[Warhammer] - The Laughter of Dark Gods Read online

  “What happened?” Kurt heard a deep, gruff voice ask. The words were his own.

  He raised thick fingers to his face to feel the fur of his forehead. His arms felt like treetrunks, thick and bloated. His chest felt broader. His voice seemed to rumble from a chasm deep within him.

  From off in the distance he could hear an agonized scream which ended in mad, gibbering laughter and a moan of pleasure.

  “I thought you were dead, Kurt,” said Oleg. His face drifted into view. It looked blotched and leprous. Two small growths had appeared on his forehead and his shoulder seemed to have a hump on it.

  “You’re not looking too well, Oleg,” growled Kurt.

  “You have been… ill. After you killed the woman, you fell into a feverish swoon. You lay and gibbered for two long days.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “An unnatural thing. You both fell. Your hands were about her throat. I approached to give her the coup-de-grace but her armour rose from the ground and walked off into the wasteland. Her eyes were closed. I could have sworn she was dead.”

  “We have seen the last of her,” boomed Kurt. “What became of her men?”

  “Yorri and the lads ate the beastmen. You can hear the screams of the elves.”

  The little man shuddered. “Truly, Kurt, we are in hell.”

  “Greetings, brother, whither goest thou?” The speaker was garbed in rune-encrusted plate. A full helmet obscured his face except for reddish glowing eyes. He was tall and thin, predatory-looking as a mantis. Behind him was ranged a force of mangy beastmen. They loomed menacingly against a landscape of redly glowing craters.

  Kurt studied the other warrior warily, suspecting treachery. “I am bound for the deep lands near the Gates.”

  “Truly thou art the chosen of Khorne,” said the other mockingly. “A thousand years ago I spoke similarly. I am sure the Blood God will reward thee suitably.”

  “Do not mock me, little man,” said Kurt dangerously.

  “I do not mock thee. I envy thy determination. I had not the will to progress further in the service of our dark lord. I fear I was over-cautious. Now I wander these lands forlornly. ’Tis a drab existence.”

  Zaharoff spoke. “You do not seriously expect us to believe this tale? A thousand years!”

  The slender warrior laughed. “Ten years, a century, a millennium, what does it matter? Time flows strangely here at the world’s edge. All who dwell within the Wastes learn that eventually.”

  “Who are you?” asked Kurt.

  “I am Prince Deiter the Unchanging.”

  “Kurt von Diehl.”

  “May I join thy quest, Sir Kurt? It may prove mildly amusing.”

  “I’m not sure I believe in you, prince. A foppish, cowardly servant of Khorne.”

  Once more the black prince laughed sweetly. “You will find, Sir Kurt, that Chaos holds all possibilities. Here nothing is impossible.”

  Zaharoff moved closer to Kurt. “I do not trust this one. Perhaps it would be best to kill him.”

  Kurt looked down at him. “Later. For now he is useful.”

  The beastmen fell into ranks beside the dwarfs. Dieter rode beside Kurt. Zaharoff limped along somewhat apart, keeping a cautious eye on their new companions.

  They travelled across what once had been a battlefield. Here lay the bones of thousands of combatants. Rib-cages crunched under the hooves of Kurt’s strangely mutating horse.

  The dwarfs kicked a goat-horned skull between them, laughing and making coarse jokes.

  Over the whole field arced an enormous skeleton. A spine as high as a hill was supported by ribs greater than Imperial oaks. Riding beneath it was like passing below the roof of an enormous hall. After a while even the dwarfs fell silent as the oppressiveness of the place grew.

  “The Field of Grax,” remarked Prince Dieter conversationally. “What a pretty fray that was. The massed hordes of Khorne faced the armies of Tzeentch, the Great Mutator. Sadly we fought near the lair of the dragon Grax. The clash of our arms disturbed his beauty sleep. He was a trifle annoyed when he was roused. I think our lords picked this place deliberately. It was their little joke.”

  “I do not like the way you speak of the Dark Powers, prince,” said Kurt. “It smacks of blasphemy.”

  The prince tittered. “Blasphemy ’gainst the Lords of Chaos, the arch-blasphemers themselves? Thou art a wit, Sir Kurt.”

  “I do not jest, prince.”

  The prince fell silent and when he spoke again his tone was bleak and absolutely serious. “Then thou art alone in that here. Even our dark masters enjoy a joke. All thou hast seen here, all the worlds even, exist only for their amusement. The Four Powers seek to while away eternity until even they sink back into the Void Absolute. We are nothing more than their playthings.”

  Kurt stared at him, fighting down the urge to draw his sword and slay the strange Chaos warrior. Walking across the field of bones, underneath the spine of the gigantic dragon, he felt dwarfed into insignificance and very alone.

  The screams of the dying echoed in his ears. By the light of two bloated moons Kurt fought and slew. He raised his sword and hacked through the dogman’s shield. His blow sounded like a blacksmith hitting an anvil. It ended with a pulpy squelch.

  They fought against other followers of Khorne, honing their skills, winnowing out the weak.

  He looked up and saw the radiant dark aurora in the sky. He shrieked his warcry and drove on towards the remainder of his foes. Nearby he saw Zaharoff gnawing at the throat of one of the dead. Blood stained the downy fur of his face, his eyes were pink and his long hairless tail twitched.

  Guiding his horned steed with his knees, Kurt charged towards the enemy banner, hewing down anyone who stood in his way. A great beast, long and hideously canine, snapped at his leg. He wheeled the horse round and brought its hooves thudding down on the creature’s head. He leaned forward in the saddle and hacked at the thing with his rune-blade. With a whimper it died.

  In the distance he saw Prince Dieter fighting his way through a group of dog-headed soldiers, a long silver blade gleaming in his hands. He showed a delicate skill that seemed out of place in a wearer of the dread black armour of Khorne.

  A shock ran through him and he looked down to see another Chaos warrior, a tall helmetless man with the long hair and beard of a Norseman. He frothed at the mouth and gibbered berserkly. His huge hawk-beaked axe had opened a cut in Kurt’s leg.

  “Blood for the Blood God!” roared the Norseman.

  “Only the strong survive,” bellowed Kurt, bringing his own axe down.

  The berserker ignored the fact that Kurt had caved in the side of his face and continued to chop away. Kurt smiled in appreciation at the man’s bloodlust before cleaving his head dean off. Even after this the Norseman continued to hack away mechanically, lashing around him blindly, chopping into the ranks of his own men.

  Red rage mingled with pain as Kurt charged the enemy’s standard. At that moment he felt a vast presence loom over him, leering approvingly as he butchered his opponents.

  He looked up and briefly thought he saw a gigantic horn-helmed figure silhouetted against the sky. The figure radiated bloodlust and insane approval like a daemonic sun. The feeling of approval increased with every foe Kurt slew.

  Invigorated and exalted, he rode down the last few who barred his way, threw his axe at the bearer and snatched up the enemy standard. He broke it one-handed, like a twig. The enemy broke and fled and he rode them down.

  “The field is ours!” he cried.

  Afterwards, when the killing-lust had gone, he surveyed the field. The tremendous feeling of divine approval had gone and he felt empty. The battlefield seemed meaningless, triumph hollow. Bodies were strewn everywhere in random patterns, like incomprehensible runes written by an idiotic god. The whole scene was like a painting, two-dimensional and cold. He felt disconnected from it.

  He gazed out with empty eyes and for the first time in months found himself thinki
ng of home. To his horror, try as he might, he could not recall what it looked like. The names of the family who had dispossessed him would not come. It was as if he dimly remembered another life. He had to fight back the suspicion that he had died and been reborn in a hell of unending warfare.

  Staring at the devolved figure of Zaharoff, ripping haunches of flesh from the dead, revulsion overcame him. He was sick. He heard the trotting of hooves coming ever closer.

  Prince Dieter looked at him and surveyed the carnage he had wrought.

  “Truly, Kurt, thou art the chosen of Khorne.”

  His voice held a mixture of mockery, awe and pity.

  “Will we never get to the Gates?” asked Kurt, looking back at the warband balefully.

  Yorri scratched his head with the claw of his third arm. Zaharoff looked at him and twitched his tail. Kurt noted the red ring that surrounded his mouth.

  “We may never reach them,” said Prince Dieter. “Some say the Gates stretch off into infinity and that a man could ride from now until Khorne’s final horn-blast and not reach them.”

  “You are a little late in telling us this, prince.”

  “It may not be the case. There are many tales about the Chaos Wastes, often contradictory. Sometimes both are true.”

  “You speak in riddles.”

  Dieter shrugged. “What one traveller meets, another may not. Distances can stretch and shrink. The stuff of reality itself becomes mutable around the Gates as the raw power of Chaos warps it.”

  Kurt stared off across the lake of blood. On it he could see ships of bone. Perhaps their sails were flayed flesh, he mused.

  “I have heard it said that around the Gates one enters the dreams of the old Dark Gods, that it is their thoughts that shape the land. And what the traveller meets depends on which Power is in the ascendant.”

  “What are the Gates?” asked Zaharoff. Kurt looked at him in surprise. It had been a long time since the little man had shown any interest in their quest. He seemed to have withdrawn into himself.

  “They are where the Lords of Chaos enter our world, a doorway from their realm to ours,” said Kurt.

  Dieter coughed delicately. “That may be true but that is not the whole story.”

  “Of course thou knowest the whole story,” said Kurt sardonically.

  “Some say that one of the mighty sorcerers of old tried to bring daemons here but he got more than he bargained for. Some say that the Gates were a mechanism of the Elder Race known as the Slann, used for their ungodly purposes. The mechanism ran wild and a hole was created through which Chaos came into the world.”

  “It was all the fault of elves,” said Yorri.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Kurt. “We will not find our goal by standing here talking.”

  “Why dost thou wish to reach them?” asked Dieter.

  “It’s why I came here,” said Kurt. The trek was the only purpose he could latch on to that made any sort of sense in this terrible realm.

  He could see how easy it would be to become like the doomed prince and simply drift from place to place in search of battle. In the realm of the damned, purpose was more precious than jewels.

  They fought more battles and with every battle Kurt’s power grew, and as his power grew so did the number of his followers. To Kurt every day merged into a dream of bloodlust. His life became an endless battle. His ladder to power was made of the bones of fallen enemies.

  At Caer Deral, among the burial mounds of long-dead kings, he fought against the followers of the renegade god Malal. Beneath the eyes of a huge stone head he slew the enemy leader, a man whose face was white as milk and whose eyes were red as blood. He tore the albino’s heart out with his bare hands and raised it, still pulsing, as an offering to the Blood God. The mark of Khorne’s pleasure were the twisted goat horns that sprouted from his head. A company of red-furred beastmen marched from the Wastes to join him.

  By the banks of a river of filth he routed the fly-headed followers of Nurgle and would have slain their leader, a gaunt woman on whose skin crawled leeches, had not something vast and soft and deadly risen from the mire and driven him and his men off. Khorne was displeased and Kurt’s face changed once more, features running until his nose was two slits over a leech mouth.

  After the Siege of the Keep of Malamon, which warriors of Khorne had struggled to take for a century, he rode on his mighty steed through the courtyard to look on the body of the once-mighty sorcerer. Two Chaos marauders had raised the corpse on the end of a pike while the host revelled through the wreckage of the castle. In a pool of the wizard’s blood, by the light of blazing torches, he caught sight of himself. He saw a huge and monstrous creature with an apelike face and tired, lost eyes.

  Along with his mind he seemed to be losing even the form of a man, as the corrosive influence of his surroundings worked to transform him.

  After that night, he tried to re-dedicate himself to Khorne, to lose himself in the wine of battle and drown out thoughts of his fading humanity in gore.

  The host left the Siege of Malamon and swept across the Wastes like fire through dry scrubland. Everything it met died, whether allied with Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slaanesh or Khorne.

  Within the councils of its leaders Kurt rose by virtue of his desperate ferocity.

  Even among these, most violent of the violent, he stood apart by virtue of his ruthlessness and insane courage. Khorne showered him with rewards and with each gift his humanity seemed to fade, his sick hopelessness to withdraw, to form a small solid kernel buried deep in his mind.

  Memories of his homeland, friends and family had all but gone, like old paintings whose pigment has faded to the point of invisibility. He became only dimly aware of the beings about him, seeing them only as victims or slaves. When after one desperate struggle Zaharoff’s chittering voice called him “master” he never gave it a second thought but took his former friend’s servitude as his natural due.

  Under a blood-red sky he fought with bat-winged daemons until his axe chipped and broke. From the body of a dead knight of Khorne he snatched up a strange and potent weapon, a crossbow which fired bolts of light and whose beams caused the bat-things to shrivel and curl out of existence like leaves in flame.

  In a blizzard of ash he struggled against creatures even further down the path of Chaos than himself, amoebic shapes from which protruded stalked eyes and questing orifices. After that his armour fused to his flesh like a second skin. Zaharoff and the dwarfs came ever more to resemble the creatures he had defeated.

  The host’s casualties mounted and Kurt continued his progression towards its leadership. And everywhere he went Prince Dieter the Unchanging was close behind, his permanent shadow, whispering advice and encouragement and words of ancient, evil wisdom.

  Every day Kurt became more aware of the presence of the Blood God in his heart. Every death seemed to bring him closer to his dark deity, every foe vanquished seemed to extinguish some small spark of his humanity and mould him further towards Khorne’s ideal.

  All his dark passions seemed to fuse and come to the fore. He became unthinking and unrestrained, acting on whim rather than conscious thought.

  He lived in a state of permanent barely-restrained frenzy. The slightest infraction of his command, the smallest thing which annoyed him, resulted in someone’s death. A warrior only had to glance at him the wrong way to feel the sting of Kurt’s weapons.

  And yet during all this time a small part of his spirit stood apart and watched what was happening to him with growing horror. Sometimes he would be struck with doubt and feelings of terrible loneliness which all his triumphs could not assuage. Part of him was nauseated by the unending violence that was his life and felt sick guilt at the joy he took in slaughter. It was as if his mind had become host to some malevolent alien creature which he did not understand.

  It seemed to him in his more lucid moments, away from the drug of combat, that he had become a divided man, that his soul had become a field over which an unequ
al battle was being fought between his lust for power and blood and what remained of his humanity. There were times when he found himself contemplating falling on his sword and ending his torment, but such was not the way of Khorne’s champions.

  Instead he was always first into every skirmish, accepted every challenge to personal combat and chose the mightiest opponents. Invariably he was successful and the gifts of changed body and warped soul that Khorne granted reinforced the dark side of his nature.

  The end came swiftly. The host was progressing across a smooth plain towards mountains of glass. Its banners fluttered in a dry, throat-tightening breeze, it advanced in full panoply. Under a standard bearing the skull rune of the Blood God, the army’s commanders rode and bickered.

  “I say we ride north,” said Kurt, still obeying the command of some half-forgotten impulse. “There we will find power and foes worthy of our blades.”

  “I say we head south and harry the Slaaneshi,” replied Hargul Grimaxe, the army’s general.

  “I am with Kurt,” said Dieter. The rest of the warriors fell silent. They all sensed the coming conflict. Among the followers of Khorne there could be only one unquestioned leader and there was only one way to settle the issue.

  “South,” said Kilgore the Ogre, glaring menacingly at Kurt. Tazelle and Avarone, the other great champions, kept silent. Their followers watched, quiet as huge black statues.

  The part of Kurt’s mind which still functioned tried to work out how many of the commanders would follow him and what proportion of the army would back him up. Not enough, he decided. Well, so be it.

  “North,” bellowed Kurt, swinging up his alien weapon and blasting Hargul. The general’s head melted and bubbled away.

  “Treachery!” yelled Tazelle. All the warriors drew their weapons.

  Battle began under the banner of the Blood God. It was a spark to dry kindling. Behind him Kurt heard the roar of the army’s troops. Soon the screams of dying beastmen and mutating man-things reached his ears as the army fell on itself in an orgy of violence.