Daemon Gates Trilogy by Black Library Page B

illness, and Dietz was more than happy to let his friend continue to rant if it meant he was in good health once more.
    'Still see the marks?' he asked after Alaric had wound down a bit.
    'Yes,' the younger man replied. He waved ahead of them. 'They're still there, clear as day. We're still going in the right direction.'
    Dietz nodded. They were walking south, following the river, in fact, keeping its broad expanse just within view most of the time. That was fine by him. Better south than west, where the mountains beckoned ominously, and the river meant the chance for fish, which he had caught more than once since they'd started their trek. True, he was tired of the fare, and Alaric hated fish even at the best of times, but it was enough to keep them alive when between vil­lages. Besides, tonight he could make stew with the small spicy sausages he had talked one woman into selling. It would make a welcome change.
    They continued on, both lost in their thoughts for a while. Finally, Alaric broke the silence, as Dietz had known he would. His friend could not bear the quiet for long.
    'What worries me,' Alaric began, 'is why they took the mask.'
    Dietz shrugged. 'It's attractive,' he answered. 'That might be reason enough.' It was, too, from what he remembered of it. A single slab of some unfamiliar stone that gleamed gold and brown with strange bands like the markings of a
    cat, it had been carved into a striking face that combined the feline and the human, bringing the ferocity and hunger of the one to the intelligence and deliberate cruelty of the other. It represented the eight-armed tiger-god of Ind, and it had captured his attention at once when he'd spotted it in the inner sanctum of the beastman temple in that for­eign land.
    That was why he'd taken it.
    It had been Alaric's fault, of course. He was the one who had dragged them both to that distant shore, seeking trea­sure and knowledge unknown to any in the Empire. It was Alaric who had sent him into the temple to scout it out and to bring back 'something small enough to carry, valu­able enough to be worth our time and distinctive enough so that it could not have come from anywhere else.' The mask had fit those instructions nicely, and he had pried it loose from the rest of the enormous statue. He had also managed to survive the angry beastmen who had come after him, enraged at his sacrilege. Not ordinary beastmen, either, they had all been catlike and far more intelligent, more graceful, and more organised than the normal vari­ety. .. and far more dangerous. He had made it out of there alive, and with the mask, though he'd often regretted that since.
    Alaric was shaking his head.
    'It is striking, certainly,' he agreed, 'but I doubt that would be enough to sway a beastman into taking it, and what about the cultists? They were slaughtered, but not eaten, which does not match the beastmen's usual approach to battle. It's as if the cultists were slain for the mask, and then discarded because only the mask was important.' He frowned.
    'You're thinking of the statues,' Dietz guessed.
    They were Chaos tainted,' Alaric replied, 'and one of them was being worshipped by the beastmen. Clearly they have an affinity for such items. The mask has similar markings; I
    could see them finding it, realising its connection to the forces they serve, and carrying it off for veneration.'
    'So now you know why they took it,' Dietz said. They recognised it as a Chaos artefact.' The fact made him shiver. It seemed as if, lately, they encountered such relics at every turn.
    'Yes, but how did they know to look for it?' Alaric asked. 'How did they find the cultists back in Nuln? And why are they taking it so far from the city? Either they were from Nuln, like the mutants in Middenheim, in which case they've gone a long way from home; or they came to Nuln, in which case they must have come a long way, and was it for the mask or for something else?'
    Dietz shrugged. 'No idea,' he admitted, 'but