‘Get back,’ said Atrin, stepping forwards and unleashing a flurry of shots with his crossbow. Each bolt that issued forth crackled with the power of the storm, and the far wall disintegrated as the volley slammed home. Alzheer caught a blur of movement in the strobing light of the cavern as something impossibly fast dived out of the way of the barrage.
‘Did you get him?’ asked Oreus, who had his own bow raised.
Atrin said nothing. He was still scanning the rise, searching for a hint of movement. Something dropped from the far left wall of the cavern. More shapes emerged from the depths of the mushroom field. He held his aim until one passed into the shimmering light. Thin, unnaturally so. Eyes hidden behind a wrap of bloody bandages. Air wheezing from behind a stitched mouth.
Oreus loosed an arrow. It struck the thing in the chest, and an explosion of light blasted the creature backwards.
‘Ambush!’ the Judicator shouted. ‘Ready your blades.’
The mortals were already loosing arrows into the thick of the creatures that rushed at them, but in the darkness and the chaos, few found their mark. Oreus and Atrin continued to shoot, blasting chunks of stone free and shredding the fungi as they hammered the advancing mob. Those that survived the barrage met the hammer of Retributor Callan. He moved the heavy weapon as if it weighed less than a child’s toy, sweeping it from side to side to clear out groups of the creatures, letting his constant momentum add fearsome power to his attacks.
Atrin had no idea where the damned things were coming from, but there appeared to be no end to them. He heard screams from behind and turned to see more of the bandaged creatures hacking and slashing their way into the ranks of the mortal warriors. He tried to aim, but there were simply too many bodies in the way for him to get a clear shot. He slung his crossbow and drew his gladius.
‘Out of the way,’ he yelled, grabbing hold of a tribal warrior and yanking him backwards to safety, trying to get his sigmarite armour in the way of the enemy’s frenzied attacks. To their credit, the mortals had responded well, falling back and forming a defensive circle of blades and spears. Yet from every direction more of the creatures dropped, scrambling through holes in the wall or appearing from behind the great clusters of fungi that spiralled around stalagmites and across the cavern walls.
Atrin grabbed one of the creatures around the throat, stabbed his gladius into its chest and threw the thing away, then landed a punch that snapped another’s jaw with a sickening crunch. He leapt out in front of the mortals, stabbing and slicing with his blade, forcing a breach for them to exploit.
‘Atrin!’ shouted Oreus from behind. ‘More of them come. We will be surrounded.’
He cut another bandaged horror down with a diagonal slash that opened its wrappings from throat to belly, and turned to see Callan almost drowning under the sheer number of hacking, slashing creatures. The Retributor battered away at the swarm, but there were too many of them inside the range of his hammer. Oreus risked shots where he could, blasting several into smoking ruins.
‘Hold them here,’ yelled Atrin, grabbing the shoulder of the nearest mortal. ‘Keep them at bay with your spears.’
With that he rushed to aid his stricken brother, drawing his crossbow once more.
‘Callan, get down,’ he shouted, and the Retributor trusted his comrade’s word instantly, dropping to the floor and shielding himself as the enemy fell with him, dragged down by his weight.
Atrin loosed, sending a volley of deadly projectiles ripping through the ranks of the enemy. Fragments of scorched wrapping and torn flesh splattered the walls of the cave as Oreus added his own missiles to the barrage.
No sooner had Callan staggered to his feet amongst the wreckage of his assailants than something struck Atrin with astonishing force, propelling him across the clearing and into a cluster of rocks, which crumbled under the weight of his armour. He groaned in shock and pain. By the Eight Realms, that one had hurt. Distantly, as if he were underwater, he heard a muffled, high-pitched laughter, and a fell green light doused the walls of the cavern.
Someone was screaming. It was Callan. His armour was on fire, a curtain of searing viridian flame clinging to him even as he rolled on the ground in an attempt to quell it.
‘Brother!’ shouted Oreus, drawing his gladius and barrelling, shoulder down, into the press of bodies, smashing his way through to his fallen comrade.
The Judicator made it a dozen paces before a swirl of purple and yellow motes enveloped him. They looked harmless, but as Atrin watched on helplessly his brother’s armour sloughed away like dust, bursting into the air as if someone had rustled a great field of pollinating flowers. The warrior turned, and looked straight at Atrin, then down at his hands. He did not even scream as his body came apart.
Tharros could feel his skin starting to burn. One did not summon the celestial storm without cost. It was a pure and violent power, wondrous yes, but not something to be taken lightly. Channelling it, shaping it was akin to grasping a burning ember from a roaring fire. Leave your hand in that fire too long, and the flames would begin to consume you.
Yet he could not relent. Daemons still poured through the Manticore Realmgate, and while the Celestial Vindicators were keeping them at bay thus far, they could not hold out forever.
He must end this now.
Tharros released the storm, let it flow through him unrestricted and unconstrained. He focussed only on the realmgate, and the fell magic that was woven into every fragment of its being. It had been crafted by old and powerful means, sorceries and sacrifices that had allowed it to stand for centuries upon centuries in the service of darkness. He saw the history of it, the bloodshed it had sown and the souls it had eagerly devoured. Old heroes had fallen here, their defiance and heroism long forgotten. In the little time that was left to him, Tharros honoured their bravery.
Spirits spiralled around him, singing the same mournful song that haunted his dreams. Every death brought him closer to a reckoning that had been inevitable since he had pledged himself to Sigmar’s service, but there was nothing to be done. His brothers needed him, and he would not let them down.
The storm that enveloped the dread realmgate flared, brighter and stronger than before. Nothing could stand in the light of that power. There was a scream of shearing stone as an arc of lightning slammed into the great manticore statue that stood above the gate. The lion’s head fell free, crushing a hollering daemon beneath it as it crashed to the ground.
Tharros could barely stand now. He felt the exquisite agony as the power he had unleashed devoured him from the inside. Still, he did not relent. Bolt after bolt of aetheric power slammed into the ornate carving of the realmgate. The fell runes and sigils that lined the obsidian archway were burned and scorched away, and as they were cleansed Tharros could hear the terrified, agonised scream of whatever foul consciousness inhabited the monument. It writhed and burned as he did.
He allowed himself a smile.
The Lord-Relictor did not relent, even as the daemons ceased to pour through the portal, and the Vindicators began to break up and slaughter the outnumbered bloodletters that remained.
The green fire had ceased, but Callan lay still. His armour had melted until it was almost unidentifiable, the sigils and symbols of his allegiance now warped and seared.
‘Callan,’ yelled Atrin. ‘You must get up!’
Even as the Judicator spoke, the creatures were upon his brother. They did not attack him with their long knives, but instead wrapped great chains around his arms and legs.
‘Oh, this will be most enlightening,’ came a voice from above. Atrin craned his neck to see a small, pale figure floating in the air, pinched face split by a fierce grin. ‘I will crack him open, and see what you fellows are made of. Are you men under there I wonder? How much pain can you stand before you expire? So many questions.’
Atrin did not bother to respond and simply snapped his
crossbow up to blast the snivelling weakling from the sky.
Something cut deep into his flesh. He gasped and turned, and looked into eyes that burned with a cold and terrible fire. The face they belonged to was mortal, though warped and broken as if something had tried to force its way free from the inside. The skin was stretched taut, split in places to show the flesh beneath. It was the traitor Rusik, or it was something wearing his face as a mask.
Atrin tried to slash his gladius across the thing’s neck, but it slammed a clawed arm into his chest and he crashed to the ground, stunned at the sheer power of the blow.
‘I was so close, so very close to binding my army, to finally having the power necessary to punish those who have wronged me,’ ranted the floating figure. ‘And then you came, and you ruined it all.’
Invisible hands grabbed Atrin and slammed him into the ground again and again.
‘Now I am forced to turn to new avenues of research,’ continued the figure. ‘I will start by taking one of your kind, and tearing them apart until I discover how they work. Perhaps I will discover something useful, perhaps not. Either way it will improve my mood immensely.’
A simple gesture from the sorcerer, and the ground that was supporting the Judicator’s weight turned to sand. He fell, grasping desperately for a handhold. Below him was only darkness. He caught the edge of the abyss and hung there while the immense weight of his armour did its best to dislodge him. The thing that had been Rusik stared down at him with those cold-fire eyes.
‘Unfortunately for you, my friend,’ said the sorcerer, ‘I need only one subject.’
Atrin could hold on no longer. His hands slipped free, and fading laughter followed him into darkness.
‘Lord-Relictor?’ shouted Mykos Argellon, over the thunder of the aetheric storm. ‘Tharros, the daemons are gone.’
The soul guardian knelt as if in prayer, his reliquary staff planted in the earth and his head bowed. Mykos felt a surge of static as he moved close, enough to make him take a backwards step.
‘He cannot hear you, brother,’ said Thostos, sheathing his runeblade and hammer as he approached. ‘He is too deep in concentration. The sheer will that it must take to keep this gate contained, to prevent its energies from being unleashed. Whatever the Chaos filth were doing here, it has awoken some fell presence within this structure.’
He gestured to the Lord-Relictor. ‘Only the strength of one man kept it at bay. Now Tharros Soulwarden ceases defending and launches his own assault. We must hope he still has the strength left to overcome.’
‘It will kill him,’ said Mykos.
‘Perhaps. Even a master of death is not immune to its touch,’ said Thostos. ‘If Tharros falls here, he will do so performing his duty. He could ask for nothing more.’
Around the Lord-Celestants four-score warriors of the Celestial Vindicators were arranging themselves in a tight defensive formation in front of the gate. None of them wished to be caught by surprise again. Thostos turned to oversee the deployment, leaving a complement of Judicators and Liberators to guard the Lord-Relictor and the gate, while the rest of the men continued the business of clearing and refortifying the Dreadhold. The stench of brimstone still lingered in the air, blending with the aura of rotting flesh and stale sweat that permeated the fortress. By Sigmar, Mykos hated this place. It offered nothing but death and misery.
‘He’s a stubborn old creature,’ said Lord-Castellant Eldroc. Mykos had not heard him approach. ‘He won’t give in lightly, believe me.’
‘You know him well,’ said Mykos.
Eldroc chuckled. ‘As well as anyone can know a storm priest. They tend not to be the most companionable sorts.’
‘He does not speak of his position? Of the nature of his magic?’
‘Not a word,’ said Eldroc. ‘Lord-Relictors are the keepers of secrets, my friend. They are the guardians of knowledge lost, and they know things that elsewise only Sigmar is privy to.’
‘I would like to have known him better,’ said Mykos.
‘He is not gone yet. As I say, he’s as stubborn as an ancient dracolith and twice as hard to kill.’
Mykos glanced at his friend. He could not help but suspect that Eldroc was trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.
Liberator Archus hauled the corpse of the bandaged creature over his shoulder, marched over to the makeshift pyre they had built in the centre of the tower, and dumped it into the flames.
‘Sigmar’s blood, the stench of these things,’ he said.
‘This entire place smells wrong,’ said Tyron, dragging two more of the creatures over, leaving a fresh trail of blood across the stone. ‘The Lord-Relictor might say he can purify the realmgate, but there’s no removing the taint from this place.’
Archus looked at the far end of the tower, towards the burned and withered figures still bound to those barbed iron crosses.
‘We should cut those down, whatever they are,’ he said.
‘You’re very welcome to do so, brother. I’ve another five of these delightful things to attend to,’ said Tyron.
Archus sighed, drew his gladius from the sheath on his belt, and strode across to the crucified figures. As he approached he had to wince at the awful smell. It wasn’t just the acrid tang of burned flesh – the stench of loathsome magic clung to each of the desiccated forms, and it made Archus nauseous. This close, it was obvious these things had once been orruks. Cracked, blackened teeth jutted from their thick jaws, and the vaguely porcine outline of their faces was still just about visible.
He lifted his gladius to cut the spiked wire bindings that locked the thing in place.
Behind him, from a great distance, there came a roll of thunder. He turned in surprise. It did not seem the weather for a storm. He cocked an ear. Again the same sound. It wasn’t thunder. It echoed and reverberated, not a single noise but an atonal choir of thousands of voices roaring a single word as one.
‘Wwwaaaaaaaagggghh!’
He spun around, gladius raised.
The three broken creatures that languished upon the cruel spikes of the Dreadhold were not dead. Archus saw the eager madness in their pink, bloodshot eyes. Their mouths were open, and as one they droned the same jarring, cacophonous refrain, a blissful response to the call that echoed from the mouth of Splitskull Pass.
Chapter Five
Battle for Splitskull Pass
Prosecutor-Prime Evios Goldfeather soared high into the air, racing away from the relative safety of the Manticore Dreadhold. Ahead lay the canyon that led out onto the Roaring Plains, a narrow pass bracketed by towering walls of jagged stone. His warriors followed in his wake, storm-forged weapons already summoned to hand, faces grim. They knew what was coming.
They could still hear the sound.
Thousands upon thousands of brutish voices raised in a bestial choir, a savage howl of battle-lust that shook dust from the canyon wall. No small force could make such a sound. This was a war-band. A gathering with nothing but destruction on its mind.
The canyon snaked below them as the Prosecutors flew on. It stretched on for at least a mile and a half, gently curving to the right and left before breaking out of the mountain range and spilling out into the grassland of the great plain. It was here that they found the main complement of the enemy force, and Goldfeather felt his heart sink as he saw just what the Celestial Vindicators now faced.
An army of orruks so vast that it was beyond counting poured into the mouth of the pass, bellowing and roaring with delight as they clattered towards the Dreadhold on stocky, powerful mounts wrapped in crude, yellow-painted armour. The rhythmic thump of war-drums combined with the clatter of the orruks’ mounts was almost deafening. The enormous dust clouds thrown up in the wake of the advance billowed above the canyon.
‘They have a dozen times our number,’ said Galeth, coming to a stop in the air at Goldfeather’s sid
e, ornate wings glittering in the midday sun. ‘Ten thousand at the least.’
‘And cavalry too,’ the Prosecutor-Prime replied. ‘Those creatures they ride are fearsome-looking things.’
‘They’ll be here well before nightfall. We must warn the Lord-Celestants.’
Goldfeather nodded and signalled his men to fall back. He had no idea what the Celestial Vindicators could do to halt this tide of iron and flesh, but whatever it was, it would have to be quick. If this force fell upon the Dreadhold unopposed, the garrison would be quickly overwhelmed. With Lord-Relictor Tharros still in the process of removing the taint from the cursed Manticore Realmgate, they could not give up the fortress.
The Prosecutor-Prime cursed. That meant they would have to meet the orruks in battle, one way or another.
‘Back to the fortress, brother,’ he told Galeth. ‘Let us deliver the good news firsthand.’
Lord-Celestant Mykos Argellon had not expected pleasant tidings from the Prosecutors’ return, but the news that the entire orruk camp had been mobilised against them was still a sobering revelation. The Argellonites and Bladestorm Warrior Chambers of the Celestial Vindicators had already been battered and bloodied by the myriad dangers of the Roaring Plains, and though even a battle-worn army of Stormcast Eternals was a dangerous proposition for any foe, engaging the orruks was not the task given to them by the God-King. That objective lay through the Manticore Realmgate, in a distant corner of the Mortal Realms.
‘Ten thousand,’ muttered the Lord-Castellant Eldroc, shaking his head. ‘And several thousand of those mounted on war-beasts. The Dreadhold offers us a strong defence, but not against such numbers.’
Mykos’ fellow Lord-Celestant Thostos Bladestorm stared off into the distance, showing no apparent sign of concern.
‘We cannot allow them to breach the walls,’ he said at last. ‘The Lord-Relictor still works his magic. Until he has completed his incantations, the Manticore Realmgate is closed to us.’
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