Blood for the Blood God

7

The first juggernaut charged the Skulltaker like an avalanche, its heavy hoof-claws churning the earth as it thundered towards him. The warrior waited, watching in silence as the huge bulk rumbled over the ground, its steaming breath hissing between its fanged jaws of brass. The juggernaut roared, a sound like grinding steel, and lowered its head as it made ready to smash into its enemy.

The instant the daemon’s head lowered, the wolf-beast was in motion, leaping from the juggernaut’s path. The Skulltaker’s sword lashed out, hacking at the brute as it barrelled past. Molten blood burst from the daemon’s bronze hide as the sword bit home, crimson steam spurting from the grisly wound carved into its side. The juggernaut’s body ploughed through the earth as its foreleg buckled beneath its weight, severed nearly in half by the Skulltaker. Its enormous mass gouged a deep trench as its momentum drove it onwards until at last it vanished behind a cloud of dust and steam.

The second juggernaut lingered behind, letting its fellow daemon initiate the attack. As the Skulltaker struck the kindred horror, the other daemon stamped its clawed hooves and charged. Again, the warrior’s lupine steed tried to leap from the daemon’s hurtling path, but there was more than a brute’s cunning locked within the bronze shell of the juggernaut. It anticipated the wolf-beast’s leap and was prepared for it. Even as the Skulltaker’s mount leapt, the juggernaut changed its path, smashing into the creature as it landed upon its broad paws.

Bones cracked under the jarring impact as the juggernaut’s thick metal skull rammed into the Skulltaker’s steed, hurling it a hundred yards through the air. The steed landed in a broken pile, snarling and snapping as it tried to force its splintered body to rise.

The juggernaut did not give the wolf-beast any chance. It sprinted across the ground with another burst of frenzied speed, roaring its metallic shriek. Its clawed hooves trampled the wolf-beast beneath them in a ferociously savage display, shattering bones beneath its colossal weight and shredding flesh with its razor claws. Brass fangs tore chunks of meat from the mangled mass, blood sizzling as the heat of the daemon’s inner fires consumed it.

An armoured shape reared up behind the raging juggernaut. With powerful strides, the Skulltaker sprinted towards the bronze daemon, fury shining behind the sockets of his skeletal mask. Thrown when the brute struck his steed, the warrior had swiftly recovered from his violent descent, the unholy power bound within his body sustaining him where a mortal should lie smashed and broken. He rushed at his terrible foe, the smoking darkness of his sword clenched tightly in his fist.

The juggernaut sensed its peril, turning reluctantly from the mash of bones and blood that its hooves had made of the Skulltaker’s steed. Its burning eyes glared balefully at the charging warrior, its maw opening in a steaming roar. The daemon’s fierce display did not cause the Skulltaker to falter. He lunged at the metal monster, and with a single tremendous leap he landed upon its broad bronze back. Powerful legs locked around the daemon’s midsection as the juggernaut strove to unseat the sudden burden, its savage bellows searing the air.

The Skulltaker was oblivious to the daemon’s wrath. Both hands locked around the hilt of his blade, he lifted the black sword high above his head. In a single, brutal thrust, he brought the weapon flashing down. Bronze shrieked as the blade bit through the metal hide of the juggernaut, molten blood exploding from the wound in a burst of steam.

The Skulltaker ignored the burning molten ichor that spattered across his armoured frame, but kept his hands locked around his sword, working it savagely across the wound he had struck. The tear he had gouged in the back of the juggernaut’s head ripped wider as the black sword worried at the cut. Fiery blood cascaded from the wound, the raging daemon frantically trying to buck its tormentor from its back.

The Skulltaker held fast, wrenching his blade back and forth. Crimson steam filled his vision, burning ichor dripped from his arms, his ears rang with the tortured metal shrieks of the daemon, and still he would not relent. Mercilessly, he hacked away at the juggernaut’s neck, ripping wide the wound he had carved. The daemon reared back, trying to press its head against its shoulder and protect its neck.

The motion caused the wound to tear wider, and with a searing wail of rage, the juggernaut lurched forwards. The weight of its massive bronze head was too much for its mangled neck and it tore free, thudding to the earth in a shower of steaming ichor that burned like molten fire upon the ground, a hollow bell-like ring following it as it rolled away.

The headless body staggered, struggled, and then sagged to the earth liked a weary child. The Skulltaker leapt from the bronze hulk as it started to shift, jumping clear before the heavy mass crashed onto its side.

A seething roar singed the air as the Skulltaker paced away from the bronze husk of the juggernaut. The warrior spun around, ready to confront his enemy. The first juggernaut stomped forward, its movements awkward and clumsy. He could see the great dripping wound that had been gouged in its side, one of the daemon’s forelegs held away from the ground, the limb nearly cut through by the Skulltaker’s sword. Even crippled, the smouldering rage of the Blood God still filled the daemon, still drove it to attack and to kill.

The Skulltaker gestured at the bronze monster, waving it forwards with a contemptuous curl of his fingers. The daemon threw its head back, brass jaws chewing the sky as it bellowed its fury.

With berserk frenzy, the juggernaut thundered towards the warrior, crushing rocks beneath its pounding hooves. The warrior’s body grew tense as he lowered into a crouch. The earth trembled beneath his feet as the daemon’s heavy limbs struck the ground. The Skulltaker held the monster’s fiery gaze, eyes locked upon the hellish flames flaring from the juggernaut’s hound-like face. Closer and still closer the bronze titan sped towards him, like the descending hammer of death.

Just before the juggernaut reached him, the Skulltaker pounced, throwing himself at the charging daemon. Smoking steel stabbed into the broad, doglike head, puncturing the bronze snout just beneath the skull-rune etched across it. The Skulltaker held fast to the embedded sword as the juggernaut reared back, lifting him from the ground. The daemon lashed its head from side to side, trying to throw the man clinging to the sword. Steam sizzled from its jaws and fire flared from its nostrils as the daemon’s fury swelled.

Molten ichor bubbled up around the sword as the monster’s efforts caused the blade’s edge to saw into the bronze skin, widening the wound. At last, as the juggernaut whipped its head around, the sword was torn free, hurling man and weapon into the dirt. The Skulltaker slid across the ground in a tumble of armoured limbs, the black sword rolling free of his fingers. Like the juggernaut before him, he was lost in a cloud of billowing dust.

The juggernaut spun around, its rage a volcanic flame roaring through its bronze body. The brute’s head swung from side to side until it spotted the cloud of dust and the dark figure slowly rising within it. The daemon bellowed its bloodlust, stamping its hooves as it prepared to charge again.

In its wrath, the daemon forgot its mangled limb. It lowered the injured leg, letting too much of its weight rest upon it. The hollow bronze shell snapped like a rotten tree limb, spilling the juggernaut onto the ground. The daemon’s hooves pawed at the ground, trying to secure a grip, trying to right its immense body. Seething grunts of enraged frustration hissed from the juggernaut’s bronze jaws while burning ichor spurted from its severed leg.

Before the daemon could recover, the dark figure of the Skulltaker loomed over it. The juggernaut turned its head, trying to snap at the man, to crush him in its brass jaws. As it tried to bite him, the Skulltaker brought the point of his sword stabbing forwards, thrusting the smoking blade into its fiery eye. The bronze hulk shuddered as the screaming steel stabbed at its very essence. A dull, grinding moan wheezed from the gigantic daemon.

With a final, wracking shiver, the juggernaut was still, its infernal essence cast from the mortal world by the Skulltaker’s sword. Crimson steam seeped into the air as the daemon’s unnatural life fled from its metal shell.

Screams of disbelief and horror echoed from the walls of Iron Keep. The Skulltaker rose from the husk of the juggernaut and turned to face the stronghold of the Gahhuks. He could see Csaba’s face, pale and sweating, among the frightened ranks of the Gahhuks. He gestured at the man with his sword, the man the Blood God had marked for death. Csaba’s voice rose in a stream of frantic commands, a litany of snarled curses and dire threats. Spears clattered around the Skulltaker as the Gahhuks cast them at him.

The Skulltaker turned his back on the Gahhuks. It was not their spears or their numbers that concerned him, it was the unnatural walls of their stronghold that kept him from his prey. Csaba, however, had been too crafty in his attempt to kill the Skulltaker. By unleashing his caged daemons against his enemy, Csaba had given him the tools he needed to breech the unassailable walls of Iron Keep.

For long hours, the Skulltaker laboured over the carcasses of the juggernauts. When he turned again to the walls of the fortress, the black sword was sheathed. In its place he held an immense weapon, a gigantic maul that made Lok’s mattock look like a cobbler’s hammer. The bronze skull of one juggernaut formed the head, the iron spine of the other served as the haft. With his new weapon, the Skulltaker stalked towards the walls. Frightened cries and desperate shouts sounded from the stronghold, the screams of women and children rising above the voices of the warriors on the battlements. Spears and stones rained down around him as he strode to the smooth, unbroken iron barrier.

Iron Keep shuddered as the Skulltaker brought his daemon hammer cracking against it. The malevolence and destructive power of two juggernauts of Khorne had been bound into the grisly maul, the fury of two vanquished daemons eager for revenge. The concentrated malice caused the walls to shiver as the Skulltaker smashed the maul against them. On the third hit, cracks appeared in the unmarred surface, cracks that the living iron did not ooze up to repair. On the fifth strike, flakes of quicksilver exploded across the length of the stronghold’s perimeter as the walls began to fracture. On the seventh blow, the structure rocked as though the entire rise had been shaken by an earthquake.

When the maul cracked against the walls for the eighth time, Iron Keep broke beneath it. Towers shattered like broken glass. Like a crashing glacier, the walls toppled. Gahhuks wailed in horror as their fortress collapsed around them, burying them in mounds of twisted iron, crushing them beneath the weight of their fortress.

As the walls tumbled down, the Skulltaker cast aside the maul and drew his sword. The blade flared into life, screaming hungrily as it smelled the blood of the vanquished Gahhuks, as it heard the moans of the maimed and the dying. The Skulltaker ignored the broken wretches crawling from the rubble as he stalked into what had been the courtyard. Only one Gahhuk concerned him this day.

Wherever he was, Zar Csaba Daemontamer would not escape the Skulltaker.

The tension within Hutga’s yurt was scarcely less intense than that of the disastrous council at the monolith. A dozen of the Tsavag’s best warriors stood at the ready, weapons bared, each face filled with hate and suspicion. They had good reason to be anxious. The Sul had sent no lesser sorcerer than Enek Zjarr to meet with their khagan this time.

The sorcerer-kahn of the Sul stood before Hutga’s ivory throne, a sinister figure cloaked in black, the dreaded naginta of his tribe clutched in his bony hand. “Soulchewer” the weapon had been named by those who had faced it in battle, for its cruel edge was said to strike not merely a man’s flesh, but his spirit as well. More forbidding even than the sacred weapon were the unseen powers that lurked within the sorcerer, the ghastly spells and magics only a sorcerer could master. The Tsavag warriors had reason to be tense, each of them wondering if his blade could strike faster than Enek Zjarr’s sorcery.

Alone among the Tsavag warriors, Dorgo kept his attention not upon Enek Zjarr, but on the woman who had accompanied him to the encampment. She was the same raven-haired companion who had been with the sorcerer at the council. Now he had time to look at her closer, he was struck by the beauty of her slender features, her narrow emerald eyes and full red lips.

Enek Zjarr had introduced her as Sanya and she was both apprentice and consort to the sorcerer. Like her master, she wore a long robe of black silk, a riot of talismans and amulets draped around her neck and across her rounded chest. Her hands, when they emerged from the confines of her robe’s embroidered sleeves, were slim and almost childishly smooth, sporting an array of jewelled rings and bracelets of silver and gold. Around her waist, a heavy chain of silver circled her body, pouches and flasks of strangely hued liquid dangling from its links.

If Enek Zjarr’s face was one of serene indifference, that of his apprentice was even more inscrutable, her smile as empty as it was enigmatic. Dorgo could not shake an impression of lurking danger around the woman and knew that his tribesmen were wrong to restrict their wariness to the sorcerer. The witch could just as easily work magic as her master could and probably with no less dire consequences. Indeed, with everyone focused upon the kahn, Dorgo regarded Sanya as the more immediate threat.

“Prosperity and security be yours, most beneficent khagan,” Enek Zjarr said, his words slithering through the tent. For all the humility of his speech, there was an undercurrent of withering scorn in the sorcerer’s voice, a note of mocking contempt that caused Dorgo’s hair to bristle. The temerity of the Sul was second only to their perfidy. “I am pleased you have allowed an audience to this most unworthy one.”

Hutga scowled at the sorcerer’s feigned deference. “Speak your words, magus,” the khagan said. “You did not come here to play lickspittle and I weary of listening to a jackal play at courtesy. What causes you to bring your foul magics to the land of the Tsavags? Surely you do not intend another council?”

A sad look came over Enek Zjarr’s countenance. “No, I fear that would avail us nothing. The other chieftains will not acknowledge the menace, which threatens us all, until it is too late. Their heads will hang from the Skulltaker’s belt before they will listen.”

“And you think I will?” Hutga challenged.

“You, at least, are aware of what it is that stalks these lands,” Enek Zjarr said. “You know it is the Skulltaker, returned to claim the flesh of Teiyogtei, to cut the legacy of the king from the bellies of his warlords. You know that the Skulltaker is a foe that no man, not even a chieftain, may face in battle. Tell me, Hutga Khagan, did you plan to flee the domain with your tribe or withdraw to the burial grounds of your race and make a final hopeless stand against an unbeatable enemy?”

Hutga clenched his fist, growling at the sneering sorcerer. “It is better to die fighting than die running!”

Enek Zjarr bowed by way of apology. “What if I told you there was a third path you could take, a path that could save your people and destroy the Skulltaker?”

“I would call such claims the crooked lies of a Hung,” Hutga replied, his voice as cold as the iron nodules beneath his skin.

“One does not need to tell lies to a dead man,” Enek Zjarr said plainly. “Only united could the tribes have met our enemy in battle with any hope of success. Before we were even aware of the threat, two of our number were already dead. Six, perhaps, might have been enough, for that number is sacred to Lashor, Khorne’s most dire adversary among the gods, but the others would not lay aside their quarrels long enough to confront our foe.”

“And you have found a way to destroy the Skulltaker without the others?” Hutga scoffed.

“Indeed,” Enek Zjarr replied. “After the council dispersed, I returned to my palace and consulted my familiar spirits. My imps and daemons searched the forbidden places of the ethereal world, long into the night, hunting for the knowledge I required. Shall I tell you what I discovered?” Hutga made a surly motion with his hand, impatient for the sorcerer to speak his piece. “They told me there is a way, dangerous, perhaps as deadly as the Skulltaker himself, but a way nonetheless.”

“Teiyogtei Khagan could not kill the Skulltaker,” observed Yorool. The shaman had been crouching before Hutga’s throne, muttering prayers of protection against any sorcery Enek Zjarr thought to visit upon his chieftain. Now, the sorcerer’s presumption broke Yorool’s concentration. He pointed an indignant finger at the Hung wizard. “If the great king could not kill him, nothing mortal can!”

“Ah,” cooed the sorcerer, “but our vanquished king did kill the Skulltaker. It was the will of Khorne that the monster did not stay dead. Perhaps Khorne will be less indulgent if his champion falls a second time.”

Enek Zjarr paused, letting his words sink in. “The Bloodeater was born in the Black Altar, created from the raw hate of a fallen daemon. Before he descended upon the Shadowlands, Teiyogtei Khagan created the Black Altar from the corpse of a daemon and used its raging spirit to craft the weapons of power he would later use to bind the loyalty of his warlords and build his mighty horde. He kept the most powerful magic for himself, however, binding it into his own Bloodeater. Alone, the weapon was powerful enough to vanquish the Skulltaker, to destroy his mortal shell and banish him from the lands of the domain for five hundred and twelve generations of men!”

Hutga shook his head. The sorcerer was mad. “The Black Altar lies deep within the Wastes, if it still exists at all. It is daring the wrath of the gods for a man to challenge the Wastes, worse than suicide for any who would try.”

“Are the chances for life so very good with the threat of the Skulltaker looming overhead?” observed Sanya. “He serves the Blood God, seeking to deliver the domain to Khorne’s hunger. But for the strength of Teiyogtei, this land and all within it would have been devoured by the Skull Lord long ago, sucked down into his world of blood and slaughter. Now, Khorne again stretches his hand to claim what the king tried to keep from him!”

“Even if the Black Altar could be found,” protested Yorool, “the Bloodeater was broken by the Skulltaker in his battle with Teiyogtei.”

“What has been broken can be reforged,” said Enek Zjarr. “The shards of Teiyogtei’s sword lie within his barrow. If they were gathered, if they were taken to the Black Altar, the blade could be remade.”

Hutga considered the sorcerer’s claims, scratching his chin as he mulled over the Hung’s words. He concentrated not only on what Enek Zjarr said, but what he left unsaid. “Why do you need me?” the chieftain asked. “For that matter, how do I know it is Enek Zjarr I meet with and not a sorcerer’s simulacrum?”

Enek Zjarr’s face twisted into a withering scowl. “Do you think I would trust a doppelganger with Soulchewer?” he snarled, letting the butt of his weapon smack against the floor of the yurt. “If I had a choice, do you think I would come here, begging the aid of a filthy Tong warlord and his brood of mammoth-suckling whelps! I come to you because I need you, because to get the shards of the Bloodeater I must go to the one place in the domain where my powers are useless! The mark of Khorne is upon the tomb of Teiyogtei Khagan and no magic can overcome the Blood God’s curse. It is men of swords, not sorcery, that are needed to prevail against the guardian of the tomb. Strong in magic, alas the Sul have no affinity for base weapons of blade and bludgeon.”

That at least sounded like the truth to Hutga’s ears. Whatever schemes the Sul might be plotting, there was one fact even the sorcerers could not escape: the Skulltaker was after them as much as he was the other tribes. If Enek Zjarr had truly divined a way to fight the Skulltaker, Hutga owed it to his people to investigate the claim. He motioned to one of his attendants, pointing to a heavy flagon hanging from the hide wall.

“We will drink the venom of alliance,” the khagan decided, locking eyes with Enek Zjarr, looking for any last sign of deception. He grunted derisively. The Sul were such masters of treachery that they wore their faces like the mask of a Muhak when they wanted to hide something.

There was no hesitancy in Enek Zjarr as he accepted the flagon, drawing a deep draught of syrupy amber liquid from the leather jug. The venom of alliance was an old tradition among the tribes, a powerful poison that each tribe brewed from the venom of stalk-spiders and the spores of fungi. The combination was unique to each tribe, requiring its own antidote known only to the shamans.

If the chieftain seeking alliance broke his word, the offended tribe would withhold the antidote, condemning him to months of excruciating agony as the poison ravaged his body. It was not potent enough to kill, no poison was strong enough to kill one who bore the daemon weapons of Teiyogtei, but the pain was enough to make even a chieftain wish for death.

“You are satisfied?” Enek Zjarr asked, wiping amber poison from his lips.

“I will be when we have journeyed to the monolith and I see for myself the shards of Teiyogtei’s sword,” Hutga answered. “Twenty of my best warriors will go with us… for protection.”

“Forty would be better,” interrupted Sanya.

Hutga laughed at the woman. “Forty men just to deal with that Norscan swine Alfkaell? We are warriors, wench, not feeble Sul mystics!”

Enek Zjarr simply smiled at the khagan’s boast. “Who said the Norscan is the only guardian of the tomb?”

The sorcerer’s warning echoed in the silence that suddenly filled the yurt.

Blood bubbled from Zar Csaba’s mouth as he slowly, painfully crawled across the courtyard. Cast down with the walls of his fortress, the chieftain had been smashed beneath the rubble, his back broken by the heavy iron debris. All around him, he could hear the moans and cries of his people still buried in the ruins, calling out for help that would never come. Those still whole were scattering across the plains, fleeing before the ghastly being who had brought destruction upon their fortress.

Csaba stabbed his fingers into the dirt, dragging his battered body across the ground. He ground his teeth against the pain. He was one of the eight warlords of Teiyogtei, flesh of the great king. The legacy he had drawn into himself when he became zar of the Gahhuks would sustain him, would heal even a broken back over time. He could rise from his ruin as strong as before, if he could escape. It was not the Skulltaker alone who menaced him now. Weak and crippled, Csaba had to fear his own tribesmen. Any one of them might seize the opportunity to kill their zar and become chief of all the Gahhuks.

Thinking about his many enemies, Csaba slumped against the ground. He reached to his belt, dragging his fat-bladed sword from its horsehair scabbard. The hilt of the weapon felt cold and strong against his palm, reassuring the Kurgan’s flagging spirits.

An armoured boot crunched down upon Csaba’s hand, grinding its heel against his fingers. The dadao slipped from his grip, clattering against the ground. The zar looked up, finding himself looking into the pitiless death-mask of his executioner. Blood flew from Csaba’s mouth as he spat his defiance at the grim apparition.

The Skulltaker’s black blade came sweeping down, ending the reign of Zar Csaba Daemontamer.