Blacktalon: First Mark Read online

  ‘And that war will not wait for us to conclude our maudlin philosophising.’ She slipped her gauntlets on and cast one last glance down at the lands below. She tucked her helm under the crook of one arm – determinedly not listening for any hint of the child’s cries – and allowed her fierce smile to resurface. ‘We should go be debriefed, so that we can get back into the fight. I am eager to meet my next mark.’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ chuckled Tarion, following. ‘Though I imagine they are rather less keen to meet you. But perhaps if you could try not to lead me into another certain-death situation?’

  Neave barked a laugh as she set off down the spiralling marble stair.

  ‘Well, Krien always manages to remain upon this mortal coil, Tarion. Why can’t you?’

  Upon their first forging, the Shadowhammers had been gifted the Thunderpeak from which to launch their raiding campaigns. The mountain’s slopes played host to clusters of ensorcelled training domes, armouries, feasting halls and contemplaria, and Neave knew every trail between them. She was always most impressed by the central towers that rose around the mountain’s peak. She admired the way they flared with minarets and sub-structures that echoed the spreading span of an aetherwing in flight. Lightning crackled between the tower-tops and coursed over the crystalline viewing domes set into their walls, making the entire structure look to Neave as though it moved through an intricate dance of shadow and light. A localised storm raged at all times over the crest of the Thunderpeak, said to be a manifestation of Sigmar’s warrior wrath.

  High up in one of those towers lay the cloister militant of Lord-Aquilor Danastus Hawkseye. Neave approached its gilded doors with Tarion at her side, Krien sat contentedly upon his right shoulder.

  A pair of the chamber’s Palladors, the elite cavalrymen that rode fierce gryph-chargers into battle, stood guard outside Danastus’ cloister. Though both wore their crested helms, Neave’s exceptional senses allowed her to identify them with ease. Scents, nuances of body language, timbre of heartbeat, all were open books to a Knight-Zephyros.

  ‘Gallahearn, Kalparius, what manner of misdemeanour have you been judged guilty of to find yourselves on guard duty?’ she called as she approached. Gallahearn sketched a mocking bow.

  ‘My lady Knight-Zephyros, you deign to return to us at last then? We heroes watch over the Lord-Aquilor because, while you and Arlor were chasing cultists in the wilderness, we two saved Lord Hawkseye’s life on the fields of Halain.’

  ‘We fought at his side, you braggart, nothing more,’ said Kalparius wearily. ‘The greenskins broke through the main battleline and we fought at Danastus’ side until the orruks could be hurled back. Gallahearn embellishes the tale with every telling.’

  ‘Twenty-five colossal orruks of which you’ve never seen the like,’ said Gallahearn.

  ‘There were eight, as well you know,’ Kalparius corrected. ‘Neave, your hunt was successful?’

  ‘Another mark slain,’ she said. ‘Xelkyn Xerkanos is no more.’

  ‘Fine work, Lady Blacktalon,’ said Kalparius.

  ‘Aye. Easily on a par with felling eighteen raging Ironjawz,’ chuckled Gallahearn, adding his own salute as he pushed open the doors to Danastus’ cloister. ‘Now don’t be too long with the Lord-Aquilor – the Shadowhammers are reunited and it is time that the storm winds raged!’

  ‘They shall, my brothers, soon enough,’ said Neave, favouring the Palladors with her most feral hunter’s grin as she swept between them.

  The doors closed behind Neave and Tarion, leaving them stood in the atrium of Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye’s cloister militant. The cloister consisted of three main chambers, the atrium, the cartogravium and the observation gallery, that rose into each other via short marble staircases as they extended out through tall turrets from the tower’s flank. Danastus’ personal chambers were set off to one side, a small suite far more spartan in nature, and carved straight into the rock of the mountain.

  The atrium’s marble floor bore a spectacular mosaic depicting the battle for Greyspire, the conflict in which Danastus had risen to command the Shadowhammers. Its ceiling was a high dome of crystal and reinforced stained glass that bore the lightning bolt and ­hammer sigil of the Hammers of Sigmar. Storm energies flashed beyond it and rain drew endless trails down its panes.

  The dome was supported by four tall columns of gold-veined marble, two white and two black, into which were set dozens of lanterns that spread a golden glow throughout the chamber. Around the pillars grew a startling variety of bushes, plants, coiling lianas and beautiful flowers, set in gilded pots and marble planting beds. Lord Hawkseye had filled the atrium with a riot of life and colour so that it echoed a sprawling garden. Diaphonids meandered between the leaves, the delicate, glowing insect-nymphs floating gently here and there like living stars. Other birds and insects fluttered and rustled around Neave and Tarion, seemingly oblivious to the dark skies and crashing lightning outside.

  Neave loved this space, the sense of burgeoning life protected so completely from the furious elements without. She felt it a metaphor for how the Stormcast Eternals protected the common citizenry of Sigmar’s precious cities. It reminded her of her duty.

  ‘He’ll be in the cartogravium,’ said Tarion. ‘Come on.’

  The two of them hastened up the curving stair to the next chamber, a lower, longer space in which the masters of the Shadowhammers planned their campaigns and discussed their strategies. The cartogravium was dominated by a massive table of marble and gold upon whose flanks the sigil of the Hammers of Sigmar was emblazoned.

  The tabletop looked at first glance like a huge bird bath, for beyond a narrow lip that ran around its edge, it was carved in a concave shape and filled with still, clear water. The storm skies without reflected in the surface of that motionless pool, as did the complex spheres of brass and crystal that hung in profusion from the chamber’s ceiling. Set upon brass armatures that could be swung and twisted through a bewildering array of configurations, Neave knew that these objects represented the most scholarly and up-to-date understanding of the Mortal Realms and their interaction with one another. They were used to gauge aspects of grand strategy and swift travel by Realmgates, when such matters required consideration.

  Lord-Aquilor Danastus Hawkseye stood with his back to them, in the arched doorway that led through to the observation gallery. He was staring out from atop the second marble stair, through the rune-etched glass of the gallery’s Seer’s Window, its ensorcelled energies allowing him to cast his gaze far afield to events and places only he could see.

  As Neave and Tarion entered, Danastus broke from his musings and turned to face them. He was tall, even for a Stormcast, with patrician features, a tight-cropped silver beard and hair, and eyes of striking midnight blue.

  ‘Blacktalon, Arlor, well met,’ said Danastus, favouring them with a rare smile. Everything about the Lord-Aquilor, from his utterances to his expressions, his body language to his battle plans, all of it was clipped, efficient, pared down to the bare minimum. He strode down the steps to join them beside the grand table and looked them briefly up and down.

  ‘Reforged?’ he asked.

  ‘Both of us,’ said Neave. ‘The mark put up quite a fight.’

  ‘Yet you defeated him,’ said Danastus. ‘Xelkyn was a terrible threat. Had he gathered all of the lore he sought, he could have worked a ritual to crack any one of Sigmar’s cities asunder. We have word that his surviving cultists have torn themselves apart with infighting. Xelkyn’s accumulated scrolls and tomes have been seized by Lord-Veritant Hydorius and will not be seen again.’

  ‘It was a pleasure to put an end to him,’ said Neave. ‘Though I thought for a moment that he had bested me. I’m not sure what precisely he was trying to do, but it seemed he had a plan beyond simply killing me, Lord-Aquilor. He seemed so confident in the ­cunning of his trap, and was in the midst of some ritual incantation when I slew
him.’

  ‘Perhaps he thought to stop your Reforging,’ said Tarion. ‘If he could have somehow trapped your soul, or bound your corporeal remains with magic…’

  ‘Speculation,’ said Danastus. ‘He failed. You returned. The Sacrosanct Chambers will be informed of his actions. Meanwhile, we proceed.’

  ‘A new mark, Lord-Aquilor?’ asked Neave.

  ‘Full deployment,’ said Danastus. ‘Though no specific mark, not yet.’

  He swung several of the brass armatures into place, aligning crystal lenses within the realm-spheres with practised skill. One after another, Danastus tapped tiny crystal beads that represented individual major Realmgates. Beams of light shone out from them, jade green from Ghyran, the Realm of Life, furnace red from Aqshy, the Realm of Fire, and shimmering silver and gold from Chamon, the Realm of Metal. Playing through the lenses within the realm-spheres, they created a dappled pattern of sigils and spiralling runes that rippled across the millpond surface of the water.

  The Lord-Aquilor reached into a rack of crystal phials set in one of the table’s flanks and carefully plucked free an ampoule of swirling liquid the colour of sand and storm clouds. He upended it and scattered its contents across the surface of the water, before stepping back to watch the cartogravium table work.

  Rapidly, the coloured liquid billowed through the water, flowing further by the second. It turned the still waters from ice-clear to a swirling sandy brown and, where it flowed into contact with the glowing runes of coloured light, it thickened and darkened further, gathering in dark clots that quivered with potential.

  Neave watched, fascinated as always by this mystical process. The water’s surface congealed by the second, building a skin that had now turned the colour of old parchment. Even as it did, the clots of darkness burst and spilled lines and letters in all directions. They spiralled outwards, flowing into rivers and woodlands, settlements and ruins, drifting sky-islands and deep ravines full of crystalline fangs.

  The whirling lines slowed their dance and the water’s surface stretched taut until at last, floating upon the tabletop, was a liquid map.

  ‘The Craven Steppes,’ said Danastus.

  ‘That’s in Ghur, is it not?’ asked Tarion. ‘The Realm of Beasts?’

  ‘Northwards up the Coast of Tusks, twenty days’ travel by conventional means from the city of Excelsis,’ said Danastus, nodding. ‘There is our destination.’

  He ran a fingertip through the water and the map swirled, its ­liquid inks flowing into new shapes and patterns. When it settled, its focus had tightened, magnifying a single location that was illuminated by script flowing in lazy arcs around it.

  ‘Fort Vigilance,’ read Neave.

  ‘When the people of the Craven Steppes ceased their fearful migration, it was taken as a sign that the orruk tribes of Gnashmaw had ended their territorial expansion,’ said Danastus. ‘The decision was made that a Freeguild presence should be established while the greenskins were elsewhere. The intent, I believe, was to fortify the region and allow for the establishment of extended hunting grounds, as well as provide some of the city’s newly recruited regiments with a chance to cut their teeth in the wilds.’

  Neave nodded, gesturing to the map.

  ‘The fortress is well sited,’ she said. ‘High ground, water supply, good lines of sight over the steppes. You’d be able to see the landscape become agitated long before an enemy drew near.’

  ‘Easily supplied from the sea, also,’ said Tarion, gesturing to an inlet that dug like a fang into the coastline just a few miles west of the fort. ‘The Excelsian fleet would have no difficulty keeping the garrison fed and armed.’

  ‘All begs the question, Lord-Aquilor, what are we needed for?’ asked Neave.

  ‘The fortress has gone silent,’ said Danastus. ‘Patrols from the city have been sent to discover the cause, but they have not returned. Neither have the pair of corsair craft that sailed up the coast to make contact. A flyover by Swifthawk skycutters revealed no movement of any sort at the fortress, and substantial damage to the outer walls.’

  ‘And so they call for us,’ said Tarion.

  ‘Whatever the threat, it has put paid to a substantial military force across a wide area and brought down the walls of a duardin-built fortress, all without leaving a single visible corpse,’ said Neave. ‘That sounds like the Shadowhammers’ sort of hunt.’

  ‘Where others fail, the Hammers of Sigmar prevail,’ said Tarion.

  ‘You are the last to be briefed,’ said Danastus. ‘The chamber is mustering in the Argent Dome. Join them now.’

  ‘How will we deploy?’ asked Neave.

  ‘Realmgate,’ said Danastus. ‘With so many war fronts open, our lord Sigmar has better use for his divine lightnings than to cast us across the realms. We shall emerge from the Shudderwing Realmgate and range south towards the fortress from there.’

  ‘Better to approach from an unexpected direction,’ said Neave, nodding. ‘Come on, Tarion, let’s leave the Lord-Aquilor to his final preparations. In Sigmar’s name, my lord.’

  She made the sign of the hammer across her chest, which Danastus returned, before turning back to stare hard at the map with his unsettling blue eyes.

  Neave and Tarion hurried down through the levels of the Thunderpeak, hastening to the Argent Dome and their comrades.

  ‘It has been too long since we fought with the chamber,’ said Tarion, and Neave smiled at the eagerness she heard in his voice.

  ‘You live for comradeship, do you not?’ she asked, rounding a corner and starting down another winding marble stair.

  ‘We are none of us our finest when alone,’ he said. ‘Not even you. One soldier is a warrior–’

  ‘But many make an army,’ she finished for him. ‘I know this. My role does not make it easy to live by those words.’

  ‘And mine does, soaring above the battlefield, ranging away from the ranks?’ said Tarion. ‘All I’m saying is…’

  Tarion’s words became distant, muffled. Blue stars exploded across her field of vision, and Neave shot out a hand to steady herself against the wall. The stench of smoke and decay filled her nostrils and the taste of rot and ruin filled her mouth like bile. Screams and wails filled Neave’s ears, a desperate clamouring that rose by the second. Amidst it all, piercing her mind like a silver blade, came a child’s terrified cries.

  ‘Neave?’

  ‘I…’ Neave swatted at the air before her, trying to reach Tarion. Then blackness rushed up, shot through with veins of blue swirling light. She pitched forward into the abyss.

  Chapter Three

  Again the village burns.

  Again the child cries.

  This time, she sees it all from far above, as though she is an aetherwing circling in search of prey. Or as though she is a warrior, looking down upon a swirling map of the realms, plotting her conquests.

  She sees the village in its fortified cleft, figures running ant-like along its muddy paths as their homes burn. She sees the river where it flows from the north, meandering snakelike after coalescing from amidst a sprawling region of wetlands dotted with crystalline outcroppings. A mountain rises on the faded edge of her vision, a hunched god that broods over the wetland’s fringe. It is split down the middle as though it had been struck with a mighty blade.

  She sees, also, the forest that stretches away south and east of the village. In a detached way, she realises that she had not appreciated its enormity. The canopy is like an ocean, swelling breakers of emerald and dark green surrounding the tiny enclave of human civilisation. Deeper in, she sees the near-black of truly ancient groves, gnarled and mist-wreathed.

  Something stirs in her at that sight. Pain flares behind her eyes again as she pushes to see more, but this time it comes with a terrible sense of cracking, tearing, a sensation like an over-extended limb or a tautly stretched tendon that she suddenly
realises might break. For a moment she sees the image of an ancient tree, struck again and again by lightning until its branches blaze and its trunk topples. Sigils flare across it, whorled designs that burn with blue fire and send agony lancing through her being.

  Her mind recoils, and as it does it falls.

  The roar of flames and the bellows of the raiders rise to meet her in a hellish cacophony. The child’s screams swell in her ears until they must surely deafen her. She plunges downwards with frightening speed, helpless, towards the monstrous figure lurking on the ridge.

  Before she can reach him, before he can look up with his burning yellow eyes, she is engulfed in inky darkness. All sense of speed vanishes in a heartbeat.

  Nothing remains but the child’s cries, distant beyond a whispering susurrus like rain upon a lake, or a cold wind stirring a leafy canopy.

  Something shifts imperceptibly around her, as though the darkness is not a solid thing but many-layered, entangled in infinite threads that can never be truly still.

  She sees lights then, two sharp pinpricks of fiery blue that regard her from between the strands. They pierce her thoughts and lay her bare. Part of her tries to pull away from that cold stare, but there is nothing of her to move, no eyes to close, only an awareness trammelled in the dark, transfixed by fiery blue eyes.

  Fear turns to crawling horror as a voice reaches her, crooning from between the shifting strands. It is eerie and singsong, there and gone, like creaking boughs or talons raking stone.

  ‘Into the darkness come you, child… here, we await…’

  She seeks the courage that made Sigmar choose her, the fierce hunter’s strength that compelled him to take her up and reforge her. She tries to speak to this thing that watches her from the dark.

  She has no voice.

  She cannot make a sound.

  She thrashes against her captivity, but she has no limbs.