Bladestorm

by Matt Westbrook

  ‘They already recover their wits,’ continued Eldroc. ‘This is not yet over.’

  Chapter Seven

  The Spiral Tower

  ‘To fully purge the taint from this gate would take me many hours, perhaps even days,’ said Lord-Relictor Tharros Soulwarden. His voice was strained and hoarse, and nowhere near his usual ornery tone. He sounded exhausted. Lord-Castellant Eldroc knew his friend was on the verge of collapse, and it was only his stubborn will that kept him upright.

  ‘We cannot use it?’ asked Thostos Bladestorm. The Lord-Celestant’s own voice was tight with pain, though the restorative glow emanating from Eldroc’s warding lantern was slowly knitting together the gruesome wounds upon his chest and head. He had been even closer to death at the hands of the orruk leader, Drekka Breakbones, than the Lord-Castellant had thought.

  Out on the plains the greenskins’ hoarse voices still bellowed in maddened rage. The death of their general had sent the dull-witted beasts into a frenzy, and even now they were throwing themselves against the walls and gate of the Manticore Dreadhold.

  ‘I did not say we could not use it,’ said Tharros, ‘only that it will require my full strength and concentration to keep the gateway open.’

  ‘We cannot abandon the Dreadhold,’ said Eldroc. ‘Even if we were to pass through the Manticore Realmgate, the orruks would likely follow us. Besides, Sigmar required us to hold this position. Azyr’s armies will pour through this route on their way to the front.’

  The front was located in the Realm of Metal, where the next stage of the God-King’s plan called for a full assault on the fortresses known as the Ironholds, which in turn guarded the path to the nexus of arcane travel known as the Allpoints. It was from there that the armies of darkness sallied forth into the Eight Realms.

  ‘I can hold the fortress,’ said Eldroc. ‘Lord-Celestant, take a small expeditionary force. Make contact with the Knight-Azyros. He can signal for aid in securing the Dreadhold.’

  ‘I cannot leave the chamber behind,’ said Thostos, glancing back at the fortress wall. The Judicator archers were already loosing arrow after arrow into the ranks of the enemy. They could not see the gatehouse from their position at the rear of the structure, but the fighting there would be thick. The main gate was a twisted wreck, and such a breach would draw the orruks like flies around meat.

  ‘This is my area of expertise, brother,’ said Eldroc. ‘Trust me, I know how to hold a fortress under siege. I swear to you the Dreadhold will not fall while I stand.’

  ‘If you could decide what you wish to do quickly, that would be wonderful,’ came the faint voice of Tharros Soulwarden, with a hint of his usual curmudgeonly temper.

  Thostos nodded. ‘Twenty men should suit my purpose. Ware the orruks, Lord-Castellant. Without their leader they will be reckless and disorganised, yet their battle-madness will give them strength. They will not relent, not now their blood is up.’

  ‘I know, Lord-Celestant. This place will hold until your return. Go now.’

  Thostos chose the fastest and the most keen-eyed warriors to join the ranks of his war party. Eldroc needed the strongest fighters at his disposal, and in any case the Lord-Celestant was not looking for a fight. The faster they found the Knight-Azyros, the sooner they could bring help to the fortress defenders. As he chose the last of his warriors, word came that the small force he had sent into the mountains had returned. There was Atrin, hobbling along with his crossbow rested over one shoulder. Callan was at his side, supported by several of the Liberator rearguard who were still stationed at the realmgate. The Retributor was a ruin of melted sigmarite and scorched flesh. It was almost incomprehensible that the man had managed to survive long enough to reach the Dreadhold.

  ‘Oreus fell,’ said the Lord-Celestant. It was not a question.

  ‘Aye, Lord-Celestant,’ the Judicator replied. ‘Slain by the sorcerer Xos’Phet’s magic. We slew the fiend in turn, as well as the traitor Rusik.’

  ‘Then you performed your task admirably. There is yet more fighting to be done, and I would have you at my side if you are capable. Let the Lord-Castellant see to your wounds, then report to the realmgate.’

  Atrin nodded, and made for the wall, where Eldroc was organising the defence. Behind him, leaning against the rocky outcrop upon which lay the realmgate itself, sat Alzheer, the mortal priestess of the Sky Seekers tribe. Thostos felt a tension loosen as he saw her, and realised with surprise that he had been worried she would not return from the mountain paths.

  ‘Priestess,’ he said, approaching her. ‘I am glad that you return unharmed. Judicator Atrin tells me that you found the vengeance that you sought.’

  She gazed up at him, squinting slightly in the sunlight. Her face was bloody and bruised, and deep cuts ran across her arms, but aside from that she was largely unharmed.

  ‘I did, Lord Thostos,’ she nodded. She did not seem triumphant, merely tired and somewhat distant. That was understandable. She had lost many of her people over the last few days.

  ‘I am afraid I can offer you only water and rest, not safety,’ he said. ‘The orruks assault in force, and I must depart on my own mission. We cannot lead you home just yet, priestess.’

  ‘I can still wield a bow, Lord-Celestant,’ she said, and she hauled herself to her feet, staggering slightly. Thostos stretched out a hand to steady her.

  ‘You will rest, my lady,’ he said, in a voice that brooked no complaint. ‘And you will let us do the fighting. You have done enough. Fought enough. More than any mortal should be expected to. We are the Celestial Vindicators, Alzheer. We were forged for battles such as this. Let us do our duty, and let yourself heal.’

  The fighting at the gatehouse was some of the most vicious that Liberator-Prime Relius had ever known, and he had been a veteran of countless wars even before his Reforging as a Celestial Vindicator.

  ‘Namuth, keep that shield tight,’ he roared, as the orruks surged forwards once more, clattering against the wall of sigmarite that guarded the tunnel.

  The gate itself had been torn off its hinges, and had fallen diagonally to half block the main entrance. The enemy could still slip under the shattered iron, but as more of them fell that was becoming increasingly difficult. Not that the orruks seemed wary of the danger. Even as he glanced over the rim of his shield, Relius saw one of the creatures spitted through the belly on a vicious shard of black iron. Lord-Castellant Eldroc had ordered the tunnel filled with dozens of these wicked spikes, scavenged from the walls of the Dreadhold. The dying orruk was still hacking away with its crude cleaver, seemingly unaware or uncaring of its predicament.

  ‘Kill,’ Relius shouted, and as one the front rank of Celestial Vindicators brought their shields to the side, stabbing out with longswords or smashing skulls and bones with their heavy warhammers.

  ‘Hold,’ he yelled, and just as swiftly the unforgiving wall of sigmarite was restored. Dead orruks toppled along the line, joining the barricade of dead that littered the floor. Their fellows behind scrabbled over the corpses of the fallen, hurling themselves at the Stormcasts with maniac howls and whoops of glee.

  The Stormcast line was pushed back, no more than an inch or two, under the pressure of the assault. Such margins, Relius knew, could be fatal. This battle would drag on for hours, perhaps even days. They could not afford to lose the bottleneck provided by the gatehouse tunnel. Once the orruks broke out, it was all over.

  ‘Kill!’ the Liberator-Prime shouted again.

  The first thing that Thostos Bladestorm noticed, as he stepped forth from the archway of carved obsidian and into the glimmering light of the Crystal Forest, was how different the air felt here. In the Roaring Plains it had been fresh and harsh, with the earthy taste of grass and churned soil. Here it was so close it seemed to wrap around his skin like a second cloak. A slight but notice­able static thrum raised the hairs on his neck, and he smelled the sweet, chemi
cal tang of copper and iron.

  ‘The Crystal Forest,’ said Liberator-Prime Amon Steelhide, emerging behind him. ‘The name hardly seems to do the place justice.’

  Ahead of them, beyond the bed of carved stone upon which the realmgate lay, stood the forest. It was unerringly beautiful. Spiralling towers of multicoloured crystal reached high into the sky, twisting around and encircling their fellows to form a thicket of glittering, shimmering light. It was as if a rainbow had crashed to earth and splintered into a thousand pieces. Smaller crystal copses ran underneath these grand structures, casting their own dizzying array of tints and tones amongst the ground cover. In the distance, many miles away, Thostos could see mountains of dull brass, peaks of copper and great mesas of black iron. The sky was a dark purple, yet the ground was washed with soft moonlight and the flickering colours of the crystal spires overhead.

  ‘Form a perimeter,’ Thostos ordered. ‘Make safe the gate. Prosecutor-Prime?’

  Zannus snapped to attention, four fellow warrior-heralds lining up behind him. Even amongst the fabulously armoured soldiers of the Stormcasts they made an impressive sight, with their gleaming, radiant wings and plumed head crests.

  ‘Sire?’

  ‘Take to the skies. Give me a preliminary assessment of the area. We are to meet the Knight-Azyros Capellon here, the guide who will lead us to our assigned position for the offensive. Find him.’

  Zannus saluted, and with a powerful beating of his wings, soared into the sky at the head of his retinue. The rest of the Lord-Celestant’s advance party, some twenty-five men on foot, arranged themselves in loose formation around him. Amon Steelhide led the Liberator contingent, all of whom bore twin hammers or runeblades rather than the more familiar sigmarite shields of their conclave. Judicator Atrin’s wounds had been healed by the heavenly power of Lord-Castellant Eldroc’s warding lantern, and now he led an ad-hoc group of five Judicators, survivors of retinues that had taken heavy losses during the assault on the Dreadhold. Each carried a rapid-firing boltstorm crossbow, and they were currently scanning the crystal treeline intently, ready to unleash a torrent of sigmarite bolts against any emerging threat.

  ‘Capellon was to meet us here,’ Thostos muttered under his breath.

  The Knights-Azyros were the messengers and heralds of the greater Stormcast force. Each was a mighty warrior, given the gift of flight and the possession of a wondrously crafted lantern, a celestial beacon with which they lit the path for Sigmar’s Storm to follow.

  ‘Perhaps he thought it safer to lay low, sire,’ said Atrin. ‘These are dangerous lands, as yet unclaimed by Sigmar.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Thostos, staring off into the depths of the crystalline forest. ‘But thus far in our journeys we have not often been blessed by such good fortune.’

  Zannus circled high above the forest, trying to keep his focus and not get distracted by the sheer beauty of the sight below. The luminous tangle of multicoloured crystal stretched on below him for several miles, gently creeping towards the foothills of the mountains on each side of the valley in which they found themselves.

  ‘No sign of movement, friendly or otherwise,’ said Tonan at his side.

  ‘Take two men and survey the foothills to our east,’ said Zannus. The mountain range was closest there, a smooth cluster of rolling hills that rose towards a series of curiously even conical peaks. Unweathered and geometric in arrangement, the range did not look like a natural formation.

  ‘Do not tarry,’ he continued, ‘and return to me with your findings as soon as you are done.’

  There was something about this place that unsettled Zannus, despite the obvious grandeur of his surroundings. It was the stillness of it, he thought. After his time on the Roaring Plains, where the wind howled constantly and furiously, and the earth below was ever in motion, the stillness of this place felt… untrustworthy.

  ‘To me, Prosecutors,’ he shouted to the rest of his warriors. ‘We will spread out and fly low over the canopy.’

  It took them an hour of searching before they found what they were looking for. Dipping beneath the canopy, carefully weaving his way through clusters of jagged azure and great columns of vermilion and aquamarine, it was the Prosecutor-Prime himself that came across the clearing. He spread his wings and slowed his flight, dropping lightly to the ground to take in the scene.

  It was carnage. Torn corpses were scattered across the ground, bathed in the soft pink, refracted light that shone down from the great crystal canopy above. Some were sprawled on the floor, others impaled on sharp clusters of quartz. Zannus approached the nearest, and rolled it over with his boot. An ugly, scarred face twisted in a death mask of torment. A half-moon tattoo covered the left side of the human’s face, and piercings linked with fine silver chains ran from eyebrow to nose. The armour was of decent quality, painted a deep blue with silver highlights, though it bore the chips and scrapes of regular use.

  ‘Minions of the Dark Gods,’ he said with no small amount of distaste. ‘But not the Blood God’s faithful.’

  ‘It was fine swordwork that slew them,’ said Ephenius, examining the deep slice that had cut through the spine of another warrior. ‘Neat, deep. A fine blade held in a sure hand.’

  ‘We have a live one,’ shouted Orestes, from the edge of the clearing. In the shadow of a spiderweb of shattered crystals lay another of the mortals. His leg had been cut through at the knee, and hung by only a scrap of flesh. His skin was sallow, and his eyes were tired as much as they were fearful. This one had been left to die some time ago, and blood loss and thirst had left him dazed and weak. Looking at the wounds, Zannus doubted he would last much longer.

  The Prosecutor-Prime grabbed a flask from one of the dead men and strode over to the survivor.

  ‘This will not be an easy passing,’ he said to the man. ‘If blood loss does not take you soon, then hunger and thirst will do their work.’

  He held out the flask, and the man groaned and reached for it with a shaking hand. Zannus drew it back.

  ‘Tell me what happened here, and you can drink your fill. Speak.’

  Beyond the point where pride or loyalty might have sealed his lips, the man was only too happy to tell them what he knew.

  ‘The angel,’ he choked, and blood dribbled from his dry mouth. ‘We set upon him. He was hiding in the forest, but Lorchis always sees. He always knows. You can’t hide from him.’

  Zannus held the flask out, and let some of the contents dribble into the mortal’s mouth. The man sighed with relief, and his eyes closed contentedly. The Prosecutor-Prime clipped him about the ear.

  ‘Rest when you’re done,’ he snapped.

  ‘The angel, he slew us so easily,’ the man continued. ‘Like we were nothing. Twenty of us there were, and even striking first we could not touch him. He tried to soar away, but Lorchis got him good. Sent him down in the dirt.’

  He laughed a bitter, mirthless laugh.

  ‘Oh, he struggled, but we had the nets on him. Had him down, burned and beaten.’

  Orestes went to strike the wretch with the flat of his hand, but Zannus grasped his arm before the blow fell.

  ‘Where did you take him?’ he asked. ‘Speak.’

  The mortal looked at him blankly, as if the question had been spoken in a different language to his own. The Prosecutor-Prime reached down and grabbed a fistful of his chainmail hauberk.

  ‘The angel,’ he snarled. ‘Where did you take him?’

  Zannus and his men returned after a few hours, coming to rest in front of the orderly Stormcast line, which formed a defensive shield wall around the realmgate.

  ‘Lord-Celestant.’ He saluted as Thostos approached.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘We came across the scene of a skirmish, Lord. Several enemy dead. One alive enough to tell us that the Knight-Azyros has been captured.’

  There was
a round of muttered curses from the warriors present.

  ‘Tell me that you discovered where the enemy took him,’ said Thostos.

  ‘I believe so. The enemy is clearly active in this region, Lord-Celestant,’ the Prosecutor-Prime replied. ‘Soldiers are stationed amongst the foothills to the east, and more guard a structure hidden in the mountains nearby. A spiral tower, half collapsed. This is where the wretch says that the Knight-Azyros was taken.’

  ‘What numbers does the enemy have?

  ‘Our prisoner died from his wounds before we could interrogate him further,’ said Prosecutor Tonan. We scouted the area before we returned. Their defensive positions are carved into the mountainside, so it is hard to be exact. We saw at least three hundred at camp. Fewer still were guarding the perimeter of the tower. No more than a score.’

  ‘Though certainly there will be more within the structure,’ said Thostos. ‘And if they can capture a Knight-Azyros, they likely have either powerful magic or capable fighters on their side.’

  The longer the Knight-Azyros remained in enemy hands, the greater the chance that the enemy would discover something of value. No Stormcast would ever volunteer information under duress, of course, but Thostos knew that simple physical torment was hardly the only tool at the great enemy’s disposal.

  ‘How far is it to the tower on foot?’ asked Judicator Atrin.

  ‘No more than a few hours,’ said Zannus.

  ‘Not good enough,’ said Thostos. ‘We march at pace. Prosecutor-Prime, return to the area and scout ahead. See if you can gather a more accurate estimate of their numbers. We will join you soon.’

  He turned to the rest of his warriors. He could feel their eager tension and their fury. No Stormcast could stand idly by while a fellow warrior suffered at the hands of the enemy. They would run as long as they had to, no matter what it took out of them to do so.