The Joy of Battle

Madzec’s axe struck home, cleaving through bone and smashing aged leather into clouds of choking dust. The fell magic that knitted his foe together evaporated, and loose bones tumbled to the ground.

The Deathbringer felt something clawing at his leg and stomped his iron-shod boot through the ribcage of the crawling figure. In his crimson fury he barely registered that the squirming form was one of his fellow reavers.

‘He sees me!’ the broken warrior choked, his bloodshot eyes rolling back into his head as his mouth frothed with blood. ‘He sees me!’

Madzec kicked and stamped, again and again, until all motion ceased.

Through the blood thundering in his veins and the fingers of red mist crawling across his vision, he took in the battlefield. Ahead, ten Scalptakers held the bridge of sinew that stretched from the fortress’ gatehouse, holding at bay a host of rotting, grasping cadavers with axe and flail.

No more than chattel. He turned, seeking worthier prey. Around him, more Blood Warriors held the central chamber. Above, silver moonlight bled into the pillared vestibule from great breaches in the roof. A steady stream of animated corpses hurled themselves through these holes, uncaring of the bone-shattering drop to the fortress hall.

The risen dead had enveloped Coldspite Cairn like a flood. The barrow-tombs of the Harrowed Spine mountains had been emptied. There was no end to the enemy’s numbers, and no sign of Marakarr Blood-Sky or her warhost. How long had they held this fortress? Days beyond end. Time had lost much of its meaning in this place.

Madzec of the Flayed Legion understood well enough that the Warqueen had sent him here to die, to hold back the enemy as long as he might while her armies pressed onwards into the Grave-God’s domain. The thought tore an ecstatic bark of laughter from his throat. It would be an end worthy of a champion such as he.

‘The eye of the Blood God is upon us!’ he screamed. ‘Skulls for the Skull Throne!’

Another boulder of fused bone from one of the enemy’s artillery pieces slammed home, tearing free a shower of masonry and tumbling down into the hall to crush a half-dozen of Madzec’s warriors to gory paste. Scores of skeletal warriors swarmed through the fresh breach. Many tumbled the three hundred or so feet to the blackstone tiles below, shattering into pieces. Others landed heavily upon the piles of bones and dead Bloodbound that littered the chamber, before rising to their feet and launching themselves into the fray.

Even as more Blood Warriors were dragged to the floor, slashed and torn apart by rusted blades, the rear doors of the hall burst open. In marched ranks of silver-armoured skeletons in tight formation, their motions so unnaturally synchronised they seemed as reflections in a mirror. The gleaming tips of their halberds flashed in the moonlight, and a standard – depicting a dragon pierced through the heart by a barbed arrow – fluttered above their number. Bloodreavers charged, howling, at this new foe, and were cut down by measured sweeps of those wicked halberds, spitted upon the weapons’ cruel, spiked tips, or hacked apart by their axe-like blades.

At the heart of the skeletal advance were three regal forms clad in splendid golden chain. They wore crowns bedecked with jewels, and their eyes burned with green fire. Even in death they radiated power and authority, directing their minions into the battle with sweeping gestures of their blades.

Madzec roared in delight, and charged right at the heart of the gleaming host. His ravening Blood Warriors raced alongside him, their own demented howls echoing across the soaring chamber.

The Deathbringer saw the halberds sweep across to meet this new threat, but the blood rage was on him and no mere weapon could stay his charge. He felt his skin tear open and delighted in the pain, using it as fuel for the raging fire within him.

One skeletal face burst apart under the descent of his axe. Another swing smashed aside a shield and broke the arm that held it into pieces. So tight was the press that he found himself staring into the empty sockets of a halberd-wielding warrior. He headbutted it, and the daemon maw of his helm bit deep into the wretch’s skull. Still it clung to him, trying vainly to bring its weapon to bear in the close quarters. Again and again he smashed his face into it, until his vision blurred and blood filled his eyes.

The skeleton’s skull was spider-webbed with cracks, but still it fought on doggedly. Abandoning its halberd it drew a short dirk and stabbed it into Madzec’s side, lighting a painful fire in his belly. Madzec leaned back as far as he could and drove his head forward one final time, and the skeleton’s skull collapsed entirely, exploding into powdered bone. The thing collapsed limply to the ground as Madzec fell to his knees, wracked with choking gasps of laughter.

Ahead, the trio of deathless kings were carving apart his Blood Warriors. One carried a colossal two-bladed axe, which he wielded as if it weighed no more than a willow cane. The others hacked down foe after foe with contemptuous slashes from their heavy broadswords. A mountain of torn and hacked corpses lay at their feet, blood seeping in great rivers.

‘Khorne claims this place,’ screamed Madzec, raising his weapon and aiming it at the wight tyrants. ‘As I claim your skulls for his throne.’

With that he charged, barrelling past a row of slashing halberds and leaping upon the closest of the wights. He bore the undead lord to the ground. His axe fell, three times, and the dead king’s armour was rent asunder. Still, his adversary reached out a bony hand to close around his throat, its hateful eyes staring into his own. He raised his axe again and hacked into the wight’s gorget, snarling in triumph as his weapon cleaved through metal and bone and took off the thing’s head.

The Deathbringer felt a sword slide through the plate metal at his back and howled as a rush of grave-cold agony speared through him. He felt true pain for the first time in years, draining his strength and numbing his limbs. Staggering to his feet, he found himself faced by the two remaining wights. The sword of the nearest was slathered with gore, and the fell weapon pulsed with tides of amethyst magic.

Madzec swayed, vision blurring yet further. Ahead he could see that the entirety of the grand chamber was a churning mass of bone, a swarming tide of undead creatures swallowing everything in its path. More skeletons were pouring from above, and yet more were being reconstituted from the piles of bones that littered Coldspite Cairn. Less than a dozen of his warriors remained, islands of blood-red armour amidst the relentless surge. They were drowning, pulled down by scores of grasping hands to be torn limb from limb.

It was the most glorious sight that the Deathbringer had ever seen.

Surely with this final offering the Blood God’s gaze would fall upon him. Surely such a bounty of blood and skulls would earn him a place in Khorne’s eternal legions, to fight and slay for evermore.

‘This is not my end, kings of nothing,’ he said, and laughed through strings of bloody drool. The wight lords gazed back impassively, circling him with blades raised.

Madzec staggered forward. A tomb blade sunk into his thigh, sheering straight through his gore-encrusted plate, but he barely felt the blow. Still choking with laughter, he hurled himself at his foe, striking the sword-bearing wight in the chest and wrapping his arms around the dead thing in a crushing embrace. They fell together, toppling down a mountain of corpses and shattered bone. The Deathbringer felt the chill of the grave seeping through his flesh as the wight lord stabbed again and again, turning his chest to bloody ruin. His axe tumbled from his hands.

The combatants landed hard. Madzec looked down to see a sword impaled through his chest to the hilt. His foe opened its mouth, and let out a rattling hiss. With the last of his strength, Madzec made his final offering, growling as he tugged the tomb blade free from his flesh and thrust it into the undead tyrant’s glowing eye socket. Finally the corpse-lights dimmed, and the thing shuddered and was still.

The Deathbringer felt bony hands clawing into his back, reaching up to dig into his eyes and throat. The skeletal tide rose up to swallow him. They tore at his flesh, peeling it from his body like the skin of a fruit. He was still laughing as his throat was opened, blood bubbling down his chest.

The last of the wight kings approached through the clawing tide, his great black axe held aloft.

Madzec favoured the creature with a final, gore-splattered smile.

‘Mighty Khorne,’ he rasped. ‘Witness my–’

The axe came down, and bit deep into the Deathbringer’s neck.

Upon his great brass throne, the Blood God Khorne saw his faithful bring strife and slaughter to the sterile lands of the dead, and his roar was one of triumph and of hatred both. He raised his dread blade high – the Ender of Worlds, Allslaughter. With a bellow he brought it down, and smote reality itself asunder.

A deafening cacophony rolled across the sterile valleys of the Harrowed Spine, the thunderous eruption of a thousand volcanic ranges at once. Mountains crumbled and fell, crushing legions of fleshless warriors to dust. From beneath the catacombs of Coldspite came a rushing roar. A torrent of blood erupted into the grand hall, sending fountains of scalding gore rippling through the ancient fortress. Undead chattel were dissolved to nothing in an instant as the bubbling liquid splattered across them. A surge became a flood, pouring from ramparts and high-arched windows, becoming a waterfall as it tumbled away into the valley below.

The last wight king of the mountain redoubt stood imperiously before the flood, staring in silent defiance as the tide of gore crashed down upon him.

Amidst the gushing blood-fountain shapes began to emerge. Rangy, muscled killers with eyes like smouldering coals. Bat-winged horrors as huge as castle towers, roaring in exultation at the slaughter that awaited them. Howling in praise to their master, they crashed into the army of the dead, and the carnage began anew.

The Blood God knew a brief moment of satisfaction, but it was swiftly replaced by familiar, burning rage. The blood flowed, but not in quantities great enough. Not nearly enough.

With a bellow he ordered more of his legions forward.

This sterile land would burn in the fires of his rage – and its pretender tyrant would burn along with it.

PRODUCED BY GAMES WORKSHOP IN NOTTINGHAM

The Joy of Battle © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. The Joy of Battle, Malign Portents, GW, Games Workshop, Warhammer, 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.

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