‘I will be doing it,’ Tornus said. ‘It is being my atonement.’ He reached for the beacon, but Cadoc caught his wrist in a vice-like grip.
‘No, g… give it to me,’ Cadoc gasped. He groped for the beacon with his other hand. ‘It is my duty… my responsibility…’
‘I am not certain that I can protect your soul, if you perish,’ Morbus warned.
‘My soul needs no protection,’ Cadoc said. ‘I am the light of Sigmar’s wrath. Let the Dark Gods burn themselves to ashes in my fire.’
At Gardus’ nod, Tornus handed him his beacon. Cadoc glared up at him. ‘Beware, for I might consume you as well.’
‘I am being ready,’ Tornus said softly.
Cadoc nodded and gripped the beacon in both hands. Slowly, but surely, he began to prise it open. The light flared, brighter and brighter. ‘Say your prayers, Lord-Relictor,’ the Knight-Azyros growled as he tore the beacon asunder.
Morbus heaved himself unsteadily to his feet. The azure cracks in his armour were wider, and glowed brightly. A thin shroud of lightning crackled about him as he slammed the ferrule of his staff against the deck. ‘Attend me, children of Azyr. Listen, and obey. Who is it that kneels here, before me?’
‘Only the faithful,’ Gardus said. Tornus and the others echoed him.
‘Who shall rise like fire, when all is dust?’
‘Only the faithful,’ Tornus said, as he sank to one knee. The light slipped from the beacon and rose. Morbus gestured, and the light stretched and wavered. It spilled outwards from itself, doubling and redoubling in size and radiance. Tornus could hear the crash of warring stars and the eternal roar of the celestial cascade. Motes that might have been galaxies and nebulae took shape as the light swelled.
‘Who will carry the light of Azyr into the darkness?’
‘Only the faithful.’
The words flew like arrows. Tornus felt something within him stir in response to the light above. The part of him that had been forged anew by Sigmar’s hands, the part of him that was as one with the eternal storm, surged upwards to meet and strengthen the radiance. He could see similar motes of light rising from every Stormcast, binding them all to the glow above.
‘Only through faith can victory be achieved,’ the Lord-Relictor said. The second canticle of the Hallowed Knights. ‘Only through faith can it even be conceived.’
Morbus stretched his hand upwards, as if to catch hold of the cobalt light. Instead, at his touch, it burst outwards, streaking to every part of the wrecked galley. ‘Who finds salvation in sacrifice?’
‘Only the faithful.’
‘Who alone shall stand, when all others kneel?’
‘Only the faithful.’
‘Who shall hold up heaven’s foundations, at the end of all things?’
‘Only the faithful!’
Tornus and the others cried out the response as one, and the light became blinding. The deck shuddered beneath his feet as radiant blue flame swept across it. The flames consumed and rebuilt the vessel all in the same moment, and what rose from the mire was a graceful echo of what had been. Where before it had been a thing of brutal angles and serviceable design, it was now a craft fit to ply the celestial seas. Fiery sails swelled with a star-born wind, and the twin-tailed comet flickered across their expanse. Oars of lightning lashed out at the murk below, burning away the miasma and reducing the waters to steam.
Morbus, his form wreathed in fire, slammed his staff down once more, and with a peal of thunder, the great vessel began to move. Tornus staggered and sank back, fingers tracing the blackened outline of the twin-tailed comet on his chest-plate. All of the Stormcasts looked as if they had marched through a conflagration. Smoke rose from their armour, and the plumes of their helmets had been reduced to nothing.
Tornus could feel the movement of the oars in his bones, and the rush of searing wind against the curve of the hull. It was as if he and the ship were one. He glanced at Enyo in wonder, and she nodded. ‘I feel it as well,’ she said. ‘This ship is made from the fire of our faith. It is us, and we are it.’
He felt the truth of her words as she spoke them.
‘It is being Cadoc who is lighting it though.’ He turned, and saw the Knight-Azyros lying still and silent where he’d fallen. The remains of the beacon lay beside him, its casing warped and shattered. Gardus stood over him, his weapons dangling loosely from his hands. Tornus joined him as Morbus sank down beside the body.
‘Much is demanded of those to whom much is given,’ the Lord-Relictor intoned, setting his hand on Cadoc’s ruined chest. Morbus still burned. Cerulean flames rose from his battered mortis armour, obscuring almost all of its detail. Even his skull-helm was alight, with only the black outline of its shape visible. The flames grew brighter, Tornus noticed, as he drew Cadoc’s soul into himself.
‘Let us just hope that we have something left to give,’ Gardus said.
Gutrot Spume stood with one foot balanced on the prow of his galley as it slid towards the gates of the Inevitable Citadel. The upper reaches of Desolation were composed of a ring of once-proud ruins, which spread out about the passage to the sixth tier of the garden as if it were a spoke in a wheel. Broken walls rose like tombstones, marking the final resting place of long-buried empires.
‘A fine place this, eh, Durg?’
The plaguebearer nodded glumly. ‘Aye, captain.’
Spume chuckled. ‘This place is a true testament to Grandfather’s power.’ He gestured expansively towards the ruins they sailed through. This place’s name was forgotten to all but a few ancient daemon-scribes, and the eldest of Nurgle’s tallymen. The capital of a realm-spanning empire, brought to utter ruin by a contagion that broke down the very bonds between flesh, bone, soul and mind. That which had resulted had become fertile soil for the Lord of All Things.
Now, only these few paltry ruins remained. A monument and a warning both. Put to use, as all things must be, and made over into a bastion of plague. Plaguebearers of the Blighted Legion marched in plodding lockstep through the shallows nearby, their scythe-glaives resting on their shoulders. They kept a droning count of the deaths they’d inflicted on the Mortal Realms, naming each and every soul claimed.
Industry thrived here, so close to the garden’s heart. A thick cloud of black pox-smoke rose upwards from the tiers below, choking the air and blotting out all light save that of the balefire torches that lining the main boulevard. Vessels slid along flooded side-streets, sailing to war. Some went to defend Nurgle’s waters. Others to conquer new lands in Grandfather’s name.
Once, Spume would have been among them. And soon he would be again.
‘You must be proud, reaver.’
He glanced at Urslaug’s head, hanging from his belt. The witch had been quiet since they’d left the skaven warrens. ‘And ye must be wondering what I intend to do with ye now, eh?’ He snatched her up and held her at arm’s length. She grimaced.
‘I know you well enough to know what my fate is.’
‘And yet ye helped me stir the pox-winds in my favour anyway.’
If she’d had shoulders, she would have shrugged. ‘Truth to tell, I was getting bored tending my garden.’
Spume chuckled. He gestured, and two plaguebearers rolled a wooden cask towards him. ‘By way of thanks, your body, as I swore. Preserved in cankerwine, and ready for its head to be reattached.’
Urslaug’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve forgiven me my treachery then?’
‘Did I say that, now?’ Spume twitched his axe meaningfully. The plaguebearers lifted the cask with a shared grunt, and heaved it over the rail. Urslaug screamed in anger. Spume laughed and swung her head out over the water. ‘Make your way back to it, if you can. And think on your crimes as you do so. When I return this way again, mayhap you’ll have rethought your loyalties, witch.’
‘The only thing I’ll be thinking of is the best wa
y to strip the blubber from your poxy bones, Gutrot Spume,’ Urslaug shrieked. Spume flicked her head after her body, and watched it arc up and tumble down, still screaming imprecations.
‘Ah, women,’ Spume said, glancing at the plaguebearers. ‘Passionate creatures, the lot.’
The daemons stared at him in incomprehension. Spume waved them off, and turned back to his study of Desolation. The gates to the sixth tier hung within a massive stone archway, heavy with moss and slime. They were bronze and grotesquely decorated beneath a patina of grime. Legend stated that they were spoils of war, taken from Khorne’s realm during the Wars of Blood. Their size was such that it required a hundred enslaved souls to haul the dripping chains that set the great opening mechanisms in motion.
The souls struggled through deep water, often being submerged entirely as they laboured. Nurglings clustered nearby on makeshift rafts of scum, and pelted the slaves with mucus and filth. Plaguebearers crouched on plinths of stone overlooking the waters. They jabbed at the struggling souls with rust-limned spears and halberds, encouraging them to greater efforts. The gates opened with an explosive creak, sending waves surging up over the rails of the galleys. Slaves were swept away, and nurglings spilled across the water in giggling clumps.
Spume thumped the deck with the haft of his axe, signalling his crew. Drums began to thump, and whips hissed as the rowers bent to their task. As the galley passed through the immense gates Spume heard the thunderous hum of a million flies. Bloated plague drones sped overhead, heading out into the mire. Spume watched them for a moment, then gestured to Durg. ‘Go and get our prisoner. He should see this.’
Durg grinned toothily and sloped away. He enjoyed tormenting the Stormcast a bit more than was good for him, but Spume was inclined to be indulgent. After so long, it was almost time to bid the garden, and its stultifying boredom, goodbye. He turned back and leaned forwards, arm across his knee.
Behind the gates, a watery greenish light shone. The light of Grandfather’s balefire reflected in the waters that coursed through the entirety of the garden. Unlike the other tiers, Desolation was walled off not simply with stone, but with sorcery. Only those ships blessed by Nurgle, or powerful enough to ignore such enchantments, could safely enter the Inevitable Citadel.
Desolation’s wards had only been breached once in its history. The crystal ships of Tzeentch had reached the very walls of Nurgle’s manse, during the Age of Blood. The wreckage of that fleet still glimmered in the soft light of Grandfather’s hearth. Spume felt a pleasing heat as the galley passed through the light. A sound like the rushing of water filled his ears and, for a moment, he was blind to all save the gangrenous glow. Then they were through, and sailing along a wide canal.
Thick, high walls composed of slime-slick stone rose to either side of the canal. Hunched, toad-like gargoyles with open mouths and bulging eyes crouched atop the walls. They vomited a constant stream of sludgy water into the canal. Oily water vapour billowed upwards in a yellow cloud. Upside-down ramparts crossed above the canal, daemons marching in lazy formation across their inverted length. Parapets stretched vertically towards the sky, intersecting with the upturned ramparts, stubby daemon-engines lining their length. Balefire dripped from the grinning, stylised maws of the fire-throwers, ready to be unleashed upon invaders.
The whole of the citadel resembled a child’s broken toy, its pieces cast into the air and frozen in mid-tumble. Spume had heard tell that this place had once been more traditional in its structure, but that Nurgle had grown bored. Now, jungle creepers thick with insect larvae stretched like a web between the dissociated segments, and strange birds nested in the fat roots that emerged from the cracks in the canal walls. Blossoms of an unhealthy hue floated in the waters and, occasionally, Spume caught a glimpse of silvery shapes slipping through the murky depths.
Ahead of him, a second gateway waited, guarded by two warriors of the Rotguard. The massive Great Unclean Ones stood on either side of the canal. They were both clad in battered, disintegrating, half-plate armour, and full-face featureless helms. Each carried an embossed shield as large as Spume himself, and a flail such as only a gargant could wield. The daemons paid no attention to the galley as it slipped between them. Spume watched them warily nonetheless. He remembered Gulax’s promise, and had no wish to be caught unawares. The Rotguard were bad enemies to have, whatever the reason. They had much influence in the Court of Ruination in these troubled times.
A clatter caused him to turn. Durg hauled their captive up onto the forward deck, dragging him by his chains. The Stormcast didn’t struggle. Spume grunted, somewhat disappointed. This was going to be no fun if all the fight had been beaten out of him. He set his axe over his shoulder and gestured with a tentacle.
‘Welcome to the Inevitable Citadel, shiny-skin. It will be the last place you ever see.’
Grymn looked around, blinking against the sudden, painful light. The galley had sailed into what looked to be a vast stone amphitheatre of irregular shape and proportion. Canals ran crookedly through its heart, issuing from a septet of gateways. Haphazardly placed wooden beams rose against the oddly bulging walls, as if holding them in place. Monstrous roots erupted from beneath the paving stones and squirmed in all directions. Colossal statues, obscene in their construction, stood or squatted atop equally large plinths of onyx, marked with weeping sigils. Balefire torches and blighted lanterns cast a sickly glow over everything and, in their light, the statues seemed to twitch and grimace.
Daemons moved like insects among the roots and scuttled through the shadows of the statues. Some wore armour, others were clad in ill-kept finery. All seemed to have their own purpose, and went about it. Unseen bells tolled throughout the amphitheatre as the galley slid alongside a fungal wharf, thick with chattering nurglings and swarms of flies.
At the centre of the amphitheatre, the waters of the canals drained down into an abyssal cistern through a series of grates shaped like the maws of great beasts. The rim of the cistern was nearly flush with the floor of the amphitheatre and, from its mouth, a thick black cloud of smoke rose upwards continuously.
Overhead, more support beams, each as wide around as two men, criss-crossed the open air. From them hung thousands of tarnished and befouled icons. Most were recognisable. The runes of Khorne, Slaanesh and even the Horned Rat were in evidence. Captured banners rustled in the smoky air, flapping against hundreds of iron gibbet-cages, each containing a broken, huddled form.
‘The corsair-kings of the Cerulean Seas,’ Spume said, looking up. ‘Sorcerers and witches, bound to the whims of the Architect of Fate. And now caged for eternity, at Grandfather’s pleasure.’
‘Your kind has ever warred against itself,’ Grymn said.
‘Not my kind. They were weak.’ Spume lifted Grymn’s chin with the flat of his axe. ‘As ye are weak. But I am strong. And will be stronger still, when I am returned to Ghyran.’ He rotated the axe, letting its edge scrape against Grymn’s chin and throat. ‘Maybe they’ll let me have your skin to hang from my mast.’
‘Come and take it, if you think you can.’
Spume laughed. ‘Still some fight in ye, eh? Good. I was worried ye were going to make this no fun at all.’
Would that I had control of your mouth, as I do your limbs, Bubonicus hissed. Grymn frowned. A wave of weakness passed through him, and he spat out a squirming maggot. Spume crushed it beneath his foot.
‘There aren’t many as could endure the maggot-curse so long. Ye must be about hollowed out by now.’
Grymn said nothing, too busy trying to control the surge of bile that rushed through him. Memories not his own crowded against his thoughts, making it hard to focus. Bubonicus had redoubled his efforts, desperate to conquer Grymn’s will before they reached Desolation. Gradually, he’d lost control of his limbs, of his body. He could feel maggots squirming within him, smothering him from the inside. Pain radiated through his bones as they gnawed stea
dily away. His prayers had kept them at bay, but not for much longer.
Our battle is soon done, Bubonicus whispered.
‘But not yet,’ Grymn muttered, as Durg flung him to the deck. The daemon planted a warty foot between his shoulders and held him down. ‘And if you have any hope of victory, you will leave me be.’
Bubonicus fell silent. Whatever else he might be, the creature was no fool. His fate was tied to Grymn’s for the moment. Grymn blinked sweat and blood out of his eyes. He tried to focus on Spume. The Rotbringer sank to his haunches.
‘There are matters yet to settle between us, before I hand your carcass over.’
‘To your masters, you mean?’
Spume made a sound halfway between a growl and a laugh. ‘Call them whatever ye like. Makes no difference to me. But I will have my just due of you.’
‘Hardly a fair fight,’ Grymn said, glaring up at him.
‘I’m not interested in fair.’ Spume waved Durg back. ‘But I will give you one last chance to draw blood, if you like.’
A trick. He intends to humiliate you. To break you.
‘I know,’ Grymn said, heaving himself to his feet. Bubonicus made no attempt to stop him, though Grymn couldn’t say why.
‘Still talking to that rotten seed, eh? Well, pay attention.’ Spume spun his axe and drove the haft into Grymn’s stomach. He staggered back, and felt Durg’s lash kiss his back. It couldn’t cut through his armour, but the force of the blow dropped him to one knee. More plaguebearers crowded around, carrying cudgels and whips. They struck at him from all sides, and the thorns of the whips tore ragged gashes in his face.
‘Whoever ye are in there, ye chose the wrong body to usurp. Bad luck, that.’ Spume thrust himself through the knot of plaguebearers and used his tendrils to batter Grymn, knocking him sprawling. ‘Good luck for me, though. Kept him weak, kept him from escaping. I should thank ye.’ He struck Grymn in the side of the head, causing his world to spin. ‘But, in truth, I was hoping for more of a challenge.’
Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden Page 32