Then they wrenched on the reins of their mounts, and raced off back the way they had come, leaving a trail of dust and shattered stone in their wake.
Chapter Four
Iron Tide
‘Lord Thostos,’ said Alzheer, running after the Stormcast as he made his way across to the realmgate. ‘I would ask a favour of you.’
He turned, and looked at her. To her surprise he gave her a quick salute, beating one gauntlet upon that fabulous gilded chestplate. She still did not understand how it had been repaired so thoroughly. The Lord-Celestant had been a half-melted ruin before the coming of the storm, and the renewing light. Alzheer’s faith had always been strong, but it had never blazed brighter than when the lightning cleared and she saw Thostos stand, restored and defiant.
‘I am aware of what you did upon the tower, priestess. Your bravery saved my life. You have my thanks.’ He paused. ‘If what you request is within my power to grant, I will do so.’
‘I aim to hunt the traitor Rusik down,’ she said. Even saying his name filled her with bile. ‘He must die for what he has done.’
‘And you wish me to provide you with a cadre of warriors,’ said Thostos, understanding immediately. ‘I am sorry, priestess, that is not something I can allow. Our mission is only just beginning, and I cannot afford to spare a single one.’
Her heart sank, but she would not give in that easily.
‘I heard what you said at the Manticore Gate,’ she continued. ‘That portal will take time for your people to restore. In the meantime, the cave systems that open out into the back of this fortress remain vulnerable. If the enemy stages a counter-attack, they could tear into your force before you know they are upon you.’
Thostos considered this.
‘It is a potential weakness,’ he admitted. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘Lend me just six of your warriors,’ she said. ‘They will join the thirty fighters I still command. My people are fine trackers. We will find Rusik and whoever else managed to escape with him, and we will make sure they do not pose a threat to you any longer.’
‘I can afford to give you three,’ said Thostos. ‘I will not risk my mission and the coherence of my fighting force by offering any more than that.’
Alzheer considered this. ‘Three men will do,’ she said. ‘A small force will be able to move more quickly through the tunnels. Thank you, Lord.’
‘Thank me by bringing my warriors back in short order, priestess,’ said the Lord-Celestant. ‘By rights I should not grant your request, but you have aided me and my men well and deserve your chance at vengeance.’
He glanced across the courtyard, which was carpeted with enemy dead.
‘And if there is one thing the Celestial Vindicators understand, priestess, it is vengeance.’
Lord-Castellant Eldroc led the detachment of Celestial Vindicators that were tasked with disposing of the corpses left in the Manticore Dreadhold’s main courtyard. In places the piles were knee-deep. It had been an inglorious slaughter at the end, when the ranks of blood-starved warriors had finally begun to break and flee. No Celestial Vindicator had given the foe a moment of mercy. They were tainted. They were traitors. There was no question of quarter. The men had killed with a song and a smile upon their lips.
Perhaps the Hallowed Knights would shake their heads at such joyous slaughter. Perhaps the Hammers of Sigmar would see it as beneath them. So be it. Let their brother Stormhosts be the proud and noble warriors. The Celestial Vindicators would fight as they had always done – with the fire of vengeance burning in their hearts.
Lord-Celestant Thostos approached.
‘A fine tally,’ said Eldroc. ‘Many have been avenged this day.’
‘This is but a taste of what awaits us,’ Thostos replied. ‘But yes, it will do for the moment.’
The Lord-Castellant studied his friend. It was hard to describe the exact difference in the Bladestorm’s mien, but something had certainly changed. He remained reserved and distant, but where previously being around the man had made one feel awkward and uncomfortable, as if he radiated a cloying sense of unease, now there was simply a quiet intensity.
‘What happened on that tower, Thostos?’ asked Eldroc.
His friend did not answer for a long while.
‘Truly, I do not remember,’ he said at last. ‘Sigmar reached out to me, that much is clear. I was broken, defeated. He restored me. The rest is but a fragment of a dream. Images, emotions.’
He shook his head. There was an element of frustration in that movement, but also, it seemed to Eldroc, an acceptance.
‘I have never heard of such a thing, of the storm of Azyrheim reaching out to restore a warrior in the midst of battle,’ said the Lord-Castellant.
‘Nor I,’ said Thostos. ‘Yet you saw how the retrieval of Ghal Maraz ignited the fire within the God-King. Do any of us truly know the limits of his power, especially now that he is reunited with that marvellous weapon? Whatever the storm revealed to me was lost in moments,’ Thostos continued, ‘but the echo of it remains. I do not remember the life I have lost, but I recall the vows that I made. That we all made. If this is now what I am, the fury of those oaths wrought in sigmarite and unleashed to destroy the taint of Chaos wherever it may be found, then I embrace it.’
Eldroc opened his mouth to say something, but Thostos raised a hand to cut him off.
‘We will speak of this again, but not now,’ he said. ‘Lord-Relictor Tharros requires our presence at the realmgate. We still have a mission to complete.’
The Manticore Realmgate no longer spewed out tendrils of eldritch fire, but it still resonated with ill intent. The monstrous carving that topped the archway of rune-carved black stone glared down at the Stormcasts, its leonine head promising obliteration to anyone who dared trespass upon its territory. Lord-Celestant Mykos Argellon made the mistake of staring too long at the symbols carved into the unyielding stone of the structure, and immediately regretted doing so. His head ached, and sour bile filled his mouth.
‘We must pass through this gate,’ said Thostos. He could see that no one present relished the prospect. ‘You all know the part we have to play in Sigmar’s grand plan. Our task was to secure this path to the mustering point, where we shall join a host the like of which the realms have never seen. The God-King aims to bring the war to the Everchosen’s doorstep, but unless every piece is on the board at the allotted time, that cannot happen.’
‘The Allpoints must fall,’ said Eldroc, softly.
The Allpoints. The nexus through which was linked every single Realmgate. An island adrift, set apart from the Mortal Realms yet intrinsically linked to them through its web of eldritch passageways. As long as the forces of Chaos controlled the mighty fortresses that guarded these portals, the enemy’s great armies of daemons and dark warriors could be sent forth anywhere in the realms to burn and despoil.
‘It must,’ agreed Thostos. ‘But first we must shatter the formidable defences that guard it. That is our task, and the Manticore Realmgate will lead us to the Crystal Forest of Chamon, and to the next stage of the war.’
‘These gates – the magic that binds them is strong but easily warped,’ said Lord-Relictor Tharros Soulwarden, leaning on the ornate staff that was his mark of office. ‘The fell powers can easily twist them to their purpose, redirecting and refocusing the latent energy to their own dark ends.’
‘We had actually noticed that,’ said Evios Goldfeather. The Prosecutor-Prime was perched on a rock cluster slightly above the ancient structure, staring grimly down.
‘Don’t interrupt,’ snapped Tharros. ‘My point is that we cannot trust that this portal will not drop us in a lake of fire, or a pit of blood demons. Throne of Azyrheim, we could even end up in the court of the Blood God.’
The realmgate stood at the rear of the fortress courtyard, on a raised platform built against the great mo
untain wall. Around it was a cluster of jagged rocks, and to each side of the stone-carved dais were tunnels that led deeper into the mountains. To hold this position, one needed to control both the fortress and the gate. At any moment, they all knew, fresh reinforcements could come pouring through this portal to smash into their exposed flank.
‘How long will it take for you to purge the taint, Lord-Relictor?’ asked Thostos.
‘How long will it take me to restore this realmgate to its original state? How long will it take a man to unravel the dark enchantments and twisted blood rituals that have fed this thing for centuries upon centuries?’
Tharros tapped his fingers rhythmically on the metal of his staff.
‘Somewhere between half a day and a hundred years,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll have no idea until I begin, and once I commit to this…’
Thostos nodded. ‘Begin, Lord-Relictor. If we do not pass through this gate, our mission is forfeit regardless. Eldroc, how goes the refortification?’
‘Our assault kept the fortress largely intact, aside from the main gate,’ said the Lord-Castellant. ‘I have ordered the breach secured with caltrops and spiked wolf holes using iron taken from the ramparts. We do not have time to repair the gate entirely, but if we are attacked, forcing an entrance will cost the enemy dearly.’
‘Good,’ said Thostos. ‘I will not trust to luck that our engagement with the Chaos scum went unnoticed. The orruks are too close, and there is every chance they heard the sounds of battle, or saw the sky darken with sorcery. You do not need me to tell you your business, Lord-Castellant. Make this place as secure as possible.’
Eldroc struck a fist to his chest in salute, and turned to make his way back to the wall, Redbeak loping along at his heel.
Tharros rested his chin in the crook of his hand. Wisps of celestial light coalesced around the haft of his relic-staff, and he reached one gauntlet out towards the burning portal.
‘This is a stubborn, defiant old thing,’ he spat, through gritted teeth.
‘If that’s the case, I feel it may have met its match at last,’ said Goldfeather. He had removed his helm, and a slight smile was visible on his angular features.
‘Pray find something to keep yourself occupied, Prosecutor-Prime,’ said the Lord-Relictor. ‘I require concentration, and must be free from the jabbering of pompous buzzards.’
Xos’Phet howled and wailed and spat as he was carried deeper into the gloom of the caverns, the volume of his screeching growing louder every time the gorepriests that carried him stumbled over another rock formation or a cluster of the great conical fungi that grew throughout the tunnels.
He fumbled at his side, underneath the stinking rags that now enveloped his bleeding form, and as his fingers touched the wound that the savage had left in his flesh he gave another yelp of pain.
‘Watch where you step, you brainless fools,’ he snapped, though conversing with the creatures at all was largely pointless.
The first of them had been accomplices of his, those he had consulted with now and then on the various intricacies of blood magic. There had been a reasonable level of collaborative progress for a while, but as always happened in the sorcerer’s experience, their professional partnership had eventually become strained. They had made the unforgivable error of disagreeing with him on several key theoretical points. He had removed their troubling capacity for reason and defiance along with their eyes and their tongues. Over the years he had added to his collection, until he had quite the retinue of mute, compliant slaves that were little more than husks, bound to his will.
Clumsy, stupid, inconsiderate husks who were going to be the death of him.
‘How did it come to this?’ he moaned, as his bearers splashed through the freezing waters of an underground stream, which sent ripples of silver, phosphorescent light playing across the stone walls.
He had been so close. So damnably close. The ritual had worked, and he had been mere moments away from summoning a horde of screaming neverborn into being, and into his service.
‘That fool Varash, how I would have savoured the look on his face when I ordered my army to tear him and his men limb from limb,’ he said. ‘Yet the dullard could not even hold a few overzealous warriors at bay.’
Xos’Phet was dimly aware of just how much blood poured from his stab wound. He was also beginning to feel light-headed and weightless, as if he had just drunk a bottle of duardin fire-ale after a week without water. If he did not make it to his sanctum soon, he would die. The thought terrified him. There was so much left to do, so many secrets on the verge of being uncovered.
The gorepriests rounded a corner, and the wall to their left simply fell away. The cavern they had entered was enormous, so wide and high that it could have housed the Dreadhold itself with room to spare. The path they travelled narrowed, and hugged the right-hand side of this enormous chamber, winding up towards the far wall. They were halfway across the chamber, so close to the safety of Xos’Phet’s subterranean sanctuary, when the gorepriest carrying him staggered to a halt.
‘Did I order you to stop?’ shrieked the sorcerer, flailing weakly at his servant with one pallid hand.
The creature took one step forwards, and then toppled to the floor. The other gorepriest just above managed to keep its burden upright, but then a blade flashed in from the shadows, and its throat sprayed dark, clotted blood. Xos’Phet rolled onto the hard floor of the cavern with a yelp, and saw more blood spray as a wiry, thin man with a dirty beard and the rags of a plains-dwelling savage knelt over his servant, hacking and slashing with maniacal intensity.
Had he been his normal self, Xos’Phet would have slain the man in an instant. Perhaps with a single sheet of magical flame, or a sizzling bolt of acid. As it was, he could barely concentrate enough through the blur of pain to raise his hands in a futile gesture of surrender before the attacker was upon him.
Wild, frenzied eyes. Dried blood staining a narrow, angular face with dark, sun-baked skin. And, most importantly, a wicked curved blade in hand that was currently cutting into his tender neck.
‘Wait,’ he gasped. ‘The plains rider. Rusik.’
His captor growled, and the sword dug a little deeper. Xos’Phet summoned every ounce of his self-control, and whispered an arcane phrase while weaving a complex pattern with his free hand.
He gestured, an open-palmed push, and his assailant flew to crash into the wall of the cavern with a bone-shaking thud. The man slid to the floor and rolled, coming to a rest only an inch from the lip of the abyss.
Xos’Phet clambered to his feet, still holding his hand out, locking the man in place. Rusik roared and strained, but could not break free of the binding spell.
‘I should cut your heart out,’ the sorcerer spat. ‘Filthy savage, daring to attack me. After all I have done for you.’
Rusik shouted something unintelligible, and spat at him.
‘I should,’ Xos’Phet continued, ‘but given our current situation, I may require your assistance. Those warriors in turquoise, they think us defeated. That wretched woman thinks she has slain me, but Xos’Phet the Eternal does not pass so easily.’
The warrior continued to grunt and snarl. Xos’Phet sighed. It had been an easy thing, to play upon this one’s guilt and shame, but the trouble with tempting a man into sacrificing his soul to the Dark Gods was that they tended to take the whole thing very seriously.
‘You want revenge, don’t you?’ he said, staring into the man’s haunted eyes. ‘I can give you that. I can give you the slaughter you desire, that and so much more.’
He stepped closer. The man’s dark eyes had gone strangely still, as if he had slipped into a trance.
‘Would you like that, Rusik?’ he whispered. ‘To have your revenge on those that have wronged you? To have power, true power?’
The warrior’s eyes flashed, and he broke from Xos’Phet’s hold for
just a moment, swiping his curved blade up at an awkward angle, trying to slash the sorcerer’s throat. Xos’Phet skittered backwards, laughing.
‘Oh, very close,’ he laughed. ‘You almost had me fooled. In truth, however, it does not matter if you want this or not. I have great plans for you, my savage friend.’
He stepped to the body of one of his gorepriests and knelt to run his fingers through the thing’s belt. He found the knife, and turned back to his prisoner.
‘I mean to make you useful to me regardless,’ he said.
‘Something is wrong,’ said Thostos.
They had been watching the Lord-Relictor weaving his spells upon the gate for over an hour, and for the majority of that time he had been as still as stone, only the sonorous muttering that came from deep in his throat any indication that he was at work. Now he was twitching, jerking as if wracked by lightning. Gone was the calm authority of his magic. His face was masked by the grinning skull that all Lord-Relictors wore, but Thostos could see the tightness of his posture and the shudder that ran through his frame.
‘The gate,’ gasped Mykos.
The harsh but pure light that poured into the Manticore Realmgate began to darken and twist, turning to thick red veins of spiralling, crackling energy that pushed back at Tharros’ storm magic. The Lord-Relictor set his feet and leaned into the onslaught, but it did not cease. The surface of the realmgate began to boil and surge, and a choir of sibilant whispers echoed around the fortress.
A grasping, red-scaled limb reached through the membrane of the portal.
‘Shield!’ shouted Mykos. ‘Raise your blades.’
They belched forth from one reality into another, spewing into the mortal realm with eager hunger and the thunder of brimstone fire. They were slaughter given flesh, the psychic resonance of the violence and fury of battle condensed into a brutal physical form. Their flesh was the deep red of a sword wound, corded with powerful muscles and branded with runes of loyalty to their dread master. Sharp tongues hung over wicked, finger-length teeth, drooling acidic spittle that hissed as it dropped onto the hard stone floor. Great, curving horns capped their heads, wound with brass rings and capped with bronze. Each carried a wicked sword of unique design. Some writhed like snakes in their wielder’s hands. Others bore eyes that blinked obscenely as the blade swept through the air, or blue-red veins that pulsed with blood.
Bladestorm Page 12