Bladestorm

by Matt Westbrook

  ‘Easy, my lad,’ he whispered, ‘easy there. Your task here is done. Be at rest.’

  The creature whinnied and shook, but allowed him to gently lift Diash free and lay him on the floor. He was in a bad shape. Two arrows had struck him, one in the shoulder, just under the collarbone, and another between his ribs.

  ‘He’s lost a lot of blood,’ said Eldroc. ‘Removing the arrowheads may kill him.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Yereth, the leader of the tribal infantry that had remained behind with the Stormcasts. He was a squat, bullish man of middle years, with a shaved head covered in intricate tattoos. He knelt down beside Diash, and studied the wounds, then reached for a pouch at his belt.

  ‘You can help him?’ asked Mykos.

  ‘I can clean the flesh and numb the pain, but these are deep wounds,’ Yereth said. ‘He will likely not survive.’

  Diash’s eyes snapped open, and he gasped and choked for air.

  ‘Easy, old man,’ said Yereth. He dipped his fingers into the leather pouch, and when he withdrew them they were covered in a thick, green paste. He began to apply the ointment to the arrow wounds on Diash’s chest.

  ‘They… they,’ gasped Diash. He coughed blood.

  ‘Do not speak, friend,’ said Eldroc. ‘Rest now.’

  The old man shook his head furiously, and looked fiercely at the Lord-Castellant, reaching out to grasp the warrior’s arm in one trembling hand.

  ‘We were… betrayed,’ he whispered. ‘Rusik.’

  ‘The others,’ asked Mykos, ‘where are they?’

  But the old man’s eyes had lost focus, and his hand fell limply to the ground. Yereth shook his head and cursed.

  ‘Bury your dead,’ said Thostos, ‘and return home.’

  Yereth opened his mouth to protest, but the Lord-Celestant ignored him and turned to Mykos.

  ‘We must make haste,’ he said.

  Unheeding of their own safety, the Stormcasts hurled themselves into the depths of the pass. Each dark corner of the path promised an ambush that did not come. There was little time for an ordered, safe advance. Instead they marched apace, in loose formation, shields raised, while Prosecutors swooped overhead with celestial hammers and javelins raised and ready.

  After some time they emerged into an oval clearing, where dead mounts and shattered weapons covered the floor. Blood was spattered liberally across every surface, though only a few bodies littered the ground.

  ‘Reavers,’ spat Axilon, turning one of the corpses over with his boot. ‘Flesh-hungry savages. Chaos filth.’

  ‘No tribal corpses,’ said Goldfeather, scanning the scene. ‘This was a swift and well-planned ambush. They intended to capture, not slay.’

  ‘Food for their vile feasts,’ spat Axilon. ‘No loyal mortal deserves such a fate. We must pursue this raiding party and crush them beneath our boots.’

  The Lord-Relictor Tharros Soulwarden knelt, examining one of the dead horses. It had been run through with a barbed spear, and hacked apart with axes. Pointless barbarism of the sort that the enemy hordes delighted in.

  ‘There were fifty warriors here,’ he said. ‘Blood-crazed reavers would have not the wit or self-control to capture every one of them. So why are there no mutilated remains?’

  ‘Perhaps they desired prisoners?’ asked Mykos.

  ‘Then why not just take a few, and kill the rest?’ said Thostos. ‘No, this has the stench of something darker about it.’

  There was a silence. Each Celestial Vindicator was imagining in horrifying detail why a servant of Chaos might require a few dozen living prisoners.

  ‘We march,’ said Thostos at last. ‘These are no aelves – they will not pass without leaving a trace. We follow them, at pace, and when we find them we kill them.’

  ‘And if they make it back to their cursed fortress before we catch up with them?’ asked Mykos.

  ‘Then we attack. With full force, and no quarter,’ said Thostos, raising his voice so that every Stormcast in the clearing could hear him. ‘Let the might of our Warrior Chambers be unleashed. Let the enemy see what doom awaits them. No more waiting. We tear that place down, and we put every single one of its cursed defenders to the sword.’

  Both the Argellonites and the Bladestorm had brought the greater number of their Warrior Chambers into the Roaring Plains, some five hundred warriors in total. A fighting force strong enough to tear down all but the most redoubtable bastions of the enemy. The Stormcasts roared, and songs of vengeance and of the glory of Sigmar shook the walls of the Dragonmaw Canyons. Lord-Celestant Mykos Argellon nodded.

  ‘For once we agree, Lord Thostos,’ he said. ‘No waiting to discover what fell purpose the enemy intends to use those captured warriors for. We fall upon them in full force.’

  The Manticore Dreadhold was a cancer nested in the midst of the mountains, a brutal, imposing wedge of iron that comprised three grand towers and a semi-circular perimeter wall. As the Stormcasts broke out through the canyon and into the valley that housed the fortress, each of them felt the oily, nauseous touch of fell magic. The grand statue of the hated Everchosen, Archaon, loomed over them, cut into the heart of the mountain itself, casting a great shadow across the valley floor. Thostos felt the pitiless eyes of the monument bore into his own.

  Build your self-aggrandising statues, Chaos filth, he thought. Watch as we hunt them down and shatter them beneath the lightning storm of Sigmar.

  ‘They are at the gate,’ shouted Goldfeather, high in the sky above the Vindicators’ position, accompanied by his Prosecutor retinue. ‘They have the prisoners!’

  ‘Then we are not yet too late,’ said Mykos. His grandblade Mercutia was already in hand, and Thostos could feel the man’s eagerness for battle. It very nearly rivalled his own.

  ‘We promised them hope, brother,’ Mykos continued, ‘and we let them all be taken. We failed them. I cannot accept that. I will not.’

  ‘We will rescue those we can,’ said Thostos. ‘But remember our mission, Lord Argellon. You know the consequences if we fail to secure that realmgate.’

  ‘Prisoners, Lord Varash,’ boasted the leader of the Bloodreavers, a balding, anvil-jawed creature with putrid, yellowed teeth. ‘Meat for the fire!’

  Varash backhanded the wretch as he passed, sending him flying into his fellows, unconscious and drooling blood.

  ‘There will be time enough to fill your bellies later,’ he bellowed. ‘These ones are for the ritual tables. Slaadh?’

  The Slaughterpriest loped over, his perpetual, razor-toothed grin etched across his face.

  ‘You see a man here touch one of these slaves without my permission, you give him a meal. Feed him his own lungs, and make sure he’s still alive so he can savour the taste.’

  Slaadh chortled. ‘Yes, Lord.’

  They were interrupted by the sound of a deep, booming horn, which emanated from the central tower. Almost at once the atmosphere inside the fortress changed. Warriors who had been gleefully taunting the captured tribesmen drew their axes and blades at once, and rushed off to form into their kill-packs.

  The Bloodreavers began to holler and howl, like dogs promised fresh meat. Memno, one of Varash’s chosen Blood Warriors, hurtled from the tower, pulling on his horned, grilled helm as he ran.

  ‘Lord,’ he said, and his eyes were shining with joy. ‘Warriors in turquoise armour. Not orruks, but larger than men.’

  Varash cursed. ‘Sigmar’s whelps,’ he spat. ‘Very well, let them come. To the walls.’

  By now the inner courtyard was swollen with blood-mad killers, twitching and growling as the voice of the Lord of Skulls filled their heads with promises of torn flesh and spilt blood. The bloodlust was so thick about the fortress that Varash could almost see it as a tangible cloud over their heads. His ruined eye ached, and he delighted in the pain. It promised much.

  He ascended
the stairs of the central tower, pushing past the dull creatures that Xos’Phet used as his servants. He despised the things. They stank of the sorcerer’s weakling magic. One blocked his way at the iron door leading out onto the tower, so he grasped its head and snapped its neck with a satisfying crunch, then hurled the broken thing down the stairs.

  Out on the battlements, Xos’Phet was putting the finishing touches to his twisted masterpiece. Three orruk shamans had been crucified at the far end of the tower. Over the course of several weeks they had been mutilated and otherwise prepared according to the profane texts.

  ‘They live, still?’ said Varash, as one of the things gave a low groan.

  ‘Oh yes, most resilient creatures,’ said Xos’Phet. ‘And powerful, of course. Their latent magic is degenerate and savage, but it will serve my purpose. There.’

  The sorcerer finished cutting into the orruk’s flesh, and stood back to admire his work, wiping a bloody knife on the hem of his robe. The creature’s tough, green hide was now covered in runes and symbols that meant nothing to Varash, but still set his teeth on edge. The work was fine, as legible and neatly inscribed as any book. Xos’Phet was nothing if not a perfectionist.

  ‘The enemy comes,’ said Varash. ‘Are you done, witchkin?’

  The sorcerer gave him a sickly, yellow-toothed smile.

  ‘Indeed, Lord Varash,’ he said. ‘Let us begin.’

  Varash felt a surge of excitement. This was it, his chance to end the threat of the orruk tribes and to earn the favour of the Everchosen. He had seen Archaon’s fury when the Dreadhold had been overrun, when the great statue erected in his honour had been defaced with the image of the greenskins’ idiot gods. When the burning hooves of the Blood God’s eternal servants burned the grasslands of the Roaring Plains to cinders, then the name of Varash Sunken-Eye would be spoken of in awe in the halls of the Varanspire itself, the dread fortress of Archaon. Perhaps such a feat would even earn him his rightful place in the Varanguard.

  He stood at the wall of the tower, overlooking the inner courtyard. From here he could see the hateful glow of the Manticore Realmgate, the ravenous essence that dwelt within its shifting, roiling depths already sensing the promise of spilled blood. Soon the sorcerer’s ritual would draw the full power of the ancient structure forth, and he would have his grand army. Let the weakling minions of Sigmar be the first to fall before him.

  As the Stormcasts rushed towards the fortress wall, the first of the missiles began to fall. The crude projectiles of the human defenders, javelins and thrown axes hurled from the battlements, did little against the fine armour and shields of the Celestial Vindicators. Yet as they drew closer, the Dreadhold’s true defences roared into life.

  The leering daemonic skulls carved into its surface began to smoulder, eyes burning with baleful light. This light grew in intensity until it burst forth from the carvings in a shower of white flame. Arcing jets of molten fire spat into the midst of the Stormcasts, searing and melting sigmarite, enveloping warriors in shrouds of flame. Celestial Vindicators went down, screaming in agony as the daemonfire devoured bones and turned their flesh to cinders.

  In response, the Judicators knelt and loosed the latent celestial energy that coursed through their heaven-forged weaponry. Great, glittering arcs of lightning smashed into the tower, crumbling the cursed stone and sending chunks of shattered masonry tumbling to the ground. While those warriors wielding powerful boltstorm crossbows turned the fortress’s deadly defences to rubble, skybolt bows sent a cascade of light pouring over the perimeter wall to find its home in the tainted flesh of the Dreadhold’s defenders. Smoke rose from the battlements where the devastating barrage of lightning scorched and burned the unworthy.

  Shields raised and clattering under the incessant rain of projectiles, the Liberators pushed towards the great gate of the Dreadhold. The sky boiled above them, blood-red clouds swirling and reforming furiously, thunder bursts rolling across the battlefield, almost drowning out the calamitous sounds of battle. Then a sudden, violent crack split the air, louder even than the hammers of the great forges of Azyrheim. Tendrils of violent scarlet energy trailed across the main tower of the Dreadhold, wrapping around its surface like a cluster of vines. Mykos Argellon turned his eyes to the heavens, and felt a soft tapping sound on his mask and across his armour.

  The blood rain fell. Inside the Dreadhold, the warriors of Khorne whooped and shrieked with joy at this sign of providence from their monstrous master. They turned their faces to the sky and let the iron taste roll down their tongues. They beat their chests and brandished their weapons and howled. Above them, the sky darkened and swelled, and the tendrils of fell energy crept over the edge of the tower. The sorcerer Xos’Phet stood upon the battlement, laughing in delight.

  ‘It begins!’ he chortled. ‘The gate swells in power. Now we must feed the link between this world and the other.’

  He looked at the prisoner that the gorepriests held, a straggle-haired man with wide and frightened eyes. ‘This is your task, my friend. You are truly blessed.’

  The knife was in his hand in a flash, and he cut the man’s throat with one swift motion. The prisoner’s eyes rolled back in his head, and the gorepriests hurled him into the oval pit at the centre of the tower. Blood spilled, and seeped through the grilles cut into the floor.

  ‘Fetch me another!’ said Xos’Phet, grinning widely.

  Despite the rain of projectiles and the blood that now churned the earth and bogged them down, the Celestial Vindicators pushed to the main gate, a monstrous slab of iron covered with foul symbols and wrapped in dust-dry human skin.

  Here the phalanx of shield-bearing Liberators peeled apart, allowing the breaching teams to rush through. First came the Knight-Heraldor Axilon, and the men cheered to see him raise his war horn, the blessed instrument of Sigmar that all of his rank carried.

  ‘What say we play an old Azyrheim tune for this Chaos filth?’ he roared above the clatter of weapons and the belching fire of the wall defences. He raised the horn to his lips.

  The note that issued forth was one empowered by the fury of Sigmar’s storm, a pure wave of destruction that swelled the heart of the faithful and echoed in the ears of the damned as a promise of obliteration. The strong metal of the castle gate crumpled in the face of its awesome power, as if struck by the armoured fist of a towering giant. The gate was bound and reinforced, and it was not breached, but in the wake of Axilon’s strike, the tall warriors of the Paladin retinues that carried wondrous starsoul maces came forwards, and began to beat a furious rhythm on the ruined surface. Explosions of storm-light marked each strike. Shards of metal and chunks of stone fell, and the gate groaned under the assault. Axilon even found time for a theatrical bow as the Celestial Vindicators beat their shields and chanted his name.

  Rusik watched as, one after another, his people were led to the slaughter. This next one was of his own retinue, and his eyes were full of terrified anger as the pallid, nightmarish creatures that served the sorcerer dragged him over to the pit of corpses.

  The knife tore flesh, and Rusik did not look away.

  ‘Betrayer,’ hissed a voice at his back, and he turned to see Alzheer, leg bloodied and one eye swollen shut with blood. She gripped the bars so tightly that her hands were white. ‘Faithless, murdering scum.’

  He turned away as the next prisoner was dragged forwards.

  ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘I am faithless. My faith died along with my family and my friends.’

  ‘And murdering others gives you peace?’

  ‘There is no peace,’ he spat. ‘Nowhere. There is only war and bloodshed. An eternity of slaughter that will not cease and cannot be quelled. Varash and his men understand that, and so do I.’

  ‘Zi’Mar sends his heralds,’ Alzheer said. ‘You see them for yourself. We are not alone. The light of humanity shines on, even in such darkness.’

  R
usik whirled, his dark eyes burning with rage.

  ‘They come now, when we are already lost,’ he shouted, and he could taste the blood rain seeping into his mouth. ‘We are already dead, woman, you are just too blind to see it. I will no longer hold on to what is lost. If this is our future, I embrace it.’

  Under the combined assault of Knight-Heraldor Axilon and the hammers of the Retributors, the gates fell inwards, and the Celestial Vindicators met the enemy face to face. The true enemy, not the simple-minded bloodlust of the enemy’s reavers, but warriors who had fully embraced the touch of Khorne. These were hardened killers, tall and broad, encased in ornate plate armour of imposing design and wielding vicious, jagged axes. They did not fall before the charge of the Stormcasts, but leapt and charged into the mouth of the storm, hacking and slicing, songs of devotion to their twisted god upon their lips.

  The two waves crashed together, the gleaming turquoise of the Celestial Vindicators and the spoiled-meat red of the Bloodbound warriors, and the carnage was total.

  Many Stormcasts fell in that initial clash, even their mighty warplate unable to defend them from the enemy’s wild, delighted frenzy. A screaming fiend with a bronze crest took the head from a Liberator with his twin axes, then was crushed under the heavy swing of a sigmarite hammer. Drooling and chortling, a warrior wearing a flayed orruk-hide cape ground a Celestial Vindicator’s face into the ground, hacking at the stricken figure’s back with a wide-bladed gladius as he did so.

  Mykos Argellon put his blade through the warrior’s back. The man gasped and choked, and Mykos kicked him free to sprawl in the dirt.

  ‘Push forwards, brothers,’ he shouted above the grind of battle. ‘Forge a breach!’

  They were in the gatehouse tunnel, which stretched for a dozen yards ahead, culminating in a wide staircase that led up. Dull red light shone down those stairs, telling Mykos that if they could push the enemy back they would emerge in the fortress courtyard, below the main tower. Easier thought than achieved. The forces of the Dreadhold outnumbered the two hundred fighters that Mykos commanded at least four to one.