Bloodborn

T
HIS IS A DARK AGE, A BLOODY AGE, AN AGE OF DAEMONS AND OF SORCERY.
I
T IS AN AGE OF BATTLE AND DEATH, AND OF THE WORLD’S ENDING.
A
MIDST ALL OF THE FIRE, FLAME AND FURY IT IS A TIME, TOO, OF MIGHTY HEROES, OF BOLD DEEDS AND GREAT COURAGE.

A
T THE HEART OF THE
O
LD
W
ORLD SPRAWLS THE
E
MPIRE, THE LARGEST AND MOST POWERFUL OF THE HUMAN REALMS.
K
NOWN FOR ITS ENGINEERS, SORCERERS, TRADERS AND SOLDIERS, IT ISA LAND OF GREAT MOUNTAINS, MIGHTY RIVERS, DARK FORESTSAND VAST CITIES.
A
ND FROM HIS THRONE IN
A
LTDORF REIGNSTHE
E
MPEROR
K
ARL
F
RANZ, SACRED DESCENDANT OF THEFOUNDER OF THESE LANDS,
S
IGMAR, AND WIELDER OF HIS MAGICAL WARHAMMER.

B
UT THESE ARE FAR FROM CIVILISED TIMES.
A
CROSS THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF THE
O
LD
W
ORLD, FROM THE KNIGHTLY PALACES OF
B
RETONNIA TO ICE-BOUND
K
ISLEV IN THE FAR NORTH, COME RUMBLINGS OF WAR.
I
N THE TOWERING
W
ORLDS
E
DGE
M
OUNTAINS, THE ORC TRIBES ARE GATHERING FOR ANOTHER ASSAULT.
B
ANDITS AND RENEGADES HARRY THE WILD SOUTHERN LANDS OFTHE
B
ORDER
P
RINCES.
T
HERE ARE RUMOURS OF RAT-THINGS, THE SKAVEN, EMERGING FROM THE SEWERS AND SWAMPS ACROSS THE LAND.
A
ND FROM THE NORTHERN WILDERNESSES THERE IS THE EVER-PRESENT THREAT OF
C
HAOS, OF DAEMONS AND BEASTMEN CORRUPTED BY THE FOUL POWERS OF THE
D
ARK
G
ODS.
A
S THE TIME OF BATTLE DRAWS EVER NEARER, THE
E
MPIRE NEEDS HEROES LIKE NEVER BEFORE.

CHAPTER ONE

A WALK IN THE SUN

The scent of blood was in her nose – blood not yet shed, blood still in the vein. She could hear the rush of it too, the frantic, frightened pulse throbbing in her ears like a lover’s moans. Her eyes saw the world in red and black, in looming shadows and ember-gleaming heart-fires – fires that would warm her and stave off the ever-encroaching cold of death.

The scent grew stronger, the throbbing louder, maddening her, driving all thought from her until there was nothing inside except hunger, a roaring emptiness that demanded to be fed. It told her she would die if it wasn’t sated, and that death would be no release from pain. It told her that nothing else mattered except feeding – not loyalty, not honour, not compassion. All that mattered was clinging to life, even unlife, for as long as she could.

She could hear the weeping of her prey now as she bounded naked after it through the winter woods. She could hear its feeble bleatings to its uncaring gods. Its heart pounded like a rabbit’s, and the stink of its fear-sweat was heady enough to make her drunk. Only a few more paces and her fangs would be in its neck, drinking deep, feeding the hollow blackness, basking in the glow of the heart-fire.

The man broke from the trees, racing across a snowy, moonlit field towards a miserable thatch-roofed shack, as if he expected its flimsy walls to protect him. She thought for a moment of letting him reach it, just to toy with him, to let him have one last false hope before she ripped the door off its hinges, but her need was too great. There was no time for games. Her hunger would not wait.

With a last lithe leap she hit him high in the back and brought him down in a rolling jumble through the powdery snow. He flailed, shrieking with fear, and tried to scramble away, but he was weak and she was strong. She pinned his limbs, scissoring them between her naked legs, then grabbed his chin, forcing it back and exposing the dirty neck under his scruffy beard. His carotid artery twitched beneath his skin like a mouse trapped under a sheet. Well, she would free it.

As her head shot forwards, something thudded into the ground beside her, kicking up a spray of snow – a crossbow bolt. She looked up, snarling, fangs bared. Who dared interrupt her while she fed?

Galloping across the moon-bright snow on horseback were a woman and a man, heavy sable cloaks billowing behind them. The woman was raven-haired and coldly beautiful in blood-red velvet under her furs, the man a hulking, golden-maned epitome of knightly strength clad in steel breastplate and high boots. A gilded crossbow glinted in his right hand, and he was already winching it back for another shot.

She barked angrily and returned to her prey, desperate now to feed before they stopped her, but as her fangs touched the peasant’s throat, the woman’s voice rang out over the field, freezing her before she bit.

‘No, Ulrika! You will not!’

Ulrika growled low in her throat, then bent forwards again. The blood was so close. She could think of nothing else. They would not keep her from it.

‘Stand, child!’ called the woman. ‘Obey me!’

Ulrika strained, but the words were like a chain, holding her from her prey. She could not go against them. She crouched over the peasant, trembling with frustration, and glared as the woman and the golden-haired knight thudded up on their horses and stopped before her.

‘Up,’ said the woman. ‘Let him go.’

‘I’m
hungry
,’ Ulrika whined.

‘And you shall feed,’ the woman said, holding out a beringed hand. ‘But not here. Not like this. Not like a beast. Now stand.’

The urge to throw herself at her tormentor was overpowering, but Ulrika knew she couldn’t, and wouldn’t survive if she did. With a petulant grunt she pushed herself to her feet, her bare limbs shaking from hunger and suppressed violence, and raised her chin defiantly before the woman and the knight as the peasant mewled pathetically at her feet.

The knight’s lip curled in disgust as he looked her up and down. The woman’s face was as calm and cold as a statue’s.

‘You must learn control, dear one,’ she said. ‘Did I not promise your friends I would teach you to do no harm?’

Flashes of her former companions’ faces flitted through Ulrika’s mind – the poet, the wizard, the dwarf. What would they think if they could see her now, naked and savage, clawed and fanged like a wolf? She didn’t care. They were only meat after all.

‘
I
didn’t promise,’ she growled.

‘But I did,’ said the woman. ‘And I do not break a pledge lightly, so you will refrain. Am I clear?’

Ulrika remained glaring for a long moment, then lowered her head. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I will refrain.’

The woman smiled sweetly. ‘Good. Then come, climb up behind me and we will return to Nachthafen.’

Ulrika stepped reluctantly from the cowering peasant, then hopped onto the rump of the woman’s horse in a single bound. As they turned towards the dirt track that ran past the snow field, Ulrika saw a group of huddled figures standing before the entrance to the shack – an old man, a young woman and two dirty children, all dressed in meagre night shirts. They bowed low to the woman as she rode past and touched their forelocks respectfully, then hurried to help the peasant who still lay whimpering where Ulrika had left him.