Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘My lord, beware,’ Agak shouted, moments before he leapt from the platform. Gatrog looked up and saw a deluge of blazing hammers spinning down towards him. An instant before they struck, he followed Agak’s example. He hit the ground as the platform exploded into fiery splinters. Rivets popped and plates shifted as he rolled heavily to his feet. He was a knight, not an acrobat. Something inside him was broken, and he tasted blood. It would heal soon enough, if he survived the next few moments.

  The courtyard was in chaos. Things were going wrong very quickly. Someone had smashed open the slave-cages, and the dim-witted savages fell upon armsmen and overseer alike with unbridled fury. It was as if the storm had driven them berserk. But storms eventually blew over, and when it was done, they would go back in their cages. Gatrog would see to it personally. For now, he needed to rally those he could and drive the enemy back.

  He hunted for Agak. He caught sight of the shieldbearer rising to his feet nearby. He felt what might have been relief at his servant’s survival. ‘Agak, come here, man,’ he called out, waving his sword. ‘Quickly! There is work to be done.’

  ‘Bloody work,’ Agak said.

  ‘But not for you,’ Gatrog said, ignoring Agak’s sigh of relief. ‘Go below. Inform Blightmaster Bubonicus of the situation. Return to me if you can.’

  ‘And if I cannot, my lord?’

  Gatrog caught the back of Agak’s head. ‘Then I will assume you are dead. For that is the only reason you should not return.’ He squeezed gently, eliciting a whimper. Then he shoved Agak back. ‘Go, thou, my faithful servant. Do as I have bid.’

  Gatrog turned, already dismissing the little Rotbringer from his thoughts. Agak would do as he had been commanded, or he would die in the attempt. Gatrog had his own duties to attend to. He bellowed at nearby armsmen, gesturing towards the storm-warriors. Before he could join them, however, he heard the crack of shimmering wings. His opponent from earlier had decided to continue their duel.

  He ducked aside as a hammer swept down, wielded by a silver-clad arm. The blow would have crushed his skull. The winged storm-warrior dropped lightly to the ground and spun, one wing slicing out. Gatrog lifted his shield and, for a moment, lightning clawed at him. Then he was moving through it, sword extended. His blade carried no sigils or ruinous markings. It was merely a sword, forged in balefire and cooled in the sour waters of the Murklands. But, driven by his arm, it punched easily enough through the silver chest-plate of his opponent. The storm-warrior exploded in a blaze of celestial energy.

  Gatrog heard a whirr of wings and pivoted, driving his shield into the face of a second winged warrior, with a loud clang. The storm-warrior dropped like a stone, glowing hammers fading into motes of light. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Gatrog saved him the effort and removed his head entirely. Another searing burst of lightning came and went.

  When it cleared, Gatrog saw silver shapes marching from the barbican to join their fellows. And more winged storm-warriors glided overhead. Enemies everywhere he looked, and a stinking, clear rain falling from hideously clear skies. He cursed.

  Overhead, thunder rumbled. Lightning flashed.

  But this time it did not rise to the heavens. Instead, it descended. Gatrog looked up as the coruscating bolt speared downwards towards the balefire cauldron. It dropped from impossible, invisible heights, growing louder as it drew closer. Like a blade cutting through the substance of Ghyran itself. The light and noise of its coming swelled outwards, filling the courtyard. Gatrog raised his shield and hunkered behind it, deaf and blind. For long moments, the world was reduced to nothing but light and sound.

  Then the ground bucked savagely as the immense cauldron exploded into a million fiery fragments. Gatrog fell, but managed to hold on to his shield. He rolled awkwardly away as talons of fire reached out for him. The air was drawn forcibly from his lungs as his tabard blackened and his armour warped around him. Burning slivers of cauldron struck him, piercing his war-plate. The heat scooped him up, and flung him back. His spine connected with the support beam of a platform. The wood splintered. He dropped to the ground.

  The beam creaked. Through pain-blurred eyes, Gatrog saw the platform totter, and then collapse. As several tonnes of wood and sargassum crashed down atop him, all he could think to do was raise his shield.

  Chapter Six

  THE THUNDER OF AZYR

  The booming echo faded, taking with it the after glare of Sigmar’s thunderbolt. Lord-Celestant Gardus’ vision cleared instantly. Those forged in the storm suffered little from its attention. He took a step forwards, lightning crawling across his war-plate. Broken shards of something crunched beneath him. He felt invigorated. The feeling would fade, but for now he would put it to use. He raised his tempestos hammer. ‘Who rides the lightning?’ he roared.

  ‘Only the faithful,’ came the reply from a hundred throats.

  Wind whipped aside the curtain of smoke, revealing the battlefield. They were in the courtyard of some colossal, unnatural fortification. A battle was in progress. He spotted a group of Stormcasts in familiar silver and azure war-plate. They fought doggedly against twice their number of blightkings. The bulky Rotbringers paid no heed to the new arrivals, more intent on the foe in front of them.

  The same story was being played out throughout the fortress. Hallowed Knights, alone or in small groups, fighting against a tide of filth greater than any he’d yet seen. Blightkings, beastmen and Rotbringers poured into the courtyard from high scaffolding or through crude apertures set into the walls. The rhythmic war cries of the Hallowed Knights duelled with the droning chants of the Rotbringers, as words of faith collided like blades in the smoky air above the fray.

  Gardus saw at once that Sigmar had sent them when and where they were most needed. But the rest was up to them. Gardus clashed runeblade and hammer together and started forwards, followed closely by the retinue of Retributors who had designated themselves his bodyguards. ‘Who will be victorious?’ he shouted.

  ‘Only the faithful,’ his warriors bellowed, as they advanced in his wake. The thunder of their charge shook the ground. He gave no orders. Angstun, Cadoc and the others knew their roles and would fulfil them, or die trying. The citadel was to be taken, and the enemy crushed. All else could wait. He caught a glimpse of Tornus hurtling past, wings spread. The Redeemed One seemed especially eager to come to grips with the foe.

  For his part, Gardus sought out the tell-tale signs of Lord-Relictor Morbus’ presence, the shriek of lightning and that familiar, hollow cry of challenge. Morbus would be where the fighting was the thickest. Or else… ah. There. Through the pall of smoke, he spotted Morbus’ gleaming reliquary standard. It rose over the fray like a beacon. The Lord-Relictor appeared to be fighting alone. Gardus signalled to the leader of his bodyguards. ‘Hamu, we go to aid the Stormwarden.’

  ‘We shall help you clear a path, Lord-Celestant,’ Hamu said, hefting his starsoul mace meaningfully. He and his warriors fanned out in an arrowhead formation, with Gardus at its head. They struck the enemy ranks like a hammer blow. Hamu’s mace crashed down, the shockwaves of its descent tearing the ragged souls from the Rotbringers’ broken bodies. Gardus struck out left and right, crushing skulls and severing limbs. Rotbringers scrambled from his path as he surged forwards.

  As the press of bodies thinned, Gardus saw Morbus standing between the Rotbringers and several cages of wood and iron. Inside the cages, mortal men and women lay curled in foetal positions or else hunkered in corners. Some few leaned against the bars, their bandaged hands catching at Morbus’ cloak and armour as he swept his staff out, driving his foes back. Gardus felt an echo of familiarity. He smelled the stink of open wounds and the astringent odour of poultices prepared by his own hands. He heard the voices of the sick, the lame, calling out to him from across an ocean of forgotten moments.

  He shook his head, clearing it, and saw that the Lord-Relictor had begun to smash open the cages
. But the prisoners seemed unwilling, or unable, to escape. Too sick, too weak. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were there, and they needed to be protected. ‘Hamu – the cages,’ Gardus said.

  The Retributor-Prime gestured, showing he’d heard, and directed two of his men to protect the cages.

  Gardus ducked beneath a charging beastman, and rose quickly, throwing the creature over his back. He pinned it to the ground with his foot and, before it could rise, quickly buried his runeblade in its chest. More of the filthy creatures swirled about him. They were rank and covered in waste. Most wore ragged robes and blistered armour over their starveling forms, while others capered in clinking mail. Biting flies swarmed about them as they attacked. Huma’s mace claimed the souls of two, while the lightning hammer of a Retributor accounted for another. Gardus met the charge and, as he fought, light began to seep through the joins of his armour.

  As the light swelled up, the beastmen cowered back. Where the radiance touched them, their flesh sizzled audibly. Gardus hesitated, at a loss as to why his light had affected them so. They took advantage of his hesitation and scrambled away, grunting and whining in fear. He turned back towards Morbus and the cages, but a snarling, foam-jawed beastman, clad in rusty mail and a rotting tabard, sought to bar his path. Unlike its fellows, it showed no fear of the light that emanated from him.

  The creature was easily twice Gardus’ height, and heavy with muscle. It had a stag’s head, and its mouldy antlers rose to impressive heights. It brayed something in its own dark tongue, and swung its two-handed sword down. Gardus caught the blow on his runeblade, and drove his hammer into the beastman’s side. Bone crunched, and the creature gasped out a cloud of pestilential breath. With surprising speed, it whipped its sword up in a tight arc. The blackened blade scraped a thin line of sparks across Gardus’ chest-plate, knocking him back a step. He backed away as it rose to its hooves.

  They circled one another. The creature was more disciplined than other beasts he’d fought. Someone had trained it, taught it to wield a blade. Its nostrils flared, and the stag’s jaws widened, revealing a predator’s teeth. Slowly, it brought the flat of its blade up in a crude salute. Instinctively, Gardus returned the gesture.

  ‘Who?’ the beast growled.

  ‘I am Gardus,’ he said, without knowing why.

  ‘Pusjaw. Pusjaw is knight.’ The beastman straightened, shaking its antlers in obvious pride. ‘Fight for honour. Good fight. Come. We fight.’

  Gardus extended his runeblade. ‘We fight,’ he said.

  Honour satisfied, the creature resumed its attack. It was stronger than he was, but not by much. And it was slowed down by the weight of its blade. Nonetheless, it kept him at bay for long moments, and he was forced to dodge or counter its attacks, rather than make any of his own. But gradually, surely, it began to slow. Foam gathered at the corners of its jaws, and its yellow gaze burned with frustration and fatigue.

  The two-handed blade swept down. As before, Gardus caught it on his own. But this time, rather than simply blocking it, he guided it point first into the ground. As it sank home, he brought his hammer down on its length, shattering it. Then, more quickly than Pusjaw could react, he drove his hammer across its jaw, snapping its neck. It fell backwards, hooves drumming the ground in its death throes. He studied it for a moment.

  For a beast, it had almost been a man. He wondered if it, like Tornus, might have been capable of redemption. Was there a spark of humanity in even such brute flesh, some ineffable mote, which could be plucked free and made wondrous? If so, its death was a waste.

  Metal clanged. He spun, and drove his runeblade into the swollen belly of a blightking. The corrupted warrior’s own blow, meant for the back of Gardus’ head, had been caught on the length of a reliquary staff. As the blightking sagged back, the staff’s wielder finished him with a precise strike from a warhammer.

  ‘I see your time on the Anvil has not rendered you more observant,’ Lord-Relictor Morbus said. ‘To have arrived and departed so soon would be a ridiculous thing, don’t you think? What would Lorrus say?’

  ‘I bow to your wisdom, brother,’ Gardus said. ‘My thanks.’

  Around them, Retributor and Rotbringer still fought. But an island of calm was being cleared, slowly but steadily. Hamu and his warriors were efficient in their brutality, and the resounding claps of thunder that rose from every blow signalled another fallen foe.

  ‘Thanks are unnecessary.’ Morbus hesitated. ‘It is good to see you again.’

  The Lord-Relictor sounded tired, though Gardus could not see his face. He slumped against his staff, his armour covered in dents and scratches. Gardus realised that Morbus was keeping the storm overhead in place by sheer force of will, and likely had been doing so since the battle began. The healing rains fell steadily, burning away the blight of Nurgle and lending strength to the Hallowed Knights.

  ‘And you,’ Gardus said, as a blightking bulled past Hamu and charged him, roaring guttural oaths. He ducked beneath the brute’s swing and let his runeblade pass through a bulging thicket of intestines, muscle and, finally, bone. The blade hissed as it bit into the corrupted meat, burning its way clear of the body. The blightking slid in two different directions and plopped wetly to the ground.

  Morbus kicked the top half aside. ‘Unobservant you may be, but it’s good to see that your skills with a blade haven’t dulled.’ With the last blightking’s death, the remaining Rotbringers lost their stomach for the fight. Those who could, fled, in a clatter of funerary bells and chains. The rest died. Hamu and his Retributors made short work of them, and then arrayed themselves in a cordon about Gardus and Morbus.

  Gardus took the opportunity to examine the cages and their inhabitants. ‘There are hundreds like them, scattered about these citadels,’ Morbus said. ‘The Lord-Castellant sent Enyo and Tegrus to see to their shattering.’ Gardus gave him a sharp look.

  ‘And will they stay to defend them, as well?’

  Morbus looked away. ‘We have given them the chance. We can do no more, until we hold these walls.’

  ‘Yet here you stand,’ Gardus said. He knelt. A prisoner stared at him in glassy-eyed fascination, her face crawling with flies. He reached out to her, and his light caused the insects to curl up and drop from the air. She reached for his hand, her mouth working silently. He looked up, and found Morbus staring at him.

  ‘You are glowing.’

  Gardus stood, and tried to tamp down on the light, to force it back down inside him. ‘A gift, from the Anvil of Apotheosis.’

  ‘And what was the price?’

  ‘As I said, a gift.’ Gardus met the Lord-Relictor’s gaze and didn’t look away. There was no judgement there. Morbus, as ever, kept his true thoughts to himself. ‘Besides, if I were changed, would I know?’

  Morbus grunted. Feeling as if he’d scored a victory of sorts, Gardus asked, ‘Where’s Lorrus?’ He surveyed the field as he did so, noting areas where the Stormcasts held firm, and areas where they would need reinforcement. From the sound of it, Kurunta had taken the walls. The Knight-Heraldor’s war-horn blared out challenge after challenge, and shook the vast network of scaffolding that caged the courtyard.

  Morbus shook his head. ‘He’s taken several retinues into the warrens beneath this place. There might be more to the fortresses than we thought.’

  Something in the way he said it caught Gardus’ attention. ‘A realmgate, you mean?’ he asked, voice pitched low. ‘Is that possible?’

  Morbus looked at him. ‘We stand in a fortress made from hardened seaweed and the bones of long-drowned leviathans, and you ask that?’

  Gardus frowned. ‘Whether it is or not, he shall have to take care of it himself. We have no one to spare to send after him. Why didn’t he wait?’

  ‘Would you have waited?’

  Gardus looked away. He watched as Hamu’s mace crumpled a blightking’s helm,
causing it to jet pus from its visor. ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Morbus said. He sagged slightly. Gardus reached for him, but the Lord-Relictor waved him off. ‘Calling to the storm… fatigued me. But there is no time for rest. Not until this place is secure.’

  ‘It will be, soon enough.’ Then he would lead warriors into the depths, in search of the Lord-Castellant. If there was a realmgate here, he intended to either secure it or destroy it, by whatever means necessary.

  Morbus looked up, eyes narrowing within the sockets of his skull-helm. ‘Who is that?’ Gardus followed his gaze, and saw Tornus swoop overhead. The Knight-Venator loosed a swift volley, felling half a dozen Rotbringers in as many moments. ‘He wears our colours, but I do not recognise him.’

  ‘You have met him before. At the Blackstone Summit.’

  Morbus hissed in recognition. ‘Him.’ Then, ‘He has changed somewhat.’

  ‘A great deal,’ Gardus said. ‘Whatever he was, he is our brother now. And an asset to our cause.’

  ‘As my Lord-Celestant says,’ Morbus murmured. ‘He made for a fierce foe. Even took Lorrus’ hand. Nearly killed him.’

  Gardus peered at him. ‘He’s going to be unhappy about it, isn’t he?’

  ‘Has he ever been happy?’

  Gardus smiled. ‘Once, I think. Just after he’d knocked me off my feet during a training bout.’ His smile faded as hunting horns brayed, signalling the arrival of enemy reinforcements. Loping beastmen appeared, pouring through one of the inner gates. Tell-tale lightning flared upwards as they crashed into a retinue of Hallowed Knights.

  Gardus looked at Morbus. ‘Come. There is red work yet to be done, and I would have it finished quickly.’

  Tornus the Redeemed sped upwards through the fly-ridden air, following Cadoc Kel. He trailed after the Steel Souls’ Knight-Azyros as the other warrior hurtled towards the wooden bridges that connected the upper levels of the citadel to its neighbours. Silver-clad Hallowed Knights fought fiercely to take possession of the uneven ramparts and turrets. Tornus helped where he could as he ascended, loosing arrow after arrow.