Wardens of the Everqueen

by C. L. Werner

  ‘Only the faithful!’ Diocletian shouted as he charged the Slaughter­brute. The other paladins took up his cry, rushing to the attack. They spread out to engage the beast from every side. Thunderaxes hacked into its chitinous hide while Scipio’s mace sent a blazing starblast scorching through the brute’s body. The monster retaliated with its massive claws and snapping jaws, its tongues whipping around to swat at the Stormcasts. Its wrath was unfocused, however, for the eldritch glow surrounding the daggers in its back was becoming more persistent. The beast kept turning back in the direction it had been pursuing, goaded onwards by a force as irresistible as that of the thunderaxes and starsoul mace.

  ‘Don’t let it escape,’ Diocletian told his warriors. He could guess what it was that compelled the Slaughterbrute on despite the wounds the Decimators visited against it. The sorcerer controlling it was after the Lady of Vines and the queen-seed she carried. That made stopping the monster’s rampage even more imperative.

  The Slaughterbrute spun around as one of the paladins chopped at its leg, and its tongues stabbed out, puncturing the warrior’s helm. There was a crack of thunder and a flash of blue lightning as the vanquished Stormcast was drawn back to Azyr. A sweep of the beast’s claws knocked Scipio across the ice, his leg folded almost double beneath him.

  Howling at the remaining Decimators, the monster looked ready to exploit its attack, but again the persistent glow of the binding daggers made it turn away. Diocletian cursed and rallied the rest of his men. Whatever it cost them, they had to bring the monster down.

  Before it could hurl itself against the sylvaneth once more, the Slaughterbrute was confronted by a lone warrior. Darting down from the sky, Tegrus wheeled around the beast’s head, smashing his hammers into the berserk abomination. Lightning crackled against its horns, slicing through one of its barbed tongues, smashing into its fangs. The monster reared back, clawing at the air with its forepaws, vainly trying to drag the Prosecutor-Prime from the sky.

  Tegrus continued to torment the Slaughterbrute, allowing Diocletian and the other Decimators to close with it. Chopping at it with their axes, the paladins gouged hideous rents in its bony plates and scaly flesh. The brute flopped against the ice as one of its mangled legs crumpled beneath it. The paladins were moving in for the kill when a commanding voice arrested their attack. They turned to find the macabre figure of Lord-Relictor Morbus marching towards them from beyond the sylvaneth host.

  ‘It is not by axe and arrow that this beast must be finished,’ Morbus told the perplexed warriors. Raising his relic hammer high, he called down a shower of lightning. The bolts seared into the crippled Slaughterbrute, striking the binding daggers embedded in its hide. The monster cried out, clawing at the ice as the storm seared its flesh. Smoke rose from the cooking beast as it struggled to reach Morbus, either instinct or the commanding force of the daggers drawing it towards its tormentor.

  The Slaughterbrute rallied, lunging for Morbus with outstretched claws. Before it could reach him, however, the beast was swatted down by the gnarled fist of a treelord. The same ancient that had held Morbus while the Lady of Vines roused the jotunberg now stood between the monster and the Lord-Relictor. Its glowing eyes flashed vengefully as it surveyed the carnage already wrought by the Slaughterbrute.

  Uttering a groaning bellow of rage, the treelord lumbered towards the Slaughterbrute. The maimed monster sprang at it, sinking its claws into the ancient bark of its trunk. The treelord gave no notice to the blood-sap spurting from its wounds, but simply reached down and seized hold of the monster’s head. Wooden claws pierced deep into the beast’s hide, then with a savage wrenching motion, the treelord tore the head from its neck. Spurting foulness too rancid to be called blood spilled from the wound as the Slaughterbrute’s abominable vitality drained away.

  Tossing the head aside, the treelord used both of its mighty talons to pull the beast’s body from its trunk. Morbus waited until the sylvaneth had divested itself of the Slaughterbrute’s claws before using his magic to minister to its wounds. Only when the huge tree-creature’s blood-sap stopped dripping down its trunk did the Lord-Relictor turn back to his fellow Stormcasts.

  ‘Some dark sorcerer guided that monster here,’ Morbus stated as he met Diocletian and Tegrus. He gestured at the dripping remains of the binding daggers. ‘Through those he was able to guide the beast. By striking at it through the daggers, it is just possible that the sorcerer himself has shared his creature’s fate.’

  ‘Sigmar willing,’ Tegrus said.

  Morbus nodded, then turned towards the fallen Scipio. Moving across the ice, he knelt beside the injured paladin, drawing upon his healing powers to mend the leg shattered by the Slaughterbrute. While Morbus attended the wounded Decimator, Tegrus reported the return of Lord-Castellant Grymn and the rearguard.

  ‘We will need every warrior we can get,’ Diocletian said.

  ‘Some will be needed here,’ Morbus stated. He pointed to the sylvaneth. Many of them were moving onwards, joining the Lady of Vines as she resumed her retreat.

  ‘That role must be left to others,’ Diocletian observed. ‘The tree-folk don’t regard my Decimators with favour.’

  ‘It is your axes they distrust,’ Morbus told him. He nodded at the steaming carcass of the Slaughterbrute. ‘After your heroic stand against that monster, I think perhaps they regard you with less suspicion.’

  ‘We will be of more use fighting than running,’ Diocletian protested.

  Tegrus was quick to support the paladin. ‘Lord-Castellant Grymn left Retributor-Prime Markius and the Annihilation Brotherhood behind to contain Torglug’s delaying force. Without their hammers, the axes of the Decimators will be most welcome.’

  ‘Then I must entrust the duty to others,’ Morbus said, turning towards Tegrus. ‘Speed back to Angstun and tell him to dispatch a unit of Liberators to accompany the Lady of Vines. Impress upon him that the Hallowed Knights must maintain a presence among the sylvaneth. It is our duty to safeguard Queen Alarielle against all dangers that threaten her. Whatever shape they take.’

  They had spent so long under storm clouds and moving through fog that the light pouring down from the clear sky was almost dazzling to Grymn and his warriors. The view afforded by the light, however, was anything but reassuring. They could see the cracked and broken ice, the litter of bodies left by Torglug’s assault. The very magnitude of the destruction bespoke both the might of the plaguehosts and the violence of the jotunberg’s movements. Both were forces that yet hung over the ice fields. Somewhere beyond the veil of fog, Torglug’s legions lurked, while the rumblings and shudders that crackled through the ice told them that the jotunberg’s agitation wasn’t so easily pacified as it was to evoke. Any moment might see a catastrophic ice quake send all of them sinking into the Sea of Serpents.

  There was nothing Grymn could do about the jotunberg except to trust in Sigmar that the giant’s throes wouldn’t bring ruin to the forces of order. Against Torglug, however, he was already formulating his plans. To advance and continue his pursuit of Alarielle, the warlord would have to bring his army across the ice bridges that spanned the churning sea. If the Stormcasts and their allies could control the bridges they could frustrate Torglug’s ambition. However vast his horde, only a small number of them could strike out across the bridges at one time.

  ‘If we can hold them here we can give the Lady of Vines time to make good her escape,’ Grymn told Angstun.

  ‘Lord-Relictor Morbus worries that Torglug will use some ploy to slip past us and catch up with her,’ Tegrus said. The Prosecutor-Prime had brought word back from Morbus and forwarded his request for warriors to accompany the branchwraith. Angstun had sent Gault’s retinue and those of Agrippa to act as escort for the Lady of Vines. Both retinues of Liberators had been badly mauled throwing back the plaguehosts and so were the easiest to remove from the line.

  ‘Morbus always sees the dark side of everythi
ng,’ Angstun declared. ‘For all of that, I hope he and Diocletian return before the enemy attacks again.’

  Grymn shared the sentiment. The thunderaxes of Diocletian’s Decimators would be vital right now. He had it in mind to use them to break the bridges and restrict Torglug’s horde to the other side of the gap.

  The cheers of his comrades and Tallon’s excited barks brought Grymn turning around. Emerging from the fog was a sight he’d never expected to see – Retributor-Prime Markius and the Annihilation Brotherhood. The paladins had fought their way clear and against all odds had managed to find their way back even without the light of Grymn’s warding lantern to guide them.

  ‘Sigmar be praised,’ Angstun exclaimed as he spotted the Retributors.

  Even as the Knight-Vexillor’s words reached his ears, Grymn felt a chill rush through him. Tallon’s barks turned into angry growls. There were other figures emerging from the mist now, shapes far less welcome than those of the paladins. ‘Assign Markius to one of the bridges,’ Grymn told Angstun. ‘Have his men start breaking it at once.’

  Angstun needed no explanation as he followed Grymn’s gaze. Torglug’s legion was marching out from the fog once more – rank upon rank of armoured warriors and slavering monsters, a seemingly numberless horde of putrescence. Among the throng he could see the putrid bulk of a greater daemon, the slithering loathsomeness of slug-like monsters, the banners of flayed skin that were carried by Nurgle’s chosen.

  Marching at the fore of a mob of bloated, mutated warriors in rusted armour was the warlord himself. Torglug the Despised. Torglug Treecutter. Torglug, the favoured son of Nurgle. He was marching out with his army. The Stormcast understood what his presence meant. This attack would be an all-out effort. There would be no retreat, no compromise. The plaguehosts would either conquer or be destroyed.

  Gazing across the magnitude of Torglug’s forces, Grymn prayed to Sigmar that the Hallowed Knights would be worthy of the ordeal before them. If it was their destiny to fall before the plaguehosts, then he hoped they would at least delay the enemy long enough to cheat him of his prize.

  Chapter seven

  ‘Much is demanded of those to whom much is given.’

  Lord-Castellant Grymn recited the First Canticle to himself as he watched Torglug’s legion charge towards the bridges. They were the words upon which the Hallowed Knights had been founded. In them was written the promise of woe and struggle, but also the promise of triumph. Grymn took solace in such solemn wisdom. The greater the test of faith, the darker the ordeal, the brighter and more magnificent the glory to be gained.

  Grymn felt pride as he heard the shouts of the Hallowed Knights ringing out all across the ice. ‘Only the faithful!’ they cried, reaffirming their devotion to their chamber and to Sigmar, the God-King. Even faced by the onslaught of Torglug’s hideous horde, the Stormcasts were without fear. To lay down their lives in service to their god was the noblest purpose to which they could aspire. Before that resolve, the horrors of Chaos had no power.

  The sylvaneth were ranged across the gap, dispatched by the Lady of Vines to support their efforts against Torglug’s plaguehosts. Commanded by the mighty treelords, the wargroves glared across the gap at their foes, vengeance blazing in their eyes. A terrible groaning litany rose from the tree-creatures, a horrifying paean promising merciless retribution for those who had despoiled their lands.

  Judicators loosed volleys of arrows into the Chaos legion, each sigmarite missile descending as a shaft of crackling lightning. Armoured knights sizzled in the saddles of their mutated steeds, howling tribesmen fell to the ice as smoking husks, hopping daemons burst in showers of ichor and corruption. Yet for every foe the archers brought down, it seemed a dozen more came boiling out from the fog. They trampled their dead and dying underfoot, concerned only with reaching the bridges and the prize that awaited them on the other side.

  The grotesque daemons, the hideous knights, the warlord’s elite troops – the advance of so many formidable enemies told Grymn that Torglug had taken the bait. The warlord was impatient to capture Alarielle, casting aside prudence in his dash to seize the bridges. Now was the moment to frustrate the villain’s ambition. With his army committed to the assault, Torglug would lose valuable time withdrawing and reorganizing if he failed to capture the bridges and cross the gulf.

  While the Judicators continued to whittle away at the horde with their arrows, Grymn raised his warding lantern high. It was the signal to the paladins deployed at the ends of the bridges. Lightning hammers and thunderaxes smashed into the ice, chopping deep into the frozen spans. Chips and slush exploded beneath each blow, but Grymn could tell the Retributors and Decimators were making little progress. The pack was too thick. Even the lightning called down by Lord-Relictor Morbus failed to do more than sink smouldering pits in the surface of one bridge, the energy diverting away to crackle across the open water beneath. Towering treelords shambled towards several of the spans, trying to crack them with their burrowing roots, but even this effort proved futile.

  ‘Tegrus,’ Grymn called to the Prosecutor-Prime. ‘The ice is too thick on our side. I need your brethren to assault the bridges from above and try to crack them from the middle.’

  ‘By Sigmar’s will, it shall be done,’ Tegrus vowed. Spreading his great wings, he climbed into the air, the rest of his command rising up to join him. Their silver armour glistened in the sunlight as they soared above their fellow Stormcasts, then they were speeding away towards the churning waters.

  The Prosecutors hadn’t gone far before abominable shapes dived at them from the stormy skies. Obscenely bloated, their membranous wings caked in frost, the daemonic rot flies flew at Tegrus and his warriors with ravenous abandon. Upon the back of each droning insect, a cyclopean plaguebearer shrieked its own slobbering battle-cry, waving its rusted daemon-blade overhead.

  ‘Sigmar be with you,’ Grymn prayed as he watched the aerial combatants close. The task he’d set the Prosecutors would be doubly difficult now. He remembered Gardus’ admonition about always having a plan for failure. Swinging his warding lantern across his body, he signalled the other Hallowed Knights. The Liberators closed ranks at the end of the spans the paladins were chopping away at, forming a shield wall to block any enemy trying to get across. As if following the example set by the Stormcasts, dryads and larger tree-creatures marched into tight-knit formations behind the bridges being attacked by the treelords.

  It had been his intention to hold Torglug on the other side of the gap, but now Grymn had to prepare for the eventuality that the plaguehosts would reach at least some of the bridges. Their objective now was to keep the diseased legion from securing a foothold on their side of the ice. Every moment they could delay the hordes of Chaos was one more chance for the Lady of Vines and her precious burden to escape.

  Wind whipped across Tegrus’ body as he banked before the murderous dive of a plague drone. The serrated claws of the rot fly scraped across his armoured leg but failed to seize hold of him. The coroded plaguesword of the insect’s rider came much closer to knocking him from the sky, the foul blade blackening the bright aura of his arcane wings. The Prosecutor-Prime arched around his attacker, bringing his hammer cracking against the fly’s swollen abdomen. A vile spray of ooze and putrescence spilled from the ruptured insect. It floundered in mid-air, the plaguebearer hurtling from its saddle to splatter on the ice far below. Tegrus dived down upon the wounded rot fly, smashing his hammer into its head. Already dead from the blow, the monster plummeted from the sky to join its rider.

  Tegrus was buffeted by the fierce winter winds, thrown through the air by a wave of driving ice and snow. It was a struggle for him to correct the spin he was thrown into, diving and juking in an effort to tear himself from the gale’s grip. Around him, he could see other Prosecutors sharing his struggle, fighting to win free of the howling winds. Some of the plague drones were sent down towards the ice, but more of the fien
dish creatures managed to get away. They circled around, rising above the driving force, ready to dive back at the winged Stormcast.

  ‘Prosecutors, our objective remains the bridges,’ Tegrus called to his brethren. It was an onerous order to inflict upon them. To strike at the bridges would mean exposing themselves to the plague drones. Even so, the havoc the flying daemons could wreak was inconsequential beside the utter carnage that would result if Torglug’s legion was able to cross the gulf. Firming his grip upon his hammers, Tegrus swooped towards the bridges.

  The hammer-strikes exploded with a thunderous crack as Tegrus hurled his weapons against the bridge, blasting chunks of ice into the air. He darted through the flying debris, risking a glance back at the damage he’d managed to inflict. A section of the bridge had crumbled away, slamming down into the churning water below. He could see sleek, sinuous sea serpents striking at the sinking ice, lashing out in blind retaliation against the wreckage. Anything of flesh and blood falling into those waters would be quickly devoured.

  The span across those waters, however, remained intact. The gouge Tegrus’ hammers had inflicted against it wasn’t enough to break the bridge. Even now, Chaos warriors and marauders were marching out, goaded onwards by threats from their chiefs and champions. Wheeling around, drawing another hammer from Sigmar’s storm, the weapon crackling into his armoured fist, Tegrus dived down to try again.

  Around Tegrus, the other Prosecutors tried to follow his lead. Several of them were beset by the plague drones, slashed by the claws and mandibles of the rot flies or else cut down by the plagueswords of their riders. He saw one of the Prosecutors dip beneath the onslaught of two adversaries only to be impaled by a spear cast at him by the barbarians rushing across the bridge. The injured Stormcast spun towards the water, his armoured body snapped up by one of the gigantic serpents when it lunged at him from beneath the sea. An instant later a blue flash of light shot up from the churning waves.