by Nick Horth
A shockwave blasted out across the city, hurling people to the floor, ripping doors off hinges, smashing amberglass windows. Ships heaved and groaned in the harbour. Those closely moored clashed together violently, and the impact sent sailors stumbling and sliding across their decks, some tumbling helplessly into the churning waters. Far above the storm of rippling sails, the floating towers that surrounded the looming Spear of Mallus writhed with voltaic energy. Their twisted spires arced with forks of lighting, reaching out towards the Spear, sending chunks of displaced stone falling into the raging seas below. One tower was blasted out of its orbit, and smashed into the side of the great monolith. It carved a furrow through the Spear as it fell, before breaking in two. Both pieces fell into the harbour, splintering a trio of fat-bodied whaling cogs into kindling. Aetheric storms rippled across the surface of the Spear. The violence of their motion and the surging waters below gave the illusion that the monolith was rising clear of the waters to finally destroy the city that sat beneath it. But the real threat came from the rift above.
From the swirling void of tortured colours a great shape began to emerge. At first it was half-visible, as if some god-like being was dragging itself into the realm. As the tainted spheres continued to spit their poison into the sky, the image became clearer. A single crystal tower was visible, stabbing forth from the breach like the tip of a colossal spear. Behind this structure a greater fortress could be half-glimpsed through the chaos of the rift, a maddening cluster of turrets and spires that seemed in constant flux. Storm lightning arced around the emerging tower, flickering across its crystalline surface so brightly that it hurt the eye to observe. Dark clouds spewed forth from the rent in the world, racing towards the city below. No, not clouds. Swarms. Flocks of winged and writhing shapes shimmering in the pink light, eagerly anticipating the feast of souls and soft flesh that awaited them below. Great discs of iridescent glass fell in their wake, and the glint of speartips and armour could be seen on top of them as they descended to cleave through the spires of ramshackle towers, crushing the frail city beneath them and spilling screeching warriors into the panicked streets.
‘Throne of Sigmar,’ whispered General Synor. The reflection of amberglass from the window of his office rendered the man’s face a sickly yellow.
‘There’s your proof, general,’ said Toll. ‘There’s the death of this city, unless you get your men out on the streets and ready to fight.’
The general stood there for a moment, mouth open and eyes wide with shock. Then, to Callis’ surprise, he snapped into action. He leapt over the desk, scattering papers and spilling the decanter of wine, and swung the door to his office wide.
‘Lieutenant Brellig, assemble the men,’ he bellowed. ‘I want them armed and eager in the courtyard this instant. Get our regiments out on the streets and ready to fight.’
The lieutenant’s face was pale and his eyes wide, but he nodded and scurried off down the corridor. Already the halls of the bastion were filled with confused cries and the tramp of boots.
Synor turned to Toll, no hint of panic upon his face. His jaw was set, his gaze calm. Some men only thrive in crisis, Callis thought. ‘Will you fight with us, Witch Hunter? I could use your advice.’
‘You have it, general. We need to push forward to the Prophesier’s Guild. I know what Kryn and Vermyre plan. It’s just like your dream, Callis. The arcane engine above the Prophesier’s Guild is the largest source of power in the city. That’s where Kryn will be.’
The general nodded, and snapped his fingers at the guardsmen stationed outside his door. The soldiers formed up around the group, and together they hurried back to the courtyard, passing scores of milling soldiers and bellowing officers. They burst out of the great iron doors of the bastion, and gazed up at the bruised sky. Arcs of lightning flashed across the heavens, silhouetting bizarre discs that floated down from on high, and bat-like flocks of cackling monsters.
‘What in Sigmar’s name are you waiting for?’ bellowed Synor at the gunners lining the walls, staring slack-jawed at the apocalypse falling from the sky. ‘Start firing or I’ll run you through myself.’
Dozens of cannons, mortars and ballistae swivelled into position on every battlement and watchtower, bracketing the creatures falling from the sky. Gunners sighted and adjusted, loaders crammed and wadded breeches, and then came the shouted warnings to cover ears and brace.
The Iron Bulls Bastion spat its defiance back at the abominations that dared to assault this blessed city of the God-King. The ground shook as several tonnes of shot and shrapnel were hurled forth. Many missed their target, but the skies were so thick with the enemy that even the first, target-finding strikes often struck home. Flocks of chortling, spiralling daemons were sent tumbling out of the sky, or simply shredded into a fine mist as spreadshot blasts tore through flesh and sinew. One of the great crystal discs arced over Callis’ head, and he could see the spreading cracks in its translucent surface, rippling and bifurcating. With a scream of protest the transport came apart, raining glass and screaming bodies as it angled down to smash into the city wall, carving through stone and surrounding buildings, sending clouds of dust and shattered mortar into the air. A shard of falling crystal scythed through one of the volley-guns on the battlement to Callis’ left, bisecting the crew, the cannon and the parapet with awful, surgical precision.
After a minute or so the first barrage ceased, and all that was left was a piercing ringing in Callis’ ears, slowly fading. He could hear the sound of clattering boots and a chorus of confused, frightened voices as hundreds of guardsmen grabbed weapons and ammunition, threw on tunics and breastplates and hurtled down spiral stairways to the mustering yard.
‘Form up! Form up!’ Synor was hollering, as a pair of pale-faced adjutants buckled on the general’s armour with trembling hands.
The great doors to the armoury swung open, and more green-clothed forms emerged, hauling the great weapons of war that were the pride of the city guard. Twin-racked volley guns, heavy duardin-forged cannons and the notoriously temperamental, yet undeniably effective, Ironweld rocket arrays. A low, angry rumble echoed out across the yard, audible even over the chaos of the skies above. From the armoury emerged another contraption, though this one needed no team of stocky, soot-covered engineers to haul it.
‘The Old Lady,’ said General Synor, with great affection. ‘Let’s see these traitors have a taste of her power.’
The steam tank rumbled forward on four heavy iron-bound wheels, belching smoke as it went. A hatch on top of the wedge-shaped contraption opened, and a bearded, goggled man emerged, skin cooked pink by the hellish heat of the interior cabin, face dusted with soot and grime. Mounted on the cupola of the steam tank was a long-barrelled rifle topped with a scope, and the man grasped the weapon and began to go through the process of cleaning and loading it.
By now most of the regiment’s foot soldiers were lined up. Synor’s greatsword-wielding honour guard stood at the fore, the biggest and strongest warriors in the company, their blades engraved with countless battle-honours and polished so brightly they shone even in the gathering gloom. Behind them stood the rank and file, armed with an array of blades, spears, shields and axes. Crossbowmen and handgunners checked muzzles and triggers, hefted their precious ammunition in leather quivers or goatskin pouches.
Callis felt a swell of pride at the sight, but there was no time to appreciate the swiftness with which Synor’s men had pulled themselves together and made ready for war. Smoke rose in the distance, down near the harbour. The chorus of screams that echoed throughout the city was growing louder, and overhead the dark, swirling swarms were almost upon them. Shapes grew within the mass. Impossible forms, composed of twisted limbs and jabbering mouths.
‘We must hurry,’ said Toll. ‘Vermyre’s aiming to bring the rest of that citadel through the breach, and Sigmar help us all if he manages it.’
Synor was strapping on his
scabbard, which carried a fine broadsword. His orderly came forward with the general’s hat, a wide cap of deep green that bore three huge, white feathers and an emerald brooch fashioned in the shape of a falling comet.
With his accoutrements of war secured and fastened, and the hilt of his blade clasped in one gloved hand, even Callis had to admit that Synor looked every inch the dashing general. You couldn’t even see the bulge of his gut. It was amazing what a dose of genuine crisis could do for some men.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said General Synor, ‘let us see to the defence of our city.’
Act Three
The men of the fighting Eighth roared across the stone cobbles, screaming their battle-oaths and prayers to Sigmar, brandishing swords, axes, maces and spears. These were hardened killers, men and women who had travelled the length of the Coast of Tusks, and battled almost every one of its myriad horrors. They would not be intimidated, even amidst the calamity that had fallen upon their city. Synor rode a chestnut warhorse at the head of the column, urging his men on with bellowed oaths of vengeance and promises of slaughter.
Streams of fleeing citizens filtered past them as they marched. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. Parents clutching bawling infants. Thin-limbed street urchins, eyes wide with fearful excitement. Many were limping, held up only by their fellows. Callis saw horrific burns, gashes and cuts from shattered glass. The pitiful figures flinched and cowered at every gunshot and explosion that echoed out across the city. In the distance, through the haze of fire-lit smoke, a formation of duardin gyrocopters arced over the city, the ear-aching, percussive thud of their rotating blades almost fading as they disappeared into the distance.
‘The Air Corps will deal with as many of the enemy’s flying monsters as they can,’ shouted Synor above the commotion. ‘But they are few. We cannot count on their presence.’
The cobbles flickered with the shadows of dancing flames, and the smoke was thick about them. Pitiful hands clawed at the soldiers as they passed. Bleeding, dust-covered figures staggered out of the smoke and fell to their knees in front of the advancing warriors, begging for salvation. There was no time to help them. No time to quell the fires that raged through the city, or to guide the innocent to safety.
Explosions echoed in the distance, along with the percussive blasts of heavy cannon and the shrieking whine of rockets arcing through the air. Above the cluttered rooftops the sky flashed orange, and smoke rose from the harbour. Apparently Captain Zenthe had made her choice. The Iron Bulls were not the only force that was fighting back.
‘If we push through to the docks, we can join up with General Revard’s Firewolves,’ General Synor said.
‘No,’ said Toll, shaking his head. ‘It will divert us from our target, and we cannot afford the delay.’
Synor stared at the conflagration in the distance, clearly torn.
‘If we do not stop Kryn,’ the Witch Hunter continued, ‘it won’t matter how many regiments we have fighting with us. The city will burn.’
The General nodded, grim-faced, and wheeled his horse around, urging his warriors forward.
Something sleek with iridescent scales flitted through the billowing blackness overhead, hissing and screeching. Something struggled beneath it, clutched in wicked talons. As the thing passed overhead, it released its burden. The half-naked man fell, screaming in terror, and was dashed to pieces on the cobbles. More shapes dropped out of the smoke. Callis saw myriad eyes mounted upon crescents of shimmering azure scales, rows of razor-sharp fangs and three-pronged tails that flitted gracefully behind as the shapes dived towards the column.
‘Open fire!’ shouted Synor. The handgunners did as they were bid, sending a hail of bullets skyward. Some of the creatures toppled out of the air. Most of them did not.
They scythed through the ranks of the Iron Bulls, a fountain of gore erupting in their wake. Callis fell to all fours as the wave passed overhead, and saw the man next to him yanked off his feet as if by a bolting horse.
‘Reload and address! Reload and address, damn your eyes!’ someone was bellowing. All around, soldiers were scrabbling to their feet, sliding on the blood-slick cobbles.
‘No!’ shouted Toll. ‘We cannot stop here. Advance! Advance to the Grand Square.’
Synor glanced at the Witch Hunter. It was clear that he was unused to another issuing commands to his company, but thankfully the man seemed to have quelled whatever wounded pride he had displayed back in his office.
‘You heard the man,’ he bellowed. ‘Keep moving! Do not stop for a moment.’
And so they hurried onwards, the ray-like monstrosities circling overhead like carrion birds, occasionally swooping down to spear another victim on those wicked fangs. Callis ran alongside the others, dimly aware of Toll at his side, retching and spluttering as the smoke seared his eyes and crept into his lungs. It was only the years of treading these streets that told him the wide thoroughfare they had stepped onto was the Tradeway, the arterial route that cut through the heart of Excelsis down to the harbour markets, passing the Grand Square and the Prophesier’s Guild as it did so.
He ground his fist into his eyes and peered ahead, trying to get his bearings. In the distance he made out the great dome of the guildhall, rising above every other building in the square. The top of the structure had been shorn open. Lightning danced across the jagged edges of the opening and arced upwards into the sky, reaching with forked fingers towards the crystal tower emerging many thousands of feet overhead.
‘Kryn’s already at work,’ growled Toll. ‘We’re running out of time.’
From the summit of the Prophesier’s Guild, Ortam Vermyre could see the banners of the Iron Bulls coming ever closer. A regiment of middling reputation, as far as he could recall. Still, this was far from ideal.
‘They regroup quickly,’ he said. ‘Far more quickly than we anticipated.’
He had hoped that the confusion and distrust his agents had sown throughout the city would prevent the Firewolves and the Iron Bulls from responding until his full force was on the field. The Coldguard, of course, were as good as his. The few known loyalists within their ranks would have been purged as soon as the regiment took to the field, as per his instructions. That purge would continue with the Firewolves, who would be surrounded and slaughtered by the Coldguard as soon as they set foot out of their bastion. They would not even know their doom until their own allies opened fire. But he was not pleased to see the Iron Bulls muster so quickly. He had hoped that General Synor’s regiment would be bogged down in fighting through the streets. The Iron Bulls were a pious and obstinate bunch of zealots that he had never successfully infiltrated beyond a few eyes and ears in the ranks. The speed at which they had assembled about the guildhall was certainly an unpleasant surprise. That would not save them from the forces at his disposal, of course, but it was still a complication that he could have done without.
‘Let them march,’ came Kryn’s death rattle of a voice, rife with a surge of excitement that to Vermyre’s ears made him sound even more hideous than usual. The mage paced around the great occulum fulgurest, a heavy tome clutched in his claw-like hands. The machine was raised on a bronze-cast walkway suspended on mighty chains high above the auction hall that spread out beneath them, connected by a bewilderingly intricate array of binding pipework that led far above them to the ceiling, and trailed far below to the three great crystal jars in which the swirling mists of fate siphoned from the Spear of Mallus were contained. These containers loomed over the empty space of the great hall, secured behind a heavy fence of copper bars that reached some twenty feet into the air. In front of this were seven raised and heavily secured vendor booths, nothing less than blocky, armoured bunkers with viewing ports and a bolted access tube.
They took security seriously at the Prophesier’s Guild. Or at least they had, until Vermyre had murdered those guild members loyal to the city, and replaced them with his ow
n men.
The High Arbiter was distracted once more by Kryn’s wheezing laughter. The old wretch was giddy at the prospect of unleashing his magic on the city, and earning the favour of his dark liege. Sparks and fleeting symbols danced from his fingers as he enacted another spell, binding the whirring occulum to his will. His servants, towering metal automatons of brass with faces carved in the likeness of hunting falcons, strode about the device and its crown of pipework, rearranging the machinery to the wizard’s exact specifications. Kryn cajoled, insulted and bellowed at the golems as if they were clumsy-handed servants, and not mindless metal statues bound together by magic.
Vermyre watched him work. How different things were now. The arrogant wizard had once been a studiously loyal servant of Sigmar. The High Arbiter’s initial attempts to plant the seeds of heresy in Kryn’s mind had been furiously, violently rebuffed. He had lost a whole cadre of trusted agents, burned to cinders in the fury of the wizard’s rage. But Vermyre was not a man to give up easily. It had taken him several long, hard years of work. The right tomes, planted where Kryn would happen upon them. Some political manoeuvres, denying him the unrestricted access to the Spear of Mallus he so craved. Hundreds, thousands of other subtle machinations, all designed to massage the old wretch’s pride and erode his loyalties. All had led to this moment. Yet everything might be for naught if the ancient, addled mage was not given the time to work his magics.
‘Don’t look so worried, Vermyre. You think a few thousand witless thugs can stop what is happening?’ laughed Kryn. ‘They will burn. Look above us! Our moment is here. The city will burn, and almighty Tzeentch will have his bounty.’
Vermyre glanced upwards at the tortured sky, visible through the circular, stained glass windows far above. The crystal tower inched ever closer into the realm, a knife hovering above the heart of the city. Already the servants of the Lord of Sorcery were pouring down upon Excelsis, eager to tear down this blasphemous illusion of order and control. Once the fortress in the sky had fully emerged, the armies at his disposal would be beyond count. Beyond even the ability of the errant Stormcast hosts to turn aside. The realm of Chaos would spill across the Coast of Tusks, and the process of siphoning the secrets and prophecies of the Spear of Mallus could begin. What could be more tempting to a god of fate than such a prize? The citizenry would be fed to the skyspawn builder-organisms, becoming raw matter, moulded into new towers, arches and spires. When the Stormcasts returned to Excelsis, they would find it a fortress of roiling transmutative magic. And as with all the others, they would burn in the fires of change.