo any happier about the fact. The Wastes beyond the domain were a sinister land, a place where distance and time were not constant, but mutable, forever in a state of ebb and flow.

The further north one travelled, the closer to the Realm of the Gods one came. These lands were governed by the whims of the gods, where a mountain range might rise overnight or a great forest might crumble into a bleak desert in the blink of an eye. There were no maps of such lands, thought and desire were the only guides a man could call upon to lead him where they would, desire and, perhaps, the sorcery of a witch.

Dorgo had seen the gruesome talisman Sanya claimed she could use to guide them to the Black Altar. She had displayed the daemon claw, not to reassure the Tsavags, but to remind them of her power, of the power of her tribe.

As watchful of treachery as he and his tribesmen were, the sorceress was even more so. She knew that Dorgo and the others would just as soon be rid of her. Her safety depended on a careful balance of need and threat. The Tsavags needed her sorcery to reach the Black Altar, and if that was not enough, she took pains to make the Tong understand that killing her would be a costly undertaking. For the moment, Dorgo saw no way to easily circumvent either problem, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep looking.

Gashuun was the youngest of the Tsavag shamans. His presence in the expedition was one of necessity, a counterbalance to the Sul sorceress. If or when Sanya betrayed them, the Tsavags would find it reassuring to have magic of their own to call upon. Gashuun was a sinister, ghastly creature. His mammoth-hide robes could not quite hide the bumpy welts that bulged from his skin. The shaman went without helm or hood, his scalp shorn so that it was as bare as an egg. His features were sharp, almost rodent-like, with cunning eyes that seemed to transfix a man’s soul with a single glance. A distorted, half-sized copy of that face protruded from the back of his skull. This second face was fully functional, its eyes always watching the shaman’s back, its mouth muttering an accompaniment to his rituals and prayers. When he ate, Gashuun shared his food between both faces, favouring neither.

In addition to the shaman, Dorgo had been provided with twenty of the strongest warriors in the tribe. Led by the powerful Togmol, each of the warriors was the scarred veteran of dozens of battles. Their hide armour was reinforced with scales of copper and iron, and their swords and axes were forged of bronze. The finest weapons and armour the Tsavags could produce had been lavished upon the men, each according to his need. Dorgo appreciated the great honour his father showed him, allowing him to lead such men.

Ulagan and a pair of his best scouts had been included to compliment the warriors. The expedition could scarcely hope to carry all the provisions they would need, and Ulagan’s people would be invaluable at hunting game when the need arose. There was also the unspoken reason for their presence. If Sanya led them false, it was hoped that the scouts would be able to lead them back to the domain.

Finally, Dorgo was given Qotagir, the Tsavag mammoth master, and Devseh, the strongest beast in all the herd. Devseh towered over even its fellow mammoths and possessed a fierce spirit that made it a terror upon the battlefield. Its shaggy pelt bore the scars of hydra claws where it had been mauled by a beast of the Gahhuks, an attack even few war mammoths could have fended off. Devseh had done more than fend off the hydra, it had trampled the reptile beneath its enormous feet, grinding its bones into the soil of the Prowling Lands. It was a measure of the importance of their task that Devseh had been chosen to carry them into the Wastes. In times of war, Hutga rode Devseh into battle. Of all the men in the tribe, only Qotagir could claim true control over the fierce brute.

Dorgo could see Qotagir, sitting in the ivory cage lashed around Devseh’s neck, a gold-studded goad clutched in his leathery hands. The mahout seemed as tireless as his beast, constantly whispering an old Tsavag chant to calm the mammoth and soothe its dislike for the howdah strapped to its back. After his experience in the Crumbling Hills, Dorgo was more than happy to be back riding in the howdah rather than leading up front in the cage.

The collection of warriors, hunters and sorcerers that had been placed under his leadership were scattered throughout the howdah. There was little space to move, bundles of food and skins of water piled everywhere, some even hanging over the sides of the ivory-walled howdah to slap against Devseh’s shaggy hide.

Men were sprawled everywhere, catching such sleep as the rocking, lumbering steps of the mammoth would allow. Gashuun sat upon a raised wooden platform, consulting his bones and painting mystical symbols upon a sheet of tanned hide. A few warriors slept in the very shadow of the shaman, muttering uneasily in their slumber as Gashuun’s magic intruded upon their dreams.

As cramped as conditions were, however, no man intruded upon the rear corner of the howdah. There, beneath a tarp of black silk, the sorceress Sanya had established herself. She had brought with her some quantities of strange powders and herbs, and arcane equipment of glass and copper.

The warriors had a grudging respect for the rites of Gashuun, but had nothing except fear for the uncanny sorcery of the Sul. Dorgo wondered how much of her effect on the men was deliberate and how much was genuine. Even for a sorceress, Sanya looked too young to be steeped in such evil.

At least one member of the expedition had failed to be impressed by Sanya’s sinister airs. Dorgo walked between sleeping warriors to where Ulagan stood, leaning against the swaying wall of the howdah. The scout was looking at the silk veil at the rear of the platform, a hungry gleam in his eye.

“You should get some sleep,” Dorgo advised the scout, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Who can sleep knowing that is down there?” Ulagan asked, pointing his chin at the makeshift tent.

“Two days away from your wives,” Dorgo laughed, shaking his head.

“I’ll be worse when it is three days,” Ulagan said. “Witch, assassin or daemon, she’s a fine looking woman.”

“Better to take a viper into your bed than a Sul.”

Ulagan smiled at Dorgo. “Now you sound like Togmol,” the hunter said, laughing. “If I’d known you’d turn out like that grim oaf, I’d have left you to the zhaga!”

“You’re liable to get turned into a zhaga if you start pursuing a witch,” Dorgo said.

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” Ulagan replied after a moment of consideration. “Not a bad life, being a zhaga. Nothing to do but eat and breed.”

“And worry around when some bold Tsavag hunter is going to turn you into boots,” Dorgo pointed out.

Whatever answer Ulagan had for Dorgo’s observation went unspoken. The silk veil of the tent was pulled back violently, Sanya rushing from the confines of her seclusion. Warriors stumbled to their feet as the woman sprang past them, making for the fore of the howdah. Ulagan blanched, wondering if perhaps the sorceress had been reading his lecherous thoughts with her spells. She ignored him, however, fixing her gaze on Dorgo.

“Danger threatens us already,” Sanya told him. “I have sent my familiars abroad and they have seen much. A menace rises from the south, pursuing our course!”

Dorgo felt icy fear crawl down his spine. Did she mean the Skulltaker? Had the champion of Khorne somehow discovered what they were doing and was coming to stop them? He fought to control his fear. He had seen the monster once and survived. To save his people, he would do so again.

“The witch seeks to panic us,” snarled Togmol, rising to his feet. The warrior’s hand clutched the haft of his axe. “There is nothing chasing us. Is your magic so potent that it sees where our shaman cannot?” He pointed at Gashuun, still crouched upon the raised platform, consulting his bones.

“He looks to the path ahead,” Sanya said. “I look at the road behind.”

The woman’s words made a grim sort of sense to Dorgo. He moved to the side of the howdah, gripping the ivory guardrail and leaning over. He looked into the distance. He could faintly see something on the horizon. A dust storm, which Qotagir claimed was common enough in the Barrens. Yet he was slow to dismiss it, given Sanya’s warning. The cloud might also be caused by a large number of riders striking out across the Barrens. He turned back to the woman. She smiled as she saw the question in his eyes.

“Yes, they are riders,” she answered. “Men on horses and in chariots. How they discovered us, I do not know, but discover us they have. The armies of the Seifan are on the march.”