by Warhammer
This was no simple fanatic. This was something else. As she moved, something moved with her – a great shape, guiding her, lending her strength. A shape made of starlight, and the sound of rattling swords. ‘Changer give me strength,’ he murmured. Was this a test, then? Had he been sent here for some reason other than the obvious? The sword in his hand wailed as it sensed the god-light.
A daemon burst into flame and crumpled. She stepped over its burning remains. ‘Judgement cannot be denied, only postponed.’ Her voice struck him like a barb, and he tensed. ‘Perhaps Sigmar has guided me here to be the instrument of his wrath. I make no assumptions. I merely follow his will.’ She sprang forwards in a swirl of robes and a rattle of armour, hammer raised.
The air split as several black, feathered shapes shot past him, intercepting the priestess. The ravens swooped and pecked, causing her to falter. Several twisted into bipedal shapes, attacking with blades rather than beaks and talons. The priestess spun one way and then the next, holding them back through sheer momentum. But only for a moment.
A raven darted in, swooping towards her face. An instant later she screamed. The hammer fell from her grip and she stumbled, clutching at her face. A sword blow scraped sparks from her war-plate and knocked her to the ground. Black boots pinned her arms. Yuhdak laughed softly.
‘Then it is his will that you die, I suppose.’ Ravens settled on his shoulders as he strode towards her, lifting his blade.
Ahazian Kel cursed, and split the stormvermin’s skull with a single blow. Without bothering to wrench the axe free, he hauled the twitching body up and swung it at the other skaven, knocking several sprawling. He was on them a moment later, skullhammer snapping down. The survivor tried to crawl away, squealing in terror. Ahazian took two steps and caught up with it. He stamped on its back, pinning the black-furred ratkin to the ground. ‘That was the best horse I ever stole,’ he growled, before removing its head.
He turned, watching as the black stallion-thing kicked its last. The skaven’s jezzails had been lethally accurate, and even the horses of the dead weren’t immune to warpstone bullets, fired at high velocity. The animal lay amid the remains of its killers, having crashed into them in its death throes. Ahazian felt a flicker of regret. Soon enough, it was snuffed out by the relentless song hammering through his soul. The hunter’s song, the murder-song. It tugged at him, drawing him towards the towering wheel-like war-machine that loomed amid a network of rope bridges and temporary gantries, stretching from the surrounding rocks.
Skaven seethed in its shadow. Armoured stormvermin had formed up into disciplined phalanxes, their shields planted, awaiting him with spears lowered. He laughed softly. He’d broken shieldwalls before. Jezzail-fire plucked at the ground near his feet, kicking up dust. He glanced up, eyes narrowing. Skaven slunk across the high ledges, moving to better positions. As they did so, black-clad shapes dropped down among them, blades singing. The Ninety-Nine Feathers were moving again, even before the bodies fell. The ravens swooped overhead, croaking, seeking further prey.
Ahazian grunted and shook his head. He took a step towards the stormvermin, but was beaten to the punch by a raucous pack of horrors. The pink-fleshed daemons capered past, filling the air with oily flames of a hue drawn from the mind of a lunatic. The flames splashed against the raised shields of the skaven, causing them to run like water and drenching the ratkin with splatters of molten metal.
With an annoyed growl, Ahazian loped through the carnage, leaving the daemons to their play. Let Yuhdak’s pets enjoy the fruits of the killing field. He had greater rewards to reap, at any rate. The fragment rattled against his chest-plate and tugged at its rawhide thong. He followed its pull, killing anything, skaven or daemon, that got in his way.
Daemons crawled over the machine’s hull, and were unceremoniously shot off by skaven snipers, or burnt to greasy motes by the machine’s weaponry. But more pink horrors swung chuckling about the guy-wires that held the immense wheel firmly anchored to the rocks, or scaled the crag, seeking skaven to burn or throttle. Yuhdak had summoned a small army, though some of them were already wavering back into the void from which they’d sprung. Daemons couldn’t long maintain their hold on the realms, even in places like this, befouled as it was.
When he reached the machine, he took the crude wooden steps up to the closest open hatch, two at a time. Jezzails fired from the upper walkways, and a bullet struck his shoulder-plate, nearly knocking him from his feet. He snarled and hurled himself through the hatch, just in time to meet the skaven rushing to close it.
‘Too late,’ he growled. The skaven immediately scrambled in the opposite direction, biting and clawing each other in an attempt to be the first through the closest bulkhead. Ahazian followed. That was the direction in which the fragment was pulling him in. The slowest of the vermin died first, then the next slowest. Whip-wielding overseers goaded panicked clanrats through cramped corridors into his path. He met them with savage elation, and his weapons hummed in his grip, well-pleased with the slaughter. The axe in particular seemed to be enjoying itself.
Ahazian tightened his grip on the weapons, and felt the thorns dig into his flesh, somewhat affectionately. ‘Do not worry, my friends, I shall not forsake you when I have the spear. You shall taste blood – seas of it – when the Huntsman is mine. We will carve a hole in the realms, you and I.’
He pressed on, hacking through squealing skaven and trampling the rats that fled across his path. Warning klaxons screamed, warring with the spear’s song for his attentions. And then, sooner than he’d expected, he was there.
The spear hung suspended in a nest of chains, screaming his name above a dais being turned by a number of hunched slaves, beneath a whirring orrery around which warp lightning crackled. As the rings of the orrery passed through one another, Ahazian saw strange sights stretch, solidify and fade into crackling excrescence. At one point, he thought he saw the familiar sight of the Felstone Plains in Aqshy, but dismissed it as more skaven trickery. Several stormvermin raced forwards to intercept him. The big, black-furred skaven leapt upon him, hacking and screeching.
Ahazian met them, the spear’s song on his lips.
There were enemies everywhere. Just… everywhere.
Quell felt as if he were going to vibrate to pieces, so intense was his anxiety. Warning klaxons squealed and his assistants ran back and forth, attempting to look busy. He hunched forwards, gnawing on his tail, trying to focus. The warp-wheel shuddered, and sparks cascaded down from the rat-cages above, carrying with them the stink of burning hair and flesh. The battle outside was taking its toll on his lair. He could hear it, even through the thick hull of the warp-wheel. He shouldn’t have been able to. That meant some of the hull plates hadn’t been reattached.
They also weren’t moving. That was more important than the hull plates. As long as the warp-wheel was moving, nothing could stop them. No foe could catch them, and any who got aboard could be run down and killed by his warriors. But when they weren’t moving… well. That didn’t bear thinking about.
Quell spat out his tail and reached for a squealing-tube. ‘Vex! Where are you, fool-fool? Have you cornered them yet?’
‘No, most worshipful warlock,’ came the static-y reply. Vex sounded nervous. Quell’s anxiety redoubled. He’d sent his assistant out to take command of the defence personally. That Vex had time to reply was a sure sign he was hiding somewhere, rather than seeing to his duties. Understandable, but annoying.
‘Why not?’
‘They’ve – ah – they’ve cornered us.’ A crash reverberated through the squealing-tube, causing Quell to wince. ‘But we are regrouping, your magnanimousness! We will have them soon enough, yes-yes.’ Another crash followed this boast. And screams. Many-many screams. And daemonic giggling.
Quell flung the tube away with a panicked snarl. He bared his teeth at the crew, trying to reassert his superiority. He was beginning to suspect tha
t some among them might be responsible for the current predicament. That was the time-honoured way of advancement among the Clans Skryre, after all.
He snorted a knuckle’s worth of warpstone, trying to induce brilliance. The dust blazed through him, as thoughts coalesced. The warp-wheel was trapped where it was, for the time being. Unless… yes. Yes! That would work. ‘Geniussss,’ he hissed.
The spear was the answer. Where it went, the warp-wheel would travel as well. If he could just get the machine moving, then they could escape, possibly even relatively intact. Whatever else, the warp-wheel must be preserved. And its creator with it.
‘Alert-command the engineers,’ he screeched. ‘Whip-lash the slaves! Activate the oscillation overgrinder! Set the warp-wheel into motion, now-now!’
‘It’s starting to move, lad,’ Brondt yelled. ‘We’ll have to be quick. If they catch us before we’re down…’ He trailed off. Volker didn’t need him to finish. The Zank hung just above the war-machine. Through the open hatch below him, he could see the immense, wheel-like machine shuddering into motion, preparing to propel itself away from Lion Crag. Temporary walkways twisted and shattered, hurling unlucky skaven and giggling daemons alike to the ground far below. The great, grinding wheels began to churn against the ground as exhaust ports vomited a noxious smoke.
He swallowed and took hold of the ladder. The weighted ends thudded against the hull below, unable to find purchase. With a quick prayer, he began to descend. Halfway down, he let go and dropped to the hull. The vibrations shook up through his legs and wrenched his spine, knocking him onto all fours. He began to crawl towards the hatch. He heard the others descending behind him, but he kept his attentions focused on the hatch. Just as he reached for it, the hinges squealed and it flipped open. A snarling, verminous snout poked out. Volker lunged.
He slammed into the skaven and followed it down through the hatch. The creature gave a strangled screech and flailed at him. As they struck the gantry below, it clawed for the blade thrust through its belt. Volker wrapped his arm around its neck, braced himself, and twisted. Bone popped and the skaven went still.
He heard a whistle and looked up. Zana crouched at the top of the hatch. ‘Well done, Azyrite. I thought you gunmasters didn’t like getting your hands dirty.’
He shoved the carcass away. ‘We work with what we have.’ He hauled himself to his feet as the others climbed down.
Lugash dropped to the gantry and gave the corpse a cursory kick. ‘Neatly done, manling.’ He stepped over the body, weighing a throwing axe in his hand. Alarms were blaring somewhere. ‘Sounds like we’re late to the feast.’
‘Or right on time,’ Zana said. She stepped to the edge of the gantry, sword drawn.
Volker looked up at the hatchway. ‘Brondt…?’
Zana shook her head. ‘We barely made it down ourselves. This thing is already rolling away from the crag. Feel it? We’re on our own. We’ll be lucky if the Zank is waiting for us when it’s time to go.’ She looked around. ‘Now, if you were a magic bloody spear, where would you be?’ She started down the corridor, after Lugash. Volker hefted his long rifle and followed.
‘Somewhere under heavy guard,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Lugash grunted.
They found the first bodies a moment later, and Volker realised the skaven he’d killed had likely been trying to escape the slaughter. The stink of death hung heavy over everything, and blood painted the hull and deck. Mangled skaven lay everywhere, in various states of mutilation. Someone – or something – had torn a path straight through them.
They followed the trail of dead down through the swaying, rattling corridors of the war-machine. Sparks rained down occasionally, cascading across them, and more than once Volker was forced to brace himself against the wall as the machine lurched one way or another. The internal lighting system flickered, and entire passageways were plunged into darkness, lit only by the warpstone tumours flickering on the flesh of the rats in the cages that hung above certain junctions.
To Volker, who knew the sound of a healthy mechanism, the whole construct seemed one step from flying apart. The dank corridors, leaking pressure pipes and nonsensical gauges stuck at seemingly random junctures offended him in a deep and somewhat spiritual way. ‘How is this thing even in one piece?’ he muttered, as they picked their way through a thicket of badly patched hoses made from reinforced intestine. Some sort of faintly glowing lubricant spurted through the hoses, going gods alone knew where.
‘Luck of daemons, the ratkin,’ Lugash said, shoving a loose pipe aside. It cracked, venting a foul-smelling steam that instantly corroded a nearby section of wall. ‘Like orruks, only worse. I’ve seen them cobble together fire-throwers from three rats, some bellows and a bit of warpstone.’
‘Well they can’t tighten a rivet to save their lives,’ Volker said, as his foot went through a section of gantry. Zana caught him before he fell. ‘Look at this – shoddy construction. I’m surprised it doesn’t shake itself apart.’
‘It might well do. Feel the way it’s juddering? And listen to those klaxons – I think something’s very wrong.’ Zana looked around. ‘Do you hear that?’
Volker did. It was like a leaky boiler, building to full steam. But there was another sound beneath it – a low, feral sort of hum that resonated in his bones and at the base of his skull, and he felt a chill as he remembered what Oken had said about the spear. About how it had almost seemed to be singing. The air had turned greasy, and motes of off-putting colour danced before his eyes. He was beginning to feel nauseous.
Lugash licked his lips and spat. ‘Sorcery.’
‘Worse,’ Volker said. ‘We should hurry.’
‘We don’t even know where we’re going,’ Zana reminded him.
‘Follow the singing,’ he said, only half in jest.
Several times they ran across panicked skaven, hurrying one way or another. The ratkin rarely made a fight of it, and Volker found himself thinking of an old saying of Oken’s – rats deserting a flooding mine. The skaven were heading for hatches, fighting one another to be the first one through the narrow apertures. Though just where they thought they were going, given that the machine was moving, he couldn’t say.
The trail of death ended at the entrance to what could only be the engine room. Heaped corpses lay scattered about the bulkhead, and the air was thick with a yellowish steam from several ruptured pipes. The sound had grown so loud that Volker feared his teeth might rattle loose from his jaw. Tendrils of crackling energy raced through the steam cloud, as they warily entered the chamber beyond.
Volker’s eye was immediately drawn to the teetering shape of the massive orrery that dominated the heart of the chamber. Its spinning rings dripped incandescent smoke, within which blisters of flickering light took shape. The air heaved with shifting, phantom images – places and things that Volker couldn’t identify. He felt a hot breeze blowing down from Aqshy, and a chill wind howling up from the depths of Shyish.
At the heart of the orrery, a black shape twisted, like a shadow caught in a cage of light. As it writhed, the orrery sparked and the images faded, only to be replaced – jungles rose from dissipating lava flows, castles crumbled and were replaced by black pyramids, swirling, star-born palaces turned, dissolving into brute barrow-lands. One image after the next, faster and faster. ‘The spear,’ he muttered, as he realised what he was looking at. ‘They’re using it as a-a power source?’
‘Skaven, manling, you have to ask?’ Lugash said. ‘And not for long – look.’
They were not the only intruders – a towering, crimson-armoured figure fought through a crowd of desperate skaven, wading towards the dais and the orrery. ‘That’s not who I was expecting,’ Zana said, ducking aside as a chunk of skaven struck the wall behind her. ‘Who in the silver hell is that?’
‘Does it matter?’ Volker said. He spun, thrusting the stock of his rifle into the s
nout of a skaven as it lunged towards him. More of the ratkin had noticed them now, and seemed to prefer fighting them to dying at the hands of the hulking warrior.
‘Not particularly,’ Zana said, parrying a serrated blade and driving her elbow into a hairy windpipe. She plunged her sword through the skaven’s heart as it staggered back, clutching at its throat. ‘Lugash – make us some room.’
‘Gladly.’ The doomseeker bounded forwards, runes gleaming. Skaven scattered, losing their sudden eagerness for battle. Volker moved quickly towards a section of the deck that had been ripped up, likely by the crimson warrior’s axe. He’d seen Bloodbound before, but usually not so close. The servants of the Blood God were best kept at a distance. He was close enough to smell the miasma of old slaughter that clung to this one – a deathbringer, as some of the steppe tribes called them.
As he took up his position, the deathbringer clambered up onto the dais and thrust his weapons into the orrery. The axe and hammer caught the whirling rings, and in a shower of sparks, he pried them apart. The mechanisms that controlled the motion of the device whined in protest, and ground uselessly against one another, belching broken cogwheels and warpfire as the deathbringer forced them wide. Metal bent as he wedged the hafts of his axe and hammer in such a way as to pin the orrery rings in place. Then, with a guttural laugh, he reached for the spear.
‘He wants a spear now,’ Lugash growled.
‘The spear,’ Zana said, as she tore her sword free of a dying skaven.
‘I see that,’ Volker said. He balanced his rifle on the section of broken plating, and cocked it. ‘Now let me concentrate.’
Lugash cursed and scrambled forwards, chopping skaven from his path. ‘Sit there if you want, manling, but I’m getting that spear.’ Zana cursed and reached for him, but he was too quick. He hurtled towards the monstrous warrior, bellowing a challenge.
Volker didn’t waste breath trying to stop him. He just had to hope that the doomseeker wouldn’t get in his way. He took aim – and fired.
