by Various
She heard the rattle of Azyrite drums, and glanced back. Within the safety of the Stormcast shieldwall, the mortal soldiers of the Freeguild moved swiftly, fortifying the glen with practiced alacrity. Such measures had become second nature to them: Ghyran was neither tame nor safe, for all that the Everqueen had made common cause with the God-King against their common foes. The forests of the Realm of Life were savage places, even when they weren’t occupied by packs of Chaos beasts.
They hadn’t planned to make camp here. They hadn’t planned to make camp at all – the forest was too dangerous for that – but with the enemy massing around them, there was no way to press on to the forest’s heart, where the creatures supposedly laired, without incurring grievous losses. They had come to wipe the beastkin out and free the forest from their depredations, but that was easier said than done.
Serena looked around. The Hexwood sprawled across the hardscrabble slopes of the Nevergreen Mountains which rose west of Hammerhal Ghyra. Scaly pine trees grew tall and strong, their roots coiling through the flaky soil and their wide branches all but blocking out the night sky. It was not a pleasant sort of forest. The dancing shadows gave the trees faces, and more than once she thought she saw something leering at her from the branches above.
The clearing the column occupied was large, but was still a thin spot in all the thick. The trees rose upwards or fell away at odd angles, following the incline of the slope. The Nevergreen Mountains were a broken jumble of crags, shrouded in scrub pines and thick underbrush – neither truly mountains nor hills, but something in between. The column led by the Hallowed Knights was strung out in a rough battle-line among the trees, but that line began to contract as the last yowls of the retreating tzaangors faded and temporary defensive emplacements were erected.
The clearing echoed with the sounds of labour as the Freeguilders completed their tasks. Stakes linked by stout chains were hammered into the hard soil around the edges of the clearing, their points jutting towards the dark trees. Supply wagons were circled, the lumbering ghyrochs which pulled them lowing in confusion as they were hauled about by their handlers. The massive beasts were covered in shaggy, moss-like hair, and their wide, flat heads bore impressive branch-like horns. Their stony hooves tore the soil in discontent as the ghyrochs scented blood.
Besides casks of fresh water, gunpowder and crates of shot, one of the supply wagons carried the Impertinent Maiden – an ancient helblaster volley gun. This lethal war-machine was an arrangement of stacked gun barrels connected to a sturdy framework. It was capable of unleashing a volley of shot at an approaching enemy, when it wasn’t otherwise busy being jammed or blowing a gasket.
The gun’s crew, in their blue-and-white livery, were fussing over the engine like concerned parents, though they hadn’t had time to use it in the battle. The wagon bearing it was pulled into the centre of the defensive ring, so that the Impertinent Maiden could unleash her affections more effectively should the need arise.
And that need was likely. The tzaangors were gone, but only for the moment. The thud of their drums still sounded deep in the forest. Occasionally, Serena caught a flash of sickly light far back in the trees. She felt eyes on her, watching. Calculating.
Unsettled, she turned her attentions to the soldiers’ efforts. The Faithful Blades regiment had fought alongside the Steel Souls since the first Azyrites had followed the Stormcasts to the battlegrounds of the Jade Kingdoms nearly thirty years before. The Freeguild regiment’s uniform incorporated the heraldry of the Hallowed Knights, and they were among the most devout of the mortal soldiery of the armies of Azyr. For them, faith was as good as armour. A handful of warrior-priests, clad in blue robes and silver war-plate, moved among them, leading the soldiers in prayer as they worked, or else reading loudly from the Canticles of War.
While the regiment itself was currently garrisoned out of Fort Gardus, some units had been seconded to act as auxiliaries for the expedition into the Hexwood. The Hallowed Knights did not begrudge the presence of these mortal allies. A Thunderhead Brotherhood was more than a match for most things that walked or crawled, but the Stormcast Eternals did not know the terrain, and the Freeguilders did. They had been fighting beastkin in these regions since the fort’s construction. Serena smiled slightly. It had been named for the Steel Soul, though he seemed much embarrassed by the honour.
Fort Gardus was a mighty bastion of stone and wood on the border of the Scabrous Sprawl, within several days’ march of Hammerhal Ghyra. While it had originally been raised to keep watch on the daemon-haunted wastes of the Sprawl, it had grown into the central node of a defensive network of smaller fortresses and watchtowers stretching from the western lowlands to the marshes of the Verdant Bay. Much like the Hallowed Knights themselves, it warded Hammerhal from the relentless dangers of Ghyran.
‘Get those bodies out from underfoot,’ a voice barked. ‘Quickly now.’
Serena made room as several apologetic Freeguilders moved through the shieldwall, dragging a dead tzaangor out past the stakes. She glanced back and saw a familiar face.
Sergeant Ole Creel had gone grey in the Faithful Blade’s service, and his shoulders were bowed with the weight of experience. But his hands were steady, and his blue-and-white uniform was clean. One leg was a wooden prosthesis. Coins had been nailed to its polished length, and they gleamed gold in the lantern light. He wore a sergeant’s badge on his cap, and had the twin-tailed comet etched into his battered chest-plate.
Creel had fought beside the Steel Souls for most of his life. Serena could recall a younger Creel, with an unlined face and two good legs, fighting in the front lines. He had marched through foetid jungles and over blistered fields, singing the praises of the God-King. Even when he’d lost his leg, his faith had never wavered. And now, he was an old man, but still faithful. Still loyal.
He doffed his feathered cap as he realised she was looking.
‘My lady,’ he said respectfully. The mortal soldiers of Azyr regarded the Stormcasts with awe, when they did not worship them outright as the manifestation of the God-King’s will.
‘Sergeant Creel,’ she said as she stepped back out of line.
Other Stormcast Eternals were doing the same, seeing to wounds or cleaning their weapons, though most remained where they were, facing outwards with a stolidity born of hard experience. Serena caught Aetius’ eye, and he nodded tersely, allowing her the break in discipline.
‘You are unhurt?’ she asked Creel.
‘All my remaining limbs accounted for. Knock on wood.’ The sergeant rapped his knuckles against his wooden leg. He gave her a gap-toothed grin and settled his cap back on his head. ‘Bit of a fight, that. Thought they might get past you there, for a second.’
She looked down at one of the dead beastkin. For a moment, she was struck by a curious sense of déjà vu. Had beasts like these been responsible for the death of the woman she had been? She did not think so, but the mind often played tricks where such things were concerned.
‘Have you seen their like before?’ she asked.
‘Twist-beaks,’ Creel said, almost spitting the word. ‘We’ve fought them too often of late. They’re getting bold, out here in the dark places. High time we purged them from these woods with fire and shot.’ He nudged the dead beast with his wooden foot. ‘Cunning beasts. Tricky.’ He squinted at the surrounding trees, a speculative look on his face. ‘Too tricky by half.’ He straightened. ‘They don’t attack like this, not without some plan in mind.’
‘Perhaps we startled them.’
Creel nodded absently. ‘Could be. Or maybe they were here to delay us.’
‘An ambush to set up an ambush?’
He glanced at her. ‘I’ve seen it before. Tricky, like I said.’ He watched his warriors work. ‘Be easier if we could fell some trees. Clear some ground.’
‘That would not be wise,’ Serena said. ‘This land is not ours.’
&nb
sp; ‘Well, someone already has.’ He gestured to a nearby stump. ‘Sawed clean, some of these trees. My father was a logger in the Nordrath Mountains. I know whereof I speak.’ Creel grimaced. ‘Besides, back at Fort Gardus, they say the sylvaneth and their queen have taken a liking to the Steel Soul. That they have an accord with him, and that it is only through his grace that we are allowed to pass through these forests.’ Creel washed his mouth out with a drink from his water skin, and spat. ‘Otherwise they’d tear us apart as swiftly as they do the servants of Chaos.’
‘You disapprove?’ Serena said, somewhat amused.
The Freeguilder frowned. ‘Can’t trust the tree-kin. They change with the seasons – calm one moment, wrathful the next. Chop down the wrong tree, and suddenly you’re up to your neck in brambles. Or worse.’
‘The Lady of Leaves guards her places well,’ one of the other Freeguilders said. She was a tall woman, and she wore a torc of wood around her neck. She touched it as she spoke. ‘This realm is hers, and it is by her will that we are allowed to breathe its air.’
‘Quiet, Shael,’ Creel barked. He glanced apologetically at Serena. ‘Ignore her, lady. She’s a local. Never known the blessed light of Sigmar, these Verdians. Think the Everqueen will stoop to save them from the Ruinous Powers, when she can’t even save herself.’
These days, the Faithful Blades included both native Verdians and expatriate Azyrites in its ranks. Most of the Freeguilds responsible for the defence of Hammerhal Ghyra did. Rates of attrition were high, as the Freeguild sought to impose some sense of order on the ancient routes which connected Verdia to the rest of the Jade Kingdoms. It was hard, bloody work, and on more days than not, the skies near Hammerhal Ghyra were thick with carrion birds and powder smoke.
While Nurgle’s hold on Ghyran had been weakened, the corrupted servants of the Plague God still prowled the wilds in substantial numbers, and their raids on the bastions of Azyr continued unabated. The Lord of Pestilence had once held Ghyran entire in his rotting clutches, and he sought obsessively to reclaim that small portion which Sigmar and the Everqueen had wrested back from him.
‘And why wouldn’t she?’ Shael countered. ‘We kept faith with her, while your folk were hiding behind high walls and sealed gates.’
‘Remember whose sigil you wear, Verdian,’ Creel snapped, his weather-beaten features flushing with anger. ‘Your folk wouldn’t even be here, free of corruption, if it wasn’t for us. We of Azyr paid a heavy price in blood and steel to buy back your lands from the Plague God.’ He thumped his false leg for emphasis.
‘And we would not have found ground worth defending, were it not for the Everqueen and all those who serve her, mortal or otherwise,’ a deep voice rumbled. Instantly, the squabbling Freeguilders fell silent and bowed their heads.
Serena turned. ‘Lord-Celestant Gardus,’ she said in greeting.
Gardus Steel Soul towered over the mortals who accompanied him. They were local tribesfolk, impressed into service as guides. They wore furs and battered leather hauberks. Their faces were tattooed with the whorl leaf-shapes common to the mountain clans of the region. They carried bows of sinew and short-hafted axes, and looked as if they knew how to use both. They stared about nervously, intimidated by the Stormcast warriors clad in silver.
Like Serena, the Lord-Celestant was clad in silver-and-azure war-plate, though his was more ornate by far, as befitted his rank. His heavy runeblade was sheathed at his side, but he carried his tempestos hammer in one hand. The weapon, like the warrior who wielded it, glowed with a subdued radiance.
‘You are one of Aetius’ warriors.’ It wasn’t a question, but Serena nodded anyway. ‘You saw the brunt of it just now, sister.’ He looked at her, head tilted enquiringly.
‘Sunstrike, my lord,’ she said. Then, a moment later, she added, ‘Serena.’ She bowed slightly and Gardus chuckled. It was a deep sound, gentle but far-reaching. She was suddenly glad for her war-mask, which hid her flush of embarrassment.
‘Serena, then.’ He looked at Creel. ‘And you are… Sergeant Creel, are you not? You took the enemy standard at the Pale Gorge.’ Gardus glanced down. ‘You lost your leg there.’
‘Fair trade, my lord, all things considered.’ Creel grinned. ‘Sigmar smiled on us.’
‘He did, and he still does.’ Gardus looked at the Freeguilders. ‘That such men and women as you stand here before me is proof enough of that.’ He gestured to Serena. ‘What do you see here, sister?’
‘I…’ She hesitated, suddenly uncertain.
Gardus took pity on her. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and looked at the Freeguilders. ‘I see folk from Azyr, Ghyran and Aqshy, standing side by side. As it should be – to defend one realm is to defend eight. For if one should fall, the others will follow in time. Even holy Azyr cannot stand alone, not for long.’ Gardus turned, scanning the trees. ‘We fight in Sigmar’s name. We are his tempest made manifest. And we cleanse the land for all people, whether they were born in Azyrheim or Verdia.’
His words carried across the clearing. Many of the Freeguilders had stopped to listen. That had no doubt been his intent, Serena realised. His words had been meant to quell the grumbling before it could get started. But that had not been their sole purpose. Gardus believed, and his faith was like a warm wind on their souls, easing the chill of the shadows that gathered about them.
As Creel and the others went back to work, Gardus leaned close. ‘I apologise,’ he said softly. ‘I saw an opportunity and took it.’
‘I understand, my lord.’
‘Discontent can afflict even the most loyal heart.’ A ghyroch bellowed, and Gardus watched as its handler tried to calm the mossy creature. The smell of blood, and perhaps of the forest itself, had disconcerted the beasts and they tossed their horns and pawed the ground in dismay. ‘There are wounds not yet healed. If they are allowed to fester, all that we work towards will be for nothing.’ He looked at her. ‘Do you understand?’
‘I… Yes.’ She did. Though the armies of Azyr had spilled into the Mortal Realms with the intent to throw back Chaos, not everyone appreciated the kind of aid they brought. For many in the Mortal Realms, the closing of the Gates of Azyr was a legendary betrayal.
The Azyrites could be full of their own righteousness, often to a burdensome degree. Some among them looked down on those they had come to save, or worse, thought them to be tainted by the very act of their survival in Chaos-held lands. She looked at the Lord-Celestant.
‘Is it true we are here at the request of the sylvaneth, my lord?’
Gardus hesitated, and she wondered if she had spoken out of turn. But Gardus encouraged a certain informality among his warriors.
‘We are,’ he said. ‘They did not ask openly, for that is not their way. Instead, they passed their warning through the foresters.’ He gestured to the tribesfolk in their furs and skins. ‘They brought word to us, in turn.’ He looked up, studying the trees which rose around them. ‘And the sylvaneth are here. Watching. Waiting to see if we are as good as our word.’
Serena tensed. She looked around, remembering the faces she’d thought she’d seen in the trees. The sylvaneth moved through forests as easily as she might walk across open ground. Could that have been them?
‘Watching us?’ she asked. ‘Why?’
‘Not us,’ Gardus said. He looked at her. ‘Some wounds are worse than others, Serena Sunstrike. And even the strongest warrior sometimes needs the help of another.’
His hand fell to the hilt of his runesword, and he stared at the trees. She wondered if he could sense something. She listened, but heard only the faint thump of the beastkin drums, deep in the woods and far away.
Gardus looked at the tribesmen. ‘Isn’t that right, Hyrn?’
‘It is, Bright One,’ the tribesman said gruffly. He was older than the rest, his greying mane held out of his face by a headband of leather. He spoke the Azyrite tongue wel
l enough, though his accent was guttural. He caught her look and tapped his throat. ‘The priests teach us. Say we must speak the star-tongue, or Sigmar will not hear us.’
‘Faith needs no words,’ Serena said. Hyrn smiled and nodded.
‘Yes. The Lady of Leaves is always listening.’ His smile faded. ‘Though some feel that she does not do even that these days. We’ve seen witch-light flickering among the trees. It’s said that the beastkin dance here now, where the forest spirits once did.’ He frowned and spat. ‘The beastkin drove them away, and made the air and ground sour. Soon, they will drive the last of us away as well. Or worse – we will join them in their dancing, as so many of our folk have.’
He shuddered, and Serena frowned, recalling what she had heard of the corrupting magics of Tzeentch. How many of his people had Hyrn seen twisted into monsters, warped body and soul by witchcraft he had no defence against?
Gardus laid a hand on the tribesman’s shoulder. ‘No more will join them – this I swear to you, by the light of Sigendil. That is why we are here. We will not abandon you.’
Serena made to reply, when she felt the wind shift. The smell of death was replaced by something even fouler. Creel and the other mortals nearby coughed as the sickly sweet scent wafted over them. Serena turned and raised her shield. She knew that scent – sorcery. Something was happening. The air had taken on a greasy pall. There was a sound like… loose flesh, slapping against bark.
From the darkness beyond the lantern light, something screeched. A shrill ululation that sent knives of pain through her skull, such was the wrongness of it. Creel and the other mortals staggered, clutching at their heads. Some dropped their weapons and collapsed; others maintained their discipline, but only barely.
‘Shieldwall! Form the shieldwall!’ Aetius bellowed from the line. ‘Pull the mortals back!’