War storm, p.21
War Storm, page 21
Chapter Five
The coming of the rotguard
The archway gaped like a wound pulled wide, and obese shapes shoved and fought their way free of the darkness beyond. Gardus heard the rattle of armour, and the grunting rumble of monstrous voices. Whatever was coming was big.
‘Too late,’ Bolathrax roared, as he slapped his hands together mockingly. ‘Too late, little pustules. Bolathrax’s beloved sons have come – the rotguard march again!’
The archway throbbed as a noxious gas erupted from the dark beyond the stones, and then, one by one, the rotguard stepped into the Realm of Life. Seven Great Unclean Ones, each as big as Bolathrax, and all equally horrible. Each one was armed and armoured in a similar way to their lord and master. They took up positions on the steps, as if awaiting further orders.
‘Sigmar’s hammer,’ Aetius muttered, as two Liberators took his weight and began to pull him to safety, behind the shieldwall. ‘Seven of them.’ The very air seemed to tremble in anticipation of whatever nightmare was preparing to claw its way free of the Gates of Dawn.
‘One was trouble enough,’ Solus said, as he joined them at the break in the shieldwall. The Judicator-Prime sounded tired, and his armour was marked and scored where enemy blades had reached him, despite the shields of the Liberators. ‘We must regroup, Steel Soul.’
‘We can beat them,’ Gardus said. Had he said that before, when Sigmar’s gaze had first fallen on him? He shook his head. He could not afford to become lost in memory again. ‘We must. We will not fail here. We will not.’ He raised his runeblade. ‘Retributors, Prosecutors, to me,’ he roared. He glanced at Solus. ‘Hold the line. Do not let it buckle.’
The Judicator-Prime nodded tersely, and Gardus turned away. As he moved forward, Feros fell in beside him, his armour befouled and covered in daemonic grime.
‘Are we making for the big daemon?’ the Retributor-Prime growled. At Gardus’s nod, he gave a bark of laughter, raising his hammer like a standard.
The other Retributors began to fight their way towards their commander. Overhead, Tegrus and his Prosecutors cut through the air on wings of lightning, clearing a path for Gardus and the others. As the mystical hammers tore explosive furrows in the ground and sent plaguebearers tumbling through the air, Gardus led Feros and his Retributors towards the Gates of Dawn at a run.
If they could interrupt whatever ritual the greater daemon was enacting, they might stand a chance of throwing the enemy back. Gardus bulled aside any daemon foolish enough to attempt to block his path, battering them down with hammer and blade. Lightning sparked and crackled from the hammers of the Retributors as they moved with him, scything daemons from their feet with wide, sweeping blows. From the corner of his eye, he saw Feros knock a plaguebearer with his shoulder, before crushing its skull with his boot. The Prosecutors swooped past, almost at eye-level, and cut through the enemy ranks.
They had almost reached the stone steps when the first Retributor fell, pulled down by a trio of plaguebearers. Azure energy burst from the downed warrior’s armour and a bolt of brilliant light speared upwards, piercing the dark clouds. Another for Reforging, Gardus thought grimly.
The Stormcasts had carved a wide path through the daemonic ranks, but now their lack of numbers was beginning to show. The daemons came at them without subtlety, form of discipline or sense of self-preservation, but they were limitless. For every one that fell, two more stepped up to take its place. Plague-swords sought Gardus’s belly and he was forced to slow his charge as daemons bounded down the steps towards him. ‘Keep going,’ he roared, as Feros slowed to help him. ‘We must stop the beast.’
He looked up, searching for Tegrus, and saw the Prosecutors soaring upwards, shrouded in a cloud of stinging flies. As he watched, the flies swirling about one of the winged warriors congealed into a plaguebearer. The sudden weight of the daemon, combined with the sword it slid through a gap in the Prosecutor’s armour, served to send the latter plummeting to the ground. Daemon and Stormcast struck together, and lay in a broken tangle. Tegrus and the others were soon similarly afflicted, and celestial hammers crashed against plague-swords in a desperate mid-air duel.
Gardus caught a descending blade on his crossed weapons and shattered it with a single motion. The daemon lunged at him, digging for his throat with the stump of its sword. He fell back and twisted around, catching the blow on his pauldron, smashing the daemon to the ground as it staggered past. Whirling back, slashing out with his runeblade as he did so, he cut through the swollen guts of another plaguebearer. It folded over his blade and caught at his forearm with blackened fingers. Its single eye rolled wildly in its leaking socket as its weight dragged him off-balance. Gardus cursed, and tried to jerk his arm free, but to no avail.
Another daemon leapt onto his back. It clawed at the clasps of his helmet, nearly yanking his head from his shoulders in its frenzy. Blades struck his cuirass, drawing oily sparks. Rotting hands wrapped themselves around his free arm, and he found himself pinned, unable to bring either of his weapons to bear. The foul miasma of his opponents began to fill his nose and mouth, and the droning of flies threatened to deafen him.
Gardus stumbled forward suddenly as the plaguebearer clinging to his back was sent flying from its perch in a flash of lightning. A second blow freed his arm, and he turned to bring his hammer down on the creature that clung to his sword arm. Feros moved up beside him, spinning his hammer about and driving it into the belly of a daemon hard enough to send it bouncing up the stone steps. Gardus gave the Retributor-Prime a weary nod of thanks and looked up towards the Gates of Dawn.
The seven monstrous Great Unclean Ones were ponderously descending the stone steps of the gates. The first in line gave a rumbling laugh and threw itself down, its bloated body rolling down the stone steps like a gelatinous boulder, leaving splotches of bile and pus to mark its descent. Gardus and Feros retreated as the creature struck a landing and flung itself to the ground without grace. It smashed into a fallen tree and shattered it. Gardus turned aside as a rain of splinters pelted his armour.
When he turned back, the greater daemon was up and swinging its flail in a vicious circle. A Prosecutor was knocked from the air, falling at the beast’s feet in a heap of ruptured armour and broken limbs. Feros and his Retributors charged towards the daemon. It brought its flail down, driving one Retributor to his knees. Feros drove his hammer into its side, rocking it. Lightning crawled across its form, but it didn’t seem to notice. It backhanded Feros, slamming him into the steps, even as it raised one wide foot over the Retributor it had downed. The foot came down with finality, crushing armour and pulping the warrior inside. Light flashed, and the daemon stumbled back with a shriek as the holy radiance of the warrior’s passing burned its unseemly flesh.
Gardus caught the edge of his armoured warcloak and swirled it up and out, unleashing the magics bound within. Sorcerous hammers shot forth from its folds, each one burning with the azure light of the heavens. The hammers slammed into the rotguard, denting its armour and tearing its thin flesh, driving the daemon back a half-step.
Before the greater daemon could recover, Feros and his warriors were upon it, lightning hammers striking again and again. Nearby daemons turned away with shrieks and howls, unable to bear the glare of the forces unleashed. The air throbbed with the fury of the Retributors’ assault, and he heard a bellicose howl as the rotguard succumbed. It reeled away from the fury of the Stormcast, but Feros gave the daemon no respite, harrying it. His hammer smashed into it again and again, shattering armour and unnatural bone with every blow. Then, as the greater daemon lurched backwards, pus leaking from its wounds, Feros caught it a massive two-handed blow on the side of the neck, sending its head bouncing away.
The daemon collapsed in on itself like a deflated midden heap. Feros turned to Gardus and lifted his hammer in triumph, but before he could speak, the rest of the rotguard lobbed themselves into battle. Their arrival caused the marshy ground to shudder, and it scattered the Retributors. Feros whirled, hammer raised to defend himself, but his moment of distraction cost him. Before Gardus could shout a warning, the other Stormcasts was rocked from his feet by a blow from the beast he thought he had defeated. The wounded rotguard, flesh steaming, slugged Feros and sent him flying. A second blow, from the flail of another of the rotguard, caught him as he flew through the air and sent him tumbling back to the ground. He landed heavily, and did not move again. The remaining Retributors fell back in disarray as two more of their number returned to Sigmar’s forge in bursts of searing light, courtesy of the greater daemons.
‘Fall back,’ Gardus shouted, sheathing his sword as the rotguard began their ponderous advance. The Retributors hesitated. The source of their concern was obvious; it went against everything a Stormcast was taught in leaving one of their own behind. ‘Go,’ he yelled again. ‘I will see to Feros.’
Even as he spoke, Gardus darted forward, calling out to Tegrus as he ran. ‘Keep them back, if you can,’ he shouted, ducking low as a monstrous flail swooped over his head. He darted past as the rotguard stumbled, off-balance, and continued running as the daemon was knocked sprawling by the hammer-strikes of the Prosecutors. As he charged through the gauntlet of greater daemons, he did not break his stride towards the limp form of Feros. A flail cut across his path, as its wielder sought to trip him up. Gardus leapt over the chain, hit the ground in a rattle of armour and rolled to his feet, standing over the prone form of the Retributor-Prime. As he rose, he caught the edge of his cloak and swirled it over himself and Feros. A deluge of sorcerous hammers filled the air, driving the rotguard back.
Gardus dropped to one knee to heft Feros’s bulk over his shoulder. A flail slammed down, spraying him with muck and tearing his warcloak. He shot to his feet and spun about awkwardly, bashing aside the screeching skull-heads of the daemon-weapon as its owner swung it towards him again. He was rocked back on his heels by the force of the blow. Gardus looked up. Three leering faces, each as wide as a man, stared down at him. The greater daemons closed in with gross chortles.
Tegrus plummeted downwards, his crackling wings carving blazing trails through the flesh of the rotguard as the ground erupted in holy fire. Celestial Hammers tore the ground, blinding the looming daemons.
‘Your hand, Gardus!’ Tegrus yelled, extending his own.
Gardus switched his hammer to his other hand and and reached up. A moment later, he was wrenched from his feet as Tegrus caught his arm and yanked him and Feros out of danger. The other Prosecutors followed, distracting the rotguard. They spread out around Tegrus in a wide formation as they swooped back towards the shieldwall, hurling their hammers at the surging ranks of the plaguebearers below and smashing a path for the remaining Retributors.
Tegrus released Gardus as they reached the line of Liberators, and the Lord-Celestant dropped to the ground, absorbing the impact easily. Still carrying Feros, he hurried into the protective confines of the Liberators’ disciplined ranks, followed a few seconds later by the Retributors.
Feros grunted as Gardus set him down. One eye cracked open. ‘Should have left me… Steel Soul,’ he wheezed.
‘You should know me better than that,’ Gardus said tersely as he scanned the shieldwall. Bloody lanes had been hacked into the outer ranks as the plaguebearers continued to advance, as unstoppable and inexorable as death itself. The sound of their phlegm-thickened voices, droning in that same hateful monotone, crowded out all other sound.
The Hallowed Knights were hemmed in, their numbers dwindling before the onslaught. More and more bursts of radiant light speared upwards, attesting to this grim fact. He caught sight of Solus and called to him, ‘We need to pull back – reform the line.’
Soon, he knew, there would be nowhere to pull back to. But they would hold the line until the last of them had fallen. They were Stormcast, and they would die as such.
Solus nodded and began to shout orders, as he fired his crossbow. Slowly, steadily, the Hallowed Knights began to give ground. The ranks of Liberators made up the shieldwall, stepping backwards into an ever-tightening circle as the Judicators continued to fire. Gardus looked down at Feros. ‘Can you stand?’
‘No,’ Feros said, softly. He looked up at Gardus, his features twisted in pain. ‘It’s my back, and my legs. They crushed them with those blasted flails of theirs. Can barely lift my arms. Leave me.’
‘No,’ Gardus said, shaking his head. They would have to make their stand there.
‘Then send me back to Azyr yourself, Steel Soul.’ Feros gritted his teeth as a wave of pain swept through him. ‘I do not fear Reforging. Let me rise, to serve again when I am worthy.’ He caught Gardus’s forearm in a feeble grip. Gardus looked down at his friend, and saw the leper gasping on his cot, his afflicted body convulsing in agony. Great boils erupted on his body, spilling scalding pus over his already tortured flesh. ‘Please,’ he wheezed, ‘Please, help…’ stood, raising his hammer.
‘I am sorry,’ Gardus whispered.
Feros gave a bloody grin. ‘I’m not. It was a good fight, Steel Soul. But my part in it is done.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Send me home.’
The hammer came down. Thunder rolled.
Gardus turned to see to the retreat, his heart heavy in his chest. Every man he could see was bleeding, his armour battered and filthy. Step by step, they were driven back. The enemy fell about the battle line of sigmarite. Yet the odds never slackened as more daemons formed out of the fly and fume-filled air marched out of the Gates of Dawn at Bolathrax’s bellowed command.
‘We are hard-pressed,’ Aetius said, as he joined Gardus. The Liberator-Prime held one hand firmly to his side, his breath coming in harsh rasps. Still he held his hammer at the ready. ‘They are without number.’
‘Then we can take comfort in knowing that we held faith until the last of us fell, Aetius,’ Gardus said. ‘Who will fight until the last?’ he shouted.
‘Only the faithful,’ came the reply from his exhausted warriors. Lights burned upwards, as Liberators and Judicators fell. Tegrus and his Prosecutors had dropped to the ground, unable to remain in the fly-choked air. The shieldwall shrank another step.
‘Who will stand, when all is lost?’
‘Only the faithful!’ The reply was louder now. Plague-swords smashed down on raised shields. More flashes of light pierced the dark above, as warriors fell.
‘Who will be remembered?’ he roared, striving to drown out the drone of the fly-blown legions. He drew his runeblade and clashed it against his hammer.
‘Only the faithful!’
‘Only the faithful!’ Gardus cried, clashing his weapons again. As he did so, the sky was split by a crash of thunder. Lightning flashed.
Sigmar had answered their prayers.
Chapter Six
Into the fray
Zephacleas roared in primal joy as he rode the lightning to the ground. It spread through him, body and soul, boiling his blood in his veins, and filling him with Sigmar’s divine power. He felt strong, capable of fighting any foe, no matter how monstrous, without the need for rest or sleep. There was no sensation quite like it.
The celestine vaults of Sigmaron had vanished, to be replaced by the muck and mire of the Ghyrtract Fen. He rose from his kneeling position, his armour still crawling with Sigmar’s lightning, and swung his weapons at the first enemy to hand. The plaguebearer turned, eye widening in shock as Zephacleas’s hammer tore its head from its shoulders.
‘No time for speeches,’ he roared, as the retinues of the Astral Templars shook off the storm and set themselves to battle. ‘We have yet to meet a foe we cannot break on the field, and I don’t intend to do so today. Forward!’
His men gave vent to a communal bellow of agreement, and the Liberator, Decimator and Retributor hosts fell into a spearhead formation, as he’d taught them. Such a formation had served them well in the Gnarlwood, when they had earned the right to carry Sigmar’s sigil on their shields and, later, in Aqshy as well. They advanced, splitting into three columns. Shields raised, hammers ready, the Liberators bulled forward, charging through the thick mists that rose from the fen.
Zephacleas took the vanguard, as was his right as Lord-Celestant, and he and his Warrior Chamber moved to meet the enemy, who now recognized the sudden arrival of the Astral Templars for what it was. Behind them, Seker Gravewalker croaked out orders to the Judicators and Prosecutors, directing them in their defence of the spearhead’s flanks. Judicators took up positions near the monstrous standing stones that dotted the mire, and Prosecutors swept by on wings of bristling light.
Zephacleas felt no hesitation in leaving the Lord-Relictor in charge of such a task – indeed, he trusted no one else to accomplish it. Gravewalker would keep the Astral Templars in the fight, no matter how fierce the struggle became. He had come from a wild land of high crags and wind-torn veldts and was as implacable as the storm itself.
He swept his weapons out in opposite directions, smashing two daemons from their feet. Bringing his hammer and sword around to cut down a third, he led his warriors into the massed ranks of the plague-horde.
The plan, such as it was, was simple enough. The enemy surrounded Gardus, all attentions bent to overwhelming the Hallowed Knights. Thus, the Astral Templars were free to strike a telling blow. The plague host would be forced to divide its attentions, and Zephacleas intended to make them pay for it.
He chopped a plaguebearer in half. As the daemon fell to pieces, strange shapes sprouted from the ichor in its veins. Tiny, fat shapes bobbed in the flowing bile, then bounded towards Zephacleas, giggling shrilly. He growled in disgust and stamped on the nurglings as they tried to climb his greaves. More of them scuttled across the battlefield, weaving through the feet of his men, distracting them at inopportune moments or swarming them under like ravenous insects.
