Blacktalon: First Mark

by Andy Clark

  ‘There isn’t time,’ said Wytha, ‘and that is not your ordained path in this. Ungholghott has weapons so terrible they could rot the heavens themselves. But we have a weapon of our own.’

  ‘Me,’ said Neave, then frowned at Wytha’s subtle shift in body language. ‘No, not just me. What else, then?’

  ‘A fragment of ancient power that we have acquired by force of arms,’ said Wytha in reverent tones. ‘Its power is such that, were it to be unleashed at the heart of Ungholghott’s fortress, it would slay him and every corrupt warrior that serves him. I do not even ask you to face the sorcerer yourself, girl. I ask only that you fight by my side and cut me a path into Ungholghott’s lair, that I might unleash this fragment and end the threat forever. Your first mark would be slain. Our enclave would be saved, and your debt paid. And you would return to your comrades as a conquering hero at the end of a successful hunt, rather than a penitent that simply wandered from their path.’

  Neave was silent as she weighed her options. Ungholghott was a threat, that much seemed certain, and if he wielded even half the martial power Wytha described then he couldn’t be left to his own devices. Neave imagined his abominations set loose against Hammerhal or Excelsis, and shuddered.

  She should return to her comrades, she knew, but Lord Hawkseye was nothing if not thorough. Even if she avoided punishment or worse, the clutches of the Sacrosanct Chambers, still Neave might not bring reinforcements to this fight in time to turn the tables. She felt powerful, her faculties restored to her and her senses sharp. She was confident that, if they struck quickly, she could cut a path into the fortress that Wytha could exploit, and if this weapon worked then victory would be claimed without further cost in Stormcast lives.

  Besides, Neave wanted to know more about this weapon Wytha spoke of. Something ancient and taken through conquest, she had said; but what, and from whom? Neave had a creeping suspicion that any powerful weapon held in the clutches of the Dreadwood Glade might prove as hazardous to their allies as to their enemies, and she felt it was incumbent upon her to learn what she could of the device and its capabilities before she returned to her comrades.

  Yet there was another factor at play that Neave barely dared admit to herself. She was a huntress who prided herself upon, even defined herself by, her abilities. Neave knew now with absolute certainty that Ungholghott had been her first ever mark, and that she had left him alive. Since she had failed to slay him, he had wrought untold horror and devastation, and his power had grown vast. Neave couldn’t help but feel responsible, and she saw from Wytha’s expression that the Branchwych knew it.

  ‘You have a chance to put an end to this horror,’ said Wytha. ‘No more need pay the price of your failure, child.’

  ‘How would we gain access to the fortress?’ Neave asked. ‘From what I’ve seen, Ungholghott has huge armies and high walls.’

  ‘The skaven have long proven troublesome allies. But Ungholghott does not realise just how much trouble they have caused him. Swift and silent our spites have flown, and through his defences they have crept to find a weakness left by the rat-men in their haste to gnaw. Where their burrowing beasts have raised skaven plague-warrens around the fortress’ western wall, they have created a flaw. It is a collapsing fault through which we will creep like a root burrowing through stone to bring the entire edifice crashing down.’

  ‘And this will happen swiftly, decisively?’ asked Neave.

  ‘Clan Thyrghael awaits only my order,’ said Wytha. ‘Already we massed through the realmroots to repel the skaven that pursued you. My army can march at a moment’s notice. We await only your oath to aid us.’

  ‘I have a condition,’ said Neave. ‘The girl, Katalya. Does her steed live?’

  ‘It does. We healed its hurts as we did hers. We observed that these beings seemed important to you.’

  ‘Good. No harm will come to either of them if I do this, to Katalya or to Ketto. Moreover, they will accompany us on our march, and be allowed to fight unmolested at my side.’

  ‘The mortal tribes of this land have long hated and feared us,’ said Wytha. ‘Those we took you from, they were the exception, the only beings to find an accord with us and offer us our due. I have no love for these fleshlings, but if they matter to you then I will not harm them. Yet… this will be a terribly dangerous assault, child. Why put the youngling and her steed in harm’s way? Allow us simply to make them safe here, in the clan enclave, until your return.’

  ‘And leave her to the tender ministrations of creatures like Ithary?’ asked Neave, eliciting a hiss from the Branchwraith. ‘Let you use her as a hostage against me, should I go against your will? No, I think not. Besides, Katalya seeks one thing above all others – a chance to have her vengeance upon Ungholghott. He annihilated her people as he has slaughtered yours. Why should her grievance be any less important than yours, or mine? I swore to protect the girl, and I will, but I swore also to aid her in her hunt, not she in mine. I’ll not leave her and Ketto to languish in your cells while I go to fight this battle.’

  ‘She cannot simply undo the trees hewn, the dark pacts made, the lamentiri crushed or stolen,’ said Wytha, her expression darkening. ‘Why should I set her free at all? She is a distraction, girl. She will get you killed, cause you to fail in your duties a second time, and it is we who will pay the price.’

  ‘These are my terms. Take them or leave them.’

  Wytha shook like a tree in a high gale, and her eyes flashed with blue light. She turned and stalked away, stopping some paces distant, swaying and crooning to herself. Neave stood silent and still, watching and waiting for the Branchwych’s decision. She had long ago learned that patience was one of the huntress’ greatest weapons.

  Wytha turned back towards her and smiled, opening her arms in a gracious gesture.

  ‘Of course, child, you know your business best. If you wish to yoke yourself with this savage and her beast then so be it. I ask only that you fulfil your oath. But let me be clear. They live and die by your choices, and they are your burden alone, for my spirits will lift not a talon either to harm or to aid them.’

  Neave took a deep breath and nodded. Keeping one eye out for Katalya might slow her down, but her oath stood, and she couldn’t very well protect the girl if she left her behind. Besides, if Katalya perceived Neave to have stolen her chance for revenge then she would never be forgiven for it; of that much she was certain.

  ‘Then you have a deal,’ said Neave. She considered challenging Wytha’s use of the term child, but decided against it. She thought of Katalya’s reaction, were she to use the term with her, and couldn’t quite suppress a smile.

  ‘So be it,’ crooned Wytha. ‘I will begin the song of summonation. Clan Thyrghael goes to war, and with your aid, we may yet prevail.’

  ‘By Sigmar’s hammer, I hope so,’ said Neave, praying that she had made the correct choice. ‘Now, where are my damned axes?’

  There were myriad chambers in Lord Ungholghott’s fortress. The structure was known to its denizens as the Cornucorpulus, for it was an endless font of plentiful life that bloated ever larger and fouler as the years passed. Once, the story went, the structure had indeed been a living being.

  They said that it was the devout and Sigmar-fearing priest of Lord Ungholghott’s tribe, who had made the error of trying to halt the champion of Nurgle before his reign could truly begin.

  They said that Ungholghott practiced his flesh-craft upon the priest first of all, and that the blessings of Nurgle were still so fresh in his veins that the gift he bestowed had never stopped giving. He made the priest’s still-living body into his long-hall, and then, as it grew larger and more mutated, into his fortress. Stone and iron were pounded into the billowing masses of rotted flesh. Corridors and chambers were fashioned from arteries, tracts and organs. The Cornucorpulus had expanded its boundaries ever since, spilling further into the swamps that surrounded it,
a mark of Lord Ungholghott’s might and his endless generosity.

  So they said, at least.

  Ungholghott had never seen any reason to gainsay the gruesome tale, not least because it was true.

  Now he stood in the moist gloom of a fleshy oubliette, whose veined walls heaved and shuddered like a lung taking laboured breaths. Spiked chains dangled from the ceiling, rattling and jingling with every slow motion. At the chamber’s centre stood a plinth of mildewed stone. Atop it sat a wide brass dish, all but buried beneath the mass of Lord Ungholghott’s parasiculum. This was a device of his own crafting, a fleshy orb several feet in diameter into which were set thousands of reflective chitinous lenses.

  He moved forward, his heavy tread leaving wet footprints that slowly filled with slime. He stopped, looming over the parasiculum, and waved his hands above it while chanting. Its lenses rippled and chittered as they readjusted.

  The abomination resembled the bulbous eye of an enormous fly. One by one, images resolved in each lens. Ungholghott saw what his plague flies saw. And they, it seemed, saw much.

  ‘Wytha, you sour old root, what facile new endeavour is this?’ he murmured. For all the cunning and spiteful warding-spells of the sylvaneth, Ungholghott could usually slip a few of his best-crafted flies through to spy upon the Clan Thyrghael. Two such insects clung to the walls of the heartroot chamber even now, their alchemically enhanced vision cutting through mist and sorcery to reveal the scene.

  Ungholghott watched with interest as an armoured figure shuddered and writhed there, then rose slowly to her feet. He saw the power that radiated from this being, and the currents of magic that flowed through her. His interest turned to fascination.

  ‘A Stormcast Eternal,’ murmured Ungholghott. ‘But of no sort I’ve seen before. Flesh just waiting to be unpicked, vein-threaded secrets begging to be laid bare. You seek an alliance then, old root? Or… no… something so much more contrived. Of course, you’ll knot yourself in your own vines as you always do, and I will dissect your schemes with the very bluntest and most clotted of blades, the better to watch you squirm on my slab.’

  Ungholghott listened, the words spoken before the throne shivering back to him through the medium of fly-winged vibrations. At the mention of an ancient weapon, he became very still.

  The slight quirk of amusement left his face.

  Avarice lit his yellow eyes.

  ‘What are you bringing me, old root?’ he asked the quavering image of Wytha. ‘What final offering can you give me, before I deign to slice and flay your clan at last?’ He snapped his attention from one fly’s eye lens to the next, seeking any familiar that might be able to flit through the tunnels of the clan enclave and locate this alleged weapon for him.

  None of his familiars was in a position to do so, but through their proxy senses he detected the faint tang of something ancient and powerful, hanging on the air like the tension before a storm. It was enough to convince him that Wytha spoke at least some approximation of the truth, which in Ungholghott’s long experience was as much as the Branchwych had ever been capable of.

  The exchange before the throne continued, Ungholghott snorting in disgust at the mention of a weakness created by the skaven burrows.

  ‘Of course they have,’ he scowled. ‘Idiot creatures. Their brainflesh quivers with the knowledge of its own inadequacy. And yet, perhaps they have made this easier for me. Old root, you bring me a new genus of Stormcast and a weapon of the ancient times. Truly I was right to leave you alive so long, for your desperation makes you generous beyond measure. The former I shall take alive, and chant your praises even as I dissect her. How refreshing, to have a mystery of anatomy beneath my knife for the first time in centuries! The latter I shall pluck from your own withering talons in the instant before I prune your scheming head from your shoulders. By Nurgle’s rotted garden, I shall even give you a quick death in exchange for these final gifts.’

  Ungholghott swept his hands over the parasiculum, quieting its magics. Its lenses rasped and fidgeted, then went dull.

  He turned and strode from the chamber, his champions moving to flank him as he emerged through its arched door. He led the way down a long corridor whose rusted metal walls were punctured by spines of bone and dangling sacs of pus-filled flesh.

  ‘We have guests on their way, and I wish them properly received,’ said Ungholghott to his champions. ‘The vermin have gnawed holes in our walls. That is where our enemies intend to gain entrance, like slitworms seeking open wounds amidst the swamp waters.’

  ‘I shall cull the rats for their foolishness, then bolster the defences with iron and flesh!’ grunted Grungholox, one of Ungholghott’s finest generals.

  ‘I shall shore up the defences with the meat and bone of the very vermin that weakened them, and cement them in place with foetid grue!’ hissed Yurkhling, Grungholox’s chief rival.

  ‘You shall stay your hasty blades and observe a wiser method,’ said Ungholghott. He began to expound his plan, and as he did so, his champions nodded and smirked. Soon his enemies would bring him a fine bounty, the final ingredients for him to weave into his flesh harvest before he unleashed his legions upon the Jade Kingdoms.

  Idly, he patted a jutting mass of flesh and rock as he passed it, causing it to twitch and heave. Truly, he thought, there were numerous forms of generosity in this world, and it was his good fortune to benefit from many of them. Who was he to keep such gifts to himself?

  ACT III

  Chapter Twelve

  Neave travelled the coiling vine causeway of Clan Thyrghael once more. This time, she did so upon her own two feet, unhelmed and with her axes slung upon her back and her mind and senses clear.

  She walked at the head of a sylvaneth host, marching up the intertwining vineway even as it grew beneath their feet, pushing upwards from the depths of the chasm. It gave her a strange, vertiginous feeling, but Neave rode it out without swaying, for her balance was as sharp as it had ever been. With each new revelation from her body, Neave realised just how much the conflicting magics within her had been degrading her abilities. Had she ever felt this strong, this clear and sharp, she wondered?

  Ahead of Neave walked a pair of towering Treelords, Wytha between them and Ithary flowing along several steps behind. The Branchwraith shot occasional glances of pure disdain at Neave. Each time, she answered with a wolfish grin.

  At Neave’s side rode Katalya, saddled once more atop her beloved steed. Ketto’s prodigious leg span took up much of the bridge’s width, and Neave was careful not to be inadvertently swatted by a long chitinous limb.

  Katalya had not spoken to Neave since being freed from her cell, though the girl had enthused to Ketto, slapping his mandibles and rubbing his glinting hide with fierce affection. Now, as the pale daylight of the forest drew near overhead, she looked at Neave.

  ‘You are different,’ she said.

  ‘I am,’ replied Neave, smiling.

  ‘They have stopped you falling down like a tattakan foal?’

  ‘They have. I know why I’m here now and what I must do. I’m going to kill the swamp king.’

  ‘You mean you will help me to kill him,’ said Katalya in a tone that brooked no argument. Neave quirked an eyebrow.

  ‘We’re going into the stronghold of a powerful Chaos warlord, Kat,’ she said. ‘This is going to be extremely dangerous, like nothing you’ve ever experienced. I admire your courage, and I’ve seen that you and Ketto can fight. You are worth ten of these tree spirits and more. But you stay close to me, and you follow my commands no matter what, understand? I’ve a hunt to complete, and as I can’t leave you amongst the forest spirits I must keep you safe at the same time.’

  Katalya bristled.

  ‘We don’t need you to save us, sky knight. So far, all you did was get us nearly killed. Twice.’

  ‘You’re alive because I negotiated your release with the forest sp
irits,’ said Neave.

  ‘Who wouldn’t have had us at all if we hadn’t followed you,’ retorted Katalya.

  ‘No, because you’d have been overrun by skaven and butchered long before you got here.’ The young warrior blinked at the sudden steel in Neave’s tone. ‘You say you want Sigmar to take you up and make you into a warrior capable of taking revenge upon the forces of Chaos, even though that is not the gift you believe. Well, Katalya Mourne, you’ll never receive that honour if you continue to let your temper override your discipline and keep blaming everyone else for the things that happen to you.’

  ‘We don’t need Sigmar to survive,’ said Katalya, but Neave could hear her heart wasn’t in it.

  ‘You don’t need Reforging, that much is certainly true, but you do need me,’ she said. ‘Can you follow my orders, or do I have to devise some way to cut you loose and send you fleeing for the hills before we begin our attack?’

  ‘We will not flee,’ said Katalya hotly.

  ‘Then you will follow.’

  Katalya’s jaw clenched stubbornly, but then, to Neave’s relief, the girl nodded.

  ‘I will follow you like you are my chieftain,’ she said, ‘and you will help me kill the swamp king. Even if his armies kill us after.’

  ‘They won’t,’ said Neave. ‘Not if Wytha’s weapon does what she claims it will.’

  Neave had seen the fragment only briefly, as the sylvaneth mustered for war in the caverns below. It had seemed almost innocuous, a brassy-looking canister about a foot in length with crystalline veins set into its sides. Yet Neave had seen the blue-green light that shimmered through the veins and felt the oppressive sense of old magic on the air. It was something from the Age of Myth, surely. Wytha had refused to talk of the weapon’s nature or its origins, but Neave sensed that its power was enough to turn this fight in their favour.