‘Thostos, wait!’ shouted Vandus.
Within seconds, Thostos Bladestorm had disappeared entirely. Vandus had not the time to go after him. Horns blared, and ambush erupted from all sides.
Throughout the city the vanguards of each Stormhost suddenly found themselves beset. Armoured warrior-chiefs roared, and a horde of bare-chested tribesmen burst from concealment. Vandus’ Hammerhands were assailed from both sides of the street. Half a dozen fell as the servants of Chaos got among them.
Vandus smashed down a man who leapt at him from a slender bridge. Calanax blasted another apart with a bolt of lightning from his maw.
‘I had anticipated an ambush, not an army. They come as if from nowhere!’ said Vandus.
‘There is magic behind this,’ shouted Ionus. He slammed his reliquary staff down. White light blazed around him. ‘But I have magic of my own.’
The worshippers of Tzeentch recoiled as the men they had cut down got to their feet, ready to fight again. Battle raged everywhere. Thostos’ Warrior Chamber in particular was becoming overstretched. They fought without order, their thirst for vengeance overcoming their training. A portion of the enemy in the square broke and fled, and the Celestial Vindicators pursued them. Many were laid low by axes, while others were battered to the ground by a hail of metal chunks cast from on high as they went into the westward streets.
‘Hold the line!’ called Vandus. ‘Halt!’
‘You may as well call for a hurricane to halt its fury, son,’ said Andricus. ‘Their prey is in sight, and the Celestial Vindicators will kill them all, or die in the attempt.’
Vandus took stock of his circumstances. With Lord Thostos missing and his Warrior Chamber over-extended, Vandus’ own flank was dangerously exposed. Hundreds more Chaos worshippers came out of the ruins, seeking to cut the line of Celestial Vindicators storming after Thostos in two.
‘Stoneheart!’ called Vandus, pointing at the pursuers.
‘Lord-Celestant,’ said the Lord-Castellant. ‘Hammerhands, with me!’ He ran to meet the foe, three dozen paladins at his side.
Calanax whirled around. More of the Stormcasts were making their way into the city, driving into the rear of the ambush. From north and south, sigmarite warhorns sounded. Vandus’ host was at the heart of the attack, but the ambushers were being encircled in turn.
‘Into the square!’ Vandus urged his men. ‘Make formation about the statue!’
With a precision born of long practice, the Hammerhands surged forward, Ionus and his Retributors to the front. They carved out a space around the statue, and the Liberators locked their shields around it. Judicators came running, filling the centre of the Hammerhands’ hollow square and loosing their bows as they ran, joining their fire with that coming down from the ruins above. The air hissed with arrows. Prosecutors flew in formation overhead, picking off warriors who showed themselves on the roofs.
‘Come out! I call to the architect of the attack!’ Vandus bellowed. Calanax bounded around the periphery of the square, the pair of them slaying every man they came across. ‘Come out and show your face. I, Vandus Hammerhand, challenge you to single combat!’ Mocking laughter echoed across the city, but no one came forward.
‘Appeals to martial pride will not work here, Vandus,’ shouted Ionus. ‘The followers of Tzeentch are far subtler than those of Khorne.’
The roar of battle intensified. The broad road beyond the square rang to the meeting of blades as another Warrior Chamber emerged from the south into the ambush. Both sides fought with skill and ferocity, and soon the gutters ran with blood.
Prosecutors were knocked from the sky with lead-weighted bolas, or caught by leaping savages. Vandus glowered behind his mask. Everywhere, mayhem reigned. Unable to bring their full might to bear, the Stormcast phalanxes were being fragmented.
Ionus held the centre of the square. Vandus sent his own Liberators to intercept a mob of bare-chested axemen forming a battle line to challenge Ionus’ position. Knights armoured in blue and yellow thundered out through the tall arches of the ancient Celemnite workshop. At Vandus’ command, Judicators broke from the back of the square, firing arrows on the move. To the mouth of each alleyway Vandus sent a retinue of Protectors. They stood no more than five abreast, but their whirling swordstaves set up an impenetrable barrier, and they killed until the alleys were blocked by the dead.
The worst was yet to come. Ionus felt it, a gathering fury rising through the ground.
‘Vandus!’ he shouted. ‘Death calls to death, and this place is rife with it!’
Puddles of molten metal welled up through the paving. From each of these rose a spirit, running upward to make the distorted forms of men and women. The faces of these silver-skinned revenants were masks of fury, and they fell upon any they saw. Ionus cursed, and set his magic to driving them back. The Stormcasts suffered for his distraction.
A shadow passed over Vandus as a manticore swooped low, wings wide. The body was that of a huge hunting cat but the face bore some semblance to a man’s, its eyes alight with bestial intelligence. Prosecutors pursued the creature, but it jinked and dived to avoid their lightning blasts. The beast carried a cowled figure with a huge spear. The manticore stooped. Giant paws batted Stormcasts off the ruins and the spear’s tip flicked out, impaling heads with each sweep. The manticore soared up, folded its wings, then plummeted down onto the pursuing Prosecutors, smashing two to the ground.
The sky was a-thunder with the passing of Sigmar’s warriors. Vandus counted more than a dozen manticores hurtling down from the tall tower.
Andricus Stoneheart gathered men around him and fought to the west while Ionus wrestled with the silvered shades of the dead in the centre. Vandus rode from point to point, exhorting his warriors to do their best, hoping that the ambush would break before they were overwhelmed. In other streets and courtyards, Warrior Chambers gathered into tight knots of resistance. The Stormcast advance halted, and all the while Vandus’ gaze was drawn to the tower. A sense of building power wreathed it. The cowled manticore rider made another pass, shouting arcane words that sent black bolts searing into Vandus’ men. He wondered for a moment if he were the sorcerer they were seeking, but Thostos had spoken of a horned man. Then a second voice became interwoven with the sound of the battle, coming and going, instilling the ruins with a throbbing pulse. Vandus guessed that this must be the voice of the sorcerer lord. He searched wildly for its source, but it seemed to come from everywhere.
And then suddenly a haunting song began, drowning out all, beautiful and terrible, a song of sorrow and rage. Silver swords shimmered into being wherever the song swelled. These shot out at speed, slicing into Stormcast and Chaos warrior alike. The blades encountered no resistance from either side’s plate, cutting through it as if the warriors were clad in soft robes. Chaos worshippers threw themselves at the swords, hoping to wrest them from the air and take them for themselves. Many died in the attempt, but a handful were successful, and with these blades inflicted sore losses on the Stormcast Eternals.
‘Celemnite blades,’ said Ionus to his men. ‘A legacy of a bygone age.’
A disturbance in the wind drew the Lord-Relictor’s attention to the corner of the square. A new puddle of molten silver bubbled from the ground, flowing upwards until it formed a gaunt female figure with hair the colour of copper. Rage twisted her beautiful features as she surveyed the carnage.
She opened her jaws far wider than any human could and her scream tore through the square, lifting a curtain of dust before it. Chaos worshippers and Stormcast Eternals staggered and clutched at their ears and throats. Ionus held his reliquary in front of him, matching his will with the maiden’s song. Brilliant light flared around him. There was nothing but the screaming song and the pain and light it brought. The scream stopped as abruptly as it had started. All around Ionus, men were dead. With cracks of thunder the lifeless bodies of his guard flashed up an
d away. A few lone warriors staggered about, blood leaking from their ears, but all who survived were swiftly impaled by the flying blades.
‘This city is not shy of horrors, Vandus,’ called out Ionus Cryptborn, but Vandus could not hear, for he was embattled a hundred yards away. ‘You cannot fight a curse with blades,’ he said under his breath.
The terrifying scream rang out again, slaying more warriors. Ionus found himself alone and he had a clear view to the statue. There was a plaque at the statue’s feet he had not seen before. ‘She would not yield,’ it said. He approached the statue. The face was wracked with sorrow and pain, the same face as upon the silver-skinned banshee. Death magic thrummed strongly from the monument, and he realised then that the epitaph was mocking, and the statue not raised from any respect. Curious, he cracked one arm from its shoulder with his hammer. The statue was hollow, with dry bone trapped within.
Ionus turned across the square to where the banshee wailed. He strode towards her, his reliquary before him.
‘Celemnis!’ he shouted. ‘We fight for the same cause!’
The banshee turned, her face twisting in a curious frown.
‘Celemnis! Hear my plea, O Queen of Blades,’ said the Lord-Relictor. He went to his knees and bowed his head. Celemnis’ skirts pulsed and flowed across the ground towards him, until she floated above him. Within the ghost two magics warred. Ionus sensed dark spells striving to trap her and her own essence fighting back. His respect for the warrior-maiden doubled. ‘I beseech you, send your ire against those that earned it.’ He took the blade from his reliquary, sliding it from the wired finger-bones holding it fast, and held it out, hilt-first. ‘This blade is a gift from Sigmar. Do you see? We fight for Sigmar.’
Celemnis looked at Ionus, and she was the epitome of terrible beauty. Her hair floated in a wide halo around her head. Ionus tensed, expecting his end.
Her hair reached out, taking the sword’s hilt. Celemnis looked directly at him, a sad smile on her face.
She screamed again, and the world was upended. A wave of anguish blasted across the square and Ionus leaned into it as a man leans into a gale. At the heart of the shout was the whispered promise of death; sweet, beguiling words. He yearned to give into it, to go back to his other master, away from Sigmar’s wars, and to join again with his beloved.
One day he would, he swore.
Not today.
The scream ended. The fighting stopped. Chaos worshippers stood stupidly, weapons dropping from nerveless hands.
As one, every single Chaos warrior in the centre of the city dropped dead. The silver ghosts rose shrieking from the battle, ignoring the Stormcast Eternals. Silver swords hissed after them as they flew onwards to the walls of the Eldritch Fortress.
Vandus was amazed. All of a sudden, his foes were dead.
‘Onwards! Onwards!’ Vandus bellowed. ‘Back into formation! To the Eldritch Fortress!’
The Hammers of Sigmar obeyed without hesitation, forming up into orderly blocks before hurrying forwards. The remaining Celestial Vindicators ignored him completely, running further into the city in search of new foes to slay.
Furious, Vandus vaulted from Calanax and onto a tumbled ruin. He ran up onto the tilted head of a toppled stardrake statue, intending to order Thostos’ Warrior Chamber back into the column. But as he drew in his breath to shout, his eyesight clouded, his nostrils filled with phantom scents and his head swam.
‘No, not now, not…’ A vision seized him with such blinding force it sent him to his knees.
He whirled away to a different place, speeding up over the Anvrok Vale. He came to a dizzying stop, and Lord Vandus saw a waterfall of silver, frozen in time. In the sky beyond it, the silver wyrm Argentine coiled and fought with another dragon mightier still. All the while Vandus’ eyes were drawn upwards, towards the top of the falls and the crucible there. He was in the air, with nothing ahead and nothing below.
The vision passed. Vandus shook in its aftermath. Thunder rumbled and it began to rain. Sigmar’s lightning clove deep into the city; reinforcements were arriving.
Vandus got back to his feet unsteadily and took stock. The Celestial Vindicators were gone. The area around the square was clear, but the sound of fighting echoed through the streets still. The tower of the sorcerer wavered in a haze of magic. He was running out of time, and made to go back down to the statue and Calanax.
‘My lord! The sky! Get down!’ shouted his Knight-Vexillor.
The warning came too late. Four manticores rushed at him and his command echelon in the street, claws out. Three struck the Stormcasts; one was smashed into the ground by heavy hammers, but the other two raked a long, clattered furrow in the warriors before shooting skywards again. The fourth was ridden by a huge Chaos lord, and came directly at Vandus. No amount of skill or speed could stop the beast’s dive. The Lord-Celestant leapt to the side, but he was still sluggish from his vision and moved too slowly. A heavy blow slammed into his shoulder and a spear transfixed him. He was plucked up and carried away, the ground dropping beneath him. All his weight was upon the spear point. Barbs bit deep into his flesh. Vandus grabbed at it with both hands, fearful his own weight would wrench him into pieces. The iron shaft was slippery with his blood. Gripping it sent agonies sparking down the nerves of his arm.
Let go, part of him said. Take brief pain and be returned by Sigmar. But then he thought of Thostos and his cold manner since he had returned, and gripped harder.
A cruel face looked down upon him, heavyset and doleful. The lord sneered.
‘So you are the Hammerhand. I thought you should be mightier, but here you are speared like a fish.’
‘You cannot kill me,’ choked out Vandus. Speaking sent further throbs of pain across his upper back.
‘We shall see. I am Lord Maerac, and I shall be your death.’
‘You are the servant of the sorcerer.’
Maerac laughed. ‘Ephryx is a fool if he believes that, and you are a greater fool to say it.’
Vandus gripped the spear. His situation was hopeless. Below him Stormcasts poured through the city, but the battle was far from over. Further in, nearer the shrouded outline of the Eldritch Fortress, there were more servants of Chaos. There the fight continued. Bright lines of Sigmar’s warriors duelled on every street with the followers of the Tzeentch while overhead, lightning crackled across a darkening sky.
Maerac scowled at the storm. He twisted the spear and Vandus cried out.
‘What is this fascination your god has for dreary weather?’ said Maerac. ‘Does he think he impresses us with his lightning and his thunder? He is a bigger fool than you! Your attack is faltering, and you face but a portion of the might of this realm. I am only one lord.’ Maerac leaned over in his saddle. ‘But soon I shall be the only lord. I shall take the hammer. I have been told by the Oracle himself that no mortal army can take Sigmar’s weapon. What hope do you have?’
Vandus caught sight of a flash of turquoise at the top of a bell tower as Maerac banked around it. The lord intended to take him towards the fortress as a prisoner.
‘We are no mortal army,’ Vandus said.
A blur of blue-green hurtled through the air from the tower. Lightning blazed all around it. The manticore jerked with a heavy impact and Maerac turned in shock to find Thostos standing astride his mount. He dropped his spear, and Vandus made a desperate lunge for the manticore’s neck. Pain punished him as he grasped two handfuls of blue mane. The manticore snapped at him, swerving sharply left. The spear dragged at Vandus’ shoulder, robbing all the strength from his left arm, and he nearly let go.
Thostos roared. Maerac drew his sword and raised it in a block, but Thostos’ hammer shattered it and carried on straight into Maerac’s face. The blow was so powerful that it obliterated Maerac’s head completely. The corpse spouted blood into the wind and slid sideways in its flying harness. The manticore bucked a
nd twisted, but Thostos would not be shaken loose. The sword in his left hand punched through the manticore’s skull and its wings folded, causing it to fall like a stone and smash through the wall of a ruined temple.
Thostos stepped from the dead creature’s back. He extended a hand to Vandus, and hauled him to his feet. Then he took up the spear and looked questioningly at Vandus.
Vandus nodded, his teeth gritted against the pain. ‘Do it,’ he said.
Vandus screamed in agony as Thostos forced the barbs out of his back. He staggered and sank to his knees. One chop of Thostos’ runeblade cut the head off the spear and with a ragged groan, Vandus dragged the shaft from his body and dropped it.
‘The Stormhosts must see you live,’ said Thostos, and there was a trace of emotion to his words that had been absent since his Reforging.
Together they left the temple, battered but alive. Calanax had sought out his lord, drawn to him by their bond. Vandus mounted him with Thostos’ aid, and rode to the heart of the Stormcast forces again.
Manticores still swooped and harried the forces. Arrows arced up at them, driving the monsters off, only for them to come back around.
‘Maerac is dead!’ shouted Vandus, his voice amplified by the divine magic burning in him. ‘Lord-Celestant Thostos Bladestorm slew him! Stay and suffer the same fate!’
It was enough. With several of their number dead, their king slain and much fire coming at them from the ground, the beast riders wheeled away and flew back to their scattered domains with all the speed their mounts could muster.
Upon seeing their masters abandon them, the morale of the Chaos army broke. In ever greater masses, the bondsmen of Manticorea fled, the wrath of the Stormcasts following them upon swift wings of light.
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