Realm-Lords, page 9
Is this how they would treat me? Abandon me? Leave me without food, without weapons, without so much as a goodbye or good luck?
‘Masters!’ Ferendir shouted, determined to summon them with as much force – as much assertiveness – as he could muster. He would not show fear. He would not show them just how hurt and frightened he was at that moment.
‘Masters, show yourselves! Desriel? Serath?’
The ground suddenly convulsed beneath him. It was a strange, unnatural feeling. He’d felt earth tremors and the early shivers that preceded a volcanic eruption, but this was different – more pointed, more deliberate. It was as if the earth had stifled a cruel laugh in answer to his cries.
Ferendir looked about him. Think. Think hard. Where might they be? What might have drawn them away? Perhaps they haven’t abandoned you. Perhaps they went to investigate something? Perhaps they saw signs of nearing Hedonites? Perhaps–
He broke into a run, his body demanding action before his mind had even formulated a plan. He barrelled on through low-hanging boughs and widely spaced underbrush, feeling the whip and tear of a hundred small, sharp twigs and leaves and pine needles. He kept his eyes down, searching the path before him, determined not to fall, but that left him vulnerable to what whipped by at eye and shoulder level, made his progress hitching and haphazard.
‘Master Desriel! Master Serath!’
Once more the earth bucked beneath him, a sudden, violent movement so pronounced that Ferendir was literally thrown off his feet. He hit the ground hard, rolled and landed on his back. Above and around him, the world seemed to spin, a cold whip tugging at the looming trees and the thin wisps of cloud in the night sky skating by with strange, steady insistence. As he lay there, staring up, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, everything seemed to come alive. The wind all but danced among the trees, a living thing, one moment moaning, the next sighing, the next seeming to laugh with terrible, malign intent. The trees themselves bent to the pressing wind’s ministrations and murmured in answer, their boughs rising and falling, sweeping forward and back in a strange sort of dance that looked, to Ferendir’s knowing eyes, wholly unnatural. Beneath him, meanwhile, the earth was once more straining and trembling, the soil stirring as fallen logs and strewn stones and scattered gravel all skated and danced across the ground, moved by some impossible, deeply entrenched force beneath them.
Ferendir struggled to his feet. The trees were swaying so wildly now that he could often see miles beyond them, through the gaps made by their shuddering movements. Rising up in the distance, back the way they’d come, the mountain that they called home – and master – loomed tall and broad against the blue-black night sky. As Ferendir watched, amazed and alarmed, he saw cracks forming in the mountain’s surface, thin, radiating cracks that gradually widened to reveal pulsing, red-hot reservoirs of roiling magma and geomantic heat.
What is happening? he wondered, terrified and awe-struck. What am I seeing?
The cracks lengthened, radiated, multiplied. Rivulets of lava poured forth and made glowing thermal tracks down the sloping mountainsides like red-hot tears. Slowly, ponderously, the ridgelines descending from the lateral flanks of the mountain began to shrug and rise, pulling away from the earth that they clung to.
The mountain was awakening.
The mountain was rising.
The mountain was angry.
Ferendir wanted to turn, to run, to fly in the face of the horrible, looming sight that filled the world before him, but he could not. Something akin to wonder had rooted him to the place where he stood. Could he really be bearing witness to such a miracle? The mountain, once more, after centuries of dormancy, walking? He’d heard tales of such things but never imagined he might see it, experience it. The beauty! The terror!
Up and up it rose, a great, broad swathe of rock and earth and small, prickling trees tearing itself away from the ground soil that had so long rooted it. Ferendir saw tiny fragments of soil fall away that he knew to be massive boulders and time-scoured megaliths as vast as his now-ruined home temple. He saw islands of woodland tumble and crash to the rent earth, saw more and more burning, devouring rivers of lava and molten rock pouring forth as though the mountain were a scab and the magma the blood beneath, now exposed and flowing freely.
All at once, he realised that the enormous being tearing itself free of the earth, blotting out the horizon and sky before him, its peak-crowned head rising thousands of metres into the sky, had a face. That face had been carved by the magma now flowing out of its rocky carapace, burned into the regolith of its slopes and valleys – two enormous burning eyes, the great, sloping ridgeline of a nose, a vast, fire-belching scar that served as its godlike mouth.
The mountain rose against the sky and roared. The world beneath and around Ferendir shook, as though in a hurricane wind. He almost feared the cyclone stirred by the giant’s open maw might blast him away, like a leaf on the wind, yet still he stood rooted to the spot. Nonetheless, in answer to the mountain’s cry, Ferendir sounded a small, high scream of his own. All thought of controlling his fear, of seeking serenity even in his panic, had evaporated. It was simply too large not to be terrified by, too enormous not to feel dread at the very sight of.
Then the mountain raised one vast foot and began to walk. It took one ponderous step towards Ferendir, and the world around him shook as if quaking with its footfall. It raised its back foot and shifted its weight forward to take another step.
Ferendir realised what was about to happen as the great foot left the ground. The mountain was walking, and its next step would bring its tread down upon him. There was nowhere to run, or hide. Its heel was so vast it blotted out the sky.
Ferendir screamed, raising his arms in helpless resistance, wondering idly what it would feel like to be crushed when all that vast bulk came down atop him–
And then he woke.
There was light in the world again – something between night’s dimness and morning’s brightness. How long had he slept? Minutes? Hours?
Stranger still, he felt a subtle but unmistakable vibration in the earth beneath him. It was not the tread of a mountain or a simple ground-quake, but something far more attenuated – more like the quavering of a plucked harp string, or the way a bell reverberated in the wake of a hammer strike.
To his great relief, both Desriel and Serath were nearby. Both were awake and wide-eyed. Each had an ear pressed to the ground.
Ferendir sat upright. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked. He blinked and studied the lit world around them. No looming mountains. No massive feet blotting out the sky. No faces carved from roiling magma.
Desriel laid one hand flat upon the earth and patted it lightly.
‘Press your ear down again, supplicant. Listen.’
Ferendir was puzzled for a moment, but then he remembered that strange vibration he’d sensed upon waking. In the moment, he’d dismissed it as some deep and subtle tremor caused by natural phenomena – an underground river, perhaps, or a stirring of the latent geomantic energies that coursed through the plain’s deep recesses like blood through living veins. Slowly, swallowing his panic and confusion, he lay down again and pressed his ear to the ground. It was cool to the touch, but strangely soothing.
Sure enough, something was reverberating through Hysh’s crust. It was manifold and rhythmic, as regular as it was indistinct. Then, like a lightning bolt of inspiration, Ferendir realised what he was sensing through the earth itself.
‘Marching feet?’ he asked Desriel. ‘Formations, moving in unison?’
Desriel nodded. ‘Many, many feet, meaning–’
‘Vast formations,’ Ferendir finished. ‘The entire warhost!’
‘Not just our quarry,’ Serath said, listening, ‘but another as well.’
‘Another?’ Ferendir repeated.
Serath rose into a crouching position. ‘Two distinct warhosts, with separate treads and patterns of movements.’
Ferendir also rose, still staring. He looked to Desriel.
Desriel got to his feet. ‘A battle, supplicant – we’ve happened upon a battle.’
Since the age of seven, Ferendir had lived at the mountain temple, trained in the ways of the Alarith, learning everything from how to quietly meditate for untold hours in the same position to how, theoretically, an Alarith Stoneguard commanding multiple phalanxes of Vanari troops could hold off a much larger and more aggressive enemy force. He had read the treatises, memorised the maxims and heard untold lectures on the value of this gambit or that stratagem, the proven effectiveness of one warmaster’s triad of maxims over another’s eighteen immutable commandments of combat and deployment. He had seen numerous representations of the dozens upon dozens of tried and tested battle formations utilised and honed by the greatest martial minds of their race over the course of a thousand years, even seen fully animate living re-enactments of those battles played out in miniature via spells and psychic simulacra. Even at his present, relatively young age, Ferendir had learned and internalised so many military lessons and insights that he almost imagined he was a seasoned warrior, if not a proven combat commander. He liked to imagine that if suddenly thrust into a position of danger and desperation, he could readily call upon the many principles he’d learned through his years as a supplicant and keep a small body of troops alive for at least a reasonable amount of time.
But he had never truly imagined that he would be standing on a tree-dotted headland, staring out across rolling hills, bearing witness to a battle under way between a massive, thousands-strong Slaaneshi warhost and an equally vast, brightly shining contingent of his own kind, streaming up from the broad fields below. At first sight, what Ferendir saw could barely be reasoned or accepted – there were tens of thousands of moving bodies swarming over the hills and fields below them, their ranks dissolving into mobile masses of brilliant, angelic light as the swarming Slaaneshi streamed down from the foothills in massive chaotic waves, like water rushing over the ruins of a burst dam. Meeting the teeming Slaaneshi horde at the foot of the hills or on the shallow slopes where the heights met the plain, the massed Vanari forces fought, as orderly and graceful as their enemies were wild and unruly.
‘Tyrion, Teclis and Celennar,’ Ferendir breathed, drinking in the overwhelming sight that filled his vision. ‘Perfect form. Perfect synchronicity!’
His masters said nothing.
Form, synchronicity – he could think of no better words to describe what he saw. At the forward lines, tight, massed phalanxes of Auralan wardens forty troops wide and a hundred deep interlaced their graceful shields and presented the enemy with a bristling wall of long, flashing pikes, each individual warrior thrusting their spear tip rhythmically in answer to an intermittent call from their marshals. As each line of pikes thrust and withdrew, the next line did the same, followed by the next, in perfect, interlocking unison, creating the effect of some massive, destructive threshing machine seeking any and all grist to be skewered, cut and felled by its steady, unbroken forward advance. More frightening still were the intense magical energies that made all their broad-bladed spear tips glow white-hot, even under a midday sun. As the Slaaneshi enemy charged and collided with the warden phalanxes, the Hedonites were not simply sliced and skewered – they were frequently burned alive, from the inside out, by the sun-bright fire emanating out of those glowing spear tips.
Spaced just behind the pike-wielding wardens, arrayed in sharp diamond formations, were hundreds of Auralan sentinels – the greatest archers in all the Mortal Realms – loosing massed volley after massed volley of arrows upon the charging foe, the clouds of missiles so tight and synchronised that they all but blotted the sun from the sky as they arced over the front ranks of the spear-wielding wardens then came crashing down with murderous, withering lethality on the many reinforcements swarming forward from the rear to replace the Slaaneshi invaders dying on the Auralan lance tips. As Ferendir watched, mouth agape and thoroughly amazed, he saw that there was a strange, arpeggiated rhythm emerging as each phalanx of sentinels, spread in perfect interspersed distances behind the warden lines, loosed their arrows in a pattern that began on the outer wings of their formations then moved towards the centre and back out again. It was terrifyingly effective and strangely beautiful all at once.
But even as awe-inspiring and thrilling as the sight of all those massed troops at the centre of the lines was, the element Ferendir found most stirring – most amazing – were the wings of Dawnrider cavalry thundering in great squadrons up and down the ragged, bleeding flanks of the Slaaneshi warhost. As the wardens and sentinels thinned the Chaos troops at the retinue’s roiling centre, those seeking to outflank or outmanoeuvre their Lumineth enemies were cut down, trampled flat or slashed to bits by the fast-moving Dawnriders. No matter how many of the grotesque mortal Hedonites or scampering four-legged fiends or hissing, scuttling daemonettes charged forth, the Dawnriders on their swift, terrible steeds were always on hand to trample them under hoof, cut them down or run them through with lowered lances.
But it did not stop there. Even from farther back – beyond the wardens, beyond the sentinels, beyond the circling outriders awaiting their chance to relieve their deadly comrades on the flanks – the Lumineth warhost still assailed the enemy. Artillery was massed at some distance behind the lines – great, graceful hulks of wood, rope and steel, frozen symphonies of physics and engineering hurtling massive stones, enormous sharp-tipped bolts or fiery incendiaries that exploded when they crashed amid the Chaotic hordes.
Ferendir stared, drinking it all in, almost wishing he could be a lone hawk riding the thermals above the field. He wanted to see that battle as the wind might, as the clouds might, as gods might – from above, to better appreciate the gorgeous, symmetrical precision of the Vanari ranks against the helter-skelter insanity of the Slaaneshi Hedonites, seemingly caught unawares as they emerged from the woods in a mad dash towards the lowlands.
And yet, Ferendir could not exalt, could not celebrate, because as he watched, he realised that no matter how many Hedonites were run through or skewered by arrows or cut to pieces by the swift-moving Dawnriders, their numbers never truly seemed to be reduced. No matter how many died, there always seemed to be more, and more, and more…
Suddenly, he felt rhythmic movement beneath his feet, thundering up the hillside towards them, getting closer – louder, more intense – with each passing moment. Ferendir turned to investigate and realised that his masters were already standing on guard, Serath raising his stone mallet as Desriel took up his diamondpick. Ferendir joined his masters, standing beside them at the ready and raising his own diamondpick hammer, just as–
A quartet of figures broke from the trees, coming up the hillside. Dawnriders, their bright, gold-chased armour flashing gloriously even as their drawn swords dripped with black Slaaneshi blood. Without stopping, the four riders reined their mounts into a slow, steady canter in a circle around the three of them, all parties – the masters and their wary supplicant, the hot-blooded, battle-weary Dawnriders – appraising and studying one another for a moment as they allowed their readiness for violence to subside.
A moment later, as the cantering Dawnriders slowed their circling, Ferendir realised more newcomers had joined them – armoured aelven infantry bearing stone mallets and diamondpicks not unlike those wielded by him and his masters.
Alarith! Clearly they hailed from another temple – some redoubt farther to the north, perhaps – but their weapons and kit made it clear they were both military allies and spiritual comrades.
‘Identify yourselves,’ a female Dawnrider called from atop her circling mount.
‘Alarith Stoneguard and a supplicant,’ Serath answered without hesitation. ‘All of the mountain temple to the south-east of here, the last survivors of a terrible raid by the very monsters you’re now busy slaughtering.’
‘Well met, then,’ the Dawnrider said. ‘It pleases us to know the reaping we now bestow upon these ravening wolves comes in answer to their violence.’
Ferendir wished the rider would rein in her mount. He was tired of turning round and craning his neck, trying to track the speaker’s position.
‘When did they engage you?’ Desriel asked. ‘We heard the commotion and came to investigate–’
‘We engaged them,’ the rider said. ‘Our scouts saw the horde coming down the slopes, through the foothills, and we drew up our lines where the ground levelled, ready to prevent their escape. They walked right into our trap.’
‘And yet so many still remain,’ Ferendir said. ‘It’s like more spring up for each one struck down.’
‘Appearances can be deceiving, boy,’ the rider said, her voice prickly, clearly indicating that Ferendir’s words had offended her. ‘They’ll be dead or routed soon enough.’
‘Steedmaster!’ one of the newly arrived Alarith troops shouted. ‘Enemy troops, coming up the hillside!’
The Dawnrider broke from the circling formation and drew her mount up to the edge of the nearest slope. Ferendir and his masters rushed forward to see what had suddenly alerted the scout. He was right to be eager – a massive horde of the Slaaneshi invaders had peeled away from the main force on the fields below. They were rushing up the slope towards where they all now stood. Whether they were affecting a determined charge or simply fleeing the battlefield, Ferendir could not say. He only knew that their terrible faces and misshapen bodies were already too close for his comfort, and getting closer with every breath.
One of the hammer-wielding Alarith stepped forward and appraised Ferendir and his masters. ‘Can you stand? Will you fight?’
Desriel nodded. ‘At your command.’
Serath planted himself. ‘Let them come.’
