In truth, the filthy skaven were poor subjects for his anger. They fell before him in their dozens, hacked and hewed apart. Those nearest to him barely even attempted to block his attacks. Instead they scampered as far away as they could in the cramped confines of the warren, scratching and pulling at their fellows, dragging others into the path of blows aimed at them. He was dimly aware of his brothers following in his wake, launching themselves at the skaven in a sea-green blur.
In the face of Thostos’ onslaught, the pack broke. Dropping weapons, abandoning all pretence of organised retreat, they swarmed from the cavern in a ragged tide of brown-and-grey fur. Something buried deep within Thostos called for caution; the skaven were unpredictable and treacherous foes, and these tunnels were suited to their deviant, backstabbing form of warfare. That caution met the desperate battle-lust that filled him, and evaporated in an instant.
‘Vengeance,’ he roared, his voice thick with hatred, ‘Vengeance in the name of Sigmar!’
The Lord-Celestant charged after the fleeing vermin. Bellowing battle-hymns of praise to the God-King, the Bladestorm Warrior Chamber followed him to war.
The Celestial Vindicators followed the skaven through a rough-hewn corridor no taller than a mortal man, losing pace with their quarry as they bent to force their way through the cramped confines. The Stormcasts had many reasons to be thankful for their blessed armour, but here, in the skaven’s favoured terrain, it slowed them and made movement cumbersome.
Thostos simply smashed his way through the dry earth, his momentum hardly slowed by the ramshackle, makeshift nature of the skaven excavations. He broke free of the tunnel in a rain of debris, sword and hammer raised.
He had entered a central chamber of the warren, some thirty feet high and maybe four times that across. In the centre was a raised mound of dirt, flecked with rat spoor and other filth, around which the fleeing ratmen swarmed in their hundreds. Upon the raised earth stood several larger beasts. Near three times the height of their multifarious kin, these skaven rippled with muscles. Bizarre, arcane devices were bolted to their flesh, strange, cylindrical tubes of metal capped with several small nozzles. As Thostos burst into the chamber, the creatures screeched as one, and as one their strange weapons blared with a vile eldritch light, and let loose a repeating blast that echoed like thunder.
Retributor Arodus was the first Stormcast to follow his Lord-Celestant into the central chamber, and was rewarded with a hail of bullets that blasted him backwards into his fellows, blood pouring from countless holes punched through his armour. Retributor Wulkus leapt forwards in fury at his brother’s death, crushing a one-eyed skaven foot soldier into the dirt with a wild overhead swing of his hammer. As he brought the weapon back up there was a loud crack, and a hole appeared in the centre of his faceplate, releasing a faint pink mist. He collapsed, and both Stormcast bodies disappeared in a blast of pale light. As the main force of Celestial Vindicators poured out to meet the skaven infantry, a whickering storm of fire met them.
The cavern was strobed with violent green light as the strange contraptions continued to fire. Those skaven unfortunate enough to be nearest to the Stormcasts exploded in torrents of gore, and others went down howling as ricochets found thighs, ankles and fingers.
Even the devastating hail of bullets could not hold back the fury of the Celestial Vindicators, who broke into the main chamber and launched themselves at the enemy. Thostos ignored the chattel that snapped at his heels, barrelling further into the press of bodies, straining to reach the escarpment. Daggers were thrust at him as he ground his way into the skaven ranks, tapping out a staccato rhythm as they scraped against his war-plate. He butted a taller, wire-furred rat-thing, splattering its nose, then slammed his hammer into its gut and trampled over its mewling, bleeding form. On to the next, a pot-bellied fiend encased in pockmarked iron. That one died quickly as his sword bit into its skull, blessed sigmarite tearing through bone and tissue as if it were parchment. To the next, a runt of a thing wearing robes, which tasted the blunt face of his hammer and burst apart in a spray of viscera.
And on to the next…
Lord-Castellant Eldroc realised, with a horrible clarity, that they had been baited neatly into the skaven’s trap. Caught up in their fury, they had pushed forwards too far from their brothers, and now the enemy hurled fresh troops at them from every angle. Eldroc’s loyal gryph-hound Redbeak snarled and spat at his side, his trusty senses overwhelmed by the stench of the enveloping skaven mass. Ratmen dropped from hidden holes in the roof of the cavern, clawed their way free from cunningly disguised apertures in the walls, and leapt upon the Bladestorm’s exposed flanks. Suddenly the Stormcasts were an island of turquoise in a sea of wretched grey fur.
Cursing their foolhardiness, and cursing himself for allowing the joy of righteous battle to overrule his caution, Eldroc scanned the packed ranks of the Celestial Vindicators for a glimpse of his Lord-Celestant. He found him, of course, at the very forefront of the battle.
Vermin assailed him from every side, but they could not slow his furious advance. Eldroc knew well how mighty Thostos was in battle, but even he was shocked at the raw-edged brutality his commander displayed. The Bladestorm had always tempered fury with caution; that was why he was chosen to lead, because he could channel the rage and lust for vengeance of the Celestial Vindicators – ever the most aggressive of Sigmar’s sons, ever the first to leap into battle – to its true potential.
Now, he barely seemed to acknowledge his brothers. He never looked back, merely ploughing forwards into the packed ranks of the enemy like a tormented hound let loose.
In such numbers, even the primitive weapons of the skaven clanrats began to take their toll. Stormcasts were dragged down by dozens of the creatures, which stabbed and cut at them in a frenzied orgy of carnage. Daggers found eye sockets, the gaps between gorgets, and vulnerable spots where the barrage of bullets had weakened even the mighty sigmarite battle-plate. It was honourless murder, of the sort at which the ratmen excelled. Eldroc rushed to one fallen Stormcast, stuck with half a dozen blades and weakly pawing at a band of wretches who cackled as they clambered over him, dissecting him with wicked glee. Redbeak hurled himself onto one of the creatures, ripping with his sharp beak and raking with four powerful talons, but another skaven quickly scrabbled up to replace it.
Eldroc raised his warding lantern and intoned the name of blessed Sigmar as he unleashed its celestial energies. Warm, cleansing light washed over the stricken Stormcast, wrapping his form in a halo of flickering luminescence. The skaven skittered back from the power of the holy light, screeching as it burned at their cruel, beady eyes. The fallen warrior’s back arched, and as the glow washed over his body, the sigmarite melted and flowed like wax, refashioning the rents in his armour so that his hallowed war-plate glistened as if it had been freshly forged. Up came the Stormcast, blade in hand, howling his hatred at the enemy with renewed vigour.
Yet Eldroc could not reach all his brothers. Bursts of lightning rippled across the cavern walls as loyal warriors were called back to Azyr, strobing the unfolding carnage with blue light. Even these few losses were too many; they had barely begun their holy purpose, and already they were weakened.
Thostos had reached the central mound now, and was hewing his way through the Stormfiends that had opened fire on them. He thrust his sword into the neck of one creature, then swept his hammer across, low, to snap the vermin’s legs. It screeched in agony and toppled to the floor. As Eldroc watched, Thostos let gravity drag the broken thing from his blade, then caved in its chest with another mighty blow from his hammer. Ahead, cowering behind its taller bodyguards, was a wiry, grey-mottled creature whose yelps and screeches echoed over even the general clatter and chaos of battle. Its bronzed armour carried a shoulder-rack upon which were mounted several strange icons, ragged banners and shrivelled heads. The skaven commander, Eldroc surmised.
Thostos was killing his way
towards the warlord, bleeding now from a dozen wounds. More Stormcasts hauled themselves up onto the mound, but still the skaven guns blazed, now joined by an enfilade from the right flank. The skaven had brought forth a heavy wooden shield, from behind which several long-barrelled rifles laid down a vicious crossfire. Another Liberator went down, crimson spurting from his ruined gorget, spasming as he fell. Eldroc felt a dull thud on his thigh, and growled as it was followed by searing, white-hot agony. Not the sharp, honest pain of a flesh wound, but something more sinister, a rapidly spreading toxic ache that burned across his leg. He lowered his warding lantern and let the blessed light bathe his smoking limb.
They had pushed too hard and too fast, and they had fallen for the enemy’s trap.
Then, the blaring of a war-horn shook the cavern.
The battle was over as soon as the Argellonites crashed into the flank of the skaven horde. At the tip of the spear, Knight-Heraldor Axilon and his retinue, hardy Retributors wielding mighty two-handed hammers, smashed apart the skaven’s vile weapon platforms, slaughtering the operators and ending their savage crossfire. More Celestial Vindicators followed in their wake, shields together in a line of blessed sigmarite that crashed into the enemy’s softened ranks, battering broken ratmen to the floor where they were either ground underneath the boots of onrushing Stormcasts, or despatched with swift blows.
As the first wave pushed left to clear the flank of the besieged Bladestorm, Mykos Argellon led the rest of his warriors straight through to the mound and Thostos. The Argellonites’ Lord-Celestant was the very image of the God-King’s glory in his ornate plate, luminescent even in the darkness of the cavern as he cut a bloody swathe through the enemy horde.
‘Forward, Argellonites!’ he shouted, voice rising even above the chaotic din of battle. ‘Show them the fury of the Celestial Vindicators.’
He wielded Mercutia in a blur, thrusting, slashing and battering with the heavy pommel in a whirlwind rush so fast it seemed impossible that he could retain any measure of control. Yet not a single strike was misplaced, and the Lord-Celestant left great piles of broken and torn skaven behind him as he went.
‘Take the Stormfiends,’ shouted Prosecutor-Prime Goldfeather to his men, finally given space to stretch his wings in the vaults of the cavern.
His retinue swept above the fray, calling lightning-wreathed javelins into their hands to hurl at the towering beasts. One went down under a hail of missiles, still firing its bizarre weapon as it toppled from the central mound. Another turned and fired at the Prosecutors, projectiles stitching across the roof of the cavern and cutting down two heralds in clouds of bloody smoke.
Emboldened by the arrival of their allies, the Bladestorms renewed their own vicious assault. Now the skaven’s superior numbers became their downfall; pressed against two unyielding walls of steel, there was no room to scrabble free, and barely space to gasp a desperate lungful of air. Dead skaven were packed so tight in the melee that they were held upright by their fellows, who scratched and tore in panic but could find no escape. Those vermin fortunate enough to be on the outskirts of the battle wavered, their fear-musk foul and pungent.
Blessed with that uniquely skaven insight of when to cut your losses and scamper away, Warlord Zirix cursed, spat and turned to flee, content in the knowledge that his filthy kin would keep these metal warriors busy long enough for him to disappear into the darkness.
As he turned, he met a pair of blazing blue eyes.
Terror escaped him in a sharp, sour odour as the giant before him snapped out a gauntlet to wrap around his neck. He tried to scrabble for his blade, a rusted, green-tinged shard of metal whose toxic coating had eaten away the flesh of many man-creatures in his short and wretched life. The blade was slapped free from his paw and skittered away.
Zirix screeched and gasped as he was lifted slowly into the air. The giant was so strong. He scratched and clawed at its arm, but to no avail. His eyes bulged and his vision swam with crimson as blood vessels burst under the pressure of the vice-like grip. The giant brought him closer.
‘Vengeance,’ it growled, its voice the pitiless inevitability of an avalanche. ‘Ever vengeance.’
The creature stopped struggling, and Thostos placed one gauntlet behind its neck, wrenched its head around with a sickening crunch and hurled the dead thing into the sea of ratmen that surged around the foot of the raised knoll, where it was swept up like a leaf in a rushing river.
The warlord’s death marked the end of any semblance of skaven resistance. Away the ratmen scurried, hurtling down hidden passages and burrows, scrambling over each in terrified desperation. The Celestial Vindicators culled those too slow to run, and Mykos’ warriors flowed around the Bladestorm formation, forming a wall of steel at every entrance to the cavern in case of counter-attack.
The Lord-Celestant of the Argellonites surveyed the carnage. The Bladestorm had wreaked a horrific toll on the skaven. The cavern was a charnel-pit of dead vermin, their stinking blood marking every surface, spattering the armour of the Celestial Vindicators from helm to boot. The nature of the Stormcasts’ god-given immortality meant that it was hard to judge losses, but there were more than a few stricken warriors lying amongst the wreckage of corpses. They were being tended to by Lord-Relictor Tharros Soulwarden, who went from man to man, salving their wounds with the power of his healing storm.
Alone at the heart of the wreckage stood Thostos himself, surrounded by the broken and hewn corpses of the skaven Stormfiends, weapons hanging limply by his side. He stared at the dead creatures, barely moving. Mykos approached him and as the Lord-Celestant turned, he felt a shiver run down his spine as those pitiless eyes bored into him.
‘Their leader is dead,’ Thostos said. ‘The vermin will not trouble us further as we progress through these warrens.’
Mykos cleared his throat. ‘You slew many of these foul beasts today, brother,’ he said, cautiously. ‘You and your men fought a valiant battle.’
He paused, on the verge of saying more. There was a silence that dragged on too long, broken only by the groans of the wounded and the low, droning chant of the Lord-Relictor at work. The Bladestorm had a way of leaving him tongue-tied.
‘You wish to chastise me for my rashness,’ said Thostos. ‘For not regrouping with your Argellonites before making a push into the core chamber.’
‘I…’ Mykos blinked in surprise.
‘The movement of the enemy force suggested coordination, which meant there had to be a leader directing the vermin. The largest concentration was coming from a single direction, where I judged that the leader was likely to be. There was no time to inform you of my decision, so I trusted that the sound of battle would lead you to us.’
Mykos smiled behind his mask and shook his head.
‘You disagree with my actions?’
‘No, not entirely. I would prefer that our communication was more open, but I understand the value of risk in war. That is the Celestial Vindicators’ way.’ The Lord-Celestant shrugged. ‘It’s simply that this is the most words we’ve exchanged since we first joined our forces for this mission.’
If he was hoping that some comradely small talk would thaw the Bladestorm’s icy mood, Mykos found himself disappointed. His fellow warrior simply stared at him, saying nothing. Mykos heard the approaching steps of Lord-Castellant Eldroc with something approaching relief.
‘The men are ready to move out,’ he said, limping slightly on one leg as he approached. Redbeak was at his side, blood staining his noble features, proud eyes narrowed. ‘We lost twenty-six warriors, Liberator-Prime Lucos among them.’
Thostos nodded without any sign of regret. ‘The air is fresher this way,’ he said, pointing at the northern end of the cavern, the opposite side to which they had entered. ‘It may lead to a way out of these warrens. You can feel the wind. Move the men out.’
‘You are wounded, sire,’ Eldroc said, hi
s voice rising in concern. Mykos saw that the Lord-Castellant was right. Thostos’ arm was bleeding heavily, and he could see several small holes dotted across the Lord-Celestant’s plate where bullets had penetrated.
‘I… had not noticed,’ said Thostos quietly, staring at the blood.
Eldroc went to his Lord-Celestant’s side and bathed Thostos in the renewing glow of his warding lantern. The Bladestorm bowed his head, and the blue flame behind his eyes flickered and dimmed. Mykos thought, with no small amount of surprise, that he could hear an exhausted sigh – but the Bladestorm seemed beyond such mortal displays of fatigue. As he watched, the Lord-Celestant’s wounds closed, and sigmarite flowed across the ruptured areas of his plate armour.
Thostos nodded to his Lord-Castellant and rotated his shoulder, testing the joint and stretching his arm.
‘Move the men out,’ he said again, and the emptiness was back. He gave Mykos one last look, the briefest nod of his head, and then strode away.
The Stormcasts emerged from the stinking warrens onto a wide shelf of rock overlooking the Roaring Plains. Pale yellow grass stretched to the horizon, shifting so violently in the restless wind that it almost seemed to ripple like fire. Clouds rushed across the sky, swirling and reforming in an endless, roiling tempest. It was a foul-tempered wind. At this height, a mortal man would be at risk of being blown clean off of the mountaintop – only the Stormcasts’ weight and strength kept them rooted. A single, steep stair was cut into the edge of the platform, winding away towards the foothills below, which reached out to the grasslands in raised veins of blackened rock, ridged and twisted, almost skeletal.
‘The Roaring Plains,’ Eldroc said, stepping up to the brink of the ledge and peering down at the vista that spread below. He raised his voice as a lash of thunder broke, rolling across the sky so loudly that the mountain itself seemed to shake beneath them. ‘Seems a pleasant enough place,’ he said, with no little sarcasm.
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