Inferno Volume 2 - Guy Haley

by Warhammer 40K

  Closer, she sensed a small bright point, fading: the Naereid who had followed her through the fissure had been trapped, then battered and crushed by the shattering ice. Even as Kelara started towards the distant figure, the final spark of life fled.

  A brief tide of despair washed over Kelara. What hope was there for Ghyran when its mightiest denizens, the Jotenbergs and sea serpents, had been infected by Chaos?

  No, they must fight, no matter how hopeless their cause. While the Radiant Queen lived, the Realm of Life might yet recover.

  Naereids, to me, she cried. We must stop the serpents! She kept her tone buoyant, though they all knew the odds.

  While her sisters converged on her, Kelara swam over to the dead Naereid, and eased her poor sister’s spear from her unfeeling hands.

  Beware below!

  Alerted by Assani’s shout, Kelara extended her senses.

  Not one, but two serpents were rising up from the darkness towards them. She dimly sensed her more distant sisters scattering and reforming in their wake, then the lead serpent loomed up from the depths. Its great head was thrust forward, the heavy frill that edged its cheeks and jaws flattened by its passage through the water. The huge, luminous orb of its eye was clouded, no longer the rich, deep blue of the open sea but a milky green, the colour of shoreline scum. Its anguish washed over Kelara. Insofar as the serpents felt such emotions, it hated what it was becoming – and what it was being forced to do.

  The monstrous sea-beast ignored Kelara. Propelled by the sorcerous call, it arrowed past, homing in on the beacon of the queen-seed. Amidst everything else, Kelara could still sense the divine presence, whole, undamaged and on the move. But not for long. This was a threat the Lady of Vines was helpless against, perhaps oblivious of.

  Even as she thought this, the serpent twitched and recoiled, as though struck by an invisible blow. The sweep of its tail swatted aside several Naereids. At the same time, the serpent thrashing overhead froze, going limp.

  Both serpents started back into movement a few moments later. Yet they appeared oddly unfocused. The serpent at the surface turned on its tail once, then began to swim back down and away, only to pause, shudder, and circle again. The nearby serpent tossed its head, as though trying to dislodge something, then swam off, but at a diagonal to the Lady of Vines’ position.

  Kelara, attuned to the sorcerous currents weaving through the water, saw the truth. Usniel was fighting back. From the depths of his reefcastle, he was extending his will, trying to regain control of his beasts, or at least divert them from the deadly mission the Chaos sorcerer had set them to.

  Even as hope flared, a new apparition appeared. A third serpent swam upwards into sight. Bigger than either of the two she had encountered so far, this beast showed no hesitation, no sign that it harkened to the Lord of the Deeps. It was heading straight for the queen-seed, mindless insanity burning in its blank, monumental gaze. Kelara’s meagre magics could do nothing to affect the silent, sorcerous battle for control of the serpents playing out around her. But here, so close to the queen-seed, she could make a difference. This serpent was a creature of Chaos now. It must not be allowed to reach the Lady of Vines.

  Stop the serpent!

  Most of her Naereids had reached her safely. Every one still able to obeyed without hesitation. They exploded into action, swimming hard to keep pace with the beast as it slid through the water with sinuous swiftness. When they closed on it, they were going flat out. They would only get one chance.

  Strike hard!

  As one, her Naereids thrust their spears into the serpent’s diseased flanks. With several score hitting it at once, these pin-pricks got its attention. The beast convulsed, its progress arrested. It coiled in on itself, swatting the attacking Naereids as it sought the source of the irritation. Cries of agony exploded in Kelara’s head. The light of half a dozen lives went out around her.

  Again!

  Fewer spears hit home this time. The serpent writhed and twisted. Kelara ducked its swishing back-frill; once three times her height, the fronds along the creature’s spine had been eaten away to scabby lace by leprous growths. But even a passing blow, by any part of this giant of the sea, could end her life.

  Though the serpent had slowed, the jabbing spears were little more than an irritation. They delayed the beast, but did no serious harm.

  Kelara kicked forward and swam ahead, fighting to keep a straight course through the turbulent water. Keep harrying it, my sisters!

  She reached the serpent’s head. Just off to the side, Finala hung limp in the water; half her upper body had been crushed to a pulp, wave-wings and one arm reduced to stringy masses of flesh and membranes teased into streamers by the swirling current. Kelara tore her eyes away from the heart-breaking sight and turned to assess her target.

  One obvious point of weakness stood out: the serpent’s huge and baleful eyes, attuned to the darkness of the deeps. The half-blind eye on this side was overhung by a cankerous nodule that burst forth from the brow-ridge.

  Kelara swam nearer.

  The serpent still twitched and flailed under the Naereids’ spear-thrusts, but too many of Kelara’s sisters had been disabled or killed. As the remainder tired their attacks became less effective. The serpent started moving forward again.

  Kelara braced her spear under one arm, holding it close to her body. Then she rushed forward, sleek as an eel. She held the spear ahead of her like a lance, aiming for the centre of the eye. An up-close vision of the slimy orb filled her sight. After momentary resistance, the spear went in, puncturing the tough surface of the eyeball then breaking through into the gelatinous centre.

  The serpent convulsed. Kelara, remembering her encounter with the beastman earlier on the ice, kept a tight grasp on her spear. She held onto it – but the weapon itself was being eased out by the serpent’s frantic movements. It gave a last shake of its head and the spear tore free of its eye with a gout of thick green ichor. Kelara and the spear flew backwards. She braked her motion with a frantic kick and a silent curse.

  The creature’s eye was too big. Her spear had not penetrated deep enough to do serious harm. Did it not have any vulnerable spots?

  Yes, it did.

  The infected creature had opened its mouth in a silent wail of pain when Kelara stabbed it in the eye. Before she could think better of it, Kelara swam between its gaping jaws and into the cavernous maw.

  As soft darkness engulfed her, she noted the irony. She was surrounded by weapons such as the one in her hand. Some of this serpent’s teeth were missing from its rotten gums. For all she knew her spear could be a tooth shed by this very beast.

  Thinking this, she grasped the weapon firmly in both hands.

  For Finala! And Anela, and every other Naereid who had lost their lives to the march of Chaos. And for Ghyran!

  Bracing her spear, she swam with all her might towards the far end of the living cave. Her weapon rammed into the soft skin at the back of the serpent’s throat. It met little resistance, and plunged deep. Her leading hand came up hard against soft, pulsing flesh.

  The shudder that went through the serpent almost dislodged her. But she held on. She had found her mark. She pushed harder, pressing herself into the disgusting wall of spongy tissue in an effort to penetrate as deep as possible. A paroxysm of agony went through the serpent. The spear, slick with its lifeblood, slipped from Kelara’s hands. With nothing to hold on to, she was knocked backwards.

  She twisted in desperation. If she could only turn, she might swim free of its mouth. Then the serpent’s tongue rose, catching her in yielding clamminess. Her last thought was of the queen-seed: a final, urgent hope that it would find safety. Then she was slammed into the bony roof of the serpent’s mouth. Darkness closed in.

  Kelara blinked. There was something in her eye. She raised a heavy arm to clear her vision. It ached. All of her ached. Her leg was a thr
obbing focus of pain.

  She opened her eyes.

  She floated in the deep, surrounded by her Naereids. What happened? she asked.

  We freed you. Assani gestured at a grisly object off to one side. After a moment, Kelara recognised the floating mass as the serpent’s jaw. Strands of flesh trailed from it. Her Naereids had torn it from the beast’s head. Of the serpent itself there was no sign. No doubt its body had returned to the depths.

  Thank you. But what of the battle?

  I am not sure. We saw some serpents turn back, though not all…

  And the queen-seed?

  We do not know.

  Her Naereids lacked her strength; perhaps they were ­unable to sense the Everqueen. Unless… No. She must find out for herself. But the pain was distracting. Kelara looked down: one of her legs had been crushed. It would take all the ministrations of her cousin’s healers to mend.

  Ah, Usniel. No wonder he had been so brusque. Brusque, but uncorrupted. He had known of the Chaos taint deep in his realm, and been battling it secretly. Yet he had not shared this with her, not showed his hand until the final moment. Between them they had tipped the balance, but she would still have harsh words for him when they next spoke… and then she would lend him aid. She had seen off the incursions of Chaos in the shallows. Once she had recovered, and mourned the dead, she would help her noble cousin drive the taint from the deep.

  But that was for the future. And without Queen Alarielle, there was no future.

  Kelara concentrated, focusing on the green-above, seeking some trace of the divine light they had fought so hard to save. Nothing. She did sense, distantly, that the two armies fought on. But the celestial presence was gone.

  No, not gone! The light was distant; while Kelara’s Naereids fought to save her from the serpent, the Lady of Vines had reached her goal. Kelara homed in on the glorious brightness and saw, for a moment, a vision of the Lady of Vines stepping onto dry land, the queen-seed cradled in her arms.

  Alarielle’s most faithful servant had crossed the sea and evaded capture – thanks in part to Kelara and her folk. Even now she carried the queen-seed farther from her enemies. Kelara sensed the strength beginning to return to the dormant goddess now she was safely ashore. She was gathering her forces, ready for the fight back.

  The Everqueen was safe. Hope endured.

  LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF SIGMAR: SYLVANETH

  by Various authors

  The Queen of the Radiant Wood has awoken and the sylvaneth march to war in a collection of stories that form the perfect introduction to the spirits of the forest.

  Find this title, and many others, on blacklibrary.com

  FAITH IN THUNDER

  Robert Charles

  In his debut Black Library story, fantasy author Robert Charles takes us into the wilds of Ghur to explore ideas of faith and atonement.

  As a prisoner in an ogor fighting pit, Niara Sydona clutches to her faith in Sigmar as she battles to stay alive. When she and her fellow captives decide to launch a desperate escape effort, only the grim and mysterious Valruss chooses to remain. While Niara’s belief shines brightly in the oncoming storm, Valruss claims to be serving penance for his past failings. But if either of them are to survive, they must learn to put their faith in the other.

  Snow billowed through the mismatched timbers of the fighting pit’s walls. The wind shrieked like a chorus of the damned dead. A rumble of boisterous, drunken laughter echoed about the crude amphitheatre above. Niara Sydona gripped the rusty sword in white-knuckled hands, and ignored it all.

  The frost sabre pounced. Niara urged sluggish senses to life and threw herself aside. A blur of iron-grey fur and a snarling feline maw shot overhead. Bones jarred as her shoulder struck the fighting pit floor.

  Raucous cheers washed over her.

  Breath burning her lungs, Niara stumbled to her feet. The great cat loped past, muscles rippling beneath fur. She spun, dimmed vision blurring as she strove to keep the beast in sight. Teeth snapped at her trailing heel. She twisted away and lashed out – more from frustration than conscious thought. Blood spattered the snow.

  The frost sabre roared and shied away. Cheers redoubled. Heart pounding fit to crack her ribs, Niara sought new footing.

  The frost sabre circled back around. One mighty tusk was broken off inches from the jaw. Not her doing. An old wound. Ribs showed through a scarred, emaciated hide. The hunting beast was starving, worn thin by winter. Niara knew it’d have killed her long ago, else. Still might.

  Probably would.

  Thunder rumbled in the unseen distance. Seemed there was always a storm breaking on the mountainside. Niara never glimpsed lightning, not through the undying snows. Couldn’t even see the valley below.

  But she didn’t need to. Where there was thunder, there was lightning. And where there was lightning, there was Sigmar. Niara knew few truths, but that was the greatest. It gave strength to the body and snap to the limbs. And hope… hope most of all. She’d survive. She owed it to those of her patrol who had died on that desolate mountain.

  A yowling roar chased weary reveries away. The beast sprang.

  Niara breathed deep. The sword, once leaden in her hand, became an extension of her arm. She twisted from the snarling maw. Her rusted blade bit deep through fur and flesh. It shivered against spine.

  The frost sabre gave a pained howl and crashed into the snow. With a final, shuddering breath it lay still. Niara edged closer. Death had a look all its own, but the hunting cats were cunning. A jab to the beast’s underbelly confirmed its spirit had fled.

  The fighting pit exploded in fury. Niara let her head fall back against her shoulders, and took in sights made familiar by repetition. Ogors lurched to their feet, fists raised in acclamation or anger. Outrage contested the deeper gusto of laughter. Flesh-picked bones and wooden flagons the size of a man’s head rained down and shattered on churned ground. Gold glinted and changed hands.

  Overcome, Niara let the sword fall. It joined scores of discarded weapons on the fighting pit floor. The first tremors set in.

  A booming shout shook the air. It held no words. At least, it had none Niara understood. The crude ogor tongue sounded like rocks grinding together. But she knew the tone of command. Some things transcended race.

  Little by little, the fighting pit went quiet. Above the open portcullis to the prisoner pens, a hillock of flesh and crudely stitched furs rose from a throne fashioned from a thundertusk’s ribcage. Dark eyes gleamed above an unkempt beard and chipped teeth.

  The tyrant’s command came again. His ironstone maul thumped against the balcony’s ill-fitting timbers. He plucked a half-eaten joint of meat from a stone slab and tossed it into the fighting pit.

  Niara caught it. A mere morsel for an ogor, it was a feast to her. The rich, smoky tang of the meat set her stomach seething.

  Uncaring of the tyrant’s teeth marks in the bare bone, she tore hungrily at the gobbets of flesh. Warm juices trickled over her chin. She didn’t know the manner of beast it had come from. It wasn’t human. That was enough. She had certainly eaten worse in her days before the guardian’s oath. Concordia was like that: plenty above, scraps below.

  Niara’s gaoler lumbered out of the portcullis’ shadow. Chafed lips cracked into a snarl of warning. Niara almost laughed at the farce of it all. She was exhausted, wounded and frozen to the bone, and the ogor reckoned she’d start a fight with a brute eight or nine times her size?

  Fingers still tight around her prize, Niara mutely made her way back to the cage that had been her home ever since the ambush.

  She’d done it. She’d survived another day.

  The cage door slammed. The gaoler set the latch and lumbered away. A drunken roar sounded from the fighting pit, muffled by the cavern’s rock walls.

  Niara sank against the wooden bars. Bound tight by strips of hide, they were perhaps
not as rigid as Concordia’s duardin-smithed gaols, but they didn’t need to be to contain unarmed and weary guests such as herself. With a heartfelt sigh, she gazed up and down the uneven row of cages. Two dozen cells in all, packed tight against the walls. Some sat empty, others housed occupants as filthy and worn as herself – plunder from the ogors’ raids.

  Every cell had a clear view through the broad portcullis arch and into the fighting pit beyond. A tantalising glimpse of freedom, if only the freedom of death. If there was another exit from the cave, Niara had never seen it.

  She had never determined if the ogors intended for their pit fighters to share the spectacle, or whether it was intended as a cruel reminder of the fate that claimed them all, one by one. She didn’t know, and nor did she much care, for it would have changed nothing.

  ‘You still alive?’

  Lothran Horst shuffled closer through the gloom of his adjoining cage. Filthy, unshaven and clad in the torn, baggy remnants of a Concordia Freeguild uniform, he looked like the worst kind of bandit, and not a stalwart defender of the fabled City of Spires that stood as bastion against the tumultuous beastlands. Not that Niara could hold that against him. She looked no better, and felt far worse.

  ‘Seems so.’ She thrust the remnants of the joint through the bars. ‘Saved you some.’

  He snatched it away. ‘Thank you. I take back everything bad I ever said about you.’

  ‘Too late. You already did that three days back, remember?’

  ‘No. I’m not a glutton for misery. Every day’s the first day. I keep track of the days – much less remember what fills ’em – I’ll go mad.’ Horst turned the bone over and over. Emaciated fingers picked it clean of morsels. ‘Thanks. Could’ve kept it all for yourself. Should’ve.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  A lie. The meat she had wolfed had only sharpened her hunger. But Horst was one of hers. The last of hers. Duty went deeper than discomfort.

  Horst fell silent, save for the smacking of lips.