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Blacktalon: When Cornered – Andy Clark

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Hammerhal & Other Stories’

A Black Library Publication

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Blacktalon: When Cornered

Andy Clark

A column of armoured wagons rumbled through dusty Chamonite wastes. Stocky duardin marched beside them, their shoulders broad, their eyes hard. They wore runic chainmail and were festooned with weapons. They watched the horizon with belligerent intensity. Squat dobkine plodded along in traces near the column’s rear, the chitin-armoured bovines hauling field artillery and wagons.

A doughty duardin lord led the march. He was suited in magnificently crafted armour and wore a look of ferocious determination beneath his beetling black brows. He was carried atop a broad shield, its considerable weight borne without obvious discomfort by a quartet of grey-bearded champions.

Beside him stalked Neave Blacktalon. The Knight-Zephyros was tall, even for a Stormcast Eternal, and in her sleek Sigmarite armour and sculpted helm her eyes were at the same level as the duardin lord’s.

‘The sorcerer has been caught, and he will pay for his crimes,’ said the duardin. His voice was a gravelly rumble so deep that Neave felt it in her chest.

‘For that, I am sure that Sigmar thanks you, Thane Halgrimmsson,’ she replied. Her tone was sharp steel to his grinding stone, tinged with the ghost of a tribal lilt.

‘You don’t, though, do you, Stormcast?’ asked the duardin.

Neave didn’t immediately reply. She swept her eyes across the desolate lands around them. Her supernaturally keen senses drank in every detail, their acuity only slightly dulled by an omnipresent stench. The acrid stink wafted from some distance back down the line, from the caged wagon that contained the throng’s captive.

More distantly, Neave could feel the thumping footfalls of some huge beast. Predatory, she thought, from its loping gait, but not foolish enough to assail a marching column of warriors, no matter how scarce prey might be. Where would it go after dark? How did anything survive here when the ashen people came? She heard the grumbling conversations of the duardin, her quick mind easily able to sift out any given conversation from amongst the hubbub of voices, marching feet and clanking wargear.

Closer, she heard the steady thud of the duardin lord’s heart, read every nuance of his posture, smelled the sharp bite of his sweat. He was eager to provoke a row, she thought, all too ready to lead her into some sleight or act of disrespect that he could then pounce on as justification to deny her claim upon his captive.

You don’t so easily snare a huntress, no matter how many times you try this, thought Neave.

‘Xelkyn Xerkanos has left a trail of horror and infamy behind him that stretches for thousands of miles and taints three of the Mortal Realms with its touch,’ she said, finally answering the thane’s barb. ‘He triggered uprisings in Hammerhal-Ghyra and Anvilheim. He stole the secrets of the Vault of Echoes and reduced their guardians to fleshspawn. He has insulted the dignity and authority of the God-King Sigmar time and again. I am glad that he has been run to ground at last.’

‘Aye, but only because he took his blade to King Halgrimm, and I made him pay for it,’ said the duardin, returning his eyes to the road ahead.

Neave heard the unspoken accusation. She had been on Xerkanos’ trail for more than half a year by Azyrite reckoning, had fought him and his minions several times and come so close to slaying him that she could almost smell his foul blood upon her blades. She had been closing upon the sorcerer, sure this time of striking the killing blow, when the duardin had taken her quarry instead. That another had been responsible for claiming her mark rankled with Neave, but what troubled her more was that the mark still lived.

‘Your warriors fought hard and well,’ she said, keeping her tone neutral.

‘They also got there before you,’ said Halgrimmsson bluntly. ‘Neave Blacktalon. The most famed of Sigmar’s Knights-Zephyros, his arch-hunters. A warrior of the Hammers of Sigmar no less, and yet we got to your quarry before you could. I know if it were me, Stormcast, I’d feel the dishonour keen as a wound.’

With pride like yours, I don’t doubt it, Neave almost said. Instead, she pressed her lips into a thin line behind her helm’s faceplate. She shot a glance back along the line of march to where the sorcerer’s cage-wagon rumbled along. She should have been back there guarding it, and would have been but for the necessity to once again appeal to Halgrimmsson’s better sense.

‘Xerkanos is caught,’ she began after a moment’s thought. ‘His cult lies slain. It will be my blades that strike the fatal blow once your courts have accounted the sorcerer’s guilt. I see no dishonour in such a victory, thane, only the rightful cooperation of those who have allied themselves to oppose the Dark Gods.’

Halgrimmsson gave a noncommittal grunt.

Neave had come to the battlefield in Irongrief Vale too late to swing her blades in anger, but in time to witness the duardin binding Xerkanos in runic chains and loading him into a cage-wagon for transport. The carnage of that charnel field had been hideous. The duardin had bled for their victory. Still, Neave had only had eyes for the sorcerer.

She had explained her hunt to Halgrimmsson and claimed Xerkanos as her rightful mark by the God-King’s authority. The duardin had scoffed, telling her that his clan’s blood debt outweighed all other considerations. He had implied that, allies or not, he would not hesitate to have his surviving warriors send her back to the Heavens if she meant to stand in his way.

Rather than tell the thane just how many of his warriors would perish if he gave that order, Neave had begun what turned out to be a wrangling and hard-fought negotiation. There, amongst the dead, the Knight-Zephyros and the duardin, the thane had agreed that Xerkanos would be dragged in chains before the ancient Grudgekeepers of Clan Halgrimm, and there be tried and sentenced for the murder of Halgrimmsson’s father, the king. However, it would be Neave who would act as Xerkanos’ appointed executioner. Thus, she would conclude her hunt successfully and Halgrimmsson would have his justice. Just as important, particularly from the perspective of the hidebound duardin, was that no bad blood would be borne between Neave’s Stormhost, the Hammers of Sigmar, and Clan Halgrimm.

It was not an arrangement that either party had delighted in. Neave was conscious that, had he not been forced to obey certain codes of honour in front of his clansmen, Halgrimmsson would most likely have refused it point blank.

Neave knew that Halgrimmsson was young by duardin standards. He had just lost his father in terrible circumstances and it could not have escaped him that, had Neave brought her mark down sooner, that death would have been avoided. She knew she couldn’t blame him for his resentfulness, his stubbornness. Neave glanced back down the lines again. I can’t be blamed either, she thought, for finding his stance so damned frustrating.

And so, they had found themselves in this situation: Neave accompanying what remained of the Clan Halgrimm forces across these nameless wastes towards where the Shuddering Mountains lined the southern horizon. There lay the karak the duardin called home, a mighty fortress delved deep into the mountainside. There, Xerkanos could be put to death in a manner that would satisfy the honour of all concerned, and the matter put to rest.

Yet Halgrimmsson kept pushing, trying to edge Neave into undermining her claim.

‘It will be my blades that separate the sorcerer’s filthy head from his neck, thane,’ she repeated, taking care to inject the right blend of deference and authority into her tone.

‘Aye,’ replied Halgrimmsson after a pause. ‘Such was our bargain. But not until time.’

Neave was careful not to let her frustration show. When Sigmar gave her a mark, the sense of that quarry was imprinted upon her psyche. She felt her prey like a tingle or itch that grew more pronounced the closer she came to them, like a murmur that swelled to a ringing note. Having Xerkanos so close, just a hundred yards or so to her rear, and being unable to take her axes to his neck was almost physically painful for Neave.

She had endured worse, of course – she had been slain and Reforged eight times already in Sigmar’s service. Her impatience with the arrangement stemmed not from discomfort, but bitter experience.

‘Thane, I ask again, can a tribunal not be convened here, now?’ she asked. ‘You have the authority and the good cause to try and then sentence this monster right here by the roadside. You have witnesses in plentiful supply and of unimpeachable character. You would incur no dishonour from the deed.’

Thane Halgrimmsson heard her out stolidly, as he had each time she had made this same entreaty. Then shook his head just as he had each time before.

‘No dishonour, Stormcast, but the whispers would start all the same,’ he said. ‘“Halgrimmsson allowed his anger to spur him into actions over-hasty”, “Halgrimmsson had his judgement clouded by the words of some Azyrite outsider”, “Halgrimmsson failed to uphold the proper traditions of his people”, “Halgrimmsson’s oath is unfulfilled, and he is not fit to be king like his father before him.”’

After this last, he favoured her with a fierce glare, as though challenging Neave to agree with his imagined detractors.

But Neave did not. Instead, she replied, ‘You know that every minute Xelkyn Xerkanos still lives, it is another minute that he is dangerous.’

Halgrimmsson snorted.

‘He’s bound in runic chains fashioned by Borrikh Gnarlhelm himself, and being transported under armed guard by the best part of a hundred stout duardin warriors. He’s in a damned cage, Stormcast, unarmed and with his followers dead in his wake. He is no danger to us. What would prove dangerous is delaying our march long enough for night to come upon us and the ashen people to crawl from under the dunes. We don’t halt until we reach sanctuary.’

Neave shook her head, breathed out slowly through her nostrils. If Halgrimmsson only understood what it meant to evade the pursuit of a Knight-Zephyros for so long, she thought, how diabolically devious and dangerously skilled Xerkanos had to be to achieve that feat, then perhaps the duardin would listen. She shrugged off the bleak notion that there was slim chance of that, at least until it was too late.

‘I understand the dangers of these lands,’ said Neave, trying again. ‘But I ask you to hear me, for our alliance’s sake. Xerkanos doesn’t need followers, or weapons. He needs only his mind and the time to plot. The longer we allow him those things, the greater the danger that he escapes.’

‘Just because he slipped your grasp, don’t think that means he’ll slip ours,’ said Halgrimmsson. ‘We ran him to ground first try.’

‘I still do not believe that was coincidence,’ said Neave. ‘He knew I was close, that I had the measure of him this time–’

‘So he let us catch him by staging the bloodiest battle I’ve witnessed in a century?’ interrupted Halgrimmsson. ‘He murdered my father just to draw my ire and then used me to keep him from your blades? He just happened to know precisely how matters would play out, and is even this moment manipulating all of us into effecting his escape yet again?’

Neave remained silent. Halgrimmsson had just voiced her every concern, barring perhaps that Xerkanos had read the son’s insecurity and stubbornness in his prognostications and factored those into his scheme as well.

‘Hrukhni,’ swore Halgrimmsson. ‘Why would your sorcerer be so worried about one Stormcast when he was leading an army?’

‘He’s led armies before, thane,’ said Neave. ‘They’ve never stopped me.’ Halgrimmsson spat by way of reply.

‘Xerkanos perpetrated one act of malfeasance too many when he slew King Halgrimm,’ he said, his voice dangerously low. ‘He’ll pay for it by our laws and at the time of our choosing. You get to strike the killing blow that should, by rights, be mine. Be satisfied with that, Stormcast.’

Recognising a lost cause when she saw one, Neave inclined her head slightly and slackened her pace. She allowed the king’s bearers to march on ahead as she dropped back through the column of march. Duardin flowed past in ordered blocks, clan banners flying proudly at the head of each regiment, drummers battering out a steady tattoo that kept their comrades in lockstep.

Neave drifted to the roadside and let the duardin pass her by. She stared out to the horizon and its curling dust devils. This was a truly desolate land, one of the bleakest she could recall.

Had it always been thus, she wondered, or had the Age of Chaos reduced some fertile paradise to this? Neave suspected the latter was true. If so, it was a stark reminder of why she fought, and what she battled to prevent.

Her keen eyes caught the dull edges of wind-eroded ruins in the distance, and her cloak stirred in the cold breeze as she eyed them where they lurked, half buried in dunes of dust.

‘It is a sorrowful land,’ she murmured. ‘Good only for sorrowful things.’

Still, the spark of civilisation had been re-lit here, Neave knew, and they were making straight for it. There was a walled town about an hour’s march ahead. Labouring under the overly optimistic title of Lightsdawn, the place had been raised by Azyrite settlers several years earlier and now acted as an outpost in this dead land. Neave had passed through Lightsdawn on her way to Irongrief Vale, had seen the underground springs and carefully husbanded crop-caverns that kept the place alive, the high walls and vast braziers that kept this land’s mysterious bogeymen at bay. She had seen its hard-eyed citizens and the copious soldiers who watched over them. Neave had seen precious little evidence of the resurgence of life in the wilds that the Sigmarite priests claimed was coming, however.

She reflected that but for the alliance with the duardin, this town might well have choked on the dust and desolation that surrounded it or been overrun by the terrors that came at night. It was duardin fuel and ironwork that kept Lightsdawn together. That was part of the reason that Halgrimmsson had taken this road towards his distant karak; the column would stay overnight in the capacious cavern-barracks that his folk had dug out beneath Lightsdawn for just such a purpose, and would push on towards the Shuddering Mountains in the morning.

Before then, Neave meant to have a conversation with their captive.

Presently, Neave heard the armoured wagons rumbling up behind her. Several contained weapons and ammunition, she knew, another a complement of healers. Another was a heavy affair of iron spars and reinforced wheels with a blackened chimney protruding from its roof. That wagon housed a mobile forge presided over by Runesmith Gnarlhelm.

Amidst them all, rattling along with a knot of heavily armoured Ironbreakers marching beside it, came the cage-wagon that held Xelkyn Xerkanos.

Neave had been able to smell his acrid stench ever since Irongrief Vale. Now, as then, it swelled in her nostrils and coated the back of her throat until it made her want to gag. It was the reek of unfettered sorcery, of mutated flesh, squirming insects and caustic ashes.

It was the scent of her mark.

Neave matched pace with the cage-wagon, moving up behind it and pointedly ignoring the clanking Ironbreakers just as they ignored her. She stared in through the stout iron bars of the cage at the figure hunched within. Neave felt a violent surge of hatred swell in her breast at the sight of him. She pushed it down with an effort. This pathetic-looking pile of blue-and-yellow rags had cost her good comrades and caused grief and pain to both her and many that she cared about.

‘Xerkanos,’ she said, her voice cold as drawn steel. ‘I see you, sorcerer. I see you clearly.’

Xelkyn Xerkanos unfolded from his crouch like a mutant spider emerging from its burrow. Insectile limbs scraped together, rune-wrought fetters clanking as he moved. The sorcerer’s face was a ghastly mixture of human and dragonfly, gross mouthparts squirming in a fleshy jaw, iridescent chitin bursting in ridges through tattooed flesh. Neave saw herself reflected in the lenses of his bulbous compound eyes, each mirror image subtly different and filled with a promise of violence and horror to come.

‘Do you, Blacktalon?’ he asked, his warped mouth mangling his words. ‘I wonder…’

‘You’re going to your death, you realise?’ she asked. ‘Whatever machinations you intended, they have landed you in chains and on the road to your doom.’

It was a crude stab, and Neave knew it, but sparring with Halgrimmsson had worn down her patience. She wanted to jog a reaction from Xerkanos. Neave’s gifts allowed her to read the slightest nuance of posture, expression and response, even in a being as cunning and unnatural as Xerkanos. If he had anything to give away, she would see it, and in her experience his greatest flaw was his sense of smug superiority.

Sure enough, there it was, a very slight twitch of knowing amusement in the stretched muscles of his cheeks, a minute trip of his ninefold heartbeat.

‘If you say so, Blacktalon, then it must be so,’ he said, and his voice was like knucklebones clicking and insect wings rasping together. ‘What is the might of Tzeentch when set against the pre-eminent majesty of your God-King, after all? How might a humble servant of the Changer of the Ways contend with so formidable a gathering of my master’s foes? Surely, this time, I am doomed.’

He sounded defeated, she thought. Miserable, even. Neave knew better.

‘After all the times you scried the weave of the future to evade me,’ she said. ‘After the armies of cultists you raised and the powerful secrets you stole, you were cornered and defeated by a host of duardin.’

‘Prognostication is imprecise,’ said Xerkanos. ‘Fate is a scattered reflection on broken waters, not an image in a mirror, clear to see.’ There was nothing false about the bitterness she heard in his voice this time.

‘What were you trying to do?’ she asked. ‘What possible benefit could you derive from killing the duardin king?’

No response. Xerkanos’ mouthparts worked, rasping one over the other in a cleaning motion. He twitched slightly beneath his ragged robes.

‘I don’t believe it, Xerkanos,’ said Neave, her words barbed with scorn. ‘I am not fooled.’

‘You have never been able to see the full extent of my schemes, Blacktalon,’ he said. ‘Just as your idiot god cannot perceive the true breadth of my master’s plan. But you tried. You tried to predict me, to pre-empt me. It is your instinct as a huntress. This was what made you easy to evade and to manipulate.’

‘Not so easy to evade that I didn’t slaughter your followers and foil your schemes at every turn,’ she said, and was rewarded by a spasm that raced, there and gone, across his features. Neave had learned early on that Xerkanos liked his plans to run smoothly, his enemies to flounder bewildered, and to know the full extent of their defeat before he crushed them. With Neave at his heels, he had been forced to rush, to improvise frantically. It had cost him, both in terms of followers and ruined plans.

‘Still you goad and second-guess,’ he said, his buzzing voice sounding part mocking, part sorrowful. ‘You believe that I am, what, conning my captors in some way? That I have some plan of escape that they are stupid enough to be an unwitting part of?’

At the sorcerer’s words, Neave felt a couple of glares from the Ironbreakers. Just because they were ignoring her and the sorcerer didn’t mean the duardin were deaf to their conversation. She suspected Xerkanos was attempting to rile them.

‘I believe that you are a supremely dangerous being and that the Mortal Realms will not be safe from your taint until your head lies separate from your neck,’ she said in a low growl. ‘And even then, Xerkanos, you can be sure that I will see the body burned and the ashes salted and buried.’

Xerkanos hissed for a moment with what Neave realised was laughter, but then he seemed to deflate. The sorcerer rested his gnarled hands upon the wooden boards of the wagon’s floor. His torn robes pooled around him.

‘You give me more credit than I deserve,’ he said bitterly. ‘I will not give you the satisfaction of knowing how, or why, but these duardin failed to dance upon their puppet-strings as they should have. This is no ruse, Blacktalon.’

She stared levelly at him for long seconds, then Xerkanos hurled himself into sudden motion. He lunged towards the bars of his cage with an insectile hiss, blue sparks dancing to life at the ends of his taloned fingers. Chains rattled as they raced through the iron ring set into the wagon’s floor, then clanged taut. The runes inscribed along their length glowed with a baleful light and Xerkanos screamed in pain. His sorcerous energies died as suddenly as they had flared, and he slumped against the wagon’s floor.

‘X’thazk z’threkkis aeshlech g’zarr,’ he spat, a foul curse in a daemonic tongue. The beasts pulling the wagon snorted and reared at the unholy words, and even the Ironbreakers recoiled as if struck. Only Neave remained impassive, her eyes locked unflinchingly upon the Tzeentchian sorcerer. She caught the sound of scratching talons that all others surely missed in that moment.

‘Lady Stormcast, you are bothering the captive and that bothers us,’ grumbled one of the Ironbreakers, a champion or leader by his helmet plume.

‘My apologies,’ said Neave.

‘Save them and take them elsewhere, eh?’ said the duardin sourly. ‘We’ll be in Lightsdawn within the hour. Interrogate him then if you must.’ He glanced away towards where the light of Hysh was lowering towards the mountain peaks and the shadows were stretching long. It would not do to delay, that look said, for darkness brought death in this place.

Neave inclined her head and picked up her pace, sweeping past the cage-wagon and leaving its mutant occupant in her wake. She had no desire to antagonise the duardin further.

Besides, she had got what she wanted, heard the sound that indicated the sorcerer’s true intentions. In the instant that Xerkanos had cursed and the wagon had jolted, Neave had caught the imperceptible motion of one of his talons dragging a long scratch through the wood of the wagon’s floorboards. She had seen him nimbly lever loose a splinter of ironwood and flick it back into the ragged material of his sleeve for later retrieval. A lock pick, she thought.

Neave asked herself if she should warn the duardin, but she already knew the answer. Even if they would listen to her, even if they would halt their march long enough to search Xerkanos and remove the wooden jag from his person, she still didn’t believe that they would fully appreciate the threat he represented.

She would let this play out. The moment that Xerkanos revealed himself and became a danger to them all, that was the moment in which her slaying him would be unavoidable and entirely justified. Even Halgrimmsson would struggle to gainsay a battlefield execution, though his pride and anger might push him to try.

Neave wouldn’t make the mistake that the duardin had. She wouldn’t underestimate her mark.

With that thought foremost in her mind, Neave settled in to match the marching pace of the duardin, holding position fifty yards ahead of the cage-wagon. She would know the moment when it came.

Lightsdawn hove into view half an hour later. Despite her position far back down the line, Neave suspected from their lack of reaction that she saw the town before any of the duardin advance guard. It was built upon a natural outcropping of night-black rock that, Neave knew from her first visit, was so hard that the settlers had never been able to carve or break it, only build atop it. An artificial road of long wooden planks and sturdy girders had been raised around the massive bedrock. It wound up in a circle from the dusty plain to the town’s single gate a hundred and fifteen feet above.

A high wall of wood and iron ringed the settlement. Azyrite banners had been unfurled down its flanks, and they stirred listlessly in the cold breeze.

Neave could see the helms and spearpoints of town militiamen jutting above the rampart. Instinctively, she checked that they were moving, indicating soldiers on patrol instead of bodies propped upon a firestep as part of some ambush. She had been there before, she thought ruefully, remembering another battlefield, another Reforging. Only the lack of heartbeats had warned her, that time. She thought of Xerkanos, languishing in his cage at her back, a splinter of wood hidden deep in the sleeve of his robes.

She wouldn’t be caught unawares.

The cry went up from the duardin shortly after as they, in their turn, sighted the town. The march picked up pace as the soldiery made for the safe haven ahead. Neave moved up the column as they went so that she was once again close to Thane Halgrimmsson by the time his bearers began to ascend the road-ramp.

‘How long do you intend to stay here, thane?’ she asked. Halgrimmsson spared her a glance from under his heavy brows.

‘No longer than we must, Stormcast. Overnight, and leave with dawn’s first light. My lads would march on through if they could. They’d do it in a heartbeat if I gave the word.’

Neave caught the defensive note in Halgrimmsson’s voice. The duardin resented this halt. For all that he feigned indifference towards her, he didn’t want one of Sigmar’s Stormcast Eternals to perceive some lack of fortitude in his clansmen.

‘I don’t doubt it, thane,’ she said carefully. ‘It is well known that one does not chance these wastes after darkness falls. The ashen people would leave naught but bones by the dawn, no matter how stout your warriors. My own Stormhost would fare no better.’

Halgrimmsson made a rumbling sound in his chest that might have been agreement. Neave didn’t know the precise nature of the terrors that haunted the plains after dark, but the arrays of huge mechanical braziers that lined the town’s walls spoke to the very real threat they represented. Whatever the ashen people were, it was common knowledge in Lightsdawn that you did not chance their wrath after dark, and that equally they would not step into the light. This, also, she had learned during her first brief visit to the town.

‘So, we press on for the karak at dawn,’ prompted Neave.

‘Aye, and none of mine will wake you,’ said Halgrimmsson sourly. ‘If you miss our departure you’re on your own.’

‘You assume that I sleep,’ said Neave, then fell quiet, leaving the thane to digest that somewhat unsettling thought.

The army’s massed footfalls rang upon the wood and iron of the roadway. It flexed and shuddered under their combined weight, but Neave felt its solidity beneath her feet. As the head of the column rounded the last turn that led up towards the town gates, she spared another glance out across the plains.

Darkness was falling as the light of Hysh slid behind the distant mountains. A dark pall spread across the wastes like spilled ink. She glanced up again at the men on the walls, saw their hard-eyed gazes beneath their helms. They stared not at the darkness, but at the column of duardin approaching their walls. The garrison would be used to threats beyond the walls, she thought, far more so than those who brought them within. Still, the intensity of the soldiers’ stares struck her as strange. They looked almost eager.

Neave smelled a chemical stink, sharp and acrid. She heard a rush and gurgle of fluids through hidden pipes, and a moment later the braziers along the walls roared to life. In that moment she caught another scent, strange and cloying beneath the smell of the pyre-oil. It was faint enough that, without her superhuman senses, Neave would never have smelled it at all.

Perfume, she thought, or some kind of scented oil. She tried to place the scent’s origins. It was nothing of duardin make, that was for sure. Rather, she thought the smell had wafted over the walls, from within the settlement. She doubted the townsfolk would trouble themselves to scent the oils that fed the braziers.

‘Thane, there is something amiss,’ she said, pitching her voice just loud enough for Halgrimmsson to hear.

‘Amiss?’ he asked. Ahead, the town gates began to rumble open as hidden gears worked in the walls. A blocky guardhouse was revealed beyond, rising to one side of a wide, slab-floored square. Solid-looking buildings of stone, wood and metal lined the twilit street that stretched away from the square into the heart of Lightsdawn. Oil-fuelled lamps burned to saturate the streets with light.

‘I smell a perfumed scent that hides a hint of corruption, and the behaviour of the wall guards seems wrong,’ she said. ‘They watch us like scavengers watch a sickening beast.’ And there, what’s that? she thought as they marched towards the gate. Was that blood she smelled? Faint, as though scrubbed or hidden? ‘And I smell blood,’ she added.

Halgrimmsson bristled. ‘You’d have me shy at the gates with the dark at our heels because you can smell perfume?’ he asked.

‘I would,’ said Neave, unabashed. ‘I long ago learned to trust my senses implicitly.’

‘They weren’t much use for my father though, were they?’ asked Halgrimmsson. ‘You’ve done naught but spout words of humanish caution about our captive since we set out. Now you spook at the sight of the town that will offer us sanctuary from the night. The danger is real, but it is at our backs, not to the fore. Either your Sigmar-given gifts are over-caution and cowardice, or else you imply a lack of competence on the part of my clansmen. Which is it, Stormcast?’

They approached the gates, and Neave saw two rows of guards lining the approach into the town. Their cloaks were swept back to keep their limbs free, and their spears were held out before them, butts to the ground. More guards clustered on the walls above the gate, and yet more could be seen on the roof of the guardhouse. Those had strung bows held ready.

An army marches though their gates and they gather their guards as a precaution, thought Neave, but she was not convinced.

‘Thane, I–’

‘I’ll hear no more, and I’ll not have you offend our allies by spouting accusations about them as we cross their damned threshold,’ growled Halgrimmsson. ‘Leave my side or forfeit your claim on the captive. I shan’t say it again.’

Neave supposed she was not the first to feel frustration at the legendary stubbornness of the duardin. Her instincts were howling of danger ahead, yet as she glanced back at the darkness now swallowing the roadway behind them, she knew that to remain outside the walls was to die.

There were too many guards, she thought. Moreover, she could see no townsfolk. Surely a few, at least, would have come out to watch their allies march through the gates, and to spit upon a captive Chaos sorcerer trussed in chains?

But Halgrimmsson wasn’t going to budge. Abandoning her entreaties, Neave halted and let him march over the threshold, his clansmen stomping resolutely along at his back. Neave folded herself into the shadow of the gates and let the duardin flow past. Dust-stained warriors thumped by without a glance in her direction, the welcome light of the town’s braziers playing across their leathery skin and reflecting in their hard eyes. Neave wanted to yell at them to draw their blades, to banish the looks of relief and satisfaction from their faces. She wanted to warn them that something was terribly wrong, but she knew they would ignore her.

This was a trap, and Neave knew its architect. She had tried to sway Halgrimmsson, but he was too emotionally invested in his course, and his warriors would follow him no matter what urgings she offered. In that moment, Neave discounted the duardin as lost. The only thing that matters is to slay Xerkanos before he can escape, she thought.

She lurked in the shadows, sliding her axes from their sheaths on her back and lowering herself into a huntress’ crouch. She was ready. The moment the cage-wagon drew level, Neave would spring her own ambush. And if the Ironbreakers sent her soul back to Azyr, so long as they cut her down after Xerkanos was slain, then so be it.

Then came the scream.

The sound exploded over the marching column like the sudden impact of an avalanche. To call it deafening would be to call an inferno hot. The scream stabbed into Neave’s mind like silvered blades. It seemed to reach into her body and wind coils of bladed wire around her very bones. Her phenomenal senses were overloaded by the sawing shriek that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Neave gave a scream of her own, axes clattering to the ground as she clamped her hands to the side of her skull in an effort to shut out the agonising howl.

Neave’s sheer mental discipline ensured she remained aware of what was happening around her even as she dropped to her knees, her vision swimming. The duardin were reeling, stumbling into one another, dropping weapons and tearing off helms as they slapped their hands to their ears. She saw the worst affected vomit blood or give silent cries of agony as gore wept from their nostrils, ears and eyes.

The dobkine went mad. The chitinous beasts reared in their traces, antennae waving and forelegs kicking. Neave saw the team pulling the forge-wagon run mad with pain and drag the rolling workshop straight over the edge of the roadway. She could only imagine the terror and agony of the Runesmith and his apprentices as their forge spewed hot coals across them and their workshop plunged to smash apart on the ashen plains below.

The rest of the dobkine surged and pulled, trying to flee the agony. Neave saw Xerkanos’ cage-wagon rattle past her, one trace broken, a wheel cracked and spewing wooden shrapnel as it disintegrated further with every revolution. She dimly perceived Xerkanos’ hunched form in the back of the wagon, sailing past her and into the town.

Neave felt rather than heard the gate’s huge mechanisms engage. Gritting her teeth, she forced her hands away from her ears, enduring the redoubled agony of the sonic barrage long enough to snatch up her axes and throw herself into a dive. The huge gates swung inwards, cog-teeth meshing where she had crouched moments before.

Neave caught a last sight of duardin and dobkine still outside on the roadway. Her eyes locked with those of a clansman just yards from the gate, scrambling forward on his hands and knees in the instant before the gates slammed shut. She would remember his look of shock and desperation for years to come.

The gates closed and as they did, the scream cut off as suddenly as it had begun. Neave rolled into a crouch and surveyed the scene, the ringing in her ears swiftly subsiding. That was her Stormcast physiology at work, she knew. Others would not be so lucky.

Not that any of the duardin could be considered lucky at this moment. Around Neave, carnage and mayhem reigned. Somehow, the guards had either endured the scream or else been entirely unaffected by it; while the duardin were thrown into utter disarray, they had struck. Arrows whipped down from the blockhouse roof to punch through mail and flesh. Duardin, already driven to their knees by the sonic assault, were spitted on spearpoints as the guards set upon them from all sides. Here and there the clansmen tried to mount a defence, drawing together in shield walls just a handful of dazed warriors strong. Arrows fell amongst them, feathering shield bosses and flesh alike. As soon as gaps were opened the human spearmen lunged in, whip-swift, to stab at faces and guts.

Cultists, Neave thought. Xerkanos’ cultists, Tzeentch-worshipping filth who had murdered the townsfolk and the guards, had stolen their uniforms and taken their place. They must surely overwhelm the duardin, and if they did, Neave would stand alone.

She allowed herself the merest moment of fury at Halgrimmsson for blundering into so obvious a trap when he should have marched his soldiers in with guns blazing and axes bared. Yet would it have helped? she thought. The duardin couldn’t have stayed outside the walls lest they be claimed by the ashen people. They couldn’t have predicted nor countered the scream that had shattered their resistance before it even had a chance to form.

A scream that might return at any moment, she realised grimly. Before that, she had a mark to slay.

Xerkanos’ wagon had ploughed through the duardin that blocked its path and had crashed into the corner of the blockhouse. It listed at a crazed angle, its dobkine full of arrows and dead in their traces. Neave read the flow of the slaughter and realised that three bands of armed guards were closing on the cage-wagon from different directions.

When Sigmar had raised Neave up and Reforged her as the first of the Knights-Zephyros, he had given his huntress many talents. Speed was perhaps the foremost. Neave rocked back slightly, tensing muscles and tendons as sparks of stormlight danced along her limbs. Then she launched herself forward with enough force to crack the stone slabs on which she had crouched.

She sped through the slaughter as a barely perceptible blur. Arrows fell around her, but she wove through them as easily as if they hung still in mid-air. A band of cultists began to turn as they sensed her approach, but they might as well have been trying to move underwater. Neave feinted right as she neared them and swept an axe in a beheading stroke before pivoting on her heel and pirouetting through their midst like a dancer. Her whirlwind axes lashed out again and again. In the space of no more than a second, she lopped the heads from two more foes, disembowelled a third and sent another sailing backwards with a thunderous kick to the chest.

Blood and tumbling bodies rained down in Neave’s wake. She barely even slowed, arcing around a hard-pressed circle of duardin fighting back to back and hacking down several of their assailants as she passed.

Xerkanos’ wagon was straight ahead and Neave slowed her pace. She would not simply charge in headlong, for the sorcerer was too dangerous a foe. Instead, she slid into the cover of another wagon, this one overturned within the blockhouse’s dancing shadow. Firelight, blood, screams, oaths and the clash of weapons blew around her in a sensory hurricane. Neave filtered it all instinctively, registered without conscious thought the dangers nearby and their relevance to her mission.

Snipers armed with bows crowded the blockhouse roof, raining arrows down upon anything that moved. They were shooting indiscriminately, Neave thought with surprise as she saw several shafts pierce a spear-wielding guardsman even as others slew the duardin he had been duelling. Hardly the discipline and discernment she expected from the worshippers of Tzeentch.

A band of faux guardsmen were pressing in from her rear, but still a good thirty yards behind and mired in battle with a band of recovering duardin. Not so much of a threat, she thought, even as another part of her mind noted the jagged tattoos and elaborate piercings that festooned the guardsmen’s exposed flesh. A number had thrown off segments of armour, she saw, had cast aside their cloaks and even flung away weapons in order to claw and strangle with bare hands. The perfumed reek was back, stronger, wafting from the attackers’ bodies.

Two more bands of guards were pincering in from either side, and these truly were a risk to her mission, for they were closing upon Xerkanos’ wagon. Only their drive to stop and murder each defenceless duardin they encountered had prevented them from reaching the sorcerer already.

Neave gathered herself to spring, but in that moment she felt a surge of sorcerous energies from ahead. The bars on one side of the cage-wagon glowed bright as the light of noontide. Then they simply shattered into glowing dust that skirled away on the breeze.

Xerkanos appeared in the gap, his chains discarded. He looked strong, alert, his movements sharp as a blade and his compound gaze drinking in the scene. Neave cursed herself for not factoring external attackers into her plan; slaying the sorcerer while he lay trussed in chains would have been far easier.

Still, she had to admit that the primal huntress in her nature relished a fair fight over butchering her quarry while he lay helpless. It had to be quick, though, before he linked up with the cultists who had come to–

That thought was cut off mid-flow as the lead guardsmen spied Xerkanos. They howled with murderous glee and raised their spears before breaking into a charge.

Xelkyn Xerkanos gave a buzzing snarl and raised gnarled talons. Streamers of magic gathered around his fingertips and stabbed out at the charging guards. One by one the warriors were flash-transmuted into shimmering crystal statues that tumbled to the stone floor to shatter under their own momentum.

Blood gushed from the shattered bodies to form a slick around their glinting remains.

Arrows rained down on Xerkanos and he gave another gesture, his anger clear to Neave in the jerky impatience of his movements. The shafts transformed into flights of stinging daggerflies in mid-air, before turning back and swarming up towards those who had loosed them.

Clearly, these were not Xerkanos’ followers, thought Neave. But if so, who were they and why did they want him dead? ‘Blacktalon!’ It took Neave a second to realise that Xerkanos was calling for her by name. ‘Blacktalon, I know you’re there, probably poised to take my head from my shoulders. I swear by almighty Tzeentch and upon the true name I shall never speak, that would be a mistake.’

Another rain of arrows fell, and Xerkanos ducked back into his prison-turned-shelter. Several shafts thunked into the wood of the wagon Neave crouched behind.

‘Blacktalon, I know the extent of your perceptive powers,’ called Xerkanos. ‘You will know if I am lying, won’t you? You can tell in that infuriating way of yours. Well hear me true. If these imposters acquire my blood, you’ll be dealing with a far greater horror than anything I can wreak.’

Blades rang behind Neave. She shot a glance back and saw Halgrimmsson, flanked by two of his shield-bearers. The duardin fought furiously against a mass of stabbing, shrieking cultists. For an instant, her eyes locked with the thane’s, and in that moment his expression was as unreadable as carved granite.

More guardsmen were closing in from around the square, dodging around the dug-in bands of duardin in their haste to reach Xerkanos’ cage. And to her great frustration, Neave heard no lie in the sorcerer’s voice.

‘Slay me now, huntress, and you’ll give them precisely what they want,’ he shouted, and this time Neave heard real alarm in Xerkanos’ tone. Arrows stuck, quivering, in the roof of his cage, and fresh waves of guardsmen pressed in from both sides.

‘Sigmar guide me in this,’ murmured Neave. ‘And if I’m wrong, strike me down for my foolishness.’

Neave vaulted the toppled wagon and launched herself into a sprint. She ploughed into the nearest mass of guardsmen, spinning, whirling and hacking with lightning speed. It was as she lopped off one cultist’s arm that she saw the tattoo upon the flesh of his shoulder, exposed as her axe-blade tore through his tunic.

It was an orb wrought in lurid purple inks and sprouting a shaft topped with opposed sickle-moon curves. The mark of Slaanesh.

Suddenly the perfumed stink, the deafening scream and the wild abandon with which the guardsmen attacked all made sense. But what did the worshippers of Slaanesh want with Xelkyn Xerkanos?

Neave despatched the last of her attackers, then dived aside as arrows whistled down upon her. She slid under the wreck of another wagon from whose rent flanks duardin provisions spilled. Ale from broken casks dripped amidst the juices of freshly butchered meat, giving the unpleasant impression that the wagon had been disembowelled.

‘Sigmar’s mighty throne, Xerkanos, does everyone in the Realms want you dead?’ shouted Neave. She was rewarded by a harsh buzz that might have been a laugh.

‘None so much as you, Blacktalon, and you’ll all be disappointed.’

‘Oh, I’ll hack you to bloody flinders, sorcerer,’ she shouted back. ‘Only tell me why I shouldn’t take your life right now.’

From across the square there rose a crescendo of baying howls. Neave shot a glance that way and saw a tide of deformed beings converging from streets that led deeper into the town. They were mutant horrors whose bulging flesh and deformed limbs were bound into hooked black leather that tore at their skin as they moved. Oversized eyes like black pearls, sucking sensory pits that took up entire faces, lamprey mouths and curled talons showed Neave at a glance why these foul abominations had not been part of the initial ambush. They could hardly have concealed such deformities.

Now, though, someone had unleashed the mutants to finish off their wounded prey, and as she watched the gibbering tide of twisted flesh hurtle towards her, she had little doubt they were up to the task.

‘Whatever you have to say, Xerkanos, say it swiftly,’ she shouted.

‘I had a cult cell in this town,’ he replied, his buzzing voice carrying over the maelstrom of shrieks and howls. ‘The idiot stuntlings would give me passage across the plains safe from your blades, then my cult would spirit me away once we got here.’

‘You said had, not have,’ said Neave.

‘Quite, I–’ Xerkanos broke off as a trio of spearmen charged the hole in his wagon’s bars. He spat twisted syllables and the three guardsmen’s screams turned to wet gurgles as their bodies burst open like flower petals. ‘I think it is safe to say my operatives are slain,’ he continued. ‘If I am not mistaken, these are Slaaneshi cultists of the Sixth Torment.’

‘None of this answers my questions,’ shouted Neave.

‘They want my blood,’ spat Xerkanos. ‘All my blood.’

‘And I shouldn’t let them have what they want?’ asked Neave.

‘Not unless you want them to work a ritual of surpassing power with it,’ replied Xerkanos. ‘A ritual of supreme divination that will light their path to their lost god. They’ve bled eight of my brothers already, and I am the last and greatest Tzeentchian sorcerer they need.’

‘Slaanesh is dead, the aelven gods slew him,’ said Neave. ‘His followers are deluded, his daemons by-products of their madness.’

‘Oh, Blacktalon, how little you know,’ spat Xerkanos, and again Neave experienced the grim sensation that the sorcerer spoke the truth. Her mind whirled. She could hear the tide of mutants getting closer, the desperate curses and the clashing of blades that marked the islands of duardin resistance being overrun one by one. Closer, the guardsmen were winding themselves up for another push towards Xerkanos’ wagon while arrows still rained sporadically down from on high.

And beyond the walls, nothing but darkness and certain death.

She would fight them off, she thought. Hit them as hard as she could, try to rally the duardin long enough to push the cultists back. If she could get the gates open, then she could drag Xerkanos screaming into the dark and as far from the town as possible before the ashen people came. With luck, there wouldn’t be enough left of the sorcerer for the Slaanesh worshippers to work their ritual on once those ghoulish creatures had had their way.

Even as she thought this, Neave felt another surge of sorcerous power.

‘Xerkanos, what in Sigmar’s name are you–’

Xerkanos’ cage-wagon exploded in a ferocious ball of green-and-yellow flame. Bits of wreckage cartwheeled in all directions and Neave ducked instinctively as a blazing axel ricocheted off her cover. The approaching guardsmen took the full brunt of the blast. Those not reduced to blazing cinders fell back screaming as the fires of change sent their bodies into uncontrolled spasms of mutation.

Neave felt her mark moving amidst the coiling smoke. She was out from under the wagon and running before Xerkanos could take ten paces, yet as she accelerated towards him, she saw he was running straight at a group of approaching guards. Neave cursed as she realised what Xerkanos was doing; she couldn’t risk the cultists bringing him down. She would have to slay them before they did.

She hurled one of her axes and it whipped end over end past Xerkanos’ shoulder to thud into the chest of the lead guardsman. The Tzeentchian sorcerer gave a buzzing cackle and dodged left, away from a wild spear thrust. That was the only blow the Slaanesh worshippers tried before Neave hit them like a thunderbolt.

‘Dark Prince guide us!’ shrieked one cultist just before she tore his throat out with an axe swing. He crumpled with a gasp that might have been agony or bliss. Another opened his jaws wide and spat out a coiling length of black, prehensile tongue that whipped around Neave’s throat. He tried to drag her in with it, towards his man-trap maw of fangs. Contemptuous, Neave grabbed a fistful of tongue and yanked. The cultist’s face smashed into her helm with a bony crunch and he fell back in a spray of blood.

The distraction had cost Neave precious seconds. She saw Xerkanos dashing into an alleyway between two high stone buildings, his ragged robes flying behind him like the multicoloured wings of some weird insect. Neave broke into a run and crossed the gap in moments. She rounded the corner in time to see the trailing ends of Xerkanos’ robes vanishing around another bend. The alleys had no lamps to light them, but Neave’s eyesight was so keen that she could see perfectly well. She didn’t even slow as she dashed down the rubbish-strewn alley, allowing herself to rebound hard from the wall with a clang of armour on stone so as to round the next corner all the quicker. Ahead, the alley emptied back out onto a lamplit street that swarmed with Slaaneshi mutants. Xerkanos ploughed straight into their midst, blasting assailants aside with tongues of kaleidoscopic fire.

‘Sigmar’s bloody throne,’ spat Neave as she saw that the sorcerer would be overrun in moments. She ran hard, spinning her axes in her fists before launching herself into a leap. She came down amidst the mutants like the God-King’s own fury, and lightning exploded outwards from her point of impact. Revolting beings were hurled through the air, their bodies convulsing and burning as her heavenly energies tore through them. Neave’s axes lashed out in swift arcs, hacking through deformed flesh and sending horned heads tumbling from lumpen shoulders. A crab-like claw snapped closed on her arm, hard enough to dent the Sigmarite. In return, she punched its owner in the neck, caving its throat in and sending it to the floor as it choked its last.

Neave cleared a circle around herself in time to see Xerkanos vanishing down another alleyway, his buzzing laughter floating back over his shoulder.

‘What are you doing, Xerkanos?’ she yelled, slamming her shoulder into a rearing mutant and driving it aside. ‘Where in the Realms do you think you’re running to?’

Xerkanos had said that his cult would spirit him away, thought Neave. What trickery did he have in mind?

She span in a circle, beheading a goat-man hybrid and driving a rib-shattering kick into the chest of a flabby thing with too many eyes. She leapt over the toppling beastman and broke into a flat-out sprint. Neave hurtled down this new alleyway fast enough to raise a wake of swirling dust and litter, executed a one-footed spring off the wall at the far end and burst into a square flanked with glowing lanterns and dominated by a dried-out fountain.

A Sigmarite temple took up one entire edge of the square. She saw Xerkanos dashing up its steps. He glanced back, and she saw firelight reflected in his glittering eyes. She could have hurled her axes right then, hit him in the face and the chest, struck him dead in an instant. She saw the knowledge of it on his face and, infuriatingly, the smug assurance that she would not risk it. Neave could hear the howls of cultists and mutants close behind and knew that, if it was Xerkanos’ blood they wanted, she could not stop them from overrunning her and taking it if he died here.

‘I’m going to drag you out of this town by the throat and feed you to the ashen people,’ she snarled.

‘There are more futures in which you don’t than in which you do,’ he shouted back, before smashing the ornate temple doors from their hinges with a blast of balefire.

Neave raced up the steps and lunged, grabbing at Xerkanos as he vanished into the cool dark of the temple’s interior. She felt her hands close around one of his chitinous limbs, sensed his alarm and pain as her grip closed like a vice.

Then came the mind-shredding scream again, more ferocious and intense even than before. Neave snarled in pain, losing her grip on Xerkanos as she was bludgeoned to the floor by the sonic sledgehammer.

Xerkanos, too, gave a buzzing shriek that was all but lost in the onslaught. Neave staggered, thumping against a column as her head threatened to blow apart under the appalling pressure of the sound. She looked deeper into the temple and saw its source, squatting atop a mound of carrion.

The bodies were piled in an untidy heap, ten feet high. The few that were still clothed wore multicoloured robes that marked them out as acolytes of Xelkyn Xerkanos. All showed appalling degrees of mutilation, as though they had suffered long before they died. Their corpses dripped foul fluids.

Crouched on top of the mound of dead was a mutant several times larger than the rest. Its gender was impossible to determine, its body a rippling mass of over-muscled limbs and rolls of tattooed flab. It had six arms and two legs, and it leant forward on its many knuckles like some strange simian as it screamed. Its jaws stretched impossibly wide, permanently distorted out of shape by finely worked golden separators whose many filigreed tubes were acting as sonic amplifiers. Bulging flesh-sacs in the thing’s throat puffed in and out like bellows, sucking and pumping in sequence to maintain its endless scream, and an array of disturbingly normal human eyes clustered in the veined flesh of its forehead beneath its lank golden hair.

The scream stopped. Neave let out an involuntary gasp of relief. Then the thing spoke, and she almost wished she was deafened again. Its voice was horribly human, albeit distorted. It was also horribly sane, androgynous and musical.

‘The sorcerer’s blood is ours, huntress,’ said the mutant. ‘I am Achylla of the Sixth Torment, and I claim him in the name of the Dark Prince.’

Neave pushed herself upright and firmed her grip on her axes. Her blood surged hot and angry at the sight of yet another vile champion of the Dark Gods.

‘Xelkyn Xerkanos has been condemned to death by the God-King Sigmar and I am his appointed executioner,’ she said. ‘He is not yours to claim.’

In her peripheral vision, Neave noted that Xerkanos was edging closer to the corpse pile upon which Achylla squatted. He was half crawling, half crouching, muttering some kind of obfuscatory charm. Achylla swung its head towards him and gave a vicious screech. Xerkanos wailed in pain and collapsed, limbs shaking uncontrollably.

‘This place has been consecrated with fluids unnameable on behalf of Slaanesh,’ spat Achylla. ‘Your warp magics will not work here, sorcerer. But…’ Its laugh was a tinkling cascade of sound tainted with lascivious glee, like a beautiful brook fouled by a brothel’s sewage. ‘Do you seek this?’

Achylla smiled a hideous smile and held up a blue crystal talisman on a heavy gold chain.

‘You will not leave here, sorcerer,’ said the mutant, its leer widening until Neave thought its head must surely split in two. ‘Now, my beautiful brood, come and claim him. Keep the huntress alive. Her stormflesh will make for an amusing diversion before the ritual.’

Neave’s eyes narrowed at the mutant’s casual tone.

‘Try to take me, you lumpen freak,’ she snarled. ‘It will be your last and greatest mistake.’ Behind her, Neave heard the scrabbling claws, the panting breath and pounding feet of Achylla’s mutants surging in through the temple’s broken doors. To her left, Xerkanos slumped as though stunned by the mutant’s sonic assault. Directly ahead, Achylla’s throat sacs puffed and bulged as they sucked in vast quantities of air. Achylla reared back, spreading its arms wide with a look of glee in its eyes as it prepared to unleash another crippling scream.

If that happened, Neave knew she would be helpless to stop the cultists from overrunning her.

Lightning fast, she spun in a circle and hurled her axes. Even as they left her hands, she was accelerating, following her whirlwind blades as they sailed across the temple in a lethal trajectory. At the last instant, Achylla managed to turn partly aside, the mutant’s reactions unnaturally swift. Still Neave’s axes hit Achylla’s throat sacs and burst them with awful splatting sounds. Neave surged through the atomised spray of flesh and gore to drive a thunderous uppercut into the mutant’s distended jaw. Bone cracked, and blood sprayed as Achylla’s jaw separators tore through suddenly displaced flesh. A mouth that had spent years wired open crunched shut with a wet snap.

The mutant lost its balance and toppled backwards off the corpse mound, limbs flailing. Gold flashed in the air as it fell. Neave followed, riding the huge body down the carrion slope and driving her armoured heels into its bulging torso even as she ripped her axes free.

Achylla whipped and lashed like an injured serpent, the mutant’s movements fast and violent. It let out an awful keening squeal and bucked again, throwing Neave aside to land and roll in a clatter of armour.

The mutant was up in an instant, hate and wounded pride burning in its gaze as it scuttled at Neave on all eight limbs. With a crunch of gristle, it forced its jaws open, foot-long fangs pushing through the pink flesh of its gums. Neave hurled herself aside and Achylla’s jaws snapped shut where she had stood. Before Neave could swing a blow, one of the mutant’s muscled arms lashed out and a fist the size of her head hit her breastplate with a sound like a tolling bell.

Neave was flung backwards into the corpse mound. She rolled back to her feet as Achylla came at her again, useless throat sacs flapping like burst balloons. The mutant tried to grab Neave with two huge hands, but she wove inside its reach and scissored her blades to lop off one of the grasping limbs at the elbow. Another blow opened the mutant’s chest in a long gash that bled ropes of clotted gore.

Achylla fell back with a screech.

‘Slay her,’ it managed to croak, scrambling away as blood spewed from its wounds. A mass of mutants surged over the corpse mound and Neave spun to face them. Her axes lashed out again and again, adding more dead bodies to the heap with every passing second.

Suddenly, she felt her mark moving.

‘Sigmar’s throne,’ she cursed as she realised that, beset by Achylla and its brood, she had taken her eye from her quarry for vital moments.

Neave took three steps and launched herself into a mighty leap, sailing over the heads of the thronging mutants and landing on the other side of the corpse mound.

She was in time to see Xerkanos snatching up the amulet where it had slithered from Achylla’s grip. His mouthparts moved as he muttered a spell of awakening and the amulet glowed fiercely. This time there was no hesitation; Neave drew back her arm and hurled an axe. It flew end over end towards Xerkanos, only to sail through his shimmering outline as sorcerous energies flared. Xerkanos’ mocking laughter echoed through the temple for a moment, then was gone.

It was no illusion, Neave knew. Her sense of her mark became suddenly diffuse, vanishingly distant. She would be surprised if Xelkyn Xerkanos was even in the same Mortal Realm anymore.

Her flying axe hit a mutant and bisected its face. The creature thumped to the floor in a bloody mess, the haft of the whirlwind axe jutting up from its mangled skull.

Neave took a slow, deep breath and looked around at the massed Slaanesh worshippers closing in on all sides. Something large moved atop the corpse mound, Achylla dragging its mangled body over the heaped dead to stare at Neave with murderous hatred.

‘Hundreds of you left,’ said Neave, her tone almost conversational as she stalked across the temple floor and wrenched her axe from the dead mutant’s face. Its legs kicked as she dragged the blade free with a sucking squelch. ‘Only the one of me, and I’d bet Ghal-Maraz its own self that the duardin are dead to the last by now. Poor, stubborn fools.’

‘You are doomed,’ rasped Achylla. ‘You have affronted the Dark Prince this day. How we will make you beg for death before the end.’

‘You murdered a stout band of duardin loyal to the cause of the God-King,’ said Neave, her voice dangerously low. She stretched out her limbs, working out the kinks and aches of battle one at a time. Warily, the mutant throng watched her, nerving themselves to attack.

‘Worse, you made me lose my damned mark,’ said Neave. ‘Again.’ Her heart thumped heavily in her chest, fury and frustration causing her head to pound in time with it. It was all she could do to prevent herself from shaking with rage. ‘For that, it is you that will meet your end, Achylla. And before your hordes drag me down and send me to my Reforging, I will slaughter so many of them that your cult will be destroyed, never to rise again. This I swear upon my oath to Sigmar himself.’

With that, Neave launched herself into a blistering charge up the flank of the corpse mound. Achylla barely had time to blink in horror before Neave’s axes bit deep into the mutant’s throat, yet even as the foul creature’s head parted company from its shoulders, it was Xerkanos that Neave was thinking of.

The hunt wasn’t over, she thought as Achylla’s corpse toppled sideways and a howling tide of mutants closed in from all sides. In fact, it had only now truly begun…

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.

An extract from Hammerhal & Other Stories.

The rat chittered, exposing yellow incisors in warning. Belloc growled and tossed his knife. The rat fled as the narrow blade thudded into the side of a mould-encrusted crate. The dock-warden cursed and ambled to retrieve his weapon. As he did so, he saw the flash of eyes in the nearby shadows. The rat wasn’t alone. They never were. Where there was one, there were a dozen – these days, at least. The sacks of grain that were stacked along the causeway of the aether-dock were irresistible to hungry vermin.

The docks rose high over Hammerhal’s warehouse district, one ring of berths and warehouses stacked atop the next, almost all the way up its length. From each ring, an ever-spreading canopy of high-altitude berths and quays extended out over the tangled streets below, like branches stretching from a tree of immense size.

Belloc had heard that it was, in fact, just that – that much of the city had been grown rather than built. He didn’t know whether he believed that or not, though there were stranger things in this realm, to be sure.

Hammerhal itself, for instance. The Twin-tailed City stretched across two of the eight Mortal Realms, separated by untold infinities thanks to the Stormrift Realmgate. Like all realmgates, it was a portal through which one could pass into another realm entirely. Countless numbers of these apertures in reality were scattered about the Mortal Realms, and all of the great cities were built about one or more realmgates.

Hammerhal spread outwards from the twinned thresholds of the Stormrift Realmgate into both Ghyran, the Realm of Life, and Aqshy, the Realm of Fire. Belloc had only been to Hammerhal Aqsha once, and the experience hadn’t been a pleasant one. The air had tasted of cinders and smoke, and he’d been covered in sweat from sunup to sundown. Ghyran was better, but not by much – it was too wet here, too humid. He missed Azyr. The Celestial Realm had its problems, but at least the weather was pleasant.

He plucked his knife free of the crate and spun it lightly between his fingers, careful not to cut himself.

‘Well,’ he said, glaring at the rats, ‘anything to say for yourselves?’

When no reply was forthcoming, he kicked the mouldering crate towards them. It came apart as his boot touched it, and he yelped in disgust. Bits and pieces clattered across the ground, and the rats took the hint, scattering into the shadows.

Belloc hopped back, scraping at the sludge on his boot with the edge of his knife. If it got into the leather, he would have to get new boots, and he’d only just managed to break these ones in. He looked around as he dislodged the last of it. There was mould everywhere, growing on every warehouse and berth that occupied the vast wooden platform of the docks. And vines. And weeds, even. It seemed inconceivable that anything should be growing this high above the city proper, but life found a way. Especially in Hammerhal Ghyra.

This side of the bifurcated city was awash in unwelcome growth. The heat from the Fire-Bastions could only do so much; no matter how much lava was channelled into the immense stone runnels from Hammerhal Aqsha, the city’s spires and golden domes were under eternal siege from Ghyran’s excessively exuberant plant life.

And the rats. Always the rats.

‘Vermin,’ Belloc muttered, thrusting his knife back into its sheath.

That was all this job was, at times. The dock-warden scratched at his unshaven chin. He was burly, but not especially brave, even with a sword on his hip. He wasn’t ashamed. Bravery cost extra, and the owners of the docks were notoriously cheap. You got what you paid for, and they had paid for Belloc. Luckily, no one was stupid enough to climb all the way up here, just to filch grain – or worse, try and steal an airship. So it was just him and the rats.

He wondered if Delph and the others were as bored as he was. Probably. Things were either boring or terrifying this high up, but they had drawn the short straws and been forced to patrol the uppermost ring.

He didn’t like it up here. The Kharadron vessels smelled of strange chemicals and the vibrations of their buoyancy endrins shook the entire dock. The sky-duardin were a stand-offish folk who kept to themselves, unless they had business to attend to. He’d heard from Delph that they lived in flying cities, but didn’t know how much credence there was in that.

Then again, Delph was a duardin herself, so perhaps she’d know, if anyone did. She said the Kharadron were duardin who had retreated to the skies when the armies of the Dark Gods had swept over the Mortal Realms. She didn’t seem to like them very much. Granted, she didn’t like anyone.

Belloc stared at one of the Kharadron vessels. It was oddly shaped. Too many curves. The bulbous aether-endrins that held the ship aloft glowed dimly, even when at anchor. If you stared at them for too long, you got dizzy. Belloc blinked and looked away.

There were sounds up here too, sometimes. Not the usual creaking and groaning you’d expect, but something else. Smells, too – acrid and unpleasant. Once, he thought he’d seen something watching him from the roof of a warehouse.

Suddenly uneasy, he glanced at the unfamiliar stars above. The sky was green here, even now at night, with the faintest tinge of azure. Sometimes it was so pale it was almost white, and sometimes it was so dark as to be black, but it was always a shade of green. The stars were the worst. They were the same as in Azyr, he was certain, but somehow different, as if he were looking at them from the wrong angle.

He blinked and tore his eyes away from the unforgiving sky. Beyond the obscuring wall of anchored airships and skycutters, Hammerhal Ghyra stretched across the horizon. It was almost beautiful from up here. Parts of the city were given over to vast groves of trees, and amongst the green he could see golden domes and white towers rising over a sea of smaller buildings.

A constant flow of molten rock poured down through immense stone and crystal runnels that emerged from the city’s heart, where the Stormrift Realmgate was located. The glowing lines stretched like veins through the tangled streets towards the distant defensive canals which marked the outer districts. He could just make out the faint reddish glow of the Fire-Bastions on the horizon.

Each time the city extended its borders, the Fire-Bastions were duly redirected by teams of human and duardin artisans. The engineers of the Ironweld Arsenal were capable of great feats of artifice. They bent the wisdom of two races towards devising weapons and mechanisms for the reconquest of the Mortal Realms.

The Fire-Bastions were one such mechanism. Fed by the runnels of molten rock, they served to burn back the ravenous flora of the realm, keeping the outer districts of the city from being overwhelmed by fast-growing plant life.

The hollow, ashen network of tunnels that were left behind when the Fire-Bastions were redirected were then gradually built over and hidden from sight. Belloc sometimes wondered how many of those tunnels were repurposed rather than filled in, and how many still ran beneath the winding streets of Hammerhal Ghyra.

‘And probably rats in all of them,’ he muttered.

The city was full of rats. And worse things. No one talked about it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t so. He’d left Azyrheim one step ahead of the thief-takers, but a stretch in the sky-cages didn’t seem so bad now compared to some of the things he’d seen.

Delph and the others swore blind that the mystic wards around the city prevented anything too horrible from getting in. They said the magic kept the monsters out, but Belloc wasn’t concerned about the ones outside. He was more worried about the ones that might already be in the city somewhere. Hiding. Waiting.

There were stories. There were always stories, even in Azyrheim. About rats that walked on two legs, and men with the heads of goats and wolf’s teeth. Belloc was no child. He knew that monsters were real, and their gods too. And he knew that nothing could keep them out for long, if they were truly of a mind to get in.

As he gazed at the horizon, he found his eyes drawn towards the Nevergreen Mountains. He’d never seen them up close, but he’d heard about the great forest that covered their broken slopes and the things that lurked within it. Lightning flashed, arcing between the distant peaks and the night sky. He shivered. The lightning reminded him that the Stormcast Eternals had marched west, towards the mountains, two days before.

He shivered again, thinking of those massive, silver-clad warriors as they passed through the steaming gates of the Fire-Bastions. Delph said they’d been human once, before Sigmar had blessed them with divine strength and holy armour, but what would a duardin know about such things? She didn’t even worship Sigmar. Like most duardin – at least those he knew – she worshipped Grungni, the god of her folk.

Something clattered. Belloc froze. Then, slowly, he turned.

It was probably a rat. It was almost certainly a rat. But sometimes it wasn’t. He’d heard stories that sometimes things crawled down out of the green sky, looking for food. It was the same in Azyrheim, but it was somehow worse here. He reached for the hilt of his sword as he took a step towards where the sound had originated from – an alleyway between two warehouses.

Belloc didn’t call for help. Delph had gotten angry the last time he’d called for help and there hadn’t been any need. He needed this job. Besides, if it was something other than a rat, calling for help would only attract its attention all the quicker.

He took a step towards the alleyway. For a moment, he heard only the creak of rigging and the whistle of the wind blowing between the buildings. Warehouses of all sizes clustered thick here, near the edge of the ring, and they collected shadows.

Another clatter, and a rat ran out of the alleyway, squealing.

Belloc sighed in relief. He nearly choked on that sigh as something pounced on the rat. The rodent died instantly as four dun paws crushed it flat. A tawny, feathered skull dipped, and a hooked beak tore at its kill. Belloc took a step back. The thing turned, golden eyes fixed on him.

‘Gryph-hound,’ he muttered as a chill raced along his spine. The creature resembled a small lion, only with the head of a bird of prey. It was no larger than a wolf, but it was far more lethal. Its tail lashed as it crouched over its kill. He held out his hands and began to back away slowly. ‘Easy there. No harm done. Enjoy your meal.’

It might have come off one of the airships, but there was no way to tell. Just as he was about to call out for help, he bumped into someone. An instant later, something very sharp was resting against his neck.

‘Hello, friend,’ said a voice. ‘No, don’t move. Especially don’t try to draw that sword you’re wearing. Things might take an unfortunate turn.’

Belloc kept his hands from his blade. Thieves, he thought. Or worse. He made to speak, but the pressure of the blade against his throat increased slightly.

‘Quietly, friend. Quietly. No need to speak.’

Belloc quickly closed his mouth.

‘Good,’ continued the voice. ‘Good. Now, I need you to point out the berth belonging to the sky-merchant Rollo Tarn. Remember, don’t reach for the sword.’

Tarn? Why did they want Tarn? He didn’t ship anything valuable. Just wood. Belloc’s mind spun in confusion. No one could expect him to die for wood, could they? He gestured slowly, hesitantly. The pressure of the knife was removed, and he sucked in a breath.

‘There now. Excellent. That wasn’t so difficult, was it?’

Belloc swallowed, but didn’t reply. He was too busy praying.

‘You can turn around, now.’

Belloc did. The man before him was tall, and dressed like someone with more sense than to be creeping around the aether-docks at night. He wore a heavy, triple-caped overcoat over something that might have once been the uniform of a Freeguild warrior. A basket-hilted rapier was sheathed on one hip, and he had a brace of pistols on the other. On the lapel of his coat was pinned a symbol that Belloc recognised all too well from his time in Azyrheim: the hammer and comet of the Order of Azyr.

Belloc drew back in fear.

‘Witch hunter!’

Click here to buy Hammerhal & Other Stories.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Phil Moss.

Blacktalon: When Cornered © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Blacktalon: When Cornered, 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.
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ISBN: 978-1-78030-946-0

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