by Darius Hinks
‘Carry me,’ I say.
Sardicus spreads his wings, flooding the ruins with light.
I place my hand on Vourla’s arm. ‘The time has come. Rise up and reclaim your home.’
‘Me?’ She looks from me to Sardicus, baffled.
‘You stood face to face with the enemy, Vourla, and you still found a way to fight. Find others and teach them to do the same. We didn’t come simply to close a gate. We came to start a landslide.’
She laughs in disbelief, but I can see a fire starting to kindle in her eyes. I’ve done enough.
The tower whirls around us as Sardicus lifts me up through the ruins, surrounding us with images. I see faces in the marble, heroic and proud, beings born in an age free of monsters like Hakh. They seem at once distant and recognisable. I see the same fire in their eyes that I saw in Vourla’s. Centuries of brutal oppression have not dampened it.
‘Lord-Celestant,’ says Sardicus, and I realise that my mind has been wandering. There’s something hypnotic about these ruins and the cry of the ghost.
Sardicus draws my attention to the figure looming overhead. We’ve almost reached the spectre of the dead titan. His cries are heartbreaking in their desperation. Wisps of armour trail around his gargantuan form and he roars as he tries, endlessly, to launch his spear.
‘Closer!’ I shout, struggling to be heard over the ghost’s cries. ‘Take me closer.’
Sardicus hurls us into the miasma of the giant’s flesh.
The effect is instant, and shocking. The crumbling ruins vanish, replaced by a dazzling array of colours and shapes. I’m seeing the Nomad City through the eyes of the ghost. The walls are covered with beautiful murals of gold and ochre and the rooms are capped with ornate ceilings. Enormous pieces of furniture are all around me, gilded and gleaming, and the air smells clean and pure. It’s no idyll though. Hundreds of titans are tumbling backwards past me, roaring in anger and fury, swarming with vicious, crimson daemons. They’re being devoured by a host of hunched, scaled monstrosities with anvil-shaped heads and gaping jaws. The giants are attempting to defend themselves, but it’s clear that the battle is already lost. Their strange, inhuman faces are tormented by fear and anger as the daemons flood over them in uncountable numbers, clawing and devouring like a plague of locusts.
Even over the din of battle, I can hear the voice of my host-spirit. His language is strange and incoherent, but I can feel the dreadful urgency in his cries. As I look out from his mind I finally see what he’s been trying to reach for all these centuries. As the daemons tear him apart, shredding his flesh with frantic, snarling mouths, the giant’s gaze is fixed on a goal he’ll never reach.
Of course.
My heart quickens as I see what I must do.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lord-Celestant Tylos Stormbound
The stink of charred flesh greets me as I return. I feel Sardicus struggling to hold me aloft as we fly up through the top of the ruined tower and out into the clouds.
Beneath us, the crater is a seething mass of red shapes but the skull has not finished its work yet. Blood-red figures are pouring over the lip at the skull’s crown, from its nose and from the doorway beneath its teeth. There must be thousands of daemons, tumbling over the rocks and charging to war. Some of them resemble the things I saw through the eyes of the titan, but others assume forms I cannot even describe – mongrel things that combine the canine and the reptile into something obscene.
And, over all of this pandemonium, Khurnac still rages, smashing its colossal axe against the walls of its brass prison and roaring in fury. Every blow spews another glut of daemons from the crucible and, as they tumble into the world, Khurnac turns its fury on its own kind, tearing apart anything it can lay its claws on, cramming visions of madness between its slavering jaws.
Reality has given up trying to contain such overwhelming corruption. The world beyond the daemon is like a tattered curtain, revealing glimpses of a landscape even more tormented than the Kharvall Steppe. This is now my destination – the Blood God’s foothold in the Mortal Realms.
Sardicus pounds his wings, struggling to stay aloft as I steel myself for what I must do.
‘Take me as close as you can,’ I call out.
‘Close to what?’ he cries.
‘Drop me on the rim of the skull, as near to the daemon as you can!’
Sardicus shakes his head, horrified.
‘Do you trust me?’ I cry.
‘But what can you do against that?’
‘That’s where darkness is deepest. That’s where I’ll find Sigmar waiting.’
Sardicus keeps shaking his head, but he flies down through the clouds nonetheless.
Daemons hurtle to greet us. They’re no bigger than dogs, but they have ragged wings, long, revolting snouts and mouths full of dagger-like incisors. They swoop towards us, screaming like demented gulls and reaching out with grasping talons.
I slam Grius into the first of them, crushing its head between its shoulders and sending it spinning back towards the skull.
The other manages to latch onto me, but I fling it off with a roar and, as it swings round to attack again, Sardicus blasts it from the sky.
‘More,’ gasps Sardicus, pointing at countless red shapes that are lifting up from the crush of battle to attack us.
‘Faster!’ I cry, jabbing Grius at the brass skull.
Sardicus dives with stomach-churning speed, plunging us towards the Crucible of Blood.
Before the smaller daemons can reach us, I leap free and land on the crown of the brass skull. Nausea-inducing pain rushes up through my legs. The whole skull is seething with power.
‘Go!’ I cry, glancing at Sardicus as I climb to my feet.
He hesitates, watching the mountain-sized horror thrashing through the lake of blood behind me. Then crimson-fleshed figures burst through the clouds, screaming as they attack him.
Sardicus launches Sigmar’s fury at them, but, as I rush to help him, I feel a wave of incredible power smashing into my back. I topple to my knees, clattering across the brass rim of the skull, and my head fills with dizzying visions of slaughter and bloodshed.
‘Lord-Celestant!’ cries Sardicus, from somewhere outside my pain.
I stagger back to my feet, just in time to see the source of the hateful energy that’s crippling me.
The daemon rises over me – a monumental fortress of scale and fire, blocking out the sky with leathery, tattered wings and raising its immense axe. I can’t meet its gaze but the hate in its eyes burns through my armour, scorching my flesh.
I dive clear just as the axe smashes into the brass wall. The force of the blow rocks the whole skull and I’m thrown from my feet.
The daemon roars and at such close quarters the sound fills my head with agony, but along with the pain comes outrage. This monstrous creation is everything I was born to destroy.
As Khurnac draws back its axe for another blow, I spit blood from my helmet and turn to face it, standing defiantly before the flaming goliath with my hammer gripped firmly in both hands.
I swing Grius and the warhammer connects squarely with the daemon’s colossal axe. There’s a blinding flash and sickening power jolts through my body, hurling me through the air. I manage to roll as I land and, as I break into a sprint, I see my target no more than thirty feet away.
The daemon laughs as it sees that I have no escape. It doesn’t realise that I don’t seek to run away.
Waves of blood boom against the walls of the skull as Khurnac wades slowly after me, drawing back its axe for the final blow.
My lungs are burning and I’m drowning in my own blood. The fury pouring up through the brass is starting to cook me from the inside out; I can feel my innards burning and twisting. I have nothing left in me but one, final attack.
‘My name. Is. Victory,’ I whisper
, launching myself at the object I saw through the eyes of the ghost: a thick ring of brass that locks the daemon’s chain to the wall of the skull.
I leap, hammer raised, and cry out an oath as I swing Grius.
The air ignites. I’m thrown for a third time, this time by the thunderclap force of my own strike. For a moment I’m blinded by the afterimage of the detonation. When my vision clears, I see what I’ve done.
Khurnac has waded deep into the lake of blood and is staring at its broken chain. It lets out a final roar of exquisite relief as it realises I’ve freed it from its centuries-old bonds. I have unleashed one of Khorne’s most powerful servants.
But instead the daemon’s flesh begins breaking apart and drifting into the sky, like a swarm of insects leaving a nest. Khurnac reels back and forth through the gore, grunting and bellowing as its physical form collapses. Finally, there is a brittle cracking sound as its form dissipates completely. Then the daemon is gone. I have done what the giants of the Nomad City have long dreamt of – I have severed Khurnac’s link to the Mortal Realms and sent it home to its master.
Immediately, the blood ceases to boil and the violent power stops blasting through my body. All I’m left with is exhaustion and the pain of my wounds. I drop to my knees and groan.
From the top of the skull I see that the lesser daemons remain below. I had hoped that vanquishing their wretched progenitor might banish them too, but they’re still pouring across the landscape.
I climb unsteadily to my feet and study my surroundings. Standing up here, at the summit of the huge skull, I feel like I’m already dead, watching the death of the Mortal Realms from a lofty, god-like perch. Far below, I see where I need to be – the gateway between the skull’s teeth.
I whisper a prayer of thanks for Sardicus’ disobedience as I see him swooping towards me, still blasting daemons from the air despite terrible, bloodstained rents in his armour. One of his wings has been badly damaged. The blades of light have lost their lustre and they’re flickering and failing. He’s flying in lurching, drunken arcs, barely keeping aloft, but when he lands on the skull, he extends a hand towards me.
We fall rather than fly towards the earth, a dead leaf spinning from a tree, but Sardicus summons final reserves of strength as we near the ground, thrashing his one good wing just before we crash onto the steps. The impact still jars through me but we both manage to stand.
As we climb to our feet, the daemons swarm around us, loping across the brass on their cloven hooves and raising their swords. They’re wiry, crook-backed things, knots of scaly muscle that reek of death.
Sardicus launches a volley of hammers, filling the air with crackling energy and dazzling explosions. Dozens of the daemons fall, but dozens more vault the blasts and throw themselves at me.
My strength is all but gone. As their snarling faces speed towards me I drag Grius up to meet them. The warhammer lends me its vigour. It’s as though it can sense the proximity of its goal. I bring the slab of sigmarite down again and again, barging through their smouldering ranks as I try to reach the entrance up ahead. Sardicus lifts himself overhead and surrounds me with thundering, furious blasts of god-fire.
Our assault draws the attention of the whole host and I see countless hundreds of the daemons racing back up the steps towards us, gripping flaming swords.
I see a wall of blood up ahead of me and I realise I’m moments from victory.
Dozens more crash into me as I try to climb the last few steps. They tear my armour and flesh. I’m aflame with agony, but the pain only drives me on. I pound and lunge but it’s no good. My body is broken. I can barely stand. The opening is still ten feet or so away but the daemons are pouring over me in such frantic waves that I can’t fight through.
Finally, the weight of them drives me to my knees.
I try to fight on, but it’s impossible. They swarm over me like rats and I can’t find the strength to shrug them off.
‘Sigmar!’ I howl, turning to face the heaving throng. Where is my lord? He must be here. I’ve looked deeper into the darkness than any man. Where is the face of the God-King?
Sardicus swoops overhead, but his lightning is useless against such numbers, and I see that he’s as ruined as me. He’s on the verge of dropping into their waiting talons.
‘Sigmar!’ I try to shout, but my lungs are full of ash and nothing emerges but a croak.
And then I see him.
Crashing up the steps, ploughing through the ranks of daemons and piles of broken skeletons, comes a golden triangle of shields. They’re dented, scorched and bloody, as are the men behind them, but they do not stop.
My army lives. Despite everything, it lives. There are no more than a hundred or so left from the vast host that set out, but they have fought, tirelessly across this valley of madness to reach me. What valour is bound into those bones? I see Boreas staggering at their head, drenched in blood, followed by Retributor Celadon and others I recognise but, above all, in their gleaming forms, I see the face of Sigmar.
‘For the God-King,’ I cry, driven to my feet by the glory of it, raising Grius in tribute, shrugging off mounds of daemons as I stand.
They hesitate.
Boreas speeds up at the sight of me, powering through the crush, hurling entire rows of daemons aside in his determination to reach my side. Behind him, the Liberators finally lower their shields and charge, crushing daemons beneath a storm of golden boots.
They reach me. Despite everything Khorne has thrown at them, they reach me. I feel dozens of hands grasping my ruined body and hauling me towards the doorway.
I cry out, seconds before we leave the steppe. ‘Victory!’
Then we cross the threshold and step into a wall of blood.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lord-Celestant Tylos Stormbound
The clamour of the daemons dies away and blood envelops us. The liquid is hot and cloying, flooding my armour and filling my mouth, but after the vision on the steps, nothing could stop me. I hurl myself through the curtain of gore and burst into a new kind of hell. As I leave the wall of blood, the sudden lack of resistance throws me forwards and I crash to the ground. No, not the ground – a pile of glistening skulls.
I clamber to my feet and look around as Boreas and the others emerge behind me. I can’t help but laugh. We’re standing on an endless, sunless plain of skulls, lit only by violent gouts of fire scattered across the landscape as though supporting the tormented heavens. In every direction, the plain is walled by brutal, brass fortresses, bristling with spines. Talon-crowned towers soar out of sight and comprehension, making me stumble as I try to study them. They’re huge in a way that staggers the mind. The horizon seems to sag under their weight.
Above the towers there’s no sky, only an endless, rolling storm of daemons. Countless thousands of them, billowing and heaving like blood spiralling in water, lit up by the blooming columns of fire.
Circling the plain of skulls are vast, roaming packs of daemon-hounds trailing smoke from their ruby eyes and howling at the tumult overhead. And wading between the hounds is a loathsome, thrice-damned multitude. Every form of debased soul that ever worshipped the Blood God is here: towering troll-like monstrosities, winged, bull-faced daemons and snorting, armour-clad knights, all locked in battle for their master’s enjoyment, all clashing in endless, pointless, war.
‘Lord-Celestant,’ says Boreas, wiping blood from his broken armour. My brother’s hammer is gone and his skull mask has been warped into a nightmarish grin, but he sounds as calm as ever. ‘The Crucible of Blood is still open.’
I grip his shoulder in gratitude then stagger back towards the portal. Crimson daylight is still pouring through the doorway and I can just make out the portico beyond. On this side the realmgate is surprisingly tangible – a tall stone arch, carved with brutal images of slaughter and war.
I heft Grius into my hands,
savouring its weight; savouring its purity. No amount of blood could stain such a weapon.
‘There can be no return,’ I say, turning back to my men.
They nod in silence, wearing their wounds like medals, facing me with unshakeable pride.
I turn back to the stone arch and swing with all the strength I can muster.
I’m half dead with exhaustion and pain, but a greater force than me throws the blow. It smashes into the stone and sends thick, silver lightning up from the metal, splitting the clouds of daemons; drenching us all in holy light.
The archway collapses and the world beyond it vanishes from view. The realmgate that has stood for countless ages is no more. Now there is only the plain of skulls, grinning mercilessly at us from every direction.
‘Victory comes in many forms,’ I say, staring at the pile of smouldering rubble.
I turn back to my men and as the lightning dies away we’re plunged into the fitful darkness. The world starts to shake as a furious roar booms out from the towers. Khorne’s legions cease their games as they see what I’ve done – what I’ve taken from them.
They charge – a tsunami of daemons, monsters and killers, flooding across the plain.
As the damned hurtle towards us from every direction, remnants of lightning play across our golden armour, so that we resemble a tiny, polished coin set adrift in a lake of tar.
I feel no fear. No doubt. Only pride.
At my command, shield walls form around me and I hold Grius aloft.
The host crashes into us.
The hammer falls.
Chapter One
What use the weapon forged without the hand to wield it? It needs more than a mighty weapon to make a mighty warrior! Even if the metal is strong, how shall it prevail if the flesh that bears it is unready? By the fire of tribulation and ordeal is the spirit tempered; in the clamour of battle is valour proven.