Tullaris’s own Executioners were no less adept at murder, but had found it a challenge to adapt to this method of war. If any druchii could be truly comfortable with others at their shoulders, it was an Executioner. Over millennia, Tullaris had forged them into a unit, drilled to fight in ranks and rely on the deadly skill of their brethren as much as their own. It had taken them time to become used to the guerrilla war that the situation required.
The Herald himself had been the exception. He was ever alone, never willing to trust any other – his exalted position in the cult would not allow it. He didn’t even fully trust her.
Hellebron. He had served her for as long as he could remember, ever since that first Death Night, when Khaine had first spoken to him and he had taken his first life. She had been his life, his mistress, his lover, his queen. It galled him that now, when she was most needed, when her city was aflame and beset by foes, she was not on the streets, not shedding blood in Khaine’s name. He looked up at the peak of her tower, the tallest point in the city, visible from anywhere to emphasise that every elf in Har Ganeth was within her gaze, and her grasp. Was she watching him, Tullaris wondered? Was she revelling in the glory he brought to the cult and the god?
He is eternally young and strong, my champion. It is further proof, if any were needed, of his connection to our lord. Khaine’s might flows through his veins. I know. I have tasted it. When I am freshly bathed in the Cauldron of Blood and I am strong, we are a formidable pair. None can stand before us, and I revel in the carnage we wreak. But when I am as I am now, I sometimes see something in his eyes, something I do not understand. I have studied it, and I think it is pity. That is an alien emotion to me, but I know he feels it. A weakness, for I could exploit it, had I a mind to. That is why I refuse to feel anything for him.
Tullaris stalked around a corner into a broad, rubble-lined avenue. Khaine’s whispered guidance had led him here through streets lined by tall houses, their doors broken open, brutalised corpses lying where elves had fallen defending their homes. Tullaris had no sympathy. They were weak. The city was stronger without them.
In the street before him, corpses had been piled up and were aflame, the great pyres casting flickering light over a circle of heavily armoured humans who surrounded a massive figure. The figure stood head and shoulders above any of them, his crimson and gold armour glittering in the glow of the fires. He held a helmet in one hand, skull-faced and adorned with a crest that mimicked the angular rune of his god. His face, savage and bruised, also bore the sigil, in what looked like dried blood. Clearly, this was some mighty northern champion. Tullaris smiled beneath his own skull-faced helmet. The Murder God had led him to a great sacrifice indeed.
‘In Khaine’s name, face me, daemon-fondler,’ he shouted. The champion turned, and a grin split his battered and bloodied face. He motioned his warriors aside and, throwing off his helm, lifted a great double-bladed axe from the ground beside him. He strode forward, shouting in his barbaric tongue. The runes on the axe blades writhed in the firelight, as if in anticipation of the battle to come.
‘I don’t understand you, scum,’ said Tullaris, ‘but I’ll take that as a yes.’
The Chaos champion roared and sprang forward, axe raised. Tullaris stood his ground, the First Draich gripped lightly in one hand. As the axe came down, he stepped calmly to the side and swung his weapon in a lazy arc. It sliced into the blood-hued armour of the champion. It was like cutting into flesh, and it sucked at the weapon. Tullaris tried to pull it out, but it was stuck fast.
The champion barked out a laugh and pulled himself backwards, toppling Tullaris to the muddy ground. The elf rolled as the axe came down again, and kicked out. His foot impacted on an armoured shin and pain ran up his leg.
‘Asuryan’s oath,’ he swore and scrambled to his feet. He ducked beneath a wild swipe, grabbed the haft of his draich and heaved. It stayed where it was. He threw himself away from the champion again as the great axe swung at his neck. Desperately, the Herald of Khaine looked around for a weapon. The only ones he could see were in the grip of the eight Chaos warriors who had now surrounded the two combatants. For now, they seemed happy to watch, but if he made a grab for one of their axes or swords, they would no doubt join the fight and the odds would be against him.
His kind of fight.
I dismiss the scrying lens. Watching Tullaris fight the daemon-worshippers pleases me, insofar as he is bringing glory to the Bloody Handed One, but I have other matters to attend to. The sun is setting, and I must prepare for the ritual ahead.
I pull my furs tighter about me and rise from my throne. Pain runs down my back and I stumble. I catch myself on the throne’s arm and wait for a second while a wave of dizziness passes. It is a long walk through the twisting corridors of my palace to the shrine where the Cauldron awaits me. There, my handmaidens will be reciting the ritual prayers and sacrificing worthy druchii. That is how my people should meet their ends, not beneath the crude axes of the humans.
My heart speeds, thumping hollowly in my chest as I move towards the door. My legs ache, my bones creak and all of me hurts. I need to be strong again. This physical weakness is intolerable. My boots are loud against the stone floor, and the sound draws the attention of the guards, who turn towards me.
‘You wish to proceed to the shrine, mistress?’ asks one. I do not know who he is. I have never deigned to learn the names of Tullaris’s Executioners.
‘I wish you to find Lord Tullaris,’ I tell him, my voice a dry whisper, like paper crackling in a fire. The two guards exchange a look.
‘That… may take some time, my lady,’ says the other. ‘And our lord would be most displeased if we left you unprotected.’
Anger flares through me, and for a moment it burns away the pain and weakness. ‘You think me too frail and decrepit to defend myself?’ I ask, and the Executioner recoils as if physically struck. Even in this state, they fear my wrath. I am the Bride of Khaine, and I am not to be crossed. I would think nothing of flaying these men alive and using their skins as bedding.
‘No, my lady, I–’
‘It would displease Lord Tullaris more to find that you were disloyal to the cult, to Khaine,’ I say pointedly. ‘And never forget, your master is my champion. He answers to me.’
The point is well taken. He would not be the first of Tullaris’s warriors to lose his head to the First Draich on my word. He nods quickly and follows his comrade from the chamber. Slowly and painfully, I leave the chamber in their wake. It takes me a long time – I know not how long – but I pass through chambers and along corridors, and descend a long and spiralling staircase, as the shadows lengthen and darken.
In a smooth motion, Tullaris drew his dagger and threw it into the throat of one of the watching warriors. He was running before it thudded into the human’s corrupted flesh, and even as the Chaos warrior slumped to the ground, the elf was pulling a thick sword from a fur scabbard. Turning, he lifted it and deflected a blow from the champion’s axe. With a return stroke, he drove the sword’s serrated edge into the haft of the axe, which broke in two. The champion staggered back and Tullaris pressed his attack further. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to parry a blow from a warrior with a third eye in his forehead. With a roar of bloodthirsty joy, he stabbed the blade into the human’s throat and ripped it out of the side of the neck.