“We’ll ride with you as far as your citadel,” he told Baecker. “We’ll gladly
take of your hospitality, and buy food for our further travels if we may.”
Hans Baecker gripped Stefan’s hand, and shook it enthusiastically. “Sigmar
was truly smiling upon us last night, Stefan Kumansky. Sigmarsgeist awaits us.
It will not disappoint.”
The man who had once been Alexei Zucharov was on a journey.
It was a journey which had no defined end, and no beginning that he could
remember any longer. It was a journey that had no direction of his own choosing,
yet the path that he travelled was unswerving and unalterable. It was a journey
that could be measured by the passing of days, and by the miles unravelled upon
the road. But, more than all of this, it was a journey through his inner world,
a journey taking him from the mortal man he had once been, towards a being he
could not yet comprehend. Change was coming upon Alexei Zucharov, and it was
relentless and unyielding.
On his journey, Alexei swam through dreams that invaded his waking thoughts
and filled his hours of sleep. Dreams of what was, and what might have been.
Dreams of what might yet be, and dreams of what now would never come to pass. He
saw there were hundreds of futures, futures seeded from the random fates of
hundreds of pasts. Any of them might have been true, or none of them. All
certainty was lost and nothing was yet decided.
Somewhere in a time now past, he remembered a battle, the clash of steel that
had marked the point in his history where the change had begun. That had been
the beginning. The place where the great river of chance had divided, and swept
him along a different path.
At night gazing sleepless at the stars, he would recall another sky, the
blood red sky above the battlefield, smoke rising from the crumbling spires of
the beleaguered city. Whether he had been fighting to save the city, or to
destroy it, Zucharov no longer knew. But upon that field, as the fog of battle
cleared to reveal the cruel fields of the dead, he had come upon his defining
hour.
Time after time upon the journey across the empty plains of the Ostermark
Alexei Zucharov relived the moment in the battle that the horseman had appeared.
The lone rider, emerging from the enemy lines, riding directly towards him. His
callow indifference to Zucharov’s presence. No attempt to flee, nor to defend
himself from the blow that would surely cut him down. Alexei Zucharov remembered
his disappointment; his sudden, raging fury that this, his final, crowning glory
upon that day should be diminished by an opponent who would not even fight back.
He recalled his rage, that glory should be so unjustly denied him. This should
have been the ultimate test, the final battle of champions. Instead, the combat
was ended in moments. Alexei watched, as he had watched a hundred times before,
the dark knight fall beneath his sword. The distaste, the bitter distaste for
this unworthy opponent, so easily despatched. He would strip what he could from
the corpse. His sword, his dagger, his other tokens of allegiance to the Dark
Powers. He would take his horse, a monstrous beast that stood twice the height
of a mortal man. But none of this would be enough to sweeten the bitter taste of
victory so easily won.
And then, Zucharov had seen the amulet. The circle of pure, lustrous gold
upon the Chaos warrior’s wrist. In all his battles, amongst all the trophies
claimed from his vanquished dead, Alexei had never seen anything like it.
Sunlight poured from the clouds and fell upon the golden band, illuminating the nines etched upon its surface. Runes and words that
spoke in an unknown tongue, the ancient tongue of the Dark Gods. Of all the
treasures Zucharov had found, this, he knew, was the lodestone of his dreams. It
had to be his at any cost.
Zucharov had been ready to cut the gold from the champion’s flesh, but there
had been no need. The shimmering band had slipped, smooth and easy, from the
dead knight’s hand. But, once he had put it on, Zucharov found that the amulet
could not be removed. It sat fast upon his wrist, as if stitched into his flesh.
Now it was part of him forever.
He began to grow stronger. He could feel the raw energy channelling from the
gold band into his body. All pain, all weariness, was banished. Soon there would
be nothing he could not do. At the same time, the mark of transformation had
appeared on his flesh. It had started as a tiny blemish, a mark no more than a
bruise, upon the skin beneath the amulet. After a while the bruise had begun to
change and grow, altering in shape and line, dissolving and resolving until it
became recognisable as an image, like a tattoo. It was the image of a warrior on
horseback, rising triumphant above a fallen foe. As Alexei stared down upon it,
the image began to move.
As the days passed, a new world began to unfold in miniature on his living
flesh. These were the pictures from his dreams, the images of his past and of
all his futures. Through those images Zucharov watched destiny unfold, pointing
him upon the road to a future he could yet barely imagine.
And, as the living tattoo grew, so, in strange tandem, the memory of his
former life faded away. Faces, names and events were disappearing, vanishing
like the light fading from the dying day. Some things he still remembered, like
the name of a place, Altdorf, that had been his home. A name scrawled upon a
scrap of paper he had found in a pocket, a letter started and then abandoned, a
message never sent from a life that had ceased to exist. Natalia. Natalia, his
sister, from a time and place once long ago.
Other names, other faces. Those he had ridden with into battle. Comrades from
home, from Altdorf. All of them would fade soon, fade and be forgotten. A part of Zucharov knew those names
were important, a part of his identity, and he struggled to hold on to them as a
drowning man clutches at flotsam. But he was locked in a new battle now, a battle
for the dominion of his very soul. Alexei Zucharov fought to hold fast to those
memories with the tenacity of a man who had never known defeat.
And then, at other times, he saw that it did not matter. It did not matter
because his was a journey of transformation, and all the names and places of
fading memory were nothing more than broken fragments, the debris of a life that
had been transcended. He was on a journey to a new life, and he had a new
companion, a mentor to guide him upon that journey. A voice that spoke to him
inside his head. A voice that told him of his history, and of his destiny yet to
unfold.
The voice whispered to Alexei through the long waking hours and across the
troubled lands of his dreams. Alexei tried to banish it from his head, shut out
the incessant barrage of whispered words. But he could not. It was inside him.
It had become part of him. Soon, before long, it would become him, and he it:
inseparable, indivisible.
The voice told him things he had never heard before. It explained to him the
true nature of man, and the struggle between light and darkness. It showed him
how, beneath that simplistic facade, there lay another battle, far older, far
more significant. A battle not between good and evil, but between the strong and
the weak. On one side, those vigorous and brave enough to transcend the shackles
that tethered man to his mortal misery. Pitted against them, those who would
drag mankind down: the weak, the sick and the lame. The indolent, duplicitous
parasites who fed upon the bounty gathered by the strong.
Alexei Zucharov had always known he was one of the strong. Now the voice
inside his head would be his guide, and his counsel, upon the long road to the
final battle-ground.
Over time, Alexei grew accustomed to the sound of his mentor, cajoling him,
driving his tired flesh onward through day after endless day. He learned his name: Kyros, all-powerful
disciple of the great Lord of Transformation, Tzeentch, almighty God of Change.
Kyros had plucked Alexei Zucharov from the fields of war and blessed him with
the gift of Chaos. Zucharov was to be his champion, his servant upon the mortal
world. Through him, the strong would conquer all.
First, Zucharov had had to get out of the city. He had ridden hard from the
gates of Erengrad, across the borders of frozen Kislev and beyond, out into the
barren wilderness of the Ostermark. He rode with no knowledge of his
destination, only knowing that he was pursued. The men who once called
themselves his comrades had become his enemies, and they would pursue Zucharov
to his grave if they could. They were the champions of lesser gods: the jealous,
covetous gods who laid the shackles of callow mediocrity upon the spirits of
men. They were the gods of humility and feeble ambition, the humble, chastening
gods of the weak. Kyros would defeat them, and Zucharov would destroy all who
took arms against him.
But his champion was not yet ready. The seeds of Chaos had yet to blossom in
the soul of Alexei Zucharov. Until then, Kyros would nurture his champion,
nurture and protect him whilst he grew in mind and in body. Until he was ready
to fight, and to destroy. For only when all else was laid to waste, when the
decaying cities of man had been brought down, only then would the purging fires
of Tzeentch work their miracle of transformation, and make the world anew. A
world where only the strong would survive.
So he rode, always keeping ahead of the shadows that snapped at his heels.
Sometimes he would still rage against the voice that whispered so sweetly inside
his mind. But with each day that passed, he was succumbing to the seduction of
its sweet music, its quiet, unyielding logic.
Change is inevitable, it is the very wheel of life. From change comes
strength, comes opportunity.
I am strong, Zucharov told himself. And I am master of my own destiny.
Neither god nor man can subjugate my will. I am free.
His answer would come as laughter, the laughter of Kyros, and of his master,
the Dark Lord of Change.
Freedom is nothing but illusion. The consolation of
the weak.
Once beyond the borders of Kislev, the land opened out, and the world became
a vast and empty place. Soon Zucharov was travelling both day and night, resting
only when the massive horse that carried him could give no more. He rode until
he came, at the dying of the day, to a path that snaked along the spine of a
narrow valley. The sun set below the hills and a great shadow fell across the
land.
Zucharov rode on in solitude. The gods had sucked all sound, all life, from
the dark hills and left them quiet. He slowed his pace, waited for the word. But
the silence of the hills had penetrated his mind. For the first time in as long
as he could remember, the voice inside his head was stilled. Now the silence was
absolute, his mind an empty, becalmed sea. Alexei Zucharov was alone.
But not for long. As he held the same slow, unchanging pace, two riders
overhauled him, one on either flank, cold moonlight glinting on the steel of
their drawn swords. The sound of horses pounding hard upon the trail told him of
others, too, bringing up the rear. Alexei Zucharov remembered his time as a
warrior. The besieged quarter of his mind that was still the soldier took stock,
making order out of the mayhem around him. He was under attack. He pulled his
horse to a halt, scanning the
valley, the dark cradling hills.
Four riders had surrounded him. One of them was shouting, trying to draw his
attention. Zucharov heard them as he might hear the distant buzzing of insects,
a drowsy burr of sound. He listened only for the voice of Kyros, and, when still
nothing came he decided at last to ride on, on through the far side of the
valley and up the steep incline that led back onto the plain. As he moved
forward, two of the riders converged towards him, attempting to block his path.
Now, at last, the whisper came. The murmured words of the one who would be his
master; part direction, part permission.
Alexei heard the voice, and smiled. He turned to face the oncoming riders,
and was at once upon familiar ground.
He was going to die. Lothar Koenig was sure of it. The bounty hunter had made
a mistake, he had let greed, or need, get the better of him. There must have
been a point where escape still remained a possibility. A point where he could
have leapt back upon his horse and fled back up the hillside out of the valley.
However powerful, however demented the tattooed warrior, there must have been a
chance that he could have outpaced him. Forget the butchered body of Carl Durer.
Forget his bounty, just get out.
But he did not turn, and he did not flee. Instead Lothar Koenig stood,
transfixed by the beauty of the gold band, by the images that danced upon the
other man’s flesh, and by the terrible power of the warrior himself. Now there
would be no escaping. He watched the sword lift into the air above his head as
he might watch an execution from afar, noticing how the steel of the blade was
tainted red from the blood of the slaughtered men. He heard the sound like a
tiny sigh as the blade fell, gaining speed as it sliced through the air. It’s
over, Lothar, he told himself. Your life, all of this, is over.
Zucharov had destroyed the bandits, destroyed the worthless vermin who had
thought it so simple to rob and murder him. He destroyed them not out of anger,
nor in simple defence of his own life, but because they belonged with the weak.
If not weak in body, then weak in mind and spirit. Kyros had showed Zucharov the
deeper weakness that festered within mankind. The weakness of crude ambition,
worthless aspirations. Durer and his men were pitiful wretches, and Zucharov
detested them. He cleansed the bandits from the face of the living world,
despatched them with his blade and his own bare hands.
Only when he was done did he see that there was still one other to be
accounted for. A fifth player had entered the arena, a solitary figure who now
stared at Zucharov like a rabbit snared by a serpent. This one did not belong
with the bandit gang. The smell of fear coming off him was different to the grovelling
terror of Carl Durer. This man was a clever, thoughtful marauder who would steal
unnoticed into the heart of a battle to carry away his prize. This was a man who
had calculated his risk, and knew that he had lost.