Blood for the Blood God

11

Fierce war cries split the air as thundering hooves pounded through the dust. Dozens of squat, sallow-faced riders, their wolfish bodies covered in heavy furs and lamellar armour, galloped through the parched landscape, waving sabres and axes above their heads. Behind the riders, chariots of wood and copper raced through the Barrens. Each of the wheeled platforms carried two men and sported vicious blades that projected from the hubs of the iron-banded wheels. Tattered banners of wood and bone rose above the chariots, their horsehair talismans whipping crazily in the wind.

The Seifan seemed as numerous as lice to Dorgo as he watched the human vermin pursue them across the desert. Vicious opportunists, even in this moment of crisis, the Seifan had seen a chance to advance their power. There could be only one reason for an attack in such force: the Seifan knew the Bloodeater had been recovered and they knew it was in the possession of the Tsavags and their Sul allies.

At first, Dorgo had hoped that they would be able to outdistance the Seifan. Qotagir assured him that while the horses had greater speed, Devseh had greater endurance. Over a long chase, the steeds of the Seifan would tire and lose ground to the mammoth. Unfortunately, the Seifan had no intention of prolonging the chase. The horsemen and charioteers lashed their mounts mercilessly, closing the gap between hunter and prey with each breath.

As the Seifan closed, the Tsavags responded. Short throwing spears rained down on the attackers. Riders and horses crashed through the dust, their broken bodies tripping those who followed close behind. Devseh lashed its massive head from side to side, knocking Seifan ponies into the dirt with its enormous tusks. Yet for each Hung warrior who fell, ten others took his place. They charged fearlessly at the mammoth, slashing at its legs with cruel axes and curved swords.

From the chariots, spearmen cast their javelins at the Tsavags. The Tong fighters took shelter behind the walls of the howdah until they realised that they were not the spearmens’ targets. Each cast was directed at Devseh, the spears biting into the mammoth’s shaggy hide. Many slipped free, unable to penetrate deep into the thick flesh of the brute, but others stabbed deeper, securing their barbed heads in Devseh’s sides. Long ropes of woven horsehair dangled from the embedded spears, dragging through the dirt as the mammoth sprinted across the Barrens.

Screams echoed from the desert as Gashuun threw balls of clay at the chariots. Where the strange projectiles struck, black smoke exploded in a billowing burst. The men and horses who passed through the smoke emitted screams of agony, their flesh cracking and flaking away from their bodies. The other riders skirted around the smoke and the twitching wreckage of those who had been claimed by it. Whatever terror the shaman’s magic provoked, it was not enough to make them turn back.

Not to be outdone by Gashuun, Sanya stood upon the raised platform at the centre of the howdah. Arms flung wide, she called upon the terrible gods of the Sul, hurling curses down upon the Seifan. She flung a bolt of white light from her palm. Striking a charioteer, the light became flame, roaring as it devoured the man, twisting and changing his body with its unholy power even as its heat consumed him. The spearman riding in the chariot threw himself from the platform, deciding that broken bones and a shattered skull were preferable to the doom that had claimed his tribesman.

More riders galloped around the mammoth, slashing at Devseh’s flanks. Dorgo hurled a javelin at one of the horsemen, his missile punching through the man’s chest. Shrieking, the rider toppled from his horse. As he rolled across the ground, the dirt exploded. A huge, shrivelled shape pulled itself from the ground, its gash-like mouth snapping at the wounded man, closing around his midsection. Quick as its appearance, the warty bulk of the toad retreated back beneath the ground, intent upon its meal.

New shouts of alarm brought Tsavags rushing to the left side of the mammoth. Seifan riders had seized the dangling ropes, using the tethers to pull themselves from their saddles and climb the side of the beast. The Tsavags could see the cruel, broad features of the Hung, their faces painted with stripes and whorls as they made war against the Tong.

Spears stabbed down at the men, frustrating their climb. One Seifan, pierced through the shoulder, lost his grip on the rope. Slipping free, he shrieked as the pounding feet of the mammoth smashed his body.

Gashuun’s shouts announced still another threat. Some distance away, a lone chariot thundered across the Barrens. Unlike the rest of the horde, this chariot made no effort to close upon the mammoth. Unlike the rest, this chariot was drawn not by a horse but by a fanged, two-legged reptile. The lone occupant of the vehicle made no effort to control his strange beast, instead his focus was upon the prayer wheel he held. Clad in the skins of daemons, the man waved his hands over the prayer wheel, his thin voice scratching at the heavens.

In answer to the Seifan mystic’s spell, an orange haze formed above his chariot. Dark shapes appeared out of the haze, hovering over the Barrens on leather wings. They were not hawks nor bats nor serpents, but abominable combinations of all three. Even from a distance, their daemonic presence could be felt and the malevolent intelligence in their piercing cries could be heard: furies born from the mindless void between the worlds of gods and men, feral daemons summoned to work the will of the Seifan.

At a gesture from the shaman, the furies flew at the mammoth, streaking through the sky like dusky meteors. They easily avoided the Tsavags’ hurled spears, and the thrown spell-spheres of Gashuun.

Croaking their malicious laughter, the furies descended upon the howdah, ripping and clawing as they came. One warrior was lifted into the air, his arm clenched in the fanged beak of one fury while another daemon chewed at his scalp. Another warrior fell over the side, his face slashed away by the sweep of a daemon’s claw.

Gashuun crumpled in a puddle of his own entrails, his body rent by the talons of swooping horrors. Togmol stabbed at the shaman’s killers, his spear skewering one daemon through its leathery back. The fury’s flesh oozed away from the impaling weapon, shifting and re-forming away from his spear.

The creature snarled at the man, slapping him with a backhanded sweep of its claw. Togmol reeled back, catching himself before he could slip over the side of the howdah.

Dorgo and Ulagan were forced back by the shrieking daemons, pressed towards the raised platform. Here, at least, Sanya’s sorcery was keeping the furies at bay. Dark ribbons of flame snaked from her splayed fingers, burning daemons from the sky.

Yet the woman’s eyes could not be everywhere. A fury dropped down onto the howdah, creeping towards her on taloned feet. Dorgo leapt at the daemon before it could pounce, slashing at the creature with his sword. Metal sliced through the leathery wing, biting at the scaly shoulder. The fury hissed at the warrior, enraged by this little man who had the temerity to strike it. Claws slashed at Dorgo, striking for the man’s throat. Dorgo raised his sword to block the attack. The blade shattered beneath the daemon’s touch, fragmenting like rock beneath a hammer. The impact forced Dorgo back. Staggering, he knew he could not fend off the monster’s next attack. The fury threw itself at him, pouncing like a sabretusk.

Black lightning seared through the fury as it leapt, sizzling through its unnatural substance. The reptilian visage of the daemon contorted with pain, green ichor vomiting from its mouth. The thing slumped to the floor of the platform, its body collapsing into reeking muck as its life force fled back into the void.

There was no time to thank Sanya for her intervention. The sorceress had already turned her attention to the other furies, daemons that now displayed greater caution in avoiding her spells. Moreover, the daemons were not the only menace that faced the men on the howdah. The furies had driven the Tsavags away from the walls of the platform, had distracted them from their efforts to prevent the Seifan from mounting Devseh’s sides.

Half a dozen painted Seifan warriors were at large upon the howdah, giving battle to the already beleaguered Tsavags. Dorgo could see a pair of them rushing towards the mammoth’s neck, intent on stopping the beast by killing it, or Qotagir, or both. The old mahout was turned around in his cage, jabbing at the would-be slayers with a long ivory spear, preventing them from gaining purchase on the treacherous footing of Devseh’s neck.

A roar of rage snapped Dorgo’s attention away from Qotagir’s distress. Another Seifan warrior was climbing over the side of the howdah, but Dorgo recognised him. He had seen the moustached warlord at the ill-fated council of the tribes.

The murderous, armoured invader was no less than Tulka, kahn of the Seifan. The chieftain recognised Dorgo in turn and remembered the son of his hated rival Hutga. Even more importantly, Tulka knew that Hutga would have trusted the Bloodeater to no one else.

“Give me the sword, pup,” Tulka growled. The chieftain’s fat-bladed dadao clenched in his fist, his frosty hair dripping from the skirt of his helm. There was nothing but contempt in his eyes as he stared at his enemy.

Dorgo spat at the warlord’s feet. “Come and take it, nag-fondler,” he cursed. “If you think you can!”

Tulka smiled as he noted the warrior’s empty hands. The chieftain of the Seifan was loath to risk himself in battle. When he could, he allowed others to take those risks for him, but the challenge of a weaponless warrior was one that appealed to his cruel spirit. Battle was distasteful to him, but murder was an indulgence he regarded with the keenest appreciation.

“You’re going to die, boy!” grinned Tulka. “I’m going to pass water on your bones before I leave them to the jackals!”

“Big words for a coward,” Dorgo sneered. His hand clutched at his belt, feeling the hidden pouch and what had been concealed within it. Above all else, he knew that the Seifan could not be allowed to gain possession of the Bloodeater. That would spell the doom of his people as surely as the Skulltaker’s rampage.

Tulka lunged at the Tsavag warrior. Overconfident, goaded by the warrior’s baiting words, the murderous warlord reacted precisely as Dorgo expected. It was not the careful charge of a warrior that impelled Tulka forward, but the enraged rush of a maddened beast. The warlord did not need caution or skill. No chieftain of the domain had ever fallen in battle, not to any mortal at least. He would not fear an armed antagonist, how much less did he care about an unarmed one?

The slashing sweep of the kahn’s fat-bladed sword was powerful, but sloppy. Dorgo ducked beneath the flashing bronze edge of the dadao and then drove upwards as the blade passed over his head. He pinned everything on one desperate attack. If he had guessed wrong, he would pay for his mistake with his life. Tulka would not miss again.

The bronze sword clattered against the floor of the howdah, falling from nerveless fingers. The kahn’s eyes widened with disbelief, his mouth gaping in shock. A jewelled sliver of daemonic metal gleamed behind the teeth. Dorgo had put all of his strength in that one mighty thrust. Hidden in his fist, the shard of the Bloodeater had been driven beneath the warlord’s chin, punching up through his mouth and into his brain.

For an instant, Dorgo feared he had guessed wrong. Tulka remained standing, as though rejecting the injury he had been dealt. Every Tsavag had heard stories about the invincibility of the chieftains, about how they recovered from even the most ghastly wounds. Dread filled Dorgo as it seemed that Tulka would do the same.

The instant passed. The clamour of battle faded away as Tulka crashed to the floor of the howdah. Those Seifan still fighting on the mammoth’s back screamed in terror, scrambling over the sides and sliding down their ropes. The furies shrieked, fleeing into the sky, vanishing as they retreated towards the horizon.

Dorgo released his relief in a great sigh. His gamble had won. He had reasoned that any weapon strong enough to destroy the Skulltaker would be powerful enough to kill a chieftain. Even a shard of the Bloodeater had been enough to settle with Tulka.

“That’s one pig that won’t be stealing any more women,” snarled Ulagan. The hunter sported an ugly gash across his forehead where the claw of a fury had struck him, but otherwise he’d come out of the battle unmarked. Six of the warriors could not make that claim. Taken by Seifan axes or daemonic claws, their spirits would not leave the Barrens.

Dorgo leaned over the kahn’s corpse, struggling to pull the ruby shard from his head. He gratefully accepted an iron knife as it was handed down to him. Quickly, he cut away at the throat of the corpse, exposing enough of the sword sliver to allow him a firm grip on it. Dorgo deftly pulled the shard free, wiping Tulka’s blood from its translucent edge. He handed the knife back, only now realising that it was Sanya not Ulagan who had given it to him.

“Quick thinking,” the sorceress told him. She stared at the corpse, seeming almost to delight in the sight of the chieftain’s carcass. It was the echo of the hateful glare Dorgo had seen her direct against the Suls’ own kahn, Enek Zjarr, at the tomb of Teiyogtei. “You’ve prevented this expedition from failing before it has even begun.”

“We’re not free of them yet,” warned Togmol. The massive warrior gestured to the lake-bed below. Dead warriors and dead horses littered the expanse, and here and there the broken wreckage of a chariot was scattered across the ground.

Away from the bodies and debris, the Seifan riders were regrouping, waving their weapons angrily over their heads. The berating shouts of their leaders carried over to the men in the howdah. Fired by hopes of replacing their fallen kahn, the boldest Seifan warriors were urging their fellows back into the fight.

“Maybe we can still outdistance them,” suggested Dorgo. He did not harbour any great hope of escaping the determined riders, much less with Devseh weakened by their spears and blades. When battle was joined again, there would be no chance of throwing the Seifan into disarray by felling their chieftain. It would be a fight to the finish, a fight where the sheer numbers of the Hung would ensure their victory.

Sanya pointed at Tulka’s corpse. “Give them the body of their kahn,” she said. “You can’t outrun them. Our only hope is to give them something else to occupy them.” The sorceress frowned when she saw the confusion on the faces of the Tsavags. “Don’t question, just do,” she swore. The sound of hooves pounding across the desert was already rising once more.

Shrugging his shoulders, Dorgo helped Togmol to lift the dead kahn from the howdah. A heave sent Tulka toppling over the side of the platform, to crash in a cloud of dust on the plain below. The Seifan riders ignored the body, thundering past it, intent upon the fleeing mammoth. Dorgo shook his head. Sanya’s plan had failed.

Then a shout went up from one of the rearmost Seifan riders. The dust had settled enough to give the man a clear look at what had been thrown down from the howdah.

Seeing the chieftain’s body, the rider dropped from his saddle, scrambling towards the corpse. His shout had been heard by the others. In quick order, they turned their steeds around, racing back to the body. Men sprang from their saddles, running through the dust to reach Tulka.

Angry yells and filthy curses rose from the Seifan as the marauders began punching and kicking one another.

Dorgo realised that they were fighting over the corpse. Nor were the Seifan confining their internecine conflict to fists. Screams of pain, and the clatter of metal striking metal sounded from the feuding mob. All thought of the Tsavags and their treasure had been abandoned. Incredibly, the only thing that seemed to concern the Seifan now was Tulka’s body.

Dorgo turned a questioning look on Sanya. How had she known?

“An old tradition,” she said, answering his unspoken question, “common to all the tribes, though most are less injudicious about its secrecy than the Seifan, allowing only their shamans to keep the hidden truth. To become chieftain of one’s tribe, it is necessary to eat the heart of the old chieftain, to consume his strength and power, to become the flesh of Teiyogtei.” Sanya nodded as she saw the revulsion on Dorgo’s face. Among even the Tong, cannibalism was taboo.

“Yes, even the Tsavags pass on their legacy in such a fashion,” she continued. “If you would lead your people, one day you must eat your father’s heart and draw his power into your body: the flesh of Teiyogtei, a tradition unbroken since the breaking of the horde. The king’s warlords drew his power into themselves when they bore his broken husk from his battle with the Skulltaker. Knowing their king was dying, they cut his heart from his body and divided it among them. Each drew Teiyogtei’s strength into himself, becoming one with the flesh of the king. That is what the Skulltaker hunts, Dorgo. He hunts the flesh of Teiyogtei, to destroy the last trace of the king.” Sanya’s eyes grew hard, her hands balling into fists at her side. “With every skull he takes, the power of Teiyogtei fades from the domain. When it has passed completely, the Blood God will consume all. Earth, flesh, water and sky, all will be sacrificed to the hunger of Khorne.”

The clearing of the herdstone stank of fear and blood. The twisted masses of the warherd had retreated to the imagined safety of the treeline, their bestial faces peering out from behind the foliage to watch doom descend upon their home.

Some had not retreated, staying behind to protect their sacred herdstone. Their remains were splashed across the ground, torn asunder by the invader’s smouldering blade. The warherd’s shamans were among the dead. The horned sorcerer-priests had struggled to fell their human enemy with spells of death and ruin. Their efforts called lightning from the mist, evoked green flames that blackened the earth, and summoned dreadful winds that stripped bark from the pines with their unseen touch. All the savage magics of the beastmen were called down upon the man’s head. Yet it was the Skulltaker, not his enemies, who still walked the Grey.

Spells crashed against the Skulltaker’s crimson armour, shattering like ice against stone, casting sparks and embers of frustrated magic across the ground. Curses fell upon the champion of Khorne and turned to scarlet ash, sliding from the smooth plates of his mail.

Hexes struck at his soul and were consumed, burned away by the malice of a hungry god. Then the shamans died, their protective charms and amulets useless against the black sword, their magical wards and talismans broken by the shrieking steel. Their brutish bodies were cut down like wheat, their spirits devoured by the ravenous blade.

The destruction of the shamans had broken the feral courage of the warherd. Nhaa’s bestial army had evaporated, slinking into the shadows, tails curled between their legs. Only the huge minotaurs remained, determined in their primitive way to defend the herdstone even with their last breath. Against any other foe, Nhaa would have been certain that the bull-headed monsters would be victorious. Against the Skulltaker, against a man who had killed the giant Korg, the beastlord had no delusions. Strength, force, savagery, these would not be enough to kill the human. Nhaa paced behind the fearsome line of its minotaurs. If raw power was not sufficient to stop the Skulltaker, perhaps treachery would be. After all, even kings died beneath the knives of traitors.

The minotaurs stamped the earth, pawing the ground with their hooves, bubbly froth dripping from their snouts as they anxiously awaited the approach of their foe. The smell of blood had all but overwhelmed their tiny brains, sending violent urges snaking through their gigantic frames.

Twelve feet tall, each minotaur was sixty stone of primal fury waiting to explode in an orgy of bloodshed and carnage. Their paw-like hands opened and closed impatiently around the hafts of their weapons: great axes of sharpened bone, and clubs of knotted wood and pitted stone.

Only the snarled warnings of their chieftain kept the brutes from charging their enemy on the instant. Nhaa didn’t want the minotaurs to attack the Skulltaker piecemeal. Together, they might have some small chance against the champion, or at least provide enough of a distraction to allow Nhaa the opportunity it was watching for.

The Skulltaker marched through the mangled wreckage of the shamans, his boots sloshing through the muck of pooled blood and offal. A wounded shaman tried to crawl from the warrior’s path, dragging its body through the sludge with a mangled arm, bleating pitifully. The Skulltaker did not break stride as he walked past the crippled beastman, simply reversing the grip on his sword and stabbing the point through the creature’s neck, ending its pathetic ordeal.

The sight of the shaman’s callous execution snapped the already fragile restraint of the minotaurs. Snorting and bellowing, the huge monsters charged, their weapons raised, their horned heads lowered. The ground shook beneath their ploughing hooves, like the rolling quaking of a stampede. Even the faintest gleam of intelligence was washed from their eyes as brute fury took hold over them.

The Skulltaker stood, implacable, immobile before the oncoming rush of the minotaurs. The warrior’s arm swept forwards, driving the black blade into the lowered head of the first minotaur, piercing its skull with a sickening crunch. He ripped the sword free, spinning around as the lifeless bulk of the monster smashed into the ground in a spray of blood and brains. In the same motion, he dropped into a crouch, bringing his sword scything through the knee of a second minotaur. The brute bellowed, toppling as the slashed bone of its leg snapped under the weight of its body.

The Skulltaker did not give the maimed creature a further thought. He was already turning to face a third. The smoking edge of his sword screamed as it chopped through the monster’s horn, sending it dancing through the air. The minotaur roared, bringing its huge club of bone and stone smashing down. The earth beside the Skulltaker exploded beneath the tremendous impact, but the man avoided the crushing blow. His sword licked out at the monster again, hacking through its wrist. The minotaurs paw leapt from its wound in a gush of blood, flopping to the ground. The monster’s body lurched to one side, the weight of the bludgeon it held in one hand dragging its entire mass away with it. Before the minotaur could recover, the point of the Skulltaker’s sword was burrowing through its ribs, skewering its heart.

A fourth minotaur crashed into the Skulltaker while he dispatched its fellow. The brute’s horns caught the man, sending him flying through the air. The minotaur did not give the stricken champion time to recover. Rushing onwards, its head lowered, its horns lashing from side to side, the beast smashed into the prone man, trying to grind him into the dirt with its horns. The warrior’s body was battered and mangled beneath the minotaurs savagery, bones cracking before the brutality of the monster’s attack. Armoured hands clutched at the minotaur’s head, wrapping around its horns in an effort to fend off the assault. The monster’s powerful jaws snapped at the man sprawled beneath it, the fangs scraping against the darkly stained armour of his breastplate.

Probing hands slipped away from the minotaur’s horns, groping desperately at the monster’s face as they dropped away. There was purpose behind the desperation. Even as the minotaur mauled him, Khorne’s champion thought not of escape, but of attack. Armoured fingers pressed brutally into the minotaur’s beady yellow eyes, stabbing into them like iron knives. The minotaur threw its head back, howling in agony as the wreckage of its eyes slithered down its face.

With his enemy’s attack broken, the Skulltaker turned to find his sword. His vision settled on the quivering body of the third monster he had killed, at the smoking blade still buried in its side. There was blood dripping from his armour as the warrior dragged himself back towards his sword. Broken bones ground together, and ruptured organs pumped pain through his body. No mortal could have endured the mauling delivered by the beast, but it had been many lifetimes since the Skulltaker had known mortality. Every limping step brought the Blood God’s power surging through him, mending flesh and knitting bone. Khorne had legions to die for him. The Skulltaker was marked out for a different purpose.

From near the herdstone, Nhaa watched the Skulltaker hobble away from the last minotaur. The beastlord’s eyes narrowed with cunning when it saw that the man had lost his terrible sword, as its slippery mind contemplated the obvious gravity of the Skulltaker’s wounds. Nhaa scraped the blades of its fighting claws together, knowing that it would never see a better opportunity. Cautiously, the chieftain began to circle the battlefield, watching for its chance.

When it had circled around to the warrior’s back, Nhaa struck. With panther-like speed, the beastlord rushed at the human. Only a few feet from the Skulltaker, Nhaa leapt into the air, hurtling at the man like a missile. Nhaa slammed into the Skulltaker’s back, its fighting claws tearing through the warrior’s armour, impelled by the chieftain’s momentum. Nhaa’s growls ripped through the clearing as its bronze claws dug deeper into its foe’s body. Sadistic ferocity twisted the gor’s bestial face as it wrenched the claws around in the wounds it had dealt, widening the gashes in its victim’s back. Nhaa almost forgot its disappointment that the warrior did not cry out as it felt the man’s blood running down its arms.

The Skulltaker slumped to his knees, lurching forwards as the beastlord’s fighting claws burrowed into his flesh. Nhaa leaned down to maintain its grip on the failing warrior. The gor’s fangs gleamed in a feral snarl. More than just the instinctive man-hate of the beastmen, Nhaa exulted in its victory as a display of its power. The Skulltaker had slaughtered and killed his way through the lands of the human tribes, unstoppable as the fist of Khorne, but he had not prevailed in the Grey. In the Grey, the doom bringer had found his doom.

Metal hands locked around Nhaa’s throat as the beastlord leaned over the warrior. The chieftain’s eyes went round with panic, and the snarl slipped from its face. The grip around its neck was not the weak, fragile clutch of a dying man. It was a grip of steel, fingers of iron tearing at the beastman’s flesh. As it felt those fingers tighten, as it felt its skin rip, as it felt its neck being twisted, Nhaa understood the enormity of its mistake. Weak, battered, broken, the Skulltaker was still more than the beastlord could overcome.

A loud crack announced the breaking of Nhaa’s neck. The gor’s horned head sagged obscenely against its shoulder, sightless eyes staring emptily into space. Nhaa’s body crumpled to the ground, crashing beside that of its killer.

Long minutes passed. The near-blind eyes of the warherd were focused upon the clearing, fixed upon the still, unmoving shapes of their chieftain and the terrible warrior who had slain it. Slowly, with tenuous, anxious steps, the bolder elements of the tribe began to filter out from the trees. The gors advanced towards the dead bodies of chieftain and champion, sniffing at the blood-drenched ground.

Then the gors were scrambling back to the trees. One of the bodies moved, rising from the ground. The Skulltaker did not even glance at the retreating beastmen. Instead, he closed his bloodstained hands around the bronze claws still stabbed into his flesh. Slowly, painfully, he ripped Nhaa’s blades free from his body. The Skulltaker stared down at the chieftain’s broken body, letting its bladed arms flop back against its chest.

The Skulltaker consider Nhaa’s carcass for only a moment. The warrior set one of his armoured boots on the beastman’s chest, and closed his hands around Nhaa’s curled horns. The Skulltaker leaned down over the monster, and then exerted his tremendous strength, pulling at the horns while his boot kept the body pinned in place.

A wet, tearing sound rose from the corpse. With a final, furious tug, the Skulltaker ripped his prize from Nhaa’s shoulders. The lingering beastmen gave voice to their terror as they saw the champion lift Nhaa’s head into the air. They fled, scrambling back into the depths of the Grey, praying to their savage gods that they would be spared the fate of their chief.

The Skulltaker ignored the frantic, scrambling noises that rose from the forest around him. He was still weak from the minotaur’s mauling and Nhaa’s treacherous attack. It would take him a long time to heal from such injuries, to recover his strength after such a trial, but he would not be idle while he rested.

Dragging Nhaa’s head by its horn, the Skulltaker stalked towards his sword. Soon, a fourth skull would dangle from the chain lashed across his body, a fourth offering to the Blood God’s rage.

Silence reigned within the great hall. Obsidian walls cast eerie reflections across a floor of polished ebony. A great crystal, three times the size of a man, rose from the centre of the floor, suspended in the air by unseen chains of force. The smooth, globe-like skin of the crystal glowed with strange lights that burned from within. The glow was captured by the black stone walls of the chamber, shining across them in great, sprawling images. The scenes projected by the crystal played like moving tapestries along the black walls.

A sombre group of men watched the images cast by the crystal. Cloaked in robes of black, their faces dark, their expressions grim, the elders of the Sul knew the gravity of what they witnessed. The Skulltaker had claimed another head and with it brought the entire domain of Teiyogtei one step closer to oblivion.

“Nhaa has fallen,” declared one of the sorcerers, his plaited beard streaked with golden thread. “The Skulltaker has another offering to place before the Skull Throne.”

“And now Tulka is dead,” observed another, his eyes stretching from his sallow face on leathery stalks. “One less for the Skulltaker to hunt.”

“Tulka does not matter.” This time the words came from the gold-masked Thaulan Scabtongue. “His power has passed into his lieutenant. The Seifan still have a chieftain, one who has eaten the flesh of Teiyogtei. With the power he has consumed, the heir of Tulka inherits the deathmark that lingered over his predecessor. The executioner must yet collect four skulls before doom descends upon our land.”

“The flesh of Teiyogtei is all that keeps the Blood God from devouring the domain,” cautioned the gold-bearded sorcerer. “Without that link to the great king, there is nothing to defy Khorne’s hunger. It is a dangerous game we play, Thaulan. The risk is great.”

“The reward is greater,” Thaulan replied. “Even as he serves the Blood God, the Skulltaker serves the Sul. With every skull he claims, our enemies are diminished.”

“But if he should kill all the chieftains…”

“Death is not enough,” Thaulan said. “He must have their heads, trophies to bear back to the Black Altar. Only then will Khorne be satisfied.”

“Then everything depends upon Sanya,” the stalk-eyed Sul announced. “Our one hope for survival rests with her and a clutch of half-witted Tong.”

“Not our hopes,” corrected Thaulan, “but our ambitions. We have seen the power even a shard of the Bloodeater possesses. When it is reforged, even the Skulltaker will be destroyed.”

“What of the Tsavags?” objected gold-beard.

“Sanya will attend to them,” Thaulan said. “She made provisions that were not in Enek Zjarr’s original vision.” The faces of the assembled elders lifted into cruel smiles. Their kahn’s treachery and cunning were infamous throughout the tribe, but that of his consort was impressive even to the Sul. They could leave the Tsavags to her devious plan. The mammoth-rider was never born who could see through the deceptions of the Sul.