Blacktalon: First Mark

by Andy Clark

  ‘If she didn’t understand your first question, she’s not going to understand the others either,’ said Neave from beside him. Tarion spun and clapped her on both shoulders with a laugh of pure delight.

  ‘It is damned good to see you, Blacktalon,’ he said, still laughing. ‘Who in Sigmar’s name is your companion?’

  ‘This is Katalya of the Mourne tribe,’ said Neave. ‘It is a longer tale than I have time to tell at this moment, but she’s under my care. I swore an oath to her safety.’

  ‘You could not have brought her to a more dangerous place, in that case. This fortress is a thing of nightmares.’

  ‘How did the chamber come to this place?’ asked Neave.

  ‘We followed you. After you cold-cocked me as thanks for finding you a trail, the Lord-Aquilor wasted no time in declaring our mission to have altered and beginning the hunt for you.’

  ‘Sigmar’s hammer, I did not mean for the entire chamber to forsake their duty.’

  ‘Once he knew what was going on, Danastus insisted it took precedence over mopping up the last of the Gor-kin,’ said Tarion. ‘We marked their positions on the cartographs and sent messengers back to Azyr. By now, that region will have enough Knights Excelsior in it that anything bigger than a blade of grass will probably be dead three times over.’

  ‘I hoped that you might follow me into the forest,’ said Neave. ‘By that point, I’d already realised that you, at least, were pursuing me.’

  ‘The enchantments around that dark woodland were too well woven,’ said Tarion. ‘I’ve no idea how you even penetrated its eaves. We tried three times to cross the forest’s border, and every time found ourselves back in the swamp, facing the wrong damn way. No, the Lord-Aquilor determined that once you vanished into the woods, there was nothing more we could do for you without triggering a full-scale incident by trespassing upon the sacred lands of Sigmar’s allies.’

  ‘Then what led you here?’ asked Neave.

  ‘Chaos,’ said Tarion simply. ‘We sensed the taint of this place clear as day, and the Lord-Aquilor identified it as a threat deserving of our immediate attention. I think he was half expecting that, if you survived whatever fate awaited you in the forest, our paths would converge with yours here anyway. Whatever despotic Chaos champion rules such a vast and horrible place, it seemed a not unreasonable assumption that you might be on the hunt for them if you still lived. If not, you’d have been in the custody of the Sacrosanct Chambers by now, and there would be nothing further we could do for you anyway.’

  As he spoke, Tarion looked searchingly at Neave. Did you find what you sought? his gaze asked. Neave nodded slightly and twitched a finger. Later, said the gesture. Yes, but… later.

  Neave turned and said something to Katalya in a dialect that Tarion didn’t know. The girl replied nervously, coughing into her fist. Neave nodded in reply, and turned back to Tarion.

  ‘Whatever the reasons, I’m glad you’re here,’ she said. ‘There’s more than one threat here, and little enough time to deal with them.’

  ‘Tell him,’ said Tarion, directing his gaze over Neave’s shoulder. She turned in time to see the Lord-Aquilor swinging down from his saddle. Armour gore-splattered, cloak tattered, Danastus still radiated stern authority as he strode up to Neave and Tarion. Both warriors saluted their commander, and Neave dropped to one knee, head bowed.

  ‘Neave Blacktalon, you deserted your post,’ he said, his voice as hard and sharp as a blade striking steel. Neave could hear her lord’s anger there, leashed tight to his will and straining to break free. Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye had never needed to shout in order to convey his extreme displeasure. ‘If this were a typical Warrior Chamber then this conversation would go no further. I would not listen to any reasoning you might have for your actions, and would simply pronounce and enact your sentence at once. However, we are Vanguard, and I trust each and every warrior under my command to act upon their best instincts at all times. That is the reason I am giving you an opportunity to explain yourself, and why I have not yet ordered you to relinquish your weapons.’

  ‘Respectfully, my lord, I will explain everything to you and submit to whatever judgement you deem fit. But greater matters weigh upon us,’ said Neave. She pressed on before Danastus could reply. ‘The sylvaneth are here, my lord, and they have a weapon that is going to annihilate everything within this fortress except for them. I asked them to hold off on its use, at least until I could have Katalya here taken to a safe remove. I swore to protect her, my lord. But the sylvaneth are hell-bent upon invoking its power the moment they can. They’re fighting their way towards the fortress’ heart to do that even now. I was meant to be leading them, and I hope that my absence will slow their progress somewhat, but even so, we don’t have long. I know that I transgressed by abandoning my post, and I’ll submit to whatever censure I’m due. But please, before that, I request leave to have Katalya escorted to safety, and to fight at your side to hunt down Lord Ungholghott before the sylvaneth trigger their device.’

  She saw the questions in Danastus’ eyes, but she also saw something else there that filled her with gratitude. Trust, instant and unquestioning.

  ‘An account of your actions and an explanation of your whereabouts can wait then,’ he said. ‘But, Neave, this duty is yours. You swore an oath, and none of us can fulfil it. Besides which, you are swifter by far than any warrior here. Whatever this girl is to you, if you wish her spirited away to safety, you will have to do this yourself.’

  Neave blinked. Of all the responses Danastus might have given her, this was not what she had expected. She could feel the presence of her first mark, lurking somewhere deeper within the fortress, not far now from where she stood. Her huntress’ nature burned with the desire to run him to ground, to take vengeance for all the lives he had taken and the horror he had caused, to slay him for Sigmar, and for Wytha, and for herself.

  Yet as she looked at Katalya, standing shaking and wide-eyed but as determined as ever, Neave recalled every word she had said to Wytha. She truly was more than a weapon, more than either the sylvaneth or Sigmar had made her to be. She had been blessed with the gift of life eternal; she had surely to use that for more than just spreading death.

  ‘Tarion,’ she said.

  ‘Neave,’ he replied, expression deadly serious.

  ‘As far as I can sense it, the Chaos despot who rules this fortress, Ungholghott, is less than half a mile due north of here through the fortress,’ she said. ‘I believe that he’s on this level, more or less. I’ve a vague impression of a huge space, some massive chamber with a lot of air-vibrations and echoes marking it out. I think he’s there, or thereabouts. I entrust my hunt to you, old comrade. Please do me the honour of slaying this mark, while I take Katalya to safety.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked Kat. ‘What is happening, Neave? Are they going to send someone with me? They don’t have to waste the warriors – I can fight my own way out. Or I can stay, and make sure the swamp king dies before I do.’

  Neave ignored Katalya, keeping her gaze level with Tarion’s.

  ‘Please do this for me,’ she said.

  Tarion bowed. ‘Of course, it is my honour.’

  ‘If we can reach the sylvaneth and prevent their use of the weapon, so much the better,’ said Danastus. ‘If not, we will ensure the death of this Ungholghott and then retreat with all haste. Any warriors who must face Reforging when the sylvaneth weapon is used will gladly pay the price for victory.’

  ‘I can but thank you both for this,’ said Neave.

  ‘Don’t thank me yet,’ said the Lord-Aquilor. ‘You and I still have a very long conversation ahead of us, and I believe you will find it uncomfortable. But for now, go with the grace of Sigmar.’

  Neave saluted and turned to Katalya.

  ‘Climb on my back,’ she said, seeing the stubborn look creep back into Kat’s eyes as she realised what w
as happening. ‘Remember, you swore to obey my commands.’

  ‘Does not mean I have to like them,’ said Katalya, wrapping her arms around Neave’s neck and coiling her legs about her waist as best she could. Neave hefted the girl easily onto her back.

  ‘I know, Kat,’ said Neave. ‘None of us have to like our orders, but we do have to follow them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Katalya in a small voice, right in Neave’s ear. Neave reached back with one hand and clasped one of Katalya’s for a moment. Then she hefted her axes and readied herself for a desperate sprint.

  ‘Hold tight and don’t let go,’ she said, and with that, Neave broke into a lightning-fast run, praying to Sigmar as she went that she would outrun Wytha’s weapon.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wytha swung her sickle-stave into the face of a goggle-wearing Chaos cultist. The weapon hit him in the jaw and ripped it away. He reeled back, tongue lolling grotesquely. Wytha swung the heel of her stave up and slammed it into the wound, relishing her enemy’s agonised gurgle as she shoved him off his feet.

  The Branchwych stepped over her fallen victim and cast a quick look around. The sylvaneth had swept through a chamber above a spiralling brass stairwell, and swiftly butchered the few Chaos-worshippers that rushed to stop them. Wytha relished the violence, even though part of her knew that each such encounter was a delay she could ill afford. Still, she couldn’t help but inflict as much pain as possible on those that got in her way. It was that or scream out loud with frustration and rage.

  In truth, she had done that too, more than once.

  Wytha sent an imperative note swelling through the spirit song, colouring it with shades of urgency and stealth. A band of dryads swept forward in response, flowing down the stairs with eerie grace. A moment later their harmonies flowed back to her, confirming safe passage and conveying respect and deference. She responded with an impatient gesture to the rest of her followers. What remained of Clan Thyrghael advanced, and Wytha followed.

  Ithary fell into step beside her mistress, shooting a sly glance at her. Wytha felt her handmaiden’s emotions bleeding through the spirit song, and they stung her temper.

  ‘This is about more than petty rivalry, foolspite,’ hissed Wytha. ‘You are no fit replacement for Blacktalon, and you will not take her place. You are self-satisfied and vindictive, and if it were not for your skill as a sorceress I would cast your short-sighted deadwood aside. You know what rests on this endeavour.’

  ‘Your desire for her is but carvings wast’d upon rott’d wood,’ sang Ithary. ‘Storm’s lash and drifting ash be all that endures of her Heartwood’s ruin.’

  ‘Think you know better, do you?’ asked Wytha. ‘This is why you will never be more than you are. You mistake arrogance for wisdom, and venom for strength.’

  ‘She a’ways has skipped, I herestand times-by-times beside you,’ said Ithary.

  ‘That she has, and that you do. But this has gone awry. She should have been at the heart of it. She should have invoked the weapon by her own hand, willing as you would be to do so. But her role in this has been set askew.’

  ‘Thunder’s lord?’

  ‘No, this is the fault of the savage. A chance encounter, something that couldn’t be foreseen. She stirred something within that girl that would have best remained buried. I should have arranged for an accident to befall her on our march, perhaps? But no, the damage was done before she even reached us. The savage’s demise would only have placed suspicion upon us and driven my girl away the faster. If only one of these fumbling Chaos-slugs could have stuck a yard or two of iron through her fleshy little neck.’

  ‘A-sundered, the roots dividen?’ asked Ithary, as the two of them reached the bottom of the stairway. Beyond, Wytha saw a grand hallway down which marched columns of worm-gnawed bone. Huge double doors stood at its far end, inscribed in verdigrised iron with the tri-lobe of Nurgle. A warband of Blightkings stood before the doors, brandishing maces and axes.

  ‘No, my handmaiden, not yet,’ said Wytha. ‘This is a song long in the composition, and it shall be sung, however willing or not are those who perform. One note may quaver, but another swells strong and true. Let us set in motion that which we came to do, and let me worry about how to rein in my wayward girl.’

  Ithary hissed with feral delight and flowed down the hallway. More than a hundred forest spirits surged in her wake, and Wytha let them go.

  ‘The young can sate their lust for blood upon their roots, and glut themselves upon the now,’ she crooned, sliding the weapon from its bag and turning it over in her talons. Eldritch light glowed from within, and played across her dark barkskin. ‘Let older and wiser beings dictate the fate of tomorrow, and all the seasons henceforth.’

  Ithary drove her enemy back, stabbing and needling with her barbed tendrils. Inch-long thorns punched between armour plates to sting at his flesh, rake his eyes and tear gobbets of meat from his body.

  The Branchwraith keened with the simple glee of doing violence to another living thing. She prided herself on her infinite spite for the fleshed beings of the realms, channelling her disgust at their lumpen forms, their fluid-filled bodies and clumsy words, their idiot craftings and pathetically short lives. To Ithary, those not of the sylvaneth race were playthings at best and vermin at worst, and she felt nothing but pleasure at their suffering.

  The Blightking rallied, sweeping his axe up through her tendrils and severing a thicket of them. Ithary hissed and coiled away, pushing an imperious command out through the spirit song to the sylvaneth around her. Dryads answered her call, dutifully lunging between Ithary and her foe. One of them paid with her life, the huge axe thudding into her body and bisecting her face and chest. Bloodsap sprayed, but Ithary saw that her enemy’s weapon was stuck fast in the dryad’s twitching body.

  Swatting aside a droning cloud of flies, Ithary lunged around the dying dryad. As she went she wove her tendrils together with fearsome speed, coiling them into thick braids tipped with bristling nests of thorns. These she thrust forward with all her might, punching them through the faceplate of her enemy’s helm and then through his eye-sockets into the brainflesh behind. The Blightking was propelled backwards, crashing into the double doors hard enough to toll them like a bell.

  Ithary ripped her thorned tendrils free and threw back her head with a screech of victory. She whipped around, looking for more victims to butcher, but the Blightkings were all corpsemeat. Lips twisted into a moue of disappointment, Ithary looked to Wytha.

  ‘Open’d the way, yet seal’d the portal,’ she said, sending her black tongue slithering out to lick polluted blood from her cheek.

  ‘Vile wraith, step aside,’ said Wytha, striding up to the doors with her stave held high. ‘And don’t sup on their blood, sapling, you don’t know what pollutes it.’

  Wytha swept her arms wide and Ithary felt the tingling magics of Ghyran rise around her as her mistress went to work. She began a whispering chant, jagged wooden fangs grinding together over the words. Two other Branchwraiths remained beside her, Khaegh and Rhyssyth, and both followed Ithary’s lead in bolstering their mistress’ magics.

  Their sorcerous call flowed down, through the corrupted flesh and bone and plundered stone of the fortress. Further, penetrating the silt and muck of the swamp, the tortured soil below it, down to where the pulsating realmroots cut through the bedrock. Those roots were the purview of the sylvaneth, and the sylvaneth alone. Only Alarielle’s children could draw upon their power, or flow into their magical currents to travel or speak over the vast distances they crossed. And only the sylvaneth could summon the realmroots forth, when needs truly must.

  The hallway shuddered. Something gave a deep, tectonic groan. Ithary’s chant grew faster, more frenzied, until her fangs slit her lips and caused her own dark bloodsap to drizzle down her chin. She whirled in circles, tendrils lashing, wild with glee.

  Stone split and
rotted bone erupted, spraying upwards and pushing forest spirits back as glowing realmroots drove up from below. They were huge, thick as several tree-trunks twined together, and they glowed a deep jade with the magic of the Realm of Life.

  Wytha’s voice soared to a piercing screech, and she brandished her stave at the doors. The realmroots did as bidden, rearing back then lashing forward like striking snakes. One concerted impact was all it took to stave in the massive doors. Torn from their hinges, buckled inwards as though kicked by an angry god, they crashed down and skidded away, trailing fat sparks as they slowed to a stop.

  Wytha staggered and leaned heavily on her stave. Ithary felt the sudden weight of the enchantments they had wrought crashing down upon her and her sisters. All three Branchwraiths let go of their spell as though releasing the end of a blazing brand, recoiling with shrieks of pain and shock. The realmroots shuddered, then withdrew, coiling slowly back down into the depths and leaving a ragged pit in their wake.

  Wytha gestured to the huge chamber that lay beyond the sundered doors.

  ‘Onwards, to an ending of this sorry tale,’ she said, and Ithary hissed with glee at the thought of the slaughter they were about to unleash.

  Wytha clutched her stave tight, and the weapon tighter still. Her bloodsap ran hot and sluggish with the aftermath of the magics she had unleashed, and the grubs that clung to her body waved their heads in idiot agitation.

  Breath rasping, she sang to one of the ensorcelled insects until it squirmed up her chin and pushed its head between her jaws. Wytha bit down, puncturing the thing’s thick skin, and hot magical juices squirted into her throat. She drank the grub’s essence, feeling it restoring her vitality even as the creature’s stubby legs contracted and its body drained to a flaccid grey sac. Wytha let the grub fall, peeling away from her barkflesh to splat on the floor. She stepped over it, whorl-runes glowing bright across her body again. Now she was ready for the ritual that lay before her.