‘Ham-il-car. Ham-il-car.’
Through it all though, I have breath enough to yell my name.
‘Hamilcar!’
The construct’s gun empties with a whine of empty, spinning tubes. I kick the construct in its torso section, even though my warding aura dims. It is huge, but Sigmar’s Stormcasts are no featherweights. The war machine totters from me, its heavy tail curling and scraping underfoot.
With space enough to swing, I spin my halberd one-handed until it blurs. I pick my moment, stabbing at the vision grille, then pull back, twirling the haft again and striking the cutting edge through the belts of its gun-arm. Unspent bullets spill to the ground like ball bearings and scatter for the precipice. The pilot squeals in outrage. My halberd’s blade spits purple sparks as it parries the skaven’s steam-powered mace. Once, then twice. It is too big simply to block and I do not try, instead knocking it off target with timed strokes. By the third, my arm is ringing. I strike the mace-head with all my strength, hard enough to twist the entire war engine around, only for its massive chain-link tail to keep it balanced.
The backswing crunches into my breastplate. Working against its own momentum robs the blow of power, but there is enough left in its arm to crack the sigmarite and hurl me into the curtain wall.
I test my ribs with a big breath and stumble back along the wall until I am well out of its reach. Nothing is broken, and the restorative power of my lantern is already repairing my bruises.
At the same time, the skaven walker circles around, snickering.
A gap opens up between us.
‘Ham-il-car. Ham-il-car.’
I hear a crack and a fistful of granite explodes from the wall near to where I stand. A greenish curl of powder rises from the far side of the bridge.
I confess to being just a little impressed. Only a genuine marksman can miss by only a foot from upwards of six miles away.
‘One on one or all together,’ the war machine’s pilot cackles. ‘You squeak-say that it concerns you not.’
Even though it hurts my ribs, I have to laugh.
More shells burst in the wall around me. A titter rings from the skaven’s speech pipes. But I will make this work for me. Every Lord-Castellant knows the secret to a good defence.
I hurl myself at the skaven machine with a cry, my toecaps leaving the earth as I leap through the skaven fire, and bring my halberd slamming down onto the construct’s hunched shoulders.
The blow smashes a smoke stack in half, causing it to splutter and cough. I duck under the swinging mace and elbow the construct under the heavily scaffolded armpit joint. It does no damage, but raises a hollow clang from inside the machine, which, judging from the tooth-grinding, claw-scratching and body-writhing sounds coming from inside, discomforts its pilot greatly.
The sniper fire trails off.
A few stray shots continue. Either the sharpshooters possess supreme confidence or they do not care either way if their master’s champion should be hit instead.
I keep close to the war machine, regardless.
The skaven lunges for me, meaning to crush me against the wall with its weight, but I am easier on my feet and slip out of its way. I strike the flat of my halberd into its back as we part ways. A harrowing squeal issues from the machine as brakes are applied and gears shift, only the drag of its tail keeping it from ploughing straight into the wall without me.
I grin.
My halberd hums as it gains speed. The construct swings its useless gun-arm, but I avoid it, stepping behind the mechanical beast. ‘Sigmar, lend me strength!’ I turn my halberd’s path downwards, letting my lantern clatter to the ground as, at the last instant, I take the haft two-handed for maximum power.
God-forged sigmarite shears through steel like a lightning bolt, severing the war machine’s tail from its body at the first and thickest link in the chain.
The skaven squeals in outrage as it comes about. It raises its mace and brings it crashing down. I jump back and the skaven’s mace smashes into the ground. Aftershocks run through the stone and shake me off balance as soon as my feet are on the ground. A jab from the construct’s gun-arm is enough to knock me down.
I hear a gasp from the walls as the war machine lifts its mace for the death blow.
It is a ridiculously overconfident move, baring one’s body to an opponent in that way, however finished he may appear. I understand confidence though, and nothing breeds it in a skaven like a winning position. Or an armoured war machine nine feet tall.
I swing around my halberd so the ferrule that reinforces the wooden haft’s base wedges against the construct’s eye grate. With a heave, I punt its intended blow over me and into the fortress wall. Its gun-arm whirls as it finds itself over-committed and tail-less and, slowly, it begins to pitch forwards. Using my halberd again, I give it one final nudge, driving its torso into the wall as I tuck my knees into my chest and roll back from underneath it.
The pilot squeals as the construct tips onto its side and grinds agonisingly down the fortress wall. I plant my boot on its mace arm, pinning it down, and hoist my halberd like a standard for my watching men.
‘Ham-il-car! Ham-il-car!’
I turn to look across the gulf to the far peak, surprised that the snipers’ efforts have not picked up again now there is no danger of accidentally hitting their own. I strain my eyes, waiting for the distinctive cloud that will warn me of the shot before I hear it, but see nothing.
‘Gallant of you, Master Ikrit,’ I mutter under my breath.
The crunch of boots on loose ground turns me round.
The sight of Vikaeus’ Veritant mask is instantly chilling, more so than all the hard looks and icy disdain her flesh could ever convey. Her judgement blade is drawn, both its serrated edge and her pearl-white armour sprayed with blood. I can hear screams from the city behind her, but they are some way off and appear to be contained. The smell of burning is faint on the winds too. Crow squeezes through the open gate beside her. He is carrying something wet in his mouth. Rather than greet me, he sinks onto his belly beside the downed war machine and curls up to gnaw on his bounty. It is a skaven arm.
I lower my weapon.
‘You managed to foil the skaven’s intended plan?’ I ask.
Vikaeus’ mask simply stares, as if incapable of speech.
‘So,’ I answer for her, ‘Hamilcar is no fool after all. With his sweat and valour did he distract the verminous hosts long enough for you and Akturus to find their point of attack. Come, now, you can say it.’
There is a splitting, crunching noise as Crow breaks into the marrow.
Vikaeus drives her still wet blade into its scabbard. ‘Your recklessness will return to haunt you one day, Bear-Eater.’ Her voice resonates from behind her mask. ‘My vision is far from played out.’
Without another word, she turns and walks away.
I frown down at Crow, who is gorging on skaven flesh. An increasingly desperate scratching emanates from the war machine beneath my boot. I close my eyes, hoping that the battering of the Seven Winds on my face will distract me from how Vikaeus’ words trouble me.
‘Very well,’ I mutter, once I am confident she is gone. ‘You don’t have to say it. I hear it is the hardest word.’
About the Author
David Guymer is the author of the Iron Hands novel Eye of Medusa and Echoes of the Long War for The Beast Arises series. For Warhammer, he is best-known for his Gotrek & Felix novels Slayer, Kinslayer and City of the Damned, along with the novella Thorgrim. He is also responsible for a plethora of short stories set in the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. David is a freelance writer based in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and was a finalist in the 2014 David Gemmell Legend Awards for his skaven novel