Archaon: Everchosen

by Rob Sanders

  Something about Kastner amused the preceptor. Perhaps it was the knight’s grim jest or his filthy attire, bereft of plate. It could simply have been the appalling odds. Nodding, Riesenweiler ordered his remaining templars to similarly surround Kastner and his steed. Oberon snorted and stamped as the Knights of the Fiery Heart formed a circle about him.

  ‘Sieur Kastner – Diederick Kastner of the Gruber Marches,’ Riesenweiler announced. ‘By the order of the Hedrich Lutzenschlager – Grand Theogonist and Sigmar’s Will in this world – you are charged with perfidy, wanton bloodshed, bringing terror to this land, the breach of your holy faith, consort with heretics and the worship of outlawed gods.

  ‘Outrageous!’ Dagobert said getting to his feet, but the knight standing over him put him back down with another haft-slug to the gut.

  ‘Your crimes have been weighed and measured,’ Riesenweiler said, ‘and your punishment devised. That punishment is death, sir. I have taken the liberty of informing your chapter master and claiming your ancestral lands.’

  ‘Kind of you,’ Kastner called, ‘but you are mistaken – as the God-King is my witness.’

  ‘And yet Sigmar stands as witness against you,’ the preceptor replied, ‘speaking through my master of your renouncement of his following and your service to the Ruinous Powers.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it matters that I have done none of those things.’

  ‘You will,’ Riesenweiler told him coldly. Kastner’s lip curled into a snarl. It did not matter. This was no mistake. Some great betrayal had been fabricated and his life and work offered as a solution to some unknown problem. If the God-King had a failing, it was that he entrusted his Empire to sycophants and parasites that would pervert his cult for their own ends. Most who served in the ranks of his priesthood or martial orders knew this – believing that they might still do some small good in his name despite their suspicion that the leaders of his faith had lost their way. This was no mistake. The Grand Theogonist would not have sent twenty of his best templars out into the provinces with such specific accusations and orders as part of a misunderstanding. This was real and it was happening now. Kastner felt the careful life of advancement and devotion unravel about him. He had fooled himself into thinking that his next action would have great meaning and would change the direction of his life. The truth he admitted to himself was that his life had already turned a corner. There was nothing left to do but accept his fate.

  ‘I will…’

  ‘You will,’ Riesenweiler repeated. Kastner lowered Terminus and pointed the tip of the broad blade at the Knight of the Fiery Heart.

  ‘Wanton bloodshed I might grant you, preceptor,’ Kastner growled.

  ‘No,’ Dagobert bawled from the ground. ‘Diederick, don’t. This is madness – the servants of Sigmar set against one another.’

  ‘Diederick Kastner is no servant of Sigmar,’ Riesenweiler seethed. ‘Brotherhood! Do your duty.’

  ‘No,’ Dagobert roared. ‘Desist in this insanity. We demand audience with the Grand Theogonist. We demand to hear this from him. We demand to hear his reasons.’

  But the preceptor had done with the priest. He had heard the order from Lutzenschlager’s own lips. ‘The man Diederick Kastner must die…’

  When Riesenweiler had proposed taking five knights, Lutzenschlager had said, ‘Take twenty and see that it is done.’ When Riesenweiler protested the number, the Grand Theogonist had told him, ‘This man is cursed by the Dark Gods with a future of doom and damnation. A future that must be denied, for our sake as well as his own. Sigmar has granted us the opportunity to do that. He has entrusted me with this task and now I entrust you. Take twenty of your knights and end this enemy of the Empire. No life your holy weapons have taken has ever been more deserving.’

  ‘Do your duty!’ Riesenweiler commanded.

  The knights moved in with their hammers, the dismal daylight reflecting off their immaculate plate. Kastner felt the pain in his eye intensify. The crackling torment felt its way through his mind like lightning searing between a thunderhead and the ground. With every snap of pain, the templar’s face contorted. In the blinding after-agony of each mind-cleaving crack, he saw the bodies of brother templars cut down in the courtyard. The blood-splashed silver of their plate. Crowned helms, rolling about the cobbles with the decapitated heads of knights within. The blessed soldiers of Sigmar laid low.

  ‘I will not be a slave to the perversity of these events any longer,’ the templar told all. ‘Servants of the Dark Gods or the servants of Sigmar – you all seem lost to me. I will not offer up my life in the name of such madness.’

  ‘Diederick, no!’

  But it was already done. The decision was made. With it came peace. With it came – for that moment at least – a mind free from soul-crippling pain. Oberon reared. Kastner lifted Terminus for a killing stroke. His first victim came in, his hammer swing drilled and predictable. Kastner would make him pay for the insult of such a routine manoeuvre. To think that Diederick Kastner could be felled by such lack of imagination. At least the forest creatures and the marauders of the north hit you with everything they had. All their skill, their passion, their blood-thirsty invention. Sigmar’s knight would die for his presumption.

  Suddenly there was movement.

  It caught Kastner’s attention, as it did his opponent – as it did his templar brothers. A nearby mound of bodies rose from the cobbles. Dead Middenlanders rained to the ground. Butchered torsos. Cleaved limbs. Spilled guts. Beneath were winged forms. Warriors in mail and plate of their own – the metal dark with age and stain. Their wings appeared to be extensions of their armour, infernal appendages of beetle-black. The warriors’ helms were the colour of bronzed bone – almost seeming to be skull grown over the metal plate. They rose to their knees, their gauntlets empty, while they shook the blood and leakage of the mound from the surface of the wings they had used to protect themselves.

  ‘My god…’ Preceptor Riesenweiler said, lifting his warhammer. He looked from Kastner to the eight marauder knights who had just revealed themselves. Oberon’s hooves hit the ground once more. The templar’s hammer hovered. Kastner held Terminus high above his head.

  ‘The marauders!’ Dagobert called out, retreating within the ruined chapel.

  ‘Enemies of Sigmar in our midst,’ Riesenweiler called to his knights. He jabbed an accusatory metal digit at Kastner. ‘The forsaken reveals his dark servants. Destroy them!’

  Knights of the Fiery Heart charged through the carpet of bodies at the Chaos warriors. The armoured figures walked calmly towards the templars, bringing the thumb-protrusions of their wings over their shoulders. Reaching up, the Chaos knights grabbed the protrusions with their gauntlets and withdrew from the hollow bone fingers between the wing membranes a pair of curved, bone swords. Like gnarled sabres of razored rachidian, the knights readied themselves for the charge.

  It was just the kind of carnage Kastner had imagined in the courtyard. The marauder knights were cold and purposeful in their execution of their assault. While Riesenweiler’s templars lifted and swung their warhammers with a confidence borne of drill and prayer, the Chaos warriors were lopping, slashing and stabbing their way through their element – the blood and body parts of their victims. The Ruinous knights moved with the reactive fluidity not of one born to wear plate, like the highborn of the Empire, but of one who had become part of it. Drawing wings before them like shields, the warriors allowed silver hammers to bounce uselessly from the armoured membranes before erupting forth from behind them and scything down through gaps and between plates in the templar’s silvered armour.

  Kastner watched with simultaneous horror and exhilaration as the templars of Sigmar and the Ruinous knights fought for his soul. Oberon trotted about the bloodshed, with Kastner lifting Terminus to strike. Knights of the Fiery Heart, batted back by the wings of their silent foes, tripped throu
gh cadavers into the greatsword’s reach. The rage in Kastner’s belly caused Terminus to tremble in his grip, but he couldn’t bring himself to strike Sigmar’s servants down. As three silver knights smashed one of the damned warriors back through the carnage, its wings and bone blades turning the irresistible force of the warhammers aside, Kastner found himself above the knight.

  Righteous fury washed through him like ice-water. The Ruinous warrior had to die. Every part of Kastner’s being needed to end him. Almost every part. The wyrdstone within his skull grew warm. It was a strange sensation and the templar brought his hand up to the ruin of his punctured eye. The stone was hot to the touch. Every time Kastner brought his greatsword up, it pulsed a savage heat that he felt throughout his head. Kastner growled at himself in frustration. Within moments the Chaos warrior would turn or move out of reach. Terminus came up. Kastner’s head came down with the searing thunder that peeled through his skull. Gritting his teeth through the agony, the templar unleashed the broad blade of his weapon. Hacking down between the warrior’s wings, the sword cleaved through his neck and shoulder. Tearing Terminus skyward, Kastner brought the sword down through the flesh and armour fusion of the other shoulder.

  Kastner didn’t see the Chaos warrior crash to its armoured knees, its helm-heavy head lolling forward and falling from its gore-spuming torso. He was down on the cobbles, Terminus clattering to the ground beside him. Clutching his head with his hands, the templar looked up just in time to see a Knight of the Fiery Heart hammer aside the body of the winged warrior and bring his warhammer over his decorative helm. Kastner rolled across the blood-spattered courtyard, snatching for the hilt of his greatsword as he did. The warhammer came down, sparking off the cobbles. Kastner kicked back to his feet and put Terminus between him and the Sigmarite.

  Two other knights, drawn down on the dismounted templar, charged from the right and for a moment it appeared as if Kastner would need to take the three of them. With the agony in his head subsiding, he brought his hand down and clutched his greatsword. The first of the charging knights suddenly went down, a Chaos warrior who had been matching him step for step, hacking his leg from his knee with the sweep of his heavy bone sabre. The second was knocked from his feet by a second warrior who slammed into the knight from the side. Tackling the Sigmarite to the ground in a pile of bodies, the Ruinous warrior encapsulated them both in its wings before rearing and stabbing one of its great sabres down through the knight’s silver chest.

  Kastner felt the God-King’s wrath come down with the warhammer of the knight facing him. Holding the heavy blade of Terminus against the assault, the templar fought the desire to kill his opposite.

  ‘I’m a Knight of the Twin-Tailed Orb,’ Kastner roared at him. ‘A templar of Sigmar. Like you.’

  Kastner’s protests didn’t give the hammer-wielding knight a moment’s pause. The weight of the weapon came down once, twice and a third time – each swing carrying more fervent force than the last.

  ‘You are nothing like me,’ the knight bellowed through his visor, his clipped and cultured voice that of a Reiklander. Kastner felt rage build within him. As the hammer’s haft came down, the templar pushed it aside with his greatsword. Reaching for the knight’s ornate helm with his other hand, Kastner flipped up the visor and found himself looking at a young nobleman. His couth features were screwed up with effort and righteous hatred for his enemy, the kind of righteous hatred that had once disfigured Kastner’s face. Hooking his fingertips inside the crowned helm, Kastner pulled the knight violently to him. Bringing Terminus back with the other, he buried the cross-guard of the sword in the young knight’s face. Allowing the dead Sigmarite to rattle to the courtyard cobbles, Kastner spat after him.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘We are nothing alike.’

  He turned from the Knight of the Fiery Heart to the two marauder knights that had saved him. The templar expected vengeance. Instead he found cold acceptance. Kastner heard Riesenweiler direct his knights on with imperious disappointment, sending eager warriors his way. Kastner shook his head, raising Terminus before him.

  ‘Fight me!’ he bawled at the Chaos warriors. He ran at the first but it simply backed away, not even offering a bone sword or wing in defence. ‘What’s wrong with you? I’m your enemy.’ Turning savagely at the second, Kastner brought his greatsword around with such frustration and force that it cut the Chaos knight’s bone sword in two. As the marauder backed away, its skull-helm bowed in some kind of wretched deference to the templar, it reached for the gristle of a third protruding hilt and cleared a shorter bone blade from another winged finger-scabbard.

  As Riesenweiler’s company stormed at Kastner, the marauder knights stepped into their path, bone swords flashing in both hands – putting the holy Sigmarites from their prize. The templar felt his heart twist inside his chest. He had a cold loathing for everything in the courtyard but couldn’t bring himself to butcher his damned saviours from behind with a sword in their backs. Looking about him, Kastner came to realise that the marauder knights had formed a skirmish line – a cordon of their own, facing outwards and keeping the devout Knights of the Fiery Heart from him. Sick to his soul, Kastner knew that without them he would have been bludgeoned mercilessly into the cobbles by the Grand Theogonist’s armoured assassins. He knew that he wanted to live and had the marauders’ intervention to thank for the possibility.

  Looking beyond, Kastner saw Father Dagobert making an awkward run for the hospice wagon, his damned volume clutched to his chest. Giselle still sought the cover of the chapel ruins, while Riesenweiler put himself between the two of them. Clutching the haft of his hammer high in his hand, the preceptor rattled up behind the priest at a jog.

  Grabbing Oberon’s reins in his hand, Kastner mounted the horse and jabbed his heels into the animal’s flanks. Urging the steed into a corpse-stomping gallop, Kastner rode for the preceptor. Pushing Dagobert against the wagon, Riesenweiler spun the priest around. The Liber Caelestior was buried in his chubby arms.

  ‘Give it to me!’ Riesenweiler shouted into the priest’s face. As Dagobert struggled against the far stronger knight, Riesenweiler smashed the wood of the forward wagon bow to splinters with his hammer. He swung the weapon at Dagobert with murderous force. The second swing destroyed the wagon’s handbrake, while the third put a hole through the sideboard. Between the weight of the weapon in one hand and the priest’s struggles, the preceptor couldn’t guarantee the hammer’s destination. Riesenweiler roared. Dagobert roared back.

  ‘Deviants all,’ the Knight of the Fiery Heart accused the priest, the silver head of the hammer against his cheek, pinning him against the wagon. ‘That tome belongs to my master now!’

  With Kastner still riding through Riesenweiler’s scattered company – evading the arcs of hammers and knocking the knights down with Oberon’s flanks and turns – Giselle found herself grabbing at the back of the preceptor’s plate.

  ‘Leave him,’ she called, but Riesenweiler shrugged her off and turned, grabbing the girl’s short hair in his gauntlet. Hauling her into the wagon bed, the novice-sister hit the wood with a crack. Tearing her around, the knight found that it was the stock of the crossbow she had recovered from the derelict chapel that had made the noise rather than the girl’s delicate bones. Holding it casually at her hip, Giselle pulled on the trigger. The weapon gave a buck and a sigh, sending the bolt the short distance into Riesenweiler’s groin. The knight stumbled back, clutching at the mail skirt covering his lower abdomen. The chainmail had done nothing to halt the quarrel, which had slammed some depth into the preceptor’s flesh.

  Riesenweiler started to say something but he was distracted by the shaft of wood through his body and the blood splashing down the cuisse plates on his thighs. He went down with a cacophonous crash, looking between his gauntlet around the bolt at both Giselle and the priest.

  ‘This is…’ Riesenweiler began, ‘this is not what Si
gmar had planned for me.’

  ‘Not for any of us,’ Dagobert agreed, stepping forward. Black horseflesh suddenly flashed by, its passage rippling the priest’s robes. Kastner rode Oberon straight through the Knight of the Fiery Heart, Riesenweiler ending up a trampled mess, some distance away – brained and broken beneath the stallion’s colossal hooves.

  As Kastner pulled the horse around, he discovered Father Dagobert and Giselle staring dumbfounded at him.

  ‘Get in,’ he shouted, bringing the pair back to their senses. Turning the greatsword about in his wrist, Kastner slapped the flat of the blade against Oberon’s side, urging the horse on ahead of the wagon.

  ‘On,’ the priest yelled, sending ripples down the reins at the wagon horses. ‘On, my beauties.’

  Weaving Oberon through the silver knights, Kastner leant low and to one side, cutting down the desperate Sigmarites as he rode, creating a path for the wagon to bump across the courtyard bodies for the south gate. Turning aside warhammers and cleaving through the finest quality plate with well-aimed hacks and chops, Kastner discovered that the few knights who had made it back to their glorious white steeds had been set upon by the winged marauders.

  Leaping the corpses of a Chaos warrior and the four knights whose lives it had cost to bring him down, Kastner and Oberon thundered up to the gate. Reloading the crossbow, Giselle had little skill at range, but the threat of the weapon and the glancing whoosh of crossbow bolts off stone and cobble enabled Dagobert to whip the wagon horses through the stone gateway. Slashing the ropes of the barbican winch with Terminus, Kastner brought his head down low and nudged Oberon swiftly through the gate with the portcullis shuddering down behind him. Hammering his horse up the road away from the decimated Fort Denkh, Kastner could hear the slaughter of the leaderless knights by the warband of winged warriors – the same warband that was massacring its way south through the Empire. As he rode past the wagon, urging Dagobert to keep up the pace, the templar couldn’t help feeling that he was trying to outrun both his past and his future in leaving the Sigmarites and marauder knights behind.