Evocator Turayl Cleftstone stood watch.
Unmoved by the hoarse screams of the prisoner, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on the point where the chains were fixed to the floor, judging whether they were likely to break loose with the prisoner’s wild thrashing. Screams was probably the wrong word, the creature before him seemed more beast than man, and it bellowed in it’s anguish, braying cries of despair and rage. It cried out occasionally, words barely discernible within the guttural snarling and howling. For all the noise and activity though the manbeast slept, dreaming the terrible dreams of those ensnared and warped by chaos away from their humanity and toward the bestial, animalistic life of a beastman.
“Yosefina! Run!” It cried out again, and then it’s legs spasmed as though running in the dream.
This creature had dreamt long and hard, in all the years he had stood watching these unfortunates he couldn’t recall one who had struggled so fiercely against their fate. Usually they succumbed quickly to the warping power of Chaos, but this one fought on after nearly two weeks in chains. They were too dangerous to approach closely and so the food and water that was brought to it were left mostly untouched, the animal stench of the creature made even more foul by the sickly sweet scent of rotting meat.
The same dream, over and over, or at least so it seemed to Turayl, the same cries, the desperate entreaties for Yosefina to run! The same wild despairing and yet jubilant howl as it’s dream ended, jaws snapping closed with a finality that boded ill for the fate of Yosefina.
Turayl stood watching and waiting for something to change. It surely couldn’t be much longer now.
**
He ran through the night dark wood, following the narrow twisting path by the dim light of the stars and the little moonglow that pierced the tree canopy. Although he could not hear any sound of his pursuer he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, they were closing in. Legs pumping furiously he pushed himself as fast as he could go, racing along the path, nimble and agile with youth he recovered from his stumbles and put his head down as he sprinted along the steeply rising path, the trees falling away as he emerged onto the downs.
Some way ahead of him he could just make out Yosefina, her skirts hiked up running as fast as she could. His heart sank, she was too close, they were not going to outrun their pursuit, he would have to try and fight to give her time to escape to the village. An effort doomed to fail. A snarling pant came to his ears, worryingly close, they were not far behind him now. He risked a quick look over his shoulder but in the darkness he could not make them out. He could smell their scent carrying on the air, the musky smell of wild beasts, the sweat stink and foetid breath of meat-eating animals.
“Yosefina! Run!” He called out but his voice was overwhelmed by the braying roar of their shadowy foes. The noise startled Yosefina into a desperate sprint though,, surging forward as she knew her life depended on putting as much distance between her and the thing chasing her. On the surer footing of the downs he gradually closed the distance between them, swinging between despair that she was so close and barely ahead of the pursuit and longing to see her face one last time before he was lost to the beasts that hunted them. Her panicked breathing rang loudly in his ears and he felt he could hear the thud of her panic-stricken heart, trying to cope with the demands being put upon it.
As he drew alongside her she cried out in terror and swerved away, tripping and crashing to the ground, sobbing in horror. He reached out to lift her to her feet and as she looked up he caught a glimpse of his face reflected in the glimmering starlight in her wide eyes.
Sigmar’s Wrath! It had him, it had always had him and now he was finally a beast on the outside as well as inside.
He flinched away in shock and shouted his surprise only to hear the braying roar of a beast. The hand he reached to her was all muscle, sinew and hairy hide, ending in vicious looking talons. He roared his shock and horror, his denial into the night sky but the warping change was upon him. Yosefina cowered away begging him in a terrified jumble of words to leave her be, to remember their love and not hurt her but with each moment he understood the woman-thing’s words less and less. He was filled with the primal desires of the beastmen, to run free, to fight and feast on flesh.
The woman-thing screamed as he reached down to her again babbling the nonsense words of the humans, praying to their weakling god Sigmar. That name briefly sparking on iron in his brain, flashing bright sparks of comprehension and he fell to his knees briefly overwhelmed by an instant of clarity showing him how swiftly and far he had fallen.
His heart was racing, the blood pounding through his veins, rumbling through his head like a deep, growling voice, just beyond understanding. The sound of dark Gods laughing in delight. He shook off his understanding, choosing ignorance, after all the man-gods were not worthy of trust and what were the weakling gods of the mewling man-things to him anyhow? He reached for the woman again and then felt his wrist seized and held in a vice-like grip. Unable to shake loose he reached with his other taloned hand only to feel that too grasped in an unbreakable hold. He roared his fury and frustration into the sky and then lunged forward his jaws snapping shut with a terrific crunch. A hair’s breadth away from his teeth the woman screamed again, and “Yosefina!” Sparked faintly through his mind once more.
He jack-knifed up abruptly, straining against the limit of his chains with a crash, the bite of manacles at his wrists and falling back against the cold prison floor, finally awoken from his dreams. Crying out to all the merciful Gods he knew to end his pitiful life, to finish his suffering for how could he live with what he had done to his fiancée? Why should he live after what he had done?
A shadow moved towards him then, armoured all in black and he saw with relief the stern and implacable visage of one of Sigmar’s most blessed warriors. A Stormcast Eternal, come to answer his fervent prayers. It strode toward him, eerily quiet for such a large man and knelt beside him raising it’s hammer it cocked it’s head as though asking to hear once more, one final time for confirmation of his wish for the end to his mortal pain. He nodded weakly. “In Sigmar’s name strike truly.”
His warping had taken a swift hold and he was physically more beast than man now. He had come into close contact with a tiny shard of warpstone and though at first it had only made him grow strong and fast, tall and broad shouldered. The girls in the village suddenly viewed him very differently, beginning to see him as a man, unaware he was already becoming a beast. The warping continued, first the thick hair, but so what? Some men are hairy. The lightning flashes of rage were more worrisome and had left him terrified and drained afterwards. But no harm had been done until his father had come home, drunk with the little money they had left. He had struck him then and when he had come to.. there had been so much blood. And Yosefina….Had he killed her, his fiancée?
A powerful voice rang out then, echoing through the cell. “Stay your hand Holy One. The boy has earned the right to choose.”
“He has chosen already. Chosen a swift, clean death in Sigmar’s name Captain, with the light of understanding in his eyes. How can I refuse the poor wretch?”
“You know the Laws of Rodrigos. We have learned from the mistakes of The World That Was, he will be given the chance to choose his fate, he sees but two options before him now and by the Hidden Law he has a third that he does not yet know. Stay if you will, he may yet decide he needs your tender ministrations.”
“He is corrupted, tainted beyond saving, Captain. Nigh on two weeks he has dreamt, a merciful end is surely the best he can hope for now.”
“Perhaps. Sigmar’s Will is not always so cut and dried. The Laws give the boy a choice.”
The prisoner moaned in despair, and then snarled as the man who had denied him his death stepped into the cell fully. Tall and clad head to toe in strangely styled armour with an oversized gauntlet on the left hand he stood staring down at the snarling prisoner until the warped farmboy fell silent.
Making sure the boy was watching he removed his gauntlet, revealing a monstrous, beast-like hand. “There are others like you boy. Serving Rodrigos with honour, with pride. You may join them, become a part of the Tollpayer’s. You may fight to defend your home against her enemies, eat with your brother’s and sisters in arms, all of them like you and me. Live boy! Feel the wind in your face, snow upon your tongue, see the rising and setting of the sun, perhaps even find a Tollpayer who will take you as their mate. You are of the flesh and blood of Rodrigos boy, warped through no fault of yours, you did nothing wrong… And whilst you cannot live the life you once would have, you can still live.”
The young man lay staring at Gorfist, a baffled expression on his face. “Am I dreaming?” He whispered in a choked voice.
“We are the Tollpayer’s boy! When Wilfried and the Rainbow Company left the Old World, when the Last Truthsayer Breccan opened The Way and led the refugees of that broken world into the Mortal Realms, they trod paths unknown and many were infected by Chaos. But of those that fell to darkness, there were some who resisted the dark dreaming. Their bodies mutated but their minds held fast to their love, of their children, their families, duties and Sigmar. They resisted the dark urges, fought off the dreams and Paid the Toll, the price demanded of the refugees for survival, that the others may live free. You deserve to live boy.”
“I deserve death!” He roared back, giving full voice to his pain and grief at what he had become causing both Stormcast and Tollpayer to recoil. “I have killed my father and committed horrors beyond imagination on my love, my Yosefina.” His voice cracking on her name, he took a breath. “Give me peace, I have no wish to endure another night of this.”
“Dreams boy,” Gorfist insisted. “Just dreams and twisted memories. When we took you from your home, your Yosefina was alive and unharmed. You resisted boy, you saved her and she wept over your goat face and told everyone who would listen that you had fought against your warped nature.”
The young man cried then, great wracking sobs of relief, that had more than a hint of a goatish bleat. “She lives….”
“She does, my boy. Your father too, although you had given him a bit of a beating, by all accounts no more than he was due.”
Gorfist watched as the farm boy slowly calmed and gathered themselves. A hesitation then he spoke quietly. “What if I cannot resist forever? My dreams…They scare me with how much I want to….” He trailed off, unable, unwilling to finish the sentence.
The Man-beast sighed heavily and knelt beside the youngster, taking a hand in his paw and squeezing gently. “The Tollpayer’s lead the charge my boy. We’re to be found where the fighting is thickest and most desperate…Except when Sigmar’s Finest march with us, ” he nodded to acknowledge the silent Stormcast watching them. “The Tollpayer’s are the first to volunteer, and the last to retreat, because we all seek a…. Resolution on the battlefield. You will not need to resist forever. Know this though, should you falter, should you fall, we shall ensure that no innocent pays the price. We will kill you ourselves and mourn a brother lost.”
“As a brother?” He fought back a flood of tears. “Thank you…. Brother.”
Gorfist smiled sadly. “Nay Baltus, thank me not. There may come a day when you wish that you had received Sigmar’s blessing at the end of a warhammer. What I ask of you will be hard, we are Rodrigos’ secret shame, you will only be seen in public clad in full armour, you will never go home again and never see your Yosefina. The risk is too great. You will never have children and one day will die for Rodrigos and her people, mourned by none save the Tollpayer’s. You will give up much to join us, but half a life is better than none, and to serve Sigmar honestly may earn you some peace.”
Baltus lay a while thinking. He was smart, fast and strong. He would eat and drink with his Tollpayer brethren, and run across the lands of Rodrigos howling his hate and fury at her enemies, and his fate, before hacking them into pieces in Sigmar’s name. And one day, when he was ready to leave the memory of Yosefina behind he would find a Tollpayer mate. He had made his choice.
“Then I shall defend Rodrigos and her people, and so that they need not, I shall Pay the Toll. ” His heart racing, the blood pounding through his veins, rumbling through his head like a deep, growling voice, just beyond understanding and the sound of thunder and Sigmar’s blessing.
