This chapter marks the start of my Chaos (Khornate mortals) vs Dwarfs storyline. Some of the characters are based on my Warhammer armies, others originated from my Warhammer Quest days. I've bee wanting to write a Fantasy fic for a while but haven't had the inspiration. That has been remedied ever since the release of the Seventh edition rules when I started using them more regularly. Hope you enjoy this...
Extartius
The Trial of the Bear
For three days the hunting party roamed the mountains. They roved out northward from their mountainous village, well-wrapped in skins against the bitter cold. The slopes were treacherous here, all year round. Shale-slopes and crevasses lurked beneath the innocent blanket of fresh snow. Mountain lions prowled and mighty rocs plied the thermals above, watchful for an easy meal.
By night they pitched their makeshift yurts in the mountainous saddles between peaks, or down in the more accessible valleys. They contented themselves with a small fire each night, preserving the kindling they had brought with them.
Each of them carried with him his allotment of food, kindling and mead. Each carried a pot of animal grease, used to protect sensitive features from the biting winds. Clad in layers of wolf-skin and and lambs-wool each man carried almost two kilos of weight, and that was without factoring in their weapons.
These men were the veterans of many raids upon neighbouring marauder tribes. The Bear Kin were aggressive in their defence of their cold heartlands and the indigenous tribes bore the brunt of their violent natures. Each of them carried a great, two handed axe, the mark of their status as Bears Claw warriors. In addition, each man carried a long, heavy-headed spear, a better weapon than the axe for taking down their intended quarry, the mighty Red Bears of Norsca.
'Tomorrow we will find him,' said the grizzled Gunder, whetting his axe-blade, his gnarled features demoniac in the flickering firelight.
'We had better. By tomorrow we'll have to start doubling back if we're to get home at all,' Hagar replied, rubbing his hands to keep the blood circulating.
'Damn coward,' Gunder spat. 'I will not return without the hide of a Red Bear. It would be a sure sign of weakness. Every slack-jawed bear-cub in the village would be waiting to challenge us and claim our axe-heads.'
'I'm no coward, Gunder,' Hagar replied. 'I'd just rather die in combat than of exposure.'
'I'd be happy to kill you myself, if it comes to it,' Gunder snarled.
'Silence, both of you,' Vagnar interjected. 'I'm sick of your puling. Do you hear me whining like a girl? Or Ulli, or Sven?'
The warriors fell silent. No one wanted to pick a fight with Vagnar Kurgansson. He was the village wrestling champion and he'd defeated seventeen challengers in the traditional axe-fight, some of them two at a time. It was a wonder he hadn't embarked upon the hunt sooner, but they were thankful to have him at their sides upon this venture. It couldn't hurt to have such a powerful warrior along for the kill.
'We will continue on until we find a bear,' Vagnar declared. 'When we have made the kill there will be plenty of meat to sustain us on the journey home.'
The nodded their assent, even Hagar was bolstered by Vagnar's stolid presence and determination.
The next day was full of clear skies and strong winds. The snow had an icy crust that crunched underfoot as the party of five hunters packed up their camp and started out afresh.
Vagnar led the way, guiding them around the subtle treacheries of the mountains. They made for the Claw Pass, a brutal passage through the Talons range that had claimed many a traveller. But Vagnar had long been familiar with the region and led them true.
Beyond the pass they came across their first bear-sign.
'Tracks,' Vagnar grunted. 'Not a huge beast, but definitely a bear. Headed north.'
'Then lead on, Kurgansson, you've led us fair thus far,' said Gunder, an edge of excitement in his voice.
'The tracks are strange,' Vagnar mused. 'It's almost as if the weight is not distributed evenly. The front paws do not make as deep an impression on the earth beneath the snow.'
'The ground is frozen, perhaps it is wounded in the forepaw and favours the rear legs,' Ulli suggested.
'Perhaps. Let us find out.'
They followed the tracks down into a steep dell. The mountainsides were riddled with hidden recesses and caves. Vagnar advanced stealthily, wary for hazards. The tracks led them straight past several openings, but then meandered out of the dell to the north.
'Our people hunted these caves out long ago,' Vagnar explained. 'The bears do not den here anymore.'
He hesitated as he made the apex of the next rise. The party bunched up around him, wondering at the man's sudden uncertainty.
'What's the matter?' Gunder asked him.
'There is a road that passes nearby, it comes down from the northern straits of Norsca and is often used by the tribes to send raiding parties down into our lands. We must be watchful for enemies.'
'Let them come,' Sven muttered. 'My axe thirsts!'
The moved on more cautiously now, watchful for enemy lookouts as they followed the bear's tracks. They crossed the road and delved deeper into the mountains beyond. At midday the trail stopped. Vagnar halted the party and indicated a complex latticework of boot-print tracks in the snow.
'What does this mean?' asked Gunder. 'Did someone beat us to our quarry?'
'No, said Vagnar. There is no blood. There are not enough tracks to indicate a struggle. One man, alone. It's almost as if…' he hesitated.
'As it what, Kurgansson?'
'Look carefully, it appears to me that the bear tracks were made by a man wearing cleverly made soles, designed to make tracks identical to those of a medium sized bear. Whoever made these tracks was using walking sticks capped with something similar to those boot-soles, so as to imitate the tracks a bear would make. That would explain the uneven weight distribution. Whoever has led us on this merry chase must be an experienced mountain-tracker to fool me like this.'
'But who would do such a thing?' asked Gunder, with a scowl like a thunderhead.
'I more concerned about why they would go to the trouble,' Vagnar replied. 'Let us move to higher ground. The maker of these tracks may yet be close by.'
They made their way up to a lofty vantage point from which they could overlook the road-vale. Vagnar pointed out to the east, indicating a dark blur moving slowly down the road towards them.
'What is that?' asked Ulli, squinting against the snow-glare.
'A wagon, pulled by bray-oxen,' Vagnar replied. 'It's huge.'
'Who do you think it is?'
'I don't know. We'll take a rest here and see if we can make it out as it comes closer.'
The others had no qualms with this. The Bear Kin could be as opportunistic as any Norseman raider. The prospect of spoils was a keen motivation for them. They settled into their furs to wait. Sven took out a strip of jerked beef and started chewing on it, resembling nothing if not a rangy hound gnawing on a bone.
Vagnar stood at the vantage like a statue, gazing out into the east, his mind a-blur with possibilities. After less than half a glass had passed by, the ox-drawn carriage was close enough for them to get a better look.
'It's like the boxes Varspoi uses to transport his brood mares when they are carrying foals,' Gunder remarked.
'But much bigger and banded in thick iron straps,' Sven added, his keener eyes making out a few more details.
The cart drew to a halt near to where the false tracks crossed the road. A figure hopped down from the fur-swathed driver's bench and unhitched a horse that had been drawn alongside, out of sight of the watchers. The figure mounted expertly and moved around to the rear of the wagon where they could not see him. The sound of clinking chains echoed up off the valley slopes.
Suddenly, in a spray of kicked up snow and ice, the horse took to its heels, rider and all, continuing down the road past the watchers at break-neck speed.
'I'd recognise Varspoi's blood-stock anywhere,' Ulli hissed. 'That horse came from our own stables… I'd swear to it.'
'Did anyone recognise the rider?' asked Vagnar. There was a round of shaken heads.
'Shall we go down and look?' asked Sven.
'Whatever is in that wagon, he certainly didn't seem inclined to stick around to protect it,' said their leader, hefting his spear thoughtfully.
Suddenly the mountainside shook with an almighty, grating roar. The wagon shuddered and rocked on its axles. The oxen shifted in fear, but were too well trained to bolt.
The rear of the wagon was smashed to flinders and twisted iron brackets as something huge and red-furred emerged from it. It was a bear. Vagnar estimated that it was three times the size of the one they thought they'd been tracking. It was the kind of bear that hadn't been seen in these mountains for millennia. The Blood Bound warriors told tales of creatures like this around the hearth of Morglin Darkspawn himself.
It was impossibly massive and redder than fresh blood scattered on clean snow. Its talons were like sickles and its teeth like daggers. Its massive shoulders bore serried lines of bony protrusions and a pair of malevolent red eyes glowed from beneath heavy brows.
The hunting party recoiled in horror, all except Vagnar, whose eyes lit with relish.
'What does this mean?' asked Ulli, his voice quavering.
'Isn't it obvious?' Vagnar sneered. 'Someone in the village bears a grudge against one or another of us. They must have gone to great trouble and expense to lead us on this wild-bear chase while they blocked our route home with this daemon of the mountains.'
'Daemon?' Hagar quavered.
'Use your eyes, fool. That thing is not natural, not even for these forsaken reaches of the northern world. Someone made that thing by summoning warp entities to possess a physical form.'
'I didn't come here for this,' Hagag protested. Vagnar and Gunder turned on him as one.
'Then what did you come here for?' Vagnar cried. Hagar tried to hush him, afraid of attracting the monster's attention. He needn't have been concerned as the thing was busy rending the bray-oxen to bloody chunks in a blood-fuelled frenzy.
'This is the kind of beast our masters hunted in the days when they first came here. I would rather die fighting that thing than some adolescent cub with claws like a baby's fingers. This is the chance that only comes along once in a man's lifetime, to gain glory unheard of or to die with honour in the process. Who of us wouldn't kill for such a chance?'
Gunder shouted his assent, closely followed by Sven and Ulli, who'd gathered all the courage they had in the face of Vagnar's tirade. Hagar quivered on the ground before him, pale and waxen.
Vagnar sneered upon him and raised his axe.
'You are not worthy of Morglin's heritage, Hagar Varlisson. You are fortunate that my Lord Khorne does not care from whence the blood flows!'
With those words he struck off the coward's head, spattering arterial blood across the crisp, white snow.
He shucked off his heavy pack and the encumbering furs, slinging his axe across his back and taking out a length of doughty rope from his pack with it's iron-hooked grapnel. This he looped across his shoulders before taking up his own spear and Hagar's. The others saw his intent and followed suit. He had become their leader through the long trek from the Red Mountain. They would follow him into glorious endeavour and relish death wherever it fell.
The four warriors, stripped to the waste and bearing only their weapons, loped like hungry wolves down towards the chaos-spawned bear. Vagnar took up the war-chant and they all joined in.
'Blood for the blood god, skulls for the throne of Khorne!'
xxx
Hagar's spear drew first blood, hurled from Vagnar's powerful right arm with all the strength of his burly frame. The tip lodged deep in the beast's left shoulder and evinced a roar of pain and fury from its gargantuan lungs. It reached back to try and swat at the shaft but there was no way it could reach it.
Then they were upon it. Sven and Ulli circled around to either side while Gunder and Vagnar took it head on, lunging at its face with their long spears. These two kept it occupied while the others dropped their spears and unfurled their grappling ropes. The wind whistled as they swung them overhead, casting them with expert precision to lodge the hooks in the bear's hide.
The men of the Bear Kin were bred strong. Sven and Ulli exerted all their strength upon the ropes, trying to drag the creature off-balance as the others gouged at it with their spears.
The creature roared with a malevolence that shook the mountains and reared up, dragging both men off their feet. Sven had the good sense to let go of his rope and retrieve his spear but Ulli clung on relentlessly, dragged across the snow on his belly until he lay in the bear's massive shadow.
Vagnar cried out at him to roll and the smaller man barely managed to avoid being crushed as the bear's forelegs came back down. It swiped at him, catching him a glancing blow with its talons which raked across Ulli's ribs. The young warrior flipped to his feet, agile as a cat and ignoring the flaring pain in his side, but he was still within reach of the monster.
It batted at him with a crunching, back-hand impact and he arced away, landing in a snow-drift several cubits away.
The bear turned its attentions back to the three remaining assailants, fixing its malevolent gaze on Gunder, who whooped and jabbed at it with his spear.
'Work around to the side,' Vagnar cried, and they circled the beast, drawing its attention this way then that, easily evading its clumsy swipes with their greater reach. Vagnar backed off and unfurled his hooked rope, setting another barb in the beast's flesh and heaving with all his strength.
The bear stumbled and Gunder dived in, eager for the kill. He drove his spear deep into the tough hide, evincing a scream of pain and causing the bear to swipe at him reflexively. The claws plunged through Gunder's throat, sending his lifeblood cascading across the valley floor as his body fell into a convulsing heap.
Mad with pain and fury, the bear stooped and closed his jaws on Gunder's torso. Blood matted the fur about its muzzle as those dagger-like teeth plunged into the man's lungs and entrails, splitting his body like a ripe fruit. Blood and gore flew as it worried at the corpse in a frothing frenzy.
As the creature reared again Vagnar cast his spear at its underbelly javelin-like. The spear buried itself in the bear's guts. He ran to retrieve the one Ulli had dropped.
'Keep your distance,' he shouted. 'It will soon tire, the amount of blood it's losing.'
Sven nodded, pale with terror but still gripping his spear with a purpose.
They baited it for a few minutes as the snow around it became saturated with steaming blood. The beast roared in its frustration, swiping at them with its gory talons and spraying them with blood. Vagnar smiled, licking his lips and taking strength from the blood of his slain compatriot.
But this was no ordinary bear. Blood was not the only thing that fuelled it. The energies of Chaos flowed through its sinews, lending it a speed and strength that was not natural.
With a sudden surge it was upon Sven, goring him with it's claws and clamping it's jaws down over his head. As it withdrew with a jerking motion, Sven's neck fountained blood, his skull cracking between the bear's back teeth.
With a growl of triumph the beast turned to face Vagnar, a maniacal grinning cast to its features, as though he had been saving the best until last.
Vagnar hurled the spear with all his strength, aiming for the creature's eyes. He missed. The axe from his back was in his hands in one swift, assured motion as the bear closed the distance between them.
He knew he was going to die, and he didn't care. He would stand at the foot of the Blood Throne before the sun set, drinking the blood of his enemies from their hollowed out skulls and revelling in the achievements of his short but bloody life.
He did not submit to his fate. He struck out at the bear's lunging swipes, hacking through thick hide and sinew. Blood continued to shower around him as he fought with all the speed and brutality of the daemonic.
The bears left paw was crippled from a multitude of powerful axe-blows. Its right was shorn off at the wrist joint. He ducked under a clumsy lunge and dragged the axe-blade through the beast's guts, spilling entrails on the snow.
He spotted Gunder's axe lying on the ground and snatched it up as he turned to face the bear once more. Using one in either hand he pressed home a flurry of telling blows that irritated and frustrated the monster's frenzied efforts.
The combatants danced a complex sequence of blow and counter-blow. Vagnar was not unblooded. Claw's raked his left arm, scoring deep and bloody grooves across his biceps. Teeth narrowly avoided crushing his collarbone in a lucky lunge, closing on skin and gristle instead and tearing a bloody hole in his shoulder. A glancing blow to his head opened a free-flowing wound across his scalp.
The reddened glow in the creature's eyes began to dim, almost as though the daemonic presence embedded in its flesh was losing its grip on the corporeal world. The bear was little more than a reanimated corpse. No natural creature would have been able to sustain so much damage and live. Vagnar waiting for an opportunity to deal it a crushing blow, sensing that the victory could be his if only he could stay conscious for a few minutes more.
With a last surge of unnatural energy the bear lunged and struck, sending both axes flying from Vagnar's hands and breaking several bones in his left hand. The pain was phenomenal. Vagnar almost blacked out as he went down to his knees. The bear reared over him, a glint of victory animating its glowing eyes.
'Well fought, Ursa Victor,' Vagnar gasped as he waited for the killing blow.
Suddenly the rearing beast jerked to the side, crying out in pain and losing its balance. It crashed down onto its side and Vagnar saw the blood-covered Ulli Uthrisson gripping a bloody rope in his palsied hands.
Vagnar recovered his cherished axe and gripped it painfully in both hands as he stood over the failing creature, looking down into those malevolent eyes.
'I take it back,' he said. 'This was too easy.'
The axe bit deep, severing powerful sinews in the bear's trunk-like neck. He hewed like a woodsman felling a tree, counting six mighty blows just to reach the beast's spine, which notched his blade. By then the creature was dead.
xxx
The story of whether Vagnar Bearsbane ever claimed vengeance upon he that had released the bear is not recounted here. The mighty warriors skinned the beast as was their tradition. They spurned it's warp-spawned flesh, however, surviving on what remained of the rations they had brought with them as they made their way back to the Red Mountain. They carried with them the bear's massive pelt and its head as their prize. Gunder, Hagar and Sven they left to be reclaimed by the mountains that had bred them.
Ulli Uthrisson went on to become a renowned adventurer in the kingdoms of the south, while Vagnar remained with the Bear Kin and became a mighty warrior, despite his crippled left hand. He spurned the honour of becoming Blood Bound for another fifteen years, choosing instead to train the young warriors of the tribe and lead them in battle. Eventually, having never been bested in a challenge, he donned the armour of the Blood Bound and was initiated into the ranks of Morglin Darkspawn's Chaos Warriors, claiming countless skulls to be laid at the feet of the Blood God.