The Black Rift of Klaxus - The Scarlet Lord

by Josh Reynolds

  Apademak the Hungry led his warriors forward with a scream. Slivers of stone and splinters of wood jutted from the battered flesh of the slaughterpriest, and blood oozed down his looming frame. He had not bothered to bind the wounds he’d sustained at the Plaza of Six Pillars. His blood would whet Khorne’s appetite as well as any. ‘Forward,’ he howled. ‘Blood and skulls for Khorne. Blood and skulls!’

  All around him, warriors and beasts charged in his wake, driven into a frenzy by his words and by their own shame. They had been defeated by the Stormcasts, driven back in disarray, and no true follower of Khorne could bear such disgrace. The broken standards of at least three tribes of bloodreavers and the tattered banners of several beastherds rose above the mass of screaming killers. A pitiful force, by any estimation, but it was all that the slaughterpriest had been able to gather after he had clawed his way free of the rubble in the Plaza of Six Pillars. Khorne had given him a weapon. It was not up to him to say whether it was worthy or not.

  He roared, as memories of his failure burned through him. He had been so certain that Khorne had preordained his triumph. But he’d been wrong, and the broken bodies of the tribesmen who’d followed him into that battle had lain everywhere, half-buried beneath the remnants of shattered walls and fallen trees, even as he had been. Unlike them, however, he’d survived. Others had been piled in heaps, left where they’d fallen by the victorious Stormcasts. Of the enemy, there had been no sign, save for the trail of destruction they’d left in their wake. Buildings had been collapsed and torn apart to make the barriers and bulwarks that closed off the surrounding streets.

  The enemy were desecrating the city – turning it into a fortress for their use. They tore apart what had been offered up to Khorne and twisted it to their own ends. But he would put a stop to it. He would smash their rearguard and fight his way into the heart of the enemy force. He would take the heads of their chieftains and toss them at Anhur’s feet. He would–

  Something struck him – hard. An explosive pain, which knocked him to his knees. Head spinning, arm numb, he saw golden figures behind bulwarks of toppled stone, heavy crossbows aimed in his direction. The crossbows snarled and explosions tore along the ragged line of his followers. Tribesmen and beastkin were hurled from their feet, but the survivors pressed forward.

  Apademak bared his teeth in a snarl, and shoved himself to his feet. He whipped his arm around and sent his axe spinning towards the Stormcasts. One toppled backwards, Apademak’s axe buried in his chest. The others continued to loose bolts at the charging Bloodbound.

  The slaughterpriest charged towards the remaining Stormcasts, hands spread. ‘I survive, dogs of Sigmar – I live! And I hunger,’ he roared, as he flung himself on the closest of his enemies. He smashed through a tottering barricade of stones, his bare fists hammering down, striking the warrior on the head. His flesh burned as it impacted the glowing metal, but Apademak did not slow his assault. Pain was nothing – there was only victory or death.

  Apademak snapped the warrior’s neck and flung his body aside. As he rose to his feet, he saw the remaining Stormcasts retreating. He snarled in fury as he retrieved his axe and glared about him. For the first time, he realised that the Stormcasts had staggered their bulwarks, creating a killing ground. They were more cunning than he’d been led to believe.

  His followers died in droves as they tried to navigate the impromptu maze. Every time they cleared one bulwark, the Stormcasts simply fell back to another. Each time it became harder and harder to dislodge them – they grew stronger and his warriors grew weaker. The Stormcasts were bleeding them, as if they were nothing more than beasts.

  Crackling crossbow bolts shrieked perilously close, casting broken stones and dust into the air as they struck around him. Golden figures moved across the rooftops, firing down into the milling ranks of the Bloodbound, driving them back, breaking up the horde. Rage flooded him, and for a moment, he thought of nothing save hurling himself up after them. They might kill him, but he would reap such a tally before dying…

  No. A cheap death. His failure would not be forgiven so easily. Only victory could erase that stain. The Stormcasts would be beaten, Anhur would be cast down, and all by his hand. He began to fight his way through the press towards the front of the battle line, chanting as he moved. As his booming voice pierced their battle-fogged minds, the tribesmen and beastkin nearby were drawn after him.

  It was an old song he sang, older than the world, older than anything yet living, save the gods themselves. A paean to murder, sung by the warriors of the Age of Myth. It had been passed down through the generations that followed, like the echoes of a death scream. It set fire to the blood of man and beast alike, and called to the berserker in every soul. Warriors shuddered and spasmed as they followed him, bodies contorting with uncontainable fury. Beastmen howled and tore at their own flesh, so eager were they to spill blood.

  His chanting rose above the fray, and he knew that it would carry through the streets, riding along the winds of war. More warriors would come, following his song – hundreds of them. Every warrior left in the city and not already engaged in battle would come at his call – not just the Eight Tribes, but all of the others: blood warriors and skullreapers, wrathmongers and deathbringers. Every warrior who paid homage to the Blood God would hear and come. Such was the gift given to every slaughterpriest. He spoke for Khorne, and the ears of his true servants could not help but hear. His voice would pierce even the rumble of the storm, and reach the ears of Khorne himself.

  Apademak raced forward, vaulting chunks of rubble and the dead alike. Crackling bolts punched into the ranks of those behind, but he ploughed on, heedless, his chant never faltering. It was all so clear now. It had been a trick. Treachery – that was the only explanation for his failure. The enemy was stronger than he thought. He had been goaded into this trap. Anhur had sent Volundr to prod him into a headlong assault, so that the Stormcasts might do what Anhur himself lacked the strength to accomplish. He feared Apademak, feared that he would draw Khorne’s attentions from unworthy Anhur. But he had failed.

  Apademak lived, and Anhur would regret it.

  He crashed into the shield wall, using his greater strength to bull the Stormcasts aside with shoulders and elbows. None of his warriors could have managed it, but Apademak was blessed by Khorne. His chant rose to a fever pitch, and those Stormcasts nearby suddenly convulsed, steaming gouts of blood jetting from the seams of their armour. They gurgled and fell, drowning in their own blood, as his axe reaped a ghastly toll. Sizzling arrows pierced his flesh as he staggered on in pursuit of the retreating foe, hurling hymns of massacre after them.

  Apademak fought on, a living beacon of the Blood God’s power. As he chanted, more Stormcasts died, and his warriors pressed forward, growing ever more frenzied in their efforts. Any who stood against him were slaughtered, their bodies reduced to flickering motes of blue. The world grew thin, like frayed cloth, and he felt Khorne’s hand on his shoulder, driving him ever forward. Blood dripped from his pores and scorched the stones of the street where it fell. He roared in fury, and could see the embers of bloodlust in the steel-hard souls of his foes flicker in response. Not even these enemies could resist the pull of battle.

  The slaughterpriest extended his axe towards the ranks of the Stormcasts. His chant rose, and the embers flickered and flared. The shield wall began to buckle as warriors broke ranks.

  ‘Come to me,’ he snarled. ‘Come, warriors – come, dogs of Sigmar. Apademak is hungry and only an ocean of blood can satisfy him.’ First one Stormcast, then another started forward, drawn irresistibly towards him. One by one, they began to succumb to the suicidal fires of the battle-fury he’d stoked in their veins.

  He threw back his head and roared in satisfaction as the shield wall disintegrated and the organised line of battle became nothing more than struggling knots of berserkers. But his triumph was short-lived. A winged Stormcast swooped low,
a blazing hammer coalescing in his hand as he did so. Apademak twisted aside, narrowly avoiding a blow that would have removed his head, and struck, embedding his axe in the mechanism on the Stormcast’s back. He was dragged off his feet and away from the battle by the warrior’s momentum. The Stormcast hurtled upwards at a steep angle, trying to dislodge the slaughterpriest.

  Apademak hauled himself up and wrapped one long arm around the Stormcast’s throat. ‘You wanted this fight,’ he growled, ‘do not think to flee it now!’ He tore his axe free as they shot higher and higher. The streets of Uryx spread out far below them. Winged shapes closed in from all sides and Apademak laughed wildly – they thought to isolate him, to draw him into the air, where he was helpless. The Stormcast clawed at his arm, and the slaughterpriest tightened his grip. ‘But I am never helpless – I am Apademak. I am the blessed of Khorne!’

  Metal buckled and flesh smouldered as Apademak slowly crushed the winged warrior’s throat. Then, with a sharp wrench, he snapped the Stormcast’s neck. Apademak shoved away from the dissolving carcass, and flung himself at another Stormcast. A hammer, wreathed in lightning, struck his side as he crashed into the warrior. Smoke boiled from the wound, but Apademak ignored the pain. Khorne was with him, and he would not falter.

  ‘See me, Lord of Skulls! See me, Gorequeen,’ he shrieked, hurling his words into the teeth of the storm. ‘See your most devoted disciple at his labour.’ His thumb crunched through the right eye-slit of his foe’s mask, then he drove his axe down through the hinge of one wing. As the warrior spiralled, off-balance, Apademak thrust himself towards another of the Stormcasts. His axe sheared through crest and helm to split the unlucky warrior’s skull. He pushed away from the tumbling corpse, even as it exploded into a crackling ball of blue lightning, and fell towards his next opponent. The remaining Stormcasts hurtled up to meet him.

  As he plummeted, his heart thumping like a war drum, he could see something vast striding towards Uryx from the horizon. It stank of a million battlefields, the air quivered with the weight of its tread, and it trailed red clouds behind it as it tore through the storm. In one enormous hand it clutched a titanic sword, and in its other, an immense net, filled with the skulls of all the dead of the Tephra Crater.

  Khorne had heard him. Khorne was coming, and Uryx would drown in blood.

  ‘Come kings of weakness, let me crown you with iron,’ Apademak roared as the wind whipped past him. He slammed into one of the warriors, knocking him away from his fellows. A hammer crashed against his head and shoulder. Bone cracked and he tasted blood. He reared back and drove the haft of his axe into the Stormcast’s face, crumpling the metal mask as they spun end over end. Metal-clad fingers clawed at his throat and Apademak laughed. His axe bit into his opponent’s neck, tearing through the golden armour. Blood spurted and the body beneath him went limp.

  He tore his axe free and fell towards Uryx, still laughing.

  Lord-Castellant Gorgus fought in silence. No war song breached his lips, no shout of exultation or effort broke his taciturnity. He fought like a craftsman, wasting no movement, spending no more energy than was required to do the deed. His halberd snapped out, its sigmarite blade lopping through tattooed limbs or scarred necks with ease. Crimson-stained armour tore like paper beneath its bite, and the bloodreavers fell away from him like wheat before the scythe. Shrike, never far from Gorgus’ side, darted amongst the Bloodbound, beak tearing at hamstrings and slicing through tendons.

  Behind Gorgus came a retinue of Decimators. The enemy sloughed away from their advance, reduced to twitching gore by whirling thunderaxes. Bloodreavers fell back, their frenzy paling in the face of inexorable destruction. Beastmen bounded through the press, slaver trailing from goatish jaws, but they too succumbed to the relentless efficiency of Gorgus and his warriors. The stones of the avenue were stained a deep red when the first tribesman turned to flee. Then went another and another, scrambling back and away.

  Gorgus slashed upwards, bisecting a howling gor as it leapt at him. As the two twitching halves of its body crashed down, he turned and bellowed. ‘Back in line! Reform the shield wall.’ Across the avenue, Liberators fell back from the fleeing foe and locked their shields, ready to repel the next charge. And there would be a next charge. The Bloodbound were in no mood to give up. Gorgus led his Decimators back through the shield wall, his warding lantern hanging from the blade of his halberd.

  Judicators and Retributors were busy hauling stones in an attempt to repair the bulwarks shattered by the last attack. The enemy had nearly broken through, despite everything. What made it worse was that it wasn’t in any way, shape or form an organised assault. The Bloodbound had been driven into a frenzy by something – or someone – and now they were being drawn from throughout Uryx like flies to dung.

  So far, it had only been tribesmen and beastkin, but his remaining Prosecutors had seen skaven scurrying through the nearby backstreets, and bellowing packs of blood warriors and skullreapers converging on the Avenue of Ten Skulls. His force was about to be cut off from the rest of the Chamber and there was nothing he could do about it.

  ‘Curse that slaughterpriest,’ Gorgus muttered. The brute had broken the shield wall, and his foul sorceries had driven disciplined Stormcasts into a berserker rage. By the time Gorgus had been able to dispatch a retinue of Prosecutors to remove the monster from the battlefield, it had been too late. Now his carefully orchestrated defensive measures were in danger of coming completely unravelled.

  Where the slaughterpriest was now, he didn’t know. And so long as he’s not here, I can’t say that I care, he thought. He signalled for the Liberators to fall back to the newly rebuilt bulwarks. They were ceding ground to the enemy, but he couldn’t afford to leave his retinues scattered out, not now. Too many had fallen in that last assault. And still no sign of reinforcements, he thought, scanning the black sky above. Lightning flashed in the bellies of the clouds, but no bolt of deliverance had yet appeared.

  Smoke rose above the rooftops, resisting the efforts of the rain to disperse it. The fires were drawing closer, consuming Uryx street by street. He thought of Crasus, leading his tiny band of Stormcasts and refugees to the Gnawing Gate, and wondered whether they had made it. He hoped so. He considered sending Prosecutors with orders for the scattered Thunderhead Brotherhoods stationed back along the Avenue of Ten Skulls to pull back to the Mandrake Bastion. Cut off as they were, there was no way to reinforce them, if they should require it.

  He dismissed the idea with a twitch of his head. ‘They’ll have to hold as best they can, eh Shrike?’ he said, ruffling the Gryph-hound’s feathers. ‘To abandon the city now would be admitting defeat before the final blow has fallen. No, let them hold as we shall hold.’

  A shadow fell over him, and he looked up and laughed. ‘Ha! There’s a fine sight – ho, Kratus! Come to toil with us honest craftsmen, instead of playing the zephyr?’

  The Knight-Azyros dropped gracefully from the sky, his crackling wings folding behind him. His armour was streaked with smoke and grime, and it bore the marks of battle, as did the armour of the Prosecutors who followed him down. As ever, Kratus was the most reliable line of communication between the staggered brotherhoods of the Adamantine, lending aid where necessary, and bringing word when danger threatened. It had been Kratus who had scouted ahead along the Avenue of Ten Skulls, and made note of where the enemy congregated. He and his Prosecutors had routed entire warbands to clear a path for Orius.

  Kratus gestured, and Gorgus laughed again. He had little difficulty understanding the Silent One’s battle-cant, simple as it was.

  ‘They made it then? Good. Crasus always was dependable,’ he said, with some relief. ‘What of the rest of the line?’

  Kratus gestured again, and Gorgus nodded. The line of battle was holding, but only just. The enemy were drawn to the largest battles. They would ignore the isolated Thunderhead Brotherhoods until they had defeated all other foes. />
  ‘So we still hold their attention, then. Well, Sigmar willing, we shall hold it a bit longer. You’ll need to take word to Orius and the others, let them know that we are cut off. I’ll follow when I can, but for now they can’t expect any support. They’ll have to press on to the Bridge of Smoke without us.’

  Kratus nodded sharply. They clasped forearms. Then, with a snarl of lightning, the Knight-Azyros and his Prosecutors were hurtling skyward once more. Gorgus watched him go, and then turned as the war-horns of the foe sounded anew. The Bloodbound had regrouped, and were charging again. Howling tribesmen darted through the rain towards his warriors, bloody axes and cleavers raised.

  ‘Lock shields,’ Gorgus roared. ‘Stand fast, Stormcasts – STAND FAST!’

  Phastet of Charn crouched on the rooftop beneath the canopy of dying plants that stretched over the Street of Vines, and watched the sky. Rain pattered against the dull leaves and dripped down onto her ash-streaked skin, but she ignored it. Her long fingers stroked the smooth surface of her new axe. She had claimed it from the body of her fellow deathbringer, Kung of the Long Arm, as was her right. The daemon in the axe had not been used to her at first, but it was growing more comfortable as the hours ran by.

  She looked down at the weapon. They said that Kung had carved it himself, from the bones of his brother. She didn’t know whether that was true or not, but it was a very good axe. It would serve her well, when the time came.

  ‘Soon,’ she murmured, as the single yellow eye set high in the blade blinked inquisitively at her.

  Phastet stretched, letting the rain play across her bare arms and face as it spilled down through the canopy. The thick vines which stretched from one end of the street to the next had been shaped and grown by sorcery, and had once possessed a diabolical life, snatching birds from the air, and often devouring the scaly apes which used to make them their home. Now, however, they were merely strands of dull vegetation, rotting through and dropping to the cracked stones of the street below. Like the rest of Uryx, the Street of Vines was dying. A shame, she thought, I should have liked to have seen them in full flower.