Gods & Mortals

by Various Authors

  Neave could picture the place as it had been, bustling with weathered frontier-folk and hard-eyed militia.

  Now it was a gutted carcass.

  An entire section of the wall had been torn down and its sundered stones scattered for dozens of yards. Flyblown corpses were strewn around the breach in such a state of dismemberment that Neave couldn’t tell from this distance how many had actually been slain. The bodies continued inside the walls, as did the destruction. Buildings had been toppled as though by the strike of some huge weapon or the swipe of immense claws. Corpses lay in heaps, the blood slicks around them dry, brown and cracked by the heat.

  ‘Sigmar’s Hammer,’ breathed Neave. She accelerated into a swift lope that brought her down the slope to the breach in the walls in under a minute. There she slid into the lee of the wall and paused. The ground was blackened, as though fire had washed across it. The edges of the breach were scorched and cracked by heat-damage, and the ghastly corpses of Sigenvale’s defenders were little more than charred meat.

  ‘Like Dunhaven,’ muttered Neave. She crouched, slipping off both gauntlets and pressing her bare palms to the stone of the wall, and the bedrock of the ground.

  Neave regulated her breathing, and allowed her heartbeat to settle into a slow, distant thump. She closed her eyes and focused her superhuman senses.

  The stink of blood, gallons of it splattered on every surface and baked dry by the sun. Stone and soil mixed with spilt viscera and faeces. The stench of putrefaction setting in, hastened by the heat.

  The sound of the wind through shattered stone and broken glass. A slow creak, something metal shifting in the hot plains’ breeze. The flap of torn silk. The drone of insects.

  Vibrations through the bedrock, her allies closing in around the settlement, skittering lizards, the distant tectonic stirring of restive volcanoes.

  And something else, a shifting deeper within the ruins of Sigenvale. Something large and heavy, she thought, moving as softly as it could.

  Neave replaced her gauntlets and unhitched her helm from her belt, lowering it into place. She unshipped her whirlwind axes and stalked through the rent in Sigenvale’s walls. A street circled the town directly behind the wall, with other roadways radiating in from it like the spokes of a cart wheel, then winding crooked through the low buildings as they made for the town’s heart.

  Neave found more bodies scattered here. Many were torn to shreds. Others, she saw, were crushed into pulp, their bones shattered and their flesh burst like split gourds. Most had had their heads torn from their bodies, and Neave was disturbed to note that she couldn’t see most of the missing crania.

  The mark didn’t discriminate. It had butchered soldiers and townsfolk alike with equal savagery.

  The buildings had suffered as badly as the people. Neave saw walls staved in, doorways ripped from hinges and lying dozens of yards away, great gouges torn from them. A glance inside the nearest structure made her wish she hadn’t. A larger humanoid figure huddled protectively over several smaller beings. That was all the identification she could make, as they had all been burned black, their remains melting to fuse with the wall and floor of the gutted structure.

  Neave shuddered, then was still as she felt again the heavy shifting from deeper within the town. As the mournful wind moaned through the ruins, Neave felt her hackles rise. She turned away from what had once been a home and prowled deeper into the town.

  A movement on high caught Neave’s attention and her grip tensed on her axes, but it was nothing more than the hot winds stirring a tattered awning overhead. She felt the pressure wave that rolled ahead of Kalparius’ Palladors, sweeping in through the town from her left. It was like a localised storm front, and Neave picked up her pace. Whatever she felt lurking here, it couldn’t fail to note the Palladors’ arrival.

  Sure enough, she felt that heavy shifting again, more urgent now. Flies rose in buzzing clouds as Neave jogged down the street and rounded a corner past an overturned wagon. She groped for the sense of her mark, but the sensation was maddeningly vague.

  ‘Could be here, could be miles away,’ she muttered. ‘Wherever it is, I’d dearly like to know how it’s interfering with my gifts from Sigmar.’

  Metal screeched against metal beyond the next row of buildings, and Neave envisioned wreckage being thrust aside. She sensed the Palladors closing in from the left and Tarion, an ozone tinge and crackle of power, moving in from the right. If the mark was here, she thought, it was just around the next corner and they were about to converge upon it as one.

  Then Krien swooped low overhead and gave a piercing cry. That was enough to propel Neave into a full sprint, dust-devils whirling up in her wake as she accelerated down the body-strewn street. She wove around the tumbled wreckage of awning poles, flipped neatly over the flapping tangle of silk that clung to them, then slid to a halt behind the corner of the last building before the town square. She leaned around the shattered stonework, perceiving something huge moving at increasing speed across the open space. There came a snarl and – taking in a dark, scaly hide and long, hooked claws – Neave accelerated into a charge.

  The beast must have weighed several tons and was all muscle and belligerence. Emerging from a ruined storehouse on the south side of the square, it hulked like a Stardrake at the shoulders, while its lantern-jawed head was set low between a quartet of powerful forelimbs. Its cluster of reptilian eyes swivelled in Neave’s direction and a hook-clawed arm swept out.

  Neave was faster. Sliding under the blow at the speed of a galloping gryph-charger, she scissored her axe-blades through the monster’s wrist and neatly severed its hand. Neave rose from the slide and ducked under the huge creature’s jaw, spinning as she went and hacking both blades up through its throat.

  Black gore spurted, and Neave slid free on her back, using the last of her momentum to perform a neat backward roll and coming back to her feet facing the beast.

  It staggered, gore spilling from the ragged wound in its neck. The beast let out a gurgling roar, more blood spraying from its crocodilian maw, and doggedly tried to pursue her. Krien streaked in front of the monster’s eyes, causing it to rear back and, as it did, a trio of Tarion’s crackling arrows whistled down to thump into its chest.

  The monster gave a snarl as lightning tore through its body, then stumbled as it tried to wheel again. At that moment the Palladors swept into the square from the opposite end and, not even slowing, bore down upon the creature with their javelins lowered like lances.

  Foerunner and his cavalrymen hit the beast like a hammer blow. It swung two of its taloned limbs to ward them off, but Neave watched, impressed, as one rider leaned back in his saddle to evade the blow while the other leapt his steed clear over the hurtling limb.

  The monster staggered, bewildered, bleeding in rivers, then sagged. Neave hefted one of her axes and hurled it. The weapon spun end over end and crunched home between the monster’s eyes. It gave a last burbling groan, then toppled onto its face.

  Neave stood for a moment, head cocked to one side, waiting.

  ‘It was not the mark,’ she said, unsurprised as she felt her dim sense of her prey remain unchanged.

  ‘That much was obvious,’ said Tarion, landing nearby. ‘This thing didn’t cause all that death and devastation.’

  ‘It didn’t unleash any sort of fire, either,’ said Neave. ‘Whatever we’re hunting, he, she or it has burned half this town black.’

  ‘Corpsejaw,’ said Foerunner, cantering back around on his gryph-charger. The half-avian steed clacked its beak in disgust. ‘They’re a local scavenger species. Saw them during the purge of the Chamrian Hills. Our friend here didn’t do this, he just moved in and started scavenging once the dust settled.’

  ‘I think he’s the only thing that was left alive here,’ said Neave. ‘We move on.’

  Arlor nodded grimly. ‘This was wasted time,’ he said.
‘My apologies, Lady Blacktalon.’

  ‘Not necessary,’ replied Neave. ‘For one thing, the devastation here is more extreme than in Dunhaven. That was bad, but there’s more fury now, more ferocity.’

  ‘As though the mark is gathering pace,’ mused Tarion.

  ‘As though the more carnage it wreaks, the more dangerous it becomes,’ said Neave.

  ‘Do you believe that we seek an it, not a he or she?’ asked Foerunner. His Palladors had gathered behind him and watched the approaches to the square intently.

  ‘If the mark is a being like you or I, then either they are employing some manner of weapons I cannot fathom, or ride upon some dire beast,’ said Neave. ‘No warrior’s blade caused the massive wounds and destruction we’ve seen here. The ground is hard, but rock and stone both bear the imprint of tracks, something with long talons and the weight to drive them deep.’

  ‘The entire town looks as though a feral gryph-hound got loose in a pyklin enclosure,’ said Tarion. ‘This was a rampage, a slaughter wrought by something that attacked everything that moved as though on instinct.’

  ‘Murderously thorough, though,’ said Neave. ‘And it must have happened shockingly fast. I haven’t seen a single body beyond the walls, have you?’

  ‘No one had time to flee,’ said Foerunner.

  ‘The mark can obfuscate my sense of its presence, is possessed of murderous strength and unholy weapons, and we must assume that it can move every bit as fast as we can. I believe that even as we hunt this thing, we risk being hunted in turn.’

  A moment of silence settled across the Stormcast Eternals as they considered this. The wind sighed miserably through the baking-hot streets. Flies danced. Silk flapped from broken poles like grave markers.

  Then, far to the west, something rose into the cloud-scattered sky and detonated in a crimson starburst. Another projectile sailed up after it, spreading another slowly fading bloom of red light and smoke against the tattered storm clouds. As the sky-fires burst, Neave felt dread settle like a lead weight on her heart. She knew what they meant even before Tarion spoke.

  ‘Flares, from Iron Despot,’ said Tarion.

  ‘Signalling for aid.’

  ‘No. Combat,’ said Tarion. ‘They’ve engaged.’

  Dunhaven and Sigenvale lay butchered already. Neave wondered if the same was about to happen again.

  ‘Move,’ said Neave, determined to ensure that it did not, and broke into a run. Her comrades followed. The Hammers of Sigmar left the corpse of Sigenvale behind them to rot in the fierce heat.

  The Stormcasts had been on the move for almost four hours, maintaining a swift pace as the baked earth and tough grass of the plains transformed into cracked stone, basalt outcroppings and sheer-sided chasms. Now, with the storm clouds thickening above and a misty, blood-warm rain falling, they were nearing Brimstone Lake. Neave could see the land rising like a clenched fist before them, forming a rocky headland that jutted out over the churning waters. Fumes rose from the vast lake, and an acrid stench hung on the air.

  Beyond, the rising mass of the nearest volcano was now clearly visible, only a few miles distant, black fumes boiling up from its caldera to mingle with the storm clouds. The rest of the chain marched away westwards at its back, and Neave sincerely hoped that they caught up to their quarry before it could vanish into that savage region.

  ‘More flares,’ called Tarion from above.

  ‘I see them,’ replied Neave. ‘White smoke.’

  Tarion’s face hardened. ‘They have ceased combat. According to Danastus’ briefing, white smoke is their appeal for aid. This is their last resort.’

  ‘What manner of thing could threaten a cogfort single-handed?’ wondered Neave aloud.

  ‘The flares rose from the southern bank of the lake, near the foot of the volcano,’ called Tarion. ‘The hunt moves ahead.’

  ‘And we must yet again dash to catch up,’ snarled Neave, frustrated. ‘We halted at Sigenvale to offer mercy to ghosts while the living go to their graves ahead of us. If Iron Despot falls, Arlor, it will be because you slowed my hunt.’

  ‘Lady Blacktalon, I–’

  ‘Save your words, only actions matter now,’ snapped Neave, increasing her pace and leaving Tarion to flounder in her wake.

  They passed the headland, and Neave saw the deep tread-marks of the cogfort sunk into the bedrock. She could see its trail where it had stomped down from the north, the deeper indentations where it had settled its weight and awaited their arrival, and the more ragged gouges in the stone that suggested acceleration as it had moved away south and west along the bank of the lake. It would hardly take skill like Neave’s to follow such a track. She saw, as well, a few telltale talon marks like those she had spotted at Dunhaven and in Sigenvale.

  ‘It looks as though they gave chase,’ called Neave. She caught the sound of distant booms, rolling through the misty veil.

  ‘Cannon fire,’ said Foerunner.

  The sounds of combat grew closer as they dashed along the edge of the lake. Neave’s frustration redoubled as whatever was occurring remained veiled from her sight. Down here by the lake, a mixture of reeking mist, sheets of rain and the sulphurous fumes rolling from the volcano conspired to drop visibility to a few dozen feet. The Stormcasts were forced to slow lest they run headlong into sudden danger.

  Tarion dropped low so that he flew just above his comrades’ heads, Krien tucking in close on his wing. The Palladors spread out to either flank, remaining wholly corporeal.

  Neave motioned for silence. The mark must surely be close, and she could feel heavy vibrations rolling through the bedrock. A mighty flash lit the haze ahead. The sound of an explosion rolled over them, muffled by the mists and rain, and the ground convulsed.

  Neave and her comrades pressed on, towards whatever catastrophe had occurred. Neave thought she knew, but she wanted to confirm it with her own eyes.

  The mists proved deceptive, warping distances. Tension built in Neave’s chest as she and her companions pressed forward. Her nerves sang with a sense of peril. Lightning crackled through the clouds above and reached down to form phantom trees of light that stretched between the lake and the skies. Thunder rumbled, and Neave cursed the sound as its echoes rolled over her. Between the increasing wrath of the storm, the throaty rumble of the volcano looming above them and the muffling veils of vapour, even her senses were of little more use than those of a mortal hunter.

  It was like being smothered. Was this how mortals lived all the time, so unsure of what lay around the next corner, behind the next scad of cloud or veil of smoke? Was this how she had once lived?

  Then, quite suddenly, the mist and fumes parted.

  ‘By Sigendil’s light,’ gasped one of the Palladors.

  Neave’s reprimand to him for breaking the silence died on her lips as she absorbed the sight that lay before her. She had seen a cogfort once before, stalking towards an unknown horizon. She knew how this one should look: an ironclad fortress with thick, armoured towers rising from within a central wall. Cannons and fire-throwers jutting from hatches all over its superstructure. Firesteps thronging with Freeguild soldiery, dark glass filling the portholes of the command bridge high above, proud banners and thaumatransferric veins rising above its conical slate roof. And the legs – the eight huge, articulated cogwork legs with their steam conduits and hydraulic supports and complex webs of cables that kept them rising and falling with the same fastidious gait as some immense spider.

  Iron Despot barely resembled that proud memory. The machine lay on its side at the rocky base of the volcano, three legs torn away entirely. The rest tangled around it, so much oil-slicked wreckage. The fall had sundered the fortress, splitting its flanks like overripe fruit and allowing segments of pipework, decking and mechanical innards to spill out. The incongruous details were the most horrifying: half a wooden stairway jutting proud here, a b
ent and buckled mess-table protruding there with scraps of food still smeared across its surface. Neave saw talon-marks in the metal of the cogfort’s shattered walls, and here and there a gouge in the hard stone upon which it lay.

  Corpses lay around the cogfort where the fall had hurled them. Others sprawled amidst the ruins, just as bloodied, just as dead.

  Neave cast a glance around, straining her senses to their limits to detect any threat.

  Tarion landed beside her and placed a gauntlet upon her shoulder. Neave shrugged his hand away angrily and gestured at the carnage that surrounded them. She stared hard into his eyes and saw that he caught her meaning.

  This is your fault, her stare said. Your insistence on delay left us too late to intervene. She saw pain in his eyes and realised that Arlor already knew and owned that guilt. He bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement, then gestured here and there amidst the ruin. Neave realised he was drawing her attention to the flames that crawled across the wreckage. They were white-hot, sizzling with an unnatural intensity and chewing away at metal and rock as happily as flesh and wood.

  The fires still burned, she realised. The mark could not long have lit them.

  She held up a clenched fist, ordering her comrades to halt and maintain their position in the shadow of the fort. They obeyed, drawing into a tight armoured circle and keeping watch into the mists.