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The Gnawing Gate

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THE GNAWING GATE

Josh Reynolds

Pazak of the Faceted Eye watched the obsidian plates whirl and dance above the floor of the great chamber, faster, then more slowly. There was no pattern to it, no rhythm that he could determine. It was a thing of Chaos, forged in warpfire and shaped by impossible tools. The furnace kings were artisans beyond even Pazak’s comprehension.

But though he could not discern the magics which had gone into the creation of the Black Rift, he knew how to manipulate them. How to set them into motion. Some doors were simpler to open than others. Pazak thrust out a hand, feeling the ebb and flow of the ancient sorceries which thrummed through the close air of the Sulphur Citadel.

The priest-kings of Klaxus had not truly understood the wellspring of power that the citadel had been built on. They had known only that it made their petty magics more potent, and they had employed it with brute simplicity. With that strength, they had tamed the Ashen Jungle, and raised great structures from the soil of the crater. With that power, they had conquered the other crater-kingdoms, forcing them to kneel one by one.

Pazak extended his hand, and something wet and sobbing briefly curled about his fingers and retreated, drawn back towards the shimmering cloud of spirits which circled the Black Rift like moths about a light. There were a thousand broken souls for every stone in the citadel; the last remnants of those unfortunates sacrificed by the priest-kings to the god they called Sigmar. From what little Pazak knew of the being in question, he doubted the Thunderer had appreciated such succulent offerings.

In reality, the priest-kings had likely served one of the Four – perhaps the Changer of Ways. Pazak thought he could smell the faintest stink of Tzeentchian magics on the stones of the Citadel. Yes, the Deceiver could very well have had a hand in the continued survival of the crater-kingdoms. That one would have found the priest-kings to be pliable tools indeed.

‘Children,’ Pazak muttered. ‘Blind children, scrabbling in the dark.’ He looked up, at the face of Sigmar stretched across the curve of the dome. ‘And you, forced to watch it all. How did it feel, eh? How did it feel to watch your worshippers cavort and kill, all in your name?’

A distant rumble of thunder was his only answer. Pazak snorted. ‘Growl all you like,’ he said, and turned his attentions to the latest batch of prisoners Warpfang’s followers had brought him. There were only fifty or so – the ones no good for menial labour, but too stringy to feed on. Warpfang would have culled his take from the rest. The skaven were being paid well for marching beneath the banners of the Scarlet Lord. When Warpfang returned to whatever pestilential burrow his clan called home, he would be rich in slaves and plunder.

The prisoners were a forlorn lot, weeping and bloody. Some could barely stand, despite the lashes of the skaven. One or two looked dead on their feet. He could smell the sweet tang of infection and gangrene seeping from wounds, and see a few who were shivering despite the heat. The Klaxians had held out against the Bloodbound for centuries, thanks to the malign sorceries of their priest-kings. It was only when Anhur had breached the Steam-Ramparts and invaded the crater-kingdoms that their control began to fray at last. Now the once-proud folk of Klaxus were so much grist for Khorne’s mill.

Once, he had been as they – a puling creature, barely more than an animal. He had been a mere shaman, a speaker to ghosts and a reader of bones. Unaware of the greater glory of Grandfather’s Garden, for all that he manipulated the magic of the realms. But when the plague had come creeping silently among his tribe, Pazak had embraced it willingly. And Grandfather had seen, and approved. Pazak had grown strong in Nurgle’s grace, and his mind and spirit had flourished.

The plague-winds were his to control now. He could draw forth blight-flies and gurgling daemons, he could poison the air and rot a man’s flesh with but a look. Power such as he had never dreamt of, at his fingertips. And he’d almost lost it all at the Alkali Basin, but for the most unexpected of mercies. Anhur had turned aside the edge of his axe that day, and Pazak had kept his head, in return for an oath of service. An oath sworn in blood and bile.

Anhur was a canny one, no doubt about it. He’d needed a sorcerer to open his door to Khorne’s realm, and Pazak had obliged, in return for his life. He rubbed his throat. He never wondered whether he should have let Anhur kill him. The carnage the Bloodbound left in their wake served Grandfather as well as Khorne. Rot followed death, and from corruption new life waxed profane. And this plan of Anhur’s would see much death and much rot.

And more besides, he thought, as he studied the faces of the prisoners. He held up a hand, and one of the skaven stepped forward, muzzle twitching. ‘Where is Warpfang?’ Pazak said.

‘Gone out-out,’ the skaven chittered. ‘Hunting man-things.’

‘Where?’ Pazak said. The ritual to open the Black Rift required a constant flow of blood. The skaven chittered. It took a moment for Pazak to realise that it was laughing.

‘The Avenue of Five Hundred Hands,’ the ratman said.

Pazak grunted. That was near the Gnawing Gate. And right in the path of the advancing Stormcasts. Brave little maniac, he thought, not without amusement. Unlike most of his kind, Warpfang was almost as fierce as any of Khorne’s chosen. If no one put a knife in his back, and he didn’t perish in battle, he might just rise far among his own kind.

A useful creature, if he survives, he thought. Grandfather Nurgle had long cherished the friendship of the Horned Rat and his chittering children. Pazak scraped his finger along the face of one of the prisoners – a man, clad in the tattered raiment of a temple guard – and traced a sigil in the air with the blood. The sigil pulsed once, before the blood turned to ash and swirled away. Pazak nodded. ‘Good,’ he said, turning away. ‘Bulbus, my friend, see to the harvest, if you please.’

The skaven overseers scampered aside as his faithful blightkings lurched into motion. The prisoners began to scream. Heavy blades rose and fell, silencing them. Chunks of bloody flesh and streamers of muscle were tossed about as blood seeped between the stones. More ghosts rose to join the legions which circled the Black Rift, dragged inexorably upwards towards the dimensional doorway that was slowly opening. Pazak twitched in time to their tinny shrieks. ‘Blood and souls, blood and souls,’ he murmured.

Yes, some doors were simpler to open.

The Gnawing Gate was hungry.

The sound of its desire swelled, filling the streets and avenues, rising to the rooftops and above, shaking the leaves of the jungle-trees with its dolorous strength. It made the stones tremble, and animals flee. It was a cry of need, a moan of frustration, a warning of violence. A structure cracked and tore as something long, grey and glistening slithered through a window and ripped the walls from their foundations.

More glistening things – tendrils formed from flesh, root and stone – stretched out from the grey bulk of the Gnawing Gate and tore in a futile frenzy at the nearby buildings. Other tendrils flailed in mute protest at the support pillars of the great aqueducts that rose over the gate, or stabbed viciously at the length of the vein-encrusted walls which stretched out to either side, separating the outer city from the inner.

The Gnawing Gate squatted astride the Avenue of Five Hundred Hands, a rippling colossus of filthy creation. It was a thing of terrible sorcery and strange alchemy, wrought from stones culled from the depths of the sulphur lake, the blood and bone of slaves, and the very earth itself, raised up during some long-ago siege to defend the main thoroughfare of Uryx from an encroaching enemy.

It resembled a length of flayed meat, going sour, and stretched across the narrowest point of the city. Its walls were as thick as those of the Mandrake Bastion and the furthest edges of its length bled seamlessly into the high stone bastions to the west which kept watch over the Ashen Jungles on one side, and the yellowish shore of the sulphur lake on the other. The central gateway which was its skull, heart and brain occupied the Avenue of Five Hundred Hands.

Beyond its crouched bulk, the avenues and plazas of the inner city spread out like the spokes of a crooked wheel, around the semi-central hub of the Sulphur Citadel. The western bastions were all but rubble now, allowing the Bloodbound to bypass it and travel from the inner city to the outer without fear of the gate’s hunger.

More buildings collapsed, brought low by thrashing tendrils. The gate groaned again as thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. It jerked and quivered as the rain fell, and the fires set by the Bloodbound during their attack on the city drew close. Like an animal, it sought to flee the encroaching flames, and to feed itself, but could not manage either. So, it thrashed and groaned and shrieked.

It had been four days since the Gnawing Gate had last eaten, and it was growing more agitated with every hour. Kretch Warpfang knew the signs well enough, for he was no stranger to such monstrous flesh-engines. Indeed, Clan Rictus, one of the foremost Verminus Clans of Blight City, had its share of similar creations in its burrows and warrens. The warlord sat on the shoulders of a decapitated statue of a forgotten man-thing potentate and watched the gate’s paroxysms with some amusement. All around him, the Avenue of Five Hundred Hands was a-boil with activity, as his clanrats rooted out their prey and dragged them screaming into the wheel-cages. The Klaxians were a beaten folk, their armies cast down by the Scarlet Lord and their priest-kings butchered on brass altars. Now, as their city burned, all they wanted was to run and hide, to seek refuge in the deep places of the jungles.

Lightning speared across the sky. Below, his bodyguards, arrayed around the base of the statue in a rough phalanx, shifted uncertainly. He could smell the musk of fear on some of them, and he showed his fangs in annoyance. The enemy – the storm-things – were in the city, if his scouts were to be believed. They were marching south, towards the Sulphur Citadel. Soon enough, they might even reach the Gnawing Gate, unless the beastherds managed to detain them in the outer city. Which they wouldn’t, filthy beast-things. It mattered little to Warpfang, in any event. It was not his job to fight the storm-things. He was to cull slaves, for whatever great work Pazak was undertaking. It fell to the rest of Anhur’s Gorechosen to defend the city.

‘Hurry-hurry,’ he snarled at his warriors, bashing the statue with his mace. ‘Get them in the cages, quick-quick! We must be gone by the time the storm-things arrive, yes!’ Lashes hissed and snapped as his packmasters hurried their prisoners into the wheel-cages. Warpfang settled back on his haunches, satisfied.

His clawbands were scattered throughout this part of the city. It was inevitable that some of them might run afoul of the foe, but they all knew to fall back towards the secret tunnels he’d ordered to be dug... the ones that would take them deep into the inner city, out of sight of any advancing enemy. There, at a point of his choosing, they could regroup, and muster a concentrated defence – or would be in a position to take advantage of the situation. Warpfang glanced towards the gate as an immense tendril erupted through the roof of a distant structure and lashed blindly at the black clouds above. The Gnawing Gate roared, its hunger palpable. He snarled, and clamped down on his instinctive fear.

The Scarlet Lord had decreed that the Gnawing Gate be left unfed and unmanned, after two tribes’ worth of bloodreavers had unsuccessfully sought to tame it to better defend the main thoroughfare into the city’s heart. The gate had devoured them with glee, its great fang-like portcullis rising and falling to puncture, pierce and pulverise. Now, its gatehouse towers, with their mortar of blinking eyes and thatch of scalps and teeth, twisted and swivelled in a desperate search for sustenance.

Warpfang kept his warriors well away from the cannibal-structure, as a rule. He’d lost more than a few clanrats and prisoners to those creeping tendrils during his hunting expeditions, and now stationed scouts to keep a watch on it. It was growing, as the magics that bound it unravelled. Whole streets were now lost to thrashing tendrils and hungry stone jaws.

He was almost impressed by the sheer artistry that the man-things of Uryx displayed in their architecture. They possessed an almost skaven-like ingenuity. He gazed down the length of the street. Severed hands, mounted on iron poles, lined the avenue. The hands had been preserved through some barbaric ritual, and the fingers of each were topped with flickering witch-lights that resisted the steady rain.

‘Magnificent,’ he chittered, as he scraped wet ash from his cuirass. A wail lashed his eardrums and he grunted in annoyance. He shifted on his perch.

More prisoners were being dragged screaming from a tumbledown structure by his warriors. Most of the man-things had fled into the jungles or the caves along the crater-wall when Anhur’s warhorde had torn down the southern bastions and ravaged the cream of the Klaxian armies in a gruelling three-day slaughter. Others had chosen to hide in the slums and the outer boroughs of the city, hoping to ride out the sack beneath the noses of the victorious Bloodbound.

‘Stupid-stupid man-things,’ Warpfang muttered.

Warpfang and his stormvermin had watched much of the battle for Uryx from the jungles, content to capture the man-things who wandered, thunderstruck, into their paws. His clanrats had been scampering through the caverns and lava-tubes of the crater wall, dragging screaming Klaxians out of hiding even as Anhur and his Gorechosen clashed with the sulphur-knights on the Bridge of Smoke. Few had escaped, and those who had, well, they had made for an enjoyable, if not challenging, diversion.

Yes, it had been a wise decision to join the Scarlet Lord. Much loot and many slaves, all to increase his standing and that of Clan Rictus. The Horned Rat would smile upon them, and raise them up, perhaps even to the heights enjoyed by the Greater Clans. The sorcerer had promised Warpfang all that and more, in return for warriors and siege-engines to bolster Anhur’s conquest of the crater. Why the Scarlet Lord wanted this filthy jungle crater, Warpfang didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care.

He hefted his halberd and watched the rain slide down the width of the blade, leaving greasy trails. When Pazak had spoken of the benefits of becoming one of Anhur’s champions, Warpfang had thought he’d gone mad, that his putrescent brains had finally leaked out of his mouldy skull. But he had never been able to resist a challenge. Thus, intrigued, he had made his play and won. Then, his skills were supreme. Better than any Chaos-thing, at least. Warpfang chittered in pleasure and swung his halberd absently.

Who knew how far he might go, what treasures and pleasures might be his, now that he stood pre-eminent among the commanders of the warhorde. He had sent many treasures and screaming slaves through the gnawholes back to the warrens of his clan, there to increase his standing amongst his peers. Warpfang would rise, and Rictus would rise with him.

He hissed in sudden annoyance as one of the prisoners broke away and scrambled into the ruins, heading straight for the gate. The skaven warlord dropped from his perch and sprinted after the runaway. His bodyguards surged in his wake, grumbling. Warpfang chittered in amusement. They didn’t need the wretch – one slave more or less made little difference. But his bodyguards were growing fat off easy meat and plunder and a run would do them good.

‘Faster,’ he snarled, as he sprang from the street to a pole and swung himself onto a wall. He ricocheted off, leaping from wall to wall as he pursued his quarry into the tangle of streets. His prey panted in fear and exhaustion, stumbling as he ran on hunger-weakened legs. The human wasn’t particularly fast, but Warpfang was enjoying the chase.

That enjoyment came to an abrupt end as a greyish tendril erupted from the wall of a building in a plume of dust. It swiftly coiled about the human and jerked the wailing man back through the wall before the dust had even cleared. More tendrils bored through the street, arrowing towards Warpfang. He leapt backwards, twisting in the air. He hooked the shield carried by one of his bodyguards, and sprang onto the bewildered skaven’s shoulders. ‘Run-run, you fools! Quick-quick!’ he snarled, as he used the heads of the other skaven as stepping stones. His bodyguards trampled after him as he sprinted back the way they’d come. The slowest were snapped up by the questing tendrils, and dragged away, shrieking.

Warpfang yowled out an order as he and his stormvermin burst out of the side-street and back into the witch-lights of the Avenue of Five Hundred Hands. The jezzail teams he’d stationed at the entrance to the avenue scurried forward. Heavy pavises chunked down at the mouth of the street, and soon high-velocity bullets of refined warpstone were screaming down its length. Grey flesh burst and ichor stained the street as the tendrils retreated. A screech rumbled down the avenue, rattling Warpfang’s teeth.

As the echoes of the sound faded, dust and water spattered down from the aqueduct far above. Warpfang stared up at the serpentine length of shaped stone and licked his namesake idly. A jolt of energy filled him and he turned. He flicked his halberd out, indicating several of his scout-leaders. ‘You, you and you. Take your clawbands. Go. Quick-quick. Climb and see.’ He thrust his mace upwards, indicating the aqueduct. The skaven flooded past. Humans were tricky beasts. Almost as tricky as skaven. It would be just like them to attempt to flee the city via the aqueducts. Worse, the Gnawing Gate could have at last breached the structures. Whichever it was, his warriors would find out soon enough.

The scouts began to scale the support pillars with commendable speed. More than two dozen of them – enough to stymie any escape attempt. As Warpfang watched them, a glint of something, far above, caught his eye.

Curious, he looked up.

The city spread out beneath Kratus in waves of stone that rose and fell as Uryx spilled down the incline of the crater wall, and splashed the jungles below. Broken towers and shattered aqueducts rose like lonely grave markers amid the thick vegetation. As he swooped past, towards the Gnawing Gate, a tower collapsed in on itself in a gout of dust and fire, as vast roots curled tight about its husk. The city was being reclaimed, one street at a time, even as Moros had sworn. Soon there would be nothing left to fight over, save vine-choked ruins.

The horizon was aflame, and massive streaks of lightning flashed down, illuminating the distant stretch of the southern crater-rim. The Tephra Crater was home to many small kingdoms, some no larger than a few fortified cities rising up from the Ashen Jungle. Klaxus was the largest of these, but even it was mostly jungle. And all of them nestled in the shadow of the crater walls. As he spun and wheeled, riding the winds, he heard the distant boom of thunder.

Then, a great scream, as of some ravenous giant, shuddered through the air. He saw pulsing lengths of grey rise and plunge through buildings or erupt from the streets with malignant purpose. From above, the Gnawing Gate resembled nothing so much as a gangrenous wound in the body of Uryx. Like the mandrake towers, it was a tame horror, created by the cruel masters of Klaxus in times long past. But with the fall of Uryx, its servitude was at an end. Now it lashed out savagely at the city that had been its prison for so long. Whether this was the doing of Chaos, or merely another sign of the entropy consuming the city, Kratus didn’t know. But if the Stormcasts were to free the city from the Bloodbound, they would have to get past the monstrous edifice.

A pillar of fire suddenly swept upwards, rising from a fallen building and jolting him from his reverie. It spun in place, a cyclone of flame, bending and writhing like a thing alive. More of them rose throughout the city, as if to challenge the storm clouds above, weaving serpents of flame that darted and struck at the roiling clouds. The air had become hot and dense, and the steady rain did little to alleviate it.

Despite the fire, bands of Bloodbound moved through the streets like swarming ants. They moved in all directions, some heading for the jungles, others streaming towards the Mandrake Bastion. He spared a brief thought for Moros and the others. They would soon be hard-pressed, as they advanced towards the Gnawing Gate.

Horns wailed and drums thudded as other Bloodbound celebrated their recent victory over the armies of Klaxus. The broken bodies of the slain were hoisted aloft on spears, and their weapons and armour doled out by magnanimous chieftains. All these sights and more Kratus saw as he led his warriors through the storm-tossed, fire-stung air.

The enemy possessed no discipline; there was no sign that the brawling groups below were anything more than disparate tribes, gathered to plunder the vast crater-city – there seemed to be no organized plan of defence. They clashed in the streets and plazas, warring against one another over scraps of plunder, rather than turning their axes on the enemy. Such was ever the case, Kratus knew. Unlike the Stormcasts, the Bloodbound owed no loyalty save to their obscene god. They fought amongst themselves readily enough, when no other enemies were close to hand. That Anhur had managed to wield a coalition of this size for as long as he had was a testament to the danger the warlord posed.

But the Bloodbound were not the only monsters who prowled Uryx. Kratus’ keen eyes spotted more than one herd of beastmen galloping through the streets in pursuit of unseen prey, or else clashing with their human allies over shelter and food.

Worst of all, however, were the skaven. They alone moved with purpose, in great scuttling hordes that wound through the city and jungle. Kratus had faced the ratmen before. Wherever the forces of Chaos congregated, the skaven would soon follow, seeking slaves and plunder. These, it seemed, were after the one more than the other.

Screams rose from below, as a horde of ratmen rounded up the former masters of Uryx and herded them into great wheeled iron cages. Men and women and children fled before the lash and spear as the chittering horde harried them out of their hiding places. The people of Klaxus were lithe and dark, and while they knew much of war, Anhur had broken them. They were beaten, the fight drained out of them. Kratus watched as a man stumbled and fell. The skaven fell upon him with savage zeal, clubbing and slashing at him until his bloody form was dragged bodily into one of the wheeled cages.

Anger swelled up in him, but he forced it down. He had his orders, and he would see them through. There would be time enough for vengeance later. But, as he swooped past the aqueducts which carried Orius and his warriors to the Gnawing Gate, he caught sight of the skaven slithering up the support pillars. Almost thirty of the creatures, clad in dark, ragged smocks and blackened hauberks. More skaven were moving into position below, and all at once, Kratus knew they’d been seen. As he and his Prosecutors flew beneath the aqueduct, between the support pillars, sling stones rattled against his armour.

The anger returned, and with it satisfaction. Orius had commanded that he not engage the enemy without reason. Well, this was reason enough, Kratus thought. He signalled to his Prosecutors. At his gesture, they swooped downwards. As they passed over the ratmen at the base of the aqueducts, they hurled their celestial hammers, pulverising skaven in their dozens. jezzail bullets and sling stones caromed off sigmarite war-plate in response.

The skaven shrieked and scattered. Small knots of them raised their shields, hoping to protect themselves from the attack, to no avail. The crackling hammers whirled down, rupturing the street and hurling broken bodies into the air. The disciplined ranks began to waver and unravel, as the skaven’s natural cowardice asserted itself in the face of the oncoming storm.

A second retinue of Prosecutors swooped low across the skaven lines, separating the panicking ratmen from their prisoners. The winged Stormcasts landed in the street and drove back those skaven brave enough to attack them.

Kratus dropped through the smoky air like a rock, and the skaven unlucky enough to be standing beneath him crumpled, broken. The Knight-Azyros rose from the twitching remains of the ratman and drew his starblade without flourish. His wings remained spread, the rain evaporating as it struck them. Steam rose from his armour, a legacy of the speed of his dive. The skaven, stunned by his sudden arrival, scrambled back, clawing and biting at one another in their haste to escape. Kratus stalked after them.

A skaven warlord, larger and better armoured than the rest of its foul kin, squealed and laid about itself with the flat of its blade. As it snarled, he caught a glimpse of a single glowing green fang amongst its crooked teeth. Slowly, spears were raised, and clanrats began to edge forward, hunkered behind shields. Kratus stopped. He cocked his head, waiting. The warlord snarled out an order, and the Knight-Azyros hurled his starblade as if it were a javelin. The warlord twisted aside with incredible agility, and the blade caught one of the creatures behind him between the jaws. The force of the throw tore the ratkin’s head from its hairy shoulders.

As the body hit the ground, Kratus lifted his celestial beacon and flipped it open. The holy light flared, enveloping the front ranks of the cowering ratmen. The skaven screeched in communal agony as azure flames sprouted along twisted limbs and licked at wrinkled snouts. The warlord barked orders, to no avail. Some skaven fled, pelting into the darkness of the ruins like living torches, while others simply burst in the cleansing heat. Kratus continued forward, until he was treading upon slick ash. He pulled his sword free of the pillar it had become embedded in, allowing the smouldering skull to flop to the ground.

He caught sight of the warlord, standing atop a low-hanging rooftop. The creature stared down at him, eyes glinting in the light of the cleansing flames. Then it whirled about and was gone. For a moment, he considered pursuing it, but before he could, a grey tendril, composed of rotting flesh, rock and root, speared towards him out of the darkness. Instinctively, Kratus chopped it in half. Ichor sprayed across his armour.

More tendrils, drawn by the scent and sound of combat, slithered into view. Dying skaven were caught up, crushed and consumed by the hundreds of gnashing mouths that sprouted along the twisting length of each tendril. The prisoners in the cages began to scream in fear as the tendrils stretched towards them eagerly.

The Knight-Azyros turned to the cages and reached them with a single flap of his wings. As he landed, he swept his light over them, revealing the huddled shapes within – men, women and children, young and old: some wearing rags that had once been finery, others the tattered remnants of armour and uniforms. Most, however, had the starveling look of those who lived on the edge of sustenance, even in times of peace. Kratus stepped towards the cages, and the prisoners screamed and cowered back, as if they could not bear the light of his beacon. A tendril reared up over him with serpentine malice and he swung his celestial beacon about.

The holy light drove the tendril back. It retreated, smoke rising from its length. Swiftly, Kratus shuttered the beacon and chopped through the bindings holding the cages together. His Prosecutors followed his example and their hammers smashed apart the other cages. They stepped back. The prisoners stared at Kratus in something that might have been shock. He loomed over the tallest of them, and their frightened faces were reflected in the polished surface of his war-plate. Part of him longed to break his vow, to speak and perhaps comfort them. But he had not been forged for such things. He had been made to shatter chains and slay tyrants. The best he could do for the innocent was offer them his hand.

He hung his beacon from his belt and extended his hand. Slowly, hesitantly, the first of the prisoners, a woman, took it and clambered out. The rest followed, more slowly. The mortals surrounded him, warming themselves in the heat of his presence. They began to speak, in the strange liquid tongue of Klaxus, asking questions, begging for answers. Hands reached for him, as if to touch his gleaming armour, only to pull back in fear.

The moment was broken as more tendrils struck, diving for the newly freed mortals from on high. Kratus spun, his starblade slicing through the undulating lengths of predatory matter. The avenue shook as the Gnawing Gate bellowed in pain and frustration. He pointed towards the Mandrake Bastion.

‘Run, if you value your lives,’ one of his Prosecutors, a warrior named Syros, called out.

The former prisoners fled, streaming past Kratus, the strong helping the weak. Syros and the other Prosecutors flung themselves skyward as more and more tendrils erupted from the walls and street.

Kratus joined them as the last of the Klaxians vanished into the shadows of the city. As he flew out of reach of the tendrils, he saw that the skaven on the aqueducts had vanished. He hadn’t seen them retreat. More concerning, however, was the profusion of tendrils, each larger than the last, which now coiled about one of the support pillars and stretched towards the aqueducts. With a snap of his gleaming wings, he shot towards the aqueducts, hoping that he would be in time.

Orius Adamantine beheaded a squealing skaven and twisted aside as the crooked blade of another scratched across his chest. Dozens of the ratkin had attacked out of the darkness, first with sling stones, then with blades, dropping onto the lead Stormcast with fierce glee. The attack had come so quickly that he and his warriors had barely had time to respond. Now, thanks to the cramped conditions of the aqueduct, the bulk of his warriors were trapped behind their fellows, unable to help.

The rest of the creatures had rushed forward in a swarm, trying to take advantage of the narrow corridor to isolate Orius. He kicked a skaven in the chest, crushing its ribcage and sending it flopping down the aqueduct. Sling stones rattled off his helm as he turned.

Not all of the skaven had dropped into the aqueduct; some still clung to the openings in the roof, and these were sending a constant barrage of stones into the packed ranks of the Stormcasts. He saw a pair of the creatures trying to manoeuvre a heavy-barrelled jezzail into position. He stomped towards them, scattering skaven with every step. His hammer and sword carved a path through those too stubborn to scramble aside.

He was too slow. The skaven gunner chittered mockingly as it lit the fuse and aimed the weapon at him. But before it could fire, the aqueduct shook. Something massive and grey, like rotting flesh or wet stone, swiftly coiled about the unfortunate jezzail team, and crushed them. Gore rained down onto Orius. A booming roar echoed through the aqueduct, and a chill swept through him. The wall of the aqueduct bulged, the stones cracking as something pressed against the opening above. He backed away, weapons raised.

With a scream of tortured stone, the opening split and shattered as something horrible forced its way through to flop into the water below. It resembled nothing so much as a titanic root, studded with scales of stone and bone. Orius took another step back as the tendril filled the aqueduct, squirming forward.

Its surface burst and split, disgorging smaller pseudopods, which rapidly filled the aqueduct. These smaller tendrils thrashed and darted, crashing against hastily interposed shields and tangling about legs and weapons. Skaven and Stormcasts both came under attack. Orius watched as one of the tendrils split, revealing an oscillating maw of lamprey teeth, and engulfed a squealing skaven.

‘Back,’ he roared, ‘fall back!’

Tendrils surged forward, hammering against his war-plate. For every two he chopped apart, four more arose from the swirling mass. The aqueduct shuddered about him, and the ancient stones beneath his feet began to buckle. A tendril snagged his wrist, yanking him off-balance. He hewed at it with his runeblade, even as more of the slithering strands of filth coiled about his helm and legs. A burst of blue lightning flashed and exploded upwards, momentarily driving back the mass of tendrils, as a fallen warrior returned to Azyr.

Orius seized the moment. ‘Shields up, fall back,’ he bellowed. The last of the skaven was dragged squealing into the mindlessly champing maws of the tendrils, its hairy form pulled in multiple directions all at once. The Stormcasts fell back. Orius chopped through a questing tendril and sank to one knee. ‘Lock shields and stay back,’ he growled. ‘I will handle this.’

Behind him, he heard the clang of shield rims striking, as Liberators filled the width of the aqueduct with shields, one atop the next until a burnished wall of sigmarite had been erected. No tendril would get past it. Satisfied that his warriors were safe, he rose to a crouch, weapons held low. He sprang forward even as the mass of writhing tendrils surged towards him anew. His runeblade slashed out, severing those that came close, while his hammer smashed aside the larger ones. With every strike, sizzling reverberations of lightning ran along the bulk of the thing, eliciting a monstrous roar from somewhere beyond the aqueduct walls. The Gnawing Gate, he thought, as he bisected a tendril. It had spread far beyond its remit. He had to force it to withdraw before it ripped the aqueduct apart.

He fought his way to the central tendril and sank his sword to the hilt in its bulk. Muscles aching with the strain, he held it in place and struck it with his hammer. It writhed and thrashed with every blow, trying to pull itself free. The smaller tendrils sought to snare him, but he ignored them. A screech echoed up from the Gnawing Gate and the main tendril began to recede. He held tight to his sword and continued to strike it, not giving it a moment’s respite.

Lightning tore across the sky as the tendril whipsawed back, out of the aqueduct, dragging him with it in an explosion of stones and dust. Orius held tight to the hilt of his blade, as the streets of Uryx twisted and stretched wildly beneath him. The foul expanse of the Gnawing Gate spread out directly below, and more tendrils, each as large as a building, slashed towards him. He tore his runeblade free and sprang into the air.

Orius plummeted through the crawling sky, a prayer to Sigmar on his lips. Tendrils sought to snag and snare him, but he hacked through them as he fell towards the monstrous battlements below.

Orius had once fallen from the Sky-Bridges of the Thunderpeaks, locked in battle with an orruk chieftain. Next to that, this was the merest stumble. Or so he told himself, as the battlement rose up swiftly to meet him. He tightened his grip on his weapons.

A moment later, he struck the flesh-stones of the Gnawing Gate hard and rolled across the heaving rampart, until he slammed against the base of a gatehouse tower. There was no time to catch his breath, however, as the tower undulated towards him with a sinuous motion. Innumerable eyes glared at him, as a thousand mouths champed and shrieked. Orius hooked the edge of his warcloak and whipped it about him, unleashing the spell woven into its lining. The runes which marked the edge of the cloak flared and a barrage of shimmering hammers, formed from sorcerous energies, exploded outward. The tower jerked back as the hammers tore burning craters in its stonework.

He rose to his feet with a grunt of pain and looked around. His bones ached and something in him was cracked, if not broken, but he’d made it to the top of the Gnawing Gate. The rampart quivered beneath him, and the roar of splintering stone filled the air. It was as if the whole monstrous structure were beginning to tear itself loose from the street. Tendrils ripped themselves free from the wall and sought to entangle him. He drove them back, but only for a moment. The Gnawing Gate had had centuries to set down its horrid roots, and now they were all burrowing to the surface. There was only one way to put a stop to the monstrosity.

Explosions rippled along the abominable wall, eliciting a shriek from the Gnawing Gate. He looked up and saw Kratus and his Prosecutors arrowing down through a storm of lashing tendrils, fighting their way towards him.

‘Kratus,’ he roared. ‘Make me a hole.’ He gestured with his runeblade, and the Knight-Azyros nodded in understanding. Prosecutors dove down, through the thrashing tendrils, and loosed their hammers. As the celestial weapons struck the ramparts and cracked the heaving stones asunder, Kratus and the rest of his retinue dropped from the sky. They spread their wings like shields over Orius as he bulled towards the newly made hole. Tendrils stabbed down and jerked back, seared by the blazing wings, or smashed by the hammers of the Prosecutors.

Orius leapt down into the dark. His feet struck something softer than stone, but harder than flesh. Bone, he knew. The bones of a thousand men, enemies of Klaxus, melded together in an unholy union and raised up to serve those they had sought to destroy. Such had been the way of the priest-kings. Such might have been his fate, had Sigmar not plucked him from death.

The air inside the gate was hot and humid, worse than the jungle. It choked him, squeezing the air out of his lungs, and he knew he would have to be quick. A deep sound echoed around him, a steady thump as of a hammer striking sand. Holding his glowing hammer aloft, he followed the sound. As he moved, the walls creaked and half-seen faces formed in their substance, whispering to him piteously. He could not hear the screams of the gate here, only the soft weeping of things which had once been men.

The darkness began to fade, giving way to a soft red glow, which flickered in time to the sound. Orius stepped out onto a platform made from the fused ribcages and spinal columns of the dead. The walls around him rose pink and fleshy. Vast capillaries and squirming veins stretched everywhere, across flesh, bone and stone alike.

At the centre of this chamber of horrors, suspended amidst a web of thin ligament, stretched muscle and rusty chain, hung the heart of the Gnawing Gate. It was a bulbous mass of meat, easily the size of three men, which pulsed and swelled. Each time it did so, the chamber shuddered, and the red light which burned within it grew blinding. He could see thin streaks of rot along the surface of the heart. The magic that had created the Gnawing Gate was now, with the fall of the priest-kings, consuming it. It was dying, but its death would be a long time coming – years, even. Years of agony, driving it to berserk heights. If it were not stopped now, Orius thought, it would uproot itself, and slither across the crater, destroying all in its path, until at last it expired.

Orius stepped towards it. Condensation formed on and ran down his war-plate as he drew close. A perfectly formed mouth sprouted from the raw mass. ‘He-elp,’ it gurgled. Another mouth joined it, rising from the folded slabs of flesh at the top. ‘I-it hu-urts,’ it whimpered. ‘Hu-rthurturts,’ a third mouth moaned, as it pushed its way into the light.

More voices – or one voice, rising from a thousand mouths – joined them, as things that might have been faces rose like blisters along the fleshy walls. A thousand souls, chained together in stone and agony, for countless centuries. He shook as the reverberations of their cries thundered through him, scratching at his mind and soul.

‘Be at peace,’ he whispered, and all at once, the voices were silent. A hush fell over the chamber, and the heart trembled in its web, as if in anticipation. A thousand souls watched him with tormented eyes. Orius Adamantine lifted his hammer, and, with a murmured prayer, shattered their chains.

Thunder rumbled across the city, and the flash of lightning stung Anhur’s eyes as he watched from the high terrace. Fire limned the horizon. Soon, Uryx would be ashes, unless the storm extinguished it. Down below, on the steps of the citadel, his warriors made ready for what was to come. The Scarlet Axes were the hardened veterans of a thousand wars. They had stood beside him since he had fought his way past the basalt gates of Ytalan, the armies of Klaxus on his heels. He watched them as they oversaw the transport of the newest batch of prisoners culled from the ruins of Uryx by the skaven.

Some would go to the slave-pits, others to the stew-pots. And some – a lucky few – would become a part of something greater. He glanced back, into the inner chamber, where Pazak was hard at work, shaping his sorceries. Soon, he thought.

He had loosed Apademak and the others to wage war as they willed. They would fight and they would fail, and then fall back, to the Bridge of Smoke, drawing his enemies to him. His Gorechosen would burn – indeed, the deathbringer, Vasa, was likely already dead – but they would laugh while they did so. And the foe would be bloodied and staggering, ready for Anhur’s axe. Come, Hound of Ytalan. Come to me, so that all debts might be settled before the end, he thought.

Anhur looked up at the stained statue that rose beside him. It depicted one of the priest-kings of Klaxus, Aunis the Cunning. He studied its face, and wondered at the likeness. ‘It’s been a long time, grandfather,’ he said, finally. ‘I never should have left you... though you didn’t give me much choice.’ He laughed. ‘I guess I am deathproof, despite what you believed.’ The statue seemed to frown in disapproval. Suddenly angry, Anhur’s hand fell to his sword.

No, not mine. The thought came swift and unbidden. He pulled his hand away from the sword and let it fall by his side. No, it wasn’t his sword. It was the blade of Anhur, Prince of Ytalan, and heir to the throne of Klaxus. But Prince Anhur was dead. And he had a new weapon now. He looked down at the axe, dangling loosely in his grip. He brought it up, and gazed into the polished obsidian of its blade. Something vague and unformed looked back at him.

The anger rose up, burning white-hot, and he swept the axe out and smashed the head from the statue. He whirled, axe raised, and confronted the other statues which lined the terrace. Stony eyes regarded him, and his anger swelled.

‘You took warriors and made them weak. You took heroes and made them servants,’ he said. ‘I would watch you all die a thousand deaths for that crime, if I could.’ His words bounced from pillar to plinth, echoing across the terrace. ‘But I will settle for unmaking all that you built. I will erase Uryx and Klaxus both from history, and shape something new from the ashes.’ He looked around. ‘Do you hear, grandfathers? You wrought this citadel from the stuff of the jungle, and built a new kingdom on the bones of the old. And I, your truest son, will do the same. I will be the last king of Klaxus, and the first.’

Anhur spread his arms. ‘See me, in whatever netherworld you occupy. See me, and despair. I will rule our people, and lead them as you never could. Only I remember your names now, and soon, even I will forget.’ He lowered his arms. ‘Soon...’

‘May Khorne will it so, O Scarlet Lord.’

Anhur turned. ‘I was wondering where you’d gotten to, war-smith.’ Volundr went where he willed, and none dared gainsay him. The skullgrinders were the crafters of blades, the armourers of the Bloodbound. None knew where they came from, only that they appeared alone, striding out of the wilderness, to lay claim to certain sacrificial altars. They were the keepers of the anvils of Khorne, and where they walked, Khorne’s gaze soon followed.

‘Your mind is aflame,’ Volundr said. The hulking skullgrinder moved quietly for all his size. Anhur had not heard his approach. ‘I can smell the stink of its burning from here.’

‘Does it offend you, war-smith?’ Anhur asked.

‘I do not take offense. I take skulls,’ Volundr said. He smelled of hot metal and cinders. ‘You are... uncertain.’ It wasn’t a question. But it wasn’t a threat either. Anhur turned.

‘I am,’ he said, after a moment.

‘Why?’

Again, there was no threat. No menace. Anhur’s grip on his axe tightened. ‘A lingering trace of the man I was,’ he said. ‘A mote of weakness, which threatens the integrity of the blade.’

‘Honour is no weakness, Anhur. No matter what creatures like Apademak might contend,’ the skullgrinder said. ‘They think of nothing save the spilling of blood, and the taking of skulls...’

‘And is there more, then?’ Anhur said. ‘For I have waded through seas of blood and climbed mountains of skulls, only to find myself here again, at my start.’ He raised his axe, so that the witch-fires were reflected in the polished obsidian of the blade. ‘I chipped this axe myself, from the still, cold heart of a great fire-wyrm. It yearns to destroy, even as I do. It grows irritable, in the absence of slaughter... as do I. I am the axe, and the axe is me. Is there more, war-smith?’

Volundr stared at him for a moment. Then, he chuckled. It was a harsh sound, like the stroke of a sword. ‘War is the anvil on which our souls are shaped, Anhur,’ the skullgrinder rumbled. One massive hand settled on Anhur’s shoulder-guard. ‘And it is Khorne who wields the hammer. By his will are we purged of weakness and made strong.’

‘Strong,’ Anhur said. He looked at Volundr. ‘I will – I must purge Klaxus of weakness, war-smith. I will break my people on Khorne’s anvil, and make of them – of myself – something better. Something stronger. I will make us weapons, in his name.’ He lifted his axe and examined the blade. ‘Or, failing that, I will end them utterly. I will burn Klaxus, so that something greater might be born from the ashes.’

‘Aye, my friend,’ Volundr said. ‘And that is why I am here. That is why I joined you, all those months ago. For all your talents, Prince of Ytalan... you are no weaponsmith.’

Anhur laughed. ‘And glad I am of it, my friend.’

Volundr nodded. ‘As you should be.’ He held up his anvil, on its thick chain. ‘War is the forge, Anhur, and this moment is both hammer and anvil. What happens next depends on the quality of the metal.’

Anhur clasped the skullgrinder’s forearm. ‘As you say, wise one. Come, let us see how the fire rises, then.’ He turned and led Volundr back into the chamber. ‘Pazak,’ he called out. ‘The time draws near. I have loosed my hounds upon the city. They will crash against the enemy in futile slaughter, spilling rivers of blood. How long?’

‘Futile slaughter – such a cunning stratagem,’ Pazak said, turning to look at them.

‘Your mockery is noted and forgiven,’ Anhur said, amused. ‘For the moment, at any rate. And the stratagem is the only one Apademak and the others understand. If I had not set them loose, they would have revolted. Of them all, only you and Volundr understand my true purpose.’ He gestured to the skullgrinder. ‘Only you understand that we fight not simply to hold what we have conquered. I ask again, how long?’

‘A few hours more, my lord,’ Pazak said. ‘A few hundred more souls, fed into the Black Rift, and it shall begin to open. As you can see, they grow stronger...’ He gestured to the bloody floor and the things that writhed there.

Anhur sank to one knee and caressed the head of one of the mewling daemons attempting to free itself from the blood. ‘Soon, my brother, soon...’ he murmured, as he stroked the bloodletter’s flat skull. ‘Soon, you shall rise and slay, as you were created to do. Soon, we shall wade together through an ocean of gore... still yourselves, sons and daughters of Khorne, be still and dream of the beautiful horror which awaits us all.’ He pushed himself to his feet. ‘Stir this effluvium, sorcerer. I would speak to our ally.’

Pazak made a face, but complied. He began to chant, softly. The blood-cloud pulsed and thinned, as more rose from the floor or dripped sideways from the walls to join it. Bones burst from the red mire to pierce the cloud and join the effluvia. Severed hands scuttled across the floor like pale spiders, and headless torsos lurched after them. All were pulled upwards into the cloud and soon it was a swirling vortex of reds and browns and butchered flesh. Raw skulls surfaced to chatter mindlessly before being enveloped once more.

Anhur gazed up at the boiling, shifting blotch of blood and spoke a single word. It was a name; a name he had flayed one letter at a time from the backs of the Pain-Scribes of Anguz, and etched whole upon the still-beating heart of their abbot. The sound of it seared the very air. The blood-cloud began to roil and stretch in a grotesque display. More and more of it dripped upwards from the floor, joining the swirling mass. The skulls surfaced once more, and began to chant in time, limned in crackling flames.

The floor shook beneath him, as if something vast were approaching. Anhur held his ground. It was not the thing itself, but merely a dreadful echo, resounding through the Mortal Realms. He had spoken the true name of one of Khorne’s huntsmen, casting it into the void. And now, the daemon known as Skul’rath the Broken had come at his call.

A shadow, gigantic and foul, outlined in black flame, appeared in the surface of the blood like a shadow on a curtain. Anhur recognized it at once. Large teeth, capped in brass, and anchored in a large doglike muzzle, pierced the veil of blood. Nostrils flared, and the hideous mouth opened. ‘I hear you, mortal. Skul’rath hears, and he comes,’ the Bloodthirster rumbled. ‘Speak, mortal. Speak, Skul’rath commands you...’

‘No man or daemon commands me, mighty Skul’rath,’ Anhur said. ‘We are allies in this endeavour. I am no daemon-slave, to be twisted and broken at your whim.’ It was a risk, talking to the creature in such a fashion. Had it been any other of Khorne’s chosen –Ka’Bandha, or Khorg’tan – he might have balked. But Skul’rath was different.

The daemon had been humbled by the Stormcast Eternals. Skul’rath had been the first to fall in the war, the first casualty, the first defeat. And he was eager to redeem himself.

‘Where is the gate I was promised, mortal? Eight hundred and eighty-eight legions await the opening of the way, and they – WE – grow impatient.’

‘The way will soon be revealed, Broken One,’ Anhur said, staring up at the daemonic face. The chamber shook as a sudden monstrous roar burst from the squirming blood. The things – the half-born daemon-shapes – thrashed and shrieked in sympathy.

‘Do not call me that,’ the daemon bellowed. Sizzling dollops of blood spattered against Anhur’s helm. ‘I am not broken. I am the breaker.’

‘Well, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?’ Anhur said. The air grew hot and stifling as the daemon roared again. It seared his lungs and sweat stung his eyes, but he did not falter. As the heat rose, so too did his anger. It reached up, through the meat of him, trying to throttle his lucidity. His pulse throbbed in time to the daemon’s roars, as if the very sound of it were twisting what was left of his soul into new, more horrible shapes.

Strange images were burnt into the air, fading as quickly as they formed. A hunched and crippled form, dragging itself across endless skullfields. The Gates of the Vanquished, rising up over the moats of boiling blood. The wails of those bested in battle, and the Gatekeeper, with his voice of iron, demanding the identity of the one who had dared to return to the Brass Citadel in defeat. And finally, Skul’rath, forcing himself to stand, forcing himself to speak. Skul’rath the Tamed, Skul’rath the Broken.

Anhur had seen it all before. The image of the vanquished was cast across the Eight Realms, to every daemon-lord and war-leader as a warning and a call to arms. For the first time in centuries, the name of Sigmar reverberated through the Brass Citadel, and echoed in the minds of all those whom Khorne had blessed. The Hammer of Heaven had come once more, and the Mortal Realms shook at his tread.

Anhur shuddered, forcing the images aside. The daemon’s rage fed his own, and threatened to devour him from inside out. But he pushed it down, denying it, forcing himself to remain calm. If he gave in now, all was lost. He heard the clink of Volundr’s chain, and drew strength from the sound.

The blood crawled across the air, spreading and drying as the bodies of the slain began to blacken and smoke, filling Anhur’s nose with the stink of burning flesh. The daemon was venting its fury in the only way open to it. Pazak’s blightkings lumbered towards their master, drawing their corroded and dripping weapons as they did so. Volundr hefted his anvil warily. ‘He is beyond reason, the broken fool,’ the skullgrinder growled.

‘Calm yourself, mighty Skul’rath,’ Anhur began, knowing even as he did so, that it was the wrong thing to say. Another roar shook the chamber, and dust sifted down as the walls and dome cracked. The struggles of the things squirming on the floor became more frenzied. They hissed and screeched and the sound of Skul’rath’s fury pounded against Anhur’s eardrums. The heat of his rage beat at the air. The obsidian plates began to spin faster and faster, as things pressed against the black surface, like swimmers in tar.

‘Impossible,’ Pazak muttered. ‘The way is not yet open.’

‘What is impossible for us is but the work of a moment for the gods,’ Anhur said. Skul’rath might have been nothing more than a shard of the Blood God given mind and purpose, but even the shard of a god could accomplish the unthinkable.

Pazak began to chant, but too late. Geysers of blood and meat exploded upwards, and monstrous shapes, lean of limb and athirst for slaughter, raced into reality. Black blades swept out, hacking a blightking down. Anhur parried a blow with his axe and caught his attacker’s throat with his free hand. The bloodletter squirmed and hissed. It tried to rip itself free and Anhur snapped its neck with a flick of his wrist. The body began to dissolve even as he flung it aside.

More of the daemons sprang from the gore. A trio of the red-limbed killers flung themselves at him, blades sizzling as they carved bloody contrails through the air. Anhur stepped forward, and smashed the first of the daemons to the ground. His blood sang as he fought, and the air throbbed with the shrieking murder-hymns of the damned. Volundr fought beside him, his wide shape twisting and spinning with impossible agility as he swung his anvil and chain to crush the skulls of daemons.

He felt a wash of sour heat, and saw a flash of sickly light out of the corner of his eye. Pazak, Anhur thought, and felt his battle-lust recede. If the sorcerer were killed, then all had been for naught. In his mad rage, Skul’rath might destroy all that they had worked for. Anhur turned, and saw bloodletters flinging themselves at the sorcerer and his bodyguards. The blightkings were few, but strong, and Pazak was no weakling. He’d drawn the scabrous blade from its rotting sheath on his hip and as Anhur started forward, the sorcerer beheaded a bloodletter.

‘Skul’rath, cease this madness,’ Anhur roared, as he hacked down a daemon. Streamers of pale red steam rose from the floor, as more daemons fought and clawed their way free of the blood and gore. ‘Would you doom all we have strived for, in the name of petulance?’

‘I am not broken! I yet stand – I yet kill. I will break the world and offer up its shards to Khorne,’ Skul’rath roared. ‘I will have my vengeance – a million skulls shall I offer up...’ The bloodletters twitched and grew more frenzied in their attack, as their bodies began to steam and slough away into nothing. Skul’rath’s rage had forced them into solidity, but that alone was not enough to sustain them. Anhur chopped through the midsection of another daemon, and it exploded into nothingness as his blade passed through it.

‘Aye a million and more besides, mighty Skul’rath,’ Anhur shouted. He spun to face the blood-cloud. ‘We shall build our lord a throne of a million corpses, and cast the skulls of the fallen at his feet like pearls. We shall break the Realm of Fire, and make of it a conflagration unending, a cauldron of eternal war... but we can only do so together.’

Skul’rath’s roars faded. The bloodletters slowed. Steam rose from them and they began to come apart, crumbling even as they retreated. Anhur forced his voice to remain steady as he called out, ‘Our bargain holds, mighty Skul’rath. When the way has been opened, you will be free to wreak your vengeance on this realm, starting with Klaxus.’ He raised his axe. ‘By my axe, I swear it.’

‘And by my true name, I swear that if you make good on that oath, I will serve you until you choose to release me,’ the bloodthirster growled. ‘But do not seek to play me false, Scarlet One, or your skull shall be the first I take!’

Slowly, the heat faded. The corpses cooled, and the blood, now reduced to a fine ash, cascaded down. Pazak coughed and waved a hand. ‘Makes a strong impression, that one.’

‘Have you ever known a daemon to do otherwise?’ Anhur growled, as he turned. ‘I share his impatience. I would have this over and done with, sooner rather than later.’ He shook his head. ‘So many months. Years, even, of planning. Of preparing. The red road calls, and I have no choice but to follow it.’

‘There is no turning back, Anhur. Not for you,’ Volundr said.

Anhur gazed down at his axe. His reflection stared back at him, and for a moment, he saw himself as he had been, rather than as he was. He laughed. That man was dead, and something stronger had risen from his ashes. Just as something greater would rise from the ashes of Klaxus.

‘Victory or oblivion,’ the Scarlet Lord said.

About the Author

Josh Reynolds is the author of the Blood Angels novel Deathstorm and the Warhammer 40,000 novellas Hunter’s Snare and Dante’s Canyon, along with the audio drama Master of the Hunt, all three featuring the White Scars. In the Warhammer World, he has written The End Times novels The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, the Gotrek & Felix tales Charnel Congress, Road of Skulls and The Serpent Queen, and the novels Neferata, Master of Death and Knight of the Blazing Sun. He lives and works in Northampton.

The storm breaks as the Stormcast Eternals go into battle for the first time. Read the first book set in the Age of Sigmar.

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Published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-095-6

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