WARRUN VALE
They slid down the cliffs that made up the side of the Vale, leading Brevin through the rough stone and gangrenous scrub. When they reached the ground, their boots squelching into the rotting corpse-carpet of grass that covered the bottom of the pass, they started to run. Sevora made it two paces before Corus snatched her up. His armour was uncomfortable but reassuring as he cradled her in one arm like a child, and she was too tired to protest. Sagging into him, she watched as the corrupted Vale flashed by as the Stormcast Eternals raced for the Halt.
The Halt holds!
The battle cry rang through her head as the massive wall appeared before them. The day was almost done, and the Warrun was filled with shadows, but the Halt glowed in the twilight. So close, but Sevora could hear the low thunder of the army behind them.
‘We’ll make it,’ Corus said, as if he could hear her doubt.
They crossed the clearing, Jocanan flying in the lead, wings beating hard as she skimmed up the face of the Halt. Corus was right behind her until he reached the base of the wall, with Amon and the Lord-Terminos following, Brevin between them.
This close, Sevora could see the damage. Most of the massive wall seemed pristine, untouched and untouchable, but where the smoke had been it was different. Layers of soot coated the quartz, dulling its glow, and cracks radiated away from the circular impact marks that marred the crystal. The places Brevin’s shadow had struck the wall, trying to break open the quartz and expose the emberstone beneath. In far too many places, the shadow had come very close.
‘No gate,’ she said, looking down the smooth, unbroken expanse. The shadows beneath the dead trees were seething. They were at the wall, but they were still on the wrong side.
‘They won’t open it,’ Corus said. ‘Too much chance a rat will get in.’
‘They’ll drop a rope.’ Amon was standing with his back to the wall, looking back. A flurry of arrows had swept out of the trees. They fell well short of them, but each arrow seemed to pull at the gathering night, and where they landed a clot of darkness formed. Skaven ran forward into it and disappeared. ‘Brevin goes first. Corus, follow and defend.’
Corus nodded to Amon, but spoke to Sevora. ‘I’ll carry you too.’
‘With what hand?’ she said, staring out at that clot of darkness. ‘Set me down.’
‘Sevora–’
‘Don’t argue with me,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not staying here and dying, I’m going to tie myself to your bloody back.’ He set her down, and with her belt and his she made a loop that fit under her arms. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but it worked. She was settling into it when Corus stepped back and the end of a heavy rope hit the ground near them. Then another fell next to it.
Amon pressed the first rope into the Lord-Ordinator’s hands. ‘Climb,’ he said, and Brevin nodded. His body was mottled with bruises and cuts, but his massive muscles bunched beneath his skin and he began to pull himself up, climbing quickly hand over hand. ‘Corus, go!’
The Reclusian caught the other rope, climbing fast, Sevora’s weight not slowing him at all. Below, Amon took hold of Brevin’s rope and started up while the Lord-Terminos climbed behind Corus and Sevora. They were leaving their pursuers behind.
Then something smashed into the wall beside Corus with a screaming hiss, flying apart in green flames and chunks of iron, sharpened twists of scrap that rattled off Corus’ shield. But one found its way to Sevora, and she gasped as the hot metal punched into her calf.
‘I’m all right,’ she gasped as Corus twisted his head to look at her. The shrapnel hadn’t gone deep, and she reached down and jerked the burning metal out of her skin like a thorn. ‘Keep going!’
But that hissing noise grew around them as more of the things smashed into the wall. Corus swung his shield, stopping the shrapnel, but he couldn’t climb with one hand. They were stuck, an unmoving target, and Sevora could see the hissing missiles rising from that patch of darkness the skaven had made. Crossbow bolts were raining down from the Halt, but the shadows made the skaven impossible targets.
‘Protect Brevin!’ Amon shouted. ‘Keep going!’ The Knight-Questor loosened his grip, the rope sizzling through his gauntlets as he dropped back to the ground, with the Lord-Terminos right behind. The two raced away from the wall, heading towards that patch of darkness. Then they were gone, lost in the black.
Corus started to climb again, and the missiles smashed into the wall around them. They were badly aimed but their explosions spread out their damage, and another piece of shrapnel drew a burning cut across Sevora’s arm. She gritted her teeth and kept silent, looking up to check on Brevin, who was climbing with silent determination. Then she was grabbing onto Corus, holding tight as he kicked out from the wall, shield extended to block a missile that was heading straight towards the Lord-Ordinator. The shield knocked it away, to explode somewhere beneath them, and Sevora hung grimly on until Corus started climbing again. Then there was the sound of thunder and inhuman screams, and she looked down. The black patch was gone, shredded by a blaze of green flame. Skaven were running from it, wrapped in that emerald fire, but she couldn’t see Amon or the Lord-Terminos.
Sevora was so intent on searching for them, she didn’t see the flying things until they were swirling around them, shrieking and biting.
Talons raked her shoulder, and something tried to bite her neck. She slammed an elbow back, knocking the ratwing away, but there was another, snapping and tearing. Corus swung his shield, deflecting wings, but there were more, always more, diving in to attack, sensing their prey was helpless.
‘Get off,’ Sevora shouted as she swung her knife, cutting wings and slashing muzzles as the ratwings dove at her, but she was bleeding from half a dozen cuts already. Corus was smashing the things away even as he struggled to climb up to the same height as Brevin, who was catching the horrors out of the air and crushing them.
They were so close, why couldn’t these things just leave them alone? The thought was irrational, childish, but it filled Sevora’s head as one of the ratwings landed on her arm, snapping at her face. But then a flick of silver caught it, skewering it and flinging it away.
Jocanan’s grey-blue wings burned bright as she slammed through the flock, her javelin stabbing. And surrounding her were black-feathered pinions. Bleak ravens, the ones who’d followed them from Rookenval, diving through the ratwings, their black bills stabbing like daggers. The Prosecutor and the Morrda-sent birds worked together, stabbing and cutting, and the ugly flapping things spiralled away, shrieking.
‘Climb!’ Jocanan called. ‘There are more! There are greater!’
Greater? Sevora thought, as Corus swarmed up the rope. The Reclusian was moving fast now, catching up with Brevin. The Lord-Ordinator was bleeding, but moving with steady speed, and Corus matched him. Close, so close, and she could hear the shouts of the Golden Lions, the snap of crossbows. But there was a clap of wings larger than Jocanan’s, and talons like daggers slammed into the Halt beside them as Corus pushed off the wall, dodging away.
Sevora couldn’t stop it now. The shout was pouring out of her: ‘Leave me alone!’ And with it the wind whipped around her. She felt magic moving in her again, and for once she caught it, focused it. Made it into a weapon, a blade of wind that she would use to cut this thing apart.
And then there was light, and the night and her magic were all gone, and she was lost in the memory of her great-grandfather.
Corus stood in the centre of the canyon, blinking in the light. He wasn’t sure how he’d got there. He thought he was in his temple, surrounded by the dead and the damned. He thought he was dying.
‘Brother,’ Lavin said, standing beside him, his face perfect except for a thin line of blood that marked one cheek. ‘Why do you stand here?’
Here. Why here… Corus stared at the monster, the bronze-scaled Chaos-tainted man that knelt before him. ‘This one,’ he said slowly. ‘This one killed me, long ago. He led the Chaos band that destroyed my settlement. He captured me, tortured me. Trying to make me renounce Sigmar, to revoke him.’
‘Sigmar blesses you,’ Lavin said with vicious satisfaction. ‘Your mortal life was stolen by the cruelty of Chaos. Now you have a chance to face the author of that pain.’ Lavin looked down at the Chaos warrior, whose blood was flowing down the chains that held him. ‘Face him, and show him the truth. Make him repent for the sins he visited against this world and against you.’ Lavin took Corus’ hand and laid it on one of the bronze scales that grew from the warrior’s chest. ‘Show him the strength Sigmar gave you in your new life, and make him revoke the daemon god he worships.’
Corus held the scale in one hand. He could feel it was solid, rooted deep. It would hurt, tearing it free. He pulled a little, and the warrior stared at him, his bleeding eyes burning. It would hurt a lot.
‘Do it,’ the monster said, smiling with his filed teeth. ‘I dare you.’
And Corus pulled.
Amon let the rope fly through his gauntlets, clamping down only when he was almost at the bottom of the massive wall, slowing just enough to turn his fall into a run.
He knew the Lord-Terminos was there right behind him, racing with him through the rotting-corpse grass towards the darkness the skaven had made, sword and mace ready. Determined not to see his hunt thwarted right at its end.
The clot of darkness lay halfway across the clearing that stretched before the wall, a darker piece of night that hid the skaven and whatever weapon they were using to fling those explosions at Brevin and the Halt. When Amon hit that circle of shadow, he slammed his sword against his torch, making thunder and light. Pained squeals followed the roll of thunder, but the light didn’t flash like lightning – in the darkness it only made a dim, hazy glow. But it was enough to see a skaven just before him, holding something that looked like a blunt spear. The ratman snarled and threw the thing at him, but Amon slapped it out of the air. It landed at his feet, the length of cord sticking out of it sputtering and sparking. Like the fuse of a cannon.
Amon dug his boot under the sputtering thing and kicked it away. It arced through the air, and when it landed the sparks coming from it flared up, showing the pile of other blunt spears it had rolled into and the blinking skaven that huddled over them.
Amon saw that and turned. The Lord-Terminos was at his shoulder, and Amon caught them and knocked them back and down, sending them both sliding across the slimy ground and out of the darkness just as an explosion ripped through it, green fire and iron splinters flying through the air. Amon felt some of the shrapnel tick off his armour, but there was no pain other than a ringing in his ears and spots in his eyes from the flames.
Thunder and light. It was what he wanted, and what he had got.
The Lord-Terminos rolled to their feet, their axe taking the head off a smoking skaven running past. Amon came up too, spinning back to face the wall, looking for Brevin and finding the Lord-Ordinator almost at the top, surrounded by a wheeling, screaming flock of ratwings.
‘Damn,’ he sighed, and started running back, making for the ropes.
‘Knight-Questor! Stop!’
Amon almost ignored the Lord-Terminos, focused on getting to Brevin and finishing this, finally, but there was an urgency to the shout that made him slow. Made him see.
Rats. A massive swarm of them, like a dark pool around the end of the ropes. They were climbing, tiny claws digging into the thick ropes and carrying them upwards. The ones closest to Amon were starting to move in his direction, too, a swarm of teeth, and he backed away, looking up at the fight far overhead.
Jocanan was there now, her silver javelin flashing as she cut the skaven-made things out of the air, and there were other feathered wings spinning around her, the black wings of the ravens. They were driving the ratwings back, and now Brevin was close, so close. He was going to make it, the climbing rats far too late to catch him, the ratwings too small to bring him down.
Then there was a crack of wings, and something slammed into the wall near Corus, a ratwing bigger than Jocanan. It snapped at them, Corus smashing his shield into its teeth. Then it was shoved back, as if by a gust of wind. The beast screeched and lashed forward again, this time at Brevin. Amon raised a hand, waiting, watching, helpless.
The huge ratwing lunged forward, jaws gaping, and Amon heard Corus shout. He couldn’t make out the words, but he started as he saw Brevin suddenly let go of the rope.
The beast’s mouth snapped shut, barely missing Brevin as he fell. Corus was swinging out, clinging to the rope with his shield hand, his other arm reaching for the Lord-Ordinator. Brevin slammed into the Reclusian’s arm, then started to slip away, falling. Until Corus wrapped his legs around Brevin’s waist, catching him. They hung there, spinning, as the huge ratwing turned in the air towards them.
Just in time for Jocanan to meet it.
The Prosecutor buried her javelin in the thing’s belly, and it squealed. Then the ratwing’s talons caught her, holding the Prosecutor as the creature fell, the ravens shrieking around them. But Amon was focused on Brevin. Corus still held him with his legs as he pulled himself to the top of the Halt. And then there were hands reaching for him, taking Sevora, helping him with Brevin, and they were over the top.
Amon let out a great breath, the tension in him running out, gone.
He barely noticed the soldiers cutting the ropes, letting them fall with their great weight of rats to the ground.
‘Done, Stormlord. Done.’
‘You have a strange sense of completion, Knight-Questor.’ The Lord-Terminos stood beside him on the empty no-man’s-land before the wall. In the air and in the ground was the low rumble of the skaven army drawing close. They’d be overrun soon. Very soon.
‘Quests end. Everything else is chaos.’ Amon looked to the cliffs at the edge of the Halt, where the beast had fallen. ‘There was no lightning. Let’s find Jocanan.’
The Lord-Terminos nodded their head, and the two of them started moving, striding away as the dead trees in the forest began to fall, crashing down before the river of death that was pouring up Warrun Vale.