Blacktalon: First Mark Read online

  ‘How could I do any less?’ she asked, giving Katalya’s hand a gentle squeeze. The bones of her fingers felt shockingly brittle. ‘If nothing else, I will see you buried with all the honour you deserve, my friend.’

  She consulted her astral compass, narrowing her eyes and staring up at the heavens half-visible through the green murk.

  ‘Two days north of here, that’s the nearest gate,’ said Neave. ‘And that’s moving fast. I hope you’re ready for a journey, Ketto. Your mistress’ life depends upon it.’

  The tattakan stamped its legs and cocked its head. Neave took a deep breath and looked back to where the ruins of Lord Ungholghott’s fortress were collapsing slowly into the mire.

  ‘She beat you,’ she hissed. ‘Even as her life ebbs, you cannot take that from her. She beat you.’ Neave missed Tarion sorely in that moment, needed so badly to hear his voice that it was like a physical pain, but it would have to wait. He had his Reforging to endure, and she had another race ahead of her. She checked that Katalya still breathed, that she was secured as painlessly and carefully as she could be. Some part of Neave knew that Katalya was going to die, knew it with the same certainty with which she sensed her marks, yet giving up wasn’t in Neave’s nature.

  ‘I will bear you to the heavens, Katalya Mourne,’ she said.

  With that, Neave set off at a run across the desolate swamp lands and Ketto followed. The swamp waters parted before them, then drifted slowly back to stillness in their wake…

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘What was it like?’ Neave glanced at Tarion, noting again the new lines that marked his face, the far-away look in his blue eyes.

  ‘It was death,’ said Tarion. ‘As it always is. Confusion, and violence, and death.’

  The two of them sat atop one of the Thunderpeak’s highest ledges, clad in robes and cloaks. Their legs hung over the drop, the fortress’ craggy flanks and jutting battlements spreading away below them until they reached the verdant plains of Azyr far below. The star Sigendil hung high above in a warm evening sky, the first of the night-stars just beginning to join it as the day-stars faded.

  A platter of meat, fruit and cheese sat between Neave and Tarion, mostly untouched. The pitcher of wine beside it was all but empty, though.

  ‘What do you remember of the weapon, I mean?’ said Neave.

  ‘You had a better opportunity to see it at work than I,’ said Tarion. ‘By the time the damn thing fired, I was somewhat mortally challenged.’

  ‘It was monstrous,’ said Neave. ‘I had no chance to see its effects up close, but…’

  ‘But it destroyed everything in its reach,’ said Tarion.

  ‘You, them, the fortress.’

  ‘Though it didn’t annihilate Ungholghott,’ replied Tarion with a humourless laugh. ‘That was left to Sigmar’s huntress.’

  ‘I did not fell him swiftly enough,’ said Neave, her expression grim.

  ‘You did everything you could for Katalya. You told me that you commanded her to flee, but that she stood and fought alongside you to the end. She felt loyalty to you, Neave. Friendship.’

  ‘She paid for it, a price she never should have had to. I should have been faster. I should have done more.’

  ‘Your oath isn’t broken yet,’ said Tarion, placing his hand on her shoulder in the old, familiar gesture.

  ‘She was… is… strong,’ said Neave.

  ‘Too stubborn to accept death. I wonder where she learned that?’

  ‘Death may yet take her anyway. I wanted to stay by her side, but…’ Neave trailed off hopelessly, gesturing down at the Thunderpeak.

  ‘Duty,’ said Tarion.

  Neave nodded once. ‘The last I saw of her, the healers were doing everything in their power, but they had few good words to say. The sicknesses that burn in Katalya’s blood are unnatural, and the damage done to her body by that curse… Even if, by some miracle, she survives, she will never be who she was. She will never live the life she could have lived.’

  ‘You cannot blame yourself,’ said Tarion.

  ‘I do, and I do not,’ said Neave, casting a cold glance up towards the light of Sigendil. ‘There are others who have failed her also.’

  ‘She has the best apothecaries watching over her. Better yet, she has a sister of the Sacrosanct Chambers at her side, working to unmake Ungholghott’s curses.’

  ‘Working to understand Katalya’s vambraces, you mean,’ said Neave.

  ‘You cannot blame them for that. Any weapon we can use to fight the legions of Chaos… Well, perhaps not any weapon. Do you think Wytha will use it again?’

  ‘If it can be invoked more than once, I don’t doubt it for a second,’ said Neave. ‘Wouldn’t you, in her place? Clan Thyrghael lost a lot of souls to Ungholghott’s cruelty, and the Dreadwood are hardly the most forgiving of Alarielle’s children. I just hope that she can be located and the threat can be managed before she uses it somewhere… unfortunate.’

  ‘More unfortunate than wiping out a chamber of Stormcast Eternals, you mean?’ asked Tarion, arching an eyebrow.

  ‘You know exactly what I mean, Tarion. At least we can return from death.’

  ‘Not all of us,’ said Tarion ruefully. ‘So many slain in such a brief moment? I heard at the last count we lost eight souls in the Reforging, gone forever.’

  ‘Perhaps they were the lucky ones,’ said Neave in a low voice. Tarion acted as though he had not heard, instead changing the subject.

  ‘You still seem oddly reluctant to speak ill of Wytha and her brood, despite all they put you through, and all they did to you in your life before,’ he said.

  Neave stayed silent, staring out towards where the light of Hysh dropped slowly below the horizon. The purple and gold of evening spread fingers across the plains and farmlands, turning towers and windmills to stark silhouettes and throwing long shadows across the land.

  ‘Was there more to this?’ asked Neave. ‘I mean, I’m free of the visions now and I’m thankful for that. Ungholghott is dead, his threat ended, and the penance I’ve to serve for my actions–’

  ‘Is remarkably lenient?’ said Tarion. ‘It seems as though annihilating a grand Chaos warlord and his kingdom-conquering army won you a bit of leeway with the Lord-Aquilor. Though I sense he will watch you closely for a while. I still believe you should have been transparent with him from the beginning.’

  ‘But is that it? Is the matter done? Why does it feel like we missed something? Like I missed something?’

  ‘You suspect some greater machination?’

  ‘Don’t you? There was too much coincidence here. Too many loose ends I can’t tie together. Like, where did the sylvaneth acquire that weapon of theirs? Who from, and who used it before? Why did Wytha’s summons reach me just in the nick of time? Sigmar’s ­hammer, I mean, we still don’t know why the damned Gor-kin were able to overrun Fort Vigilance in the first place, or what Xelkyn had to do with it, if anything at all. Was that connected to all this? I owe it to Katalya to answer these questions, or her sacrifice may yet be for naught.’

  ‘Neave, it’s been a tangled time. Plus, you’ve been through more than most of us, dying aside,’ said Tarion. ‘Your worry for the tribesgirl consumes you, anyone can see that. There’s a chance you might be seeing shadows where there are none, links where no link exists. Some things simply happen, no matter how dreadful they are, and as warriors of Sigmar it is our duty to respond, to defeat threats as they arise, and to bear the pain of our losses with all the stoicism and strength that Sigmar chose us for in the first place.’ He took a swig of wine, went to refill his goblet and pulled a sour face as he drizzled the last dregs from the pitcher.

  ‘Let wiser minds than ours worry about the big picture, then?’ asked Neave, frowning. ‘It is not like you to bury your head in the sand. We’re hunters. We should seek, and question. We should hunt, whether i
t’s for a mark, or a foe, or the truth.’

  ‘And we will,’ said Tarion. ‘I’m just saying, there’s a war to fight that eclipses all others, and enemies beyond number for us to face. Sigmar will have a new mark for you soon enough, and then the hunt will begin again, and again, and again, until at last the Mortal Realms are freed from the grip of the Dark Gods. We may well have centuries of war ahead of us, Blacktalon. For all our sakes, don’t start looking for hidden enemies when so many stand proud and ugly before us.’

  Neave sipped her own wine, then plucked a lunefruit from the platter. She considered biting into it, but the image rose unbidden in her mind of Katalya a huddled and hopeless little shape beneath a blanket in a healer’s chamber, Ketto lying mournfully at the door. Neave dropped the fruit back into the bowl, her appetite turned to ashes. She stared out into the spreading gloom, the dying sunset reflecting in her eyes. The storm clouds that hung ever above the fortress rumbled, and lightning crackled through them. Rain threatened.

  ‘If it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep my eyes open and my ear to the ground.’

  ‘Of course you will,’ said Tarion. ‘Now come on, it’s getting cold up here and I’m out of wine. We’ll be at war again soon enough – let’s go and find a little cheer while there’s some to be had.’ He paused, watching Neave intently. ‘She wouldn’t want you to cut yourself off in sorrow, my friend.’

  Neave offered Tarion the ghost of a smile, though it was tinged with sadness. They gathered up the remains of their meal. Neave shot a last look at the shadows swallowing the Azyrite plains, and for a moment the image of dark branches and intertwined talons rose unbidden in her mind. She dismissed it with a shake of her head and turned, following Tarion down the stone steps and into the lit archway atop the Thunderpeak. The warm light welcomed her across the threshold, and the darkness was left beyond.

  Epilogue

  Elsewhere, far away from light, and warmth, and civilisation, Wytha stood in absolute darkness. She felt the immensity of the cavern through the stirring of the cold air, heard it in the distant echo and drip of water.

  Above her, she sensed realmroots spreading across the cavern’s ceiling in such profusion that their massed power overwhelmed her magical senses and left her dumbfounded and humbled. It felt as though an endless web of life magic spread overhead, yet not a single pulse of light escaped them. These roots were as night-black as the cavern in which they grew. They were writhing strands of shadow and darkness that caused even Wytha to feel the unfamiliar gnaw of fear.

  Somewhere ahead of her, something huge stirred in the gloom. Blue whorls shimmered momentarily. Eyes like cold stars flashed in the darkness. A voice reached her through the air and the spirit song intertwined. It rumbled through the cave like tectonic plates shifting, even as it filled the spirit song with a swelling symphony so beautiful and terrible that it drove Wytha to her knees.

  ‘It worked, then?’

  ‘It did,’ she replied, trying to keep the tremor of fear from her voice.

  ‘But the child diverged.’ It was not a question.

  ‘She was led from the path by a chance encounter,’ said Wytha. ‘But our mark upon her heart remains! When the hour comes, she will stand ready to play her part.’

  ‘Of course,’ came the reply. ‘It has been foreseen and so shall it be. You will make sure of this.’

  ‘Indeed,’ replied Wytha, sap running hot and cold as the eyes flashed in the darkness again, and an ominous sense of power and danger crept across her. ‘My girl will sing her part in the symphony, and the liar gods will topple from their thrones. We will be safe at last.’

  ‘We will,’ rumbled the voice. ‘Go then and do your part. Do not permit any further divergence.’

  ‘At once,’ said Wytha. ‘Thank you, my liege.’ She rose on shaking legs and hastened away through the darkness, trying to control her terror and her relief. As she retreated, she heard something vast shift in the darkness behind her, and felt glad beyond words that she was leaving its presence again. Wytha had feared that Neave’s wilfulness, her reluctance to walk the path laid for her, might be the scheme’s undoing.

  Instead, Wytha had another chance to make sure the symphony played out as it should.

  She would make sure of it, no matter what horrors must be wrought, no matter how much blood must be shed.

  About the Author

  Andy Clark has written the Warhammer 40,000 novels Kingsblade, Knightsblade and Shroud of Night, as well as the novella Crusade and the short story ‘Whiteout’. He has also written the short story ‘Gorechosen’ for Warhammer Age of Sigmar, and the Warhammer Quest Silver Tower novella Labyrinth of the Lost. Andy works as a background writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

  An extract from Shadespire: The Mirrored City.

  The attack, when it came, was not entirely unexpected. The bloodreavers had been shadowing Seguin Reynar and his men for days, their hunting ululations echoing through the ruins of Shadespire, setting the carrion birds to flight. He didn’t know why the cannibals were after them, in particular – there was easier meat to be had in the rubble-strewn alleyways – but he’d learned not to waste time worrying about such things.

  It didn’t matter why – it just mattered when and where.

  When turned out to be now, and where was a decrepit, dust-choked avenue beneath the hollow gazes of the statues that lined either side. The statues observed the massacre with silent detachment, hooded heads bowed over clasped hands. And it was a massacre. Five men against nearly twice that number of gore-locked savages had little chance. Hardened killers though they were, Reynar and his men could not match the sheer ferocity of their attackers. Thus, one by one they fell, until only two of their number remained. Reynar himself and the Ghurdish hillman Utrecht.

  ‘I told you we shouldn’t have bought a map from a man named Nechris,’ Utrecht growled as a barbed axe bit into the embossed face of his shield. ‘You’ve put us right in the soup this time, captain.’ He shoved his opponent back and plied his own axe to better effect, removing his attacker’s arm at the shoulder joint.

  ‘We’re here, aren’t we?’ Reynar snapped. ‘And stop calling me captain.’ He twisted aside as a crude blade chopped down at him. He saw an opening and lunged. His blade, proper Aqshian steel, sank easily into his opponent’s scarified flesh, releasing a torrent of blood. The reaver sagged with something that might have been a groan – or a laugh. Reynar lashed out with his boot and kicked the dying man off his blade. There were four bloodreavers left now. Bad odds, but better than before.

  ‘Captain you were, captain you’ll be,’ Utrecht said, flattening a reaver with a sweep of his shield. Born in the hinterlands of Ghur, Utrecht was head and hands taller than his opponents, and built thick. He was like a bear fighting wolves. His bare arms were marked by scars, both ritual and earned in battle. He wore a crude mail hauberk and a round helm decorated with the fangs of some beast he’d slain. His axe was a long-handled, single-bladed thing that would have taken most men two hands to properly wield. But Utrecht wasn’t most men. He boasted that he’d shed blood in three realms and ruled kingdoms in two of them. Sometimes, Reynar even believed him.

  Reynar was shorter than his companion, but no less deadly. He fought the way a miser spent money – carefully, and with an eye on getting back twice the value he put in. That was the Freeguild way. Never risk more than you could afford, and make them pay in blood. His sword slashed out in short, looping arcs. Aqshian steel held its edge longer than most and would cut bone the third time, or the twenty-third, as easily as it had the first. ‘We’re deserters, remember?’ he said, backing away from a hulking bloodreaver.

  The warrior bore slave markings beneath the scars. He grinned, displaying broken teeth, and hefted a crude sword, probably stolen from some previous victim. ‘Blood for the god of battle,’
he ­mumbled through gnawed lips. ‘Skulls for his throne.’

  ‘Find another one,’ Reynar said. ‘I’m still using mine.’ He jerked aside as the bloodreaver’s blade swept down, shivering to fragments against the stones of the street. He staggered, off balance, and Reynar thrust his blade up through his opponent’s ribcage. The bloodreaver clawed at him, gurgling imprecations, and bore him backwards against the base of a statue. Reynar’s back spasmed as he struck the stone, his duardin-made hauberk doing little to protect him from the force of the impact. Cursing, he drove a fist into the warrior’s head, to no avail.

  The bloodreaver grinned at him as he dragged himself along Reynar’s blade, further impaling himself. ‘Blood and skulls,’ he croaked, scrabbling at Reynar’s throat. His grip was like iron, and Reynar found himself unable to breathe. Desperate now, his sword arm pinned to his chest, he fumbled for the hilt of his dagger.

  The world started to go black at the edges, like paper caught in a fire. His lungs strained. He saw death in his opponent’s eyes, and something else over his shoulder. A face – a woman? – watching from the other side of the street. She stood in a doorway, half-hidden in shadow, her eyes gleaming like black opals. He blinked, and she was gone.

  Finally his fingers scraped the pommel of his dagger. He snatched the thin blade from its sheath and stabbed it into the side of the bloodreaver’s neck, trying for an artery. Blood spurted, and the savage staggered back, dragging Reynar after him. Reynar twisted the knife, trying to find something vital. The bloodreaver gargled hymns to the Blood God as he sank back, his grip finally loosening enough for Reynar to free himself. He stepped away, breathing heavily, as his attacker slumped into the sand. Utrecht laughed.

  ‘Well done, captain.’

  Reynar glared at him. Utrecht had killed the rest of their foes while he’d been otherwise occupied. ‘If you were bored, you could have helped.’