Contents

Cover

Title Page

Warhammer Age of Sigmar

Prologue

ACT I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

ACT II

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

ACT III

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

About the Author

A Black Library Publication

From the maelstrom of a sundered world, the Eight Realms were born. The formless and the divine exploded into life.

Strange, new worlds appeared in the firmament, each one gilded with spirits, gods and men. Noblest of the gods was Sigmar. For years beyond reckoning he illuminated the realms, wreathed in light and majesty as he carved out his reign. His strength was the power of thunder. His wisdom was infinite. Mortal and immortal alike kneeled before his lofty throne. Great empires rose and, for a while, treachery was banished. Sigmar claimed the land and sky as his own and ruled over a glorious age of myth.

But cruelty is tenacious. As had been foreseen, the great alliance of gods and men tore itself apart. Myth and legend crumbled into Chaos. Darkness flooded the realms. Torture, slavery and fear replaced the glory that came before. Sigmar turned his back on the mortal kingdoms, disgusted by their fate. He fixed his gaze instead on the remains of the world he had lost long ago, brooding over its charred core, searching endlessly for a sign of hope. And then, in the dark heat of his rage, he caught a glimpse of something magnificent. He pictured a weapon born of the heavens. A beacon powerful enough to pierce the endless night. An army hewn from everything he had lost.

Sigmar set his artisans to work and for long ages they toiled, striving to harness the power of the stars. As Sigmar’s great work neared completion, he turned back to the realms and saw that the dominion of Chaos was almost complete. The hour for vengeance had come. Finally, with lightning blazing across his brow, he stepped forth to unleash his creations.

The Age of Sigmar had begun.

Prologue

Thindrael awoke to the sound of bells tolling, sharp and frantic. Their warning cry wrenched him up out of some half-remembered dream and into the cold darkness of early dawn. The aelf fought free of the furs he had slept under, grabbing for his cloak and sword belt. The tolling was incessant. It jarred through his skull and made the hairs rise on his arms.

Thindrael pulled on fur-lined boots, glad that he always slept clad in his rangers’ garb, for preparedness as much as to ward off the high mountain cold. It was standard practice amongst the Swifthawk patrols to do this; they had always to be ready for danger at a moment’s notice, for to them fell the duty of warning the enclaves of Order about impending threats.

He begrudged every second wasted. His heart thumped rapidly in his chest and his thoughts grew less fogged by the second. The stone chamber was unlit, but aelven eyes were sharp, and in the scant light that fell through the arched window, Thindrael could see that he was alone; Nestrael and Yllith were not in their beds.

He rose quickly and crossed the chamber to the window, trying to gauge what manner of threat had triggered the alarm. The bell stopped tolling as he did so, its sudden absence as jarring as its peals had been.

Snow fell thick and ghostly outside. The fortress stood at the bottom of a wide crater, rather like the maw of a volcano atop the mountain’s hollow peak. Thindrael could barely see the crater’s edge, while its ragged rim was lost to even his keen sight. He thought he could detect sounds out there, movement perhaps, or voices? There was a strange keening note in the air that was not the wind, something he felt in his teeth and behind his eyes. Thindrael frowned, concentrating, trying to place that strange noise through the muffling curtains of snow. He thought for a moment that he caught flickers of green light, there and gone amidst the snowfall, but try as he might, he couldn’t spot the phenomenon again.

‘Thindrael!’ The shout broke his concentration and made him jump.

He spun to see Yllith in the doorway, wild-eyed with fear. ‘What is it, what’s out there?’ he asked.

Yllith shook his head in response. Only now did Thindrael see the dark stains on Yllith’s cloak, the spatters of red on his face, the sword dangling drawn and forgotten in one shaking hand.

‘Are you hurt, my love?’ he asked, hastening forward. Yllith stepped back, flinching. Thindrael stopped, now far more frightened.

‘It’s… not mine,’ said Yllith. ‘There’s dozens of them out there. They took Nestrael, tore her up like parchment in front of me.’

‘Who did? Where are Rellyth and the others?’ asked Thindrael, hand dropping to the hilt of his sword. He stared over Yllith’s shoulder, fearful of some unknown killer coming up the corridor.

‘Rellyth reached the alarm, he… It’s stopped… Oh gods of old, it’s stopped… They must have…’

Thindrael gripped Yllith and stared into his roving eyes.

‘Look at me. What is happening?’

Yllith’s pupils focused, sharpened. He steadied himself with a visible effort.

‘Khaelyen and Pellyria are making for the north perch – we must climb to the south. I don’t know what’s attacked us, Thindrael. By some glamour or sorcerous illusion, they made themselves look like aelfs but they weren’t.’ He choked, barely able to contain his overflowing emotion. ‘The night sentries are nearly all dead and those things are… There’s no time – I don’t know what it was, I don’t know how to explain it to you, just trust me. We must leave now!’

Thindrael nodded.

‘South perch, I understand. Come, we’ll take the Widder stair,’ he said. His blade whispered as he drew it from its scabbard, and the two of them dashed out into the corridor.

Highcrater Watch was not an especially large fortress; in truth, it was little more than a glorified rangers’ lodge occupying a stone tower and a clutch of small outbuildings, all nestled in a crater atop a shattered mountain peak. For three decades now, it had played host to the patrols of the Swifthawk Agents, the aelven rangers who plied the clouds in their hawk-drawn skycutters and bore messages between the cities of Order.

In all that time, Thindrael had never before had cause to be glad that the watch was a simple structure, and easily escaped from. He and Yllith ran along the cold stone corridor in the grey gloom, turning onto a winding stairway that coiled up widdershins around the tower’s outside to the south perch. There, under a covered ledge that jutted out from the broken peak, the hawks and skycutters waited.

As they ran, the keening note cut through the air. It was growing louder now, causing a strange sensation of heat to rise in Thindrael’s gut and a tingle through his skin. Motes of blue light burst across his vision. He blinked his eyes rapidly to clear them, but soon realised the lights were not some hallucination but actual sparks of blue fire drifting in the air.

‘What is that?’ he asked as they ran.

Yllith shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but it cannot be anything good. Our attackers were doing something when we fled from them. A ritual, perhaps. There was green fire in the air. I fear we don’t want to be here to feel its touch.’

The aelfs burst up through a trapdoor and onto the perch. Thindrael saw that both the perch’s greathawks, Hasha and Thiri, were already awake and alarmed. The huge birds fixed him with fierce avian glares, their beaks clacking and their plumage puffed.

‘Take Hasha,’ said Yllith. ‘You get him bridled. I’ll ready the skycutter.’

Thindrael crossed the snowy platform as swiftly as he dared, wary of ice rendered invisible beneath drifted snow. Heavy cloth awnings were strung above the perch and large braziers kept burning night and day, both for the hawks’ comfort and to stave off the worst of the weather. Still, at this frozen hour and in such poor light, Thindrael didn’t want to risk slipping over the sheer edge of the tower and plunging the hundred or so feet to the crater’s floor.

Snatching up a complex arrangement of tack and harness, the aelf began readying Hasha for flight. The greathawk stamped its taloned feet and clacked its beak in agitation, bearing Thindrael’s attentions with bad-tempered indignance.

‘I know you sense it, wing-brother, something terrible coming,’ muttered Thindrael as he worked. ‘But please, allow this of me so we might escape more swiftly.’

Finishing his task, Thindrael glanced along the length of the platform to see Yllith pushing a skycutter chariot towards him. He leaned over one side of the elegant vehicle, its construction so light he could propel it at a jog with little effort.

The shrill note suddenly redoubled in force, and the two hawks shrieked and flapped, the downdraft of their wings buffeting Thindrael and almost knocking him from his feet. Dancing motes of blue fire swirled through the air, drawing together and weaving through each other. They no longer resembled random starbursts, but purposeful swarms that left glimmering afterimages burned into the air behind them.

To his shock, Thindrael saw that Yllith’s nose was bleeding freely, as were his ears. It was then he felt a wetness beneath his own eye and dabbed at it with a fingertip that came away red.

‘What is this?’ he asked, then gasped as pain raced through his body. It felt as though his veins were on fire. His heart pounded, and each beat felt like a nail driven further into his chest.

Yllith screamed and staggered, the skycutter skidding away from him as he fell to his hands and knees. Through a red haze, Thindrael grabbed at the chariot, dragged it to him. Clumsy, he slammed the hitching gear together, barely registering the pain as his cold-numbed fingers smashed against the mechanism.

He shot a glance at Hasha, who was wide-eyed and straining at his traces, but otherwise unharmed by whatever awful spellcraft was at work.

‘Yllith!’ he gasped, then retched a spatter of bright red blood across the snow. The keening rose to an unnatural screech and winding sigils of blue fire raced through the air like swarms of insane fireflies. Thindrael staggered two steps, then felt his legs give out. He slumped against the side of the chariot, reaching towards Yllith, noting with horror that droplets of blood were squeezing out of his skin and forming delicate red strings of beads over the back of his hand.

A dozen feet away, Yllith stumbled up with a supreme effort, staggering closer. Thindrael felt sick with horror at the sight of the blood that poured from Yllith’s face. He was half-blinded by his own gory tears, yet it seemed as though the blue fire was weaving itself in webs around Yllith. Where it flowed, his love’s flesh writhed.

Yllith gave a last lurch of effort, throwing himself forward. Too late, Thindrael realised that the other aelf was not attempting to reach him, but to strike him. Yllith’s hands drove into Thindrael’s chest and pitched him backwards into the skycutter in an untidy heap.

‘Khae thelymar!’ screamed Yllith, the command that told the greathawks to leap skywards at once. Thindrael croaked a wordless denial as he felt the chariot lurch and skim across the platform, gathering speed. There came a familiar moment of weightlessness as the craft left the ground, then the skycutter was arcing away into the falling snow.

Thindrael got one hand over the railing, hauling himself up so that he could stare back with bloodied eyes towards the fortress below. He could see nothing but the south perch, seeming to float like an island on a white ocean. It was engulfed in dancing blue and green flame that ate away at everything around it. Vicious green light spilled up from below, underlighting the scene in a hellish fashion. The awnings were curling like parchment and melting away. The braziers were shuddering. The stone itself seemed to burn, while Yllith was barely visible, lying motionless in a spreading crimson slick. Only Thiri seemed untouched, shrieking and flapping at her perch until her bindings snapped and she leapt into the air and away.

The torturous sound receded as the skycutter climbed rapidly, until the outpost vanished altogether. Thindrael slumped back, true tears joining the crimson sludge still squeezing from his eyes. He shook his head slowly, shock setting in and causing him to shudder with more than just cold. As Hasha bore the chariot higher and higher into the heavens, Thindrael felt consciousness leave him again, welcoming the black oblivion that waited beyond.

ACT I

Chapter One

Far to the north of the city of Hammerhal Aqsha, amidst the thick, sulphur-fed groves of the Heironyme Jungle, a village stood in ruins. If the place had ever had a name it was gone now, buried beneath the drifts of blackened fronds and sulphurous dust that were slowly reclaiming its buildings.

The bloated jungle moon loomed over a clearing that contained a few dozen crumbling structures. They stood within a rotting palisade wall, just enough buildings to raise the ghosts of streets between them and lend the town an impression of civilisation, of imposed order. Yet the fields outside the walls were overgrown by anyoi trees and strangler’s twist, while the gaping hole in the village wall, and the hacked bones strewn amidst the ruins, put the lie to any notion that this tiny corner of Aqshy had been tamed.

Crouched amidst the jungle’s fringe, Neave Blacktalon studied the settlement intently. The nameless village and all its hopeful, pious settlers were long dead. Yet the prickle on her skin beneath her resilient suit of gilded sigmarite told her that something else had slithered in to inhabit the carcass of their butchered dream. Something that lit the night with eerie witchlight.

Neave’s senses were fully extended, alive to the slightest scent or sound, the merest vibration in the air. She reached out and felt the jungle around her, flitwings and diaphonids drifting through the canopy, treglyngs nosing between tree roots. She felt the strange movements within the slain village before her, long-limbed things stalking like wading birds, drums thumping a chaotic rhythm, unnatural beings cavorting. She sensed other movements amidst the jungle itself, but these concerned her less. Sigmar’s gift tugged at her, the siren sense of her latest mark close at hand, the quarry whose presence she would always feel, no matter how near or far, until she or they were dead.

Neave was one with the world around her, and she tasted the Chaotic taint that soured it. It gathered thick on her tongue and made her scowl with disgust and anger.

From her right, she felt gusts of air stir the jungle foliage. She heard the sounds of subtle movement draw closer, something large doing its utmost not to be heard. She scented the tang of ozone through the jungle’s sulphur. Curling her tongue, she gave a clicking signal: two low, quick sounds, a pause, then a third. The signal was returned, a moment before Tarion Arlor slid through the fronds of two anyois to join her.

‘Don’t tell me that Sigmar’s finest Knight-Zephyros needs that damned signal to verify it is me, Blacktalon. I know you heard my approach,’ said the Knight-Venator. Neave heard the smile behind the faceplate of his helm, and snorted with quiet amusement. Tarion was bigger than Neave, his bulky armour and its huge crystalline wings far less suited to slinking through the dense jungle.

‘Where is Krien?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t wish to tangle his wings amidst the foliage?’

‘He is on high, circling well out of sight,’ replied Tarion. ‘Star eagles are not noted for their love of confined terrain.’

‘Krien isn’t well known for his love of anything, save you,’ said Neave. ‘Sometimes I cannot tell if he’s your familiar, or you his.’

Tarion shook his head ruefully. ‘Damn bird is lucky he’s such a gifted fighter.’

‘We may need him to be so very soon,’ said Neave. ‘Xelkyn is here – I sense his taint. The conclusion to our hunt draws near, but something feels wrong. What did you see?’

‘Little,’ confessed Tarion. ‘It’s a clear night and the moon is vast. Even distracted by ritual and blinded by firelight, I could not risk them looking up and seeing my silhouette against the sky. There’s perhaps five or six dozen of his coven in the village. Stiltkin. Disc riders. Ogroids.’

‘I do not see any sentries,’ said Neave.

‘I did not spot any from afar,’ replied Tarion, shaking his head. ‘Xelkyn is arrogant. He no doubt believes himself hidden in this remote location.’

‘The sorcerer knows we hunt him,’ said Neave, not taking her eyes from the village, from the warped kaleidoscope of vivid light that welled up from its heart, the weird shadows that danced across its walls. ‘We almost had him in the Carathacium. You slew his Mutalith. He’s a toweringly arrogant creature, but his mind is a barbed maze. He has let us run him to ground, Tarion. There’s a trap here.’

‘Be that as it may, he’s conducting a ritual in there,’ said the Knight-Venator. ‘Look at the lights. Listen to the drums, the chanting. Feel the power gathering on the air.’

‘You think that slipped my notice?’ asked Neave wryly.

‘You know what I mean, Blacktalon. He may be summoning daemons, or opening a rent into the Crystal Labyrinth. If he slips away into the embrace of his master’s realm, he’ll be beyond even Sigmar’s reach.’

Neave cocked her head, listening intently to the timbre of the drums, the tone of the chanting, shrieking voices. Some sounded human, albeit rendered bestial in their frenzy. Others were cawing and avian. From amongst them she filtered another voice, commanding yet brittle somehow, as though an insect were trying to form human words with mouthparts not meant for the sound. She knew the hateful voice of Xelkyn Xerkanos, favoured covenmaster of Tzeentch and arch-traitor to Sigmar’s great city of Azyrheim, all too well.

‘He does not sound panicked,’ she said softly. ‘Tarion, he sounds angry. Spiteful. Determined. Whatever Xelkyn is conjuring in that village, it is not an escape route. It’s a weapon.’

‘What then?’ asked Tarion. ‘He’s your mark, Blacktalon. I merely hunt at your side.’

Neave paused and removed her helm, letting the foulness in the air wash over her skin, steeling herself against its touch. It thickened imperceptibly as she waited, like gossamer cobwebs caught on her flesh. She ran her gauntleted hand over her face, an unconscious gesture to scour away the invisible strands of Chaos magic that gathered there.

‘There isn’t time to seek aid,’ she said, replacing her helm. ‘Whatever Xelkyn is doing, his power builds by the minute. If we leave now, he will have completed his ritual and quite possibly vanished into the realmscape again long before we can return.’

‘There’s a lot of them,’ said Tarion in a warning tone. ‘You know we likely won’t survive a headlong assault.’

‘Neither will Xelkyn,’ said Neave, steel in her voice. ‘What’s wrong, Tarion? Afraid of death?’

‘Again? So soon after Gallowfall?’ he replied. ‘Could we not formulate some sort of plan that doesn’t involve a suicidal headlong attack on a Tzeentchian arch-sorcerer and his entire coven? Reforging has its price…’

‘And its boons. Did I not develop the talent of windshifting at will after my most recent reincarnation? What is that, if not a blessing from Sigmar himself? Besides, do you see another option?’ she asked, easing her whirlwind axes from their sheaths and spinning them in her hands, refamiliarising herself with their weight. She had fought with the weapons until they were as much a part of her as the hands that held them, but it was a ritual she often undertook.

‘No,’ said Tarion after a few moment’s frustrated thought. ‘If he knows we are coming then any attempt at luring his force away or splitting them up will only alert him to our arrival.’

‘Well then.’ Neave rose into a crouch. ‘Take to the air, do what Sigmar gave you the gifts to do, and if it is such a terrible inconvenience then… I don’t know, try not to get killed?’

‘Why in the realms do I hunt with you?’ Tarion hefted his bow as coruscating arrows of lightning crackled into being in his quiver.

‘Duty?’ suggested Neave. ‘Friendship? The deep-seated need to prove that you can keep up?’

‘Just give me a few moments to get into position, Blacktalon,’ said Tarion, and again she heard the smile behind the impassive mask of his helm.

‘Be swift,’ she said. Tarion spread the crystal-and-sigmarite wings that rose from the shoulders of his armour. Celestial energies glimmered through them, playing across the foliage like the promise of dawn, before he sprang skywards and punched up through the canopy with barely a rustle.

For all their repartee, Neave trusted Tarion more than any other Stormcast Eternal in all of Sigmar’s grand armies. He would cover her assault with a skill few in the Mortal Realms could match.

She glanced up, through the swaying jungle fringe, seeking the distant constellations that marked where the Realm of Heavens hung in the distant reaches of the void. Up there, somewhere, she knew that Sigmar looked down upon the realms and the battles his reforged warriors fought in his name.

‘Sigmar, watch over me now and lend me your strength, that I might do your will and strike down your foes,’ she murmured, before reaching out again with her huntress’ senses. She felt the winds aetheric as they whirled across the lands, gave herself up to their ensorcelled power, let them flow through her limbs and course through her lightning-wreathed soul. Her eyes crackled with barely restrained power, and her heart beat faster as the thrill of the hunt welled up within.

‘You may have laid a trap for Sigmar’s huntress, Xelkyn, but you had better be sure you don’t get caught in it yourself…’

Neave tore across the abandoned fields at such a pace that had any enemy seen her approach, she knew their eyes would have registered little more than a streak of displaced air and lightning. She cleared the village wall with an agile leap that carried her fifteen feet into the air, thumping down in the bone-strewn street beyond without missing a stride. Overhead, Neave caught a fleeting glimpse of Tarion, wings spread wide, storm-charged arrow nocked and ready to loose. The Knight-Venator was no longer trying to hide, and neither was she.

The street led towards the centre of the village, taking a left up ahead as it passed between the tumbledown buildings. In the distance, she saw Tzeentchian cultists clad in bright blue robes and grotesque avian masks wrought from gold. Their exposed flesh displayed forbidden markings and they bore the daggers and staves of minor wizards, while unholy fires sparked around them.

The enemy caught sight of Tarion. Shouting in surprise, they pointed skywards towards the swooping comet of the Knight-Venator’s star eagle.

‘Much too slow,’ hissed Neave as she bore down on the cultists like a meteor.

Tarion unleashed a volley of lightning-wreathed arrows with impossible speed. They shot overhead as Neave charged. The arcing shafts lit the night white with their fury, piercing robed bodies and throwing cultists backwards as though they’d been shot with a bolt thrower. One man slammed into a building wall and was pinioned there, dangling and twitching as lightning cooked his flesh and set fire to his robes. Another took an arrow to the face and was catapulted from his feet to crash through the sagging doorway of a nearby hut. Such was the force of his impact that half the structure’s roof came down upon him, burying the Chaos worshipper in an impromptu cairn.

Then Neave hit the cultists’ lines. She leapt and spun, pirouetting through the foe with her blades angled outward. Blood exploded in fans as her axes bit through cloth, flesh and bone. Tzeentch worshippers were flung away from her, crunching into the sides of the derelict buildings or rolling along the street to lie in crumpled heaps.

The survivors were still reeling, frantic, seeking their assailant even as she hit the building at the street’s end with her feet. Neave bent her knees, taking the shock of the impact and propelling herself back into the enemy like one of Tarion’s arrows. She struck the head from one cultist and lopped an arm from another as she flew, before landing in a roll and coming up in a fighting crouch.

One cultist remained standing, drenched in the blood of his fellows even as their bodies crumpled, spurting, to the ground. He raised his stave with shaking hands and pointed it in Neave’s direction. A crackling arrow slammed into his throat with such force that it passed clean through. She heard the man’s heart stop as celestial lightnings coursed through his body and killed him even before his blood began to jet from the wound.

Wordlessly, she raised an axe to Tarion in thanks, then sped on towards the heart of the village. The drums had increased their tempo and the chanting had transformed into warlike cries.

‘They now know we are coming,’ muttered Neave to herself. ‘It becomes more interesting from here.’

Neave rounded the corner between a tumbledown cottage and a mouldering tavern, and found herself confronted by a hellish spectacle. At the heart of the village lay a rude square, in the middle of which a well had been raised. Into the sulphurous dirt around the well, Xelkyn’s followers had driven nine tall silver pillars, each topped with an icon of Tzeentch, the Chaos God of change, fate, magic and mutation. Sorcerous energies crackled between the pillars, weaving a complex web of vivid blues, purples, greens and yellows that hurt Neave’s eyes to look at. A monstrous light beamed up from the well’s depths, hues of indescribable madness that seemed to crystallise and warp in the air as they rose.

Around the pillars was arrayed the remaining strength of Xelkyn’s coven. They packed the square to capacity, a throng of the deformed and the deranged all turning towards her with blades drawn and screams of hatred contorting their monstrous features.

With predatory speed she took in the enemies that confronted her, assessed which were the greatest threats, which would be the hardest to slay, which could be ignored or evaded altogether. The vast bulk of the enemy were human cultists like those she had already butchered, yet amongst them she saw knots of Tzaangor, blue-skinned and corded with wiry muscle, their bodies deformed with features both bestial and avian. A few hovered above their fellows, riding on fleshy, daemonic discs. They wielded twisted bows of silver and sinew.

Here and there, Stiltkin loomed, their bodies little more than masses of blue rags and dirty feathers, their masks beaklike. The weird creatures towered over their comrades on stilts of bone and gold sutured directly into the stumps of their legs, and they held long-hafted silver scythes which Neave knew from painful experience could cut through sigmarite with ease.

Most dangerous of all, several ogroid Thaumaturges rose like muscular islands amidst the press of foes, their flesh branded with glowing runes, their bull-like features and flowing manes crackling with power as they hefted sorcerous staves.

‘There,’ shouted Tarion from on high. ‘Amidst the pillars. Xelkyn.’

Neave saw her mark standing within the shimmering aegis of the pillars, looming over the well with his arms raised. Xelkyn was every bit as hideous as she remembered, with his spiralling robes of flame and light, his painfully elongated limbs, squirming mouthparts that dripped acidic drool, and iridescent eyes formed from fractured domes of crystal.

All this information flowed through Neave’s mind in a split-second. She didn’t even slow, instead angling her assault for a slight weakness that she perceived in the enemy’s lines, trusting that Tarion would cover her from on high. She was not mistaken.

As Neave charged, and the enemy raised their weapons to fight, a storm of lightning-wreathed arrows fell amongst them. Cultists and Tzaangor crashed to the ground, twitching and shrieking as their lives were snuffed out. One of the Stiltkin toppled like a tree as an arrow punched through its leg, sending its scythe blade swinging out of control to lop the head from a bellowing ogroid. Neave’s path was cleared amidst concussive blasts of celestial energy as she arced towards her target.

Still, the foe were many, the Stormcasts just two. Tarion could not suppress all Xelkyn’s coven at once.

‘Beware the soulfire,’ she shouted to him, catching flaring energies in her peripheral vision. Neave leapt aside as one of the ogroids hurled a ravening column of flame from the tip of his staff. The sorcerous energies bit into the ground, raising dust and steam as they blasted a trench where Neave had been. They clipped several luckless cultists, whose screams distorted into gibbering howls as their flesh melted and mutated beyond recognition.

Bands of cultists raised their staves and sent balls of magical fire leaping skywards, a meteor storm that set the air alight. Neave saw Tarion weave through the hail of projectiles, drawing and loosing arrows with inhuman speed as he did. His shots reaped a tally amongst the enemy, hurling more from their feet by the second. Yet they struck him in return, a blast of energy blackening his breastplate, another smashing shards of crystal from his left wing.

In response, there came a piercing shriek as Krien soared down from the night sky. The star eagle ploughed through the cultists’ ranks like a blazing comet, raking eyes and setting light to robes with his magical energies. A knot of Tzeentch worshippers scattered before the proud hunting bird, and Neave cut them down as she sprinted through their midst.

She dived beneath the swing of a Stiltkin scythe, hacking her attacker’s legs out from beneath it even as she heard the whoosh of its blade passing perilously close above her. Coming up in a headlong charge, Neave bisected a Tzaangor then spun around another as it swung its falchion at her.

The Knight-Zephyros moved so fast she knew her enemies would be fighting nothing but a blur that rendered even the most skilful of them clumsy by comparison. Yet they had the numbers, and she could not slow long enough for them to overwhelm her. She left her flailing attacker behind, hurling an axe spinning to thump into the face of an ogroid. As the monster toppled she leapt over it, snatching her blade free from its skull with a sucking squelch and a spray of golden blood.

Sorcerous fire blazed around her in an inferno, bolts of mutating energy missing her by the barest of margins. The pillars were close. Xelkyn was close. But the cult was surrounding her, contracting like a gnarled fist, massing between her and her mark. She could hear Xelkyn’s malevolent laughter ringing over the battle.

Tarion’s shadow raced overhead as he peppered another knot of enemies with arrows. His armour trailed magical flames and dirty smoke, and she could see lightning crackling around bloody wounds in his torso.

‘I’ll clear you a path – just end this before they overwhelm us,’ he shouted.

Neave saw Tarion draw a gleaming golden arrow from his quiver, star-fated sigmarite glinting in the witchlight of the pillars. Flames leapt around him. Tzaangor arrows punched through his body, each fresh wound causing Neave’s rage to burn hotter. Ignoring the pain, Tarion drew back his bowstring and loosed his enchanted projectile. It whistled down at a sharp angle, punching clean through the skull of the last ogroid and flying on with a mind of its own, through cultists and Tzaangor, leaving a bloody trail in the air behind it. A dozen foes fell at a stroke before Xelkyn snatched the projectile out of the air and snapped it with a contemptuous snarl.

The next instant, arrows and spellflame struck Tarion from three directions at once. His proud wings shattered. His armour was rent and torn, and his roar of pain cut out as a searing blast of magic blew his head from his body. Krien gave a dismal shriek as his master’s corpse fell from the air, discorporating into arcs of lightning and racing upwards into the void above. The star eagle followed, becoming nothing but a streak of light as it raced after its master’s unfettered soul.

‘May we meet beyond the anvils,’ said Neave, even as she charged through the gap that Tarion had wrought. Her axes windmilled, sending cultists and Tzaangor tumbling with heads and limbs shorn away. Moving at breakneck pace, Neave saw Xelkyn gather a shimmering ball of magical energy at the tip of his serpent staff. He hurled the projectile at her with a hiss and she slid beneath it. She launched herself back onto her feet in time to block the swing of a Stiltkin scythe, but she barked a cry of pain as a Tzaangor arrow punched through her ribs.

She spun, lashing out with her whirlwind axes, sending the Stiltkin toppling backwards and felling two more cultists before snapping the shaft off in her side. Another arrow whistled past her helm and shattered against a silver pillar. A third struck her breastplate and buckled, driving the air from her lungs. Neave saw enemies massing all around and knew she had seconds at best.

‘You did not die for nothing,’ she spat, hooking a toe under one of the cultists’ corpses and kicking it into the air. The body flipped, limbs flailing, into a mass of enemies and drove them back. At the same time, Neave dived around the silver pillar at her back, hearing more arrows smashing against it as she went.

Bloody and bruised, she rose to confront Xelkyn Xerkanos. Neave saw herself reflected in the crystal shards of her mark’s eyes, every reflection warped and subtly different from the one beside it. She screamed in pain. In one image her flesh burned with unholy fire; in another it crawled with crystal insects. In yet another, it was not her at all but Tarion reflected in the sorcerer’s gaze.

Xelkyn favoured her with a leer and slammed the haft of his staff against the ground. Light pulsed from the well, and the energies crackling around the pillars billowed into a dome. Neave stopped, suddenly wary as she found herself cut off from the cult warriors, alone in this prison of crystalline light with he who she had hunted for so many months.

‘So obliging, spiteful huntress,’ spat Xelkyn, his insectile jaw mangling his words in a way Neave had long come to despise. ‘To spend your comrade’s life, just so you might offer yourself up to my master as a sacrifice…’

Neave rose and paced warily around the dome, a hunting beast stalking the edge of its enclosure. Blood dripped from her wounds, but she ignored it, instead taking in every possible element of her surroundings. She kept her movements relaxed, her expression neutral, while within her mind she sought furiously for the nature of her enemy’s trap.

‘You have trammelled yourself in a prison of your own making, cut off from your followers, with the most dangerous close-quarters combatant that has ever sought your death,’ said Neave, her tone low and angry. ‘Hardly a masterstroke.’

‘And yet, the power that burns from the beyond in this place, the power I have conjured, that will spell your utter annihilation, huntress,’ crooned Xelkyn. The sorcerer kept his stave levelled at her with one taloned hand. The fingers of the other were twitching, she saw, working some incantation while he kept her busy with words.

Neave tilted her head, frowning at her mark with scornful disappointment. Fast as lightning, she sent one of her whirlwind axes spinning across the dome. At the same time, she flung herself sideways, evading the inevitable blast of fire from Xelkyn’s staff.

The sorcerer’s attack missed Neave and washed across the inside of the magical prison, blackening the crystalline light and sending cracks racing through it. In return, her axe lopped Xelkyn’s hand off at the wrist before crunching into the far side of the dome and dropping to the dirt.

The sorcerer shrieked in agony, an insectile whine that set Neave’s teeth on edge and tore at her sanity. Cracks raced through the crystal dome, spears of light shattering free from it and spiralling away into the night. The cult’s surviving warriors massed frantically beyond, hacking and smashing, trying to ram staves through the gaps to blast her with fire.

‘Whatever you planned, Xelkyn, you’ve failed,’ snarled Neave. ‘And now, in Sigmar’s name, you die.’

Neave Blacktalon launched herself across the dome with her remaining axe held high. She swept the blade down in a killing arc that Xelkyn blocked with his stave. Her weapon swung back and down, then back and down again, battering at the sorcerer’s guard with ferocious speed. Sparks showered them both as his stave was shorn in two, Neave’s fourth blow carrying on to gouge a bloody furrow in Xelkyn’s chest.

Around them, the crystal prison shattered and spun away in a million shards of fractured light. Cultists and Tzaangor reeled, clutching at faces and eyes pierced by melting spears of energy. Neave raised her weapon again and brought it down in a savage blow that hacked deep into Xelkyn’s collarbone and half severed his revolting head. Shimmering blue blood sprayed her armour as her mark sagged, falling against her and clawing at the gorget of her armour with his one remaining hand.

Neave looked down at him with pitiless eyes, raising her axe for a last, killing blow. Head lolling sideways, blood spurting in gouts, Xelkyn croaked something through a mouthful of ichor. Even Neave’s razor-sharp senses could not discern it precisely. She caught only a handful of words.

‘…not… the fate… has wrought… a curse…’

With that, Xelkyn hurled himself backwards with a last burst of strength. Neave cried out in anger as he pulled her off balance, toppling forward, feet flying out from under her. The dying sorcerer cast himself into the yawning mouth of the well, into the pulsing, dirty light of raw Chaos, and as he went he dragged Neave Blacktalon with him. Her axe fell, splitting Xelkyn’s skull, yet even then she could not prevent his deadweight carrying her with him over the brink. Her stomach lurched with the sudden feeling of precipitous motion.

Neave bellowed in fury as she tumbled into an impossible, burning abyss whose dimensions the well could never have contained. She plunged into raw madness and lies made of shadows and light. She saw Xelkyn’s body consumed by the raging fires of change, fires that swept through her own armour, her flesh, her bone and soul. In a white-hot wash of agony, she felt herself disintegrate.

All is lightning.

Burning light and arcing energy.

Rending, and tearing, and hammering.

The anvils ring with god-like blows.

Thunder roils and rumbles.

The two sounds are one, cacophonous, ominous, magnificent.

There is pain.

There is ripping and moulding, flesh knit from star-stuff and bones wrought from ferocity and a heart that pounds with the thunder of the heavens.

There is a mind, again, an identity.

There is realisation.

A memory.

A child is crying. She has lived this before, this Reforging, more than once now, and all is familiar, as much as such a process ever can be.

But now a child is crying, and smoke is on the wind, and something terrible roars in a way that causes her soul to recoil.

There is light, fiery and filthy with swirls of smoke, ash, other things. Fat motes that whirl and drone in defiance of the furnace wind, that smack against flesh like clotted hail, that bite and sting.

Flies. The air is thick with flies.

It is as though that one detail is the corner of something painstakingly lifted by a digging nail, a fingertip purchase upon an obscuring layer that she tears aside with increasing speed.

She hears the child crying. She smells the smoke. This is not Reforging, but something else. She hears the child crying and she has to know.

The veil is dragged aside, but it goes unwillingly. There is pain, somewhere in her mind, motes of light and fire that needle her more viciously the harder she tries to see. She ignores them, groans silently at the agony as she pushes on and her vision clears.

There is a village, small and crudely built, nestled at the tapering end of a steep-sided valley. She knows that people live here: proud, simple people who live off the land and fight for what they have. She has seen such places before.

A scattering of huts with black stone walls and roofs of scaled hide, hemmed in to the rear by craggy cliffs, and to the front and sides by a woven wall of thorny growths that look every bit as impenetrable as rock.

A small waterfall plunges over the cliffs and wends its way out beneath the village’s living wall. Bulky riding beasts are tethered. Tall, gnarled fruit trees fill the valley, the fringe of a dark and sprawling forest.

This is a good place. She knows this as surely as she knows who she is.

But a child is crying and the air fills with smoke, the river turns cloudy with gore and black matter, and the trees writhe as rot climbs their trunks and fouls their branches. Flies fill the air in their thousands, a roaring wave that crests upon the cliffs and sweeps down upon the villagers in their homes. Dark figures stride from the storm, rusted axes in their fists. Huge, noisome things lope and squirm on their heels, things that tear into the screaming villagers with tusk and tooth, tentacle and talon.

She sees torches flung into huts, fire taking hold with greedy glee.

She cries out without a voice as she watches bloated butchers hack down those who try to fight, and those who try to flee. The riding beasts are bucking and flailing at their tethers, yet there is a sickness among them. The flies settle in their thousands and begin to feed even as their victims roll their eyes and try in vain to escape.

A sense of greater dread pulls her eyes helplessly upwards, to looming cliffs transformed from protective walls into the hunched silhouettes of hungry scavengers. The sky fills with racing clouds wrought in coiling light and fire. A huge figure is silhouetted against them, a shape that her mind tries not to see. She feels pain again, sharper now, and pictures needle claws digging through the soft flesh inside her skull.

Angrily, she pushes the sensation aside.

She has to see.

With that determination, the figure swims into focus. A monster lurks upon the cliff edge, something with gangling, chitinous limbs, a flabby body bristling with spines and hairs, flesh by turns scaled and insectile, riddled with sores and busy with pustules. A multitude of membranous wings flit and buzz, half-folded in to its back. Bulbous compound eyes stare from above a reptilian snout crammed overfull with rotting fangs and slithering tongues.

Yet it is not this revolting amalgam of fly and drake that fills her with dread, but the being that sits upon its back. Mouldering robes swathe this tall, cadaverous figure, fluttering in the wind and parting to reveal his famine-struck body and maggot-busy flesh. For a moment she takes him for one of the living dead, but then she sees his face, hidden deep in its cowl, his piercing, intense eyes, sore-riddled mouth, lank, greasy hair, and the tri-lobe rune of Nurgle writ in diseased flesh upon his forehead. She knows now who this being is, what he is, and as he watches the massacre of the village with detached fascination she feels her hate for him swell.

Still the child cries, and at last she tears her attention away from the malevolent watcher on the clifftop. She casts around, her vision sweeping down fly-choked pathways, over countless acts of cruelty and violence as the villagers are butchered. Here a body lies sprawled in the rudiments of a herb garden, spine laid bare by an axe stroke, flesh swarming with parasites. There a warrior tries desperately to buy his family time to flee, only to be sent screaming to his knees as his attackers vomit streams of acidic bile across him. Elsewhere, a hut burns, and screams rise shrill and piteous from within as cruel laugher bubbles without.

At last she sees the child, abandoned, swaddled, lying near a fallen woman at the village’s edge. She feels a wave of fear and empathy wash through her, a desperate desire to help. Surely, any moment, the invaders must see this poor, lost thing. She dreads what they will do.

Yet other figures appear now, even as the vision begins to fade. She fights, resists, wanting to see the sinister creatures that slip from the eaves of the forest and dance in steps at once flowing and stilted towards the village. Through a veil regathering she sees the thorn wall part for the creatures, sees their eyes like blue fire flash in the gathering gloom. She sees them sweep the child up in their arms and bear it away into the forest.

All is darkness.

All is lightning, piercing the shadows with sudden, agonising ferocity.

All is pain.

She is Neave Blacktalon. She is reforged.

Chapter Two

Neave stood upon a balcony set high in the flank of the Thunderpeak. This stronghold was home to Neave’s warrior chamber, the Shadowhammers. It was part gilded castle, part vast lightning engine and part stony mountain, looming over a region of grasslands and farms within the innerlands of Azyr. It was tradition, after their Reforging in Sigmaron, for any Shadowhammers warrior to return to their stronghold in the Realm of Heavens before they began their hunts anew. It allowed time for reflection and reassignment, an opportunity to find one’s centre before stepping into battle again.

Clad in a fresh suit of sigmarite plate, her helm and gauntlets set to one side, Neave looked down upon the sweeping vista that spread below. Morning light spread pale and gentle over farmsteads just stirring to life, walled villages beginning to bustle with activity as their inhabitants awoke. Watched over by the noble silhouette of Thunderpeak, and with the High Star Sigendil burning in the skies above, this was as safe a place as Sigmar’s worshippers could hope to live. Neave drank in the simple stirrings of life below, the sense of peace and civilisation.

‘It is all this that we fight for,’ she reminded herself. ‘This, and for all of the Mortal Realms.’

Wagons rolled along roadways patrolled by Freeguild soldiers. Market traders hawked their wares from street barrows while children played in the dirt and farmhands plied their tools amidst golden crop fields. They went about their simple lives while zodiacal godbeasts and mystic constellations wheeled above them, and warrior demi-gods watched over their every move. Neave supposed that one could get used to anything, given time.

Functional immortality, for instance.

She took deep breaths, feeling the last of the Reforging energies flicker and twitch through her muscles. Sometimes the process took days.

‘New muscles,’ she breathed, shaking her head at the strangeness of that idea. ‘Yet they feel the same. They feel… familiar.’

She held her hands up before her face, as she vaguely recalled doing after each Reforging. She marvelled that these were the hands that had held her whirlwind axes upon countless battlefields, had struck down one mark after another.

‘And yet, they are not,’ she said. ‘Nothing is the same but my soul.’

Neave stiffened as the ghost of a sound reached her ears, as though it floated up on some rogue zephyr from amidst the villages below. For just a moment, she heard a child’s disconsolate cries. She smelt the faint tang of smoke, and raised a hand to her forehead, squinting her eyes shut at a dull stab of pain. Something flickered in the darkness, blue motes that stared back at her with frightening intensity.

‘Blacktalon,’ came a voice from behind Neave, shattering the illusion.

She jumped, surprised, an unusual eventuality in and of itself. Neave opened her eyes, glancing over her shoulder to see Tarion standing a few paces behind her. He must have come down the spiralling marble stair from the chambers above but paused on the bottom step when he saw her.

The Knight-Venator also had his helm removed, revealing short-cropped blond hair, lively eyes of emerald green and strong, open features. A tribal tattoo radiated around his left eye, a whorl pattern that he had once told her was sacred to the people he had been drawn from. Why such a marking of the flesh was repeated in Reforging was a mystery that neither of them had ever bothered to investigate.

Neave supposed that Tarion had been handsome, in his life before. Now there was an otherness to him, to all of them that Sigmar had raised up, that made even his affable grin somehow unsettling and dangerous.

‘Admiring the view?’ he asked, joining her at the railing. Neave gave him a level look. He had seen her moment of discomfort, but he wouldn’t mention it. Tarion and Neave had been comrades for a long time, and he knew her well enough to understand that if it was important, she would raise it herself. Silently she thanked him for that, and shook off the strange fugue.

‘Just adjusting,’ she said. ‘You know how it is after the Reforging.’

‘New body, new senses, yet all the same,’ he said, nodding. ‘The familiarity of the unfamiliar, as I believe Lord-Celestant Starhelm once put it. I remember denting my helm the first time I tried to pick it up. Compensating for an old injury that I no longer suffered from, using strength I did not know that I had.’ He laughed softly.

‘It is five Reforgings for you now, isn’t it?’ asked Neave.

‘Five,’ he said. ‘A high tally in so short a span of years. And yet, what, this is your ninth?’

‘It is,’ she replied, nodding slowly. ‘It never gets easier, or any less strange.’

‘Still, one can get used to anything given enough time.’

Neave shot him a glance of surprise. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘Though frankly, I wonder whether we should. Sigmar’s gifts are not to be taken lightly.’

‘Well, then perhaps you should stop abusing the God-King’s generosity by dying so damned often,’ he said, offering her a crooked grin.

‘I serve in a uniquely perilous position, and some of us cannot just take to the air like a giant dandelwing when things get dangerous,’ she replied with a snort of laughter. ‘Besides, I have never once known a death when I didn’t take my mark with me before I went.’

‘Sigmar’s most dangerous blade…’ said Tarion thoughtfully. It was the name that some of their Vanguard Chamber had given to Neave.

‘You know that I dislike that moniker, Tarion. Let the grand titles be left to the grand lords, and let assassins such as us get on with our dirty work in peace.’

‘The chamber seem to like it well enough.’ He raised one eyebrow. ‘You’re a talisman to them, Blacktalon. You know that. You’re a great deal more than just an assassin. You embody their luck, their honour. You are first among your kind, the only one of them with the gift to truly windshift. You know how seriously we Hammers of Sigmar take such things.’

‘Why do you think I still let them call me it?’ she asked, stifling her amusement at his expression of surprise. ‘Oh, come now, senses like mine and you do not think I can hear them muttering that when I make my kills? I understand my burden well enough, and I fight to be worthy of it every day.’

He put a hand on her shoulder, his heavy gauntlet resting for a moment on her sleek pauldron.

‘I know that you do,’ he said. ‘We all do. With the war in the Mortal Realms as fierce as it is, the enemies that Sigmar’s armies face every day? We are all of us exemplars. We can be nothing less.’

‘And that war will not wait for us to conclude our maudlin philosophising.’ She slipped her gauntlets on and cast one last glance down at the lands below. She tucked her helm under the crook of one arm – determinedly not listening for any hint of the child’s cries – and allowed her fierce smile to resurface. ‘We should go be debriefed, so that we can get back into the fight. I am eager to meet my next mark.’

‘Fine, fine,’ chuckled Tarion, following. ‘Though I imagine they are rather less keen to meet you. But perhaps if you could try not to lead me into another certain-death situation?’

Neave barked a laugh as she set off down the spiralling marble stair.

‘Well, Krien always manages to remain upon this mortal coil, Tarion. Why can’t you?’

Upon their first forging, the Shadowhammers had been gifted the Thunderpeak from which to launch their raiding campaigns. The mountain’s slopes played host to clusters of ensorcelled training domes, armouries, feasting halls and contemplaria, and Neave knew every trail between them. She was always most impressed by the central towers that rose around the mountain’s peak. She admired the way they flared with minarets and sub-structures that echoed the spreading span of an aetherwing in flight. Lightning crackled between the tower-tops and coursed over the crystalline viewing domes set into their walls, making the entire structure look to Neave as though it moved through an intricate dance of shadow and light. A localised storm raged at all times over the crest of the Thunderpeak, said to be a manifestation of Sigmar’s warrior wrath.

High up in one of those towers lay the cloister militant of Lord-Aquilor Danastus Hawkseye. Neave approached its gilded doors with Tarion at her side, Krien sat contentedly upon his right shoulder.

A pair of the chamber’s Palladors, the elite cavalrymen that rode fierce gryph-chargers into battle, stood guard outside Danastus’ cloister. Though both wore their crested helms, Neave’s exceptional senses allowed her to identify them with ease. Scents, nuances of body language, timbre of heartbeat, all were open books to a Knight-Zephyros.

‘Gallahearn, Kalparius, what manner of misdemeanour have you been judged guilty of to find yourselves on guard duty?’ she called as she approached. Gallahearn sketched a mocking bow.

‘My lady Knight-Zephyros, you deign to return to us at last then? We heroes watch over the Lord-Aquilor because, while you and Arlor were chasing cultists in the wilderness, we two saved Lord Hawkseye’s life on the fields of Halain.’

‘We fought at his side, you braggart, nothing more,’ said Kalparius wearily. ‘The greenskins broke through the main battleline and we fought at Danastus’ side until the orruks could be hurled back. Gallahearn embellishes the tale with every telling.’

‘Twenty-five colossal orruks of which you’ve never seen the like,’ said Gallahearn.

‘There were eight, as well you know,’ Kalparius corrected. ‘Neave, your hunt was successful?’

‘Another mark slain,’ she said. ‘Xelkyn Xerkanos is no more.’

‘Fine work, Lady Blacktalon,’ said Kalparius.

‘Aye. Easily on a par with felling eighteen raging Ironjawz,’ chuckled Gallahearn, adding his own salute as he pushed open the doors to Danastus’ cloister. ‘Now don’t be too long with the Lord-Aquilor – the Shadowhammers are reunited and it is time that the storm winds raged!’

‘They shall, my brothers, soon enough,’ said Neave, favouring the Palladors with her most feral hunter’s grin as she swept between them.

The doors closed behind Neave and Tarion, leaving them stood in the atrium of Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye’s cloister militant. The cloister consisted of three main chambers, the atrium, the cartogravium and the observation gallery, that rose into each other via short marble staircases as they extended out through tall turrets from the tower’s flank. Danastus’ personal chambers were set off to one side, a small suite far more spartan in nature, and carved straight into the rock of the mountain.

The atrium’s marble floor bore a spectacular mosaic depicting the battle for Greyspire, the conflict in which Danastus had risen to command the Shadowhammers. Its ceiling was a high dome of crystal and reinforced stained glass that bore the lightning bolt and hammer sigil of the Hammers of Sigmar. Storm energies flashed beyond it and rain drew endless trails down its panes.

The dome was supported by four tall columns of gold-veined marble, two white and two black, into which were set dozens of lanterns that spread a golden glow throughout the chamber. Around the pillars grew a startling variety of bushes, plants, coiling lianas and beautiful flowers, set in gilded pots and marble planting beds. Lord Hawkseye had filled the atrium with a riot of life and colour so that it echoed a sprawling garden. Diaphonids meandered between the leaves, the delicate, glowing insect-nymphs floating gently here and there like living stars. Other birds and insects fluttered and rustled around Neave and Tarion, seemingly oblivious to the dark skies and crashing lightning outside.

Neave loved this space, the sense of burgeoning life protected so completely from the furious elements without. She felt it a metaphor for how the Stormcast Eternals protected the common citizenry of Sigmar’s precious cities. It reminded her of her duty.

‘He’ll be in the cartogravium,’ said Tarion. ‘Come on.’

The two of them hastened up the curving stair to the next chamber, a lower, longer space in which the masters of the Shadowhammers planned their campaigns and discussed their strategies. The cartogravium was dominated by a massive table of marble and gold upon whose flanks the sigil of the Hammers of Sigmar was emblazoned.

The tabletop looked at first glance like a huge bird bath, for beyond a narrow lip that ran around its edge, it was carved in a concave shape and filled with still, clear water. The storm skies without reflected in the surface of that motionless pool, as did the complex spheres of brass and crystal that hung in profusion from the chamber’s ceiling. Set upon brass armatures that could be swung and twisted through a bewildering array of configurations, Neave knew that these objects represented the most scholarly and up-to-date understanding of the Mortal Realms and their interaction with one another. They were used to gauge aspects of grand strategy and swift travel by Realmgates, when such matters required consideration.

Lord-Aquilor Danastus Hawkseye stood with his back to them, in the arched doorway that led through to the observation gallery. He was staring out from atop the second marble stair, through the rune-etched glass of the gallery’s Seer’s Window, its ensorcelled energies allowing him to cast his gaze far afield to events and places only he could see.

As Neave and Tarion entered, Danastus broke from his musings and turned to face them. He was tall, even for a Stormcast, with patrician features, a tight-cropped silver beard and hair, and eyes of striking midnight blue.

‘Blacktalon, Arlor, well met,’ said Danastus, favouring them with a rare smile. Everything about the Lord-Aquilor, from his utterances to his expressions, his body language to his battle plans, all of it was clipped, efficient, pared down to the bare minimum. He strode down the steps to join them beside the grand table and looked them briefly up and down.

‘Reforged?’ he asked.

‘Both of us,’ said Neave. ‘The mark put up quite a fight.’

‘Yet you defeated him,’ said Danastus. ‘Xelkyn was a terrible threat. Had he gathered all of the lore he sought, he could have worked a ritual to crack any one of Sigmar’s cities asunder. We have word that his surviving cultists have torn themselves apart with infighting. Xelkyn’s accumulated scrolls and tomes have been seized by Lord-Veritant Hydorius and will not be seen again.’

‘It was a pleasure to put an end to him,’ said Neave. ‘Though I thought for a moment that he had bested me. I’m not sure what precisely he was trying to do, but it seemed he had a plan beyond simply killing me, Lord-Aquilor. He seemed so confident in the cunning of his trap, and was in the midst of some ritual incantation when I slew him.’

‘Perhaps he thought to stop your Reforging,’ said Tarion. ‘If he could have somehow trapped your soul, or bound your corporeal remains with magic…’

‘Speculation,’ said Danastus. ‘He failed. You returned. The Sacrosanct Chambers will be informed of his actions. Meanwhile, we proceed.’

‘A new mark, Lord-Aquilor?’ asked Neave.

‘Full deployment,’ said Danastus. ‘Though no specific mark, not yet.’

He swung several of the brass armatures into place, aligning crystal lenses within the realm-spheres with practised skill. One after another, Danastus tapped tiny crystal beads that represented individual major Realmgates. Beams of light shone out from them, jade green from Ghyran, the Realm of Life, furnace red from Aqshy, the Realm of Fire, and shimmering silver and gold from Chamon, the Realm of Metal. Playing through the lenses within the realm-spheres, they created a dappled pattern of sigils and spiralling runes that rippled across the millpond surface of the water.

The Lord-Aquilor reached into a rack of crystal phials set in one of the table’s flanks and carefully plucked free an ampoule of swirling liquid the colour of sand and storm clouds. He upended it and scattered its contents across the surface of the water, before stepping back to watch the cartogravium table work.

Rapidly, the coloured liquid billowed through the water, flowing further by the second. It turned the still waters from ice-clear to a swirling sandy brown and, where it flowed into contact with the glowing runes of coloured light, it thickened and darkened further, gathering in dark clots that quivered with potential.

Neave watched, fascinated as always by this mystical process. The water’s surface congealed by the second, building a skin that had now turned the colour of old parchment. Even as it did, the clots of darkness burst and spilled lines and letters in all directions. They spiralled outwards, flowing into rivers and woodlands, settlements and ruins, drifting sky-islands and deep ravines full of crystalline fangs.

The whirling lines slowed their dance and the water’s surface stretched taut until at last, floating upon the tabletop, was a liquid map.

‘The Craven Steppes,’ said Danastus.

‘That’s in Ghur, is it not?’ asked Tarion. ‘The Realm of Beasts?’

‘Northwards up the Coast of Tusks, twenty days’ travel by conventional means from the city of Excelsis,’ said Danastus, nodding. ‘There is our destination.’

He ran a fingertip through the water and the map swirled, its liquid inks flowing into new shapes and patterns. When it settled, its focus had tightened, magnifying a single location that was illuminated by script flowing in lazy arcs around it.

‘Fort Vigilance,’ read Neave.

‘When the people of the Craven Steppes ceased their fearful migration, it was taken as a sign that the orruk tribes of Gnashmaw had ended their territorial expansion,’ said Danastus. ‘The decision was made that a Freeguild presence should be established while the greenskins were elsewhere. The intent, I believe, was to fortify the region and allow for the establishment of extended hunting grounds, as well as provide some of the city’s newly recruited regiments with a chance to cut their teeth in the wilds.’

Neave nodded, gesturing to the map.

‘The fortress is well sited,’ she said. ‘High ground, water supply, good lines of sight over the steppes. You’d be able to see the landscape become agitated long before an enemy drew near.’

‘Easily supplied from the sea, also,’ said Tarion, gesturing to an inlet that dug like a fang into the coastline just a few miles west of the fort. ‘The Excelsian fleet would have no difficulty keeping the garrison fed and armed.’

‘All begs the question, Lord-Aquilor, what are we needed for?’ asked Neave.

‘The fortress has gone silent,’ said Danastus. ‘Patrols from the city have been sent to discover the cause, but they have not returned. Neither have the pair of corsair craft that sailed up the coast to make contact. A flyover by Swifthawk skycutters revealed no movement of any sort at the fortress, and substantial damage to the outer walls.’

‘And so they call for us,’ said Tarion.

‘Whatever the threat, it has put paid to a substantial military force across a wide area and brought down the walls of a duardin-built fortress, all without leaving a single visible corpse,’ said Neave. ‘That sounds like the Shadowhammers’ sort of hunt.’

‘Where others fail, the Hammers of Sigmar prevail,’ said Tarion.

‘You are the last to be briefed,’ said Danastus. ‘The chamber is mustering in the Argent Dome. Join them now.’

‘How will we deploy?’ asked Neave.

‘Realmgate,’ said Danastus. ‘With so many war fronts open, our lord Sigmar has better use for his divine lightnings than to cast us across the realms. We shall emerge from the Shudderwing Realmgate and range south towards the fortress from there.’

‘Better to approach from an unexpected direction,’ said Neave, nodding. ‘Come on, Tarion, let’s leave the Lord-Aquilor to his final preparations. In Sigmar’s name, my lord.’

She made the sign of the hammer across her chest, which Danastus returned, before turning back to stare hard at the map with his unsettling blue eyes.

Neave and Tarion hurried down through the levels of the Thunderpeak, hastening to the Argent Dome and their comrades.

‘It has been too long since we fought with the chamber,’ said Tarion, and Neave smiled at the eagerness she heard in his voice.

‘You live for comradeship, do you not?’ she asked, rounding a corner and starting down another winding marble stair.

‘We are none of us our finest when alone,’ he said. ‘Not even you. One soldier is a warrior–’

‘But many make an army,’ she finished for him. ‘I know this. My role does not make it easy to live by those words.’

‘And mine does, soaring above the battlefield, ranging away from the ranks?’ said Tarion. ‘All I’m saying is…’

Tarion’s words became distant, muffled. Blue stars exploded across her field of vision, and Neave shot out a hand to steady herself against the wall. The stench of smoke and decay filled her nostrils and the taste of rot and ruin filled her mouth like bile. Screams and wails filled Neave’s ears, a desperate clamouring that rose by the second. Amidst it all, piercing her mind like a silver blade, came a child’s terrified cries.

‘Neave?’

‘I…’ Neave swatted at the air before her, trying to reach Tarion. Then blackness rushed up, shot through with veins of blue swirling light. She pitched forward into the abyss.

Chapter Three

Again the village burns.

Again the child cries.

This time, she sees it all from far above, as though she is an aetherwing circling in search of prey. Or as though she is a warrior, looking down upon a swirling map of the realms, plotting her conquests.

She sees the village in its fortified cleft, figures running ant-like along its muddy paths as their homes burn. She sees the river where it flows from the north, meandering snakelike after coalescing from amidst a sprawling region of wetlands dotted with crystalline outcroppings. A mountain rises on the faded edge of her vision, a hunched god that broods over the wetland’s fringe. It is split down the middle as though it had been struck with a mighty blade.

She sees, also, the forest that stretches away south and east of the village. In a detached way, she realises that she had not appreciated its enormity. The canopy is like an ocean, swelling breakers of emerald and dark green surrounding the tiny enclave of human civilisation. Deeper in, she sees the near-black of truly ancient groves, gnarled and mist-wreathed.

Something stirs in her at that sight. Pain flares behind her eyes again as she pushes to see more, but this time it comes with a terrible sense of cracking, tearing, a sensation like an over-extended limb or a tautly stretched tendon that she suddenly realises might break. For a moment she sees the image of an ancient tree, struck again and again by lightning until its branches blaze and its trunk topples. Sigils flare across it, whorled designs that burn with blue fire and send agony lancing through her being.

Her mind recoils, and as it does it falls.

The roar of flames and the bellows of the raiders rise to meet her in a hellish cacophony. The child’s screams swell in her ears until they must surely deafen her. She plunges downwards with frightening speed, helpless, towards the monstrous figure lurking on the ridge.

Before she can reach him, before he can look up with his burning yellow eyes, she is engulfed in inky darkness. All sense of speed vanishes in a heartbeat.

Nothing remains but the child’s cries, distant beyond a whispering susurrus like rain upon a lake, or a cold wind stirring a leafy canopy.

Something shifts imperceptibly around her, as though the darkness is not a solid thing but many-layered, entangled in infinite threads that can never be truly still.

She sees lights then, two sharp pinpricks of fiery blue that regard her from between the strands. They pierce her thoughts and lay her bare. Part of her tries to pull away from that cold stare, but there is nothing of her to move, no eyes to close, only an awareness trammelled in the dark, transfixed by fiery blue eyes.

Fear turns to crawling horror as a voice reaches her, crooning from between the shifting strands. It is eerie and singsong, there and gone, like creaking boughs or talons raking stone.

‘Into the darkness come you, child… here, we await…’

She seeks the courage that made Sigmar choose her, the fierce hunter’s strength that compelled him to take her up and reforge her. She tries to speak to this thing that watches her from the dark.

She has no voice.

She cannot make a sound.

She thrashes against her captivity, but she has no limbs.

‘Leave when I deem it, struggling child…’ comes the voice, and she recoils in revulsion at the hint of something like amusement or affection that she hears there. ‘Let me look upon you. Let me aid you in your time of pain. Hear my voice and know it, that you might follow my call…’

She is the huntress, not the prey. She will not cower in this trap.

Suddenly furious, she focuses her will inwards, pouring anger, terror, confusion and frustration into a single point that blazes like a newborn star amidst the darkness.

The eyes bore into her, and a dreadful hissing rises all around her as the darkness thrashes to a frenzy. Yet she persists, pouring her power into that searing light that flares brighter and brighter until at last, the darkness catches fire like dry parchment and burns and curls away.

There comes a last shriek, a last flare of those fiery blue eyes, and then the vision shatters like glass and her mind is tumbling free through memory and thought and finally through nothing at all. For a moment, she sees the impossible immensity of the otherplace again as she plunges down the fiery throat of the well.

Towards damnation.

Towards oblivion.

‘Neave!’

Neave Blacktalon opened her eyes, took a whooping breath, struck out hard. The blow connected with a clang like a tolling bell and something heavy was hurled away from her. Realising she was lying prone, she kicked her legs, flexed her shoulders and flipped herself up into a fighting crouch. Her whirlwind axes were in her hands faster than thought.

‘Neave! Sigmar’s blood, it’s me!’

As the last shreds of darkness tattered away, Neave saw that she stood in a brightly lit stairway, marble underfoot, golden star-lanterns hanging overhead. Several steps above her, Tarion was sprawled against the wall, clutching a sizeable dent in his sigmarite breastplate.

Neave snapped a glance down at her gauntlets clenched around her axe hafts, then back at her winded comrade. She blinked, took a deep, steadying breath and swung her axes back into their sheaths.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, taking a step towards Tarion.

‘Me?’ he said. ‘What about you? Blacktalon, what was that? What happened to you?’

‘What did happen to me, Tarion?’ she asked, trying to marshal her thoughts.

‘You collapsed,’ he said, straightening up. ‘You just went down mid-sentence, as though someone clubbed you round the back of the head. Started making this damned chilling noise.’

‘Noise?’ A feeling of sick dread was rising in her chest.

‘A sort of… keening. Like something lost. I rushed to your side, looking for… I don’t know, an attacker, signs of some sorcery or…’

‘Something,’ she said. ‘Something to explain my collapse.’

‘There was nothing obvious, so I rolled you onto your back, pulled you up onto a step. If you hadn’t woken I was going to send Krien for aid.’

‘But then I woke,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘Then you howled with anger, your eyes snapped open, and you punched me in the chest hard enough to throw me ten steps upwards,’ said Tarion ruefully. ‘Krien took wing… We won’t see him before deployment now.’

‘I’m sorry, Tarion,’ said Neave. ‘I’ve never struck a comrade in anger. Worse still it should be you.’

‘I don’t care about that,’ he said. ‘I’m more concerned as to what happened to you. What do you remember?’

She saw a moment of darkness, heard sobbing and whispers, felt fear, falling, pain. The sensations were gone as soon as she felt them, and she kept them to herself until she could rationally examine what they meant. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing coherent, at any rate.’

‘Neave–’ he began, but she cut him off.

‘Tarion, I’m not keeping things from you, and I’m not being stubborn. I am not some idiot character in a children’s tale who refuses to name what ails them until it’s too late. I saw… something. But my mind won’t settle on it, I can’t get it straight. Everything is a blur. Give me time.’

‘You saw something?’ he said, and Neave frowned at the wary note that crept into his voice. ‘Are you talking about some form of vision?’

‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘I told you, I can’t remember the substance of it, just senses, impressions, snatches of image and sound.’

‘But there was something. You weren’t simply unconscious?’

Neave’s frown deepened.

‘I don’t know what it was. It could have been memories, fragments, a hallucination of some sort. I don’t know, but if you give me time I swear to you I’ll try to tell you more.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m not pushing you for details. I’m just… “vision” is a loaded word amongst our chamber, you know this. Thank Dracothion you didn’t have that turn in front of a Lord-Veritant or one of the Sacrosanct.’

Neave shuddered at the implication. One amongst the Hammers of Sigmar had become infamous for the visions that had struck him. Vandus Hammerhand was arguably the greatest hero of their number, the most lauded and well known, who had stood in Sigmar’s presence many times and had led the first ever sortie of Stormcast Eternals into the Mortal Realms. Yet for all his heroism and nobility, there were those who whispered that the visions were a curse, placed upon him by the servants of Chaos. That, or worse still, some inner failing or spiritual deformity brought forth by his Reforgings.

‘I’m not him,’ she said. ‘They raise statues in his honour then whisper about him in the shadows they cast. I’m nothing like him.’

‘No, you are something altogether better,’ said Tarion. ‘But, Neave, I sensed something amiss when I joined you on the balcony, and I see clear evidence of it now. This is between us, of course it is, but–’

‘But we need to know what happened, and why,’ she finished for him. ‘And we will. Give me time to remember what I saw, to order my thoughts. Meantime, we press on. The war won’t fight itself, and we’ve duties to attend to.’

‘True enough,’ said Tarion. ‘Talk to me when you are ready, yes?’

‘You have my word,’ she said. ‘Just as soon as I understand what in the realms I’m talking to you about.’

The stairway led them down to a grandly arched hallway, which in turn took them through a suite of armouries and libraries and feasting chambers, then down another sweeping stairway, into another corridor, and then onwards again. The interior of the Thunderpeak was a vast and elaborate confluence of structures, its layout and manifold interlocking floors echoing the complex nature of the warriors that inhabited it.

Neave and Tarion saw few other living beings as they walked. They passed a couple of servants clad in gold and blue robes, who paused in their duties to genuflect to the Stormcasts. Otherwise, the Thunderpeak was virtually deserted. The two comrades strode along in silence, their earlier good cheer driven away by what had passed between them.

Neave’s thoughts turned inwards, as she furiously attempted to order and clarify the images that had passed through her mind’s eye. To her frustration they remained elusive. She snatched at fragments and pictures, but now that she was conscious it was as though she fumbled beneath the surface of a muddy pool, grasping at half seen shapes that squirmed from her grasp. The sensation was nauseating, and not a little disconcerting. The few times she felt she was coming close to something, her vision would shimmer at the edges with visual artefacts like sparks or motes of light and the pain would lance back into her skull, forcing her to relent.

She still had not gleaned any revelations by the time she and Tarion emerged from a griffon-carved archway and into the morning light. A lavender-blue expanse of sky yawned above them as they strode out onto a long, shallow ramp of stone and marble. In this part of Azyr, stars and constellations wheeled overhead even in daylight, spreading lambent illumination across everything. The ramp swept down from the foothills of the Thunderpeak, coursing with enchanted light; though it was many miles in length, the enchantments placed upon it sped the passage of those who walked the ramp, carrying them along swift as the wind though they appeared to travel no faster than a walking pace.

The rampway passed between looming bastions and smaller structures before plunging into the flank of a vast dome of black marble and stained glass. Huge golden buttresses spread from the dome’s sides, and an orrery of enormous size hung above its apex, crackling with celestial energies as it rotated.

‘It is a long while since I’ve set foot in the Argent Dome,’ said Tarion as they strode down the ramp.

‘That explains why your blade skills are so rusty,’ said Neave. It was a feeble stab at their usual companionable mockery, and Neave was grateful to Tarion when he barked a laugh regardless.

‘Not so rusty that I couldn’t best you in a duel, Blacktalon. It has been too long since we sparred.’

‘I doubt we’ll get a chance today,’ she said, gazing upwards. ‘The orrery is in its martial configuration. Deployment is near.’

The dome was vast, an enormous structure that rose higher than the foothills of the Thunderpeak. Its entrance was a towering double-door of black marble, flanked by gem-flecked statues of Vanguard Rangers with their weapons raised in defiance. As Neave and Tarion neared, the doors swung silently inwards, hidden duardin mechanisms turning smooth as silk to open the portal wide. Veils of dense mist billowed inside the doors, and beyond them could be heard a muffled susurrus of voices.

The two Stormcasts strode into the mist, and the doors swung silently shut in their wake.

The Argent Dome was the Shadowhammers’ principal training facility and also doubled as their mustering point before each campaign into the Mortal Realms.

It was an enchanted structure whose complex orrery could be manipulated to fill the vast space with artificial weather systems, varying levels of light and darkness and a variety of ensorcelled landscapes ideal for the Stormcasts to spar in, and to wage mock wars across. The dome could even conjure forth illusory enemies for the Vanguard to fight, from howling warriors of Chaos and rampaging greenskins to the shambling undead and verminous skaven hordes.

As she passed through the magical mists that veiled the dome’s circumference from scrying magicks and supernatural spies, Neave reflected upon the countless hunts she had performed through the dome’s cavernous interior, its tangled upper levels of false floors, narrow beams and coiling stairwells. She had slain hundreds of illusory foes in this place, and been sorely wounded more than once by their all-too-tangible bites and blows.

Now, though, the dome had been turned to its martial configuration, a crystal amphitheatre that filled the centre.

‘It might be made of magic, but it’s no less magnificent for it,’ said Tarion.

The ensorcelled structure curved in a half moon shape, its walls high and seemingly formed from translucent emerald and amber. Draconic statues reared from its walls to loom over the marble courtyard at its heart. There, the Shadowhammers were readying themselves for war.

Several hundred warriors filled the space that had been created for them. They donned and checked segments of armour, Vanguard Rangers inspecting the fastenings and joints of one another’s wargear in a process that was as much a reaffirmation of trust as it was a necessary pre-battle precaution. They took up their weapons from wheeled racks that had been hauled into position by teams of robed servants. They spoke amongst themselves, but not loudly. Bombast and braggadocio were rare traits amongst the Shadowhammers, for the Vanguard included many taciturn hunters and loners amongst their ranks. Such warriors were well suited to the long-range scouting missions and subtle, cerebral campaigns that the Vanguard were expected to wage.

The Raptors, the master marksmen of the Vanguard Chamber, checked the sights of their longstrike and hurricane crossbows, worked their mechanisms and ensured that all was in readiness. The cavalrymen of the Palladors stood in small groups, conversing quietly with one another, and with the noble gryph-chargers that they would soon ride into battle. The beasts growled and clacked their beaks, stamping taloned hooves as aetheric energies flickered and sparked through their manes.

Around the Stormcasts bustled almost twice their number of attendants, armourers, prognosticators, scribes, priests and more. Stern-looking duardin craftsmen ran their own inspections on the Stormcasts’ wargear, pronouncing the warriors battle ready only when they were satisfied of it and ignoring any protestations to the contrary. Arco-divinators tottered in ritual circles around the gathering, inspecting invisible omens through their bulky arrays of lenses and goggles, waving electrothaumic wands wired with copper to their bulky backpacks. Warrior priests of Sigmar intoned prayers for the success and safety of the Stormcasts, and blessed each in turn with Azyrite waters and the sigil of the hammer.

As Neave and Tarion approached the muster, numerous warriors turned and saluted them, while others called greetings. Neave spotted Karias Wintercrest nearby with his Ranger brotherhood, all of them diligently readying themselves for war. She headed in their direction, nodding farewell to Tarion as he peeled off towards the gathering of Palladors.

‘Karias, it has been a long time,’ she said warmly. The Ranger-Prime favoured her with a smile, sketching a shallow bow. Wintercrest was so named for the wild shock of white hair that swept back from his brow and flowed across his armoured shoulders, and he wore it proudly, never confirming whether it was a peculiarity from his Reforging, or from his life before. Despite his white mane, his eyes were youthful and lively, albeit set within a visage weathered by howling winds and strange suns.

‘Neave, we haven’t fought together since the Crimson Hollows! It is good to see you,’ he said. The two slapped each other’s shoulders in a clatter of armour, then stepped back, sharing another mutual smile. Neave’s smile faded as she saw Karias’ falter and a look of concern enter his eyes.

‘Something troubles you though, does it not? Your aura is conflicted,’ he said.

‘My last hunt was difficult,’ she said. ‘It was long, and hard, and at times deeply unpleasant. I lost more than one mortal comrade that I valued.’

Karias nodded sympathetically, but Neave’s senses were sharp enough to read his body language like a beacon fire. The Ranger-Prime was not wholly convinced by her words. She and Wintercrest had fought together on several hunts, during which time she had been glad of his unique talent for seeing the aetheric auras that played around living beings. It was a gift of his first Reforging, or so he claimed. Neave was not so glad of that talent now, nor of the necessity to lie to an old and trusted comrade.

‘Where have you been fighting?’ she asked.

‘Ghyran, the Jade Kingdom of Burgeonyl,’ he said, allowing Neave to redirect the conversation. ‘These are strange days in the Realm of Life. Since the Genesis Gate was sealed, the sylvaneth forest spirits have been on the resurgent. You know we have a standing alliance with them now? Not just a tentative hope, but a true accord, agreed between Lord Sigmar and their Mother Goddess Alarielle herself.’

‘From what I’ve heard, it hasn’t made them trust us any better,’ said Neave.

‘True enough,’ said Karias ruefully, accepting his boltstorm pistol back from the hands of a duardin armourer. ‘We spent six months fighting a guerrilla war alongside several clans from the Oakenbrow and Dreadwood Glades. The Oakenbrow were cordial enough, formal and long-winded but solid fighters. But I don’t think in all that time we spoke directly to the Dreadwood sylvaneth more than twice. Mostly they sent messages by mutterling and shivergaw, when they deigned to tell us their plans at all.’

‘Who were you fighting?’ asked Neave.

‘Maggotkin, Nurgle-worshippers,’ said Karias with disgust. ‘Burgeonyl lies along the threadwynd line, north of the Genesis Gate by a hundred leagues or so. We’ve all but pushed the Chaos scum out of that region, yet the blight forts along with threadwynd have proven tenacious and their castellans stubborn in the extreme. We were working to cut their supply lines, drive the Teshetti tribes out of the high passes to restrict their source of fresh recruits, that sort of thing.’

‘Did the tribes resist?’ asked Neave, wincing. The Stormcast Eternals were meant to be reclaiming the Mortal Realms for the good of all Sigmar’s children, and those of his godly allies. But the reality of the war was far muddier, and often the primitive tribes of mortals that clung to life within Chaos-held territories were caught in the crossfire.

Neave closed her eyes momentarily as she saw a glimpse of a body sprawled in a herb garden, things crawling in its flesh. Somewhere, she smelt wafting smoke, and heard a child’s cries.

‘They were tainted,’ said Karias sadly, looking away and missing Neave’s jolt of shock. By the time he looked back, she had mastered herself again. ‘They had given their worship to the Plague God in exchange for their continued survival, and were too far gone to be enlightened.’

Neave shook her head.

‘Too many of the outwilders have gone that way,’ she said. ‘They lost themselves before we could return to save them. I hope you made their end quick.’

A shadow passed over Karias’ face.

‘We did. The sylvaneth were less forgiving. The Dreadwood far less. They struggle to differentiate one human from another regardless of faith or loyalty.’

Neave was about to reply when a peal of thunder rolled through the dome. The mists around its edge shivered and turned a golden hue, and jets of flame leapt from the maws of the dracon statues dotted around the amphitheatre’s edge.

As one, the Shadowhammers turned towards the dome’s hidden entrance and dropped to one knee. The thick mists swirled, then parted as Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye emerged, flanked by Gallahearn and Kalparius, both mounted upon their lithe gryph-chargers. He sat astride the saddle of his own huge charger, Shenri, the beast sweeping its furious avian gaze over the assembled warriors. Shenri was even larger than either of the Vanguard-Palladors’ steeds, and she held her head high as she stalked into the heart of the amphitheatre. As the gryph-chargers passed, the Shadowhammers rose to their feet. The servants and attendants stayed kneeling, simply shifting on the spot to face the Lord-Aquilor.

Wheeling his steed around, Danastus rose in his stirrups and drew his rune-carved blade. He swept its point right to left, encompassing all his warriors in that gesture.

‘Shadowhammers,’ he said, his voice rolling hard and clear around the amphitheatre. ‘From far wars and distant realms you have come in answer to my call. From the mountain fastnesses, and the hunters’ hides and hidden lodges, and the deepest wilds you have gathered in this dome again. I welcome you.’

The Shadowhammers slammed their fists against their armoured breastplates, a single, crashing salute that echoed and died away.

‘We are not all returned,’ said Danastus. ‘Knight-Azyros Elonara Bladewing still leads several brotherhoods in the Gathorndual campaign. They could not break away from such a ferocious fight. Likewise, Varodias Foebreaker and his Palladors – last word has them on the hunt in Ulgu. Their current whereabouts are lost to us. We shall fight all the harder, to honour absent brothers and sisters.’

Another crashing salute.

Another silent pause.

‘You know our mission,’ said the Lord-Aquilor. ‘You know its importance. Whatever threat has laid low the defences of Fort Vigilance, it cannot be allowed to go unchecked so close to the city of Excelsis. Thus, this assemblage of force. Vanguard Rangers, Hammers of Sigmar, Shadowhammers, do you stand ready to serve the God-King in this?’

A third, crashing salute.

Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye stood in his stirrups and raised his blade above his head. High up at the apex of the dome, lightning crackled furiously. A coruscating bolt fell from on high and connected with Danastus’ blade, wreathing it in a furious corona. As one, the Shadowhammers raised their own blades, and the assemblage of servants shielded their eyes as the lightning leapt from Danastus’ weapon to connect with those of his warriors. Lightning crackled and spat, the charged air shrieking and hissing as corposant crawled across the Stormcasts’ armour and danced within the eye-slots of their helms.

Neave felt the celestial energies course through her, causing her heart to pound and her flesh to tingle. This was their bond renewed. This was the lightning that reforged them all, that danced in their blood and lit their souls with a shared divinity that separated them from the mortals for whom they fought.

All the doubt and confusion Neave had felt since her Reforging was driven out, purged by the light of Sigmar, quashed by the nearness of her sworn comrades.

Then the crackling energies stopped as abruptly as they had leapt forth, leaving her keen ears ringing and her eyes swiftly adjusting to the shadows that crowded back in to fill the absence of light.

‘We march for Anvil’s Pass and the Shudderwing Realmgate,’ cried Danastus. ‘We march for Sigmar, for the Mortal Realms, and for the final defeat of the foul Gods of Chaos. Forward, Shadowhammers, to victory.’

With a sound like a tempest stirring, the Stormcasts moved as one. They flowed smoothly towards the southern flank of the dome and into their marching formation, the Palladors swinging up into their saddles and spurring to the fore while the Raptors shouldered their hefty crossbows and dropped back to the rearguard position. Swooping down from the shadows came a flight of aetherwings, the strange birds whirling above the Rangers and crying out oaths to Sigmar in eerie, singsong voices.

Neave nodded to Wintercrest and loped to take up her position at the very front of the formation, emerging first from the dome’s doors and out onto the wide boulevard that led them towards the Thunderpeak’s outer walls. As she went, Tarion swept overhead, Krien spiralling around him.

Tarion shot her a salute as he passed, then he was gone, lofting up into the skies to range ahead of his comrades. Neave took a deep breath as she led the Shadowhammers out along the boulevard, between towering structures and mighty statues, towards the never-ending war for the realms. She knew they must make a glorious sight as they marched out, and yet she still felt the stirring disquiet within her mind.

She felt again that sense of dark and squirming things moving beneath the surface of her psyche. Neave swore to herself that whatever curse afflicted her, she would determine its nature and deal with it in whatever way she had to. And if it was some curse of Xelkyn’s, then she would purge its taint as she had purged the sorcerer himself.

She owed her comrades no less…

Chapter Four

Neave prowled between the gnarled trunks of masticant trees, her axes in hand. The trees grew close together, yellow eyes in their bark following her as she passed. The forest shuddered with the sounds of tough, leathery leaves rubbing together and the chewing of the trees’ teeth as they caught and devoured insects and small animals.

Neave ignored the mindless gnashing sounds and the little squeaks of pain and fear. She stretched her senses out as far as they would go, rolling her footsteps from heel to toe in order to tread more softly. She slowed her breathing until her heartbeat became a pulsing thud, easily shut out.

Somewhere amongst the dense trees, moving through the muddy shafts of sunlight that fell between the leaves, something was hunting her.

Where are you? she thought, scenting the still air. There was something musky borne on it, a rank, animal stench, but its source was hard to pinpoint. She strained her eyes, seeking the telltale wisps of body heat that might betray her enemy.

Pausing, Neave slung her axes and removed a gauntlet. She dropped into a crouch, checking the muddy ground carefully. This was the Realm of Beasts; anything could be predatory, or adapted to drive predators away, even the things squirming and scurrying in the muck. Even the muck itself.

Satisfied that she wasn’t about to thrust her hand into a nest of corkscrew worms, Neave placed her palm against the ground. Thick mud squelched between her fingers, releasing a stench of offal and dung, but she ignored it as her skin met the firm resistance of bed-rock just below the surface.

She closed her eyes, focusing all her attention upon her hand, upon the sensitive skin of her palm where it pressed against bed-rock. She shut out the busy chewing of the trees, the rasp of the canopy, the drone of stingflies and redlegs in the air. Gradually, she began to sense vibrations through her palm. She felt the impact of distant feet upon the ground. Frowning behind the faceplate of her helm, Neave learned of her foes.

There were four… No, five. Bipedal but clumsy in their movements, heavy footed, erratic. South, several minutes away but closing in, following her trail… Not intelligent enough to grasp that she had left it on purpose. Not canny enough to sense that she was the bait and the trap both.

Neave’s frown of concentration wavered as twin points of blue light appeared against the blackness behind her eyes.

Not again, she thought angrily. Not now. With an effort, she fought it off. The images from her vision had resolved in her mind in the three days since the Shadowhammers had departed the Thunderpeak. They had emerged slowly, in dribs and drabs from the morass of her subconscious. She felt she was imposing some order, gleaning some understanding of what she had seen twice now.

‘But now is not the time,’ she whispered. Her eyes snapped open as she realised her moment of distraction had caused her to lose track of her unseen assailants. She pulled her gauntlet back on, ignoring the vile sensation of mud trapped within it, and readied her whirlwind axes.

The bestial stink had thickened on the air, and Neave rose into a fighting stance as she heard her hunters clumsily slinking through the underbrush to either side of her.

Now to have a proper look at what we’re up against, she thought.

With a sudden explosion of energy, Neave sprang to her right and accelerated into a blurring run. She wove around the gnawing trees with lithe agility, bursting through a skein of web-bushes and straight into the midst of one of the groups of hunting creatures.

Neave took in animal features like twisted beasts of burden, yellow eyes with vertical slit pupils, curling horns and muscular, humanoid bodies covered in scabbed flesh and coarse hair. She swung one of her axes as she passed through their midst, and a goat-like head parted company with a thick neck in a spray of brackish blood.

Even as her first victim was toppling sideways, Neave’s second strike disembowelled another of the creatures and swept clean through its midriff into its spine. The creature was flung backwards, almost torn in half, slamming into a tree-trunk and sliding to the ground.

Neave pivoted neatly on her forward foot, arresting her motion in a heartbeat and spinning back to face the last of the creatures. Splashed with the blood of its companions, the beast blinked stupidly at her. Its eyes widened, and it drew breath to cry out in alarm. One of Neave’s axes spun through the air and struck it between the eyes, almost bisecting the creature’s skull. Its knees buckled, and it crumpled to the ground, Neave snatching her weapon back before it even touched the floor.

She swept her gaze across the carrion sprawled around her, ignoring the surreptitious chewing sounds coming from the tree-trunk against which one corpse sprawled and twitched.

‘Brayherd,’ she said quietly. The word left a foul taste in her mouth. ‘The children of Chaos. Let us leave you for your friends to find, see if we can’t spread a little fear. I’ll be seeing them again soon enough anyway.’

With that, Neave turned northwards and set off at a run through the forest, towards the rest of her comrades.

A short time later, Neave, Danastus, Tarion and the force’s brotherhood officers stood in a muddy clearing and planned for battle.

‘There’s an entire horde of them,’ said Neave. ‘They’ve got Ungor scouting ahead, scattered through the forest. That is not their true strength, though I could feel the mass of them away to the south, feel the shudder through the air. I’d estimate at least a few hundred, Lord-Aquilor, and though I outstripped them easily enough, they cannot be that far behind.’

‘The aetherwings are circling on high,’ said Danastus. ‘Their othersight can pierce these woodlands in a way even yours cannot, Blacktalon. We shall have ample warning of the enemy’s approach.’

‘How did they get onto your trail in the first place?’ asked Tarion.

‘They didn’t,’ she replied. ‘They were already coming this way. I sensed the mass of northwards movement, spread across the frontage of our advance. I lured a few of their scouts in to see what we were dealing with, then swung back.’

‘More use than me in this situation,’ said Tarion in frustration. ‘The terrain’s so dense and the canopy’s such a tangle, I’d have to be almost on top of the warband before I saw a damned thing from the air.’

‘That is why we have many eyes in many places,’ said Danastus. ‘Suggestions?’ He swept his gaze around the assembled officers. Amongst many Stormcast Chambers, Neave knew the commanding lord would have led such a discussion. Yet Danastus showed his experience in leading such an elite scouting formation by observing silently and allowing his lieutenants to discuss and determine strategy. Neave knew from long experience that Danastus had already formulated his own plan. This was simply a test. He would wait to see whether the officers serving under him could match or better it.

‘We could simply bypass them,’ suggested Venoria Stormsreach, one of the chamber’s Raptor-Primes. ‘Lay false trails heading north-west, while we loop out to the north-east and then circle around. From what Blacktalon reports, their scouts are crude beasts and easily fooled.’

‘That would leave their route open to the Realmgate,’ said Tarion. ‘We only passed through it a day ago, remember?’

‘Several days’ march at the pace these lumbering things move,’ said Stormsreach. ‘And the gate is warded from this side against any that have not been reforged. Not to mention the obfuscatory charms that conceal it and the large watchfort that overlooks it.’

‘Your faith in the garrison does you credit,’ said Tarion. ‘But this sounds like a sizeable force. Even if they cannot physically pass through the gate into Azyr, they could stumble across it by chance and cause substantial damage. I say the risk is not worth taking.’

Neave noted a muscle twitching in Danastus’ jaw. To her sharp senses, he may as well have vocally expressed his approval.

‘I agree,’ said Karias Wintercrest. ‘Besides which, these beasts may be the very threat that put paid to Fort Vigilance.’

‘That is less likely,’ said Danastus. ‘The Brayherds are not subtle. They would have alerted the Craven Steppes with their approach, forewarning the garrison. Even in their hundreds, the beasts could not have carried the walls of the fortress, nor caused the disappearance of the entire Freeguild complement.’

‘Then they are in our path by pure ill chance?’ asked Stormsreach.

‘It seems entirely possible,’ said Tarion. ‘But they are a threat we cannot simply leave to continue on its way. Not this close to Excelsis. Besides which, if we could capture some of the creatures alive, they may have borne witness to whatever it is we actually hunt.’

Again, Neave noted a subtle shift of the Lord-Aquilor’s posture that suggested his silent disagreement. She thought he might step in at that point and conclude the discussion. Instead, he let his lieutenants continue their debate.

‘Assuming any of these degenerate things even speak a comprehensible tongue, and you could hurt one enough to overcome its hatred of us all,’ said Wintercrest. ‘The Gor-kin would rather die than aid civilised beings.’

‘There will be casualties, if we engage them,’ said Stormsreach in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘We must consider the impact on our operational viability. We have a quest to complete.’

‘We ambush them, use their aggression and belligerence against them,’ said Neave. ‘Swift attacks by me and the Palladors kill their scouts, draw the attention of the main warband and bring them in towards this clearing. The Rangers and Raptors set up on the ridge to the north and make ready to lay down fire. As soon as the main force reaches this point, you rain death on them, kill as many as you can and draw the rest towards you.’

‘Many of the enemy will die, you have our word on that,’ said Stormsreach. ‘But I doubt even we could kill them all before they reach our lines.’

‘Agreed,’ said Neave. ‘That’s why Tarion, the Palladors and I will punch through or loop around their lines. Once they’re almost on top of you, we hit them from behind. They’ll be caught between us. Some will turn back to fight, thinning the herd that you’re facing. Where possible, you’ll disengage and fall back to take up secondary firing positions and draw the warband further apart.’

‘Once they have enemies on every side, shots raining down on them non-stop, gryph-chargers and Knights ripping through their ranks… yes, it’ll break them,’ said Tarion.

‘And minimise our own casualties,’ said Danastus. ‘A hunter’s plan, Blacktalon. I sanction this. I will lead the Palladors in their attacks. Stormsreach, you and Wintercrest will take charge of the firing line. Are there questions?’

There were none. The Stormcast officers returned to their brotherhoods to disseminate the plan and find the best positions for their attack. Meanwhile, Neave saluted her comrades with her axes and turned back into the underbrush.

She hunted best alone.

A tang of Gor-kin stink reached Neave’s nostrils and instantly she was ready, her nerves singing with a keen awareness of everything around her. She was crouched behind the trunk of a fallen masticant, having pushed up with the Pallador cavalry brotherhoods, ready to intercept the Gor-kin.

Deadfall crackled ahead. A wiry humanoid pushed its way through a screen of web-bushes, fighting off the hungry strands with grunts of irritation. She saw it was an Ungor, the smallest of the Gor-kin. It had stubby horns and sunken eyes, bestial features and a crude hide loincloth. The Ungor carried a primitive spear in one gnarled fist and stalked forward on feet that were deformed with clots of hard hoof.

More of its kind followed, several of the beasts grunting at one another in a crude approximation of language. She waited five heartbeats, making sure there were no more coming. Then Neave struck, a whirlwind of death that sent bodies tumbling and heads spinning away.

To their credit, two of the brutes managed to raise their spears before they were slain. One even attempted a crude jab, the weapon’s flint point passing through the space that Neave had occupied moments before. Its wielder hit the ground in two bloody halves before he could strike again.

Neave was still once more, crouched, ready, listening. Off to her right, she saw a trio of Palladors flash through the forest to drive home their own attack. Gryph-chargers were incredible beasts, able to transform themselves into blasts of storm energies and flow onto the winds aetheric. Known as windshifting, it allowed them to bear their riders along with them in terrifyingly swift streaks of lightning and gale-force winds. It was a trick that Knights-Zephyros could also perform, and a shocked band of Ungor learned of it the hard way as they were smashed from their feet by the onrushing blurs of air and crackling energy.

The Palladors shimmered back into visibility as they paused to wrench their javelins from the corpses of their fallen foes. Their prime, Castus Mournblade, shot Neave a quick salute.

‘Good hunting, Knight-Zephyros,’ he called, before leading his fellows on in a crackling storm of light.

‘And you, Mournblade,’ she said, before turning towards fresh sounds of movement away to her left. Flicking blood from her axes, Neave accelerated into a charge again.

Neave was pulling her axe blade from the face of another fallen Ungor when she felt the growing vibration beneath her feet and smelt the rank stench of her foes’ bodies suddenly magnified a hundred-fold.

Pursing her lips, she gave a piercing whistle that she knew the beasts couldn’t miss. She turned to retreat, and the screaming cries of a panicked child rang loud in her ears. The stink of rot and woodsmoke filled her lungs, and the tangled branches around her seemed to darken and draw together. Motes of blue light danced across her vision as though she were about to pass out, and somewhere she heard a distant voice crooning words that she couldn’t make out.

‘No… no…’ moaned Neave, staggering against one of the trees. She recoiled as teeth tried to sink themselves into her gauntlet, their hungry pressure enough to dent the sigmarite and cause her to hiss in pain. That pain cleared her mind, however, just in time for Neave to see the hulking monster that loomed through the trees at her back.

Snorting furiously, stomping the ground with hooves larger than a Stormcast’s helm, the Bullgor fixed its beady eyes upon her and bellowed a challenge. The thing was huge, easily twice her height and thrice as broad, its shaggy body a mass of heaving muscle and bestial rage. It carried an axe of prodigious size, but it was the horns that curled from its skull that it lowered towards her.

Neave managed to throw herself aside as the Bullgor charged. Its hoofbeats shook the ground, and one horn-tip clipped her shoulder, sending her spinning away to roll into a crouch, arm numbed by the concussion. The Bullgor’s momentum carried it on into a tree-trunk, and the masticant’s eyes bulged with shock as it was cracked almost in two by the force of the impact.

The tree creaked then crashed sideways into its neighbours. The Bullgor turned back towards Neave and bellowed again.

‘I’m ready for you this time, you reeking beast,’ she snarled. Yet the next instant her senses tingled, and she leapt clear as another massive axe slammed into the ground where she had been standing. Neave landed lightly, pivoting to see a second Bullgor emerging from the shadows of the forest. A crude spear whistled from between the trees and struck her square in the chest, smashing her from her feet. She hit the ground gasping, only the resilience of her sigmarite chest-plate saving her from broken ribs or worse. Hulking shapes lumbered between the masticant trees, and dozens of humanoid figures followed, Gors and Ungors braying for blood.

‘Sigmar’s throne,’ spat Neave, scrambling to her feet and breaking into a blistering sprint. More crude spears whistled down around her, thudding into tree-trunks and digging into the muddy soil as she ran. The bestial roars of her pursuers faded quickly as she outpaced them, cursing herself for her moment of weakness. Yet self-recrimination could come later. For now, the clearing lay dead ahead.

She saw Tarion, wings spread and bowstring drawn back, standing at the clearing’s centre. Behind her, she heard the monstrous crashing of the Bullgors charging after her as fast as they could go.

‘The horde’s on my tail,’ she sang as she raced past Tarion and into the undergrowth on the other side.

‘Perfect,’ he shouted after her. ‘You bring the nicest gifts, Blacktalon.’

Neave heard the hissing crackle as Tarion began to shoot, nocking, drawing and loosing with inhuman speed. Bellows of agony rose amongst the trees as his shots hit home, and then she heard the rush of his wings as he took to the air.

Neave was already looping out and around, turning past the Rangers and Raptors waiting in their prepared positions, sprinting hard to clear the frontage of the Brayherd lines before she turned back south to encircle them. She heard the hissing storm as her comrades opened fire, the crackle and boom of dozens of lightning strikes erupting amongst the woodland. She felt fierce pride in her brothers and sisters at that moment, their dedication, skill and courage. She just wished that she did not also see the hazy suggestion of a huge monster lurking higher on the ridge, a fly-like thing ridden by a terrible being who could not possibly be there. The mirage was there and gone between the tree-trunks, but it left its mark upon her. A sense of shame tugged at her, and the fear crept through the back of her mind again that Xelkyn Xerkanos might have succeeded in his aims after all. She could not, would not let herself become a liability to these courageous warriors.

‘This can’t go on,’ breathed Neave.

In the battle’s wake, she and Tarion helped to pile and burn the enemy’s dead.

‘They came straight on, just as you planned,’ he said, hefting another corpse onto the carrion mound in the clearing. The Brayherd lay all around, slumped amidst deadfall, sprawled over one another, feathered with bolts and javelins or burned by lightning blasts.

‘The Rangers did a phenomenal job,’ replied Neave. ‘I heard we lost eight of them, all told. Even with several more fallen from amongst the Palladors, that’s only a fraction of the force sent back to Azyr, for the cost of an entire warband.’

Tarion dumped another Ungor onto the growing mound, and stepped back with a frown.

‘When did we become so detached about the casualties we sustain?’ he asked. ‘Does it not trouble you that we have come to treat death so lightly? I remember our first campaign, how horrified I was when I saw comrades falling, and how relieved I was to see them again in High Azyr.’

‘Not death though, is it?’ she asked, grasping a Bullgor by one shattered horn and heaving it towards the pile. Tarion moved to help shift the massive dead weight of flesh.

‘What else would you call it?’ asked Tarion, his voice tightening momentarily as he strained with the corpse’s weight. ‘The body is slain, then completely obliterated by the escape of the soul back to Azyr. Even our wargear is destroyed, nine times out of ten. I’d argue we Stormcasts die harder than most.’

Neave and Tarion swung the massive corpse between them and threw it onto the carrion mound. It slid slightly, then fetched up on the jutting horns and fangs of its fallen comrades.

‘I don’t know – you do not see our enemies rising from the beyond to bring the fight to us again and again, do you?’ she said, nudging the heap with one foot. ‘Our souls don’t die, just our bodies. Ergo, not dead. That is the gift Sigmar gave us.’

He frowned at her.

‘Doesn’t that cheapen our sacrifice?’ he asked. ‘I’ve died in Sigmar’s name several times now. I’ve felt my soul leave my shattered mortal remains and race back to the heavens. I’ve been reforged, certainly. But I still gave my life, and with each self-sacrifice I have lost a little more of myself. Memories, thoughts, feelings that I will not regain.’

‘Does it matter so much to you that you did?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t duty enough without the sense of martyrdom?’

‘Of course,’ he said, stepping back as one of the Rangers came past with a cannister of purified oils. The corpses of Chaos-worshippers could not be left to rot, lest their corruption seep back into the soil and worsen the taint already present. It was an order given to all the Vanguard Auxiliary Chambers since the first cities of Sigmar had been raised in the realms, and since that time they had carried the oils with them for purification burnings. Once the pyres were lit, they would hasten away in case the column of smoke brought fresh foes and gave away their position.

‘Well then,’ said Neave. ‘Reforging is a strange enough process without bringing concepts of reincarnation into it. It already raises enough questions.’

He gave her a searching look, and she nodded in answer to his unasked question.

‘Let’s leave the burning to the Rangers and press ahead. There’s a lot of land to scout still between here and the Craven Steppes, and there’s a lot we don’t yet see.’

Tarion clapped her on the shoulder and strode away to inform Danastus they were setting off. She looked after him for a long moment, feeling trepidation and gratitude at war within her. She knew better than to bear her burden alone, and she felt she could trust Tarion more than any other living being she had ever known. But all bonds had their breaking point, and the lonely, tired part of her soul wondered whether what she had to tell Tarion would prove to be theirs.

Neave had never trusted easily, had always wrestled with the fear that no matter how much a person might prove themselves to her, there was always the risk they might fail her, or she might drive them away.

Risk her friendship, or risk failing in her duties to Sigmar? Truly, for Neave, it was no choice at all.

Swift as the wind, she and Tarion sped off through the forest. Neave raced along its muddy animal tracks and wove between its tangled trunks. He flew swift and true over the canopy, keeping pace with her, Krien weaving around him like an errant star in the sky.

The daylight lasted briefly in this part of Ghur, though no one had ever been able to provide a tangible reason why. Despite the days lasting far longer in the region around Excelsis, this stretch of the Coast of Tusks continued its attempts to verify the ramblings of local shamans that the night time itself was predatory, and quick to devour each new day.

By the time the pyre smoke rose thick at their backs, and the trees began to thin around them into scattered copses, daylight was already fading from the world. Stars speckled a sky turned mauve and umber, and the twin bodies of the Hungering Moons rose over the jagged horizon, the one chasing the other like predator and prey.

Tarion swept down in a long arc and alighted ahead of Neave, near a straggling copse whose branches wove black webs against the evening sky. Krien settled in the canopy above, light radiating from him and spreading around Tarion in a pool.

Neave slowed her pace as she neared him, glancing with a hunter’s caution all around. The terrain here was turning to rugged grassland, interspersed by low, rolling hills and jagged-edged ravines. Strange crystal outcroppings split the skin of the plains here and there, rising hundreds of feet in height and seeming to twitch and shudder in the half-light. Theirs was the only visible movement, however. There was no sign of any far-ranging Palladors keeping pace with her.

She and Tarion were alone.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked, the moment she reached him. Neave pulled off her helm and offered him a wan smile. She kept her expression calm, even though her heart was thudding with anxiety at what she was about to admit.

‘Honestly, Tarion? No.’

He drew breath to speak but she held up a hand and kept talking. Now that the dam had broken, she needed to let it all flood out.

‘They were visions. You were right. Not just one, but two. I can only half remember it but the first was during my Reforging, I’m sure of it. What you saw, that was the second. And they have been echoing in my mind, and in my senses, ever since. I feel as though I’m going mad. I feel like there’s a wall collapsing in my mind and it’s letting things through that seem like visions but feel like memories, and yet it’s as though they aren’t my memories, like someone else put them there. Does that make any sense at all?’

Tarion was still helmed, his expression hidden behind his impassive face mask. His body language was still, carefully neutral.

‘What have you seen?’ he asked.

‘It is fractured, like a broken mirror,’ she said, frustrated. ‘There’s a village, in a valley, upon the edge of a forest. I feel as though I know the place, as though it’s good, safe somehow. Only, it isn’t safe because a terrible cloud of flies sweeps down upon it and all of a sudden there’s Nurgle-worshippers rampaging through the streets, killing and burning. They have deformed monsters with them, hideous, chimerical things, and all the while, up on the ridge above the village a figure waits and watches.’

‘Who?’ asked Tarion.

‘A champion of the Plague God, sat astride the offspring of a dracoth and the most hideous plague fly ever to crawl from Nurgle’s garden. He frightens me, Tarion, actually frightens me, and I don’t know why.’ Neave was shocked at her own admission; she had seen so much horror, so much death, that she had started to wonder if anything truly possessed the power to frighten her any more.

‘Is there more?’ he asked. She nodded, ran one hand over her eyes.

‘There’s a child, abandoned near the edge of the village, and I keep hearing her cries. She sounds so lost, so damned scared. Any moment I think the raiders are sure to see her, but before they do, figures come from the forest, and they move through the wall, and they snatch the child up and bear her away. They are lithe, and they move strangely. I remember jagged limbs and dagger-like talons, glowing eyes and shimmering light playing over their bodies. But they aren’t clear to me. I could not tell you what they were. And then…’ She faltered, her mind refusing to focus on anything else. Pain flared in her skull.

‘Blue lights…’ she whispered.

‘Neave?’ asked Tarion, drawing closer. Her eyes snapped back into focus, and she stepped warily away from him.

‘Look, Tarion, we have fought together for many years now. You are my oldest comrade, or friend, or whatever it is that we are to one another. I understand that what I am saying now could make me sound cursed, perhaps mad or tainted in some way. But–’

‘Neave,’ he said, interrupting her. He removed his helm, and she felt her heart lurch at the honest sympathy and loyalty she saw in his expression. ‘Tell me what you need.’

Neave blew out a long, slow breath, gathering herself. She smiled at him gratefully.

‘I need to know what this is. I don’t believe it’s entirely a vision, not like Hammerhand suffers from. I don’t feel like I’m seeing something that will happen, so much as something that has happened already. Like a memory, though I can’t tell if it’s mine, or someone else’s, if it’s real or if someone invented it and put it in my skull. One way or another, it is interfering with my ability to serve Sigmar. I’m the first of the Knights-Zephyros. I’m one of the Hammers of Sigmar. I cannot fail. I have to know what this is, what it means, and what I have to do to drive this curse away. I can’t risk taking it back to Azyr with me if I die, or… spreading it to anyone else, if it is truly some curse.’

He nodded, staring into the middle distance where the last light of the sun set the horizon ablaze. Crystal outcroppings rose like dark spears against the ruddy light, clouds of insects emerging from their insides and swarming in profusion around them. Neave shuddered at the visual echo of swarming flies.

‘You know that I’m duty-bound to tell Danastus about this,’ said Tarion, and Neave felt a shock of icewater run through her veins.

‘We cannot, not yet. If we inform the Lord-Aquilor then he must, in turn, hand me over to the Sacrosanct Chambers for examination. There’s every chance that I would never come back, and Sigmar knows that if that was the only way to keep everyone else safe from corruption, then I would submit to their judgement without a struggle. But what if this is only the beginning of something, or a warning of danger yet to come?’

He raised a placating hand before she could go on.

‘Blacktalon, I said only that I should tell Danastus, not that I would. I agree with you – it is too little to go on and too rushed an action. I could no more throw you to the dracolions than I could shoot an arrow through your heart. This matter remains between us for now.’

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, though the simple words didn’t feel anything like enough.

‘Are there any other distinguishing features you remember? Landmarks? Any idea which realm, even, this all happened in?’

Neave told him everything else she could recall, fragments from her strange bird’s eye view and the vertiginous plunge that followed. Tarion’s face set in a stern frown as he committed every last nuance to memory.

‘All right, that’s more to go on than I feared,’ he said. ‘But still, in all the vast realms, we’re looking for a single place that may or may not even truly exist. I don’t think you should open yourself up to hope.’

She shook her head.

‘I agree, it’s a tall order,’ she said. ‘But still. Where do we look first?’

‘You don’t look anywhere. The chamber can’t spare us both. Besides, until we know what is happening to you, you’re better close to the chamber where you can call upon aid if you need it. Just try not to let anyone see… well, anything untoward, yes?’

‘If I’m staying with the Shadowhammers, what of you?’ she asked.

‘You’re fast, but you can’t fly,’ he said. ‘And you hunt alone. I have contacts. Brother Knights of the air. Swifthawk Rangers. Even the airship masters of the Kharadron, if I must, shifty duardin bastards. Tell the Lord-Aquilor that I’m ranging out on a hunch, that I may be some days. Meanwhile, I will shake every tree I can. If anyone knows of this place you speak of, I’ll find it for you.’

Neave reached out a gauntlet and clasped it in his. She shot him a fierce smile of gratitude, the expression insufficient to express the relief and hope surging inside her.

‘You are a true friend, Tarion Arlor,’ she said. ‘Thank you. Be safe, and hasten back.’

‘Just keep whatever this is to yourself, and under control,’ he said. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

With that, he replaced his helm, whistled for Krien to follow, and leapt skywards without another word. Neave watched him swoop away south and west, vanishing into the darkening sky in the direction of Excelsis. Her hunter’s sight kept him in view a long time, and even when Tarion could be seen no longer, Krien still burned against the skies for a few moments more. At last, even he dwindled amidst the stars, and was gone.

Chapter Five

Tarion soared upon thermals of ensorcelled energy. He swept through banks of churning cloud and wheeled amidst crackling spears of lightning, for what fear had one of Sigmar’s Eternals for the storm?

Below him, incredible landscapes unfurled. The topography of the Coast of Tusks was laid bare, jagged peninsula fangs thrusting savagely out into a ferocious ocean that gnawed at their cliffs with equal vigour. Vast herds of beasts roamed the grassy plains inland. Thundertusks and yarhi and the centipede-like tokkashotle grazed and fought and rutted as they pursued their nomadic existences. Packs of predators stalked them through rocky mountain passes and the edges of lambent swamplands. Sabretusks brought down the weak and the isolated from amongst the herds. Reptilian shekli burst from their trap-burrows to drag bellowing beasts down into nests swimming with exuded digestive juices. Once, far below him, Tarion witnessed the last moments of a duel to the death between two massive gargants, one clubbing the other’s skull in and hurling him from a mountaintop. The two had fought over a frozen rhinox carcass, he saw, and he envied them the simplicity of their battles. The war to reclaim the Mortal Realms had long ago become a complex and muddy affair. There were times when the vague memories he retained from his tribal life before Reforging seemed idyllic in their lack of moral quandaries or blurred battlelines.

Tarion flew through one glorious, fiery dawn and on into another magnificent sunset, Krien soaring always ahead. He shared the air with creatures large and small, sinuous air-serpents and great lurching monsters, swarms of whirling motelings and once even the magnificence of a dragon in flight. Tarion swept well clear of those that might have endangered his mission and ignored those that fled him in turn; as with everything in the Realm of Beasts, if you were not the predator, you were the prey. Survival relied on an implicit understanding of your transition between one role to the other.

Tarion had always gloried in the perspective that his powers of flight gave him. Through all his battles and Reforgings, he had never lost his wonder at being able to leap from the ground into the air and soar as though he had been born to it. Yet now he was preoccupied, troubled more deeply than he had shown Neave. All the magnificent and dangerous sights of the realms meant little to him, for his mind was on his friend.

During the second dawn, Krien dipped his wings and shot a pointed look at Tarion, then at the glint of the watering hole over which they flew. The Knight-Venator shook his head.

‘I’m sorry, my friend, we fly on. Neave needs our aid, and if my fears are correct, time is desperately short…’

At last, after days and nights of ceaseless flight, Tarion saw a glint of light upon the horizon that lifted his spirits. It drew swiftly closer, swelling into a hard gem of gleaming surfaces and crackling sparks, then into a sprawling cityscape enclosed within high walls. He saw the towering spar of night-black stone that loomed over the city, jutting up from the waters of the nearby bay and casting its long shadow over the buildings that crouched at its feet.

‘Krien, look, the Spear of Mallus,’ said Tarion with a grin. ‘We’ve made it to Excelsis.’ Krien gave a hearty screech in reply.

The city grew closer by the minute, details resolving themselves in Tarion’s keen vision. He saw the shimmering celestial mechanisms that whirled atop the walls, crackling with caged lightning that could be unleashed upon attackers with the pull of a lever. He took in the districts both rich and poor that crowded around the tangled streets, huddled knots of civilisation herded together in comparative safety from the predations of Chaos. He glanced towards the Stormkeep of the Knights Excelsior that stood tall near the heart of the city, and suppressed a shudder.

‘Be glad we have no business with the White Reaper or his kin,’ Tarion called to Krien, receiving an imperious glance in response.

As they neared the walls, Tarion flew in a long, slow arc along their length. He flared the crystalline membranes of his wings, ensuring he was both seen and recognised by the sentries. He had no intention of being smashed from the air by some spell or projectile flung by an over-eager sentinel.

As he expected, Tarion received nothing worse than a few salutes from the bravest of the Freeguild watchmen, and he returned in kind. Satisfied that he had made his presence known, Tarion built up speed again and soared out over the bustling docks with their cornucopia of strange trade schooners and war ships, their coastal fortresses and cannonades.

Waves crested white below him and the morning grew dark and cold as he swept on, into the shadow of the Spear of Mallus, then up, spiralling on strange magical thermals like an ember spat from a bonfire.

The spear swept past as he climbed, its black surface busy with eldritch runes and curling shapes, marred here and there by the robust gantry-camps of prophecy-prospectors. Excelsis’ entire economy was powered by the gleanings of distilled foresight that were mined from the spear, and brave souls from as far away as Azyrheim and Hammerhal would make the journey to Excelsis in the hopes of striking a rich prophetic seam and thus ensuring their future fortune.

Tarion saw more than one camp that was little but dangling wreckage and wind-lashed ropes, each one a testament to the extreme peril faced by the prophecy miners.

Onwards and upwards he soared, until at last the spear tapered towards its mountainous crest. Ahead of him he saw the mystical structures that orbited endlessly around the so-called Speartip.

Here was the Ilythraein Observatory of the Eldritch Council, a slender construction of pearlescent minarets and towers born aloft upon softly flowing streamers of golden light. There, just orbiting into view beyond it, an immense brass orb studded with crystalline viewing ports and docking platforms, trailing cable-rigs and countless gun batteries: the Kharadron embassy-port of Khar-Khazdul that swarmed day and night with the rumbling airships of the skyborne duardin traders.

More structures followed in stately procession, some higher, some lower, each held aloft by differing arcane means. Tarion knew most were dedicated to the study or exploitation of the spear and its incredible prophetic properties.

Yet as he wheeled about and soared beneath the blocky aetherfoundations of the Seer’s Vantage, Tarion saw a more martial structure hove into view. Wrought in gold, marble and iron, it resembled a cross between the ribbed hull of some vast ship and a towering Stormkeep bastion. Pennants streamed from its flanks bearing the sigils of the Hammers of Sigmar, the Celestial Vindicators, the Knights Excelsior, the Hallowed Knights and dozens more Stormhosts. Winged figures in armour similar to Tarion’s soared around the structure, coming and going from its countless perch-gantries, while more Stormcasts could be seen patrolling the battlements that wreathed it like iron garlands.

‘The Excelsian Eeyrie,’ he said. ‘Perhaps here we’ll find answers. And some food for you, eh?’ Krien let out a strident screech and dived ahead of Tarion like a comet. The Knight-Venator followed his star eagle down towards the eeyrie’s flanks, his own eagerness tempered by trepidation.

Tarion alighted upon one of the lowest perch-gantries and strode towards the arched portal that led into the Excelsian Eeyrie’s interior. The majority of the crystal-winged Prosecutors and Knights that came and went from the structure favoured the higher platforms, and Tarion went largely unobserved, though he knew that the sentries had marked his approach and scrying engines would have determined his true nature the moment he came into view.

As he neared the door, it whispered silently upwards on arcane mechanisms, leaving the archway open. Through it came a figure robed in silver and grey. She bore a staff carved from polished bone and wore a half-mask of the same substance. The robed woman was tall and straight-backed, and her black hair was pinned in an elaborate train down her neck and over one shoulder.

‘My lord, welcome to the Excelsian Eeyrie,’ she said, stopping in front of him so as to gently but firmly bar the doorway. The tip of her staff made an echoing clang as she rapped it against the metal deck of the perch-gantry. Tarion stopped, looming massively over her. She stood calm and unafraid in his path. The wind whipped around them, snatching at the crest of his helm, the hem of her robes. A short distance away on either side, the platform ended abruptly in a sickening drop, yet Tarion sensed no nervousness from the figure before him, only a calm self-assurance.

‘I thank you for your greeting,’ he said with a frown. ‘To what do I owe it? I have been to this eeyrie before and have never been stopped at the door.’

‘My master, Lord-Castellant Martoris Skywarden, bids you welcome, Tarion Arlor. He asks that you attend him as soon as you have slaked your thirst and satisfied your hunger, for he knows your business to be pressing,’ she said.

Tarion opened his mouth to ask how her lord knew of his business, then shot a glance at the Spear of Mallus, and closed it again. He looked down at the servant pointedly. She returned his glare with calm composure.

‘Our proximity to the spear gives us certain advantages that we would be foolish not to exploit,’ she said. ‘I am sure that you understand – all weapons must be wielded in Sigmar’s great war.’

Tarion nodded.

‘I’ve heard that sentiment before. But you have me at a disadvantage, in more ways than one,’ he said. She smiled, neutral and graceful.

‘My name is Jeshoria, my lord,’ she said. ‘I have the honour of being the Lord-Castellant’s seneschal. He entrusts to me those tasks too important to be given to anyone else. Consider me a subtle extension of his will.’

‘Well, then it is good to meet you, Lady Jeshoria,’ said Tarion. ‘Please, show me where I might replenish my strength and then I will attend the Lord-Castellant directly.’

‘You will,’ she said, and he felt unease at the certainty in her voice. ‘But, a caution, my lord. Martoris also bade me tell you this. A dark fate has bound itself to your comrade and it has touched you, also. In coming to us for aid, you taint us in turn. Think carefully before you step across this threshold, Tarion Arlor. That is his only request of you.’

Tarion recoiled at her words.

‘What do you know of this? What dark fate?’ he asked angrily. ‘What does he want me to think carefully about? We are Sigmar’s Stormcast Eternals – we should not have to hesitate to ask for one another’s aid.’

‘I know only what my master tells me,’ she said, still sanguine. ‘If you wish to ask such questions, my lord, you will have to ask them of him.’

‘Lead on then, quickly,’ said Tarion. ‘And you can forgo the victuals – I’ll take them after I’ve had some answers.’

Jeshoria bowed slightly at the waist, then turned and led Tarion into the Excelsian Eeyrie.

It took a good twenty minutes to navigate the twisting passageways and chambers that honeycombed the structure’s interior. Tarion and Jeshoria passed feasting halls and strategic cartogravia, sparring chambers, armouries and barracks. A deep thrumming could be heard, the aeronavulum engines that held the structure aloft sending their vibrations through the walls and floor. Tarion and Jeshoria climbed steadily, up tight spiral stairs and broad, metal-runged ladders. They passed warriors from a dozen different Stormhosts, their varied panoply contrasting wildly through reds and greens, blacks and silvers. Only the winged nature of their armour unified them, for the Sigmarite eeyries were places reserved solely for the use of those warriors of Order who could fly to them.

Some of these places, Tarion knew, could stable the mighty Stardrakes in their highest levels, occasionally playing host to the brave Templars who rode them. This was not such a structure, but still it thronged with an army’s worth of warriors. The eeyries were fortresses within which information could be swiftly exchanged between Stormhosts, maps updated with the latest scout findings and messages passed at the speed of the wind. Several had already been established above the greatest cities of Order, and Tarion knew that more were under construction even now.

Several warriors hailed him as he passed, those he had fought alongside saluting or waving. They looked surprised as he offered each of them a brusque wave or a grunted ‘well met.’

‘You do not wish to converse with old comrades?’ asked Jeshoria at one point. ‘I can halt and wait for you if you wish, my lord.’

‘I’m in no mood, and the less old comrades who know of my business, the better,’ said Tarion. ‘Besides, did you not say something about taint by association? If that’s so, should I not keep to myself?’

He received a non-committal nod in response.

‘As you say, my lord,’ she said, and again Tarion had to quell his irritation at the sense Jeshoria knew more than she was telling him.

Finally, they climbed up to the highest levels of the eeyrie, and as they did so the warrior throng thinned out to almost nothing.

‘We are coming to the seers’ quarters,’ said Jeshoria, her voice echoing in the sudden quiet. ‘Few come here unless duty compels them. The seers can be unsettling.’

‘I have been this high once before, during the preparations for the attack upon the Aqshian Allgate. The seers’ predictions failed us that day. They are far from perfect.’

‘They know enough,’ she said, leading him on past gloomy chambers shrouded by silk curtains. The cloth drifted in breezes he could not feel. Muttering and wailing came from within. Strange lights shimmered through the curtains, and subsonic vibrations caused Tarion’s organs to shudder in his chest. For all his air of contempt, Tarion would not have entered one of those unnatural chambers and attended their hunched and crawling occupants unless a powerful duty had compelled him.

At last, Jeshoria led Tarion up a final, spiralling stairway of black marble. Its walls and ceiling shimmered with tiny inset diamonds. It was as though they climbed through a tunnel wrought from the celestial void, finally emerging before a high, silver arch that was busy with engraved runes. Another curtain hung here, woven from pure silver and blazoned in gold with the twin-tailed comet of Sigmar.

There were no guards, but Tarion sensed the celestial energies that simmered within the runes and knew that to pass through this archway with hostile intent would be to die.

‘Lord-Castellant Martoris awaits you within,’ said Jeshoria. ‘May you find the answers you seek, my lord.’

‘Thank you,’ said Tarion stiffly. Unsure of protocol, feeling suddenly overlarge and unsubtle before the servant’s demure composure, he offered her a terse nod before turning and pushing his way through the silver curtain.

‘Tarion Arlor, the last-born son of the Peroknes Tribe. Welcome.’

The voice was deep and rich, and it floated to Tarion through air thick with incense. The Knight-Venator stopped just beyond the archway, blinking in surprise.

The chamber he had entered was huge and dome-shaped. Its floor was black marble of the same sort that had made up the stairway. The sweeping curve of its walls and ceiling were clad entirely in polished silver that reflected the vast wash of light spilling from the chamber’s heart. There, dominating much of the domed space, hung what Tarion could only think of as a chained star. It was a huge sphere of celestial energy, blazing fire wreathed in dancing coronae of lightning and whirling cometary orbs. An elaborate cradle of brass armatures, churning cogs and ever-swivelling lenses caged the roiling sphere, suspending between them an orb of dark blue crystal within which the star was trapped. It was this filter, Tarion realised, that must be absorbing the star’s ferocious heat as well as ensuring he was not instantly blinded.

Several brass walkways looped around the crystal globe, ladders stretching between them and machineries thronging their surfaces. Stood upon the highest of these platforms was a towering Stormcast Eternal, clad in the bulky armour of a Lord-Castellant. He was unhelmed, displaying his ochre skin, his tight-cropped silver beard and one blinded eye that had been replaced with a silver orb.

‘Lord-Castellant Martoris Skywarden,’ said Tarion, gathering his wits. ‘Thank you for your welcome. I come to ask your aid.’

‘I know,’ said Skywarden. ‘I also know, unlike you, whether I will give it, and what it will mean if I do, or if I do not.’

Tarion felt annoyance rise in his chest. ‘Lord-Castellant, with respect–’ he began.

Martoris held up a hand.

‘I do not intend to be obtuse, Arlor,’ he said. ‘Come, join me before the Cognis Celestis, and I will do my best to aid you. I wish only for you to understand that what you will ask of me is no small thing. Our road forks here, and you should know your destination before you choose a path.’

Scowling, Tarion sprang into the air and swept across the chamber, alighting with a clang before the Lord-Castellant.

‘I don’t suppose there’s any sense attempting to hide the nature of my quest from you,’ said Tarion. Skywarden answered with a strange smile. Close to, Tarion saw that the Lord-Castellant’s silver eye was graven with fine, glowing runes. It swivelled and rolled constantly in its socket. His armour was the white of the Knights Excelsior, its pale sheen washed out by starlight.

‘I know of Neave Blacktalon and her difficulties,’ said Skywarden. ‘But rest assured that I have shared this information with none but Jeshoria. The seer that discovered it has been dealt with. Neave’s secret will remain just that, for it is too dangerous for the case to be otherwise. You were wise to tell no other of this, Tarion Arlor.’

‘You trust your servant?’ asked Tarion.

‘With my life,’ replied Skywarden, his voice hardening.

Tarion nodded. ‘I have come to seek information regarding the content of Neave’s… of what she saw,’ said Tarion. ‘I thought to enquire carefully amongst my brothers and sisters, to try to locate by geographical detail the location that she witnessed, perhaps some information about the figures there. I knew that the matter could be dangerous for her, if suspicions were raised before we understood what was happening. We Hammers of Sigmar, more than most, cannot afford any seeming of weakness. But now your ominous hints have filled me with dread that the danger stretches beyond just my friend and me.’

‘It may yet reach further than you could believe,’ said Skywarden. ‘But that will depend upon your choices, and hers. Nothing I say or do can aid you in walking your path. That you must do alone. But you are looking for somewhere to begin.’ Skywarden turned towards the bottled star that blazed at his back. ‘The Cognis Celestis can provide you with this, far quicker than any amount of circumspect questioning and hope.’

‘What is this device?’

‘Knowledge,’ said Skywarden with a smile. The star’s light limned his dark features and glinted upon his silver eye. ‘I am keeping your secrets, and in return I trust you to keep mine. Every eeyrie built thus far houses a Cognis Celestis in its highest chamber. It is the true purpose of these places, though in his wisdom our lord Sigmar has chosen to reveal this fact only to the Lord-Castellants that rule over the eeyries. We, in turn, tell a trusted few, but largely we are sworn to keep the God-King’s seeing-stars a secret, for if the enemy ever discovered them they could be turned into powerful weapons against us.’

‘It looks like some sort of caged celestial body,’ said Tarion, wonder in his voice.

‘In many ways it is,’ said Martoris. ‘I do not pretend to understand what divine powers our lord Sigmar used in the creation of these devices, but the tale I was told is this. Each Cognis Celestis is a star-mote, a fragment of the heart of a celestial monster that Sigmar slew during his first days in the void. It was a thing of the deepest night, which drew all knowledge, light and hope into its ever-open maw, and it had been driven to madness and ferocity by all the terrible things that it knew. The legend I have heard named this thing as Leviathor, and tells how Sigmar and Dracothian battled the abomination across the heavens, always avoiding its cavernous maw and the oblivion that lay within. At last, it is said, they slew Leviathor and its dark body tattered slowly apart, revealing a white-hot core of pure knowledge like the pearl within a clam’s jaws. Sigmar took this star of wisdom and struck it with Ghal Maraz, shattering it into fragments that he kept in Sigmaron until they could be of use.’

Martoris’ deep voice had turned lilting as he told the legend, and Tarion now found himself stirring from rapt silence as the Lord-Castellant ended his tale.

‘And what we stand before, it is one of those… motes?’ he asked. Martoris nodded.

‘Much of what Leviathor knew was lost upon the beast’s death, but not all. Moreover, the burning star of curiosity and wisdom that had roiled in its gut remained a single entity, even after Sigmar’s shattering blow. Caged as the fragments are, they still gladly devour all knowledge that is passed into them, and allow it to flow freely between one mote and the next in a way we will never understand. In short, Arlor, if knowledge has been offered up to the Cognis Celestis, it can be extracted from any other Cognis Celestis anywhere in the realms.’

‘How does information reach these devices?’ asked Tarion. ‘If they are such a closely guarded secret, surely few have stood before them to submit their wisdom in the way you describe?’

‘The star-motes are rapacious,’ said Martoris. ‘Even caged in this way, they reach out and take what they want. The moment any Stormcast sets foot within the bounds of an eeyrie, everything they know, all their thoughts, memories, even their deepest secrets, are drawn from their minds and into the heart of the Cognis Celestis. Stars, it seems, do not wait to ask permission.’

‘It raids the minds of Sigmar’s warriors without consent?’ asked Tarion, aghast at such an invasive violation. ‘These devices… we are all being interrogated, without even knowing that we are?’

‘This offends you?’ asked Martoris.

‘It feels dishonourable, disingenuous.’ Tarion’s jaw tightened. ‘It means that my knowledge of Neave’s curse has been stolen into this thing!’

‘Calm yourself, Arlor. The Cognis Celestis are not easy devices to draw information out of. They contain entire constellations of useless background noise along with the vital strategic intelligence they were put in place to transmit. Only the Lord-Castellant of each eeyrie can access this information, and even then, one must know precisely what one is searching for. The star-motes are acquisitive and jealous, echoes of Leviathor himself. They do not easily part with their secrets, and yours will remain safe amongst the morass of pointless wisdom.’

Tarion scowled. ‘Still, this sort of mental leechcraft is–’

‘–Necessary, as are all other weapons to be used in the war against Chaos,’ said Martoris, and Tarion was forcibly reminded that he spoke to one of the uncompromising Knights Excelsior. ‘Victory is all that matters, not delicate sensibilities. You Hammers of Sigmar enjoy the privilege of a certain naivete alongside your shining heroism. That is not so for us all. Now, do you desire the information that you came here for, or will you baulk at its source?’

Tarion took a deep breath and thought about all that was at stake. He hesitated for a long moment, then nodded.

‘Whatever you can tell me.’

‘As I thought,’ said Martoris. He turned to the nearest bank of machinery set into the Cognis Celestis, and his fingers danced over runic sigils and glowing dials. His face set in an intent frown, and the starlight danced across his silvered eye as he worked. Tarion realised that Skywarden was not simply operating the machine but was in some way wrestling with the intellect of the star-mote trapped within it. He was a fisherman, plying his line and fighting a spirited, perhaps dangerous catch. He was a torturer, attempting to interrogate a demi-god. The longer Martoris worked, the more ferociously the bottled star flared and lashed, its cometary bodies arcing rapidly around it.

Tarion took a step back as chain lightning stabbed out and crawled across the inside of the glass, questing fingers trying to grasp for Martoris and punish him for his temerity. The Cognis Celestis flared brighter and brighter, and Tarion shielded his eyes from the ferocious glare. He saw that Martoris had closed his living eye, only the swivelling silver orb continuing to stare into the Cognis’ depths. Tendrils of energy slammed repeatedly against the inside of the crystal dome, as though some vast beast was trying to reach Skywarden and strike him down.

There came a final flare of light, an intense pulse of energy that shivered through the walkway, and then Skywarden stepped back from the now-smoking console. In one hand, he clutched a small flask of metal and crystal, within which a bright light shimmered.

‘Here is the information you seek, or as close as I could wrest from the Cognis’ heart,’ he said, holding the flask out to Tarion. ‘It is a place to begin. That will have to be enough. Simply open the filter in the flask’s lid, then stare into its light, and you will know that which you seek.’

Tarion hesitated again, before reaching out to take the flask from Skywarden.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For your aid, and for your discretion.’

‘I ask that you tread lightly, in return.’

‘I will try,’ said Tarion. Skywarden kept his grip upon the flask for a moment longer, and Tarion found himself meeting the Lord-Castellant’s fierce stare.

‘The more valuable or dangerous the information that is drawn from within the Cognis Celestis, the harder it resists parting with it. I have used this device many times, and I have never, ever seen it lash out to the degree that it did today. Do you understand what I am saying to you?’

Martoris released the flask, and as Tarion tucked it into a pouch at his belt he had the sense of stepping off the edge of a precipice into the void beyond.

‘I will act carefully, Lord-Castellant, you have my word, upon my honour as a Hammer of Sigmar’. Tarion offered Martoris a warrior’s salute, which was returned in kind.

‘Now, find yourself some victuals, take a few hours to meditate and restore your strength,’ said Skywarden. ‘You must be centred before you absorb the information you have been given, lest it overwhelm your spirit. And if the seer spoke true, it will be long before you get the chance to rest again, Tarion Arlor.’

Tarion nodded and turned away, leaping from the railing and soaring to the chamber’s entrance. He passed swiftly through the curtained archway and descended the steps two at a time, his movements urgent and his mind whirling. As he went, the flask seemed to weigh heavily in its pouch.

Chapter Six

Knowledge blossomed into being in Tarion’s mind like buds becoming flowers, one after another. His footsteps led him sure and unwavering through the Excelsian Eeyrie, back down to its lowest levels, towards the apothecaries’ chambers and the quarters reserved for those airborne allies of the Stormcast that could reach the magnificent structure.

After eating and resting as best he could, Tarion had opened the filters on the flask and allowed the light of its secrets to flow into his mind. The experience had been unnerving in the extreme, not a didactic process or factual exposition, so much as the sensation of a door being opened within his mind so that knowledge might spill through. Now he followed that knowledge where it led him, trying to still the slight tremors in his hands all the while.

Passing a pair of grim-faced Kharadron, Tarion hurried through a refectory chamber where more of the duardin skysailors were bickering over prices as they ate. He passed another arch and along a softly lit corridor lined with curtained doorways. Sweet-scented herbs burned in small braziers between each entrance. Further down the corridor, Tarion saw a pair of white-robed apothecaries, speaking in soft tones as they inspected a heavy brass ledger.

He knew, with absolute certainty, where to go. As though guided by a bright light, Tarion strode to the third entrance along and swept the curtain aside. The chamber beyond was light and airy, its furniture stern but clean. In a bed beside the arched window lay a figure, who sat up with a start at the sight of a huge Stormcast Eternal looming in his doorway.

‘My lord,’ said the aelf, his voice grating and raw. Tarion saw that his skin was speckled with weird patches of scar tissue, and his eyes had a crimson tinge to them. The two paused for a moment in mutual surprise, unsure of how to proceed.

‘You are Thindrael Anyaerios, of the Swifthawk Agents, yes?’ asked Tarion. The aelf nodded, scrambling out of bed and offering a stiff bow.

‘I am, my lord,’ he said. ‘Has the Lord-Castellant finally answered my plea, then? Are you to aid me?’

‘Something of that nature,’ said Tarion smoothly. ‘It seems likely that we can help one another. Sit, please, and tell me how you came to be here.’

The aelf’s features passed through several swift, complex expressions beyond the ken of even a reforged human such as Tarion, but he sat as instructed and cleared his throat with audible discomfort.

‘I am here, my lord, in hopes of vengeance,’ he began.

Tarion flew, Krien soaring ahead. Thindrael’s skycutter skimmed through the clouds on Tarion’s right, almost close enough to touch. They flew above roiling storm clouds veined with crackling lightning.

‘Is it Sigmar’s storm?’ called Thindrael in his rasping voice. Tarion looked down, searching the clouds as though he could pierce them with sight alone.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘There’s every chance. The war spills onto new fronts every day. If it is so, we’d best stay high and remain undetected.’

‘As you say,’ said Thindrael, sounding unconvinced. He had accepted Tarion’s vague talk of a secret mission for the good of the heavens, but clearly hadn’t been entirely satisfied by it.

‘How far now, until we reach your former posting?’ asked Tarion.

‘Perhaps a day’s flight, perhaps more,’ replied Thindrael. ‘I can’t be sure – I was unconscious for a time as Hasha flew. He’d passed out of Ghyran altogether, through the Brazenreach Realmgate into the Ghurish Hinterlands before I knew where I was. It took me days to properly gain my bearings, my lord. I was just this side of the veil by the time I reached Excelsis and sanctuary.’

‘But now here you are, back in the skies above Verdantia, alive and seeking answers. Your fortitude is commendable, your determination no less so.’

‘Thank you, my lord, but neither of those qualities is responsible for my survival,’ said Thindrael, frowning over his reins a moment as Hasha flapped through turbulent air. ‘My patrol was commanded to be the eyes and ears of Sigmar’s armies in this Jade Kingdom, and we failed. We barely saw the killing blow coming ourselves, and of all of them only I lived. Shame and anger kept me alive, and now hatred drives me back. Whatever duplicitous creatures slew my comrades so cruelly, I want to look into their eyes as I end their lives. I want them to suffer, and to know that they do so at my hand.’

Tarion glanced at Thindrael. It was easy to forget, he reflected, just how passionate aelven kind were. For all their grace and nobility, they felt hatred and anger on a level that few other sentient beings could understand.

‘I hope that I can help you to find the vengeance you seek,’ said Tarion. ‘Whatever force attacked you, it seems they are bound in some way to my own quest. Are you sure you remember nothing more of who or what they were? There might be some clue in their identity to how they relate to the answers I seek.’

‘I am sorry, my lord, but there is nothing more. I only pray that I can aid you in finding these answers some other way.’

‘With Sigmar’s blessings, we shall find both soon enough,’ said Tarion, as the two of them soared on through the gloom of evening, and the storm raged far below.

The day-or-more turned out to be almost three. Tarion was forced to travel at Thindrael’s pace, for the aelf was still not fully recovered from his wounds, and as a mortal being he required food, water and sleep.

Tarion chafed at each delay, his thoughts turning ever to Neave and the Shadowhammers, now a realm away and more. Would his friend have been able to conceal her visions? he wondered. Would they have become worse? Martoris’ ominous words came back to him time and again, and Tarion felt nebulous dread build in his chest as he wondered what dark fate Blacktalon was bound to.

He kept these thoughts to himself, however, and did his best not to show his impatience. Thindrael was clearly in pain and exhausted by his exertions, and Tarion did not wish to add to the aelf’s burdens. They pitched camp atop high ledges dotted with sparse chitterpines and gloamingbells, and Tarion kept watch while his companion slept. He meditated in snatches, trusting Krien to warn him of approaching danger, and doing his best not to listen to the tortured moans and whimpers that escaped Thindrael’s lips during sleep.

On the third morning, they soared over a vast river delta that teemed with incredible plantlife. Lianas thick as fortress towers coiled hundreds of feet into the air, forming lattices and tangles amidst which entire ecosystems thrived. Birds in their thousands flocked through the air, snatching insects from the skies to feed their young. Thick mists of spores billowed at ground level, rolling like fog banks across waters that meandered and glinted emerald and blue.

‘The mouth of the Everwash,’ called Thindrael, pointing downwards. ‘A beautiful region. It marks the southern boundary of Verdantia, and by Alarielle’s grace it has never known the touch of Chaos. I have my bearings now, my lord. We have drifted south of our course, but not by any great span. Follow, we will reach Highcrater Watch in a few short hours.’

Thindrael plied his reins, turning Hasha north. The greathawk gave a spirited cry and beat his wings, driving on through the morning light. Tarion wheeled on his crystal pinions, settling back onto Thindrael’s right flank and dropping slightly behind. He was content to follow his guide for now, and to centre his thoughts in silence. Ahead, still little more than a grey suggestion on the horizon, lay the Tarrowhane Mountains amidst which Highcrater Watch lay. There, Tarion hoped he would find some hint of what to do next, and how to aid his friend in understanding her visions.

‘I am blind in this, Sigmar,’ he muttered. ‘But I have faith. Please, my lord, show me the way.’

As they neared the mountains, Tarion and Thindrael found themselves flying into stiff headwinds that rose from the towering slopes. Dense forests flowed by below, some groves looking pristine and wild while others had a sickly cast to them and lurked beneath miasmal clouds.

‘The war has touched this land,’ cried Thindrael over the singing winds. ‘We believed that the sylvaneth had driven Nurgle’s followers from these woods altogether, but like mould the Chaos-worshippers always returned. Their war has become an endless cycle, one side lying fallow then resurging in fresh growth, then the other following suit. We may be safe, but I would not trust it. Be on your guard.’

Tarion had sensed much of this without the aelf’s explanation, for his supernatural senses laid bare the threat of Chaos below. Yet he nodded and saluted his thanks, whistling for Krien to fly close and keep watch.

The Knight-Venator and the skycutter swept high over the rotting forests and began to climb, riding gusting thermals up over the lower passes. The mountains themselves were magnificent and strange, Tarion saw, shattered and splintered into incredible shapes as though by some ancient cataclysm. They rose higher and higher towards where glimmering stars described strange constellations in the midday sky.

Tarion and Thindrael’s senses were alert for the slightest sign of danger, yet they remained unmolested. Still, Tarion could not shake the sense of watchfulness that crept over him. He kept his bow in hand as he flew, ready to nock, draw and loose in a heartbeat.

At last, with the rotting forests left many thousands of feet below and the wind bellowing around them, Thindrael and Tarion came in sight of Highcrater Peak. Thindrael angled Hasha upwards in a climb so steep that Tarion feared the aelf would be thrown from his skycutter, rapidly gaining height until they soared in thin and freezing air and could look down upon the peak from above.

‘How long can you stay at such heights?’ shouted Tarion over the wind. ‘You have ice forming on your craft!’

Thindrael, swathed in his aelven cloak and still shuddering with cold, made a dismissive gesture with his free hand. He pointed down towards the peak, directing Tarion’s gaze.

‘It resembles a crown,’ said Tarion, taking in the deep crater dug into the very top of the mountain, the jagged spars of stone that rose around its edge.

‘Where is the watchtower?’ he called, confused. Thindrael was staring down intently, a frown creasing his features. He shook his head and sent Hasha into a steep dive, stooping towards the crater at speed.

‘Sigmar damn your recklessness,’ cursed Tarion, and followed, an arrow nocked to his bowstring, his wings crackling with energy. Krien spiralled around him, eyes wide for danger.

As they neared the mountaintop, Tarion saw there was something at the base of the crater. It was dark and indistinct, buried under drifts of snow. He swept his gaze across the rest of the crater, judging it to be perhaps five hundred feet in diameter and largely swathed in cold shadows.

Thindrael swept his skycutter in and landed on the snowy ground, near to the dark humps. Leaving Hasha in his traces, the aelf sprang over the side of his chariot and drew his sword before the vehicle had even come to a stop.

Tarion swept down beside him, landing with a thump and a shower of snow. He panned his bow across the crater, arrow singing with barely suppressed energy as it pleaded to be released in anger.

‘Slow down, Thindrael, we don’t know what threat might lurk up here with us,’ he said. The aelf pulled up short at the booming note of command in his voice. Thus far, Tarion had spoken as a friend and comrade. Now he spoke as a Stormcast Eternal, and distant thunder rumbled behind his words as he uttered them.

‘I just wanted to see.’ Thindrael shook his head as though clearing it, raised his blade at guard and looked to Tarion. ‘I’m sorry. You take the lead, my lord,’ he said.

Whistling a command to Krien to circle above them and keep watch, Tarion prowled forward. The deep snow came up to his knees, and he picked up his steps with exaggerated care, conscious of the weight of his armour. Thindrael followed, his feet sinking only an inch or so, his passage making no sound whatsoever.

The wind howled over the crater’s edge, but down here in its depths everything was gloomy, cold and very still. Thus, Tarion heard clearly the strangled moan that escaped Thindrael’s lips as they neared the first dark mound. It took a moment for Tarion to make out what he was seeing, before he realised that what jutted from the snow had once been a stone wall with a door set into it. Stonework and wood both had blackened, twisted and somehow melted together. Strangest of all was the texture of the mass; Tarion drew close and prodded at it with a foot, recoiling slightly in distaste as he found that what had once been solid stone was now spongy and fibrous, almost fungal in nature. He saw Thindrael reaching out a hand towards one such spongy mass and warned him back with a gesture.

‘What in Sigmar’s name happened here?’ he asked. Thindrael shook his head, face pale and eyes huge.

The two of them pressed on, treading carefully past the first twisted mass and into the crater’s heart. There were lots of them, Tarion saw, some a dozen feet tall or more, some small and forlorn, mostly buried beneath the snows. He recognised items of furniture fused with crumpled stonework, what looked like a rack of swords mashed formlessly into a stairway and part of a table. He scowled and pretended not to hear Thindrael’s moans of horror as he saw what looked like an aelven head and torso melded hideously into a doorframe. All of it, whether it had originally been stone, wood, metal or living matter, had the same black, spongy texture.

‘Surely this is some foul artifice of the Chaos Gods,’ said Tarion, lowering his bow as they stood aghast amidst the ruins. ‘A terrible curse has been unleashed here, one that you were fortunate to escape.’

‘I… I cannot…’ said Thindrael. The aelf gathered himself, tried again. ‘Lord, I do not know what happened here or what did this to my kin, to my watchtower. I see no sign of the one I came in hopes of finding and laying to rest, but now that I see this, I am glad not to. This ghastly place gives me no chance at vengeance, it only fills me with horror. Please tell me that you, at least, see the answers you seek?’

Tarion shook his head, frowning.

‘If there are answers here, I am too much a fool to see them. I do not understand why Lord Martoris would have sent me to this place. Whatever practitioners of the dark arts laid Highcrater Watch to waste, they are surely long gone now, and if there are answers amidst this ruin I cannot see them.’

‘Then what–’ Thindrael’s words cut off as Krien gave a piercing shriek of warning.

Tarion looked up to see dark shapes spilling over the crater’s edge between two of the looming stone shards. A dozen lumpen figures ploughed through the snow down the crater’s slope, their debase forms all too familiar.

‘Rotbringers, Blightkings of Nurgle,’ he spat. The Blightkings were as tall as a Stormcast and even broader, massively muscular and carrying huge maces, axes and hammers. Yet where Tarion and his ilk were magnificent, shining warriors, these tainted creatures were rotten and bloated with Nurgle’s gifts. Their flesh was split with open sores through which rancid blubber spilled. Buboes and pustules carpeted skin both leathery and necrotic, and a revolting stench billowed from their unwashed bodies and glistening, exposed innards. The Blightkings lumbered along in rusted helms and clanking, verdigrised armour, much of their skin exposed even at these extreme heights. If the cold and their obvious frostbite caused them pain, however, they didn’t show it.

Pounding through the snow at the rear of the group came something more horrible still, a creature that even Tarion did not recognise.

‘What is that abomination?’ he shouted. ‘Thindrael, have you seen its like here before? Is this what laid the watchtower low?’

‘I didn’t see our attackers at all,’ said the aelf. ‘Perhaps… but no, my lord, I have neither name nor words for that… thing.’

The beast was enormous, easily twenty feet in height and just as wide. It was a stitched and bloated amalgam of decaying flesh, fangs and splintered claws. Tarion thought he recognised elements of beasts he had seen before, perhaps hints of a Thundertusk or an Orruk Mawcrusha, but they were suggestions only. From its curling horns the size of battering rams to its six muscular yet misshapen limbs, its lashing tail that ended in a mace of rotted bone and its bulging, split belly, the thing was an inexplicable and nauseating horror.

‘Whether they attacked the watchtower or no, they’re bearing down upon your chariot,’ said Tarion.

‘Ah, gods of old,’ cursed Thindrael. ‘Khae thelymar,’ he shouted. Hasha responded instantly, giving a shrieking cry and beginning to beat his wings. Snow billowed as the skycutter swept across the ground and lifted away. Yet even as Hasha gained height, the unknown abomination opened its stinking maw. Bile gushed over too many fangs, and a huge, toad-like tongue lashed out. Thindrael cried out in horror as it slammed into his skycutter like a ballista bolt and smashed it to wreckage. Hasha screeched, flapping madly as the sudden impact tangled him with the splintered wreck. The greathawk plunged amidst a shower of splintered wood and metal, slamming sickeningly into the crater wall and sliding to a stop.

‘Hasha!’ screamed Thindrael, and Tarion winced at the loss he heard in the aelf’s voice.

‘Steady,’ he barked, lining up his first shot. Any moment now, the Rotbringers would come into ideal range, and he would need to make every shot count.

‘There are too many of them,’ said the aelf, his voice hollow. ‘How can we win this?’

‘We are servants of Sigmar himself,’ replied Tarion. ‘We cannot lose.’ Still, for all his bravado, the Knight-Venator was unsure. Even as he drew back his bowstring and let fly his first crackling arrow, Tarion knew that his quest must come first. Whatever blind alley the Cognis Celestis had led him down, it had wasted enough of his time already. If he was forced to, Tarion would abandon Thindrael to his fate and make amends to his lost soul later.

‘Why did we come here?’ cursed the aelf, holding his blade ready in shaking hands. ‘What is there for us but death and waste?’

‘Have faith, be silent, and fight,’ said Tarion, loosing his arrow.

The projectile shot across the snow, a streaking bolt of light, and thumped into the chest of the leading Rotbringer. The mouldering warrior staggered at the impact, black gore spurting from the wound in his chest. He fell to one knee, only for his fellows to grab him by his bloated arms and haul him back to his feet.

‘You’ll have to do better than that!’ bellowed the wounded Blightking, his voice a clotted and gurgling horror.

‘Gladly,’ said Tarion, loosing another three arrows in lightning-fast succession. They streaked after the first, slamming into the Rotbringer’s heart, his throat, and finally his horned helm. The triple impact was thunderous, hurling the Nurgle-worshipper from his feet and leaving him spreadeagled and twitching in the snow.

His fellows faltered, looked down at their dead comrade, then back up at Tarion. They bellowed in anger and broke into a ponderous charge.

‘Stay behind me, away from that damned monster,’ said Tarion, before launching himself skywards and loosing another volley. His lightning-imbued arrows rained down upon the charging foe, thudding into flesh and blasting black craters in rusted armour. Several staggered and another fell, but it was not nearly enough.

‘They’re so damned resilient,’ he cursed. ‘Sigmar, lend me strength.’

The Blightkings were in amongst the fungal structures now, and baying for blood. Their leader, a hulking brute with a huge bell-shaped mace and an eyeless brass helm, shouted orders at his followers.

‘Spread out, my beauties,’ he snarled. ‘Surround the aelf. Bring the lightning-whelp down however you can. I want some rot-damned answers. Indeed I do!’

Tarion soared over the Blightkings and continued to rain arrows upon them. As each shaft was launched from his bow, another crackled into being in his quiver, Sigmar’s blessings providing him with an endless supply of ammunition. He placed a shot beautifully, straight down through one Rotbringer’s collarbone and into his foul heart. The Chaos worshipper staggered another two steps then toppled onto his face.

Another volley and Tarion sent a fourth Blightking crashing into the snow, peppered with shafts. The next instant he was forced to bank madly to avoid a billowing cloud of plague flies, belched from the sack-like throat of one of his attackers. The buzzing storm of insects swept after him, dropping from the air in clumps as the cold killed them quickly. Yet they still stung and bit him again and again, and Tarion felt himself growing sluggish and dizzy as his body fought to stave off the diseases they transmitted.

‘Tarion!’ He heard Thindrael’s shout over the thrumming roar of the swarm, and he dived to get below them. Tarion saw that the aelf had tried to retreat between the fungal mounds, only to find himself hemmed in by them on both sides with Rotbringers before and behind him.

Thindrael lunged, stabbing his blade at the nearest Chaos worshipper. The Rotbringer didn’t even try to parry the blow, allowing the aelf’s sword to sheathe itself to the hilt in his rotting flesh. Even as Tarion watched in horror, a gaping maw split open in the Blightking’s belly and bit down on Thindrael’s hands where they still gripped the sword’s hilt. Blood sprayed and the aelf fell back with a scream, flailing the ragged stumps of his wrists.

Tarion swore and unleashed a storm of shots that showered the chortling Blightking. His laughter cut off as lightning-wreathed arrows punched deep into his body and sent him crashing to his knees.

The drone of the swarm sounded in Tarion’s ears again, but this time it was pierced by Krien’s shriek. The star eagle dived through the diminished mass of insects, his body blazing like a newborn star. Flies dropped, crisped and blackened, to carpet the snow below, and Tarion flashed his companion a grin of thanks.

His face fell as he saw Thindrael topple onto his back, his blood pumping across the snow. The aelf had a ghastly smile on his face, Tarion saw, his eyes far away and his mouth moving. Tarion dropped from on high to stand protectively over his fallen comrade, shooting a storm of arrows into his enemies that drove them back. As he did, he heard the aelf whispering a delirious greeting.

‘Yllith… my love… no, no, don’t be sorry… at last…’

Tarion didn’t move.

‘I’m so sorry, Thindrael,’ he said, finally. ‘They won’t lay another filthy hand upon you, I swear it.’

‘Make not promises that Grandfather won’t let you keep, Stormcast,’ bellowed the Blightkings’ leader, emerging from behind the nearest fungal mound. ‘I want to know where your eight-damned allies have hidden. I’ve a score to settle, and you’re going to tell me how I gnaw down to the bone of things!’

The Blightking shrugged off first one arrow then another, swinging his bell-mace up and over in a meteoric arc. Tarion leapt frantically aside, and his attacker’s weapon crashed down on Thindrael’s dying body in an explosion of blood and bone. The bell tolled as he struck, a hollow note that rolled around the crater.

Tarion snarled and shot more arrows into the Blightking from point-blank range. The first pierced his eyeless helm and stuck there like a weird horn. The second sank deep into his chest, blackening his leathery flesh. Still the warrior did not fall.

‘I seethe with the Grandfather’s blessings, Stormcast,’ he roared, swinging his weapon with surprising speed. This time, Tarion was a split-second too slow, and the bell caught him a glancing blow to the chest. Its reverberations rolled across the crater, seeming to fill Tarion’s head as he was flung bonelessly into the snow.

He drew breath, hissing in pain as he felt bone grind together in his chest. Still, Tarion forced himself back to his feet, nocking another arrow as his wounded enemy staggered closer.

‘You’ll fall before you finish me, rotling,’ spat Tarion.

‘Maybe, but you’ve forgotten my gruesome pet,’ said the Blightking with a gurgling laugh. ‘Lord Ungholghott breeds them hungry.’

Tarion heard the thudding footfalls of something huge behind him, saw the snow jump and dance at its coming. He launched himself straight up, flakes billowing in his wake, and the abomination’s whickering tongue shot beneath him, smashing apart one of the fungal mounds.

Tarion pirouetted in the air, launched three arrows in quick succession that sank into the abomination’s face. One shot punctured a cluster of eyes that clung above its snout, causing the monster to howl. It reared up, huge nostrils flaring, and spat its tongue at him again. Tarion wheeled away, narrowly avoiding the attack, only to feel something slam into him with tremendous force. Armour buckled and bone splintered, the sounds drowned out by the hollow peal of a huge bell, and Tarion fell from the skies like a stone. He slammed into the snowy ground and rolled to a stop, gasping for breath.

Looking up, Tarion saw the Blightkings’ leader pick up his bell-mace from where it had landed after his remarkable throw. He chuckled deep in his chest as he trudged towards Tarion, who tried and failed to get up. Several of his bones were broken, he could tell, and crawling skeins of lightning played across his dented armour and torn flesh. Tarion was hurt badly, and his desperation grew as he faced the threat of being slain again. By the time he had been reforged, and recalled as much as he could of what he was, he would surely be too late to aid Neave.

The remaining Blightkings closed around him in a circle, their abomination looming behind them. Tarion spat blood and angrily cursed the false and pointless trail that had brought him to this place. Krien flapped down and landed on Tarion’s shoulder, shrieking angrily and raising cruel laughter from the Chaos-worshippers.

It was then that he saw the ghost of movement amongst the snows, lithe figures, half seen and strange. Their movements were unnatural, their limbs flowing and inhuman. He saw their eyes glinting blue and iridescent black against the snowfield. It was as though they flowed up from the ground itself, sprouting like dark and menacing trees behind the Blightkings.

The Chaos-worshippers had not yet seen the danger, and Tarion managed a pained laugh as their leader loomed over him.

‘Bravado won’t get you far now, storm whelp,’ growled the hulking warrior. ‘You’re mired too deep. Best to rip the leech’s maw off quick and earn yourself a gifted death lest the blights take you slow. Where are the damned tree people?’

‘Closer than you’d like,’ said Tarion. With a shrill hiss that rose like a gale through a thicket of trees, the sylvaneth attacked. Dozens of dryads fell upon the Blightkings from behind, lashing with willowy talons and hissing their warsongs with glee. Taller, stouter tree-beings waded into the fight, swinging huge amber scythes that split and tore the Blightkings’ flesh with ease. The abomination turned and lashed out with talons and tongue, but even it was overrun as shrilling tree-creatures tore at it with deranged strength. Tarion watched the carnage with wide eyes, noting with alarm the dark and twisted aspect of his saviours, the shadowy wisps that clung to them and the cruel savagery with which they fought.

‘Dreadwood,’ he murmured to Krien. ‘We may not be safe yet.’

At last, the butchery was done. Nothing remained of the Blightkings but torn and mangled heaps of flesh whose rancid juices were already seeping away into the snows. Tarion pulled himself to his feet, leaning on his bow as a willowy creature approached him. It was humanoid and vaguely female in shape, its long limbs and flowing body thick with thorns and jutting twigs. Black leaves and delicate creepers grew from its scalp and flowed down its back, a strange approximation of hair. Its eyes were large and almond-shaped, and glinted like polished jet.

The creature, a Branchwraith by his reckoning, stopped before Tarion and performed an elaborate, fluid gesture that he guessed was its approximation of a bow. Tarion returned it as best he could, gritting his teeth through the pain of his injuries.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I owe you my life, and my lord Sigmar owes you a debt of gratitude.’

‘No debt be owed from thundersome skies,’ said the being, its voice a musical croon that creaked and sawed like branches in a night wind. ‘The foule and the abyrr we slaye gladsome.’

Tarion blinked, deciphering the Branchwraith’s strange words.

‘You and I both,’ he said after a moment. ‘But still, I give you thanks for your aid.’

‘Thank not this thicketling yet, winged storm caster,’ said the Branchwraith with a sharp-fanged smile. Tarion was suddenly acutely aware of the veritable grove of sylvaneth that now sprouted around him at the crater’s heart. There were dozens, large and small, a whole warband of the fey creatures. The sylvaneth of Dreadwood had the darkest reputation of all their kind.

‘Why do you say so?’ he asked slowly. ‘Do you mean me harm?’

A susurrus passed through the assembled sylvaneth, and it took him a moment to understand that he was hearing a cruel approximation of laughter.

‘Harming you? Why that would we do?’ asked the Branchwraith. ‘Safehold your flesh from the rotlings’ touch, just about the turn and strike you down? No, caprice has its roots and its branches both, and neither reach such lengths.’

‘Then what?’ asked Tarion. ‘Is there some debt I now owe you?’

‘This, only, do you need to attend,’ said the Branchwraith, leaning close. He smelt deep, wet loam and the cold bark of the night-time forest in driving rain. ‘Hear you the words of Ithary, she the handmaid thrice-coiled of the woodsenwych Wytha. It is time for the unworthy changeling child to come to us. It is time that her seeings became doings, became payings of the debt that long planted now ripens and bursts to seed. Tell her step she through the Brazenreach gate her swiftly-trod self, and mere look she upon the lands beyond the river’s third winding. There, skyling, she’ll see her truths and come she back to where the bloodsy crop must be plucked.’

Tarion gaped.

‘You’re talking about Blacktalon! How do you know all this? How did you know to find me here?’

‘Just speaken the words to her and let her fresh shoots grow to the shadow’d place,’ said Ithary. ‘And be gladde we’ve use for such as yourself, lesten we leave you ragged to feed the flowers as well.’

With that, the sylvaneth turned as one and, ignoring Tarion’s shouted questions, they flowed up the sides of the crater. As they entered the shadows around the crater’s walls, they seemed to flow into them and vanish, one by one. In moments Tarion stood alone, bewildered, exhausted and angry amidst the bodies of the dead.

Shaking his head, he hobbled over to the ruined remains of Thindrael.

‘I have absolutely no idea what just happened,’ he said quietly. ‘What those creatures told me or why it will help. But it was answer enough, and for that, and your sorrowful sacrifice, I thank you. I only hope that I can keep my promise and take your vengeance for you one day. Go with Sigmar’s blessings.’

With that, Tarion launched himself painfully skywards. He would gain the lower slopes before he rested, find food and a safe place to meditate for a time before attempting the flight back to Neave. He knew roughly where his comrades must be by now, but still he had a gruelling journey ahead of him and only uncertain answers to give.

‘I hope it’s enough,’ said Tarion as he swooped over the crater’s rim and left that dark and shadowed place behind him.

Neave strode through the gloom, running one hand absently through the long, blue-grey grass that rose up to her waist. Troubled thoughts chased one another through her mind, the memory of an axe stroke missed due to a phantom child’s cry followed by the awful recollection of collapsing in a vision-wracked fugue, far out amongst the rockspires. She had remained undetected by friend or foe through nothing more than good fortune. Neave recalled two days past, when Kalparius Foerunner had called her name three times before she had responded to him; the first two, she had been sure that she was hearing the crackle of burning huts, the whispering creak of branches in the wind.

‘It is getting ever worse,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I do not know how much longer I can conceal this curse. Damnation, Tarion, if you do not return soon I will be forced to set out on my own account. Perhaps I should simply have done so in the first place.’

Neave stared out into the darkness of the steppes, her hunter’s eyes piercing the darkness in search of movement. None who saw her would guess that she was watching not for foes, but for the telltale glimmer of her comrade’s wings approaching in the night sky. Neave knew that, without some hint of where to start her quest for answers, she would risk wandering aimlessly for many moons, leaving her duty to Sigmar neglected all the while. Yet she couldn’t simply wait for others to come to her rescue, and the longer she waited, the worse her affliction seemed to become.

With a frustrated sigh, Neave turned back towards the inviting light of the Rangers’ camp-fire.

‘One more night,’ she promised herself. ‘Two at the most, while we hunt the Gor-kin. Then, if he’s not back, I’ll seek my own damned answers.’

The light welcomed her as she approached, reaching out to bathe her in its amber glow. Karias Wintercrest and several of his Rangers sat on rocks around the crackling fire. Neave’s old comrade nodded a greeting as she settled on her own rock.

‘Anything out there?’ he asked. Neave, removing her helm and setting it by her feet, quirked an eyebrow at him.

‘If there is, I’d hope to Sigmar that your sentries are up to the task of spotting it. We’re dealing with Gor-kin, Karias. Not subtle creatures.’

‘True enough,’ said the Ranger-Prime. ‘I’ve not seen my astral compass so much as twitch in two days, though. Wherever the bulk of the enemy are hiding, they’re not out here.’

‘I still don’t understand this,’ said Neave, shaking her head. ‘The Craven Steppes have never, in all the time they’ve been observed, remained passive when the creatures of Chaos drew near. They’ve always fled, often violently. So why did they allow the Brayherd to pass unremarked?’

‘It’s as though the land is sleeping, or bewitched,’ said Wintercrest. ‘It is no wonder that Fort Vigilance had no warning of the attack.’

‘It’s the work of the Tzaangor, the bray as are sworn to Tzeentch the changer,’ said Galyth Hammerfist. One of Karias’ longest-serving Rangers, Hammerfist had seen more battle than most. He was always utterly certain in his pronouncements.

‘You believe so?’ asked Wintercrest.

‘Aye, likely as Sigmar sits his throne in the heavens, I do,’ said Hammerfist. ‘Magic and illusion are meat and bread to those twisted monsters. And the way the fortress’ wall came down? I’ve seen a lot, but nothing that’s ever made me believe in such a thing as shoddy duardin craftsmanship. No chance that came down without unnatural aid.’

‘At least we know now what happened to the garrison,’ said Neave grimly. They had found the remains of the unfortunate soldiers several days’ march to the east of the fortress, at the end of a broad and blood-splattered trail of hoof prints. Those that had not been left part-devoured along the way had been skinned and impaled upon crude wooden stakes around a huge stone idol in the deep wilds. The sight of over a hundred such abused corpses screaming sightlessly at the skies had been enough to shock even the war-hardened Shadowhammers. They had brought the bodies down quickly, and used some of their precious alchemical oils to burn them.

‘Yes, it’s a revenge hunt now,’ said Karias thoughtfully. ‘And a search for some damned answers. This whole business has been bloody and strange, and I look forward to seeing its end.’

‘Let us hope that we don’t lose too many more brothers and sisters before we conclude this fight,’ said Elorra Fireshot, another of the seated Rangers.

‘Casualties have been light, thus far,’ said Karias, ‘and those that have fallen will be reforged soon enough.’

‘Aye, but at what cost?’ asked Hammerfist. ‘You’ve seen the signs, same as all of us. Reforging isn’t the perfect resurrection they told us it was, Karias.’

Neave felt her chest tighten at the sudden turn the conversation had taken. She kept her face carefully neutral, took a swig from her canteen.

‘Careful, now,’ said Wintercrest. ‘Signs and sedition aren’t talk for the Hammers of Sigmar.’

‘We’re away and gone in the wilds, Karias,’ said Fireshot. ‘What safer place to speak our minds? You know, same as we do, what’s been going on.’

‘I know there are stories,’ said Wintercrest. ‘Stories that true warriors of Sigmar should know better than to put stock in.’ He shot a pointed glance at Neave, the gesture almost stopping her heart for a second with the fear of detection.

She had been so careful.

Had he seen something?

‘Blacktalon is a warrior, not some starch-cloaked lord,’ said Fireshot, and Neave breathed again as she realised that Wintercrest had been cautioning his warriors about the presence of a senior officer, not indicating some veiled blame.

‘No harm ever came from asking questions,’ said Neave carefully. ‘But we’re Hammers, the firstforged, don’t forget. We’ve no room for failure, and doubt makes us weak.’

‘So does ignorance,’ said Hammerfist. He pulled a skinning knife from his boot, held out his bare palm and ran the blade quickly across it. He turned his hand over and squeezed. They all saw the crackling sparks that fell amidst his trickling blood.

‘Only since my last Reforging,’ he said. ‘Happens every time I’m cut. Don’t try to tell me that’s normal.’

The Rangers sat in silence for a moment, watching the sparking blood drip to the ground.

‘You’ve all heard the whispers of worse,’ said Hammerfist, as the flow stopped, and he replaced his gauntlet. ‘Hammers that come back without the power of speech, sealed into their bloody armour. Hammers that aren’t ’owt but armour with the storm’s energy inside. Voices made of thunder. Visions of men made purely of the storm…’

‘What if it’s the Chaos taint?’ asked Fireshot. ‘We’re down here in the realms, fighting through all these terrible places where Chaos has reigned for hundreds of years. We’ve all seen what the raw power of the Dark Gods can do to living flesh, to the lands themselves even. What if something has seeped into our souls as we’ve fought? Vandus was fighting Archaon himself before he started to see visions, or so they say.’

Neave gritted her teeth, willing the conversation to turn elsewhere.

‘Vandus is our greatest hero,’ she heard herself say, voice tight. The others looked at her in surprise, but Neave pushed on. ‘It’s one thing to speak your minds, but another to forget yourselves and start casting aspersions and repeating rumours. Do you really believe that Sigmar, in all his infinite wisdom and compassion, would allow the Reforging process to become flawed? Or that he’d let matters deteriorate in that fashion if it was? Talk of taints and visions… you lessen yourselves.’

The Rangers stared at Neave as though remembering for the first time that she was a Knight, and not simply a comrade-in-arms. She saw a distance in their eyes that had not been there a moment before, a wariness that made her feel tired and forlorn.

‘Just promise me one thing,’ said Hammerfist to Karias. ‘It may all be rubbish, but if I go that way, deal with me and don’t let me come back. I don’t care how, just don’t let me come back… wrong.’

Neave could take no more. She rose abruptly, snatching up her helm, and strode off into the darkness, muttering something about sweeping the perimeter again. In her head, that one word echoed over and over again. Wrong.

Had she come back wrong? Had she been reforged too many times? Had something worse tainted her soul? She saw again that terrible vision of infinity spreading out before her as the blue fire seared away her flesh and shuddered in the darkness of the steppes. For a moment, she thought she saw blue eyes staring at her from the dark night skies.

Her breath caught, and she stared hard into the darkness. There were lights in the sky, distant glimmers growing closer. Two of them, one smaller than the other.

‘Tarion,’ she said, and set off at a sprint towards him.

The two met in a barren clearing amidst the grasslands. Tarion staggered as he landed, and Neave hastened to catch him before he collapsed.

She ran her eyes over the ragged tears in his armour, the half-healed wounds beneath.

‘Sigmar’s throne, you look as though you fought your way through the Allpoints single-handed. What happened?’

‘I’ve got you an answer, of sorts,’ said Tarion, his voice a pained croak. Neave offered him her canteen and he removed his helm to drink greedily, before tipping the water into the canteen’s lid and setting it down for Krien. The star eagle dipped his head with a grateful ruffle of feathers, and Neave noted that even his light seemed dim with exhaustion.

‘Tell me everything. Be quick,’ said Neave. ‘Wintercrest and his brotherhood are out here with us. I can hear his sentries off to the south and east. They’re far enough away now, but they may return in this direction at any moment.’

Tarion nodded and began his tale, giving Neave a concise and abridged account of everything he had endured in the days that had passed. When he reached mention of the abomination that had accompanied the Rotbringers, she stiffened with shock.

‘You’re describing the creatures that I saw in that village, Tarion,’ she said. ‘This Lord Ungholghott… could he be the one I saw upon the fly beast?’

‘I don’t know, but how many such horrors can there be in the realms?’ said Tarion. ‘I don’t understand how it ties to your visions, but it seems likely.’

He finished his account and then leaned heavily on his bow, staring at her.

‘The sylvaneth… they must be the ones I saw,’ said Neave, ‘and they said I had to pass through the Brazenreach gate to find them?’

‘They did,’ said Tarion. ‘But we must be careful, Neave. I don’t know what attacked the watchtower, but it was destructive and deeply unnatural. What if it was some weapon unleashed by this Ungholghott’s forces?’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Neave. ‘You said the Rotbringers seemed as confused as you, were shouting about answers. No, there’s some other power at work here, and I can’t help but feel that it’s connected in some way to this business with the fort, too.’

‘The sylvaneth, maybe?’ asked Tarion.

‘Perhaps,’ said Neave, sounding unconvinced. ‘But why would they want me to come to them, if that were so? And to what end? I believe they hold answers for me, but I don’t believe they’re the cause of all this. Don’t ask me why, but on some level, I trust them.’

‘Who, then, or what?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, but in her mind’s eye Neave saw again the infernal power spilling up from the well, and heard Xerkanos’ muttered chant before she struck off his hand. Dread swelled within her and she forced it back down. Panicking now would only aid the sorcerer’s agenda, if it truly was him that had cursed her.

‘This cannot stay between us any longer, Neave,’ said Tarion, pulling himself up with only a slight sway. ‘We must seek an audience with Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye at once, if only to tell him of the weapon that was used against Highcrater Watch. It’s time we let him know what’s happening and sought his wisdom.’

Neave frowned behind her helm, shook her head slightly.

‘What do we know, Tarion? We have a series of questions and riddles. We can’t risk the Lord-Aquilor detaining me for questioning by the Sacrosanct Chamber. With so little information what other recourse would he have?’

‘What then?’ asked Tarion. ‘This business fills me with ever more confusion and dread. What was the dire fate that Skywarden spoke of? Is it something that Xelkyn set in motion, or something altogether other? What involvement do the sylvaneth have in this matter? Why do they seem so keen to have you come to them? For that matter, how did they know to find me at Highcrater Watch when they did? In all the vast realms, that cannot have been coincidence. Neave, what if it was they and not Xelkyn who did this to you?’

‘I believe it’s likely the beings I saw in my vision, the ones that saved the child, were sylvaneth,’ said Neave. ‘If that’s so, then…’ She trailed off, frustrated as she realised she didn’t know what conclusions to draw. Were her visions linked in some way to the unleashing of this horrible weapon? Or were multiple, unconnected threats converging at once? Uncertainty was not a familiar sensation for her, and she found she disliked it intensely. It lit a fire in her, made her feel the need to act, to seize control of matters before they spiralled beyond her control.

‘I’ll do whatever you ask of me, you know that I will,’ said Tarion. ‘But the two of us cannot face this alone.’

‘You’re right,’ she said. Her punch came lightning-fast, connecting with Tarion’s jaw, snapping his head back with its force. The Knight-Venator crumpled, eyes rolling up into the back of his head, and Krien shrieked with shock.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Neave. ‘I can’t endanger the chamber with this. I can’t have whispers spreading that the Shadowhammers are seeing things, that we’re becoming corrupt. It’s my curse, and I’ll lift it alone. You’ve done enough.’

With that, Neave sped away into the darkness, sprinting as fast as her limbs would carry her. She felt terrible for striking her friend, again, and she hoped that he would understand. She also knew that the Lord-Aquilor might well see her actions as desertion while on campaign; there would be consequences, of that she was sure.

Yet at the same time Neave felt an incredible relief, and a sense of purpose. At last she had a place to start. Her hunt would begin with the Brazenreach Realmgate, and it would end with the lifting of the curse that afflicted her, the death of those responsible, and the return of her abilities to serve the God-King as she should.

Neave would hunt her mark, and she would emerge victorious.

Lord Ungholghott sat upon his throne. It was carved from a single slab of rotted ivory, set atop a rusted dais in the midst of his slime-fouled audience chamber. Parasitic worms crawled down the slick tunnels that they had chewed through the throne’s substance. Ungholghott knew how the worms were made, inside and out. He knew what they ate, and how, and why. He heard their blind, idiot fumblings and understood everything about them. He had been gifted by Nurgle with an awareness of all living things, an encyclopaedic understanding of their inner workings that transcended the capacity of a mortal mind.

It had proved a useful gift.

Ungholghott understood on some disinterested level that this knowledge – which he sought so that he might cure his tribe’s livestock and feed his people – had driven him quite mad.

Nurgle’s generosity overwhelmed him completely, bursting the banks of his sanity like a river swollen to rancid flood. Ungholghott had been transformed into a vector for the very parasites and plagues that he once sought to prevent. He was pleased by this. It had happened long ago, and he was content in his role as a servant of Nurgle. He hoped to emulate his god’s largesse.

The rat-creature was still talking, he realised. Excuses and blandishments spilled from it in a chittering stream. It was a skaven, some crawling, genuflecting envoy from the Clan Feesik. Its leprous body was wrapped in mouldering robes. It grovelled before his throne, casting nervous glances at Ungholghott’s bodyguards.

His contempt for this creature twisted his lips into a sneer. It was laughable to even call the skaven allies, as though they were somehow equal partners in this war. As though the Clans Pestilens sought anything more noble or far-reaching than simple ruination for its own sake. Idly, Ungholghott contemplated how he would dissect this creature. He catalogued its pustulant organs in his mind, discarded its rheumy eyes as useless, dropped its fangs into a brass dish for later use.

Lord Ungholghott took a deep, phlegm-thick breath and forced himself to focus. He loomed over the skaven. The rat-man’s words shrivelled like blighted crops before his intense stare. It fell silent, and he smelt the rank animal musk of fear that leaked from its glands.

‘Do the flesh-raids continue?’ asked Ungholghott.

‘They do, much-most highest festersome one,’ chittered the skaven. ‘Far-far across Verdantia, yes, oh, such plenty-much flesh bounty does Clan Feesik gather for you, greatest of–’

Ungholghott waved a hand, a sharp gesture that choked the skaven into silence. Its snout bobbed nervously, nose twitching and fangs bared beneath its rotten cowl.

‘Have you been sufficiently circumspect?’ Ungholghott knew the answer to this question, but he asked regardless. The obvious had its place, he had found, in discussion with the lower orders of beast.

‘Veil-hidings we have scurried quick-fast behind, oh most foul, oh most rancid and reviled one!’ said the skaven, waving its hand-claws in a grandiose gesture. ‘Subtle we have been-been, yes, so cunning even the Clans Eshin could not have emulated such cleverness.’

‘Yet I hear reports of plague weapons being used upon the flesh-stocks,’ said Ungholghott. His yellowed stare bore relentlessly into the skaven’s beady red eyes, until the creature abased itself before him, tail twitching high with fear. ‘I hear that the Ravensbeak tribe were wiped out entirely by a malaise that turned their muscle to rot and their flesh to squirming pus. I hear that the stockade of the Strongblade tribe was overwhelmed by tentacled growths that slew half the flesh-stock. I hear these things, and many more. What I hear, rat, does not bring to my mind the word “circumspect”.’

‘Lies-lies!’ shrieked the skaven, springing to its foot-claws and dancing an angry jig. ‘Fake tales twisted by jealous rival-foes! Yes, oh foulest of filth-spreaders, yes, these are whispering-squeakings of Clan Morbidus! We are quiet-cunning and we gather-take the flesh for you as you command!’

The skaven realised the scale of its outburst. Another wash of the fear-musk reached Ungholghott’s nostrils. The rat-man collapsed into an obsequious heap of rags and squirming flesh.

‘If you have rivals, and they are interfering with my plans, then that is as much your problem as if it were your own warriors performing these deeds, rat. Do you understand me?’

The skaven drew breath to launch into another diatribe. Ungholghott’s glare persuaded it otherwise. It nodded instead, eyes wide. Its tail twitched ceaselessly.

‘Go,’ said Ungholghott. ‘Return to your burrows. Tell your kin that I expect a more restrained and respectful standard of service. I want my harvest brought in swiftly, quietly and without further complication.’

The skaven nodded again. Ungholghott knew that it was already calculating how dangerous this alliance had become, whether now would be the time to turn its fellows upon him.

‘Tell them also that you have struck a bargain with me,’ he said. The skaven was suddenly very still, red eyes gleaming beneath its cowl. Perhaps not so rheumy after all, he thought. ‘Tell them that I will provide double the warpstone payment that was originally agreed, both for the flesh-tribes and for any monsters that you capture.’

‘Such generosity!’ squealed the skaven, now animated and gleeful. ‘Oh, most magnanimous master of mould, great-great producer of poxes, highest and most big-vast–’

‘NOW!’ thundered Ungholghott, slamming one fist against the arm of his throne. The skaven gave a shriek of terror and turned, whip-fast, scurrying out of the chamber on both sets of claws. It left a reeking trail behind itself that was soon lost in the maggot-thick filth of the audience chamber.

Ungholghott’s bodyguards chuckled at the spectacle. Their laughter was basso, rumbling deep in their cavernous chests. Their flesh was all stitches and slabs. He had worked on them extensively.

Ungholghott allowed himself a thin smile of his own. The flesh harvest would continue apace, and truly, what matter at this stage if his allies were careful or not? Already the harvest had been excellent. The life-pits seethed with packed-in cattle of every species. The meat-kilns flared night and day and the stitch-threshers lashed and sang, rendering living beings into useful components, then reshaping them into something greater.

In many ways, Ungholghott thought, he was doing for Grandfather Nurgle what Sigmar had done for himself.

He was Reforging.

First the living creatures of Verdantia. Then the flesh-cattle of the neighbouring Jade Kingdoms. Then more, and more. There would be no limits to Lord Ungholghott’s generosity. All would feel its touch.

ACT II

Chapter Seven

Neave Blacktalon rode the winds aetheric, thankful for the quirk of Reforging that had allowed her to truly windshift as the Palladors did. She rested little and kept one eye on her astral compass. She traversed distances each day that would have taken weeks for an army to march, and swept with ease through terrain that would have given even the most sure-footed aelf or stout duardin pause.

When Neave made camp, she did so in hidden places. One night, she climbed high into the branches of a gargantis tree that stood sentinel over a deep ravine. Small simian things with bulbous eyes scattered through the branches as she climbed, then watched her warily until dawn’s light saw her moving on again.

Another night, she found a cleft in a huge rock formation and scrambled deep inside, ready to fight any creature that might protest her use of its shelter. Other nights, she simply kept moving, running on through the darkness until dawn’s light welled over the horizon again.

It was not a pleasant journey, for all that it had begun with such a sense of purpose. Neave was painfully aware that she had abandoned her post.

During her hours of rest, she meditated upon her choices, and upon the nature of the mission she had undertaken. She interrogated herself fiercely, searching for any hint that her decisions had been made in error, or for selfish reasons, or that her ability to think rationally had in some way been corrupted by the visions she was suffering from.

After each such stern inner conversation she returned to full consciousness more certain than ever that what she did was the right thing. Whoever he was, whatever significance he had to her, the Chaos champion in her visions was a mark that had to be hunted. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name, as certain as her loyalty to Sigmar and the heavens themselves. How the sylvaneth of the Dreadwood Glade came into matters, Neave was less sure, but she was determined to locate this Ithary and demand of her all the answers she had not given Tarion.

On the sixth day, Neave neared the Brazenreach Realmgate and prepared herself to pass through it. It was neither a frequently used nor well-known passage; indeed, Neave was sure that, beyond the Shadowhammers and other Vanguard Chambers like them, few of Sigmar’s servants had ever had occasion to seek out or travel through this portal.

The reason was simple; on the Ghurrish side, the Brazenreach Realmgate lay within the maw of a very active, very angry volcano.

That did not mean that it was entirely unguarded. Neave was forced to dash between basalt outcroppings and craggy ridges on the mountain’s lower slopes, staying low to avoid the eyes of the duardin whose squat watchtowers studded the volcano’s flanks. She heard the clangour of forge hammers at work within those smoke-belching fortifications, and saw lava flows directed through a complex series of steam-locks to power the industrial workshops that lay inside.

Picking her way along empty lava channels, leaping gaps over bubbling molten rock, Neave avoided the sentinels and made her way towards the caldera’s rim.

At one point, she froze for long minutes in a shallow channel as an enchanted search beam leapt out from atop one of the watchtowers. Duardin voices could be heard, shouting back and forth in a dialect she was unfamiliar with. Yet their meaning was clear; they believed they had spotted something. When she sensed heavy footfalls approaching, Neave crawled swiftly from her hiding place and, with a prayer to Sigmar, dashed through a drifting cloud of fumes towards another ditch. For a heart-stopping moment, she was completely exposed, willing the search beam not to swing in her direction or a sharp-eyed duardin to spot her moving form. Then she was back into cover, crawling away arm over arm into a network of narrow channels and leaving her frustrated pursuers to shout to one another on the slopes below.

Neave was nearing the top, with the heartbeat of the volcano thumping through her feet and the red-hot ferocity of its maw rumbling close above her, when she felt a sense of watchfulness steal over her.

Senses tingling, Neave slid into a crevice in the rock and stared out from her vantage point. Though the heat haze made the air swim, she was high above the surrounding lands here and, with her exceptional eyesight, she could see for miles upon miles. Yet after long minutes of staring searchingly into the distance, she could make out nothing untoward, unless perhaps it was a slight speck that had drifted, there and gone, amidst the swimming grey of the far horizon. She shook her head, and wondered whether the visions were making her paranoid now, as well.

‘Please, Sigmar, don’t let them send me mad,’ she muttered to herself, tasting ash on her tongue as the volcano rumbled around her. The visions had bubbled beneath the surface of her psyche for days now, as though in setting out on her journey she had somehow done their bidding and appeased them. Still, as she slid out of the crevice and recommenced her hand-over-hand scaling of the volcano’s highest slopes, she could not quite shake off the echo of a child’s sorrowful cries.

At the peak, Neave hauled herself up and stood before the unbridled fury of the volcano. Below her, perhaps a hundred feet down, a sea of lava bubbled and boiled. The heat was tremendous; if she had not possessed the blessed constitution of the Stormcast Eternals, Neave knew she would have been driven back from the edge, quite possibly choking and blinded by the poisonous fumes and billowing smoke.

Instead, she took a deep breath, opened her arms out wide, and fell forward over the lip of the volcano into the caldera below.

For a brief instant, the lava flashed up towards her, and Neave thought how much less terrifying this must be for Tarion with his powers of flight, his ability to bank up and away on the roiling thermals if he lost his nerve. Neave could not fly, she could only fall, and so she did, courageous and determined, straight through the Realmgate that shimmered like an invisible skin mere yards above the lava’s surface.

Suddenly, blue motes billowed from the molten liquid, tearing her into the blackness.

Wyrdlight shimmers. A child cries: lost, wrenching sobs dragged up from some deep well of sorrow too profound to be human. Branches shudder and rattle in the cold night breeze. Blue fire dances in firefly whorls through air made thick with ashes. Yellow eyes stare with hateful intensity. Blue eyes sear and spit amidst the darkness like the fury of the storm, then turn cold with hate.

Neave emerged from furious heat and sound into the soft sighing of trees and a steady drizzle. She landed and rolled, coming up in a crouch with her axes drawn.

She took in her surroundings quickly and found herself to be alone. She rose, standing upon a dais circled by four empty braziers inscribed with rampant beasts. She had emerged – fallen, in truth – from a wide stone archway that, from this side, appeared decrepit and utterly without purpose.

Neave had transitioned from daytime in the Realm of Beasts to night in the Realm of Life, and with low, dense clouds gathering overhead she found little light to see by. Most would have been blinded entirely by the darkness, but Neave could make out the tall jesters’ pines that clustered close around the Realmgate, and the narrow path that wound away down the slope between them.

‘Well, Ithary, I’m through the damn Realmgate, for what it’s worth,’ she muttered. ‘Now, let’s hope I get more for my troubles than just rained on. Time to look beyond the river’s third winding, wherever in Sigmar’s name that is.’

Knowing that she needed to get her bearings, Neave set off along the narrow path through the trees. She kept her pace slow and careful, watchful for any sign of danger or ambush.

‘You’re following a trail of visions and cryptic words from a forest spirit,’ she told herself. ‘You’re in territory you’ve never trod before, only heard Tarion speak of. And what can he see from up in the damn clouds anyway? Trust nothing, expect trouble, and don’t shame yourself or the Hammers, eh?’

After an hour or more, Neave emerged onto a rocky promontory that jutted out over a steep slope. Scree and dirt dropped away before her, trees clinging tenaciously to the slope amidst tangled vines and outcroppings of lambent nightblooms. She took a deep breath, feeling the sharp tang of life magic in the air.

As she stood atop the ridge, the clouds tattered apart, and slivers of moonlight fell through them. They revealed a sweeping vista that made her breath catch.

Below her, the slope dropped away for hundreds of feet, down into lushly forested foothills that marched away towards a distant river valley. The river itself began in a series of waterfalls, its source lost amidst a chain of floating islands that drifted high and rootless in the night sky.

‘Beyond the third winding,’ she murmured, peering into the shadowed night. The river did indeed wind like a serpent as it made its way along the valley floor, but it did so only twice before it vanished through a cleft in a distant hillside and was lost to sight.

‘Well, looks like I know where I’m going at least,’ said Neave to herself. She rolled her shoulders, stretched the cricks out of her neck and set off again into the gloom.

Dawn broke golden as Neave loped along the hilltops overlooking the river valley, finally reaching another crest where standing stones stood in a huge, creeper-tangled ring. Walking between the stones, she felt a strange sense of reverence grip her that had nothing to do with her faith in Sigmar. It was an older feeling, unsettling but somehow familiar.

Neave crossed the circle and stood at the edge, looking out over the hilltops along the course of the river.

‘That’s…’ the words died on her lips, and her brows drew down in puzzlement. Ahead, the hills sloped away towards wetland plains, where jade outcroppings jutted up amidst swirling mists. Distance rapidly became hazy, the rays of sunrise falling like blood through the vapours, limning a suggestion of what might be a mountain or mountains in the far distance. Yet it was not the landscape that surprised her. It was rather the resurgent sense of familiarity that she felt welling up within her.

The feeling was so strong that she put out a hand to steady herself, leaning heavily against one of the ancient menhirs. Blue eyes flashed behind her own, and darkness raced up towards her. Neave snatched her hand away and blinked at the blue sparks that stuttered then faded where she had touched the stone.

‘What in Sigmar’s name is this?’ she murmured. ‘Have I been here before?’

She hadn’t, she was sure, and yet the feeling persisted. For whatever reason, Neave knew this landscape, and she knew where to go. Yet there was more, she now realised. The mists over the marshes had a bilious tint to them, and a scent of rot rose up on the breeze. Her senses tingled as they detected the corruption of Chaos ahead, and Neave’s frown became a scowl.

The next day and night passed Neave by as though she moved through a strange dream. As the hours passed and the sun rose fat and crimson through the sky, she felt more and more the sense of uncomfortable familiarity, as though she had looked upon these lands before through the eyes of one other than herself. When the hulking silhouette on the horizon resolved more definitely into a single mountain, the sense became stronger still. Neave knew before she even saw it that the peak would be split in two, as though some vast sword blow had been levelled at it by an angry god.

Beyond that peak, she felt sure she would find answers.

For all Neave’s sense of urgency, however, she was forced to slow her pace as she picked a careful path through the wetlands, for sinkholes and quickmud abounded. Coiling things squirmed through the ground-water, and more than once she had to discourage questing tendrils with her axes.

The smell of rot and corruption grew slowly more pervasive, from a faint, fungal taste at the back of her throat into a full-blown stench that wafted across the wetlands in waves. Droning insects swept busily across the skies, and she felt weariness and sorrow threatening as the undergrowth around her turned from vibrant emerald growth to dingy, rot-hued thickets.

Neave had fought the servants of Nurgle many times, had indeed made herself the nemesis of one of the Plague God’s chief daemons on several occasions; she knew the signs of Nurgle’s touch well, and that this slow entropy was but a shadow of the foulness that many regions had suffered. Still, it was enough to make her glad again of the blessings of Sigmar that ran through her veins. Without them, she was sure the rancid waters and drifting spores of this marsh would have rendered her feverish by now.

Afternoon finally brought drier ground again, though the conditions became no less foetid. Puddles of dank water squirmed with black nematodes, and fat flies buzzed between flowers that had blossomed sickly and rotten.

Neave pressed on quickly, glancing behind her occasionally as the sense of watchfulness settled between her shoulder-blades again. This time, she was certain she saw some drifting black speck high up and far behind, and she wondered for a moment about the aetherwings of her comrades.

‘I pray to Sigmar that the Lord-Aquilor has not seen fit to send Rangers to track me down,’ she sighed. ‘I dread the thought that my actions have led yet more Stormcast Eternals away from their allotted task.’ Still, she had known that he might. If it was so, she silently begged Sigmar’s pardon and resolved to press on.

She had taken a few more steps when another, darker thought struck her. Neave glanced back again, squinting to make out a shape. The black speck had vanished, leaving her with only suspicions of avian familiars, and the followers of Xelkyn Xerkanos playing upon her mind.

An hour later, as she jogged up a low mound between boulders thick with moss, Neave heard distant shouts on the breeze. The clash of metal on metal followed, and a high squeal that she recognised instantly.

Skaven.

Neave swept her axes from her back and dropped into a crouching run that carried her swiftly to the top of the rise. She slid in behind a boulder that jutted proud of the hilltop, slowly leaning out around it so her silhouette would not show against the horizon.

Beyond the next downslope, the land dried out a little more, turning into tussocky grassland dotted with rocks and boulders. Perhaps a quarter mile ahead of her, Neave saw a life or death struggle playing out.

The aggressors were skaven, as she had suspected. Neave counted more than thirty of the rat-men, swathed in the rank robes of Plague Monks of the Clans Pestilens. They wielded a motley assortment of rusted blades, clubs and a few rattling flails from which foul fumes billowed. Two of the skaven dragged heavy chains attached to the neck of a hulking rat ogor, its snout flared and its eyes blind orbs.

Against this mass of vermin stood a single rider and mount. In the moment Neave took to absorb and assess the scene, she saw the rider was a human female, probably in her teenage years. She was tough-looking, clad in leather armour and furs, her russet skin pierced and tattooed, her hair shaved at the sides and swept into a spiked crest down the centre. The beast she rode was larger than a gryph-charger, insectile with an armoured carapace, a mass of clattering legs and a shovel-shaped head that was all eye-clusters, gnashing mandibles and jutting antlers.

As Neave slid over the ridge and began to run towards the fight, she thought for a moment that the girl was unarmed. Then she saw the vambraces made of copper hoops encasing both forearms, saw the girl clench her fists and punch her arms towards her attackers. Jade energy flashed around the coils with each gesture, rocketing forth to smash one Plague Monk from his feet and crush the skull of another.

By the time Neave’s speed had picked up to a sprint, and the ground was blurring beneath her, she had registered the two other crumpled steeds lying near to where the girl was fighting her defiant last stand. Fur-draped figures sprawled there, unmoving.

Neave took in every detail of the conflict in the six seconds it took her to assess and then charge into the fight. By comparison, neither the skaven nor their victim even realised she was there until she struck.

Neave’s whirlwind axes spun in a deadly arc, lopping the head from one Plague Monk and opening another from gut to throat. Thin blood sprayed through the air and fat buboes burst with audible pops as Neave’s weapons ripped through the diseased rat-men.

Shrieks and chitters erupted in her wake as the skaven registered this new attacker. They were quick-witted, their senses sharp and their desire for self-preservation making them naturally inclined to suspect attack from unexpected quarters. Thus, even as Neave spun on the balls of her feet and prepared to make another pass through the fight, the Plague Monks were upon her.

‘Keep fending them off,’ she shouted to the girl. ‘I’ll thin their numbers!’

She received barely a glance in response, the young tribeswoman focusing all her attention on the fight. Neave saw her punch out again, snapping one of the plague censers in two from twenty feet away and bowling its wielder end over end. Another skaven hacked its rusted cleaver into her steed’s flank and was impaled on a chitinous leg for its efforts.

Neave parried in a blistering series of sweeps, shattering the poorly made and rust-encrusted blades of her foes. Several frenzied stabs and swings clanged from the sigmarite of her armour, and she was glad of its protection. She could taste the poisons that coated the skaven weapons, that made them far more dangerous than they had any right to be.

An axe blow split a muzzle like cordwood. Another sweep ripped out a throat in a spray of gore. Then something huge was barrelling through the press of rat-men, and Neave was forced to launch herself into a backflip to leap clear of the swing of a huge, clawed fist.

She saw the rat ogor coming at her, its grotesquely flared nostrils twitching, its head cocked to one side. A foetid stink washed ahead of it, of chemical sweat and unwashed flesh. Neave felt the pounding vibration of its approach hard through the ground. It trailed the chains that its two handlers had released, and it bore down on her unerringly.

‘You can’t see me, can you?’ she said, grunting as she locked her axes to stave off another thunderous claw swing. The rat ogor howled, spraying her with spittle, and raked its claws at her in a disembowelling strike. Neave leapt back again and spun as she went, lashing out and shattering the bones of the beast’s paw with her axes.

The rat ogor screeched with pain and recoiled, flapping its useless hand. Neave took the opportunity to go on the offensive, leaping into the air and raining axe blows upon her attacker. The beast threw up its forearms to shield itself, reacting faster than Neave could have believed possible, and she hacked half a dozen bloody gouges in its limbs before she landed. Enraged, the rat ogor swung its good arm sidelong at her, trying to swat this painful attacker away. Neave swayed under the blow, throwing herself backwards and catching her fall on the hilts of her axes as the wrecking-ball arm whistled over her face to smash into a luckless Plague Monk.

Neave pushed hard and drove herself back to her feet with her axes, flipping clean over the rat ogor and slamming down behind it. She scissored her axes through its thick neck, then spun away as its head tumbled from its shoulders.

The rat ogor reeled out into the fight, limbs still swinging in its death throes. Meanwhile, the surviving skaven, their fanatical fervour overcoming their natural fear of danger, hurled themselves at her.

Neave fended one away with an axe blow, wove around a stabbing thrust and allowed it to impale another Plague Monk, then brought her knee up sharply into the chin of a third foe and broke its neck. Seeing their numbers thinning, she whirled and kicked the rat-man behind her, caving in his throat, before lashing her axes in a tight figure of eight to hack the arm from one and the head from another.

Suddenly, there were no enemies around Neave, just sprawled corpses. She shot a glance towards the girl, in time to see her raise the last of the skaven into the air amidst a phantasmic corona of jade energies. The girl clapped her hands together with a yell of anger and hate, and the skaven was crushed as though caught between two boulders.

Blood jetted, and its mangled carcass thumped to the floor.

Neave had hurled herself into the fight because she had seen a single human in danger. Now, able to properly appraise the girl she had saved, she kept her axes in hand. Her eyes flickered over the girl’s tribal markings, hunting for any sigil of the Dark Gods. She saw no sign of the physical stigma that such worship usually caused, no vestigial horns, mutant limbs, scaled skin, no obvious mutation. Yet the girl’s steed was a strange and dangerous looking beast, and the weapons she wielded were clearly magical in nature.

The girl looked back at her with frank aggression, chin jutting, shoulders heaving from the exertion of battle. Vermin blood dripped slowly from her fists and body.

‘I am Neave Blacktalon,’ said Neave. The girl made no response, and Neave hoped that she could make herself understood. Many mortal tribes still spoke some branch of the old tongues of the Age of Myth, even now. Yet often it was corrupted and hard to understand. Sometimes, there was no common bridge of language whatsoever.

‘I am a Stormcast Eternal,’ said Neave. ‘Of the Hammers of Sigmar.’

At the name of the God-King, the girl’s face twitched with recognition.

‘You know that name, yes? Sigmar?’ Neave took a step closer, and the insect steed skittered and stomped in response. Something in its thorax began a dry rattle, a clear warning to stay back.

‘Do you understand me?’ asked Neave, repeating herself in several common dialects. She had travelled the realms more than many of her comrades, ranged further and encountered hundreds of different cultures. Thanks to the blessings of Sigmar, and her own gift for swift comprehension, she had learned at least the rudiments of dozens of languages.

At last, her words brought a spark of understanding to the girl’s eyes.

‘You understand this? You know who I am, what I’m saying?’ asked Neave.

The girl nodded, eyes still fierce.

‘You are a sky knight,’ said the girl, her accent thick and sharp. ‘From the heavens.’

‘Yes,’ said Neave. ‘I am one of Sigmar’s warriors. We have come to defend the Mortal Realms, to win the war against Chaos.’

‘You have come to kill,’ said the girl. ‘But you will not kill me!’

Fast as thought, she punched out with both hands. Green light flared like a star, and a sorcerous projectile tore through the air towards Neave’s head.

Chapter Eight

It was like being hit by a battering ram. Neave tasted blood as she was thrown through the air. She hit the ground in a boneless roll, turning the motion into a smooth slide and regaining her feet in time to see another jade blast coming at her. The girl swung her arm backhand, the projectile cuffing Neave in the side of the head and deforming the faceplate of her helm as it threw her sideways.

Shock turned rapidly to anger, and as Neave rolled to her feet again she tore the buckled helm from her head and cast it aside. Blood dripped from her temple down the side of her face, crawling with lazy blue sparks.

The girl hesitated for an instant as her eyes met Neave’s. The Stormcast seized her chance and flashed forward like lightning. Her opponent tried to react, but against Neave’s inhuman swiftness she stood little chance. Neave hit the girl and tackled her out of her saddle, smashing the air from her lungs and slamming her into the ground twenty yards from her steed. Neave cushioned the girl’s fall, rolling with her, taking the brunt of an impact that would have broken mortal bones. She wound up with one knee pressed into her attacker’s chest, and her axes hovering menacingly above her face.

The girl coughed, blinked, tried to drag in a breath of air. Her eyes watered, then focused. Her face twisted with anger and jade energies flashed along her coiled vambraces.

‘Don’t,’ said Neave, hefting one axe. ‘I’m much faster than you, I’m much stronger, and regardless of what you think, I have no desire to kill you. But my duty comes first. If you endanger that again…’

She left the words hanging. She sensed no taint on this girl, no hint of the Dark Gods. But there was fear behind her anger, and pain. In Neave’s experience, such emotions could drive mortals to foolish acts. For a moment longer the girl stayed tense, then the jade sparks flickered to nothingness and she sagged.

‘Better,’ said Neave, easing the pressure of her armoured knee on the girl’s sternum. Letting her breathe a little freer, but staying watchful for the slightest sign of aggression. ‘Can you take those off?’ She pointed her chin at the girl’s vambraces and received a sullen nod in response. ‘Good, then I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to disarm yourself. Yes?’

Another nod. Neave slid into a standing position and backed away, casting a glance towards the girl’s steed as she did so. The insectile beast had approached warily, heavy footfalls thudding in the mossy grass; its thorax still gave out that dry rattle, but it made no move to attack.

The girl rose. Neave saw her muscles tense as she clearly thought about bolting again. Neave tensed as well, making it obvious that she had predicted the girl’s thoughts and was ready to halt her break for freedom. The girl thought better of it, staring defiantly at Neave as she unbound brass cog-clasps one at a time and let her ensorcelled vambraces drop. She shot a glance at her steed as though willing the beast to act; when it held its place, the girl muttered something angrily that might have been ‘traitor’ and turned back to face Neave.

‘Now what?’ she asked. ‘You kill me, sky knight?’

‘Now you tell me your name,’ said Neave. ‘And how you came to be hunted by skaven in this remote place.’

‘I am born Katalya Mourne, and he is Ketto,’ said the girl, gesturing at her steed. ‘I am Mourne tribe,’ she continued, and Neave caught the look she shot towards her fallen comrades. ‘I am… all of the Mourne tribe,’ she said quietly.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Neave, and found that she meant it.

‘You are not,’ said Katalya fiercely. ‘You don’t know. Sky knights, Sigmar’s killers, what do you know of us? You are no better than the rats.’

Neave was saddened by the girl’s words, but not entirely shocked. She thought back to some of the pacification campaigns her Vanguard Auxiliary Chamber had been involved with, the tribes slaughtered more for their ignorance than any true desire to malfeasance. Still, it chilled her to think that the Stormcasts could be perceived with quite such venom.

‘Is that what you think?’ asked Neave.

‘The Shryke tribe thought different,’ replied Katalya. ‘Their shamans said the gods sent you. They celebrated your coming. Then the white sky knights came. They called themselves the Excelsior. They answered the Shrykes’ welcome with lightning and steel. They drove them from their homes around the Gate of the Gods. They killed them all. That is what you do – you kill.’

Neave shook her head.

‘The Knights Excelsior know nothing of restraint,’ she said. ‘If the Shryke tribe held a Realmgate they had been ordered to capture… If there were signs that the tribe had been worshipping the Dark Gods… The Hammers of Sigmar are different, I promise you.’

‘Knights, hammers, whatever you call yourselves, doesn’t matter,’ said Katalya. ‘You are no better than the bloodscreamers, or the rusted ones, or these ratkin filth. All killers, all seek to take our freedom.’

Neave thought for a moment, then slung her axes and relaxed her posture. Unhelmed, unarmed, blood scabbing on her temple and hair sweat-slicked from battle, she hoped that she looked more human than many of her comrades might.

‘I am sorry for all that has happened to you,’ she said. ‘And I swear that I mean you no harm. I just want to understand how you came to be here, and whether I can aid you. Sigmar’s servants were sent to the realms to protect and to reclaim, not to kill the innocent.’

Katalya snorted and spat. She folded her arms and stood in silence, chin jutting. It was a good act, but it could not fool Neave’s senses; the girl’s heart was beating too fast, and minute muscle twitches gave away the sorrow and fear she was trying to mask. Neave found herself reappraising the girl’s age; beneath the feral garb and the warrior piercings, she could not be much older than sixteen years. There was something more, though, that Neave couldn’t put a finger on. Her heart went out to Katalya. She felt inclined to trust her, despite all her better instincts.

‘Your fallen,’ said Neave, gesturing. ‘Go to them, if you need to.’

‘Turn my back so you can put an axe in it?’ asked Katalya. ‘Mourne do not raise their kind stupid, sky knight.’

Neave sighed, exasperated.

‘Very well, then at least tell me how you came to be here. Are there more skaven hunting you, or was that the extent of them?’

Katalya remained silent, but the tensing of her shoulders and the dart of her eyes to the horizon told Neave all she needed to know.

‘More out there then,’ she said. ‘It can’t just be coincidence. Do they serve him, I wonder?’

Again, she read a flicker of reaction from Katalya at her words. For all her obstinacy, the girl showed little skill at hiding her emotions.

‘You know of whom I speak?’ she asked. ‘You know who the skaven call master?’

Katalya cast another look at Ketto, but the insect had settled back on its haunches now; it wasn’t even rattling. She shook her head in annoyance, and sighed, letting her arms drop.

‘The swamp king,’ she said. ‘The rats serve the swamp king. They have done for many years, since before I was born. They have always hunted the tribes. Them, the rusted ones, the monsters. But these seasons they come many, many. Since your kind arrive.’ Katalya stared accusingly at Neave. ‘You made the swamp king angry, and we suffer for it. Like I said, you are all killers.’

‘I… had never thought,’ said Neave, taken aback. Of course the servants of Chaos would visit their displeasure on those less able to protect themselves, she thought. How many mortal tribes had faced persecution and death in revenge for a war they had not started, and took no part in? The thought made her nauseous.

‘Katalya, I believe that it is the swamp king I am here for,’ she said earnestly. ‘Sigmar… Sigmar made me to hunt men like the swamp king, and kill them. So yes, I am a killer, Katalya, but not of your people. I am a killer of those who want to hurt them. I am here to protect you.’

The girl stared at her, then turned her gaze towards her fallen fellows. Neave saw a single tear track, unwanted and unacknowledged, down Katalya’s cheek.

‘You’re too late,’ the girl said bitterly.

‘I’ll leave you with them for a time,’ said Neave softly. ‘There may be more skaven. Wherever you see one, there’s thirteen more you don’t. I’m going to scout the area, make sure we’re safe. I’ll come back.’

Katalya ignored her, and Neave took her cue to depart. She loped away through the tussocky hillocks, spreading her senses out in search of danger, and hoped the girl would still be there when she came back.

A half-hour’s sweep took Neave two dozen leagues out towards the roots of the mountain, into the afternoon shadows cast by its towering enormity. A whole range’s worth of lesser crags rose from the mountain’s slopes, and its split peak jutted up like a witch’s fingers forking the sign of the evil eye. As she stared up at it, Neave felt again that stirring sense of familiarity, and felt her temples ache at the way it jarred with her knowledge of the now.

She swept back in the opposite direction, scouting a wide parabola around the site where she had met Katalya, giving the girl time. Whether to mourn her fallen, or to make good her escape, Neave couldn’t say which. There was no sign of further skaven, beyond the trail the warband had left as it pursued Katalya and her comrades from somewhere southwards.

Yet still Neave couldn’t shake the feeling of danger drawing close, an instinct she had long ago learned to trust. She cast glances back across the marshes from whence she had come, seeking skyborne specks or enemies drawing near.

‘You’ve spent too long on this girl already, Sigmar only knows why,’ she told herself as she hastened back to the site of her recent battle. ‘If she’s there, you figure out what to do with her quickly, then you press on. If not, so much the better.’

It was with some surprise that she smelt and heard the girl and her steed still lingering upon her return. Neave was careful to approach slowly and from an open direction, making no secret of her coming. She could taste the magic of Katalya’s vambraces tainting the air again, and was in no hurry to surprise the girl and receive another jade blast for her troubles.

‘What have you done to Ketto?’ demanded Katalya hotly. Neave drew to a stop some yards away from the girl, took in the severed skaven ears hanging from her belt, and the cairn of freshly piled stones that lay off to one side of the battlefield. The insect steeds lay where they had fallen, but of the dead tribesmen there was no sign.

‘I haven’t done anything to your beast,’ said Neave, frowning. ‘Why, does he ail? The Plague Monks seethe with disease, girl – you shouldn’t have lingered amongst them.’

Katalya snorted dismissively.

‘Ketto isn’t sick. Tribes, beasts, all that live in the mountain’s shadow, they live this long, they don’t get sick any more. No. You bewitched him.’

Neave was taken aback. ‘I don’t have the power to do that.’

‘He wouldn’t leave!’ shouted the girl. ‘I tried to carry on my hunt, but he wouldn’t leave! He waited for you.’ Katalya kicked one of Ketto’s chitinous legs, the limb towering higher at its arched knee joint than the top of her head. Ketto gave a patient chittering noise, tilted his head, nudged Katalya with it. He waved long antennae in Neave’s direction, and chittered again.

‘He’s a stupid beast,’ said Katalya sullenly, rubbing one palm against the insect’s tough chitin. She hugged herself with her other arm.

Neave kept her face carefully solemn, despite the smile that tried to surface.

‘Perhaps he’s wise,’ she said. ‘You mentioned a hunt. I’m a huntress. What is your mark, Katalya Mourne?’

‘Mark?’ asked the girl.

‘Your quarry, the being you pursue,’ explained Neave. ‘Whenever Sigmar sends me, or one of his other Knights-Zephyros on the hunt, he gives us a mark we must kill. We may not return to kneel before his throne until the deed is done.’

‘Then my mark is the swamp king,’ said Katalya. ‘His ratkin killed all of my tribe, days ago, far to the south. Me, Danya, Tievin, we were hunting him, but his rats kept hunting us.’

‘And that’s where I found you,’ said Neave. ‘Run to ground by the band that slew your tribe. I am sorry, Katalya.’

Katalya spat on a nearby skaven corpse.

‘Sorry is an empty belly and a cold fire,’ she said. ‘I hunt him alone now. And I must move on. This isn’t all of them. Not even many of them.’

Neave thought again about her crawling sense of danger approaching. It had not abated.

‘Katalya, I am hunting the swamp king, and you can be assured that I’ll kill him for you. I always find my mark.’

‘I will kill him first!’ said Katalya.

‘You’ll not kill him at all, nor get within a dozen leagues of him,’ said Neave, her tone stern. ‘I admire your spirit, but you are alone and this swamp king has an army, and the blessings of the Plague God besides.’

‘You are alone also,’ Katalya retorted. ‘You are just one. I have Ketto. He is swift. I only need to get close enough to crush the swamp king’s skull. After that… nothing else matters.’

‘I have a duty, and I must see it done,’ said Neave. ‘If I should fall in its execution then Sigmar will take me up and reforge me.’

She saw incomprehension in Katalya’s eyes.

‘That is, he will bear my soul back to the Realm of Heavens, and there he will resurrect me so that I might fight for him again. But if you die, you’re gone, and so is the Mourne tribe. Forever.’

She saw tears rise in Katalya’s eyes, quickly fought back. Neave felt for the girl, but she pressed on.

‘I can’t protect you, Katalya, but I can tell you to find safety, to get as far from the swamp king as you can. If you can find one of the cities of Order they will take you in and make you safe there. That is the best way to honour your fallen, by living on, and giving what you can to see civilisation rise again across all these lands.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Katalya. ‘You can’t, sky knight. You didn’t swear the oaths I have. They didn’t kill your tribe.’

Neave’s brow creased at the echoing memory of a child’s cries.

‘I cannot turn aside,’ Katalya continued. ‘We all swore, and I will not be the only one of my tribe to break their oath. Do not tell me to.’

Neave raised her hands, defeated. The cries were still murmuring in the back of her mind, and for a moment she thought blue motes danced in her peripheral vision. The sensation quickly faded.

‘What else can I do then, but ask leave to join your hunt,’ said Neave. ‘You won’t turn aside, and neither will I. My duty to Sigmar demands I slay my mark, but my duty as a Hammer of Sigmar is to protect and to liberate the people of the realms. If you can keep pace with me, then let us hunt together. A local guide could prove useful. So far I have followed only my intuition, after all.’

Neave doubted that Ketto would be able to match her swiftest pace, no matter what manner of beast he was. But there was something about Katalya Mourne that she could not place, something she felt strongly enough that it warranted protecting her as best she could, and binding the girl to her own duty.

‘I… could allow it,’ said Katalya grudgingly. ‘And Ketto likes you, big stupid.’

This time, Neave allowed herself the ghost of a smile.

‘We should move soon then,’ she said. ‘There’s likely enemies on both of our trails, and I sense we have a long way yet to travel.’

‘Not so far,’ said Katalya. ‘Beyond the mountain, more swamp. Worse swamp. We go through that by ways my tribe know, we avoid the rusted ones and the monsters, then north of the Forest of Ghosts we find the swamp king’s castle.’

‘The forest, do you know your way there?’ asked Neave. ‘It’s hard to explain why, Katalya, but I don’t think we can just hunt the swamp king straight away. I think we need to go to the Forest of Ghosts. I need to speak to the ones that live there.’

Katalya’s eyes widened.

‘The spirits live there,’ she said, her voice low and urgent. ‘You cannot, they will curse you!’

Katalya made a rapid gesture of warding with her hand, tucking her thumb into her palm and creating a ‘v’ shaped split between her middle and ring finger. Neave found with surprise that though the gesture was crude and unclear, she understood without being told that it was meant to form a twin-tailed comet. Her surprise redoubled when, without any conscious thought, she returned the gesture with one of her own.

What is this? she thought, bewildered. Why does this sign feel so familiar? Like something I knew once, and then forgot. Neave told herself that, surrounded always by Sigmar’s iconography as she was, the sigil of the twin-tailed comet was simply ingrained in her mind, easier for her to recognise than most. Even to her, though, the rationalisation seemed terribly convenient.

The two of them stood like that for a moment, frozen in mutual confusion. Then Katalya snatched her hand down to her side.

‘You know the warding of the two-tailed comet?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know how though,’ said Neave quietly.

‘Then you know not to go to the Forest of Ghosts,’ said Katalya.

‘I have to, my path leads me there. And I don’t believe they will curse me, Katalya.’

‘Maybe they already have,’ said Katalya darkly, and Neave flinched at the thought. She heard the rustle of jagged branches in a cold night wind, saw eyes of blue fire in the darkness behind her own.

‘Maybe,’ she echoed, before her tone became firm again. ‘But I don’t believe it. I think they have answers, secrets about the swamp king that I need to know before I can kill him. I have to try.’

‘Then we will come with you,’ said Katalya, swinging herself up onto the crude saddle tied between two segments of Ketto’s thorax. ‘Where the sky knights brave the path, the Mourne tribe will do no less. And if it means the swamp king dies…’ She clashed her vambraces together, creating a dazzling rain of jade sparks. ‘Then it is worth it,’ she finished.

Neave nodded, still hearing branches rasping together, and a child’s distant sobs. She smelt smoke as she watched the jade sparks float towards the ground, turning golden and blue in her mind’s eye as huts burned and the forest whipped past and something crooned in the darkness.

‘I…’ Neave frowned, took one faltering step, and suddenly the darkness was all about, racing up like a flood-tide, like the banks within her mind had finally burst and she could only stand aghast before the onrushing waters.

The world vanished in a spray of whirling blue motes, and as she felt herself fall, the roar of the rising waters melded with the cries of the child and the screams of the dying, and the inhuman, creaking croon of a voice.

Its incomprehensible words followed her down into oblivion.

Chapter Nine

Tarion crouched upon the grassy lip of a precipice and lost himself in the sound of rushing water. He was perched on the sloping bank of a floating islet. It hung high in the sky above a river valley that cut its way between rolling hills. Higher still, more islands drifted, meandering like docile cattle. Jade waters spilled down from their flanks, skyfalls that collected in a chuckling pool on this isle before rushing down its side to leap eagerly into thin air again.

Below, the waters hammered the surface of a deep lake at the head of the valley, then wound away as a pale silver ribbon beneath the evening sun.

‘Beyond the river’s third winding,’ murmured Tarion. ‘Looks to me like you knew where you were going, Blacktalon. I just wish you’d taken me with you.’ He supposed his friend had believed she was sparing him danger, perhaps even accusations of desertion. Looking down upon the rest of their Vanguard Chamber picking their way along the valley, Tarion wasn’t so sure she’d done him a favour at all. There, at the heart of the loose formation, rode the Lord-Aquilor; Tarion imagined he could taste the man’s sharp displeasure on the air even from here.

Krien alighted next to Tarion in a shimmer of light. Folding his wings, the star eagle dipped his beak in the rushing waters, then preened his feathers with fastidious care. He looked up at Tarion, cocking his head to one side.

‘Don’t give me that look – I know we need to report back,’ said Tarion. Krien’s head tilted the other way. His fierce avian eyes glinted enquiringly.

‘All right, old friend, all right,’ said Tarion. ‘You are a hard taskmaster, you know that? Merciless.’

Krien gave a harsh cry and leapt skywards, light blazing from him as he looped up on the thermals then tucked his wings and dived down towards the Rangers below. Tarion sighed and launched himself after his companion.

Danastus sat astride his gryph-charger, maintaining a steady canter along the overgrown lower slopes of the valley. Gallahearn and Kalparius flanked him as always. Tarion landed some way ahead of them, rising and folding in the crystal pinions of his wings as the riders approached. He saluted as Danastus reined in his steed.

‘Report,’ said the Lord-Aquilor.

‘The terrain ahead becomes increasingly marshy, beyond the end of this valley,’ said Tarion. ‘If memory serves it stays that way as far as Splitpeak. The touch of Nurgle has been felt here, my lord, though not as badly as in many of the Jade Kingdoms.’

‘As for Blacktalon?’ asked Danastus. His charger raked the ground with its talons and clacked its beak.

‘Neither I nor Krien have seen her, my lord,’ said Tarion. ‘She leaves next to no trail; the Rangers have been compelled to double back twice since dawn and find signs of her again. But the aetherwings continue to keep her in sight. She is still ahead of us, they say.’

Danastus leant back in his saddle, gazing off towards the horizon as though he could spot Blacktalon and somehow pin her in place.

‘She must be caught,’ said the Lord-Aquilor.

‘And she will be, my lord,’ said Tarion. He wished he could have kept all of Neave’s secrets, but after Tarion had returned to the ranks of the chamber, his wounded condition and Neave’s absence had raised too many questions. The Lord-Aquilor had demanded point-blank that Tarion tell him everything that had transpired and why; withholding information from Danastus was one thing, but Tarion knew that Neave would never have wanted him to disobey a direct order, and so he had not. How far Danastus had disseminated the resultant flurry of information, Tarion didn’t know. He hoped not far.

‘You’ve more to say?’ asked Danastus, fixing Tarion with his gaze.

‘Neave would not have done what she did lightly,’ said Tarion. ‘This is not a desertion of duty, my lord. We should be helping her, not hunting her.’

‘We help her by hunting her,’ said Danastus. ‘Hammers of Sigmar do not disobey their orders. They do not abandon the fight before it is finished. Sigmar may not yet have given Neave a fresh mark, but that does not mean she is free to come and go as she sees fit. She has a duty to this chamber.’

‘She is doing this for the chamber,’ said Tarion, holding on to his temper. He drew closer to the Lord-Aquilor and dropped his voice to a murmur. ‘You know what she wrestles with, my lord. She fears she might contaminate us by her mere presence.’

‘All the more reason for us to reclaim our own,’ said Danastus. ‘This is a matter for our chamber alone. If she should be slain, and the Sacrosanct Chambers detect some corruption within her soul during her Reforging…’

Tarion suppressed a shudder. As Sigmar’s war ground on, and the tales of failed Reforgings multiplied, so other rumours grew. A Stormcast Eternal could never truly die, or so it appeared, but what the Sacrosanct Chambers did with those souls they found wanting was the subject of macabre speculation.

‘We will find her,’ said Tarion, ‘and we’ll help her.’

‘If we can,’ said Danastus, his expression unreadable.

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Tarion. ‘I’ll go now and continue the hunt.’

‘Tarion,’ said Danastus, catching the Knight-Venator as he turned away. ‘Your loyalty to your comrade does you credit, but don’t let it blind you. Neave acted without orders. Her intent may be pure, but she is not blameless in this, and there will be consequences. Any who I suspect are helping her to confound our pursuit will face those consequences also.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ repeated Tarion. He strode away from the Lord-Aquilor, then launched himself skywards, glad of the faceplate that concealed his thunderous scowl.

Neave’s eyes fluttered open. Light pierced the fog around her mind, cutting like knives. She could feel that she was lying on her side, cheek resting on cool, spongy grass. She winced, blinked, then snapped into wakefulness as she saw a monstrous face bare inches from her own. Bulbous black eyes stared at her with idiot intensity. A lantern jaw gaped, stuffed with jagged fangs. Slimy black flesh oozed noxious filth.

Neave propelled herself backwards, rolling up into a fighting crouch and grabbing for her axes. It was only then she realised the abomination before her hadn’t moved, and that she could hear Katalya laughing.

‘The ghunkha is dead, sky knight. I killed it. Nothing to fear!’ Katalya laughed again, as Neave slowly relaxed and straightened up. The beast was hideous, its malformed face jutting from a fat black body that resembled nothing so much as a fifteen-foot-long maggot. Its underbelly was busy with stubby legs and drooping pseudopods. It was undeniably dead, a huge chunk of flesh carved out of its guts, its ichor drying on the grass.

Neave took a moment to centre herself, breathe, grasp her surroundings. It was dusk, and the slopes of the mountain loomed large overhead. She stood in some kind of natural hollow in the landscape, a depression ringed on three sides by jutting rocks whose flanks were graven with faded pictograms. The fourth side was open, providing a view south and west, where rocky foothills marched away towards fog-wreathed marshland in the fading light.

Katalya sat at the heart of the depression, tending a small fire that crackled within a ring of stones. She’d set a crude metal spit over the flames, and Neave saw that several slabs of flesh were blackening on it even now. She had an unpleasant feeling she knew where they’d come from. Ketto sprawled in an untidy tangle of limbs near to his mistress. The creature’s antennae waved lazily in Neave’s direction, as though in greeting. Neave didn’t see her dented helm anywhere, and presumed Katalya had abandoned it. She felt no great sense of loss; it had been as good as ruined anyway.

‘You didn’t leave me,’ said Neave, approaching the fire.

Katalya shrugged.

‘Stupid Ketto wouldn’t leave you. Traitor.’ This time, the word had less venom in it. Ketto chittered, brushing Katalya’s cheek with an antenna. She batted the insect away in mock annoyance.

‘Thank you,’ said Neave, sitting.

‘Do all sky knights collapse of a sudden like this?’ asked Katalya, smirking. ‘Maybe Sigmar doesn’t make you as mighty as you say?’

‘No, just me,’ said Neave.

‘Why?’ asked Katalya.

‘It is complicated, Katalya.’ The girl scowled.

‘You mean it is something you don’t want to say,’ she said. ‘I saved your life. You owe the Mourne tribe now, sky knight. And I claim the truth as my gelt.’

Frustrated, Neave took a deep breath, then decided the tribesgirl had a fair point. She had grown weary of secrets, and in some ways it was easier to trust a stranger than an old friend.

‘Honestly, I do not know,’ said Neave. ‘It’s part of why I need to go to the Forest of Ghosts. When I collapsed, I had a vision. One that I have seen several times before. It haunts me. It’s as though something is guiding me back to that forest.’

‘It is a curse,’ said Katalya matter-of-factly, as though her pronouncement settled the matter.

‘Perhaps,’ said Neave. She was surprised at herself, talking so freely to this girl that she had just met. But she felt drained, and for once she didn’t have the energy for mistrust. Katalya could have just abandoned Neave to the scavengers, or the skaven. She hadn’t, and Neave decided that earned the girl a little faith.

‘Old Yatti, she saw things,’ said Katalya, staring into the fire. ‘Everyone said that was a curse. It is why they didn’t listen to her when she saw the ratkin coming. They should have listened.’ The girl looked up, met Neave’s gaze with her own frank sorrow. ‘Curses are not always bad.’

‘I am truly sorry for all that you’ve lost,’ said Neave. ‘I can’t imagine…’

Katalya sniffed, aggressively poked at her fire with a blackened stick.

‘You can’t?’ asked the girl. ‘The stories say Sigmar takes the sky knights from terrible battles. They are the last alive in hopeless fights. Didn’t he take you from your tribe?’

Neave opened her mouth, then closed it again. She frowned, as she realised that she couldn’t answer Katalya’s question. She remembered battle, Reforging, the Thunderpeak and the realms, but nothing of her life before. Not even the circumstances of how she had come to be claimed in the first place. Had she lost the memory? Had she ever had it?

‘I don’t know that either,’ she said. ‘It’s been a very long time…’

‘I won’t forget,’ said Katalya. ‘Even when he takes me up, like he did you.’

Neave frowned.

‘I can’t fault you for seeking Sigmar’s blessings, but I thought you hated us… sky knights? Why would you want to become one of us?’

Katalya scowled into the fire.

‘It is the way of the realms. Without a god, you are weak. You are prey. With a god’s blessings? Look at you. Look at the swamp king. To become strong, you must choose a god and win their blessings, no matter what the price. Mourne tribe should have learned that sooner.’

Neave’s frown deepened at the comparisons the girl was drawing.

‘Katalya… Were you really seeking the swamp king, or were you just seeking an end worthy of Sigmar’s notice?’

The girl remained silent, blinking into the fire. She poked angrily at it with her stick. Neave sighed.

‘It doesn’t work that way,’ she said. ‘You can’t just count on being taken up for Reforging. You almost certainly would have died for nothing.’

‘Like we will both do when we go to the Forest of Ghosts,’ said Katalya. ‘Like we will both do if we find the swamp king, because even if the forest spirits don’t kill us, he will. But I won’t let the Mourne tribe die. I will impress Sigmar, and live forever, and have the strength to take my revenge.’

‘Katalya, I–’

‘The meat is cooked,’ said Katalya. ‘We have these. Ketto gets the rest when he shifts his lazy body to eat.’

Neave recognised that the subject was closed, at least for now. Quietly, though, she resolved to keep Katalya from her death-wish if she could. Neave accepted a hunk of seared meat from her with a nod of gratitude, and did her best not to look at the carcass of the thing it came from as she bit into it. To her surprise, the food was good, if a little bitter, and meat juices dribbled down her chin as she ate with gusto. Stormcast bodies healed far more swiftly than those of mortals, but though the process was partly fuelled by the celestial magic bound into their souls, food and rest both helped. Only now did Neave notice that the exertions of the last few days had left her ravenous.

For a few minutes, the only sounds in the hollow were the two companions tearing into the cooked meat, and the sighing of the wind across the mountain slopes that reared above them. The stars of the heavens began to appear in the sky, and the quiet between Neave and Katalya became slowly more cordial.

‘What manner of beast is Ketto?’ asked Neave. ‘I’ve never seen his like.’

‘He is tattakan,’ said Katalya, in a tone she clearly reserved for answering extremely stupid questions.

‘Tattakan,’ said Neave, tasting the word, pleased with its cadence.

‘They are brood of the Godbeast Tatto’Na’Kotto, who lives under the Shifting Stones,’ said Katalya. ‘They are fast and strong and loyal, and Ketto is the best of them all.’

The two lapsed into silence again for a time. The fire crackled and the wind sighed.

‘Why did you do the warding?’ asked Katalya, tossing aside the last fatty remnants of her meal.

‘I’m not sure what that is,’ said Neave.

‘The…’ Katalya gestured, forming the twin-tailed symbol with her hand again.

‘It’s a gesture of the heavens,’ said Neave. ‘It was just… familiar to me.’ Even as she spoke the lie, she saw that Katalya didn’t believe it. But Neave was unsettled by that mechanical gesture, both familiar and not so all at once, and she couldn’t yet be sure whether it had been the trigger for her collapse. For now, she didn’t care to speculate lest it brought weakness. Still, she felt frustration at herself as Katalya’s expression became closed and watchful again.

‘We should sleep soon,’ said Katalya, ‘and we shouldn’t risk the fire.’

‘I can see well enough without its light,’ said Neave, ‘and I’ve slept enough. You rest. I’ll keep watch.’

Katalya gave a non-committal grunt, but Neave could see the girl’s exhaustion, both physical and emotional. Her eyes looked almost bruised, and her head nodded slightly. Sure enough, though Katalya made a show of keeping her vambraces on and propping herself against Ketto’s flank, she was soon snoring gently. Neave doused the fire with dirt, and was surprised again at the surge of protective emotion she felt as she looked down at the sleeping tribesgirl.

Ketto regarded Neave, antennae waving slowly. Neave looked back, and felt that perhaps a moment of understanding passed between them. Gently, she reached out and ran one gauntleted palm down the side of Ketto’s face. The beast chuntered and brushed at her with an antenna, then shifted itself so that its legs enfolded Katalya like a shield. Neave smiled faintly, before turning her back to the guttering fire.

‘I’ll keep watch,’ she repeated, ‘and you’ll come to no further harm today, Katalya Mourne.’

It was several hours later, in the deep watches of the night, that Neave returned to the hollow. She moved swift and silent, crouched low, slipping like a wraith past the ashes of the camp-fire. She woke Ketto first, brushing the beast’s antennae until it stirred into consciousness with a deep rattle of its thorax. When Neave looked to Katalya, she saw the girl’s eyes were already open, and her vambraces were glinting with jade energy.

‘They’re coming,’ murmured Neave.

‘Ratkin?’

‘Maybe. Or others.’

‘We fight?’

‘No. They’re still distant, but by the vibrations through the bedrock, they’re many. More than we could hope to defeat.’

Katalya nodded and rose, swiftly gathering her meagre belongings into panniers strapped to Ketto’s flank, before swinging up into her saddle. Neave was grateful; she had expected obstinacy, perhaps a resurgence of the girl’s apparent death-wish. But now that the moment came, Katalya’s honed survival instincts were obvious. Neave supposed they had kept her alive when the rest of her tribe had fallen.

‘The Forest of Ghosts is this way,’ said Katalya, gesturing south and west along the mountain’s flank. ‘It is a day’s ride.’

‘I know, though I don’t know how,’ said Neave. ‘These lands become ever more familiar, yet I’ve never seen them before.’ The sensation was bewildering, especially for one as used to hard, empirical facts as Neave. She was used to following Sigmar’s gift towards her marks, but this was different. Neave still didn’t trust where this knowledge had come from, but she had come this far. She wouldn’t back away now.

‘If you collapse again, Ketto will carry you,’ said Katalya, and Neave laughed grimly at her matter-of-fact tone.

‘If I collapse again, we’re both in trouble,’ she said. ‘We move fast and stop for naught until we’re beneath the forest’s eaves, yes?’

Katalya slapped Ketto’s flank, hawked and spat, then shot Neave a fierce grin.

‘We’ll see you when you get there.’

With that she gave a high whoop. At her signal, Ketto surged forward, footfalls thudding like drumbeats upon the grassy soil as he powered up and out of the depression. Neave watched, one eyebrow raised as the tattakan accelerated away across the grass. Ketto’s legs rose and fell like mechanical pistons, moving so fast they almost blurred; he was a swifter creature by far than she had imagined, and for the first time she allowed herself to hope that they could outrun their pursuers.

Whoever they might be.

‘Sigmar, lend us speed,’ said Neave, and set off after Ketto at a swift lope.

Dawn came upon them quickly, the moons plunging below the horizon even as the sun rose bloated and red. Neave kept easy pace with Ketto, despite the fact the beast could run swift as a gryph-hound and seemed to have endless reserves of stamina. The miles vanished behind them as the hours rolled past.

To begin with they kept to the mountain’s lower slopes, preferring the rocky hillocks and stony dells to the soggy grasslands below. Strange winged things wheeled above them amongst the crags, gangling and many-limbed. For a time, Neave kept a weather eye upon the creatures in case they should decide to investigate the intruders in their realm, but the beasts showed no predatory interest, merely drifting and crying to one another in low, booming voices.

As the sun rose fully, Neave and Katalya were forced to abandon the rocky foothills. Their path led due south now, down into the mist-shrouded wetlands. Neave could feel the vibrations growing through the soles of her feet, and currents of displaced air disturbed by massed movement.

‘There’s more than one group pursuing us, Katalya,’ said Neave as they ran. ‘One trails us from the battle site, if I’m correct. The other is sweeping up from the south, though I don’t know how they could be tracking us. Perhaps they’re on our path by chance?’

‘It is the…’ Katalya mimed sniffing and snorting, and flared her nostrils. ‘The rat monsters, the blindlings. I don’t know how they did it, but they got the scent of the Mourne tribe and they followed us wherever we went. It was a curse.’

Neave absorbed this new revelation. She had already known she was complicating her quest by taking Katalya under her wing. Now it seemed she might have drawn foes down upon herself by that same act of compassion. It didn’t trouble her, despite the dangers closing in around her; Sigmar had not created her to walk the easy paths, but to win through on the most difficult and dangerous trails. She would not fail him now.

As they descended the slopes, Katalya turned smoothly in the saddle while Ketto thundered along. She fished a heavy cloak from within her panniers and swept it about herself. She affixed it to her body with straps and pulled its hood over her head, then right down over her face. Neave could smell the sharp tang of alchemical treatments worked into the fabric and saw that the hood itself had brass air-seals and eye-pieces set into it. Someone, presumably Katalya herself, had decorated the hood with a crude white skull design; the effect was surprisingly menacing.

‘Tattakan, sky knight, you can cross the foetorlands,’ Katalya said, her voice muffled and rasping through the filters. ‘Mourne tribe, though, not so easy. The swamp king’s touch is on this land. There is too much sickness, even for we.’

‘It is the touch of the Plague God, Nurgle,’ said Neave, running steadily alongside the tattakan. ‘He is one of the four Dark Gods that my lord Sigmar wars against. It’s his loathsome gifts that have corrupted this land, and his servant that we hunt.’

‘Nurgle,’ said Katalya, struggling with the strange word as though it tasted foul. ‘He is the god of the swamp king?’

‘That’s right,’ said Neave. ‘It’s in his name that the swamp king does what he does.’

‘Then he is an even bigger th’katkha than your Sigmar,’ spat Katalya. ‘Once we deal with the swamp king, we kill him next.’

Neave couldn’t help a bark of incredulous laughter. Yet her mirth was quickly swallowed up as they plunged into the fume-wreathed mire.

The swamplands here were far worse than those Neave had crossed the day before. The hand of Nurgle had twisted the natural order of the Realm of Life, perverting its vital energies into something self-destructive.

Rotblossoms nodded, bloated and straining, amidst squirming throttleknot and meadows of desiccated butcher’s grass. Plague flies swarmed above pools of congealed sludge, and fat white worms writhed through mud that stank of corpse-gas. A miasmal haze filled the air, cutting visibility to a few dozen yards ahead. Their pace slowed as they found themselves forced to turn aside again and again from sucking pits of slime and water courses that had turned the virulent yellow of infected pus.

Through ragged gaps in the haze, Neave caught momentary glimpses of avian shapes hovering high and distant to their rear. They were too far away to identify, but she knew now they had been no figment of her imagination.

The skaven were not her only pursuers.

‘Both groups are gaining on us,’ said Neave after a particularly frustrating detour. ‘I feel their passage through the shaking of the ground and the disturbance of the air. Whatever draws up from the south, it is far closer than that pursuing from behind.’

‘The Forest of Ghosts is still many miles ahead,’ said Katalya. ‘They will cut us off before we get there.’

‘Not if we are swift,’ said Neave. ‘Come on.’

They pressed on through the filth and foulness. Marsh gases bubbled and popped in their wake, and a sorrowful wind blew across the marshes. Undulating shapes rippled through the muck, their rumbling passage causing Neave to brandish her axes in warning. Ketto struggled, only his broad leg span allowing him to avoid sinking hopelessly into the swamp.

‘Khakhoa take this stinking place, and mudhagha spit upon the swamp king’s corpse,’ Katalya’s muffled curses carried from under her cowl, half-lost in the endless drone of flies.

Each time they were forced to halt, or divert their passage, Neave had to resist the temptation simply to leap into the winds aetheric and streak away towards the forest’s eaves. She knew instinctively where they were, though she couldn’t say how. The knowledge was bound up in some part of her mind that sounded like creaking branches and burning huts, and caused blue lights to dance behind her eyes when she tried to reach it.

At last, the ground grew firmer again, and the haze began to part.

‘There, the forest!’ shouted Katalya, pointing urgently ahead. Neave could see the treeline some miles before them, revealed by the parting swamp gases. Tangled, gnarled and dark, it was hardly a welcoming sight. Yet to Neave it felt like a haven long sought, and she put on a surge of speed towards it.

The wind changed, shifting so it blew from the south, and her nostrils were assailed by the reek of Chaotic corruption. Distantly, growing closer, she heard the tolling of warped bells, the thunder of footfalls, the rasp of flesh and cloth. Chittering shrieks carried to her upon the wind, sounds of madness and hunger.

‘Katalya, the ratkin are close,’ shouted Neave. ‘Whatever speed Ketto has left, we need it now.’

She increased her pace, running as fast as she dared without abandoning her new comrade. Katalya whooped and kicked her heels into Ketto’s flanks, driving the tattakan faster.

A glance south showed Neave their enemies for the first time. They were surging up along the line of the forest in a ragged tide, hundreds of skaven dashing as fast as their gnarled footclaws would carry them. They were clad in the filthy robes of the Clans Pestilens, brandishing rusted blades and smoke-belching plague censers. Banners rose above the swarm like flotsam on a flood tide, emblazoned with obscene designs that hurt the eye. Gongs and bells raised a frantic clangour.

At the front of the horde came a bow-wave of chittering rats, some almost the size of hounds. Amidst them were a dozen or more of the hulking rat ogors, pounding along on their hindclaws and knuckled fists, grotesque nostrils flaring. Further back, amidst the massed Plague Monks, Neave saw a huge wooden frame being shoved along on creaking wheels. A vast iron censer swung from its warpwood beams, trailing billowing clouds of plague-smog. Atop a platform that jutted from the construction’s prow stood some kind of archpriest, squealing encouragement and threats at his underlings. His beady red eyes were locked upon her and Katalya, and Neave could feel his maddened hate like a fever heat.

‘They’re moving too fast,’ shouted Katalya. ‘We’ll have to fight!’

Neave could see the girl was right. Even as she ran for the forest she spread her senses, searching for any route out of this trap. She couldn’t abandon Katalya to the skaven. She wouldn’t.

‘There!’ she shouted. ‘Follow me and run as swift as you can. We can make this!’

Neave angled her sprint, turning away from the skaven, cutting westwards along the line of the forest. She felt Ketto’s footfalls change direction as the beast thundered after her. In her mind’s eye she saw the landscape ahead, but overlaid with a less tainted echo of itself, and she followed knowledge she had no right to own.

‘Sigmar, don’t let me be wrong about this,’ prayed Neave, then the land dropped away in front of her into a steep-sided ditch. A sluggish watercourse cut through it as it sloped away south, ploughing a furrow towards the forest’s eaves. The ditch rapidly became a ravine, before vanishing into the trees between outcroppings of craggy stone and crystal that looked all too hauntingly familiar.

Neave slid down the bank feet first, splashing into the water and accelerating into a sprint. Ketto was still on her heels, but she could feel the stampede vibrations of the skaven closing by the second, hear the horrific din they raised, smell their overwhelming stench.

‘They’re coming,’ yelled Katalya.

‘Just keep running!’ called Neave, foetid water spraying up with every footfall. The sodden slopes of the ravine rose higher above her by the second, transforming from a treacherous slope into a lethal drop. It was over this precipitous lip that the first wave of rats spilled an instant later. Furry bodies twisted frantically in the air, and talons scrabbled as the vermin fell like rain. They smacked down around Neave as she ran, several rebounding from her armour like bloated missiles. Behind her, Katalya shrieked.

‘Keep going!’ yelled Neave, dashing for a treeline that was now mere yards ahead. A monstrous roar echoed from above as the first of the sniffer-ogors plunged over the lip of the ravine and fell, dragging its handlers along in a rattling mass of chains. The beast hit the water directly in front of Neave, its bones shattering audibly and its blood spraying her. She hurdled the maimed creature, kicking the corpse of a chain-tangled handler out of the way as she landed.

Another beast plunged over the edge, snatching at thin air as it fell, then a third skidded to a halt on the ravine’s lip, one handler squealing with terror as he slipped past his charge and fell in a tangle of cloth and chain.

‘They’re behind us,’ shouted Katalya, but Neave barely heard her. Another few paces and the shadow of the forest swallowed her up. As she passed into its embrace at last, she heard a crooning voice in the back of her mind, a sound made up of creaking wood and shimmering lights.

‘Welcome home, child.’

Chapter Ten

Neave’s thoughts were in turmoil, and she battled an awful sense of mental violation as the echoes of the invading voice faded in her mind. She was sure she had heard it before, crooning to her amidst half-remembered darkness and horror. Yet it had not been the mangled slurring of Xelkyn Xerkanos that she had heard but another voice, rasping and ancient.

She had no time to consider such things now, and so she ran. Katalya and Ketto galloped in her wake, water splashing up around their footfalls. Gnarled trees and jutting roots spilled over the edges of the ravine and the canopy closed over their heads. Sound carried weirdly, one moment deadened by the thick undergrowth, the next echoing and rolling as though they ran not through a forest, but down the corridor of some gloomy sepulchre. Daylight carried weakly through the entangled branches overhead, the patches of light and shadow adding to the effect.

‘They’re close behind,’ shouted Katalya. Neave didn’t need the warning; she could hear only too well the chittering cacophony of the skaven as they poured along the watercourse at her heels.

‘We need to go deeper into the forest,’ she replied. ‘Don’t slow for anything!’

‘You think the forest spirits will scare them away?’ asked Katalya.

‘Perhaps,’ said Neave. ‘Besides, we’re swifter than they are. We’ll outpace and then lose them.’

Even as she said this, though, Neave knew it for a lie. Alone, she could have outstripped her pursuers with ease, but it would have meant plunging headlong into this dangerous and mysterious realm upon the winds aetheric, a risk Neave would have been loath to take. Even setting aside the hazards of injury or death from attempting to windshift amidst such torturously dense terrain, she would have chanced disturbing and angering whatever guardians awaited deeper within the forest’s bounds.

For the sake of her quest, she could not afford to make that mistake.

As it was, she wouldn’t leave Katalya to be overrun. But Neave could sense that Ketto was tiring, and any fool could see that the tattakan would struggle to fit between many of the gnarled tree-trunks and dense thickets of thorned creeper that overhung the waterway. They could only continue to dash along the bottom of the watery ravine, avoiding treacherous pitfalls and slick rocks as best they could, and hope for some form of salvation.

‘It’s getting steeper,’ cried Neave. ‘Take care – if we trip or fall they’ll overrun us.’

The banks of the ravine had dipped until they were mere feet above Neave’s head. At the same time, the ground was indeed sloping away, the waterway becoming a chattering rill as it swept down over rocky outcroppings and moss-furred ledges. Neave felt momentum pulling her off balance and her feet trying to run away with her as she pelted down the increasingly steep slope.

At the same time, she felt a spark of hope. Her sense of familiarity was growing, blue motes dancing in the periphery of her vision as a growing certainty blossomed in her mind.

‘Katalya, I don’t know how I know this but I believe there’s sanctuary ahead,’ she shouted.

‘It had better come soon. Look back,’ yelled Katalya, and Neave heard real fear in the girl’s voice. She shot a glance over her shoulder and her eyes widened. The skaven were surging along the ravine in a great mass, scrabbling and biting at one another, carried forward by their own crushing momentum. Some didn’t even look to be touching the ground, simply crammed together and borne along as though riding the crest of a festering wave. Their jagged blades and bulging red eyes glinted in the half-light. Foam flecked their chisel fangs.

Worse was the billowing green miasma that flowed around and above the swarm. It spilled along the river like a flood-tide and swept with unnatural swiftness through the trees above. Neave could scent the sorcery that roiled through that cloud, and the bitter tang of virulent poisons. The undergrowth shrivelled at the touch of the plague fog, wood warping and squealing as it rotted to blackened stumps.

‘Don’t let those fumes touch you, Katalya,’ shouted Neave.

‘I did not plan on it, sky knight! I won’t let the ratkin stab me either, eh?’

Neave shook her head, incredulous.

‘Perhaps you’d make a good Stormcast after all, an Astral Templar maybe, with that attitude,’ she replied.

‘Looks like another chance to prove myself,’ said Katalya. Neave saw the girl was right; large beasts, part-rat and part-wolf, had burst from the rushing fog and were pounding along the banks of the ravine, slavering and snarling. They leapt, shooting down like furry missiles, and Neave was forced to weave frantically to avoid them.

One rat-hound fell past her head and hit the opposite bank with a crunch, rolling to a stop in the fast-flowing water. She sensed another plunging straight down between her shoulder-blades and threw herself forward. She hit the jagged ground and rolled, her armour taking much of the impact as the rat-hound flew overhead. It screeched as its momentum carried it over a ledge. Neave rolled smoothly back to her feet in a spray of water and kept running, leaping down over the ledge and whipping one axe around to behead the stunned creature as she dashed past it.

There was a cry and a crunch of bone from behind her; another broken-looking rat-hound flew overhead, sparks of jade magic still crackling around its corpse. Neave didn’t have time to look around to check on Katalya, however. The footing was becoming ever more treacherous, white water frothing around her shins as the river fell down a series of rocks and rapids. The canopy grew denser overhead, plunging the whole scene into gloom. Neave half-ran, half-scrambled as fast as she could in the perilous conditions, aiming for the dark throat of leaf and water and wood and rock that narrowed away ahead of her.

‘How much further?’ shouted Katalya. ‘They’re almost on us!’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Neave. ‘It’s just a sense. Keep going!’

Neave could hear and smell the mass of Plague Monks spilling down the rapids after them. Squeals of pain and the crunch of furry bodies hitting rocks suggested their passage was even more dangerous than hers. Brackish blood tainted the water that poured around her shins. Yet still they came, and she was forced to duck instinctively as a rusted dagger whipped down from above to sail over her shoulder.

Ahead, the water boiled through a rare patch of daylight, shimmering in the instant before it plunged from a rocky ledge. Neave felt a moment’s frustrated anger, before her determination surged back to banish it.

‘Katalya, the only way is down,’ called Neave. ‘If Ketto can’t make it we’ll have to turn and fight.’

‘Ketto can do it,’ replied the girl. ‘You lead, we follow!’

Neave took a last few splashing steps and threw herself over the lip of stone. She fell, tangled branches and shimmering blue lights whipping by mere inches from her face.

Neave hit the pool below with a loud splash, and the waters closed over her head. She sank straight to the bottom, weighed down by her armour. Feeling her feet dig in to silt and gravel, Neave pushed herself through the murk, holding her breath until she reached the pool’s edge. She grabbed slick black rocks and hauled herself out of the hissing pool, spray misting the air around her. Neave glanced back in time to see Ketto dropping from above, legs tucked in to form a chitinous sphere, rattling sub-wings thrumming from his thorax. Katalya clung onto her saddle for grim death.

The tattakan hit the water and immediately spread his legs wide, clawing at the rocks and pulling himself forward. Katalya yelped at the pool’s icy touch.

Looking ahead, Neave saw that the watercourse ploughed on, deeper into the tangled forest. The canopy was even lower here, and the ground rocky, but mercifully the gradient had become shallower.

‘You’re going to have to duck, Katalya,’ she said. ‘Or else Ketto will.’

The girl leant forward in her saddle and slapped Ketto’s flank.

‘Just get us to your sanctuary, sky knight,’ she said. ‘It is still ahead?’

‘I’ve a sense…’ said Neave, her voice trailing off. The waterway was the only passage through the forest; all else was tangled thorns as long as her fingers, interwoven tree-trunks of gnarled wood and clutching masses of jagged twigs and branches.

‘It looks nightmarish here, yet I feel… safe? Safer, at any rate.’

‘Not for long,’ said Katalya as a loud splash came from the pool behind them, then another and another. Neave glanced back to see flailing bodies falling from the ledge above, ragged robes whipping around them. An acrid stink rose, the skaven musk of fear, and slick dark shapes flowed through the water towards the rocks. Worse, she could scent the bilious cloud of fumes spilling down, and hear the crackle and squeal of rotting wood. Blackened slime spattered from above as the branches withered and fell apart.

‘Follow me,’ she said, and set off again at a sprint. The skaven would struggle with the waterfall far more than she or Katalya; it would, at the very least, sorely disrupt their pursuit and break up their massed numbers. Yet at any moment Neave feared that the undergrowth would press in upon her and her companion to such a degree that forward progress would become impossible. Thorns and branches whipped at her face as she ran. Roots curled out of the ground as though seeking to trip her. The river slid along, glassy and dark now, a shallow ribbon of ink through the claustrophobic heart of the forest.

‘Lights!’ said Katalya. ‘Ahead!’

It took Neave a moment to grasp that the shimmering blue motes she was seeing weren’t just some artefact of her visions, but actual glimmers of illumination. They danced, half-seen amidst the tangle of the canopy. Neave’s sharp vision picked out diaphanous wings, slender limbs and bulbous black eyes, humanoid creatures barely an inch tall.

‘Forest spirits,’ gasped Katalya, making her comet-warding again, and Neave heard the superstitious fear in her voice.

‘Whatever they are, they’re less of a threat than the skaven at our heels,’ said Neave, hoping she was right. As she and Ketto continued their dash deeper into the forest, the diminutive creatures flitted away through the canopy as though caught upon a strong gust of wind. Their lights winked out, yet in their wake Neave saw there was a little more daylight.

‘It’s thinning out ahead,’ she said with relief. Then came a shrill screech from behind, accompanied by the scratch and scrabble of dozens of foot-claws.

‘I can smell the fumes,’ cried Katalya. ‘Why don’t they rot the ratkin like they do the trees?’

‘Chaos sorcery, skaven witchery. Its tang is heavy on the air. Where those blighted fumes would blacken our lungs from within, they’ll be lending our pursuers a frenzied speed. The rats will pay for it, but not soon enough to matter to us.’

‘I hope they all choke,’ spat Katalya.

‘They will, but let’s not join them,’ urged Neave. ‘It’s opening out ahead. Sanctuary is near, Katalya, just keep Ketto moving.’

The transition from gloom to pale daylight was so sudden it took even Neave’s heightened senses a moment to adjust. As though they had passed through an impossibly thick fortress wall, they emerged from the tangled undergrowth into an altogether different sort of forest.

The ground still sloped steadily away, but the trees thinned out and became tall and elegant, their bark shimmering silver and grey. Drooping masses of leaves descended like jade curtains from their spidery branches, and their tops vanished into a misty white haze. The ground was spongy loam, dotted with mossy rocks and beautiful bushes and plants whose leaves and stems were delicate to the point that they almost resembled crystal. Veils of mist and shadow filtered between the trees, like curtains of spiderweb that drifted at random through the air.

‘Are there more spirits here?’ asked Katalya, unconsciously reining Ketto in.

‘I don’t know, but this is our chance to outpace the skaven,’ said Neave. ‘Don’t slow now – they’re right behind us!’

Even as she said it, Plague Monks spilled from the undergrowth and pelted towards them. A dozen emerged, then more, spewing from the break in the vegetation like vermin from a sewer pipe.

‘Move,’ shouted Neave. ‘I’ll hold them back.’ Fear warred with anger and indignation on Katalya’s face. Neave looked up at her, holy lightning crackling in her eyes. ‘I said move!’ she barked, thunder rumbling behind her words. The shock was enough to get Katalya moving, and Ketto’s thudding footfalls resumed as the tattakan scuttled away downhill. Neave could see that the insect was all but exhausted, yet still he ploughed gamely on.

The first of the Plague Monks came at her, and there was no more time for thought. Neave lashed her axe through the skaven’s throat, spinning away from the thrust of his rusty blade to slam her other weapon into the second rat-man’s skull. Ripping her weapons free, Neave wove around the whistling orb of a hard-swung censer, backflipping away from the trail of toxic smog it left and kicking its wielder hard under the chin as she went. Neave landed the spring and hacked the legs out from another skaven before the censer-wielder had even hit the floor, neck broken. She sprang forward, lightning-fast despite her long flight, and disembowelled two more Plague Monks.

Still more skaven hurled themselves at her. A vicious stab saw a rusted knife shatter against her armoured midriff. Another blade screeched across one arm, spraying sparks as metal met metal. Neave replied with a blistering onslaught of blows that sent six skaven crashing to the ground, limbs severed, torsos hewn open. Their foul innards spilled across the forest soil, spreading blackness and rot wherever they corrupted the ground.

Neave shot a glance over her shoulder and saw that Ketto was almost out of sight. The flow of skaven was not slowing, but she’d bought the girl some time.

‘Good enough,’ said Neave, parrying another heavy censer and lopping its wielder’s head off. She leapt backwards into the winds aetheric, just for a heartbeat, reappearing amidst a gale of wind and a crackle of lightning some thirty yards downslope.

The skaven screeched with outrage and surged after her again.

‘Die-die, storm thing!’

‘Gnaw on its flesh-skin!’

Neave turned and showed them her heels. She sprinted, fleet and sure-footed, between the trees, feeling the certainty of sanctuary growing with every footstep. Neave didn’t know where the strange sensation stemmed from, but she was utterly convinced that safety now lay within a stone’s throw. Had the situation been less desperate, she might have mistrusted the feeling more.

‘Right now, I’ve just got to go on faith,’ she said, seeing Ketto growing closer through the trees ahead. ‘Sigmar, lord, if you can hear me, please don’t let your servant fail you now.’

Ketto stopped so suddenly that Neave thought he had struck an obstacle. She dug her heels in and threw her weight back, sliding to a stop amidst the loam just feet behind the beast. Katalya looked back at her. Neave saw with a terrible sinking feeling that, behind the crystal lenses of her cowl, all hope had gone from the girl’s eyes.

‘Sigmar can take me up after all, sky knight,’ said Katalya. ‘Your sanctuary is the grave…’

Neave paced forwards, slowly shaking her head at the sight before her. The forest floor dropped away abruptly, plunging into a mist-filled chasm so deep that the bottom was hidden from sight. Nor could she see its opposite bank, except perhaps as a dim suggestion barely visible through veils of mist and shadow. A cold breeze blew steadily from the chasm’s chill depths.

‘There must be something,’ said Neave, straining her senses for some sign of a bridge, a stairway into the deeps, a hidden entrance, anything. She kicked at the loam, sending flurries of soil and leaf-mulch over the lip. She swept her surroundings with increasing frustration, eyes wide.

‘There is nothing but a chasm, and the ratkin, and a chance to die well,’ said Katalya, turning Ketto and walking her steed a little way uphill. ‘We won’t go over the edge.’

‘Maybe that’s just it,’ said Neave. ‘Maybe we do need to go over the edge… Or take a leap of faith… or…’

‘There’s nothing,’ yelled Katalya, suddenly furious. ‘You collapse, and you mutter – you say let us go to the forest spirits, you say Sigmar will help us, you say you have visions. It is all lies! Sigmar is a lie and so are you sky knights. You just steal my revenge. We will never slay the swamp king now, and the Mourne tribe will go unavenged because I listened to you, because Ketto trusted you. Stupid me, stupid Ketto.’

‘Katalya, I–’ Neave blinked at the ferocity of the girl’s outburst, the hurt and the misery she heard. Katalya had trusted her, she realised. She had hoped, just as Tarion had trusted and hoped.

‘Have I led you all astray?’ asked Neave, feeling something give inside her. ‘Have I wasted everyone’s time on madness and corruption? Am I broken, just like the whispers say, and all this is just madness and lies?’

She closed her eyes for a moment as she battled despair. The best Neave could hope for now was that the Sacrosanct Chambers would sense her taint before she was reforged, and isolate her soul in some aetheric oubliette to prevent the corruption’s spread. Yet the fear rose in her that they would not, that by the very act of her death she would bear some touch of Chaos heavenwards and spread the rot of madness to her comrades and kin.

This was the purgatory that Sigmar had consigned his warriors to, she realised with sudden shock. The choice of a true death was denied to her, no matter how worthy or necessary it might be. Now she understood only too well the discontented mutterings of her fellows around the camp-fire, and Tarion’s need for martyrdom to validate his Reforging. If this was eternal life, then it was as much a curse as it was a blessing, and it had been forced upon her without consent.

As the anger and sense of violation chased one another through her mind, Neave heard again a child’s faint cries, and the creak of a fey voice amidst the branches. It seemed to be laughing at her, mocking her with gusts of cruel laughter that bore dancing blue sparks across her mind’s eye.

Neave opened her eyes again and hefted her axes, her face drawing down into a thunderous scowl.

‘Katalya Mourne, I may have robbed you of your revenge, but I will not rob you of a good death,’ she said. ‘I’ll fight by your side, girl, I owe you that much. We’ll raise a mountain of dead skaven before we’re through, and I pray with all my heart that when you fall Sigmar will leave your soul to find its peace alongside the rest of your tribe. No mark is worth this.’

Katalya looked at her steadily, and Neave’s heart broke to see the sad acceptance behind her eyes.

‘We fight, then, for the Mourne tribe. I will let you fight by my side. But when I die, sky knight, Sigmar will take me up, and Ketto too. We will deserve it more than you.’

Neave was spared the need to answer by the chittering cry of Plague Monks pelting through the forest. They came at first in ones and twos, but their numbers thickened by the moment until a horde was bearing down upon Neave and Katalya. Behind them rolled the plague smog, as thick and foul as ever.

‘Come to your deaths, you filthy vermin,’ roared Neave, her voice the rolling fury of the storm. ‘If this is my last battle, then I’ll slay an army of you before I fall!’

The skaven surged down the slope like a tide, and Neave and Katalya charged to meet them. Katalya clashed her vambraces together, sending a wave of jade energy racing into the enemy and blasting Plague Monks through the air. Neave lunged into the gap with her axes swinging, moving so fast the Plague Monks seemed almost stationary by comparison. Her first blow threw a skaven corpse high into the air on a trail of infected blood. Her second smashed a rat-man sideways into his fellows with bone-breaking force. Her third eviscerated a screeching zealot. Her fourth lopped the legs out from under another, rising into a spinning upwards blow that opened the chest of a fifth.

Again Neave struck, and again, howling with rage. Lightning crackled across her armour and the fury of the gale screamed around her, lifting squealing rat-men from their feet and dashing them against tree-trunks like bursting sacks of offal. Dimly, Neave was aware of Katalya’s shrill whoops and the rattle of Ketto’s thorax as the tribesgirl and her steed fought against the swarm. But Neave was lost to battle-fury, channelling all her loathing and anger into fighting harder than she had ever fought before. Blood misted the air as she tore through the skaven like a living hurricane, moving so fast that her physical form became little more than a blur of lightning and bladed sigmarite.

She ripped apart an entire rank of Plague Monks with a windmilling attack that left them strewn as bleeding body parts.

She hacked down a chanting Plague Priest, bisecting the unholy tome he read from and his skull along with it. She slew dozens of foes, blasting more from their feet with aethereal lightning.

The plague smog engulfed Neave even as she was lopping the head from another chanting Plague Priest. For a moment she thought the rat-man had unleashed some unholy curse upon the moment of his death, before she recognised the enshrouding fumes for what they were. Neave’s berserk fury left her as suddenly as it had struck, the tingle upon her skin warning of a foe she couldn’t fight.

‘Katalya,’ she shouted, retching and coughing as the fumes filled her lungs. ‘Kat, get back! Get back!’

Neave windshifted desperately, leaping into the air in a crackle of lightning and blasting back into reality perilously close to the edge of the drop. Stone and earth fell away beneath one heel as it jutted out over the chasm.

Upslope, she saw Ketto scramble from amidst the fumes in a tangle of chitinous limbs. Katalya clung to his back, and Neave had a moment to feel thankful that the girl was still wearing her alchemical cowl. She could see discoloured blotches on Ketto’s carapace, and the oozing froth that was spilling over his mandibles.

‘No,’ said Neave, accelerating into a charge again. As screeching Plague Monks burst from the fumes behind Ketto, Neave struck them down one by one. The tattakan staggered free, dragging himself to the edge of the chasm and turning at bay. Neave could hear Katalya gasping for breath inside her cowl and see the girl frantically slapping Ketto’s hide as though to reassure her ailing beast. Neave backed away before the rolling smog, her senses overwhelmed by its foulness, blisters rising on even her ensorcelled flesh as its magics worked to poison and destroy her. Another Plague Monk burst from the fumes and she struck him down. Another met the same fate, and another. Yet she had backed almost to the edge now, with tendrils of smog engulfing her, and she could see more skaven surging forward to attack. Neave screamed with frustration that she and Katalya would be defeated, not by some worthy foe but by this filthy alchemical cloud.

‘Katalya,’ she gasped. ‘I’m sorry.’

Then the plague smog rolled over them again. Katalya gasped and coughed, hurling blasts of jade energy into the grey-green fog almost at random. Ketto gave a desperate shudder of his thorax, his legs giving out beneath his weight. Neave could see the rot creeping through his carapace even as she watched. She had no strength left to aid the poor beast, for her own body was succumbing as the foulness swirled around her. Verdigris crept across her armour and blades. Neave felt her skin churn as blisters rose and burst. Her breath rasped, fluid beginning to clot her lungs.

‘Sigmar,’ she gasped, dropping to her knees even as Ketto thumped to the ground beside her, legs twitching weakly. ‘Why…?’

At first, Neave thought the roaring sound was the blood in her ears as the plague fever took hold. Only when she saw the smog stirring did she realise that a wind was blowing. Not just a wind, a howling gale that built by the second and drove the fumes up and away.

Neave blinked weeping eyes, pushing herself swaying to her feet as the storm screamed around her. It must be the magic of the heavens, she thought. Her Stormcast comrades come to aid her in her moment of need. Yet the wind was howling up out of the chasm, and it bore upon it the smell of cold night air in wild places, of branch and bark, root and soil, rainwater on leaves and cold, slick stone.

The Plague Monks recoiled before that gale, staggering and blinded as leaves whipped up and whirled around them like knives. Hundreds of vermin were revealed as the veil of smog lifted, a swarm so vast that she and Katalya could never have hoped to defeat it. Yet now the skaven were staggering and screeching, biting and scrabbling at one another as they tried to get away from the vicious winds.

Neave sensed magic then of an entirely other sort, something primal and natural and filled with wrath. She looked back to see a mass of thorned vines rising from the chasm. Each was as thick as a tree-trunk, pale and luminescent, and they wove around each other to form a coiling ramp that spiralled away into the depths. Dimly, she saw figures flowing up that ramp even as it extended, lithe and graceful creatures as tall as a Stormcast. Their bark-like flesh was inscribed with flowing runes that glowed a cold blue, and their movements were only too familiar to Neave.

‘You… you took the child,’ she gasped, then coughed blood and staggered.

The bridge of vines slammed into the lip of the chasm, digging deep and anchoring itself in place in time for the forest spirits to flow from its end with shrill screams of rage. Neave saw beings that looked more tree than spirit, flowing masses of bark and branch with glowing blue eyes. She saw beautiful creatures that seemed half-aelf, half-dryad. She saw tall and powerful warriors that looked carved from the mightiest ironoaks, and hissing terrors of thorny fang and lashing talon whose eyes shone with madness. More than all that, she sensed, or perhaps felt, the sorcerous song that rose from the woodland host. It was a thing at the edge of hearing, a keening, booming, swelling crescendo of life magic and song that flowed through their very being and drove back the magic of Chaos.

‘Sylvaneth,’ she gasped. ‘Forest spirits.’ Then the host was flowing around her, a woodland roused to fury that slammed into the skaven in a welter of blood. More spirits were emerging from the forest all around, she saw, hissing and keening at the damage the skaven had done to their beautiful trees. The sylvaneth fell upon the panicked rat-men, and suddenly the skaven numbers counted for nothing.

Panicked, terrified, their unnatural frenzy broken and gone, the skaven fled in all directions. They squirted the musk of fear until the air stank of it, and tore at one another as they tried to be the first to escape.

Neave ignored the carnage, instead limping to Ketto’s side. The brave beast still lived, she saw, though his flesh had rotted in vast patches, and his limbs looked brittle and broken. Katalya hung from her saddle, her cowl eaten through by the plague smog. Neave lifted her gently from Ketto’s back and cradled her in her arms, wincing at the blisters and weals that had been raised across the girl’s flesh.

‘I’m sorry, Katalya,’ she said, her voice raw. ‘I’m so sorry that I couldn’t protect you.’

She was suddenly aware of someone standing over her. Neave looked up to see a tall sylvaneth staring down at her. Elegant like a barbed blade, the spirit was framed by her flowing mane of thorn-thick hair.

‘You the changeling-childe are,’ said the spirit in a singsong voice. ‘The one returneth which Wytha wilst.’ She bared sharp wooden fangs in a cold leer.

‘Help us,’ croaked Neave, feeling blood spill over her lips as she spoke. Her body ached in every joint, and her vision was swimming. ‘I don’t know who you are, or why I knew to come to this place, but please. Please. Help us.’

With that, the last of her strength failed her and she slumped forward. Katalya’s small, limp body spilled from Neave’s arms as her cheek met the loam of the forest floor, and she looked at the dying girl with sorrow in her eyes.

‘Death heist nay a-claim ‘pon thee, deserven-though you might, she that a-failen,’ she heard the sylvaneth say. ‘Wytha hast what Wytha wilst. Taken now these.’

Through a haze of pain, Neave felt herself being lifted easily by powerful limbs and borne towards the bridge of vines. She strained her neck, trying to see Katalya and Ketto, but she was surrounded by flowing barkflesh and coiling tendrils that carried her out onto the bridge and then down, down into the depths below. The last thing Neave heard before gloom closed around her were the shrieks of dying skaven as the sylvaneth went about their grim and vengeful work.

Chapter Eleven

Neave was carried through gloom and into shadow. Dark shapes moved around her. Branch limbs creaked like boughs stirred by a winter wind, while sibilant voices crooned in sing-song tones. She could feel her body attempting to heal, the sacred lightnings of Sigmar flickering and crawling over her flesh and across the battered plates of her armour. More than once she turned her head and coughed violently, expelling clots of rank matter. Each time, the creatures carrying Neave made angry sounds of protest, squirming aside to avoid the hacked-up foulness. Yet they kept carrying her, and with each such agonising purge she felt the ache fading from her joints and her senses swimming a little less.

As Neave’s head cleared, she was able to grasp her surroundings. At some point her bearers had passed from the bridge of vines into a rocky tunnel. Perhaps ten feet across and the same high, it wound and wove, rising and falling as though made by some long-departed root coiling through the rock. The stone itself was a dull amber hue, studded with jutting crystals that glowed with an eerie jade light. Neave saw roots pushing through the walls and ceiling, undulating through the stone like serpents breaking the surface of a lake. These, too, glowed with a strange luminescence, and from them she felt an echo of the song she had heard when the sylvaneth first appeared.

They passed through intersections where the tunnel split and split again. They crossed echoing caverns where ground-mist coiled and huge columns of tree-root punched through floor and ceiling, inscribed with glowing whorls and runic sigils. With a jolt of shock, Neave realised she had seen those designs before, in her visions. Moreover, certain chambers felt as familiar as they did alien; the sensation of blurring worsened here, causing her eyes to ache.

Neave stayed carefully unresponsive, unsure as yet of these hosts-come-captors. Amongst the mists and shadows, Neave saw a great many living things moving; diminutive spites scampered through the gloom, weird little creatures each different from the last with their assortments of gangling limbs, toad-like faces, pixie wings, trailing tails, wicker-work shields, pointed red caps and more. Larger beings stirred at her passing. Things of coiling limb and jagged talon watched her avidly as she was carried through their domain.

There was something hauntingly resonant about it all, something that gnawed at the back of Neave’s thoughts. Yet it remained elusive, no matter how she sought to bring it into the light, and eventually, head pounding and sparks bursting across her vision, she gave up.

Neave tried to commit the route to memory as best she could, but she was still ill and wounded, and was forced to constantly push aside her fears for Katalya and Ketto. Had the sylvaneth recovered them from the battlefield, or had they abandoned her companions? And even if they had brought them hence, would either live after such long exposure to the plague fog?

She briefly contemplated breaking her silence, but until she was sure of the sylvaneth she didn’t want to reveal the slow return of her strength. They had taken her axes at some point, and she was clearly being carried deep into some sort of stronghold. Now was not the time for rash action.

Besides, Neave had a duty and that still overrode everything else. She felt no satisfaction in knowing that her visions had not been simple madness, or that they had clearly led her to this place. Instead, she knew only the sense that another locked door had opened, and that she must press on through it for the sake of her comrades and her hunt.

She knew she could not afford to antagonise the sylvaneth until they had given her the answers she sought. If nothing else, she needed to understand that which ailed her mind before she could examine again the revelations about Sigmar’s gifts that had struck her upon the precipice’s edge. They felt treacherously close to treason now the danger had passed, but Neave could not un-think that which had been thought. All she could do was set her deeper questions aside for now, and concentrate on her mark.

At last, the sylvaneth came to a long stretch of tunnel dotted with recessed cave entrances. They halted before one of these and Neave felt, or perhaps heard, the song rise around her again. Thick, thorny branches were woven in a mass across the cave’s entrance, blocking it entirely. Blue sigils swirled across them. At the song’s touch, the sigils flared and the branches coiled aside, opening the way to the chamber beyond. Neave was carried across the threshold and dumped unceremoniously in a corner. The sylvaneth withdrew without a backwards glance and the branches creaked back into place.

Neave was left alone with her thoughts.

The cave was small, but not so much as to be claustrophobic. Glowing roots bulged through its ceiling and filled it with dimly pulsing light. Neave saw that water trickled through cracks high in one wall and collected in a natural stone basin near the floor, before overflowing and seeping away into the ground below. Neave limped across and cupped her hands, gratefully drinking the ice-cold water.

She took mental inventory.

Axes gone, helm ruined and lost, armour battered and still patched in places with brown rust. She felt weak and slightly nauseous, and her reflection in the pool revealed hollow eyes and raw patches of skin where blisters had risen and burst. Every part of Neave hurt in some fashion, and she was ravenously hungry.

‘Still, nothing broken, nothing beyond repair, except maybe my damn mind,’ she murmured to herself. ‘And at least I’m where I wanted to be. I think. Not much to do now but wait.’

Neave’s voice fell dead in the confined space. She had always been one to talk things through with herself; it was a loner’s habit, she supposed. Still, she resolved not to speak aloud again in this grim little cell until she had someone else to answer her. She settled into a cross-legged position at the back of the cave and dropped into a trance, attempting to rest and recuperate. All the worries that had plagued her mind during her passage through the tunnels were pushed gently but firmly aside. Only the echoes of the vision persisted, and even they were muted and vague.

Neave could not have said how much time passed before a dry rasp heralded the branches parting again. She opened her eyes in time to see a pair of dryads dragging Katalya into the cave. The tribesgirl was conscious and fighting her captors, but against the forest spirits’ wiry strength her efforts looked pitiful.

Katalya was flung to the floor. She rolled over and spat at the nearest dryad, which fixed her with a cold stare. The creature looked like it wanted to do more, but a glance at Neave, who had now risen to her feet and balled her fists, dissuaded it. Instead, the dryads flowed from the cave with disdainful trills of laughter. Again, the branches wove together.

‘Katalya, are you all right?’ asked Neave, relief flooding her. She received a fierce glare, before Katalya pushed herself to her feet and threw herself at the branch door. She pounded her fists against the wood, clawing at jutting thorns and bloodying her forearms. Katalya screamed furiously as she attacked the wooden barrier, kicking and tugging at it to no avail.

Neave rose and hurried to Katalya’s side, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her away.

‘You don’t have your vambraces, and even if you did you wouldn’t make a dent in that barrier,’ she said. ‘Kat. Katalya! Stop fighting.’

‘Never,’ spat Katalya, rounding on Neave. Fire flashed in her eyes, stoked hotter by fear and pain. Neave saw her skin was blotched and scarred, tainted still with a jaundiced tinge, and her eyes were bloodshot. ‘Who are you, telling me to stop? You leave your sky tribe. You take my chosen death from me. You tell me we have to come here. For what? Even if your Sigmar did not want me, I could have gone to my ancestors in the saddle, Ketto and me together, fighting a battle we chose!’

‘Katalya–’

‘No! Ketto is taken I don’t know where. We’re locked away in the dungeons of the forest spirits and who knows what they will do. You gave up. I saw you. You gave up on us, and now look where we are. I will fight, even if you won’t.’

Katalya pulled away and Neave let her go, stung despite herself.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Neave. ‘I’m sorry they’ve taken Ketto. I’m sorry that they’ve taken us, but this is the place we need to be. I don’t mean you should give up your fight altogether, but cutting yourself to ribbons on that door isn’t going to get you anywhere.’

‘I should sit in the dark and do nothing, like you?’ asked Katalya venomously. Her eyes found the water basin, but she stayed leaning against the stone wall.

‘The water is safe to drink,’ said Neave.

‘How do you know? You say there is sanctuary and there is prison. You say there is a way, and there is a cliff. Everything you know is wrong.’

‘I can sense it,’ said Neave. ‘Just as I can sense that this barrier is magically warded, and would resist a dozen strong warriors with a battering ram. Just as I can hear and feel the two sentries waiting patiently beyond the door, just in case we should contrive some way to break out. Pick your battles, girl. You can’t fight the whole realm at once.’

Katalya snorted, but after a moment she limped across to the basin and drank, tentatively at first, then greedily once she tasted the cold, clear water.

Neave thought for a moment and was surprised at the frustration she felt. She could track a mark across arid desert for months, could run as fast as the wind and fight a dozen foes at once. But no amount of warrior skill could help her talk to this lost young woman. Neave tried to tell herself that she shouldn’t care, that Katalya was one mortal in a realm full of them. That she barely knew the girl. None of it mattered; for whatever reason, Neave had to admit that she cared what happened to Katalya. Enough mortals had died because Neave had chosen to act as a weapon and not a protector. She did not want that to be the way of things any more.

‘On the precipice, last I saw you and Ketto, you were both sorely wounded,’ said Neave. ‘I thought you dead, or near to it. How is it you’re standing now? Your flesh looks no worse marked by the plague smog than mine.’

Katalya pointed with her chin towards the branch door.

‘Their magic,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what, but healing.’

‘I thought as much. I don’t think they mean us harm, or why would they have rescued us, healed us? They could just have left us to die on the edge of the ravine and never troubled themselves with a couple of interlopers wandering their woods.’

‘Maybe they just come to kill the ratkin.’

‘No, their leader knew me. If I’m right, she’s the same creature that aided Tarion. And if that’s the case, then they could just have swept me up and left you to your death. But they didn’t.’

Katalya grunted. Neave could see the girl was worried sick about her steed, and didn’t dare entertain hope that Ketto might have been rescued and healed in the same way she had.

‘If they’re such friends of ours, why do they throw us in a cage?’ she asked.

‘The sylvaneth aren’t exactly known for their welcoming nature,’ said Neave. ‘I recognise the sigils here. I believe this is an enclave of the Dreadwood Clan.’

Katalya looked at her blankly.

‘They’re the most shadowy and mistrustful of all their kind,’ said Neave. ‘They’ve little love for those of flesh and blood, no matter their provenance.’

‘This does not make me feel better about any of this,’ said Katalya. ‘And I don’t blame you any less.’

‘That’s your prerogative,’ said Neave, striving to clamp down on her own doubts. Yet even as she did, she felt again that strange sense of familiarity, that desire to trust her captors. It was maddening, jarring and illogical.

‘Katalya–’ began Neave. She was interrupted as the branches parted to admit the same Branchwraith that had stood over her on the precipice. Neave turned, meeting the creature’s gaze, then staggered as a tide of conflicting images flowed through her mind. Blue motes danced around her, and the cavern seemed to blur. She heard the cries of a child. She smelt smoke and tasted blood and ash on the air.

‘Assailed is your mind,’ said the forest spirit, her words echoing and warping as they reached Neave’s ears. ‘Wax and wane like the moons doth these seeings? Cursed, thinken you?’

‘How do you know what happens in my mind?’ asked Neave, struggling to push the visions back. ‘Was this your work?’

‘Ithary, I am, a handmaiden thrice-coiled,’ said the Branchwraith. ‘Answers more sprout never upon these thorned lips. I’ve only to taken you whence attend upon my mistress shalt you. There grow ripe the words you wish. Reap harvest if you darest.’

Neave blinked, deciphering the spirit’s crooked speech. She nodded.

‘Take me to her,’ she said. She managed to straighten up, the muscles of her jaw quivering with the effort of holding her visions in check, and strode to the doorway. Katalya made to follow but Ithary hissed, coiling towards the girl with her talons extended. Katalya looked in panic at Neave, who raised a cautioning hand.

‘No harm comes to this young woman,’ she said to Ithary. ‘Or to her steed. If it goes ill for them, I’ll make sure it goes ill for you too. Not just your clan, Ithary. You, personally.’

The Branchwraith gave a flowing gesture that might have been a shrug, then swept from the prison cell. Neave had little choice but to follow as best she could. Despite the jarring perceptions that clouded her senses, she still felt Katalya’s angry gaze boring into her back as she left.

The feeling persisted, even after the branches slithered back into place.

Ithary led Neave through tunnels at once strange and yet familiar. The deeper they went into the winding network, the more intense Neave’s visions became, and the closer to the surface they pushed. Shadowy figures flowing through the mist became lumbering raiders amidst the smoke of a burning village. Glowing clouds of insectile spites became plague flies, droning angrily through the air. Neave staggered more than once, and her efforts to memorise the tunnels quickly fell apart as her perception of reality crumbled.

Ithary made no concessions for Neave’s struggles, rather seeming to enjoy them. The Branchwraith slowly outpaced her, dancing sinuously on through glowing caves and down winding passageways. Neave was able to grasp that the numbers of sylvaneth around her were increasing as they pressed deeper into the enclave. They passed through a huge chamber where strange plants rose high up the walls, festooned with hundreds of darkly glowing pods. They crossed a natural stone bridge, beneath which dense tangles of jagged black thorn-plants writhed and coiled.

Finally, they came to the grandest chamber yet, and Neave had to fight to stay on her feet as waves of conflicting emotion flowed through her. The cavern’s ceiling was so high it was barely visible, half-veiled by glowing mists. Its walls were twisted and ridged as though molten rock had once gouged its way through the stone, and from them jutted hundreds of the glowing root systems. They converged in intertwined masses upon a huge throne of emerald crystal that rose, jagged and lit from within, at the chamber’s heart. A scent of cold rock and wet loam hung in the air, underlaid by something acrid like lightning or sorcery.

Flanking the throne stood a dozen huge and powerful beings that Neave recognised as Treelords. Each was over twenty feet in height, their limbs and bodies powerful masses of heartwood and jagged black bark, their eyes glowing chips of blue ice. They held long, pale-blue blades that looked to be formed from polished wood, driven point-down into the bedrock of the cavern floor. Neave guessed that a single blow from one of those huge weapons would be enough to hack her clean in half, sigmarite plate and all.

Though the Treelords dwarfed the figure that sat in the throne, she drew the eye in a way that even her enormous protectors did not. The being was long-limbed and willowy, her legs and arms ending in thorned talons that looked both dextrous and deadly. Blue-lit whorls and sigils covered her dark barkflesh from head to toe, drawing together in a vivid mass upon her breast. The figure’s face was an elongated mask of smooth blue-black wood, in which her slitted eyes burned blue beneath a crest of hair-like branches. Laid across the spirit’s thighs was a sickle-headed stave with a long wooden haft. Several grub-like creatures longer than Neave’s arm squirmed clumsily across the spirit’s body.

‘Wytha,’ the name came unbidden to Neave’s lips, and with it another surge of clashing mental stimuli that finally knocked her from her feet. She fell forward onto her knees, groaning and clutching her temples as a blizzard of blue motes whirled around her, and a thousand images and alien memories bombarded her mind.

She looked up to see the spirit in the throne lean forward. A jagged smile split the smooth wood of its face, a wound-like slash lit from within by blue fire, just like its eyes. In a creaking voice Neave had heard time and again in her visions, Wytha spoke.

‘Good child… you do remember.’

‘I… remember?’ Neave hissed as fresh needles of pain shot through her mind. She pounded a fist against the ground, leaving a palm-print of crawling blue sparks that slowly faded away. ‘What is this? What have you done to me?’ she asked. The pain in her head was becoming intolerable, yet this was not like before. The visions danced out of sight, building and building like a dark wave that refused to break.

‘I?’ asked Wytha, recoiling with exaggerated surprise and placing one long-taloned hand upon her breast. ‘Child. I have done nothing that was not of your asking. It was your God-King… your Sigmar whose imperfect conjurations brought you to this.’

‘Please, it’s getting worse,’ said Neave. ‘I don’t know. Something… something about this place. I have to get out of here.’ She felt as though her mind was trying to tear itself apart, as though a crushing weight sat upon her chest and built by the second until she feared that her ribs would cave in.

Wytha shook her head and drummed her fingers upon the arms of her crystal throne.

‘This will not do,’ she said. ‘Ithary! Why did you not tell me of the condition the child was in?’

Ithary repeated her strange shrugging motion, and Neave felt a semi-coherent moment of hatred for the fey spirit.

‘Wrongsome twiste all’they seem to I,’ said Ithary dismissively. ‘Broken moreso this fleshcutting than the roots?’

‘You can see that she is, wilful girl,’ said Wytha. ‘Your spitefulness lessens you.’

Ithary’s thorned mane shivered as though a breeze shuddered through it, and she narrowed her eyes at her mistress. The moment broke as Neave groaned again, trying and failing to stagger upright, resorting to falling backwards and attempting to claw her way hand-over-hand away from Wytha’s throne.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘If you know what this is… In Sigmar’s bloody name…’

‘Stay, child,’ said Wytha, her voice suddenly hard and commanding. Neave found herself unable to move, as though invisible vines had wound themselves around her with constricting force. Shuddering with agony and anger, she could only lie there, jaw working as she heard Wytha dismount from her throne and stalk slowly towards her. Taloned feet came into Neave’s peripheral vision, then moved around in front of her. Wytha’s shadow fell over her, and a long, thorn-like digit slid beneath her chin. Wytha tilted Neave’s head up, blue eyes staring deep into hers as the spirit craned forward.

‘This will not do,’ said Wytha in a soft voice, and through her agony Neave felt bewilderment at the tenderness she heard there. ‘The sorcery of Sigmar’s Reforging jars with the old magics that long ago marked your soul. They fight against your birthright as though it were the taint of the Dark Gods themselves, and it tears you apart. Poor child, how you suffer.’

‘Old… magics…?’ gasped Neave through gritted teeth.

‘Oh child, you were my creature long before you were Sigmar’s,’ said Wytha.

‘I… am… Stormcast…’ hissed Neave.

‘You are, you are,’ said Wytha sadly. ‘But before, in your true life, you were so much more. That was my doing, sweet child, my gift to you, and now the debt is due. But what good are you to me like this? No wonder the summons did not work.’ Wytha shot a venomous glance beyond Neave. She assumed it must be aimed at Ithary.

‘Summons…?’ Neave fought against the pain in her mind, and the sorcerous restraints that constricted around her body. Yet more than that, she fought against the words she was hearing, and the creeping sense of dreadful truth they brought with them.

She wanted to fight.

She wanted to run.

Instead she lay, and twitched, and felt the endless black wave rise over her, shimmering with motes of blue fire.

‘What the children of Dreadwood give, my girl, they give not freely,’ said Wytha, her tone stern. ‘There is a price to pay for your life, and you, child, were not done paying it. But no words of mine will convince you, will they? Sigmar’s brand is burned deep into your soul.’

‘By the… by his hammer… I am… Stormcast…’ said Neave, then gasped as fresh pain shot through her. Her breathing was becoming laboured. Her vision was turning grey-blue at the edges, like a spreading bruise.

‘Yet you were Dreadwood first, girl. And now, you will see.’

With that, Wytha plucked one of the strange grubs from her body, piercing its fat flesh with her talons and making it squirm. She stroked the insect and crooned as she brought it level with Neave’s face, then with a savage twist she ripped the creature in half. Stubby legs kicked, frantic with death agonies. Its blunt black nub of a head thrashed this way and that, as steaming green slime spilled from the two sundered halves of the huge grub. Delicately, Wytha dipped her talons into the slime that spilled forth. Gently, she daubed the blood-warm filth onto Neave’s face like a mother nursing a sickly babe, trailing grue across her cheeks and beneath her eyes.

Neave gave vent to inarticulate sounds of revulsion and anger as the foul slime congealed on her skin, heat washing from it into her flesh until it felt like lines of burning acid. She tried to writhe, to scream, but she could no longer even move or breathe. She thought of her comrades, of how they might have saved her from whatever appalling horror this was, and of Katalya, abandoned beneath the earth with these terrible monsters.

‘Do not fuss so,’ said Wytha in a singsong voice that jarred terribly with the horror that Neave felt. ‘You are not dying, child. You are seeing…’

With a final daubed mark, Wytha tapped her talons oh-so-gently against Neave’s bulging eyes, and suddenly, Neave saw.

Disembodied. Floating. Nothing but a zephyr of wind, a mote of light, a presence of nothingness that rides the essence of others.

Trees rush past. She dances like dust in the wake of lithe figures that flow through the forest with natural grace. The canopy is breaking ahead. The trees thin. Screams can be heard, wailing cries and cruel bellows. With senses she should not possess, she scents smoke and blood and corruption upon the air.

The treeline parts. Smoke rises in a thunderhead over a ruined settlement, flies hurtling through it like hailstones. Half-visible over the writhing wall and the burning buildings is a promontory, upon which squats a draconic beast she recognises only too well. Its rider seems to stare right at her, right through her, and she quails. Yet she is nothing here, an observer only, and she is borne in the wake of those she watches.

Out from the wilting safety of the forest’s rotting eaves. Through the wall of vines that flows aside at their coming. Into blood-slicked horror and blazing sorrow.

She watches as sharp talons rip through bloated flesh and spray rancid pus across the grass. Huge axes bite deep and send forest spirits toppling. A wailing infant is snatched from the ground in an alien embrace.

Hissing voices.

Despair.

Defeat.

The figures turn away from this terrible place and flee, pausing only to pluck the glowing lamentiri – the soul seeds – from the fallen bodies of their kin before they retreat. She is still puzzling over her knowledge of that last strange detail as she is borne back towards the woodlands, and the vision fades…

Neave came back to herself for a moment, straining her muscles against the sorcerous paralysis that gripped her. It was as though her head broke water for the barest of moments before she was sucked back down with a snarl of frustration.

She is no longer disembodied. She is herself, but a simpler, earlier self. One she had forgotten. One scoured from her memories by that which came after.

She is younger than Katalya, clad in animal furs and daubed in clay that she knows deadens her scent and hides her pale flesh. She holds a jagged shard of stone in one fist, a knapped blade ready for the kill.

The forest is hers to prowl. The swamps, too, not so foul now as they shall become. She roams, feral, and lives as a beast.

Neave treads slowly, silently through tangled thorns and close-knit trunks. Her eyes are fixed upon the flank of an undokh, a sizeable grazing beast, whose tusks and bone-spurred hide make it dangerous quarry.

Somehow, she knows that her silent guardians are watching from somewhere close by. She knows also that they will come to her aid only in the most extreme need, perhaps not even then. Neave must hunt on her own merits if she wishes to live, and to be worthy of the forest spirits’ regard. She has never known any other purpose.

Hunt.

Live.

Prevail.

Turning her stone blade in her fist, Neave darts through a tangle of withervine and lunges, sinking her blade deep. Blood sprays, and she feels the simple exhilaration of the hunt surge through her. She gives an exultant cry that fades into echoes as the vision dissipates…

Neave came back to herself again, grimacing in pain as she felt the cold stone floor of the throne room against her cheek. She felt another vision welling behind her eyes and tried to fight it, but she was powerless to resist.

She kneels amidst the standing stones of the worship-circle. Neave offers prayers to the goddess Alarielle as vines twine overhead and the stars shine down. She offers the gesture of the two-tailed comet to the heavens in the manner of the local tribes, for she is human still and the God-King demands her worship also. She knows a deep and abiding love for the nature goddess. The feeling turns to cold stone and pain…

The taste of blood dragged her back to the present. Her chest hitched as she struggled to breathe through agonies every bit the equal of Reforging. Unable to remain grounded, Neave gave a strangled groan of anger as the visions took her again.

She walks the tunnels and caverns of the Dreadwood Enclave. This is the stronghold of Clan Thyrghael. She knows this now as sure as she knows her own name. The name they gave her.

Neave is older now, taller, stronger. Her limbs are all lithe muscle and taut sinew. Her flesh bears dozens of scars, worn proudly as badges of survival hard-earned. Her hair is knife-hacked short to her scalp, and her furs and skin alike are pierced through with thorned creepers, worn in honour of the spirits she serves. Neave is their creature, their huntress, their weapon. She bears their sigils in tattooed whorls upon her chest and neck, and their protective charms dangling from a cord about her neck.

Neave is a killer, single-minded and solely devoted to the spirits that have raised her and forged her into this thing. And now, at their summons, she walks their halls at last. It is an honour she has long coveted, and to have it bestowed fills her with fierce pride.

Whatever the sylvaneth want of her, Neave will do. They have told her she is special, fate-touched. Chosen. She owes them a life debt. She owes the goddess Alarielle her absolute allegiance.

She gives it gladly.

Neave strides into the heartroot hall, head held high and pulse thudding steadily. Before her looms the crystal throne of Wytha, mistress of Clan Thyrghael. Upon it, the Branchwych herself, blue eyes glowing like soul fires in the gloom. Neave ignores the lowering glares of the Treelord attendants, the spiteful stare of Ithary who crouches, a mere cutting of a thing, beside her lady’s throne. Dreadwood dryads and Tree-Revenants crowd the misty shadows of the chamber, hissing amongst themselves as they watch her take the long walk alone to stand before Wytha’s throne.

She flings her knapped daggers to the ground at the throne’s foot. She drops to her knees before Wytha, who watches unmoving as Neave grabs handfuls of the furs upon her right shoulder and tears them open with a dry ripping sound. She tilts her head, baring her neck and collarbone. It is a predator’s mark of submission, one that requires no words.

Not that she has ever learned to utter such sounds.

Wytha rises slowly and steps down from her throne. Bending at the waist, she grasps Neave’s shoulders with her taloned hands and raises her to her feet. Her angular features twist into a smile as alarming as it is maternal.

‘You are ready, girl,’ she says in her creaking voice. ‘You will receive the deeper mark of the Dreadwood, and it will make you strong. I need you strong, Neave. You have much to do.’

Wytha hisses strange words that make Neave’s head spin and cause a fire to light in her flesh. She looks down in shock to see the tattoos on her skin glowing with a blue light. Her head snaps back up as Wytha plunges one talon into her chest, punching through flesh and bone to pierce her heart. Neave’s eyes lock with Wytha’s and as darkness takes her, she sees those two fires burning in the gloom ‘til everything else fades and she is back in her present self again.

She lay still as stone, eyes wide and breath crawling in and out. Shock spread through her, interwoven with understanding. How long had she feared the taint of Xerkanos’ magics, when all along it had been the mark of the Dreadwood, the memories of a past life, that had curdled within her mind. This time, when the tides of the past swelled over her head again, she plunged willingly into the vision. Neave had to know it all.

…Neave is fighting. Incredible vitality surges through her body, lending strength and speed to her limbs that she has never known before. Sylvaneth fight at her side, whip-taloned dryads and insane Spite-Revenants lunging between rotten tree-trunks to slash at their foes.

Yet what foes they are. The enemy are huge, hulking, deformed by muscle and rotting flab. Their rusted armour is thick with spikes and tri-lobed runes. Bells toll dull notes where they clang and dangle from the ends of huge axes that are swung with ferocious force into forest spirit bodies. Flies boil through the air like a storm, and rancid filth squelches underfoot.

Ahead, through the ragged treeline, Neave can see something huge rising dark against a sky the colour of jaundiced flesh. It is a fortress, a bloated monster of a structure that seems half-alive and half-rotted through all at once. Her target lies within, that much she knows, and her hatred for him is absolute. He is Lord Ungholghott, the fleshcrafter, the swamp king, the befouler of the forests, and she alone has been ordained as his executioner. If not for the sake of her beloved spirits, then for the life he stole from her in a time before she had memories of her own. They have raised her as a weapon, an arrow loosed from a bow that will pierce his rancid heart and lay him low. Only Neave can do this, Wytha has told her. It has been decreed, though Neave knows not why or by whom. She has not asked.

Yet even now, the enemy surge again in numbers greater than any had anticipated, and Neave realises with a sick horror that she cannot do this. Her foes are too many, their axes too sharp, their rotted flesh too tough.

Still she fights, as the sylvaneth fall one by one, as her flesh is hacked and her bones splintered and her body riddled with plagues that even the magic of the sylvaneth cannot burn away. At last Neave stands alone, limping step by step towards the fortress, hate driving her forward where all others have fallen. Lumpen bodies sprawl in her wake, dozens upon dozens of the Plague God’s champions that have fallen to her wrath.

It is not enough.

More come against her.

At last the daggers fall from her bloodied grip, and even then she tears the throat from another befouled champion, gagging on the vile fluids that flood her mouth as she does so. Neave will not fail. She cannot. She has not even seen her quarry, for he lurks still in his fortress, never deigning even to face her himself.

An axe slams into her spine and she can feel nothing but cold, distant pain. The strength leaves her limbs at last and she slides to her knees, surrounded by lumbering Chaos-worshippers with their axes raised high.

Light blooms above her, and she believes that it must be the end. With a final effort Neave tilts her head back to welcome oblivion. Her eyes widen as she sees instead a coruscating bolt of lightning ripping its way down through the canopy to slam into her mangled form. White fire erupts through the forest. Tree-trunks and Rotbringers alike are blasted to ash and blown away upon a screaming gale as the energies of the heavens pour down upon Neave. She feels her soul leave the shattered remains of her body and then she is a mote once more, spiralling up, up, away from the blood and horror of her mortal ending.

Up to the realm of Azyr, and the kingdom of Sigmar.

Up, to her first Reforging.

Neave came back to herself, curled in a foetal position on her side upon the cold stone of the cavern she now knew to be Heartroot Hall. She blinked, marvelling at the utter absence of pain. Her mind felt clear as the crystal waters of an upland spring. Her sight was as perfect as it had ever been. Her body felt hollow with exhaustion, but untainted by the soul-sickness that had bedevilled her now for weeks.

With an effort, Neave pushed herself to her knees. She rose, swaying slightly but feeling the strength return to her limbs. Everything sounded and smelt and looked like it was forged from cut glass. She could practically see the air as it moved through the chamber. She could hear Katalya’s frightened heartbeat, distant but distinct, the only other human pulse in this stronghold aside from her own.

‘Have my senses been so hampered?’ she asked herself, raising one battered gauntlet and wondering at its clarity.

‘You were close to madness, child. Perhaps death.’ Wytha’s creaking voice was tender. Neave looked the Branchwych in the eye and breathed out slowly.

‘Because of the mark you left on my soul. Because of what you groomed me to be.’

Wytha’s eyes widened and she recoiled as though slapped. It was a strangely human gesture, yet now her clarity had returned, Neave could see it was learned, affected.

‘Child, the peril came not from my magics. It was the heavy-handed soul sorcery of Sigmar that put you at risk. His heavenspells conflicted with our own, natural gifts. He stole you from us, and he very nearly tore you in half. I have saved you.’

‘Not once now, but twice, it seems,’ said Neave. She flexed her muscles and stretched out her limbs, feeling the full possession of her own body and mind returning to her. ‘But not for my own good, isn’t that right, Wytha? You want something from me. You still want me to kill Lord Ungholghott for you, don’t you?’

Wytha drew herself up, her slender form towering a good foot over Neave’s not inconsiderable height. She looked imperiously down upon Neave, eyes narrowed into slits of blue fire.

‘A debt is owed, child. Just because Sigmar stole you from us, I knew that his Reforging magics could not cloud your mind forever. I have waited long to hear your soul-notes within the song again, no matter how faint. Our mark still resides within your heart, Neave Blacktalon. Our kindness still goes unpaid for. The debt is due, girl, and you have answered my summons. It is time to do your duty to Alarielle, that you failed to do before. You must kill Lord Ungholghott.’

‘And if I refuse?’ asked Neave. ‘I am Sigmar’s creature, not yours, and no matter what agenda moved sylvaneth of the Dreadwood to snatch up an infant human girl, I don’t believe it was altruism. You brainwashed me into servitude, transformed me into a weapon, hurled me at your enemy like a dart. What debt do I owe to you, that giving my life didn’t settle?’

‘But you didn’t give your life, did you?’ asked Wytha, jabbing one long talon into Neave’s chest. ‘You were saved from death, stolen by another god and wielded in other wars. It does not change what you are, who you were meant to be. Greater beings than I saw your importance from afar, and commanded that I fashion you into the weapon that I did. That you have become so superlative a huntress is down to the artifice of those infinitely greater than yourself. Everything you are you owe to the intervention of others. Yet this is your first hunt, Neave. Your first quarry, and as much an enemy of your people as mine. Here is a chance to become something upon your own merits at last. If you aid us in this, I believe we still stand a chance of laying low a mighty champion of Nurgle before he destroys our lands and leads his foul crusade on into territories that your own peoples hold dear.’

‘You took your time preparing that speech for my benefit, did you not?’ asked Neave.

Wytha’s only reply was an angry hiss.

‘How is it you still endure at all?’ asked Neave. ‘It’s been many years since Sigmar claimed me.’

‘Many long, bitter years of the Withering War,’ replied Wytha, and the exhaustion in her voice was real enough. ‘We have fought, girl. Fought and died, generation upon generation, and always fewer lamentiri recovered from the bodies of our fallen, always fewer sylvaneth souls returned to the soulpod groves. For our part, we have used every trick of guerrilla warfare and subterfuge we know.’

‘That can’t have been all,’ said Neave. ‘What little I’ve seen of this Ungholghott’s hordes, what I remember from before, suggests his legions are vast. Surely he could have rotted the woods and crushed you all long ago.’

Wytha’s face set into an impassive mask.

‘We have avoided him, wherever possible, and he has been content to leave us trapped within our slowly wasting woodlands. Ungholghott’s first fascination lies with living flesh, with the tribes and beasts of this region, and the ways in which he can corrupt and meld them to his own ends.’

‘And you left him to it,’ said Neave.

‘While he slew others, he did not slay us. Though still his warbands have encroached ever further into our territories, and with each passing season his strength has waxed. Ungholghott was not fool enough to involve himself in the greater wars of these passing seasons. He has massed his forces and perfected his foul arts, and has become a greater threat than you can imagine. You know of the fleshling abominations he has fashioned. You saw them in your visions, and your winged comrade saw them atop the cratered mountain. You have seen the skaven that scurry beneath his banners, their numbers growing by the day. Ungholghott must be stopped, and I tell you that you alone can do this.’

‘If I believe your words about greater beings and higher powers, at least,’ said Neave, pressing on before Wytha could wax lyrical again. ‘Even supposing I do, I’m a deserter. I may face censure for answering your summons, no matter how pure my motives were. Now that I know I’m not going to carry some dire spiritual contagion back to Sigmaron, my duty is to submit myself to my Warrior Chamber for judgement.’

‘That would be foolish and wasteful,’ said Wytha sharply.

‘But my duty nonetheless, no matter how much I may want to hunt down my first mark. However, if I submit myself now, I can plead your case and attempt to acquire Stormcast aid for your cause. Our two peoples are allies in this war. Ungholghott is a clear danger, a worthy target for annihilation, and with our armies marching as one we could lay him low.’

‘There isn’t time,’ said Wytha, ‘and that is not your ordained path in this. Ungholghott has weapons so terrible they could rot the heavens themselves. But we have a weapon of our own.’

‘Me,’ said Neave, then frowned at Wytha’s subtle shift in body language. ‘No, not just me. What else, then?’

‘A fragment of ancient power that we have acquired by force of arms,’ said Wytha in reverent tones. ‘Its power is such that, were it to be unleashed at the heart of Ungholghott’s fortress, it would slay him and every corrupt warrior that serves him. I do not even ask you to face the sorcerer yourself, girl. I ask only that you fight by my side and cut me a path into Ungholghott’s lair, that I might unleash this fragment and end the threat forever. Your first mark would be slain. Our enclave would be saved, and your debt paid. And you would return to your comrades as a conquering hero at the end of a successful hunt, rather than a penitent that simply wandered from their path.’

Neave was silent as she weighed her options. Ungholghott was a threat, that much seemed certain, and if he wielded even half the martial power Wytha described then he couldn’t be left to his own devices. Neave imagined his abominations set loose against Hammerhal or Excelsis, and shuddered.

She should return to her comrades, she knew, but Lord Hawkseye was nothing if not thorough. Even if she avoided punishment or worse, the clutches of the Sacrosanct Chambers, still Neave might not bring reinforcements to this fight in time to turn the tables. She felt powerful, her faculties restored to her and her senses sharp. She was confident that, if they struck quickly, she could cut a path into the fortress that Wytha could exploit, and if this weapon worked then victory would be claimed without further cost in Stormcast lives.

Besides, Neave wanted to know more about this weapon Wytha spoke of. Something ancient and taken through conquest, she had said; but what, and from whom? Neave had a creeping suspicion that any powerful weapon held in the clutches of the Dreadwood Glade might prove as hazardous to their allies as to their enemies, and she felt it was incumbent upon her to learn what she could of the device and its capabilities before she returned to her comrades.

Yet there was another factor at play that Neave barely dared admit to herself. She was a huntress who prided herself upon, even defined herself by, her abilities. Neave knew now with absolute certainty that Ungholghott had been her first ever mark, and that she had left him alive. Since she had failed to slay him, he had wrought untold horror and devastation, and his power had grown vast. Neave couldn’t help but feel responsible, and she saw from Wytha’s expression that the Branchwych knew it.

‘You have a chance to put an end to this horror,’ said Wytha. ‘No more need pay the price of your failure, child.’

‘How would we gain access to the fortress?’ Neave asked. ‘From what I’ve seen, Ungholghott has huge armies and high walls.’

‘The skaven have long proven troublesome allies. But Ungholghott does not realise just how much trouble they have caused him. Swift and silent our spites have flown, and through his defences they have crept to find a weakness left by the rat-men in their haste to gnaw. Where their burrowing beasts have raised skaven plague-warrens around the fortress’ western wall, they have created a flaw. It is a collapsing fault through which we will creep like a root burrowing through stone to bring the entire edifice crashing down.’

‘And this will happen swiftly, decisively?’ asked Neave.

‘Clan Thyrghael awaits only my order,’ said Wytha. ‘Already we massed through the realmroots to repel the skaven that pursued you. My army can march at a moment’s notice. We await only your oath to aid us.’

‘I have a condition,’ said Neave. ‘The girl, Katalya. Does her steed live?’

‘It does. We healed its hurts as we did hers. We observed that these beings seemed important to you.’

‘Good. No harm will come to either of them if I do this, to Katalya or to Ketto. Moreover, they will accompany us on our march, and be allowed to fight unmolested at my side.’

‘The mortal tribes of this land have long hated and feared us,’ said Wytha. ‘Those we took you from, they were the exception, the only beings to find an accord with us and offer us our due. I have no love for these fleshlings, but if they matter to you then I will not harm them. Yet… this will be a terribly dangerous assault, child. Why put the youngling and her steed in harm’s way? Allow us simply to make them safe here, in the clan enclave, until your return.’

‘And leave her to the tender ministrations of creatures like Ithary?’ asked Neave, eliciting a hiss from the Branchwraith. ‘Let you use her as a hostage against me, should I go against your will? No, I think not. Besides, Katalya seeks one thing above all others – a chance to have her vengeance upon Ungholghott. He annihilated her people as he has slaughtered yours. Why should her grievance be any less important than yours, or mine? I swore to protect the girl, and I will, but I swore also to aid her in her hunt, not she in mine. I’ll not leave her and Ketto to languish in your cells while I go to fight this battle.’

‘She cannot simply undo the trees hewn, the dark pacts made, the lamentiri crushed or stolen,’ said Wytha, her expression darkening. ‘Why should I set her free at all? She is a distraction, girl. She will get you killed, cause you to fail in your duties a second time, and it is we who will pay the price.’

‘These are my terms. Take them or leave them.’

Wytha shook like a tree in a high gale, and her eyes flashed with blue light. She turned and stalked away, stopping some paces distant, swaying and crooning to herself. Neave stood silent and still, watching and waiting for the Branchwych’s decision. She had long ago learned that patience was one of the huntress’ greatest weapons.

Wytha turned back towards her and smiled, opening her arms in a gracious gesture.

‘Of course, child, you know your business best. If you wish to yoke yourself with this savage and her beast then so be it. I ask only that you fulfil your oath. But let me be clear. They live and die by your choices, and they are your burden alone, for my spirits will lift not a talon either to harm or to aid them.’

Neave took a deep breath and nodded. Keeping one eye out for Katalya might slow her down, but her oath stood, and she couldn’t very well protect the girl if she left her behind. Besides, if Katalya perceived Neave to have stolen her chance for revenge then she would never be forgiven for it; of that much she was certain.

‘Then you have a deal,’ said Neave. She considered challenging Wytha’s use of the term child, but decided against it. She thought of Katalya’s reaction, were she to use the term with her, and couldn’t quite suppress a smile.

‘So be it,’ crooned Wytha. ‘I will begin the song of summonation. Clan Thyrghael goes to war, and with your aid, we may yet prevail.’

‘By Sigmar’s hammer, I hope so,’ said Neave, praying that she had made the correct choice. ‘Now, where are my damned axes?’

There were myriad chambers in Lord Ungholghott’s fortress. The structure was known to its denizens as the Cornucorpulus, for it was an endless font of plentiful life that bloated ever larger and fouler as the years passed. Once, the story went, the structure had indeed been a living being.

They said that it was the devout and Sigmar-fearing priest of Lord Ungholghott’s tribe, who had made the error of trying to halt the champion of Nurgle before his reign could truly begin.

They said that Ungholghott practiced his flesh-craft upon the priest first of all, and that the blessings of Nurgle were still so fresh in his veins that the gift he bestowed had never stopped giving. He made the priest’s still-living body into his long-hall, and then, as it grew larger and more mutated, into his fortress. Stone and iron were pounded into the billowing masses of rotted flesh. Corridors and chambers were fashioned from arteries, tracts and organs. The Cornucorpulus had expanded its boundaries ever since, spilling further into the swamps that surrounded it, a mark of Lord Ungholghott’s might and his endless generosity.

So they said, at least.

Ungholghott had never seen any reason to gainsay the gruesome tale, not least because it was true.

Now he stood in the moist gloom of a fleshy oubliette, whose veined walls heaved and shuddered like a lung taking laboured breaths. Spiked chains dangled from the ceiling, rattling and jingling with every slow motion. At the chamber’s centre stood a plinth of mildewed stone. Atop it sat a wide brass dish, all but buried beneath the mass of Lord Ungholghott’s parasiculum. This was a device of his own crafting, a fleshy orb several feet in diameter into which were set thousands of reflective chitinous lenses.

He moved forward, his heavy tread leaving wet footprints that slowly filled with slime. He stopped, looming over the parasiculum, and waved his hands above it while chanting. Its lenses rippled and chittered as they readjusted.

The abomination resembled the bulbous eye of an enormous fly. One by one, images resolved in each lens. Ungholghott saw what his plague flies saw. And they, it seemed, saw much.

‘Wytha, you sour old root, what facile new endeavour is this?’ he murmured. For all the cunning and spiteful warding-spells of the sylvaneth, Ungholghott could usually slip a few of his best-crafted flies through to spy upon the Clan Thyrghael. Two such insects clung to the walls of the heartroot chamber even now, their alchemically enhanced vision cutting through mist and sorcery to reveal the scene.

Ungholghott watched with interest as an armoured figure shuddered and writhed there, then rose slowly to her feet. He saw the power that radiated from this being, and the currents of magic that flowed through her. His interest turned to fascination.

‘A Stormcast Eternal,’ murmured Ungholghott. ‘But of no sort I’ve seen before. Flesh just waiting to be unpicked, vein-threaded secrets begging to be laid bare. You seek an alliance then, old root? Or… no… something so much more contrived. Of course, you’ll knot yourself in your own vines as you always do, and I will dissect your schemes with the very bluntest and most clotted of blades, the better to watch you squirm on my slab.’

Ungholghott listened, the words spoken before the throne shivering back to him through the medium of fly-winged vibrations. At the mention of an ancient weapon, he became very still.

The slight quirk of amusement left his face.

Avarice lit his yellow eyes.

‘What are you bringing me, old root?’ he asked the quavering image of Wytha. ‘What final offering can you give me, before I deign to slice and flay your clan at last?’ He snapped his attention from one fly’s eye lens to the next, seeking any familiar that might be able to flit through the tunnels of the clan enclave and locate this alleged weapon for him.

None of his familiars was in a position to do so, but through their proxy senses he detected the faint tang of something ancient and powerful, hanging on the air like the tension before a storm. It was enough to convince him that Wytha spoke at least some approximation of the truth, which in Ungholghott’s long experience was as much as the Branchwych had ever been capable of.

The exchange before the throne continued, Ungholghott snorting in disgust at the mention of a weakness created by the skaven burrows.

‘Of course they have,’ he scowled. ‘Idiot creatures. Their brainflesh quivers with the knowledge of its own inadequacy. And yet, perhaps they have made this easier for me. Old root, you bring me a new genus of Stormcast and a weapon of the ancient times. Truly I was right to leave you alive so long, for your desperation makes you generous beyond measure. The former I shall take alive, and chant your praises even as I dissect her. How refreshing, to have a mystery of anatomy beneath my knife for the first time in centuries! The latter I shall pluck from your own withering talons in the instant before I prune your scheming head from your shoulders. By Nurgle’s rotted garden, I shall even give you a quick death in exchange for these final gifts.’

Ungholghott swept his hands over the parasiculum, quieting its magics. Its lenses rasped and fidgeted, then went dull.

He turned and strode from the chamber, his champions moving to flank him as he emerged through its arched door. He led the way down a long corridor whose rusted metal walls were punctured by spines of bone and dangling sacs of pus-filled flesh.

‘We have guests on their way, and I wish them properly received,’ said Ungholghott to his champions. ‘The vermin have gnawed holes in our walls. That is where our enemies intend to gain entrance, like slitworms seeking open wounds amidst the swamp waters.’

‘I shall cull the rats for their foolishness, then bolster the defences with iron and flesh!’ grunted Grungholox, one of Ungholghott’s finest generals.

‘I shall shore up the defences with the meat and bone of the very vermin that weakened them, and cement them in place with foetid grue!’ hissed Yurkhling, Grungholox’s chief rival.

‘You shall stay your hasty blades and observe a wiser method,’ said Ungholghott. He began to expound his plan, and as he did so, his champions nodded and smirked. Soon his enemies would bring him a fine bounty, the final ingredients for him to weave into his flesh harvest before he unleashed his legions upon the Jade Kingdoms.

Idly, he patted a jutting mass of flesh and rock as he passed it, causing it to twitch and heave. Truly, he thought, there were numerous forms of generosity in this world, and it was his good fortune to benefit from many of them. Who was he to keep such gifts to himself?

ACT III

Chapter Twelve

Neave travelled the coiling vine causeway of Clan Thyrghael once more. This time, she did so upon her own two feet, unhelmed and with her axes slung upon her back and her mind and senses clear.

She walked at the head of a sylvaneth host, marching up the intertwining vineway even as it grew beneath their feet, pushing upwards from the depths of the chasm. It gave her a strange, vertiginous feeling, but Neave rode it out without swaying, for her balance was as sharp as it had ever been. With each new revelation from her body, Neave realised just how much the conflicting magics within her had been degrading her abilities. Had she ever felt this strong, this clear and sharp, she wondered?

Ahead of Neave walked a pair of towering Treelords, Wytha between them and Ithary flowing along several steps behind. The Branchwraith shot occasional glances of pure disdain at Neave. Each time, she answered with a wolfish grin.

At Neave’s side rode Katalya, saddled once more atop her beloved steed. Ketto’s prodigious leg span took up much of the bridge’s width, and Neave was careful not to be inadvertently swatted by a long chitinous limb.

Katalya had not spoken to Neave since being freed from her cell, though the girl had enthused to Ketto, slapping his mandibles and rubbing his glinting hide with fierce affection. Now, as the pale daylight of the forest drew near overhead, she looked at Neave.

‘You are different,’ she said.

‘I am,’ replied Neave, smiling.

‘They have stopped you falling down like a tattakan foal?’

‘They have. I know why I’m here now and what I must do. I’m going to kill the swamp king.’

‘You mean you will help me to kill him,’ said Katalya in a tone that brooked no argument. Neave quirked an eyebrow.

‘We’re going into the stronghold of a powerful Chaos warlord, Kat,’ she said. ‘This is going to be extremely dangerous, like nothing you’ve ever experienced. I admire your courage, and I’ve seen that you and Ketto can fight. You are worth ten of these tree spirits and more. But you stay close to me, and you follow my commands no matter what, understand? I’ve a hunt to complete, and as I can’t leave you amongst the forest spirits I must keep you safe at the same time.’

Katalya bristled.

‘We don’t need you to save us, sky knight. So far, all you did was get us nearly killed. Twice.’

‘You’re alive because I negotiated your release with the forest spirits,’ said Neave.

‘Who wouldn’t have had us at all if we hadn’t followed you,’ retorted Katalya.

‘No, because you’d have been overrun by skaven and butchered long before you got here.’ The young warrior blinked at the sudden steel in Neave’s tone. ‘You say you want Sigmar to take you up and make you into a warrior capable of taking revenge upon the forces of Chaos, even though that is not the gift you believe. Well, Katalya Mourne, you’ll never receive that honour if you continue to let your temper override your discipline and keep blaming everyone else for the things that happen to you.’

‘We don’t need Sigmar to survive,’ said Katalya, but Neave could hear her heart wasn’t in it.

‘You don’t need Reforging, that much is certainly true, but you do need me,’ she said. ‘Can you follow my orders, or do I have to devise some way to cut you loose and send you fleeing for the hills before we begin our attack?’

‘We will not flee,’ said Katalya hotly.

‘Then you will follow.’

Katalya’s jaw clenched stubbornly, but then, to Neave’s relief, the girl nodded.

‘I will follow you like you are my chieftain,’ she said, ‘and you will help me kill the swamp king. Even if his armies kill us after.’

‘They won’t,’ said Neave. ‘Not if Wytha’s weapon does what she claims it will.’

Neave had seen the fragment only briefly, as the sylvaneth mustered for war in the caverns below. It had seemed almost innocuous, a brassy-looking canister about a foot in length with crystalline veins set into its sides. Yet Neave had seen the blue-green light that shimmered through the veins and felt the oppressive sense of old magic on the air. It was something from the Age of Myth, surely. Wytha had refused to talk of the weapon’s nature or its origins, but Neave sensed that its power was enough to turn this fight in their favour.

‘I don’t trust the forest spirits,’ said Katalya, making no effort to lower her voice.

‘You don’t need to trust them, just trust me,’ said Neave, more quietly. ‘It doesn’t matter whether their weapon works as it should or not. I have never failed to slay my mark, not since Sigmar raised me up and reforged me. Your swamp king is the only quarry that has ever eluded my blades. He won’t do so again. Just follow my lead, let the sylvaneth get us to our target, and then, when you and I have laid him low, I’ll get us clear again. Understand?’

Katalya nodded. As the vine bridge bore them up out of the chasm and into the forest at dusk, Neave hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. Whatever lay ahead, it would be a punishing fight. But she was as determined about this as she had ever been about anything. She would slay her first mark, and go back to Sigmar with her head held high. Ungholghott would die beneath her blades, and never mind what Wytha had planned. And Katalya Mourne would not fall within the swamp king’s fortress; not while Neave still had breath in her body.

The moment the vine bridge crunched into the lip of the chasm, the sylvaneth army flowed from it onto the forest floor. Neave had estimated Wytha’s clan at several hundred spirits strong, from its elite core of Tree Revenants and Treelords to the massed bands of dryads that made up its heart, and the wild-eyed Spite Revenants that stalked upon its fringes.

Tall Kurnoth Hunters – each powerfully built and almost half as tall again as a dryad – loped away into the forest, spears and bows of heartwood held in their fists. The rest of the host followed in their wake, bands of ghostly figures flowing through the underbrush in near silence. Only their eyes glowed from the shadows, and occasionally the whorled runes upon their barkflesh.

‘They will be our eyes,’ said Wytha, dropping back to march beside Neave. ‘The Kurnoth are the agents of Alarielle herself. We are privileged to have them scouting our way.’

At the Branchwych’s arrival, Katalya tugged Ketto’s harness and reined him back, distancing herself from Wytha with a look of superstitious revulsion.

‘How far is Ungholghott’s fortress from here?’ asked Neave.

‘Do you not remember, child? It is a path you’ve followed once before,’ said Wytha with a sideways glance.

‘I’ve died since then,’ said Neave. ‘A lot.’ She was surprised at the look of genuine sorrow that crept into Wytha’s eyes, an expression the Branchwych banished just as quickly as it came.

‘Sigmar has used you ill, my girl,’ said Wytha. ‘Had you but completed your hunt for us on that fateful day, you would have lived on filled with the joyous blessings of Alarielle. You would have been one with the forest. In time, perhaps, you would even have been one with us.’

‘I remember the vision clearly now, Wytha,’ said Neave. ‘The odds we faced were impossible. How could you ever have believed I’d survive to claim that reward?’

‘We were… I was arrogant,’ said the Branchwych. ‘I was young, and my sap flowed hot. I was so sure of you, girl, of the blessings we’d marked you with and the way you’d been raised. The creatures I saw you hunt and slay would have taken a warband of dryads to lay low. Worse, even as I overestimated you, so I underestimated Ungholghott. I did not grasp the magnitude of his power, or the size of his armies.’

‘I don’t imagine that either has decreased in the years since,’ said Neave, trying to ignore the strange sense of failure that Wytha’s words stirred. ‘How can you be sure you’re not making the same mistakes again?’

‘I have spent long, terrible seasons fighting this foe. I have lost too many of my people in a losing fight during which I saw little cause for hope. Your return is as a break in the canopy that lets the sunlight shine through. And we have the weapon, and a way in. This time, I believe, we shall strike true, though it may cost us dear to do so.’

‘This weapon,’ said Neave, trying again to extract a straight answer. ‘What is it, precisely? Where did you get such a thing? And if it is so powerful, why have you not wielded it before?’

‘I did not say that the weapon had not been used, girl.’ Wytha favoured Neave with a crooked smile. ‘We know that it works, and that its power is great. But I told you before, it has been seen; without you, any attack against Ungholghott’s fastness is doomed to fail. Only when you answered the summons, only when you joined us, could we hope to succeed.’

‘You place a great deal of faith in one Stormcast warrior,’ said Neave. ‘I’ve no illusions about my abilities in battle, but even I can’t bring down a fortress’ worth of foes.’

‘I do place faith in you.’ Again, Neave caught the shadow of some genuine emotion playing at the corners of the spirit’s eyes. Did this strange being truly hold her in some maternal regard? she wondered. If so, it was a more twisted form of affection than any Neave had encountered before. ‘I place faith also in the wisdom of those who rule Dreadwood Glade. We shall prevail.’

‘Sigmar willing,’ said Neave. They walked on in silence for a few moments, before Wytha let out a rasping sigh.

‘To answer your original query, this path will take us much of the night to walk. More so, for we must be cautious of sentries and patrols as we near the forest’s eaves. We will come upon Lord Ungholghott’s fortress at dawn, and like the rising of the wakeling sun we will burn his corruption from the lands for good.’

With that, Wytha pressed ahead to rejoin her honour guard of Treelords. She left Neave to walk through the dark forest, her thoughts swirling.

They pressed on through the darkest hours of the night. The forest changed around them, sometimes drawing close in thorny tangles, sometimes towering high above their heads in vast groves whose primordial majesty made Neave feel dwarfed. In the early morning hours, the host flowed through a region where glowing spites drifted between the trees and blood-red blossoms covered the boughs. At another point, they crossed a huge clearing over which the stars hung cold and bright. The soil there was gouged into flowing sigils, and crooked standing stones rose between them like silent sentinels. Neave felt an abiding sense of dread creep into her heart as she looked upon the stones of the clearing, though she could not have said what caused it. Katalya drew close as they crossed that haunted space, and remained nearby even after they left it behind them.

As the first light of dawn began to glimmer between the trees, Neave turned to Katalya.

‘By Wytha’s reckoning, we should reach the fortress not long after dawn. I’m going to move ahead and scout the terrain for myself.’

‘You’re leaving us alone with the spirits?’ asked Katalya. Neave could see the girl was tired, and fearful despite herself.

‘You have Ketto, and Wytha has assured me of your safety,’ said Neave, loudly for the benefit of those forest spirits in earshot. ‘The sylvaneth know that if any harm should come to you, I’ll gladly turn my axes on those that caused it before returning to Azyr and leaving them to fight their own battles.’

‘Do not go too far,’ said Katalya, then in a firmer voice she added, ‘You don’t run off ahead and kill the swamp king so you can claim my glory, eh?’

Neave offered Katalya a warrior’s salute.

‘I wouldn’t dream of dishonouring the Mourne tribe, so you have my word. Keep your wits about you, don’t antagonise anything with talons, and I’ll return as quickly as I can.’

Neave turned and broke into a run, sweeping past Wytha and her attendants and on into the faint light of dawn. Despite the danger that lay ahead, and all her uncertainties about the path she was following, Neave felt exaltation rise within her at the feeling of running alone through the forest and letting her senses flow outwards as she went.

Her footfalls were all but silent as she wove between the trees. Every sight, sound and smell came back to her with crystal clarity, building in her mind a picture of the forest for miles around. She felt the living things that burrowed through the soil, the vitality of the trees and plants that grew on every side, the splash of water and the sigh of wind as they passed through root and bough.

And she felt, not so very far ahead, the seething corruption of Nurgle’s touch where the territory of the sylvaneth met that of the Plague God. Neave could taste the foulness on the air and sense the agony of the forest as its burgeoning life magics were tainted by the slow-spreading rot of Nurgle’s blights.

Closer at hand, Neave felt vibration through the soil and heard the sounds of violence echoing between the trees. Sweeping her axes from her back, she accelerated into a sprint. She raced through the forest and burst into a tangled copse in time to see a Kurnoth Hunter smashed from its feet by one of Ungholghott’s abominations. The thing was lumpen and awful, vaguely humanoid but easily twenty feet tall, pieced together from stitched flesh and flailing limbs, wailing mouths and bulging eyes.

Long Kurnoth arrows feathered its body, and several of its muscular limbs dragged behind it, but still the monster stayed on its feet. Neave saw two Kurnoth Hunters were already down, rent and mangled by the abomination. Another two remained, drawing arrows from living quivers and sending them whistling through the air to puncture the monster’s flesh.

Neave sprinted towards the beast and wove between several of its huge legs. As she went, she lashed out with her axes, hacking through muscle and tendon. The beast howled with a dozen mouths and swiped clumsily at her, but she leapt away, landing well out of reach of its taloned tentacles. The abomination half fell, dragging itself forward atop a tangle of limbs that no longer worked.

‘The beast had keepers,’ called one of the Kurnoth, its voice resonant and singsong. ‘They fled for the fortress. We tried to pursue, but–’

‘Finish this monster,’ said Neave. ‘I’ll catch the runners.’

The hunter saluted, a weirdly human gesture, and pointed in the direction the abomination’s keepers had fled. Neave could sense her prey, distant, heading through the forest towards their master’s keep.

They bore a warning that would end this attack before it even began.

She accelerated until the trees passed in a blur. Any other creature would have dashed themselves against a tree-trunk or been tripped by a root, but Sigmar had fashioned his Knights-Zephyros with skill. Neave placed every footfall perfectly, springing over deadfall and kicking off from tree-trunks to increase her acceleration further.

With every moment, she closed in on her quarry, whose slapping footfalls and ragged breath she could hear now close ahead. She heard three separate heartbeats clustered close together. They hadn’t had the sense to split up. Good.

Neave barely slowed as she shot between the trunks of a pair of elderbaron trees and hit her prey like a missile. She had a split-second to register that they were Blightkings, hulking mortal warriors clad in scads of rusted armour and horned helms. A single such warrior was capable of hewing a dozen Freeguild soldiers apart like firewood. Neave killed two of them before they even realised she was there, her axe blades hitting at catastrophic speed to rip one Blightking’s spine out through his gut and take the head and half the collarbone off another.

Neave threw out one leg and skidded to a halt in a shower of loam. She turned, axes held out wide, to stare at the last Blightking as he stumbled and stopped.

‘If you wish to return to your lord, you tainted heap of offal, you will have to defeat me first,’ she said, flicking gore from her blades. The Blightking hesitated, staring at her through the single eye-hole in his helm, then bellowed a muffled war cry and raised his hammer. He took three lumbering steps before Neave lunged, weaving easily around the ponderous downswing of his weapon. She directed a flurry of blows into her enemy’s chest and face, hitting him eight times in two seconds and then spinning past him and turning at guard again.

Neave needn’t have bothered; the Blightking staggered, gore jetting from the appalling wounds that festooned his chest and head, before toppling forward.

‘I hope the Kurnoth did a better job with any of your friends that might be wandering the woods out here,’ said Neave to the twitching corpse. ‘I think Alarielle needs better agents…’

She turned and ran back towards where she could feel the sylvaneth host advancing through the forest. They were perhaps a mile’s march from the edge of the forest now, and one way or another, the moment was almost upon them to commit.

Neave wanted to be as close to Katalya and to Wytha as she could when that happened.

As the sylvaneth host neared the woodland fringe, the forest spirits saw the horrors that had been wrought by Nurgle’s plagues. From hisses and whispers about her, Neave gathered that the woods had been expected to stretch another few miles yet. Instead, the trees slumped in rot and ruin, their chewed fringes sinking into a quagmire of bubbling filth. Slime coated the underbrush. Quivering buboes stood proud of split trunks and burst at the slightest touch. Insects squirmed and droned on every side, and a dense ground-mist clung to the stinking earth.

Seeing the curse that continued to devour their fragile kingdom, the sylvaneth stirred in anger. Their unearthly spirit song shifted into something both melancholy and wrathful. There was no aural component to the music, nothing to carry on the wind and betray the army’s presence. Instead, Neave felt it through the roots beneath her feet, and shivering upon currents of magic that coiled through the air. It was as though thunderheads were building around her, a storm wholly different to Sigmar’s heavenly tempest. This was something of twisting gloom and jagged darkness, something that seeped up from the loam and drifted down from the canopy to shroud everything in shadow.

‘Do you sense that, Katalya?’ asked Neave. The girl nodded, wide-eyed.

‘Something stirs. The forest is angry.’ She made that oh-so-familiar comet gesture again, and Neave had to struggle not to emulate it. How old had she been, she wondered, when the sylvaneth snatched her up? How well had her tribe and Katalya’s been connected, to share such traditions? In another life, might she have ridden beside this girl as kin?

Neave shook the questions off and focused on the view from the treeline.

The swamp stretched away into the distance, a noxious expanse of fluids and hillocks of rotting moss. Ungholghott’s fortress could be seen, rising from the mists and gases like the corpse of some impossibly immense godbeast. Crooked towers like exposed ribs jutted up into the sky. Layers of lumpen battlements ringed it, patrolled by swarms of distant figures. Huge eyes could be seen swivelling mindlessly in the structure’s flanks, while clouds of flies blanketed the air around it.

‘The fortress is perhaps a mile distant,’ said Wytha. ‘It is, itself, seven miles from end to end. Our entrance lies there, in its south-eastern slopes.’

Neave followed Wytha’s gesture and saw where dozens of ramshackle wooden bell-towers and tumbledown shanties had been heaped against the fortress’ flank. The unmistakable runes of the skaven and the Clans Pestilens were much in evidence upon every surface.

‘That point is closest to us here, across a short stretch of marshland,’ said Wytha.

‘How do we cross without being seen?’ asked Neave.

‘I shall contrive an ensorcelled shroud to misdirect the eye. My Branchwraiths will aid me. It is a crude illusion, but a powerful one. The enemy’s sentries will not see us.’

‘What about patrols?’

‘Do you see any?’ The Branchwych gestured with her sickle-stave. The marshes between them and the skaven-burrowed section of wall appeared still and empty. Nothing but bubbles and drifting mist moved. The sun still hung below the horizon, just colouring the fringes of the marsh with a tinge of amber flame, but it would not be long before it began to rise.

‘No. But that makes me suspicious,’ said Neave. ‘Is Lord Ungholghott so incautious?’

‘Not incautious,’ said Wytha. ‘Powerful. He has spent long years ruling this region, unchallenged by any that could cause him harm. His fortress is huge, and no doubt contains many, many warriors. He has myriad sentries atop the walls. What need for more walking the bounds? Surely, he must reason, even if an enemy were to come upon his stronghold and seek to gain entry, they would be seen before they reached the walls, or stopped shortly thereafter. His might has made him complacent, girl. We should not fear to use that advantage.’

Neave shook her head.

‘This sounds all too easy, Wytha. I fear that you’ve mistaken blind hope for good sense.’

‘Don’t forget we have had our spites scout the fortress several times, always veiled behind glamours, never disturbed or discovered,’ said Wytha, sounding defensive. ‘They have never seen any change in this pattern. The lack of foot-patrols is not a sudden or strange occurrence. I am not a fool, girl, and I would not risk my clan upon a foolish hope.’

‘Once we’re in, what’s the plan?’ asked Neave. ‘Assuming you’re right, how do we find Ungholghott? And how do we use the weapon against him?’

‘You will find the swamp king,’ said Wytha. ‘You will sense him.’

‘I can only do that if Sigmar has given me a mark. Please don’t tell me your plan hinged on that.’

‘You give yourself too little credit.’ Wytha shook her head. ‘That ability stems from you, not your Reforging. It has been in you since birth. It is why you were chosen. Reach out, and see if it is not so.’

Neave drew breath to correct Wytha angrily, and to ask how the Branchwych presumed to know more of her abilities than she did herself. Then it struck her; she could feel something. It was different to the sensation of following a mark, less insistent, and she doubted that she could have felt it from as far away. But the feeling was there, all the same, glimmering in her senses like a star just visible in the evening sky.

‘I… know where he is,’ she said. ‘You’re right, I know how to reach my mark, even without Sigmar’s guidance.’

‘You always did, child, but why would you know this? You have always had a fresh mark from Sigmar, always had your own talents overwhelmed by those he forced upon you. Is it not so?’

Neave shook her head. She had no answer to give. Sigmar had taken her up to the heavens and had made her mighty beyond mortal imaginings. Every hunt, every battle, every sacrifice since that time had been made in his name. To hear the gifts of the God-King dismissed out of hand, as though they had not enhanced but in fact had hobbled her, left Neave strangely shaken.

‘If we find the sorcerer, we invoke the weapon there and then,’ said Wytha. ‘Otherwise, we forge a path to the heart of his fortress and unleash its power there. So shall we bring down all his works.’

‘As you say then,’ said Neave. ‘We’ve come this far. If we want to cross the divide to the wall before the sun’s light finds us, we’d best move now.’

‘Give us a moment to work our spell. When it is safe to cross, I will tell you.’

Neave took the chance to return to Katalya, who still sat astride Ketto’s saddle. There was a difficult conversation to be had.

‘Are you ready for this?’ she asked.

‘We will fight at your side,’ said Katalya. ‘The swamp king’s fortress is… greater than I had imagined. I am glad we did not come here alone.’

‘As am I, Kat,’ said Neave. ‘But listen to me now. You promised you’d follow my commands as though I were your chieftain, yes?’

‘I swore it,’ said Katalya warily.

‘You need to leave Ketto here. We don’t know what lies within that place, but you can bet we will have to pass through tight passages and confined spaces. He could get stuck, or give away our presence.’

‘I understand,’ said Katalya, swinging down from the saddle.

‘You won’t try to fight me on this?’

‘I swore,’ said Katalya. ‘And I don’t want Ketto to be in danger. More danger than he will be out here, at any rate.’

She turned to her steed and cradled his mandibles in her hands. Katalya leant her forehead against the smooth chitin of Ketto’s muzzle and whispered words to him that Neave carefully tuned out. Whatever was said was private, between close friends. Ketto’s antennae gently brushed against Katalya’s head, drifting over the nape of her neck. The tattakan rattled softly and shifted his legs.

Katalya stepped back, sniffed hard and slapped Ketto companionably on the muzzle.

‘Go on then, dulu, get gone. You know how to find me when it’s done.’

Ketto rattled again, swiped one last time at Kat’s hair with his antennae, then turned and trampled back into the undergrowth.

‘He will stay safe until we have killed the swamp king,’ said Katalya.

‘And you will stay by my side until the deed is done,’ said Neave. ‘No matter what happens. Understand? I still do not know what it is Wytha plans to unleash in there, what this weapon of hers does. I want you close in case we have to react quickly.’

Katalya nodded, a serious frown on her face, and clashed one vambrace against the other.

‘I swear it, Neave.’

‘It is time,’ announced Wytha.

The Branchwych turned towards the rest of her clan where they lurked, large and small, jagged and flowing, amidst the trees. Ithary and her fellow Branchwraiths stepped forward, six of them in total. Each bowed in a stylised fashion to their mistress, before beginning a keening chant, its notes barely audible even to Neave’s remarkable senses. As they chanted, they danced, weaving strange shapes and patterns with their limbs and footsteps. Gradually blue motes gathered in the gloom beneath the canopy, whirling together in a way that Neave found uncomfortably familiar. Stepping forward, Wytha swept her sickle-stave through the swirling motes and hooked them as though she had somehow caught a mass of cloth upon her blade. Turning on her heel, she cast the mass of magical sparks into the air above the clan, where it flickered briefly, then vanished.

At once, Neave felt the glamour settle about them. She could see no physical change, but she sensed the sylvaneth magics at work.

‘Now,’ hissed Wytha, before stepping out into the shin-deep sludge of the swamp. Neave gestured to Katalya and followed.

One warband at a time, Clan Thyrghael broke from the cover of the forest and waded out across the swamp as quickly as they could go. Neave forged along near their head, Katalya striving gamely at her heels. Neave felt the burning sense of watchfulness from above, the awful sensation of exposure. She glanced up at the ramparts, scanning them with a huntress’ eye, noting every sentry and watchtower and marking their positions. Surely, at any moment, a cry would rise from the walls, or the clangour of skaven bells would be heard.

Yet there was no sound. Even as the clan neared the foot of the wall, and seething masses of skaven became visible scurrying to and fro amidst their burrows, still the sylvaneth went unnoticed. Neave was impressed, and more than a little unsettled. Perhaps it was for the best that the Dreadwood clan were Sigmar’s allies, even if their methods and outlook seemed a touch too malevolent for her tastes. She wouldn’t want to face enemies that could veil themselves so.

Wytha gestured to a spot near the outlying structures of the skaven burrows. Neave saw where the rat-men had incautiously driven iron girders directly into the wall in order to support one of their numerous towers. The resultant damage had caused a split in the flabby matter of the wall, a gangrenous rent ten feet across and perhaps the same high that dripped pus and blood, and looked uncomfortably like a diseased wound. It vanished back into darkness, foul vapours drifting from it, slime dripping from its inner walls.

Neave glanced back and saw the dismay on Katalya’s face at the thought of entering such a noisome tunnel. She caught the girl’s eye. Neave flashed her tribe’s warding at her. Katalya returned it, seeming to steel herself.

The sylvaneth were clustering before the walls, massing in a way Neave could not believe was entirely wise. Someone needed to take the initiative, yet Wytha still stood, staring up at the fortress, flanked by her Treelord guards. The Branchwych looked at Neave, then swept her taloned hand towards the rent in a gesture that said after you. Neave took a slow, deep breath and unsheathed her axes. Then, without another backwards glance, she plunged into the fortress of Lord Ungholghott.

Chapter Thirteen

The interior of the fortress stank. It was rare that Neave regretted the full clarity of her Sigmar-given senses, but as the waves of sweat-stench and faecal reek threatened to choke her, she had to admit that she resented Sigmar’s gifts.

From a distance, Neave had assumed – or at least, hoped – that the strangely biological look to Ungholghott’s fortress was an affectation, or some artefact of chaotic mutation. Now she saw the truth was far worse. Slipping between flesh-wet walls studded with seeping stonework and spars of interwoven iron and bone, Neave sensed not only the bountiful excess of life that flowed through this edifice, but also its madness, misery and pain.

‘I feel like I’m crawling through something’s guts,’ she murmured.

‘Perhaps we are,’ whispered Katalya.

Wytha had sent the surviving Kurnoth Hunters in behind Neave, and their leader gave a low rumble of agreement.

‘Foul magics are at work here,’ he said. ‘They have been for decades. They saturate this place. It makes my bark itch.’

Neave’s keen vision pierced the rank mists and revealed a wider space ahead.

‘There’s a corridor,’ she whispered, craning her head to project her voice back down the tunnel. ‘Hold here, Wytha.’

Dimly she saw the Branchwych raise her sickle-stave in acknowledegment. The sylvaneth halted, jagged forms and cold blue eyes massed together in the close confines. The sinister aspect of her allies struck Neave forcibly, but she dismissed the thought. Even she couldn’t conquer an entire fortress single-handedly, and in such circumstances even such grim allies as these were better than none. Still, she could not suppress a stab of longing for Tarion, and for all the Shadowhammers.

She had dared hope that her comrades might have followed her trail and caught up to her by now. Neave would gladly have faced whatever consequences her desertion brought, if it had meant launching this attack side-by-side with the Hammers of Sigmar.

‘Drink ditch water in a drought though, eh?’ she muttered to herself, and continued along the passageway.

Neave stepped through the far end of the rent and over a spill of crumbled stone and rancid meat. She found herself in a wider corridor, fashioned from stone and boasting stalactites of what looked revoltingly like body fat dangling from its ceiling. They quivered and dripped, drooping to well below head height. Crimson-tinged light spilled from membranous growths that pushed through the stones of the ceiling, making the entire corridor look like it was daubed in gore.

Neave swept her gaze left and right, feeling for moving air, vibrations in the stonework, or the slightest sight or sound of the foe. There was nothing, but her keen vision revealed to her that the corridor terminated in an organic-looking cave-in several hundred yards through the gloom.

‘Nothing,’ she said, but she didn’t trust it for a moment. Their entrance felt too convenient, too easy by far. Neave’s instincts were snarling at the sense of a trap closing around her.

‘The foe are yet far afield then?’ asked the lead hunter.

‘Seems that way,’ said Neave.

‘Suspicious that they would neither seal this opening, nor guard it,’ rumbled the hunter.

‘Stupid,’ said Katalya fiercely. ‘But then, they worship the Dark Gods, so they’re crazy.’

‘It’s a vast fortress, and I get the sense the layout probably changes as it grows over time,’ said Neave. ‘These stalactites haven’t formed quickly, and if anyone used this passageway on a regular basis they’d have been disturbed.’ She pulled a face.

‘You make a fair point,’ said the hunter.

‘But so do you… What’s your name?’

‘Ghyrthael,’ he replied.

‘So do you, Ghyrthael,’ said Neave. ‘I understand all that Wytha’s said, and I hope that she’s right about our enemy’s complacency. But I’m a huntress first and foremost, and I trust two things above all else. My instincts, and my senses.’

‘And what do they tell you, Neave Blacktalon?’ asked Ghyrthael.

‘That this is too easy,’ said Neave. ‘That there’s something here we’re not seeing, because we just snuck several hundred sylvaneth warriors through the wall of our enemy’s fortress, and haven’t even met a lone sentry who tried to stop us. My senses tell me there’re no enemies in the vicinity at all, which strikes me ill with the skaven so close and Ungholghott’s hordes supposedly so vast. I wasn’t sure until we made it this far unchallenged, but now? It’s got to be a trap.’

‘If you are correct, then Ungholghott must know we are coming,’ said Ghyrthael. ‘Should we turn back, think you?’

Neave shook her head slowly, eyes roving the corridor.

‘If we retreat now, we tip the enemy off. If our head’s already in the beast’s maw, its jaws are like to snap shut. No, we press on, but we do so in readiness. The moment something looks awry, we strike fast and slay them before they slay us.’

‘I will advise Wytha,’ said Ghyrthael.

‘Tell her we’re pressing on,’ said Neave. ‘I feel Ungholghott’s presence more keenly now. This way.’

Neave stalked along the corridor with Katalya and the Kurnoth Hunter close behind. The sensation of Ungholghott’s presence was similar to the siren song she had always sensed at the nearness of a mark, but subtly different. It was as though a current of energy ran through her body, making the hairs rise on her arms. It was all she could do not to skin her teeth back from her lips like a snarling wolf.

She sensed the rest of the sylvaneth following. She could hear the Treelords complaining at the tight confines and exclaiming in disgust as they disturbed the stalactites, and she muttered to Ghyrthael, asking him to quiet them lest they alert the foe to their presence. The route led where it led, and all her attention was turned towards watching for the trap she suspected lay ahead.

Neave passed through a bone archway and into a huge chamber with a high, ribbed ceiling. Iron vats lined its walls, the sounds of bubbling fluids carrying from within. Noxious fumes filled the air, and flies droned lazily through the murk. A heavy iron catwalk circled the entire chamber near ceiling height.

Neave glanced back to see Katalya ripping the hem from her furs and binding it around her mouth and nose. The tribesgirl’s eyes watered, but her expression was determined.

Two exits led out of this chamber, one in the north wall and one in the east. Neave stopped, balancing on the balls of her feet, listening intently and stretching her senses to their limits. She heard heartbeats from somewhere ahead, the sound of carefully stifled breathing, the creak of movement as hidden foes tried and failed to remain truly silent.

Neave whispered her findings to the Kurnoth. The message was passed back down the line, shuddering inaudibly through the spirit song. A response came back, relayed from Wytha herself.

‘She says press forward,’ said Ghyrthael quietly. ‘Let the trap’s jaws close upon poisoned bait.’

Neave nodded to herself, then paced forward, motioning for the others to follow. At her back, the sylvaneth began to filter into the huge chamber, staring with distaste at the gurgling pipes that crawled along the walls, and the strange instruments and dials that studded the vats’ flanks.

Neave shut out the sounds of the sylvaneth at her back and the grotesque biological rumble of the fortress. She filtered out her heartbeat, the slow rise and fall of her breath, the creak and clink of her armour as she moved. She listened intently for sounds that no other would hear, patterns hidden amidst the jumble of background noise. There she found a slow ticking, a clicking similar to that of clockwork cogs. The sly sound was hidden within the walls, furtive but purposeful as it ground towards some nefarious end. Neave tensed, eyes darting about the chamber, identifying and categorising potential dangers within the space of a single heartbeat.

Something was coming. The trap was poised to spring, but Neave would not play the role of unwitting prey. She had reached the chamber’s heart, the majority of the sylvaneth clan strung out behind her, when she heard the grinding of cogs and gears within the walls suddenly accelerate.

She knew what came next. She was ready for it.

Neave launched herself across the chamber and slid on her back into the northern doorway. She was in time to catch a heavy iron portcullis as it rattled down from within the archway. The metal gave a resounding clang as it met the sigmarite of her gauntlets, and Neave screamed with the effort of halting the portcullis’ fall.

‘This is it,’ she yelled. ‘Help me get this open, now!’

Katalya and the hunters dashed towards Neave. Further back, Wytha shrilled commands at her sylvaneth to do likewise.

Overhead, the walkway shuddered with a tumult of footfalls. From her position prone upon the floor, Neave could only guess at what foes were dashing in to take up position above the killing ground.

Her muscles strained and her bones creaked as the huge weight of the portcullis threatened to crush her into the flagstones. She pushed up, gaining a little purchase, then cursed between her teeth as gears ground and the metal barrier pressed relentlessly down upon her. Any second, she knew, her arms would simply break beneath the phenomenal pressure and the portcullis would crush her as it slammed into place.

Then strong talons gripped the iron latticework, and the strength of the Kurnoth Hunters was added to her own. Katalya grabbed the portcullis directly above where Neave lay, green fire shimmering along her vambraces as she strained with all her might. Neave heard gears groaning, metal grinding and then shearing. There came a sudden clang and the weight lifted as they forced the portcullis up again.

Neave shot a grateful glance up at the sylvaneth who had aided her, only to be splattered with bloodsap as a barbed javelin exploded through the face of the hunter closest to her. The Kurnoth staggered, pawing weakly at the speartip jutting from his eye socket, then slumped sideways with a groan.

‘Above!’ screeched Wytha.

From the gantry came a rain of javelins and noxious projectiles, rotting heads stoppered with stitches and wax. The heads burst where they struck home, splattering bubbling filth across stonework and sylvaneth barkflesh alike. Where the forest spirits were splashed they sizzled and melted, and their cries of pain and fury rang out.

‘They are throwing death’s heads!’ cried one of the Branchwraiths. ‘Beware their filthsome spray!’

Ithary and the other Branchwraiths fought back as best they could. They chanted and writhed, conjuring blasts of jade energy and coiling masses of thorned creepers that lashed upwards to tear at the gantry. Neave heard cries of pain from above, and saw figures fall to smash into the stone floor. They were cultists of some sort, human but swathed in dirty rags and aprons, their faces hidden by leather hoods and heavy goggles.

Neave pulled her knees in tight and flipped herself onto her feet as she heard the clatter of fresh mechanisms at work. The eastern door had been sealed tight as its own portcullis slammed into place; the north doorway was their only way out.

‘To tarry is to die,’ she bellowed. ‘They’re going to vent the vats! Wytha, get them moving! Follow me!’

Grabbing Katalya by the arm, Neave lunged through the archway into the corridor beyond. She found herself dashing up a steep flight of bone steps, skull-carved lanterns flashing past on either side. Behind her, she heard a terrible groaning of metal hinges, then the thunderous roar of gallons upon gallons of fluids being released. Neave’s blood ran cold as she heard fresh sylvaneth cries rise shrill with agony.

Cresting the stairs, Neave burst out onto the gantry that hung above the chamber. She slammed straight into one of the begoggled foe, who gaped for a split-second before her axe swept his head from his neck. The man fell, neck stump jetting a snotty fluid that squirmed with white worms.

‘Sigmar’s hammer, these filthy creatures are rotten to their cores,’ yelled Neave angrily, kicking the swaying body in the chest and sending it toppling over the gantry rail.

A quick glance over that barrier confirmed her suspicions. The enemy had indeed opened the sluices of the vats lining the chamber’s walls, releasing a tide of diseased effluvia. She saw sylvaneth corpses bobbing like driftwood amidst the rank juices, dissolving and deforming under their effects.

Yet there were far fewer fallen than Neave had feared; she heard the footfalls of dozens upon dozens of sylvaneth pouring up the steps behind her. At the same time, the masked servants of Nurgle spun at her, raising their rotwood javelins and hefting wax-stopped death’s heads.

‘What now?’ asked Katalya, pressing close at Neave’s shoulder.

Neave pointed with one axe towards an archway that led off the gantry at the chamber’s far end.

‘Now, we fight our way to that. Get ready, Kat. The real battle’s just beginning.’ Neave launched herself into a lightning-fast charge, and the blood of Nurgle’s servants fell like rain.

Lord Ungholghott marched between the fleshpens of the third foulebastion. Pitiful cries rose on all sides from the flesh-stocks. Hands clawed weakly through the iron bars, their skin thick with buboes and sores.

Ungholghott’s normal fascination with his cattle’s suffering was eclipsed by his towering anger, which he vented upon the gaggle of champions and lieutenants who trailed behind him.

‘How precisely did the specimens evade the trap?’ he snarled. ‘Explain it again, as though I were as witless as you.’

‘My lord, it was the Stormcast,’ hissed Yurkhling, his yellow eyes staring from beneath his rotting cowl. ‘She threw herself beneath a portcullis and halted its fall.’

‘She is crushed, then? Her inner workings fouled and her hide torn and spoiled?’ snarled Ungholghott. ‘Wasteful and incompetent.’

He stopped and turned at his underlings’ awkward silence.

‘The subject endures?’ asked Ungholghott, raising one leprous brow.

‘Lord, even now she is leading the surviving woodland savages along the upper galleries.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Ungholghott. ‘And she is coming this way then, yes?’

‘We shall stop-halt her, oh most munificent herald of unholy woes!’ chittered the Plague Priest representing Ungholghott’s Clan Feesik allies. He still hadn’t bothered to memorise the creature’s name.

‘You failed to stop her and her rag-tag band of woodland shrubs from slinking unseen into my fortress,’ said Ungholghott, his voice thick with scorn. ‘As I understand it, they walked right through a wound that your clumsy burrowing opened in the first place. And now you would have me place trust in the inferior mental processes and slinking fur-covered sacks of sinew that permitted this transgression in the first place?’

The Plague Priest quailed, flinging itself onto its face and waving its tail wildly back and forth.

‘Trickery, grand and most gruesome one! Lies! Plot-schemes of those who would–’

‘Oh, by Nurgle’s feculent innards, I cannot listen to any more of this drivel,’ snarled Ungholghott, gesturing to Grungholox. The Plague Champion’s huge cleaver fell, bisecting the Plague Priest in a messy spray. The two halves of the rat-man flopped into his spilled innards, fluids squirting up to drench the wretches trapped in the pens on either side.

Ungholghott took a calming breath. He closed his eyes and leant upon his staff, thinking quickly. Self-reproach stung him, for he saw now that he had been hugely arrogant. Familiarity with his old sylvaneth foes had clearly bred contempt, and Ungholghott had sorely underestimated the Stormcast warrior that accompanied them. Who or what she was, he didn’t know, but he was more interested than ever to slide her body into the bone-threshers and pick her apart.

First, though, she had to be stopped, and Wytha as well. He couldn’t risk the possibility that the old woods-crone actually was carrying something that could harm him. Ungholghott was close to unleashing his might upon the Jade Kingdoms, and he would not fail Nurgle by allowing his own ego to undo things now.

‘Yurkhling, muster the Poxmonger Guard and the Fly’s Sons, and lead them in through the undergalleries,’ he ordered. ‘You will be the gutting hook that drags the innards from our enemies’ cavities. Grungholox, have the alchemancers mass their labour gangs and hurl them into the invaders from all sides. Tell them that any and all weapons may be deployed to stop the attack. Then lead the Sevenfold Faithful up the ungodly stair and attack through the septic sluices. Catch them in their flank and pen them in the old laboratories. You shall be the flensing blade that pares skin from bone.’

Ungholghott’s two warlords saluted and hastened away, leaving a gaggle of lesser seers, sorcerers and champions standing awkwardly around the twitching remains of the Plague Priest.

‘Don’t just stand there, you thrice-damned idiots!’ roared Ungholghott. ‘Rally your warbands and attack! Overwhelm the enemy, unpick them like a stitched wound, and bring me the weapon and the Stormcast specimen!’ He gestured to the dead skaven. ‘And for Grandfather Nurgle’s sake, someone bring me a replacement for that. We’ll need the sub-vermin in this fight too, useless though they are. They’ll keep the enemy restrained long enough for us to open them up and pull them apart.’

Ungholghott turned away from his underlings as they fled his presence. He completed his walk between the fleshpens and into the region of the fortress that he thought of affectionately as his zoo. He stood on a platform of iron and sinew, and looked down upon the huge metal pens below. Huge things moved in the gloom, slamming themselves against the walls of their cages and roaring in multitudinous voices, both bestial and horribly human. Tentacular limbs lashed. Fluids sprayed into the air, spittle and pus spattering the platform’s edge. A ripe stench rose thick as smoke from a bonfire, animal sweat mingling with the sweet corruption of decay and the acrid tang of dark alchemy.

‘It is time for you to show your strength, my pets,’ said Ungholghott, moving his hand towards a bank of heavy brass levers nearby. ‘I have rewoven your flesh into the mightiest of forms. Make the Plague God proud…’

Neave ducked as a massive axe whistled over her head. The blade slammed into the meat of the chamber’s wall, and foetid fluids sprayed. She replied with a thunderous underhand swing, ripping her blade up through her enemy’s helm and sending the Blightking tumbling backwards. Neave flipped back away from her enemy’s corpse, lashing out and beheading two more foes as she sailed between them, before landing in a fighting crouch and assessing the fight.

The sylvaneth had fought their way through several chambers since Ungholghott’s failed ambush, flowing along swaying iron gantries and butchering the plague worshippers that tried to stop them. Wytha raged, her furious screeches sawing through the air above the fight as she directed her warriors against the foe. Two of her Branchwraiths had been caught in the diseased deluge along with dozens of the forest spirits they led. Now Wytha seemed determined to exact a blood price for every last one. Her sickle-stave swept in vicious arcs, lopping heads and limbs, opening chests and guts. Here and there, where a sylvaneth fell slain, Wytha would pause and gently remove the lamentiri from her charges. She secreted the glowing soul-seeds in a woven reed pouch, and Neave knew that the Branchwych would plant them afresh in the clan’s soulpod groves should she survive the battle.

That was by no means certain, however. The invaders were making steady progress, following Neave’s unerring sense for her prey, but fresh waves of foes appeared by the moment. The battle was currently strung out, the sylvaneth rearguard fighting a tide of chittering skaven along the gantries of the previous chamber while Neave led a spearhead push through a rotting-meat chamber full of metal sluices and alchemical tanks.

Their enemies were many and strange, from goat-like beastmen with matted fur and diseased hides to apron-clad plague cultists, lumbering Blightkings and gibbering mutants who struck with talons, pseudopods and stingers.

Several of the rank creatures flung themselves at Neave, trying to overwhelm her.

‘Praise Lord Ungholghott, foulest of filthbringers!’ gurgled the largest of them, before Neave eviscerated him.

‘All hail mighty Nurgle, bounteous lord of generosity!’ shrieked another before she took his head from his shoulders.

Neave had hacked down so many Chaos-worshippers that heaps of their corpses lay in her wake. Yet still they came on, and beneath their constant onslaught, the sylvaneth fell one by one.

Neave saw a death’s head tumbling through the air towards her. It was struck by a blast of green energy, detonating prematurely and splattering its infectious contents across a band of mutants. She glanced gratefully at Katalya, who nodded and clashed her vambraces fiercely together. The tribesgirl was pale and sweating, clearly suffering the ill effects of the plague-ridden environment she fought through. Yet she kept fighting all the same, keeping pace with Neave as best she could.

Another wave of enemies rose up from the slime-filled sluices that vanished into cavernous holes in the right-hand wall. Their rusted armour dripped with filth and their flesh sizzled, but they roared war-cries and vaulted over the edges of the sluices, straight into the fight.

‘Wytha, your right flank!’ roared Neave, gesturing with an axe.

‘They are witnessed,’ replied the Branchwych. ‘Ithary, Ulthyr, drive them back!’

The Branchwraith keened with bloodlust as she left her mistress’ side, her talons spread wide and her thorned dreadlocks writhing. At her side strode one of Wytha’s Treelord bodyguards, who hefted his huge sword and let out a basso war-cry as he went. Maddened Spite Revenants followed them, fanged maws wide in murderous screams.

The two forces clashed, Ithary’s thorn-magic peppering her enemies with projectiles as Ulthyr’s huge sword smashed like a battering ram through the Chaos ranks. Blightkings hewed barkflesh, Spite Revenants stabbed and lunged, dancing around their cumbersome foes as they hissed their hatred.

‘They are slowing us,’ said Katalya, sending punch-blasts of jade magic to shatter bones and pulp flesh.

‘They are,’ said Neave. ‘We need to contrive a way to force passage, or they’ll bottle us up here.’

Wytha fought her way to their side, sweeping enemies out of her path with vicious fury.

‘We must push deeper, girl!’ she hissed. ‘The fragment is utterly deadly, but it must be triggered at the fortress’ very heart. Only in that way will we purge all foul fleshlings from this place!’

‘All?’ asked Neave.

‘All of our foes,’ said Wytha angrily, but Neave heard something else beneath her bluster. Wytha had slipped, she thought, just a little.

‘Wytha, what exactly is the weapon going to do?’ she asked, parrying the incoming strike of a mace, then cutting its wielder in half with a scissoring blow from her axes.

‘It will scour our enemies away with the undiluted magics of life,’ said Wytha. ‘But not if we fall here while flapping our jaws about its nature! You failed to reach Ungholghott once before, child. Will you fail me a second time?’

‘Don’t think me so easily manipulated, Wytha,’ spat Neave. ‘Battle presses, but you and I are not done speaking of this.’

Neave turned her full focus upon slaughtering the foe. Still, her mind worked furiously. How dangerous or unstable was the weapon Wytha carried? Could her old mentor truly be trusted in her intentions? Before, Neave would have said perhaps. Now she wondered. She had caught the old Branchwych in a lie and it needled her. Neave glanced at Katalya, fighting bravely despite all the horror and danger she had endured. Would she survive proximity to Wytha’s masterstroke?

‘Sigmar, if you have guidance for your servant, now would be the hour,’ she muttered, side-stepping a spear thrust and hacking down the weapon’s wielder before spinning and striking, spinning and striking, then dodging away again to leave several more foes toppling dead to the ground.

Neave caught a sudden commotion at the northern entrance to the chamber, the very archway she was fighting to reach. The Chaos-worshippers were surging, clawing at one another, yells of panic rising above their battle-chants and cohesion collapsing as they scattered.

‘Something’s coming down that passage,’ said Neave, and she thought of the prayer she had just offered up. The Shadowhammers had been close on her trail before she entered Wytha’s woods. If the aetherwings had stayed with her, kept her in sight during her confinement…

Neave’s hope surged as blood sprayed out of the archway. A Blightking corpse tumbled through the air to slam into his comrades. Several warriors turned and brandished their blades at the dark opening, while more scrambled over each other in their haste to get clear. Something moved in the shadows, and Neave began hacking her way towards the entrance with fresh vigour, keen to meet her comrades again.

Her senses tingled. All her hope turned to ash. Wordlessly, she stepped between Katalya and the dark portal. A cacophony of horrible shrieks echoed from the archway before a tide of stitched and mutated flesh surged from its depths. Their wild eyes rolled. Cable-like sinews strained as they hauled vast bulks of muscle and flab into battle. Deformed talons ripped at stonework and bone, and slavering jaws gaped wide as Ungholghott’s abominations stampeded.

Battering-ram limbs of bone swung, smashing Chaos-worshippers and sylvaneth alike through the air. Tentacles lashed out from bloated sacks of flesh and eyes, grabbing warriors and dragging them screaming into pulsating maws.

The abominations smashed their way through the fight, some barely larger than Neave herself, others enormous monstrosities that trampled forwards on dozens of mismatched limbs. Neither Ungholghott’s forces nor Wytha’s could stand against the creatures. Though several abominations fell to talons and blade-strokes, more of them burst into the chamber by the moment. A Treelord vanished under the squirming bulk of a slug-like thing larger than a house, his blade puncturing it through and through even as its hundreds of pseudopods gnawed him away layer by layer.

Wytha’s eyes burned blue and she cast out a hand, screeching a jagged invocation. The nearest abomination, a tangle of limbs and torsos and stitch-puckered eyes, shuddered as spiked branches erupted through its flesh. Wicked wooden spears tore the monster apart, leaving its fleshy components dangling from a forest of jags like a bloodshrike’s larder.

‘I will slaughter every one of these revolting aberrations!’ snarled the Branchwych.

‘You will not,’ said Neave. ‘You slew a single beast amongst a vast stampede against which we cannot stand fast. There’s no way forward here.’

‘They will fear the might of Dreadwood Glade!’ hissed Wytha, gathering her magics for another attack. Neave saw her falter as the full scale of the slaughter impressed itself upon her. Sylvaneth were dying on every side, and their enemies with them.

‘Soon there will be nothing left breathing in here but Ungholghott’s beasts,’ said Neave. ‘There’s another exit in the west wall. See it? I’m going to lead a breakout that way. Be ready to use your magics to cover us.’

‘There are hundreds of foes between you and that door,’ said Wytha.

‘I’ve killed hundreds more.’

‘Wait, there’s another way,’ said Katalya.

‘Where?’ asked Neave in surprise.

‘Low down, further back along the west wall. I saw them as we fought our way in. Tunnels like burrows.’

‘You’re sure, Kat?’ asked Neave.

‘When you spend your life as the prey as often as the hunter, you see boltholes,’ said Katalya. ‘But the bigger sylvaneth will not fit.’

‘We will have to leave some of our most powerful warriors behind, facing certain death.’

‘We will, but their sacrifice will mean victory,’ replied Wytha. ‘They will gladly give their lives as a rearguard to keep the clan alive. We will return for their lamentiri when these monsters are no more.’

Neave narrowed her eyes at the Branchwych. Just how many lives was Wytha willing to sacrifice in the name of victory? she wondered. Would any of them survive Wytha’s vendetta, were she allowed to unleash her weapon? Neave knew she couldn’t allow the question to go unanswered much longer, but now was not the moment to settle things.

‘Kat, lead, I’ll get us there,’ she said. ‘Wytha, have your warriors follow.’

With Katalya at her side, Neave hacked a bloody path across the embattled chamber. Sylvaneth and Chaos-worshippers and raging abominations clashed all around her, fighting with frantic fury and stumbling across a carpet of fresh corpses. All shape had vanished from the battle, leaving a meat-grinder in which there could be only one victor.

As she cut her way through a tendril-lashing abomination and vaulted over its shuddering corpse, Neave caught sight of the burrow-tunnels Katalya had seen. They were puckered, like maggot-holes several feet across that plunged into the wall at ground level. Yet they were a means out of this death-trap. A way to continue her hunt.

‘Move, move!’ yelled Neave, hacking, dodging and leaping as she fought her way towards escape. Dryads and revenants came behind her, talons lashing.

The last few foes were smashed aside. The way stood open.

Neave glanced back to see Wytha’s Treelords bracing themselves against the enemy tide. The Kurnoth Hunters flanked them, blades and bows flickering as they joined the doomed rearguard action. Neave’s eyes met those of Ghyrthael for a moment, and he favoured her with a shockingly human smile. She saw the sadness and the courage there, and vowed that Ungholghott would not go unpunished for the deaths of such valiant warriors.

Then she was plunging into the nearest maggot-hole, Katalya close behind her, and squirming through filth and slime towards whatever lay at the tunnel’s far end.

Victory, she promised herself. No matter what it took, the tunnel would lead her to her first mark, and to victory…

Chapter Fourteen

Neave dragged herself from the tunnel and into the corridor beyond. She rolled up into a fighting crouch, axes ready, slime dripping from her armour. She listened hard, hearing nothing but the exertions of her comrades still scrambling through the tunnels and the dim clangour of battle. Her eyes narrowed as she realised that it came not just through the tunnels, but from somewhere off to the east as well.

Before Neave could analyse the sounds further, Katalya scrambled out of the tunnel at her feet, retching. Neave was concerned at the sallow colour of the girl’s skin, the red weals beginning to rise on her flesh. There was little to be done for it though, not while they still fought through this plague-ridden place. When the fight was done, she promised herself, her first priority would be to secure some kind of purification or healing for Kat, whether from the sylvaneth or, if needs be, from Sigmaron itself.

Wytha emerged from the next tunnel over and more sylvaneth followed. Many of Clan Thyrghael also looked to be sickening in their own strange ways, but this hadn’t dulled the determined hatred in their eyes.

‘Will they follow?’ asked Katalya, coughing into her fist.

‘Perhaps, but it won’t do them any good,’ said Neave. ‘They’ll be forced to scramble through in single file and emerge in a defenceless crawl. Anything stupid enough to do that will be dead on our blades before they finish standing up.’

‘That would be wasted time,’ said Wytha. Checking that the last of the sylvaneth had cleared the tunnels, she brandished her sickle-stave and began a sinister chant that raised Neave’s hackles. She rapped her blade against the wall in time to its cadence, and as she did so whorl runes swirled into being and sank into the stonework. Neave’s magically attuned senses saw the sorcery burrowing like roots through brick and mortar, bone and sinew. There came a sudden percussive thump as Wytha tightened the magical net with a savage tug. The wall shuddered until the tunnels collapsed as one, an eruption of dust bursting from their maws.

‘Effective,’ said Neave, wafting stone-dust away from her face.

‘Expedient,’ replied Wytha. ‘The enemy will waste no time finding another route to us, but we have this moment. The way to the heart of the fortress stands open, child. Will you lead us to it?’

Neave glanced around, assessing the surviving numbers of the sylvaneth warband. ‘We’ve lost at least half of our strength,’ she said.

‘Hard losses to bear, but willing sacrifices all,’ said Wytha, her voice bitter.

‘Wytha, I don’t believe we’re alone here,’ said Neave. ‘Allow me to…’ her voice trailed off as she turned her head and pressed cheek and ear to the wall. She closed her eyes, shutting out the impatient stirrings of the sylvaneth, the laboured thump of Katalya’s heartbeat, the distant sounds of their rearguard meeting a terrible end.

Neave listened to the vibrations through the fortress’ ghastly flesh, the echoes of sounds already spent. She strained her supernatural senses to their limit. She had to be sure.

‘Child, did you not hear what I said?’ demanded Wytha, poking Neave hard in the ribs with her sickle-stave. ‘Now is the time we must strike. Will you not lead the way? Will you not do your duty?’

Neave snapped out a hand and grabbed the end of Wytha’s stave, pushing it gently but firmly away from her. She opened her eyes and turned, a fierce smile on her face.

‘We needn’t fight alone, Wytha. I hear my comrades. I couldn’t mistake those battle-cries even were I lost in a howling hurricane.’

Wytha stared silently at her for long moments, until Neave’s sense of triumph faltered.

‘There’s a mighty force of reinforcements fighting less than a mile to our east. If we link up with them quickly–’

‘If we can reach your comrades. If it is really them. If they will even aid us,’ crooned the Branchwych. ‘No, child. That would be foolishness. We press on for the heart of the fortress, and we invoke the power of the weapon. Once we do that, all else will cease to matter.’

‘You are so determined to unleash this weapon. Why won’t you tell me what exactly it’s going to do?’

‘I have told you, child, and you are wasting precious time with your questions.’

Neave planted her feet and stared hard at the Branchwych, reading every tic and twitch of her body language.

‘Wytha, are any of us going to survive this weapon’s blast?’ asked Neave. ‘Are you willing to throw away the lives of your clan for vengeance?’

‘I would not unleash a weapon upon my own folk!’ hissed Wytha.

‘But you would use it upon mine, wouldn’t you?’ asked Neave, her suspicions confirmed. Everything about Wytha’s voice and posture bespoke defensive hostility. ‘Whatever this device does, non-sylvaneth will not survive it, will they?’ Katalya was staring at Neave with growing horror, and the fear in her eyes was enough to hurt Neave’s heart.

‘It should not matter!’ screeched Wytha. ‘What care have you, who can die and be reforged until the end of time? Or your comrades, these intruding Stormcasts – would they not gladly give their lives to see the end of Ungholghott and all he has wrought? You see how terrible his armies are, his plague weapons and his allies. Such a force cannot be unleashed upon the Jade Kingdoms!’

‘We can be reborn, but Katalya cannot,’ said Neave.

Katalya tried to stand a little taller, despite her ailments.

‘If my death is worthy then Sigmar will–’

‘Do not finish that thought, not now,’ said Neave, her voice as hard as sigmarite.

‘One insignificant being, and a superstitious savage at that,’ spat Wytha, voice dripping contempt. ‘You insisted on bringing her – you led her to her death despite my protestations. Now your facile attachment to her shames you, girl. You are no less a weapon than that which I carry, and I will wield you just as I wield it.’

Neave felt her anger flare at Wytha’s words.

‘I’m more than just a weapon,’ she spat, ‘and my first duty is to the peoples that Sigmar swore to save. I won’t fail those who have already been abandoned once before.’

‘Then instead you will abandon your first duty? Relinquish your first hunt?’ asked Wytha, quivering with anger. ‘You will cast aside the debt you owe, spit upon all that we have given you, and turn your back upon your clan for the sake of a single human life?’

Neave placed a hand firmly upon Katalya’s shoulder, felt the tribesgirl shaking, with fear or illness she couldn’t tell.

‘I will save Katalya as I’ve sworn to do,’ said Neave. ‘I won’t compromise myself for the sake of victory. If we lower ourselves to the level of the Chaos despots who have ravaged these lands, if we lose sight of the value of every single individual life, then we become no better than Ungholghott and his ilk. Come with me, link your forces to the Shadowhammers. I’ll despatch two of my finest to escort Katalya to safety, and then I swear I will fight at your side against any odds. Let us try to find and defeat Ungholghott through conventional means first, then if defeat looks certain the Shadowhammers will gladly face death and Reforging to ensure your clan survives and Ungholghott is destroyed.’

Neave kept her eyes locked with Wytha’s as she spoke, trying to inject as much rationality and passion into her voice as she could, trying to reach the Branchwych. For all Wytha’s manipulations, Neave still felt a strange bond of loyalty to the one who had saved her, raised her, helped her to become a huntress. Try as she might, Neave could not willingly sever that bond.

‘Ungrateful,’ snarled Wytha. ‘I should strike you down, child.’

Neave shifted into a defensive stance, eyeing the massed sylvaneth as they too readied themselves to pounce upon the command of their mistress. Yet Wytha shook her head, and Neave realised that whatever infuriating bond she felt to the Branchwych must be reciprocal.

‘Go, then, flee with your little savage,’ said Wytha, shoulders slumping. ‘It will not be forgotten, that you turned your back upon us on this day. But I will not slay you for it. You must fight your battle, and I must fight mine, even without your aid.’

‘If you attempted to execute me, Wytha, it would be the last battle you ever fought,’ said Neave sternly. ‘Do not make an enemy of me. It would not be wise.’ Wytha gave a snarl of disgust.

‘Run swiftly, Neave of the Black Talons. I will not wait to invoke this weapon’s power, and any still within the fortress when I do will surely feel its touch.’

Neave slung one axe, then reached out and took Katalya by the wrist.

‘Come on, Kat, we need to move. I’ll get you to my comrades, and we’ll get you clear.’

Katalya cast fearful looks at the forest spirits looming on all sides and allowed Neave to pull her away down the corridor. They broke into a run, Neave pulling Katalya along as quickly as she dared. Kat’s feet flew as she struggled to keep up, her breath quickly becoming ragged, but Neave didn’t dare slow. Her last sight of Wytha had convinced her of one thing: the Branchwych would not wait to trigger her weapon.

Tarion drew back his bowstring and loosed an arrow. The shaft whistled along the corridor, striking a Plague Monk in its eye. Snatched backwards by the force of the shot, the rat-man flipped heels over head as he ploughed back into the mass of his fellows. The corpse was lost immediately, buried in the chittering mass of froth-jawed skaven trying to force their way along the passage.

The Shadowhammers occupied the armoury at its far end, and had drawn up in a solid firing line across the wide arched doorway that connected the room with the passage beyond. Corridor and armoury both were fashioned from what looked to be flayed skin stretched over a framework of iron, and this had been set stone-hard with a yellowed resin. Cyst-like growths dangled from the ceilings, giving off a nauseating light that made everything look nightmarish and sickly.

In that awful illumination, the Plague Monks of Clan Feesik resembled a tide of damned souls, boiling relentlessly up the tunnel over the legions of their own fallen dead. Mad red eyes and chisel fangs flashed in profusion, looking to Tarion like they belonged to a single, starving beast of appalling size. It was an unsettling image, and he was forced to focus on each shot he took lest the scale of the enemy force overwhelm him.

‘They’re gaining ground,’ he shouted, loosing arrow after arrow into the mass. Around him, Rangers and Raptors poured stormbolts into the enemy, slowing their approach but not halting it.

‘Damned rabid animals,’ snarled Galyth Hammerfist from his place in the firing line. ‘They should have broken ten times over by now. We’ve killed hundreds!’

‘They must be in the grips of the black hunger, or else out of their minds on some foul concoction or other!’ replied Tarion. ‘They’ll be on us in moments.’

‘Hold the line until the last second!’ roared Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye, who sat astride Shenri at the heart of the armoury. His Vanguard-Palladors surrounded him, their gryph-chargers clawing the ground in their eagerness to fight. ‘Disengage at my command!’

Tarion kept shooting as the enemy drew closer and closer. He heard Krien’s angry screech from somewhere amidst the armoury’s rafters.

‘No, you bloody well stay back there!’ he shouted in response. ‘You’ll get your chance soon enough!’

Chittering, shrieking, clawing and biting madly at one another, the skaven pressed forwards through the hail of fire. Thirty feet away, rancid bodies toppled as bolts tore into them, the swarm undulating like a revolting serpent as more Plague Monks scrambled over the dead to attack.

Closer, the Plague Monks brandished their blades, screeching dark oaths and invocations in a tongue that made Tarion’s ears hurt to hear it.

Closer still, froth sprayed from the eager jaws of rabid rat-men as their bodies surged forward like a slow-motion avalanche of flesh.

‘Now!’ cried Danastus. Even as the wave of skaven crested high and surged into the Stormcast lines, the Rangers leapt back with practised grace. Rat-men screeched as their lunging blades and bared fangs met nothing but air. Their anger was short-lived as fresh hails of bolts peppered them, ripping through flesh and sending lightning coursing through the massed Plague Monks.

Not all the Stormcasts made it clear. Tarion could only watch as Galyth Hammerfist was borne to the ground by a scrum of skaven. His blade flashed and his boltstorm pistol hissed, sending puffs of blood into the air, but it was not enough. Jagged daggers rose and fell maniacally, and the mass of skaven were hurled back by a sudden blast of lightning. Hammerfist’s soul crackled up and away, leaving little but a blackened crater in its wake.

Still, the manoeuvre had drawn the majority of the Shadowhammers clear and sent the skaven charge sprawling into the chamber in disarray. Skaven tripped and fell hard, the pressure from behind driving their fellows to tumble over them in turn, or else trample the fallen into the floor. The vermin scattered into the chamber in all directions, their massed ranks broken and their momentum spent.

‘Charge!’

The Lord-Aquilor and his Palladors surged across the armoury floor. They struck the Plague Monks like a thunderbolt, slaying dozens with their initial impact and sending the skaven masses reeling back down the corridor.

Tarion saw that even this would not be enough to stop their enemies. Already, fresh waves of vermin were flooding into the chamber, spilling around the flanks of the embattled Palladors and braving the hissing fire of the Rangers and Raptors.

Tarion leapt high, spreading his wings as he made the most of the high-ceilinged chamber to take to the air. Krien streaked in, ripping the eyes from a Plague Monk with his talons before banking away and striking again at another. Tarion sent shot after shot into the massed foe, concentrating on keeping them from overwhelming Danastus and his warriors.

‘Sigmar’s hammer, how many more of the monstrosities can there be?’ yelled Tarion.

‘Not enough!’ shouted a familiar voice, and the Knight-Venator felt his heart leap. He glanced back along the length of the armoury. There he saw Neave Blacktalon sprinting towards the fight. He frowned at the sight of an ill-looking tribesgirl clinging piggy-back to Neave’s shoulders, but dismissed his questions for later.

‘Blacktalon!’ he shouted. ‘I owe you a smashed jaw!’

Neave slowed for a moment and allowed the girl to slip from her shoulders before brandishing her axes and breaking into a lightning charge. She shot between the Rangers, raising a fierce cheer from their lines, and slammed into the massed skaven pouring around Danastus’ left flank. Blood sprayed high as Neave’s axes wrought havoc, and skaven corpses flew in all directions.

Tarion laughed fiercely as he watched his old comrade fight. This was the Neave he remembered. The one their enemies rightly feared. Gone was the listlessness, the haunted look that had weighed heavy upon her before she set out on her quest. Already she had slaughtered two dozen Plague Monks and more, and still she pressed forward. Tarion lent his fire to her attack, covering Neave’s assault with the practised ease of warriors who had fought together for years on end. The skaven reeled again.

‘Into them, now, all of you!’ shouted Danastus.

The Palladors windshifted, transforming into blasts of gale-force wind and chain lightning, and streaking back to the heart of the chamber. They rematerialised at a full gallop, driving a fresh charge headlong into the shocked skaven, who had once more been left foundering.

The Rangers loosed one more volley of bolts and then charged, axes and blades at the ready. They slammed into the skaven at the same moment the Palladors’ charge hit home, a solid sigmarite battle-line that drove the skaven back on every front.

Beneath Tarion’s spread wings, the Plague Monks were butchered wholesale. The carnage was spectacular, and nowhere more so than where Neave hacked and leapt, kicked and hewed.

‘They’re breaking!’ he cried. ‘Keep at them. They’re breaking!’

It was true; the skaven were losing their psychotic momentum at last and collapsing into a panicked, fleeing mass. Plague Monks clawed and bit at one another, scrambling over each other and stabbing madly in their panic to get away. A stinking musk rose from their lines as the vermin voided their glands. Tarion’s eyes watered at the pungent reek. Still he kept shooting, looping crackling shots into the scattering foe.

Skaven died in their hundreds. With their cohesion lost and their backs turned, they were easy prey for axe and bolt. Gryph-chargers tossed corpses into the air like ragdolls, beaks clacking viciously and talons raking cloth and flesh. The Shadowhammers punished their attackers mercilessly, exacting a blood price for every Sigmarite warrior who had fallen this day.

A scant few skaven made it back through the archway to flee down the corridor. They were swiftly feathered with bolts, or else fell prey to the blurring axes of Neave Blacktalon.

As the last of the skaven were slain, Tarion looked back at the girl that Neave had brought with her. A feral, he saw, wearing copper vambraces on her arms and bearing tribal tattoos on her flesh. Not tainted, but ailing beneath the plague-ridden touch of the fortress. He swept around and alighted before her, folding in his crystalline wings and holding his hands out open-palmed as she shied fearfully away. Tarion felt a flicker of suspicion towards this mysterious figure, wondering how she had come to be journeying with his comrade, but quickly his protective urge won out. The girl looked young and frightened, and besides, if she was accompanying Neave then he trusted that Blacktalon must have a good reason.

‘Have you not witnessed Sigmar’s Stormcasts in battle before?’ asked Tarion. The girl looked at him without comprehension, blinking in shock at the violence she had just witnessed. ‘What language do you speak?’ he asked slowly. ‘Why are you with Neave?’

‘If she didn’t understand your first question, she’s not going to understand the others either,’ said Neave from beside him. Tarion spun and clapped her on both shoulders with a laugh of pure delight.

‘It is damned good to see you, Blacktalon,’ he said, still laughing. ‘Who in Sigmar’s name is your companion?’

‘This is Katalya of the Mourne tribe,’ said Neave. ‘It is a longer tale than I have time to tell at this moment, but she’s under my care. I swore an oath to her safety.’

‘You could not have brought her to a more dangerous place, in that case. This fortress is a thing of nightmares.’

‘How did the chamber come to this place?’ asked Neave.

‘We followed you. After you cold-cocked me as thanks for finding you a trail, the Lord-Aquilor wasted no time in declaring our mission to have altered and beginning the hunt for you.’

‘Sigmar’s hammer, I did not mean for the entire chamber to forsake their duty.’

‘Once he knew what was going on, Danastus insisted it took precedence over mopping up the last of the Gor-kin,’ said Tarion. ‘We marked their positions on the cartographs and sent messengers back to Azyr. By now, that region will have enough Knights Excelsior in it that anything bigger than a blade of grass will probably be dead three times over.’

‘I hoped that you might follow me into the forest,’ said Neave. ‘By that point, I’d already realised that you, at least, were pursuing me.’

‘The enchantments around that dark woodland were too well woven,’ said Tarion. ‘I’ve no idea how you even penetrated its eaves. We tried three times to cross the forest’s border, and every time found ourselves back in the swamp, facing the wrong damn way. No, the Lord-Aquilor determined that once you vanished into the woods, there was nothing more we could do for you without triggering a full-scale incident by trespassing upon the sacred lands of Sigmar’s allies.’

‘Then what led you here?’ asked Neave.

‘Chaos,’ said Tarion simply. ‘We sensed the taint of this place clear as day, and the Lord-Aquilor identified it as a threat deserving of our immediate attention. I think he was half expecting that, if you survived whatever fate awaited you in the forest, our paths would converge with yours here anyway. Whatever despotic Chaos champion rules such a vast and horrible place, it seemed a not unreasonable assumption that you might be on the hunt for them if you still lived. If not, you’d have been in the custody of the Sacrosanct Chambers by now, and there would be nothing further we could do for you anyway.’

As he spoke, Tarion looked searchingly at Neave. Did you find what you sought? his gaze asked. Neave nodded slightly and twitched a finger. Later, said the gesture. Yes, but… later.

Neave turned and said something to Katalya in a dialect that Tarion didn’t know. The girl replied nervously, coughing into her fist. Neave nodded in reply, and turned back to Tarion.

‘Whatever the reasons, I’m glad you’re here,’ she said. ‘There’s more than one threat here, and little enough time to deal with them.’

‘Tell him,’ said Tarion, directing his gaze over Neave’s shoulder. She turned in time to see the Lord-Aquilor swinging down from his saddle. Armour gore-splattered, cloak tattered, Danastus still radiated stern authority as he strode up to Neave and Tarion. Both warriors saluted their commander, and Neave dropped to one knee, head bowed.

‘Neave Blacktalon, you deserted your post,’ he said, his voice as hard and sharp as a blade striking steel. Neave could hear her lord’s anger there, leashed tight to his will and straining to break free. Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye had never needed to shout in order to convey his extreme displeasure. ‘If this were a typical Warrior Chamber then this conversation would go no further. I would not listen to any reasoning you might have for your actions, and would simply pronounce and enact your sentence at once. However, we are Vanguard, and I trust each and every warrior under my command to act upon their best instincts at all times. That is the reason I am giving you an opportunity to explain yourself, and why I have not yet ordered you to relinquish your weapons.’

‘Respectfully, my lord, I will explain everything to you and submit to whatever judgement you deem fit. But greater matters weigh upon us,’ said Neave. She pressed on before Danastus could reply. ‘The sylvaneth are here, my lord, and they have a weapon that is going to annihilate everything within this fortress except for them. I asked them to hold off on its use, at least until I could have Katalya here taken to a safe remove. I swore to protect her, my lord. But the sylvaneth are hell-bent upon invoking its power the moment they can. They’re fighting their way towards the fortress’ heart to do that even now. I was meant to be leading them, and I hope that my absence will slow their progress somewhat, but even so, we don’t have long. I know that I transgressed by abandoning my post, and I’ll submit to whatever censure I’m due. But please, before that, I request leave to have Katalya escorted to safety, and to fight at your side to hunt down Lord Ungholghott before the sylvaneth trigger their device.’

She saw the questions in Danastus’ eyes, but she also saw something else there that filled her with gratitude. Trust, instant and unquestioning.

‘An account of your actions and an explanation of your whereabouts can wait then,’ he said. ‘But, Neave, this duty is yours. You swore an oath, and none of us can fulfil it. Besides which, you are swifter by far than any warrior here. Whatever this girl is to you, if you wish her spirited away to safety, you will have to do this yourself.’

Neave blinked. Of all the responses Danastus might have given her, this was not what she had expected. She could feel the presence of her first mark, lurking somewhere deeper within the fortress, not far now from where she stood. Her huntress’ nature burned with the desire to run him to ground, to take vengeance for all the lives he had taken and the horror he had caused, to slay him for Sigmar, and for Wytha, and for herself.

Yet as she looked at Katalya, standing shaking and wide-eyed but as determined as ever, Neave recalled every word she had said to Wytha. She truly was more than a weapon, more than either the sylvaneth or Sigmar had made her to be. She had been blessed with the gift of life eternal; she had surely to use that for more than just spreading death.

‘Tarion,’ she said.

‘Neave,’ he replied, expression deadly serious.

‘As far as I can sense it, the Chaos despot who rules this fortress, Ungholghott, is less than half a mile due north of here through the fortress,’ she said. ‘I believe that he’s on this level, more or less. I’ve a vague impression of a huge space, some massive chamber with a lot of air-vibrations and echoes marking it out. I think he’s there, or thereabouts. I entrust my hunt to you, old comrade. Please do me the honour of slaying this mark, while I take Katalya to safety.’

‘What are you saying?’ asked Kat. ‘What is happening, Neave? Are they going to send someone with me? They don’t have to waste the warriors – I can fight my own way out. Or I can stay, and make sure the swamp king dies before I do.’

Neave ignored Katalya, keeping her gaze level with Tarion’s.

‘Please do this for me,’ she said.

Tarion bowed. ‘Of course, it is my honour.’

‘If we can reach the sylvaneth and prevent their use of the weapon, so much the better,’ said Danastus. ‘If not, we will ensure the death of this Ungholghott and then retreat with all haste. Any warriors who must face Reforging when the sylvaneth weapon is used will gladly pay the price for victory.’

‘I can but thank you both for this,’ said Neave.

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ said the Lord-Aquilor. ‘You and I still have a very long conversation ahead of us, and I believe you will find it uncomfortable. But for now, go with the grace of Sigmar.’

Neave saluted and turned to Katalya.

‘Climb on my back,’ she said, seeing the stubborn look creep back into Kat’s eyes as she realised what was happening. ‘Remember, you swore to obey my commands.’

‘Does not mean I have to like them,’ said Katalya, wrapping her arms around Neave’s neck and coiling her legs about her waist as best she could. Neave hefted the girl easily onto her back.

‘I know, Kat,’ said Neave. ‘None of us have to like our orders, but we do have to follow them.’

‘Thank you,’ said Katalya in a small voice, right in Neave’s ear. Neave reached back with one hand and clasped one of Katalya’s for a moment. Then she hefted her axes and readied herself for a desperate sprint.

‘Hold tight and don’t let go,’ she said, and with that, Neave broke into a lightning-fast run, praying to Sigmar as she went that she would outrun Wytha’s weapon.

Chapter Fifteen

Wytha swung her sickle-stave into the face of a goggle-wearing Chaos cultist. The weapon hit him in the jaw and ripped it away. He reeled back, tongue lolling grotesquely. Wytha swung the heel of her stave up and slammed it into the wound, relishing her enemy’s agonised gurgle as she shoved him off his feet.

The Branchwych stepped over her fallen victim and cast a quick look around. The sylvaneth had swept through a chamber above a spiralling brass stairwell, and swiftly butchered the few Chaos-worshippers that rushed to stop them. Wytha relished the violence, even though part of her knew that each such encounter was a delay she could ill afford. Still, she couldn’t help but inflict as much pain as possible on those that got in her way. It was that or scream out loud with frustration and rage.

In truth, she had done that too, more than once.

Wytha sent an imperative note swelling through the spirit song, colouring it with shades of urgency and stealth. A band of dryads swept forward in response, flowing down the stairs with eerie grace. A moment later their harmonies flowed back to her, confirming safe passage and conveying respect and deference. She responded with an impatient gesture to the rest of her followers. What remained of Clan Thyrghael advanced, and Wytha followed.

Ithary fell into step beside her mistress, shooting a sly glance at her. Wytha felt her handmaiden’s emotions bleeding through the spirit song, and they stung her temper.

‘This is about more than petty rivalry, foolspite,’ hissed Wytha. ‘You are no fit replacement for Blacktalon, and you will not take her place. You are self-satisfied and vindictive, and if it were not for your skill as a sorceress I would cast your short-sighted deadwood aside. You know what rests on this endeavour.’

‘Your desire for her is but carvings wast’d upon rott’d wood,’ sang Ithary. ‘Storm’s lash and drifting ash be all that endures of her Heartwood’s ruin.’

‘Think you know better, do you?’ asked Wytha. ‘This is why you will never be more than you are. You mistake arrogance for wisdom, and venom for strength.’

‘She a’ways has skipped, I herestand times-by-times beside you,’ said Ithary.

‘That she has, and that you do. But this has gone awry. She should have been at the heart of it. She should have invoked the weapon by her own hand, willing as you would be to do so. But her role in this has been set askew.’

‘Thunder’s lord?’

‘No, this is the fault of the savage. A chance encounter, something that couldn’t be foreseen. She stirred something within that girl that would have best remained buried. I should have arranged for an accident to befall her on our march, perhaps? But no, the damage was done before she even reached us. The savage’s demise would only have placed suspicion upon us and driven my girl away the faster. If only one of these fumbling Chaos-slugs could have stuck a yard or two of iron through her fleshy little neck.’

‘A-sundered, the roots dividen?’ asked Ithary, as the two of them reached the bottom of the stairway. Beyond, Wytha saw a grand hallway down which marched columns of worm-gnawed bone. Huge double doors stood at its far end, inscribed in verdigrised iron with the tri-lobe of Nurgle. A warband of Blightkings stood before the doors, brandishing maces and axes.

‘No, my handmaiden, not yet,’ said Wytha. ‘This is a song long in the composition, and it shall be sung, however willing or not are those who perform. One note may quaver, but another swells strong and true. Let us set in motion that which we came to do, and let me worry about how to rein in my wayward girl.’

Ithary hissed with feral delight and flowed down the hallway. More than a hundred forest spirits surged in her wake, and Wytha let them go.

‘The young can sate their lust for blood upon their roots, and glut themselves upon the now,’ she crooned, sliding the weapon from its bag and turning it over in her talons. Eldritch light glowed from within, and played across her dark barkskin. ‘Let older and wiser beings dictate the fate of tomorrow, and all the seasons henceforth.’

Ithary drove her enemy back, stabbing and needling with her barbed tendrils. Inch-long thorns punched between armour plates to sting at his flesh, rake his eyes and tear gobbets of meat from his body.

The Branchwraith keened with the simple glee of doing violence to another living thing. She prided herself on her infinite spite for the fleshed beings of the realms, channelling her disgust at their lumpen forms, their fluid-filled bodies and clumsy words, their idiot craftings and pathetically short lives. To Ithary, those not of the sylvaneth race were playthings at best and vermin at worst, and she felt nothing but pleasure at their suffering.

The Blightking rallied, sweeping his axe up through her tendrils and severing a thicket of them. Ithary hissed and coiled away, pushing an imperious command out through the spirit song to the sylvaneth around her. Dryads answered her call, dutifully lunging between Ithary and her foe. One of them paid with her life, the huge axe thudding into her body and bisecting her face and chest. Bloodsap sprayed, but Ithary saw that her enemy’s weapon was stuck fast in the dryad’s twitching body.

Swatting aside a droning cloud of flies, Ithary lunged around the dying dryad. As she went she wove her tendrils together with fearsome speed, coiling them into thick braids tipped with bristling nests of thorns. These she thrust forward with all her might, punching them through the faceplate of her enemy’s helm and then through his eye-sockets into the brainflesh behind. The Blightking was propelled backwards, crashing into the double doors hard enough to toll them like a bell.

Ithary ripped her thorned tendrils free and threw back her head with a screech of victory. She whipped around, looking for more victims to butcher, but the Blightkings were all corpsemeat. Lips twisted into a moue of disappointment, Ithary looked to Wytha.

‘Open’d the way, yet seal’d the portal,’ she said, sending her black tongue slithering out to lick polluted blood from her cheek.

‘Vile wraith, step aside,’ said Wytha, striding up to the doors with her stave held high. ‘And don’t sup on their blood, sapling, you don’t know what pollutes it.’

Wytha swept her arms wide and Ithary felt the tingling magics of Ghyran rise around her as her mistress went to work. She began a whispering chant, jagged wooden fangs grinding together over the words. Two other Branchwraiths remained beside her, Khaegh and Rhyssyth, and both followed Ithary’s lead in bolstering their mistress’ magics.

Their sorcerous call flowed down, through the corrupted flesh and bone and plundered stone of the fortress. Further, penetrating the silt and muck of the swamp, the tortured soil below it, down to where the pulsating realmroots cut through the bedrock. Those roots were the purview of the sylvaneth, and the sylvaneth alone. Only Alarielle’s children could draw upon their power, or flow into their magical currents to travel or speak over the vast distances they crossed. And only the sylvaneth could summon the realmroots forth, when needs truly must.

The hallway shuddered. Something gave a deep, tectonic groan. Ithary’s chant grew faster, more frenzied, until her fangs slit her lips and caused her own dark bloodsap to drizzle down her chin. She whirled in circles, tendrils lashing, wild with glee.

Stone split and rotted bone erupted, spraying upwards and pushing forest spirits back as glowing realmroots drove up from below. They were huge, thick as several tree-trunks twined together, and they glowed a deep jade with the magic of the Realm of Life.

Wytha’s voice soared to a piercing screech, and she brandished her stave at the doors. The realmroots did as bidden, rearing back then lashing forward like striking snakes. One concerted impact was all it took to stave in the massive doors. Torn from their hinges, buckled inwards as though kicked by an angry god, they crashed down and skidded away, trailing fat sparks as they slowed to a stop.

Wytha staggered and leaned heavily on her stave. Ithary felt the sudden weight of the enchantments they had wrought crashing down upon her and her sisters. All three Branchwraiths let go of their spell as though releasing the end of a blazing brand, recoiling with shrieks of pain and shock. The realmroots shuddered, then withdrew, coiling slowly back down into the depths and leaving a ragged pit in their wake.

Wytha gestured to the huge chamber that lay beyond the sundered doors.

‘Onwards, to an ending of this sorry tale,’ she said, and Ithary hissed with glee at the thought of the slaughter they were about to unleash.

Wytha clutched her stave tight, and the weapon tighter still. Her bloodsap ran hot and sluggish with the aftermath of the magics she had unleashed, and the grubs that clung to her body waved their heads in idiot agitation.

Breath rasping, she sang to one of the ensorcelled insects until it squirmed up her chin and pushed its head between her jaws. Wytha bit down, puncturing the thing’s thick skin, and hot magical juices squirted into her throat. She drank the grub’s essence, feeling it restoring her vitality even as the creature’s stubby legs contracted and its body drained to a flaccid grey sac. Wytha let the grub fall, peeling away from her barkflesh to splat on the floor. She stepped over it, whorl-runes glowing bright across her body again. Now she was ready for the ritual that lay before her.

Never mind that the child had failed her in this. Wytha knew that their dealings were far from done, and in the meanwhile, this was a pleasure she would take for herself.

Wytha stepped across the threshold and into the heart of Lord Ungholghott’s fortress. To her surprise, his sanctum was not some huge laboratory or trophy-stacked war room. Instead, she found herself staring into a truly immense library.

The chamber had to be several thousand yards from wall to wall. Huge stone bridges stretched out, from the door Wytha stood at and several others besides, to converge at the chamber’s heart. There they formed a platform that stood atop a bone plinth, which itself vanished down into the dark pit that was the chamber’s only other floor. How deep that pit went, Wytha could not have said, but the walls on every side of it were made up entirely of bookshelves. Iron platforms and gantries crawled across them, spreading up from the pit’s depths like some strange creeping plant-life and stretching precariously across the void to connect to the central dais. From where she stood, Wytha could see that the nearest bookshelves were crammed with mouldering scrolls and rotting books, tomes bound in flesh and covered in swivelling eyes, grimoires whose fleshy hides boasted ripe buboes ready to burst, and countless other volumes. She had no reason to believe that any of the other myriad shelves were any different, and for a moment Wytha’s mind rebelled at the thought of just how much knowledge must be concentrated in this place. All of it foul, she thought with horror, all of it tainted by Chaos and turned to evil and ruin.

The chamber’s walls towered up and up, tapering slowly into a cone shape that defied logic and left entire shelves of books hanging precariously, hundreds of feet above any obvious way to reach them. Above, capping the chamber like a staring eye, was a massive dome of amber-hued glass. It was veined with black mould and displayed the tri-lobe sigil of Nurgle wrought in vast glass pustules.

‘This is a place of incalculable evil,’ breathed Wytha. ‘We do Alarielle’s work in destroying this aberration. Come, my spirits. To the dais!’

Surely, reasoned Wytha, that huge stone platform must be the very heart of Lord Ungholghott’s fastness. What better place to invoke the weapon? As she marched down the walkway towards the chamber’s heart, Wytha saw the dais supported an entire alchemical laboratory, several ironclad surgical slabs festooned with horrible looking instruments, map tables, weapons racks and many other affectations.

‘Our enemy’s true sanctum,’ she said to Ithary, Khaegh and Rhyssyth. ‘Poetic, that we shall bring him to ruin from the place he takes his rest.’

‘Echoes plentiful are there, yet watch’n eyes and ready blades a-few,’ sang Ithary. ‘Wherefore stand the sentynl’s?’

‘We have beaten our enemy to the killing blow,’ said Wytha. ‘It is as was foreseen. If we move swift and true with our purpose–’

‘Then you shall deliver your fascinating weapon straight into my waiting hand,’ boomed a deep voice that echoed through the library stacks. ‘Your arrogance astounds me, old stump, but only marginally more than your perpetual stupidity.’

Wytha hissed, casting about for the source of the voice.

‘Beware shadeswards,’ said Ithary, glancing behind them. Beyond the toppled metal doors, the archway was now packed with Blightkings, dozens more than they had slain in their first attack. A hulking monster of a warrior stood at their head, hefting a cleaver taller than a dryad.

‘More upon the walkways,’ said Rhyssyth, pointing to where warbands of Nurgle worshippers had flowed in through the chamber’s other doorways. They were already on the move, clattering along the gantryways and marching down the stone bridges to bring their forces to bear. The drone of huge insect wings filled the air as, rising from the pit, came a swarm of flies the size of dray horses. Sat astride each of the revolting daemon insects was a champion of Nurgle, scythes in their bloated hands and horned helms sitting atop their festering heads.

Khaegh sent a wordless crescendo of alarm through the spirit song, and began a rasping chant to gather her magics.

Wytha looked up with grim resignation to where a huge shape moved against the light of the glass dome. Coiling from atop one of the towering bookcases came a monstrous hybrid beast, half dragon, half fly. It launched itself heavily towards them and the low drone of its immense wings filled the air as it descended. Wytha saw Ungholghott’s rotten form sat astride the fly-dragon’s saddle. Even at such a distance, she felt his septic yellow gaze lock with her own.

‘These things are no use for flesh, but they have something I desire,’ cried Ungholghott, his voice amplified unnaturally to echo through the chamber like thunder. ‘Slay them all for the glory of Nurgle and bring me the weapon their Branchwych bears. A boon of greater poxes for the champion who does my will!’

With that, Ungholghott steered his monstrous steed into a steep dive, the swarms of fly riders rose from the pit, and the warbands upon the causeways and gantries gave a great roar of glee. Wytha felt hope withering in her breast as she looked upon the odds arrayed against her, but still her hate and her faith burned cold within.

‘We may not live to see the end of this, my kin, but it will end as was foreseen,’ she snarled. ‘Forward to the dais. Clear me a path, and let nothing give you pause!’

The last warriors of Clan Thyrghael raised a keening war cry, and surged down the bridge towards the distant dais with their talons and blades lashing.

Tarion stalked down a fleshy corridor, eyes darting across the tangle of sylvaneth and Rotbringer dead that strewed its floor. He tried and failed to ignore the mats of pseudopods that had slithered from the meat-floor to suckle at the corpses’ fluids.

A light flared ahead of him, resolving from the gloom into the shape of Krien, winging swiftly back to him. The star eagle alighted on Tarion’s forearm and gave a string of screeches and beak-clacks.

‘Foes ahead,’ called Tarion over his shoulder. ‘We’re nearing the heart of the fortress.’

‘Sigmar’s hammer, you’d bloody hope so!’ grumbled Karias Wintercrest, leading his Rangers up the passage behind Tarion. ‘How big is this damned fortress? What possible use is a stronghold so vast that you can lose invaders in it entirely?’

‘Never question the madness of Chaos, sir,’ said Elorra Fireshot from behind him. ‘That way lies madness of your own.’

‘And never quote my own damn lessons back at me,’ replied Wintercrest. ‘Even if they are quite right…’

‘Wintercrest, send messages to the other brotherhoods,’ said Tarion. ‘Krien and I will push ahead and find a staging post for you all to gather on.’

‘Take my aether-compass,’ said Wintercrest, tossing the arcane mechanism to Tarion, who caught it neatly out of the air. ‘We’ll converge on its resonance.’

‘Wise thinking,’ said Tarion. ‘See you on the battleline, Ranger-Prime.’

Wintercrest offered Tarion a warrior salute, then turned back to his Rangers, issuing swift orders for them to divide up and locate the other probing forces who were hunting for the fortress’ heart. Tarion ran up the passageway, Krien leaping from his shoulder to streak ahead. He followed the star eagle’s light, hearing now for himself the distant clangour of battle up ahead.

‘Sigmar, let us not be too late,’ prayed Tarion as he ran. ‘And allow Neave to escape in time.’

Neave sprinted as fast as she dared, though it was not nearly as fast as she would have liked. Katalya clung to her back with desperate tenacity, but the girl’s strength was beginning to fail as the contagions of the fortress gnawed at her spirit.

The Stormcast Eternal clattered down a brass stairway and into a long, low-ceilinged chamber that reeked of unwashed bodies. In the yellow light of vile globes, Neave saw the rudimentary living quarters of Ungholghott’s cultists spread out before her. There were hundreds upon hundreds of festering bedrolls, racks for weapons and armour, dirty cookfires peppered with human bones, and a strew of filth and detritus that stretched away in drifts to the chamber’s distant walls. The entire space stirred with the drone of flies, and squirmed with a carpet of beetles, worms, maggots and scurrying vermin.

Katalya gagged.

‘By Dracothion’s blazing maw, how can any living thing exist amidst such stench?’ exclaimed Neave in revulsion. She saw the exit from this chamber, distant against the far wall, and set off towards it at a run.

‘Neave…’ coughed Katalya.

‘I see them, Kat,’ said Neave. ‘Just hang on.’

Shapes stirred amongst the filth and ruin. Neave had sensed their presence the moment she entered the chamber, the reek of their bodies and the irregular thump of their diseased hearts. Evidently, not all of Ungholghott’s cultists had answered his summons to battle. She estimated more than a hundred foes were rising to their feet as they registered her arrival – a thin scatter of enemies across such a huge chamber, and many of them wounded or sickly, but still more than enough to slow her flight if she let them.

Neave knew that she couldn’t afford that. She dug into her reserves of stamina and ran hard for the far archway, which drew closer by the moment. A trio of ragged warriors rose from their smouldering cookfire directly in her path, hefting rusted weapons as they saw her coming. Neave feinted right then lunged left, throwing her already-surprised enemies off balance. Her axes took the head of one and the arm of another and then she was past. She heard a whickering and dodged, prompting a yelp from Katalya as she was almost flung aside. A hatchet spun through the air, flung by the last cultist, and sailed over Neave’s shoulder.

More cultists were massing. Many wore the goggles and aprons Neave had seen already, while others were garbed in mouldering robes and clutched ritual daggers in their leper’s hands. She ignored the ones running from the far corners of the chamber, for they had no hope of reaching her in time. Those with the most self-possession, however, had realised her intent and rushed to block the exit. Already, Neave could see twenty of them massed between her and freedom, with more hobbling and lurching as fast as they could to join the blockade.

‘How will we get past them?’ cried Katalya.

‘By blood,’ said Neave. ‘Just hold on as tight as you can. This will be rough.’

Neave accelerated, axes swept out to either side. Her enemies’ eyes widened as they saw her intent, those in the front rank backing into those behind with alarmed cries. They brandished their weapons and tried to brace themselves for her impact.

Just before she struck their lines, Neave leapt, driving her knee into the chest of the closest cultist. His ribs shattered and a bloody rush of air burst from his mouth as she drove him backwards into his comrades. Her axes scythed through the Chaos-worshippers to either side and sent more gore showering into the air. Neave hit hard enough to drive deep into the cultists’ mass, but their bodies were bloated with corruption and pressed together in a crowd. They absorbed Neave’s charge at a cost in lives, and then surged in on her from all sides.

Fists and feet lashed in at her. Daggers struck sparks from Neave’s armour. Conscious of the vulnerable girl clinging to her back, Neave kept turning, kept putting herself between her attackers and Katalya’s fur-clad body. Still, she heard Katalya cry out as an enemy’s blade found her flesh, felt the tribesgirl’s grip almost falter as she spasmed in pain. Neave swung her axes as best she could, smashing their hafts into faces and ripping their blades through guts and chests, but the cultists were so close and so compacted they began to pin her arms. Faces leered, goggles reflecting warped parodies of her furious expression. The mob howled and screamed with one voice, terrified of her but also exultant at the thought they might manage to overwhelm this Sigmarite warrior.

Neave managed to kick the legs out from under another enemy, feeling satisfaction as she heard his bones crunch beneath the feet of his comrades. She smacked the head of one of her axes into the teeth of another cultist, stoving his face in and sending him staggering back. She hissed as a dagger found its way through a chink in her armour and drove into her midriff. A wild punch caught her square in the jaw, rocking her head back, and with a snarl Neave returned the favour with a head-butt that drove her attacker to the floor.

A sudden weight vanished from Neave’s back and her eyes widened in horror.

‘Kat,’ she cried, smashing her nearest assailants back and spinning around. For a dreadful moment, Neave expected to see Katalya fallen, slain by cultists she could not avoid. Instead, Neave turned in time to see the tribesgirl slam her forearms together and scream out a wordless war-cry. A ferocious shockwave of jade energies burst from Katalya’s vambraces and blasted the cultists and Neave alike from their feet.

Neave hit the ground and rolled, before coming up in a skidding crouch. She launched herself back towards Katalya. Those closest to the girl burned with jade fire, screaming and writhing as their flesh crisped and their eyes boiled away. A strange scent rose from their burning bodies, sweet and acrid like herbal incense that covered the stench of something fouler. The rest writhed on the ground as they attempted to recover their wits.

Neave reached Katalya’s side in an instant, expecting her to be weak. She drew up in surprise as Kat turned, pale but grinning, with the stigmata of Nurgle’s plagues partially faded from her flesh.

‘What in the realms?’ asked Neave.

‘Mourne tribe take our magic from the lands, put them into our fists,’ said Katalya. ‘I guess the lands are more powerful than Nurgle?’

‘Raw life-magic channelled through your vambraces,’ breathed Neave. ‘I feared this place would kill you. But with those on your arms and Sigmar’s grace…’ The warrior drew a deep breath, steadying her thumping heart. ‘Come, they won’t stay down for long. We need to move.’

Neave punctuated her sentence by stamping hard on the throat of a groaning cultist who was trying to crawl to his feet. Katalya took her cue and, after shaking out her aching arms, she clambered back onto Neave’s back. Neave was away at once, picking a swift path between her fallen foes and surging through the archway into another corridor.

‘I can smell clearer air ahead,’ she called back to Katalya, ‘and I can sense open space. We’ll get you out of here soon, Kat, you’ve my word.’

Yet even as she ran, Neave prayed to Sigmar with all her might not to feel the sudden surge of magical energies that she feared at her back. Not until she had taken Katalya away from this awful place. Not until she had fulfilled her oath.

Please, Lord Sigmar, she thought. Let me suffer if I must, but not her. She has a chance at a life I did not, and she has faced all of this horror without any of the gifts that you have given me. Please, let her live.

Some presentiment of danger prickled Neave’s sixth sense. The ominous feeling swept over her that she did not have long left. Heart hammering, she ran faster.

The Shadowhammers burst into Lord Ungholghott’s inner sanctum with a mighty cry. Tarion charged with them, pelting through a puckered bone archway and launching himself airborne with a roar. Krien screeched as he swept alongside, while at Tarion’s heels Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye thundered in at the head of his surviving Palladors. They stormed along a wide stone bridge, with the Ranger and Raptor brotherhoods sprinting in their wake.

Sweeping high, Tarion swiftly took in the desperate battle filling the chamber. His heart sank at the carnage he saw.

The vast library seethed with Rotbringers, from screaming cultists and bellowing Blightkings to fly-borne elites and the revolting abominations of Lord Ungholghott’s fleshcraft. Worse, the Chaos sorcerer himself swept back and forth through the air astride an immense hybrid of fly and dragon, whose distended maw vomited jets of acidic filth down upon the fight below.

Tarion saw what remained of the Dreadwood sylvaneth. They were terribly outnumbered but fighting fiercely near the chamber’s heart. He scoped the area and gauged that they had been driving for the dais where the stone bridges converged, but their momentum had failed them several hundred yards short. Now they fought in a slowly constricting ring, their dead piled around them, while the servants of Nurgle attacked from the air, from both sides along the stone bridgeway, and even by leaping at them from the nearest gantries.

He got a split-second view of the Branchwych who stood at the circle’s heart, screaming furious exhortations and brandishing a glowing metal canister. Then fly-mounted Blightlords were thrumming down towards him, and Tarion joined the fight.

He wove aside as the lead Blightlord hurtled in, swinging his scythe in a deranged aerial joust. The huge blade cut the air near to Tarion’s head and shattered several vanes in his left wing. In return, he shot six arrows into the rider and another three into his steed.

The blistering point-blank salvo sent the fly-rider toppling from his saddle with lightning coursing across his bloated body; his rot-fly steed followed him down, wings still thrumming and legs twitching in a mad dance of death.

Tarion shot the next Blightlord through the shoulder, rocking him in his saddle, before tucking his wings and plummeting like a stone to evade the attack of the third. He saw too late that this last opponent had a huge bell trailing on a chain driven into his steed’s abdomen. The blunt lump of metal struck Tarion a glancing blow in the ribs, tolling with a flat clang as it rang off his armour.

Tarion’s controlled fall turned into a tumble as the impact hurled him sideways. He slammed into a library stack with bone-crushing force. Ruined tomes and shredded scrolls rained down as he scrambled for purchase, eventually managing to grab onto the mouldering shelves with his free hand.

With a groan of effort, Tarion dragged a lungful of air into his bruised chest. He could feel ribs grinding together where the bell had struck him, and his armour was dented and crackling with lightning. He looked up to see the two remaining fly-riders circling back around for another pass, their flight erratic and wobbling as they brandished their scythes above their heads.

‘By rotsom slop and ruinous grue, Grandfather shall sup upon your soul!’ yelled one of them.

Krien came from nowhere, a blazing projectile that struck the lead Blightlord in the face. The impact smashed the surprised Chaos worshipper from his saddle and sent him tumbling like a fleshy boulder into the abyss below. Krien gave a fierce cry as he streaked away, and Tarion let out a laugh before launching himself airborne again.

‘In Sigmar’s name, I shall add your sundered carcass to the tally of your foul kin,’ he yelled at the remaining fly-rider. His enemy heard him and shook his scythe menacingly, turning his steed and droning in towards Tarion with his wrecking-bell swinging. ‘No, not falling for that twice,’ said Tarion. He powered upwards, magical updrafts surging through his wings and propelling him over his enemy’s head. At the same time he drew and loosed, drew and loosed, drew and loosed, raining crackling arrows onto the Blightlord and his revolting steed.

Impaled and shuddering with electrical current, the rider and fly plunged away into the abyss, still glowing with the light of Sigmar’s vengeance. Tarion spat after him, then turned his attention to the battle again.

Danastus led the Shadowhammers’ charge home, slamming into the rear of a surprised enemy warband with the force of a raging typhoon. Even as they stormed into battle, a number of his Palladors windshifted with expert skill and precision. They flickered into streaks of lightning and gale-force wind, before reappearing on parallel bridgeways to slam into enemies who had thought themselves safe. Nurgle-worshippers screamed as they plummeted into the abyss below. Others were mauled, their bloodied corpses crushed into the stonework by the gryph-chargers’ lithe bulk.

The momentum of the charge was phenomenal, and Rotbringers spilled from the bridges like a fleshy bow-wave as the Lord-Aquilor and his warriors forged multiple paths towards the beleaguered sylvaneth. Behind them, Ranger and Raptor brotherhoods dropped into firing crouches and sent hissing volleys of stormbolts into the Chaos forces. Cultists and Blightkings who had been scrambling across the gantries were peppered with shots, toppling over railings to their doom or slumping in carrion heaps upon the teetering metal frameworks. Aetherwings shot through the air, calling back to their Stormcast comrades in eerily human voices to warn of threats and direct volleys of fire.

The foe reeled, but Tarion could see their full numbers, and knew that they outnumbered the Stormcast and sylvaneth combined, several times over. The foe would not be on the back foot for long.

He dipped his wings and swept low, sending volleys of lightning arrows into the enemy as he flew. Crackling blasts flowed in his wake, marching along the nearest of the bridges and blasting foes from their feet. Tarion soared in above Danastus, Gallahearn Ironstrike and Kalparius Foerunner, matching their pace. Skimming above the charging Palladors, he sent arrow after arrow whistling down to shred the tightly packed enemy and aid his lord’s charge.

‘What are your orders?’ yelled Tarion as he shot.

‘This is not a viable conflict – it can’t be salvaged without the sylvaneth weapon,’ replied Danastus, slamming his blade through the chest of his next enemy and riding them into the ground. The charge was slowing, Tarion saw, as the tight-packed ranks of the foe absorbed its momentum. Abominations bulled through the press of bodies to reach for the Stormcasts with stitch-ridden limbs. The Shadowhammers had reached maybe three-quarters of the way to the sylvaneth, but it was not enough.

‘We facilitate its invocation, then?’ asked Tarion.

‘We do,’ said Danastus. Shenri reared with an angry shriek as a rusted speartip stabbed through her breastbone. The gryph-charger wrenched the weapon from its attacker’s hands and flicked it aside before ripping off the luckless cultist’s head. Still, Danastus’ steed staggered as her fore-claws came back down. ‘And we do so quickly, before we lose our chance,’ finished the Lord-Aquilor.

‘Understood, my lord,’ said Tarion.

‘Until we meet beyond the anvils,’ cried Danastus, then drove forward into the enemy with a snarl. To his right, Foerunner took a thunderous axe-blow to the midriff and toppled from his saddle, flashing into lightning before he even hit the floor. His charger screeched in fury and laid into the enemy, blood flying.

Tarion soared upwards and turned for the beleaguered sylvaneth.

‘Brothers, sisters, all who can, follow me and lend me your fury!’ shouted Tarion as he flew. Rangers ran and leapt, braving the hungry abyss as they hurled themselves onto nearby gantries. Most of them made it, clanging along the rusted metal to flank the enemy warbands and charge towards the sylvaneth position. Several Palladors windshifted in Tarion’s wake, crackling away from their enemies and arcing upwards.

Tarion looked up as a monstrous thrumming filled the air. He paled as he saw the vast bulk of Ungholghott’s fly-dragon swooping down towards him, its enormity blocking out the light from above. The drone of its many wings was so low that it shuddered in his chest, causing his broken ribs to jar painfully together. Tarion caught a glimpse of Ungholghott sitting high in his saddle, his yellow-eyed gaze imperious. Then the monster’s over-stuffed snout bulged and spread open like an obscene flower. A pressurised jet of digestive filth spewed forth.

Tarion barrel-rolled desperately. Tucking his wings in, he dropped perilously close to the bridge and the massed warriors that fought upon it. The stinking jet missed him by inches, splattering instead across Rotbringers and Stormcast alike. Screams of agony rose amidst the sizzle of flesh and armour as the spew ate its way through everything it touched. A reeking backdraft buffeted Tarion as Ungholghott and his monster swept past.

Tarion rose again and saw with horror that Danastus and his warriors were gone, along with most of those they had fought and a good portion of the bridge itself. Grim-faced, he flew on, sweeping over the last few foes and dropping into the midst of the sylvaneth circle. He slammed down next to the Branchwych, who spun with a hiss and almost sank her sickle-scythe into his neck.

‘We’re allies!’ shouted Tarion. ‘We come to aid you as the pact between our peoples demands!’ He glanced about, recognising these sinister sylvaneth from his encounter atop the mountain crater. He saw the twisted Branchwraith from Highcrater Watch, who bared blood-slicked wooden fangs at him before plunging back into the fight with a shriek.

‘Tarried late, have you?’ spat the Branchwych. ‘Too few of us remain for victory.’

‘Neave Blacktalon told us of you and your weapon,’ said Tarion. ‘You are Wytha, yes? You must invoke it now. We will willingly pay the price with our lives if we must to defeat this den of evil.’

‘I cannot invoke it here,’ said Wytha. ‘To be sure of its effects, I must unleash it at a confluence of realmroots. One such site exists beneath the very heart of this fortress, knotted there to hold back the foulness of Ungholghott’s fortress.’

‘Neave did not mention that,’ said Tarion.

‘The girl-child knows what she needs, and still she chose poorly. Do not presume to tell me how to cast my invocations, stormling.’

Tarion restrained his exasperation.

‘There isn’t time for this,’ he said. ‘You need to reach the dais, yes?’

‘And remain undisturbed while the invocation takes place,’ said Wytha. ‘The weapon will for scant moments be exposed. Should the plague lord come to claim it at that time, I could not protect it from him.’

‘I’ll forge you a path. Together, your warriors and I will hold Ungholghott off. Just swear to me that this weapon will work.’

‘On the life of the Everqueen, I swear it will slaughter all,’ said Wytha.

Tarion saluted, then launched himself straight up.

‘Be ready to go when the smoke clears,’ he shouted, before drawing out his star-fated arrow. Tarion could hear the lumbering drone of Ungholghott’s fly-dragon sweeping back towards the fight, and could see the massed Rotbringers who still hacked and stabbed and pressed relentlessly forward between the sylvaneth and the dais. He felt with all his heart the desire to spin and send his assassin’s arrow winging its way into Ungholghott’s rotted heart. Neave had entrusted the hunt to him, and he had this one chance to finish it.

Instead, Tarion drew back his bowstring and loosed the arrow straight into the midst of the tight-packed Rotbringers. It streaked down like a thunderbolt and struck a bloated abomination. The explosion of storm-fury blew the monster apart in a red spray and rocked the bridge with its fury. Blackened corpses were hurled in all directions as the crackling blast expanded outwards, scorching dozens of Nurgle-worshippers to death and hurling countless more from their feet into the abyss below.

The next instant, the fly-dragon’s talons hit Tarion from behind like a battering ram.

Pain exploded within him as he was flung through the air. He heard Krien’s dismayed screech as though from far away, then felt a crushing impact as his face met the stone of the dais. Tarion skidded, trailing blood and shattered wing-crystals until he came to a stop near the dais’ heart.

Vision greying, Tarion tried to push himself up but couldn’t. He craned his head, and let it fall back with a groan as he saw the mangled ruin of his torso spilling blood across the stones. Smoke billowed, and through it moved angular shapes, their stride sinister and their eyes glowing blue.

Somewhere above him, Tarion could hear the monstrous drone of the fly-dragon’s wings, but the beast had passed overhead and its sheer bulk and momentum meant it would take precious moments to turn and sweep back in on the attack.

A figure stopped, looming over Tarion, chanting jagged words in a strange tongue. He blinked up at Wytha as she stared impassively down at him. Tarion’s pupils flicked to the glowing cylinder she held aloft, the acidic green light that pulsed faster and faster from within. The ethereal illumination strobed through the smoke, making the world flash grey and green, and a terrible whining sound filled the air, causing Tarion’s teeth to itch. Blue sparks lit the air as they crackled to life, billowing like fireflies and swirling faster and faster.

Wytha’s chant rose to fever pitch, even as the monstrous roar of the fly’s wings filled the world with thunder.

‘Hold it back!’ he heard a voice screaming, and another, ‘Turn away, foul beast! Turn away!’

‘Neave… Let… Neave… get…’ Tarion’s eyes fluttered shut; there was a flash, then he knew no more.

Chapter Sixteen

‘Daylight ahead!’ yelled Katalya.

‘I see it,’ said Neave, piling on as much speed as she dared. The fortress was shaking around them, its living corridors convulsing and its chambers groaning as though trying to tear themselves apart. Cultists dashed in panicked masses and skaven scattered in all directions.

Neave vaulted a brass railing and dropped twenty feet, Kat’s scream following her down. She hit the ground running, weaving past a rampaging abomination whose flailing tentacles smashed skaven and Rotbringers through the air. The chamber was some sort of entrance hall, lit by sickly green braziers atop columns of maggot-riddled bone. Tattered banners hung down its walls, showing scenes of corruption and of Nurgle the Plague God ascendant.

Nurgle would not approve of the mad panic that now gripped his servants, Neave thought, as she passed dashing Chaos-worshippers. Ahead was a cavernous doorway that looked for all the world like the rotted jaw of some huge monster, and was studded with rolling yellow eyes the size of cannon balls. Beyond its noisome arch, Neave saw the swamp and beyond that, the forest.

A terrible note was rising behind her, felt as much as heard, and blue motes billowed past her as though borne on some invisible updraft. Despite all that had transpired, the sight still filled her with cloying fear for her sanity.

‘You see those too, yes?’ she said as she ran.

‘The blue fire? I see it,’ said Katalya. ‘Is it the weapon?’

‘It must be,’ said Neave.

Ahead, a band of especially brave or foolhardy Blightlords turned and tried to block her path. Neave leapt, sailing over their heads and landing in a full sprint, their roars of anger chasing her towards the light. The keening grew louder by the second, and Neave felt a wetness on her upper lip that she knew must be blood. Katalya was moaning with pain, her fingers crabbing and clawing at Neave’s neck where she strove to hold on.

Screams rose behind them, cries of agony too terrible to bear. Neave didn’t dare glance back. There was no time. Crimson tinged her vision and she felt blood burst from between her lips on her next breath.

‘Neave!’ screamed Katalya. The keening rose to fever pitch, and sounds of destruction rolled up behind them like a wave.

The doorway was too far.

They weren’t going to make it.

One chance.

‘Katalya, shut your eyes and breathe out as hard as you can. You must trust me,’ she shouted, hoping that the tribesgirl heard and understood. Hoping, even more fervently, that what she was about to do wouldn’t leave Katalya in her wake, or even worse, kill her. She took three more paces then windshifted in a storm of arcing light.

Reality blurred, rushing past like storm clouds in a hurricane. There came a crack of overpressure as Neave slammed back into full physical form and fell into the swamp water on her hands and knees. She felt Katalya’s weight detach from her shoulders as the girl was flung bonelessly over her head. Kat hit the water with a splash and vanished beneath the surface.

‘Sigmar’s hammer, no,’ snarled Neave, scrambling forward and plunging her arms into the mire. She felt Katalya’s submerged form and dragged her to the surface, cradling the girl to her chest as swamp water streamed off her. Katalya’s eyes were shut, her face pale, her chest unmoving. Her hair drifted like some strange halo where the windshift had bathed her in the lightning of the heavens. Sparks crawled over her skin, slowly fading.

‘Breathe, girl, breathe!’ urged Neave. Her throat tightened and pain filled her chest as Katalya hung, seeming small and forlorn, in her arms. Neave held her tight against her breast and fought back a cry of rage.

The ground trembled more violently beneath them and the screaming crescendo rose at Neave’s back. Flickering jade lightning lit the swamp and made the treeline dance with monstrous shadows. Blue sparks whirled over her like a blizzard, clinging to the metal of Katalya’s vambraces and the sigmarite of Neave’s armour.

Neave twisted herself, shielding Katalya’s body with her own as she stared back over her shoulder at the cataclysmic effects of Wytha’s weapon. Ungholghott’s fortress shuddered and bulged, venomous green light pouring from every window and doorway, every rent, split and crack. Segments of stonework and bloated flesh blew out in violent green fireballs, raining debris across the swamp. Chaos-worshippers spilled from the fortress’ innards in profusion, yet they were too close, had fled too late. Even as Neave watched, their bodies twisted and contorted as the light caressed them, and their vital fluids jetted from them in a shocking mass-exsanguination that tainted the swamp waters crimson.

Ungholghott’s fortress sagged, collapsing in upon itself. It twisted and changed, as though one last burst of excess life caused it to mutate into new, unnatural forms. So savage was the glare that Neave could see precious little besides warped silhouettes, then even those vanished as the emerald supernova expanded to fill the world.

Neave cried out but couldn’t hear herself over the weapon’s blast. Green light bathed her and Katalya, jade tendrils racing across armour and flesh. For a second, Neave feared that she still hadn’t got herself or her friend far enough away.

But then, at last, the light faded, and the shrill wail dropped away. The last blue embers fell like flurries of snow, vanishing as suddenly as they had come. The tides of the swamp subsided, and a monstrous silence came crashing in to smother everything.

Neave shook with shock and adrenaline, so much so that it took her several moments to realise that the movement she felt was not all her own. She looked down with a gasp to see Katalya stir. The girl groaned. Jade light still radiated from her vambraces, though it was slowly fading, along with a last few blue sparks.

‘Kat, can you hear me?’ asked Neave gently.

Katalya responded by coughing up a mouthful of swamp water as her eyes opened blearily. She turned her head and the Stormcast Eternal supported her as the girl threw up what looked like half the swamp.

At last, Katalya’s convulsions subsided and she fell back in Neave’s arms, pale and shaking.

‘Did we die?’ she asked, and Neave couldn’t stifle a laugh of pure relief.

‘No, Kat, we made it,’ she said.

‘What did you do?’ asked Katalya. ‘In the end, when we…’ she gestured weakly.

‘I windshifted. It is a process by which we of the Vanguard Chambers can–’

‘I don’t care about the finer details,’ said Katalya. ‘Just don’t ever do that to me again.’

Neave snorted and rose to her feet, helping Katalya stand with her.

‘What about the swamp king?’ asked Katalya. She looked back to where Ungholghott’s fortress had once stood above the swamps. Swirling smoke and billowing jade mist hid its ruin, spreading gradually outwards, but the cadaverous remains of spires and towers could be seen, jutting up at crazed angles through the haze.

‘Dead, along with all his followers, and all of my comrades, I would think,’ said Neave. She was awed and horrified by the power that Wytha had unleashed, her blood running chill at the sight of it. ‘I never imagined the sylvaneth had something this destructive in their possession. And for it to be Dreadwood, of all the glades… I have to return to Azyr at once, Kat. My superiors need to be warned of this.’

‘The forest spirits are your allies, aren’t they?’ asked Katalya.

‘In name at least, but you of all people know better than to trust such capricious beings.’

‘I never trusted them to start with.’

‘Then you’re wiser than I,’ breathed Neave. She still felt within herself that wordless trust of Wytha and her clan, but now it felt artificial, like something pinned to her heart, not born from within it. If she hadn’t seen the cracks in Wytha’s façade, hadn’t witnessed this apocalyptic aftermath, then Neave wasn’t sure she would have been able to make the distinction, but now she both mistrusted and yet trusted Wytha in equal measure. The two feelings clashed like storm-fronts within her chest.

‘It should have been us that killed the swamp king, not them,’ said Katalya, ‘but I am glad that he is dead. My tribe have some vengeance, at least.’

‘They would be proud of your efforts,’ said Neave.

Katalya pulled a face. ‘They are dead, and the dead know nothing.’ Then, after an awkward pause, she added quietly, ‘But… thank you.’

Neave rested one hand on Katalya’s shoulder. ‘You should call Ketto back. We must depart swiftly.’

‘He finds me, I don’t call him,’ said Katalya, frowning. ‘Ketto knows when he is needed. Meantime, you don’t want to look for survivors?’

‘The Shadowhammers will have been at the very centre of that catastrophe, mark my words. I’ll see them again beyond the anvils. No, the only thing that might have survived what we just witnessed is Wytha and whatever remains of her clan.’

‘Why would she do this?’ asked Katalya, sounding indignant. ‘You fought for her. The swamp king is dead.’

‘We’ve seen what her weapon can do, far better than those caught in the blast will have,’ said Neave. ‘She may not want that information spread further abroad. The Dreadwood are jealous with their secrets, and while we live freely, we are a threat to them.’

‘She did not seem good in here,’ said Katalya, thumping herself in the chest. ‘You think she would try to kill you?’

‘I defied her. I don’t think Wytha will forgive me that,’ said Neave. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her to try to seize me, imprison me, and bring me to heel again as they did in my past life.’

‘They could try,’ said Katalya fiercely.

‘They could,’ agreed Neave. ‘There would be bloodshed whichever of us prevailed. But for now, there has been enough of that. I’m going to return to Azyr and I want you to come with me.’

Katalya blinked at her.

‘Why would I journey to the heavens?’ she asked. ‘The swamp king is dead now. My homelands are safer than they have been in many years.’

‘And yet, what is there for you here?’ asked Neave. ‘I don’t mean to be cruel but you’re the last of your people.’

‘Another tribe will take me in,’ said Katalya, but Neave could hear the doubt in her voice. She stared off into the jade fog banks that rolled steadily closer. Her vision was unfocused, her mind clearly lost in thought.

‘They might, if they don’t choose instead to strike you down and steal your things. And if they did, what if they worship the Dark Gods? Many do, even if they don’t realise it.’

‘I would know now. I have fought and bested the servants of Nurgle.’

‘Yes, you have,’ said Neave, ‘which is exactly why I feel you have more to give than simply returning to a life of hunting and surviving. I swore to protect you, Katalya, but if you return to the life of the tribes I can no longer hold to that vow. I can no longer fight at your side.’

‘I don’t need you to protect me.’

‘I don’t wish to be your protector,’ said Neave. ‘But your comrade? Your friend? That I would be in a heartbeat. If you return to Azyr I swear to you that I will find a place for you amongst the armies of reconquest. You would be able to take the fight to the Dark Gods, instead of simply running and hiding from them for the rest of your days.’

Katalya drew breath to reply, but at that moment Neave’s eyes narrowed as a vibration passed through the air at her back, and a ghost of a feculent stench tickled her nostrils. She threw herself at Katalya and tackled her into the mire, even as a dark shape rose up through the mist. A jet of sizzling filth shot overhead, missing Neave and Katalya by less than a foot and raising steam where it splattered into the water.

Neave came up with her axes in hand, spinning to face their attacker. Her eyes widened at the monstrous sight that greeted her.

Mangled and broken, Lord Ungholghott’s fly-dragon reared up and beat the air with its chitinous forelimbs. Stinking smog rolled away from it, tattering apart as Ungholghott’s warding enchantment dissipated. Neave could hear the thrumming roar of the monster’s tattered wings as they tried and failed to bear it into the air.

Lord Ungholghott leaned around his steed’s neck, eyes crazed. Both he and the fly-dragon were sorely wounded, their flesh marred with burns and weird fungal growths, and Neave surmised from the cuts and crystal shards that lacerated them that rider and steed must have been forced to burst through a window to escape Wytha’s weapon.

‘You,’ roared Ungholghott. ‘You brought the stump and her filthy thorns into my fastness. You have sullied my slab with your disgusting purity. You should have been my prize to dissect. You still will be!’

‘I’ve hunted you a long time, Lord Ungholghott,’ said Neave, gesturing at Katalya to flee. The tribesgirl ignored her, instead clashing her vambraces together in readiness.

‘And yet I don’t even know what manner of beast you are, you pathetic maggot,’ spat Ungholghott. ‘But I know what you will be. I require a new fortress, Stormcast, and the furnace of energy that I sense within you will be its seed.’

Neave felt sick as she remembered the foul biological feel of Ungholghott’s fastness, the pain and madness she had sensed through its walls. She had no intention of ending her days in the grip of such a disgusting curse.

‘Your empire is in ruins and your armies slaughtered,’ she said. ‘The filth of your magics will wash away from this swamp and the life of Ghyran will come again to purify what remains. But you won’t live long enough to see it, Ungholghott, because I am Sigmar’s huntress and you have long been my mark.’

‘You are a glopsom little clot. You’ll beg for death before the end.’ Ungholghott levelled his staff and hawked up an incantation, spitting it into the air like phlegm. Filthy light leapt from his weapon and Neave hurled herself aside. She rolled up onto her feet as the swamp exploded with diseased slime behind her.

The fly-dragon loomed over her, its hide oozing from jagged cracks, its snout splayed wide.

Neave charged.

The monster spat another stream of filth at her, and she leapt high, spinning in the air with her arms tucked tight to her chest. Neave spiralled over the jet of acid and came down upon the fly-dragon’s head with her axes swinging. She rained an avalanche of blows upon the monster’s face, staving in one of its compound eyes, hacking away a bloody mass of snout-flesh, and severing the disgusting tendrils of its sense-pits. She planted one foot upon the thing’s leprous muzzle and kicked hard, back-flipping away through the air and narrowly evading the swipe of the fly-dragon’s huge talons.

The monster reared, beating its mangled wings in a frenzy of pain. Filthy sludge sprayed from its savaged face and Ungholghott roared in anger. He spat another incantation, forming its vomitous words even as he clung to the pommel of his saddle. The swamp water around Neave bubbled in sudden frenzy. Before she could leap clear, rotting limbs burst from the surface. Talons wrapped themselves around her legs and held on with unnatural strength, pinning Neave in place. Ungholghott leered madly at her and heaved in an impossibly deep breath, his chest bloating like a toad’s throat-sac until she thought he must burst. Yellow pus squeezed from his pores as he expanded, dark veins standing out like ropes beneath his straining skin.

Ungholghott opened his mouth impossibly wide and belched forth a rancid stream of slime and squirming maggots. Neave had time to suck in a breath and screw her eyes shut before the blood-warm tide of slurry hit her full in the face. She felt it searing her skin, flowing through the gaps in her armour, battering her in a relentless torrent that must surely drown her the moment she tried to breathe. Neave fought furiously against the limbs that trapped her legs, but their grip was like iron, and with the unbearable pressure of the filth-tide hammering her it was all she could do to hang onto her axes, let alone swing them.

Dimly she heard the clash of metal, then a sudden choking roar of anger. The torrent abated, leaving Neave drenched in steaming filth, her skin burning and her armour creaking as rust crept across it. With a scream of revulsion, Neave swung her axes low and hacked away the hands that clung to her legs, then took several running steps and hurled herself into the swamp water. The thought that such stagnant slime could be cleansing would have made her laugh an hour earlier. Now, anything that sluiced Ungholghott’s filth from her could only be a blessing.

Neave exploded from the water with a roar of anger, sludge pouring from her battered sigmarite armour. She was in time to see Ungholghott also rising from the mire, one side of his face caved in and gouting blood. His fly-dragon loomed over Katalya, who stood defiant, jade energies crackling from her vambraces. She must have blasted Ungholghott with those magics. Katalya had likely saved her life, but now her own was in mortal danger.

‘I defy you, swamp king!’ bellowed Katalya. ‘I am the last of the Mourne tribe and I defy you and your filthy god!’

The fly-dragon lumbered forward, dragging its mangled abdomen behind it. It lunged, and Katalya fell back with a cry of alarm. She sent a desperate pulse of life magics at the monster, driving it back a few paces, but it rallied quickly and reared up to drop its massive bulk upon her.

Neave broke into a headlong sprint. She streaked through the swamp and threw herself into a leap, bringing both axes high and whipping them back down like Sigmar’s own hammer. The blades bit home, crashing through the fly-dragon’s temple and driving deep into its skull. Diseased slime exploded, grey, snotty filth that sprayed in strings through the air as the fly-dragon’s head was torn sideways and driven into the mire.

Neave rode it down, driving her foot into the beast’s unwounded eye and tearing her axes loose before hacking down again and again. More filth sprayed, and the monster’s limbs convulsed as it tried desperately to escape its tormentor. Neave heard Ungholghott bellow in outrage and leapt clear as bolts of yellow magic tore through the air towards her.

Neave splashed down yards clear and looked back in satisfaction as the fly-dragon convulsed its last. Her fierce grin turned to horror as she saw Katalya running headlong at Ungholghott.

‘You will pay for the deaths of my people!’ shouted the tribesgirl, jade light gathering in a storm around her vambraces.

‘Katalya! Sigmar’s hammer, no! Get back!’ yelled Neave.

‘He cannot hurt me,’ shouted Katalya. ‘His filthy plague magic cannot get past my vambraces. I smashed his skull, and now I will kill him for my tribe. For Sigmar!’

Neave accelerated towards Katalya in the hopes of knocking her aside again. With a plunging sense of horror, she realised she would be too late.

Ungholghott brandished his staff with a sneer and sent a bolt of light straight at Katalya. The tribesgirl threw up her arms confidently, crossing them before her face. They had warded away the drifting plagues of Ungholghott’s fortress. They had given Katalya the strength to wound the foul despot responsible for the deaths of her tribe. Yet against the full sorcerous might of Ungholghott’s fury, they were not nearly enough.

Time slowed to a crawl for Neave as she saw leprous energies crawl across Katalya’s skin, abrading it away a layer at a time. Pustules rose and burst upon Katalya’s flesh, even as the kinetic impact of the spellblast rippled through her body, shattering bones and lifting her from her feet. Neave’s razor-sharp senses were merciless, forcing her to see how one of Katalya’s eyes turned cataract-white in the instant before it burst in its socket, how the hair on that side of her face turned grey and fell away like dead straw, how a spray of bile and instantly-rotted teeth exploded from the girl’s broken jaw to patter into the swamp.

Katalya flew through the air and splashed down in an untidy tangle of limbs. She fetched up half submerged in slime, looking for all the world like a plague victim’s corpse.

‘Kat!’ screamed Neave. Every instinct howled at her to rush to her friend’s side, to haul her from the water, but she knew that if she did that Ungholghott would finish them both. Katalya lived, or she did not. The only way Neave might uphold her oath and save the tribesgirl now was to slay her mark swiftly and mercilessly.

‘One worm crushed,’ roared Ungholghott. ‘And now for the other.’

He turned to Neave and raised his staff. Several hundred yards separated them, wisps of green mist drifting across the open gap upon the breeze. A stillness pressed in upon the scene, and Neave narrowed her eyes.

‘I’m not a worm, Ungholghott, I’m a wolf,’ said Neave. ‘And this is the end of my hunt.’

‘Yes, it is,’ leered the Chaos sorcerer. ‘Now come to me. Let me unpick your flesh.’

Neave broke into a sprint.

‘Gn’khakor Gh’hurul Pustol’kh’ghorrygh!’ roared Ungholghott, blood spraying from his lips as he uttered the unholy words. Chaos energies swelled into a storm and plague flies boiled from the tip of his stave. Neave charged headlong into their midst before windshifting with a twitch of supernatural muscles. Flies fell crisped from the air and the cloud exploded as gale force winds tore through them. Neave recorporealised in time to weave aside from a hurtling bone spear.

Three more projectiles flew at her, conjured from thin air by Ungholghott’s sorceries. She leapt clear of one, wove aside from a second and grunted with pain as the third punched through her ribs and burst from her back. Ungholghott’s cry of triumph curdled as Neave kept coming, closing the gap with incredible speed.

Desperate, Ungholghott spat another incantation and summoned lambent green light around his staff. Neave didn’t wait to see what fresh horrors the sorcerer was conjuring. Leaping and turning in mid-air, she swung her axes and let them fly. The two weapons spun through the air, end over end, and slammed home with fleshy thumps. The first caved in Ungholghott’s chest. The second bisected his face, leaving one shocked yellow eye bulging on either side of the axe blade.

Neave landed and kept running, crossing the gap as Lord Ungholghott staggered. She grabbed the hafts of her axes and wrenched them free, trailing rancid fluids and flailing maggots.

‘Ugh… ghu… huggh…’ croaked Ungholghott, split jaw chewing the air, staff falling from his nerveless hands.

‘I have executed many monsters, Lord Ungholghott,’ said Neave. ‘Let your last thought be that you are not special, not chosen, not near as mighty as you believed. You are just another corpse who couldn’t escape me.’ She spun, levelling a mighty backhand blow at Ungholghott’s neck and striking his head from his shoulders. Its two halves flew through the air and splatted down into the swamp, moments before his body crumpled and began to dissolve into rank slurry.

Certain her mark was slain, Neave was already streaking back across the swamp to where Katalya lay. She dropped to her knees next to the girl’s prone form for the second time in less than an hour, and hauled her from the mire again. Katalya’s skin was ravaged, sloughing away from the left side of her face until yellowing bone was revealed. Boils had broken out across her body, and her flesh was pale and sweating. The tribesgirl was shaking with fever, burning hot to the touch and unconscious. Her breath rattled in and out, phlegm-thick and laboured.

Neave looked to the heavens, her stare accusing.

‘I offered my prayers!’ Neave roared. ‘I asked you to take me, not her! I would have given my life in a heartbeat to see your will done. I asked only that you gave me the strength to watch over her! Sigmar, why should they suffer in our place? Haven’t they suffered enough?’

Her words echoed away across the swamp, falling dead amongst the mists. If Neave’s god heard her furious words, he sent no sign.

Something large moved in Neave’s peripheral vision and she turned as best she could, shielding Katalya and brandishing an axe. She stopped and breathed out slowly as she saw the familiar shape of Ketto looming over her. The tattakan’s antennae batted her gently aside and caressed Katalya’s desolated face with obvious concern. He made a mournful rattle deep in his thorax and stamped his feet in the swamp water. Neave’s heart almost broke to see the sorrow so clear in the huge beast’s movements, the way he brushed gently and insistently at his mistress’ face as though trying without success to wake her.

Neave shook her head, desperately relieved to see the huge insect.

‘She’s hurt, Ketto, terribly so,’ said Neave. ‘She has been cursed by dark sorcery, and I suspect only the magic in her vambraces is keeping Nurgle’s foulness from consuming her utterly. I don’t know if you understand the tongues of humans, but we have to get her back to Azyr at once. If she is to stand any hope of survival, we have to get her to the healers in Sigmaron.’

Ketto gave a low rattle and stomped carefully closer, lowering himself part-way into the mire. Neave lifted Katalya easily in her arms, draping her over her saddle and securing her carefully with its leather straps. The girl felt so light, like a bundle of twigs. Every glance at the ruin of her features hurt Neave’s heart. She couldn’t see how Katalya would survive the hour, let alone cling to life long enough to reach the Realm of Heavens. A detached part of Neave’s mind wondered if the guardians of that most holy of realms would even let Katalya through its gates, seeing the unnatural sicknesses that roiled within her. Yet she had to try, even if it seemed hopeless.

‘How could I do any less?’ she asked, giving Katalya’s hand a gentle squeeze. The bones of her fingers felt shockingly brittle. ‘If nothing else, I will see you buried with all the honour you deserve, my friend.’

She consulted her astral compass, narrowing her eyes and staring up at the heavens half-visible through the green murk.

‘Two days north of here, that’s the nearest gate,’ said Neave. ‘And that’s moving fast. I hope you’re ready for a journey, Ketto. Your mistress’ life depends upon it.’

The tattakan stamped its legs and cocked its head. Neave took a deep breath and looked back to where the ruins of Lord Ungholghott’s fortress were collapsing slowly into the mire.

‘She beat you,’ she hissed. ‘Even as her life ebbs, you cannot take that from her. She beat you.’ Neave missed Tarion sorely in that moment, needed so badly to hear his voice that it was like a physical pain, but it would have to wait. He had his Reforging to endure, and she had another race ahead of her. She checked that Katalya still breathed, that she was secured as painlessly and carefully as she could be. Some part of Neave knew that Katalya was going to die, knew it with the same certainty with which she sensed her marks, yet giving up wasn’t in Neave’s nature.

‘I will bear you to the heavens, Katalya Mourne,’ she said.

With that, Neave set off at a run across the desolate swamp lands and Ketto followed. The swamp waters parted before them, then drifted slowly back to stillness in their wake…

Chapter Seventeen

‘What was it like?’ Neave glanced at Tarion, noting again the new lines that marked his face, the far-away look in his blue eyes.

‘It was death,’ said Tarion. ‘As it always is. Confusion, and violence, and death.’

The two of them sat atop one of the Thunderpeak’s highest ledges, clad in robes and cloaks. Their legs hung over the drop, the fortress’ craggy flanks and jutting battlements spreading away below them until they reached the verdant plains of Azyr far below. The star Sigendil hung high above in a warm evening sky, the first of the night-stars just beginning to join it as the day-stars faded.

A platter of meat, fruit and cheese sat between Neave and Tarion, mostly untouched. The pitcher of wine beside it was all but empty, though.

‘What do you remember of the weapon, I mean?’ said Neave.

‘You had a better opportunity to see it at work than I,’ said Tarion. ‘By the time the damn thing fired, I was somewhat mortally challenged.’

‘It was monstrous,’ said Neave. ‘I had no chance to see its effects up close, but…’

‘But it destroyed everything in its reach,’ said Tarion.

‘You, them, the fortress.’

‘Though it didn’t annihilate Ungholghott,’ replied Tarion with a humourless laugh. ‘That was left to Sigmar’s huntress.’

‘I did not fell him swiftly enough,’ said Neave, her expression grim.

‘You did everything you could for Katalya. You told me that you commanded her to flee, but that she stood and fought alongside you to the end. She felt loyalty to you, Neave. Friendship.’

‘She paid for it, a price she never should have had to. I should have been faster. I should have done more.’

‘Your oath isn’t broken yet,’ said Tarion, placing his hand on her shoulder in the old, familiar gesture.

‘She was… is… strong,’ said Neave.

‘Too stubborn to accept death. I wonder where she learned that?’

‘Death may yet take her anyway. I wanted to stay by her side, but…’ Neave trailed off hopelessly, gesturing down at the Thunderpeak.

‘Duty,’ said Tarion.

Neave nodded once. ‘The last I saw of her, the healers were doing everything in their power, but they had few good words to say. The sicknesses that burn in Katalya’s blood are unnatural, and the damage done to her body by that curse… Even if, by some miracle, she survives, she will never be who she was. She will never live the life she could have lived.’

‘You cannot blame yourself,’ said Tarion.

‘I do, and I do not,’ said Neave, casting a cold glance up towards the light of Sigendil. ‘There are others who have failed her also.’

‘She has the best apothecaries watching over her. Better yet, she has a sister of the Sacrosanct Chambers at her side, working to unmake Ungholghott’s curses.’

‘Working to understand Katalya’s vambraces, you mean,’ said Neave.

‘You cannot blame them for that. Any weapon we can use to fight the legions of Chaos… Well, perhaps not any weapon. Do you think Wytha will use it again?’

‘If it can be invoked more than once, I don’t doubt it for a second,’ said Neave. ‘Wouldn’t you, in her place? Clan Thyrghael lost a lot of souls to Ungholghott’s cruelty, and the Dreadwood are hardly the most forgiving of Alarielle’s children. I just hope that she can be located and the threat can be managed before she uses it somewhere… unfortunate.’

‘More unfortunate than wiping out a chamber of Stormcast Eternals, you mean?’ asked Tarion, arching an eyebrow.

‘You know exactly what I mean, Tarion. At least we can return from death.’

‘Not all of us,’ said Tarion ruefully. ‘So many slain in such a brief moment? I heard at the last count we lost eight souls in the Reforging, gone forever.’

‘Perhaps they were the lucky ones,’ said Neave in a low voice. Tarion acted as though he had not heard, instead changing the subject.

‘You still seem oddly reluctant to speak ill of Wytha and her brood, despite all they put you through, and all they did to you in your life before,’ he said.

Neave stayed silent, staring out towards where the light of Hysh dropped slowly below the horizon. The purple and gold of evening spread fingers across the plains and farmlands, turning towers and windmills to stark silhouettes and throwing long shadows across the land.

‘Was there more to this?’ asked Neave. ‘I mean, I’m free of the visions now and I’m thankful for that. Ungholghott is dead, his threat ended, and the penance I’ve to serve for my actions–’

‘Is remarkably lenient?’ said Tarion. ‘It seems as though annihilating a grand Chaos warlord and his kingdom-conquering army won you a bit of leeway with the Lord-Aquilor. Though I sense he will watch you closely for a while. I still believe you should have been transparent with him from the beginning.’

‘But is that it? Is the matter done? Why does it feel like we missed something? Like I missed something?’

‘You suspect some greater machination?’

‘Don’t you? There was too much coincidence here. Too many loose ends I can’t tie together. Like, where did the sylvaneth acquire that weapon of theirs? Who from, and who used it before? Why did Wytha’s summons reach me just in the nick of time? Sigmar’s hammer, I mean, we still don’t know why the damned Gor-kin were able to overrun Fort Vigilance in the first place, or what Xelkyn had to do with it, if anything at all. Was that connected to all this? I owe it to Katalya to answer these questions, or her sacrifice may yet be for naught.’

‘Neave, it’s been a tangled time. Plus, you’ve been through more than most of us, dying aside,’ said Tarion. ‘Your worry for the tribesgirl consumes you, anyone can see that. There’s a chance you might be seeing shadows where there are none, links where no link exists. Some things simply happen, no matter how dreadful they are, and as warriors of Sigmar it is our duty to respond, to defeat threats as they arise, and to bear the pain of our losses with all the stoicism and strength that Sigmar chose us for in the first place.’ He took a swig of wine, went to refill his goblet and pulled a sour face as he drizzled the last dregs from the pitcher.

‘Let wiser minds than ours worry about the big picture, then?’ asked Neave, frowning. ‘It is not like you to bury your head in the sand. We’re hunters. We should seek, and question. We should hunt, whether it’s for a mark, or a foe, or the truth.’

‘And we will,’ said Tarion. ‘I’m just saying, there’s a war to fight that eclipses all others, and enemies beyond number for us to face. Sigmar will have a new mark for you soon enough, and then the hunt will begin again, and again, and again, until at last the Mortal Realms are freed from the grip of the Dark Gods. We may well have centuries of war ahead of us, Blacktalon. For all our sakes, don’t start looking for hidden enemies when so many stand proud and ugly before us.’

Neave sipped her own wine, then plucked a lunefruit from the platter. She considered biting into it, but the image rose unbidden in her mind of Katalya a huddled and hopeless little shape beneath a blanket in a healer’s chamber, Ketto lying mournfully at the door. Neave dropped the fruit back into the bowl, her appetite turned to ashes. She stared out into the spreading gloom, the dying sunset reflecting in her eyes. The storm clouds that hung ever above the fortress rumbled, and lightning crackled through them. Rain threatened.

‘If it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep my eyes open and my ear to the ground.’

‘Of course you will,’ said Tarion. ‘Now come on, it’s getting cold up here and I’m out of wine. We’ll be at war again soon enough – let’s go and find a little cheer while there’s some to be had.’ He paused, watching Neave intently. ‘She wouldn’t want you to cut yourself off in sorrow, my friend.’

Neave offered Tarion the ghost of a smile, though it was tinged with sadness. They gathered up the remains of their meal. Neave shot a last look at the shadows swallowing the Azyrite plains, and for a moment the image of dark branches and intertwined talons rose unbidden in her mind. She dismissed it with a shake of her head and turned, following Tarion down the stone steps and into the lit archway atop the Thunderpeak. The warm light welcomed her across the threshold, and the darkness was left beyond.

Epilogue

Elsewhere, far away from light, and warmth, and civilisation, Wytha stood in absolute darkness. She felt the immensity of the cavern through the stirring of the cold air, heard it in the distant echo and drip of water.

Above her, she sensed realmroots spreading across the cavern’s ceiling in such profusion that their massed power overwhelmed her magical senses and left her dumbfounded and humbled. It felt as though an endless web of life magic spread overhead, yet not a single pulse of light escaped them. These roots were as night-black as the cavern in which they grew. They were writhing strands of shadow and darkness that caused even Wytha to feel the unfamiliar gnaw of fear.

Somewhere ahead of her, something huge stirred in the gloom. Blue whorls shimmered momentarily. Eyes like cold stars flashed in the darkness. A voice reached her through the air and the spirit song intertwined. It rumbled through the cave like tectonic plates shifting, even as it filled the spirit song with a swelling symphony so beautiful and terrible that it drove Wytha to her knees.

‘It worked, then?’

‘It did,’ she replied, trying to keep the tremor of fear from her voice.

‘But the child diverged.’ It was not a question.

‘She was led from the path by a chance encounter,’ said Wytha. ‘But our mark upon her heart remains! When the hour comes, she will stand ready to play her part.’

‘Of course,’ came the reply. ‘It has been foreseen and so shall it be. You will make sure of this.’

‘Indeed,’ replied Wytha, sap running hot and cold as the eyes flashed in the darkness again, and an ominous sense of power and danger crept across her. ‘My girl will sing her part in the symphony, and the liar gods will topple from their thrones. We will be safe at last.’

‘We will,’ rumbled the voice. ‘Go then and do your part. Do not permit any further divergence.’

‘At once,’ said Wytha. ‘Thank you, my liege.’ She rose on shaking legs and hastened away through the darkness, trying to control her terror and her relief. As she retreated, she heard something vast shift in the darkness behind her, and felt glad beyond words that she was leaving its presence again. Wytha had feared that Neave’s wilfulness, her reluctance to walk the path laid for her, might be the scheme’s undoing.

Instead, Wytha had another chance to make sure the symphony played out as it should.

She would make sure of it, no matter what horrors must be wrought, no matter how much blood must be shed.

About the Author

Andy Clark has written the Warhammer 40,000 novels Kingsblade, Knightsblade and Shroud of Night, as well as the novella Crusade and the short story ‘Whiteout’. He has also written the short story ‘Gorechosen’ for Warhammer Age of Sigmar, and the Warhammer Quest Silver Tower novella Labyrinth of the Lost. Andy works as a background writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

For Liz, thanks for all the encouragement, the support and the unending barrage of pony gifs…

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2018.
This eBook edition published in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Vladimir Krisetskiy.

Blacktalon: First Mark © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Blacktalon: First Mark, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78030-928-6

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.