Clint Werner - Blood for the Blood God

The wait was not a long one. Even as Dorgo was contemplating Sanya’s plan, trying to weigh its wisdom against his fears for his people, against the desperate need for haste that gripped him, a familiar and unforgettable chill swept through his body. He could see that the sorceress sensed it as well, turning to face the doorway where the bronze panels had once stood.

A figure emerged from the shadows, a hulking shape encased in crimson steel and a horned, skull-like helm. In its mailed fist, the black blade smoked and snarled. Across its chest, the chain of trophies hung, their sightless sockets staring blindly across the Black Altar.

There was a hideous, triumphant quality about the way the Skulltaker marched across the metal, blood-soaked floor. Sanya blanched, growing pallid before the imposing apparition, her arrogance and pride withering in the champion’s grim presence. She retreated behind Dorgo, placing the warrior between herself and the monster. The Skulltaker hesitated for an instant, his deathly mask studying the Tsavag warrior.

Dorgo brandished the Bloodeater, making certain that the Skulltaker recognised the blade he held. He could sense that the champion did. The Skulltaker would remember the power of that weapon better than anyone or anything, the blade that had vanquished him once before. If anything could make him know fear, it was this.

The Skulltaker turned away from Dorgo, looking past him to the Sul sorceress. Dorgo felt his ire rise. Did the monster think so little of him that he looked to the woman as a greater threat?

The Tsavag rushed the Skulltaker, a Tong war cry rising from his throat as he charged. The Skulltaker blocked the warrior’s stabbing sword, knocking the Bloodeater aside with a backhanded sweep of his smouldering blade. Dorgo heard the daemon steel scream in protest as the Bloodeater bit into its otherworldly edge.

Dorgo feinted a jab to his foe’s left, and then thrust at his right, stabbing at the join between torso and pelvis. Again, the Skulltaker’s blade came sweeping down, swatting aside the striking sword. This time the monster followed the block with a sweeping slash from his blade. Smoke stung Dorgo’s eyes as he ducked what would have been a decapitating blow.

The deadly dance began in earnest, thrust and parry, slash and block. The Bloodeater filled Dorgo with such strength that he barely felt the Skulltaker’s intercepting blade as it crashed against his own. He knew that if he could just get through the monster’s defences, if he could once stab his crimson blade into the body beneath the plated mail, that the Skulltaker would be finished. The power of Teiyogtei’s sword would destroy him as it had so long ago.

Against the strength of his arm and the power of his sword, Dorgo was forced to concede his vulnerability. The Skulltaker was far and beyond any foe he had ever faced, combining speed and power in a way that even a formidable adversary like Tulka didn’t come close to matching.

Unlike the champion of Khorne, Dorgo had no daemon-forged armour to guard his body. He had shed his armour before carrying Sanya across the pit. Beside the metal plates encasing the Skulltaker, he was as naked as a babe. It was a sobering thought, when the Skulltaker’s screaming blade came flashing inches from his skin, to consider how deep it would cut him if it struck home.

Dorgo’s sword crashed against the Skulltaker’s breastplate, scouring a deep gash in the dark armour. He quickly pulled back, turning aside the stabbing thrust of the champion’s blade with the hilt of his sword. Even as he knocked the deadly weapon aside, Dorgo felt his ribs explode with pain, the Skulltaker’s armoured knee slamming into him, pitching him to the floor. Hastily, Dorgo lifted the Bloodeater to block the murderous, descending strike of the Skulltaker’s steel.

Then he saw it, hanging from the chain alongside the other trophies lashed across the Skulltaker’s chest: a human skull, disfigured by lumps of metal protruding from forehead and scalp. Like all the others, it bore the brand of Khorne upon its brow.

Long-nourished hope withered and died as Dorgo saw his father’s skull grinning at him from the Skulltaker’s gruesome collection. They had found the Black Altar, and drawn the Skulltaker to them, but it was all done too late. Hutga Khagan had already joined the monster’s victims.

Seven heads: seven vanquished tribes. The strength and power that had filled him when he took up the Bloodeater faded as he felt his stomach turn. It didn’t matter that he had no proof of the thought that burrowed into his brain, he knew his suspicion was right. He knew which head the Skulltaker hadn’t claimed.

The champion’s sword came flashing down in a murderous sweep. The Bloodeater was all but torn from Dorgo’s nerveless clutch as he instinctively lifted his weapon to block the strike. The Skulltaker pulled back for another attack, towering over the fallen Tsavag like some gruesome avatar of death.

Suddenly, coils of blazing blue light crashed around the Skulltaker’s body, sizzling against his armoured plate. The champion spun, glaring at the almost forgotten sorceress. Sanya saw the timeless malice burning behind his mask as he stormed after her. Another blast of eldritch power smashed into the Skulltaker’s body. The monster kept coming, protected from the woman’s magic by the dread power of his god.

Sanya retreated, circling behind the forge, clutching her bag against her breast. The Skulltaker pointed a metal claw at the woman, an imperious gesture that brooked no defiance. He had nothing to fear from her magic, no spell known to man or daemon could penetrate the armour he wore.

Somehow, the sorceress lifted her head, all the hubris of her tribe etched across her features. “Work for it,” she spat scornfully.

A bestial growl rasped from behind the Skulltaker’s mask. With swift, furious steps he closed upon Sanya. Desperately, Dorgo fought to his feet, determined to finish his enemy himself. Then he noticed something strange. Sanya had positioned herself behind the nest of pulleys and chains. Dorgo knew the spot well, having laboured so long to raise buckets from the pit. There should be a great hole in the floor only a few feet from where she stood, yet to his eyes, all that could be seen was the blood encrusted metal floor of the chamber.

Dorgo’s eyes were not the only ones deceived. The Skulltaker did not hesitate in his brutal rush towards the woman. His path carried him straight over the hole, the emptiness that Sanya had cloaked in her magic. With a great, wolf-like howl, the hulking champion, the blood-soaked slaughterer of the domain, plummeted down, hurtling into the burning pit far below.

“That solves the problem of the Skulltaker,” Sanya laughed, setting down her bag. There was an ugly, gloating quality to her voice, her features twisted into a harsh scowl. “It appears that we didn’t need the Bloodeater after all, just a bit of Mighty Cheen’s power employed in a judicious fashion.”

Dorgo wiped blood from his forehead, trying to keep it from running down into his eyes. He wanted to see the witch, wanted to see the terror in her eyes when she understood that she was going to die. He knew that she had worked some kind of enchantment on him, drowning out his suspicions of her with a slavish ardour. It was gone now, shocked out of him by the sight of Hutga’s skull hanging among the other trophies.

Sanya smiled when she saw the merciless hate in Dorgo’s eyes. She folded her hands together, contemptuous in her display of unconcern. “Try,” she said. “Just try to strike me down. You can’t. Ever since we left the domain, I’ve been working my magic on you, whispering to your soul while you slept. You’d sooner destroy yourself than destroy me.”