Zephacleas and the others were close now, advancing on the Setaen Palisades in force. There was no sign of the seraphon vanguard, and he suspected the skaven had killed them. He could hear the thunder of his Prosecutors’ hammers and the echoing shrieks of the seraphon flyers in the distance as they converged on his position, cutting off the skaven’s routes of retreat and attack as they came. But swift as they were, they would not reach the palisades before the skaven had regrouped and made ready to defend it. It was up to him to keep the enemy in disarray, by any means necessary.
He loosed arrow after arrow and skaven died, their robed forms pinned to the ground. They fled before his shadow as he swooped overhead. He rolled through the air, passing between the wooden structures which lined the strange, suppurating holes in the worm’s flesh. Skaven clung to the towers, and scrambled towards the upper platforms, shrieking and waving foetid blades at him threateningly. He aimed himself towards the cages he saw scattered about the courtyard. There were almost a hundred mortals trapped in those stinking constructions, perhaps more. Squealing skaven leapt at him, driven to suicidal extremes by fear and frenzy.
Mantius twisted and banked, avoiding some. Others he smashed from the air with his wings or his bow. Its sigmarite length crushed bone and pulped flesh as easily as a hammer. He flew the gauntlet and dropped from the air to land on one of the cages. The scent of illness and gangrene rose from those trapped within. Hands reached up through the cage, clutching at his legs. ‘Back,’ he roared. He tore an arrow from his quiver and slashed the point across the bindings holding the cage together, and with a kick, burst it wide.
‘Now — out, quickly,’ he said. Skaven scurried towards the cage, squealing in outrage. He readied and fired arrows as quickly as he could. Nock and loose, nock and loose, he thought, emptying his mind of all but that lethal rhythm. The cage shivered beneath his feet as men and women fought to further widen the gap he had created. Good. Some of them at least were taking advantage of the opportunity he’d afforded them.
‘Fight, sons and daughters of Shu’gohl,’ he shouted. ‘Fight for your lives.’
As he spoke, he heard Aurora shriek in warning. He flung himself backwards in the nick of time. Two curved scythe-like blades drew sparks from Mantius’ chest and back as the verminlord’s weight knocked him from the air. They rolled across the top of the cage, trading blows. Mantius’ wings burnt furrows in the cage as he slid across it, the verminlord atop him. The daemon slashed its blades down at him, and he interposed his bow, grunting as the blows connected. ‘Aurora,’ he called out.
The star-eagle shrieked and darted down, clawing hunks out of the verminlord. For a moment, the Knight-Venator thought the raptor might drive the daemon off as it had before. But the verminlord was ready this time. As the bird swooped around it, the daemon ducked beneath her talons and impaled the raptor on one of its blades. Aurora shrieked in pain as cancerous strands spread through her flesh and tore her apart from the inside out.
Mantius’ heart lurched with pain and sorrow as the bird vanished in a burst of starlight and lightning. I am sorry, my friend — return to the stars, and hunt anew, he thought. Bow in both hands, he smashed it across the daemon’s shaggy head. It staggered, and he struck it again and again, battering it mercilessly. Its weapons clattered to the ground, and he drove it to one knee. As he made to strike it again, the daemon twisted and caught his bow in one claw. It wrenched the bow from his grip as it kicked him in the chest.
Before he could get his feet under him, the creature had caught him up. The verminlord slammed Mantius down hard enough to splinter the top of the cage. It jerked the dazed warrior up by his ankle and smashed him against it again, before flinging him off. Mantius hit the ground and lay still, breathing heavily, trying to make his limbs work.
The battering he’d taken had crumpled his armour and cracked his bones. Every breath brought a new spasm of pain, and his bow was lost. Arrows lay scattered across the ground where they’d spilled from his quiver. He caught sight of the glowing head of the star-fated arrow, and reached for it. One chance, he thought.
The courtyard was in chaos — mortals wielding improvised weapons fought desperately against the skaven, as winged shadows swooped overhead, thunderbolts in their hands. The ground shuddered beneath the tramp of marching feet. The Beast-bane had come at last, but too late, too slow. Mantius knew, with a sickening certainty, what was called for. What he had to do. Nock and loose, he thought.
‘Now, you die, storm-thing,’ the verminlord hissed as it stalked towards him. Mantius groaned and dragged himself towards the arrow. He caught hold of it, even as the verminlord grabbed the back of his head.
The creature wrenched him into the air, but the Knight-Venator twisted in its grip, lashing out with the star-fated arrow. The tip caught the verminlord in the eye socket, and exploded in a blaze of incandescent light. The creature dropped him and shrieked, clutching at its head. Its filthy mane was aflame, and the bone of its muzzle warped and deformed as if from a great heat. Mantius rose to his feet and scanned around for his bow.
Pain flared through him and he staggered. He looked down, and saw that a bloody, smoke-wreathed claw had erupted through the front of his chest-plate. A thick spew of steam rose from the wound, and he couldn’t draw breath. As he was lifted from his feet, he clutched clumsily at the claw with fingers that had gone numb.
‘You… hurt me,’ the daemon hissed. It ripped its claw free in a burst of smoke. Its forearm was aflame, but it caught hold of his head in both claws regardless. Its wormy muscles bunched, and the ache in the Knight-Venator’s head grew worse, as did the pain in his limbs. Mantius had just enough strength left to spit in the beast’s remaining eye, before it snapped his neck. The pain flared, growing into an all-consuming incandescence.
And then, he felt nothing… nothing, save the storm.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Lost Warren
Vretch coughed and stared up at the tangled network of shattered rock and withered roots which rose from the Squirming Sea. The Geistmaw warren had spread deep below the ancient fortress for which it was named, but that had not saved it from Shu’gohl’s hunger. It had been scooped up and crushed into the remains of the ruin, making a mangled reef of jutting towers and crumbling hummocks.
‘Quick-quick, we must find a way within — hurry, fools, hurry-hurry!’ he chittered, gesticulating weakly with his staff.
That small exertion had him breathing heavily. He could feel things moving, growing within him. Swelling with hideous hunger, eating away at his insides. He was dying — Skuralanx had killed him. He hunched forward against his staff, a whine escaping his mouth as his insides twisted, and fleshy blisters on his arms and back throbbed. In the light, he could see tiny, dark shapes squirming within the opalescent swellings. Worms, black worms, the kind which had drawn him here. A plague unlike any other, a plague which spread with every popped blister, moving faster than wildfire.
It was almost beautiful — indeed, he had often thought so, when experimenting upon his captives. But now he was starting to see the downside. ‘Not me, no-no,’ he snivelled.
Several of his monks glanced back at him, but not for long. He exposed his teeth in a grimace of chastisement, feeling the blisters on his muzzle pull tight as he did so. The worms moved within him. Their agitation grew as he neared their source, like metal filings drawn to a lodestone. Some plagues were like that, he knew. The Chattering Pox or the Glopsome Surge both grew in potency the closer one drew to their epicentre.