Champion of the Gods

Chapter three

The gentlest whisper of snow drifted between me and what I would later come to remember as Kurzog’s Hill. It was so unexpectedly pleasing that I had to stop for a moment to admire it before my army went and spoiled it. The hill was surrounded on all sides by a delta of small bogs. They were frozen over, lucent pools of amber beneath the intermittently setting sun. Sword grasses and spiny weedfronds grew to the height of men along the maze of paths that branched between them, rattling their sabres at the wind. For a second, I thought I saw a woman with a spear, watching my army from the grass. The Gorwood was a vast and uncharted wilderness, and I knew that there were a number of native peoples, like the aetar, who had never welcomed nor accepted Sigmar’s rule. Before I could dwell on it further, the figure was gone and I decided that it had been a trick of the breeze.

The strident cacophony of bone horns, pan pipes, war gongs, and man-skin drums drew my gaze upwards.

The Blind Herd brayed from the hilltop. Insults, I imagined, but a lack of familiarity with the Dark Tongue inoculated me somewhat against their sting. A smattering of ungor skirmishers armed with slings and javelins were getting their hooves wet, but most of Brayseer Kurzog’s bigger beasts had been positioned on the hilltop and looked determined to remain there. I counted about fifteen hundred gors, with a couple of barely restrained bullgors just to make my life more interesting. A small herd of centigors and a single tuskgor chariot waited on one flank. The beastherd bleated and jeered from behind the thinly spread line of the Legion of Bloat. Noisome champions of the God of Plagues, the blightkings’ armour was buckled where bloat or corrosion had caused the plates to warp. Pus leaked from cracked metal and fluid sores. Flies choked the air above scabrous, maggoty helms, and the hillside upon which they waited with grave acceptance of the coming battle was littered with the shrivelled corpses of flower­ing weeds. For all that the Plague Knights looked one solid push from collapse, I knew from experience that there were few things in the realms tougher than a devotee of Nurgle. They felt neither fear nor pain, they did not tire, and so close had they grown to death that it took a frightening amount of violence to finally push them over.

And by Sigmar, the smell…

Fortunately, the wind favoured us. The worst I suffered was the mulchy odour of the swamp itself, with only the occasional eye-watering gust from the hill.

Shielding my eyes from the low sun, I looked up. The disc-riding beastmen that had downed one of King Augus’ scouts earlier in the day crisscrossed the sky, shadowed by the lazy drone of pustulent rot-flies. I counted about a score of each.

Nuisance numbers. Nothing more.

With a decent corps of missile troops Kurzog and Manguish might actually have been able to make me think twice about taking their hill. I stress might. I’m not generally one for thinking more than once, and even that is largely something that I wave through as a formality.

The Slaves to Darkness had never really taken to ranged warfare.

In fairness to them, neither had I.

Confronted with the terrain I was going to have to fight them on, a small part of me did quietly kick the larger for leaving behind the Justicar Conclave that Akturus had offered me. Akturus did love his Judicators. Nothing threatened to bring the Lord-Castellant out in a smile like putting together a line of boltstorm crossbows behind a Liberator shield wall and watching a determined enemy make the hard running. His predilection for standing still is, I contend, why they call him ‘Ironheel’. As much as I enjoyed teasing him for it though, it was all in good humour, and I wouldn’t have minded one of his Thunderhead Brotherhoods just then.

I had five Vanguard-Hunters and Barbarus’ realmhunter bow. I didn’t see Brayseer Kurzog shedding too many fleas over that, and though I had over a thousand Freeguild archers their short bows were too limited in range, or power, to be effective.

‘Sly old goat,’ I muttered.

My gryph-hound emitted a growling chirp and bit my knee in answer.

Crow had the hind quarters of a Celestine Leopard, fur as smooth and as white as mother-of-pearl and with eyes of a fierce intelligence. His head was that of a bird of prey, plumage shimmering with the pale blue of the Azyrite dawn. Crow had been with me since my last reforging and subsequent return to the Ghurlands. After a hundred years, he continued to give the impression that he knew something important that I didn’t. I scratched him idly between the ears, and he released his beak from my knee with a low chirrup of pleasure.

‘I count barely three and a half thousand men and beasts. A bit less than I was expecting. Vaguely disappointing.’

‘It will be a bloodbath.’

No one but Lord-Relictor Xeros Stormcloud could say that and look as though he was fighting to keep himself from licking his lips. Like me, he preferred to go bare headed. Unlike me, his skin was dark and distinctly reddish. His head was shaved bald. The pieces of his fearsome mortis war-plate had been individually crafted by the Six Smiths to resemble bones, transforming the cruel-eyed warrior-priest into the likeness of a giant skeleton with the unholy face of an immortal. Glyphs of death, rebirth and the Storm Eternal had been carved into the skinned carcasses of rabbits, birds and squirrels, hanging from the many flesh hooks that projected from his harness. Lightning arced and crawled from his reliquary staff. The mummified remains of a human cadaver were encased within, behind a rippling screen of Azyrite force. It was wizened, foetally folded, clutching a sword in claw-like hands and bedecked in an elaborate – albeit largely disintegrated – headdress of animal skin, gold leaf and precious jewels.

I had no idea who the figure was. Xeros was always prophetically vague about the subject, which suggested to me that he was less than certain himself. I found that mildly reassuring, and not a little pleasing.

‘You need to look on the bright side, brother,’ I said.

One corner of Xeros’ mouth pricked into a smile, as if drawn into it by skilled flesh artists with needles. ‘I was.’

I felt myself deflate. The Stormcloud had that effect.

‘It was unwise to leave the Imperishables’ Justicar Conclave back at the Seven Words,’ he said.

‘Wisdom is for Sigmar, and he is welcome to it.’

‘Conquest and murder is Sigmar’s work,’ said Xeros, staring flatly across the snowy marsh, never raising his eyes to make contact with mine. ‘From across the Pantheon he drew the gifts that went into the making of the Stormcast Eternals, and from those who did not give freely enough he took, by deception or force. That is the god we serve, brother, and it is my great honour to do so. I would kill his foes in their beds, hack them from their mothers’ bellies if I could but tell friend from foe therein and Sigmar would not dissuade me from it. He would not care if we slaughter these beasts and their allies with arrow or hammer or with our own two hands.’ He raised his for emphasis. They were big, butcher’s hands, encased in osseous sigmarite.

‘You do like getting your hands bloody, Stormcloud.’

The Lord-Relictor’s eyes became glassy. ‘At least allow me to call upon the storm. Let me strike down the heathen beasts. I will purge the blight from their rotten flesh and purify their unclean souls. I will wrap the blessed rains of Sigmar about my fist and make of them a lash to flay the meekness from the proselytes to Nurgle’s despair…’

I did my best to ignore him.

I’d become rather good at it over the decades.

In his mortal life, Xeros had been a shaman and a vizier of formidable power. Beyond that he recalled little and shared less. I doubted it was pretty. The Relictor Temple and the Winter Fortress of the Astral Templars were rife with rumours. Ritual bloodlettings. Slave-taking campaigns that swallowed whole nations and put all but the bloodi­est atrocities of the Ages of Chaos and Blood to shame. Orgies of human sacrifice that would conclude only when the knives of the priesthood were blunted and even Xeros’ fiery soul had been glutted on murder.

I believed them all.

‘…will sear their skin from their bones and make of them an ash that I might scoop from the soil and present to Sigmar as a token of my cleansing. I–’

‘No lightning,’ I said. ‘Not until I say so.’

Xeros turned his scowl heavenward. ‘The eagle-kin are faithless and untrusting barbarians. A wise leader would not place all his faith in them.’

I threw my arm around the Lord-Relictor’s shoulder and pulled him to me. ‘There you go again, Stormcloud, wishing I were wise.’

‘Hope is like the fires of Dracothion,’ said Xeros, blank-faced. ‘It burns eternal.’

‘Am I interrupting?’ grumbled Broudiccan, my faithful shadow coming up behind me in a clatter of heavy sigmarite.

With a broad grin, I released the Lord-Relictor, clapped Broudiccan gamely on the shoulder and waved for Frankos.

My Knight-Heraldor was busy ordering the Freeguild units into lines of battle. They were forming up into a crescent facing off against Kurzog’s Hill. The Astral Templars he had broken into retinues, spacing them amongst the mortal units to be the metal studs in my wooden shield. I, it went without saying, would be the boss. It was a difficult set of compromises he had to balance. Spread the mortal units too wide and he’d be unable to direct sufficient strength to break Manguish’s shield wall. And that was going to be hard enough as it was. Too narrow and he’d be inviting a counter-charge from those tuskgors and centigors. From what I could see he was making a more than decent fist of it, but then he had learned his business from the very best.

Seeing my summons, he dismissed the huddle of mortal officers that surrounded him, then hurried over. One of the soldiers stuck with him. It was the captain I’d seen back at the river, laughing at my joke.

Frankos greeted me with a firm handshake and boyish ebullience, nodding energetically to Xeros and then Broudiccan. He unclasped my forearm to motion towards the mortal captain. ‘You remember Hamuz el-Shaah, Captain of the Jerech Blue Skies?’

‘Of course,’ I lied.

The Blue Skies – named not, as I’d originally thought, for their perpetually sun-drenched desert homeland, but for the disposition with which they went to war – I did remember. They were the oldest Freeguild regiment in my service and the largest in the Seven Words, and had followed me loyally since Jercho. From the city states of the Sea of Bones to the drakwolds of Shyish in pursuit of the Mortarch, Mannfred von Carstein. To Azyr in failure. Then back to Ghur for the Gorkomon campaigns. A century of near-constant war. They had picked up men from all over in that time, but still drew their elite formations and officer class exclusively from the Lands of the Unsetting Sun. Hamuz was one such. His skin was a hard brown. A glassmark, a Jerech skin art that involves inserting thousands of small bits of glass into the skin to create an image, caught the light from the bare skin of his forearm. A woman’s face. A wife in their younger days, perhaps. Or a daughter. The golden handle of a quartz longsword glittered in an ugly sheath of Gorwood leather.

Crow clacked his beak from behind my legs as the man approached me. Hamuz gave the gryph-hound a wavering half-smile before dropping to one knee before me and lowering his gaze.

‘My lord.’

‘Up,’ I said, though in truth I’ve always enjoyed the mortals’ adoration.

The man stood and looked, eyes wide. ‘The men of Jercho wish the honour of fighting alongside you, lord. As they did at Nicassa, and at the Sunless Citadel, and in the siege of the Seven Words.’

So that was where I recognised him from.

‘Only the bravest and best are worthy of such high honour.’ I grinned at him and put my hand on his shoulder, bowing him under the weight. ‘So your men’s place is surely at my side.’

Hamuz quickly lowered his face. ‘We’ll not let you down, lord.’

‘I know.’ Still smiling, I turned to Frankos. ‘Your thoughts?’

‘It will be a fight, lord, but to strike a final blow against Chaos in these lands?’ The Knight-Heraldor looked earnestly up at the hill. ‘It has to be worth it. You will not find a man here who does not feel the same as I.’

‘It’s true, lord,’ said Hamuz. ‘This is our home.’

‘Hah! You are half a world from home, Hamuz.’

‘I don’t ever expect to see Jercho again, lord. Our home is where you say it is, and we’re ready to die for it.’

I felt warmth spread through my chest.

Keep your sigmarite-clad legions, your Extremis Chambers with their Dracoths and their Stardrakes. Keep the might and authority of Ghal Maraz. Keep it all. I have no need for any of it. It’s the faith and valour of men like Hamuz el-Shaah that hold the line against the forces of Chaos.

‘And I am here so that you don’t have to make that sacrifice.’ I nodded to Frankos. ‘Let them know we’re here, Knight-Heraldor.’

‘Gladly, lord.’

Frankos unclasped his war-horn from its bracket on his thigh-plate. It was as long as his arm, ivory, the features of a snarling beast picked out in gold and purple tanzanite. He lifted the mouthpiece to the slit in his face-plate and blew.

The sound was almost too sonorous and deep to be heard with mortal ears. It was the forewarning of a tremor beneath the earth, the build-up of pressure before a storm. It was a vibration in my belly, an ache and a joy upon the small bones of my ears. The swamp grasses bent. The snow eddied. Ice cracked where it had formed. The hide banners of the beastmen and the fly screens of the Nurglites fluttered in the sudden gust of sound, and their raucous chants and music fell silent.

Satisfied that I had their attention, I took a few squelching steps forwards, drew my halberd, and planted it firmly in the ground.

I took a deep breath.

‘Who leads this army?’

‘Hamilcar!’

The roar came unequivocally from nineteen hundred mortal throats, fifty Astral Templars thumping their gauntlets on their armour or beating weapons against shields. I spread my arms as if their acclaim were a mantle that a chamber serf could set upon my shoulders, and turned my face towards the foulsome host before me.

‘Hamilcar will take this hill!’ Leaving my halberd quivering in the mud I pointed towards the ranks of blightkings encircling the base of the hill. ‘You all know me. You know me by name and by my reputation in these lands and you know that I will do this. Spare us all the time and the sweat. Kurzog! Manguish!’ I barked the names. ‘Test the favour of your gods in battle with me here, now. If either one of you can best me, then my men will return to the Seven Words and trouble you no more. My word upon the might of Sigmar and the retribution of His hammer, your warriors will have the same amnesty when you fall.’

‘Four thousand warriors of the arch-enemy and you would spare them?’ Xeros hissed behind me. ‘They shall be scoured from the Nevermarsh. The ground they have soiled with their tread must be burned and salted lest blight fester there and again take root.’

‘Have you never heard of Tornus the Redeemed?’ I whispered back.

For it is important to remember that not all beastmen were born such. Most were simply men and women on the wrong side of a realmgate when the doors were sealed, twisted by the magic of Chaos, and few of them willingly.

The Lord-Relictor snorted. ‘You are not the Celestant-Prime.’

I looked over my shoulder, seeing Hamuz watching me, and winked. ‘That you know.’

‘The Celestant-Prime is taller,’ said Broudiccan.

My expression blackened. ‘He is never taller.’

‘I don’t think they are coming, lord,’ said Frankos.

With a parting glare I turned from Broudiccan to survey the hill. The beastmen shuffled apprehensively, huffing and snorting. My bluster, and their leaders’ unwillingness to answer it head on, had clearly dented their enthusiasm for the fight. There were no more jeers. The disc-riders zipped back and forth over a silent throng. Only the blightkings looked unmoved by the exchange, sagging mutely into their shields as though they intended to remain there whether we fought a battle today or not.

‘They are spineless cowards, as all followers of Chaos must be,’ I bellowed. It’s not true, of course, but it gives men confidence to hear the likes of me say it. Xeros, however, was nodding profoundly. ‘It falls on us to go to them then, and show them the courage of fighting men.’ I tugged my halberd free of the ground and raised it high. ‘But be wary. The ground is soft and I would hate for any of mine to lose a boot.’

A chuckle rippled through the crescent formation as men hitched up their gear to march.

‘Sound the advance, Frankos,’ I ordered.

‘Yes, lord.’

‘We should survey the battlefield a while yet,’ said Broudiccan. ‘I don’t know this Manguish, but how many months have we hunted Kurzog through the Gorwood? How many times has he ever offered us pitched battle so freely?’

‘He offers nothing,’ I said. ‘His back is to the wall. He has nowhere left to go now but the Well of Eternity, and I mean to pitch him in head first.’ I thumped Frankos hard across the back. ‘Now, Knight-Heraldor!’

‘Yes, lord.’

Frankos put his horn to his mouth slit and blew.