Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘Gladly,’ Spume snarled. ‘But I’ll be taking something with me to remember ye by.’ His axe rose and fell again, and Gulax’s screams spiralled up, higher and higher. The Great Unclean One toppled forwards, and Spume rode him to the deck. When he landed, his tentacles tensed, stretched taut, and the daemon’s head tore from his shoulders with a loud, wet squelch. Gulax continued to scream, even with his head off, but that was to be expected. The Rotguard were infamous for their stubbornness, even among Nurgle’s legions.

  Spume heaved the head up and sat it on the rail. ‘Call your flies off, or I’ll chop your skull into bits,’ he growled. Gulax bellowed wheezing obscenities. Spume pressed the edge of his axe against the side of the daemon’s head. ‘When I dump ye, it’ll be in chunks. Make it easier for the poxwyrms to digest ye.’

  Gulax gnashed broken teeth in a grimace of surrender. He spat out a command, and the remaining plague drones retreated, swarming out over the jungle. The daemon eyed Spume. ‘You’ll pay for this indignity, mortal. Gulax shall have his just vengeance.’

  ‘But not today,’ Spume said. He jabbed the head with his axe and laughed as Gulax toppled into the swirling waters below. He’d never said he wouldn’t dump Gulax, after all, just that he wouldn’t chop him up first. Setting his axe over his shoulder, he turned to survey the damage.

  His galley was still mostly in one piece, though the same couldn’t be said for his crew. Pieces of daemons writhed on the deck, still possessed of some spark of life. Many of his rowers were in no state to continue either. Those who could no longer ply the oars were tossed into the river to feed the beasts there.

  ‘This will earn you precious little thanks in the halls of the Plague Lord.’

  Spume grunted and turned to the mast. Urslaug’s head hung there, nailed to the wood by her hair, her eye pulsing with frustration. Death was not the end, in the garden. Not even for mortal souls, and Urslaug hadn’t been mortal for a long, long time. ‘I didn’t do it for anyone but me, witch. Your warning came in handy, though. So ye have my thanks.’

  ‘You’ve tied my fate to yours, pirate. What other option do I have?’

  Spume laughed. The witch’s body had been nailed into a cask of cankerwine, to pickle until such time as he chose to let her reattach her head. If he chose to do so. Until then, she would help him to conjure pox-winds to fill his sails, and speed their galley along. Though she could not cast the spells herself, she could guide his hand. ‘None. But choices are for the hopeful, are they not?’

  Urslaug grimaced. ‘You taunt me.’

  ‘And you betrayed me.’

  ‘This wreck will never make it through the Great Vent in one piece, if what Gulax claimed is true,’ Urslaug croaked. ‘May as well scuttle it now, and seek safety in the jungle.’

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Spume stalked towards the mast. ‘I’ll not surrender so easily. Let the legions waiting there rot. We’ll take the road less travelled.’ Gulax had been correct in one assumption, at least. Spume had sought a swifter route to Despondency and the levels beyond. ‘The Gape is just beyond the next twist of this river, and past it. The current will take us to the gates of Despondency, before anyone is the wiser.’

  ‘The Gape?’ Urslaug laughed. ‘Trust a sneak thief like you to use that skaven-dug rathole of a path.’ The Gape was a crude tunnel, barely large enough for a single vessel, carved into the soggy walls of the Great Vent. It was said by some that the skaven of the Clans Pestilens had gnawed it in secret, seeking a safer way into the soul-markets from their warrens. Only the mad and the brave dared the narrow passage these days. There were worse things than rats in the dark.

  But Spume had braved its coils more than once, in his travels. So far as he knew, he was one of the only captains to do so. He’d sold a thousand souls to the ratkin for the trick of finding the path in centuries past, and he intended to get full use out of it.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. Spume turned, frowning. He’d been hearing it since they’d entered the jungle. At first, he’d thought it merely the eternal grinding of the tiers. But the flickers of silver in the distance convinced him otherwise. ‘How did they find us so quickly?’ he hissed.

  ‘They follow the soulfire of your captive.’ Urslaug cackled.

  ‘What?’ Spume rounded on her. ‘Did ye not think to inform me of this earlier?’

  ‘I did. I simply chose not to.’

  Spume snarled and raised his axe. ‘I ought to…’

  ‘What? Cut off my head?’ Urslaug cackled again. ‘There is no death here, reaver, and I long ago lost the ability to feel pain. Throw my body in the river, if you like. Hack my skull into pieces. You do not frighten me.’

  Spume took a threatening step towards the dangling head, but a grunt from his first mate brought him up short. ‘Captain,’ Durg said. The plaguebearer pointed. Massive shapes stalked through the trees on the shore, keeping pace with the galley. They were taller and thinner than Gulax had been, and more awkward in their movements. They shoved aside trees and toppled rock formations from their path.

  One of the shapes broke from the jungle’s edge, and stepped into the river. It had been a gargant once, like the kind that peopled the high places of Ghyran. Now, it was covered in mushrooms and jungle-moss, its hulking frame bloated with gases of decay, and strange, claw-like brands, which glowed with an unpleasant light. A spiked collar was all but embedded in the bloated flesh of its neck, and rusty chains hung from its shoulders and chest, the thick links hung with funerary bells and warpstone tokens. It clutched a stone sword in one mouldering paw, and issued a guttural challenge to the approaching galley.

  ‘At last,’ Spume said. He stumped to the prow, axe dangling from his grip. He raised his axe, drawing the gargant’s eye, and issued his own challenge. The gigantic creature splashed towards the ship. Spume thumped the ferrule of his axe against the deck and spat a string of high-pitched gibberish. The gargant’s brands began to smoulder, and the beast stiffened. It shook its shaggy head as if in pain, and retreated.

  ‘I didn’t know you spoke Queekish, Spume,’ Urslaug said.

  ‘There’s a lot ye don’t know, witch,’ Spume said. He thumped the deck again. ‘Ply your oars, ye dogs. They’ll not let us alone for long.’ The gargants had once roamed free on the Plains of Vo, before the skaven of the Clans Pestilens had brought the entire clan of behemoths low and broken their will with diseases and pestilences. Now, the last of the great brutes were scattered throughout the realms, acting as watchmen for the secret paths of their verminous masters.

  These were bound by the cursed brands seared into their afflicted flesh. The words Spume had said caused the brands to grow hot, a signal for the gargants to retreat and let the speaker pass safely. But only until the brands grew cool. He’d had the secret of them from a plague monk of his acquaintance, a one-eyed frothspittle named Kruk, in return for several hundred hardy souls to labour in the gut-mines of one of the great worm-nations of the Ghurlands. That had made the going easier. Previously, he’d had to fight his way past the brutes every time.

  As the galley slipped past them, one of the creatures raised its head and sniffed the air. Spume turned, and a chorus of slobbery growls and groaning howls rose from them. He tensed, readying himself. If they attacked…

  ‘The air stiffens, corsair,’ Urslaug laughed. ‘It quivers at the touch of blue heat. Best whip your rowers and fill your sails with some of that hot air you like to blow.’

  ‘What are you nattering about?’ Spume began.

  Lightning ripsawed through the jungle, obliterating trees and beasts both. It was followed by a sweeping blaze of cobalt fire. Monstrosities without description hurled themselves into the water, their greasy hides ablaze. Spume threw up his hand and felt the skin of his palm begin to bubble. He knew the feel of those flames. That they should be here, now, was inconceivable. And yet, there it was.

  Th
ey were relentless. Impossibly, improbably relentless. Somehow, they’d caught up with him. Urslaug cackled. ‘I’ll bet even Grandfather didn’t expect that.’

  The gargants gave a roar and stumped towards the blaze, ready to do battle with the intruders. Spume wished them luck. He whirled and fixed Durg with a glare. ‘What are you gawping at? Ply your whip! Row until the oars splinter. Our fortune awaits, and death follows close behind!’

  ‘Morbus, Cadoc, cease,’ Gardus bellowed. ‘The way is clear. The enemy is before us. Enyo, Tegrus, to the air. Aetius, drop your chains and bring your shields to the forefront.’ The Lord-Celestant’s voice carried easily in the sudden silence following the hurricane of celestial energies. ‘To arms, my brethren, to arms.’

  For days, they had fought their way through the jungle, step by bloody step, without food or rest. The descent had been perilous enough, plagued as it was by giant rot flies and the shrieking bat-things that preyed upon them. The immense monsters had circled the glowing vessel like moths, making darting attacks, until Solus and his Judicators had sent them fleeing.

  Things had not got easier when they reached the rivers below. Their guide had insisted that the quickest route was overland, through the monstrous jungle. Chains had been found in the hold, and the strongest among the Stormcasts had begun the portage, while the rest saw to clearing a path, and defending the haulers from the ever-increasing attacks by the jungle’s bestial denizens. The ground was soft enough that the hull of the ship split it like a plough, and the entangling creepers which strangled the jungle floor retreated before the blazing azure glow.

  Atop the prow Morbus had stood, reliquary staff raised, voice booming out in prayers. Though he could not call down Sigmar’s storm here, in this daemon-realm, he could still draw on the lightning within him, as well as the celestial energies within Cadoc’s beacon. The Lord-Relictor had used these to burn a path through the jungle, setting it aflame with a holy light.

  Behind Gardus, Stormcasts dropped the chains with which they’d been dragging the glowing galley through the jungle. Where the chains fell, the soft ground turned cracked and dry. Trees bent away from the cobalt glow of the galley, as if seeking to flee its radiance. Aetius growled out an order and his weary warriors moved forward, pulling their shields from their backs, and unhooking hammers and warblades from their belts.

  As the heat of Morbus’ lightning faded, the jungle’s hunger returned. And with it, the desire to devour those who had encroached upon it. Such was the intent of the half dozen fungal monsters stumbling towards the hastily forming shieldwall. They might have been gargants, once, but now they were ambulatory heaps of jungle-rot. The ground trembled beneath them as they picked up speed, heedlessly swinging about stone weapons caked in moss.

  Gardus moved into the front rank, followed by Feros and his remaining Retributors. Tallon paced after them, tail lashing. ‘Remember the Celestine Glaciers?’ Gardus said.

  Feros nodded. ‘I remember that it was cold. And wet.’

  The Retributor had earned his war-name on those glaciers, splitting the ice and dropping their enemies into the freezing waters below.

  ‘One out of two isn’t bad,’ Gardus said. Feros laughed. ‘When I give the word, split the ground. Let’s see if we can’t slow their charge some.’ He raised his hammer. Solus’ warriors would be in position by now, behind Aetius’ shieldwall. ‘Who will hold, though the seas rush in and the ground crumbles?’ he roared.

  ‘Only the faithful,’ Feros and the others bellowed in reply. Gardus brought his hammer down. A volley of arrows hissed overhead, and the lead gargants staggered. The arrows burst into incandescent fire, leaving scorched craters in infected flesh. Feros and his warriors lunged forward, lightning hammers raised.

  The ground cracked as the hammers slammed down. Poison gases spewed upwards, enveloping Retributors and gargants both, but the Stormcasts continued to pulverise the ground. As Gardus had hoped, the spongy earth deflated like a lanced boil.

  Gargants stumbled, roaring in bewilderment. Some fell, sinking into the ruptured soil. Others tumbled over them. Two came on, crashing over their fallen kin. Gardus stepped aside as a stone blade thumped down, nearly bisecting him. He thrust his runeblade into a crack, and shattered the gargant’s weapon with a twist of his sword. The gargant clutched at him, but shied away as Gardus’ light blazed up. The creature stumbled back, moaning. Arrows punched into its flesh, and the gargant screamed in agony, before one of Enyo’s arrows silenced it. The Knight-Venator swooped past, followed by Tegrus and his Prosecutors. Celestial hammers smashed down with meteoric force, dropping wounded gargants to their knees. Enyo’s arrows blinded others, making them easy prey for the Prosecutors.

  The Retributors moved in, hammers swinging. The fallen gargants did not rise, and those that had not yet fallen soon joined their fellows in death. Or as good as. Even the most badly wounded of them could not truly die. Instead, they lay gasping, eyes blinded by pain and rage, wounds already festering. Gardus looked down at the beast Enyo had felled, and tried to quash the rising tide of pity. Its jaws champed mindlessly, despite the arrow jutting from its skull. As he watched, the arrow disintegrated into motes of light, leaving only a burnt wound between the gargant’s eyes.

  Gardus drove his sword down into the wound and the brain beyond. Only when he felt the tip bite the earth beneath did he pull it free. The gargant’s eyes rolled up, and it gave a soft moan. Its body shuddered, and went still. It was not dead, but perhaps its pain was ended for a time. The other five beasts had suffered similar fates, their skulls and limbs crushed, eyes pierced through, bodies torn asunder. One, its abscessed skull studded with curling horns of bone, writhed worm-like towards the Liberators, biting at the air.

  Aetius stepped forwards and drove his hammer into its cranium, splintering horns and crushing bone. The creature flopped down, its face still twisted in a grimace of effort. ‘Madness,’ Gardus murmured. And it was madness. All of it, even his own desire to enter this realm and retrieve those they’d lost. He was coming to see that now.

  A nearby Retributor turned. ‘Can you see them?’ he croaked.

  Gardus looked at him sharply. ‘What?’

  ‘I… I can see them,’ the Retributor mumbled. His ichor-stained hammer slipped from his hands. He had been wounded in the battle, and he reeked of infection. Injuries festered immediately here, and infection was rapid. ‘My kin, my family, why are they here?’ The Retributor reached towards the jungle’s edge, as if beckoning to someone. ‘Where are they going? Wait…’

  ‘They are not,’ Gardus said intently. He stepped between the injured warrior and the trees. ‘They are not here. Ignore them.’

  ‘No, I see them. I… I–’

  Gardus slugged the other Stormcast. The Retributor sank to one knee, shaking his head dully. He reached towards the trees, mumbling. Gardus struck the warrior again, flattening him. He motioned two others forwards to see to the dazed Retributor. ‘Hold him. His blood is inflamed. Have Morbus see to his injuries.’

  The Retributor wasn’t the only one injured. To a warrior, the Stormcasts’ armour was caked with mud and grime, and their limbs sagged with fatigue. They were all tired. Weary in body and soul. Worn down by this place and its horrors. Insects of all sizes and descriptions filled every scrap of space, stinging and biting one another and everything else. Through the gaps in the canopy, Gardus caught glimpses of hazy shapes in the sky above – great, crouching god-shapes, squatting on their haunches, watching the savagery below with phantasmal glee. Life was a horrid celebration in this place. Even the water was alive, filled with creatures as large as a poxwyrm, and as small as a speck of dust. And all of them trying their best to kill one another. To devour and be devoured in turn.

  Suddenly frustrated, Gardus caught the edge of his war-cloak and swept it up. The enchantment woven into its threads awoke, and a barrage of gleaming hammers smashed through the remaining trees
, revealing the river beyond. He stalked through the smoke, accompanied by Feros and Aetius.

  ‘The Great Vent,’ Gardus said. Past the bend, the great wall of rounded stone and packed earth rose towards the sky. Trees had grown into it, and roots the width of the galley squirmed across it like veins. Ancient guard towers, long abandoned and forgotten, clung to its highest points, and the broken shapes of forgotten temples jutted from its slopes like grave markers. Unholy sigils hung tangled in the vines – icons devoted to Khorne, Tzeentch, and a hundred other, lesser powers, now broken and given over to rust.

  ‘It looks like a burrow,’ Feros said. He craned his neck, trying to follow the edifice’s convolutions. ‘As if some monstrous worm passed this way.’

  ‘It did, at least according to our guide.’ Gardus had spent some time conferring with Gatrog on the journey through the nightmarish jungle. As with everything relating to Chaos, the origin of Nurgle’s garden was a morass of lies, mixed with some truth. This jungle, like everything in the Plague God’s realm, was all that remained of a once vibrant realm. Nurgle had encroached upon it, even as he did Ghyran, and reduced it to its current, mad, broken state. He’d remade it in his image, after slaying its previous ruler – the titanic god-worm whose spawn still roamed the Amber Steppes of Ghur, as semi-divine city states. Now, the great burrow cast up by that fallen god’s final death throes acted as a conduit from this level of the garden to the next.

  ‘A battle was fought here,’ Aetius said. He kicked at the soil and dislodged a skull, overgrown with moss and fruiting toadstools. The skull was marked by the rune of Khorne. ‘They say the Blood God turned on the others, when the Gates of Azyr were sealed.’