Blood for the Blood God

13

Yorool knelt over the hairy, sallow-faced messenger, a thin-bladed knife in his warty hand. The shaman stared into the man’s quivering features, watching sweat drip down his face. The Seifan’s features were rough and evil, twisted with all the sneakiness and cunning characteristic of the tribes of the Hung. Blood crusted the man’s face, matting his slender beard. Thin threads of lizard gut pinched the Seifan’s eyes closed, rendering him as blind as the formless denizens of the Screaming Swamp.

With deft, practised strokes, Yorool cut the thread binding the messenger’s eyes. The Seifan blinked painfully as vision returned to him. He found himself standing within the savage splendour of Hutga’s yurt. Blinded, he had been conducted through the Tsavag encampment to his rendezvous with their chieftain.

The Tong were taking no chances with the Seifan, ensuring that he could not bring back reports to his masters about Tsavag numbers and readiness for battle. If he dared to try to slip beyond the confines of the yurt, if his eyes once settled upon the size of the encampment, his hosts would cut him down. It was no less than any tribe would do once it had assumed a war footing. Centuries of strife and conflict had made even the slowest inhabitants of the domain cautious.

Hutga glowered at the wiry Seifan messenger, wondering at the purpose of his visit. In the days since the Bloodeater had been taken from the tomb of Teiyogtei, much had changed in the domain. There were stories of an attack against the Gahhuks, and reports of beastmen fleeing the Grey in great numbers.

The Vaan, it was said, were marshalling their armies. The balance of power in the domain was in turmoil such as it had not seen in many an age. Uncertainty was in the air, colouring the land as much as the gory doom promised by the Skulltaker. Hutga knew Enek Zjarr had been wise in his council. Dire as the threat of the Skulltaker was, even that grim champion of the Blood God was but one of many threats to their people.

Days had passed since his son had departed on his desperate quest to find the Black Altar and remake the sword of Teiyogtei, the only weapon to ever vanquish the Skulltaker. Hutga knew it was too soon to expect word from the expedition, but the knowledge did nothing to ease his fears.

The Wastes were a land of nameless horrors and unspeakable nightmare, where reality was bent and twisted by the whims of the gods. The ancestors of the Tsavags had called the Wastes home, had survived and even prospered in the forbidden world between the Realm of the Gods and the mortal coil. Many generations had passed since the Tsavags had come down into the Shadowlands, however. Time had worn them down, eating away at the fierce strength that had once been theirs. Now they were more like the Kurgans and the Hung than their Tong ancestors. Stronger perhaps, but Hutga wondered if any in his tribe were strong enough to endure the Wastes.

Perhaps it would have been best to accept fate and keep Dorgo with his people, to face the Skulltaker when he came, and to die with such courage as would not shame their ancestors. Then, at least, there would have been someone to see his son’s death. The thought of some lonely fate claiming Dorgo as he struggled across the Wastes was more forbidding to Hutga than any of his fears for himself and his tribe.

The khagan’s face curled into a snarl as the Seifan messenger abased himself before the chieftain’s throne. Hutga was not fooled by the man’s display of deference and humility. The Seifan were a sly breed, better than jackals when it came to sniffing out weakness, and the opportunity to glut themselves on easy prey.

“I have neither time nor patience for the grovelling of worms. What brings a Seifan rat slinking into the territory of men?” Hutga growled.

The messenger lifted himself from the hide rug stretched before the throne. He faced the chieftain, abandoning his fawning subservience. “Rat”, Hutga had called him, and there was something of the vermin about the sharp nose and narrow eyes of the man. Like a rat, there was a petty viciousness in the messenger’s gaze, the sullen fear of an animal that knows its enemy is too powerful for it to overcome.

“I bring greetings and honour from the Seifan,” the messenger bowed, “to our brothers, the mighty Tsavags.”

Hutga shifted in his throne, pulling the furs tighter around his chilled body. One of the iron nodules jutting from his forearm brushed against the arm of his chair with a dull metallic thump. As though he did not have enough to occupy him, from the discomfort of his flesh to the discomfort of his thoughts, he also had the unwanted irritant of hollow praise from a Hung to annoy him.

“The Tsavag are no brothers of the Hung,” Hutga said, his voice low with warning. “Our sons are not suckled by jackals, our men do not scurry around in the shadows like spiders. There is more valour in the bandy-legged ponies of the Seifan than there is in the craven swine who ride them. Call me ‘brother’ again, cur, and Tulka will be looking for your head in the Prowling Lands.”

Hutga’s words made little impact on the messenger. On the whole, the Seifan were a people with too few illusions of pride to take offence at a man’s words. Only when he heard the name of Tulka mixed into the khagan’s abuse did the messenger react. His thin lips spread in a coy smile.

“The mighty khagan has not heard then?” the messenger asked. “Tulka is no longer kahn of the Seifan.”

Hutga leaned forward at the statement, heedless of any advantage the Seifan might find in his show of interest. The chieftain’s mind was afire with questions and fears. Had the Skulltaker struck again? Was Tulka’s head among the champion’s trophies? With each tribe the Skulltaker struck, Hutga knew that the time left to the Tsavags grew shorter, and the chances against Dorgo finding the Black Altar and returning became longer.

The messenger did not fail to appreciate the chieftain’s sharp interest. There was a sadistic mockery in the way he allowed silence to stretch after his report. “He was killed,” the Seifan elaborated, noting that he most certainly had Hutga’s undivided attention. “A disagreement among the leaders of the tribe. Shen is our new kahn.”

Hutga’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. If the Skulltaker had struck, then there could be no new kahn, certainly not a legitimate one. It made sense for the Seifan to claim otherwise, that Shen had taken rule of his people in the manner laid down by tradition: Tulka, slain by his lieutenant, his heart cut from his body and eaten by his successor, the power of Teiyogtei passing into Shen. Yes, it made sense for the Seifan to profess such a deceit. Had they not been pillaging the lands of the leaderless Muhak with wanton abandon? It would also explain the reason a messenger had been sent to the Tsavags. Shen was trying to maintain the illusion of strength before rumours of disaster could spread.

“You lie,” Hutga told the messenger. Panic flickered across the messenger’s face, the despair of a liar caught in his lie. Strangely, the khagan’s next words dispelled that panic, instilling a new boldness in the Seifan’s demeanour. “Tulka was killed by the Skulltaker, not Shen. The Seifan are without a legitimate kahn, their lands and people free to be taken by those tribes still tied to the blood of the king.”

“Shen is our kahn, as true as the flesh of Tulka. It is the Skulltaker who is the lie!” hissed the messenger. “You are right to suspect deception, Hutga Ironskin, but it is not the Seifan who have betrayed you!”

Hutga rose from his throne, stalking towards the wiry Seifan. The smaller man retreated a step, and then a second as he felt the chieftain’s angry stare boring down on him. “Speak plainly snake,” Hutga demanded. “I know the Skulltaker has returned to the domain. The Muhaks and Veh-Kung have already felt his blade, aye, and maybe the Gahhuks and beastkin too! Perhaps even the Seifan!”

The messenger stopped retreating. He thrust his sharp face forwards, like a weasel peeking from a hole. “Yes, the lords of the Muhaks and Gahhuks, the Veh-Kung and the warherd have been slain,” he admitted. “The eyes of the Seifan are everywhere and they see much. Our scouts have seen the monster who struck down the tribes.”

“Then you know that the Skulltaker is no lie,” Hutga snapped.

“The monster is real,” the Seifan agreed, “but who has said it is the Skulltaker?”

A sick chill rushed through Hutga’s body, his eyes gaping as the enormity of the Hung’s suggestion struck him.

“There are only the words of Enek Zjarr to tell us that this killer is the Skulltaker,” the messenger continued. “Some may choose to believe the kahn of the Sul. Tulka did. Shen did not. It can be reckless to put faith where it does not belong.”

“What do you mean?” Hutga asked, trying to keep uncertainty from his voice.

“I ask you, great khagan, which is more to be believed? That the Skulltaker, the same monster that was vanquished by Teiyogtei, has returned after so many generations? Or is the truth that someone, someone steeped in sorcery and magic, has called up some terrible daemon to strike down his rivals, hiding its true nature behind the myth of the Skulltaker?”

“You say that the Sul are behind these attacks?” Hutga asked, his mouth becoming sour with bile as he considered the enormity of such a deceit. The meeting of the chieftains, the violation of Teiyogtei’s tomb, even the expedition to find the Black Altar, were they all nothing more than elements in some grand scheme by Enek Zjarr?

“Has this monster attacked the Sul?” the messenger challenged in turn. “The Desert of Mirrors is closer to the lands of the sorcerers than those of the Gahhuks. Why did this monster not strike the Sul when it had finished with the Veh-Kung? Unless of course it had no intention of attacking them.”

Hutga digested the Seifan’s claim. It made for a cold, vicious logic. In the past, none of the tribes could prevail against the others. Too evenly matched, even when one was weakened, that very weakness would draw the others in to prevent the victorious tribe from gaining an advantage that could be used against them. An outside force, however, a murderous power that was beyond the tribes, a chieftain could exploit without fear of reprisal. It was just the manner of crooked scheme that would appeal to a Hung tribe such as the Sul.

The messenger watched the play of thought and emotion on the khagan’s features. “Shen seeks alliance with our bro… with the Tsavags, alliance against the Sul and their treachery. With the host of the Seifan joined with the war mammoths of the Tsavags, Enek Zjarr will be made to answer for his evil!”

It was the enthusiasm of the Seifan that rekindled Hutga’s suspicion. His excitement was too exuberant, his anticipation too keen for someone proposing war against the dreaded sorcerers of the Sul. In all the centuries known to the lore of the shamans, never had any army laid siege to the floating castle of the Sul.

No, it was something else that excited the messenger. If Tulka had been killed by the Skulltaker, if Shen was the false kahn Hutga suspected him to be, then the Seifan would want protection, the kind of protection an alliance with the Tsavags could offer.

Hutga shook his head. That was only one possibility. Another occurred to him, and the more he thought about it, the greater his suspicion grew. There was one tribe the messenger had failed to mention, one that he seemed to ignore completely.

“What of the Vaan?” Hutga demanded. Only because he was watching for it did he see the momentary flicker of anxiety cross the man’s face. “How do they figure into Shen’s plots?” The chieftain’s voice dropped back into a simmering growl. “Shall I tell you, dung rat? The Seifan will ride with the Tsavags against the Sul. They will let my people do most of the fighting, let the blood of the Tsavags buy the victory. Then, when the Sul are destroyed and the Tsavags weakened, the Seifan will unleash their true allies, the Vaan, against us!”

“You see plots where they do not exist,” protested the messenger.

Hutga’s knobbly finger pointed at Yorool, motioning the shaman forwards. A slim Tsavag girl followed after the disfigured shaman, a wooden bowl resting in her hands, needle and thread resting in the bowl. The messenger blanched as he saw the two approach.

“You ask me to distrust the Sul and in the same breath you ask me to trust the Seifan,” Hutga snarled. “Both your peoples are Hung, and only a fool trusts the Hung. Tell Shen and Ratha that my people are not listening! I will not march the Tsavags to the slaughter! Tell your masters that if they want the blood of the Tsavags, they will fight to spill every drop!”

The khagan gestured and warriors converged on the Seifan, pulling him to the floor. Yorool bent over the prone captive, retrieving the thread and needle from the girl. Hutga slumped down in his throne, only half-hearing the messenger’s screams as the shaman sewed his eyes shut once more.

Ugly thoughts boiled behind Hutga’s lidded eyes. Thoughts of treachery and war played through the chieftain’s mind. The Seifan and the Vaan would not remain idle. Ambition had stirred them, ambition to seize control of the domain. They had set themselves against the Tsavags and the Sul. The Seifan might slink back into the shadows now that their gamble for easy victory was undone, but the Vaan would not let them. A course chosen, Ratha would not let his ambitions be frustrated merely because they required open war. Indeed, the Kurgan zar would relish the opportunity to win through force of arms what the deceits of the Hung had failed to capture.

The marshes were poor ground on which to fight the Vaan. Their numbers, their discipline and quality of arms would overwhelm the Tsavags and their mammoths in the sucking mire.

Against horsemen like the Seifan, the marshes were a defence, but Hutga knew they needed better ground to face the Vaan, somewhere that the greater numbers of the Kurgan could be contained and made manageable. He would move the tribe into the mountains, to the network of valleys and ravines called Ikar’s Refuge. There they could face the Vaan with some hope of victory. To stay in the marshes would mean a massacre.

His decision made, Hutga turned his mind to the Sul. Simply because he had seen through the Seifan scheme did not mean that he could discount what they had told him around the Sul. Was it possible that Enek Zjarr had called up the Skulltaker with his sorcery, that it was the command of the sorcerer not the will of Khorne that the monster obeyed?

Hutga did not know enough about magic to know what was possible and what was not. Against his better judgement, he had allowed his hope to be married to the words of Enek Zjarr. If it was all a lie…

He would send riders to the Sul. There were questions he would have answered. He wanted to know what Enek Zjarr would say about the Seifan claims. He would hear what speeches the sorcerer would make to reassure him. He needed to hear these things, to know if they were truth or lies. If they were lies, then Dorgo was trapped in those lies, a captive of the Sul as surely as if they had cast him into the dungeons of their fortress.

The smooth slopes of the stumpy hill made climbing difficult. There were no sharp edges to grip, no sure handholds to support a man’s weight. Every foot of the climb was a matter of luck and chance, with a long fall to the plain below as the price for relying too much upon capricious fortune. Even so, Dorgo preferred to take his chances on the reckless climb and the clean death of a broken neck to lingering upon the blighted plains of the borderland.

Filthy red grass continued to sprout across the ancient battlefield. Suckled upon the blood of their victims, the crimson weeds burst with loathsome life. Pulpy flowers bulged from their stems, spitting barbed spores into the sky. As the spiny spores drifted through the air, blood dripped from their spikes, staining the grey earth. It did not take long for new sprouts to burst from the ground in answer to the summons of the drifting spores.

Where the abominable plants had been clustered around the carcass of Devseh and the Tsavag warriors, who had fought to free the beast, now a crawling carpet of red weed was spreading throughout the plain. Dorgo could almost feel the vampiric hunger of the plants as he looked at them. Better a fall to destruction than the slow sucking death promised by the vile vegetation.

The warrior’s few remaining comrades shared Dorgo’s feelings and followed his lead up the slopes of the hill. Dorgo had only three following him: Sanya the Sul witch, the huge Togmol, and Ulagan the scout. Ulagan had not been present to observe the hideous struggle against the weeds, but he had been sufficiently impressed by the grave expressions of his tribesmen to accept their abhorrence for the plain. Ulagan had been the first to try climbing the smooth slope, attempting to reach the height to keep a watch for the Seifan. He had just given up on the attempt when he found Dorgo and the others rushing towards the hill. Their alarm convinced him that he should try again.

Long hours passed as the four survivors endured the dangerous ascent. The earth below them was alive with writhing crimson foliage, their wormy fronds quivering excitedly whenever a loose stone was knocked down the hillside. There was no illusion that it was anything but death to fall, but the prospect of a clean death of broken bones and shattered skull was in doubt. To fall, alive, into the trembling tendrils of the red grass was a thought that almost paralysed them all with fear.

No thought, beyond escaping the red grass, had driven Dorgo to start the climb. So it was with great surprise that, as his hand discovered an uncharacteristically flat and even shelf of rock and he pulled himself over its edge, he found himself on a level rise, staring into the yawning cavity of a deep cave. He waited for the others to join him before approaching the opening. There was a rank, evil smell drifting out from its depths. Dorgo was not certain what could be worse than the red grass, but he had little desire to find out.

The others shared Dorgo’s opinion of the cave when they joined him on the rocky shelf. Ulagan inspected the ground, finding scrapes and marks on the rocks that told him they were not the first to find this place. Whether whatever had disturbed the rocks was man or beast, Ulagan was unable to tell. That something had been there was all he could say.

Sanya crouched close to the ground, removing the daemon-finger talisman from her belt. The clawed digit flopped to the rocks where she dropped it. The woman’s voice fell to a spitting whisper, struggling with sounds meant for no mortal voice. The finger twitched in response to the sorceress, scrabbling against the ground as though trying to crawl towards the cave. Sanya smiled and recovered the grisly talisman.

“What do you find to be so gleeful?” demanded Togmol, glaring at the witch.

Sanya pointed to the cave, favouring Togmol with her most withering sneer. “Even a brute like you must appreciate our predicament. The plain has blossomed with the red scourge. To try to cross it would be certain death. To stay on this hill, however high we climb, is only to invite a slower death for want of food and water. Either way we do not help our tribes against the Skulltaker.”

“And you know another way?” asked Dorgo. “Your magic has found a way past the weed?”

“The talisman Enek Zjarr made will point the way to the Black Altar,” she told him. “It cannot be deceived by time or distance, and will always point true. I have consulted the daemon’s spirit, asking it where we should go. You saw where it pointed.”

Togmol laughed, shaking his head. “It is a poor enough choice to listen to a witch,” he said. “Now we would trust her daemons?”

“It would not lie,” Sanya said. “Only its finger is here with me. If the daemon were to betray me, it knows what the Sul would do to the rest of it. There are tortures which even a daemon can be taught to fear.” She looked across at each of the men, waiting for them to agree. Slowly, reluctantly, Dorgo and Ulagan nodded their heads.

“We can’t follow her!” protested Togmol. “March blindly into that cavern! Anything might be lurking down there!” He rounded on Ulagan, tugging at his arm, pointing at the scarred stones. “You said you had no idea what made those marks, whether man or beast!” He released his hold on the scout and turned to Sanya. “The witch means to lead us into a trap!” he accused. “Lure us into the jaws of some daemon’s spawn!”

“Enough!” growled Dorgo. Togmol’s protests were becoming more panicked and ridiculous with each breath. He wondered at the warrior’s unrestrained display of fear. Togmol was one of the most renowned battlers in the tribe, a man who had faced enemies countless times in combat. Even the red weed had failed to make the man back away, yet he was almost overcome with terror. It was something more than the cold, evil stink of the cavern, something more than fear of daemons and monsters. Dorgo tried to appeal to the faltering warrior’s reason.

“If Sanya meant to deal us false,” he told Togmol, “why wait until now? The Sul could have attacked us on the Barrens as easily as the Seifan, and much more effectively.”

“I’m not going down there,” Togmol insisted, backing away and shaking his head.

“Let the coward rot,” Sanya snarled. “I am the only one you need to guide you to the Black Altar.”

Dorgo spun around, glaring at the woman. “I’ve left enough men dead in this forsaken land, I won’t leave any more behind!”

Sanya scoffed at his outburst. “You should be thinking of your tribe, your women and children, the ones who will be destroyed if the Skulltaker isn’t stopped! Beside that, what do the lives of a few warriors matter?”

Dorgo clenched his fists. The witch was right, and he hated her for it. Togmol had been a friend since before he was old enough to hunt his first zhaga. Leaving Qotagir and the others to the red grass had been loathsome enough. Abandoning Togmol was something that made his flesh crawl. The lives of his entire tribe, the trust his father had placed in him, his friendship with Togmol could never overcome these things, but that understanding did not make it any easier to do.

“Please,” Dorgo said, appealing to Togmol one last time. “There is no other way.”

“Go then,” Togmol told him. “I won’t stop you, but I won’t go with you.”

“The tribe is depending on us,” Dorgo said. “Whatever might be down there, it can’t be worse than what will happen if we leave the Skulltaker free.”

Dorgo’s words seemed to reach through Togmol’s fear. For an instant, the big warrior’s jaw became set in a grimace of determination. He forced his body forwards, following Dorgo as he led him towards the cave. Then, as the mephitic smell washed over them, as the shadowy gloom of the cavern closed around them, Togmol’s resolve broke. The warrior turned and retreated back to the shelf.

“No good,” Togmol said. “I can’t go down there.”

“We have to,” Dorgo replied. Already Sanya and Ulagan had passed them, their outlines only dimly visible in the shadows that filled the cave. “There’s no other way.”

Togmol smiled, nodding his head in grim agreement. “I can’t follow you,” he said, “not if Khorne’s hound was snapping at my back. The gods watch over you, my friend. Fix that gaudy bauble and when you sink it into the Skulltaker’s gut, tell the bastard that Togmol is waiting for him in the Hunting Halls.”

The gods watch over you as well, Dorgo thought as he turned and strode back into the cave. The evil stench of the place was overpowering, the shadows almost alive in their suggestion of malice. What feeble light existed within the cavern was provided not by the clean brilliance of the sun, but by the sickly green phosphorescence of glowing clumps of moss. The exact size of the cavern was difficult to determine, the roof lost somewhere in the darkness, the walls largely indistinct suggestions of shadow pockmarked with patches of luminescence.

The drip of water falling from stalactites echoed from the unseen walls. A furtive, scratching noise tugged at the edge of Dorgo’s hearing. The cavern played strange games with the sounds, making it impossible to tell if whatever made them was smaller than a rat or larger than a wolf. Dorgo was reminded of the indistinct marks on the shelf. Clearly, whatever had made them would be an inhabitant of this black netherworld. He fingered his sword, but could take no comfort in the cold metal in his hand. This close to the Wastes, there was no guarantee that whatever haunted the darkness would respect sharp iron enough to die when it was struck.

“This way,” Ulagan said, his faint whisper crawling into Dorgo’s ears. He could just faintly make out the scout, a dim shape where he blocked the luminescence of the glow moss. He thought he could see the hunter’s hand extended before him, a feather dangling from his finger. It was an old trick, used to find the direction of the wind. Here, in this black ever-night, Ulagan was trying to use the same system to discover a current in the air, a current that might lead them through the cavern.

Dorgo followed Ulagan’s lead, taking hold of Sanya’s arm and guiding the woman. He wasn’t going to risk losing her in the dark. Too much depended upon her. Too much had been lost just to bring her this far.

The current Ulagan followed proved to emanate from a broad-mouthed tunnel at the rear of the cave. The opening stabbed down into the hill at such a steep angle that they were forced to stretch their arms wide and brace themselves against the walls as they made their descent. Dorgo could still hear the furtive, slithering whispers, sounds that almost seemed more suggestion than observation. The evil stink of the place rose as the tunnel stabbed its way deeper and deeper. Dorgo was reminded of the zhagas of the Prowling Lands and their musky reek.

At last, the tunnel became reasonably level. Where before it had plunged straight into the hill, now it became a winding corridor, twisting and doubling upon itself in a maddening confusion of switchbacks and intersections.

Ulagan suddenly called a halt. Dorgo was uncertain why the scout stopped so abruptly. Then he saw where the man’s hand pointed. Glow moss littered the floor of the tunnel in heaps. Something had scraped it from the walls, creating patches of almost perfect blackness. The reptile stink was more pronounced as well.

Dorgo drew his sword, backing away from the sinister patches of darkness. Sanya caught his alarm. He could hear her fumbling among her amulets and charms. Ulagan lowered his spear, his ropy tentacle slithering around the haft to secure his grip.

The furtive, scratching sounds returned, and this time Dorgo knew that they were no trick of his imagination. He could hear something scraping against the earthen floor of the tunnel, something that took laboured, hissing breaths, something that came not only from the tunnel ahead of them, but from the passageway behind.

Yellow eyes winked open, shining from the nearest patch of darkness, reflecting the glow of the phosphorescent moss. Another set of eyes appeared beside the first, and then a third. Dorgo could see other eyes shining from further down the tunnel. The scrape of bodies surging down the passage behind them caused shapes to rush at them from the darkness ahead. Dorgo did not waste any effort trying to number their foes. It was enough to know that they were few against many.

Too many.