Blacktalon: First Mark Read online

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Skaven.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Neave took in every detail of the conflict in the six seconds it took her to assess and then charge into the fight. By comparison, neither the skaven nor their victim even realised she was there until she struck.

  Neave’s whirlwind axes spun in a deadly arc, lopping the head from one Plague Monk and opening another from gut to throat. Thin blood sprayed through the air and fat buboes burst with audible pops as Neave’s weapons ripped through the diseased rat-men.

  Shrieks and chitters erupted in her wake as the skaven registered this new attacker. They were quick-witted, their senses sharp and their desire for self-preservation making them naturally inclined to suspect attack from unexpected quarters. Thus, even as Neave spun on the balls of her feet and prepared to make another pass through the fight, the Plague Monks were upon her.

  ‘Keep fending them off,’ she shouted to the girl. ‘I’ll thin their numbers!’

  She received barely a glance in response, the young tribeswoman focusing all her attention on the fight. Neave saw her punch out again, snapping one of the plague censers in two from twenty feet away and bowling its wielder end over end. Another skaven hacked its rusted cleaver into her steed’s flank and was impaled on a chitinous leg for its efforts.

  Neave parried in a blistering series of sweeps, shattering the poorly made and rust-encrusted blades of her foes. Several frenzied stabs and swings clanged from the sigmarite of her armour, and she was glad of its protection. She could taste the poisons that coated the skaven weapons, that made them far more dangerous than they had any right to be.

  An axe blow split a muzzle like cordwood. Another sweep ripped out a throat in a spray of gore. Then something huge was barrelling through the press of rat-men, and Neave was forced to launch herself into a backflip to leap clear of the swing of a huge, clawed fist.

  She saw the rat ogor coming at her, its grotesquely flared nostrils twitching, its head cocked to one side. A foetid stink washed ahead of it, of chemical sweat and unwashed flesh. Neave felt the pounding vibration of its approach hard through the ground. It trailed the chains that its two handlers had released, and it bore down on her unerringly.

  ‘You can’t see me, can you?’ she said, grunting as she locked her axes to stave off another thunderous claw swing. The rat ogor howled, spraying her with spittle, and raked its claws at her in a disembowelling strike. Neave leapt back again and spun as she went, lashing out and shattering the bones of the beast’s paw with her axes.

  The rat ogor screeched with pain and recoiled, flapping its useless hand. Neave took the opportunity to go on the offensive, leaping into the air and raining axe blows upon her attacker. The beast threw up its forearms to shield itself, reacting faster than Neave could have believed possible, and she hacked half a dozen bloody gouges in its limbs before she landed. Enraged, the rat ogor swung its good arm sidelong at her, trying to swat this painful attacker away. Neave swayed under the blow, throwing herself backwards and catching her fall on the hilts of her axes as the wrecking-ball arm whistled over her face to smash into a luckless Plague Monk.

  Neave pushed hard and drove herself back to her feet with her axes, flipping clean over the rat ogor and slamming down behind it. She scissored her axes through its thick neck, then spun away as its head tumbled from its shoulders.

  The rat ogor reeled out into the fight, limbs still swinging in its death throes. Meanwhile, the surviving skaven, their fanatical fervour overcoming their natural fear of danger, hurled themselves at her.

  Neave fended one away with an axe blow, wove around a stabbing thrust and allowed it to impale another Plague Monk, then brought her knee up sharply into the chin of a third foe and broke its neck. Seeing their numbers thinning, she whirled and kicked the rat-man behind her, caving in his throat, before lashing her axes in a tight figure of eight to hack the arm from one and the head from another.

>   Suddenly, there were no enemies around Neave, just sprawled corpses. She shot a glance towards the girl, in time to see her raise the last of the skaven into the air amidst a phantasmic corona of jade energies. The girl clapped her hands together with a yell of anger and hate, and the skaven was crushed as though caught between two boulders.

  Blood jetted, and its mangled carcass thumped to the floor.

  Neave had hurled herself into the fight because she had seen a single human in danger. Now, able to properly appraise the girl she had saved, she kept her axes in hand. Her eyes flickered over the girl’s tribal markings, hunting for any sigil of the Dark Gods. She saw no sign of the physical stigma that such worship usually caused, no vestigial horns, mutant limbs, scaled skin, no obvious mutation. Yet the girl’s steed was a strange and dangerous looking beast, and the weapons she wielded were clearly magical in nature.

  The girl looked back at her with frank aggression, chin jutting, shoulders heaving from the exertion of battle. Vermin blood dripped slowly from her fists and body.

  ‘I am Neave Blacktalon,’ said Neave. The girl made no response, and Neave hoped that she could make herself understood. Many mortal tribes still spoke some branch of the old tongues of the Age of Myth, even now. Yet often it was corrupted and hard to understand. Sometimes, there was no common bridge of language whatsoever.

  ‘I am a Stormcast Eternal,’ said Neave. ‘Of the Hammers of Sigmar.’

  At the name of the God-King, the girl’s face twitched with recognition.

  ‘You know that name, yes? Sigmar?’ Neave took a step closer, and the insect steed skittered and stomped in response. Something in its thorax began a dry rattle, a clear warning to stay back.

  ‘Do you understand me?’ asked Neave, repeating herself in several common dialects. She had travelled the realms more than many of her comrades, ranged further and encountered hundreds of different cultures. Thanks to the blessings of Sigmar, and her own gift for swift comprehension, she had learned at least the rudiments of dozens of languages.

  At last, her words brought a spark of understanding to the girl’s eyes.

  ‘You understand this? You know who I am, what I’m saying?’ asked Neave.

  The girl nodded, eyes still fierce.

  ‘You are a sky knight,’ said the girl, her accent thick and sharp. ‘From the heavens.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Neave. ‘I am one of Sigmar’s warriors. We have come to defend the Mortal Realms, to win the war against Chaos.’

  ‘You have come to kill,’ said the girl. ‘But you will not kill me!’

  Fast as thought, she punched out with both hands. Green light flared like a star, and a sorcerous projectile tore through the air towards Neave’s head.

  Chapter Eight

  It was like being hit by a battering ram. Neave tasted blood as she was thrown through the air. She hit the ground in a boneless roll, turning the motion into a smooth slide and regaining her feet in time to see another jade blast coming at her. The girl swung her arm backhand, the projectile cuffing Neave in the side of the head and deforming the faceplate of her helm as it threw her sideways.

  Shock turned rapidly to anger, and as Neave rolled to her feet again she tore the buckled helm from her head and cast it aside. Blood dripped from her temple down the side of her face, crawling with lazy blue sparks.

  The girl hesitated for an instant as her eyes met Neave’s. The Stormcast seized her chance and flashed forward like lightning. Her opponent tried to react, but against Neave’s inhuman swiftness she stood little chance. Neave hit the girl and tackled her out of her saddle, smashing the air from her lungs and slamming her into the ground twenty yards from her steed. Neave cushioned the girl’s fall, rolling with her, taking the brunt of an impact that would have broken mortal bones. She wound up with one knee pressed into her attacker’s chest, and her axes hovering menacingly above her face.

  The girl coughed, blinked, tried to drag in a breath of air. Her eyes watered, then focused. Her face twisted with anger and jade energies flashed along her coiled vambraces.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Neave, hefting one axe. ‘I’m much faster than you, I’m much stronger, and regardless of what you think, I have no desire to kill you. But my duty comes first. If you endanger that again…’

  She left the words hanging. She sensed no taint on this girl, no hint of the Dark Gods. But there was fear behind her anger, and pain. In Neave’s experience, such emotions could drive mortals to foolish acts. For a moment longer the girl stayed tense, then the jade sparks flickered to nothingness and she sagged.

  ‘Better,’ said Neave, easing the pressure of her armoured knee on the girl’s sternum. Letting her breathe a little freer, but staying watchful for the slightest sign of aggression. ‘Can you take those off?’ She pointed her chin at the girl’s vambraces and received a sullen nod in response. ‘Good, then I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to disarm yourself. Yes?’

  Another nod. Neave slid into a standing position and backed away, casting a glance towards the girl’s steed as she did so. The insectile beast had approached warily, heavy footfalls thudding in the mossy grass; its thorax still gave out that dry rattle, but it made no move to attack.

  The girl rose. Neave saw her muscles tense as she clearly thought about bolting again. Neave tensed as well, making it obvious that she had predicted the girl’s thoughts and was ready to halt her break for freedom. The girl thought better of it, staring defiantly at Neave as she unbound brass cog-clasps one at a time and let her ensorcelled vambraces drop. She shot a glance at her steed as though willing the beast to act; when it held its place, the girl muttered something angrily that might have been ‘traitor’ and turned back to face Neave.

  ‘Now what?’ she asked. ‘You kill me, sky knight?’

  ‘Now you tell me your name,’ said Neave. ‘And how you came to be hunted by skaven in this remote place.’

  ‘I am born Katalya Mourne, and he is Ketto,’ said the girl, gesturing at her steed. ‘I am Mourne tribe,’ she continued, and Neave caught the look she shot towards her fallen comrades. ‘I am… all of the Mourne tribe,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Neave, and found that she meant it.

  ‘You are not,’ said Katalya fiercely. ‘You don’t know. Sky knights, Sigmar’s killers, what do you know of us? You are no better than the rats.’

  Neave was saddened by the girl’s words, but not entirely shocked. She thought back to some of the pacification campaigns her Vanguard Auxiliary Chamber had been involved with, the tribes slaughtered more for their ignorance than any true desire to malfeasance. Still, it chilled her to think that the Stormcasts could be perceived with quite such venom.

  ‘Is that what you think?’ asked Neave.

  ‘The Shryke tribe thought different,’ replied Katalya. ‘Their shamans said the gods sent you. They celebrated your coming. Then the white sky knights came. They called themselves the Excelsior. They answered the Shrykes’ welcome with lightning and steel. They drove them from their homes around the Gate of the Gods. They killed them all. That is what you do – you kill.’

  Neave shook her head.

  ‘The Knights Excelsior know nothing of restraint,’ she said. ‘If the Shryke tribe held a Realmgate they had been ordered to capture… If there were signs that the tribe had been worshipping the Dark Gods… The Hammers of Sigmar are different, I promise you.’

  ‘Knights, hammers, whatever you call yourselves, doesn’t matter,’ said Katalya. ‘You are no better than the bloodscreamers, or the rusted ones, or these ratkin filth. All killers, all seek to take our freedom.’

  Neave thought for a moment, then slung her axes and relaxed her posture. Unhelmed, unarmed, blood scabbing on her temple and hair sweat-slicked from battle, she hoped that she looked more human than many of her comrades might.

  ‘I am sorry for all that has happened to you,’ s
he said. ‘And I swear that I mean you no harm. I just want to understand how you came to be here, and whether I can aid you. Sigmar’s servants were sent to the realms to protect and to reclaim, not to kill the innocent.’

  Katalya snorted and spat. She folded her arms and stood in silence, chin jutting. It was a good act, but it could not fool Neave’s senses; the girl’s heart was beating too fast, and minute muscle twitches gave away the sorrow and fear she was trying to mask. Neave found herself reappraising the girl’s age; beneath the feral garb and the warrior piercings, she could not be much older than sixteen years. There was something more, though, that Neave couldn’t put a finger on. Her heart went out to Katalya. She felt inclined to trust her, despite all her better instincts.

  ‘Your fallen,’ said Neave, gesturing. ‘Go to them, if you need to.’

  ‘Turn my back so you can put an axe in it?’ asked Katalya. ‘Mourne do not raise their kind stupid, sky knight.’

  Neave sighed, exasperated.

  ‘Very well, then at least tell me how you came to be here. Are there more skaven hunting you, or was that the extent of them?’

  Katalya remained silent, but the tensing of her shoulders and the dart of her eyes to the horizon told Neave all she needed to know.

  ‘More out there then,’ she said. ‘It can’t just be coincidence. Do they serve him, I wonder?’

  Again, she read a flicker of reaction from Katalya at her words. For all her obstinacy, the girl showed little skill at hiding her emotions.

  ‘You know of whom I speak?’ she asked. ‘You know who the skaven call master?’

  Katalya cast another look at Ketto, but the insect had settled back on its haunches now; it wasn’t even rattling. She shook her head in annoyance, and sighed, letting her arms drop.

  ‘The swamp king,’ she said. ‘The rats serve the swamp king. They have done for many years, since before I was born. They have always hunted the tribes. Them, the rusted ones, the monsters. But these seasons they come many, many. Since your kind arrive.’ Katalya stared accusingly at Neave. ‘You made the swamp king angry, and we suffer for it. Like I said, you are all killers.’