The Talon of Khorne Frank Cavallo Fog drifted through the fjord, the sickly mist swallowing the Norscan shore in the first rays of dawn and shrouding the jetties and the little boats moored among the rocky inlets. Haze crept up over craggy scrublands, spreading ghostly fingers through the dying forest of bare pines that hugged the coastline. A scattering of hardscrabble dwellings clung to the rough terrain, overlooking the harbour. Dozens of stone huts topped with weak thatch huddled in the lee of the hillside, dominated by a long-house of roughly-hewn granite blocks and moss-stained oak. The village of Volfskul roused from its slumber in slow, halting steps. Grey-bearded fishermen emerged first; half-starved old men who’d weathered the night upon the wind-scoured rocks along the coast, guarding their nearly-empty hardfiskur racks from prowling, mangy wolf packs or the scavenging of scrawny sea-birds. Maidens in tattered, flea-infested shrouds doused the thin torches while older women beat the soot from mammoth-hide blankets, stained with dark patches by generations of household midwifery. Looking out from their doorways, watching the unforgiving hills vanish under the grey, they were the first to notice when the Norscan morning turned foul. It began with the wind. A gust rippled through the fog, cascading down from the icy peaks that towered above the village. But it was not a frozen gale. The air smouldered, crackling with cinders. Another fitful blast followed, and then a third, each howling more loudly than the last. The villagers abandoned their chores at the first sign of trouble, whispering prayers to the dark gods. But they had little chance to steel themselves against the rising tide. The morning mist churned, congealing into filthy, dark smog. Brimstone fumes thickened into a rank stench that choked every hint of nature from the air. Lightning tore across the suddenly-roiling sky in blood-red streaks, the crimson flashes casting eerie shadows upon the rocks; shades that seemed to slink and slither of their own accord. Thunder shook the heavens above and the ground underfoot. It soon gave way to a heavier rumble, a quaking of the earth: the clatter of iron on stone, the din of hooves stomping forwards like a living storm. Tugging on his mother’s mammoth-hide cloak, a young boy cried out in fear, his innocent voice signalling the arrival of their doom. All eyes followed the boy’s call, turning to the hill pass that wound down from the crags of Broken-Axe Peak, to see a phalanx of faceless, armoured horsemen galloping out from the swirling haze. At its head there rode a giant among giants, the Chaos warrior that legend knew as Ruaddon. Man and steed alike thundered forth in a nightmarish cacophony that announced him as no herald could ever have. Like his men, mounted on thick-necked warhorses adorned in iron-studded armour, he betrayed little hint of mortal weakness. His pauldrons and gauntlets boasted wicked rows of iron spikes, and brass and gold engravings were splashed across his hell-forged cuirass with ruinous scrawls, some obscured by the dents and slashes of old battles. A helm crowned with twisted daemon horns and a ghostly circlet of bleached human skulls announced his profane intent. Behind him the lances and raised battleaxes of his men mixed with wooden pikes bearing tusk-framed battle flags, towering above them in a moving forest of ivory and sharpened steel. Ruaddon slowed his pace as the black cadre fell into a double column, two-score strong; a malevolent parade that drew the attention of everyone in the village. Lifting his crimson visor to reveal a face twisted with scars and permanent stitches, Ruaddon looked out upon the townsfolk, who now assembled as if in silent welcome… or protest. Though a bane to any land upon whose soil they trod, the black riders did not provoke so much as a flinch from the steely-eyed villagers of Volfskul. The Norscans held their ground even as more dark warriors streamed down from the hill pass to fill the centre of the village, their mounts growling and belching vile odours as they followed Ruaddon’s lead. They did not flee, or seek cover. Instead they stood outside the doorways of every humble structure. Some clenched bone totems to their hearts. Others scrawled runes in charcoal and blood upon their pale flesh. A scattering of men, some limping or hobbling on gnarled canes, intermingled with them. Aside from those few weakened elders, there was not a man between fifteen and fifty summers among them. Frost-blue eyes met Ruaddon’s gaze at every turn, looking back at him with a fearless resolve. Even the children returned his soulless stare, silent and defiant. For a long moment everything fell still. Once he had scanned the place, Ruaddon raised his arm – as if in response, a final gust of hot, volcanic wind broke the momentary respite. It came with a deeper howling, a predator’s roar. It was only as the feral echo died away that a final rider emerged out of the reeking black fog. The other horsemen moved aside as he rode forth, clearing a path for their master: the Chaos lord Vhorgath, Bane of the North. Seated high upon a snarling black battle-stallion, he wore armour forged in the most ghastly baroque fashion – daemonic skulls glowered from his every joint, and bronze barbs sparkled along the edge of his steel plate. Like Ruaddon, his face was bared to the cold Norscan dawn, but his was a cadaverous complexion of bloodless skin, as white as whalebone. He grew neither hair nor whiskers and his deep-set eyes burned violet under a heavy brow. The flesh of his throat seemed fused to the steel of his gorget; man and armour merged into one. He declared himself in a peculiar baritone, every word echoing as though chanted by the whispers of a phantom chorus. ‘I am Vhorgath.’ When the mere sound of his name produced no reply, no reaction at all from the townsfolk, he studied them more closely, and like his lieutenant he soon noted the absence of any healthy men. ‘We have come under the banners of the dark gods, not to bring sword and flame to this place, but glory,’ he continued. ‘A new army is forming, a horde that will spread the shadow of the daemon-lords upon the world once more. The name of your tribe has long been a scourge to the weaklings of the southlands. For centuries the deeds of the sons of Ironpelt have been sung by the light of bonfires in halls across the north. ‘But among you I see no warriors, no men to wield the axes and hammers of Chaos that so many legends recall. For months we have scoured these forsaken lands, where snow falls even in summer, yet no sign of such greatness has revealed itself to us.’ Again, he was met with stony silence. Nothing but the relentless stares of a hundred gaunt women and their emaciated young, steady and seemingly without hint of fear. He motioned to Ruaddon, who had taken up his usual place beside the great warlord. ‘Choose one,’ he said. The hulking warrior grinned to himself, and wasted no time. Ruaddon scanned the gathered masses and settled upon the nearest thing to an able-bodied man he could find – an aged but barrel-chested individual whose beard still clung to reddish strands among the grey. Spurring his steed onwards, Ruaddon sidled up to the man, reached down and clamped his fist around his throat. Again he faced no resistance, as he lifted the man and brought him before Vhorgath. The Chaos lord smiled cruelly as he looked over the old man. Though his face swelled and flushed as Ruaddon held him, he stared back with no less tenacity. Vhorgath addressed him directly, his voice even more threatening in a whisper than in a shout. ‘Your lands are empty, Norscan – all of the other settlements have been abandoned. Tell me where your legendary Ironpelt warriors are. Now.’ The old man struggled to breathe, summoning every ounce of strength he could muster before responding. ‘If it is warriors you seek then there is… nothing for you here,’ he choked. ‘All of our men have… taken to the long-ships to raid the… southern kingdoms.’ ‘So it appears,’ Vhorgath replied. ‘What I want to know is… why?’ ‘Why?’ the man wheezed. ‘I’m no fool. This is not the raiding season. Tribes across Norsca are already preparing for the winter. The long-ships are back in port, the menfolk fill their beds beside their wives. But not in your lands.’ The man nodded, as best he could with Ruaddon’s fist clenched around his throat. ‘The… plague…’ he managed, just as the light faded from his eyes. Vhorgath nodded to Ruaddon, who let go of the unconscious old man. His limp body fell into the dirt, and a woman scrambled to tend to him, kneeling beside his head. She looked up to the towering figures of Vhorgath and his lieutenant, her face twisted with anger. ‘He spoke the truth,’ she said. ‘It came with the last spring thaw. A fever that spread through our entire tribe in one cycle of the whitemoon. All of our lands suffered. Offerings to Neiglen did nothing to stop it.’ Vhorgath narrowed his eyes. ‘But something must have, unless I converse here with a village of ghosts,’ he growled. ‘As the summer faded a great sacrifice was made, a terrible rite that gave the Plague-Lord the best of our tribe, maidens and warriors alike. Only then did the fever leave us. Now we are few. Our herds are nearly gone, our people are weak. Our men did no raiding all summer, and it was only in these last few days, when they should have been returning to us, that those who remain sailed away. Our survival depends on what they can bring back to us.’ ‘So the great tribe of Ironpelt dies with the whimper of pox and not the clamour of battle,’ said Ruaddon, some of the nearby warriors laughing mockingly. ‘A pity.’ ‘We have nothing for you,’ she wailed, still cradling the old man in her lap. ‘Fight your war without us.’ Vhorgath stared down at her, saying nothing. ‘Do you fail to understand me, or do you still disbelieve what your own cursed eyes see?’ she demanded. The Chaos lord looked away as if in frustration, or merely boredom. ‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘I believe every word.’ ‘Then begone. Take your foul beasts and go back the way you came. Leave these lands forever,’ she said. Vhorgath turned back, his eyes flashing like a hawk. ‘That sounds like a command,’ he said. ‘Perhaps my senses do fail me, so long have we been in this forsaken land.’ He turned to his second. ‘Ruaddon, did it not sound to you as though this wench commanded me?’ The armoured giant looked to his master. He’d seen that gaze before. It always heralded violence, and pain. ‘That it did, my lord,’ he said. ‘How amusing.’ Vhorgath turned away from the rebellious woman, addressing all the gathered folk of Volfskul. ‘Since you do not possess the resource we seek, you are worthless to me. And so we will indeed leave you.’ The villagers looked to one another, uncertainly. Vhorgath looked once more to Ruaddon. ‘Knights, scour the village,’ he said, loud enough for all to hear. ‘Take whatever you wish, whatever you can find. Tear down every wall if you must but take anything of value left in this pathetic place. We will leave them whatever remains.’ Vhorgath sneered at the woman, turning away as he left Ruaddon to carry out his orders. He looked out towards the open seas for a moment, before spurring his mount. A cry of defiance halted him. It came from behind, the angry yelp of a woman. Another followed, and another. As Vhorgath turned, Ruaddon saw an arrow whistle past his head, so close that the feather fletching cut across his master’s bare cheek. In an instant the once-passive Norscans had sprung into action. Leaping from every direction, they pounced like a wolf pack. Armed with whatever they could grab – wood-axes, pitchforks and scythes – screeching women and grim-faced old men leapt upon the black riders from all sides. Even maidens and young boys came at them, hurling rocks and striking at the horses’ legs. ‘So, the spirit of Ironpelt is not quite dead after all,’ Ruaddon shouted. ‘Though it soon will be!’ Scores of villagers came at the Chaos warriors, jumping from behind shuttered doors, and leaping out from bales of damp straw. The townsfolk outnumbered them, but Vhorgath rose up in his saddle at the scent of blood on the wind. ‘Feast upon these barbarians, brothers! Bring your swords to bear! Let them quench their thirst with weak Norscan blood!’ The men did not need to be told. The black warriors responded with vigour, setting about them with blade and burning torch. Ruaddon managed to fall in next to his master as the Norscans raged in a frenzy of blades and screams. Safe for the moment behind the iron wall of his warriors’ defensive circle, he reared on his mount to survey the scene. The Norscans surged, women and children tearing and slashing at the Chaos warriors with the kind of feral ardor known only among the half-savage tribes of the North. The peasants tore at horses and shields, clawing with their bare hands as the village around them erupted in flames. Ruaddon howled as he rode out into the heart of the swarm, slashing with his great two-handed sword. Blood and entrails and broken limbs rained down as villagers fell at his every stroke. He bounded through the thick of the fray, killing anew with each step. Still the crowd swarmed about them, defiant. Old men, drooling and frothing like rabid dogs, seized his saddle and stirrups, their grip as tenacious as the cold stare in their eyes. He saw one of his comrades pulled from his horse, dragged beneath the press of bodies, sucked into a living riptide. To Ruaddon’s horror, the Norscans tore the screaming warrior apart. Ruaddon rallied his men. Calling them into formation around him, he led the black riders forth in a merciless counter-attack. Fanning out across the entire expanse of Volfskul, they stomped in lumbering, monstrous strides atop their armoured beasts, hoping to split the mob and drive them across the blood-soaked tundra like rats before a flood. Even so, the Norscans held their ground for as long as they were able to stand, fighting back with boundless, wild aggression. But the rampaging Chaos warriors cut them down. Severed heads fell among mangled corpses. Bones shattered. Sharpened steel carved flesh in vicious strokes, one after another. Wails of agony eclipsed the whirl of axes. Those few souls not fortunate enough to die by the blade were thrown down into the muck, the life crushed from their bodies by iron-shod hooves as the behemoth warhorses trampled over fields of ruin. Volfskul was a village no more. It was a field of butchery. More than an hour after the last war-cry had been silenced, the armoured warriors moved between smouldering ruins and crumbling huts slowly, mindful of any survivors lurking in the debris with murder on their minds. Ruaddon still sat atop his steed, though others were dismounted and tending to the grisly task Vhorgath had set them. He always ordered, at the close of battle, the sign for which he was known – and loathed – all across the frozen northern realms. As they had done a hundred times before, the warriors used their blades to sharpen the ends of charred timbers, this time the remains of the village long-house. Having readied the pikes, they rammed them through decapitated corpses, throat first. Then they lifted the gruesome poles, jammed the severed heads atop them and drove the opposite ends into the ground, elevating a horrific parody of the human form: beaten, broken cadavers suspended upside-down, their displaced heads crowning their final disgrace. They would remain there, to rot and feed the scavenger birds until their bones fell away. Until then, any who came upon the savagery would see the dreadful signature of Vhorgath, etched into the landscape in blood and ravaged flesh. Stalking the far side of the ruins for yet more bodies for his men to defile, Ruaddon caught a glimmer of movement beneath a pile of rubble. The jumble of crumbled stone and burnt wood was heaped beside a half-standing wall, deep enough to hide a person… As he approached, a hand pushed through the wreckage. A figure followed – cloaked and slight of build, it crawled from the ruins as though hatching from an egg. ‘Hold, Norscan rat!’ Ruaddon called out. The command went unheeded. Instead the small figure jumped from the rubble and darted across a smoke-filtered alley. Giving chase, Ruaddon cornered the refugee at the edge of what had once been the main square. The place lay in ruin just as the remainder of the village, the long-house collapsed into a smoking mess of beams and rubble, flanked by a blood-stained scree slope piled up with the bodies that had not yet been impaled. Bearing down, Ruaddon called out again. ‘Hold!’ The other riders filed in behind him. With his prey trapped in the corner between a sheer face of stone and a pair of broken pillars, Ruaddon reined his mount back. He moved closer, his sword pointed at the lone survivor. The figure was cornered, but not subdued. Trying to escape through the space between the two columns, its hood fell away, and to Ruaddon’s surprise, he found himself facing a young woman. Though she was backed against the crumbling wall, her eyes seethed with a familiar, defiant fury. The Chaos warrior approached her, now flanked by two riders with their axes still dripping red. An eerie quiet had descended. ‘Archers, draw.’ ‘Ruaddon! Halt your bowmen!’ Vhorgath shouted from across the desolation. The lieutenant turned to see his master approaching. ‘My lord, she is the last of them. Should we not finish what we have begun?’ he replied. Vhorgath steered his stallion over and dismounted. He stepped between the hulking warrior and the cowering village girl. Ruaddon supposed he’d seen something that interested him. ‘Not yet,’ Vhorgath said, pointing to the girl. ‘Look at her. She shows no marks of battle. No blood, no sign of wounds endured or inflicted. This one alone among all of her fellow villagers did not join in the fight against us.’ ‘Then she is either the smartest of her tribe, or the most cowardly,’ Ruaddon sneered. Vhorgath lifted his sword, using the point of it to probe at the girl, drawing the flat of his massive steel blade along the length of her arm and then pointing it only inches away from her face. She did not flinch. ‘It appears she is no coward,’ he whispered. She was ragged and shivering. Her lank blonde hair fell all around the soft features of her face. She was no more than a teenager, but despite Vhorgath’s malevolent appearance, the waif did not quail at the sight of him. ‘Who are you, girl?’ Vhorgath asked. ‘Freya is my name, daughter of the Ironpelt skald Ragnar,’ she said. ‘The child of a poet? Why don’t you fear me, little one?’ She stared back at the sinister knight with a gaze as cold as his own. ‘I fear no man, for my eyes have looked upon the greatest warrior of the Ironpelt tribe. The most fearsome killer ever to sail the seas of the north,’ she said. ‘Have they now?’ he said. ‘We have ridden across all of the Ironpelt lands, and found not a single man worthy of bearing a sword. Who is this warrior you speak of?’ Freya stared back with a kind of daring pride. ‘The Talon of Khorne himself: Scyla Anfingrimm.’ The words brought a pause to Vhorgath and his warriors; a hush of awe among men who had seen the fires of hell itself. For a long moment, no one made a sound. Ruaddon looked to his master, then back at Freya. ‘Scyla Anfingrimm?’ he finally said, breaking the brief silence. ‘The ruthless murderer of Black Gulch? The renowned dwarf-slayer?’ ‘The very same. We know that his name is a curse across the southling lands,’ Freya replied. ‘Tell us, little girl, where have you seen this most savage of all Norscans?’ Vhorgath asked. ‘He dwells up in the mountains, on the far side of Broken-Axe Peak, not more than a single day’s journey from here. This village was once his own.’ Ruaddon scoffed, despite the uneasy silence that had fallen over his comrades, but Vhorgath shot him an angry glare. ‘You mock the name of Scyla?’ he said. ‘If any man has laid more skulls at the foot of the Blood God’s throne, I have not heard the tale.’ Ruaddon’s incredulity melted, drifting towards annoyance. ‘Scyla Anfingrimm has not been seen since the slaughter of the gorgers at Undermountain, many years ago,’ he answered. ‘No one knows for certain what became of him.’ ‘That was some time ago, this much is true,’ Vhorgath muttered. ‘He could be a broken old man by now, if he still draws breath at all,’ Ruaddon said. ‘And what reason do we have to believe her? Poets are nothing more than liars with silver tongues.’ Vhorgath looked back at Freya. ‘My lieutenant is right, little one. Why should we believe you? Why shouldn’t I just kill you and mount you on a pike for the ravens like the rest of your people?’ ‘You don’t have to believe my words alone. I can take you to him,’ she replied. ‘I promise you, the favour of the Blood God has made him more fearsome now than he has ever been.’ ‘Intriguing,’ Vhorgath said. ‘Finally, a prize worthy of our time spent in this barren land.’ Ruaddon prickled at his side. ‘You’re taking this girl at her word?’ he protested. ‘She speaks the truth in at least one regard,’ said Vhorgath. ‘Scyla Anfingrimm is said to have been a raider without equal among the Norscans, as merciless and cruel as he was powerful. Though I do not know why he no longer raises his axe with the rest of his tribe, I can think of no better addition to our horde.’ ‘And if she’s lying?’ Vhorgath considered this, and placed a hand upon Ruaddon’s skull-faced pauldron. He directed his answer to Freya. ‘If you’re lying, little girl, I’ll give you to Ruaddon. Can you guess what he likes to do to little girls who lie?’ She shook her head. ‘You won’t like it.’ Ruaddon grinned. ‘Only after you’ve begged for death, pleading for hours, will I consider cutting your throat.’ Freya stared back at Ruaddon with an insolent glare. Then she turned her icy-blue eyes to Vhorgath, and pointed to the rocky mountain path. ‘The trail begins there,’ she said. Vhorgath, Ruaddon and three of their chosen riders formed the delegation which would ride out to meet with Scyla, and in short order Freya led them away from the coastal plains, up to the higher ground beyond the ruins of Volfskul. The rest of the Chaos warriors remained behind to finish the grisly monument to their master’s brutality. The cold sun climbed in the sky as she ushered them into the skeletal remains of the pine forests. The trees were mostly bare, scattered clumps of brown needles clinging to desiccated branches and winter-ravaged trunks. As promised, the winding trail stretched through the dead woods, bristling on every side with sharp, dry brambles. After more than an hour the trees began to thin out as the trail took them to an even higher elevation. Rocky, open ground soon prevailed, dotted with patches of yellow grass and thorny brush. Above them they could see the serried peaks of Broken Axe flirting with the clouds, tiers of frozen crags and wind-scourged hills that seemed to vanish in the mist. Ruaddon held Freya in front of him in his iron saddle, while Vhorgath rode in silence behind them. After some time, as the cold winds eased, the Chaos lord rode up beside them. ‘We have followed your directions for hours now,’ he said. ‘How much further is it to Scyla’s haven?’ ‘Still a while,’ she replied. Ruaddon groaned. He knew that his master grew impatient, but had not yet been brought to ire. ‘There are many tales of Scyla’s deeds, sagas my father told to me as soon as I was old enough to understand them,’ she offered. ‘As our journey is long, might you care to hear one?’ Ruaddon clamped a hand on her shoulder, sending a shudder through her slender frame. ‘Hold your tongue, girl,’ he said. Then he lowered his voice and spoke directly into her ear. ‘Lest I tear it from your mouth.’ Vhorgath laughed. ‘Ruaddon likes people to fear him. It’s one of his better qualities, in fact. And while I admit I enjoy the smell of fear as much as he does, I think in this moment anything you can tell us of Scyla Anfingrimm is worth more than the thrill of watching you beg Ruaddon for mercy.’ Freya looked back at him with an uncertain face. Vhorgath answered her with a call to his men. ‘Pin back your ears, you motherless wretches,’ he said, ‘and hear of the triumphs of Scyla.’ Freya gathered her grimy robes about her, breathing deep as she readied herself to spin the tale. As ordered, the dark riders listened. ‘Back many years, in the waning days of the seventh summer since the Graeling Jarl Grundval Fang-Scar slew his uncle, the usurper Bjarn Baerrok,’ she began, ‘a curse fell upon the folk of the Bay of Blades, and they soon knew a suffering greater than the bane of war or pestil–’ ‘Oh, do get to the point, girl,’ Ruaddon bawled, his patience wearing thin. ‘I already strain to hear you over the whistling of this damnable wind.’ Freya continued, ignoring him. ‘For a month, no long-ships put into port. The Graeling raiders, ever the scourge of Bretonnia, did not return with the frost-winds of winter, as they had for as many generations as the tribe had dwelt beneath Stoneclaw Mountain. No ships laden with gold sailed in from the cool mists; no dragon-boats carrying slaves in fetters, barrels of mead and bushels of barley to sustain them through the coming storms. ‘As fear began to spread like a plague, Grundval sent forth three of his own boats. None returned. So again he dispatched his ships – a half-dozen this time, with his own son Kjarval in command of the greatest of the fleet. But they too vanished, sending back no word even after weeks at sea.’ ‘What took them?’ Ruaddon demanded, keen to know the point of the story. ‘It was only as the first blizzards swept over the coast that any sign appeared,’ she replied. ‘A single Graeling sea-wolf warrior washed ashore in the storm, clinging to a raft of shattered hull-timbers. ‘Shivering and half-drained from a dozen wounds, he clung to life only long enough to recall the fate of his brothers. They had been ravaged by a beast from the depths, he claimed, or maybe ten beasts, for the tentacles and the claws and the thunderous roars were such that the men of the sea had never seen so fierce a monster. It was said that his eyes widened in a blank, haunted stare as he wheezed his last few breaths, tortured in his final moments by some nightmare memory. ‘Now the Graelings knew why their coffers were empty, why their men had not returned: a leviathan menaced the tempest-addled waters of the bay, devouring anything that dared venture across the green waves.’ ‘A curse from the gods?’ Vhorgath said. Ruaddon was perturbed by the concern in his voice. ‘They thought so,’ Freya said. ‘Such a horror was worse than any pox the Plague-Lord might send, and no pleas to any of the dark gods could dispel it. The people begged them to withdraw their curse, to send an invading army in its place, so that even the women of Three-Spear Fjord might meet the anger of the shadows in open battle. ‘But it was not to be. With all his warriors gone, and the gods refusing to hear his calls, Grundval begged the shaman Ulfthras to employ any rite, even the vilest and most corrupt of the old invocations. Thus did the shaman venture out into the tundra, his white beard soaked in the blood of the thirteen finest Graeling maidens and his lungs swollen with the smoke of ogre bones and ghost-root. There, in the daemon-haunted mist, the shaman communed with the will of Khorne himself, and he returned with the black words of the Blood God. And, indeed, with something more. ‘Khorne demanded a champion, a mortal capable of the raw strength and savage heart to slay so fell a beast. And to that dark end, the daemon slaves of the wolf-headed god offered a token – an obsidian tusk on a barbed silver chain. Forged in the fires of Khorne’s own fury and cooled in the bloody sea beneath the Throne of Skulls itself, it would be bestowed upon any man who could slay the leviathan, who would then know the favour of the dark god forevermore.’ Ruaddon groaned just then, grumbling under his breath, loud enough to interrupt Freya’s mellifluous verses once more. For a moment all eyes settled instead upon him where he sat behind her. He placed no credence in the girl’s words, and he cared not who knew it. ‘All of their men were gone, and their lands were cut off from the sea,’ he growled. ‘How then did anyone beyond their villages learn of this challenge?’ Vhorgath turned a curious eye to Freya. Her delicate features remained as serene under inquiry as they had in the face of his threats of brutality – Ruaddon’s annoyed query seemed not to trouble her in the least. ‘It was exactly because the Graeling settlements were so far removed from other tribes that they were able to do so,’ Freya answered. ‘Grundval’s folk had long cultivated a host of crows, trained from hatchlings to carry messages to the furthest lands of Norsca. These black-winged fliers were dispatched in every direction, spreading word of Khorne’s decree.’ Laughter came from further back in the group at the clever explanation. Ruaddon only grunted. Freya clearly took it as permission to continue. ‘Even then, many months passed and the flame of hope continued to fade,’ she said. ‘Riders soon appeared from all over the north realms, and even some from beyond the Norscan barrens answered the call. But all who sailed out to face the beast suffered the same fate. Like every other man who had gone before, none of them were ever seen again. ‘Then came Scyla Anfingrimm, son of Thurrik, warlord of the Ironpelt tribe. Though he had not yet seen twenty-five winters, his name and his sword were already known across the Sea of Claws. Indeed, word came late to his ears of the Blood God’s offering, for that was the summer his dragon-ship raided the undead lands of Khemri. It was said that his attacks were so swift and fierce that the mere sight of his sails struck fear even into the undead hearts of that ghostly kingdom. ‘Though Grundval warned him of the dangers, Scyla is said to have laughed at the starving Graeling chieftain. Having made even the men without souls shiver in terror, Scyla boasted that no power short of the gods could strike fear into his heart. He took the only ship left in Grundval’s harbour, a rickety old sloop, and set off alone to face the horror of the seas.’ ‘He sailed into the bay alone,’ Vhorgath said, his voice raised for all to hear. ‘Either quite brave or exceptionally foolish. Much like you, little one.’ Ruaddon laughed then and tugged on Freya’s hair as if to punctuate his master’s words, drawing a gasp from her lips. ‘It has long been the highest of praise among the Norscans to say that a raider was so fierce, he would be unafraid to lead his men into the depths of the underworld,’ she said, ignoring his touch. ‘I have heard that,’ Vhorgath replied. ‘But they say Scyla was unafraid to sail into the underworld by himself.’ The warriors fell silent once more. Vhorgath waved at her to go on. ‘For several days he sailed straight into the fog, and found only empty waves beyond it,’ Freya continued. ‘When the winds died, he rowed on, but still there was nothing but glaciers and brine. Ever fearless, even of the powers behind the shadows, he finally stood in the rickety boat and mocked the gods of Chaos and laughed at their challenge. Silence was his answer, but only for a moment… and then the waters began to churn.’ Abruptly, Freya stopped. The trail they followed came to an end only a short way ahead, and beyond that there rose a steep climb, a serpentine path leading up into the mist-bathed mountains. ‘What is the delay?’ Ruaddon asked, his anger piqued once more. ‘Have you forgotten the rest of the tale or do you require a few moments to invent yet more wild details?’ She pointed at the precipitous slopes ahead. ‘The remainder of the journey to Scyla’s haven is a perilous climb,’ she said, directing her words to Vhorgath. ‘The horses will be of no use to us. We must continue on foot. Perhaps it is better if I speak no more for now – I do not wish to distract your men while they struggle with the ascent.’ Vhorgath shook his head. ‘Little one, my warriors have trampled fields lost beneath the permanent shadow of Chaos, lands so dangerous that every step would kill a feeble child like you. There is nothing you can show or tell me that would bring them to such caution.’ The armoured giants dismounted, Ruaddon pulling Freya roughly from the saddle and bidding her to move ahead of him. They tethered the horses among the dead trees, and she led them onwards, resuming her tale. ‘So it was, that at first a scaly tentacle reached up from the murk, wrapping itself around mighty Scyla’s leg. He slashed it to pieces with his greatsword, spilling black blood into the sea. For a moment, he was alone upon the waves once more, standing in victory. ‘But only for a moment. From behind him, a second tentacle appeared, and then a third and then more than he could count. His boat creaked and strained under the strangling hold, as he himself fought to remain free of their terrible, deadly grip. ‘In the battle he stole a glimpse of the beast, and what he faced was a fearsome monster indeed: a kraken, as in the legends of old, thrashing across the waves with countless thick tentacles tipped with razor-edged claws. ‘Though Scyla ripped into it, tearing pieces from its scaly hide with every swing of his blade, the kraken did not slow. In a few moments of blood and howls, the fell beast crushed the boat, dumping Scyla into the cold waves in a wash of splinters and broken timber.’ Vhorgath’s warriors muttered and grunted their amusement as they struggled up the incline, but Ruaddon only frowned. Surely they had not been taken in by this girl’s idiotic fiction? She looked back to them, pausing only briefly in the telling. ‘But still Scyla battled. He fought the monster from every piece of flotsam and jetsam upon which he could gain a foothold, swinging his sword left and right… but to no avail. ‘Exhausted, his muscles screaming for rest as the waves threatened to drown him before the tentacles could strangle him, Scyla grabbed hold of a rusted hook from his broken vessel. Tied to a frayed length of rope, he slung it across the water and by the favour of the gods he managed to lodge it between the beast’s chitin-armour plates. ‘Then he dived beneath the waves. For a long while he held his breath, struggling to stay hidden under the cold sea. Soon, as he had hoped, the mindless creature gave up searching for him, and it began to glide back through the depths. Quiet, steady and still, Scyla let the creature drag him through the frosty brine all night. ‘And in time, the beast rewarded his iron stamina. As dawn broke over the Norscan barrens, it hauled itself into a rocky, sheltered cove and clambered up from the depths, and Scyla saw the kraken in all its foul glory. When he–’ Ruaddon yanked her tattered cloak from behind, tightening it around her throat and cutting off her words with a choking gasp. The hulking warrior made as if to strike her, but instead let her fall to the icy ground in a breathless tumble. He sneered and spat at her, and turned away only to find himself face to face with his master, Vhorgath’s eyes burning a sickly violet as he glared at Ruaddon. Freya lay sprawled in the dirt, stifling sobs and still rubbing her reddened, bare throat. She did not appear inclined to continue her saga any time soon. ‘What is the problem, lieutenant?’ Vhorgath asked, with a particularly threatening emphasis on his final word. Ruaddon held his head high. His battle-scarred face was warped with anger. ‘I refuse to listen to this drivel any longer,’ he said. ‘No man, no matter how favoured by the gods of Chaos, could do the things she speaks of. Every word of this tale is a lie.’ ‘It’s not a lie, this is the greatest tale of–’ Freya protested, before Ruaddon yanked on her cloak again. This time he held even tighter, cutting off her breath entirely. He did not let go. ‘I will keep my own counsel, on what is truth and what is a lie,’ Vhorgath hissed. ‘Release the girl. She dies only when I order it, and not a moment before.’ Ruaddon growled in frustration. He did not comply. Freya’s cheeks began to turn purple as she flailed her arms behind her, desperate to break Ruaddon’s iron grip. Vhorgath raised his voice. ‘You defy me.’ Still, Ruaddon did not obey. Freya struggled to turn her head. A blood vessel burst in the white of her left eye, and she held out her hands in a silent, choked plea. Vhorgath’s hand closed around the dragon-head pommel of his scimitar. Ruaddon clenched his fists in expectation of combat, but he listened to his master’s words. ‘We have been through the wastes of perdition together, old friend. But if I have to raise my blade to you, I will take your head from your neck and make a trophy of your skull,’ he seethed. Still Ruaddon did not relent. ‘She’s leading us on a fool’s errand,’ he replied, ‘of that I am certain. The only thing I do not yet know is why.’ ‘That is my concern,’ Vhorgath said. The Chaos lord began to draw his blade, with a slow, inexorable motion. At the sound of the steel breaking free from the top of the scabbard, Ruaddon finally let Freya loose. She collapsed to the frozen ground, wheezing and quivering as she took laboured lungfuls of the cold mountain air. ‘She leads us astray in this barren wilderness!’ he said. ‘Do you not care?’ Vhorgath let his sword slip back into the sheath. Though the pitiful girl looked up to him for aid, he did not offer a hand. ‘There is nothing in these hills that can do us harm, nothing in all of Norsca that can threaten us, least of all a girl telling tales,’ he said. ‘As I promised, if Scyla is not where she says, you will have your way with her. After I’ve had mine, of course.’ Vhorgath then turned his attentions back to Freya, still on her knees. ‘How much further?’ he asked. ‘Do not test me.’ ‘Just… ahead… trail leads into a pass… between two peaks,’ she said, her voice reduced to a hoarse rasp. ‘The pass is… narrow. There is room for no more than… two men to walk abreast, perhaps less.’ Vhorgath pointed ahead. Freya evidently understood his meaning, coming to her feet unsteadily and lurching forwards with halting steps. Taking the lead from his lieutenant, Vhorgath walked beside Freya until they reached the peak of a rocky outcropping. The mountains spread out before them – beyond lay exactly the formation Freya had described. ‘This mountain pass is the final gateway,’ she said. ‘Through here you will find Scyla’s hidden refuge.’ ‘Very well,’ Vhorgath said. ‘Then finish your tale. If the man we seek is not beyond these cliffs, then it will be your last.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, still trying to catch her breath. ‘I don’t remember…’ Vhorgath just stared back at her. Ruaddon unexpectedly offered a reply. ‘Scyla looked at the monster by daylight. Let’s have an end to this.’ She nodded. ‘Yes. Of course. Well, as he let go of his lifeline and huddled in the surf,’ she said, ‘indeed, what he saw astonished him. There was something familiar about the kraken, a glimmer in the eyes of the thing that was not purely wild. It was not entirely a beast. There was something conscious about it, maybe no more than a remnant of its former life.’ ‘The beast had once been a man?’ Vhorgath muttered, as they stepped into the shadows of the pass. ‘So it is said,’ Freya answered. ‘The humanity of even the greatest men can break under the weight of Chaos, and they fall into ruin. As you are no doubt aware.’ The hulking warrior narrowed his eyes, but said nothing more. ‘Soon the monster vanished, hauling itself into the caverns at the edge of the sea, but now Scyla had a trail to follow,’ Freya continued. ‘He tracked the wake of bones, skulls and blood that it left behind like a daemon-slug, deep into the winding caves. Hiding in the cold shadows, Scyla followed the spawn, stalking it, watching as it settled back into its foul nest at the heart of a black hollow. ‘Then, once the beast had rested, it moved out to hunt yet again.’ ‘And then Scyla brought his blade to bear?’ Ruaddon asked, impatiently. ‘No, Scyla did not attack,’ Freya replied. ‘Instead he let the monster pass, and while it was gone he secreted himself within its foetid nest, hidden beneath the slimy mass of bones and human detritus. Again he waited. ‘This time, when the spawn returned, he let it come to rest. Then he struck. He impaled the monster from below, piercing its foul heart and letting the cold, black blood wash over him.’ ‘As clever as he was deadly,’ Vhorgath said, grinning and flashing his sharpened teeth. ‘I must meet this man.’ ‘Soon enough,’ Freya replied. ‘Scyla thus returned in triumph to the Graeling mead hall, carrying the creature’s largest eye on a bone-spear pike. Grateful to him for breaking the foul beast’s grip upon their lands, the Graeling shaman draped the black tusk pendant over his mighty shoulders. From that day forward, he walked the path of a favoured warrior of Khorne.’ Freya’s saga came to a close just as they passed under a natural arch of basalt, striding out into the mountain sun. Beyond, the pass opened into a wide clearing. Ruaddon stepped up, as his men began to file out from the narrow bottleneck. ‘What is this?’ he demanded, turning to the girl. There was no keep, no stronghold, no place fit for any man. Though the clearing was broad, nothing lay beyond it. On every side the ground dropped off at the edge of a steep precipice, overlooking a chasm. Scattered across the dirt in every direction was a grisly collection of human debris: the broken blades of swords, axes and spears lay jumbled about beside pieces of armour, smashed and rusting, half-buried in the dust. Fragments of bones, some nothing more than splintered shards, lay scattered in haphazard piles, the meat picked clean as though by vultures. Freya edged back under the stone arch as Vhorgath and his warriors inspected the desolate scene, growing more impatient with every passing moment. Ruaddon drew his sword and called out to her, alerting the rest of the men with his shout. ‘I knew you were lying! There is no champion here!’ He turned to his master, pointing with his notched blade. ‘My lord, let me take her. This has gone on long enough.’ Vhorgath did not answer. Something else stole his attention. A growl like the deep rumble of a cave bear thundered in the clearing, followed by the dull scrape of claws across dry rock. The Chaos warriors looked all around them, on every side of the chasm walls, but saw nothing. It was Freya who pointed them in the right direction. Upwards. Climbing down from the craggy heights above the pass was a stinking, yammering creature. It crept along on reptilian haunches, but the foul beast was no lizard. It was an abomination, a jumble of flayed muscle and scorpion pincers, with a tail ending in a hissing, fang-mouthed asp. The beast’s body was covered in thorny chitin, and around its neck a spiked brass collar glimmered in the weak sunlight. Predatory, feline eyes pulsed with a blood-red fury, glowering from a ruined face. ‘What manner of creature is this?’ Vhorgath demanded, drawing his scimitar. It was Ruaddon’s keen eye that spied the answer. Dangling from the monster’s throbbing neck, nearly lost in the forest of wet, bristle-like fur upon its chest, was a barbed silver chain. At the end there hung a long black tusk. ‘Scyla,’ he whispered. Freya smirked, taunting them just beyond their reach as the beast Scyla climbed down next to her, blocking the pass, and the only way in or out of the clearing. ‘Not one word that passed my lips was a lie,’ she said, clearly unafraid of the monster even as it opened its slobbering jaws beside her, revealing a maw lined with dagger-like fangs, scraps of rotten flesh still wedged between them. ‘Can you not see my beloved Scyla is even more fearsome now than ever he was before?’ ‘But what…’ Vhorgath began. ‘How did he…?’ Freya ran her hand over Scyla’s gorilla-like shoulders, but the beast never broke its predatory stare. ‘Scyla’s passion for the favour of Khorne brought him many gifts from the Blood God. So many indeed that in the wake of his victory at Undermountain…’ ‘He descended into this,’ Ruaddon said. ‘That is the reason for his seclusion, the reason none but his own kinsmen have seen him over the years since. He has been warped by the Ruinous Powers into a far more dangerous beast than those he once hunted,’ she said. She stroked Scyla along his haunches. Somehow, whether by sight or by scent, he seemed to recognise her, and nuzzled his immense bulk against her slender form. ‘The village you ravaged, my home – it was the last of the Ironpelt tribal lands. Only we have cared for him in the years since.’ ‘You cared for this?’ Ruaddon shrieked. ‘Of course. His raids once brought my people honour and riches beyond measure. So now we bring him what he most desires.’ ‘And what is that?’ Vhorgath hissed. Freya smiled, even as she drew further behind the hulking, salivating creature. ‘Stop her! I will hav–’ Scyla roared. His serpent-tail whipped around, striking the first warrior like a viper, tearing the man’s throat out in a mess of bloody cartilage. Just as quickly, he snatched up another with his massive pincers, the man’s armour squealing under the strength of his grip. Before the third could level a blow, the beast snapped his companion cleanly in half, hurling the bisected body over the precipice and leaping forwards with blinding speed. His jaws snapped open and he sank his great fangs into the warrior’s skull. Ruaddon stared, wide-eyed, as Scyla effortlessly tore the man’s head away from his shoulders in a fountain of gore. Dropping the mangled corpse, he turned to face Vhorgath and Ruaddon, a sluice of blood and bone fragments drooling from his hairy chin. ‘Scyla hungers,’ Freya finally said. ‘He always hungers.’ Ruaddon gripped his sword tightly. ‘Damn you,’ he whispered to his master. ‘You’ve doomed us both!’ Vhorgath was speechless beside him. Freya turned her back, not sparing the two men so much as a glance as she walked away. The clamour of desperate battle and the dying screams of Vhorgath and Ruaddon echoed through the mountain pass after her, blending with the feral roars of the beast that was Scyla Anfingrimm.