Knight of Corruption

by David Annandale

  And around the altar, around the fire, around the ramparts, Brennus and his comrades sang.

  The song was a patchwork, constructed of bits and pieces dredged from the collective memories of the worshippers. The people combined melodies and words passed down from generation to generation, eroded and forgotten as the centuries of darkness passed. They took the fragments, many of them devoid of any meaning save the impulse to praise itself, and put them together in the same manner they had built the temple. The result was irregular, a thing of awkward rhythms and strange halts, but it was powerful. It gave voice to the soul. Brennus sang his thanks, even though he did not know who he thanked. The hymn was raised to unnamed gods. The objects of praise were the warriors who had brought the light. Whoever they were, they had broken the forces of the Dark Gods, so they must be divine.

  The worshippers sang for the warriors seen only from a distance, offering thanks for the miracle already performed, and calling upon them to return.

  ‘Movement,’ Kalfer shouted.

  The worshippers kept singing. Brennus and four others detached themselves from the circle and joined Kalfer at the ramparts. Silhouettes gathered on the summit of the hill to the south. Soon they covered the slope. The forms were bloated, twisted. Torsos and limbs were malformed. Some were swollen. Others were too long, tentacles instead of arms. The air, foul and choking as ever, became fouler yet. Brennus’ throat began to feel tight and raw just from looking at the hulking, pestilential shapes.

  And then there was music, the terrible music, a jangling discordant sound in celebration of corruption.

  All along the lines of the assembled host, horns were raised. They sounded. Their blast reverberated across the valley. The noise was huge. It ratcheted like lungs filling with fluid. It buzzed with the wings of millions of insects. It echoed, it squirmed.

  Brennus was sure the light in the valley began to fail more quickly, as if sickened by the sound. The air grew still worse. Brennus swallowed, and he felt the tickle of legs crawling at the back of his mouth and down into his chest.

  ‘Our trial has come,’ Kalfer said. He sounded determined, but Brennus could hear the fear just beneath the surface.

  ‘We are prepared,’ said Brennus.

  ‘I had hoped…’ Kalfer trailed off as the warband began to march down the hill.

  ‘For what?’ Heccam asked. ‘To be left alone?’ He had already picked up a double-headed flail from the stacks of weapons lining the ramparts. Its handle was long enough to be used as a staff. He held it up like an icon.

  ‘No,’ said Kalfer, already sounding stronger. He touched his forehead, where he wore a tight band of studded metal.

  ‘Good.’ Jessina was arming herself too. ‘Our duty is not to hide and hope for deliverance.’

  ‘It is not,’ Brennus agreed. ‘We will give praise in struggle. And if we die, we must die with pride and with hope. Then victory will be ours, no matter what.’

  The horns sounded again. The army of Rotbringers was midway down the slope and moving fast. Laughter and shouts followed the second blast. Voices thickened by the flow of pus and the pressure of tumours mocked the celebrants. At the head of the host was a massive warrior. His helmet was terrifying in the blankness of its features – it had just three holes drilled into the front, which suggested an unnatural configuration of eyes. A single horn curved out and down from the right side. He raised his right arm, pointing a gigantic, pitted battle axe.

  ‘Grandfather Nurgle summons you to the celebration!’ he roared. His voice was thunder, and beneath it was the hum of a million insects. It came from a throat raw and suppurating and powerful. Its invitation should not be refused.

  The celebrants of the tower refused it.

  They loosed volleys of arrows at the Rotbringers. Untrained, they did so too soon. Most of the arrows fell short. The few that reached the warband did so only because the corrupted warriors advanced into the hail of shafts. Their shambling gait was surprisingly fast. The diseases cratering their skin and twisting their forms gave them strength, and they charged with the fervour of zealots. They too gave praise, and they came to spread the contagion of their faith.

  Brennus looked back toward the centre of the roof. ‘Hurry!’ he called. A group of flagellants dragged the cauldron toward the north rampart. Brennus helped lift a curved length of metal. It was the first and only product of the temple’s forge, ten feet long and widened at one end to better receive the contents of the cauldron. The priests fastened the chute into place with rope and a wooden framework. The larger group hauled the cauldron up. As they did, disease-ridden ungors loosed a volley of arrows against the temple walls. The plague warriors laughed. The attack was simple mockery. Even so, a number of arrows whistled through the crenellations. One struck Kalfer through the throat. He staggered back, eyes wide, his mouth open in silent shock. His hands clutched at the shaft. They came away slimy. The arrow was dark with filth. The fletchings looked as if they were made from feathers, but the vanes were coiled and wiry, and they released a small cloud of spores as Kalfer stumbled and the arrow shook. One step away from him, Loressa began to cough. Kalfer fell, twitching. Retching blood, Loressa pulled his body away to the north end of the roof. She managed to reach a wall before slumping over the corpse.

  ‘Ready!’ Jessina called. The cauldron was in position. At the same moment, Brennus heard the clash of weapons far below against the metal door that was the sole entrance to the temple.

  ‘Burn them! Burn them!’ Heccam shouted.

  Many hands tilted the cauldron. The boiling water poured into the chute. Brennus ran to the next aperture and looked down.

  He wished they had oil, but there was only water, collected from a clean and pure stream that ran through the edge of the scoured region. Hauling the water back over those leagues had been a task almost as painstaking as the construction of the temple. Now, kept in stone reservoirs, was enough good water to last for months. And enough to hurl at the enemy.

  Steaming, the boiling embodiment of resurrected faith and hope, the water fell upon the Rotbringers.

  Bule had his axe raised to strike the door of the temple when the scalding rain came down. It took a few moments for the water to work its way through his armour. He ignored the pain at first, but then it became ferocious. The warriors on either side of him howled, recoiling from the burn. Bule snarled. Simple water should not hurt like that. It should turn to muck on contact with him, more irrigation for Nurgle’s garden. Instead, it dug deeper into his flesh with flashing agony. One warrior fell to the ground, the skin of his skull and his left arm sloughing off, dissolving into sludge.

  This water had been transformed. It burned with noxious purity. When it touched the ground, it scoured again, eating the diseased plant life and leaving bare stone.

  Bule had expected sport in killing the inhabitants of the temple. Now he encountered blasphemy. He would permit no portion of Grandfather’s garden to wither. He roared, dismissing the pain. Where his skin deliquesced, pus ran over the surface, overrunning the purity with a wealth of illness. Beside him, Fistula also stood his ground, his scalp an oozing mass of open blisters. They exchanged a look. In this moment, Bule shared the blightlord’s rage. Fistula pulled back, giving Bule the space he needed. Heedless of the searing rain, he raised his axe again, and brought it down against the door. The iron barrier shuddered in its frame. The blade left a gouge two feet long and as deep as his hand. Rust spread from the lips of the wound. The disease of metal cracked the face of the door. A prayer to the Plaguefather on his lips, Bule smashed the door again.

  It buckled.

  Brennus rushed down the uneven stairs of the temple. His spirit was fired by what he had witnessed. The temple worshippers had struck a true blow against the Rotbringers. He had believed they could be defeated after seeing the beings of light. Now he believed they could be defeated even by forces that were not divine. He
did not dare hope that defeat would come at his hands and those of his fellows. But he would fight as if it could.

  On the ground floor, there were no windows. There was only the door. In the vast hall, the worshippers in their thousands stood armed with old axes and blades. The people waited as another terrible blow battered the door. They were ragged, but they were an army, and they were ready to fight.

  Brennus stopped on a landing at the top of the hall.

  ‘No!’ he cried as he saw some movement towards the entrance. ‘We’ll keep them out yet! Block the door!’ In a direct confrontation, he knew the Rotbringers’ strength would be overwhelming.

  One of the men nearest the door turned around. ‘But we’ll be trapping ourselves.’

  ‘If they get in, they will win quickly,’ Brennus said. ‘Keep them out, and we continue to hurt them. Do it now!’

  The man began to object again, but at both sides of the door other congregants rushed to release a cluster of ropes. Freed, the ropes swept up toward the ground floor’s ceiling, passing through a large iron hook. On the other end, massive blocks, the heaviest the people had been able to find and move, fell from their suspended position just above the doorway. They hit the floor with a booming crack. The door to the temple became meaningless. Now there were only walls.

  ‘Take to the stairs!’ Brennus called. ‘Strike the enemy from above.’ There were hundreds of arrow slits in the tower. The faithful would fight until the end.

  Iron tore and crumbled before Bule. The door fell. Behind it was solid stone. Bule laughed, his good humour returning. He walked away from the blocked entrance. More scalding purity fell on him. The pain meant nothing. The bounteous rot of Nurgle surged into the wounds, infecting and swelling his flesh with new toxic gifts. He gathered his warband a few yards from the base of the temple wall, out of range of the water, but well within reach of the archers. He and his warriors laughed at the poorly aimed volleys. Arrows bounced off armour or sank into putrefying flesh, doing little more than release floods of larvae to the air.

  ‘Why hide yourselves away?’ he asked the mortals. ‘Why refuse Grandfather Nurgle’s generosity? His garden is a riot of delights. If you will not revel in the garden out here, we will send the garden to you.’ He faced his warriors. ‘They send us purity. We should answer in kind.’

  The warband constructed a bonfire from the diseased branches of trees standing twisted and putrefying in the ruins. They filled copper vessels with the thickened water of the river. Within minutes, as the horns sounded again, a thick, damp smoke filled the air. It embraced the temple. The breath of Nurgle wafted into the tower’s apertures.

  When he heard the first sounds of distress emerge from the interior, Bule said, ‘Thus the Garden grows.’

  There was satisfaction in the lesson being taught, but even as he spoke, he knew it was not enough. His warriors would not content themselves with victory at one remove. It was a poor substitute for the direct mortification of the enemy’s flesh. And there was more. The goal that called to him was not the simple extermination of this false hope. His destiny waited inside those walls. The flies about his head flew in a concentrated swarm at the temple again and again. The call, now so tantalizingly close to clarity, was just beyond his reach.

  He must find a way to pass through those walls, or shatter them.

  Brennus returned to the roof of the temple. The Rotbringers’ smoke came for the priests and flagellants. He felt his chest hitch and his throat tighten in anticipation in the moment before the coiling tendrils enveloped the tower. He coughed. The stench was foul. It was rotten meat and writhing flesh. It was as dry as hollowed-out bones, yet it was as clammy as a damp fist. Heccam was among those at the ramparts and the first to breathe in the poison. The defenders dropped their bows and collapsed. Heccam clutched his head, weeping and choking.

  ‘We can’t,’ he moaned.

  ‘Stand up,’ said Brennus. He breathed through his mouth. The air felt thick enough to chew. It was furry with legs. It sank into his body. It tried to sink into his soul. It weighed him down, whispering the death of hope.

  He refused to listen. With weeping lesions on his arms, he hauled Heccam upright. ‘Do not surrender,’ he exhorted. ‘Keep fighting!’

  ‘For what?’ Heccam muttered. Thick, yellow saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Sores appeared on his face, clustering and bursting.

  Brennus let go of him. He picked up his weapon instead. He turned to the wall and loosed an arrow into the spongy air. He was not alone. Others acted with him, and when one priest fell back, another stepped forward. They fought, though Brennus knew their arrows were futile against the warband, and though he heard the bubbling laughter of the Rotbringers. Each time he drew the bow string, Brennus struggled against the despair that sought to erode him from the inside out. And each time he released the bow string, he struck a blow against the despair. His eyes were watering. He felt the lesions spreading over his skin. But he would not surrender. Hope had returned to the world, and he held it fast.

  The valley dimmed with the murk of floating plague and the coming of a darker night. Yet there was light. Brennus felt it in his soul. It was his strength. He saw it behind his eyes, and it guided his shots.

  And then the light was real. It slashed through the gloom from above. Lightning slammed into the ground at the base of the temple. It struck the edges of the ramparts, and for a moment the temple had a dome of thunder. Priests threw themselves to the side. The light faded. Brennus’ eyes cleared, and he saw the divine warriors.

  The largest part of their number had appeared outside. The blast of their arrival forced the Rotbringers back. It banished the evil smoke. On the roof, Brennus gazed upon the leader of the gods. He was a towering figure in cloaked armour. He was flanked by archers. Above, winged warriors alighted for a moment on the edge of the broken roof before taking off once more.

  Holy terror assailed Brennus. He joined his fellow priests in falling to his knees. These gods were forbidding in aspect, clad in obsidian, and the cold visages of their helmets were ominous. They were beings of metal forged from the night itself. Yet there was nobility here, reflected in flashes of gold amid the black. It rimmed the shoulders. It shone from the hammer icon of the shields. And it was there in the halo that framed the helms.

  The leader spoke. ‘I am Merennus. We come to bring justice to the darkness. You have fought well in the defence of the gate.’

  ‘Gate?’ Brennus said. But his voice emerged as a croaked whisper, and the warriors had already turned to the needs of the battle. They moved to the wall facing the Rotbringers. They towered over the ramparts. They raised magnificent bows whose strings were of searing blue light. They drew their weapons and awaited the command.

  ‘Judicators,’ Merennus said, ‘pronounce your judgement.’

  As one, the Anvils of the Heldenhammer visited destruction on the bearers of plague.

  The light. The thunder. The sudden host of warriors, their armour black yet gleaming with ghastly purity, sterile, an affront to the carnival of decay and life.

  No, Bule thought.

  He knew what he saw. He knew what these beings called themselves. They were Stormcast Eternals, and they were a rumour. He had heard of the struggles against them. He had dismissed the reports as lies. The gods of Chaos were triumphant. Sigmar was beaten, hiding behind his walls, trembling before the spread of the garden. The Stormcasts were lies propagated by Nurgle’s rivals and by warbands who refused to acknowledge the shame of their own defeats.

  The Stormcast Eternals did not exist. This he had believed. This he had declared.

  And now the myths attacked.

  On the roof of the temple, armoured figures drew bows, but the arrows they loosed turned into lightning. The blasts incinerated tumour-bloated barbarians. Bule took a hit in the shoulder. It knocked him back. He snarled at the flames that shook his body.
They burned brightly, attacking him with the purity that he strove to destroy with his every act, with his every breath.

  ‘Decimators to the fore!’ came a voice of doom from the tower. ‘Tear out the heart of the enemy! Liberators, lock shields! You are the marching wall! Crush all before you! Prosecutors, strike from the east and west! Teach the enemy to fear the skies and the wrath of Sigmar!’

  And from ahead and from above, war as he had never known fell on Bule and his legion of plagues.

  The lightning arrows continued to rain down. In the midst of the fury, Bule exchanged a look with Fistula. The blightlord’s eyes blazed. He nodded to Bule. They were united. The Rotbringers had fled one defeat, and now, still weakened, they faced an enemy fresh to the battlefield. This new war began with the odds against them. This was not the prey Bule had brought his band to hunt. This was a formidable opponent.

  So be it.

  There would be no retreat. Bule had seen, beyond the valley, the desert that came when Nurgle’s garden was uprooted. He would die to preserve the Grandfather’s gifts. And he would smash through any barrier, be it stone or metal or flesh, that stood between him and the call of his destiny.

  He raised his axe high. He defied the lightning. He roared his joy of service to Nurgle, and of the fight for the glory of the garden. The warband echoed his cry. Barbarian marauders and knights of Chaos, vassals and lords, mortals and things transformed into shambling infections, all of them charged with the Lord of Plagues.

  The enemy lines clashed, Bule’s mob of pestilence hurling itself against the perfect, shield-locked line of the warriors of light. Phalanxes of Stormcasts wielding huge thunderaxes cut into the mass of the Rotbringers. Bule hit the Stormcast before him with the full force of his bulk. The impact brought his enemy to a halt. The warrior swung his two-handed axe into Bule’s exposed flank. The blade cut deep through fat and muscle. Polyps burst. Rot surged through Bule’s flesh. It did not weaken him. It purged his body of the light. It gave him the strength of contagion. He laughed at the wound. He leaned into it, trapping the axe blade in the folds of his body. He brought his own axe down, shattering halo and helm. Beneath the metal face was a visage just as noble, but animated, snarling with its own fury. The Stormcast yanked his weapon free. Before he could strike again, Bule, still laughing, swung his axe sideways into his foe’s jaw. He cut the knight’s face in half. The warrior fell.