Clint Werner - Blood for the Blood God

Then, with impossible abruptness, all was silence. No rain fell from the sky, no rock clutched at his foot. The terror and the bloodlust withdrew from his mind and soul, draining away. The wind became only the faintest breeze and the bellowing roar was a dim whisper. Dorgo found his gaze drawn back across the swollen waters of the sanguine sea, a sea more vast than anything he had ever seen, where only a few peaks and rises disturbed its surface. His attention was fixed, not to the mountains, nor even to the ocean of darkened gore. What he looked at was beneath those grisly waters, a heap of ash drowned beneath the waves.

Tears of blood fell from his eyes, blood burst from his ears and ran from his nose. He bit his tongue as his mouth opened to scream.

The surface of the sea erupted with a violence beyond that of the geysers, lifting in a great explosion that sent tidal waves rippling in every direction.

Immense, gargantuan in its dimensions, the reborn daemon rose into the black sky, its leathery wings fanning the air in great lethargic beats. Molten bronze dripped from its massive hooves, fire falling from its claws. Armour, black and ancient, writhed with the torments of the souls trapped within. Hound-like jaws opened in a victorious howl that ripped across the world, finding its echoes in murders and outrages in a thousand lands. Baleful eyes, black as pits of blood, glared at the heavens with a hate more ancient than time.

Slowly, the apparition faded, vanishing into the ethereal kingdoms of gods and daemons.

Dorgo held his head in his hands, understanding the horror that his revenge against Sanya and the Sul had unleashed. Krathin the bloodthirster, the Lash of Khorne, was free.

Dark waves of blood lapped against the skeletal shore of Dorgo’s refuge. Except for a few scattered islands peaking above the crimson ocean, the Tsavag warrior was alone. Only the biting wind stirred the black sky, and only the sound of sluggish waves sloshing against the shore interrupted the silence.

Dorgo paid little attention to the barren world around him. He was locked in the awful realisation that he was the last of his people, the last of the Tsavags. Everyone he had ever known, everyone he had ever loved, respected or admired was gone. Even his enemies had been consumed by this ghastly world of blood and terror: the Vaan, the Seifan, even the Sul. All were gone. In the desolation of his heart, even hatred was denied its place. There simply was no one left.

The clatter of something striking the rocks beside him snapped Dorgo from his gloomy reflection. He spun around, gasping as he saw what had been thrown at him. Upon the rocks, shining with a dull inner glow, was the Bloodeater. The warrior lunged for the weapon, seizing it in his fist. He could feel its strength and power surge through him, pouring fire into his soul. He was alone, but he was also alive, and while he was alive, he would fight. To do less would shame the memories of his vanished race.

Dorgo rose from the ground. He saw a ghastly shape waiting for him at the top of the sunken hill. Blood from the dark sea dripped from the thing’s leathery crimson flesh and sizzled from the length of its smouldering sword. Great talons blacker than obsidian tipped its long, cruel hands. Bestial, reptilian paws supported it, hooked claws splayed wide to maintain purchase upon the blood-slicked slope.

A heavy cloak woven from numberless skulls tumbled from its shoulders, whipping about its body in a charnel breeze. Bronze armour encased its chest, the ancient metal pitted with the marks of battle and the runes of Khorne.

Its head was twisted and savage, four great horns stabbing out from temple and crown, notched and curled with infamy and spite. Its face was a merciless, skull-like visage, crimson skin stretched tight across daemonic bone. Dorgo was reminded of the ghastly bloodletters that had menaced him upon the anchor chain, but looking into the thing’s pitiless eyes he saw a hate that was beyond any mere daemon’s gaze.

The ember-like eyes stared down at the Tsavag and he knew the enemy for what it was. Dorgo did not know what terrible metamorphosis had consumed the last vestiges of the man who had been Vrkas. He did not know what inhuman malevolence had been poured into the vengeful champion in his moment of triumph. He could not guess at the abominable marriage of mortal and daemon, the fusion of living flesh and eternal malice that had created the horror which now glowered at him. His mind would not understand the strange path that had led the monster back to him, a spectral trail through forgotten lands and forgotten ages.

It was enough for Dorgo to recognize the daemon, to put a name to its timeless rage. The name of Skulltaker.

“Your gods have spared you, monster!” Dorgo spat, finding a terrible joy as hatred was restored to his heart. “Now they demand an end to our contest.” Dorgo slashed the sword of Teiyogtei through the stagnant air, savouring the feel of it in his hand. This time, there would be no distraction, no interruption. The shock of Hutga’s death could not overwhelm him now. This time, it would be a fight to the finish.

“Come, monster,” Dorgo snarled. “I’ll send you to join your daemons!”

The Skulltaker’s claws crunched against the bony shale as he descended from the high ground. There was no hesitancy in his march, no doubt or question, only the grim resolve of a man who had long ago accepted his fate.

“No gods,” the Skulltaker’s grinding voice spoke. “No witches. Just warriors.” He paused in his descent, lifting his wailing sword in a sombre salute. “Just warriors and steel.”

As the two warriors charged across the desolate hillside, crashing together in a crush of muscle and metal, both knew the outcome of their battle mattered little.

The Blood God would not care from which carcass the blood flowed.

Using the daemon weapons forged in the hellfire of the Black Altar, the great king Teiyogtei Khagan bound the loyalties of eight mighty chieftains and their tribes to his cause. With this mighty horde, he set out to do what no mortal king had ever accomplished: to carve an empire from the fractured wastes of the Shadowlands.

Teiyogtei Khagan’s own tribe the Tsavags are of the Tong race, a savage people dwelling in the heart of the Chaos Wastes themselves. Grotesquely mutated, possessed of strength and endurance far beyond lesser breeds of men, the power of the gods saturates the flesh of the Tong. Keepers of the mighty war mammoths, the Tsavags were great among their people even before the rise of Teiyogtei. Swept up in the king’s vision of conquest and glory, the Tsavags formed the nucleus of what would become his horde. Fierce and proud, fired by their connection to the legendary king, the Tsavags remain a powerful force within Teiyogtei’s shattered domain.

The Tsavags practise ritual scarring, carving marks into their flesh to denote their lineage and accomplishments. By this token, a member of the tribe will recognise the status of a kinsman simply by observing the signs carved into their face.

A breed of sorcerers and mystics, the Sul are of the Hung race, sallow-skinned horsemen of the east. The dark power of magic burns within the souls of the Sul, twisting and corrupting them from the womb to the grave. Treacherous, cunning and opportunistic, the Sul are loyal to none but themselves. Their magic gives them powers over both the mortal and unseen worlds. Daemons bow before them and beasts hearken to their words. The Sul do not see themselves as servants of the gods, but rather as exploiters of their power. Their fealty to Tzeentch is a matter of convenience, invoking the Lord of Change to protect them from the wrath of lesser gods and daemons. But even the Sul are not so arrogant to believe that such patronage does not come with a price.