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The Lords of Helstone – Josh Reynolds

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden’

A Black Library Publication

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The Lords of Helstone

Josh Reynolds

Nagash has risen.

The ur-death stirs and the worlds tremble. That is as it should be, and yet… there are things I cannot see. All souls belong to me. All the dead of all the worlds above and below are mine. Nagash has risen and all must pay fealty.

But some do not. Some flee to realms I can but dimly perceive, the how or why of their leaving a mystery even to me. They are snatched from me, as a thief might pilfer coins. Who has taken them? Who denies me my rightful bounty?

WHO?

Whoever they are, they are my enemy and they shall know my wrath.

Though I have grown weak and weary, though my body slumps on its basalt throne, its hollows and crevices filled not with strength but with worms and spiders, they shall know my wrath. The enemy draws near. The Starless Gates are blistered by the heat of war, as the servants of the mad gods hurl themselves against my defences in an unceasing assault.

Their champions call for me to show myself. They mock me. They think me nothing but a memory, an old ghost, forgotten and fallen. Nagash is dead, they say. The Great Necromancer is bones and dust and nothing more.

But Nagash endures.

A grave wind gathers in the dark as my loyal Mortarchs gather and my servants heed my call. Soon, I must stride forth and break the bones of those who would stand against me. I shall crack their limbs and sew up their skins, filling them with mouldering air so that their wails echo forevermore.

Nagash has risen.

I shall not be denied. Not by those who face me openly, or by thieves who come in the night. Nagash shall cast down the citadels of his enemies and make of them habitation for night-birds and hoofed things.

But first, I must seek out my secret foes, those who sicken me and steal the strength from my limbs. For I have seen them, at a distance, their souls glowing with lightning and power. My power, stolen from me by an old enemy. I am betrayed by the storm, and his laughter is in every peal of thunder and flash of lightning.

The dead are mine and they must learn their place.

I shall hunt them in the Vale of Sorrows and across the Blood Plain. I shall peer through the eyes of carrion birds, and through the hollow sockets of fleshless horrors. I shall hunt them, these thieves, for they hold the key to my weakness.

They know what I must know.

And so I shall run them to ground. I shall tear their secrets from them.

Nagash will not be denied.

Nagash must not be denied.

NAGASH SHALL NOT BE DENIED.

Tarsus slammed his shoulder into the beastman’s stomach and flipped the goat-headed creature over his back. As it tried to scramble to its feet, he twisted about and crushed its skull with a blow from his hammer before whirling back around and opening the throat of a second gor with the tip of his sword.

‘Come then,’ he shouted, clashing his weapons together. ‘Come and meet the storm.’

Beastmen spilled out of the overgrown ruins all about him, scrambling through once-majestic archways and the fire-gutted structures that made up the gateway to the mountain city of Helstone. They had sprung their ambush with characteristic ferocity, but the brighter creatures were beginning to realise that they had caught more than they had bargained for. A foamy-jawed bestigor, clad in rusty armour, hacked at him with a two-handed axe. Tarsus avoided the blow and thrust his sword through the beastman’s chest, killing it instantly. He wrenched his blade free.

‘Smash them, sons of Sigmar,’ he roared. ‘Drive them back – let no Chaos-touched beast bar your path!’ All around him, the retinues of his silver-clad Stormhost surged forward, slamming into the enemy with a sound like thunder. Their heavy shields, upon which the sigil of Sigmar was emblazoned, were thrust out to absorb the blows of axes and clubs. Hammers wreathed in crackling lightning rose and fell, pummelling the foe to the ground.

Tarsus kicked a beastman back against a broken pillar and pulped its skull as it staggered. Though the Lord-Celestant had been forged anew in Sigmar’s realm, the man he had been was born here, in the Realm of Death. And now, here I am, fighting the enemies of Sigmar in these lands once more, he thought, as he drove his war-helm into the face of a beastman and knocked it sprawling. Before it could stand, he drove his sword through its chest, killing it. Lands that might once have been mine, he thought, as he jerked his sword free.

He spun as he heard the scrape of steel on stone behind him, and swept his sword out. He pulled his blow up short as he saw the black and golden creature crouched atop the crumbled wall behind him. It screeched and he stepped back warily as it snapped its heavy jaws shut on a dead beastman’s head. Bone crunched and popped as the bat-like jaws drew forth a squealing wisp. As Ashigaroth swallowed the wretched scrap which passed for the beastman’s soul, its master laughed.

Mannfred von Carstein leaned forward in his saddle. ‘I did warn you not to make so much noise, my friend,’ he said. ‘One would think you Stormcasts wanted to call the enemy down upon you.’

‘It’s easier to kill them if we don’t have to look for them,’ Tarsus said as he parried a blow from an axe and gutted its wielder. ‘In any event, they were in our way.’

Momentarily free of the press of combat, he scanned the battlefield. Vaulted archways, broken by calamity and age, rose above the overgrown paving stones of the enormous courtyard. Tumbledown walls marked where guardhouses and the inner keep of the great gatehouse had once stood, before it had fallen to ruin. Yellowing vines and a brittle brown moss clung to almost every flat surface.

‘Is this all that is left?’ he muttered. ‘Are these shattered ruins all that remains of Helstone?’

‘Of the city that was? Yes,’ Mannfred said. He gestured, and cold black flames wreathed his fingers. All around Tarsus, the newly dead began to twitch, like sleepers waking from a nightmare.

‘Stop,’ Tarsus said. ‘There is no need for that.’

Mannfred looked at him and sneered, but he lowered his hand, snuffing the flames as he did so.

‘What did you mean, “the city that was”? Is there another?’ the Lord-Celestant asked.

‘Of sorts,’ Mannfred said. ‘The city once sprawled wild across this very slope which overlooks the acrid waters of the Bitter Sea. Its towers once stretched into the very clouds themselves.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘Now, they stretch to the very depths…’

Before Tarsus could press him further, he heard the winding of hunting horns. The Chaos pack was in retreat. The beastmen had chosen the site for their ambush well, but they had not been prepared for the speed with which the Stormcasts had reacted. Now, all save a determined handful were vanishing into the ruins, leaving the dead and wounded behind. The handful in question, a pack of armoured bestigors, continued to hack and smash at the shields of the Liberators.

‘Allow me,’ Mannfred began, raising his hand.

‘No need,’ Tarsus said, and barked an order. The Liberators began to fall back, drawing the bestigors after them. ‘Ramus, finish this,’ he said, glancing at his Lord-Relictor, who was standing on a broken plinth, surrounded by his Paladins and the shattered bodies of beastmen. As Tarsus spoke, Ramus raised his staff and murmured a sonorous prayer. He thrust the staff forward as the blue light about it grew almost unbearably bright. In a voice like thunder, Ramus uttered one word.

‘Burn.’

Lightning zigzagged down through the shattered roof above, arcing along the crude iron weapons and armour of the bestigors and burning them to ash and bone. Ramus wrenched his staff aside like a man pulling a rope taut and the burning beastmen came apart in clouds of charred flesh and scorched metal, which spattered the shields of the Stormcasts. He turned back to face Tarsus and inclined his head.

‘The rest flee, Lord-Celestant,’ he said, stepping off the plinth and striding towards his commander. ‘The beastkin have little stomach for real battle.’

‘They will return,’ Mannfred said, cleaning his sword with a scrap of cloth. The vampire sheathed his blade with a flourish. ‘There are thousands of them and worse things besides, roaming the ruins, warring on each other. We must hurry and descend into the depths before their courage returns.’

‘The depths? Have you led us to one of the Nine Gates at last then, vampire?’ Ramus growled. ‘Have you finally made good on your debt to us?’

‘If I recall rightly, I owe you nothing, Stormcast,’ Mannfred said looking down at the Lord-Relictor. ‘Tarsus freed me, and I repaid him by saving your life.’

‘No, Ramus – this is not the way to Stygxx,’ Tarsus said. Ramus looked at him, as did Mannfred. Tarsus shook his head. ‘I am not so much a fool as that, Mannfred. You were far too evasive when you guided us here. What was it you said, in Sepulchre? Our paths run together, but they are not the same. There is no way into the underworld here, is there?’

Mannfred was silent for a moment. Then he looked away.

‘No,’ he said, patting Ashigaroth’s neck. ‘No, there is no gate to Stygxx here that I know of.’

‘I thought not,’ Tarsus said. ‘Yet you brought us here for a reason – what is it?’

Mannfred did not turn as he spoke, instead keeping his gaze on the city, which spread out below them. ‘Coming here was a necessity, I assure you. There is something here which we must acquire, before we can continue on our journey.’

‘What is it?’ Tarsus asked. He stepped in front of Mannfred’s steed and looked up at the vampire. Ashigaroth stirred, but Mannfred calmed the beast.

‘Speak, vampire,’ Tarsus said calmly, giving no sign that he had noticed the dread abyssal’s restlessness. ‘You owe me that much at least, by your own admission.’

‘The Fang of Kadon,’ Mannfred said, after a moment. ‘An artefact which can point the way to the Nine Gates. The gates are born anew every nine months, and they grow and age and die in the same span, crumbling to dust before appearing elsewhere. An endless cycle of death and rebirth. That is why the Dark Gods have yet to find Nagash, for none can predict where and when the Nine Gates will open. But with the Fang…’

‘How did such a potent item come to be lost?’

Mannfred laughed. ‘It was forgotten by the Mortarchs as they carried the broken remains of Nagash into the underworld. Left behind in the care of Uzun, sage of the Sorrowful Order, who made his way from the Vale of Sorrows to Sepulchre, and thence to Helstone…’

‘Why this place?’ Tarsus asked. Uzun, he thought, the name plucking some chord deep within him. He pushed the thought aside, trying to focus on what Mannfred had said. The Vale of Sorrows was where they had discovered the vampire, and Sepulchre… They had just left the ruins of Sepulchre, only a few days before.

‘Helstone was a place of resistance, in those fear-fraught final days,’ Mannfred said softly. He turned away, gazing out over the ruins, his narrow features taut. ‘Where those who could stood for those who could not. As the legions of the dead crumbled beneath the storm, the living held firm. The fortress-state of Helstone was a bastion against the assaults of Chaos, and it was here, in the days after Nagash was cast down, that the full might of the Dark Gods fell.’

He looked down at Tarsus. ‘Uzun brought the Fang here, it is said, so that the people of Helstone might flee to the underworld and seek sanctuary in the halls of the Amethyst Princes.’ He grinned mirthlessly. ‘Alas, it was not to be. Nagash alone knew the secret of its use. Nagash… and one other.’

‘You,’ Tarsus said. Mannfred inclined his head.

‘We cannot trust him,’ Ramus said. ‘He has deceived us, Tarsus. We should have left him where we found him.’

Mannfred laughed. ‘And if you had, you would still be wandering aimlessly, looking for something you had no hope of finding.’ He looked at Tarsus. ‘Tarsus, my friend… I swear, on my very blood and bone, that I am not lying. We need the Fang, else we could search for an eternity without finding that which we seek.’

Tarsus paused, examining the vampire’s face for any sign of deception. ‘Why not simply tell us what you intended?’

‘Would you have trusted me?’ Mannfred looked at Ramus as he spoke, and Tarsus could feel the anger radiating off the Lord-Relictor. A seaborne wind hissed through the ruins, bringing with it the far-off wail of war-horns. Mannfred was correct – the beastmen were returning, and in strength.

‘Enough,’ Tarsus said, before Ramus could speak. ‘This place is vast, and, by your own admission, full of enemies. How will we find this artefact of yours?’

‘Simple. We shall ask the lords of Helstone.’

‘They yet live?’ Tarsus asked. At the thought, something awoke within him. A flare of heat, as if he had been in darkness and was suddenly standing in the sunlight. Mannfred looked down at him, his expression puzzled, but he nodded.

‘Yes. They live. In the depths below.’

‘Take us to them,’ Tarsus said.

Mannfred wordlessly kicked Ashigaroth into motion. Tarsus raised his hammer. His Stormcasts fell into formation smoothly with an instinctive discipline. They marched as one, Tarsus and Ramus taking the lead. Prosecutors, led by Zarus, swooped out over the ruins ahead of the column, assessing the lay of the city.

More than once, Zarus or one of his retinue brought word of beastmen lurking nearby in the ruins. But no further attacks came. The beastkin were not ones for strategy. They knew only one way, and that way served them badly when they faced a foe that was prepared for them. Badly enough, perhaps, that they were reluctant to try again. Even so, Tarsus remained alert, for the sound of horns never faded entirely.

He was not alone in being tense.

‘I do not trust him, Tarsus,’ Ramus said, as they followed Mannfred. ‘He leads us to one ruin after the next, as if we were the servants, and he the master. I would teach him the error of his ways…’

‘I have no doubt that you would, my friend,’ Tarsus said. ‘And in truth, my faith in his intentions wanes by the day. But… we are close, Ramus. I can feel it. We are on the cusp of… something. The end of our mission. Mannfred, despite his deceptions, can lead us to Nagash. And if he says we must find some artefact to win an audience with the Great Necromancer, then we will do so. I will not fail. We will not fail. We will do what we must, even if it costs all of us our lives. We can do no less, and still call ourselves Stormcasts.’

‘As you say, Lord-Celestant,’ Ramus said. He laid his hammer across his shoulder. ‘Though if he does betray us, I will remind you that I said as much.’

‘I expect nothing less, my friend,’ Tarsus said, and tapped Ramus’ shoulder plate with his hammer.

When the Stormcasts caught up with Mannfred, he was waiting for them at the edge of what appeared to be a massive crater that stretched like a gaping wound in the belly of the cliff.

‘Behold, the hole where Helstone’s heart used to be,’ Mannfred said, standing in his saddle, arms spread. ‘Here stood the Deep Gate, the largest of the Hollow Towers, by which the folk of Helstone moved between sky and salt.’

The crater rim was marked by great shards of amethyst, the gemstones rising from the charred rock in eerily shimmering patches which cast strange, crawling shadows across the barren ground. No buildings stood within a hundred yards of those glittering markers. Even so, the area was not unoccupied – hundreds of roughly human-sized crystalline growths crowded around the crater like a forest.

As the Stormcasts threaded through the silent, stunted forest, Tarsus peered closely at one of the formations. Through a murky purple facet, a charred skull stared back at him, jaws wide in a silent scream.

‘In the Realm of Death, victory always has its price,’ Mannfred called out. ‘The servants of Chaos tore Helstone apart, stone by stone, but the city claimed its due before it perished.’

‘A spell gone awry perhaps,’ Ramus said. ‘Wild magic…’ He tapped his staff against one of the crystallized bodies and the amethyst began to glow softly. Soon, each of the shards was shining with an ever-shifting light. As the light grew in intensity, a low, soft moan, as of many voices all in pain, rose from everywhere and nowhere. The sound spiralled up and up, until it filled the air. The crystal shapes began to quiver, as if in sympathy to the moan. Purple shadows twitched and danced in the light and, as it began to fade, Tarsus thought he could see faces among them, human and otherwise.

‘If you are finished,’ Mannfred said, ‘we should descend, before the beastherds regain their courage.’ He turned Ashigaroth about and the dread abyssal gave a shriek as it leapt into the crater. Tarsus led his warriors to the rim and saw a curving expanse of wide, shimmering amethyst steps leading down to a circular landing some distance below, where Mannfred sat and waved them on.

‘Hurry, my friend,’ he called up.

‘More wild magic?’ Tarsus asked, as Ramus joined him at the edge.

‘Perhaps,’ the Lord-Relictor said. ‘It shows the marks of tools, however. Someone carved these steps, and that landing as well.’

Tarsus started down, Ramus’ words weighing on him. Carved by the folk of Helstone, perhaps? Then Mannfred wasn’t lying after all. The thought lent him speed as he descended. The amethyst landing gave way to more steps, but these were stone. Clumps of shimmering amethyst illuminated their way, but only barely, and they grew fewer and fewer the further down the Stormcasts went.

As they marched past the crudely carved support struts, which proved to be holding up the serpentine length of the steps above, Tarsus caught glimpses of the hollowed-out core of the seaside cliff upon which Helstone had been built. It was a sprawling network of broken aqueducts and tall, balcony-studded pillars – the Hollow Towers that Mannfred had spoken of – each one connected to its neighbours by a confusing web of stone walkways and bridges, most of them broken. The Hollow Towers stretched between the levels of the city, connecting one vast urban plateau to the next.

‘How far down does this blasted ruin stretch?’ Ramus said, as they continued their descent.

‘The city was – is – vast,’ Mannfred said. ‘Larger even than the grand port of Ossuary. When its turrets and towers scraped the sky it housed millions.’

‘And now?’ Tarsus said, as he looked past the support struts up at the vaulted archways which crisscrossed above them for what seemed to be miles. The uppermost reaches were almost completely hidden by stone paths, balconies and buttresses which extended from one great plaza to the next. Helstone had clearly been built over centuries, each generation building over the last. He sensed that not all of the building had been done by human hands.

What strange depths might these Hollow Towers be rooted in? he wondered. He thought that, once, he might have known.

Mannfred ducked his head as Ashigaroth padded beneath a shattered archway. ‘Helstone was a mighty city, in its time. It sat astride the ancient trade routes, which stretch from the Skull Isles to the great manses of the Amethyst Underworld. Even Nagash knew better than to obliterate it.’ Mannfred laughed. ‘Though it helped that the Princes of the Ninety-Nine Circles sued for peace as soon as the Great Necromancer appeared outside their gates.’

Something about that term piqued Tarsus’ curiosity, though he could not say why. ‘The Ninety-Nine Circles,’ he said, as he followed Mannfred through the archway and out onto an enormous landing. Three sets of steps descended from it, two going deeper into the depths of the city, and one leading to a wide avenue which curved through the crumbled towers and buildings beyond. ‘This city was built on them – ninety-nine levels, stretching from the deepest sea caves to the clouds above.’ He spoke without thinking, and could not say where his knowledge had come from.

For a moment, Tarsus thought he could smell the scent of foreign spices, and the cured meats which had once hung in market stalls. He could hear the clamour of life, as if from far away. He could feel…

Fire, rising from the depths of the city…

The screams of his people as they fled…

The sword in his hand vibrating painfully as he parried an enemy blade…

He blinked, and found Mannfred watching him, an inscrutable expression on his face. The vampire nodded. ‘Aye, and each level a kingdom in its own right, one stacked above the next. When the upper city fell, many of its people retreated to the lower levels, through the gates above, and these towers.’ He smiled. ‘They were a proud folk once, the lords of Helstone. Mighty in war, cunning in trade…’

‘Not mighty enough,’ Ramus said.

‘Mighty or no, if some of them survived then we must find them,’ Tarsus said.

‘And so we shall,’ Mannfred said. With that, he threw back his head to emit a monstrous shriek. It bounced from buttress to pillar, from arch to keystone, travelling far. As the echoes of it faded, something in the darkness answered in kind. Mannfred gestured airily, a cruel smile on his face. ‘Ah. As I suspected.’

Tarsus tensed as the sound of panting beasts and of claws scratching across stone rose out of the darkness. What horrors had Mannfred summoned?

‘You said you were taking us to meet the folk of Helstone, vampire,’ he said.

‘And so I have! Behold, the once-proud folk of Helstone,’ Mannfred said, as a number of gaunt grey shapes spilled into the open from out of the ruins below them. They were lean-limbed and starved-looking, their bare flesh pockmarked with scars where it was not covered by bits of animal hide or scavenged armour. Some carried weapons, crudely fashioned from bone or wood, but most bore nothing save their claws and fangs.

The sight of them tore at Tarsus more painfully than the talons of any mutant beast. He had expected men and had been given monsters instead. He watched them approach, torn between repulsion and sadness as, red-eyed and wary, they clustered at the edge of the light, mewling and snarling like wild beasts.

‘What have they become?’ he said softly.

‘Ghouls,’ Ramus said. ‘Carrion-eaters and marrow-drinkers. Foul things, more beast than man, more grave-worm than beast.’ Behind him, Tarsus heard the Stormcasts prepare themselves in case the newcomers proved themselves a threat. Shields were raised and hammers readied. He held up a hand, forestalling any premature action on the part of his warriors. The creatures clearly meant no harm, and despite his repugnance an ember of pity flickered within him.

‘Perhaps,’ Mannfred said. ‘But they are our allies, nonetheless. They have come at my call, and they will serve at my command. They will scatter throughout this city, and locate that which I – which we – seek.’

‘Can they be trusted?’ Tarsus asked.

‘As well as I,’ Mannfred replied.

Ramus gave a bark of laughter, but subsided at Tarsus’ gesture.

‘Then send them out,’ said the Lord-Celestant. ‘I would not tarry here any longer than is necessary.’

‘As you wish,’ Mannfred said. He moved down the steps, hands spread. The largest of the gathered ghouls clambered to meet him, moving with a curious simian gait. As Mannfred drew close, he held up his hands and dug his fingers into his palms, tearing his own flesh. The whines of the ghouls grew in intensity. Mannfred held out his bloody palms as if in benediction. The largest ghouls clustered about him, clutching at his arms as they drank his blood, or else licking up the droplets that spattered the stones. Ramus grunted in disgust, and Tarsus couldn’t help but sympathise with his Lord-Relictor’s feelings.

It was a vile ritual but, he suspected, an old one. As the ghouls nuzzled his hands, Mannfred spoke in a guttural language. Every so often, a ghoul would rear back, blood decorating its muzzle, and shriek out something that might have been a question. At last Mannfred wrenched his hands away from his grisly supplicants and snarled out a command. The ghouls turned as one and scrambled away, back into the shadows from which they had emerged. The vampire turned and climbed the steps.

‘It will be some time. There are miles to cover and these creatures must carry my word to the other packs. We should make camp.’

The dais and the avenue before the steps served them well enough in that regard, and the Stormcasts set up a field camp quickly. Liberator retinues took up a defensive perimeter around the bottom of the steps. Smaller chunks of rubble or fallen stones nearby were dragged into position to serve as improvised barricades, behind which Judicators took up position in order to watch the approaches to the dark avenue before them. Tarsus and Ramus stood at the top of the steps alongside Mannfred, surrounded by their retinues.

Stormcasts rarely needed rest, and the azure glow radiating from Ramus’ reliquary staff served to bolster the strength of all who were within reach, save Mannfred. The vampire shied away from the light and instead sat astride his monstrous steed, seemingly deep in thought.

Tarsus let his gaze roam across the plaza, taking in the grisly piles of gnawed bones and barbaric totems which seemed to occupy every nook and cranny in sight. Was this then all that was left of the city’s former inhabitants? A broken necropolis, full of beasts and shadows?

Shadows, wreathed about a column of flame, coming closer…

Men screaming, as red, lean-limbed daemons scrambled over the parapets…

The daemons scattering, fleeing before the approach of something worse…

A roar, like thunder…

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the errant mote of memory, as scenes of fire and death rose out of some deep place in his mind. Was this sunken place the citadel of his memories? Had he trod these stones before, in another life, in another time?

He watched the shadows dance in the light of Ramus’ staff, and tried to capture the flickering, fleeting memories as they slid across his mind, but it was like grasping smoke.

Some Stormcasts could recall their previous lives with almost painful clarity. Others could remember little, if anything. Tarsus was trapped between one life and the next, as were many of the Hallowed Knights. Their faith in Sigmar was like a chain, binding the facets of their two lives inextricably together.

He ran his fingers across the sign of Sigmar emblazoned on the head of his warhammer. Whoever he had been, he was Tarsus Bull-Heart now. That would have to be enough.

He looked up to find Mannfred gone. Tarsus rose to his feet and looked around. There was no sign of the vampire. He and his monstrous steed had vanished so silently that Tarsus hadn’t even noticed their departure.

He signalled Ramus.

‘I knew he would desert us at the first opportunity,’ the Lord-Relictor said, striding towards him.

‘This is not the first time he has disappeared,’ Tarsus said. ‘But the timing leaves much to be desired. We must–’

The air suddenly quivered with the tramp of hooves and the bray of bestial voices. Tarsus turned, drawing his sword.

‘Eyes front, Stormcasts,’ he said, his voice ringing out.

‘Is that what you call yourselves, then?’ a voice said, loudly. Tarsus saw a robed and hooded shape step out onto one of the balconies above them, a heavy scythe in one hand. The iron-shod haft of the scythe rang as the figure walked to the edge of the balcony and looked down at them. ‘Fitting, for creatures that come on wings of lightning.’

The newcomer threw back his hood, revealing a face that bore more relation to that of a reptile than a man. The scales that covered the creature’s scalp and cheeks were dark and infected-looking.

‘Stormcasts, then,’ he said, his voice slithering down through the dusty air. As Tarsus watched, he reached up and pried a warty scale loose from his face and tossed it aside. ‘You are trespassing. This city – and everything in it – belongs to the gods. The true gods.’ The creature thumped the balcony with his scythe. ‘It belongs to Sloughscale and his chosen followers. It is ours to do with as we wish, and none may gainsay us.’

Beastmen began to fill the streets and doorways ahead. They slunk out in knots and packs, slavering and howling in eagerness. The buzzing of millions of flies grew loud, nearly drowning out the stamp of hooves and the clatter of weapons. The heavy silhouettes of blightkings loomed behind the beastherds. Everywhere Tarsus looked, an enemy looked back.

‘He knew,’ he muttered. Somehow, Mannfred had known this was coming. Why else would he have slipped away? The ghouls, he thought. There was no telling what had truly passed between the debased creatures and the vampire. Had the vampire betrayed them?

Ramus nodded. ‘Of course he knew. We are a distraction, Tarsus. He knew these beasts were here, and he knew our coming would stir them to battle. We are the meat, to bait the trap.’

‘Then we shall have to disabuse him of that notion,’ Tarsus said. ‘But first, we must clear ourselves a path.’ He signalled for his men to ready themselves for battle. At his gesture, shields were locked together, forming a rough bulwark. Soros and his Retributors stood behind the shield wall, ready to charge once the enemy were within reach. He glanced at Ramus. ‘You know what to do.’

‘I do,’ the Lord-Relictor said.

Above them, Sloughscale brought his scythe down upon the stones of the balcony with a crash, and the servants of Nurgle started forward. Ungors and gors led the charge, bellowing guttural chants as they rang funerary bells and beat skin-drums. Tarsus raised his hammer. ‘Shields up,’ he said. ‘Stand fast.’

As the front ranks of the enemy drew close, the more nimble beastmen outpacing the slower blightkings, Tarsus clashed his weapons together. ‘Stamp your hooves, Bull-Hearts,’ he bellowed. All around him, Liberators thumped their hammers against the inside of their shields in a brutal rhythm, akin to the sound made by the hooves of the great shaggy aurochs which roamed the vast plains of Azyr. ‘If we must return to Sigmaron, let it not be in shame. When next we meet death, let it be with open eyes. Who shall stand, though the realms crumble?’

‘Only the faithful,’ the Stormcast answered, as one.

‘Who will rise, when all others fall?’

‘Only the faithful!’

‘Who will be victorious?’

‘ONLY THE FAITHFUL!’ The echoes of hammers striking sigmarite filled the avenue, drowning out even the bestial cries of the approaching bullgors.

‘Only the faithful!’ Tarsus roared. ‘Liberators – at my command, break the wall. Soros! There is red work to be done, Retributor. Ready yourself.’

Soros’ reply was to strike the haft of his lightning hammer against the ground. His Retributors followed suit, adding a ringing note to the thunder of the Liberators’ war-song. Tarsus felt his heart beat faster, aligning with the battle-rhythm.

When he judged the enemy to be within reach, Tarsus snarled, ‘Now!’

The shield wall split before him, and he led Soros and the Retributors forward at a dead run. They crashed into the enemy a moment later. The great two-handed hammers wielded by Soros and his warriors lashed out right and left, smashing beastmen from their feet or pulverising them in mid-stride. Tarsus clubbed and chopped at the enemy as he waded into their midst. The foe reeled, their momentum blunted by the sudden counter-charge.

A barrel-chested gor chieftain, scabrous skin covered in boils and sores, lurched forward out of the press and attacked him. The creature carried an axe in either hand and lashed out at him with both. It hacked at him, bellowing in a berserk fury. Tarsus swept the weapons aside with a blow from his hammer and chopped the beast’s legs out from under it. As it fell, he drove his heel down on its throat, silencing its screams.

The air rippled and Tarsus looked up, just as Sloughscale spat an incantation. Sorcerer, he thought, even as sickly green light speared from the creature’s hand, and several Stormcasts were reduced to bubbling black masses of corroded armour and rotting flesh, before they vanished in flashes of blue light.

‘Take him,’ Tarsus cried, signalling for Zarus and his Prosecutors to occupy the sorcerer’s attention.

Even as the winged warriors swooped towards Sloughscale, Tarsus was forced to divert his attention to a trio of spear-wielding gors. The beastmen lashed out at him from all sides and he twisted, letting a spear scrape across his chest and a second beneath his arm. He managed to hook the third with his hammer and tear it from its owner’s grip. He killed the weaponless creature, but a moment later he was driven to one knee by a powerful blow. He peered up, dazed, and saw a massive bullgor looming over him, a stone-headed maul clutched in its wide fists.

The bullgor lifted its weapon for another blow, when the snarl of lightning filled the air. A crackling azure bolt struck the bullgor full in the chest, hurling it backwards. Ramus strode towards him, lightning crawling across his silver armour.

Liberators forged forward in his wake, joining their shield-brothers in the line as Judicators moved up behind them, firing their crossbows into the milling ranks of the foe. Ramus led a retinue of Decimators forward, their axes swinging out in deadly rhythm, to capitalise on the damage done by the charge of the Retributors.

Tarsus brought his hammer up and around, against the head of his remaining opponent. The beastman fell twitching, even as Ramus joined him, and they fought back to back.

‘The sorcerer,’ he said, as he planted a boot on a beastman’s chest and ripped his weapon free of the flabby flesh. ‘Can you do something about him?’

‘Of course,’ Ramus said, as he drove the haft of his staff into the stomach of a blightking. It doubled over and Ramus crushed its skull with a powerful blow from his hammer. ‘Much is demanded–’

‘–of those to whom much is given,’ Tarsus said, completing the oath. He traded blows for a moment with a shrieking beastman, before its head was briefly limned by lightning and it dropped where it stood, smoke rising from its shattered skull. A nearby Judicator saluted him and Tarsus returned the gesture as he took in the battlefield at a glance. The shield wall was holding. Ramus’ charge had bought them respite, but the enemy still pressed close. It was as if every herd of beastmen in Helstone had answered Sloughscale’s call to war, and for every gor that fell, three more took its place. ‘Where are you, vampire?’ he muttered, as he parried a saw-toothed sword blade and rammed his hammer into its wielder’s goatish snout.

Perhaps Ramus had been right. Mannfred had taken advantage of them, used them to distract these foes, so that he could retrieve his prize. When I find you, vampire, I will extract payment from your cold carcass for every fallen warrior, he thought, as a bolt of blue shot upwards, signalling the death of a Stormcast.

He heard Ramus’ voice rise in prayer, and then a searing bolt of lightning split the air. The balcony Sloughscale had been occupying ceased to exist, reduced to tumbling fragments by the wrath of Sigmar. As the echo of the lightning strike faded, Tarsus heard the wail of horns and saw that the pox-worshippers were falling back, retreating into the ruins.

‘The sorcerer escaped,’ Ramus said. ‘I saw him dart into the tower as my lightning struck.’ He hammered the ferrule of his staff against the ground. ‘We must hunt him down.’

‘Yes,’ Tarsus said. ‘Mannfred can wait. We will find him and this artefact of his after we have purged this place of the plague which afflicts it.’ He raised his sword. ‘Form up! In Sigmar’s name, we march,’ he roared.

The city unfolded around them as they pursued Sloughscale and his followers, revealing horrors and wonders in equal measure. Great holes, wide enough to swallow an army, had been dug in the earth, and strange lights glimmered in the darkest reaches. Slumped towers disgorged swarms of fireflies as the Stormcast marched past, and, once, something large scrambled away from them, deeper into the ruins.

The beastherds and pox-warriors ran far and fast, but the Bull-Hearts were as inexorable as the oncoming storm. As they marched, the Liberators pounded their shields, filling the dark with noise and sparks of light as sigmarite struck sigmarite. The sound reverberated upwards, and as if in response, an amethyst rain began to fall. Each drop glowed briefly as it struck, leaving purple streaks across the silver of their armour.

The way ahead was often blocked by fallen bridges or toppled pillars, forcing them to seek alternate routes – routes which Tarsus found as often as the Prosecutors who swooped beneath broken aqueducts and through the slumping frames of shattered towers. For Tarsus, it was as if he had walked these streets before, and the further they penetrated the ruins, the more the memories came flooding back. He said nothing of it to Ramus. The Lord-Relictor had enough misgivings as it was.

The distant rumble of falling stones accompanied the steady rhythm of their march, as some part of the city gave in to time and collapsed in on itself. Soon, Tarsus thought, in a century, maybe two, little would be left of Helstone save rubble. But perhaps one day, people might return and reclaim what had been stolen from them. Perhaps one day, the Stormcasts would again march through these streets, and be greeted not by silence or the brays of savage beastmen, but by the cheers of its citizens. That would be a good day, when it came.

A good day, Tarsus thought, but not this day. This day was not about cheers or reclamation of lost glory, but instead about grim necessity. He wondered how they would find Mannfred, once the enemy had been dealt with. Like as not, the vampire would come for them. It was a cunning stratagem – pit one foe against another, and claim victory over both. Perhaps the vampire simply had no more need of them, now that he had regained his strength. Or perhaps he served a darker master than mere ambition.

Nagash was no friend to Sigmar. The enmity between God-King and god of death was old and savage. Is it Mannfred who stands against us… or Nagash himself?

‘This place is dead,’ Ramus intoned, pulling Tarsus from his reverie. ‘It is a rotting husk.’ He thrust his staff out, indicating a crude effigy of stretched skin and bone, bound together by strands of greying hair, which hung from a nearby pillar. Its features were hidden beneath the remains of an ancient helm. Skulls and lumps of rotting meat had been scattered about the base of the pillar.

‘Offerings,’ Ramus said.

‘To Nagash,’ Tarsus said. ‘The folk of Helstone worship him now, rather than Sigmar. Those who are not slaves to a more pernicious darkness.’ As well as the grisly votives of the ghouls there were more abominable signs – crumbling walls marked with the triple circle of Nurgle or the sign of the fly, as well as the foul herdstones of the beastmen, erected in the plazas and squares where merchants had once hawked their wares. When they came upon these, Tarsus ordered them destroyed, and his warriors complied joyfully.

‘All the more reason to collapse this verminous warren in on itself,’ Ramus said. ‘Look around you, Tarsus. There is no light here… only darkness. This, I fear, is what comes of fell deities like Nagash.’ He gestured broadly to the boles of turned earth and cleft rock which surrounded them, marking new tunnels dug into the streets and walls of Helstone by inhuman hands, and to the scattered bones and grisly totems. ‘Can you smell it, Tarsus? It is the stink of evil.’

‘Evil comes in many forms, Ramus. And some are more tolerable than others, for the greater good,’ Tarsus said, as they passed the effigy. As it receded behind them, a purple light seemed to grow behind the visor of the helm, and he wondered for a moment if something was listening. The dead did not rest in this realm. He raised his hammer, and considered going back to smash the foul idol. Then, with a sigh, he pressed on.

‘Nagash was of Sigmar’s pantheon, my friend. He ruled the dead, even as Sigmar ruled the heavens. He is an evil thing, but a necessary one,’ he said. ‘Chaos is our enemy this day.’

‘And Mannfred,’ Ramus said.

Tarsus nodded slowly. ‘And Mannfred.’

Soon, the avenue before them widened into an immense plaza. Tarsus raised his hammer, and the host slowed its advance. Two enormous towers, covered in moss, rose above either side of the avenue, casting long shadows across the way ahead. There was no sign of their foe, and he wondered how much farther the beasts would run before they were finally brought to bay. No horns or drums… no noise of any sort. Where are you? he thought, looking around.

Behind them, rising steadily upwards, row upon row of mausoleums and tomb-faces gazed down. There were thousands of them, stretching upwards at an angle, away from the walkways and paths which connected them to the avenue and into the darkness. As he examined them, Tarsus wondered whether there was anything left in them, after all these years.

He heard a cry and looked up. A Prosecutor fell, spiralling down towards the street ahead, arrows jutting from the weak points of his armour. The rest of the winged warriors were swooping and diving, trying to avoid the storm of arrows which arced through the air around them.

‘To arms,’ Zarus called, moments before an arrow thudded home in the eye-slit of his war-helm. He fell like a stone, striking a roof and rolling off into the abyss below, his body reduced to a crackle of blue light as he vanished.

Before Tarsus could act on Zarus’ final warning, a foul haze of green light enveloped the avenue and the sound of rupturing stone rolled through the air.

‘Tarsus – the towers!’ Ramus roared, from behind him. Tarsus looked around and saw the two enormous towers begin to twist and pivot like drunkards as their bases decayed before his very eyes.

‘Move,’ Tarsus shouted, flinging out his hand even as the warriors around him caught hold of him. They dragged him forward just as the towers toppled with thunderous groans, spewing dust and debris across the avenue. The towers struck the street one after the other like hammer blows, cracking the pavement open. The avenue shuddered and shifted as the great support columns beneath it quaked down to their roots.

Stormcasts were hurled from their feet or else buried beneath the collapsing structures. Some fell as sections of the avenue collapsed, flinging them down into the lower levels of the city where they were swiftly lost to view. A cloud of dust rolled across those who remained, filling the avenue and choking the air.

‘My lord, are you unhurt?’ Soros asked as he helped Tarsus to his feet.

‘So it seems. The others?’ Even as he asked the question, he looked at the wall of rubble which now covered the avenue. Parts of the road were simply gone, and what was left was now blocked almost to the ceiling. The fall of the towers had even torn down the roof in some sections. Dust obscured everything. Ambush… should have expected it, he thought, cursing himself and the piecemeal memories which had dulled his instincts.

‘I hear something,’ Soros said.

Tarsus did too – a wild grunting overlaid by a piercing creaking and a rumble, as of iron-shod wheels crossing stone. Before he could issue the order to form up, an appalling stink washed over them, as, with a roar, beastmen burst through the roiling cloud and fell on those Stormcasts furthest from the rubble.

Blue lightning slashed upwards as warriors fell to the Chaos pack.

‘Fall back,’ Tarsus cried. ‘Fall back and form up.’

The Stormcasts did as he ordered, backing away as more and more beastmen boiled out into the open. They came all in a rush, howling and waving flyblown standards. Monstrous, lumbering chariots drawn by snorting pig-like beasts rumbled out of the obscuring dust, each one filled with shrieking beastkin. Enormous monstrosities – multi-armed ghorgons and slavering bullgors – thundered in the wake of the chariots.

Around him, Stormcasts took up defensive positions, shields locked, but the enemy were already among them. A chariot careened towards Tarsus, hook-tipped chains rattling in its wake. A Liberator was torn from his feet by the chains and dragged behind the rumbling contraption until he dissolved into crackling azure motes.

Tarsus brought his hammer down on the head of one of the chariot-beasts, killing it as it charged past him. It stumbled and slewed, causing its burden to wobble on its ill-made wheels. He twisted away as the chariot-riders thrust at him with spears and crude blades, and swept his cloak out. Mystical hammers erupted from its folds and obliterated both the teetering chariot and its occupants.

He saw Soros lunge forward and slam his shoulder into a second chariot. The Retributor-Prime gave a cry and overturned the chariot, spilling its riders to the ground. As the beast drawing it turned on him, he brought his hammer down on its hairy back, shattering its spine in a crackle of lightning. More chariots were reduced to fragments, their bestial crew slain, but the damage had been done. The Stormcast lines were in disarray.

The remaining chariots rattled away as the rest of the beastherd closed in. Bloated blightkings, clad in hell-forged armour, pushed through the savage ranks and lumbered to join the bestigors and bullgors at the front. The putrescent warriors surrounded the thin form of Sloughscale, who strode swiftly forward, scythe in hand, a sickly green halo radiating about him. The sorcerer swung his weapon and a ripple of nauseating light erupted from the edge of the blade to strike a Retributor. The Stormcast had no time to scream as his flesh rotted from his bones. Sloughscale laughed wildly, the sound carrying above the clangour of battle.

‘You’re mine,’ Tarsus said, as he raised his sword. At his signal, Soros and the Retributors fought their way towards him. The rest of the Bull-Hearts had formed defensive phalanxes. They were isolated by the press of battle, but Tarsus knew that they would hold fast, especially if he could kill Sloughscale and break the enemy’s will to fight.

With the Retributors spread out around him, Tarsus smashed his way through the Chaos ranks, crushing bones and removing limbs with every strike. He and his warriors were like a blazing spear thrust into the belly of the foe, and Sloughscale took note. The sorcerer’s eyes widened as he saw the silver-armoured warriors battling their way towards him. Hastily, he shrieked out a command to his massive bodyguards.

A blightking lunged to intercept Tarsus as he drew close to Sloughscale, and hammer met axe in a spray of sparks. Tarsus traded blows with the blightking for a moment, when suddenly, a shaft of blue light shot between them. More shafts of light speared out, emerging from the rubble of the fallen towers. Then, with a bone-rattling roar, the wall of rubble exploded outwards and the air was filled with the howl of tearing rock and the snarl of lightning.

As the battlefield was struck by a rain of smoking debris, Tarsus saw Ramus stride through the smoke, staff and hammer raised. Stormcasts charged past him, moving to reinforce their brethren.

‘I seem to recall warning you once about getting ahead of your warriors, Lord-Celestant,’ the Lord-Relictor said as he struck the ground with the haft of his staff. Lightning flashed, striking a lumbering blightking. More of the pox-warriors closed in.

‘Such was not my intention, I assure you,’ Tarsus said as he locked blades with a second blightking. Flies buzzed in and out of the holes in the foul warrior’s helm, and his armour was covered in horny growths. Tarsus slammed his hammer into the creature’s knee, and the blightking sank down with a groan. He shoved it back and speared its throat with his blade. As it fell, he looked for Sloughscale.

‘The sorcerer – where is he?’ he barked.

‘I do not see him,’ Ramus said, as he crushed another blightking’s skull.

Beastmen flooded forward, bounding through the smoking rubble to fall upon the newly arrived reinforcements. The shriek of war-horns rose over the din, and Tarsus cursed. The sorcerer had drawn them into the heart of enemy territory. They were cut off from any avenue of retreat, and surrounded by hordes baying for their blood.

‘Only the faithful!’ he said, drawing strength from the words. Around him, Ramus and the others took up the cry. It leapt from retinue to retinue, until the roar crashed against the maddened bellows of the Chaos war-horde.

As the din reached a crescendo, a wild howl suddenly split the clamour. It shivered down from somewhere far above. Beastmen and Stormcasts alike paused momentarily and looked up, as the vast slope of ancient mausoleums above them was suddenly swarming with bodies. Ghouls climbed and leapt down from the high places, spilling across the slope from the darkness. Among their number were larger creatures, like ghouls but massive and heavy with muscle. The bellows of these creatures echoed down, and the bullgors roared back in challenge.

The ghouls howled as one, and beat on the doors of the tombs with bones and clubs, filling the air with an abominable din. Above them, Ashigaroth loped down the slope, tearing apart mausoleum faces and tomb arches in its haste. Mannfred was hunched forward in his saddle, cloak streaming out raggedly behind him. Ashigaroth bounded from the slope and crashed down atop the jutting archway of a tomb. As it landed, the ghouls ceased their caterwauling.

For a moment, silence reigned. Mannfred surveyed those below, his expression unreadable. Tarsus met his gaze, and the vampire cocked his head. Had he come to aid them, or to finish them all off? Tarsus tightened his grip on his hammer. We will have our reckoning, vampire, he thought. Mannfred would pay for his betrayal.

As if reading his thoughts, Mannfred smiled.

The dread abyssal reared with a shriek, and Mannfred drew his sword with a flourish.

‘Feast!’ Mannfred howled and the ghouls echoed him as Ashigaroth leapt from its perch and swooped out above the fray.

The ghouls scuttled down the slope of mausoleums in a deluge of claws and fangs. They swarmed across the sagging rooftops and bridges until, with wild screams, the creatures at the forefront hurled themselves bodily upon those who had dared invade their territory. The Stormcasts tensed, readying themselves for this new assault, but the grey-fleshed creatures streamed past them to swarm over the followers of Chaos.

Blightkings and beastmen alike were overwhelmed by the fury of the newcomers. More ghouls spilled forth from ruptured tomb-faces and scrambled from the shadows, more than Tarsus had ever dreamed might lurk within these ruins. More beastmen spilled out, and barbaric horns brayed in the distance. He smashed a bestigor from its hooves, and whipped his sword out to cleave the head from an ungor’s hunched shoulders.

‘Did you doubt me?’ Mannfred called out, as Ashigaroth flew past. ‘The word of a von Carstein is sacred.’ He laughed and beheaded a rearing bullgor as Ashigaroth pounced on another of the bull-headed monsters, bearing it to the ground. Mannfred stood up in his saddle as the dread abyssal tore the struggling bullgor apart. The vampire spread his arms and began to chant.

The air grew cold, such that even Tarsus felt it. Mannfred’s incantation beat upon the air, each syllable searing itself into the fabric of the world. And as the last one faded, the clamour of battle seemed to grow dim. A new sound invaded, insistent and omnipresent. The scratch of bones on biers, of fleshless fingers clawing at stones, the rattle of long-forgotten weapons, drawn for the first time in centuries.

And with a vast sigh, the tombs gave up their dead. They emerged like wisps of smoke, coiling and thickening, becoming solid as they sped down the slope – skeletal steeds, clad in archaic barding, their riders wearing the armour of a bygone age.

The dead swept forward in a silent charge. This is our city, they seemed to say, try and take it from us, and only death will follow. They slaughtered beasts and pox-warriors without hesitation, remorseless and unstoppable. The true lords of Helstone had come, and none amongst the Chaos horde could stand against them. Tarsus wondered whether even his own warriors could have done so, and was glad that he would not have to find out today.

As he fought, Tarsus drew close to one of the undead riders. Its armour was of a make that seemed half familiar to him, as if he’d seen it somewhere before. An axe struck his shoulder plate, shivering to fragments as it did so. He spun and struck down a stupefied beastman. When he turned back, the dead man was close enough to touch.

The wight gazed at him with empty eye sockets, an eerie light illuminating its brown bones from within. It wore a tarnished circlet and age-blackened armour. In its hand was a long blade, which gleamed with cold fire. Slowly, it raised the blade, and Tarsus tensed. But instead of striking at him, it brought the sword up in a salute.

Tarsem… something whispered, in his head, and he felt a twinge of disquiet. Then, with a rattle of old bones, the wight turned its undead mount away and galloped back into the fight, its sword tearing the life from beastmen as it went. Tarsus looked around, searching for Sloughscale. He peered up at the ruins of one of the Hollow Towers rising above the battlefield and saw a flash of movement. He cursed. The sorcerer could not be allowed to escape. He would only rally more beastherds to attack them.

‘Ramus,’ he called. ‘The sorcerer – cut off his escape!’

Ramus nodded and began to chant. Motes of sizzling energy blistered the air around him as he called upon Sigmar, and drew the lightning to his staff. As the air grew heavy with the growing pressure of Ramus’ prayer, Tarsus charged towards the tower, bulling aside any foe foolish enough to get in his way. As he ran, he signalled to Soros.

‘Gather your warriors and follow me,’ he shouted. The sorcerer would not escape again.

As Tarsus sprang through the archway which led into the tower, the whole edifice shook suddenly. Dust and fragments of stone pattered across his armour. Smoke filled the stairwell as he climbed. There was no time to wait for Soros. He and his warriors would have to catch up. He heard a loud voice raised in a chant, and then a second sorcerous explosion rocked the tower. The stairwell above him was suddenly filled with falling stones and heat, and he was forced to hurl himself out onto a balcony, away from the worst of it. As he clambered to his feet, he looked up and saw the balcony above begin to tear away from the side of the tower with a thunderous, cracking roar.

It plummeted down, nearly obliterating the space he occupied. As the bulk of it careened past, he saw something drop from it. The figure hit the balcony, rolled to its feet in a swirl of stinking robes and rushed towards him, dragging the blade of its scythe along the stones as it came. Tarsus realised, as the scythe arced towards him, that Sloughscale had ridden the falling masonry down, out of reach of Ramus’ lightning.

Sloughscale struck at the Lord-Celestant in a spray of sparks, driving him back through sheer momentum. The sorcerer fought as fiercely as any beastman. As Tarsus parried his foe’s attacks, he could see scorch marks on Sloughscale’s breastplate and robes. The sorcerer had not emerged unscathed from Ramus’ storm.

As Tarsus drove his opponent back, he saw bloated shapes fighting through the rubble which blocked the steps. A blightking lurched towards him, rotting fingers clawing. He beheaded the pox-warrior even as a second and a third erupted from the archway and hurled themselves into battle.

‘Takes more than a bit of lightning to kill Nurgle’s own, Stormcast,’ Sloughscale hissed as he backed away. Rust-riddled blades hacked at Tarsus from every side, and he was soon on the defensive. But not for long. With a roar, Soros and his remaining Retributors burst out onto the balcony, hammers raised. As the battle was joined, Tarsus was free to concentrate on the true threat. He fought his way free of the blightkings and launched himself at Sloughscale.

The sorcerer flung out a hand and began to chant, baleful energies coruscating around his fingers. Tarsus charged at him, head lowered. Green fire washed over him, tarnishing his armour where it touched, and causing the stone beneath his feet to crumble. He lurched forward regardless, forcing himself through the unnatural heat.

A wash of heat, blistering his flesh beneath his armour…

The roar of the greater daemon, as its axe cleaved the air…

The light… the pain… Tarsem…

Tarsus staggered as Sloughscale’s scythe drew sparks from his chest plate and tore through his cloak. Smoke rose from his armour as he tried to focus on his enemy. The scythe sliced towards him again. The force of the blow drove him back a step and ripped the air from his lungs. Pain blazed in his side. Sloughscale whipped the scythe around, driving Tarsus back. He hit the rampart and the scythe hissed down, but he rolled aside at the last moment and the cruel blade became lodged in the broken stones. Tarsus twisted around and drove his hammer down, shattering the wood and causing Sloughscale to stagger back, eyes wide.

The sorcerer tossed aside the broken weapon and began to chant, but Tarsus was on him a moment later. His sword chopped into Sloughscale’s skull, silencing him. As he wrenched the blade free in a welter of brackish blood, the sorcerer staggered past him, towards the edge of the balcony. Tarsus swept his hammer out, smashing the sorcerer from his feet and sending him hurtling over the edge.

Sloughscale’s squirming body struck ramparts and towers, broken skyways and moss-encrusted gargoyles as it tumbled down into the dark. As Tarsus turned away, he heard the ululating howls of ghouls rising from the depths, as if in thanks for the gift they had received.

He clutched his side. Breathing was painful. Something in him had been broken, but it would heal despite his exertions.

‘Oh, well done, my friend,’ Mannfred said, as Ashigaroth alighted on the balcony. He looked down at Tarsus. ‘Are you injured?’

‘I will recover.’

‘Yes, I expect you will,’ Mannfred said. He sat back in his saddle.

‘You found the Fang, then?’ Tarsus pointed to the artefact shoved through Mannfred’s sword-belt. It gleamed black with an oily radiance and was chased with gold. It was an old thing, Tarsus thought, and it felt somehow wrong.

‘Oh, yes,’ Mannfred said. He patted the artefact. ‘Right where the ghouls said it was. Your approach drew Sloughscale’s attention at just the right moment.’

‘I am glad we could be of service,’ Tarsus said harshly. He fought down his anger. ‘You used us, vampire.’

Mannfred cocked his head. ‘It was – is – necessary, Tarsus,’ he said. ‘This rabble were between us and the artefact. There was no way to get it, so I… improvised.’

‘And nearly cost us our lives.’

‘As I said, it was necessary.’ Mannfred frowned. ‘The Fang is ours, and with it, the route to Stygxx. Is that not worth it, in the end? Have I not proved to you that I can be trusted?’

Tarsus shook his head. ‘A part of me wishes that were so. But another part believes you are playing a deeper game. Every day sees a new layer to your tale, a new obstacle to be overcome.’ Mannfred looked at him, even as he had earlier, as if there was something he wished to say, some story he wished to impart. Tarsus pushed the thought aside.

‘That is not the first time I have been accused of such,’ Mannfred said. He met Tarsus’ gaze and frowned. ‘You have seemed out of sorts, since we arrived. As if you were not yourself, at times.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Tarsus said. ‘I feel as if I have seen this place before…’

‘Maybe you have.’ Mannfred laughed softly. ‘Many heroes made their stand here in those final hours besides unlucky Uzun – Count Vitalian of Morrsend, Prince Tarsem of Helstone, Megara of Doomcrag…’

‘Tarsem,’ Tarsus repeated. Tarsem. Tarsem. He saw a face in his mind’s eye, a dark face of noble bearing, spattered with blood and ash as he shouted a challenge to a nightmare made flesh. A shadow of fire and smoke, a beast of blood and carnage.

‘Aye,’ Mannfred said, eyeing him. ‘Tarsem the Ox, Tarsem of the Fourth Circle, who was slain by the bloodthirster, Khar’zak’ghul, one of Khorne’s huntsmen.’

‘You know much about it,’ Tarsus said, looking out over the city.

‘Indeed. I was there, in those last days, when the sky wept fire and the plazas of Helstone were drowned in blood,’ Mannfred said. He peered at Tarsus. ‘What about you?’ He frowned. ‘What are you, Stormcast? You are not dead, for I know the dead. You are something else entirely…’

Tarsus hesitated, momentarily uncertain. Then, he touched the sigil of Sigmar on his chest and shook his head. ‘Whatever I am, whoever I might have been, I am Tarsus, of the fourth Stormhost, Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights. And this city, whatever it once was, is now but a tomb.’ He looked up at Mannfred. ‘Let us go. Stygxx awaits.’

Mannfred was silent for a moment. Then he inclined his head. ‘As you say, my friend. I shall meet you below.’ He swept his cloak about him and Ashigaroth leapt off the parapet to plunge into the darkness. Tarsus watched him for a moment before looking back out over the vast sweep of the city. For a moment, he saw it again as it once must have been.

He heard the rustle of pennants in the wind, and the call of vendors in the market plazas. He heard the voices of the dead, calling out to him from the dim reaches of his past, calling to the man he had been. Calling out for Tarsem. He saw faces, men and women, fellow warriors, champions of the final days, fighting alongside him… and one other, whose face he recognized – Mannfred von Carstein. Unsettled, Tarsus turned away and made for the stairs.

The past was done. Whatever had been was gone and forgotten.

All that remained was duty and honour.

About the Author

Josh Reynolds is the author of the Horus Heresy Primarchs novel Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix, and two audio dramas featuring the Blackshields: The False War and The Red Fief. His Warhammer 40,000 work includes Lukas the Trickster and the Fabius Bile novels Primogenitor and Clonelord. He has written many stories set in the Age of Sigmar, including the novels Shadespire: The Mirrored City, Soul Wars, Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows, the Hallowed Knights novels Plague Garden and Black Pyramid, and Nagash: The Undying King. His tales of the Warhammer old world include The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, and two Gotrek & Felix novels. He lives and works in Sheffield.

An extract from Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden.

Lord-Castellant Lorrus Grymn braced himself and swept his halberd out in a wide arc. The beastman’s bray of challenge was cut short as the halberd bit into its hairy neck and tore its goatish head from its shoulders. Grymn spun the weapon, sluicing the blade clean of gore, before planting it on the ground. His stern gaze passed over the surviving beastmen as they edged back from him. ‘Well?’ he said, his voice mild. ‘Which of you wishes to die next?’

One of the gors tossed its horned head and pawed the wet earth. It extended its notched and rust-bitten blade and spat something in the dark tongue. Maggots writhed in its eye sockets, and large, fat fleas danced in its hair. Though the rest of the brute’s herd snarled and gibbered in response, none of them were eager to meet the same fate as their fellow. Grymn had little patience for such antics. He reached down to the warding lantern hanging from his belt and flipped it open.

Gold light washed out over the closest beastmen, searing their unnatural flesh to the bone the instant it touched them. Bestial screams filled the air, and several of the creatures stumbled away, eyes boiling, hairy bodies alight. The few who were unaffected lunged for him as a group, snorting and stamping, desperate to douse his light.

Grymn smiled in satisfaction. ‘Tallon.’

The gryph-hound gave a shriek of joy and sprang out from behind him, hurling himself at the foe. He was a heavy-bodied creature, with the limbs and loyalty of a hunting hound, and the head of a bird of prey. Tallon knocked one of the beastmen to the ground and began to savage the brute with his beak. Grymn faced the others.

It was no contest. A moment later, he jerked his halberd free of a twitching body and allowed himself to take stock of the current situation. The battle among the salt grasses had ended almost before it had begun. The beasts had been all but beaten before the first warblade had been drawn. Which was only as it should be.

Grymn had led his Hallowed Knights in pursuit of the warherd for weeks, driving them back across the Plains of Vo and down to the mosquito-haunted coasts of the Verdant Bay, burning their filthy camps and toppling their maggot-infested herdstones. It had been the largest herd of beasts in the region, and the best organised, in the wake of the closing of the Genesis Gate. Now it was nothing more than a trail of dead, stretching across the mud flats, tidal shallows and salt marshes of the embayment.

The beasts had made their final stand in the reed banks, amongst the high salt grasses and toppled stones of a long vanished harbour. In better times, port cities had clustered like barnacles along the coastline, and ironwood galleys had plied the waters. Now nothing occupied the coasts of the Verdant Bay save ruins and monsters.

The Lord-Castellant looked out over the turgid waters, towards the distant sargasso-citadels that ringed the mouth of the bay like sores. The sea wind carried with it the monotonous thud of distant drums, and the screams of the dying. The sky was thick with noxious clouds, which occasionally wept an acidic rain that could mar even the silvery finish of the Stormcasts’ armour. The clouds, like the beasts he’d just slain, had their origin in the citadels. And, like the beasts, the citadels and clouds would soon be cast down. He’d sworn as much, during the siege of the Living City.

He closed his eyes, wishing that he stood once more amid the bulwarks of ironoak and thornwood. He could still recall the warm scent of the sunfire blossoms as they stirred in Alarielle’s wake, that final day at the Twelve-Thorn Gate. He could feel the deep, basso war-chant of the duardin root-kings resonating through him, as they marched to war. Sylvaneth, duardin and Hallowed Knight had fought as one, driving back the Rotbringers and casting down their flyblown standards. Alarielle had given full vent to her fury in that final hour, and the enemy had been throttled, torn and impaled from every side by thorny creepers and jagged boughs. She had been a sight to behold, and, though he would never admit it to another soul, he felt honoured to have witnessed it.

Afterwards, they had marched out, to harry the foe and bring them to heel. He opened his eyes and cast a cool gaze over the battlefield. They had forced the beasts back, into the reed beds and the shallows of the bay, even as he’d planned. The creatures had sought to flee across the three massive viaducts of boil-encrusted stone and fossilised sargassum, which connected the distant citadels to the shore, but found their way barred by closed gatehouses and sealed portcullises. Their masters had deserted them. Or perhaps they’d sacrificed their servants to buy the time they needed to ready themselves for the storm to come.

‘They are wise in their wickedness,’ he murmured. Tallon chirped and leaned against his leg. He stroked the gryph-hound’s neck as he studied the three great gatehouses, which loomed above the shallows. They were crude bastions of stone, balanced on pylons of bone and cankerous wood. The structures were functional, almost utilitarian compared to some he’d seen since arriving in the Jade Kingdoms. Monstrous, but more so in conception than appearance. Then, that was the nature of the enemy they faced.

He nudged one of the dead beastmen over with the toe of his boot. Like the others, it wore a crude hauberk marked with a fly-shaped emblem. Bits and pieces of rusty armour, culled from a dozen battlefields, decorated its twisted frame. It was as if it had been trying to ape the appearance of something greater than itself.

‘Like master, like beast,’ Grymn murmured.

Click here to buy Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain as an audio drama in 2015,
and then in the Realmgate Wars anthology Mortarch of Night in 2016.
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 Diego Gisbert Llorens.

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ISBN: 978-1-78030-927-9

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