‘No!’ Vale hacked at the dead man’s neck, nearly severing his head. From all sides, more dead hands clutched at him. He turned, slashing his sword out, lopping off fingers and tearing wounds in the bodies of his former subordinates. As he fought his way clear, towards Doula and the few remaining survivors, he saw the dark, shroud-clad warrior stride away through the carnage, followed by the hunched thing and the lantern-bearing nightmare.
‘Fall back,’ Vale shouted, as he hurried towards his men. ‘The northern gate is lost. Fall back!’
‘What about the lord-arcanum?’ Doula asked, face pale.
Vale tossed a glance towards the gatehouse, where the fighting still raged. He could hear the snarl of lightning and the screech of a gryph-charger. But the dead were pouring through, and they were too few to stop them.
‘Sigmar help him,’ Vale said, turning away. ‘Sigmar help us all.’
Lord-Celestant Lynos swept his runeblade out and sent a deadwalker’s head tumbling away. The dead were pouring into the city. Gheists and spectres swirled through the streets, shrieking and cackling. Worse, those who died in their attacks were invariably drawn to their feet and set against those who’d failed to save them.
All along the city’s central artery, the Anvils of the Heldenhammer fought to protect the citizens still fleeing from the outer districts, towards the presumed safety of the inner. A tide of panicked humanity flooded the wide street, pushing and shoving, as a horde of deadwalkers harried them on all sides. Lynos could hear the thunder of artillery, as the great cannon batteries of the Ironweld fired at something outside the city.
‘Lock shields and hold,’ Lynos bellowed. ‘Form a corridor – every mortal life preserved is one less walking corpse we must face later.’ Shields locked together at his command, and two walls of black sigmarite suddenly lined either side of the avenue. Judicators took up positions behind the bulwark of Liberators, their bows humming.
‘Pragmatic as ever, my lord,’ Varo Tyrmane called from close by. The captain-general of the Glymmsmen sat astride a night-black destrier, surrounded by his black-clad bodyguards. The heavily armoured mortals carried great, two-handed blades, edged with silver and blessed by the Grand Theogonist. More soldiers in the uniform of the Glymmsmen were attempting to control the crowd, and keep the evacuation as orderly as possible.
‘What news, Tyrmane? Are your warriors holding?’ Lynos shouted, hefting a deadwalker with his blade and hurling it aside. ‘I hope you haven’t come to tell me that you’re calling for a retreat already.’
‘No retreat, my lord. The Glymmsmen will hold, until the lord-arcanum commands otherwise. I merely came to provide aid in the evacuation efforts. My men here can protect the civilians, if yours can keep the deadwalkers penned at the other end of the avenue.’
‘We can,’ Lynos said. He lifted his hammer and signalled to the closest cohort of Liberators. The Liberator-Prime raised his own weapon in acknowledgement, before slamming it against the rim of his shield in precise fashion. The cohort stepped out of line as one, raising their shields and pressing the shuffling dead back. This action was repeated along the line, as each cohort advanced in turn, forcing the deadwalkers back. Judicators trotted in their wake, loosing volley after volley at the rear ranks of the dead.
At their best, Stormcasts functioned with mechanical precision. Each cohort fought in synch with the others. Unfortunately, the dead were equally disciplined, in their own way. Not like a mechanism, but like a single organism. A single mind, peering through a thousand eyes and reaching with a thousand hands.
But that mind could be distracted. Lynos glanced towards the cohort of Decimators who acted as his bodyguard. He clashed his weapons together, catching their leader’s attention. ‘Ocarius, dispersed formation. Time to fight as heroes and earn the songs the mortals sing about you, brother.’
‘Finally – I’ve been waiting for this,’ Ocarius growled. ‘Up, axe-men – there is a forest of hands and teeth in need of clearing.’
Lynos fell in step with Ocarius and led the wedge of Decimators through the shield wall. They crashed into the seething masses of the dead and set to work. Great axes flickered out in a sharp rhythm, hacking through legs, spines and shoulders, as the Decimators steadily advanced and spread out, each warrior carving his own path through the dead. And the deadwalkers responded in kind, turning on this new threat and away from the shield wall.
By dispersing themselves, they lessened the pressure on the shield wall, allowing the cohorts that made it up to focus on isolating and despatching the thickest knots of deadwalkers. Thus was the strength of a horde turned back on itself. At least temporarily.
He heard a shout of warning from above and turned to see a pack of dead beasts – wolves, or perhaps jackals – loping towards him. He dropped to one knee and brought his hammer down on the street, rupturing the cobbles. Lightning sawed through the cracks in the surface of the street, and a cleansing flame enveloped the pack of rotting curs. Lynos looked up as the winged form of a Stormcast Prosecutor swooped low overhead. ‘My thanks for the warning, Sleekwing,’ he called out.
Galen Sleekwing dropped from the air, his twin hammers snapping out to send deadwalkers tumbling. He spun, moving smoothly, clearing space with his crackling wings. The feathers could slice through flesh and bone as easily as any blade. Above, Sleekwing’s warriors sped across the avenue, sending hammers of aetheric energy whirling into the packed masses of the dead. The Prosecutor-Prime fought his way towards Lynos, until they stood back-to-back. ‘That’s not the only warning I bring, my lord,’ he said. ‘The northern mausoleum gate has fallen. Lord-Arcanum Knossus is pulling back.’
Lynos hesitated. ‘Orius?’
‘Holding the eastern mausoleum gate, still. There’s only one breach, but the dead are assaulting everywhere along the wall. The arcanogram does little to hold back deadwalkers, especially in these numbers. It’s as if the desert has vomited up every corpse buried beneath the sand. Even Vaslbad’s army wasn’t this big.’
‘One breach is all they need.’ He turned, scanning the avenue. ‘But there’s more to it. The deadwalkers are a distraction – meant to keep us occupied.’ He looked up.
The nighthaunts streaming through the skies weren’t attacking, not in any concentrated manner. Most of them seemed intent on going somewhere. Worse, up the street, towards the outer walls, he could see more deadwalkers, shambling not towards the battle, but the heart of the city. ‘Where are they going?’ Sleekwing said.
‘The Grand Tempestus,’ Lynos said.
‘Back! Fall back, if you value your lives – this foe is beyond you,’ Balthas roared. Mortal soldiers streamed past him, retreating to the Grand Tempestus. He was a voice of authority, and they obeyed quickly. Deadwalkers clambered over or through the barricades, their moans rising and mingling with the shrieks of the nighthaunts who hurtled in all directions through the rain-swept air.
The dead had come upon them suddenly. First the nighthaunts, pouring through Glymmsforge’s high canyons of stone like a flock of hungry crows. Then, following more slowly, the deadwalkers. Most were sun-blasted, sand-scoured carrion. Others were fresher, wearing torn uniforms, the blood still wet on the wounds that had slain them.
The nighthaunts slipped through barricades and even shields as if they weren’t there, killing with abandon. The Freeguild soldiers were little match for the spectres, especially in such numbers. Those on the rooftops had died first, plucked into the dark sky and dashed to the cobbles below. Or, worse, they simply vanished – leaving behind only their screams of agony. Even the duardin weren’t immune.