by Various
One of the blood warriors tore his way clear of the mist and wheeled about with a wild oath, eyes blazing. Before Tarsus could move to go after him, something crashed into the side of the cairn above and then vaulted off to crush the warrior beneath it. Ashigaroth straddled its victim with a shriek, dipping its bat-like skull and snapping its heavy jaws shut on the warrior’s head, silencing his cries.
‘Well done, Mannfred. Even as we planned,’ Tarsus said to the beast’s rider.
Mannfred von Carstein leaned forward in his saddle and nodded absently. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘We should not tarry here.’
‘No,’ Tarsus agreed. The vampire’s manner made him wary. Normally, Mannfred was flippant, seemingly unconcerned about the world around him. But he had grown increasingly more withdrawn the closer they had come to the cairnlands. Something worried the vampire, and that, in turn, worried Tarsus.
‘We weren’t going to,’ Ramus said. ‘It was your idea to walk into this trap in the first place, instead of simply pushing through to our goal. We lost good warriors.’
‘You would have lost more, if we hadn’t flushed all of them out,’ Mannfred said. ‘You still might, if you don’t heed my advice – look.’ The vampire gestured towards the distant cairns, where the flower-strewn ground began a steep descent towards a flat, barren plain. The fog which clung to the cairns was thinner there, allowing them to see what lay beyond. They could hear the clash of weapons and the screams of the dying.
‘Sigmar’s oath,’ Tarsus said, as he stared at the slaughter which stretched out before him across the plain below. A massive edifice of stone and bone, wrought into a gigantic fortified gateway, dominated the face of an enormous free-standing rock outcropping, and in its shadow, battle raged. Bloodbound clashed with the followers of Nurgle, and, in the distance, standards bearing the iconography of Tzeentch rose above the fray as great hordes of warriors fought across the barren waste of the cairnlands.
‘There must be thousands of them,’ Ramus said. ‘Even we might have some difficulty fighting our way through that.’
‘It is ever the same,’ Mannfred mused. ‘Lacking other foes, the servants of the Ruinous Powers turn upon one another. They fight because they know nothing else. There are hundreds of warbands in this region. The full strength of the enemy fell here, in the final days of Nagash’s reign,’ he said. ‘They still swarm these regions, battling over the shattered husks of the black pyramids and the barrow-walls which once protected the Starless Gates.’ He pointed towards the distant edifice.
‘The Starless Gates,’ Tarsus said. ‘Then the gate to Stygxx is near.’
‘Aye,’ Mannfred said. His hand dropped to the black shard shoved through his sword-belt. The Fang of Kadon gleamed with an oily radiance that set Tarsus’ teeth on edge.
Mannfred leaned forward. ‘Luckily, we will not have to attempt to fight our way through that.’ He gestured to the carnage below.
‘We do not fear battle, vampire,’ Ramus said, harshly.
‘Nor do I, Stormcast,’ Mannfred said, his annoyance plain. ‘But sometimes I question its efficacy. No, better to avoid it – you lack the numbers to punch through, in any event. Your ranks have thinned greatly since I joined you.’
‘You mean, since we rescued you?’ Ramus said. Mannfred shot the Lord-Relictor a venomous glance.
‘Enough. We have trusted his guidance this far,’ Tarsus said. He looked at Mannfred. ‘Lead on.’
Mannfred smiled and patted Ashigaroth’s neck. ‘It would be my pleasure, my friend.’ The dread abyssal leapt into the air and swooped away, followed closely by Tarsus’ Prosecutor retinues. The Stormhost was in motion a few moments later, marching across the cairnlands. Stormcasts could move quickly despite the weight of their armour, and they ate up the distance at a steady pace as they moved through the silent pyramids of piled skulls. Tarsus set his scouts on the flank facing the Starless Gates, to keep watch on the warbands fighting there. Despite his concern, their journey along the eastern rim of the hills and slopes which marked the barren stretch was uncontested. The Chaos forces in the region were seemingly more intent on joining the battle going on before the Starless Gates.
‘Even as he said,’ Tarsus said, to Ramus, as they marched at the head of the column. ‘They’re too busy fighting one another to notice us slipping around them.’
‘Or perhaps they simply don’t care,’ Ramus said. He looked up, tracking the dread abyssal as it flew ahead of them. ‘I do not trust him, Tarsus. Despite everything, he has ever pursued his own path. He is not guiding us – he is leading us, pointing us to where he wants us to go. But why?’
‘Because he wants what we want, though I’d wager for different reasons,’ Tarsus said.
Tarsus did not doubt Mannfred’s claims that they needed the Fang, though he did doubt the vampire’s true intentions with it. It was not, he was certain, for their benefit alone. No, Mannfred was playing a deeper game. The dead could not be trusted. An oath was an oath, a promise was a promise, and the vampire had sworn to lead them to Stygxx, but it wouldn’t be the first time Mannfred von Carstein had broken his word.
Ever since their venture into the ruins of Helstone, Tarsus had been haunted by memories from his past life, the faces of men and women, fellow warriors, champions of those final days, fighting alongside him. And among their number had been the face of Mannfred von Carstein. Mannfred, who had fought alongside the heroes of Helstone until that final hour when he had fled, leaving his allies to die in hopeless battle.
Tarsus looked up, watching the dread abyssal swoop through the slate-grey sky. The sun was a distant sphere of pale light, its strength held at bay by the will of Nagash, or so Mannfred claimed. Even so, the vampire had his hood up and his cloak wrapped tight about him to protect him from the watery light.
‘Were we allies once?’ Tarsus murmured. ‘Did you truly fight alongside me then, before I was chosen by Sigmar?’
Perhaps that was why he wanted to trust the vampire. But Mannfred had betrayed him, then. If he did so again… At the thought, Tarsus’ grip on the haft of his hammer tightened. He had told Mannfred nothing of his memories. Tarsem had died on the ramparts of Helstone and Tarsus Bull-Heart had a mission to accomplish, whatever the cost.
A cry from one of the Prosecutors above caught his attention and he motioned for the column to come to a halt. They had reached the mouth of a low, winding canyon that ran like a wound through the rocky ground. Enormous, rough-hewn cliffs stained purple rose up before them, and tapered back and down.
‘There,’ Mannfred said, as Ashigaroth landed nearby. ‘Is it not a thing of beauty?’
‘It’s a canyon,’ Tarsus said.
‘It is more than that,’ Ramus said. He raised his staff and a soft blue light washed over the ground before them, revealing where the hard ground of the cairnlands suddenly gave way to coarse amethyst sands such as Tarsus had never seen before. ‘The soil is different here. The air as well. It is as if some force dropped this canyon here.’
‘It did,’ Mannfred said. He touched the Fang as if to reassure himself that he still had it. ‘Such is the will of Nagash, that reality itself gives way to him.’
A field of shattered Chaos icons and blasted standards marked the entrance to the canyon. They stretched as far as the eye could see, as if planted by an army which had then advanced, leaving them behind upright in the purple sands. The wind rose, and the rags of tanned flesh and hanks of greying hair which hung from the standards flapped and twisted in unpleasant ways.
‘Beauty is not the word I’d use,’ Ramus said.
‘Beautiful or not, we’re going in,’ Tarsus said, motioning his warriors forward.
As the Stormcasts advanced into the canyon, Tarsus caught sight of pale things wafting amongst the icons and heard the murmur of distant voices. He caught Mannfred’s eye.
‘Not all souls are fit to be forged anew an
d sent fresh into the fire of war. Some… are merely grist for the mill,’ the vampire said.
‘How long have they been here?’
‘How long have the stars hung suspended in the firmament?’ Mannfred said. He drew his cloak more tightly about himself. ‘Some of us must draw forth the dead with incantations, but Nagash draws them forth merely by striding across their graves. Where he walks, the dead stir and do not slumber again.’
‘You speak as if he were a god,’ Ramus said.
‘You speak as if he were not,’ Mannfred said.
‘A god would not have been driven into the dark, to cower among tattered wraiths and fleshless courtiers,’ Ramus said.
‘No, he would merely have shuttered the gates of his realm and left his people to die at the talons and blades of his enemies,’ Mannfred said. The Lord-Relictor turned towards him, but before he could speak, Tarsus interposed himself.
‘Peace, brother. We come in the spirit of peace. Let old grudges be forgotten and new alliances forged.’ He looked at Mannfred. ‘Even as we have done.’
‘Yes, and much has it profited us both,’ Mannfred said. He turned, to look back the way they had come. ‘The sun is stronger here than elsewhere, thanks to the attention of the Dark Gods, and I would rather not brave its glare any longer than I must. Shall we go?’
They had not gone much farther into the narrow, crooked confines of the canyon, however, when they were forced to halt once more. It had narrowed to a shallow point and in front of them rank upon rank of kneeling figures waited. Dust and white blossoms blew amongst them, but the figures did not stir. They were clad in baroque armour and clutched weapons of malign manufacture in skeletal hands. Where flesh might once have been visible, there was now only scoured bone. They filled the canyon, from one wall to the other, and their number stretched back to the great, bone-coloured archway set into its back wall.
The archway itself was more disturbing than the dead who knelt before it. It was a crooked thing of wrong angles and disorientating encrustations, shaped vaguely like a hooded figure bent forward with arms outstretched. It was made from stone and bone and other macabre materials. Strange sigils gleamed from its surface, glowing with a sickly light, and their radiance made the archway appear to undulate.
‘The underworld lies through that archway,’ Mannfred said.
‘What are they?’ Tarsus asked, his voice echoing eerily in the silence.
‘The Desolated Legion,’ Mannfred said. ‘They were Bloodbound, once… champions all, and high in the Blood God’s esteem. They were the first to invade these lands, once the barrow-walls were breached, and the first to feel the unfettered fury of Nagash. Now, they are wights – a reminder of Nagash’s power, and a warning to those who would test it.’
Old bloodstains marked the purple stones of the canyon, as well as the weapons of the dead men. Tarsus knew that an ocean of blood had been spilled here, and would be again, before the war against Chaos was done.
‘How many have tried?’ he asked.
Mannfred smiled. ‘Enough to glut even the Lord of Skulls, for a time. Wherever the gate appears they seek it out and if they are unlucky enough to find it, they die in their thousands.’
‘Will we suffer the same fate, I wonder,’ Ramus said. He stepped forward. As he did so, however, a ripple of motion shivered through the ranks of the kneeling dead. Ancient armour rattled as old bones twitched and bent heads slowly rose. Weirdling lights glimmered within every helm as the cold, mindless gazes of the dead became fixed on the intruders.
‘You will let us pass,’ Mannfred intoned. He raised his hand. Cold fire flickered around his fingers as he urged Ashigaroth forward. ‘Stand aside, warriors of the Desolated Legion. Stand aside, I say!’ The armoured ranks did not move. The silence stretched for one moment, then two, and then, with a creak of rusted joints, the Desolated Legion rose as one.
‘They are not listening,’ Mannfred hissed, in disbelief.
‘Ready your shields,’ Tarsus said. ‘Hold fast, Bull-Hearts.’ With a rattle of sigmarite, the Liberator retinues locked their shields, forming a wall of gleaming azure and silver. Mannfred snarled wordlessly and thumped Ashigaroth’s flanks with his heels. As the dread abyssal leapt into the air, the first of the wights moved. Tarsus stepped forward to intercept it and the rest of the Desolated Legion shuddered into motion.
The dead thing lurched forward, its axe hissing down. Tarsus smashed the weapon aside with his hammer and rammed his sword through a gap in his opponent’s armour. The wight staggered but didn’t fall. It raised its axe again and Tarsus stepped back, jerking his sword free with a screech of abused metal as he did so.
The axe slashed out and he was forced to twist aside. It chopped down, tearing his cloak, and he snapped around, catching the wight in the back of the skull with his hammer and causing it to stumble. He hacked at its neck and his sword bit through rusty metal and into bone. The wight’s head rolled free and he drove his shoulder into its chest, knocking it off its feet.
Tarsus took in the battlefield at a glance. Mannfred was still attempting to bend the dead to his will, as Ashigaroth kept its master out of their reach. The Stormcasts were holding the enemy back, but only just. The dead knew no fear and did not hesitate. They kept coming with relentless ferocity. Worse, not all of those that fell stayed down. As he watched, a trio of blue bolts streaked skyward. Then another two. His chest tightened as he thought of the brothers he had lost since the Bull-Hearts’ arrival in the Realm of Death. There were scarcely sixty of his warriors left now. How many would survive to see the completion of their mission? He shook his head, banishing the thought. They would see Sigmar’s will done, even if only one of them survived. They were the faithful, and they would be triumphant.
A second wight charged towards him, hefting a broken sword as it came. He blocked its blow and smashed its legs out from under it, dropping it into the dust. It slithered towards him, quick as a serpent, and he stamped on its head. Even as he stepped back, it began to push itself erect. With a roar, he brought both hammer and sword down on it, splitting it in two.
Even then, it struggled to rise. Ramus drove the haft of his staff into its chest and muttered a prayer. Lightning snarled down the length of the staff and into the dead thing, reducing it to a blackened husk.
‘They are proving more resilient than we were led to believe,’ the Lord-Relictor said, casting a glance up towards Mannfred.
‘Then we shall have to do this the hard way,’ Tarsus said. ‘We need to smash ourselves a path to the Corpse Road, and we need to do it now.’ More and more of the dead marched forward, breaking into awkward runs as they drew near the Stormcasts. They fought in silence save for the rattle of armour and the rasp of weapons. Tarsus signalled the Prosecutors wheeling overhead. ‘We need breathing room – make a gap,’ he shouted, and motioned to the ground between the living and the dead.
The winged warriors swooped low over the ranks of the dead and sent their hammers whirling down. The front ranks of the Desolated Legion were hurled back, broken and smoking, as the ground was churned up and a cloud of dust thrown into the air.
‘Judicators, Liberators – fall back,’ Tarsus said, his voice ringing out through the canyon. He looked at Ramus. ‘They’re yours, Ramus. Guard our flanks. Retributors and Decimators, to the fore,’ he bellowed.
‘At your command, Bull-Heart,’ Retributor-Prime Soros said as he joined Tarsus. Both he and Gyrus, the Decimator-Prime, were covered in dust and their armour bore the signs of heavy fighting. Their retinues were holding the centre of the shield wall just behind Tarsus, holding back those wights which had managed to get past the Prosecutors.
‘The horns and the hooves, brothers,’ Tarsus said, peering towards the dust cloud thrown up by the Prosecutors’ hammers. They would need to be quick, but if they could reach the entrance to the underworld, they could reform their lines and make a fighting
withdrawal.
Soros gave a harsh laugh and he and Gyrus slammed their weapons together. ‘Horns and hooves,’ Soros growled. ‘It shall be done, Lord-Celestant.’ They hurried to rejoin their retinues, barking orders as they went.
‘Who will be triumphant?’ Tarsus cried, lifting his sword and hammer high.
‘Only the faithful,’ the Paladins rumbled, as one. Their heavy, ornate armour was prominently marked with the lightning bolt of Sigmar, and the massive two-handed weapons they carried shimmered with holy fire. As they strode forward at Tarsus’ command, they slammed the great weapons together, adding to the clamour of war. Swiftly, the Decimators took the lead, with the Retributors spreading out as they followed behind.
Ramus led the remainder of the Stormhost behind the vanguard, the Liberators moving to the flanks and the rear, where their shields could do the most good, and the Judicator retinues moving up the centre. The latter continued to fire as they moved, peppering the wights with their boltstorm crossbows. Ramus chanted as he strode forward, calling the lightning from the sky and sending it lashing among the ranks of the dead as they drew close.
Tarsus led the Paladin brotherhoods forward, and as he picked up speed, he broke into a lumbering run. The Decimators spread out around him, making a semicircle with their Lord-Celestant at the centre. They struck the dead with a crash, great axes smashing out to chop through legs or arms even as they used their momentum to bull the wights aside or bear them under. Tarsus led by example, knocking his opponents sprawling but not slowing down to finish them off. That was for the Retributors.
From behind him came the crackle of lightning hammers as they slammed down on the fallen wights, creating a path of bones for the Stormcasts following behind. Tarsus ducked a sweeping axe blow and kicked its wielder in the chest, staggering it. He lunged forward, breaking the wight’s arm with his hammer and decapitating it with his sword. He brushed its stumbling, headless body aside as he continued to move forward.