‘No. Not yet. How long will it take us to reach Desolation?’
‘The only way to reach Desolation is to surrender to despair. To fully give oneself over to the King of all Flies.’ Gatrog wasn’t laughing now. ‘You are honourable warriors. Brave. But you are cursed with weakness. Hope still chains you. Until you shed its weight, you will never find the Inevitable Citadel.’ He looked away. ‘Even I cannot find it.’
‘Hope is chaining you as well,’ Tornus said. The Knight-Venator made his way towards them, clutching his abdomen as if it pained him. Gardus wondered if he’d injured himself in the crash.
Gatrog ignored him. He seemed shaken. ‘Kill me if you wish. I cannot help you.’
Without thinking, Gardus reached for his runeblade. Tornus stopped him. ‘I will be convincing him, Lord-Celestant. He will be helping us, whether he is wishing to or not.’
Gardus studied the Knight-Venator. Tornus seemed… different, somehow. His limbs trembled ever so slightly, as if straining against some unseen weight. Gardus caught a whiff of something rancid, like decaying meat. ‘Are you injured?’ he asked.
‘I am feeling sick.’ Tornus swayed and Gardus reached out to steady him. ‘I am being hot and cold at the same time.’ He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. ‘Hearing… seeing things.’
‘You are not alone.’ Gardus turned, searching the mire. Indistinct shapes swayed in the distance, growing closer. A few at first, but every passing moment brought more, until they surrounded the stranded galley on all sides. The wind had picked up. The mist was creeping in on cat-quiet feet. He could hear voices in its gentle susurrus. From the sound of it, he wasn’t the only one. Stormcasts crowded the rails, looking out into the grey. Some of them spoke in hushed tones, while others merely stared. A Liberator staggered, clawing at her helmet. Gardus reached her before she got it off.
‘No, sister. Leave it on. This place is poison.’
‘My children. I… I left them…’ Her words came in sharp, staccato breaths. The mist coiled about her like the arms of a lover, and Gardus tried to disperse it. ‘They are calling to me!’ She tried to pull away from him. ‘Can’t you hear them?’
‘I hear. I see. But they are not here. Listen to me. All of you. Listen!’ Gardus raised his voice, silencing the others. ‘They are not here. None of them. The spirits of this place are not real. They are lies.’ The mist thickened, clinging to everything. He could see the hint of faces within it, and groping hands.
‘They are real enough,’ Gatrog said. ‘This place, the mist, the water, even these trees are made from the souls of the despairing dead. Those who succumbed to Grandfather’s blandishments, but lacked the strength to endure the joys they brought. Weak souls.’ The Rotbringer spat, in evident disgust. ‘And weakness is the mortar with which Grandfather builds his garden walls.’
‘But they are not the souls of the righteous, and thus we need have no concern for their murmurings,’ Cadoc called out, as he dropped to the deck in a crackle of lightning. The Knight-Azyros rose, beacon in hand. The mist retreated in the face of the glow. The murmurings dimmed. Cadoc laughed. ‘Look to my light, brothers and sisters. It is the fire of Azyr, into which I fed a thousand such souls as these. Weak souls, corrupt and broken by the weight of that corruption. Watch them burn.’
He raised his beacon higher, so that the light washed across the deck. Gardus felt as if a weight had been lifted from him. His own light swelled in answer to that of the beacon. He turned, and saw several ghostly shapes standing nearby, watching the Stormcasts. The hazy figures were all over the ship. They retreated before the light. But whenever it turned away from them, they crowded close once more.
Gatrog stood unconcerned amongst a crowd of them. ‘They are drawn to the living,’ he said. ‘To your hopes and desires, for they have none.’ He twitched away from an insubstantial hand. ‘They will draw you into their embrace, and make you one of them, unless you accept the truth of despair, and have the courage to continue, as all pilgrims must.’
‘We are no pilgrims,’ Cadoc snarled. He drew his starblade. ‘We are the sword of Azyr, silver and sharp. We are the weapon of the God-King, thrust into the bloated belly of his enemy. As I will do to you, if you continue to yap.’
‘Well then, thrust away,’ Gatrog said. He lurched forward to meet Cadoc’s glare. ‘If you wish a fight, you have but to strike off these chains and give me a blade. I will meet your fire again, and reduce it to naught but ashes.’
Cadoc growled and swung the beacon towards Gatrog.
Gardus caught Cadoc’s wrist. ‘Save your light for the wraiths, Cadoc. His only threat is to your pride.’
For a moment, Gardus thought Cadoc would ignore his command. But the Knight-Azyros subsided. Tornus caught Gatrog by his chains and led him away. Souls shied away from the Knight-Venator, as if something about him disturbed them. Gardus felt a flicker of worry, but pushed it aside as he watched Aetius help Morbus down onto the lower deck. ‘Morbus, are you well?’
‘Clearly not,’ the Lord-Relictor said. His voice was a whisper, and azure cracks ran across his armour. His eyes were burning orbs of fire, lost to the radiance within him. Light flickered in the depths of his mask whenever he spoke. Heat bled off him, causing the air to waver strangely. ‘I think I have found a flaw in this particular rite.’
‘We should probably tell someone,’ Gardus said. He helped Morbus to sit, and sank to one knee before him. ‘You’re not breathing,’ he added, quietly.
‘Not a surprise. My lungs are ash. My heart is a knot of lightning. My blood is smoke.’ Morbus laughed weakly. ‘I am truly the storm made manifest.’ He looked up, and Gardus was forced to turn away. The light seeping from the eye-slits of the Lord-Relictor’s mask was too intense to meet for long. ‘I will not survive this. And when I perish, so too will all those whom I hold safe within me.’
‘How long?’
Morbus looked away. ‘How long is a storm? A few hours. Days. Perhaps only moments.’ His grip on his staff tightened, causing the heat-blackened sigmarite to creak. ‘We must find some way to keep moving. If we stay here, we will be consumed by this place. It has already begun.’
Gardus followed his gaze, and saw Tegrus rocking back and forth, muttering to himself. The insubstantial shapes surrounded the Prosecutor, and seemed to be whispering. ‘Without the light, we will be overwhelmed.’
‘Not if we move, and soon.’ Morbus caught his arm. ‘We must get to Desolation.’
‘We will find Grymn before then,’ Gardus said. ‘Whatever else, we will not fail.’
Morbus shook his head. ‘No. Not Grymn. It is to Desolation that we must go. That is what this has all been about, Gardus. That is why we have journeyed so far. Cadoc is a fool, but he is right about one thing… we are Sigmar’s weapon, and we must find his enemy’s heart. Whatever the cost, whatever the consequence, we must reach Desolation.’ He sagged back. ‘Or all of this was for nothing.’
Tornus staggered away from the others. The pain had been growing since the Hopeless City. Like a seed spreading black shoots through him. He leaned against the stump of the mast, unable to catch his breath. It felt as if there was fluid in his lungs. He was drowning in the open air. He wanted to tell Gardus, or Morbus. Someone. They would know what to do. But he couldn’t force the words out. He sagged, head bowed.
It was unlikely that Morbus would be able to help him, at any rate. The Lord-Relictor looked worse than Tornus felt. As if there were a fire building within him, getting ready to explode at any moment. He glanced at Morbus, and saw him sitting hunched on the steps to the forward deck. Gardus knelt before him, and they conferred in low tones. A spasm of pain rippled through him, and he bit back a groan.
‘Torglug?’ Gatrog asked, watching him. There was a wariness in the Rotbringer’s voice as he stood. Or perhaps… worry?
‘I am telling you, I am not being Torglug,’ Tornus hissed as
another spasm of pain racked him. ‘I am being Tornus.’ He could smell something familiar… the stink of pure water turning sour. Of stone crumbling to mouldy dust, and flesh sloughing from bone. He could hear familiar screams echoing dimly out of the grey.
‘Lies,’ he whispered. They were just lies, as Gardus had said.
‘Nothing here is a lie,’ Gatrog said. ‘No more than your reflection in a pool of water is a lie.’ He crept close, chains rattling. ‘I can smell something flowering within you, Torglug. Your hope withers, and new life rises.’
‘Quiet.’ Tornus blinked, trying to clear his vision. Beads of sweat rolled down, burning his eyes. His stomach was knotted up. The splintered wood of the mast turned to powder in his grip. He whipped around as he half-glimpsed a familiar face. He groped for a name as one shape amongst the hazy masses grew solid.
The apparition moved towards him, her shape wreathed in silent flame. Her body was charred black, with only her eyes remaining unburnt. They were a deep, mossy green, and when they met his, his heart felt as if it were being torn in two. She reached for him, and he stumbled to meet her. What was her name? Why couldn’t he remember?
Because you killed her, his shadow said. He looked down. His shadow raised an axe. The burning woman shrank bank, mouth open in a scream that never came. Tornus groaned as the shock of the blow reverberated through his arms. More blows, the echoes of blows long since fallen shuddered through him, and he shook his head, trying to focus.
The smells were stronger now, all encompassing. And he knew them, finally. The Lifewells were burning, and his people with them. His first act as Torglug had been the butchery of all that Tornus had loved. He turned, and saw not the galley or his fellow Stormcasts, but instead… fire. Balefire, burning bright and hungry.
Ancient trees, bastions of bark and aged strength, crumpled in the flames. Burning figures fled, their screams like the sweetest of songs. Other faces pressed in on him from all sides, begging with him, pleading for mercy. And it was mercy he gave them, though not the sort they wished.
Death was the only mercy Torglug had understood. Death was an end to all pain, all hope, all fear. His people had begged him for mercy, and he bestowed it with a swing of his axe. He felt bones crunch beneath his feet, and the heat of a collapsing tree.
‘I am not doing this. This is not being me.’ He pounded his fists against his head. Somewhere, he could hear Ospheonis shrieking. He wanted to fly, to rise and seek the stars once more. There had been peace there, in the void. Freedom from the weight of his past. But that weight never went away. He had been purged in the fires of Azyr, but some kernel of filth yet remained, and it had been growing ever since he’d entered this realm.
The ghostly screams of the Everdawn tribe rose into a keening wail. Added to their number were the bellowing voices of the Viridian ogors, and the rasping hiss of the sylvaneth. A thousand thousand souls, crying out as one. The names rolled over him. Tree-Cutter. Gut-Spiller. The Despised One. The Woodsman of Nurgle.
Torglug.
Torglug.
Torglug.
Pain. Sharp and insistent. Tornus sank to one knee, arms wrapped about his midsection. He sucked in air for a scream, but no sound came. Bile burned in his throat. He fell to his hands and knees. Vomit spewed from his mouth, splattering against the inside of his helmet. He clawed at the clasps, trying to get it off. He heard voices raised in concern, but couldn’t respond. Vomit pooled on the deck.
A hand, thick with fat and muscle, erupted from the puddle. Wide fingers fastened about his helmet and shoved him upwards. Tornus was forced upright as an arm followed the hand. Then a shoulder and a round head, hidden within a corroded helm, topped by a single, curved horn. A moment later, Tornus was dangling helplessly from the apparition’s grip.
The Woodsman of Nurgle chortled and lifted Tornus high.
‘You are being surprised, yes,’ Torglug the Despised said. ‘And it is being the last surprise you are having.’
Gatrog stumbled back in shock as the apparition rose, dragging Tornus from his feet. He recognised the hulking shape instantly, for he had fought beside it often enough. Torglug the Despised. Ironhood the Woodsman, favoured of Nurgle. Hero of the Battle of the Black Cistern.
The featureless helm turned in his direction. ‘You are being one of Grandfather’s.’
‘I am–’ Gatrog began.
‘In chains.’ The great axe licked out, severing the links and gashing Gatrog’s arms and chest. ‘You are being useless in chains. Find a blade and die as Grandfather wills.’
The bloated creature turned his attention back to his other self. ‘And you are being nothing more than an empty vessel I am casting aside.’ Torglug hurled Tornus away, and something in Gatrog spasmed in sympathy. For all that he was an abomination, the Stormcast had treated him fairly, and honourably. As well as any knight of the Order. He shook himself, pushing the moment of weakness aside. Tornus was a falsehood. Torglug was Grandfather’s truth. And he had come, like one of the old heroes from the songs of the troubadours. Like the stories Goral had told him when he’d been but a squire.
‘Ah, cousin, this would have pleased you to no end.’ He cast about, seeking something to use as a weapon. Stormcasts advanced on Torglug, shields raised in a vain effort to hold back the bite of the Woodsman’s axe. Torglug laughed and swept his axe out in a wide loop, driving them back. The axe reversed course, splintering arrows in mid-flight. The Woodsman was as magnificent as Gatrog remembered.
‘Is this being all that is left? How many souls are littering your path, Azyrites?’ Torglug rested his axe in the crook of his arm. ‘It is hardly being worth the effort.’
‘Then by all means, retreat back into whatever nethermost hell you crawled out of,’ Gardus said, pushing his way forward, hammer in hand. ‘What are you? A ghost? Or just some twist of shadow and stink?’
‘I am being Torglug. And you are being Gardus.’
Torglug brought his axe up, gripping it in both hands. ‘Gardus, who is so kindly leading me to Alarielle. Gardus, who is running so rudely through Grandfather’s garden. Gardus Shiver Soul, the flydandies of Grandfather’s court call you. Gardus the coward. Gardus the weak.’
Gardus drew his runeblade. ‘A phantom, then. An echo of failures past.’ His voice rang with certainty, and the light that gleamed off him grew so bright that Gatrog had to look away. He paused in his attempts to find a weapon, and stood watching as the two warriors met. Fat sparks of balefire erupted as their weapons clashed.
Torglug roared and cursed as he hewed at Gardus. Gardus, in contrast, fought in silence. Gatrog could not say who was the stronger. He heard a murmur, and turned. The souls of the despairing dead threaded among the Stormcasts, whispering in their ears, or holding their gazes. The ghostly shapes crowded the deck, slowly but surely isolating the warriors from one another. Without Gardus to rally them, without the cursed light of Azyr, they were losing faith. Even the skull-faced shaman was powerless against such persistent murmurings. His body twitched and thrashed, as the dead surrounded him. The spotted gryph-hound stood protectively over him, snapping fiercely but uselessly at the spirits.
Gatrog wanted to laugh, but… didn’t. Couldn’t. Once, perhaps. But not now. Not after seeing what he’d seen. There was courage here, and honour, though it was in service to a false god. Sigmar was not worthy of such warriors.
This was not victory. Not the sort he’d hoped for, at any rate. It was a trick. The whispering shapes struck at places no warrior could hope to defend. And though it served the will of the King of all Flies… It was not right.
‘And who are you to say what is right, cousin?’
Gatrog whirled. Goral sat on the rail, eating one of the ripe, black apples that grew in the orchards of Festerfane. There were others beside him, knights all – brawny Sir Culgus, who had perished in the Writhing Weald alongside Goral, and young Pallid Woes, with whom he
’d earned his spurs. Blightmaster Wolgus, and brave Sir Festerbite. Others, dozens, drifting into hazy obscurity.
‘Cousin, have you come to aid me?’ Gatrog asked.
Goral took another bite of his apple. His scabrous armour creaked about his swollen frame as he leaned forward. ‘In a manner of speaking, fair cousin. I come to ask but a single question… Is your faith waning?’
‘No,’ Gatrog said.
‘Then why do you hesitate?’ a voice rumbled.
Gatrog turned and looked up into the frowning, daemonic visage of Count Dolorugus, the hero of the City of Reeds, who had perished in the attempt to summon Nurgle’s legions.
The great antlered head dipped, and a sigh gusted forth. ‘Surely you see what must be done, gentle Gatrog.’
‘I swore an oath.’
‘To whom? The Azyrite? You swore one to Nurgle first.’
Gatrog glanced back towards the duel. Torglug seemed to swell in strength, as Gardus’ light dimmed. The ending was inevitable. So why then did he hesitate? ‘This is not the way,’ he said, looking back at his cousin. ‘In the songs of Onogal, when did the knights of old ever shy away from a contest of arms, or the truth of despair? But this is not such a contest. It is deceitful. A trick, unworthy of us. Unworthy of the King of all Flies. The beauty of despair does not need to mask itself in falsehood.’
‘And again, I ask, who are you to claim that?’ Goral finished his apple and tossed the core over his shoulder. ‘Who are you to say what is true, and what is false?’ He pointed. ‘Look. See. She weeps, to see such weakness.’
Gatrog heard the clop of her hooves before he saw her. She who had brought peace to sevenfold warring duchies, and forged from them a kingdom based on the ideals of despair, acceptance and chivalry. The Lady of Cankerwall, in her rotting gown and mouldy furs, her face veiled, her hair bound and coiled about her slim shoulders like a serpent. Her pale hands were clasped before her, as if in prayer, and she smelled of rotting flowers and sour water. Tears of glistening pus dripped from beneath her veil.
Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden Page 30
