by Dan Abnett
“Mother of Night!” he exclaimed. “That’s Lord Meiron!”
With a crash of drums the sigil was completed. A thousand beastmen threw back their horned heads and roared at the raging sky. Nagaira spread her arms and cried out a series of guttural words in a foul tongue that caused the assembled prisoners to writhe in fear and pain. Invisible waves of power radiated from the witch, distorting the air around her.
Something in her incantations disturbed Tz’arkan, causing the daemon to tense threateningly beneath Malus’ skin. The little bitch has forgotten where her true allegiance lies, the daemon hissed.
Before Malus could wonder what Tz’arkan meant, Nagaira’s chant reached a crescendo. Lightning flared and a peal of thunder split the sky like the fist of an angry god. As one the beastmen raised their axes with a furious shout and turned upon the helpless prisoners, hacking them to pieces in an orgy of slaughter.
Fiery light burst from the bloody lines etched upon the stone. Lord Meiron stiffened, then screamed. The air around the druchii blurred, and his ravaged body started to swell. Malus felt his blood turn cold. “Blessed Mother of Night,” he whispered, his voice full of dread.
Hauclir turned to Malus, his expression fearful. “What would you have us do, my lord?” he asked.
“Run,” the highborn said. “Run!”
Out in the square, Meiron’s body continued to expand. The highborn’s back was arched in agony and his muscles bulged until the skin split like an overcooked sausage, revealing the gleaming meat within. Meiron’s face fell away from the dripping, shrieking skull, and a long pair of new limbs rose like blades from the highborn’s back. As Malus watched, those limbs unfurled into a pair of gleaming, leathery wings.
The daemon continued to grow, wreathed in the boiling blood of the hundreds of sacrificial victims murdered in the square. Light and heat coalesced around the infernal creature’s hands, taking the shape of a long, gleaming axe and a fearsome, barbed scourge.
Towering over the howling beastmen in the square, the bloodstained daemon raised its distended skull and roared a challenge at the defenders of the Black Tower.
The druchii manning the bolt throwers screamed in terror and several of the warriors ran for the stairs, hot on the heels of the fleeing mercenaries. Malus watched Hauclir and the cutthroats begin descending the spiral stair and knew that they would never reach the ground alive unless something was done to hold the daemon at bay.
He turned back to the towering fiend and met the daemon’s brass eyes, raising his twin blades in challenge. Tz’arkan recoiled inside Malus’ chest, sending a spasm of pain through the highborn’s heart. What are you doing, Darkblade? the daemon snarled.
“Do you not want Nagaira to see the error of her ways?” Malus declared.
The blood-soaked daemon spread its wings and leapt into the sky with a bloodthirsty roar. Malus threw back his head and laughed like one of the damned, and Tz’arkan’s black vigour coursed through his veins.
Frantic commands echoed around Malus as the druchii still manning the bolt throwers wrestled their heavy weapons around to aim at the winged terror. The daemon seemed to fill the sky before them, its brass eyes and curved tusks gleaming in the dim light. Heavy cables banged, and four bolts streaked skyward. One missed the plunging daemon’s head by less than a yard; another punched a neat hole through the creature’s right wing. The last two bolts smashed full into the daemon’s broad chest, their iron heads digging deep through iron-like layers of muscle and bone.
The twin impacts staggered the daemon in mid-flight. Bellowing in rage, it crashed against the edge of the gatehouse battlements, shattering the stone merlons to bits and sending a web-work of cracks along the building’s thick roof. Malus was hurled backwards by the impact, throwing him beyond the sweeping arc of the daemon’s fearsome axe. The blow meant for him hissed through the air and smashed a bolt thrower to splinters instead; blood and body parts of the three crew scattered in a wide arc from the impact. Snarling, the daemon lashed out at a bolt thrower to its left with its barbed scourge, wrapping it and two of its crew in a net of woven cables. Wood crackled and metal groaned as the daemon used the scourge to pull its massive bulk the rest of the way onto the battlement. The screams of the bound crewmembers turned to liquid shrieks as the barbed tendrils pulled taut and ground them into pulped flesh and bone.
Uttering a bestial roar of his own, Malus leapt back onto his feet and flew like an arrow at the axe-wielding daemon. With Tz’arkan’s power burning in his limbs, the highborn was a blur of black armour and sharpened steel. He crossed the groaning roof in an eye blink, darting within the reach of the daemon’s weapons and slashing fiercely at its axe arm. The keen blades rang from iron-hard muscle and bone, and then Malus felt the daemon’s hot, foetid breath against his face as it snapped at him with its powerful jaws.
Malus sensed the daemon’s lunge and tried to twist out of the way at the last moment, so instead of biting off his right arm the daemon’s jaws closed on his armoured shoulder instead. Its fangs could not penetrate his enchanted plate but the highborn let out an agonized shriek as the metal plates compressed, twisting his arm from its socket and snapping his collarbone like a dry twig. The daemon lifted him off the ground and bit down hard once again, grinding broken bones together in Malus’ chest, then it tossed him aside like a hound would a dead rat. He hit the stone roof hard, shrieking in pain once more, and skidded more than a dozen feet until he stopped near one of the last two bolt throwers at the far edge of the gatehouse roof.
Even as he ground to a halt the daemon was moving within him. Muscles spasmed and twisted of their own accord, dragging his mangled arm back into position with a crackling of sinew and bone. Malus screamed and thrashed, his eyes wild with pain, but Tz’arkan’s terrible will prevented him from losing consciousness. The highborn’s lunatic gaze fell upon the two bolt thrower crewmen just a few yards away, cowering in terror behind their weapon. “Shoot… it!” he snarled at them past ichor-flecked lips. The wide-eyed druchii took one look at Malus and leapt back into action, feverishly working at the twin cranks that drew back the weapon’s steel bow.
The daemon rose to its full height, yanking its bloodied scourge loose from the mangled bolt thrower in a shower of splintered wood and steel. At the far end of the gatehouse the other surviving bolt thrower team lost their courage and ran for their lives, but their screams caught the winged fiend’s attention. It lunged for the fleeing druchii, slicing one in half with a sweep of its axe and trapping the other in the barbed tails of its scourge. The daemon whirled towards Malus, swinging the scourge in an arc that sent the trapped crewman tumbling and screaming through the air. The flailing druchii missed the last bolt thrower by just a few feet before plunging into the darkness beyond the gatehouse.
With a loud click-clack the bolt thrower’s cable locked into firing position. The crew scrambled to load another bolt in the firing channel just as the gatehouse roof trembled beneath the daemon’s thundering footfalls. Malus gritted his teeth and once more surged to his feet, working the life back into his right sword hand, then rushed to meet the charging fiend.
He anticipated the lash of the daemon’s scourge and ducked beneath its whistling tails, then cut to his right and drove the points of both his blades into the monster’s left thigh. The weapons bit deep, drawing tendrils of black smoke from the daemon’s bloodstained flesh. Roaring angrily, the winged fiend checked its pace and spun, slashing out at Malus with its axe. As fast as the highborn was, he could not move fast enough to avoid a glancing blow to the chest that broke ribs and smashed him aside like a child’s toy.
As Malus tumbled once again along the gatehouse roof the last bolt thrower fired, and another iron-headed bolt punched into the daemon’s abdomen. The monster staggered beneath the blow, then lashed at weapon and crew with its scourge. Both of the druchii weapon handlers were shredded in the passage of the barbed tails, and the bolt thrower itself was torn from its mount.
Baring its t
eeth in a feral grin, the daemon turned back to Malus, but the highborn was already on his feet again, fuelled by rage and pain as his shattered ribs were drawn back into place by Tz’arkan’s will.
Malus ducked a sweeping blow of the daemon’s axe, then stabbed out with his sword and raked a long, ragged gash along the length of the fiend’s muscular arm. Snarling like a wolf, he nimbly dodged the fiend’s backhanded swipe—and then the barbed tails of its scourge wrapped tightly around his legs.
He was pulled off his feet and dashed hard against the unyielding stone. It was Tz’arkan’s power alone that allowed him to roll aside just as the daemon’s axe smashed down beside him. Stone splintered, and a huge section of the gatehouse’s roof collapsed in a shower of dust and debris, plunging Malus and the daemon into the space below.
Malus hit the tumbled stones hard and rolled against the side of the daemon’s chest. Before the fiend could react he raised his left-hand blade and drove it with all his might into the daemon’s shoulder, burying the weapon to the hilt. Roaring with rage, the daemon tried to pull Malus away with its scourge, but the highborn held on for dear life and drove his other blade into the fiend’s muscular throat.
With a furious roar the daemon unfurled its wings -and suddenly more black smoke poured in a flood from its many wounds. Heat radiated from the fiend’s body like a banked forge. Screaming in thwarted rage the daemon leapt skyward, and exploded in a clap of thunder and a blast of light.
Malus was hurled end-for-end through the air, striking the broken edge of the roof and bouncing along its length. The highborn fetched up hard against the line of battlements that looked over the citadel’s inner compound, his skin scorched and his ears ringing from the blast. His swords were gone, lost when the daemon was banished. Gathering up his courage and trusting in Tz’arkan’s power he rose to his feet and leapt over the battlements, plunging like a stooping hawk to the pavement sixty feet below. He hit the ground hard enough to crack the paving stones, but his body absorbed the blow with supernatural resilience.
It was hard not to smile. Terrible as Tz’arkan’s gifts were, they could be exhilarating at times.
Guttural howls shook the air along the battlements of the inner wall. Nagaira’s daemon might have lost its challenge, but it had put the druchii defenders to flight, and now the Chaos horde had seized the inner wall at last. Already, shadowy figures were racing down the long ramps into the inner courtyard itself, hard on the heels of the retreating druchii spearmen. Snarling like a wolf, Malus rose to his feet and raced off into the darkness. The siege was quickly coming to a head, and within the Black Tower the Witch King was preparing to make his move.
Chapter Twenty-Three
LORD OF RUIN
Within the walls of the inner keep the air reverberated with screams of terror and the guttural howls of the dead. The courtyards were full of panicked druchii racing for the safety of the Black Tower. Empty-handed soldiers, their spears cast aside, clambered over one another and stumbled along the cobblestones, fleeing for their lives. Craftsmen, apprentices, servants and slaves fled along with them. Like fear-maddened animals they turned upon one another in their frenzy to escape. Malus saw soldiers drawing their stabbing swords and lashing out at anyone in their path. A druchii wearing a blacksmith’s apron fell with a scream, groping at the bloody wound in his back; his apprentice whirled and dashed out a spearman’s brains with a heavy mallet, spattering his mates with a spray of gore. The highborn came upon a regimental officer facedown on the paving stones, a pool of dark blood spreading from his slashed throat. A sword with a jewelled pommel rested in his lifeless hand and a puddle of gold coins spilled beneath him from his torn coin-purse. It was more wealth than most low-born druchii saw in a lifetime, but no one spared it a second glance.
White faces etched with fear glimmered in the unnatural darkness, swirling like a cloud of panicked birds around Malus. Most of the panicked troops were looking back the way they’d come, listening to the exultant roars and wailing horns of the Chaos warriors swarming over the inner walls. It made them easy prey for the monsters stalking like wolves through the deep shadows of the inner compound. Nagaira’s revenants dragged men down like panicked deer, tearing out their throats with claw-like fingers and feasting upon their steaming entrails. More than once Malus was forced to race past a screaming druchii buried beneath a knot of snarling, clawing monsters.
Once, a pair of pale, withered arms reached for him out the shadows of a nearby doorway. The revenant had once been a druchii spearman, his face half shorn away by the blow of a northman’s axe. Cracked nails clawed at his throat; with a snarl Malus grabbed the hissing creature by the neck and tore its head from its shoulders. By the time the headless body clattered to the ground the highborn was long gone, running as fast as he could down the long avenue towards the citadel.
His body still felt cold and swollen. Muscles slid like steel cables beneath his skin, coated in thick, oily corruption. The daemon’s gifts he’d summoned at the gatehouse had not ebbed, a realization that both comforted and disturbed him at the same time.
With the daemon’s unnatural speed he slipped like a ghost through the chaos of the rout. Caught between.
the Chaos horde and the waiting revenants, Malus feared that not one man in five among the fleeing druchii would reach the safety of the Black Tower. Malekith had been wise to pull his best troops from the walls in advance of Nagaira’s attack.
He could guess the Witch King’s intentions. The Chaos horde would be scattered and disorganized after the bloody pursuit, drunk with slaughter after destroying the exhausted remnants of the routing spear regiments, and Nagaira’s sorceries would be depleted as well. When Malekith launched his counterattack, bolstered by the magical prowess of Morathi and the witches of the Black Tower’s convent, the tables would well and truly turn. More than half of the enemy army would find itself trapped within the confines of the inner courtyard, facing fresh, disciplined infantry and the Witch King’s battle-hungry knights. The slaughter would be awesome to behold, Malus reckoned, worth even the hundreds of druchii being sacrificed around him.
If Nuarc was correct about the Witch King’s intentions, then it could be he who led the charge, as befit the Vaulkhar of Hag Graef. Malus smiled hungrily at the thought. After he finished massacring the troops within the inner compound he would rally the army and lead them into the outer city and beyond. They wouldn’t stop until Nagaira’s head dangled from one of Spite’s trophy hooks.
Another of his half-sister’s revenants lurched out of the shadows towards him, arms outstretched. Malus grabbed the creature’s shoulder and the side of its neck and tore it down the middle like a sheet of wet parchment. He flung the dripping pieces aside and laughed lustily at the dark sky, anticipating the glories to come.
A few moments later he reached another wide courtyard that lay at the foot of the tower itself. Green fire flickered balefully from two large pyres to either side of the highborn, casting a riot of reaching shadows across the cobblestones and limning the polished helms of the two spear regiments formed up outside the doors of the great citadel. Bodies littered the broad square: revenants shot through the skull by sharp-eyed crossbowmen and a few unlucky druchii who’d been caught in the crossfire.
Malus slowed his pace somewhat as he loped into the square, showing his open hands as he approached the twin regiments. To his surprise, a ragged cheer went up from the spearmen as he strode forward. The sound quickened what little blood remained in his shrivelled veins, and he acknowledged the accolades with a raised fist and a wolfish grin.
He passed down the narrow gap between the two regiments and found a mounted officer waiting for him on the other side. The highborn raised his sword in salute. “It is good to see you, dread lord,” the officer shouted over the thunderous din. “The Witch King commanded me to watch for you, and bid you to attend him at his war council without delay.”
Malus’ grin widened. “I’ll not keep his Dread Majesty waiting,” he
shouted back. “Has a group of infantry passed through here in the last quarter-hour with a cold one in tow? I sent my retainers to the pits to fetch my mount just before the gatehouse was attacked.”
The officer shook his head. “We’ve only had a handful of troops pass through so far,” he cried. “None of them with a nauglir.”
Malus’ smile soured. He looked back the way he’d come, gauging the distance between the citadel and the nauglir pits. Where in the Dark Mother’s name were they?
Something had gone wrong, he thought. They might have run afoul of a pack of revenants or been overtaken by a band of panicked troops. He fought against a tide of despair. Hauclir would get them back in time, he told himself. The insolent rogue is no end of trouble sometimes, but he’s never failed me when it mattered. The highborn turned to the officer. “Keep an eye out for them, and make certain they get inside,” he shouted. There was nothing more he could do. The officer nodded and turned his horse about, heading back to his waiting troops. Malus spared a final look at the tumult raging beyond the fires, and ran on to the tower.
Beyond the battle-line the black doors of the citadel yawned wide, ready to receive the lucky few who survived the flight from the inner wall. The green glow of witchlamps held back the darkness in the cavernous halls within, and the air rang with a different sort of clangour. Formations of spearmen stood ready, their scarred faces set in masks of concentration as they checked weapons and harness, while knights and their squires tended their wargear and the needs of their scaly mounts. The air was taut with coiled tension, like a crossbow ready to fire. Malekith had drawn back his mailed fist and now merely waited for the proper moment to strike.
Malus paused just inside the doorway, momentarily uncertain of where to proceed. Would the Witch King hold his council in the throne room, or the less formal chambers near the top of the tower? Just as he’d resolved to find a page or tower servant to ask, one appeared at his elbow.