War storm, p.24
War Storm, page 24
He looked around, hunting for the verminlord. If he was bound for Reforging, he wanted a fine memory to carry with him into the fire. He caught sight of the creature, perched on one of the obscene obelisks scattered about the fen. It exhorted its followers shrilly, tail lashing in frustration as the remaining Stormcasts refused to break beneath the unceasing onslaught of the plague legions. The Lord-Celestant smiled and clashed his weapons together. He was determined to come to grips with the rat-daemon.
Before he could take a single step, however, the noisome air was split by the winding call of a hunting horn. Then another, and another, until the surrounding woodland rang with the sound of them. The skaven ranks began to boil with panic as something struck their flank. Zephacleas pulverised a robed ratman, and tried to catch a glimpse of the newcomers. There had been no lightning, no thunder – this was not Sigmar’s doing, he knew.
Zephacleas took advantage of the distraction to charge towards the verminlord. Whoever they were, the newcomers’ sudden arrival had given the Stormcasts a chance of survival and he intended to make the most of it. As he ran, he heard the sound of wood cracking and popping as a plague-claw catapult was torn apart. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw ratmen flung into the air or snatched from sight.
The verminlord hissed in consternation as it cut its eyes towards the dissolving flank of its forces. Zephacleas reached it a step later and drove his hammer into the menhir it was crouched upon, cracking and toppling it over. Screaming, the verminlord leapt from the falling rock, trailing wisps of stinking smoke, and the curved blades in its paws scythed towards the Lord-Celestant.
But Zephacleas swung his sword up and blocked the downward stroke of the curved blades. Before the full weight of the falling rat-daemon could crash into him, he rammed the head of his hammer into its belly, doubling it over and shoving it backwards. The giant beast chopped at him with its blades, scoring his armour again and again as the Lord-Celestant’s momentum carried them into the fallen stone. They staggered back and fell. He landed atop the verminlord and swiftly drove his forearm into its hairy throat, keeping it from biting him. It flung him off, and he landed in a rattle of sigmarite.
Quick as hate, the rat-daemon was on him, blades flashing down towards the joints of his armour. With desperate speed he squirmed backwards through the muck of the fen, blocking the blows as he went. Sigmar, he’s a fast one, he thought. The rat-daemon leaned in and struck, its curved blade screeching off his war-helm in a shower of greasy sparks. Zephacleas drove his feet up into its gut and sent it flying over his head. It slammed down a few feet away, its fleshless snout digging a trench in the mire.
Zephacleas rolled to his feet, hammer in hand, narrowly avoiding a flailing kick from the verminlord. It scrambled around on all fours, body contorted in a bestial fashion. Its tail lashed out, and the bladed tip tore the weapon from his hands with stinging force. He flung himself aside as the rat-daemon pounced. Sweat coated his face, and his breath rasped in his lungs as he rose to one knee and clawed for the hilt of his runeblade. He jerked back instinctively as the verminlord’s bladed tail skittered off his helm, nearly blinding him. Quickly he reached out and caught the ropy length of the tail as it curled back around. In the same motion, he drew his blade and chopped down, severing the twisting, squirming appendage. The rat-daemon squealed in agony and rage.
Zephacleas flung the still-writhing lump of flesh aside, but the verminlord hissed and charged with arms wide. The creature’s blades tore one of Zephacleas’s pauldrons loose as he lunged forward. Frantically he twisted, bringing his sword through its chest and out of the rat-daemon’s back in a gout of brackish blood and foul-smelling steam. Its weight carried it past him and he ripped his weapon free as it fell, body already beginning to dissolve into clumps of mouldering hair and rotting meat. Hairless, blind rats squirmed out of the sagging mass and scampered away, squealing obscenely.
Zephacleas had little time to see to the vermin. The remaining skaven were fleeing with high-pitched squeals of panic, clawing at one another in their haste to escape the enemy. The daemonic legions, however, showed no indication that they were at all concerned by the rout of their allies. Plaguebearers lurched towards the thin line of Astral Templars and Hallowed Knights, as nurglings burbled ahead of them in a cackling wave. He tensed and readied himself to meet their charge, only to be knocked to one knee. The ground suddenly erupted in thrashing tendrils of bark and vine, obliterating daemons on all sides.
They were not alone in their fate.
All around him, great roots burst from the ailing soil as quick as bolts from a Judicator’s crossbow. The roots rent and throttled daemons wherever they found them, and those creatures that escaped their deadly grasp were torn apart or stamped flat by the vast talons and crashing feet of the thing storming towards them with earth-shaking strides. To Zephacleas it resembled a tree, but one imbued with hateful purpose and ferocity far beyond any creature of common flesh. It towered over the foe, and pummelled them with heavy fists as it stomped past him.
Treelord, he thought, in horrified wonder. He had never seen such a being, but he had heard the tales – all Stormcasts had: stories of marching forests, and the wrath of the deep woods on any who dared threaten the realms of the mistress of the Sylvaneth.
Behind the bark-born giant came a clattering warglade of Sylvaneth dryads, crooning an eerie song of slaughter. With whipping, vicious talons they stabbed and strangled any daemons that had survived the treelord’s initial charge. The Lord-Celestant stepped back as a sharp-limbed dryad bounded past him to pounce upon a plaguebearer. He stepped forward, hammer raised, to help the treekin and the dryad whirled with a hiss.
He lowered his weapon and took a step back. The dryad turned back to its prey and stabbed branch-like fingers into the daemon’s one bleary eye. The plaguebearer bucked and kicked as the dryad peeled its skull apart.
After a moment, the dryad rose, hissed at Zephacleas again, and then loped away. He watched it go, uncertain as to whether it was advisable to follow. Had Sigmar’s messengers found Alarielle? Or were these treekin acting on their own savage initiative?
A moment later, his question was answered. The last daemon fell, pulled apart by two squabbling dryads. The treelord shoved the two creatures aside and moved ponderously towards the remaining Stormcast. Zephacleas rejoined the others; Gravewalker and the Judicator-Prime of the Hallowed Knights followed him.
‘Solus,’ Zephacleas murmured. ‘Good to see you still breathing.’
‘For now, at any rate,’ Solus said, wiping pestilential muck from the blade of his gladius. His once-pristine armour was caked in mud and grime. ‘Gardus?’
‘Gone,’ Zephacleas said.
Solus nodded, knowing well enough what that meant. ‘Most of us are,’ he said softly.
Zephacleas tossed a quick glance behind him. There were fewer than three dozen warriors between their hosts who could stand unassisted. The Hallowed Knights and the Astral Templars had paid a heavy toll to take the Ghyrtract Fen. ‘The rest of us might soon be joining them,’ Solus continued, jerking his chin towards the approaching treelord.
‘Well, only one way to find out,’ Zephacleas said. He looked at Gravewalker. ‘You know what to do. If they decide we’re not allies, call down the lightning until there isn’t a tree left standing.’
‘And then what?’ Gravewalker asked, leaning against his standard.
‘Whatever you see fit – I’ll be back in the forges by then,’ Zephacleas shot back, over his shoulder, as he strode to meet the treelord. He turned to face the immense being, and studied it closely, looking for any hint of its intentions.
I wish it was you standing here my friend, rather than me, he thought, glancing at the remains of the realmgate. Gardus would have known what to do, that much he was sure of.
He swung his hammer up onto his shoulder and sheathed his sword as the treelord came to a creaking halt before him. The ancient being stared down at him for a long moment, its green eyes glowing strangely. Zephacleas felt a chill as he met its gaze. There was a power there, unlike anything he had yet encountered. Behind it, dryads prowled and hissed, clattering leafy claws. He had never seen such creatures before, and the way they moved set his teeth on edge. They watched him with what he took to be wariness, and suspected that if he said the wrong thing, the dryads would leap on him and seek to tear him limb from limb.
Zephacleas cleared his throat and hesitated. What was the proper way to address a walking tree? How did one talk to a creature like this? Would it even understand him? ‘We… thank you, forest-lord.’
The treelord stared down at him for long moments. ‘Weee… haaave… cooome,’ it said, speaking slowly, as if human speech were difficult for it. Its voice sounded like branches creaking in a wind storm. ‘Weee… have… come… to… aid… thee,’ it continued.
‘And we thank thee, mighty one. Your arrival was timely, and much appreciated,’ Zephacleas said. The creature’s voice reverberated through him, and he was suddenly glad that he didn’t have to fight this being. He had no doubt he would be victorious, but it would be a close thing.
The treelord was silent for a time. Then, with a rustling groan, it said, ‘Aaaazyr… There… is… a… way… baaack… to… Azyr.’ It turned slightly, following his glance towards the realmgate. A sound like leaves swirling in the wind emerged from the treekin’s bark-covered jaws. ‘Not… thaaat… way.’ It turned away. ‘Weee… will… show… you.’
Slowly, with great earth-shaking strides, the treelord began to depart. Dryads clustered about it like adoring courtiers. Zephacleas shook his head. A being of few words, he thought. He looked at the smashed and mangled remains of the skaven. Then, who needs words?
‘Thank you,’ he called after the treelord. Turning, he spoke to his brothers. ‘Seker, take Solus and two others – see what our… allies have to show us.’ He still wasn’t certain whether the sudden arrival of the warglades meant that Sigmar’s emissaries had been successful in their task, or that the creatures had come on their own initiative, but it hardly mattered. If they knew of a functioning realmgate, one that could provide a route to Azyr, then it would be the height of foolishness to ignore it. They needed reinforcements badly, and the Hallowed Knights needed their Lord-Castellant now that their Lord-Celestant had fallen.
Zephacleas looked towards the shattered realmgate. Dust and smoke still rose from the fallen stones, marking the final resting place of the Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights. He could not say whether a soul could find its way back to Azyr from within the Realm of Chaos. Somehow, he didn’t think so, else what was all of this for? Why bother to wage war, if the Ruinous Powers could be defeated so easily? Gardus would not reappear in the celestine vaults of far off Sigmaron, hale and hearty.
Grymn will not forgive me, he thought. The Lord-Castellant had asked him to keep Gardus safe, and he had failed. It would not matter that Gardus had chosen his fate as a warrior.
Zephacleas sighed and bowed his head. I am sorry, my friend, he thought.
He slowly sank to one knee, planting his hammer and sword in the earth before him. All around him the remaining Stormcasts followed suit, bowing in silence – Hallowed Knights and Astral Templars alike, offering prayers for Gardus, the Steel Soul.
Zephacleas closed his eyes.
Go in peace, Gardus. Fight well. Wherever you are now, I hope that your faith has not deserted you.
EPILOGUE
Only the faithful
Gardus ran.
His breath burned in his lungs. His heart pounded feverishly. Every step was a titanic struggle, and his limbs felt like weights of pure sigmarite. The weapons in his hands were heavier than he had ever known them to be, but he dared not drop them. Not here.
He ran, pushing himself through thigh-deep muck, and sucking ordure. He knew that, were it not for his faith, he would have been dead a hundred times over.
‘Only the faithful,’ he gasped ‘Only the faithful.’ The words escaped his cracked and bleeding lips over and over again, a mantra against madness, a reminder of who he was. The words kept his limbs moving and his abused lungs snatching in the foul air.
He heard a thunderous splash behind him, but did not dare look back. He would have seen nothing, he knew, save the miasmic haze that cloaked this place. In a way, he was thankful for it – no mortal could gaze upon the loathsome horrors of Nurgle’s garden and emerge sane.
Then, perhaps you are already mad, he thought, and choked on a wild laugh. If he started laughing, he would not stop. Around him, he heard the tinny giggles of nurglings and worse things, as they watched him go by. So far, none had sought to bar his path, and why would they? There was no escape from the garden, and he was already marked by one greater than they. ‘Only the faithful,’ he hissed. ‘Only the faithful. Only the faithful.’
Another splash, closer this time. He felt the muck tremble beneath his feet as his pursuer drew close.
‘Why do you run, little pustule?’ Bolathrax’s deep voice rumbled from the haze somewhere behind him, thick with foul mirth. ‘Can we not promenade the Grandfather’s glopsome gardens together, Gardus?’
He bent his head and forged on, trying to ignore the voice, the stink of this place, all of it, save what lay directly ahead of him. ‘Only the faithful,’ he breathed.
‘There is so much to see, Gardus… so much to learn at Grandfather’s knee, if you but have the wit to listen,’ Bolathrax boomed. ‘Slow your feet, stay awhile…’
His voice faded, and Gardus wondered whether the creature had any more sense of where it was going than he did. Then, perhaps it didn’t care. To Bolathrax, he was but an afternoon’s pleasant diversion.
Gardus thought again of stopping, turning, facing the daemon as a true Stormcast, hammer in hand, but he knew that was simply another sort of madness. He had faced the creature and been found wanting. Here, in the very seat of Nurgle’s power, he stood no chance at all. All he could do was run.
So Gardus ran.
About the AuthorS
Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Deathfire and Vulkan Lives, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio drama Censure. His novella Feat of Iron was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. Nick is well known for his popular Salamanders novels, including Rebirth, the Space Marine Battles novel Damnos, and numerous short stories. He has also written fiction set in the world of Warhammer, most notably the Time of Legends novel The Great Betrayal. He lives and works in Nottingham, and has a rabbit.
Guy Haley is the author of Space Marine Battles: Death of Integrity, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Valedor and Baneblade, and the novellas The Eternal Crusader, The Last Days of Ector and Broken Sword, for Damocles. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.
Josh Reynolds is the author of the Blood Angels novel Deathstorm and the Warhammer 40,000 novellas Hunter’s Snare and Dante’s Canyon, along with the audio drama Master of the Hunt, all three featuring the White Scars. In the Warhammer World, he has written The End Times novels The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, the Gotrek & Felix tales Charnel Congress, Road of Skulls and The Serpent Queen, and the novels Neferata and Master of Death. He lives and works in Northampton.
An extract from The Gates of Azyr.
They were gazing up at him – ten thousand, arrayed in gold and cobalt and ranked in the shining orders of battle. The walls around them soared like cliffs, each one gilt, reflective and marked with the sigils of the Reforged.
Vandus stood under a dome of sapphire. A long flight of marble stairs led down to the hall’s crystal floor. Above them all, engraved in purest sigmarite, was the sign of the Twin-Tailed Comet, radiant amid its coronet of silver.
This thing had never been done. In a thousand years of toil and counsel, in all the ancient wars that the God-King had conducted across realms now lost, it had never been done. Even the wisdom of gods was not infinite, and so all the long ages of labour might yet come to naught.
He lifted his hand, turning the sigmarite gauntlet before him, marvelling at the manner in which the armour encased his flesh. Every piece of it was perfect, pored over by the artificers before being released for the service of the Eternals. He clenched the golden fingers into a fist and held it high above him.
Below him, far below, his Stormhost, the Hammers of Sigmar, raised a massed roar. As one, they clenched their own right hands.
Hammerhand!
Vandus revelled in the gesture of fealty. The vaults shook from their voices, each one greater and deeper than that of a mortal man. They looked magnificent. They looked invincible.
‘This night!’ Vandus cried, and his words swelled and filled the gulf before him. ‘This night, we open gates long closed.’
The host fell silent, rapt, knowing these would be the last words they heard before the void took them.
‘This night, we smite the savage,’ Vandus said. ‘This night, we smite the daemon. We cross the infinite. We dare to return to the realms of our birthright.’
Ten thousand golden helms looked up at him. Ten thousand fists gripped the shafts of warhammers. The Liberators, the greater part of the mighty host, stood proudly, arrayed in glistening phalanxes of gold. All of them had once been mortal, just as he had been, though now they bore the aspect of fiery angels, their mortality transmuted into majesty.
‘The design of eternity brought you here,’ Vandus said, sweeping his gaze across the sea of expectant faces. ‘Fate gave you your gifts, and the Forge has augmented them a hundredfold. You are the foremost servants of the God-King now. You are his blades, you are his shields, you are his vengeance.’
