Blood and Plague
David Annandale
In a dead land, the cold arena waited. Echoes of battles past and civilizations forgotten lined its cliff walls. The land did not remember the glories that had been. It remembered their loss. It remembered their fall. And it muttered to itself with the whisper of tombs. The whispers spread across the floor of the arena: broken archways, depressions of absent foundations, doors to emptiness. Eroded walls faded to nothing, sentences trailing off into silence.
Above the cold arena, on a projecting spur of rock, a sorcerer watched the whispers. He watched the land beyond. He watched as the waiting came to an end.
The Many-Eyed Servant faced south, seeing much further than the arena. The carriers of his vision flew over the land. A multitude of fragments became a composite panorama of the battle to come. From the east and west, warbands approached through the canyons of vanished waterways and time-gnawed sepulchres of civilisations. ‘They are almost here,’ he said.
Heavy footsteps crunched the stone behind him. A presence loomed at the daemon’s back. The Many-Eyed Servant’s master had come. He said nothing, but the daemon sensed his satisfaction. The Everchosen had arrived to witness the final display.
‘Where have you brought us?’
Copsys Bule thought before answering. Fistula’s words were less a question than an accusation. They had marched for a day and a night since passing through the gate. Until now, Fistula had said nothing to challenge the lord of plague’s command. Since their escape from the seraphon, Fistula had been less and less inclined to hide his anger and impatience. The blightlord had, for a time, been willing to accept that abandoning a second battle to the Stormcast Eternals was the right price to pay for the greater glory of joining the forces of Archaon. But that promise still showed no sign of being fulfilled. Instead, they travelled through nothing. The land was cracked, bare stone. The gate had brought the Rotbringers to the floor of a wide, twisting canyon. The riverbed had dried out centuries before. The journey between the cliffs took them through the traces of fallen cities and immense, fading graveyards. There was no life at all. Bule had abandoned a realm bursting with the gifts of Nurgle’s garden for a wasteland. No disease could flourish here. There was nothing here to decay. There was only the slow erosion of wind, and the fading into a greater silence. The groans of this realm’s flesh had been spent long ago.
But this was the way. The call of Archaon was as clear to Bule now as it had been mysterious before. The land held no promise, yet Bule followed the certainty of destiny.
‘We are where we must be,’ he said. ‘I have not brought us here. Archaon has. The blessing of Grandfather Nurgle has. There is no reason for anger, Fistula. Rejoice instead, and learn patience.’ Fistula fought well, but he had too little experience of the larger ebb and flow of war. Plague waxed and waned, but in the end, it consumed all. To deny this was to fail to understand the nature of disease. Rage was useful, but had its limitations.
Bule’s exhortation had little effect. The blisters on Fistula’s bald head crowded each other with suppurating anger. Bule watched Fistula’s grip tighten on his blades. He gauged the other Rotbringer’s stance. Are you going to attack? Bule wondered. He followed his own counsel and remained patient. His armour was heavier than Fistula’s. He had the advantage of bulk. He could absorb a first blow. But there was no need to precipitate a struggle; ahead lay glory for all. He would lead by example.
‘You don’t hear the call?’ Bule asked.
‘No.’ More anger in that single word.
‘Then put your faith in the path we have followed.’
‘From one retreat to another?’
‘The call I heed led us to that gate. Now it takes us to a culmination.’
Fistula grunted, but he plodded on. Bule looked back over the rest of the band. It was a much smaller horde now, consisting of only those who had followed him into the polluted river to find the gate beneath the foundations of the humans’ temple. The newly constructed symbol that rejected Nurgle’s gifts had concealed in its heart a cancer: the key to a greater victory. The loss of the rest of the warband, abandoned to the Stormcasts, had been a small price. Patience would see the coming of a greater bloom; of this, Bule was sure. Did the rest of his warriors share this certainty? Did they have faith, or did they doubt like Fistula?
He pushed the question aside. Though the canyon stretched onward, twisting in its grey death, the summons was clear to him. The flies that birthed from his head and swarmed about him buzzed with greater intensity. Faith would soon no longer be necessary. It would give way to proof.
If not around the next bend, then the one after that. The march through desolation would end soon.
Bule lengthened his stride. His gut bounced and roiled with his steps. Putrid gases rose from the rotting sores in his flesh. The garden was alive in him, and he would see it flourish in service to Archaon.
There were too many silences. Some were offensive to Ushkar Mir. Others were dangerous.
The snarl of his breath tried to fill the silence of the land. The absence of blood and fire was a frustration so intense it was agony. He saw bones. He saw skulls. But they were old, meaningless. They crumbled to nothing beneath his steps, giving off puffs of grey dust. There was no war here. If there had been violence once, even its memory was buried in stone. The emptiness of the canyon and the emptiness of the days: these were the silences that offended the exalted deathbringer.
It was the silence of Danavan Vuul that was a potential threat. The bloodstoker had said nothing for many hours now. With each day that had passed since Mir’s last trial, each day absent of any foe, each long day in the empty land, Vuul had said less. They were still in the Realm of Death. The longer the march had gone on through this cursed canyon, the more Vuul’s silence had expressed his doubts about the direction the Bloodslaves were taking. His face was hidden by his helmet. In his heavy crimson armour, he marched with a steady gait, leaning forward as if ready to break into a charge. Ushkar Mir monitored his every step out of the corner of his eye. He was braced for an attack. He contemplated killing Vuul, terminating the threat before it declared itself. He would have already done so were it not for the call. Archaon’s summons pulled him forward. He would find the Everchosen here, and soon. There was battle in this realm, and Archaon was at its forefront. The scent of war and bloodshed had brought him this far. It was immaterial whether the rest of the warband felt the summons too. Destiny was close, and the moment was coming when there would be an enemy to shatter.
Mir stayed his hand. In so doing, he surprised himself. Regardless of Vuul’s anger, his ambition was obvious and dangerous. He resented Mir’s status as one of the Exalted. He made no secret of that, and obeyed orders with grudging reluctance. Two days ago, Mir would have treated the prospect of a prolonged period without a foe as intolerable. He would have assumed Vuul would move against him. He would have killed Vuul at the first opportunity.
Now he didn’t. For perhaps the first time in his life, another goal superseded self-preservation. The greatest need to was to find Archaon, and to become his champion. To achieve that goal would make him stronger yet, ensuring his survival and perhaps the immortality of his name. But now he wondered if perhaps he was reaching for something even greater than that. To fight alongside a being who refused to be the vassal of any single god would be a personal victory beyond any other. The brass band over his eyes burned his flesh. The endless pain of the metal and the miracle of his continued sight were perpetual reminders of his unwilling allegiance. Khorne owned him. His existence was devoted to the reaping of skulls for the Blood God, and so it would ever be.
Until he
could achieve his vengeance.
But to be a champion of Archaon, to be among the number who fought for Chaos under the banner of the warrior who was a force unto himself – there would be pride in that achievement. There was no such thing as redemption. The concept was meaningless. He had witnessed the immolation of all such hope. He would grasp instead the chance to shed blood no longer for the sole benefit of Khorne.
The prospect of soon standing before Archaon subsumed all other thought and so he kept his eye on Vuul, but he did not instigate the duel. He had no patience for such a pointless delay. Even his axes were eager to reach their destination: Bloodspite, black as old blood, and Skullthief, red as a fresh arterial fountain, each containing a bloodletter daemon. The perpetual rivals for greater slaughter vibrated with their hunger, and they pulled him forwards. They too wished to fight for Archaon. Let Vuul stew in impotent rage. Let him witness the truth.
The canyon took another turn and beyond it, revelation unfolded. It opened up into a vast bowl, with a second entrance to the west. A great host lined the top of the north wall, but from the floor of the arena, he could not judge its full size. It extended along the entire wall of the arena, and he could hear the clamour of ranks upon ranks. Black smoke rose in the distance, and from somewhere in that direction came the screams and moans of prisoners.
Mir had never beheld such an army before. He saw exalted deathbringers and skullgrinders. He saw a warrior in huge and terrible crimson armour, a warrior who could only be a Lord of Khorne. And these powerful servants of the Blood God stood beside those sworn to the Plaguefather, and the Changer of Ways, and the lost God of Excess. Vuul even saw the tall, angular shape of one of the Great Horned Rat’s corruptors. The most powerful knights of Chaos in all its forms were gathered in a unity Mir could barely comprehend. They looked down upon him and they waited, for they did not command.
They followed a being greater than all of them.
‘I never imagined…’ said the slaughterpriest Orto. He who had been so confident in his preaching of Khorne’s will was at a loss.
You serve Khorne utterly, Mir thought. This army serves Archaon. You knew this was our goal. But you never imagined? Is your faith inflexible, slaughterpriest? Can it not survive paradox?
Below the host, a stone staircase descended to the floor of the arena. The staircase was huge. Its width took up half the cliff. It was badly eroded. It had become a majestic ghost.
A narrow spur projected far into the air from the centre of the north wall. On it stood a towering figure in black armour.
Archaon.
And at the sight of that being, that supreme warrior of Chaos, Mir too thought, I never imagined.
The Everchosen spoke.
Bule guessed what he would say. The lord of plagues saw the other warband enter the arena at the same time as his. Even though Bule knew the test that lay ahead, Archaon’s words rooted him to the spot. The voice, terrible in power, echoed across the arena. It was more than the voice of destiny. It was the voice of a being who had made destiny his slave.
‘Champions,’ Archaon said, ‘I welcome you to the Ossuar Arena. You have fought well. Now you are at the end of a journey. One will be found worthy to join my Varanguard. One.’ Archaon paused. His great horned helm tilted downward. He was gazing at the two warbands.
‘You will exact your own judgement,’ he said.
Across the line of the Everchosen’s warriors, war horns lifted. The arena resounded with the deafening blast of the call to war. The air trembled and cracked. The moment had come for the act of killing to return to this corner of the dead lands.
At the signal, Bule turned his gaze from Archaon and signalled to his warband. They began a rolling charge across the arena. The enemy was clad in armour the colour of blood and fire. Warriors of Khorne. He focused on their leader. Hundreds of yards separated the two forces, and Bule could make out few details of his rival. He was easy to identify, though, as he led his attack, fronting the warband’s collective howl of rage. In contrast to his followers, he wore no armour. A brass band covered his eyes. It gleamed, though no sun pierced the heavy clouds. His flesh was marked with burning runes. He was already outpacing the rest of his band. He was fast. Faster than Fistula.
The Bloodbound were a real threat. No matter. Here, at last, was the destiny that had guided Bule through three realms. No one would stand between him and his apotheosis. He would strike this pretender down, and, at Archaon’s side, he would see the Grandfather’s garden flourish as never before.
Bule answered the snarl of the Bloodbound with his own roar. He revelled in its wet ratcheting. It was the sound of disease at war. He would drown the rage-possessed in the joyous flood of pestilence.
Behind him, his Rotbringers joined in his call.
Plague rushed forward to clash with Blood.
Then, from the skies, came a storm of wings.
There was his challenge. The putrid worshippers of Nurgle. Their charge made Mir snarl with disgusted rage. Their gait was a shambling rush. Their stench washed through the air in waves. Their blood would be a polluted stew. Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, he thought. Nor does he care for its purity, as long as it flows.
The Rotbringers were one more threat to his survival. He would tear them apart, and he would join Archaon.
He ran across the uneven floor of the arena, leaping over empty tombs and crumbled walls. As he did, he saw movement on the spur of rock. He looked up. Archaon had stepped back. A daemon moved to take his place at the end of the spur. It was a thing of skeletal majesty. Mir could feel its manifold gaze burning down on him from a hundred angles at once. The daemon spread its arms wide. A flapping cloud came into being around the daemon. It spread and swooped down into the arena, bringing winged night with it.
It was a gigantic murder of crows. Thousands upon thousands of the birds. They cawed and whirled. They were everywhere. They covered the space of the arena. And as they beat their wings and gave voice to their raucous song, the land began to change.
The ground rippled. It dipped and rose, transforming into hills and gullies. Stone became malleable. It turned into a liquid, then smoke. It lost its form. Barrenness gave way to convulsive life. Naked stone became muck. Mir’s boots sank past his ankle. Clouds of insects descended on him. Trees speared out of the mud. They unfolded branches heavy with rotting leaves. Growths twisted the limbs, and from them, things squirmed to be free, worms with pale, grasping hands. The trees reached out to each other, and the worm-things clasped and clawed across the growths, and a tangle of wood, soft, rotten, yet resilient, surrounded the warband. Blackened vegetation flowed around their legs. It was a rising tide of dying mulch. It fell apart, blossomed, sickened and died, then rose from its own decay in the space of a breath.
Mir could no longer see the enemy. The Rotbringers had vanished behind the wall of embodied putrescence. The crows dived through the canopy. They perched on branches and circled above the warband. Some of the birds were rotting as they flew. Others were on fire. They all had too many eyes. They cawed their mockery. Mir slashed at them and at the vegetation blocking his way forward. His advance slowed to a crawl.
‘You have turned Khorne against us!’ Orto shouted. ‘Archaon favours the followers of Nurgle.’
‘Are you already defeated?’ Skull answered. In the blood warrior’s words, Mir heard his own thoughts given voice. Khorne had rendered him mute, but Skull always spoke for him. Skull, whose loyalty was so unshakeable, it had to be a form of enslavement. ‘Do you abandon your duty to the Blood God?’ Skull demanded.
Vuul answered before Orto. ‘The transgression is Mir’s, not ours,’ he snarled. To Mir he said, ‘We followed you and this is our reward.’
Mir swung his axes. Branches fell, burning at their touch. I will have your silence and your effort, or I will have your head, he thought.
Skull said, ‘The
enemy is close, and Ushkar Mir will not let a few trees stand between us and their skulls.’
Mir paused and faced Vuul. He parted his jaws, his teeth ready to tear flesh. He felt Vuul’s gaze on his face. There were no eyes for the bloodstoker to see, but Mir knew his band of brass blazed in the foetid shadows of the forest. Vuul hesitated, then, with a snarl, he turned back to hacking at the growths.
Vines tangled around Mir’s arms. He tore the lanyards apart. Spores burst from the ragged ends. The air thickened and sought to choke him. He spat it out and forced his way through the wall of rot. With each slowed step, his anger grew, and the forest began to shrivel at his touch.
He moved faster, a vector of wrath burning through the woods. He still could not see the Rotbringers. Nor could he hear them. He could barely hear his own troops over the shrieking of the birds. The stench of putrescence drowned out the scent of his prey’s blood.
No matter. He drove forward. If he did not reach the foes himself, the foes would come to him. And his rage would reap the harvest of their skulls.
The land erupted with violent death. Rivers of flaming blood ran between hills of skulls. Through the darkness of the crows’ wings, everything was the red of fire and the crimson of gore. Bule had been running across a barren plain, and then it had heaved skyward, stone transforming into bones soaked in blood, steaming and burning. Bule struggled up the slope. Skulls and femurs rolled and shifted. The ground tried to swallow his legs in avalanches of remains.
The Rotbringers reached the top of the rise. The walls of the arena had vanished. Bones, blood and flame stretched out to burning horizons in every direction. Overhead, the crows wheeled. Their many eyes glittered and judged.
‘We are abandoned,’ Fistula said.
There could be no garden here. There was no life. Only the perpetuity of pyres and the scarlet flow of rage.
‘We are challenged.’ Bule said. He would not despair, though the omen of the transformation was an ill one. Let it be a further trial, then, another means by which he would prove himself worthy of serving Archaon, and of the blessings of Grandfather Nurgle.
Blood and Plague Page 1
