This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of dark beasts and oppression cloaked in brightly-colored cloth. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world's ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.
At the heart of the Remnant sprawls the Four Kingdoms, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for their engineers, Hunters, traders and soldiers, they are lands of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and of four vast cities. And from his shadowy throne in Beacon reigns the Wizard, a sorcerer of ancient past, whose sacred descendants are the bones and founders of these lands. Ozma, the wielder of magical powers both wonderful and terrible.
Yet these are far from truly civilized times. Across the length and breadth of the Remnant, from the knightly palaces of Vale to ice-bound Atlas in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the shadow-veiled lands, the dark beasts are gathering for another assault under the leadership of their dread queen. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the kingdom of Mistral. There are rumors of beast-men, faunus, emerging from the slums and scattered camps across the land. And from the north there is the ever-present threat of Atlas's might, which is both the sword of civilization, as well as the whip that seeks an opportunity and opening to conquer the four so they may be under one rule.
As the time of battle draws ever near, Remnant needs heroes like never before.
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"Sylvania had proven to be a haunt of horror. The events at Drakenhof Castle left us filled with sadness and fear. We had prevented the rising of a great terror but paid an awful price. And there was to be no respite from battle and dread. No sooner had we overcome our undead foe than we found ourselves thrown headlong into another even more desperate adventure, one that was to involve the fate of a world so far removed from the Empire that it might as well have been a separate world altogether, as well as battles with foes more horrible and deadly than almost anything we had faced before. During the course of these adventures I was to learn far more about the secret history of our world than I ever wanted to learn, and found my life and soul in the greatest of peril. Even now, looking back on these terrible events I am amazed that I survived. Many of my companions were not so lucky…"
—From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol IV, by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)
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With a heavy heart, Felix Jaeger watched the last of the remaining Kislevite warriors place the corpse of Ivan Petrovich on the pyre. The old warrior looked somehow smaller, shrunken in death. His face showed none of the peace that was supposed to belong to those who had entered the realm of Morr, God of Death, but then, Felix supposed, Ivan's last few moments had been anything but pleasant. He had witnessed his only child, Ulrika, transformed into a vampire, a soulless blood-sucking thing, and he himself had met his death at the hand of her un-dead master's minions. Felix shivered and drew his faded red Sudenland wool cloak about him. Once he had thought himself in love with Ivan's daughter. What was he supposed to feel now?
The answer was that he did not know. Even when she had still walked among the living he had been unsure. Now, he realized, he would never really have the chance to find out. Somewhere deep within him a slow, sullen, smoldering resentment against the gods was fanned to flame. He was starting to understand how Gotrek felt.
He looked over at the Slayer. The dwarf's brutal features were uncharacteristically thoughtful. His squat massive form, far broader than any human's, looked out of place among the Kislevite horse soldiers. He knuckled the patch covering his ruined eye with one massive hand, then scratched his shaved and tattooed head reflectively. His great crest of red dyed hair drooped in the cold and snow. He looked up and caught Felix's glance and shook his head. Felix guessed that in his own strange way Gotrek had liked the old march boyar.
More than that, Ivan Petrovich had in some way been a link to the Slayer's mysterious past. He had known the dwarf since the time of his first expedition to the Chaos Wastes many years before.
The thought made Felix realize just how far from home Ivan had fallen. It must be three hundred leagues at least from here in the dark forests of Sylvania to the cold lands on the edge of Kislev that he had once ruled. Of course, the old boyar's realm was gone now, swept away by the vast Chaos invasion that had driven as far south as Praag.
"Snorri thinks Ivan died a good death," said Snorri Nose-biter. He looked glum. Despite the cold, the second Slayer was no better dressed than Gotrek. Perhaps dwarfs simply did not feel discomfort like humans. More likely they were simply too stubborn to admit it.
Snorri's normally stupidly cheerful features were masked by sadness. Perhaps he was not quite so insensitive as he seemed.
"There are no good deaths," Felix muttered under his breath.
When he realized what he had said, he offered up a silent prayer that neither of the dwarfs had heard him. He had, after all, sworn a vow to follow Gotrek and record the Slayer's doom in an epic poem. The vow felt like it had been sworn several lifetimes ago.
The Slayers lived only to atone for some supposed sin or crime by meeting their doom at the hands of a mighty monster, or in the face of overwhelming odds. They would not appreciate Felix's sentiment.
The surviving Kislevites filed past and offered up their last respects to their former lord. Many of them made the sign of the wolf god Ulric with the fingers of their left hand, then cast a glance over their shoulder and made it again. Felix could understand that. They were still almost within the shadow of Drakenhof Castle, that mighty citadel of evil the vampire lord Adolphus Krieger had sought to make his own.
Adolphus Krieger had possessed an ancient amulet and a plan to bring all the aristocracy of the night under his command. Instead he had succeeded only in bringing his own doom. But at what cost? So many had lost their lives. There was another mass pyre nearby that the surviving Kislevites had hastily constructed for their own fallen. A second one contained the remains of the vampire's followers.
Here in the cursed land of Sylvania these men were not about to leave any corpses un-burned to face a possible dark resurrection at the hands of a necromancer. It was a necessary precaution, one that had been taught in blood.
Max Schreiber strode forward, leaning on his staff, looking every inch the imposing wizard in his golden robes. Not even the bloodstains and sword rips in the clothes detracted from the man's dignity, but there was something dead in his eyes and a bleakness to his features that matched Gotrek's.
Max had loved Ulrika, probably more than Felix ever had even if Ulrika had not quite responded to Max's feelings like the wizard had wished, and now he too had lost her forever. Felix hoped that in his grief the wizard would not do something stupid. Max waited until the last of the Kislevites had filed past the boyar's body, and received a nod from the ranking leader of the northern soldiers. It was not a nod of respect, but rather a wary twitch, as fear of witchcraft was deeply etched to the souls of men of his kind. Yet there were few other options to ignite the corpse-pyre than flame born out of magic. The wood was thoroughly soaked, and the winter's chill would snuff out any regular spark before it could light the curse-rotted wood foraged from Drakenhof. Such was the winter in Sylvania. The unliving ones would not easily allow weary travelers to make fire that could threaten the pale lords of night.
Max spoke a word and banged the butt of his staff on the ground three times. With each strike, one of the pyres burst into flames. The sorcery was strong and obvious. Golden flames flickered into being around the damp wood and then settled on them. The nails driven into Snorri's skull, as the bald Slayer could not have a Slayer's crest otherwise, reflected the light, making it look like he had a small blaze atop his head.
Slowly smoke rose, the wood blackened and then burst into a more natural flame. Felix was glad of the wizard's magic, even if he suspected he was the only one of the present to do so, as without fire the group would have been forced to chop up the dead bodies and leave them behind. Swiftly the fires spread and soon the sickly, acrid and sweet smell of roasting man-flesh filled the air.
Felix turned and left. He was not prepared to stay and watch Ivan be consumed by the pyre. The man had been a friend and it pained to see his visage mutilated by the fire. He strode out from the ruined hall into the cold gale of the winter.
The horses were waiting, and the wagons of the wounded. Snow covered the land. The Kislevites who had sworn their very lives to the now-dead lord had chosen to follow the Slayers to their own dooms, while those who held their vows to the land instead chose to guard and deliver the wounded back to their homes. A doomed affair that was, considering how far away Kislev was from Sylvania, and it was the dead of winter. Felix thus felt it was more a decision on how the Kislevites chose to die, whether by ambush by some beasts of the forest who came hunting after smelling the wounded in the carts, or by chasing after creatures of darkness alongside the two Slayers, until they too found their deaths. For Felix there was no choice on the matter, as he had taken his vow to follow the Slayer. He wondered for a moment which fate he would have chosen if he had such a choice? Or if he would have broken down by his grief, and sought to seek a more depraved path? He shook his head before his thoughts could go down that dark road, at the end of which he would stand in the pyre of some zealous Inquisitor.
Somewhere out there was Ulrika, now turned Vampire, and her new mentor, the Countess Gabriella, but they were out of his reach now. War waited in the north. Chaos was coming, and it was there the Slayers expected to find their destiny.
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The old woman looked weary. The children marching along beside her looked starved. They wore the usual rags common to Sylvanian peasantry. Their eyes were steeped in hopeless misery.
Beside them a few men in blood-spattered tunics grasped pitchforks in frozen fingers. Felix saw tiredness war with fear in their faces and slowly win.
The peasants were scared of the riders and the dwarfs that had met the group of refugees in the middle of a forest trail, but they were too tired and too hungry to run.
"What happened to you?" asked Gotrek in a manner that was anything but reassuring. The massive ax he held in one fist made him even more threatening. "Why do you wander these roads in winter?"
It was a good question. Any sensible peasant would be huddling in his hovel right now. Felix already knew the answer from the look on the peasant's faces.
These were refugees. It was clear what would have happened to their homes. Such stories were rife in the Empire, and more so in the accursed province of Sylvania.
"Beasts came," said the old woman eventually. "Out of the woods. They broke our houses, broke the inn, destroyed everything, killed most and then ran after those who fled in panic. We stayed and waited until they were all gone. They didn't return to chase us."
"Most likely wanted to keep some meat in the larder for later, to last the winter," said Gotrek. The expressions on the faces of the refugees told Felix that they had not needed to know that.
"Beastmen?" Snorri had perked up, as he always did at the prospect of a fight.
"Aye, scores of them. Strange things, shadowy things. Many a men stood to fight them, none returned." said the old woman. "They came out of nowhere in the middle of winter. Who would have thought it? Even the beasts used to know not to test the wrath of winter. Maybe the zealots are right. Maybe the end of the world is coming. They say the pale lords have returned and that Drakenhof Castle is inhabited once more."
"That's something you don't need to worry about anymore," said Felix, then wished he hadn't. The hag was looking at him as if he were an idiot, which he supposed he was for saying such a thing. Of course, any Sylvanian peasant would worry about Drakenhof Castle and its inhabitants, no matter what some ragged stranger said.
"You say they burned down the inn?" said Max.
"Nay. Broke it. Killed the innkeeper and most of the guests. Guards too. Couldn't break the cellar doors, or didn' want to." The hag's voice was as lifeless as her eyes. Felix couldn't fault her. "Didn't set the inn on fire before they left either, blessed be Sigmar. I heard the beasts howling throughout the night."
"Snorri was looking forward to a bucket of vodka," said Snorri. "Snorri thinks those beastmen need to be taught a lesson."
Gotrek nodded in agreement.
Felix had been afraid of that.
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I want to kill Gotrek Gurnisson myself," said Grume, Warrior of Chaos to a Chaos wizard Kelmain, who huddled in his ancient and flea-ridden chair that was propped against a rune-covered arch.
The Warrior of Chaos loomed out of the shadows like a small mountain of metal and armor. The intricate net of potent enchantments on his armor was almost dazzling to Kelmain's mage sight.
The warlord had been like a man demented ever since the defeated scouts had returned out of the blizzard, bearing word of the Slayer-dwarf's presence. Kelmain wished he had never mentioned it now, but he had been at Praag and knew from the descriptions of their adversaries that only Gotrek Gurnisson and his associates matched the scouts' descriptions. The 'heroes' of Praag who had slain the warlord who had laid the city to a siege, and broke the back of the warband's courage.
"Why?" asked the Chaos wizard, if for nothing than to annoy the warrior. Kelmain looked around the stone antechamber of the ancient burrow-structure that had been revealed by his mage-sight, trying to gather his patience. It was proving to be difficult as the Chaos Warrior was adept at many things, including being infuriating. Unfortunately intelligence was not amongst Grume's talents.
The runes of the antechamber fascinated the Chaos Wizard and so did the bizarre carvings on the stone, but the smell was so distracting that the wizened man could barely pay attention to any of them.
Kelmain covered his mouth and his nose with one clawed hand. Grume stank of sweat and old blood and congealed, rotted entrails of his foes that covered his black armor. Normally Kelmain did not consider himself fastidious, it was not something anyone in his line of work could afford to be, but this was the limit.
"Gurnisson's axe killed Arek Daemonclaw and I want it for my own. Such a weapon would be worthy of me. All considered Arek's armor unbreachable," Grume's deep voice bellowed, answering Kelmain's question that the wizard himself had long since forgotten he had asked. Outside the stone structure, the wind and snow whirled past, deflected by the spells Kelmain had woven around them.
It seemed that the Chaos Warrior's blood-addled brains hadn't been as withered as Kelmain believed, as the warrior brought his blade up and rested it against the wizard's throat.
"I do not like working with you followers of the Changer of Ways, any more than you like working with me," said Grume, "but the Great Ones have spoken and daemons have brought me their words. The time has come for us to unite and overthrow the weak kingdoms of men. You, wretch, have the honor of aiding me. Do not waste it by ignoring or mocking me. Do you know what happened to the last wizard who did so?"
"I believe that his soul went to feed the demon that resides in your armor." Kelmain noted without fear in his voice. For all the Warrior's bluster and threat, Grume needed the wizard more than the wizard needed the warrior. How else would the warrior find Gotrek Gurnisson in the whole of gods-damned freezing swamp that was Sylvania? Kelmain was certain that the chaos warrior wouldn't find his own hands without drawn instructions.
"You play a dangerous game, wizard," said Grume. It seemed that the warrior hadn't missed Kelmain's implications. Wrath twisted the warrior's bestial features. He loomed over the mage, nearly twice his height. His hand rested on the hilt of the odd magical mace that normally dangled from his wrist, while the warrior's sword remained pressed against Kelmain's throat. "By Khorne, you will pay the ultimate price."
"You are showing the lack of intellect for which the followers of Khorne are so justly renowned," begged Kelmain in a tone of apology and abject groveling that clearly confused the Chaos warrior. "If you were to kill me or feed my soul to your mighty weapon, there would be no one to open the Paths of the Old Ones for you so that you may call upon your mighty demonic allies… or locate the Slayer on your behalf."
"Then you will do what I command," said Grume, self-satisfaction evident in his voice. "Summon my army through that arch you have so praised, so I may crush Gurnisson, or perish as an offering to Khorne."
"Of course, oh exalted dark lord of impotent fleas." Kelmain spoke in the same groveling tone, and rolled his eyes after standing up from his chair and after turning away from the Chaos Warrior's gaze. The simple fool was evidently too stupid to recognize mockery for what it was when the tone and the words did not match one another, but the wizard was still too wary to be too overt about it. The followers of Khorne were not known for their ability to think, which was both a boon and a curse. There was a real risk that if pressed too hard Grume would decide to cut Kelmain into pieces regardless of the consequences.
The fool of a warrior still had his uses. Kelmain was certain that the fool would meet his end in the hands of the Slayer. However, in doing so Grume would lead the Slayer to Kelmain and his brother, Lhoigor… And to the Gateways to the Paths of the Old ones.
There were things within the Paths that could kill even the Slayer. The wizard just needed a chance to summon one to face the Slayer. With some hope the two monsters would slay one another, and leave the wizard to collect the spoils and sacrifice the bodies to his dark god.
The wizard of Tzeentch sighed and reached to caress the runes etched onto the ancient stone. The aetherial currents of Chaos flowed through the runes like gale of freezing winter blew outside the stone structure.
A wheezing cough caught Kelmain's attention and the chaos wizard turned his attention to the huddled-over creature that was resting its pathetic, limp form against the rune-stone.
Lhoigor, much to Kelmain's chagrin, had far greater magical prowess than his brother, but in turn Tzeentch's magical currents had changed the talented brother's body to a wretched, weak shell. Kelmain didn't know if such a change was a punishment, gift, or a warning. It was unwise to question the reasons of the Changer of Ways.
The wretch's hand stroked the runes, and one of them began to glow. It annoyed Kelmain to no end that his time had been spent entertaining the warrior-brute, as it once again allowed his brother to distinguish himself in the eyes of the Changer while the older brother was forced to play the nanny to a fool.
The stones of the Gateway of the Old Ones began to light in sequence. Soon a swirling portal of green energy enveloped the space between the stones. Grume's annoyed grumbling was swiftly forgotten as Kelmain opened his arms wide, accepting the raw, flowing current of Chaos that blew through the portal.
"Come, shadows to darkness! Come, despoilers! Heed my call! In the name of Tzeentch, I summon you!"
The dark forms began to coalesce in the shifting, whirling portal of green. The Winds of Chaos blew ever stronger, but it was not enough. The thin membrane that separated the reality from the hellish was still too thick, the land still too untainted to truly accept the gift of Chaos.
Kelmain reached for his dagger in frustration as the membrane between the two realms once again thwarted his efforts to open the gateway. It was no matter. His brother's blood would make a fine sacrifice for the Changer of Ways, and force open the gate.
An armored gauntlet caught Kelmain's shoulder before he could slice his brother's throat, and the wizard was turned around to see Grume's ugly, feral visage mere inches away from his own. The warrior's blade drew back to a strike while a ferocious, repulsive smirk spread on the warrior's scarred and blighted features.
"Fool! What are you-" Kelmain's eyes widened in surprise. There was no possibility that the simple fool like Grume would dare to betray the wizard before the wizard had done his part. There must have been someone else who had manipulated the Chaos Warrior's feeble mind.
"For Khorne!" A mighty blow lopped the head off Kelmain's shoulders before the wizard could retaliate. The last thing the wizard saw was the twisted, malformed smile on his brother's face as the wretch lifted the severed head as an offering towards the portal.
Only then did Kelmain realize that no membrane existed, and instead, the treacherous younger brother had deliberately blocked Kelmain from opening the gateway. Kelmain had underestimated his younger brother. Kelmain realized that Lhoigor had betrayed him before he could betray the wretch.
The darkness of death finally overcame Kelmain, and it was filled with the cruel laughter and mocking torment of demons.
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A long-buried structure of stone began to glow with green energy in a cave. Sediment grown over ages and eons began to peel off, and a wind began to blow from the ancient gateway.
Rows and rows of red eyes glowed as they opened, woken by the breeze of ethereal currents. Creatures of darkness soon began to coalesce and drink from the energy that flowed from between the cracks in stone.
Massive pincer-claws reached from darkness to touch the stone, hungry for the emotions the beast sensed, and began to dig harder, deepening the pit it had already dug, and through which some of its kin had already slipped through.
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"I wish this weather would ease up," said Felix Jaeger, drawing his faded red wool cloak tighter about himself, and leaning closer to the small sputtering fire of his torch. It just about lit the whole cave, as well as the two Slayers, Max and the Kislevites who had followed them. Felix was glad of the torch's warm fire, which Max had ignited and handed to Felix to nurture. Another few minutes in the snowstorm would have done for him, even though the Kislevites that followed the two Slayers, the Wizard and the Remembrancer seemed no worse for wear in the snow. Judging from the cold smirks on the faces of the death-seeking soldiers, perhaps the Kislevites found the snowstorm to remind them of home.
"It's winter, and it's Sylvania, manling, what do you expect? It's supposed to be as cold as an elvish heart." Felix looked over at the Slayer who had spoken. Gortek grinned at Felix while rubbing the empty hole that remained of his eye with a thumb, and then put the leather eyepatch over the hole.
If the massive dwarf, at least horizontally more than vertically, felt any discomfort at the biting chill he showed no sign of it. Snow clustered in his massive crest of bright orange hair, and covered the tattoos of his shaven skull, but he was still dressed as always only in his thick leather waistcoat, Britches, and boots. Gotrek's massive rune-covered ax lay close at hand.
There were times when Felix hated traveling with dwarfs. He looked over at Max to see how the wizard was taking this display of rugged outdoor toughness, but the wizard was lost in thought, staring into the fire as if he could discern some mystical pattern there. Felix couldn't blame the wizard for his somber mood. Not after the failed rescue attempt. The wizard had not spoken much to anyone after the group had discovered Ulrika's fate, not that Felix could fault Max for his mood.
Felix could sympathize with Max's plight. He saw himself in the wizard's shoes, as he had been there many times before, and was currently. He still vividly remembered the depression he had fallen into the first time he had failed to save a girl who he had loved, and for whom he had considered breaking the oath he had given the Slayer. He remembered a dozen relationships that had ended the same way. Each time the loss hurt, but each time it happened it became easier to move on. Felix did not know whether his heart was growing colder, or if the repetition was making it easier to accept what had happened.
Max would not appreciate Felixs's words or reassurances. That much was certain, and Felix did not offer. He would not have accepted those words either, the first time he had suffered that loss. Felix recognized also that he was focusing on Max's pain to try to ignore his own, as even though Ulrika and he had drifted apart before her kidnapping, he still cared greatly for her. He had cared for her greatly, or so he tried to reassure himself.
The decision to allow Ulrika to continue existing as a vampire had not been easy. Felix wondered if it was because of that burden that it was so easy for him to follow the Slayers into a wild chase after some beastman. Perhaps it was just an excuse to think of something else than what had happened at Drakenhof.
"I wish there had been a bear in this cave," said Snorri wistfully while the slayer was kicking his legs in boredom like a child. "A big one. Maybe two. Good eating, bears."
"You would know," said Felix, mostly to distract himself from his thoughts.
"Better than squirrels, or rabbits, or hares," said Snorri. "Wish there was a bear in this cave."
"Some say the caves about here are haunted," said Max. It was his first contribution to the conversation in a long time, but it seemed to suit his gloomy mood.
"What do you mean?" Felix asked.
"In 'Legends of Sylvania', Neumann mentions that the caves around Drakenhof were claimed to be haunted. The locals avoided them. Some claim that their roots went all the way down into Hell."
"Perhaps you should have mentioned this before Snorri and Gotrek led us into these caves," said Felix. He suddenly felt his palms sweat and itch. The darkness of the cave started to feel more threatening. The flickering firelight seemed to conjure shapes of dark beasts into the walls of the cave. Felix tried to reassure himself that it was his imagination, but failed to do so, the memory of the horror of Drakenhof was too fresh in his mind to allow his mind to be at ease.
"It's only a story, Felix. And considering the alternative was freezing to death, would you really have let it put you off?" Felix supposed not, but he still felt peeved, and worried. At least Max was speaking and not snapping at them. It was a small comfort.
"You think there is any footing to these stories, Max?"
"Some stories contain hints of truth, Felix. I suspect both embellishment and hard-won truth has mixed into Neumann's stories."
"Is there anything else you forgot to tell us?" Felix felt annoyed at Max's decision to only speak of this after they were already huddled in the cave.
"They say folk who went deep into the caves went missing, never to be seen again."
"Maybe there were bears in the caves," said Snorri. The Slayer didn't seem perturbed by the dark rumors. "Bears could have eaten them."
Snorri was glancing at the back of the cave hopefully, as if expecting to see it run deeper or perhaps hear the roar of a bear echo from deep within. Felix was glad he had already checked it earlier. The cave ran just a few more strides back under the hill.
"And there were lots of… altered ones who sometimes used them for shelter." Max continued while looking at the fire.
"The bears?" said Snorri, confused.
"The caves. Beastmen." said Max. Felix noticed that Gotrek had stopped listening, and was glancing over his shoulder out into the night. His fingers had tightened on his axe. Max suddenly sat up straight and glanced out into the darkness too.
"What is it?" Felix asked, already fearing the worst.
"Something is out there," said Gotrek. "I smell beasts. There is the taint of Chaos on the wind."
Snorri cheered up at once. "Let's go get them. Manlings, are you coming?"
The eyes of the Kislevites who had huddled together some distance away, around their own fire, gained a steel-hard, icy glint. The northern warriors stood up as well and grabbed their spears, axes and shields. With their lord dead and the rescue mission failing in the worst possible manner, it looked to Felix that the Kislevites had decided to adopt the Slayer's attitude and seek their deaths against the forces of darkness, rather than return to their homeland in disgrace.
Felix put his hand on the hilt of Karagul to quell his own nervousness. The hilt felt familiar and helped quell the shakiness that always preceded a battle.
A howl came from somewhere in the distance. A second howl soon followed the first, and soon after the dark forest around the cave's entrance began to swarm with shapes that were just beyond the reach of firelight.
"Gotrek Gurnisson." A dark, towering shape emerged from the treeline. It was as large as a troll, yet more lean and clad in a dark, blood-stained armor that was covered in runes which stung the eye. The warrior held a greatsword on one hand, as if it was a mere shortsword, and a shield bearing profane symbol on the other. The warrior had a mace strapped to his belt, a weapon which caused Felix's neck hairs to stand on ends as he looked at it. "Slayer of Arek. You carry my ax."
"Many have tried to claim it as their own. Come and try." Gotrek's voice, spoken from between gnashing teeth, was like two ancient stones grating together. The dwarf's massive ax was held up easily on one hand and then pointed at the warrior. "That one is mine."
"Snorri thinks it's unfair for Gotrek to claim the biggest enemy first." Snorri complained. Felix ignored the small rivalry between the two Slayers.
"Max…" Felix's neck hairs stood on ends as he felt something as if he had a sixth sense of sorts. The same feeling he had whenever witchcraft was involved.
"I can sense it. They have a wizard somewhere nearby." Max spoke quietly while holding onto his golden staff. The wizard looked worse for wear, which worried Felix. They would not last long if they faced a hostile wizard without one of their own. "This wind… It's foul. Whatever it is, has seeped into the winds of magic themselves. I'll have to be careful when I draw from it."
"Can you deal with it?" Felix asked while trying to keep his true thoughts from showing in his voice. Max wasn't fooled.
"I can fight." Max grunted.
"I am Grume of Night Fang, and I will grant you death! I will break your bones, I will tear out your entrails, I will split your ribs, and I will offer your hearts and skulls to my god! Charge!" The dark warrior lifted his sword and swung it down.
Dozens of arrows came from the dark woods in response, hitting the shields of the Kislevites who had made a shield wall around the entrance of the cave. A few made it through, and a man fell to the snow with an arrow through his throat.
Felix couldn't help the fallen soldier as beastmen charged through the bushes after the initial volley of arrows.
Felix let out a roar as he charged to meet the beastmen, as did Snorri and the Kislevites. It would have been more advantageous to try to use the cave to bottleneck the beastmen into coming in single-file, but if the chaos warband had a wizard in reserve the strategy would have turned into their deaths. A single fireball would have been enough to burn all of them to ash if they packed together into tight space, and Max wasn't the only one who could fling those sorts of spells.
Max put Felix's thoughts to practice as the wizard put his hands together and pulled them apart, causing a spark to turn to a whip of fire and then launched forth as a bolt that pierced through several of the Beastmen, reducing them to howling shapes of fur and burning flesh that trashed in the snow. The smell of burnt flesh was almost enough to penetrate the stench of the beastmen's bodies.
Felix parried a wild swing of a beastman's ax, and retaliated by twisting the blade and swiftly slicing it across the beast's throat. He then shoulder-tackled the beast aside as it stumbled. A smaller beastman took the wounded one's place.
The blood-frenzied yet throat-slashed beastman didn't seem to register what had happened until a few seconds later, when it fell over dead with most of its life-blood now on the snow around it. By that time Felix was already fighting against another beastman.
A loud clang rang over the clamor of the battle and Felix caught a glimpse of Gotrek fighting against the giant Chaos Warrior. The runes of Gotrek's ax blazed like miniature stars as the Slayer hit the Chaos Warrior's profane shield over and over again, forcing the warrior to one knee. Molten metal flowed like blood as the shield grew red-hot, then began glowing yellow and finally white.
With one sickening crack, the shield broke in two, and Gotrek's ax sank through the metal and the armor of the Chaos Warrior, drawing a screech of frustration and pain from the man-shaped monster.
"Enough! I grow tired of playing with you, runt!" The Chaos Warrior screamed in fury as it withdrew a few steps and drew the mace from his belt with its now-free arm. The monster didn't seem to care that Gotrek's blow had split its armor at waist, and the dark warrior's entrails were spilling out of his stomach.
Felix couldn't watch the duel, not only because merely looking at the mace caused his head to ache as if someone had split his head with a hammer, but also because he had to dodge to avoid such a sensation becoming reality.
The small beastman with a club stumbled as its blow missed, and Felix sunk Karagul into the monster's stomach. The small beastman let an ear-piercing shriek of pain and jumped back, almost causing Felix to lose grip of his sword. However the sharp blade slid out as easily as it had penetrated the beast, allowing Felix to dodge under the wild swing of a larger Gor that had tried to take advantage of Felix's distracted state.
The large beastman's twin axes bit into its smaller kin, almost splitting the smaller ungor in two. It looked as if the larger of the two beasts didn't care about the fate of its kin as it yanked the axes off, causing the smaller of the two to crumble into a heap, and then tried to turn after Felix.
The gor failed in its search as it slipped on its own entrails and fell to the blood-stained snow. Felix had gutted the beast while he had dodged under its arms, and turned to finish it off by chopping the beastman's head off its shoulders when it tried to roar its frustration.
A spark of fire came from the sky, and Felix immediately dove into the snow that had turned black with blood and entrails.
A split second later a great pillar of fire erupted from where the spark had landed, and the howls of the beastmen grew in ferocity and in terror as they saw their kindred burn alive like wallow torches.
A war-cry overpowered the screams of the beastmen and Felix saw as Snorri was holding to the horns of a Minotaur, while the massive beast thrice the length of a man was trying to swat up at the Slayer with its twin axes. However, the way the Slayer was riding on top of the minotaur's neck made it hard for the beast to hit him, and instead the monstrosity trampled around in reckless abandon, flattening many of it's smaller brethren under its hooves.
Snorri lifted his spiked hammer, and smashed the spike against the dead center of the minotaur's temple. The massive beast let out a warbling cry that sounded vaguely like the moo of a cow before it went still.
A glance to the side showed that the Kislevites were faring worse than the Slayers, as more than half of those who had survived the horror of Drakenhof were lying in the snow, some decapitated, some with their guts hanging out of their stomachs, and some riddled with arrows. However, the rest of the Kislevites stood firm, eyes glittering with manic, frenzied determination as they visited ruin on the beastmen with axe, spear and arrow. The group's horses were in worse shape, as the sudden ambush had meant there had not been enough time to prepare the horses for battle and thus had been largely left tied-up near the cave. A great many of the tied-up horses had been carved up by the beastmen or felled by their arrows, and the rest were wild-eyed and frenzied, and would kick anything that got close to them.
Felix dug himself out of the snow and quickly wiped his face clean of blood and entrails while the beastmen were distracted by Max's firestorm. He was well aware that being blinded by a drop of blood in his eye in the heat of combat would mean a near certain death.
A terrifying, chittering feeling that was like a band of cold iron wrapping itself around Felix's heart forced him to stumble as he tried to get up. Had the chaos warband's wizard shown itself at last?
"The Skull Mace of Malarak is not to be opposed. It freezes the limbs and chills the hearts of those who face it. Prepare to greet your ancestors!" The troll-sized Chaos Warrior shouted its challenge while holding the eerie mace high in the air, its bound sorcery unleashed at last. Felix couldn't decide if he was relieved or not that the chaos wizard Max had spoken of hadn't shown up yet, and instead it was the Warrior of Chaos who had been responsible for the feeling. "Yes! Fight! Fight while feeling the terror of doom in your hearts! Show your fury and terror to Khorne, so I can offer your souls to my god!"
Felix could tell from one glance at Gorek's face that the Slayer was struggling under the mace's influence. Felix himself felt as if his limbs had turned to lead and his head locked up in sudden, unearthly terror. The effect must have been far more profound up close.
The mace came down, and Gotrek parried the swing but was forced to take a step back. The Warrior of Chaos brought its greatsword to a stab with another hand, and Gotrek smashed the blade out of the warrior's hands, causing the sword to split in two. The mace swung again, and hit Gotrek in the shoulder with a sickening crack as the Slayer had been too slow to parry the three near-instantaneous swings.
Felix grimaced as he saw that Gotrek's left hand began to loll limply. The monstrous chaos warrior chuckled horribly, as if he had seen the fury in Gotrek's eyes many times before and seen it snuffed out as many times. The monster's pose radiated confidence, even if it only had one weapon remaining. "Good. Those weapons were worthless if they could be destroyed by my new axe. I will make sure to use it to carve up your body on the altar of Khorne, once I have battered you into submission, dwarf."
Gotrek let out a hiss and swung his rune-covered axe at the chaos warrior. The blow was no slower than the ones before it, but the dwarf's exhaustion was clear by the amount of sweat that glistened on his muscles, and the redness of his skin.
Felix lifted Karagul to a guarding stance towards the Chaos Warrior's side, struggling to keep the terror from overwhelming his mind. He calculated the distance between him and the warrior, as the beastmen had largely either died during the combat or had fled as soon as the warrior had unleashed the power of the cursed mace.
Felix pondered through the terror if he could get a stab into what looked like a weak point in the Chaos Warrior's armor. Assuming he could get his legs to move, as his legs had suddenly started to cramp when he took a step towards the Warrior and the unholy mace it wielded.
Even so, Felix knew he was too far away to make a meaningful difference as the Chaos Warrior lifted the mace once again to a strike.
A ball of flame impacted the Chaos Warrior's helmet but failed to damage it. Yet it was enough of a distraction that Gotrek managed to swing his ax in a wide arc, cleaving the Warrior's arm in two and sending the mace spiraling to the snow. The feeling of unholy terror waned almost immediately afterwards and Felix let out a breath he hadn't realized he had held in.
"No! No! You- You dishonorable, sorcerous wretch! You are interrupting a duel fought in the name of Khorne?! Your wretched kind are all a piece!" The Warrior of Chaos turned around with a snap-like motion that was almost too fast for eyes to see, now truly furious beyond measure, and the monstrosity made a charge towards Max.
Gotrek's axe bit into the back of the warrior's knee before it could take a second step, however, and forced the once-man into its knees.
"Die." Gotrek's words came in a hiss and the Slayer swung the rune-ax down, causing a shower of sparks as the blade cleaved the Chaos Warrior's head from its shoulders.
The demonic armor screamed as its owner died, as did the severed head scream in terrible fury. The screaming, fortunately, stopped a few seconds later, and a spark sent by Max set the unholy corpse on fire.
A howl came from the treeline, once more, but this time it had a different undertone. Felix felt his neck-ears stand on ends once more as the same feeling of wrongness passed through him. "Max!"
"I feel it!" Max called back. "The wizard makes its entrance."
"There's more? Snorri claims the wizard's head!" Snorri climbed out of a pile of beastmen bodies where the dwarf had landed after slaying the minotaur. "Snorri is sad to see Gotrek survive his duel with that warrior."
Gotrek bit his teeth hard enough to likely crack a molar or two. The massive dwarf sent Max a glare harsh enough that it could probably kill a lesser man. Felix secretly felt relief that Gotrek was alive, and felt dread for the amount of sulking that Gotrek would do in the coming few days for failing to die in battle, once again. The roars coming from the dark forest around them forced the poet to forget such worries and retreat to Max's side while Gotrek and Snorri made their way to the Kislevites.
"Gotrek takes a swig and Snorri resets Gotrek's arm." Snorri offered a flask to Gotrek and moved to stand beside the larger dwarf. Gotrek merely nodded, took the flask, and grimaced as Snorri grabbed the dwarf's limply lolling arm, and with a sickening crack, pushed it upwards.
"Snorri would like it if Gotrek left some for Snorri." Snorri realized his mistake and reached for the flask as Gotrek had gained a stubborn expression while throwing back the flask of some unholy alcoholic concoction that could probably knock out a whole stable of horses.
Gotrek handed the flask back over and Snorri turned it upside-down over his mouth. Felix sighed and offered his flask to Snorri as the old slayer looked miserable while trying to peer into the empty flask.
"Snorri thanks friend Felix." Snorri took the offered flask and turned it over to glug its contents much like Gotrek, making Felix sigh internally. Snorri then handed the empty flask back to Felix who took it glumly. "Snorri thinks friend Felix should start drinking stiffer drinks."
"I am a human. I would die." Felix reminded. "Why are the beastmen holding back?"
"Snorri thinks the wizard is a coward." Snorri seemed to notice the fact that the beasts were only howling and roaring in the woods around them, hidden from sight by the darkness and the trees, but none would come forth to charge them.
"Maybe. But we should be on our guard nonetheless." Max stated. "The Winds of Magic have begun to roar in earnest. I have not felt this much power since…"
"Since what?" Felix dread the answer but asked anyway.
"Praag." Max looked grim as he mentioned the siege of the city in Kislev, where the Forces of Chaos had charged out of the Chaos Wastes in apocalyptic numbers, and had laid siege to the fortress-city. It was only by sheer luck that the city survived the siege. None of the villages around it had the same luck.
Felix grimaced. Gotrek and Snorri grinned. The few Kislevite soldiers who had survived the melee grinned as well, their eyes filled with frenzy and their harsh features cracking under the insane glee. No doubt the Kislevites looked forward to taking vengeance on the monsters that had sacked a large part of their homeland.
'Why must I always end up in these sorts of situations…' Felix cursed his luck and readied Karagul, waiting for a Chaos Giant, a regiment of Warriors of Chaos, a demon, or something equally terrifying to charge out of the underbrushes. 'I've always feared the dark forests. I should have known I'd die in one.'
As Felix glanced around the woods in front of them he spotted an eyeball of some sort which seemed to cling to a nearby tree. The eye looked directly at Felix, and then disappeared into a pop of smoke.
Gotrek and Snorri shared a glance as they must have noticed the eye as well, and the two Slayers proceeded to run into the gloom of the forest without the slightest care.
The Kislevites, without breaking a strike, charged with the Slayers.
"No! Wait! We must have a plan!" Felix cried out as it became clear that the Slayers wouldn't be content waiting for their doom to come to them, and instead set out in search of one. Felix turned and saw Max being surrounded by a glow, which did not assuage his terror over seeing the Slayers charge off. "We'd best go after them!"
"Indeed. Did you see a floating eye?" Max asked as he jogged after the slayers and Felix jogged beside him, both to keep the wizard safe from any beastman that might try to ambush him, and also because he suspected sticking to the wizard would be the best way to get out of the beast-infested forest alive.
"Yes. It disappeared into a puff of smoke."
"I suspect the chaos wizard was keeping an eye on the whole battle. I am not certain why they have decided not to interfere or attempt to hinder any of my spells." Max seemed thoughtful. "If I were to guess, we are being led to a trap."
"That would have been helpful to know before the Slayers ran off." Felix grumbled as he saw a large group of dead, shredded beastmen as they ran deeper into the woods. The beasts had been torn to shreds by some sorts of large beasts, and by the hoof-prints, it looked as if the surviving beastmen had broken and fled, and whatever had killed them had followed. Felix shuddered as whatever slave-beast Beastmen had brought with them must have broken its shackles before it could be ushered against him and the Slayers, and the beast had attacked its previous masters before chasing after the survivors. The thick, deep shoe-prints of the dwarves followed the beasts, and so did Felix and Max.
"Let us hurry, then. We should nonetheless warn them now, late as it is." Max broke into a sprint and Felix easily caught up. "I would rather not have the Slayers die in a trap. Much as it grieves me to go between a Slayer and their doom, I would rather not follow them in their deaths."
"You and me both. But we don't have to worry about not catching up to them." Felix felt a smirk spread on his lips as the surge of the battle wound down for a while, and was replaced by a near-drunken state that loosened his sense of reason. "Dwarfs have short legs. There's no way they are going to outrun us."
"Our Kislevite friends might, however." Max pointed out, causing Felix to pale.
"Oh. We better hurry then."
.
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Lhoigor sighed in annoyance and coughed phlegm to his fist.
Grume's death was unavoidable and foreseeable. It was most unfortunate that the brute had ended up dying during the first assault, however. Lhoigor had intended for the brute to come limping back to the Gateway, and perhaps for the warrior to demand for the Chaos wizard to heal him or some such nonsense. The trail of blood would then allow the dwarf and his compatriots to chase after Grume, and find their doom in Lhoigor's trap.
In retrospect it had been a foolish eventuality to plan for, as Grume was of Khornate persuasion and unlike more sensible warriors of Tzeentch, Khornates were often want of wits and full of brawn that made them ideal candidates for last stands and assaults into certain death. Unfortunately, such a last stand threw a bit of a wrench into Lhoigor's plans.
Lhoigor had planned for his brother Kelmain to stay a jester to Grume, and perhaps serve as a sensible voice in the brute's ear so that the idiot wouldn't go and charge the first enemy he saw and die in the process, just as he had done. It was thusly most unfortunate that Kelmain had suddenly decided that Lhoigor would serve as a sacrifice to open the 'stubborn' Gateway, forcing Lhoigor to reveal his hand and remind his brother that while Kelmain had been the elder of the two, Lhoigor was the one who had been thrice-blessed by the Changer of Ways and could see his brother's little scheme long before the man had even considered it.
It had been a relatively simple affair to send a thought into Grume's head when the warrior had been stewing in his own rage and suggesting that the elder of the two Chaos wizards would make a fine sacrifice to open the gate. Even though affecting the mind of a Khornate was always a difficult task, Grume's loathing of the older of the two wizards had made it childishly easy to plant the suggestion.
Problem now, and in the past, was that Lhoigor had trouble controlling the demons that the Gateway spat out. The wraith-like demonic creatures were utterly mindless and served no dark god that Lhoigor recognized, but fortunately the beasts could be baited to do Lhoigor's bidding, such as when Lhoigor had summoned a number of the beasts while both his brother and the chaos warrior had been distracted by one another, and had baited the beasts to destroy a nearby roadside inn. Neither Kelmain nor Grume had discovered that Lhoigor had found out how to creak open the portal far, far before it could be forced fully open.
Unfortunately Grume had grown impatient of Lhoigor's explanations after Kelmain's demise, and threatened that if Lhoigor hadn't gotten the demon-wraiths under control by the time he returned, Lhoigor's head would become the next sacrifice to the Dark Gods in exchange for a boon to tame the beasts.
The Warrior of Chaos had then left to confront the Dwarf and his compatriots, as Lhoigor had been forced to reveal the Dwarf's location before due time so that Grume would have something other than Lhoigor to occupy his mind. It wasn't a leap of logic to assume that Grume would lop off Lhoigor's head if the two had to exist in the same room for longer than a few hours without Kelmain to serve as a jester for the Warrior.
Lhoigor huffed through his misshapen nose and returned to caress the runes of the portal above which he sat, as he had crawled on top of the stone archway. The portal, now wide-open, coughed out wraiths with beast-like appearance every few minutes, and each time the beasts would charge off without heeding Lhoigor's orders- However, a few well-placed thralled beastmen would serve finely as baits, and would allow him to direct the black wraith-beasts like ants following a trail of living breadcrumbs.
One of Lhoigor's witching eyes saw motion and the wizard stopped thinking about the past for a moment. The shapes of several blood-crazed men running to their doom, followed by two squat forms of dwarves. A few minutes later a pair of man-things followed in pursuit. Lhoigor's face drew itself to a facsimile of a smile as the Dwarf and his compatriots split themselves conveniently for Lhoigor, so that he may kill all of them one by one.
Lhoigor had given the eyes to a few of Grume's beastmen while addling the beast's mind so that the creature would hang the eyes to the trees wherever the beast went. The preparation paid off, even though the vast majority of the black wraith-demons that the portal spat out had veered off uncontrollably and had started to chase after the terrified, broken and fleeing beastmen back towards the burrow instead of charging at the Dwarf. Lhoigor wasn't certain why exactly the black beasts chose to chase the fleeing beastmen instead of charging the dwarf, but the wizard chalked it up to the worthlessness of the beastmen offending the shadowy demon-beasts by existing.
Suddenly, a large pincer-like claw tried to puncture through the Portal. The pincer pierced through the surface of the green-glowing energy into the barrow, but the creature itself failed to enter wholly into the barrow as the portal wasn't wide enough to allow it to pass. The shadow-demon's soul-shattering insect-like scream of frustration and rage echoed through the portal, however, and caused Lhoigor to quake against his will.
Lhoigor's smirk widened on his three-pronged mouth, and he lifted all three of his arms up in prayer to Tzeentch.
It was perfect bait for the dwarf.
.
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Felix frowned as the chase led him and Max to a trail that led into a path that seemed like a road to a burial site of some sort. The trail looked like it had been walked by shoes of men, large, wide feet of dwarves, and the hooves of beastmen. Worryingly, there were also scattered footprints of beasts far larger than beastmen. Felix had seen such footprints once before, and did not like it. Beastmen and forces of Chaos were bad enough, but to add Werewolves to it?
A swirling torrent of green energy lit the sky as something ahead of them breathed magical energy in such excessive quantities that even the naked eye could see it.
A frown of concentration passed across Max's face. "There is a massive source of magical energy ahead of us. It blazes like a beacon. It's powerful beyond belief and tainted by the power of Chaos."
"Why did you not tell us this earlier? Didn't want to worry us, I suppose." Felix couldn't help himself as he spoke his bitterness aloud. It wasn't the first time Max had decided to neglect telling something important until it was already too late.
"No, Felix, I did not tell you earlier because it was not there earlier." Max explained calmly as if to a child. Felix ignored the wizard's wit as he was too preoccupied by his own terror. What new horror waits now, Felix wondered?
From up ahead came the sound of fighting. Felix thought he recognised Gotrek's bellowing and Snorri's warcry.
The pair raced up the slope through the snow and emerged into a clearing in the woods. Ahead of them lay a roofless stone-wrought barrow, incredibly weathered and ancient-looking. On its side was an arch, consisting of two massive uprights and a stone crossbar. All of the barrow except the arch was encrusted with newly fallen snow. It glowed oddly, and when the snow touched it, the flakes melted immediately. A scent of ozone permeated the air, which Felix had come to associate with magic.
"What the hell is going on here?" Felix asked.
"Magic," said Max, and elaborated after Felix made a face. "Of a very powerful kind."
Felix turned away in frustration. He could see a battle was taking place at the entrance to the barrow. Snorri and Gotrek hacked and slew their way through a mass of dark beasts that Felix had not seen before. The fur of the beasts was pitch black, and their bodies were dotted with bone-like armor and spikes. He wondered if the beasts were some new form of Beastmen, or if they were demons? The answer came swiftly as Gotrek's axe split one of the beasts in two, and the creature disappeared into motes of darkness. Felix suppressed a shudder and made the sign of the hammer across his chest.
Felix and Max ran to the entrance of the barrow, just in time to see one of the stone arcs of the barrow pulse with green energy and vomit out a mass of dark fur and white bone. From the mass emerged a number of beasts that swiftly joined the battle against the Slayers. Looking closely, Felix could see that the glowing eye hovered over the scene, shifting its location with blurring speed as it moved to position itself for a better view of the combat.
Felix decided that he had better go do his part. He raced forward, feeling a strange shiver run down his spine as he passed underneath one of the stone arches, even though it was inert unlike the green-glowing one whose etched runes burnt like vestiges of dying stars and whose center swirled with green energy. He did not need to be a powerful magician like Max to know that there was dark magic at play, even in the stone arches that were seemingly inert.
Snorri slashed and whirled his way through the sea of black beasts, hacking limbs and crushing heads with merry abandon. As he got within range of the glowing arch something odd occurred. A pincer-claw, thick as the ramming prow on a steam battleship, emerged from the glow and wrapped itself around Snorri's waist. Before Felix could shout a warning, the pincer withdrew, and Snorri was dragged through into the glow. In a heartbeat he had vanished.
Gotrek roared a curse, and redoubled his efforts, chopping down the last of the beasts. Felix ran up to his side, and grimaced as he discovered the bodies of the Kislevites who had charged after the Slayers, each of the men torn into shreds by the dark demonic beasts.
"What was that thing that took Snorri?" Felix asked.
"A daemon, most likely, and soon to be a dead one, or my doom will be upon me," replied the Slayer. Without a backward glance, he leapt forward into the glow. In a second he too was gone.
"Felix! Wait!" shouted Max at Felix as he took a step. The wizard was once more speaking only after the situation was already too far gone. "You have no idea where that portal leads."
Felix stood before the glowing arch and wondered what to do. There was no trace of the Slayers, the beastmen or the pincer-monster. He could hear no sounds. Even as he watched, the shimmering began to vanish.
Suddenly something blurred overhead. There was a sickening thump. Looking back, he could see that something had jumped down from the arch, landed behind Max and hit the wizard in the back. The wizard's eyes widened and his mouth drew itself to a grimace of pain.
A dark, mis-shapen creature wrapped in burlap emerged from a blur in the air with a bloody dagger in its hand. The mutant-creature grabbed Max's legs with two of its arms while the third held the bloody dagger. As Max tried to take a step forward to get away from the assassin he was tripped by the thin, wiry arms and fell forward.
Felix was halfway into a swing with Karagul when a powerful gust of wind blasted him in the face. He realized in an instant that the assassin was the wizard that had chosen to stay hidden until the last moment.
The gust of wind must have been conjured up by magic as Felix felt himself get lifted off the floor like a helpless child, and he flew back into the portal in a tangle of limbs. A brown cloak flew past him while leaking blood and Felix realized that the chaos wizard had tossed his counterpart into the portal as well.