WH-Warhammer Online-Age of Reckoning 03(R)-Forged by Chaos Read online

Gorgut closed his beady red eyes, letting himself savour the screams and roars that echoed through the tower. His entire body quivered, throbbing with excitement, the urge to charge, to rend and rip and tear. His ham-like fist tightened about the heft of the huge cleaver-like weapon he carried, the leather grip crackling beneath the pressure. The black orc fought down the almost overwhelming impulse, forcing his steps to remain slow and unhurried. He was the boss, and he had to act like it. The boss didn’t go running around throwing himself into every scrap like some wet-bottomed tusker cutting his first stuntie. The boss had to be above that kind of thing, had to use his head and stick to the plan. That was what made him the boss. That and the ability to thrash any orc that thought otherwise.

  The warboss shouldered his way through a smashed doorway, kicking a pile of mangled meat that might once have been a footman out of his way. His nostrils flared as he drank in the smell of fresh blood and excited goblin and his stomach growled. He stared at the sheep’s leg in his hand, tossing it aside, tired of digging wool from between his fangs. There was enough fresh meat lying around that he didn’t want to ruin his appetite. Nagdnuf, his goblin cook, had a variety of clever ways to prepare human. Of course, the goblin wasn’t always careful. If Gorgut was a suspicious orc, he might have suspected the grimy little weasel had tried to poison him with that plump saddle merchant they’d caught on the road to Brass Keep. He didn’t think Nagdnuf would try that again, not after Gorgut had taken the goblin’s leg to replace his spoiled supper. The black orc licked his lips at that memory.

  Growls and grunts broke the warboss from his reverie. The room he had entered might once have been some sort of parlour, something that had been far too flowery and petite for any orc’s tastes. It was a shambles now, smashed furniture strewn pell mell throughout, the burning tatters of a tapestry crumbling against the wall. A pair of orcs, thick-skulled brutes a head shorter than Gorgut and with much lighter coloured skins, were roaring at one another while a small clutch of goblins circled them, giggling like idiots and making whispered wagers on which of the brutes would pound the other into the ground.

  ‘I want ’em!’ snarled one orc, a scar-faced warrior with a horned helmet crushed down around his head. ‘I saw ’em first and they’re mine!’

  ‘Snotling-fondling swine!’ barked the other, a thick-necked reaver with an old pistol ball lodged in the bone above his eye. ‘You were busy cutting up the dead human! That means they’re mine!’

  The helmeted orc snorted his contempt and reached down to the jumble of shattered wood piled between the two belligerents. Once, the shattered mahogany had been a richly etched cabinet, a work of uncompromised craftsmanship that would have fetched a fortune in Nuln or Altdorf. Now it was so much kindling, only its shiny brass knobs offering any interest to the raiders.

  Bullet-face shoved the scarred orc away as he reached for the knobs. ‘I need ’em!’ the orc bellowed. ‘They’ll make good buttons to hold up me trousers!’ He tugged at the waist of the confusion of stitched furs and hides he wore.

  ‘And I want ’em for my ear!’ snarled the other orc, tugging at the lobe of an ear already sagging from the weight of the many rings and studs embedded in it.

  Bullet-face snapped a brass knob from the wreckage and bounced it off the nose of his antagonist. ‘There you go, git! Have one on me!’

  Spittle dripped from the scarred orc’s mouth. ‘I ain’t wearin’ nothin’ that’s holdin’ up your trousers!’

  Gorgut seized both orcs by their necks as the two warriors pounced at one another. The warboss brought both of their heads smacking together with a loud crack, then dropped the two dazed monsters to the floor. ‘Find something to kill that isn’t green or I’ll feed you both to the squigs,’ Gorgut threatened as he strode by the stunned warriors, scattering goblins as he marched past and out the other side of the parlour.

  The black orc clenched his fist. He hadn’t been able to take his pick when he’d left Mount Bloodhorn. Indeed, it had been pretty much any warriors and goblins greedy enough, crazy enough, or stupid enough to think scheming against Warlord Grumlok was a healthy idea. Even so, there were times when Gorgut was tempted to gut the whole lot of them. If he didn’t need the slack-jawed morons. But he did need them, and not killing something when it was still useful was another thing that made him boss.

  Gorgut had seen what magic had done for Grumlok, making the preening git the most powerful warlord in the Badlands. Without those magic amulets, Grumlok would be nothing, not even fit to wrangle snotlings out of holes. But with them, he was warlord and everybody bowed and scraped before him if they knew what was good for them.

  Gorgut spat a blob of phlegm onto the marble tiles beneath his feet. Grumlok! He was every bit as tough and strong and clever as that swaggering stooge! He didn’t need some little goblin whispering in his ear to make him cunning! All that set Grumlok over everybody was his magic. Well, Gorgut would find his own magic! Then he’d return to the Badlands, build his own horde and show Grumlok who’s who and what’s what!

  A feral grin spread over Gorgut’s face, but it quickly faded. First he had to find some magic, then he could start thinking about what he was going to do to Grumlok.

  Gorgut’s warband had ransacked a small village two days ago. The humans had put up a pathetic fight, which made his mob even less inclined to take any of them alive. Still, there had been a few who survived the orcs’ frustrated lust for a good scrap and the goblins’ penchant for torturing helpless things. Gorgut had interrogated them at length, trying to learn if they knew where he could lay his hands on some magic. They had pointed him to an isolated tower some distance from their village, telling him some sort of witch-man lived there. In gratitude, Gorgut had ordered the prisoners killed clean instead of letting the goblins play with them first.

  Assaulting the tower, however, had been no easy task. The human spell-chucker had been waiting for them, making Gorgut wonder if letting his mob burn down the village had been such a smart thing. He knew smoke could be seen from a good distance.

  He’d lost a fair number of his orcs trying to break into the tower. The witch-man, his scrawny body wrapped in flowing red robes embroidered with weird drawings that made Gorgut’s eyes hurt, had stood upon the balcony of his tower, watching the orc vanguard rush towards his home. Then the wizard gave a terrible cry and stretched out his hand. Five of Gorgut’s biggest warriors were enveloped in flame, shrieking as the skin melted off their bones. Gorgut had brained a few goblins for laughing at the sight of his best boys running around like living torches.

  The second attack went as badly as the first, but Gorgut was out of patience when he ordered the third assault on the tower. The whole mob had charged out from the woods, Gorgut and his bodyguards lingering at the back to make sure none of the goblins tried to pull a fast one and sneak back into the forest. The wizard was laughing as he continued to set Gorgut’s warriors on fire, but his laughter slackened a bit when he tried to incinerate Pondsucker.

  Pondsucker was Gorgut’s troll, a huge smelly beast dredged up from some nameless swamp his warband had encountered after crossing the Black Mountains. The troll’s warty, slimy hide was just too icky for the wizard’s spells to burn. It took everything the witch-man had to finally ignite Pondsucker’s scalp, but by then it was too late. The troll had reached the gates of the tower and was battering them down with his fists before his dull wits realised the top of his skull was on fire, and he was in the courtyard before his body accepted the fact that it couldn’t keep walking around with everything above its shoulders burned off.

  It was the loss of the troll that really upset Gorgut. He’d make the human spell-chucker pay for that, and no mistake. He was still somewhere in the tower, hiding from the orcs, trying to sneak away like some slinking goblin. Well, it wasn’t going to work! Gorgut had sent his most trusted henchman to track the wizard down. Dregruk wasn’t the brightest orc in his mob, but that was what made him so trustworthy; he was too stupid to do anything except
exactly what he was told. Dregruk had been told to find the wizard, so that was what he would do. But to make doubly certain, Gorgut had Oddgit looking for him too. Oddgit was the most important of Gorgut’s followers, a shaman from Iron Rock, an orc who had been touched by Gork and Mork, the gods of havoc and trickery. Oddgit was able to cast his own spells and see weird visions when the winds blew right. Gorgut was trusting that Oddgit would be able to sniff out another spell-chucker, even if it was a human one.

  Gorgut scratched his tusk and chuckled darkly. Once they found the wizard, then it would be up to him to make the puny human talk and give up whatever magic gewgaws he had hidden in his tower. The black orc wasn’t worried about that. Anything that could bleed he could make talk.

  The warboss smiled as he heard the sounds of battle ringing down the corridor ahead. The wizard’s retinue was putting up a better fight than that miserable little village, he had to give them credit for that. As he loped down the hall, he saw a burly orc bouncing an armoured human’s head against the wall. The way the helmet was dented and the wall was stained, Gorgut was pretty sure his minion’s plaything was dead. He cuffed the orc’s ear, feeling cartilage crumble beneath his fist. The orc spun around, dropping his bloodied toy and started to snarl. One look at Gorgut’s glowering face made him think better of it, however, and the warrior hastily retrieved his axe from where he had dropped it on the floor and scurried off before Gorgut could hit him again.

  Witless scum! Gorgut spat as he watched his warrior leg it down the hall. They’d forget their own names if the chance to bash something came along. Well, if they forgot what they were here for, Gorgut would make sure there were some green bodies joining those of the humans when Nagdnuf made his stew!

  The black orc pondered vengeful thoughts for a time before he remembered the sounds of battle that had lured him down the hall. He could still hear them, and among the cries he thought he could hear Oddgit calling out to the orc gods as the shaman worked his magic. There was something strained, almost desperate in the shaman’s voice, something that made Gorgut’s belly clench. Anything that could defy the shaman’s spells wasn’t something he really wanted to meet.

  Unless it was the human spell-chucker!

  Gorgut started running down the hall like a mad bull. If Oddgit killed the wizard, he’d wring the gory old tusker’s neck!

  The cowled orc shaman stood among the ashes of its minders and guards, soot-blackened sweat dripping down its sloping face. It stared through eyes that were foggy with smoke and hacked cinders from its throat. Its wolfskin garb was hanging from its emaciated, withered frame in charred strips, its bone-adorned staff nothing but a blackened stick crumbling beneath its meaty paw.

  Kastern Kabus, Magister of the Bright Order, Pyromancer of Char Peak, glared down at the monster. The fire wizard stood at the top of a flight of stairs that led up into the inner sanctum of the tower. It was here he had decided to make his stand and it was here that the orc shaman and its warriors had found him.

  The wizard curled his lip in a sneer as he saw the greenskin drawing power into itself with his witchsight. The crude magic of the savage monster was pathetic, a rough patchwork of primitive sorcery that only skimmed the power of the aethyr, drawing scraps and bits from all the colours of magic in its desperate need for power. Kastern could even see the spell taking shape in the shaman’s brain. A giant green foot smashing down on the wizard! The magister sighed. It was the third time the monster had tried that particular incantation. If the beast’s magic was poor, its imagination was outright pathetic. Kastern focused upon the orc’s spell, dissipating it before it could even begin to form.

  The shaman staggered as its magic was dispelled, some of the severed energies snapping back into its body with the violence of a cracking whip. The charred staff fell from its fist, sending a little puff of orc ash rising as it hit the floor.

  Kastern threw back his shoulders, his crimson robes billowing about him as though they were living flames. The wizard’s eyes were little embers that quickly blazed into life, burning from the depths of his lean face, little fingers of fire singeing his red eyebrows. Kastern extended a hand clothed in a scarlet gauntlet and focused the power of Aqshy, the Red Wind of Magic, into his mind and fingers.

  The orc below howled as its remaining rags began to smoke. It slapped desperately at the burning garments, then shrieked as its leathery green hide began to smoulder as well. Panic gripped the monster, and panic was all that its enemy had been waiting for.

  Kastern leaned forward with his other hand, the one holding a staff of fire-blackened wood bound in copper and tipped with an enormous fire opal. Writhing dragons of gold held the gemstone in place and as the wizard’s lips began to form strange words, the mouths of the dragons began to smoke. The pyromancer glared down at the shaman one last time, then pictured the monster vanishing within a sphere of fire. From the head of the staff, a blast of withering heat exploded, sending a ball of crackling, shimmering flame straight into the reeling shaman.

  The wizard did not revel in his adversary’s destruction, but was instantly locked in a battle with the powers he had drawn upon, forcing them back into the aethyr only by an effort of will. The fires of Aqshy were not the most servile of forces and given the chance, they would destroy his home every bit as quickly as the orcs.

  It was only an instant that Kastern was distracted by the truculence of his magic, but it was enough. When he again focused upon the physical world around him, he saw a mob of snarling beasts gathered at the foot of the stairs. A second group of orcs had come and judging by the way their black-skinned leader was looking at him, they weren’t too happy about the loss of their shaman.

  Gorgut reached the stairway just in time to see the human wizard’s spell immolate Oddgit. He watched as the shaman’s smoking skeleton wilted into the floor, crashing in a cloud of dust that the black orc knew was all that remained of the shaman’s guards.

  The warboss fingered his axe, glaring murder at the scrawny human with the red beard and gloved hands. He’d take the human’s beard out by its roots, hair by hair, and make the spell-chucker eat it! He’d take those gloves and make him eat them too! He’d take that pretty staff and…

  Gorgut snapped around, attention drawn to the sound of feet behind him. He found himself

  face-to-tusk with a burly, broad-shouldered orc wearing a vest of steel plates and a look of confused rage beneath a spiky bronze helm. The warboss fixed his gaze on the beady eyes of his lieutenant.

  ‘Where were you idiots?’

  ‘Looking for the spell-chucker, boss,’ Somehow, even from a hulking brute like Dregruk, the words came out in a sort of desperate whine.

  ‘Well, I found him!’ Gorgut snarled. ‘He just done for Oddgit and if you don’t want to end the same, you’ll get him!’

  Dregruk growled, hefting the massive choppas he carried, huge scraps of sharpened steel that were equal parts sword and meat cleaver. The orc’s savage bloodlust spread to the rest of his mob and they surged past Gorgut, eager to wreak havoc.

  ‘Alive!’ Gorgut raged. ‘I want the spell-chucker alive! I want his magic!’

  Kicking a few of the rear guard, Gorgut realised that they were too far-gone to listen to orders. When they were like this, they knew neither fear nor common sense. And the warboss didn’t have time to kill a few to remind them what a command was. Cursing, Gorgut smashed his way through the throng, embracing the oldest maxim of warlords throughout the Badlands.

  If you need something done right, you’d better do it yourself.

  Gorgut managed to head off his mob of warriors before they reached the stairs. Amazingly, the human wizard didn’t seem to notice them. Gorgut felt a momentary chill as he saw the little fires burning where the human’s eyes should be, then remembered his warriors were watching him and shook off his fear. It wasn’t good to show weakness around the lads, it gave them funny ideas.

  ‘All right you scum!’ Gorgut snapped at his warriors. ‘I’ll get him, yo
u just make sure he doesn’t get away!’ He slammed the head of his axe into the foot of the foremost warrior, sending the orc hopping back with a howl of agony and a few severed toes. ‘And remember: don’t kill nothing!’ Coupled with the visual aid of their mangled friend, Gorgut hoped they might remember that last bit.

  The black orc surged up the stairs, Dregruk and the others at his heels. They hadn’t taken more than a few steps before the wizard’s eyes became black pits of hostility. For a moment the man stared down at them, then fires swelled once more in the depths of his eyes. He stretched his hand, gestured with his staff and the stench of brimstone filled the air. Gorgut yelped in pain as bars of writhing flame leapt into life all around him, penning himself and Dregruk’s mob in a fiery cage of searing magic.

  Dregruk raged at the fiery bars, yelling at them as though they were some jeering enemy. He slashed at them with his choppas, only relenting when he saw blobs of molten metal dripping down from the pitted steel.

  The wizard was smiling beneath his crimson beard, a smile filled with malice and madness. He stretched his fingers again and Gorgut felt a blast of heat wash over him, could smell his clothes and armour beginning to smoulder as little fingers of fire began to ooze up from within his own body. The black orc howled, rushing at the bars of flame, but even his rage was not enough to overcome the withering heat and he recoiled in agony.

  The wizard clutched at his breast, feeling his heart hammering against his ribs. The strain, the ordeal of drawing the fires of magic into his body was wearing on him, draining his strength, devouring his vitality, consuming his very essence. Kastern knew he could not draw upon such forces much longer. Not without help.

  Kastern glared down at the orcs in their cage of fire. Grimly, he reached a decision. Raising a trembling hand, he tore a tiny lead locket from around his neck. Summoning the tiniest flicker of energy, his hand became white-hot, the lead melting through his fingers, exposing what it had imprisoned. The ugly black stone gleamed from his palm, its corrupt energies already flooding through him as it melted through his skin. Warpstone was a substance accursed and outlawed throughout the Empire, mere possession of it grounds for the owner to be burned as a witch. It was an ironic sort of fate for a fire wizard to fear, Kastern considered. A bitter smile came to him as he fought to control the invigorating flow of energy. If he didn’t destroy the orcs he was a dead man anyway.