Skaventide, page 34
That despair.
He threw the scale away, and reached for another. He was dimly aware of Lavin screaming at the warrior, ‘Revoke him! Revoke him!’ Of the other Hallowed Knights standing silent and reverent, as if in prayer. Of the stink of blood in the heat of the day. He tore the scale away, threw it behind him, and reached for another. For another chance to be the one to inflict pain. To give despair. To take away hope.
Hope.
Remember hope.
Aika’s last words to him. And he had. For a hundred years he had. He’d been reborn, and remembered hope. If he could be Reforged, he could believe that she’d survived. That somewhere in the world she’d lived out her life, caring for their child, giving them the life Corus longed for. He could hope for that, had hoped for that for a century of fighting, of deaths, of rebirths. But…
Corus stopped. He was standing before the warrior, holding a bloody brass scale in his hand. Staring into the man’s mad eyes, hungry to hurt him, and what would Aika say to this? What hope would she see in a mad demigod wallowing in sadism and despair?
‘Another, Stormcast?’ the warrior asked. His body was a mess of wounds, blood pouring out of him, so much blood. More than even his grotesquely swollen body could ever hold, it coated the bottom of the canyon. ‘Another?’ Still vicious as he died, but that despair was there, not as well hidden now, jerked closer to the surface by every wound Corus had inflicted.
What was he doing? What was he becoming? Corus let the scale fall and raised a bloody gauntlet to his face. Remember hope. How could he do that, in a world that was nothing but blood and filth?
‘What are you doing, brother?’ Lavin asked. ‘He has not revoked the Dark Powers. Keep at your good work until he does, or until he dies.’
‘Shut up,’ Corus said, and he didn’t even notice the rage sweeping across Lavin’s face. Or the confusion when a warning shout came up from one of the other Hallowed Knights. Lavin was suddenly moving from him, drawing his warhammer and shouting, arranging his men as howls sounded through the narrow slot canyons that led to this place, howls filled with otherworldly rage.
‘You drew my blood, Stormcast,’ the Champion said. ‘And the scent drew the Flesh Hounds. They come, and they will feast upon you.’
The Hallowed Knights spread out, pairs of them taking each narrow entrance to this wider canyon, and there was a shout, the sounds of growls and claws screeching across sigmarite as they fell on first one pair of Stormcasts, then another, and another, until they were all around them, the Flesh Hounds hitting from every side, maddened by the smell of so much blood.
The warrior smiled, his filed teeth limned in crimson. ‘I hope you had your fill, Stormcast. Now you die.’
‘Hope,’ Corus said. He reached out and grabbed one of the scales that grew from the warrior’s scalp, gripped it tight in one hand. ‘This is what I think about hope.’
He jerked on the scale, fast and hard. Not trying to rip it out, instead using it like a handle to twist the warrior’s head around until his neck snapped and the rabid ferocity in his eyes gave way to nothing, not despair but simply emptiness.
‘I think it’s a lie,’ he said to the corpse. He let the warrior drop face down in the bloody pool.
Corus turned, pulling his weapon, and walked to the fight, to death, to resurrection, with nothing in his heart.
I think it’s a lie.
Corus’ words went through Sevora’s head, and following them, her father’s.
Hope is a lie.
Almost the same. Why did that hurt so much?
She shook her head, dragging herself out of that hangover of light, leaving the memory and coming back to reality. To pain.
She opened her eyes, and there was darkness below, and crimson above, and her arm was screaming agony.
When Corus’ memory had come, she’d been near the circular opening in the wrought-iron floor where the Heart floated. When she’d gone to that bloody valley, she must have collapsed at the edge of the opening and started to fall through. But Corus had thrown himself across the chamber and caught her wrist. And in doing so, pulled her arm from its socket.
Over her, the chain whips were whirling as they snapped at her great-grandfather. They smashed into his shield, his armour, their blows still weirdly silent. But holding her, Corus couldn’t dodge. The blades on the ends of those chains were drawing blood and adding cuts to the ones that already marked him.
‘Corus!’ she gasped. ‘Pull me up!’
At the sound of her voice, Corus surged to his feet, yanking her up with him, and Sevora had to fight not to pass out as her arm shrieked in agony. But the fire in her, painful or not, helped her cling to consciousness and she watched as Corus slid his shield down his arm and threw it. The heavy sigmarite spun through the air without any grace, but Corus’ strength had given it momentum. It headed straight for the three remaining skaven assassins, and they dove out of the way, save one. The shield smashed into its side, and the skaven’s bones broke with a sound like kindling smashing. The assassin hit the floor, vomiting blood, and went still.
‘I’m sorry,’ Corus said, setting her down. ‘My fault. My memory. I’m sorry!’
Memory. Sevora fought for her balance as the room swung around her. Memory. Memorian. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she gasped. ‘Kill them.’
And as she spoke, an inhuman voice cut across the chamber. ‘Kill! Kill him, Lisstis! Now!’
Skein was creeping close, moving to where the pendant still hung from her father’s knife. Sevora raised her working arm and pointed at him, trying to use the fire in her to reach her magic, but the attempt made the pain in her rise so much she fell to her knees, nauseous.
‘Sevora!’ Corus shouted, and she shook her head.
‘Fight, Reclusian! Fight!’ It was their only hope, and that thought almost pulled a mad peal of laughter from her. But Corus somehow seemed to understand.
‘Hope when hope is dying!’ he shouted, and stepped forward, stamping his boot down on the handle of his axe. He must have dropped it there when he snagged Sevora’s arm, and it flipped up in the air, where he grabbed it and charged forward. The skaven assassins scattered, snapping their chain whips at him. One flung its blade at Corus’ face, but Corus spun away. He didn’t have his shield to block with, but without its weight Corus was agile as a cat, and he turned his dodge into a lunge at the other skaven. His fist smashed that skaven’s head back in a gout of blood and teeth, then his axe sliced across the ratman’s belly. Black robes went darker with blood, and the skaven pressed its chain whip to its belly, as if the barbed coils of the weapon could help to hold the spilled guts in.
Skein was moving around the battle, staying carefully away from Corus but moving closer to the pendant. To her father’s knife. The thought of the skaven closing his claws around that cheap blade made the anger burn in Sevora, and she was moving, ignoring her pain, dashing forward to pick up the knife. The pendant came with it, heavier than it should have been, a weight in her hand as she pushed herself back, away from Skein and towards Corus.
‘Lisstis,’ Skein hissed. The grey skaven clutched the larger warpstone in his claw, holding it before him like a weapon. ‘Lisstis, kill.’ His eyeless head was facing Sevora. ‘Kill, and bring me what they have stolen.’
The skaven assassin began to move, angling towards Sevora, but Corus was moving too. He had no shield, and bled from a dozen wounds, but the lightning in his eyes was a storm as he stepped between Lisstis and his great-granddaughter. ‘Not another step,’ he said, his voice deep as thunder.
Lisstis hissed at him, but he stopped moving, except for the slow circle of the chain whip spinning in his claws, and Skein snarled in frustration.
‘Fool. Useless.’ The Grey Seer raised the warpstone he held, and a burst of light flashed from its ugly facets.
Sevora had to look away from the explosion of poisonous light, and her eyes caught on the corpse of the skaven Corus had just killed. The warpstone’s flash made the body’s shadow enormous on the curved wall of the chamber, and then the shadow came apart. The darkness split, falling into a swarm of black shadow-rats careening off the wall and rushing towards her great-grandfather.
‘Corus!’ she shouted, but the shadow-rats were on him. They swarmed up his leg, black teeth biting. He smashed down with his boots, his fist, his axe, shattering the shadows, cutting them apart, but there were too many. Before he could break them all, they found a gap in his armour behind his knee and bit, their teeth slicing through the tendons that hinged thigh to calf. Corus’ leg folded beneath him, but he kept smashing the last rats with his fists and the haft of his axe, breaking them all into darkness.
But the damage was done. Corus couldn’t rise, and Lisstis was moving around him, claws skittering fast across the wrought-iron floor. Sevora was starting to turn to try to run, but the skaven was already casting his chain whip at her, flinging it out to catch her and yank her back.
In that moment though, focused on his attack, the assassin had forgotten Corus.
The Reclusian threw himself forward with his one good leg. It was an awkward, lurching leap from the ground, but the power behind it was enough to send him after Lisstis. He swung as he dove forward, and his axe caught the assassin in the leg – not hard enough to smash through bone, but it cut flesh and made the skaven stumble. The smooth arc of Lisstis’ chain whip broke, and the steel barbs smashed into the floor at Sevora’s feet, showering her with sparks.
Lisstis flipped himself through the air, landing on Corus’ back. The skaven jerked his chain whip around the Reclusian’s throat, so that the barbs sank into his skin and throttled Corus with the metal links. Corus grabbed for the assassin, rolling, but Lisstis ducked and pulled the chain tighter.
Sevora backed away from the fight, knife and pendant still clutched in her hand, until she heard Skein.
‘You.’ His voice was a low hiss, sharp, grating. ‘You, human. Listen.’ Skein was moving towards her, one claw clutching the larger piece of warpstone, the other extended towards her. ‘Listen, or suffer.’
Skein stopped beside Brevin, who lay on the floor, gutted by that triangle but still somehow alive.
‘Suffer like this one. Suffer, like all who fight will suffer.’ The Grey Seer bent down, and with the hook on his thumb he drew a line across the Lord-Ordinator’s throat, from ear to ear. Blood flowed, a sluggish trickle, and Brevin collapsed. It wasn’t lightning taking him. The Lord-Ordinator pulled in, contracting, as if the hole in his chest were sucking him in, and then he was gone, nothing left but the bone and copper triangle, which rattled hollowly against the wrought iron.
‘Listen, human,’ Skein told her, straightening. ‘That stone. Stone is mine.’ He held out his empty hand, the hook on his thumb dark with blood.
‘Don’t.’ It was Corus’ voice, and Sevora looked back to him. While she had been watching Skein, he had finally got his hands on Lisstis. Corus held the skaven in one hand, his thumb and one finger digging into the assassin’s empty eye sockets, tearing the yellow thread that held the lids closed. Lisstis was still alive, his clawed hand scraping uselessly against Corus’ armour, but he was trapped, helpless.
‘Leave her alone or I’ll crush his skull.’
Skein didn’t turn his eyeless face towards him. He just raised the larger warpstone, and it flashed again, the terrible light driving into Sevora’s eyes like a migraine. When she could see again, Corus was slamming Lisstis down, smashing the skaven’s skull against the floor, breaking it like an egg. But Lisstis’ shadow was already stepping away from the wall, a shade assassin wrought by Skein’s magic. Fast as fear, it scooped up a chain whip and wrapped the steel around Corus’ throat before he could roll away.
The Reclusian reached back, fighting to grab the thing’s wrists, but his hands passed through the shadow thing. Lisstis’ shade was finishing what the skaven hadn’t, and Corus couldn’t stop it.
‘Listen, human,’ Skein said again. ‘Give what you have taken. Or this storm-cursed, their soul I will destroy. Destroy like other, no resurrection, no eternal. Eternal darkness only, human, for him and you. Dark, forever, and that is truth.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
WARRUN VALE
Amon hung from the brass chain, watching the green fire sweep down the barrel of the cannon towards him.
And then the Lord-Terminos struck.
The masked Stormcast charged up the tail of the behemoth, then launched themselves off. They flew through the air, a dark star of falling sigmarite, and their axe lashed out. Its edge caught the chain wrapped around Amon and the metal parted like a string. Amon tumbled down, still wrapped in the severed chain, and slammed into the dirt. A wash of green fire gouted above him, making the air shimmer with heat.
The Lord-Terminos hit the ground in a crouch, the back of their armour warped and red from having caught the edge of that poison flame. The superheated metal must have been hot enough to sear flesh, but the Lord-Terminos didn’t slow. They rolled to the side, avoiding another gout of fire, then came to their feet and raced forward, leaping high as the monster raised its cannon again. The great axe sliced through the air, and the blade sank deep into the warpfire-spewing weapon.
The sigmarite axe bit through brass and warped flesh, rupturing hoses and tanks, and suddenly green fire was ripping up and down the behemoth’s arm. It gave its great metal-tearing shriek again, and turned and bit at the fire, burning its mouth. Its clawed feet tore at the ground, and Amon, still ripping the brass chain off himself, had to throw himself to the side to avoid being crushed. He fell into a furrow sloughed through the earth, snapped the final link of chain and came up, weapons raised, in time to see the Lord-Terminos, wreathed in green flame, smashing their axe into the giant’s chest.
The monstrous skaven twisted, dark blood and yellow bile pouring from the wound, and its flail caught the Stormcast and smashed them down into the earth. Before the Lord-Terminos could rise the behemoth stomped down, crushing them into the ground.
Amon charged forward as the giant lifted its foot again. He could see the Lord-Terminos, their crumpled armour smoking, pulling themselves up and raising their axe to point it at the behemoth. Their mask was fractured, its cracked pieces twisting into an unending stream of different faces, but they were all defiant as the Lord-Terminos faced the beast.
‘No!’ Amon shouted. ‘Me!’ He was roaring as he ran, trying to attract the behemoth’s gaze, and Jocanan was shouting too, but the monster’s attention was firmly fixed on the Stormcast before it, and it swung the fiery wreck of its cannon down and crushed the Lord-Terminos beneath.
There was a moment, just enough for hope. Then the lightning struck.
The bolt launched itself up from where the Lord-Terminos had died, and the white fire of the returning soul blazed through the massive skaven. The behemoth lurched back, its cannon falling to the ground beside it, smoking and burning. But it still lived, and Amon slammed into it, smashing whatever he could reach with sword and mace, hitting the monster with fire and thunder.
The behemoth hissed and lunged for him. He dodged the flail once, but the chains caught him the second time, a hook ripping into the armour on his leg and tumbling him. Amon had just come back up, smashing at the monster’s snapping teeth, when he heard Jocanan shout from behind him.
‘The other head!’
Amon didn’t question it. He’d been given a task, and he executed. He dove beneath the jaws of the behemoth, and smashed his mace into the smaller head jutting from the thing’s neck. It made a hideous screech as he crushed its skull, a piercing sound that went on until he drove his sword through its neck. It finally fell silent, and the behemoth spread its jaws, roaring. And as it did, Jocanan dove forward, driving her javelin into the roof of its mouth.
It almost worked. If her fiery wings had still been whole, the Prosecutor could have driven home the javelin and flown back and away. Instead, the behemoth snapped its jaws shut, catching her, crushing her. And when it did, the lightning struck again.
The bolt smashed between the giant’s teeth, melting brass and boiling flesh, and the thing gave a terrible wounded noise as the lightning crackled and arced before soaring up into the sky, gone. The behemoth stumbled, shaking its head as Amon pulled his sword free and struck at it. It was wounded, burned and bleeding, but its pain maddened it, made it keep fighting, until suddenly it screamed again.
The ravens had come.
The black birds, which had been circling the fight far above, avoiding the poison smoke, now came diving in. Jocanan’s sacrifice had called them, and though many of them dropped as they touched the black vapour, enough survived to fall, stabbing and clawing, on the giant’s eyes.
The monstrous skaven lurched and bellowed, swinging at the birds, the hooks of its flail digging into its own flesh. Amon drove forward, sinking his sword into the exposed underbelly. The behemoth howled and snapped at him, but its wounded legs gave out and it fell. Amon went for the neck again, his sword roaring like thunder as it ripped open hide and muscle and finally exposed the veins. Blood gouted, stinking and corrupt, and the monster shuddered. It swung its flail at him once more, but Amon stepped back, avoiding the broken chains, and when the links hit the ground they didn’t move again.
Amon stared at the behemoth for a long moment. Black smoke drifted from it, and green fire burned beneath its skin. Dead.
Dead like the Lord-Terminos. Dead like Jocanan. Dead like Peace. He looked over his shoulder. The army of skaven was watching him, eyes bright, and he could see the Clawlord on his platform, his toothed blade flaming in his hand. Dead like him, soon enough.
But the wall still stood, and from somewhere far above he heard a cry echo through the night.
