Blacktalon: First Mark Read online

  ‘I don’t trust the forest spirits,’ said Katalya, making no effort to lower her voice.

  ‘You don’t need to trust them, just trust me,’ said Neave, more quietly. ‘It doesn’t matter whether their weapon works as it should or not. I have never failed to slay my mark, not since Sigmar raised me up and reforged me. Your swamp king is the only quarry that has ever eluded my blades. He won’t do so again. Just follow my lead, let the sylvaneth get us to our target, and then, when you and I have laid him low, I’ll get us clear again. Understand?’

  Katalya nodded. As the vine bridge bore them up out of the chasm and into the forest at dusk, Neave hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. Whatever lay ahead, it would be a punishing fight. But she was as determined about this as she had ever been about anything. She would slay her first mark, and go back to Sigmar with her head held high. Ungholghott would die beneath her blades, and never mind what Wytha had planned. And Katalya Mourne would not fall within the swamp king’s fortress; not while Neave still had breath in her body.

  The moment the vine bridge crunched into the lip of the chasm, the sylvaneth army flowed from it onto the forest floor. Neave had estimated Wytha’s clan at several hundred spirits strong, from its elite core of Tree Revenants and Treelords to the massed bands of dryads that made up its heart, and the wild-eyed Spite Revenants that stalked upon its fringes.

  Tall Kurnoth Hunters – each powerfully built and almost half as tall again as a dryad – loped away into the forest, spears and bows of heartwood held in their fists. The rest of the host followed in their wake, bands of ghostly figures flowing through the underbrush in near silence. Only their eyes glowed from the shadows, and occasionally the whorled runes upon their barkflesh.

  ‘They will be our eyes,’ said Wytha, dropping back to march beside Neave. ‘The Kurnoth are the agents of Alarielle herself. We are privileged to have them scouting our way.’

  At the Branchwych’s arrival, Katalya tugged Ketto’s harness and reined him back, distancing herself from Wytha with a look of superstitious revulsion.

  ‘How far is Ungholghott’s fortress from here?’ asked Neave.

  ‘Do you not remember, child? It is a path you’ve followed once before,’ said Wytha with a sideways glance.

  ‘I’ve died since then,’ said Neave. ‘A lot.’ She was surprised at the look of genuine sorrow that crept into Wytha’s eyes, an expression the Branchwych banished just as quickly as it came.

  ‘Sigmar has used you ill, my girl,’ said Wytha. ‘Had you but completed your hunt for us on that fateful day, you would have lived on filled with the joyous blessings of Alarielle. You would have been one with the forest. In time, perhaps, you would even have been one with us.’

  ‘I remember the vision clearly now, Wytha,’ said Neave. ‘The odds we faced were impossible. How could you ever have believed I’d survive to claim that reward?’

  ‘We were… I was arrogant,’ said the Branchwych. ‘I was young, and my sap flowed hot. I was so sure of you, girl, of the blessings we’d marked you with and the way you’d been raised. The creatures I saw you hunt and slay would have taken a warband of dryads to lay low. Worse, even as I overestimated you, so I underestimated Ungholghott. I did not grasp the magnitude of his power, or the size of his armies.’

  ‘I don’t imagine that either has decreased in the years since,’ said Neave, trying to ignore the strange sense of failure that Wytha’s words stirred. ‘How can you be sure you’re not making the same mistakes again?’

  ‘I have spent long, terrible seasons fighting this foe. I have lost too many of my people in a losing fight during which I saw little cause for hope. Your return is as a break in the canopy that lets the sunlight shine through. And we have the weapon, and a way in. This time, I believe, we shall strike true, though it may cost us dear to do so.’

  ‘This weapon,’ said Neave, trying again to extract a straight answer. ‘What is it, precisely? Where did you get such a thing? And if it is so powerful, why have you not wielded it before?’

  ‘I did not say that the weapon had not been used, girl.’ Wytha favoured Neave with a crooked smile. ‘We know that it works, and that its power is great. But I told you before, it has been seen; without you, any attack against Ungholghott’s fastness is doomed to fail. Only when you answered the summons, only when you joined us, could we hope to succeed.’

  ‘You place a great deal of faith in one Stormcast warrior,’ said Neave. ‘I’ve no illusions about my abilities in battle, but even I can’t bring down a fortress’ worth of foes.’

  ‘I do place faith in you.’ Again, Neave caught the shadow of some genuine emotion playing at the corners of the spirit’s eyes. Did this strange being truly hold her in some maternal regard? she wondered. If so, it was a more twisted form of affection than any Neave had encountered before. ‘I place faith also in the wisdom of those who rule Dreadwood Glade. We shall prevail.’

  ‘Sigmar willing,’ said Neave. They walked on in silence for a few moments, before Wytha let out a rasping sigh.

  ‘To answer your original query, this path will take us much of the night to walk. More so, for we must be cautious of sentries and patrols as we near the forest’s eaves. We will come upon Lord Ungholghott’s fortress at dawn, and like the rising of the wakeling sun we will burn his corruption from the lands for good.’

  With that, Wytha pressed ahead to rejoin her honour guard of Treelords. She left Neave to walk through the dark forest, her thoughts swirling.

  They pressed on through the darkest hours of the night. The forest changed around them, sometimes drawing close in thorny tangles, sometimes towering high above their heads in vast groves whose primordial majesty made Neave feel dwarfed. In the early morning hours, the host flowed through a region where glowing spites drifted between the trees and blood-red blossoms covered the boughs. At another point, they crossed a huge clearing over which the stars hung cold and bright. The soil there was gouged into flowing sigils, and crooked standing stones rose between them like silent sentinels. Neave felt an abiding sense of dread creep into her heart as she looked upon the stones of the clearing, though she could not have said what caused it. Katalya drew close as they crossed that haunted space, and remained nearby even after they left it behind them.

  As the first light of dawn began to glimmer between the trees, Neave turned to Katalya.

  ‘By Wytha’s reckoning, we should reach the fortress not long after dawn. I’m going to move ahead and scout the terrain for myself.’

  ‘You’re leaving us alone with the spirits?’ asked Katalya. Neave could see the girl was tired, and fearful despite herself.

  ‘You have Ketto, and Wytha has assured me of your safety,’ said Neave, loudly for the benefit of those forest spirits in earshot. ‘The sylvaneth know that if any harm should come to you, I’ll gladly turn my axes on those that caused it before returning to Azyr and leaving them to fight their own battles.’

  ‘Do not go too far,’ said Katalya, then in a firmer voice she added, ‘You don’t run off ahead and kill the swamp king so you can claim my glory, eh?’

  Neave offered Katalya a warrior’s salute.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of dishonouring the Mourne tribe, so you have my word. Keep your wits about you, don’t antagonise anything with talons, and I’ll return as quickly as I can.’

  Neave turned and broke into a run, sweeping past Wytha and her attendants and on into the faint light of dawn. Despite the danger that lay ahead, and all her uncertainties about the path she was following, Neave felt exaltation rise within her at the feeling of running alone through the forest and letting her senses flow outwards as she went.

  Her footfalls were all but silent as she wove between the trees. Every sight, sound and smell came back to her with crystal clarity, building in her mind a picture of the forest for miles around. She felt the living things that burrowed through the soil, the v
itality of the trees and plants that grew on every side, the splash of water and the sigh of wind as they passed through root and bough.

  And she felt, not so very far ahead, the seething corruption of Nurgle’s touch where the territory of the sylvaneth met that of the Plague God. Neave could taste the foulness on the air and sense the agony of the forest as its burgeoning life magics were tainted by the slow-spreading rot of Nurgle’s blights.

  Closer at hand, Neave felt vibration through the soil and heard the sounds of violence echoing between the trees. Sweeping her axes from her back, she accelerated into a sprint. She raced through the forest and burst into a tangled copse in time to see a Kurnoth Hunter smashed from its feet by one of Ungholghott’s abominations. The thing was lumpen and awful, vaguely humanoid but easily twenty feet tall, pieced together from stitched flesh and flailing limbs, wailing mouths and bulging eyes.

  Long Kurnoth arrows feathered its body, and several of its muscular limbs dragged behind it, but still the monster stayed on its feet. Neave saw two Kurnoth Hunters were already down, rent and mangled by the abomination. Another two remained, drawing arrows from living quivers and sending them whistling through the air to puncture the monster’s flesh.

  Neave sprinted towards the beast and wove between several of its huge legs. As she went, she lashed out with her axes, hacking through muscle and tendon. The beast howled with a dozen mouths and swiped clumsily at her, but she leapt away, landing well out of reach of its taloned tentacles. The abomination half fell, dragging itself forward atop a tangle of limbs that no longer worked.

  ‘The beast had keepers,’ called one of the Kurnoth, its voice resonant and singsong. ‘They fled for the fortress. We tried to pursue, but–’

  ‘Finish this monster,’ said Neave. ‘I’ll catch the runners.’

  The hunter saluted, a weirdly human gesture, and pointed in the direction the abomination’s keepers had fled. Neave could sense her prey, distant, heading through the forest towards their master’s keep.

  They bore a warning that would end this attack before it even began.

  She accelerated until the trees passed in a blur. Any other creature would have dashed themselves against a tree-trunk or been tripped by a root, but Sigmar had fashioned his Knights-Zephyros with skill. Neave placed every footfall perfectly, springing over deadfall and kicking off from tree-trunks to increase her acceleration further.

  With every moment, she closed in on her quarry, whose slapping footfalls and ragged breath she could hear now close ahead. She heard three separate heartbeats clustered close together. They hadn’t had the sense to split up. Good.

  Neave barely slowed as she shot between the trunks of a pair of elderbaron trees and hit her prey like a missile. She had a split-second to register that they were Blightkings, hulking mortal warriors clad in scads of rusted armour and horned helms. A single such warrior was capable of hewing a dozen Freeguild soldiers apart like firewood. Neave killed two of them before they even realised she was there, her axe blades hitting at catastrophic speed to rip one Blightking’s spine out through his gut and take the head and half the collarbone off another.

  Neave threw out one leg and skidded to a halt in a shower of loam. She turned, axes held out wide, to stare at the last Blightking as he stumbled and stopped.

  ‘If you wish to return to your lord, you tainted heap of offal, you will have to defeat me first,’ she said, flicking gore from her blades. The Blightking hesitated, staring at her through the single eye-hole in his helm, then bellowed a muffled war cry and raised his ­hammer. He took three lumbering steps before Neave lunged, weaving easily around the ponderous downswing of his weapon. She directed a flurry of blows into her enemy’s chest and face, hitting him eight times in two seconds and then spinning past him and turning at guard again.

  Neave needn’t have bothered; the Blightking staggered, gore jetting from the appalling wounds that festooned his chest and head, before toppling forward.

  ‘I hope the Kurnoth did a better job with any of your friends that might be wandering the woods out here,’ said Neave to the twitching corpse. ‘I think Alarielle needs better agents…’

  She turned and ran back towards where she could feel the sylvaneth host advancing through the forest. They were perhaps a mile’s march from the edge of the forest now, and one way or another, the moment was almost upon them to commit.

  Neave wanted to be as close to Katalya and to Wytha as she could when that happened.

  As the sylvaneth host neared the woodland fringe, the forest spirits saw the horrors that had been wrought by Nurgle’s plagues. From hisses and whispers about her, Neave gathered that the woods had been expected to stretch another few miles yet. Instead, the trees slumped in rot and ruin, their chewed fringes sinking into a quagmire of bubbling filth. Slime coated the underbrush. Quivering buboes stood proud of split trunks and burst at the slightest touch. Insects squirmed and droned on every side, and a dense ground-mist clung to the stinking earth.

  Seeing the curse that continued to devour their fragile kingdom, the sylvaneth stirred in anger. Their unearthly spirit song shifted into something both melancholy and wrathful. There was no aural component to the music, nothing to carry on the wind and betray the army’s presence. Instead, Neave felt it through the roots beneath her feet, and shivering upon currents of magic that coiled through the air. It was as though thunderheads were building around her, a storm wholly different to Sigmar’s heavenly tempest. This was something of twisting gloom and jagged darkness, something that seeped up from the loam and drifted down from the canopy to shroud every­thing in shadow.

  ‘Do you sense that, Katalya?’ asked Neave. The girl nodded, wide-eyed.

  ‘Something stirs. The forest is angry.’ She made that oh-so-familiar comet gesture again, and Neave had to struggle not to emulate it. How old had she been, she wondered, when the sylvaneth snatched her up? How well had her tribe and Katalya’s been connected, to share such traditions? In another life, might she have ridden beside this girl as kin?

  Neave shook the questions off and focused on the view from the treeline.

  The swamp stretched away into the distance, a noxious expanse of fluids and hillocks of rotting moss. Ungholghott’s fortress could be seen, rising from the mists and gases like the corpse of some impossibly immense godbeast. Crooked towers like exposed ribs jutted up into the sky. Layers of lumpen battlements ringed it, patrolled by swarms of distant figures. Huge eyes could be seen swivelling mindlessly in the structure’s flanks, while clouds of flies blanketed the air around it.

  ‘The fortress is perhaps a mile distant,’ said Wytha. ‘It is, itself, seven miles from end to end. Our entrance lies there, in its south-eastern slopes.’

  Neave followed Wytha’s gesture and saw where dozens of ramshackle wooden bell-towers and tumbledown shanties had been heaped against the fortress’ flank. The unmistakable runes of the skaven and the Clans Pestilens were much in evidence upon every surface.

  ‘That point is closest to us here, across a short stretch of marshland,’ said Wytha.

  ‘How do we cross without being seen?’ asked Neave.

  ‘I shall contrive an ensorcelled shroud to misdirect the eye. My Branchwraiths will aid me. It is a crude illusion, but a powerful one. The enemy’s sentries will not see us.’

  ‘What about patrols?’

  ‘Do you see any?’ The Branchwych gestured with her sickle-stave. The marshes between them and the skaven-burrowed section of wall appeared still and empty. Nothing but bubbles and drifting mist moved. The sun still hung below the horizon, just colouring the fringes of the marsh with a tinge of amber flame, but it would not be long before it began to rise.

  ‘No. But that makes me suspicious,’ said Neave. ‘Is Lord Ungholghott so incautious?’

  ‘Not incautious,’ said Wytha. ‘Powerful. He has spent long years ruling this region, unchallenged by any that coul
d cause him harm. His fortress is huge, and no doubt contains many, many warriors. He has myriad sentries atop the walls. What need for more walking the bounds? Surely, he must reason, even if an enemy were to come upon his stronghold and seek to gain entry, they would be seen before they reached the walls, or stopped shortly thereafter. His might has made him complacent, girl. We should not fear to use that advantage.’

  Neave shook her head.

  ‘This sounds all too easy, Wytha. I fear that you’ve mistaken blind hope for good sense.’

  ‘Don’t forget we have had our spites scout the fortress several times, always veiled behind glamours, never disturbed or discovered,’ said Wytha, sounding defensive. ‘They have never seen any change in this pattern. The lack of foot-patrols is not a sudden or strange occurrence. I am not a fool, girl, and I would not risk my clan upon a foolish hope.’

  ‘Once we’re in, what’s the plan?’ asked Neave. ‘Assuming you’re right, how do we find Ungholghott? And how do we use the weapon against him?’

  ‘You will find the swamp king,’ said Wytha. ‘You will sense him.’

  ‘I can only do that if Sigmar has given me a mark. Please don’t tell me your plan hinged on that.’

  ‘You give yourself too little credit.’ Wytha shook her head. ‘That ability stems from you, not your Reforging. It has been in you since birth. It is why you were chosen. Reach out, and see if it is not so.’

  Neave drew breath to correct Wytha angrily, and to ask how the Branchwych presumed to know more of her abilities than she did herself. Then it struck her; she could feel something. It was different to the sensation of following a mark, less insistent, and she doubted that she could have felt it from as far away. But the feeling was there, all the same, glimmering in her senses like a star just visible in the evening sky.

  ‘I… know where he is,’ she said. ‘You’re right, I know how to reach my mark, even without Sigmar’s guidance.’