by Nathan Long
In the centre of the conflict was the source of the blinding light. Like dark and light stars circling each other in a swirling celestial vortex, Teclis, in shining armour and Valaris, naked to the waist, attacked each other with spell and sword. Their blades glanced off each other’s wards in showers of sparks, and their spells and counter spells met and burst against each other like colliding waves. Neither was making any headway against the other. It seemed the loser would be he who tired first, and Teclis, though no longer at death’s door, looked feeble and exhausted.
Reiner was surprised to see Teclis without his guard, but then he saw them, lying at Valaris’s feet, black bowshafts sprouting from their chests and throats.
‘M’lord,’ said Reiner to Manfred. ‘The mutants only fight at the dark elf’s bidding. Once he is killed, they will lose heart.’
Manfred nodded. ‘Then you know your duty, captain. Kill him. I will join Boellengen and direct his men to cover your attack.’
‘But… but m’lord,’ said Reiner. ‘He is warded by dark magics. We haven’t a hope.
‘Then distract him and allow Teclis to prevail.’
Reiner saluted to keep himself from punching the count. ‘Yes, m’lord. As you command, m’lord.’ He turned to his companions. ‘Blackhearts! Spears to the front! Forward!’
‘Spiteful jagger,’ grunted Hals. ‘Wants to kill us before he has to let us go.’
Teclis and Valaris fought behind the mutants’ line, the biggest, most monstrous mutants defending the dark elf from the spears of the Talabheim guard. Valaris’s back was, however, entirely unprotected, and the Blackhearts charged for him across empty ground, Hals, Pavel and Augustus at the fore, Reiner, Dieter and Jergen on the flanks with Franka and Gert at the back, nocking arrows. Darius stumbled along behind, whimpering as usual.
Jergen, Reiner, Dieter and the spearmen stabbed and slashed at Valaris’s naked back as one. Blinding sparks cracked, and their weapons bounced away as if they had swung them at granite. Reiner’s hand stung like he had grabbed a thorn bush.
Valaris glanced back, and in that brief second Teclis pounced, battering him with a barrage of spells and sword strikes. The dark elf spun back, parrying and muttering madly to protect himself. At last he recovered and their stalemate resumed.
‘Again!’ called Reiner.
The Blackhearts struck another blow at Valaris, but this time his attention didn’t leave Teclis. Instead, five of the massive mutants, each taller than Augustus and broader than Jergen, turned like automatons from the battle line and attacked, swinging huge clubs and claws and rusty greatswords.
Pavel and Hals squared off against a towering thing with a horse-skull head and bones that grew through its skin in a lattice of armoured ridges, ducking its bony, hammer-like fists. Jergen closed with a red, woolly-haired beast with four arms and four swords. Augustus plunged his spear into an obese doughy thing. It stuck like glue and the monster clawed the spearman as he tried to yank it out again. Dieter hacked at a walking flower.
It had long legs and useless, shrivelled arms that flopped at its sides, but a head like a sea anemone with long ropy tentacles and a snapping beak at the centre. Gert and Franka stood back and peppered the things with bolts and arrows.
Reiner hacked at a broad, leather-skinned thing with a mouth that split its pumpkin head from ear to ear. It laughed at his attacks. One of Franka’s arrows dangled harmlessly from its thick hide. Reiner cursed as he ducked the thing’s claws. If the Blackhearts could reach Valaris again it might be enough. They had proved that a single distraction could be his undoing. But would they get a chance? Teclis was weaker than before. He had put too much into his last attack, hoping to end the fight, and was flagging. Valaris sensed this and pressed him hard, eyes shining. His crystal glowed like a star on his chest. Beyond the Talabheimers’ line, Reiner saw Manfred directing Boellengen and Schott toward them. They would undoubtedly be too late.
Reiner blinked. The crystal. The crystal!
‘Reiner! Look out!’ screamed Franka.
Reiner flinched back and leather-skin’s claws slashed his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. It raised its arms, roaring, then stumbled back, yelping, an arrow jutting from the roof of its mouth. Pavel and Hals gored it simultaneously, and it fell, spraying blood. Horse-head lay dead behind them, bloody spear wounds between its external ribs.
‘Thankee, lads,’ said Reiner as he picked himself up. His shoulder was shredded and bloody, but he couldn’t take his eyes from Valaris. The crystal must help the dark elf absorb Teclis’s magical attacks. If Reiner could take it… But that was impossible. A sword couldn’t penetrate the assassin’s defences, how could a hand?
Then he noticed something curious. As Jergen pressed the four-armed thing, it stepped back into Valaris’s sphere of protection and was not repulsed, though the wild swings of its four swords still bounced away.
Augustus, Hals and Dieter killed the sticky, blubbery thing. Hals and Augustus held it at arm’s length with their spears and Dieter knifed it under the ear. They had to abandon their weapons though, for they could not withdraw them. They found shoddy replacements among the dead mutants and helped the others. Gert shot the flower thing through the heart and it died lashing its tentacles in violent spasms. Jergen cut four-arms’ legs out from under it, and pinned it to the ground as it fell on its face.
‘All on Valaris!’ said Reiner. ‘And don’t mind that you can’t hit him.’
The Blackhearts attacked the dark elfs back and the flanks, though all their strikes rang on shimmering air long before they touched him.
‘Back away!’ called Teclis, angrily, before returning to his mumbling.
‘No! Keep at it!’ said Reiner, and stepped behind the dark elf, praying the others held his attention. He reached forward. It felt like he pushed his hand into a hot wind. The air glistened around his fingers. He moved slower and the wind lessened, but as he reached further, his hand began to prickle, and then to sizzle with pain. It felt as if he was reaching into boiling water. He expected to see his flesh blistering, but it looked no different.
The pain made him try to push harder, and he lost three inches as the barrier shoved his hand back. He forced himself to creep ahead, though he trembled with agony and sweat poured into his eyes. Another inch. He had to shift as Valaris and Teclis circled and the Blackhearts kept up their futile attacks. Another inch. He could almost touch the dark elf’s back. His arm was on fire to his shoulder. The pain made him dizzy. His knees shook. Another inch. His fingers rose toward the silver chain. Now his face was within the sphere. It felt as if the skin was peeling from his cheeks. His fingers closed on the silver chain. He shoved forward and was thrust back violently by the barrier. The chain snapped and came with him. He landed in a heap three yards away, spasming and dizzy.
‘No!’ screamed Valaris, spinning around. ‘What have you…?’
Teclis’s eyes flashed. He thrust his palms forward. The air around Valaris warped and his chest collapsed, his ribs snapping and jutting through his white skin. Air hissed from his slack mouth. He flopped to the ground, dead and staring, blood pooling around him.
Teclis fell to the ground too, utterly spent, and the Blackhearts made a protective ring around him. There was no need. With Valaris’s death, the mutants’ fury dissipated, and they fled from the assembled companies.
Teclis looked up at Reiner, breathing hoarsely. ‘My thanks.’ He took a vial from his pouch and drank it down. A shudder passed through him and he closed his eyes, then recovered somewhat. ‘Now, where is the stone?’
Across the room, amid the weary soldiers, Manfred raised a bloody sword. ‘Well done, men of Talabheim! Well done, Reiklanders!’ he cried. ‘But there is further work to be done.’ He turned toward Danziger. ‘We have traitors in our—’
‘Followers of Tzeentch!’ cried Scharnholt, interrupting. ‘Kill the unbelievers! The stone will be ours!’ He turned to von Pfaltzen, who stood beside him, and cut his throat from ear to ear.
TWENTY-ONE
The Gate Is Open
VON PFALTZEN TURNED uncomprehending eyes on Scharnholt then crumpled, crimson jetting from his neck. At this signal, all of Scharnholt’s followers, and some men of the other companies, turned on those next to them. Cries of shock and pain came from all over the chamber. Then, while the men of the companies tried desperately to defend themselves from those they had thought their fellows, Danziger, too, raised his voice.
‘Followers of Slaanesh! Do thou likewise!’ he cried. ‘Take the stone and Talabheim falls! All glory to our delicious master!’
His men fell on those already fighting the Tzeentchists. As Reiner and the Blackhearts and Teclis watched, stunned, a quarter of the combined companies were murdered before they recovered enough to group together and defend themselves. Many cultists died as well, but as they fell, bloodthirsty cries echoed through the chamber and from the main tunnel burst a mob of masked figures waving swords and axes and spears. Half wore robes of blue and gold, while the others wore purple and red.
Teclis sighed as he stood. ‘If it were not a matter of the stability of the world, I would let this city die.’
The companies fell back from the flood of cultists and clustered to the right of the main entrance. Scharnholt and Danziger and their men ran to join their masked comrades.
‘Help me to Valdenheim,’ said Teclis.
‘Yes, lord.’
Reiner and the others carried him through the chaos to where Manfred stood with Boellengen, Schott, Raichskell and Hunter Lord Keinholtz, conferring with Magus Nichtladen. Father Totkrieg was dead. Their troops were close to panic. Their companions had turned on them. The battle they had thought won must now be fought all over again, against more dangerous enemies.
And it only got worse. As the cultists charged the companies, behind their lines, sorcerers commenced chanting. The air around them began to warp and shimmer.
‘Magus!’ called Manfred to Nichtladen. ‘Protect us!’
The magus called orders to his few remaining initiates, and they began intoning warding spells. They appeared to be having difficulty. They stuttered their invocations. Their hands jerked and twitched. All at once one screamed. His eyes exploded, and he dropped, blood pouring from his mouth. Another began tearing the flesh from his face with his fingers. The air was tingling. Flames flickered around the feet of Boellengen’s handgunners. They cried out in fear and fell back. The cultists advanced.
Teclis shook as he summoned his strength. ‘The warpstone amplifies the cultists’ powers,’ he said, then spoke a single word and swept his hands apart.
At once the flames winked out around the handgunners’ feet. The remaining magi recovered themselves.
Teclis was near to collapse. ‘Your men and magi must slay the sorcerers,’ he said wearily. ‘I have only enough strength to keep them at bay.’ He touched his chest where Valaris’s arrow had pierced it. ‘Naggaroth may have slain me after all.’
‘Yes, Lord Teclis,’ said Manfred. But even as he turned to order the men, columns of smoke began to rise within the circles of the Slaanesh and Tzeentch sorcerers.
‘Quickly,’ croaked Teclis. ‘Attack them! Disrupt their ceremony!’
The troops pressed forward and the magi wove their spells, but they were too late. Things were moving within the columns of smoke, and the chamber filled with strange choking odours.
From the Tzeentch side came a smell like sour milk, and from the Slaanesh side, an intoxicating perfume. Then things came out of the smoke. Reiner’s eyes were repelled by the one and drawn by the other.
The Tzeentchists’ conjuration literally hurt to look at. It was a shapeless, constantly changing pink mass. Horns and limbs and slavering mouths pushed out of its skin and sank away again like fish-heads bubbling to the top of a stew. It sweated pus, and moved by extruding a new leg before it and retracting an old one. Reiner wanted to run from it, to tear his eyes out.
The Slaaneshis’ summoning, on the other hand, was so alluring Reiner found himself uncomfortably aroused—a lavender-skinned beauty with lush red lips and graceful horns. Her perfect, naked breasts swayed hypnotically with each sultry step and her almond eyes seemed to look at no one but Reiner. He took a step toward her, unlacing his doublet.
‘He’s beautiful,’ said Franka. She too was stepping forward, her eyes glazed with lust.
‘He?’ said Reiner, dully. For the briefest second, Reiner saw something else where the purple wanton stood—still purple, but hard and chitinous. What he had thought were red lips was a mouth like a remora’s. The almond eyes were black holes. Then the vision of beauty reasserted itself, but he could fight it now.
The companies were reacting as he had, backing away from the Tzeentch nightmare, and stepping toward the Slaaneshi temptress. The cultists cut down both the terrified and the mesmerised in droves.
Teclis groaned, then redoubled his chanting. The influence of the daemons lessened at once. Recovering, Manfred stepped forward, raising his sword.
‘Hold fast, my Reiklanders! Hold fast, men of Talabheim!’ he shouted. ‘Steel your minds! Have we not faced these creatures before, and prevailed? Did we not push them and their filthy kind back to the Chaos Wastes? Fear not! The mighty Teclis will protect us! Kill the men and the horrors will fly! Now fight!’
The men fought.
On the left, Keinholtz and the Talabheimers charged into the Slaaneshi with renewed vigour, roaring, ‘For von Pfaltzen and the countess!’ While on the right Schott and Boellengen and Raichskell led their men against the Tzeentchists crying, ‘Karl-Franz! Karl-Franz!’ Even Reiner, who knew that Manfred had less honour than a common pimp, was stirred by his words. Whatever else he is, he thought, the old scoundrel is a leader.
But inspired as the men were, they were pitifully few, and they had just fought a pitched battle. The cultists were fresh. And the daemons, though their mental influence was diminished by Teclis’s wards, slew all who stood before them with their claws and teeth and tentacles.
‘I cannot protect them for long,’ wheezed Teclis. ‘If you cannot slay the sorcerers, we are finished.’
Manfred turned to Reiner. ‘Hetzau! Add your men to the line. Cut through to the circles!’
‘No, m’lord,’ said Reiner. ‘I’ve a better idea. This way, lads.’
As Manfred squawked, Reiner led the Blackhearts left to the cluster of shacks that ran around the chamber’s wall. He gripped Darius’s elbow.
‘Listen, scholar,’ he said as they ran. ‘This is your moment. This is where you prove your worth.’
Darius gulped. ‘What… what do you want me to do?’
The Blackhearts crept through the shacks, circling the Slaaneshi flank.
‘Cast a spell at the fellows who called up the thing with the mouths,’ said Reiner. ‘It matters not what, so long as they know they are being attacked. Something with lots of flashes and smoke.’
‘I am not a witch, curse you!’ whined Darius. ‘I’ve told you a thousand times.’
‘And a thousand times I haven’t believed you,’ said Reiner.
They were behind both the Slaanesh and Tzeentch armies now, looking out from the hovels. The cultists had tightened their ring, and the companies’ numbers were shrinking fast. The purple beauty raised a man on the tip of her sabre-like claw and flung him into Schott’s greatswords. Two fell, and the cultists cut them to pieces before they could rise. The pink horror was gulping down three bodies with three different mouths.
‘But it is true,’ said Darius. ‘I am a scholar. I know only theory. Not practice.’
Reiner shook him. ‘Liar! Manfred chose you for a reason. He could have found a better surgeon anywhere. You’re just too much a coward to do what he bade you. Is that it?’
‘I… No, I cannot! I dare not!’
‘So you do know something!’ Reiner cried, triumphant. ‘I knew it! Use it! Hurry!’
‘No! I can’t!’
‘Damn you! Speak!’ Reiner hissed. ‘Wha
t is it? What can you do?’
‘Nothing! It’s useless. A way to make plants grow faster. I told him, but he wouldn’t listen…’
‘And you have plants in your pouch, I shouldn’t wonder, though I told you to throw them away,’ said Reiner. ‘Make them grow.’
‘I daren’t!’
‘Fool! Are you still afraid of our scorn? We need your skill!’
‘It isn’t that!’ said Darius miserably. ‘I am afraid of it! I… I nearly lost myself the last time. That is how I was caught. I was found by my landlady unconscious amongst my circles and braziers, and—’
‘So you are afraid of death?’ asked Reiner.
Darius wailed. ‘Of course I—’
‘Good.’ Reiner put dagger to his throat. ‘For I will kill you if you do not obey this order. And this is no game as with Augustus. You can risk death and save a city, or you can die now. Which will it be?’
Darius cringed from the blade. ‘I—I will do it.’ There were tears in his eyes. ‘I wish Manfred had never found me.’
‘Then you would have swung weeks ago,’ said Hals. ‘And saved us all a lot of whining.’
‘Hush, pikeman,’ said Reiner. ‘Now listen. This is what we will do.’
MOMENTS LATER, REINER and Darius crept on their bellies as close to the Slaaneshi rear as they dared. The Tzeentchists were to their left. Reiner looked beyond them and saw Franka and Gert getting into position in the shadows. Reiner prayed his gambit wasn’t too late. It seemed the Reikland and Talabheim lines must break any second.
‘Ready?’ he whispered.
Darius shrugged. His face was blank.
‘Then go!’
Darius sat up and took a handful of plant cuttings from his pouch. He muttered over them, moving his hands in complicated patterns. At first nothing happened, but then Reiner heard a tiny pop, and watched amazed as the cuttings began lengthening and sprouting tendrils. Darius’s words grew more guttural and the plants blackened and twisted. He swayed as if dizzy. The words came hard and harsh.
