Blacktalon: First Mark

by Andy Clark

  Never mind that the child had failed her in this. Wytha knew that their dealings were far from done, and in the meanwhile, this was a pleasure she would take for herself.

  Wytha stepped across the threshold and into the heart of Lord Ungholghott’s fortress. To her surprise, his sanctum was not some huge laboratory or trophy-stacked war room. Instead, she found herself staring into a truly immense library.

  The chamber had to be several thousand yards from wall to wall. Huge stone bridges stretched out, from the door Wytha stood at and several others besides, to converge at the chamber’s heart. There they formed a platform that stood atop a bone plinth, which itself vanished down into the dark pit that was the chamber’s only other floor. How deep that pit went, Wytha could not have said, but the walls on every side of it were made up entirely of bookshelves. Iron platforms and gantries crawled across them, spreading up from the pit’s depths like some strange creeping plant-life and stretching precariously across the void to connect to the central dais. From where she stood, Wytha could see that the nearest bookshelves were crammed with mouldering scrolls and rotting books, tomes bound in flesh and covered in swivelling eyes, grimoires whose fleshy hides boasted ripe buboes ready to burst, and countless other volumes. She had no reason to believe that any of the other myriad shelves were any different, and for a moment Wytha’s mind rebelled at the thought of just how much knowledge must be concentrated in this place. All of it foul, she thought with horror, all of it tainted by Chaos and turned to evil and ruin.

  The chamber’s walls towered up and up, tapering slowly into a cone shape that defied logic and left entire shelves of books hanging precariously, hundreds of feet above any obvious way to reach them. Above, capping the chamber like a staring eye, was a massive dome of amber-hued glass. It was veined with black mould and displayed the tri-lobe sigil of Nurgle wrought in vast glass pustules.

  ‘This is a place of incalculable evil,’ breathed Wytha. ‘We do Alarielle’s work in destroying this aberration. Come, my spirits. To the dais!’

  Surely, reasoned Wytha, that huge stone platform must be the very heart of Lord Ungholghott’s fastness. What better place to invoke the weapon? As she marched down the walkway towards the chamber’s heart, Wytha saw the dais supported an entire alchemical laboratory, several ironclad surgical slabs festooned with horrible looking instruments, map tables, weapons racks and many other affectations.

  ‘Our enemy’s true sanctum,’ she said to Ithary, Khaegh and Rhyssyth. ‘Poetic, that we shall bring him to ruin from the place he takes his rest.’

  ‘Echoes plentiful are there, yet watch’n eyes and ready blades a-few,’ sang Ithary. ‘Wherefore stand the sentynl’s?’

  ‘We have beaten our enemy to the killing blow,’ said Wytha. ‘It is as was foreseen. If we move swift and true with our purpose–’

  ‘Then you shall deliver your fascinating weapon straight into my waiting hand,’ boomed a deep voice that echoed through the library stacks. ‘Your arrogance astounds me, old stump, but only marginally more than your perpetual stupidity.’

  Wytha hissed, casting about for the source of the voice.

  ‘Beware shadeswards,’ said Ithary, glancing behind them. Beyond the toppled metal doors, the archway was now packed with Blightkings, dozens more than they had slain in their first attack. A hulking monster of a warrior stood at their head, hefting a cleaver taller than a dryad.

  ‘More upon the walkways,’ said Rhyssyth, pointing to where warbands of Nurgle worshippers had flowed in through the chamber’s other doorways. They were already on the move, clattering along the gantryways and marching down the stone bridges to bring their forces to bear. The drone of huge insect wings filled the air as, rising from the pit, came a swarm of flies the size of dray horses. Sat astride each of the revolting daemon insects was a champion of Nurgle, scythes in their bloated hands and horned helms sitting atop their festering heads.

  Khaegh sent a wordless crescendo of alarm through the spirit song, and began a rasping chant to gather her magics.

  Wytha looked up with grim resignation to where a huge shape moved against the light of the glass dome. Coiling from atop one of the towering bookcases came a monstrous hybrid beast, half dragon, half fly. It launched itself heavily towards them and the low drone of its immense wings filled the air as it descended. Wytha saw Ungholghott’s rotten form sat astride the fly-dragon’s saddle. Even at such a distance, she felt his septic yellow gaze lock with her own.

  ‘These things are no use for flesh, but they have something I desire,’ cried Ungholghott, his voice amplified unnaturally to echo through the chamber like thunder. ‘Slay them all for the glory of Nurgle and bring me the weapon their Branchwych bears. A boon of greater poxes for the champion who does my will!’

  With that, Ungholghott steered his monstrous steed into a steep dive, the swarms of fly riders rose from the pit, and the warbands upon the causeways and gantries gave a great roar of glee. Wytha felt hope withering in her breast as she looked upon the odds arrayed against her, but still her hate and her faith burned cold within.

  ‘We may not live to see the end of this, my kin, but it will end as was foreseen,’ she snarled. ‘Forward to the dais. Clear me a path, and let nothing give you pause!’

  The last warriors of Clan Thyrghael raised a keening war cry, and surged down the bridge towards the distant dais with their talons and blades lashing.

  Tarion stalked down a fleshy corridor, eyes darting across the tangle of sylvaneth and Rotbringer dead that strewed its floor. He tried and failed to ignore the mats of pseudopods that had slithered from the meat-floor to suckle at the corpses’ fluids.

  A light flared ahead of him, resolving from the gloom into the shape of Krien, winging swiftly back to him. The star eagle alighted on Tarion’s forearm and gave a string of screeches and beak-clacks.

  ‘Foes ahead,’ called Tarion over his shoulder. ‘We’re nearing the heart of the fortress.’

  ‘Sigmar’s hammer, you’d bloody hope so!’ grumbled Karias Wintercrest, leading his Rangers up the passage behind Tarion. ‘How big is this damned fortress? What possible use is a stronghold so vast that you can lose invaders in it entirely?’

  ‘Never question the madness of Chaos, sir,’ said Elorra Fireshot from behind him. ‘That way lies madness of your own.’

  ‘And never quote my own damn lessons back at me,’ replied ­Wintercrest. ‘Even if they are quite right…’

  ‘Wintercrest, send messages to the other brotherhoods,’ said Tarion. ‘Krien and I will push ahead and find a staging post for you all to gather on.’

  ‘Take my aether-compass,’ said Wintercrest, tossing the arcane mechanism to Tarion, who caught it neatly out of the air. ‘We’ll converge on its resonance.’

  ‘Wise thinking,’ said Tarion. ‘See you on the battleline, Ranger-Prime.’

  Wintercrest offered Tarion a warrior salute, then turned back to his Rangers, issuing swift orders for them to divide up and locate the other probing forces who were hunting for the fortress’ heart. Tarion ran up the passageway, Krien leaping from his shoulder to streak ahead. He followed the star eagle’s light, hearing now for himself the distant clangour of battle up ahead.

  ‘Sigmar, let us not be too late,’ prayed Tarion as he ran. ‘And allow Neave to escape in time.’

  Neave sprinted as fast as she dared, though it was not nearly as fast as she would have liked. Katalya clung to her back with desperate tenacity, but the girl’s strength was beginning to fail as the contagions of the fortress gnawed at her spirit.

  The Stormcast Eternal clattered down a brass stairway and into a long, low-ceilinged chamber that reeked of unwashed bodies. In the yellow light of vile globes, Neave saw the rudimentary living quarters of Ungholghott’s cultists spread out before her. There were hundreds upon hundreds of festering bedrolls, racks for weapons and armour, dirty cookfires peppered with human bo
nes, and a strew of filth and detritus that stretched away in drifts to the chamber’s distant walls. The entire space stirred with the drone of flies, and squirmed with a carpet of beetles, worms, maggots and scurrying vermin.

  Katalya gagged.

  ‘By Dracothion’s blazing maw, how can any living thing exist amidst such stench?’ exclaimed Neave in revulsion. She saw the exit from this chamber, distant against the far wall, and set off towards it at a run.

  ‘Neave…’ coughed Katalya.

  ‘I see them, Kat,’ said Neave. ‘Just hang on.’

  Shapes stirred amongst the filth and ruin. Neave had sensed their presence the moment she entered the chamber, the reek of their bodies and the irregular thump of their diseased hearts. Evidently, not all of Ungholghott’s cultists had answered his summons to battle. She estimated more than a hundred foes were rising to their feet as they registered her arrival – a thin scatter of enemies across such a huge chamber, and many of them wounded or sickly, but still more than enough to slow her flight if she let them.

  Neave knew that she couldn’t afford that. She dug into her reserves of stamina and ran hard for the far archway, which drew closer by the moment. A trio of ragged warriors rose from their smouldering cookfire directly in her path, hefting rusted weapons as they saw her coming. Neave feinted right then lunged left, throwing her already-surprised enemies off balance. Her axes took the head of one and the arm of another and then she was past. She heard a whickering and dodged, prompting a yelp from Katalya as she was almost flung aside. A hatchet spun through the air, flung by the last cultist, and sailed over Neave’s shoulder.

  More cultists were massing. Many wore the goggles and aprons Neave had seen already, while others were garbed in mouldering robes and clutched ritual daggers in their leper’s hands. She ignored the ones running from the far corners of the chamber, for they had no hope of reaching her in time. Those with the most self-possession, however, had realised her intent and rushed to block the exit. Already, Neave could see twenty of them massed between her and freedom, with more hobbling and lurching as fast as they could to join the blockade.

  ‘How will we get past them?’ cried Katalya.

  ‘By blood,’ said Neave. ‘Just hold on as tight as you can. This will be rough.’

  Neave accelerated, axes swept out to either side. Her enemies’ eyes widened as they saw her intent, those in the front rank backing into those behind with alarmed cries. They brandished their weapons and tried to brace themselves for her impact.

  Just before she struck their lines, Neave leapt, driving her knee into the chest of the closest cultist. His ribs shattered and a bloody rush of air burst from his mouth as she drove him backwards into his comrades. Her axes scythed through the Chaos-worshippers to either side and sent more gore showering into the air. Neave hit hard enough to drive deep into the cultists’ mass, but their bodies were bloated with corruption and pressed together in a crowd. They absorbed Neave’s charge at a cost in lives, and then surged in on her from all sides.

  Fists and feet lashed in at her. Daggers struck sparks from Neave’s armour. Conscious of the vulnerable girl clinging to her back, Neave kept turning, kept putting herself between her attackers and Katalya’s fur-clad body. Still, she heard Katalya cry out as an enemy’s blade found her flesh, felt the tribesgirl’s grip almost falter as she spasmed in pain. Neave swung her axes as best she could, smashing their hafts into faces and ripping their blades through guts and chests, but the cultists were so close and so compacted they began to pin her arms. Faces leered, goggles reflecting warped parodies of her furious expression. The mob howled and screamed with one voice, terrified of her but also exultant at the thought they might manage to overwhelm this Sigmarite warrior.

  Neave managed to kick the legs out from under another enemy, feeling satisfaction as she heard his bones crunch beneath the feet of his comrades. She smacked the head of one of her axes into the teeth of another cultist, stoving his face in and sending him staggering back. She hissed as a dagger found its way through a chink in her armour and drove into her midriff. A wild punch caught her square in the jaw, rocking her head back, and with a snarl Neave returned the favour with a head-butt that drove her attacker to the floor.

  A sudden weight vanished from Neave’s back and her eyes widened in horror.

  ‘Kat,’ she cried, smashing her nearest assailants back and spinning around. For a dreadful moment, Neave expected to see Katalya fallen, slain by cultists she could not avoid. Instead, Neave turned in time to see the tribesgirl slam her forearms together and scream out a wordless war-cry. A ferocious shockwave of jade energies burst from Katalya’s vambraces and blasted the cultists and Neave alike from their feet.

  Neave hit the ground and rolled, before coming up in a skidding crouch. She launched herself back towards Katalya. Those closest to the girl burned with jade fire, screaming and writhing as their flesh crisped and their eyes boiled away. A strange scent rose from their burning bodies, sweet and acrid like herbal incense that covered the stench of something fouler. The rest writhed on the ground as they attempted to recover their wits.

  Neave reached Katalya’s side in an instant, expecting her to be weak. She drew up in surprise as Kat turned, pale but grinning, with the stigmata of Nurgle’s plagues partially faded from her flesh.

  ‘What in the realms?’ asked Neave.

  ‘Mourne tribe take our magic from the lands, put them into our fists,’ said Katalya. ‘I guess the lands are more powerful than Nurgle?’

  ‘Raw life-magic channelled through your vambraces,’ breathed Neave. ‘I feared this place would kill you. But with those on your arms and Sigmar’s grace…’ The warrior drew a deep breath, steadying her thumping heart. ‘Come, they won’t stay down for long. We need to move.’

  Neave punctuated her sentence by stamping hard on the throat of a groaning cultist who was trying to crawl to his feet. Katalya took her cue and, after shaking out her aching arms, she clambered back onto Neave’s back. Neave was away at once, picking a swift path between her fallen foes and surging through the archway into another corridor.

  ‘I can smell clearer air ahead,’ she called back to Katalya, ‘and I can sense open space. We’ll get you out of here soon, Kat, you’ve my word.’

  Yet even as she ran, Neave prayed to Sigmar with all her might not to feel the sudden surge of magical energies that she feared at her back. Not until she had taken Katalya away from this awful place. Not until she had fulfilled her oath.

  Please, Lord Sigmar, she thought. Let me suffer if I must, but not her. She has a chance at a life I did not, and she has faced all of this horror without any of the gifts that you have given me. Please, let her live.

  Some presentiment of danger prickled Neave’s sixth sense. The ominous feeling swept over her that she did not have long left. Heart hammering, she ran faster.

  The Shadowhammers burst into Lord Ungholghott’s inner sanctum with a mighty cry. Tarion charged with them, pelting through a puckered bone archway and launching himself airborne with a roar. Krien screeched as he swept alongside, while at Tarion’s heels Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye thundered in at the head of his surviving Palladors. They stormed along a wide stone bridge, with the Ranger and Raptor brotherhoods sprinting in their wake.

  Sweeping high, Tarion swiftly took in the desperate battle filling the chamber. His heart sank at the carnage he saw.

  The vast library seethed with Rotbringers, from screaming cultists and bellowing Blightkings to fly-borne elites and the revolting abominations of Lord Ungholghott’s fleshcraft. Worse, the Chaos sorcerer himself swept back and forth through the air astride an immense hybrid of fly and dragon, whose distended maw vomited jets of acidic filth down upon the fight below.

  Tarion saw what remained of the Dreadwood sylvaneth. They were terribly outnumbered but fighting fiercely near the chamber’s heart. He scoped the area and gauged that they had been dri
ving for the dais where the stone bridges converged, but their momentum had failed them several hundred yards short. Now they fought in a slowly constricting ring, their dead piled around them, while the servants of Nurgle attacked from the air, from both sides along the stone bridgeway, and even by leaping at them from the nearest gantries.

  He got a split-second view of the Branchwych who stood at the circle’s heart, screaming furious exhortations and brandishing a glowing metal canister. Then fly-mounted Blightlords were thrumming down towards him, and Tarion joined the fight.

  He wove aside as the lead Blightlord hurtled in, swinging his scythe in a deranged aerial joust. The huge blade cut the air near to Tarion’s head and shattered several vanes in his left wing. In return, he shot six arrows into the rider and another three into his steed.

  The blistering point-blank salvo sent the fly-rider toppling from his saddle with lightning coursing across his bloated body; his rot-fly steed followed him down, wings still thrumming and legs twitching in a mad dance of death.

  Tarion shot the next Blightlord through the shoulder, rocking him in his saddle, before tucking his wings and plummeting like a stone to evade the attack of the third. He saw too late that this last opponent had a huge bell trailing on a chain driven into his steed’s abdomen. The blunt lump of metal struck Tarion a glancing blow in the ribs, tolling with a flat clang as it rang off his armour.

  Tarion’s controlled fall turned into a tumble as the impact hurled him sideways. He slammed into a library stack with bone-crushing force. Ruined tomes and shredded scrolls rained down as he scrambled for purchase, eventually managing to grab onto the mouldering shelves with his free hand.

  With a groan of effort, Tarion dragged a lungful of air into his bruised chest. He could feel ribs grinding together where the bell had struck him, and his armour was dented and crackling with lightning. He looked up to see the two remaining fly-riders circling back around for another pass, their flight erratic and wobbling as they brandished their scythes above their heads.