Blacktalon: First Mark Read online

  Wheeling his steed around, Danastus rose in his stirrups and drew his rune-carved blade. He swept its point right to left, encompassing all his warriors in that gesture.

  ‘Shadowhammers,’ he said, his voice rolling hard and clear around the amphitheatre. ‘From far wars and distant realms you have come in answer to my call. From the mountain fastnesses, and the hunters’ hides and hidden lodges, and the deepest wilds you have gathered in this dome again. I welcome you.’

  The Shadowhammers slammed their fists against their armoured breastplates, a single, crashing salute that echoed and died away.

  ‘We are not all returned,’ said Danastus. ‘Knight-Azyros Elonara Bladewing still leads several brotherhoods in the Gathorndual campaign. They could not break away from such a ferocious fight. Likewise, Varodias Foebreaker and his Palladors – last word has them on the hunt in Ulgu. Their current whereabouts are lost to us. We shall fight all the harder, to honour absent brothers and sisters.’

  Another crashing salute.

  Another silent pause.

  ‘You know our mission,’ said the Lord-Aquilor. ‘You know its importance. Whatever threat has laid low the defences of Fort Vigilance, it cannot be allowed to go unchecked so close to the city of Excelsis. Thus, this assemblage of force. Vanguard Rangers, Hammers of Sigmar, Shadowhammers, do you stand ready to serve the God-King in this?’

  A third, crashing salute.

  Lord-Aquilor Hawkseye stood in his stirrups and raised his blade above his head. High up at the apex of the dome, lightning crackled furiously. A coruscating bolt fell from on high and connected with Danastus’ blade, wreathing it in a furious corona. As one, the Shadowhammers raised their own blades, and the assemblage of servants shielded their eyes as the lightning leapt from Danastus’ weapon to connect with those of his warriors. Lightning crackled and spat, the charged air shrieking and hissing as corposant crawled across the Stormcasts’ armour and danced within the eye-slots of their helms.

  Neave felt the celestial energies course through her, causing her heart to pound and her flesh to tingle. This was their bond renewed. This was the lightning that reforged them all, that danced in their blood and lit their souls with a shared divinity that separated them from the mortals for whom they fought.

  All the doubt and confusion Neave had felt since her Reforging was driven out, purged by the light of Sigmar, quashed by the nearness of her sworn comrades.

  Then the crackling energies stopped as abruptly as they had leapt forth, leaving her keen ears ringing and her eyes swiftly adjusting to the shadows that crowded back in to fill the absence of light.

  ‘We march for Anvil’s Pass and the Shudderwing Realmgate,’ cried Danastus. ‘We march for Sigmar, for the Mortal Realms, and for the final defeat of the foul Gods of Chaos. Forward, Shadowhammers, to victory.’

  With a sound like a tempest stirring, the Stormcasts moved as one. They flowed smoothly towards the southern flank of the dome and into their marching formation, the Palladors swinging up into their saddles and spurring to the fore while the Raptors shouldered their hefty crossbows and dropped back to the rearguard position. Swooping down from the shadows came a flight of aetherwings, the strange birds whirling above the Rangers and crying out oaths to Sigmar in eerie, singsong voices.

  Neave nodded to Wintercrest and loped to take up her position at the very front of the formation, emerging first from the dome’s doors and out onto the wide boulevard that led them towards the Thunderpeak’s outer walls. As she went, Tarion swept overhead, Krien spiralling around him.

  Tarion shot her a salute as he passed, then he was gone, lofting up into the skies to range ahead of his comrades. Neave took a deep breath as she led the Shadowhammers out along the boulevard, between towering structures and mighty statues, towards the never-ending war for the realms. She knew they must make a glorious sight as they marched out, and yet she still felt the stirring disquiet within her mind.

  She felt again that sense of dark and squirming things moving beneath the surface of her psyche. Neave swore to herself that whatever curse afflicted her, she would determine its nature and deal with it in whatever way she had to. And if it was some curse of Xelkyn’s, then she would purge its taint as she had purged the sorcerer himself.

  She owed her comrades no less…

  Chapter Four

  Neave prowled between the gnarled trunks of masticant trees, her axes in hand. The trees grew close together, yellow eyes in their bark following her as she passed. The forest shuddered with the sounds of tough, leathery leaves rubbing together and the chewing of the trees’ teeth as they caught and devoured insects and small animals.

  Neave ignored the mindless gnashing sounds and the little squeaks of pain and fear. She stretched her senses out as far as they would go, rolling her footsteps from heel to toe in order to tread more softly. She slowed her breathing until her heartbeat became a pulsing thud, easily shut out.

  Somewhere amongst the dense trees, moving through the muddy shafts of sunlight that fell between the leaves, something was hunting her.

  Where are you? she thought, scenting the still air. There was something musky borne on it, a rank, animal stench, but its source was hard to pinpoint. She strained her eyes, seeking the telltale wisps of body heat that might betray her enemy.

  Pausing, Neave slung her axes and removed a gauntlet. She dropped into a crouch, checking the muddy ground carefully. This was the Realm of Beasts; anything could be predatory, or adapted to drive predators away, even the things squirming and scurrying in the muck. Even the muck itself.

  Satisfied that she wasn’t about to thrust her hand into a nest of corkscrew worms, Neave placed her palm against the ground. Thick mud squelched between her fingers, releasing a stench of offal and dung, but she ignored it as her skin met the firm resistance of bed-rock just below the surface.

  She closed her eyes, focusing all her attention upon her hand, upon the sensitive skin of her palm where it pressed against bed-rock. She shut out the busy chewing of the trees, the rasp of the canopy, the drone of stingflies and redlegs in the air. Gradually, she began to sense vibrations through her palm. She felt the impact of distant feet upon the ground. Frowning behind the faceplate of her helm, Neave learned of her foes.

  There were four… No, five. Bipedal but clumsy in their movements, heavy footed, erratic. South, several minutes away but closing in, following her trail… Not intelligent enough to grasp that she had left it on purpose. Not canny enough to sense that she was the bait and the trap both.

  Neave’s frown of concentration wavered as twin points of blue light appeared against the blackness behind her eyes.

  Not again, she thought angrily. Not now. With an effort, she fought it off. The images from her vision had resolved in her mind in the three days since the Shadowhammers had departed the Thunderpeak. They had emerged slowly, in dribs and drabs from the morass of her subconscious. She felt she was imposing some order, gleaning some understanding of what she had seen twice now.

  ‘But now is not the time,’ she whispered. Her eyes snapped open as she realised her moment of distraction had caused her to lose track of her unseen assailants. She pulled her gauntlet back on, ignoring the vile sensation of mud trapped within it, and readied her whirlwind axes.

  The bestial stink had thickened on the air, and Neave rose into a fighting stance as she heard her hunters clumsily slinking through the underbrush to either side of her.

  Now to have a proper look at what we’re up against, she thought.

  With a sudden explosion of energy, Neave sprang to her right and accelerated into a blurring run. She wove around the gnawing trees with lithe agility, bursting through a skein of web-bushes and straight into the midst of one of the groups of hunting creatures.

  Neave took in animal features like twisted beasts of burden, yellow eyes with vertical slit pupils, curling horns and muscular, humanoid bodies c
overed in scabbed flesh and coarse hair. She swung one of her axes as she passed through their midst, and a goat-like head parted company with a thick neck in a spray of brackish blood.

  Even as her first victim was toppling sideways, Neave’s second strike disembowelled another of the creatures and swept clean through its midriff into its spine. The creature was flung backwards, almost torn in half, slamming into a tree-trunk and sliding to the ground.

  Neave pivoted neatly on her forward foot, arresting her motion in a heartbeat and spinning back to face the last of the creatures. Splashed with the blood of its companions, the beast blinked stupidly at her. Its eyes widened, and it drew breath to cry out in alarm. One of Neave’s axes spun through the air and struck it between the eyes, almost bisecting the creature’s skull. Its knees buckled, and it crumpled to the ground, Neave snatching her weapon back before it even touched the floor.

  She swept her gaze across the carrion sprawled around her, ignoring the surreptitious chewing sounds coming from the tree-trunk against which one corpse sprawled and twitched.

  ‘Brayherd,’ she said quietly. The word left a foul taste in her mouth. ‘The children of Chaos. Let us leave you for your friends to find, see if we can’t spread a little fear. I’ll be seeing them again soon enough anyway.’

  With that, Neave turned northwards and set off at a run through the forest, towards the rest of her comrades.

  A short time later, Neave, Danastus, Tarion and the force’s brotherhood officers stood in a muddy clearing and planned for battle.

  ‘There’s an entire horde of them,’ said Neave. ‘They’ve got Ungor scouting ahead, scattered through the forest. That is not their true strength, though I could feel the mass of them away to the south, feel the shudder through the air. I’d estimate at least a few hundred, Lord-Aquilor, and though I outstripped them easily enough, they cannot be that far behind.’

  ‘The aetherwings are circling on high,’ said Danastus. ‘Their other­sight can pierce these woodlands in a way even yours cannot, Blacktalon. We shall have ample warning of the enemy’s approach.’

  ‘How did they get onto your trail in the first place?’ asked Tarion.

  ‘They didn’t,’ she replied. ‘They were already coming this way. I sensed the mass of northwards movement, spread across the frontage of our advance. I lured a few of their scouts in to see what we were dealing with, then swung back.’

  ‘More use than me in this situation,’ said Tarion in frustration. ‘The terrain’s so dense and the canopy’s such a tangle, I’d have to be almost on top of the warband before I saw a damned thing from the air.’

  ‘That is why we have many eyes in many places,’ said Danastus. ‘Suggestions?’ He swept his gaze around the assembled officers. Amongst many Stormcast Chambers, Neave knew the commanding lord would have led such a discussion. Yet Danastus showed his experience in leading such an elite scouting formation by observing silently and allowing his lieutenants to discuss and determine strategy. Neave knew from long experience that Danastus had already formulated his own plan. This was simply a test. He would wait to see whether the officers serving under him could match or better it.

  ‘We could simply bypass them,’ suggested Venoria Stormsreach, one of the chamber’s Raptor-Primes. ‘Lay false trails heading north-west, while we loop out to the north-east and then circle around. From what Blacktalon reports, their scouts are crude beasts and easily fooled.’

  ‘That would leave their route open to the Realmgate,’ said Tarion. ‘We only passed through it a day ago, remember?’

  ‘Several days’ march at the pace these lumbering things move,’ said Stormsreach. ‘And the gate is warded from this side against any that have not been reforged. Not to mention the obfuscatory charms that conceal it and the large watchfort that overlooks it.’

  ‘Your faith in the garrison does you credit,’ said Tarion. ‘But this sounds like a sizeable force. Even if they cannot physically pass through the gate into Azyr, they could stumble across it by chance and cause substantial damage. I say the risk is not worth taking.’

  Neave noted a muscle twitching in Danastus’ jaw. To her sharp senses, he may as well have vocally expressed his approval.

  ‘I agree,’ said Karias Wintercrest. ‘Besides which, these beasts may be the very threat that put paid to Fort Vigilance.’

  ‘That is less likely,’ said Danastus. ‘The Brayherds are not subtle. They would have alerted the Craven Steppes with their approach, forewarning the garrison. Even in their hundreds, the beasts could not have carried the walls of the fortress, nor caused the disappearance of the entire Freeguild complement.’

  ‘Then they are in our path by pure ill chance?’ asked Stormsreach.

  ‘It seems entirely possible,’ said Tarion. ‘But they are a threat we cannot simply leave to continue on its way. Not this close to Excelsis. Besides which, if we could capture some of the creatures alive, they may have borne witness to whatever it is we actually hunt.’

  Again, Neave noted a subtle shift of the Lord-Aquilor’s posture that suggested his silent disagreement. She thought he might step in at that point and conclude the discussion. Instead, he let his lieutenants continue their debate.

  ‘Assuming any of these degenerate things even speak a comprehensible tongue, and you could hurt one enough to overcome its hatred of us all,’ said Wintercrest. ‘The Gor-kin would rather die than aid civilised beings.’

  ‘There will be casualties, if we engage them,’ said Stormsreach in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘We must consider the impact on our operational viability. We have a quest to complete.’

  ‘We ambush them, use their aggression and belligerence against them,’ said Neave. ‘Swift attacks by me and the Palladors kill their scouts, draw the attention of the main warband and bring them in towards this clearing. The Rangers and Raptors set up on the ridge to the north and make ready to lay down fire. As soon as the main force reaches this point, you rain death on them, kill as many as you can and draw the rest towards you.’

  ‘Many of the enemy will die, you have our word on that,’ said Stormsreach. ‘But I doubt even we could kill them all before they reach our lines.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Neave. ‘That’s why Tarion, the Palladors and I will punch through or loop around their lines. Once they’re almost on top of you, we hit them from behind. They’ll be caught between us. Some will turn back to fight, thinning the herd that you’re facing. Where possible, you’ll disengage and fall back to take up secondary firing positions and draw the warband further apart.’

  ‘Once they have enemies on every side, shots raining down on them non-stop, gryph-chargers and Knights ripping through their ranks… yes, it’ll break them,’ said Tarion.

  ‘And minimise our own casualties,’ said Danastus. ‘A hunter’s plan, Blacktalon. I sanction this. I will lead the Palladors in their attacks. Stormsreach, you and Wintercrest will take charge of the firing line. Are there questions?’

  There were none. The Stormcast officers returned to their brotherhoods to disseminate the plan and find the best positions for their attack. Meanwhile, Neave saluted her comrades with her axes and turned back into the underbrush.

  She hunted best alone.

  A tang of Gor-kin stink reached Neave’s nostrils and instantly she was ready, her nerves singing with a keen awareness of everything around her. She was crouched behind the trunk of a fallen masticant, having pushed up with the Pallador cavalry brotherhoods, ready to intercept the Gor-kin.

  Deadfall crackled ahead. A wiry humanoid pushed its way through a screen of web-bushes, fighting off the hungry strands with grunts of irritation. She saw it was an Ungor, the smallest of the Gor-kin. It had stubby horns and sunken eyes, bestial features and a crude hide loincloth. The Ungor carried a primitive spear in one gnarled fist and stalked forward on feet that were deformed with clots of hard hoof.

  More of its kind foll
owed, several of the beasts grunting at one another in a crude approximation of language. She waited five heartbeats, making sure there were no more coming. Then Neave struck, a whirlwind of death that sent bodies tumbling and heads spinning away.

  To their credit, two of the brutes managed to raise their spears before they were slain. One even attempted a crude jab, the weapon’s flint point passing through the space that Neave had occupied moments before. Its wielder hit the ground in two bloody halves before he could strike again.

  Neave was still once more, crouched, ready, listening. Off to her right, she saw a trio of Palladors flash through the forest to drive home their own attack. Gryph-chargers were incredible beasts, able to transform themselves into blasts of storm energies and flow onto the winds aetheric. Known as windshifting, it allowed them to bear their riders along with them in terrifyingly swift streaks of lightning and gale-force winds. It was a trick that Knights-Zephyros could also perform, and a shocked band of Ungor learned of it the hard way as they were smashed from their feet by the onrushing blurs of air and crackling energy.

  The Palladors shimmered back into visibility as they paused to wrench their javelins from the corpses of their fallen foes. Their prime, Castus Mournblade, shot Neave a quick salute.

  ‘Good hunting, Knight-Zephyros,’ he called, before leading his fellows on in a crackling storm of light.

  ‘And you, Mournblade,’ she said, before turning towards fresh sounds of movement away to her left. Flicking blood from her axes, Neave accelerated into a charge again.

  Neave was pulling her axe blade from the face of another fallen Ungor when she felt the growing vibration beneath her feet and smelt the rank stench of her foes’ bodies suddenly magnified a hundred-fold.