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Reflections in Steel – C L Werner

About the Author

An Extract from ‘The Red Feast’

A Black Library Publication

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Reflections in Steel

By C. L. Werner

The kick that sent Kenji sprawling was so powerful that teeth cracked when his head slammed against the ground. He struggled to rise, but a boot smashed him down again. He could feel the iron nails of the sole stabbing into his skin. He shuddered as he felt rivulets of his own blood trickling down his back.

All around the youth was calamity. His ears rang with the roar of flames, the anguished screams of the doomed, and the barbarous shouts of the invaders. The smell of smoke filled his nose and the salty taste of blood was in his mouth. His flesh cringed in the heat from the fires that ran rampant all around him. Kyoshima was dying. The town that had withstood the travails of plague and starvation, the depredations of grot wolfriders and feral ghouls, the vile hexes of the witch Baga-Yar, had now been claimed by a catastrophe it couldn’t endure.

Kenji twisted his head and stared up at the man whose boot was planted in his back. He was a terrifying sight. His armour was forged from dark iron and cast into daemonical shapes, so that monstrous faces stared from each sabaton and the breastplate was the snarling visage of an inhuman fiend. The helm that encased the invader’s head sported great horns of bronze and the mask resembled a leering skull. The exposed mouth beneath the mask was twisted into a savage snarl, displaying teeth that had been filed down to sharp points. Upon his pale chin, the warrior sported a tattoo, a crimson stain that depicted an eight-pointed sigil.

Clenched in the invader’s upraised hand was a brutal axe, its edge serrated and its back sporting a hooked spike. Blood already stained the weapon and Kenji cried out when some of it dripped down onto him. He knew it was the blood of his family, slaughtered like animals by the raider.

Fury blazed up inside Kenji. He struggled to free himself, but all he managed to do was writhe helplessly under the warrior’s boot. His efforts amused the raider, provoking ugly laughter that was more like the yapping of a hyena than a sound that should rise from a human throat. The cruel eyes that stared from the sockets of the skull-mask glared down at the youth. Kenji knew that the next moment would see his own life extinguished by the bloody axe.

Kenji turned his head so that he wouldn’t see the descending blow. His eyes fixated upon a shining object, a mote of brilliance in the grimy clamour of battle. He could see himself reflected in the polished steel of a broad-bladed sword with his captor standing over him. The axe started to swing downwards, sweeping for his head.

A voice barked out and the axe faltered in its strike. Kenji couldn’t understand the harsh, guttural language, but he knew whatever had been said was some sort of command. He lifted his gaze from the reflective steel to the one who bore it in his hand.

The swordsman was another of the barbaric invaders. Taller and more broadly built than the warrior who had Kenji beneath his boot, he had dusky skin marked by innumerable tattoos and scars. His armour was a ruddy colour and sported many thorny spikes across its vambraces and greaves. The breastplate was festooned with nails, from which dangled an assortment of grisly trophies: shrivelled ears and severed fingers, desiccated eyeballs and leathery tongues. The helm the raider wore was dark in colour, seeming to shift between deep green and pitch-black, and was cast into the image of a wolf’s head with the curled horns of a ram. The eyes that gazed from behind the helm’s mask were cold and grey, characterised by an intensity that struck Kenji like an electric shock.

The wolf-helmed raider called again to Kenji’s captor. Again, the youth knew from the tone it was some sort of command. This time the axeman bristled with defiance. He spat on the boy and snarled a vicious oath. Kenji could see in the reflective steel that the butchering axe was being raised again.

In a blur of motion, the wolf-helmed raider sprang at the axeman. The shining sword flashed forward in a strike that was like lightning. Kenji felt blood spray down on him. He saw the serrated axe fall to the ground – along with the arm that held it. He glanced up to see the warrior clutching at the stump of his severed arm. The next moment, the raider’s sword came sweeping down, cleaving through both the skull-mask and the skull behind it. The pressure on Kenji’s back vanished as his captor collapsed into the dirt. He felt a murderous elation as he watched the killer of his family slaughtered like a dumb brute, and savoured the sight of the barbarian’s boots kicking in a final death spasm.

The youth expected to feel the bite of the raider’s sword and tried to brace himself for the blow. Instead the swordsman just stared down at him. Kenji shivered when he saw that despite the brutal killing of the axeman, the polished blade was unmarked by blood and remained as bright and clear as when he’d first seen his reflection in it. He didn’t need to be told that there was sorcery within the weapon. To die upon normal steel was one thing, but to die on an enchanted blade was another. The people of Kyoshima had always believed a victim of witchcraft forfeited their soul to the thing that killed them.

Death, however, wasn’t the intention of the wolf-helmed raider. For the third time Kenji heard the barbarian’s guttural voice call out. In answer, a dark-skinned man came rushing forward. He was shorter than the other invaders Kenji had seen, and wore less armour. His face was horribly scarred and his lips had been pierced by slivers of bone, so that it seemed he had two sets of teeth. His head was shaved and when he turned to speak with the raider, Kenji could see that a skull had been painted onto the back.

The two invaders spoke for only a moment, then the wolf pointed at Kenji. Only at that moment did it occur to the youth to try to flee, such was the disorder of his thoughts. It was already too late, however. The bald barbarian sprang at him and wrestled him back to the ground even as he tried to rise. He pinned Kenji under his knees and snapped a thick iron collar around his neck. While the youth struggled to break away, the invader shouted at him, his voice shifting in tone and cadence. Finally, there came not gibberish but words Kenji could understand.

The barbarian noted at once the difference that came upon Kenji. ‘You understand me?’ he repeated, a note of cruel laughter punctuating his words. ‘It is foolish to fight now. The time for that is over. You belong to us now.’

The slaver rose to his feet and pulled the chain fastened to Kenji’s collar. The youth gasped until he managed to pick himself up. He glared at the grinning barbarian. He swung around and started towards the axe lying on the ground. As he did, he noted the wolf-helmed warrior still watching him.

Kenji froze with his fingers just inches from the axe. His moment of hesitation gave the slaver the chance to react. The barbarian jerked on the chain and pulled Kenji back. He drew a ripple-bladed knife from his belt, but a word from the swordsman stayed his hand.

‘You’re fortunate,’ the slaver hissed in Kenji’s ear. ‘Gharm has told me to let you live.’ The barbarian chuckled darkly as the wolf-helmed raider walked off into the smoke of Kyoshima’s burning homes. ‘Don’t think that means I am to keep you alive.’ He tugged on the chain again. ‘You’re plunder now, thrall of Kravoth’s Reavers. You’ll survive only as long as you’re useful. When your strength fails, we’ll grind you up into meal for our horses.’

Kenji glared into the slaver’s eyes. ‘I’ll live long enough to see you dead,’ he vowed.

The slaver twisted the chain in his hand and forced Kenji closer. ‘Many have made me that same promise, boy. I’ve left their bones for the vultures. Don’t think Gharm will protect you. Strange moods come upon him sometimes, but they pass just as quickly. You’re nothing but a whim of the moment. When the moment passes… you belong to me.’

With practised ease the slaver drew Kenji’s hands into a set of bronze manacles. Chuckling darkly, he led the youth through the burning town and past the triumphant barbarians despoiling its homes.

Kyoshima was dead. Kenji wondered how long it would be before he joined the rest of his people in Nagash’s underworlds. How long he could depend on the whim of the Champion with the enchanted sword to keep him alive.

‘Get that slop ready for the horses!’

The order came from the shaven-headed slaver, Sazaal. He used the crack of his whip to punctuate his words. Kenji felt it rake across his shoulder and bite into his skin. After months as a thrall, he’d become somewhat inured to the lash. Where once the kiss of the whip would bring tears to his eyes, now there was only a grunt of discomfort. But if the sting to his flesh had lessened, the insult to his pride hadn’t. Each blow was another seed of hate. A hate that kept him alive where others perished.

Kenji was in the muddy fields on the outskirts of the Reavers’ encampment, the chain of his collar fixed to a post. The warriors led by Gharm represented but a single raiding band of the immense warhost that swore allegiance to Kravoth. Dozens of groups left the army each day to maraud and pillage, returning with the spoils of decimated settlements. Hundreds of slaves shivered in the fields, fettered like animals. The hardy were set to the tasks the barbaric warriors considered beneath them. Those who were weak and faltered were culled with ruthless abandon.

The ‘slop’ Sazaal wanted rendered down for the horses was human. Many times Kenji had been given the foul chore of carving up a fallen slave, rendering them into thin slivers of meat and pulverised meal to be fed to the fearsome mounts used by the Reavers. The barbarians believed the charnel diet made their steeds more vicious and bloodthirsty, horses fit for their murderous conquests.

This time, however, Kenji knew Sazaal had especially singled him out for the task. Few slaves had been taken when Gharm’s warband attacked Kyoshima. The slave sprawled at his feet now was one of them. Though her body was emaciated from malnutrition and her skin was scarred by the mark of the lash, Kenji recognised her face. She’d been a potter and often he’d passed her working clay into bowls on his morning walk to the woodcutter. Then she’d been hale and hearty; now she was wretched and wasted, crushed by the cruelty of the barbarians.

There was one more difference, however, and it was a difference that made Kenji’s heart sicken. Unlike the other slaves he’d butchered for the raiders, there was still a flicker of life in the woman. When he realised that, he looked at Sazaal. There was a gloating expression on the slaver’s face.

‘Get to work,’ Sazaal chuckled and cracked the whip across his skin once more. Kenji’s fingers curled tighter about the bone flensing knife he held. To rake it across the slaver’s throat!

The whip snapped at him once more, its tip drawing blood from Kenji’s cheek. ‘The horses are hungry… or maybe you’d rather feed them?’ Sazaal sneered as he made the threat, switching back to his own brutish language. Over the course of his captivity, Kenji had quickly learned the savage tongue of his masters.

Kenji turned his eyes to the woman lying in the mud. She was watching him with an empty gaze. All hope was gone… Even fear was gone. There was only bitter resignation. The fatalism of the damned.

Sazaal lashed him with the whip again. It disgusted Kenji to know the enjoyment the slaver took from hurting him. The only thing he could do to deny him that satisfaction was to obey. No good would come from making a show of resistance. All he would do would be to weaken himself, to squander some of the strength he’d been slowly gaining. The woman would die, nothing he could do would change that. If not by his hand, then by another. Perhaps one with no thought of mercy for her plight.

Kenji leaned down. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered as he brought the knife raking across her throat. There was neither forgiveness nor condemnation in her eyes as he killed her, only that same look of empty weariness.

The whip cracked across Kenji’s back again. ‘No talk,’ Sazaal ordered. ‘Work or scream. Those are your choices.’

Kenji glared at the slaver, but said nothing. He rolled the dead woman over and started his hideous work. He locked away the rage boiling inside him, saving it for when the opportunity came to pay Sazaal back. A reckoning that was now his only purpose. His only reason to survive.

Sazaal coiled his whip around his arm. The bald barbarian lifted his gaze and turned towards the Reavers’ camp. Kenji looked for what had drawn the slaver’s attention. A confusion of hide tents and leather yurts stretched away across the fields almost as far as he could see. Tendrils of smoke wafted up into the air from hundreds of fires. The smell of blood and sweat and flame rolled away from the bivouac, the condensed reek of the gathered horde. Kenji could see the brutal banners and standards of the various chieftains and Champions. Set upon a pole taller than all the others was that of Kravoth himself, a grim totem of flayed skin across which had been inked the face of a snarling daemon. Kenji had seen the warlord himself a few times and knew he was even more inhuman than the beast depicted on his banner. The leader of the Reavers stood as tall as two men and had the musculature of an orruk overlord. Sharp claws sprouted from his fingers and horns bulged from his forehead. Kravoth had been born mortal but by the infamy of his deeds he’d been favoured by the Dark Gods of Chaos and transcended the limitations of human form. He was more daemon than man now, a profane reward towards which every Reaver aspired.

Kenji’s attention drew away from Kravoth’s standard to that of Gharm. A tall pole adorned with bones and topped by the oversized skull of a one-eyed wolf, it was easy enough for him to find. He was surprised to see that it was moving, being carried away from the Champion’s tent.

‘Hurry up and finish,’ Sazaal snapped at Kenji, this time not bothering to use his whip to motivate the thrall. ‘Lord Gharm will be going on another raid.’ A crooked smile spread the slaver’s bone-pierced lips. ‘This time you’ll go with me. If we take too many slaves, I’ll let you decide who lives and who dies.’ He laughed and spat into the mud. ‘You’re good at that kind of work.’

Sazaal laughed harder when he saw the anger in Kenji’s eyes. One day, Kenji promised himself, I’ll be the one laughing.

The raiders rode hard through the river valleys well into the night. Those without steeds struggled to maintain the pace, discarding gear as they jogged after the riders. Unburdened by armour and weapons, Kenji found himself better able to cope with the unforgiving demands Gharm set upon his followers. Nor was unforgiving an inappropriate description. He saw exhausted warriors drop to the ground gasping for breath, only to be callously dispatched by their fellow Reavers. The barbarians made no allowance for weakness in their slaves. They were even less tolerant when it came to their own marauders.

‘Keep going,’ Sazaal wheezed, slapping Kenji’s back with his rolled-up whip. The slaver was exasperated by the thrall’s endurance, something that brought a grim smile to Kenji’s face.

‘Heed your own advice,’ Kenji said. He waved his chained hands at a fallen warrior, another barbarian ready to stab him in the throat if he failed to resume the march. ‘I don’t want any of them killing you.’ His smile broadened when the prone raider was dispatched by his comrade. ‘Nobody gets to kill you except me.’

Sazaal struck him from behind. Kenji stumbled but kept on his feet. ‘You’ll fall before I do, I promise you.’ He gave Kenji another shove that almost sent him sprawling. The slaver might have tried again, but at that moment a rider came galloping back towards the footmen.

‘The village the scouts found is ahead,’ the rider declared, waving a spiked flail off towards a rocky branch that opened into the valley. ‘There is a wall but the gates are open. Gharm says he will lead us in and hit them before they can shut their gates. You will follow us to secure the plunder.’ He raised his fist in salute. ‘Glory and gold to Kravoth Daemonstruck!’

The infantry returned the salute, ragged declarations of fealty to Kravoth rasping from their throats. The messenger turned his steed and rode away to rejoin Gharm and the horsemen. Kenji glanced at the faces of Sazaal and the other raiders. Each of them had a bitter expression, one that had the effect of blotting out the weariness dragging at their bodies. As much as they’d sworn gold and glory to Kravoth, each of the warriors expected to take a measure for themselves. With the riders charging in ahead of them, the footmen anticipated little of either when they reached the end of their march.

‘By the Blood God and the Plague Father, are we dogs to snap up the leavings?’ a hulking barbarian raged, shaking his axe and shield at the sky. He turned and started sprinting after the departed messenger. The other warriors followed his example, greed and envy pouring new strength into their limbs. Kenji was caught up in the surge, goaded onwards by the revived Sazaal.

‘I’ll have a full coffle, horse-feeder,’ the slaver jeered. ‘If you live, you’ll have plenty of company on the march back.’

Kenji offered no retort. It was enough for him to try and keep moving. Now it was he who was at risk of falling behind. Unlike the barbarians, he didn’t have the lure of pillage and plunder to grant him a second wind. Yard by yard, he found himself losing pace. Sazaal’s threats couldn’t spur him to a new effort. He was weakening. Soon he would fall. And then he would die.

Kenji thought it was a trick of his fatigued mind when he saw the blur of motion that slipped through the bushes dotting the valley. Day was fast deserting the land and long shadows were stretching across the terrain. He tried to tell himself it was some trick of light and dark. Even in the camp of Kravoth’s Reavers he hadn’t seen anything so abhorrent as what he imagined he’d seen sneaking around in the undergrowth.

Then he saw it again, or at least another like it. For only an instant it was exposed to Kenji’s sight, slipping between patches of darkness. His skin crawled at the image. A lean, crook-backed figure covered in grimy rags and verminous fur, a scaly tail trailing behind it and the long, pointed head of a rat perched upon its shoulders.

‘Run, you dog,’ Sazaal snapped, his whip cracking against Kenji’s back.

Kenji spun around and grabbed the lash to prevent Sazaal from drawing it back and hitting him again. ‘Listen to me, fool. There’s something following us.’ He nodded his head towards the bushes.

Sazaal glowered at Kenji and strained to free the whip with one hand while reaching for the club hanging from his belt with the other. His eyes darted for just a moment towards the bushes. At once his expression changed. ‘Skaven!’

The inhuman pack charged the barbarians. A second mob of the vermin sprang from the opposite side of the raiders, their fur wet from creeping along the riverbank. Kenji saw that some of the ratmen wore armour and carried weapons of iron and bronze that looked familiar to him. It took only a moment to recognise them as the gear the raiders had been discarding on the trail and leaving upon the bodies of their murdered comrades. He understood now why the skaven were following them. Scavengers, they’d been snatching up whatever the warriors left behind. Now, with Gharm and his riders gone, the monsters felt themselves numerous enough to overwhelm those who remained.

‘Skaven!’ The shout was taken up by the warriors as the ratmen fell upon them. For an instant, Kenji had a view of the battle. The powerful barbarians set their axes and swords cleaving through their bestial foes; their mauls and flails shattered skulls and pulverised limbs. Around them, the ground was soon littered with the bodies of the dead and maimed. But for every skaven they struck down, two more rushed in to take its place.

Sazaal fell back and used his whip to fend off the attentions of three ratmen who came for him. The creatures chittered angrily, baring their chisel-like fangs and waving their curved swords. A concentrated effort would have overwhelmed the slaver, but none of the skaven wanted to be the one to take the lead and withstand the whip.

Kenji had no time to spare for Sazaal or the other Reavers. A brown-furred ratman with a ring through its nose and studs in its hairless ears lunged at him, a sword clenched in its paws. The thing swung at him with a speed that was terrifying. Only luck saved Kenji. He stretched his hands out in a futile gesture to stop the blade. While his hands would have only made themselves a target, the chain of his manacles was made of stouter material. By a caprice of fate, the skaven sword missed his fingers and instead struck the metal links.

The skaven was as surprised as Kenji when its blade didn’t sink into flesh. It looked uncertain what to do, twitching its head from side to side. Kenji suffered no such dilemma. He flung himself at the skaven, bowling it over with his greater size and weight. The monster writhed under him, lashing him with its tail and scratching him with its claws. Beside the punishment he’d endured as a thrall of Kravoth’s Reavers, the skaven’s efforts were nothing to him. He swung his hands forward and got the chain of his manacles across the vermin’s throat. Then he pulled back and used every ounce of his strength to break the thing’s neck.

Kenji grabbed the dead ratman’s sword. He looked over to where the main fight was unfolding. Several of the Reavers were down now, their bodies being looted by skaven. Other ratmen continued to harry the survivors, trying to separate them and then converge on all sides. Sheer numbers favoured the vermin. He supposed the reason only one of the monsters had charged him was because he presented a poor prospect for loot.

Kenji swung around and looked back to Sazaal. The slaver was surrounded now by four skaven. A creature armed with a spear had joined the others and its efforts were taking their toll on Sazaal. Whenever the barbarian cracked his whip at one of the others, the spear-rat would dart in and stab him. Sazaal was bleeding from half a dozen wounds and his left arm hung limp at his side.

The wise course for Kenji was to flee. He had no friends in this fight. Whichever side won, he would lose. Hate, however, made him stay. If he didn’t have friends in the fight, he certainly had an enemy.

‘You won’t have him!’ Kenji roared as he charged the ratmen from behind. He held the stolen sword in both hands and swung it like a cleaver into the spear-rat’s back. The creature crumpled under the blow, its spine broken. The other skaven jumped back, startled by the abrupt dispatch of their comrade. Again, though their swift reflexes gave them an advantage, indecision squandered that advantage. Kenji rushed at the closest of the vermin and swung his blade at its face. Black blood spurted from a snout cut to the bone. The ratman shrieked and stumbled backwards. Kenji’s sword came chopping down once more, slashing the skaven from shoulder to belly.

One of the remaining skaven lunged at Kenji, its sword cutting him along the side as he turned to meet its attack. The pain of his wound barely registered in his mind, a hurt he shifted behind that mental partition where all the abuse and torture inflicted on him by his captors was relegated. He struck out at the ratman, his blade clipping the tip from one of its ears as it ducked under the attack. The vermin dived in at him, thinking to stab him before he could recover. Kenji didn’t even try. The moment he saw his enemy duck he brought his arms crashing downwards. The pommel of his sword and the chains hanging from his wrists slammed into the ratman’s head like a hammer. The stunned skaven collapsed at his feet. Before it could try to rise, Kenji brought the pommel and his chain slamming down again. He repeated the attack until he felt the creature’s skull crack under the flurry of blows.

Spattered with the blood and brains of his foes, Kenji rose. He saw Sazaal standing above the carcass of the last ratman. The slaver gave him an uncertain look and his fingers tightened about the sword he bore. The sounds of battle continued to rise from the other raiders as they tried to resist the skaven ambush, but no more of the monsters were nearby. Slaver and thrall were alone.

‘You saved my life,’ Sazaal said, something like incredulity in his voice.

‘No I didn’t,’ Kenji spat at the slaver. Without warning he threw his sword into Sazaal’s face. The weapon crashed into the barbaric visage, breaking several of the bones piercing his lips and mashing his nose in a scarlet explosion.

Before Sazaal could think of anything but his wound, Kenji ploughed into him. The thrall’s drive spilled both men to the ground, but with the slaver underneath him it was his tormentor who took the brunt of the impact. Sazaal’s sword went spinning away as his hand lost its grip.

Kenji whipped his chains across Sazaal’s face, the metal links ripping his skin like razors. The slaver’s fingers tore at him, trying to throw him off, but he wouldn’t be denied. Over and over he lashed his chains against the barbarian’s head. The shaved pate was gashed, a sheet of blood streamed from the man’s forehead and turned the dusky visage into a crimson mask. One eye darkened with blood and the orbit around it fragmented into splinters of bone. However brutal the havoc, it wasn’t punishment enough to satiate Kenji’s rage.

Dimly Kenji was aware that the sounds of battle had changed. The feral snarls of the skaven had turned to shrill squeals of terror. Barbaric voices roared in triumph as the sound of pounding hooves rumbled ever closer. Gharm and his riders had returned.

The rescue of the barbarians counted for little with Kenji. All that mattered to him was exacting the last measure of vengeance from the mangled thing beneath him. The head was less human than the verminous faces of the skaven before he stopped lashing out with his chains. He didn’t know when Sazaal had died and cursed himself for letting that moment pass without savouring it properly.

The snort of a nearby horse caused Kenji to rise to his feet. There was no thought of running. It would do no good to run. The barbarians would just ride him down. Besides, he’d settled his score with Sazaal. He was ready to die.

When Kenji turned, he found his eyes staring into the gleaming steel that he knew could belong only to Gharm’s enchanted blade. His reflection was the very image of savage violence. From head to toe he was coated in blood: his own, that of the skaven and the gore from Sazaal’s spattered head. The cut from the ratman’s sword flowed freely, as did the furrows where the slaver’s desperate fingers had raked his skin.

Gharm studied Kenji a moment. He spurred his horse forward. Kenji didn’t run from the fanged steed’s approach. He didn’t cower when the Champion raised his gleaming sword and brought it flashing towards him.

The centre link of Kenji’s chain was severed by Gharm’s strike. The Champion leaned back in his saddle. ‘Run, if such is your want.’ He nodded at the carnage of which Kenji was the sole survivor. That Sazaal was among those killed didn’t seem to matter to him. ‘I don’t think you are such to run.’

‘You destroyed my home. Killed my people.’ Kenji glared defiantly at Gharm.

‘I cut the strong from the weak,’ Gharm said. ‘Those strong enough to prevail and seek the power of a daemon. Those who would fight.’ He pointed his sword at Kenji. ‘You would fight. Fight then. March to the village. Seize your measure of plunder and glory.

‘Or stay here.’ Gharm spoke as he turned his horse and started back towards the rest of his warriors. ‘It may be you’ll die of your wounds whatever your choice. Fight with us, and you’ll become a Reaver.

‘If you survive.’

The heat wafting up from the pit was withering. Kenji could see the sweat dripping from the joins of his bronze armour. The griffon-hide wrappings around the grip of his sword had turned black from his perspiring palm. He’d removed one of the trophy scalps from his spiked pauldrons and tied it under the rim of his helm’s visor to keep the sweat out of his eyes, though he could still feel drops sliding into his eyebrows.

No glory without ordeal. Kenji’s mind rolled over what might be called the creed of Kravoth’s Reavers. The horde believed the Dark Gods didn’t value anything a man did that was not hard won. Kravoth had endured and suffered much before he finally rose to daemonhood. All those who would emulate him were fully aware how difficult the path would be. The weak were nothing but resources to be utilised by them. It was only in the strongest enemies that they could find an ordeal worthy of being noticed by the gods.

The pit below offered such enemies. It was a colossal gorge that plunged deep into the crust of the rocky plain. One of dozens that stretched across the mephitic desert. The land here shimmered with the gleam of diamonds, topazes and turquoise, the gemstones lying exposed on the surface, spat up by the volcanic vents that spewed greasy brown smoke into the sky. Yet there were none who dared brave these lands to gather the unclaimed wealth. None who dared to challenge those who’d made the great pit their home.

None except Kravoth’s Reavers.

Kenji could see the winding road cut into the sides of the pit, winding round and round as it descended towards its molten depths. Far below, perhaps a thousand feet or more, a lake of lava bubbled and roared, its hellish light lending the black stone around it an orange glow. Along the walls, structures had been cut into the sides of the pit. Near the surface they were few and far between, but closer to the fiery pool they became so numerous as to seem a veritable city. A city of stone hidden in the maw of a volcano.

‘This is a battle worthy of the gods,’ Gharm told his raiders. The Champion had left his savage steed in the charge of thralls as had most of the Reavers. To plunge into the lava because of a bucking horse was an insulting death when a much more glorious end offered itself. His eyes roved across the persons of his raiders. ‘The gods are watching you. Shame yourself before them, and you’ve no need to fear their wrath. I’ll gut you myself and feed your entrails to the ghorgons.’

Drums and horns rumbled up from the pit. Kenji could see a solid block of enemies marching up the road. The path was a solid wall of armed foes, from the side of the pit to the sheer drop down into the lava below. In another life, when he’d existed in Kyoshima, he’d seen the short and stocky duardin when they’d come to trade goods with the town. The army that now marched to meet Kravoth’s horde was a similar breed, but unlike any duardin he’d encountered before. Their skin was black and glistened like onyx, their physique brawny and robust. Their hair was pulled up into great crests that towered above their heads like the comb of a cockatrice, and their beards were plaited into long braids that fell almost to their knees. Hair and beards alike had been dyed a bright and vivid orange that echoed the glow from the lava below. Kenji could see the glimmer of gold shining from many of the duardin, the precious metal stuck directly to their dark skin. Each of them carried an axe with a wide blade, and Kenji had no doubts that all of them had both the strength and skill to wield the cumbersome weapons.

‘Gold and glory.’ The words were snarled by the raider standing closest to Kenji. She was a hulking blonde-haired marauder from some distant part of Ghur, a devotee of the Dark Gods who had sought to join the Reavers with her whole village. Of two hundred, only herself and ten others had been found strong enough to be worthy of serving Kravoth.

‘Seek glory, Vanya,’ Kenji advised her. ‘Gold and plunder will wait until the enemy is carrion beneath our boots.’

The barbarian flipped back her scalp-lock so that it curled around the back of her horned helm. ‘I’ll take your share then, if you don’t want it,’ she said. ‘The clans may question your deeds in battle, but none can argue with the plunder you bring back.’

Kenji shook his head, but didn’t bother to contest her claim. She didn’t understand. Most didn’t. What counted wasn’t what others believed you’d accomplished, but what you knew you’d accomplished. In the carnage of war, the only heart that kept a true record of how you’d fought was the one inside your own chest. That was the only place where a warrior’s worthiness was measured.

From the depths of the pit there now rose shouts in the blunt duardin tongue. Kenji reasoned that it must be a king giving final encouragement to his army, or a priest invoking the protection of their ancestor-spirits. The shouts faded away and were replaced by a dirge-like song, a cadence as hard and relentless as the volcano itself.

‘To war!’ A voice that sizzled more loudly than the smouldering lake below rippled through the horde. Kravoth raised his blade in his clawed hand with a flourish, then stabbed it downwards at the duardin road. A savage howl rose from the horde and the Reavers hurtled forward to charge into the enemy.

Gharm’s raiders were just behind the vanguard. The role of smashing the duardin front line had been given to the crimson-armoured warriors of Thurr the Dravgoli, cannibals from the misty wastelands of Shyish. Kenji watched them as they sprinted towards the enemy, their fanged mouths open in hungry wails as bloodlust consumed their minds. He’d seen the defenders of towns and villages buckle under the fearsome sight, but the duardin remained steadfast. Their front shifted and scores of skirmishers emerged from the ranks. Kenji thought they were going to close with Thurr’s savages, but instead of moving to meet the barbarians they hurled their axes at them. The heavy iron and bronze of the armour offered no obstruction at all to the weird, gold-flecked blades as they slammed into the humans, slicing through the metal plates like hot knives through butter. The skirmishers made a second cast with spare axes they bore before withdrawing back into the duardin line.

Thurr’s warband had numbered a hundred and more, but when the last axe was thrown there wasn’t a single cannibal still on his feet. As Kenji advanced over the dead and dying warriors, he could smell the stench of burnt meat rising from the fallen. Their loss, however, didn’t matter nearly as much as what they’d gained for the rest of the horde. They’d bought both time and distance for the Reavers. A second line of skirmishers came out to inflict damage on the humans. A score of warriors fell, but this time the duardin didn’t strike with impunity. Javelins and arrows answered the attack. As they saw their skirmishers struck down, a mighty roar rose from the duardin. They didn’t wait to meet the oncoming humans. In a great surge they rushed upwards to meet the raiders.

There wasn’t further opportunity for lesser engagements. Kravoth’s Reavers slammed into the charging duardin in a crash of steel. Kenji’s sword lashed out, shearing through the brawny arm of a bearded foe and sending both him and the axe he held spinning off towards the molten lake below. He kicked his mutilated enemy full into the face of the duardin behind him. Both stumbled for a moment and while they were unbalanced, he whipped them with the chain he gripped in his other hand. The duardin recoiled instinctively from the lashing metal. The reaction turned their stumble into a sideways plunge over the edge of the road.

From the corner of his eye, Kenji caught the reflective shimmer of Gharm’s sword. The Champion was locked in combat with a duardin wielding a poleaxe, his body so encrusted with gold that he almost seemed a being of living metal. Even from so fleeting a glance, Kenji could tell the leader of the raiders was confronted by a skilled and powerful enemy. It might be that Gharm’s quest for daemonhood would end in a volcanic pyre.

Kenji was confronted by a burly duardin carrying a massive two-headed axe. The vicious blade swept downwards as he spun around to avoid the attack. His sword delivered a glancing blow to his foe, deflected from more grievous harm by the gold runes embedded in the onyx skin. He flipped the length of chain in his other hand, sending it licking at the duardin’s eyes. The action caught the enemy by surprise and he recoiled as blood streamed from his cut forehead.

The duardin with the double-axe had no chance to attack again. Vanya rushed at him before he could recover and chopped him down with her own axe blade. He collapsed in a heap at the edge of the road. Vanya crouched over him and began cutting the golden ornaments from his skin.

‘Leave the plunder for later,’ Kenji snapped at Vanya. She gave him a defiant look and continued to loot the corpse.

The next instant, and Vanya was gone. Up and over the edge of the precipice a huge red claw rose. It crashed down over her as it sought purchase on the road. Kenji dived aside as a second claw embedded itself in the rock. Heaving itself up from the wall of the volcanic pit was a great scaly body, a lizard-like head snapping hungrily at the air.

Javelins and arrows flew at the reptilian monster as the Reavers responded to its threat. Kenji saw arrows glance off the thick plates that covered the monster’s back and parts of its legs. Javelins stabbed into the scaly hide, quivering as they drove home. Hot blood steamed out from the wounds, setting the wooden shafts alight.

The giant lizard lowered its head, its black eyes fixating on the humans. Its scaly jaws opened wide and from its fanged mouth a blast of flame and smoke spilled forth. Dozens of warriors were enveloped in the blast. Flesh was charred down to the bone, bronze plate dripped away in molten splashes, and screams transformed to vapour as bodies were immolated.

‘Let the gods bear witness!’ Kenji shouted. The lizard was pulling itself further onto the road. It brought its back legs onto the edge as it advanced. For a moment its body was lifted high. Kenji flung himself beneath its bulk and slashed at it with his sword. The softer hide of the reptile’s belly split as he struck. Kenji screamed as the steaming blood sprayed onto him. He sprang away as the lizard flopped back down onto its belly and tried to crush him.

The lizard’s angry hisses were echoed by an enraged duardin who was strapped to a saddle on the thing’s back. He thrust at Kenji with a long poleaxe and dealt a blow that split his helm. The human dropped flat, but as he did, the reptile slashed at him with one of its claws. The immense foot narrowly missed him and he was able to take off one of its toes by way of reprisal.

‘Fight me, you crawling cur!’ The challenge was shouted by Gharm. The Champion charged towards the lizard and its rider as they turned towards Kenji. The reptile whipped its head around, startled by the ferocious yell. It lowered its horned snout and tried to impale Gharm, but the Champion dived away and his gleaming sword sheared through the knife-like protrusion. A length nearly a foot long went spinning across the ground.

Kenji knew a blast of the lizard’s fiery breath would finish Gharm. He still felt a debt to the Champion, both for sparing his life and for providing him a new one. So it was that he ignored the continued efforts of the lizard’s rider to chop him down and rushed the beast itself once more. His target was the most vulnerable spot he could reach – the stump of the toe he’d cut off. With cruel abandon, he chopped at the wound with his sword, the edge biting into the still-bleeding flesh and the exposed nerves.

The lizard threw back its head and roared in pain. It reared up in defiance of the duardin rider’s frantic efforts to control it. As it lurched onto its hind legs, its belly was exposed once more. Kenji saw the wound he’d inflicted before reflected in Gharm’s sword as the wolf-helmed raider charged in and attacked. Like Kenji, he dived away as the brute came slamming back down.

The rider chopped at Kenji again. This time he whipped the chain around the haft of the poleaxe. The duardin was strong, too strong to pull the weapon from his grasp but not so strong that he could rip his axe free either. While he was effectually disarmed, Kenji used his blade to hack again at the lizard’s toe.

Kenji was lifted into the air as the lizard reacted to the pain. His dangling weight was enough to wrench the poleaxe from the rider’s grip and he crashed back to the ground perilously close to the edge of the pit. Frantically he rolled aside as the beast flopped down once more and missed being crushed by the narrowest margin.

The lizard was wild now, its armoured tail lashing from side to side, battering Reavers and duardin alike. It spat gouts of fire from its maw, not in concentrated and focused blasts as it had before, but in little spurts that struck the walls more often than flesh. The rider tried to get his steed back under control, desperately pulling at chains fixed to stakes embedded in its flesh.

Gharm pressed his attack. The Champion’s armour steamed from the lizard’s fiery blood, but his blade was unharmed. Indeed, it seemed to have drawn into it some of the heat of the reptile’s gore. Where Kenji’s sword was pitted and scored from his attacks upon the beast, Gharm’s blade struck with even greater force. It slashed through the thick plates on the lizard’s side and gashed the scaly skin beneath. A stream of burning blood vented from the wound.

The already maddened lizard whipped itself around to confront Gharm. At the same time the rider was trying to turn it the other way. The reptile responded only in part, and in doing so its tortured bulk lost its balance. The rider howled in horror as he and his gigantic steed pitched over the edge and fell towards the lava far below.

Kenji threw aside his ruined sword and glanced around for another. Because of the lizard’s rampage, the battle had drawn away from this part of the road, leaving only the dead. He spotted Vanya’s pulverised body, her hand still clinging to her axe. He tugged it free from her dead fingers. Now she knew which of them was right. Glory before gold.

‘You have a new weapon,’ Gharm stated as he turned away from looking over the edge of the pit. ‘Good. We’ll see that beast again when we reach the bottom of the stronghold. It didn’t seem to mind swimming in lava.’

Kenji’s fingers tightened around the axe. ‘The head of a monster that has to be killed twice will be a worthy trophy,’ he said, eagerness in his voice.

Gharm nodded and headed back into the fray. For a moment, Kenji could see the Champion’s gleaming sword shining out from amongst the combatants. Then all sight of his leader was lost in the scrum of battle.

‘This day will bring much glory,’ Kenji laughed. He stepped away from Vanya’s body and rushed back into the fight.

The wails of the dying and the doomed filled Kenji’s ears. He took no pleasure from the sound, just as he’d taken no pleasure from the raid. The little settlement had been unworthy of his attention, its people less than the ticks that plagued the warband’s horses. There hadn’t been a decent fighter among them. Kenji was glad he hadn’t invoked the Dark Gods, because it would have been an insult to draw their attention to so pathetic a struggle.

Kenji vented his frustration on the inhabitants he came upon in the burning streets. The sickle-shaped sword he’d won in battle with an undead king was caked in the blood of his victims. Any who crossed his path were cut down. He made no distinction and offered no mercy. But for the existence of their miserable town Gharm’s warband might have found a worthy enemy instead of being ordered by Kravoth to ransack the settlement for supplies.

Kyoshima had been a place like this. That realisation only inflamed Kenji’s rage. All those years wasted, clinging to the delusions he’d been taught as a child, oblivious to the reality of existence. A warrior was one who had the courage to claim what he wanted from the world, to stand proudly before the gods and invite them to behold his accomplishments.

As a Reaver, Kenji had fought against the wooden tree-fiends of the Grymnwolde and cut the head from the vampire lord of Urahdesh. He’d eaten the still-beating heart of a chimera and drunk the fermented blood of an orruk warboss before the greenskin’s dying gaze. He’d marched through the Realmgates and set his boots upon lands unguessed and unseen by any of his kind. He’d held in his hands treasures more ancient and wonderful than the most fabulous legends.

Now he was here! In some nameless, worthless slum that offered nothing but a day of full bellies for the horde. Kenji swung around in his fury and hacked apart a wooden pole that stood in front of a mud-brick house. The awning the pole supported sagged as it was cut in half, spilling slates of brittle stone into the street. They shattered with a loud series of cracks. As they did, a figure sprang up from behind a water trough and charged at Kenji.

‘Little rat,’ Kenji snarled as he plucked the knife from the youth’s hand. He swatted him with the chain he still carried and the bloodied peasant fell at his feet. Before he could rise, Kenji smashed him down with his boot and pinned him in place.

‘Are you the best this slum can offer?’ Kenji spat. ‘Is this the greatest challenge you people have to offer me?’ He ground his heel against the boy’s back. He scowled when he failed to draw a cry of pain from his prisoner.

‘Let him go.’

Kenji looked up when he heard the command. Gharm was walking towards him down the narrow street. The eyes behind the wolf-mask weren’t looking at him, but instead were regarding the prisoner under his foot.

Anger flared up inside Kenji. ‘Am I a dog to be ordered around? I’ve fought beside you in a hundred battles! Battles! Not pathetic slaughters like this. There’s nothing here worthy of us! It is an insult to you that Kravoth would…’

Gharm’s gaze shifted to Kenji. ‘Let him go,’ he repeated, his voice as imperious as before.

Memories of the past antagonised Kenji’s emotions. ‘This wretch isn’t like me,’ Kenji snapped. ‘He isn’t a warrior. He isn’t destined for glory.’

Gharm didn’t argue. The gleaming sword in his fist came swinging at Kenji. He raised his own blade to block the blow, but the Champion shifted his angle of attack. The polished edge bit down and hewed through his wrist.

His injury only further inflamed Kenji. He whipped the chain at Gharm’s helm, the links cracking across the wolf-mask as he tried to strike the eyes. The effort failed to distract the Champion. The shining sword ripped into Kenji’s body, piercing his chest. A bubble of blood spilled up from his mouth and he crashed onto the ground.

As life ebbed from him, Kenji watched Gharm direct one of the warband’s slavers to take charge of the boy. The Champion turned and started to walk away, the shining sword clenched in his hand, all trace of Kenji’s blood already vanished from its enchanted blade.

In the sword, Kenji could see his reflection as he died. It was his last sight before the darkness claimed him.

About the Author

C L Werner’s Black Library credits include the Age of Sigmar novels Overlords of the Iron Dragon, Profit’s Ruin, The Tainted Heart and Beastgrave, the novella ‘Scion of the Storm’ in Hammers of Sigmar, and the Warhammer Horror novel Castle of Blood. For Warhammer he has written the novels Deathblade, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang and Brunner the Bounty Hunter, the Thanquol and Boneripper series and Warhammer Chronicles: The Black Plague series. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written the Space Marine Battles novel The Siege of Castellax. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the Warhammer worlds.

An extract from The Red Feast.

As he stepped from the shadows of the caravan-court’s drapery, Athol let out the breath that had gathered tight in his chest. His anticipation was not matched by the others who lined the rope-bounded oval that denoted the taer-huma, the bladespace. Where before he had seen eyes wide with excitement, lips quivering with bated breath, now his quick glance observed disinterest from the courtiers of Prophet-Queen Humekhta III, fourteenth Aridian Empress. A few yawned in the late afternoon heat that pushed through the canopy above, others fiddled with sceptres and jewellery. In seasons past his muscular body and pale skin had brought remarks and admiring glances, but the novelty of his outlandish appearance had faded, particularly following his marriage to Marolin and even more with the arrival of his child seven summers earlier.

A couple of the youngest courtiers, Humekhta’s nieces Aless and Joira – twelve summers and eight respectively – smiled as their war-trainer made his appearance. A desultory ripple of applause moved around him, barely louder than the flap of porch canvas in the strengthening wind.

Athol raised the spear he held loosely in his right hand, always careful never to point the tip at the Prophet-Queen. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face, following the line of his helm’s chinstrap.

‘I am the Spear-carrier, champion of Humekhta the Third,’ he declared, his other hand curling into a fist that touched lightly upon the gilded bronze of his breastplate, the knuckles barely touching the sculpted pectorals. ‘Trial has been called and I offer my spear in defence of the Prophet-Queen’s honour.’

Humekhta sat cross-legged upon a cushioned throne-step. She seemed to float upon a cloud of dawn-light, her legs lost in a billow of silken layers, each a subtly different shade of purple, orange and yellow. Her scarlet regal attire was bound tight to stomach and chest, covering her to the neck but leaving her arms bare. Serpentine tattoos covered her upper arms and ruby-crusted gilded bangles circled her forearms, matched by the rings on her fingers and the half a dozen hoops that hung from each ear. A veil of delicate black cloth obscured her face, hanging from an opal-studded headband, her scalp above it a fuzz of close-cropped hair dyed a stark violet.

At her side a great double-handed sword stood against a wooden frame, its pommel higher than her head, fixed with a fist-sized shard of amber that contained a preserved scorpion. Its scabbard was made from greenish drakona hide, bound with thread of thick bronze and gilded rivets. Though it looked unwieldy, the Jagged Blade of Aridian was wrought from a feather-light metal; not just the heirloom and symbol of the Prophet-Monarchs for fourteen generations, but a weapon of war that Humekhta herself had carried into battle just as her predecessors had done.

But this was a matter of law, and that meant a trial by combat, a deed beneath the sacred blade and its owner. Thus, Athol had been called from his encampment downwind of the royal city.

From behind her stepped Orhatka, the lawsmith. He had a round, soft face which masked the quick, ruthless mind that had seen him rise to the position of lawsmith before his fortieth summer. He moved with the casual grace of a swordsman, a firm believer in keeping the body fit so that the mind also remained sharp. He had never raised a weapon in trial against Athol, but several opponents, beaten in logic and law-knowledge, had resorted to desperate injunctions and fallen beneath his blade. Athol was glad not to have tested himself against Orhatka, not because of any fear or failure, but because such a dispute would mean division between Humekhta’s two closest allies.

‘Accused is Williarch of Bataar, for theft from the Holy Prophetess, namely six hundred head of whitehorn kept in the Delnoas Plain. Accused also for the illicit profiteering in his encampments by means of crooked gambling and withholding wage. Sundry lesser charges also apply.’ Orhatka gestured towards the fur-clad trader, who scowled at the lawsmith from beneath a domed felt hat, the spearpoints of Humekhta’s court guards at his back. ‘You have chosen to defend yourself by trial of arms, as is your right.’

‘I have,’ growled the merchant, the two words thick with his western accent.

‘Do you wish a weapon brought forth?’

‘I wish word sent to the train, for champion to come.’ His grimace eased into smugness. ‘Me champion will fight.’

‘You did not make a nomination of your champion when first accused,’ grumbled Orhatka.

‘I not know Aridian law so well,’ Williarch replied with a smirk.

‘Prophetess, what is your guidance?’ asked Orhatka, turning to his monarch. ‘By rights he should fight his own trial…’

Humekhta turned her steady gaze upon the accused man, whose self-satisfaction wilted under her stare. Athol watched his tongue flick along thick lips, his fingers fidgeting with the furred hem of his coat. Williarch’s face was a mask of sweat.

‘What do you say, champion of mine?’ Humekhta asked, not turning her gaze towards Athol. ‘Do you wish to face this man or his champion?’

‘I would not have any man or woman denied justice on a technicality, Mother of the Plains. Let him have his champion.’

Williarch’s lips twisted into a sly smile almost immediately.

‘But I would like Orhatka to remind the accused of his punishment should his case be proved false,’ Athol continued, eyes fixing the stranger as though spitting him on the point of his spear.

‘The crimes of which he is accused carry the penalty of abandonment,’ the lawsmith announced with some relish. Williarch’s confidence faded as Orhatka continued. ‘If proven guilty, he shall be taken forth from the camp for five days into the heart of the Long Dust and there left without food or water. He shall be cut upon the arms and legs, ’til the blood runs freely. If Sigmar looks kindly upon him he shall survive long enough to find a spring or companions. If not, he shall die of thirst or by the claws and fangs of the great hunter-beasts that prowl the Long Dust.’

‘Send for his champion,’ declared Humekhta, rising. ‘We shall convene this court again in two days’ time.’

She swept from the tent-room followed by a coterie of retainers, her nieces included, though Orhatka remained behind. With a flick of the hand he commanded the guards to escort Williarch back to his cage.

‘He is desperate,’ said Athol as the lawsmith approached.

‘He made no attempt to bargain for leniency – he declared for trial by arms the moment he was brought to me.’

‘Is he guilty?’

Orhatka shrugged. ‘Surely that is the point of the trial?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yes, he is as guilty as the plains are hot. Five hundred of the queen’s whitehorns were still in his camp when Makhred’s scouts found them. The others he had already sent on to Bataar. He was brazen about it. He had three dozen of the Oldfire tribe working the herd and they complained he had been robbing them.’

‘Strange. The Oldfire are not meek. Why would they not simply take back what was theirs?’

‘I don’t know, and that concerns me. Williarch is from Bataar, a cunning serpent like all that breed, and he is altogether too confident. I think he intends to make a mockery of us. To take our livestock and whistle in our faces as he does so.’

‘I will beat his champion and he will die alone and frightened in the wilderness. You have my word on it.’

‘There’s always a first time to fail, Athol.’ Orhatka stepped closer, dark eyes fixed on the champion. ‘Don’t let this be that time. These Bataari will be all over us like flies on dung if they see profit in it.’

‘That won’t be my concern.’ Athol turned away and strode back towards the side entrance of the royal tent. ‘If I fail, it’ll be because I’m dead.’

Dawn was still some way off when the jingle of mail and slap of leather broke the stillness in the woods that overlooked Wendhome. The town sat across a narrow, fast river that glittered in the starlight, a stockade with a red stone base and wooden palisade encircling nearly three thousand tile-roofed houses. A few wisps of smoke still drifted from chimneys, the cook fires long extinguished. Here and there a dog yapped, and cats screeched in argument with each other.

Moving from the shadows of the trees, a line of warriors formed, curving in places around the scattered bushes and outcrops of rock that broke the slopes of the broad hill. More emerged after them, until nearly a thousand men and women crouched in the dry grass.

At their fore knelt a man broad of shoulder, his vest of chainmail distorted by heavy muscle underneath. In his hand he carried a long-handled axe, its head tapering to a point as was common among the Vancian tribes. He wiped a hand over his shaven head, staring down at the sleeping settlement. Rising, he lifted the weapon and his warriors stood also, the last rays of starlight glinting from the bared blades of swords and axes.

Threx turned to the man at his side, showing his teeth in a broad grin.

‘Just as I hoped. Only the dogs are awake.’

‘Lazy,’ replied Foraza. In one hand he held a pole that split at head height, a triangular banner hanging from the twin gold-sheathed tips. The pale cloth of Threx’s personal standard was stitched with red thread, a rendition of a horned skull at the centre of a chain-link ring.

‘They’ll not sleep as soundly after today, that’s for sure.’

Threx turned and started along the line to his right, his voice raised but calm.

‘You all know why we’re here. We’re being laughed at by those rat-eating Korchians down there. They think so little of us they don’t even set watch for our coming.’

He was answered by grumbles and snarls, and as he continued his anger grew, fuelled by his own words. ‘Their disdain is a mockery of us! They think the Skullbrands will do nothing in retaliation. Well, we’re going to do something all right, and the Korchians won’t forget it for a long time.’

Threx returned to his position at the centre of the line and took a few paces forward, his warriors moving with him. Once more he lifted his axe high, its head gleaming with the first hint of sunlight coming from across the river valley.

‘Let’s wake the dog-bastards up!’

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