Warhammer Fantasy

Beasts in the Badlands

Chapter One: Shadow of the Beast

'Shouldn't we be going back to the village?' Fendrel shifted on his feet, eyeing the gloomy forest behind the clearing suspiciously. He shivered. 'Surely, they told those knights to kill it and take it away.'

'Did you get your rabbit?' Kris knelt in the shade by one of his snares. Affecting disinterest, he did not turn around.

'Yes, Hati found it in the undergrowth.' Fendrel patted his grey wolfhound on the head. 'Good boy!' Hati jumped up and put his front paws on Fendrel's chest to lick his face. 'Get off!' Fendrel grinned and hugged his wolfish friend. He had found the abandoned cub in the forest and saved him from starvation. As if to show his gratitude, Hati had taken all by himself to fetching the birds Fendrel shot with his boy version of the Ker-uskan longbow.

'Makes me laugh!' Kris scoffed and straightened up to look down on Fendrel, whose head hardly reached up to his chest. 'Can't even go and pick up a dead rabbit on his own. But talks about beasts like a freeman and calls his mongrel 'hate'. Great hunter you'll be!'

His skinny hunchbacked companion blushed but did not rise to the bait. He had seen fifteen summers and been out ranging and trapping with the chieftain's son for some time now. The fact that Kris, the leader of the Silver Lions' young warrior society, the Young Stags, never volunteered to hunt big game was not worth mentioning, he knew from painful experience. Besides, he was despite everything proud to be seen with Kris, whom he served faithfully. He was grateful and understood that Arndeel, their chieftain and Kris's father, could not acknowledge him, a weak cripple, as his legitimate son. But, although he was no slave, an impoverished bastard and half-orphan like him would never become a freeman, unless... He fervently hoped that Gadriell, their Druid and Keeper of the Stone, would apprentice him soon.

'But beasts shouldn't be brought into the village!' He ventured again. 'Arndeel said it himself. The Elvenstone's protective powers won't work properly. Surely, they must have sent them away with it.'

'Nobody tells the Markgraf's men, I guess.' Kris growled and clenched his teeth. He stared into the forest, his face a pale shadow under the tousled raven hair. 'I just hope it's as dead as this rabbit!' He suddenly raged. His hands shot out from behind his back with a struggling rabbit and wrung its neck in front of Fendrel's eyes. When it snapped with a sharp crack Kris's eyes lit up and the ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. He watched Fendrel's reaction. It was always the same.

The youngster jerked back and shuddered, his right hand groping for Hati's head. But this time the shock at Kris's cruelty was intensified by the fearful memory of this morning's events.

The beast had been brought into the village soon after sunrise. Roughly the size of a man the captive ungor had been a grisly sight to behold. All day Fendrel's thoughts had been fixed on its appalling, unexpected appearance in their village. For a moment, he glowered at Kris but then quickly lowered his eyes to avoid punishment. He did not notice the young warrior's satisfied grin, as the memory overwhelmed him.

The monstrous creature - a grimy twisted brute that belonged to the hated Chaos spawn - emitted an unforgettably sickening stench of animal excrement and dead rotting matter. The filth it was covered in spoke of a general self-neglect uncommon to both the world of humans and the animal kingdom. Instead of feet, it had hooves. Its matted hairy legs were those of a huge goat. The naked manlike upper torso was knotted with lean powerful muscle. Also its hideous head embodied the beast's hybrid nature. Small razorsharp horns, long pointed ears and a devilish tuft of hair on the chin would have framed a largely humanoid face, were it not for those plotting, sinister horizontal pupils and two triangular nostrils, mere holes, where there should have been a nose. The captive's slobbering mouth was a rictus of rage twisting the frightful face into a nightmarish masque. The two rows of uneven yellow predatory teeth were known to be capable of ripping through aurochs leather and those jaws could crack a stag's antlers. The cruel sound of its braying and bellowing was accompanied by a nauseating cloud of dank breath.

Hati had gone mad with fury at the ungor's sight and been chased away at the knights' behest after going for its throat.

And now his cub was jumping up at the grinning Kris's chest, trying to snatch the rabbit from his hands. Kris held it up high, let it dangle for two moments and then flung it into the part of the forest that was already swallowed up by the encroaching dark. 'Please, Kris!' Fendrel pleaded not looking at the dark trees. 'Let's go home!' He waited for a moment, half-turned and poised on his toes. And then he said threateningly, 'I am going now!? Hati, come here!' He turned around and started to march off, straining his senses expectantly. After a few gradually more and more hesitant steps he stopped by a gigantic pine and turned back. 'Kris?!'

'Well, I reckon you are right.' Kris sighed. 'The Young Stags will need me anyway... Hati!' His voice hollowly echoed across the shadowy clearing, whose near edge was still humming and crawling in the sunset. But only the forest replied: the whispering wind, the rustling trees, the harsh 'kek kek kek' of a sparrowhawk overhead. Kris shrugged and strode past Fendrel, who in turn was scanning the far end of the clearing for his only friend. 'Try to keep up, Fen, or the beasts will catch you and have you for dinner!' Kris snickered and then added ominously, 'Pray we make it by nightfall!'

But already the late autumn evening's cloak of dusk rode in on a chilly breeze and together they snuffed the last light and warmth of the day. Some dust and spores were still dancing in the dying sunlight above a thin strip of high grass between the pines next to the two youngsters. A blue sea of cornflowers had turned grey in the shade and wept drops and trickles of blood red poppies where the light still caressed it. The heavy forest air was laced with their somnolent smell and the hallucinogenic hum of bees racing from blossom to blossom before the cold could catch and kill them in mid-flight.

Suddenly, a faint thunder cracked and came rolling across the purple sky just as they entered the forest.

'Call your mongrel, Fen! We have to hurry!' Kris stopped for a moment, shivered and rubbed his arms before melting into the twilight of the forest. 'Come now!' He set off with long strides.

Hati's no mongrel! Fendrel was indignant. But he complied. 'Hati!' When there came no answer, Fendrel's voice cajoled. 'Haaaatiii!' And still only the wind and the trees gave answer, whispering, rustling. Fendrel's unseeing face sunk to his chest. But just for a moment. It was late and the woods were a dangerous place for a lone crippled boy. He sighed, braced himself, spun around and chased after his young master. Hati would follow when he had fed.

Only a few steps into the Cimmerian pine and fir forest a musty smell of dead wood and decaying leaves assaulted Fendrel's nose. There had not been any birches here only a few years ago but now they were beginning to suffocate the evergreen conifers in the valley.

Soon he caught up with Kris, who was trotting through the gloomy forest at a steady pace. The boy felt vulnerable without his wolfhound and shivered in the cold breeze that penetrated the forest. 'Burn you!' His voice rasped angrily. 'If you hadn't run away, when they brought the beast…' Shocked at his own audacity, he swallowed hard. Warily he watched out but the familiar cuff never came.

'I didn't run away, you lummox! I just had enough of those fools!' Kris lengthened his strides, which kept Fendrel from answering. Over his shoulder he pointed out, 'Nobody forced you to come!'

But his hanger-on did not give up so easily this time. Kris's discomfort encouraged him and he ran up to him. 'You helped them chase away Hati!' Fendrel bitterly alleged. Coward! If I was a freeman… He would have let Hati tear that monster apart and stuck a few arrows into its baleful eyes himself. He continued maliciously. 'Night is coming early. There will be a storm… A Kravalla!' He spat despite himself and relished seeing Kris flinch like a whipped dog.

A Kravalla was the worst kind of thunderstorm the Ker-uskans knew and it always brought beastmen with it. Some even said that it was dark beast magic that conjured up these thunderstorms, which rampaged along the borderlands every few years. They could flatten whole settlements, killing and scattering livestock and people alike. Whatever living being was caught outside the protection of Ker-uskan palisades and shield walls disappeared. After the feast, the beastkin would disappear along the new forest clearings, which looked as if bands of giants with axes like barn doors had taken to mowing trees.

Fendrel had seen a giant several years ago – a stray oddity here in the Badlands, which lay south of the legendary Empire – and nearly died of fright.

The dangers of guarding the frontier by the Beastwoods abounded and the weak were weeded out rapidly. Fendrel was grateful for his growing gift to foretell the weather and find game like nobody else he knew.

Rumour had it that he possessed magical potential and that this was the only reason why he was still abided in the village. But if this ability did not show itself more clearly soon, he knew, he would find himself outcast and alone with Hati in the Beastwood. There were already too many spiteful and angry remarks about his friendship with the young wolf that behaved like a dog. Some had recently begun to call him wolfling, which was bad and smelled of imminent expulsion, if not execution; the steps from wolfling to changeling or warg and then Chaos spawn were only short and quickly weather warnings and scaring up game for the hunters would carry him only so far and might even speak against him. It all depended on where Gadriell would cast his lot. His own weak legs would never let him escape.

The last thought snapped Fendrel out of his reveries and into an eerie feeling. He stood still to listen, lifted his chin and shifted his head like an owl.

'Stop, Kris! He pleaded in a whisper. 'Please, stop!'

'What?!' Kris turned. 'Did that tiny thunder unman you?' His mockery was belied by the tightness around his blue eyes.

'Don't you hear it?' Fendrel's whisper was swallowed by the gloom.

'Hear what?!' came the impatient reply. Sometimes Kris just did not want to know. Fendrel suppressed a groan. 'Nothing... Erm…' He cleared his throat. 'I mean… there is no sound!' His voice quavered. Still rooted to the spot, his scrawny neck turned stiff and his thin blond hair stood on end. Goosebumps were crawling up and down his spine. Kris sidled towards him, listened attentively and swallowed hard, his mask of indifference visibly fading. Pearls of sweat began to appear on his forehead above wide, shifting eyes. Then he spun and broke into a gallop, forcing Fendrel to follow at breakneck speed.

The boy ducked and nearly fell, when suddenly a gust of wind whipped the blackish-green canopy of the forest with a villainous howl. At the same time his nose was assaulted by a musty chill creeping up from a pale host of birch trees to his right, which had a stranglehold on two lone conifers. There was still no sign of Hati.

It felt like the time when Kris had first taken him into this part of the forest. He made Fendrel believe to be crossing into the Beastwood and the boy's guts had turned first into knots and then to water. In fact, he had emptied his bowels from fear. Good thing he was no warrior. They wore pants. Afterwards he had learned that this woodland was not part of the terrible forest and he had forced himself to laugh together with the others despite their mockery. For a while now he had almost felt like a veteran of the hunt and ranged with Kris through this separated part of the forest, pretending it held nothing scary for him. Kris was a warrior, sometimes kind, often cruel. But despite his capricious and despotic character Fendrel felt safe with him.

But something was different today. Why did those men bring an ungor into the settlement? A live beast let into our homes! Whether injured and captive or not made no difference. Everybody living by the Beastwood knew better than to override an Elvenstone's defences by inviting evil into their homes. But it had been at the Markgraf's behest. Or so their leader, a knight, had claimed.

The Silver Lions had been furious. Women had started wailing and the angry warriors had run for their spears to kill the hircine creature. But since its captors were Markgraf von Kraven's men-at-arms, Arndeel, the Silver Lions' chieftain, had called for order. The Ker-uskans could not afford the lord's wrath, while guarding the Badlands from the forest threat. There had been furious quarrelling nonetheless. It was almost a miracle that it had not come to blows, Fendrel thought.

By now the heartbeat pounding in his ears was accompanied by the sound of furiously howling winds that beat at the forest canopy and carried the sound of approaching thunder claps; drum rolls on an unseen sky. There was a gluey thickness to the twilight under the ancient conifers that inhibited Fendrel's movements and the black wet forest floor opened a myriad of gullets to break his legs. The wind between the trees buffeted his head so that he could hardly hear his own panting.

Suddenly, something dark and wet flew into Fendrel's face. Its stench took his breath even before it started suffocating him. He stopped in his tracks and began frantically pulling the thing from his face. Gasping for air he flung it onto the ground, where it remained motionless. Completely gassed and nearly wetting himself from asphyxiation, he propped his hands on his knees and retched onto the forest floor, which was covered by shiny wet leaves that seemed to move like the scales of a giant reptile. After regaining his breath, he dried his eyes and mouth and realised that it was Kris's cloak that had plastered his face. He spat. That cloak's stench had been vile. Cleaning his hands on the dead hares that hung down from his belt, Fendrel forced his leaden legs into a brisk walk.

He glowered at Kris, who had not even turned on losing his cloak and was now fading into the dark not too far ahead of him. Despite his burning lungs Fendrel fell into a trot again. He would have loved to shoot somebody in the back right now. Not just anybody! He ground his teeth. From this distance he could not have missed, he reflected vengefully, as he laboured to catch up.

While the chieftain's eldest son had the age, status, looks and bearing of a free Ker-uskan, Fendrel knew him to be more mouth than marrow. A tall charismatic young man of twenty summers, blessed with a deep voice and the gift of the gob, Kris sported his father's aquiline nose framed by narrow-set blue eyes. His ruggedly handsome features, full lips and lean muscular body made women sigh and swoon. Rumours had it that a couple of the settlement's new-borns had his looks. He certainly did boast a lot about the size of his spear, Fendrel thought sourly. Kris's broad shoulders and long arms were made for carrying the Ker-uskans' insignia of freemen, the spear and the shield. From what Fendrel had heard, Kris excelled at the training ground as did his younger brother, Garrik. Why he had not brought his weapons today was beyond Fendrel.

Kris wore, like Fendrel, a tunic but in addition also the long trousers of a freeman. They were made of fine wool just like his other clothes and held together by a leather belt, in which stuck a long hunting knife. Fendrel's own tunic was made of deerskin and had already been worn by Kris. Also Kris's leather sandals and the now lost cloak showed his status. Fendrel's naked feet had to rely on their calloused soles. He, the chieftain's half-free retainer, normally envied Kris for his clothes and right to call himself a free Ker-uskan. But right now all he wanted to be was safe in their village together with Hati. Even Kris's promise to let him wear breaches one day, sounded hollow to him now. Freedom reeked of danger tonight.

After a few more paces he skidded down a slope through a clump of nettles onto the wide rock-strewn path that would lead them home. The quiver that swung at his hip caught him between the legs so that he stumbled and crashed into Kris's back, almost knocking him flying onto his face.

'Watch it, you burning fool!' Kris hissed and cuffed him on the head. Then he turned and peered up and down the dark empty track. 'Can you feel it?' His anger was already going up in smoke. Fendrel only nodded, his teeth clenched.

Neither birdsong nor squirrels' chitter was to be heard. The only sound came from the distant rolling thunder and the cold wind. It howled and whistled when it rose, whispered when it fell, rustling the trees. Fendrel shivered. His legs burned from the bites of the nettles. With trembling hands he nocked an arrow, throwing glances up and down the road and towards the trees that swayed in the vanishing twilight. Then suddenly, the weapon and his gesture seemed pathetic to him. What could he do against a beast? His hands fell by his sides. He tilted his head back. Above the road he saw a leaden sky laced with veins of purple that were lit by the pale tremors of distant lightning.

'This way!' Kris barked and jerked his chin to the right. 'Hurry! We must get back to the village quick.' He set off at a trot. But Fendrel froze, struck by a vision.

'Kris! Kris! Wait!' He yelled.

'What now?!' Kris's infuriated growl sounded hostile. He turned around and stomped threateningly towards the shivering boy. 'You little lunatic! I don't care if you can foretell the weather or not. If you bring the beasts on us with your shouting, I'll break your neck before they can. If it's the last thing I do!'

'But that's exactly it!' Fendrel insisted in a strained voice. The image had flashed bright and clear in his head. He stammered, 'What if… what if they attacked the settlement? What if the ungor was a decoy and… and…' The sentence died in his throat.

Dark silence met Fendrel's words. Then Kris cleared his throat. 'Nonsense! You rabbit!', he spat furiously. 'They got rid of it. Killed it... probably. Do you not trust my father, our chieftain?'

That put Fendrel's back up. Rabbit? See who is talking! You try living like this among you great warriors! And he is my father too! But he said no word and just kept glaring up at his half-brother, glad that the darkness hid the anger in his face.

He flinched when Kris dug his fingers into his shoulders and hissed. 'Listen, boy! There were all sibs in the settlement this morning. The whole clan. Over ten scores of warriors! Add to that the scores of the lord's men. And there's been no sighting of beasts since last year.' Then he flipped and spluttered, his spittle flying into Fendrel's face. 'Do you think our rangers are stupid? You?! I think I have been too lenient with you... Cripple! Do you think because you know when it rains, you can slate freemen?' Kris's hiss dripped with venom. He was shaking.

'So, why did you run away then?!' As soon as the words had slipped out, two brutal slaps hit Fendrel left and right in the face. He reeled and fell on his back. Dazed he swallowed the metallic sweetness of blood. Then he lowered his head at his own stupid impertinence.

'Another word and you are dead!' Kris's voice hissed like a crazed cave cobra. 'Off now! Either with me or back into the forest! Up!'

And that was it. There was nothing that Fendrel could do. His head ringing, legs and lungs burning and mouth bleeding the lonely youngster bit back the tears that were filling his eyes and clenched his teeth. Oh Hati! Where are you? Lunging after his master for fear of being left alone, he just hoped that Kris was right.