The last volari, p.14
The Last Volari, page 14
‘Sun Seekers! The undying Thirty-Ninth! Forwards!’
When we crested the first low hill beyond the Ire, we could see Skulltop. The ancient hold was built on top of a great hill that reared twice as high as the others around it. Its summit was crested with a dome of white marble that glinted in the sun like fresh bone. Wisps of smoke could be seen rising from the hilltop and from its base, where a village nestled in a wooded valley.
I’d destroyed that village once. A raid ten years after Ire Crossing, when I was lieutenant to the man who’d led the 39th then, Captain Kota. Poor bastard. We’d burned the village then rode away, but not fast enough. When dark came we were still miles from Gowyn, our horses exhausted. That’s when Durrano and his Skull Knights fell on us. I remembered riding as hard as I could, trying not to panic as they picked us off. Remembered how Kota had shouted at us to keep going, that we were almost there. He shouted until we were almost at the city’s gates, then there was a scream, horrible and inhuman and close, and Sigmar help me, I hadn’t stopped. I’d spurred my horse on and rode through the city gates with the handful of survivors of that terrible night.
The next day, I’d watched in silence from atop Gowyn’s walls as Kota’s corpse stumbled down the road towards the gates. He’d been stripped of his clothes, and his body was as pale and white as sea foam except for the dark punctures that marked his throat, and the ragged wound that ran around the top of his head. They’d taken his scalp and hair, left the top of his skull bare over his dead, staring eyes. There was a candle burning there, on the very top of his head, and we stared in horror at the shuffling corpse as the candle burned low enough for the flame to touch the oil that had been poured over Kota’s body. He burned then, shuffling down the middle of the road, skin going black and peeling, fat boiling away, stinking and smoking until he finally fell over.
I’d been made captain not long after that, and had never gone that close to Skulltop again. Until today.
Five hundred troops, the Spears of Heaven, and Celasian with his spear and his griffon. Was that enough? From my informant I knew there were something like thirty vampires in the hold, along with their lord, and maybe fifty shambling dead. A handful more of mortal warriors, and whatever villagers had run there for shelter. If it had just been my troops, I would never have attempted it. Cliffs guarded most of the white crown of Skulltop, except for a steep hillside that was protected by a marble wall. The 39th couldn’t crack it, not without losing far more of my fighters than it was worth. How much did Celasian and his guard tip that calculation? I wasn’t sure, but the abbot-general was. He’d listened to my description of the hold, of its defenders and Durrano. The only time a flicker of emotion had stirred in his pale blue eyes had been when I described what had happened to Kota, the description of the bites on his body. Disgust had flickered across Celasian’s face, fading away only when I said that the body had been burned.
Celasian had no worries about success. None at all. I wish I could say the same.
By the time we reached the village it was empty. It looked much the same as the last time I’d been here – they’d rebuilt on the foundations of what we’d burned, wooden and stone houses neatly laid beside a small stream. There were tools lying in the garden plots, food set out on tables, a few cats watching warily from windows and around corners. The other animals had been taken, along with whatever else the villagers deemed valuable, and hauled up to the hold. I’d had scouts riding back and forth, letting me know that our approach had been seen, that the villagers and the vampires were preparing for us. There had been a steady stream of messenger bats let go from Skulltop, and the scouts hadn’t been able to shoot them all. Not that I think Celasian cared. He wanted the vampires to know he was here.
The abbot-general rode through the village as if it didn’t exist, not worried about the possibility of a skeletal archer left behind as a trap. There didn’t seem to be any today, but there had been enough in the past that my soldiers were looking around carefully. The possibility had me so on edge that I ducked when Celasian jerked on Erikil’s reins, stopping in the middle of the village. But when I followed his eyes all I saw was a small shrine to Nagash. The abbot-general raised Heaven’s Edge and aimed the spear. Lightning flew from the relic and smashed into the shrine, blowing the little wooden building apart, scattering smoke and charred wood through the village.
‘Burn it.’ Celasian was looking up, through the trees to the crest of the hill above, but I knew he was talking to me. ‘Burn it all.’
I took a breath but nodded, and sent a group of soldiers off to torch the village. Then I led the rest of them after the abbot-general, marching up the hill towards the vampires that waited above.
It was just past midday when we reached the top of the hill, horses blowing and sweating, men cursing the heat and the steep climb. I reined in Sugar at the edge of the trees, staying in the shade and blinking my eyes against the glare as Celasian rode into the clear, the light gleaming off his armour and Erikil’s azure feathers. Behind him, the Spears of Heaven had arranged their Demigryphs in perfect lines, the riders and beasts all motionless except for the slow stirring of the pennants that hung below the silver blades of their spears. The 39th stopped behind me, their lines not so precise. They clung to the shade, drinking from waterskins and staring at the wall that protected Skulltop.
It ran across the clearing in front of us, made of heavy blocks of marble. Bright in the sun, the wall was only half the size of the basalt walls that ringed Gowyn, but it was high enough. Only a single gate marred the smooth white face, blocked with two heavy doors of age-darkened wood.
Nothing moved along the wall, no sounds of boots or curses or clanking armour echoed from its other side. Skulltop seemed desolate, deserted, but from hard experience I knew different. The dead were patient. The moment Celasian or any one of us crossed the invisible line that marked the range of Skulltop’s bows, skeletal archers would rain down death upon anyone who approached. For now it was all silence and stillness except for the waving pennants and the heavy breathing of the horses. In the quiet, it was easy to hear Galeris ride up, each crunch of his horse’s hooves a jagged break in the hush.
‘What are they doing?’ he asked when he drew up next to me, his voice barely above a whisper.
‘Damn me if I know.’ I kept myself quiet too, though I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like we were sneaking up on Skulltop. But the sepulchral silence of the hold made me whisper. Celasian had given me precise instructions on what I was to do when he cracked Skulltop’s gates, but he hadn’t gone into how he’d accomplish that. As he’d brought no siege machinery, not even a ram, he must be expecting some kind of miracle. Or he had a plan to create one.
We sat, sweating, watching the Spears of Heaven do nothing. Waiting until we finally noticed a sound. Low, but growing. The Spears of Heaven were chanting. I strained, listening as the words grew louder, but their meaning was blurred. They were chanting in High Azyrite, the formal language of priests and scholars, and I couldn’t make anything out but the words ‘bless’ and ‘strike’.
‘Go back to the infantry and get them ready,’ I told Galeris, and he nodded, moving away. I gestured to the cavalry, using hand signs to warn them to prepare. They fell into position behind me, their ranks more practical than pretty, each rider holding their reins and staring ahead at the silent hold, wondering what was going to happen.
The chant grew louder, echoing off the wall, its rhythm reminding me of distant thunder. The air around me began to crackle with static. Tiny sparks flickered between the metal plates sewn onto my leather gauntlets, arcing out to tickle my flesh. The sparks grew, one snapping from my hand to Sugar’s sweat-foamed neck, making her toss her head. I calmed her, and around me other riders were doing the same, trying to keep their horses from starting as tiny flickers of lightning danced across weapons, armour and harness. The same sparks were flicking from the white-armoured Church soldiers to their mounts, but the Demigryphs stayed still, as if the snap of tiny sparks meant nothing to them.
The chant grew louder still, and the Spears of Heaven were shouting it, bellowing their words up to the empty sky. It really did sound like thunder now, a deep rolling crash that went on and on as the sparks flickered through the air, dancing from their raised spear points, flashing and bright until Celasian suddenly raised Heaven’s Edge high. The Spears shouted and arcs of electricity leapt from every one of their upraised spear points, flashing through the air to Celasian. The lightning twisted around him, shining off his armour, the little bolts like sizzling threads of white fire weaving together until they were one. A bolt as thick as a man’s arm wrapped around Celasian like a serpent, so bright it was painful to look at. Then it exploded, the bolt flaring out as it shaped itself into something else. For a moment it was as if a huge drake had settled over Celasian, a great beast drawn from dancing electric light, and then the abbot-general snapped his arm down and aimed his spear at the gate. With a roar of thunder that shook the hilltop, the lightning drake darted forwards and slammed into the dark wood of the iron-bound gate. There was another roar and the gate was gone, smashed to flaming bits of wood and molten metal that pattered down into the courtyard beyond.
‘For Sigmar!’ Celasian bellowed, and Erikil leapt forwards, taking to the air just enough to bound over the wall. Behind him, the Spears of Heaven launched forwards, their Demigryphs pounding across the clearing and leaping through the flaming wreckage.
‘The Thirty-Ninth! The undying Thirty-Ninth!’ I bellowed, jerking on Sugar’s reins to get her under control. Half our damn horses had gone crazy with the lightning and thunder. ‘Get your blades out and ride, you luckless bastards!’ I pulled my sword, aimed Sugar and got her running in the right direction. From the curses and the pounding of hooves it sounded like most of the other cavalry had done the same. Behind them came the sound of boots, the infantry rushing up. The lightning had scared us witless, but damn the hammer, it had got our blood up too, and we charged after the Spears of Heaven, howling.
I raced across the clearing, heading towards the burning gate. On the wall I could see the hideous silhouettes of skeletons, ugly bone puppets holding the vicious little recurve bows that the nomads used. An arrow sliced through the air over me, and I ducked low, urging Sugar to run faster.
There were few arrows after that first, though. Most of the skeletal archers were firing into the fight going on inside the wall. As I sped through the gate I could see that the Spears of Heaven had smashed into the forces gathered there, and the courtyard was littered with corpses. Most of them still twitched and moved, and I guided Sugar around the ones that tried to bite or tangle her legs as we pounded towards the great white building that lay ahead. The hold proper, that was where I needed to be.
‘Follow, Sun Seekers! On me!’ I slapped Sugar’s reins and the brave mare charged right up the marble steps. There were people packed at the door, villagers or servants who’d been outside the hold when the gate fell and were now desperately trying to get in. Stupid. They should have scattered and let the doors slam shut. I charged them, swinging my sword and howling, and they were smart enough at least to run then. The people inside tried to shove the door shut but I urged Sugar forwards, twisting her at the last moment so that her shoulder smashed into the closing door. It burst open and I was in, ducking my head just in time to avoid cracking it on the door frame.
The hall inside was big enough for me to sit back up, but I stayed low, catching movement out of the corner of my eye. Something swung through the space where my head should have been and I came up, snapping it aside with my sword. It was a bloody shovel, swung at me by a young man barely old enough to shave.
‘Surrender!’ I shouted, but everything was noise and confusion as more of the 39th pounded in, horses and humans screaming. The man swung again, the shovel’s blade missing me but heading right for Sugar’s head. I blocked it and twisted my blade, flinging the tool out of the man’s hands. A pretty move, but he tried to hold on to the shovel and stumbled. My sword clashed against the rusty shovel blade then came free, flying up and slicing across the man’s face, cutting open his cheek and smashing out teeth, ripping through his nose and cutting one wide brown eye in half. He fell to the floor screaming and I cursed. Part of me wanted to puke, but my mind had gone into its battle place where things like that were carefully saved for later nightmares, but ignored for now.
I charged Sugar down the hall to its end then slid off. There were a dozen riders right behind me and I shouted at one of them to keep the horses under control. I ran along a corridor to a set of steps that corkscrewed down, opening at the bottom into an ancient storeroom. A cluster of people were huddled there, trying to squeeze into a narrow opening that was supposed to be hidden by the flagstone that sat tipped up beside it.
An old woman in black-and-purple robes who’d been helping people down the hole leapt in front of me. She had both hands out, open, but she was grim-faced, determined to stop me.
‘It’s just villagers,’ she said. ‘Let them go.’
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ I said, and deftly flicked my sword out, slapping her in one scrawny ankle with the flat of the blade. Harmless but damn painful, as evidenced by the wince she gave as she stumbled to the side. ‘We’ll take care of them,’ I said to her, then turned to the soldiers behind me.
‘Check it out,’ I told them, and they headed for the tunnel, pulling people out and then dropping in to pursue the ones who were already in the stone throat of the bolthole. ‘Bring them all back,’ I called after them, and detailed more soldiers to guard the old woman and the others we’d found here. Then I ran back up the stairs to the entrance hall.
My infantry was streaming in, men and women flying past me in squads as they tore through the hold, searching and fighting. I ignored them, except to shout at a woman who was looting silver candlesticks. That was for later. I made sure Sugar was being taken care of, then rushed for the door.
Outside, the courtyard was still a chaos of fighting. On one side a group of my infantry, led by Galeris, was forcing a clacking crowd of skeletons up against the white wall. The living outnumbered the fighting dead, but it was a grinding fight, blows being traded back and forth. I watched as Galeris swept his sword down, shattering the arm of a skeleton wrapped in the ragged remains of what had once been a dress. The undead lost its sword and much of its arm, but that didn’t slow the horrible thing. It came back at Galeris without pausing, lunging at my lieutenant’s face with dirt-stained teeth. He was hammering it away with the pommel of his sword when the fight swirled and I lost sight of him.
In the centre of the yard, the rest of the Church soldiers were battling the vampires of Skulltop. The enemy looked almost human, men and women, pale or dark, wrapped in ivory-coloured armour, but some had nails like claws, ridged ears like bats, or eyes that gleamed yellow, red or black. Every one of them had fangs that flashed as they shouted their prayers to the God of Death, or curses at the living that fought them. All were mounted on Nightmares, corpse horses with empty eye sockets that were streaming pale mist or weeping dark ichor.
They were half the number of the Spears of Heaven, but the vampire knights fought like disciplined daemons, sticking together in a tight squad of butchery. The Church soldiers were circling them on their Demigryphs, thrusting with their spears, but the undead were adept at smashing the long weapons away before their sharp points found cold flesh. As I watched, one of the Spears of Heaven pushed in too close, trying to drive his spear into the chest of a female vampire whose skin was the same bone-white colour as her armour. She grabbed the spear behind its point and jerked it towards her, hard and fast. The Spear of Heaven holding it was too stupid to let go, and he was ripped out of his saddle. Another vampire caught the man as he fell and bit into his neck, ripping free a chunk of flesh. The undead drank for a moment from the blood that sprayed out of the gaping wound, then threw the body aside.
It was an uncertain, vicious fight, the vampires outnumbered but fighting hard, slowly moving towards the remnants of the shattered gate and escape. But then with a flash of wings and a shriek that split the air like lightning, Erikil slammed down into the courtyard. On the griffon’s back, Celasian aimed Heaven’s Edge at the undead, shouting a prayer.
The vampires paused only a moment, then drove themselves at the abbot-general, their formation shifting into a wedge as they thrust towards this new threat. At the point of their formation was the ivory woman who’d caught the Church soldier’s spear, her eyes flashing as she pulled back her sword, ready to cut Celasian from his saddle. Before she could swing, though, Erikil slashed at the vampire’s mount. The Nightmare stumbled and the vampire had to shift with it, giving Celasian an opening. He thrust Heaven’s Edge at her, and she twisted, dodging most of the blow, but the edge of the spear touched her. A small, shallow wound, but the touch of the holy weapon was enough. An arc of lightning snapped out from Heaven’s Edge and into the vampire. She went rigid in the saddle as the electricity coursed through her, and her sword fell from her hands.
Celasian pulled back his spear, but the arc of lightning stayed connected to the vampire, lashing out from the spear point into her shaking, smoking body. Her pale skin blackened, lips pulling back from her teeth, her gums and tongue smoking as her eyes boiled in their sockets. She burned until Celasian snapped his spear contemptuously away from her, as if shaking blood from its blade. The arc of lightning broke and let the smoking corpse fall. The vampire’s Nightmare reared and bucked, screaming, but Erikil swept the undead horse down with her talons, tearing it into pieces.
The fury and the lightning of Celasian’s attack had stopped the vampires, shaken their discipline as it bolstered the Spears of Heaven. The undead’s formation was faltering, breaking as the Church soldiers drove in, their spears flashing and Demigryphs shrieking. Then came a different scream.
