‘Back!’ shouted Steelhide. ‘The ground gives way!’
The chimera leapt from its perch, and as it did so great chunks of stone-coral began to fall, toppling the several hundred yards to the floor below. As one, the Stormcasts fell back, scrambling to safety as the platform disintegrated.
Only Thostos ran on. To fall back now would leave the sorcerer and the Knight-Azyros, who must be held nearby, out of reach. The Lord-Celestant ignored the cries of his warriors and the furious heat of the bubbling stone beneath him as he rushed forwards, leaping between falling sections of stone. Before him the curving path that led to the summit collapsed, leaving a chasm of several feet in its wake. He did not stop his charge. He leapt into empty air, grasping for the far edge. He slammed into it with astonishing force, striking the ledge with his chest, feeling the air rush from his lungs. With a fierce effort he swung one leg up over the side, rolling onto the safety of the platform.
He saw the war party below, continuing to send a torrent of bolts and arrows up towards the roof of the tower. As he watched, the chimera opened its wings and dived down at them once more. Gritting his teeth, Thostos dragged himself to his feet.
‘Very impressive, my friend,’ came a voice from above. ‘I admit, I was hoping I would have you all to myself.’
Ahead, the horned warrior floated on his disc of metal, burning glaive held easily in one hand. The platform at the summit was wide and open, circling around the colossal structure of the hanging orb. The air was thick with the stench of magic, but Thostos could see no sign of the Knight-Azyros.
He drew his hammer and sword, and strode forwards.
‘First you die,’ he said, aiming his runeblade at his opponent. ‘Then I find my messenger. Then I shatter this tower around your twitching corpse.’
‘Kill the flame-breather,’ shouted Prosecutor Zannus, calling another hammer to his hand. He hurled the weapon, and there was an explosion of purple blood and green scales as it struck the beast upon the neck. The chimera screeched in rage and beat its wings furiously, hauling its bulky form into the air once more. As it did so, it kicked against the guardrail with its powerful hind legs, launching itself across the central chasm with shocking speed.
‘Brother!’ shouted Atrin, but it was already too late.
Zannus’ eyes went wide and he tried to lift himself out of the way, but there was no time. The chimera barrelled into him, and its bird-like head snapped out to clamp down upon the Stormcast’s radiant wings. The beast hurtled across the gap and into the far wall, crushing Zannus against the hard coral, which crumbled and split under the weight of the collision. When the creature turned, the Prosecutor’s corpse was nowhere to be seen. Another warrior recalled to the halls of Reforging.
‘We have to take that thing down,’ said Atrin, taking aim and sending a sigmarite bolt whistling into the creature’s back.
‘You think so, brother?’ shouted Liberator Pollux, with mock incredulity. ‘Its hide is thicker than your skull.’
As he spoke, the creature whirled again, leathery wings beating furiously as it circled the walkway, strafing them with another gout of flame. Stone-coral melted away beneath their feet, and Atrin rolled aside just in time as the guardrail upon which he was leaning crumbled and fell down the central chasm, shattering into a thousand pieces on the floor, far below.
It was then that Judicator Atrin did something very foolish indeed. He drew his gladius and took a step backwards, waiting on the precipice of the disintegrating balcony until the chimera swooped past once more, and then leapt into the empty air.
He slammed into the beast’s flank with jarring force, sliding down its tough and leathery skin until he stabbed the gladius deep into its flesh. The chimera screamed and dipped its wings to throw him off. Straining with effort, he managed to lock his legs around its lower back, feeling a stab of agony as one of the barbed spikes that ran down its back sank into the flesh of his leg. The chimera wheeled lower, dragged down by the weight of the Judicator. Atrin yanked the gladius free and sunk it in again, feeling hot blood seep across his armour. He glanced below, saw the edge of a lower gallery rushing towards him, and tried to roll up and onto the beast’s back before the impact crushed him. He made it just in time, felt the hard stone rush past his cheek.
Something struck him in the neck, and clamped on hard. He glanced back, groaning as the armour at his shoulder crumpled and crushed his flesh. It was the monster’s tail, tipped with the head of yet another beast, a smaller version of the great draconic maw. Its jagged teeth clamped down and the tail flexed back, trying to drag him free. He swept the gladius over his shoulder, felt it hack deep into the flesh of the tail. He was so near to falling now, and the world was a dizzying blur as the chimera spiralled lower and lower, three heads screeching horribly.
With a final slice he hacked through the tail, leaving the head clamped mercilessly to his shoulder. He grabbed a tail spike to steady himself, hauled himself forwards, and drove his gladius deep into the chimera’s neck, feeling the wicked blade slice through meat and carve deep into bone. Another howl of pain, so high-pitched he felt his eardrums throb in protest. As he and the dying creature tumbled and spun in the air, he glimpsed the floor of the tower, only a few paces away and rushing up at him with horrifying speed.
He closed his eyes and waited for the impact.
The glaive came forwards, viper-quick, carving a glaring line of flame through the air as it did. Thostos swayed back, let the weapon sail past an inch from his chest, and made to return the strike with one of his own.
The disc upon which Lorchis stood hurtled towards him. The wicked teeth upon its edge crashed into his shoulder, and he was knocked to the floor. The Chaos warrior continued to soar into the air, laughing.
‘This stubbornness, it is all so pointless,’ said Lorchis, as the Lord-Celestant hauled himself upright. ‘The Lord of Change sees all, insignificant one. You truly believe you can fight that which is infinite and all-knowing? Your defiance does not shock us, warrior of justice. It does not take us unaware. It is but the latest act of futility in a cycle that has spun on for eternity. You will fall. Your kind always does.’
‘He told you nothing,’ Thostos said, his voice cold, even and utterly assured.
Lorchis stiffened in anger, and when he spoke again his tone had lost its teasing quality.
‘You cannot take a sword to fate itself, you fool,’ he spat. ‘You cannot fight that which has already been decided.’
‘We can. We have. Now cease your prattle, and meet your death.’
With a roar, the warrior came at him. The disc rushed forwards, towards the Lord-Celestant’s chest. The burning glaive sliced through the air, spitting flame. Thostos went down low, feeling the heat of his enemy’s weapon scorch the air above his head. Lorchis sent the disc into a spin, the blades cutting through the air at furious speed as the strange device descended. Thostos darted aside, searching for an opening as he went.
His opponent was skilled. He used the disc’s wicked blades to keep the Lord-Celestant at bay, and even when Thostos managed to get inside that guard, the Chaos champion’s fine buckler snapped across to deflect the strike.
Lorchis came forwards again, glaive leading. It scraped across the Lord-Celestant’s pauldron as he dodged to the side, and the sigmarite bubbled where its flaming edge touched the metal. The disc whipped past Thostos, and one of the hooked blades sank deep into his chest plate. Metal pushed painfully against his ribs, and suddenly he was hurtling through the air, dragged along with the strange device. Lorchis laughed, a shrill, joyless sound, and sank the flaming glaive into Thostos’ shoulder. The white-hot edge of the weapon tore through his fine armour, and the Lord-Celestant felt bone shatter. Then the glaive struck him again, this time just under the throat. The strength of the blow levered him free of the disc’s protruding blade, and he found himself falling. His skin cooked and peeled, and he grun
ted in pain as melted sigmarite seared its way down his chest. He struck the ground hard, rolled and cracked his skull against the wall of the tower.
Lorchis descended from above, still chuckling to himself.
‘Oh, it has been a long time since I have fought such a battle,’ he said, and dipped his horned helm towards Thostos in a mock bow. ‘Most enjoyable. I will come to value your company, I think, over the long years. So many secrets to discover.’
He peered at the Lord-Celestant, and inched closer.
‘That is considering that I have not already killed you, of course,’ he muttered. ‘Your kind is stubborn, redoubtable even. Yet even the greatest of us have our breaking point, do we not? Just look to your winged friend for proof of that.’
Cold anger flowed into Thostos, an icy torrent of vengeful fury that swept away his pain and his exhaustion. The agony that lanced through his chest and burned flesh faded to irrelevance. Only vengeance remained. Pure and honest vengeance, a link to the man he had once been. Perhaps the only link that yet endured.
He stood, and one hand reached up to wrench free his helm. The metal clattered to the floor, and Lorchis flinched as he saw the twin pits of blue fire that burned within the Lord-Celestant’s pitiless death mask of a face. There was no mercy in that gaze. It promised only a swift and painful death.
‘I am Sigmar’s wrath made manifest,’ Thostos growled, feeling the truth, the power in the words as he spoke them. ‘I am the hammer of retribution. I bring the God-King’s justice for every life you have taken in service to darkness.’
Lorchis spat a curse, and sent his disc streaking towards the Lord-Celestant, his glaive held ready like a tourney lance.
An eye-blink before the glaive spitted him, Thostos ducked to the side, feeling the rush of air as the disc’s ravenous blades whistled past his head. He dropped to one knee and spun, sweeping his cloak out wide as he did so and muttering the arcane phrase that activated the garment’s dormant magic. The cloud of glittering hammers burst forth from the ornamentations at the hem of the cloak. Lorchis was turning to get the disc back in line for another charge as each missile slammed home, blasting him from his perch. The spinning contraption whirled away, smashing into the hanging orb. Sparks and shards flew as the blades hewed into the crystal and skipped away. The fallen Chaos lord dragged himself upright, but Thostos was already upon him, striking relentlessly with hammer and runeblade.
Lorchis blocked the hammer, and Thostos ignored the flash of pain as the flames washed across his gauntlet. The runeblade struck home, gouging into the Chaos champion’s ornate armour. Lorchis howled in pain, and stumbled backwards. He sliced his glaive out, and the weapon carved another deep line across the Lord-Celestant’s chest. Thostos barely felt the blow.
‘You… you cannot win,’ the lord of the tower wheezed. ‘Even if I fall here…’
‘Others will take your place. And they too will die,’ said Thostos.
He came forwards fast, raining blows from his dual weapons. His opponent was skilled. The glaive snapped back and forth, picking off the Lord-Celestant’s attacks and even scoring a couple of glancing blows as Lorchis whipped it back and forth with impressive speed. Yet Thostos did not relent. He pushed forwards, battering away at Lorchis with no pause until the wall was at the mortal’s back. He hammered the glaive out wide, and before his enemy could bring it back to block, he sliced out with a diagonal cut of his runeblade. The blow severed Lorchis’ arm at the elbow, and he collapsed to the floor, grasping the bleeding stump. Thostos put the edge of his blade to Lorchis’ throat.
‘Where is he?’ he growled. ‘Where is the prisoner you found out in the forest? The angel.’
‘Well fought,’ panted the warrior, holding up his good hand in a gesture of surrender. ‘You have skill and fury in you. Too much for me. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you have the strength to unweave the great tapestry.’
Thostos paused. There was something in the man’s voice, some remnant of satisfaction. From a distance he heard a whistling sound, as if something was whipping through the air at an incredible speed.
Instinct took over. The Lord-Celestant fell to the side, turning as he did so. He saw the sorcerer lord’s metal disk fly through the air, cutting through the spot where he had been standing mere moments before. It carved neatly through Lorchis’ helm, just underneath his eyes. The rest of the Chaos lord’s body toppled over, gore dribbling from the bisected skull.
‘Justice,’ said Thostos, feeling a surge of righteous satisfaction. Yet his fury still simmered. The vermin in this tower still held the Knight-Azyros Capellon, and he would revisit every torment his brother had suffered upon their wretched hides.
The sounds of battle echoed from below, though he could no longer hear the screeching of the dread chimera. Time was running short. Doubtless the enemy was already regrouping, and they did not have the numbers for a protracted battle.
He glanced around the chamber. There was a single grand door, leading out towards a short corridor. Thostos was about to make his way across, when he heard a whisper from behind him.
‘Thostos Bladestorm,’ it said. ‘You seek me, my friend.’
He turned, runeblade raised.
Before him was the surface of the great orb, and within its depths the half-glimpsed faces that screamed and surged. Only one was still. An open, friendly face, now twisted in agony. Though the opaque crystal obscured the man’s features, Thostos recognised him at once.
‘Knight-Azyros Capellon,’ he said, approaching the lip of the summit. Below his feet the central chasm dropped away, many feet to the entrance chamber. ‘I am sorry we did not find you in time.’
‘The face shimmered, and the man gave a pained smile.
‘It was my fault,’ said Capellon. ‘I was careless. I jeopardised everything that Sigmar plans.’
‘No,’ said Thostos. ‘You did not give up your secrets. There is still time. Where do we muster, brother? Where do the forces of Sigmar gather?’
‘You must travel through the forest of crystals, and across the mountains to the north of the realmgate,’ said Capellon. ‘Look for the Nine Anvils, an ancient duardin fortress built into the cliffs. There lies your path. The coastal road is long, and dangerous, but it will lead you to the Silversands, and to the fields where our fellow warriors gather.’
Capellon screamed, and his image warped like a reflection in a rippling pool.
‘Now go!’ he screamed. ‘Before more of the enemy come. You cannot undo what they have done to me, brother. I am dead, and it is only foul sorcery that binds me here to suffer.’
Thostos looked around the floor. Great chains secured the orb to the ceiling, stretching from the top of the crystal to anchor points along the upper wall. They were forged of thick iron, the links as thick as a man’s torso.
‘You have done your duty,’ said the Lord-Celestant. ‘And I will not leave you here.’
For the second time in the last two days, Judicator Atrin awoke blearily to find himself lying broken and battered at the business end of a long fall. He glanced above, and could see the flicker of lightning that marked his fellow Stormcasts’ position. They were making their way down the tower, still exchanging arrows with whatever remained of the structure’s defenders.
Something wet covered his armour, and the ground beneath him was oddly soft. He shook his head, bleary-eyed, and looked down.
Oh yes, he had landed on the chimera.
Somehow he had survived the creature’s dying descent with little more than a few scrapes and bruises. True, every single bone in his entire body seemed to rattle like a bag of dice as he stood, but at least he could support his weight. He stumbled free of what remained of the chimera, and did his best to wipe the spattered remnants from his armour. Then he felt around until he found his gladius, and held it ready. The war party was descending, but they were still under assault. Just about the
last thing Atrin wished to do was haul his battered form up all the way back up the tower, but he could hardly leave his fellows to battle their way down to the ground floor while he rested there.
He was just striding towards the circular walkway when the noise began. It was the sound of a fortress wall collapsing, or the sound of an avalanche crashing down a mountainside – yet oddly resonant. It was coming from far above him.
He glanced up. He could see the colossal orb at the very top of the tower. It seemed to be swaying. A torrent of dust and shattered stone was pouring down from the ceiling. The groaning, grinding sound continued. A chunk of the strange calcified coral almost as large as Atrin smashed to the ground beside him, and the impact sent him sprawling to the side. More rocks fell, and he began to drag himself around the edge of the room, towards the exit. There was one last apocalyptic crash overhead. Atrin glanced up. It almost looked as if the colossal orb was falling towards him, smashing its way down past gallery after gallery, picking up horrific speed as it came.
‘Throne of Sigmar,’ Atrin muttered, realising that the orb was in fact doing exactly that.
The Judicator had no choice but to run. Rocks and fragments of stone-coral exploded around him as he dashed towards the tower entrance. Shrapnel of chipped rock battered against his armour. He was only a few feet from the door when a slab of stone as big as one of Azyrheim’s great glass windows slammed into the floor, mere inches from carving him neatly in two. He staggered back and made the mistake of glancing up again. The gigantic orb was only a few seconds from impact.
With a final, straining effort, Atrin hurtled across the floor and threw himself bodily out of the main door to clatter painfully down the stone steps. There was a horrifying sound of impact, loud enough to send blood pouring from his ears, and then a sharper, higher-pitched noise – the sound of a million glass windows shattering at once. He tucked his arms around his head and lay there as fragments of broken crystal whipped past his prone form. He heard them thudding into the ground, or skipping off the dull metal surface of the mountainside. It was several moments before he dared open his eyes and stand.
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