Mir could no longer see the enemy. The Rotbringers had vanished behind the wall of embodied putrescence. The crows dived through the canopy. They perched on branches and circled above the warband. Some of the birds were rotting as they flew. Others were on fire. They all had too many eyes. They cawed their mockery. Mir slashed at them and at the vegetation blocking his way forward. His advance slowed to a crawl.
‘You have turned Khorne against us!’ Orto shouted. ‘Archaon favours the followers of Nurgle.’
‘Are you already defeated?’ Skull answered. In the blood warrior’s words, Mir heard his own thoughts given voice. Khorne had rendered him mute, but Skull always spoke for him. Skull, whose loyalty was so unshakeable, it had to be a form of enslavement. ‘Do you abandon your duty to the Blood God?’ Skull demanded.
Vuul answered before Orto. ‘The transgression is Mir’s, not ours,’ he snarled. To Mir he said, ‘We followed you and this is our reward.’
Mir swung his axes. Branches fell, burning at their touch. I will have your silence and your effort, or I will have your head, he thought.
Skull said, ‘The enemy is close, and Ushkar Mir will not let a few trees stand between us and their skulls.’
Mir paused and faced Vuul. He parted his jaws, his teeth ready to tear flesh. He felt Vuul’s gaze on his face. There were no eyes for the bloodstoker to see, but Mir knew his band of brass blazed in the foetid shadows of the forest. Vuul hesitated, then, with a snarl, he turned back to hacking at the growths.
Vines tangled around Mir’s arms. He tore the lanyards apart. Spores burst from the ragged ends. The air thickened and sought to choke him. He spat it out and forced his way through the wall of rot. With each slowed step, his anger grew, and the forest began to shrivel at his touch.
He moved faster, a vector of wrath burning through the woods. He still could not see the Rotbringers. Nor could he hear them. He could barely hear his own troops over the shrieking of the birds. The stench of putrescence drowned out the scent of his prey’s blood.
No matter. He drove forward. If he did not reach the foes himself, the foes would come to him. And his rage would reap the harvest of their skulls.
The land erupted with violent death. Rivers of flaming blood ran between hills of skulls. Through the darkness of the crows’ wings, everything was the red of fire and the crimson of gore. Bule had been running across a barren plain, and then it had heaved skyward, stone transforming into bones soaked in blood, steaming and burning. Bule struggled up the slope. Skulls and femurs rolled and shifted. The ground tried to swallow his legs in avalanches of remains.
The Rotbringers reached the top of the rise. The walls of the arena had vanished. Bones, blood and flame stretched out to burning horizons in every direction. Overhead, the crows wheeled. Their many eyes glittered and judged.
‘We are abandoned,’ Fistula said.
There could be no garden here. There was no life. Only the perpetuity of pyres and the scarlet flow of rage.
‘We are challenged.’ Bule said. He would not despair, though the omen of the transformation was an ill one. Let it be a further trial, then, another means by which he would prove himself worthy of serving Archaon, and of the blessings of Grandfather Nurgle.
‘Look,’ he said, pointing, ‘we have an opportunity.’
The Bloodbound were further away than they had been before the land had transformed. The wall of the arena had vanished, and the battlefield was infinite. Still, the Khornate warriors were on the same heading. There was something odd about their advance. They moved more slowly than Bule had expected. Their gestures were strange. They were slashing at the air as if battling invisible enemies.
‘What are they doing?’ Fistula wondered.
‘I don’t care, as long as it does them no good.’ Bule thought for a moment. The Bloodbound warband looked strong. Whatever the confusion of the warriors’ gestures, they were striking forward with the coherence and force of a battering ram. Bule had little doubt that a head-on collision would go against him. That would be playing to the strengths of the wrathful. Neither band was very large. The possibilities for manoeuvring were few. But they still existed.
‘Embrace the enemy with the generosity of Grandfather,’ Bule ordered. He would take advantage of the Bloodbound’s apparent distraction. ‘Advance to meet them, encourage their charge, then split up and hit their flanks.’
Fistula nodded. Of course he’s pleased, Bule thought. He will lead half our band.
It was a risk, but one he saw no way to avoid.
Bule resumed the charge. He bellowed and stormed down the hill of bones. The footing was treacherous. He stomped hard on the shifting bones, shattering them, splashing through rivulets of blood, imposing his bulk on the burning land. The distance between the two bands narrowed. Though both struggled, it seemed as if the field were contracting once more. The crows called their excitement as the champions hurled towards each other.
We’re closing too fast, Bule thought.
There was nothing but the forest, nothing but the black, viscous, rotting density of the vegetation. Mir heard the Rotbringers, but could not see them. The sound of their tramping was muffled by the vegetation. There was no way to gauge their distance.
And then the forest fell away, shrivelling and burning at his touch, and the Rotbringers were before him. He roared. His hatred fuelled by frustration, he shot forward, axes raised. They screamed their hunger. The warrior at the Rotbringers’ head was huge, a festering mass of muscle and bulk. The spikes of his armour squirmed with rotting meat. His helmet was featureless except for a down-curving horn and a cluster of three eye-shaped holes. Mir saw in the design the idiot implacability of an insect, and his jaws parted in anticipation of the foe’s blood.
The Rotbringer was faster than he looked. He took a step back and pivoted to the right. Mir’s momentum carried him forward, too powerful to alter course. Skullthief slashed into the Rotbringer’s torso. Dark, stinking blood erupted into the air, boiling from the strike. The axe blade scraped against ribs. The Rotbringer shouted in pain, but kept moving, pulling free of Skullthief. Behind him, a second warrior, lighter in build and armour, broke left. He was very fast. He escaped harm. The knight coming up behind him was not as lucky. Mir brought his two blades together. The daemons within, as frustrated and raging as he, bit deep into the rotting, rusted armour. The double sweep slashed through flesh and bone. The knight’s head flew off. Blood fountained over Mir. It was thick with parasites. He snarled and batted the slumping corpse aside and the head rolled into the muck and vegetation. The plants rotted to nothing, as if the touch of the dead plague-bringer broke their hold on reality and they withdrew before the greater force of wrath.
Behind the fallen knight, a trio of marauders hurled themselves at Mir. They hacked at him with blades dripping with filth. The edges of his wounds turned black. The pain squirmed. He roared. Rage turned his vision red. It burned his veins clear of the infections. He brought Bloodspite down on one marauder’s skull, splitting it in two. Skullthief took another’s sword arm off at the shoulder. The wounded Rotbringer howled but pushed in closer, his rotten blood washing over Mir. Insects and worms tried to burrow through the brass. They succeeded in smearing his vision. Behind him, the rest of his band pushed forward.
But as he swiped the slime from his face, he saw that most of the Rotbringers had moved out to the left and right, flanking his warriors.
The wound burned. Not with the generous malignancy of Grandfather Nurgle’s munificence. It burned with a destroying fire, one that put the torch to the beauty of decay and left nothing but bone and ash. Bule hissed. His breath was pained and angry. The Bloodbound had hit so hard, so fast. Bule had seen them coming. He should have been able to judge when to move out of the way. But the distances in the battlefield were fluid, treacherous. He could not trust them. Fistula was right – there would be no blessings to look for fro
m Nurgle. Everything was up to Bule. He would not find the garden in this landscape of skulls. It would be up to him to bring it here by fertilizing the ground with the blood of the wrathful.
Reeling from the blow of the Bloodbound champion, he moved in an arc away from the enemy horde. He glanced back. Just over a third of his knights followed him. The marauders took the brunt of the Bloodbound charge. They would be dead in moments. That was all the time he needed. On the other side of the enemy, Fistula kept pace with another third of the warband, mirroring his manoeuvre. The Khornate fighters smashed through the Rotbringers that stood in their way.
That’s right, Bule thought. You have broken us in two. Hold that belief.
He angled back in, ploughing through the bones, splashing through blood, bringing the weight and disease of his troops against the rear flank of the Bloodbound. The enemy turned, eager in rage to meet the challenge. But the ragged line was narrow. A concentrated wedge of Rotbringers hit it from both sides. Plague-ridden Chaos knights clashed with Khornate ones. Rotting armour and slimy, rusting blades met iron glowing red with the forge of anger. Barbarians in joyous states of decay fought counterparts whose faces were frozen in a rictus of perpetual wrath. Bule raised his battle axe. A green miasma spread out from it. The air itself sickened. Some of the foe began to stumble even before he made contact. One doubled over, choking with violent, rib-shattering coughs. His lungs, already half dissolved, pushed out through his straining jaw.
Bule brought his axe down. The pain in his chest faded into the background as the blade smashed down through a skullreaper’s shoulder and halfway down the torso. The warrior’s face screamed with hatred and pain. He struck at Bule with his other arm, wielding a sword the length of a man. It bled its own ichor. The blow struck just above Bule’s pauldron. The skullreaper had been aiming for his neck, but was weakening from more than loss of blood. The axe’s venom was running rampant through his body. Anger was impotent against the surge of transformative decay. Bule absorbed the blow and hit the skullreaper again in the other arm. The Bloodbound fell. Bule stepped over the still-breathing body. Where the blood of the Khornate warriors flowed, the land cooled. The low flames that flowed like oil over the mounds of skulls dampened. The bones crumbled into mulch. Shoots burst from the ground, pendulous with growths.
‘Break the hold of wrath!’ Bule shouted. ‘Let the garden flourish in victory!’
To his right, he heard a snarl so fanatical in its rage it withered the sprouting vegetation.
Mir decapitated another marauder and turned back in time to see the rear half of the warband caught in a vice. Where the Rotbringers attacked, the diseased vegetation exploded with a new exuberance of rotting life. Vines and branches rose in tangled exultation towards the sky of crows.
He snarled at Vuul. The bloodstoker was fighting at his shoulder, flaying a Rotbringer knight with his great whip.
‘Why are you here?’ Skull said to Vuul. ‘Lord Mir commands you go back up the line. Hold the centre.’
‘And you?’ said Vuul, challenging.
‘Do it.’
There was a single moment’s hesitation. Had there been a second, Mir would have attacked. But Vuul turned and saw the imminent collapse. The triumph of the enemy was too hateful to be borne. He raced down into the thick of the fray.
Mir killed the last of the Rotbringers at his position. The blood warriors around him paused, uncertain. They were poised to lend support to Vuul and push back the enemy attack. Mir shook his head. He gestured with Bloodspite. With me. Skull, the skullgrinder Kordos and the rest of the leading warriors followed as he turned right, off the clearing forged by the battle, plunging back into the festering green. He knew exactly where the Rotbringers were now. He would use the obscurity of the foliage against them. He would even turn their own manoeuvre against them. He would smash their illusions of strength. They flanked us, he thought. Now we flank them.
He wanted the skull of the Rotbringer champion. Killing him meant more than achieving the task set by Archaon. It meant more than destroying the principle threat. Skullthief had tasted the champion’s blood, and it was hungry for more. Bloodspite, envious, sought to steal its twin’s kill. Mir shared their hunger and their frustration. The Rotbringer should already be dead at his feet. The absence of the corpse was an insult.
The forest was thick with disease and insects. Almost immediately, Mir’s sight was reduced to a few steps in front of him. All directions were the same. The sounds of the struggle were too close to muffle now, though. He knew where he was going. Nurgle’s profusion would do nothing now to impede the path of rage.
He slashed through vegetation. It barely slowed him. He moved in a fated arc. There was no doubt, no confusion. He came in behind the lord of plague’s contingent. Around the struggle, the land was in flux. Vegetation burned and fell away, revealing a terrain of skulls. Blood flowed between the bones, turned black, and fertilized the ground. Growths and flame blossomed, the marks of the gods battling each other for supremacy with the same fury as the warriors. The Rotbringers had their backs to Mir. He could catch them in their own trap, crushing this part of the horde with greater numbers, then annihilating the other.
On the point of beginning the attack, Mir stopped. He raised his right arm, calling a halt.
‘Why do we stop?’ Kordos asked. It took much to move the skullgrinder to speak. His confusion must have been great. Since when did the Bloodslaves stop mid-charge?
‘Why do you question Lord Mir?’ asked Skull.
Kordos didn’t answer. Mir turned his head in Kordos’ direction for a moment, letting the skullgrinder know he had Mir’s attention. Then he faced forward again.
Vuul was fighting with ferocious skill. The Rotbringers attacked on two fronts, but the bloodstoker held them off. His whip and torture blade were blurs. His voice rose in a howl of thirst. He took the skulls of the enemy in a frenzy of blows. He cut through the Rotbringers as though they were no more of an obstacle than the forest. He was a towering storm of wrath.
Archaon had said there could be only one champion.
Mir had understood what that meant, but he had pushed the consequences aside until now. The priority was the defeat of the Rotbringers. Afterwards, he would deal with any of his warband still standing. But now, as he saw Vuul fight, his priorities changed. Vuul was fighting too well. His rage was fuelled by desperation and ambition. He understood the import of Archaon’s words too. Vuul sought to become the Varanguard.
Skull and the others with Mir obeyed when he signalled them to stop. Did they realize what he was doing and why? Did they understand what awaited them? Or were they too blinded by their dedication to Khorne? Perhaps they thought no further than the next kill, the next skull. Perhaps they dared not think any further. Certainly they dared not challenge him. To do so would be to invite the end of their lives even sooner.
So they obeyed. Even Kordos. They stopped. And with Mir, they waited.
Vuul fought through the violent roil of battle to reach the lord of plagues. Fire clashed with thick green fog. There were too many warriors in the way. Mir watched another Rotbringer, a blightlord, close in on Vuul. He was lightly armoured. He was fast. His lips were pulled back in a snarling rictus. His body was riddled with sores, but his rage was so great that it rivalled that of the Bloodbound he cut down.
Vuul sensed the approach of the blightlord and turned to meet him. The bloodstoker blocked a dual-bladed attack with the hilt of his blade. The Rotbringer stepped back, pulling his swords away. He feinted forward as Vuul lashed out with the whip, aiming at his neck. It was a trap, and Vuul fell into it. The blightlord took another step back. The whip went wide. The blightlord tangled it with one of his swords and yanked. Vuul stumbled forward. The blightlord came in and brought his other blade down on the bloodstoker’s right upper arm. The sword cut deep, slicing through armour, flesh and bone. The arm hung limp, swinging on the end
of a flap of skin. His whip fell to the ground.
Vuul’s wrath gave him speed. He still had his torture blade. He stabbed forward. ‘Behold your champion, Everchosen!’ he cried. The Rotbringer sidestepped. The blade glanced off his torso, hacking away a chunk of flesh. It was not enough to slow the blightlord down.
Archaon sees nothing in you, Danavan Vuul, Mir thought.
The blightlord brought his right blade up, into Vuul’s forward momentum, and used the bloodstoker’s mass to ram the tip through the left eye-slit of his helm. Vuul stiffened. His war cry turned into a stuttering, wordless howl. Then it stopped. His knees buckled. The blightlord yanked his blade free, and blood gushed forth. On contact with the air, it turned into a black froth. Tumorous fronds unfurled to embrace his corpse.
The blightlord moved forward, leading his forces through the few Bloodbound that separated him from joining up with his chieftain. One of them was Orto.
‘Blood for the Blood God!’ the slaughterpriest shouted. ‘Skulls for the Skull Throne!’
His zeal was unbroken. Mir knew that the Orto had found his path – he too understood how the contest must end, and he welcomed that meaning. He kept to the simplicity of fidelity to Khorne. He fought for the Blood God, and only the Blood God, to the end. He swung his bloodbathed axe with a speed that defied its size. The heads of rotted knights and barbarians flew in its wake. But there were too many, and the blightlord drove his blades into Orto’s back.
Mir roared. Now! His game was over. His rivals were falling. Time to finish off the others. He ran forward, blood boiling with the taste of victory.
Bule saw Fistula kill the bloodstoker. A few moments later, as the two groups of Rotbringers made contact, crushing the remaining Bloodbound between them, he heard the roar of the Bloodbound champion. The flames shot higher with the Khornate charge. Blood geysers erupted on either side of the warriors’ path.
Bule had seconds before the impact. There would be no evasion this time. The Bloodbound had been slow to arrive, though. The Rotbringers now had the numerical advantage.
Age of Sigmar: Call of Archaon Page 21
