by C. L. Werner
Lord Harkdron kept his face lowered as he bowed to his queen, unable to meet her wrathful gaze. ‘My queen,’ he said, his voice subdued. ‘They were too many. I have failed you.’ He dared to look up at Neferata and immediately fell silent. There was death in his lover’s eyes.
Once more, Neferata hesitated as she forced some of the fury pulsing through her heart to dissipate. Harkdron had failed her, but the wretch still had his uses. ‘Of all my vassals, you have been the most precious to me,’ she told him. ‘I entrusted my city into your care and you vowed you would protect it from harm.’ She thrust a finger at the smoke rising from the burning city. ‘Your failure I could excuse, but you have done worse to me. You have broken your promise.’ Harkdron tried to answer his queen’s anger, but she gestured for him to keep silent.
‘I will give you a chance to prove yourself to me,’ Neferata decreed. ‘The enemy will soon move against the temple district and Throne Mount. A zombie dragon has been summoned as your new steed. It awaits in the crypts. You must keep them off Throne Mount. Help is on the way, but you must hold them.’
Neferata turned and pointed to the gibbous light of the spirit-beacon. Harkdron watched the spectral energies blazing up into the sky. The vampire nodded, a new determination settling across his visage. ‘When next we meet, you will think better of me,’ he swore.
‘See that I do,’ Neferata declared, turning her back on her lover and gazing out across her city. She could hear Harkdron rise and march away, hastening down to the crypts to claim his steed and hurry back into battle. His eagerness to redeem himself in her eyes would have been pathetic if it wasn’t so useful.
From her vantage, Neferata could see that the fighting on the Queensroad was all but over. A few wights and morghasts remained, but the creatures were surrounded by Chaos warriors and beastmen. Even the warlord who led the horde paid the lingering resistance no notice. She saw him slide off the back of his snake-like mount and remove his plumed helm. For an instant, she could feel his eyes staring up at the palace, almost as though the man were seeking her out. The sensation quickly passed. The warlord turned away from Throne Mount and the Queensroad, sprinting towards the nearest building. She soon lost sight of him as he vanished inside what had once been a bathhouse.
Let the scum gratify himself, Neferata thought. Distracting the slaves of Chaos was the last service Nulahmia could render its queen. When the horde turned to the temple district, Harkdron would have his defence organised. He might even hold them at bay for a time.
Neferata smiled, pleased at the act she had put on for Harkdron. The fool would do his best for her because she had led him to believe there was something to hope for. She didn’t ask him to annihilate the horde by himself, only keep them back until help arrived. That was all he needed to do to win his redemption.
Only there would be no redemption. While Harkdron fought, his queen would be making good her escape. Nulahmia was lost, but she needn’t burn with her city. Dozens of catacombs burrowed through Throne Mount, and one of them eventually opened to a realmgate. Neferata had already told Kemsit to prepare her most precious things. With her handmaidens, she would steal into the catacombs and withdraw before the enemy could complete their conquest.
A boom of thunder caused Neferata to look skyward. Somewhere above the smoke and the ghostly glow of the spirit-beacons, she could see vast stormclouds stretching out across the heavens. There was something uncanny in the manner with which the clouds spilled across the sky, as though they were being poured into the air from some phantasmal chalice. She could see flashes of lightning crackling within the angry clouds.
Then, with a near-deafening crack, great sheets of lightning crackled from the sky, forking downwards into the ravaged streets of Nulahmia.
Chapter Three
Knifing down from the clouds, a blinding tempest of lightning slammed into Nulahmia. Across the despoiled sprawl of the noble quarter, where the manors of the city’s deathless elite sprawled across walled estates and morbid gardens, pillars of elemental fury plummeted earthward. Each thunderbolt sent a tremor rolling over the ground and a booming roar surging through the air. Smoke and steam rose from toppled walls and cracked streets, spiralling upwards to merge with the flashing flames of burning ruins. The marauding hordes of Chaos, those nearest to the storm’s violence, turned away from their depredations, staring in confusion at the sudden havoc.
Figures stalked out from the violence of the stormstrike. Huge shapes clad in ebon armour emerged from the smouldering craters inflicted by the lightning, mighty warriors encased in plate, their faces locked behind the glowering masks of their helms. Upon their breastplates they bore the symbol of the comet; on their shields was an anvil wreathed in lightning.
Shouts of obscene glee rose from the rampaging warriors of Chaos when they saw the black-clad knights. Their lust for atrocity whetted by the carnage they had inflicted upon the people of Nulahmia, the devotees of Slaanesh rejoiced at the prospect of further depravity. Howling their debased ululations, they rushed through the backstreets of the noble quarter, leaping over garden walls to converge upon the enemies who had so suddenly manifested among them. Even the most savage of the Slaaneshi creatures could sense the vitality that burned within the knights, for these were no undead horrors conjured by the Mortarch of Blood, but beings of flesh and substance, victims to torment and defile.
The knights met the first foes with swords and axes that crackled with lightning. A score of marauders were struck down in the blink of an eye, dozens of beastkin killed as they charged out from the wreckage of a mortuary garden, and baying hounds slaughtered as they came loping down alleyways. Unlike the snarling and shrieking of their foes, the knights preserved a grim silence as they brought death to the creatures of Chaos, plying their weapons with a stoic purposefulness that had more in common with the unfeeling undead than the wanton savagery of the barbarians.
Leading the remnants of his tribe, the immense Tokresh-khan rushed at the ebon warriors. The chieftain’s bare flesh was stained with the lives of his victims, strings of gruesome trophies dangling from his neck and arms. The barbarian pounded his chest in savage delight when he saw the ranks of enemies ahead of him. The soft, pampered subjects of Nulahmia had perished much too quickly to make a fitting offering for Slaanesh. These bold enemies would provide much more satisfying fare for the jaded god’s appetites.
Before the Sorroweaters and their hulking chief could assault the line of ebon knights, the sinister warriors opened their ranks. From their midst, a great dragon-like reptile lumbered forwards, steam hissing from its nostrils and sparks snapping about its horns. A knight in armour more resplendent than that of his comrades sat upon the beast’s back, a golden halo of metal radiating from the back of his helm and a long cloak hanging from his shoulders. In his hands, the rider gripped an enormous sword that sizzled with divine power. He raised the runesword and pointed it at Tokresh and his tribe.
‘Slaves of Chaos,’ the rider’s mighty voice rumbled, ‘the Anvils of the Heldenhammer bring you judgement. We give you the same mercy you’ve shown your victims.’
The jaws of the giant lizard-steed gaped wide, and from its maw, a blast of blue lightning immolated a swathe of charging marauders. Cries of agony rose from barbarian throats as their bodies were reduced to charred, blackened husks. A litter of smoking corpses lay strewn across the street, fouling the path of the men following after them. The armoured rider didn’t give the barbarians a chance to recover. He urged the scaly dragon-beast onwards, ploughing into the reeling tribe. Reptilian claws and fangs ripped into the barbarians, slashing armour and rending flesh. The dracoth’s lashing tail shattered bone and sent mangled men hurtling through the air. Upon its back, the rider brought his sword flashing down, cleaving through collarbones and splitting skulls with each blow.
Tokresh shuddered at the ferocity of the assault, but his fear only urged him onwards. The novelty of crossing b
lades with the ebon rider, the prospect of feeling the crackling bite of his reptilian mount – these would present new sensations, fresh delights to be experienced. For the first time in many years, the almost-forgotten delight of anticipation flowed through the chieftain’s veins.
He waited until the dracoth had set its jaws about the torso of a shrieking tribesman and the rider was plunging his sword into the breast of a fur-clad reaver before he lunged at his foe. Tokresh was stunned by the speed with which the rider reacted and the incredible strength he displayed. When the knight brought his sword whipping around to block Tokresh’s attack, he fairly flung the body of his dying enemy at the chieftain. Tokresh felt the impact throbbing through his bones, could almost hear the ensorcelled steel of his axe split as it met the intercepting blade.
‘Tokresh-khan will feed your soul to Slaanesh,’ he growled at the ebon knight. He brought his axe swinging around for another blow, putting all the strength in his brutish frame into the attack.
The rider met the assault with withering scorn. His crackling sword cleaved through the head of the axe, slashing Tokresh’s face with shards of metal. ‘Your god goes hungry tonight,’ he told the chieftain as he brought the sword’s edge raking across his throat.
Tokresh saw the sky flash above him then watched as the world rose up around him. His last sight was of the ebon rider and his mount. A hulking figure with tattooed and scarred flesh swayed unsteadily beside the reptilian creature. It was only when the headless bulk crashed to the street that he understood the body was his own. The realisation was a last novelty to speed him into the darkness.
The smell of burning flesh and spilled blood filled Lascilion’s senses like the aroma of sweet perfume. Cries of agony fell upon him like music. He could taste the smoke of blazing homes, could feel the warm lick of destruction tingling across his skin. Too long. It had been too long since he had felt these things, since he had surrendered himself to the abandonment of sensuality.
The Lord of Slaanesh finished buckling his breastplate, tightening the straps until he felt the delicious bite of leather digging into his flesh. He took up his plumed helm from where he had tossed it aside on the gore-stained floor, a goat-headed beastman sprawled where it had fallen after refusing to surrender to Lascilion’s urges. He stared for a moment at the tangle of purple entrails that spilled from the dead gor, caught up in the play of hue and shade as firelight flickered across the slimy organs. A moan from the thing that was splayed upon the wall behind him broke the fascination. The warlord glanced back at the creature he had pinned across the tile mosaic with the same knives he had played across its flesh. With all the skin removed, it was difficult to determine sex or age, not that such matters were of consequence to him. Since leaving the Queensroad to satisfy his appetites, Lascilion had claimed many victims. It was tiresome to remember them all.
As he stepped out into the street, Lascilion saw the amusing sight of his steed crushing some shapeless mass of meat and bone in its coils. He wondered if it was one of his own warriors or some luckless Nulahmian who had caught the daemon’s notice. Either way, he was certain their final moments had been deliciously excruciating.
He was less pleased to find Amala crouched upon an overhanging archway. The mutant stretched out one of her talons, displaying for him another one of her flesh-scrolls. Lascilion’s displeasure mounted as he read the winged monstrosity’s report. The black lightning he’d seen earlier had indeed struck the outskirts of the city. Amala had flown to investigate and come back describing an army of plate-clad knights unlike any she had seen before. Whoever the warriors were, they were cutting down the scattered elements of Lascilion’s horde that tried to oppose them.
The warlord cast the scroll into the gutter and glowered at the mutant. If he turned his army around, brought them against these strange foes, then the offensive against the temple district would suffer. It mattered little to him how much of his army these knights killed; what he wouldn’t risk was letting Neferata slip through his grasp. The conquest of Nulahmia would be a pyrrhic victory if the vampire queen escaped.
‘Bring me the Siren!’ Lascilion growled at Amala. The winged mutant had expected the command. Unfolding one of her beetle-like wings, she gestured at his steed and the object wrapped in its coils. On his order, the daemonic mount withdrew from its captive. What had been caught in its sinuous body was no being of flesh and blood, but the lithe body of another daemon, one of Slaanesh’s daemonettes.
Nothing remained of the warrior whose flesh served as the Siren’s vessel. The possession had erased his being entirely. Now there was only the Siren. Cast in the voluptuous semblance of a sensuous maiden, the daemonette’s beauty was marred by the barbed claw that engulfed one of her arms and the nodules of horns that sprouted from her scalp. The fibrous mane of hair that flowed down her bare shoulders was more like the fur of some anemone than anything that should grow from a woman’s head. The face was a maddening admixture of desire and horror, lustrous lips parting to reveal needle-like fangs and dagger-like tongue. In her eyes burned a rapacious hunger even more fierce than that of Lascilion himself. Only the coils of his steed had prevented the Siren from slipping away to glut herself on obscenities.
‘I am the chosen of Slaanesh,’ Lascilion reminded the snarling Siren. He raised his hand to his head, pushing back his hair to display the mark that grew just behind his ear. ‘My will is your command, my word is your law.’ He saw resentment smother hunger in her glare. He had been the one who summoned her and gave her a mantle of flesh to possess in the Mortal Realms. That power over her was a festering bitterness in the Siren’s mind. He was indifferent to the daemon’s anger. Let her hate, so long as she obeyed. He gestured to the gnarled horn hanging from the straps of the leather bodice she wore. ‘Sound your horn,’ he demanded. ‘I have need of my army.’
The Siren raised the grisly instrument to her lips, biting down upon it with her sharp fangs. The note that resounded from the infernal horn was less a sound than a vibration, a call that was heard not with the ear but with the soul. Anything that bore the mark of Slaanesh, anything that had sworn itself to the Prince of Chaos, would feel the call reverberating through them. Some, too debased and primitive to understand, would refuse the summons, content to indulge themselves on petty pleasures.
Most would come. Tribes and herds and covens, they would flock to the summons. Lascilion knew this. The greater their orgy of depravity, the more irresistible the call would become. The havoc they had inflicted on the city was but an appetiser, something to whet their hunger. Greater delights awaited them in the ornate halls of Neferata’s palace, pleasures undreamed and unspoken. Across the burning city, he could hear other horns being blown as more daemonettes hearkened to the call and rallied the ravagers to them. Throughout the city, his forces were converging, becoming once more an army of conquest.
Lascilion snapped his fingers and his serpentine steed lowered itself so that he could step into its saddle. Spurring the daemonic beast onward, the Lord of Slaanesh hastened to rejoin his Amethyst Guard. His course took him across crumbling avenues and corpse-strewn boulevards, the wreckage of a city on the edge of collapse. He fought the temptation to linger over the scenes of atrocity he passed, to study them with artistic appreciation. He had to remember his discipline, had to maintain his focus.
The intoxicating soul-scent of Neferata was more than a trail to follow now. It was his guide, his purpose. To Lascilion, it had the savour of ambrosia, a gift from Slaanesh himself if the warlord could but find the perseverance to claim it.
Lord-Celestant Makvar scowled at the few Sorroweaters who tried to flee back the way they had come. Arrows from the Judicators behind him brought the barbarians down, bolts of lightning stabbing into their backs. There was no pity to be spared for such degenerates. The creatures of Chaos warranted no respect in battle. They were a pestilence, vermin to be crushed underfoot and exterminated with utter dispatch.
Firelight flickered from the dark armour of Makvar’s Stormcasts, the glow of a dying city. The Chaos horde had been thorough in their campaign of havoc and destruction. Somewhere deep within him, he could feel revulsion for the depravity that was on display here. That many of the perpetrators of such outrages wore at least the semblance of humanity only made their crimes more abominable. The Ruinous Powers were aptly named and the greatest ruin they left behind was the blackened souls of those who worshipped them.
Makvar looked across the wanton devastation all around him. Nowhere had been spared the spectacle of violence and horror. Smoke and flame gushed from the windows of slender towers, blackening their marble facades. Mangled bodies bobbed in the alabaster basins of elegant fountains, darkening their waters with the corruption of death. Plunder lay heaped in courtyards, precious jewels glittering among stacks of stolen cutlery and crystal goblets, elegant tapestries sprawled beside bloodied piles of silk robes. The primitive despoilers had even pried wood wainscotting from walls and carved shutters from windows. Two ornate doors, ripped from their fastenings, leaned against a wall as though standing guard over the sandstone statuary collected beside them.
Nulahmia had been a rich city. It pained Makvar to see its splendour blotted out. Across the realms, the hordes of Chaos had already taken so much, destroyed so many things. Now here was yet another outrage to be added to the tally.
The Lord-Celestant let the sense of righteous fury smoulder in his heart. The God-King, Sigmar, had not sent him to the Realm of Death simply to avenge the destruction of Nulahmia. There was a greater purpose to the deployment of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer. Makvar had been sent into Shyish to broker a treaty with the Mortarch of Blood, to renew the old alliances that had once seen the armies of death fight alongside Sigmar’s pantheon against their common foe. Saving the city had no place in the God-King’s plan, not when there were far more things of incomparably vast import at stake. Knowing this, accepting it, didn’t lessen Makvar’s disgust at the ravages of the Slaaneshi hordes.