Blacktalon: First Mark Read online

  Then she was plunging into the nearest maggot-hole, Katalya close behind her, and squirming through filth and slime towards whatever lay at the tunnel’s far end.

  Victory, she promised herself. No matter what it took, the tunnel would lead her to her first mark, and to victory…

  Chapter Fourteen

  Neave dragged herself from the tunnel and into the corridor beyond. She rolled up into a fighting crouch, axes ready, slime dripping from her armour. She listened hard, hearing nothing but the exertions of her comrades still scrambling through the tunnels and the dim clangour of battle. Her eyes narrowed as she realised that it came not just through the tunnels, but from somewhere off to the east as well.

  Before Neave could analyse the sounds further, Katalya scrambled out of the tunnel at her feet, retching. Neave was concerned at the sallow colour of the girl’s skin, the red weals beginning to rise on her flesh. There was little to be done for it though, not while they still fought through this plague-ridden place. When the fight was done, she promised herself, her first priority would be to secure some kind of purification or healing for Kat, whether from the sylvaneth or, if needs be, from Sigmaron itself.

  Wytha emerged from the next tunnel over and more sylvaneth followed. Many of Clan Thyrghael also looked to be sickening in their own strange ways, but this hadn’t dulled the determined hatred in their eyes.

  ‘Will they follow?’ asked Katalya, coughing into her fist.

  ‘Perhaps, but it won’t do them any good,’ said Neave. ‘They’ll be forced to scramble through in single file and emerge in a defenceless crawl. Anything stupid enough to do that will be dead on our blades before they finish standing up.’

  ‘That would be wasted time,’ said Wytha. Checking that the last of the sylvaneth had cleared the tunnels, she brandished her sickle-stave and began a sinister chant that raised Neave’s hackles. She rapped her blade against the wall in time to its cadence, and as she did so whorl runes swirled into being and sank into the stonework. Neave’s magically attuned senses saw the sorcery burrowing like roots through brick and mortar, bone and sinew. There came a sudden percussive thump as Wytha tightened the magical net with a savage tug. The wall shuddered until the tunnels collapsed as one, an eruption of dust bursting from their maws.

  ‘Effective,’ said Neave, wafting stone-dust away from her face.

  ‘Expedient,’ replied Wytha. ‘The enemy will waste no time finding another route to us, but we have this moment. The way to the heart of the fortress stands open, child. Will you lead us to it?’

  Neave glanced around, assessing the surviving numbers of the sylvaneth warband. ‘We’ve lost at least half of our strength,’ she said.

  ‘Hard losses to bear, but willing sacrifices all,’ said Wytha, her voice bitter.

  ‘Wytha, I don’t believe we’re alone here,’ said Neave. ‘Allow me to…’ her voice trailed off as she turned her head and pressed cheek and ear to the wall. She closed her eyes, shutting out the impatient stirrings of the sylvaneth, the laboured thump of Katalya’s heartbeat, the distant sounds of their rearguard meeting a terrible end.

  Neave listened to the vibrations through the fortress’ ghastly flesh, the echoes of sounds already spent. She strained her supernatural senses to their limit. She had to be sure.

  ‘Child, did you not hear what I said?’ demanded Wytha, poking Neave hard in the ribs with her sickle-stave. ‘Now is the time we must strike. Will you not lead the way? Will you not do your duty?’

  Neave snapped out a hand and grabbed the end of Wytha’s stave, pushing it gently but firmly away from her. She opened her eyes and turned, a fierce smile on her face.

  ‘We needn’t fight alone, Wytha. I hear my comrades. I couldn’t mistake those battle-cries even were I lost in a howling hurricane.’

  Wytha stared silently at her for long moments, until Neave’s sense of triumph faltered.

  ‘There’s a mighty force of reinforcements fighting less than a mile to our east. If we link up with them quickly–’

  ‘If we can reach your comrades. If it is really them. If they will even aid us,’ crooned the Branchwych. ‘No, child. That would be foolishness. We press on for the heart of the fortress, and we invoke the power of the weapon. Once we do that, all else will cease to matter.’

  ‘You are so determined to unleash this weapon. Why won’t you tell me what exactly it’s going to do?’

  ‘I have told you, child, and you are wasting precious time with your questions.’

  Neave planted her feet and stared hard at the Branchwych, reading every tic and twitch of her body language.

  ‘Wytha, are any of us going to survive this weapon’s blast?’ asked Neave. ‘Are you willing to throw away the lives of your clan for vengeance?’

  ‘I would not unleash a weapon upon my own folk!’ hissed Wytha.

  ‘But you would use it upon mine, wouldn’t you?’ asked Neave, her suspicions confirmed. Everything about Wytha’s voice and posture bespoke defensive hostility. ‘Whatever this device does, non-sylvaneth will not survive it, will they?’ Katalya was staring at Neave with growing horror, and the fear in her eyes was enough to hurt Neave’s heart.

  ‘It should not matter!’ screeched Wytha. ‘What care have you, who can die and be reforged until the end of time? Or your comrades, these intruding Stormcasts – would they not gladly give their lives to see the end of Ungholghott and all he has wrought? You see how terrible his armies are, his plague weapons and his allies. Such a force cannot be unleashed upon the Jade Kingdoms!’

  ‘We can be reborn, but Katalya cannot,’ said Neave.

  Katalya tried to stand a little taller, despite her ailments.

  ‘If my death is worthy then Sigmar will–’

  ‘Do not finish that thought, not now,’ said Neave, her voice as hard as sigmarite.

  ‘One insignificant being, and a superstitious savage at that,’ spat Wytha, voice dripping contempt. ‘You insisted on bringing her – you led her to her death despite my protestations. Now your facile attachment to her shames you, girl. You are no less a weapon than that which I carry, and I will wield you just as I wield it.’

  Neave felt her anger flare at Wytha’s words.

  ‘I’m more than just a weapon,’ she spat, ‘and my first duty is to the peoples that Sigmar swore to save. I won’t fail those who have already been abandoned once before.’

  ‘Then instead you will abandon your first duty? Relinquish your first hunt?’ asked Wytha, quivering with anger. ‘You will cast aside the debt you owe, spit upon all that we have given you, and turn your back upon your clan for the sake of a single human life?’

  Neave placed a hand firmly upon Katalya’s shoulder, felt the tribesgirl shaking, with fear or illness she couldn’t tell.

  ‘I will save Katalya as I’ve sworn to do,’ said Neave. ‘I won’t compromise myself for the sake of victory. If we lower ourselves to the level of the Chaos despots who have ravaged these lands, if we lose sight of the value of every single individual life, then we become no better than Ungholghott and his ilk. Come with me, link your forces to the Shadowhammers. I’ll despatch two of my finest to escort Katalya to safety, and then I swear I will fight at your side against any odds. Let us try to find and defeat Ungholghott through conventional means first, then if defeat looks certain the Shadowhammers will gladly face death and Reforging to ensure your clan survives and Ungholghott is destroyed.’

  Neave kept her eyes locked with Wytha’s as she spoke, trying to inject as much rationality and passion into her voice as she could, trying to reach the Branchwych. For all Wytha’s manipulations, Neave still felt a strange bond of loyalty to the one who had saved her, raised her, helped her to become a huntress. Try as she might, Neave could not willingly sever that bond.

  ‘Ungrateful,’ snarled Wytha. ‘I should strike you down, child.’

  Neave shifted in
to a defensive stance, eyeing the massed sylvaneth as they too readied themselves to pounce upon the command of their mistress. Yet Wytha shook her head, and Neave realised that whatever infuriating bond she felt to the Branchwych must be reciprocal.

  ‘Go, then, flee with your little savage,’ said Wytha, shoulders slumping. ‘It will not be forgotten, that you turned your back upon us on this day. But I will not slay you for it. You must fight your battle, and I must fight mine, even without your aid.’

  ‘If you attempted to execute me, Wytha, it would be the last battle you ever fought,’ said Neave sternly. ‘Do not make an enemy of me. It would not be wise.’ Wytha gave a snarl of disgust.

  ‘Run swiftly, Neave of the Black Talons. I will not wait to invoke this weapon’s power, and any still within the fortress when I do will surely feel its touch.’

  Neave slung one axe, then reached out and took Katalya by the wrist.

  ‘Come on, Kat, we need to move. I’ll get you to my comrades, and we’ll get you clear.’

  Katalya cast fearful looks at the forest spirits looming on all sides and allowed Neave to pull her away down the corridor. They broke into a run, Neave pulling Katalya along as quickly as she dared. Kat’s feet flew as she struggled to keep up, her breath quickly becoming ragged, but Neave didn’t dare slow. Her last sight of Wytha had convinced her of one thing: the Branchwych would not wait to trigger her weapon.

  Tarion drew back his bowstring and loosed an arrow. The shaft whistled along the corridor, striking a Plague Monk in its eye. Snatched backwards by the force of the shot, the rat-man flipped heels over head as he ploughed back into the mass of his fellows. The corpse was lost immediately, buried in the chittering mass of froth-jawed skaven trying to force their way along the passage.

  The Shadowhammers occupied the armoury at its far end, and had drawn up in a solid firing line across the wide arched doorway that connected the room with the passage beyond. Corridor and armoury both were fashioned from what looked to be flayed skin stretched over a framework of iron, and this had been set stone-hard with a yellowed resin. Cyst-like growths dangled from the ceilings, giving off a nauseating light that made everything look nightmarish and sickly.

  In that awful illumination, the Plague Monks of Clan Feesik resembled a tide of damned souls, boiling relentlessly up the tunnel over the legions of their own fallen dead. Mad red eyes and chisel fangs flashed in profusion, looking to Tarion like they belonged to a single, starving beast of appalling size. It was an unsettling image, and he was forced to focus on each shot he took lest the scale of the enemy force overwhelm him.

  ‘They’re gaining ground,’ he shouted, loosing arrow after arrow into the mass. Around him, Rangers and Raptors poured stormbolts into the enemy, slowing their approach but not halting it.

  ‘Damned rabid animals,’ snarled Galyth Hammerfist from his place in the firing line. ‘They should have broken ten times over by now. We’ve killed hundreds!’

  ‘They must be in the grips of the black hunger, or else out of their minds on some foul concoction or other!’ replied Tarion. ‘They’ll be on us in moments.’

  ‘Hold the line until the last second!’ roared Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye, who sat astride Shenri at the heart of the armoury. His Vanguard-Palladors surrounded him, their gryph-chargers clawing the ground in their eagerness to fight. ‘Disengage at my command!’

  Tarion kept shooting as the enemy drew closer and closer. He heard Krien’s angry screech from somewhere amidst the armoury’s rafters.

  ‘No, you bloody well stay back there!’ he shouted in response. ‘You’ll get your chance soon enough!’

  Chittering, shrieking, clawing and biting madly at one another, the skaven pressed forwards through the hail of fire. Thirty feet away, rancid bodies toppled as bolts tore into them, the swarm undulating like a revolting serpent as more Plague Monks scrambled over the dead to attack.

  Closer, the Plague Monks brandished their blades, screeching dark oaths and invocations in a tongue that made Tarion’s ears hurt to hear it.

  Closer still, froth sprayed from the eager jaws of rabid rat-men as their bodies surged forward like a slow-motion avalanche of flesh.

  ‘Now!’ cried Danastus. Even as the wave of skaven crested high and surged into the Stormcast lines, the Rangers leapt back with practised grace. Rat-men screeched as their lunging blades and bared fangs met nothing but air. Their anger was short-lived as fresh hails of bolts peppered them, ripping through flesh and sending lightning coursing through the massed Plague Monks.

  Not all the Stormcasts made it clear. Tarion could only watch as Galyth Hammerfist was borne to the ground by a scrum of skaven. His blade flashed and his boltstorm pistol hissed, sending puffs of blood into the air, but it was not enough. Jagged daggers rose and fell maniacally, and the mass of skaven were hurled back by a sudden blast of lightning. Hammerfist’s soul crackled up and away, leaving little but a blackened crater in its wake.

  Still, the manoeuvre had drawn the majority of the Shadowhammers clear and sent the skaven charge sprawling into the chamber in disarray. Skaven tripped and fell hard, the pressure from behind driving their fellows to tumble over them in turn, or else trample the fallen into the floor. The vermin scattered into the chamber in all directions, their massed ranks broken and their momentum spent.

  ‘Charge!’

  The Lord-Aquilor and his Palladors surged across the armoury floor. They struck the Plague Monks like a thunderbolt, slaying dozens with their initial impact and sending the skaven masses reeling back down the corridor.

  Tarion saw that even this would not be enough to stop their enemies. Already, fresh waves of vermin were flooding into the chamber, spilling around the flanks of the embattled Palladors and braving the hissing fire of the Rangers and Raptors.

  Tarion leapt high, spreading his wings as he made the most of the high-ceilinged chamber to take to the air. Krien streaked in, ripping the eyes from a Plague Monk with his talons before banking away and striking again at another. Tarion sent shot after shot into the massed foe, concentrating on keeping them from overwhelming Danastus and his warriors.

  ‘Sigmar’s hammer, how many more of the monstrosities can there be?’ yelled Tarion.

  ‘Not enough!’ shouted a familiar voice, and the Knight-Venator felt his heart leap. He glanced back along the length of the armoury. There he saw Neave Blacktalon sprinting towards the fight. He frowned at the sight of an ill-looking tribesgirl clinging piggy-back to Neave’s shoulders, but dismissed his questions for later.

  ‘Blacktalon!’ he shouted. ‘I owe you a smashed jaw!’

  Neave slowed for a moment and allowed the girl to slip from her shoulders before brandishing her axes and breaking into a lightning charge. She shot between the Rangers, raising a fierce cheer from their lines, and slammed into the massed skaven pouring around Danastus’ left flank. Blood sprayed high as Neave’s axes wrought havoc, and skaven corpses flew in all directions.

  Tarion laughed fiercely as he watched his old comrade fight. This was the Neave he remembered. The one their enemies rightly feared. Gone was the listlessness, the haunted look that had weighed heavy upon her before she set out on her quest. Already she had slaughtered two dozen Plague Monks and more, and still she pressed forward. Tarion lent his fire to her attack, covering Neave’s assault with the practised ease of warriors who had fought together for years on end. The skaven reeled again.

  ‘Into them, now, all of you!’ shouted Danastus.

  The Palladors windshifted, transforming into blasts of gale-force wind and chain lightning, and streaking back to the heart of the chamber. They rematerialised at a full gallop, driving a fresh charge headlong into the shocked skaven, who had once more been left foundering.

  The Rangers loosed one more volley of bolts and then charged, axes and blades at the ready. They slammed into the skaven at the same moment the Palladors’ charge hit home,
a solid sigmarite battle-line that drove the skaven back on every front.

  Beneath Tarion’s spread wings, the Plague Monks were butchered wholesale. The carnage was spectacular, and nowhere more so than where Neave hacked and leapt, kicked and hewed.

  ‘They’re breaking!’ he cried. ‘Keep at them. They’re breaking!’

  It was true; the skaven were losing their psychotic momentum at last and collapsing into a panicked, fleeing mass. Plague Monks clawed and bit at one another, scrambling over each other and stabbing madly in their panic to get away. A stinking musk rose from their lines as the vermin voided their glands. Tarion’s eyes watered at the pungent reek. Still he kept shooting, looping crackling shots into the scattering foe.

  Skaven died in their hundreds. With their cohesion lost and their backs turned, they were easy prey for axe and bolt. Gryph-chargers tossed corpses into the air like ragdolls, beaks clacking viciously and talons raking cloth and flesh. The Shadowhammers punished their attackers mercilessly, exacting a blood price for every Sigmarite warrior who had fallen this day.

  A scant few skaven made it back through the archway to flee down the corridor. They were swiftly feathered with bolts, or else fell prey to the blurring axes of Neave Blacktalon.

  As the last of the skaven were slain, Tarion looked back at the girl that Neave had brought with her. A feral, he saw, wearing copper vambraces on her arms and bearing tribal tattoos on her flesh. Not tainted, but ailing beneath the plague-ridden touch of the fortress. He swept around and alighted before her, folding in his crystalline wings and holding his hands out open-palmed as she shied fearfully away. Tarion felt a flicker of suspicion towards this mysterious figure, wondering how she had come to be journeying with his comrade, but quickly his protective urge won out. The girl looked young and frightened, and besides, if she was accompanying Neave then he trusted that Blacktalon must have a good reason.

  ‘Have you not witnessed Sigmar’s Stormcasts in battle before?’ asked Tarion. The girl looked at him without comprehension, blinking in shock at the violence she had just witnessed. ‘What language do you speak?’ he asked slowly. ‘Why are you with Neave?’