Warbeast, page 9
A shaft of light sprang into being a short way ahead – not the soft gold of the mountain sun but a paler glow Theuderis recognised immediately as the gleam of a celestial beacon. Samat descended slowly through a break in the leaves, coming to rest a few paces ahead of the Lord-Celestant. The Knight-Azyros’ wings furled with a last glint of colour as the two met.
‘There is no sign of the road we saw yesterday, Lord Silverhand.’ Samat turned to look along the line of advance. ‘It has been... swallowed. The forest is vast. We shall not see the sky before midday tomorrow if we continue in this direction. A wide river bounds the forest half a day to the south. We saw no ford or bridge and the current is strong.’
‘North?’
‘The slopes rise steeply but we would break the treeline before dusk. The ground is broken by shoulders of rock and more ruined settlements. The snow is heaped on the higher slopes, and I fear avalanches would be a constant threat, needing only the slightest tremor to bring a storm of ice and rock upon us. The land has not taken kindly to our presence – who can say what other threats it harbours.’
The memory of the collapsing cliff flashed through Theuderis’ mind – warriors engulfed by a tide of earth and stone, bright flashes of lightning as so many Stormcasts were called back to Sigmaron.
‘We continue through the forest. Though it is hostile, it does not appear to pose too great a danger,’ said the Lord-Celestant.
Samat hesitated before bowing his head in acknowledgement.
‘Speak your mind.’
‘There is still the option of the city beneath,’ said the Knight-Azyros. ‘The duardin ruins we have seen stand atop vast delvings. I expressed my doubts before, but I must say that I am of a mind that the route below might prove the swifter.’
‘The swiftest road is by no means the surest,’ replied Theuderis. ‘We have been fortunate to have eluded the attention of the skaven thus far. Doubtless Arkas and his Warbeasts have stirred their nest. It serves no purpose for the moment to draw their eye to us.’
‘We cannot know how the Celestial Vindicators fare, my lord,’ argued Samat. ‘They could be sorely beset and every delay threatens the success of our mission.’
‘It is the task to which Sigmar appointed them,’ said Theuderis, crossing his arms. ‘We cannot judge from afar whose need is greater, ours or Arkas’. If we hasten and run into peril, what succour can we provide?
‘It is for your wisdom that you are Lord-Celestant,’ admitted Samat, bowing further, ‘and through your words is spoken Sigmar’s will. As you command, we obey.’
‘Do not chastise yourself, Samat.’ Theuderis reached out a hand and beckoned for the Knight-Azyros to approach closer. ‘I would not have my officers close their lips and minds. The advice was given in good temper, and I accept it. Yet my own mind is set upon its path for the moment and I would see it run the course for a while longer.’
Before Samat could reply, a noise silenced him. It was a distant horn blast, far shriller than the clarions of the Knights-Heraldor. Tyrathrax snarled and the Stormcasts threading through the trees stopped where they were, instinctively raising their weapons.
Answering notes came from ahead and behind. Theuderis twisted in his saddle to peer through the trees but could see nothing. He turned back to issue an order to Samat but the Knight-Azyros had already taken flight. Nothing could be seen through the branches and leaves above.
Tyrathrax sensed her master’s agitation and snarled, tail lashing back and forth like an angry snake.
Theuderis heard a cry, the metallic shout of one of his warriors. He could not make out the words or direction in the press of trees. Some of the nearest Stormcast Eternals started out into the woods, calling to each other to find the source of the disturbance.
‘Stand fast!’ he roared, dragging free his tempestos hammer. ‘Form a perimeter, castellation line!’
The horns sounded again, louder and closer, coming from all around it seemed, yet still Theuderis could see nothing and no report came from his men. The Stormcasts did their best to reform the marching column into a defensive line, but the closeness and thickness of the trees meant that they could stand no more than four or five abreast in many places. The Primes strode back and forth, tightening the shield walls of the Liberators, moving the Judicators into gaps in the line from where Azyr-forged bows and crossbows would be able to mark an incoming foe.
Theuderis headed back to the rearguard as a third chorus of strident horns sounded out of the gloom beneath the trees. Tyrathrax’s claws gouged great divots of mud and leaves as she ran, spraying wet mulch and ice behind. Low branches whipped at Theuderis’ helm and pauldrons as he crashed through them, needles and splintered wood falling in his wake. Armour clattered as a troop of Protectors sprinted alongside, their Prime urging them into position with short, sharp commands.
‘Trajos, what can you see?’ Theuderis called out to the Judicator-Prime in charge of the Justicar Conclave that formed the foundation of the rearguard force. Hefting his thunderbolt crossbow, the Judicator-Prime glanced back at his commander.
‘Nothing, Lord Silverhand. Just trees and snow.’
‘They must be almost upon us,’ warned Theuderis as he stared up and down the slope trying to discern any movement in the shadows. ‘Those horns were close at hand.’
Snapping wood above drew their attention to the canopy. A white-armoured figured crashed through the branches, his wings scattering iridescent metal feathers, bloody droplets streaming from a great rent across his breastplate. A heartbeat later another Prosecutor plunged down from above, his left arm missing. Both hit the ground like meteors, throwing up explosions of dead plant matter and dirt.
‘Hold ground!’ Theuderis bellowed as several Justicars broke the line to move towards the wounded flyers. ‘Trajos, control your men.’
The Judicator-Prime snapped reprimands while Tyrathrax moved out of the column at Theuderis’ urging. He saw the one-armed Prosecutor push to his feet, using his hammer as a prop. The other crackled with celestial power and disappeared, succumbing to the wound he had suffered.
‘A manticore, my lord!’ gasped the Prosecutor. ‘And a griffon also!’
A shout drew Theuderis’ attention back along the host, towards the main body of troops. Flares of power seared between the trees as a regiment of Judicators unleashed the missiles of their skybolt and shockbolt bows. From his position, Theuderis could see nothing of their targets, but amongst the crackle of celestial energy he heard feral snarls and howls.
Even as his mind raced to accept this development, a darkness passed over him, accompanied by thrashing in the treetops. A short distance away a tree snapped and into view tumbled an immense beast. It had the body of a giant black-and-white striped cat and an eagle’s head, its red-and-black feathered wings tattered and bloody. Its beak was locked around the right arm of a Prosecutor-Prime, his hammer still in his grip.
The Prime repeatedly smashed his fist into the creature’s eye as the two flailed into the mulch, while its front claws raked back and forth across his ivory cuirass. With a supreme effort, the Stormcast hauled himself onto the back of the beast as it struggled to straighten, still raining blows against its feathered skull.
A nearby retinue of Decimators leapt into the attack, hewing at the downed monster with thunderaxes as though it were a fallen tree, every blow throwing up a fountain of thick blood.
Shouts and monstrous howling betrayed the airborne battle continuing out of sight above, but Theuderis had no time to consider this – their attackers had revealed themselves, charging along and down the slope from out of the shade.
Beastmen, hundreds of them. Most had goat-like features with curling horns, as tall as a normal man, crude axes, swords and clubs in hand. They carried wooden shields fixed with hardened hide, onto which triangular symbols and circular devices had been painted. Some were almost as big as a Stormcast, using both hands to wield their axes and mauls, their horns twisting like helms about their faces.
Before them rushed a swarm of smaller creatures, some no bigger than waist-high to Theuderis, the largest no taller than his midriff. They wielded stone-tipped spears and hide bucklers, brutish faces snarling, leather-skinned with stubby horns and chins sporting tufts of ungainly thick hair.
‘Target the gors,’ the Lord-Celestant commanded Trajos. ‘Leave the ungors to me.’
The Judicator-Prime gestured for the wounded Prosecutor to retreat into the sanctuary behind the retinue, his Stormcasts parting neatly to let him pass and then reforming. Tyrathrax bounded towards the enemy as a fusillade of celestial energy flared through the trees, over the heads of the smaller onrushing ungors and into the foes beyond. Explosions of cosmic power lit the forest, every detonation accompanied by the shrieks and bellows of dying beastmen.
Theuderis rode on, trusting to the impeccable aim of his warriors as another salvo of fire and lightning scythed past to wreak more bloody ruin through the mobs of charging Chaos-tainted. Scant moments from crashing head-on into the oncoming tide of ungors, the Lord-Celestant glanced around and truly saw the extent of the enemy they faced. The forest teemed with beastmen of all sizes and varieties, their banners and shields bearing the marks and icons of dozens of different tribes and champions, their sigils and ornaments showing worship to all of the Chaos pantheon, with many skavenesque symbols amongst them.
Even as Tyrathrax leapt into the throng of smaller beastmen, fangs and claws mauling and slashing, Theuderis realised that a greater power had forged the unholy alliance of beastmen warbands and clans that now assailed his host. Only a creature with immense influence could command such a force; only the most lucrative promises and dire threats were capable of overwhelming the natural antipathy and infighting of so many warp-tainted creatures. A daemon perhaps, or a Champion of Chaos not yet revealed.
He laid about with his tempestos hammer, every strike obliterating an ungor with a blast of celestial force. He and Tyrathrax continued to plough through the small beastmen, their spears shattering and splintering on sigmarite plates, shields hewn asunder by dagger-like claws and teeth, or crushed and smashed aside with every swing of Theuderis’ hammer.
Like a swimmer surfacing, dracoth and rider burst through the throng of the ungors, taking a moment to pause and evaluate the progress of the battle. Immense bull-headed creatures, equine mutants and other types of beastmen joined the fray, lowing and snarling and screaming in the dark tongue of Chaos. They fell upon the vanguard first, but solid lines of Liberators with shields locked weathered the initial storm and now they counter-attacked with warblades and hammers, their Primes surging forwards with devastating sweeps of two-handed weapons.
The manticore had been forced down through the canopy, its ruddy fur marked with many wounds, leathery wings broken and ragged. Its bizarre human-leonine face was a picture of rage, its deafening howls and roars audible over the crash of weapons and war-shouts of the Silverhands. A ring of Retributors formed around the beast, ensorcelled hammers and maces pounding like Grungni himself at the Forge of Ages, protected from attack by rapid volleys of missiles from nearby Judicators that cut down any beast that came within fifty paces.
The centre had been spared any meaningful assault so far, but the Stormcasts arranged in retinues of alternating melee and missile troops knew better than to break formation yet. If the van or rear was overwhelmed it would be to the core of the army their Stormcast companions would retreat. Like the keep of a castle, the Redeemer Conclaves were the underlying strength of the army, the fulcrum of strategy and refuge in need.
Movement rippling through the branches above drew Theuderis’ eye before he could check how the rearguard fared. More ungors scampered monkey-like through the boughs, thinking themselves safe from the ire of the Lord-Celestant.
Tyrathrax reared at his simple command, roaring forth a tempest of magical bolts from her maw. The storm ignited the cones, wood and leaves, setting fire in fur and flesh. Shrieking and gibbering, the ungors dropped to the forest floor, to be met by the dracoth and rider pouncing forwards with tireless fury.
Two dozen more foes had been slain when Theuderis redirected his attention back to the line. Voltaran had moved back with some of the Judicators to pour more lightning-fuelled bolts into the horde, carpeting the ground with the bodies of the dead. Yet it seemed for all the ire of the Stormcasts, the numbers of the beastmen were greater, and they were driven on by some power more potent than their horrendous losses.
Tyrathrax snarled, her claws sticking in the mire of bodies underfoot, the corpses sliding and splitting beneath her tread as she laboured towards fresh foes. She spat lightning again, frustrated that she could not rend with her claws, turning another handful of ungors to ashen clouds. Bunching her muscles, the dracoth leapt free of the bloody morass and found firmer ground, sensing Theuderis’ desire to return to the line.
Chapter Twelve
When he opened his eyes, Arkas could see all of Ursungorod. It took him a moment to accept it, so vast and unnatural was the view. Every sheet of ice was an eye, every snowflake an ear, every icicle a fingertip.
See, hear and feel as I see, hear and feel. Seek what you must.
His presence stretched the length and breadth of the mountains, the power dizzying. He focussed, drawing the vision within him, seeing the tower from the outside, as though standing on the broken curtain wall. He turned his mind’s eye and flowed effortlessly back across the bridge, sparing barely a glance for Hastor, Dolmetis and the Decimators at the far end.
He allowed his consciousness to fracture like a splitting ice flow, part of him zooming to watch over the Stormcasts still holding position on the Icemere, the rest of him skating to and fro through the wilds, leaping from snow-laden branches to drifts to frozen puddles in the blink of an eye. He scrambled across rockfalls of skull-shaped stones and slid along stone arches with icicle fangs. In the waters of Ursungorod’s hundreds of rivers he splashed through rapids between dagger-pinnacles and across impossible waterfalls that flowed up the slopes. He felt the eternal presence of the trees, slumbering in places, alive and predatory in others.
Arkas felt the tread of many feet as though on his skin. Concentrating, he saw different tribes, some in camp, others following the herds or enemies, raiding and fighting, sacrificing their own and their foes to the Chaos Gods. Pyres burned bright, blades gleamed with blood, voices were raised in guttural chants in praise of unholy powers.
Down he delved, following the cracks and chasms, into the lairs of the skaven, though he could not penetrate deeply. Even so, he recoiled at their teeming thousands, overwhelmed by the slithering, skittering touch of them, their greasy, furred bodies rubbing against him, pulsing and pushing like corrupted blood through veins, claws eternally scratching, teeth biting.
Repulsed, he almost withdrew, but as he did so Arkas saw something that pulled his thoughts away from the creeping touch of the rat-filth. He witnessed hooded figures buying slaves and mutated beasts from human warlords, paying in warpstone tokens and laying on blessings of the Great Horned Rat.
It seemed impossible that humans would worship the rat-god.
There are those who follow other powers, but when you fell and the last resistance ended, it was the Lord of Thirteen Dooms that stretched out the furthest to seize what was lost. To escape the disease they swore their souls to the rat-masters, allowed to keep the lands above in return for their obedience and service to those below.
There was a daemon, he recalled, a monstrosity that had filled him with dread. Arka Bear-clad had heard of such a thing only in the darkest legends, but Arkas Warbeast knew well the verminlords of the Great Horned Rat. Brought forth from the gnaw-wounds between realms, the rat daemons were incarnations of death and pestilence. It was this vile monster, a Corruptor, that had unleashed the plague winds that had slain his mother and later destroyed his army after his ascension.
Skixakoth.
It has a name?
An ancient evil from the world-that-was, given form once more.
Arkas tried to delve deeper, pushing as far as he could into the unforgiving bedrock, but he met a wall of resistance. No matter how hard he tried he could not penetrate the depths he knew to be there – the Shadowgulf.
Even my power does not extend so far. Another rules there.
Arkas felt the darkness pulse, a wave of hostility forcing him to retreat, suddenly wary of discovery. As he withdrew, he sensed another knot of power, a whorl of Ghurite energy that drew him in as a whirlpool might snare a boat. Rather than resist, Arkas allowed himself to drift upon the flow until he found the source.
It was a realmgate, half excavated by the skaven from the duardin undercity. At the moment of discovery he realised that this was his goal, the objective Sigmar had set for the Warbeasts and Silverhands. He had assumed the realmgate was active, but now he understood why the God-King had dispatched his Strike Chamber with such swiftness. The skaven were on the verge of opening the portal between realms, and once they did so they would have another route into the Realm of Life where Alarielle and her sylvaneth armies were sorely beset. A portal into Therdonia would bring the skaven perilously close to the Lifegate. Taking the gate of Ursungorod would not only hasten the Stormcast assault on Archaon at the Allpoints, it would stave off a potentially devastating skaven invasion into Ghryan.
I have shown you that which you desired to see.
Arkas’ thoughts moved quickly to his ally, Theuderis of the Knights Excelsior. Even as his mind turned to his fellow Lord-Celestant, his awareness shifted, racing away from the skaven caverns and into the peaks once more. In a few moments he felt the heavy footfalls of white-and-blue warriors, at their head a lordly figure on the back of a red-scaled dracoth. Above them burned the celestial light, shining down from the lanterns of Sigmar’s Knights-Azyros. Its touch filled him with a sense of belonging and ease.
