‘It is better than the alternative,’ Kurst said. ‘And it’ll do well enough against those.’ He pointed his warhammer at the inner gateway, where a line of Stormcasts had locked their shields against a flood of groaning deadwalkers. The corpses clawed at the armoured warriors, pressing them back through sheer numbers. ‘Get the men up, Vale - we’re needed.’
Vale swallowed and nodded. The Vulture was right. The northern mausoleum gate was his responsibility. Whatever else, he didn’t intend to make a bad showing - he had his prospects to consider. He turned and, in what he hoped was a suitably heroic tone, shouted, ‘Men of the Third - on your feet! Sigmar’s chosen require aid.’
‘Let someone else help them, then,’ a soldier shouted back.
‘Unfortunately for you, Herk, we’re the only poor bastards around,’ Vale snarled, grabbing the dissenter and dragging him out of hiding. ‘Our only choices are to fight or die. And I don’t plan on dying anytime soon. Now get moving, or I’ll send you to Elder Bones myself!’ He shoved Herk into the street and looked around. ‘That goes for all of you. Up, or I’ll give you to the Vulture - up!’
The men closest to him rose, if reluctantly. There was no time to see if it was all of them, and there was nothing he could do about it if it wasn’t. ‘Get moving,’ he shouted. Vale let the Vulture lead the way, allowing room for the warrior priest’s huge hammer. A Stormcast glanced back as they approached, and Vale saluted.
‘You handle the gheists, my lord. We’ll handle the corpses-’
Vale’s bravado disintegrated along with the Stormcast. The warrior crumbled to flashing sparks of azure light as Vale watched, wide-eyed. A sword - as black as night and shining like wet glass - retracted, and a grotesque, iron helm appeared. Eyes like balls of balefire met his, and Vale stepped back, trying to scream but unable to find his voice.
The warrior, wrapped in black iron and grave-shroud, turned, almost lazily, and cut down another Stormcast. Lightning flashed, but didn’t go far. Something hunched and horrid cast rusty chains about the warrior’s soul, ensnaring it. Vale thought he heard the trapped soul scream in horror and despair.
‘Blasphemy,’ Kurst roared, striking at the hunched thing. His blow caught it on its warped helm, and it spun, smashing at him with its chains. Howling spirits rushed at the priest, obscuring him from view, though Vale could hear him cursing. More spirits boiled through the gateway, followed by shambling deadwalkers. The gheists hurtled away, streaking through the streets to either side of him. His relief was short-lived, as the deadwalkers lurched towards the line of Freeguild soldiers, groping blindly.
‘Hold - hold fast,’ Vale stuttered to his men, hacking at a deadwalker. His soul felt like ice in him, as he watched the dark warrior slay another Stormcast. How could such a thing be fought? How could it be faced?
He shook himself, trying to concentrate on the threat he could fight, rather than the one he couldn’t. The deadwalkers were just as deadly as the gheists, and they were more interested in him than the spirits seemed to be, at the moment. He could hear the screams of the men on the walls, and still in the courtyard. They wouldn’t last long, even with the Stormcasts there. ‘Hold them back,’ he shouted, chopping a deadwalker off its feet. Its icy fingers tore strips from his sleeves and left rotten smears on his breastplate.
More gheists streaked overhead, their wails digging into his eardrums. Dozens of them, then a hundred. Until the sky was all but blotted out by rotting, tattered shapes. There was a sound like bird wings flapping against the wind, as they kept coming. They passed through the walls as if they weren’t there, and squirmed into the buildings on the other side of the street. He heard screams, but ignored them. The street was a tangle of confusion. More and more deadwalkers were pushing out into the street beyond the gatehouse. There were bodies slipping and falling all around him, men dying, corpses twitching and lurching. He ignored it all. The only thing that mattered was the dead thing in front of him. ‘Keep fighting,’ he screamed, trying to spot the Vulture.
A man beside him yelled as a deadwalker bore him to the ground, jaws champing. Vale kicked the corpse in the head and bisected its skull when it turned on him. ‘Get up, Doula.’ He hauled the soldier to his feet.
‘We can’t hold them,’ Doula gasped. ‘There’s too many.’ Vale shoved Doula towards the others - pitifully few of them now.
‘Fall back, all of you. Fall back! We’ll regroup at the lych-gate. Regroup…’
Something grabbed him, and he screamed. ‘Shut it, boy,’ the Vulture rasped. The old man looked like death warmed over, and his armour was coated with hoar frost, but he’d survived his brush with the nighthaunts. ‘Call them back. Got to hold the line. Got to-’
He grunted. Vale looked down. The tip of a blade jutted from between the plates of the old man’s armour. It was retracted with a wrench of metal. A gust of frosty breath emerged from his lips as he sagged against Vale. A tall figure, dressed in archaic war-plate and bearing a staff with a lantern atop it, looked down at him. The flame of the lantern burned with an ugly light that threatened to sap the strength from Vale’s limbs.
‘Have you heard the voice of Nagash, little mortal? Can you feel his hand upon your shoulder?’ the nighthaunt intoned, its voice shuddering through Vale. ‘Shall I speak of what awaits you, at the end of the last, long night? Would you hear the voice of Omphalo Dohl?’
Vale shoved Kurst’s dead weight aside and turned to run. A Stormcast staggered across his path, clutching at his neck, lightning bleeding between his fingers. The warrior collapsed to his knees, losing cohesion. The hunched thing, wrapped in its chains, swooped down like a bird of prey, pouncing on the warrior’s soul as it jetted upwards.
Before it could capture its prey, however, a streak of lightning cut across its path, driving it back. Vale turned and saw a gryph-charger rear up over him, its talons dragging a gheist from the air. From its back, Lord-Arcanum Knossus roared out an incantation, and another gheist was reduced to a cloud of ashes. ‘Back, grave-maggots. Back, shadows! This city belongs to the living.’
Vale ducked as gheists shot past him, towards Knossus. Lightning seared the air, immolating spectres and deadwalkers alike. Something caught his leg. He raised his sword, before he realised it was Kurst. The old priest was still alive, somehow. ‘Thank Sigmar,’ Vale began, as he reached down. The old man groaned and caught at him His eyes were empty and white, like the belly of a fish. His grip tightened, and Vale stumbled. Kurst fumbled for his throat, jaws wide - impossibly wide.
‘No!’ Vale hacked at the dead man’s neck, nearly severing his head. From all sides, more dead hands clutched at him. He turned, slashing his sword out, lopping off fingers and tearing wounds in the bodies of his former subordinates. As he fought his way clear, towards Doula and the few remaining survivors, he saw the dark, shroud-clad warrior stride away through the carnage, followed by the hunched thing and the lantern-bearing nightmare.
‘Fall back,’ Vale shouted, as he hurried towards his men. ‘The northern gate is lost. Fall back!’
‘What about the lord-arcanum?’ Doula asked, face pale.
Vale tossed a glance towards the gatehouse, where the fighting still raged. He could hear the snarl of lightning and the screech of a gryph-charger. But the dead were pouring through, and they were too few to stop them.
‘Sigmar help him,’ Vale said, turning away. ‘Sigmar help us all.’
Lord-Celestant Lynos swept his runeblade out and sent a deadwalker’s head tumbling away. The dead were pouring into the city. Gheists and spectres swirled through the streets, shrieking and cackling. Worse, those who died in their attacks were invariably drawn to their feet and set against those who’d failed to save them.
All along the city’s central artery, the Anvils of the Heldenhammer fought to protect the citizens still fleeing from the outer districts, towards the presumed safety of the inner. A tide of panicked humanity flooded t
he wide street, pushing and shoving, as a horde of deadwalkers harried them on all sides. Lynos could hear the thunder of artillery, as the great cannon batteries of the Ironweld fired at something outside the city.
‘Lock shields and hold,’ Lynos bellowed. ‘Form a corridor - every mortal life preserved is one less walking corpse we must face later.’ Shields locked together at his command, and two walls of black sigmarite suddenly lined either side of the avenue. Judicators took up positions behind the bulwark of Liberators, their bows humming.
‘Pragmatic as ever, my lord,’ Varo Tyrmane called from close by. The captain-general of the Glymmsmen sat astride a night-black destrier, surrounded by his black-clad bodyguards. The heavily armoured mortals carried great, two-handed blades, edged with silver and blessed by the Grand Theogonist. More soldiers in the uniform of the Glymmsmen were attempting to control the crowd, and keep the evacuation as orderly as possible.
‘What news, Tyrmane? Are your warriors holding?’ Lynos shouted, hefting a deadwalker with his blade and hurling it aside. ‘I hope you haven’t come to tell me that you’re calling for a retreat already.’
‘No retreat, my lord. The Glymmsmen will hold, until the lord-arcanum commands otherwise. I merely came to provide aid in the evacuation efforts. My men here can protect the civilians, if yours can keep the deadwalkers penned at the other end of the avenue.’
‘We can,’ Lynos said. He lifted his hammer and signalled to the closest cohort of Liberators. The Liberator-Prime raised his own weapon in acknowledgement, before slamming it against the rim of his shield in precise fashion. The cohort stepped out of line as one, raising their shields and pressing the shuffling dead back. This action was repeated along the line, as each cohort advanced in turn, forcing the deadwalkers back. Judicators trotted in their wake, loosing volley after volley at the rear ranks of the dead.
At their best, Stormcasts functioned with mechanical precision. Each cohort fought in synch with the others. Unfortunately, the dead were equally disciplined, in their own way. Not like a mechanism, but like a single organism. A single mind, peering through a thousand eyes and reaching with a thousand hands.
But that mind could be distracted. Lynos glanced towards the cohort of Decimators who acted as his bodyguard. He clashed his weapons together, catching their leader’s attention. ‘Ocarius, dispersed formation. Time to fight as heroes and earn the songs the mortals sing about you, brother.’
‘Finally - I’ve been waiting for this,’ Ocarius growled. ‘Up, axe-men - there is a forest of hands and teeth in need of clearing.’
Lynos fell in step with Ocarius and led the wedge of Decimators through the shield wall. They crashed into the seething masses of the dead and set to work. Great axes flickered out in a sharp rhythm, hacking through legs, spines and shoulders, as the Decimators steadily advanced and spread out, each warrior carving his own path through the dead. And the deadwalkers responded in kind, turning on this new threat and away from the shield wall.
By dispersing themselves, they lessened the pressure on the shield wall, allowing the cohorts that made it up to focus on isolating and despatching the thickest knots of deadwalkers. Thus was the strength of a horde turned back on itself. At least temporarily.
He heard a shout of warning from above and turned to see a pack of dead beasts - wolves, or perhaps jackals - loping towards him. He dropped to one knee and brought his hammer down on the street, rupturing the cobbles. Lightning sawed through the cracks in the surface of the street, and a cleansing flame enveloped the pack of rotting curs. Lynos looked up as the winged form of a Stormcast Prosecutor swooped low overhead. ‘My thanks for the warning, Sleekwing,’ he called out.
Galen Sleekwing dropped from the air, his twin hammers snapping out to send deadwalkers tumbling. He spun, moving smoothly, clearing space with his crackling wings. The feathers could slice through flesh and bone as easily as any blade. Above, Sleekwing’s warriors sped across the avenue, sending hammers of aetheric energy whirling into the packed masses of the dead. The Prosecutor-Prime fought his way towards Lynos, until they stood back-to-back. ‘That’s not the only warning I bring, my lord,’ he said. ‘The northern mausoleum gate has fallen. Lord-Arcanum Knossus is pulling back.’
Lynos hesitated. ‘Orius?’
‘Holding the eastern mausoleum gate, still. There’s only one breach, but the dead are assaulting everywhere along the wall. The arcanogram does little to hold back deadwalkers, especially in these numbers. It’s as if the desert has vomited up every corpse buried beneath the sand. Even Vaslbad’s army wasn’t this big.’
‘One breach is all they need.’ He turned, scanning the avenue. ‘But there’s more to it. The deadwalkers are a distraction - meant to keep us occupied.’ He looked up.
The nighthaunts streaming through the skies weren’t attacking, not in any concentrated manner. Most of them seemed intent on going somewhere. Worse, up the street, towards the outer walls, he could see more deadwalkers, shambling not towards the battle, but the heart of the city. ‘Where are they going?’ Sleekwing said.
‘The Grand Tempestus,’ Lynos said.
‘Back! Fall back, if you value your lives - this foe is beyond you,’ Balthas roared. Mortal soldiers streamed past him, retreating to the Grand Tempestus. He was a voice of authority, and they obeyed quickly. Deadwalkers clambered over or through the barricades, their moans rising and mingling with the shrieks of the nighthaunts who hurtled in all directions through the rain-swept air.
The dead had come upon them suddenly. First the nighthaunts, pouring through Glymmsforge’s high canyons of stone like a flock of hungry crows. Then, following more slowly, the deadwalkers. Most were sun-blasted, sand-scoured carrion. Others were fresher, wearing torn uniforms, the blood still wet on the wounds that had slain them.
The nighthaunts slipped through barricades and even shields as if they weren’t there, killing with abandon. The Freeguild soldiers were little match for the spectres, especially in such numbers. Those on the rooftops had died first, plucked into the dark sky and dashed to the cobbles below. Or, worse, they simply vanished - leaving behind only their screams of agony. Even the duardin weren’t immune.
Balthas glanced west, where the warriors of the Riven Clans faced the dead from behind high shields, with shot and thunder. The duardin had formed three squares of wide, rectangular shields wrought to resemble the faces of dragons. Drakeguns bellowed through specially designed slots in the mouth of each ‘dragon’, filling the air with fire and silver. As nighthaunts swooped down from above, warriors waiting behind the gunners hefted rune-embossed shields, creating a makeshift roof over the gromril square.
But for every weak spirit that scrabbled ineffectually at the raised shields, a cackling spectre reached down and tore at the warriors beneath. Already, the outermost squares were buckling as the duardin were forced to defend themselves against the chainrasps and chatter-gheists that slithered across the cobbles, beneath the arc of their guns.
A war-horn echoed from within the centre square, and the duardin began to retreat. Unlike many of his folk, Juddsson was no fool - he wouldn’t waste lives on a losing proposition. The duardin would retreat up the steps of the Grand Tempestus and reform on the portico, as the Freeguild were already doing.
Balthas thumped Quicksilver’s flanks, and the gryph-charger darted through the field of silver corpses, carrying them to where Fosko led the rearguard in holding back the dead. The old officer was shouting curses as he plied his blade like a butcher’s cleaver. ‘Hold them back, you worthless sacks of cats’ meat,’ he shouted hoarsely. ‘First man to take a step back without my order gets my steel in his belly.’
Spears of Aqshian flamewood thrust into the horde, as Glymmsmen braced massive pavise shields against the wall of rotting meat that pressed against them. The spears shattered skulls and snapped spines, dropping twitching deadwalkers to the cobbles. Fosko and those soldiers not wielding s
pears finished off those corpses that were still moving. It was efficient, if brutal, but the sheer number of the enemy was beginning to tell. As Balthas drew close, a soldier was dragged screaming through the shield wall and torn apart by the groaning corpses. What was left of him began to twitch almost instantly. Soon, it would rise and join the charnel legion.
Balthas could taste the necromantic energies permeating the throng, like a sourness at the back of his throat. It had become a war of attrition, and only one side was replenishing its forces. The Freeguild and the duardin were leaving too many bodies behind as they fell back. The mortals had become a hindrance, rather than a help.
Even so, they had helped him to gauge the strength of the enemy. This was no sortie, no random herd of corpses, but an all-out attack. And that meant the enemy he had been sent here to fight was upon them ‘Pull them back, Fosko,’ he snarled, jerking on Quicksilver’s reins. ‘You’ve done your duty - now let me do mine.’
He thrust his staff up and gave the signal. From the portico came a roar as the celestar ballista sounded its fury. Streaks of blue-white energy arced over the heads of the retreating mortals, and where they landed, chain-explosions of arcane energy ripped through corpse and gheist alike. As Gellius swung the ballista around, taking full advantage of its wide field of fire, Faunus readied bolts for loading. Balthas knew from experience that they could manage an impressive rate of fire, even by the standards of the Conclave of the Thunderbolt.
In the momentary lull that followed, he urged Quicksilver forwards, into the mass of dead flesh. The gryph-charger shrieked as he bore a corpse down and snapped its spine. Overhead, the nighthaunts roiled, some swooping towards the lord-arcanum, screaming. Balthas raised his staff and called down the wrath of the storm.
Lightning fell from the sky to leap from spectre to gheist, rending the bodiless spirits asunder. As falling ash mixed with the rain, Balthas swept his staff out, crushing a deadwalker’s skull. As it fell, he murmured a transmutive incantation and transformed the flesh and bone of the deadwalkers around him to purest silver.
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