‘Senseless, foolish creatures,’ spat Axilon, as he watched the spear of orruk cavalry grind itself further into the breach it had created. He stood with Mykos at the side of the battle, on a jutting spur of rock to better observe the chaos. ‘How does this bloodshed profit either of our races? To think that we once called these beasts allies.’

  ‘Not these creatures,’ said Mykos. ‘Look at them, brother.’

  These orruks were broad and tall, rippling with muscles and wrapped in crude yet formidable iron armour. They had none of the savage desperation that Mykos had seen in others of their race. They radiated power, confidence and strength.

  ‘They have thrived in Sigmar’s absence, grown strong and bold,’ he said. ‘If these orruks were to gather in numbers, the Mortal Realms would tremble.’

  ‘Then we must slaughter this lot before they get any grand ideas,’ said Axilon. He raised his battle-horn to his mask, and blasted out another series of triumphal notes.

  ‘Paladin retinues forwards,’ shouted Mykos, raising his grandblade and indicating his heaviest shock troops, towering Retributors with their crackling, lightning-wreathed hammers, and grim Decimators, carrying broad executioners’ axes. Unleashed at last, these warriors charged eagerly through the small channels that now opened in the Liberator shield wall, crashing into the orruks that now pushed deeper into the Stormcast position.

  Prosecutor-Prime Goldfeather was enjoying himself, which was possibly somewhat unseemly given the dire circumstances, but undeniable nonetheless. As the battle raged below, the heralds of the Argellonites found themselves outnumbered and surrounded by the reptilian flying mounts of the orruks. The bulky creatures swooped and snapped at the Prosecutors, and their howling masters hurled axes and spears or tried to grab the wings of the Stormcasts as they swept past. The orruks had the numbers, but they lacked the manoeuvrability of their foe.

  Goldfeather tucked his wings in and dropped out of the way of one of the creatures, hearing the crunch as its slavering jaws snapped closed just a few inches above his head. He let himself fall several feet, summoning another storm javelin into his hand as he did so, and then spread his wings wide, catching a rising squall and hefting his weapon. He hurled, and the javelin burned a hole through the skull of an orruk rider, flipping him sideways in a somersault that dismounted him and sent him spinning off into the rain.

  As much as he welcomed the chance to battle in the violent, unpredictable gales of the Roaring Plains, this needed to end quickly. The Lord-Celestant needed their assistance on the ground, and the longer the Prosecutors were tied up here, the longer they would leave their fellow warriors exposed without aerial support.

  Decimator-Prime Kyvos felt righteous rage course through him as he and his warriors pushed forwards through the narrow gaps that the Liberators had efficiently created between their shield wall squares. Across the entire Stormcast position the Warrior Chamber’s elite shock troops were rushed to the front line to combat the orruks that had broken through. As exemplary as every Liberator was at the art of combat, vicious, cramped close-quarters battle was the specialty of the greenskin.

  Kyvos had fought the things before, and while he despised their short-sighted lust for battle and their witless, artless lack of culture, he would never deny their skill at arms. Ahead he could see the colossal shapes of the orruks’ grunting war-beasts, which kicked and spat and bucked with furious abandon in the midst of the melee. The greenskins were hurling themselves at the Liberators’ shields, smashing and hacking gracelessly but effectively with jagged axes and spiked clubs.

  ‘No quarter!’ Kyvos shouted as the battlefield opened up before him. ‘No mercy for the enemies of the God-King!’

  A sneering face, splattered with blood, leered up at him, and he put his hammer in its porcine snout. There was a static burst of energy and the creature’s skull exploded into shards of smoking bone and scorched meat. He roared in triumph and continued forwards, making for the nearest war-beast. It turned its narrow, malicious eyes towards him as he advanced, and lowered its head to aim that jagged row of tusks.

  ‘Bring your pretty face a little closer,’ he muttered, as the creature staggered towards him, swinging its great head.

  Kyvos made to move aside, and realised that he could not. The press was simply too tight. Worse still, the ground was churned by rain and blood, a morass of brown-red filth that clung to his boots and tried vainly to drag him down. The creature’s snout struck him in the chest, and the force of the blow sent him sprawling into his warriors, off-balance and dazed. Something hooked under his leg, and then he was tumbling through the air, his leg burning with pain. He landed with a clatter that took his breath, and felt his arm sinking into mud.

  A snarling, yellow-fanged face appeared out of the blur of his vision, a great axe raised in one hand. Acting on pure instinct, Kyvos shifted to his right, and the axe spattered into the filth beside his head. He wrapped one arm around the weapon, holding it down, and kicked out, catching the orruk in the groin. It folded over, and he grabbed his axe with two hands, jabbing out with the top of the weapon at his opponent’s knee. There was a splintering sound, and the creature dropped to the ground, roaring in fury and pain.

  He raised himself on unsteady legs. His right had been pierced and shredded by the war-beast, and putting his weight upon it sent a twinge of agony shooting through him. He growled, and spat blood. Pain was easily ignored. The orruk he had taken down surged towards him awkwardly, dragging its shattered limb behind it. Kyvos put his thunderaxe into its chest, and with an explosion the thick iron bands that formed the brute’s armour collapsed inwards, crushing its lungs and sending it to the earth for good.

  Horns sounded in the distance, bizarre and atonal. No, he decided as the ringing in his ears began to subside. Not horns. More of the creatures’ infernal howling, in the distance now but approaching faster with every second. He heard a clatter from above, and looked up to see a broken orruk body crash into the canyon wall and tumble down the face, clattering off ledges and rocks as it fell. It landed with a dull thump in the mud.

  ‘Reform! Reform!’ came a desperate yell, again from over their heads. A Prosecutor was gesturing frantically at the far end of the canyon. ‘A second wave comes. Reform the line!’

  Something fast and heavy, a bundle of leathery wings and snapping jaws, slammed into the flying warrior, and then lifted higher into the air, golden armour visibly struggling in its maw.

  Stormcasts began locking their shields together once again. Kyvos could feel the thunder of the orruks’ approach now. Ripples spread across the waterlogged earth, and the demented roar of the enemy rose to a crescendo.

  ‘Brace!’ Kyvos yelled. But it was far too late.

  The first wave of orruk riders had crashed straight down the middle of the canyon, into the Stormcast lines. They had hit hard, and caused many casualties, despite their inability to break the defenders down entirely.

  The second thrust angled around the initial spear, striking at the flank and pushing inwards. Whether it was born of any primal tactical insight Mykos could not say, but it broke the cohesion of the Celestial Vindicators’ ranks in a way that the initial assault had not managed. Caught between the relentless press of the main orruk force and these new, flanking pincers, the Liberators could not simply close ranks and absorb the power of the attacks.

  A torrent of mud and water was thrown up in the impact, obscuring Mykos’ view. He could see broken, turquoise shapes hurled through the air, or sent crashing into their fellows. Orruk beasts fell, tripping the creatures behind them, and soon a mountain of writhing flesh and flailing limbs had formed, a grinding mass of destruction that rolled across the battle line, crushing everything in its path. Dozens of Liberators were crushed as they turned to meet the new threat, or left exposed and cut down as the cohesion of the shield wall fractured into a series of smaller skirmishes.

  ‘The time has come to enter the fray,’ said Mykos, placing a hand on Knight-Heraldor Axilon’s shoulder and indicating the left flank with the other. Here the orruks had pushed through in numbers, and were rolling back the Stormcasts with the sheer fury of their assault. ‘This is the hour, my friend.’

  ‘Give me the left,’ said Axilon, and raised his hand when Mykos began to object. ‘Trust me, my Lord-Celestant. I will hold the line. I’ll play a tune that these brutish creatures will remember for the rest of their miserable lives.’

  Mykos nodded, and he and Axilon grasped each other’s wrist.

  ‘They will write songs to celebrate our fine work this day,’ said the Knight-Heraldor. ‘I’ll be singing them in the taverns of Azyrheim upon our glorious return.’

  ‘Driving innkeepers out of business was ever your specialty, brother. Good fortune.’

  With that, Mykos turned to the retinue of Retributors that formed his personal guard. He raised his grandblade Mercutia high, and as he did so it caught an errant ray of sunshine that broke through the rain. The oath-marks and runes upon its surface glittered. His warriors cheered until their voices were hoarse, and formed up in his wake as he surged towards the front line, a hymn of vengeance and glory upon his lips.

  The left flank was in chaos. Knight-Heraldor Axilon hurdled great mounds of dead and dying orruks, making for the thick of the battle ahead, where a ragged line of Liberators was just barely holding a mob of dismounted orruks at bay. Broken, turquoise forms moaned and shifted in the mire, wounded but not yet ready to be called home by the storm of Sigmar.

  ‘To me, warriors of Azyr,’ he shouted, raising his broadsword high in a two-handed grip. His Decimators followed with him, roaring with fury as they charged into the fray.

  Axilon leapt forwards at the last moment, his blade swinging down with the force of an executioner’s axe. An orruk head fell free to splash in the mud, and suddenly the Knight-Heraldor was surrounded by snarling, laughing faces. It was a coarse, ugly sound, but the beasts were definitely laughing. Chortling as they cut down Stormcasts, giggling and hollering as they butchered.

  Axilon answered that laughter with the edge of his blade. He parried a clumsy axe swing, punched out and felt teeth shatter under his gauntlet, angled his sword and thrust it through his assailant’s belly. The wondrously crafted weapon sliced through the orruk’s iron armour as if it were parchment, and Axilon let the dying creature slide from his blade. Beside him the Retributors swept their great hammers in wide arcs, clearing space for the Liberators to fall back and regroup.

  ‘Not today, lads,’ he roared, clapping warriors on the shoulder as they fell back past him. ‘There’s a war on, you know. Can’t be heading back home with the job half done.’

  There was only a temporary reprieve. More orruks poured towards the Stormcasts, scores of them, scrabbling and leaping eagerly through the stinking swamp that the battlefield had become. Rain whipped across their faces, which were twisted in frenzied delight at the prospect of yet more murder. Great chunks of stone sloughed free from the canyon wall, loosened by the thunder of battle and the ceaseless downpour. Several orruks were struck by the falling debris and tumbled to the floor, to be crushed under the heavy boots of their allies. It was not enough to make a dent in their numbers, but it gave Axilon an idea.

  ‘Raise your shields,’ he shouted. ‘And brace yourselves.’

  He raised his battle-horn to his lips, and unleashed the full power of the wondrous artefact. What issued forth from the instrument was not a perfect note, not an echo of the valour and glory of Sigmar. It was a wave of thunderous devastation, a blast of cacophonous noise that slammed into the wall of the canyon with the power of a dozen siege rams. The rock face spider-webbed with deep fissures, rippling out from the point of impact. Then a twenty-foot section of shattered stone simply fell away. It crashed over the orruks, and the leading edge of the creatures simply disappeared in a cloud of displaced stone and tumbling rock.

  The avalanche did not stop. As both Stormcasts and orruks scrambled to escape the deluge of stone, more and more of the wall began to slough away. Choking dust filled the air, and warriors on both sides could no longer see further than a few feet ahead. Axilon spat out dirt and peered into the swirling debris. A few feet ahead there now sat a mound of rubble and broken bodies, a physical barrier that blocked off the left flank assault. He saw orruks trying to drag themselves up and over this new obstacle, but it was loose and treacherous. He had bought them a few minutes at least.

  Mykos heard the roar as the left-side wall fell, and muttered a quick prayer to Sigmar that Axilon had not been crushed amongst the rubble. There was no more time to dwell upon the fate of his friend. Though the right flank had managed to hold position, they were losing warriors too fast. The sheer weight of numbers was beginning to swamp the Stormcasts, robbing them of the cohesion that gave them their greatest strength. As soon as the orruks pushed their way in behind the Liberators the battle would be lost, and that was in danger of happening any moment.

  ‘Push them back,’ he roared. ‘Allow them not a single step forward!’

  Blessed Azyr, those beasts the orruks rode to war were vicious things. It was enough that a rider managed to get a single one of the creatures in the midst of his ranks – their furious kicking, thrashing and biting would do the damage of a half-dozen men. Mykos had seen one open its jaws wide to close around a Stormcast Eternal’s torso, trying to bite the warrior in half even as it attempted to force the still-moving body down its throat. When the warrior’s death had seen him disappear in a burst of white light, the creature had only been driven to greater heights of rage at being denied a meal.

  ‘Take them down,’ he yelled, aiming Mercutia at the nearest of the foul beasts. ‘The legs, aim for their limbs.’

  The beasts’ armour was thick upon the flank and belly, but their powerful limbs were exposed. Cripple one, and it would soon become as great a danger to its fellows and to the orruks as it would to the Stormcasts.

  Retributor Bhorus slammed his lightning hammer against the closest creature’s leg, smashing the joint so hard that it bent to the side with a loud crack. The war-beast howled and snorted in pain, and tried to snap at Bhorus with its viciously tusked jaws. He swayed back just in time, but a wild axe swing from the thing’s whooping rider struck him across the shoulder and pitched him to the floor. More Retributors piled in, penning the beast and smashing into it from all directions, slowly forcing it to the floor. The rider went down under it, trapped but still swinging his axe at anyone who came close. Elrus made to finish the prone creature, but another massive body pressed through a gap in the line, and barrelled into him. Its vicious tusk punched through his armour, and the beast continued to charge forwards, the Retributor impaled upon its jaws.

  ‘Finish the downed creature, this one is mine,’ Mykos shouted.

  The war-beast’s momentum carried it past the Lord-Celestant, and the oblivious rider failed to see his sword stroke until it was too late. The blade crashed into the orruk’s chest, sending him falling backwards off his mount, thick, dark blood staining his yellow armour. As he fell, Mykos leapt forwards and grasped the iron bands that were wrapped so tightly around the beast’s neck that the flesh beneath was torn and septic, oozing a pale yellow fluid. He swung himself up onto the beast’s back. Elrus was still impaled, dangling across the giant boar’s snapping maw, somehow still stabbing at its neck with his gladius.

  ‘Kill it, my Lord,’ he gasped, blood seeping from underneath his mask. His voice was resigned, strong despite the agony that clearly wracked him.

  Mykos had no time to dislodge the man. A wound as grave as his meant only death in any case, without a healer nearby. He reversed his grip on his grandblade, and drove it deep into the rampaging beast’s skull. It collapsed in motion, and the Lord-Celestant saw the ground rush up towards him as he was pitched over its head. He hit with bone-shuddering force, though thankfully the wet earth absorbed most of the impact. He rolled over once, twice, and came to a halt on a pile of orruk corpses. He tasted blood and the foulness of the churned earth, and spat.

  There was no time to rest, even for a moment. He hauled himself to his feet, glancing back at the advancing greenskins. There were too many. His chamber had fought heroically, but they were losing too many men, and gaps were opening for the orruks to exploit.

  Another rain of lightning fell upon the advancing enemy from above, throwing burly figures to the ground and sending geysers of water into the air as bodies and projectiles splashed into the filthy mire. More figures hurtled forwards to take the place of the fallen. The enemy’s numbers were endless. It was over.

  ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘We are not yet done.’

  They had already forged a legend here, and there was more killing to be done before the Argellonites would admit defeat. His pride in his warriors surged.

  ‘To me, Argellonites!’ he roared. ‘We march to glory!’

  Ahead of him, a Decimator Paladin ran forwards, sweeping his great starsoul mace into a cluster of the enemy. The fabulous weapon exploded with heavenly radiance, and a wave of star motes slammed into several orruks, sending them flying backwards, smoking and smouldering. The Decimator turned, searching for more targets.

  There was a clamour that echoed above the chaos of battle, the sound of primal savagery made manifest.

  From out of the swirling dust roared a colossal figure, half a head taller than the Stormcast. Skulls and other grisly trophies hung from its mighty iron battle-plate. Every inch of the creature rippled with muscle, and its head was a brutal slab of scarred flesh that culminated in a wedge of a jaw filled with filthy, yellowed tusks. The creature raised a huge, jagged cleaver that dripped with gore, and brought it down into the Decimator’s back.

 

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