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Gorechosen - Extract

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Gorechosen

Andy Clark

The sky was streaked with falling stars. Blazing meteors roared overhead, punching crimson trails through churning black clouds. Akhagor watched them for a time, their furious fires reflecting in his black eyes. The slaughterpriest admired the meteors, their singular purpose, their strength. They tore across the heavens to their own fiery end, and never once turned aside. The Blood God left messages in all things, thought Akhagor. One needed only the wit to see them.

He turned his attention back to his surroundings, to the burning ruins and the dirt road that had become a bloody quagmire. Bodies lay everywhere, the carrion remains of these pitiful tribesmen, whatever they had called themselves. How long the vermin had scratched a living from the rocky soil, Akhagor neither knew nor cared. Despite the passions of Aqshy that should have coursed through their veins, these wretches had been barely worth the trouble of slaughtering. The tribe’s meagre crops had burned, their homes had been cast down, and their severed heads sat in a bloody pyramid on the altar of their desecrated shrine. Still, it was a poor offering to Khorne, for they had given little fight.

Footsteps squelched in the bloody muck, and Akhagor turned to see Vorhak approaching. The aspiring deathbringer was caked in gore, the black plates of his armour turned ruddy brown with it. He rested his massive axe easily upon one shoulder, and within the visor of his skull-painted helm, his eyes burned a fiery red.

‘Swift butchery,’ growled Vorhak, squaring up to Akhagor as he always did, ‘and far too easy. There’s no glory to be found lopping such worms.’

Akhagor growled his assent.

‘That is true.’

The aspiring deathbringer’s eyes locked with Akhagor’s, his stare a challenge, as though he awaited more. Frustrated by the slaughterpriest’s silence, Vorhak turned and began to pace back and forth.

‘Then tell me this, priest: why do we tarry here? Why do we insult our blades with this weak gruel they call blood? We should abandon our mindless wandering and answer the summons of Korghos Khul!’

‘We go where Khorne commands,’ rumbled Akhagor. ‘We follow the visions that the Blood God sends. Do you question his will?’

‘Never!’ snapped Vorhak. ‘Khorne’s will is absolute! But it can be misinterpreted by the weak…’

Akhagor felt his daemon-tainted blood churn at the deathbringer’s insult, and he bared his fangs in a dangerous smile.

‘Always you dance around this, Vorhak, but you don’t strike. You know you are not strong enough to defeat me, and one day soon I will prove it. But not today. My destiny lies ahead. Follow.’

The slaughterpriest strode away through the ruined village, showing his back to his rival’s axe in a gesture of contempt. After a moment, he heard Vorhak give an annoyed grunt and follow. The two champions of Khorne strode through the remains of the lives they had ended, ignoring the bloodreavers who feasted upon the corpses of the slain and the skullreapers cursing the lack of worthy trophies this place had yielded. Soon, they came to the outskirts of the settlement and the perilous rift that lay beyond.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Gorechosen © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. Gorechosen, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-78572-027-7

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