Wardens of the Everqueen Page 14

  Another set of plague drones dived at Tegrus. The plaguebearers were taking charge of their brutish steeds now, restraining the rot flies’ mindless aggression and turning them towards more disciplined methods of attack. The daemons that pursued him were co-ordinating their assault, supporting one another as they sought to knock the Prosecutor-Prime from the sky.

  The daemons little guessed the enemy they now faced. Tegrus was in his element, exulting in the thrill of diving and weaving around his foes. Far more nimble than the rot flies, he was able to soar around and behind the vile creatures. Casting his hammer at one of the daemons as he climbed above it, Tegrus had the satisfaction of seeing its thorax cut in half by the missile. The bisected monstrosity crashed into the bridge below, pitching a clutch of screaming marauders into the hungry maws of the serpents.

  The other plague drone tried to capitalise on the distraction of its companion’s destruction, whipping so close to Tegrus that some of the acidic slime drooling from the rot fly’s proboscis splashed across his armour. The Stormcast threw himself into a downward spiral, wings folded close against his back. The icy air rushed past him as he hurtled straight towards the open water. He could sense the plague drone pursuing him, refusing to abandon its prey.

  Lower and still lower Tegrus plummeted, then at the last instant he unfurled his wings and propelled himself skywards once more, speeding himself upwards with the momentum of his fall. It was a manoeuvre the bulky creature couldn’t match. The ghastly daemon and its fiendish rider slammed into the churning sea, the impact ripping limbs from the bloated insect and sending its one-eyed rider vanishing into the depths.

  As he rose back into the storm-swept sky, Tegrus could see his warriors were sorely beset by the plague drones. Valiantly, some of them continued to make sorties against the bridges, but they were too few to bring any concentration of force to bear against the spans. Though their javelins sent many of the enemy falling into the water, they weren’t enough to complete the demolition. More and more, the Prosecutors were compelled to use their weapons against swarms of plague drones, annihilating them before they could close with the Stormcasts.

  Tegrus drew another hammer from Sigmar’s storm and looked for the gouge his earlier cast had inflicted. It might be a desperate hope, but if the first hammers had weakened the span enough, a second impact in the same spot might be enough to break it. Desperate or not, he was determined to try. Whatever the risk.

  ‘Sigmar guide my hand,’ Tegrus cried out as he dove past the circling plague drones and towards the bridge below.

  Grymn felt as though the snow swirling down from the sky had closed around his own heart. He saw the Prosecutors being attacked by the pernicious rot flies. The daemons were too numerous, the elements too capricious and the target too formidable. One of the winged warriors swooped down with a stormcall javelin in each hand. Though he hurled both missiles into one of the bridges, though he himself was caught in the resultant explosion and hurtled into the icy sea, the span remained standing.

  It needed more strength to crack the bridges. A more direct approach than what Tegrus and his Prosecutors had so valiantly attempted. Perhaps some of Morbus’ dour perspective had infected him, but Grymn had planned for this possibility from the first. Much as he disliked to give the command.

  Angstun knew what troubled the Lord-Castellant’s mind. ‘We can try to hold them,’ he suggested.

  Grymn shook his head. ‘No, my friend, our only chance to hold them is to force them into a bottleneck. They have to be driven into a killing ground where we can bring our full strength against them. If we let them come at us across a broad front, they will prevail simply through force of numbers.’ He turned to Markius, Diocletian and the primes of the other paladin retinues. Quietly he gave them the command. The Stormcasts gave the Lord-Castellant a grim salute, then hastened to the bridges.

  Retributors and Decimators sprinted out onto the spans and began to attack the ice beneath them, the Liberators closing the shield walls behind them as the paladins ranged onto the bridges. Here, out over the churning water, the pack was far thinner and at once the terrifying crack and creak of the weakening bridges snapped across the battlefield.

  The reckless action of the paladins sowed confusion among the oncoming plaguehosts. Some of the barbarians and mutated monsters tried to retreat while others attempted to redouble their rush across and fall upon the Stormcasts before they could achieve their purpose. Turmoil erupted between the panicked and the determined, and along several of the spans fratricidal conflict broke out between the factions – the dead and dying of both sides cast into the sea and the hungry maws of the giant serpents.

  Upon one of the bridges, a squadron of Chaos knights trampled their craven compatriots and charged for the far side. In their path stood the Retributors, their lightning hammers digging great gouges in the ice. Grymn could see Retributor-Prime Markius among the paladins, a massive hammer gripped in his armoured hands. ‘Only the faithful,’ Markius cried out as he raised the weapon overhead and brought it smashing down into the bridge.

  The span shattered beneath Markius’ blow. With the Chaos knights only a few yards away, the entire bridge crumbled. Shrieking horses and shouting men were sent pitching into the roiling waters below. The same destruction that reached out to drag down the plague riders also claimed the Retributors. The ice upon which they stood tilted upwards for an instant, then dropped away in a great sheet, knifing down into the sea. Flares of blue lightning streaked up into the sky after the paladins sank into the icy waters.

  ‘Sigmar take you into His keeping,’ Grymn whispered, bowing his head in tribute to Markius’ sacrifice.

  Similar scenes unfolded across several of the other bridges. Often the defenders were successful in their demolition. Diocletian and his Decimators were snatched from the verge of destruction by the intercession of a pair of treelords, who caught them as their end of the bridge began to pitch down into the sea. After the fall of the Slaughterbrute, its seemed the sylvaneth had decided some axes could be used for good instead of ill.

  Grymn’s plan was to funnel the plaguehosts down three specific bridges, spans positioned so that his Judicators would have the enemy in a crossfire as they advanced and where the defenders on the other side would be able to form a unified front. Instead, the enemy was able to capture a few bridges not in his calculations.

  The first was seized when a unit of Retributors was obliterated by plague drones soon after the dramatic sacrifice of Markius and his men. The flying daemons swarmed down onto the paladins in a frantic mass of slashing claws and stabbing proboscises. The fiends following behind the first assault attacked their own, ripping open abdomens swollen with acidic putrescence to coat the Retributors in caustic filth. Whenever a Stormcast faltered, a rot fly was quick to seize him in its claws and dive with him into the sea. By the time the loathsome attack was finished, the Retributors had been exterminated and the bridge belonged to Torglug.

  A second span was seized when three mighty treelords attempted to destroy it by sending their roots burrowing into the ice at the middle of the bridge. Before they’d proceeded far, a marauder chieftain unleashed a mob of hideously mutated Chosen against the sylvaneth. The howling Chosen, their bodies twisting and changing at each step, hurled themselves upon the great tree-creatures. Though many of them were crushed in the hands of the treelords or impaled upon their branches, too many won through to attack the sylvaneth with bronze axes, iron swords, and their own grisly claws. The Chosen hacked and hewed until the mighty treelords were overcome. Roaring in victory, the mutants pushed the splintered carcasses over the side. Though their triumph was short and the arrows from Judicators’ bows soon avenged the treelords, the damage was done. As they had with the other bridge, detachments of Stormcast Eternals and wargroves of sylvaneth removed themselves from the main formations to guard these crossings.

  ‘We can defend twelve,’ Angstun assur
ed Grymn.

  The Lord-Castellant nodded. ‘We will defend twelve,’ he said. Glancing away from the plaguehosts striving to cross the sea, he looked behind their own defensive line. He could just see the Lady of Vines and her last bodyguard slipping away behind the concealment of another snow flurry. If not for the radiant glow of the queen-seed, he doubted he would have been able to spot her at all. The branchwraith had left half of her people behind to aid the Hallowed Knights. Grymn was uncertain if it was a reflection of the growing unity between their factions or a dire testament to the gravity of the situation. Either way, he was certain she hadn’t made such a decision lightly. She had to know that those she left behind were unlikely to return.

  Grymn turned his gaze back upon Torglug’s diseased horde. He could see the warlord himself, bloated with corruption, his horned helm caked in filth and decay. Survival didn’t matter here. Their only purpose was to hold for as long as they could. To hold and deny Torglug the prize his infernal master coveted.

  ‘By Sigmar’s grace,’ Grymn said. ‘We will hold them back.’

  There was a man once. He fell into a hole and thought he would die there. He prayed he would die there – how he begged and pleaded. But he didn’t die. He suffered on and on and on. Hours became days became weeks became months. He was lost and he was alone, and even the company of his enemies was denied to him. How he would have savoured their taunts and jeers! How he would have welcomed their abuses! What torture could compare to being alone, abandoned even by those he hated?

  There was a man once. He dared a god to do its worst and that was just what it did. The sweet relief of death was denied him; the blissful release of madness eluded him. The sicknesses that consumed his flesh refused to fully destroy him. They left him just enough coherency to appreciate the pain they brought. They withdrew and faded, only to return, easing his agony only so that the relapse would hurt so much more. Dread hounded his mind when pox and plague relented, terror tightening around him as he anticipated their return.

  Those whom the gods destroy they make mad. A far worse fate beckons those whom the gods covet. Flesh, spirit and mind alike must be broken. Broken and formed anew. Changed into the vessel that can best serve its new master.

  Torglug’s blemished eyes fastened upon the hateful light shining from the enemy leader’s lantern. He forced himself to look upon it, grinding his teeth against the pain it provoked. Another of Sigmar’s pathetic champions, another delusional fool who trusted in a power mightier than Chaos. Right to the end, Lord-Celestant Gardus had believed in the God-King’s power. That hadn’t saved him from the might of Nurgle. That hadn’t stopped Torglug from adding the vale of Athelwyrd to his long list of conquests.

  Now this one thought to oppose him. Torglug could appreciate the craft his adversary displayed. He was trying to negate the strength of the plaguehosts by funnelling them across the few bridges still standing. The warriors of Chaos had lost hundreds when the lightning-men and sylvaneth started demolishing those bridges. Torglug’s legion was suffering further casualties as his forces tried to advance across the narrow spans. Beastmen savaged human marauders in their feral bloodlust, impatient to close with the enemy that awaited them on the other side. Crazed forsaken, their bodies erupting with grotesque mutations, ploughed through ranks of tribesmen in their berserk fury. Scores of his diseased followers were hurled into the churning sea by their own comrades, lost to the icy waves and the ravenous serpents undulating through the water. Overhead, the last of his plague drones were overcome by the winged lightning-men, their broken husks splattering as they crashed into the snow. The flying daemons had served their purpose, however. Only a handful of the airborne enemy remained – too few to pose a threat to Torglug’s army or to menace the remaining bridges.

  The strain of gazing upon the holy lantern at last made Torglug close his eyes and look away. It was a gesture of weakness that stirred in his guts, the daemonic rotworm that dwelled there recoiling from the holy light. He would make the lightning-men suffer for that indignity. It was said to be impossible to make one of Sigmar’s champions feel fear, but he wondered if they could recognize despair when it stretched forth its claws to claim them? What was fear for oneself, after all, compared to the knowledge that your own failure had brought damnation upon those who depended upon your strength?

  ‘Guthrax!’ Torglug’s slobbering call bellowed from the rusted face of his helm. His putrid blightkings retreated from their master’s presence as the enormous daemon waddled towards him. Only Slaugoth Maggotfang stayed by his side, potent charms and talismans guarding him against the Great Unclean One’s pestilent aura. Torglug had no need of such fetishes to protect him. The favour of Nurgle was stronger than any daemon’s malignance.

  ‘Your command, Torglug Ice-walker?’ Guthrax croaked, steaming spittle falling from its rancid tongues.

  Torglug studied the bridges, crowded now with his warriors. He turned over in his mind the warbands that belonged to each tattered banner, the warherds that marched behind each primitive totem. He put a value to each, estimated how many men and monsters might be committed to each crossing. Finally he pointed his axe towards the largest of the bridges. ‘There you are finding your road,’ he told Guthrax. ‘You are crossing there and bringing destruction for my enemies.’

  The huge daemon clapped its hands together in a gesture that would have suggested childish excitement had it come from anything less grotesque. ‘It seems there are many who will grow closer to the Grandfather,’ it gobbled. ‘Are you so certain you would feed so many of your own to me? Your warriors already on the bridge will have the choice of drowning or being in my way.’

  ‘That is being your road,’ Torglug repeated. He knew the daemon meant to horrify him with the thought of how many of his own followers would be destroyed when Guthrax crossed the bridge. The monster had no appreciation of his ambition. If it cost the life of every mortal that bent their knee to him, he would spend them. Once he captured the Everqueen and gave Nurgle the prize he coveted, Torglug would be rewarded with armies so vast as to make this legion seem a rabble of brigands.

  Slobbering and chuckling, Guthrax shambled off towards the bridge. The Great Unclean One’s advance was noted by friend and foe alike. The Chaos warriors near the bridge scattered, those already on the span fleeing back to the closer shore. Some made it, but others were caught between Guthrax’s advance and the shield wall of lightning-men at the other end. A few of these wretches leapt into the sea rather than being crushed under the daemon’s waddling bulk. Many more hurled themselves against the shield wall, fighting with desperate abandon. The archers on the far side stopped loosing arrows and bolts into Torglug’s mortal warriors and instead directed their shots at Guthrax. The warlord laughed at their futile attempts to bring down the greater daemon.

  ‘Is it wise to commit Guthrax by himself?’ Slaugoth asked the warlord. ‘The enemy may call on the power of their own god. The lightning that–’

  ‘Against Guthrax, we are letting them be doing their worst,’ Torglug said. ‘More attention daemon is drawing to itself is being better for me. More resources enemy is setting against Guthrax, less they are having to be bringing against real threat.’

  Slaugoth looked puzzled, the worms between his blackened teeth even growing still. ‘The real threat?’

  Torglug brought his blackened axe down, hacking a sliver from the ice at his feet. ‘Me,’ he said. ‘While lightning-men are committing themselves against Guthrax and other bridgeheads, I am leading my best warriors against them – only we not be using one of bridges they are leaving us. We are making own bridge.’

  The sorcerer’s stomach tightened. To defy Torglug was to invite death, but trying to repeat the ritual he’d performed before would certainly destroy him. He didn’t have the legion’s warlocks and shamans to exploit this time – indeed the only resources he could draw upon were his own acolytes. Trying to repeat the spell with so littl
e energy to syphon would reduce him to a withered husk.

  Looking back at Guthrax, an idea occurred to Slaugoth. He couldn’t cross the gap as he had before, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other ways to accomplish the feat. Among Torglug’s legion were the disgusting Slothcrawlers, a pack of daemonic beasts. The immense, slug-like monstrosities would serve the sorcerer’s purpose.

  Removing from the head of his staff one of his most potent talismans, Slaugoth began his spell. The sickening Slothcrawlers slithered towards the frozen wave on which Torglug stood. ‘The daemons will build your bridge,’ he told the warlord.

  ‘Then be building it,’ Torglug commanded, pointing to the spot where he would make his crossing.

  Gibbering in crazed jubilation, the first of the daemonic creatures sank its claws into the side of the ice shelf, leaving its body to dangle over the edge. The second beast slithered down the body of the first, its tentacles biting into the flesh of its companion. Viscous ooze drooled from each of the ropey tendrils, fusing the hideous beasts together. A third monster soon followed, repeating the process. Daemon by daemon, Slaugoth was creating a living bridge across the gap. The serpents beneath the waves poked their head up from the waters, but recoiled from the diseased essence of the loathsome daemons.

  Torglug laughed at the gruesome novelty of such a passage, then summoned his putrid blightkings to him. Once the daemonic bridge was set, they would follow the vile path to the other side. Already he could see the enemy reacting to Slaugoth’s ploy, a wall of lightning-men forming up where they judged the living bridge would stretch across.

  Torglug laughed when he caught the flash of the holy lantern. It seemed the enemy commander was going to personally receive him when he staged his crossing. Destroying him would be an enjoyable appetiser before he seized the queen-seed.