Ladders rose and fell with mechanical certainty and mutant spawn began to drag hideously deformed and twisted bulks up the sheer face of the city’s defences. Claws, tentacles and grasping paws dug deep, finding purchase where they could, or digging into the obsidian surface.
The fighting was most intense wherever knots of black-armoured druchii held the line. They wielded barbed halberds with consummate skill, cutting down marauders and beastmen with an economy of motion that belied the size of their weapons. Valkia, flying overhead, allowed herself the briefest of moments of satisfaction at the sight. So much slaughter was a pleasing thing and her pride swelled. It was time, she reasoned, to make her entrance.
Her eyes narrowed as they fell upon one of the dark elves. The warrior wielded an impressively ornate glaive. He held himself with the stance of a seasoned fighter, his ragged, scarlet cloak streaming behind him. This champion was a murderous blur, his blade claiming lives without pause. He weaved in and out of his own warriors, leaving them unharmed. Valkia approved and she admired. But more importantly, she had found her prey.
Valkia plunged from the sky like comet, a piercing death-shriek on her lips as she descended on the wall. The impact of her landing caused a network of cracks to spread through the ancient, black stone. Her own people and the druchii scattered in every direction, forced apart by the mighty shockwave. She straightened her back, proud, aloof, her noble face raised in defiance of those who stood in her way. She had impaled one of the Black Guard on her spear when she landed. She stared impassively at the shivering corpse then shook it free with a flick of her wrist. This done, she turned to confront her prey, the dark elf champion.
She allowed herself a moment or two to appreciate the finesse and skill that the creature brought to his craft. His whirling, dizzying dance brought him now to a complete halt, his fixing upon hers. She watched, every sense fully alert as he brought the halberd around. He held the weapon before him, ready to confront her.
Screaming faces in her armour plating twisted and contorted as she moved, every step the prowl of a true predator. The joints between the armour plates stretched like exposed sinew as she drew her wings against her back. She tipped her head on one side and bared her fangs in a parody of a sultry smile. Her eyes ranged up and down the elf’s sinewy form, clad in barbed armour and coated in a fine film of blood and gore.
An old hunger bubbled up inside her. It was the most exhilarating feeling she knew and it always came just prior to claiming a skull worthy of the throne of brass. Such a skull was a prize trophy and her consort would commend her for dropping it at his feet.
‘Let us dance, you and I,’ she purred and the two warriors closed the short distance between them, coming together with a clash of steel.
Darkhand’s cloak whipped out behind behind him and his weapon turned in his grasp like a living thing. Spear and halberd fell against each other in a hail of blows faster than the eye could follow, the Black Guard’s speed matched by the daemon queen’s ferocity. Anything attempting to breach the furious circle of their battle died, crushed, beheaded or simply struck aside with casual disregard.
From his position several feet away, Kruath could not help but let his attention be drawn towards the staggering display of skill and brutality. Something about the proximity of the daemon woman fired the bloodlust in his soul, bringing forth a desperate and driving need to turn and launch himself once more at the enemy. It took extreme control on his part to force down the temptation to give in to the berserker rage, and even then he only barely managed to grip on to his senses.
The crash of weapons helped pull him from his inner struggle and he caught a glimpse of the tip of Valkia’s spear as she lunged for Darkhand. Its tip glistened in the light of the fires raging in the background of the confrontation, and Kruath wondered if it was poisoned. Afterwards, a near miss spattered his captain’s breastplate with what he realised was blood. The spear wept sticky ichor – perhaps even the blood of those that it had slain.
Kouran Darkhand’s eyes were fixed on the daemon princess’s form, which was clad in crimson plates of screaming souls. Kruath imagined that his superior was attempting to gauge her weaknesses to find a flaw in her battle stance that he could exploit. Darkhand was a seasoned, fearless warrior; he would find some way to win this battle. Kruath watched as the captain of the Black Guard let out a bellow of rage and surged forward to re-engage Valkia in battle.
Darkhand and Valkia’s deadly skirmish brought them within arm’s reach of Kruath and her pervading scent tickled his senses. A strange smell emanated from the daemon when she got close: a heady concoction of scents. There was the unmistakable copper reek of spilled blood mingled with the floral smell of decaying roses, which produced a perfume at odds with itself. It was sweet but cloying and sharpened with the bitter taint of corruption.
The hypnotic effect of Valkia’s odour passed. Two barbarians charged towards Kruath, breaking the spell of fascination that had kept his attention so riveted. Within minutes both of them lay dead beneath his sword. One barbarian gurgled and tumbled from the walls, his throat slit from ear to ear. The other fell to a fatal stomach wound.
Kruath kicked the dead barbarians from the wall and moved a few inches closer to Darkhand and Valkia, wanting more than anything to plunge his blade into her armoured back. Watching her fight was an education in itself. He had learned his own blade-craft on the streets of Naggarond, murdering his way to supremacy until his conscription. He knew his skill with the sword was greater than most of these untried thugs who dared to call themselves Black Guard. What were they next to him? He had survived Volroth while so many others had perished. If he could bring down Valkia or even simply wound her... then his ascension in the ranks would be assured.
Kruath blinked. He had always been filled with belief in his own abilities, but this was something even stronger. Now he was more than confident of his own capabilities. He knew he could achieve everything his heart desired.
But such a thing, the ever-diminishing logical side of his personality, told him it would only be a possibility if he could manage to control the rising urge to kill everything. And kill. And kill.
Kruath’s eyes were drawn to the daemonic head mounted on the shield Valkia wore. To his crawling horror, it swivelled its hideous eyes and looked right back at him. The needle-fanged mouth curled upwards in a wicked smile and a forked tongue flickered out and ran a line around the thin, reptilian lips.
Come closer, boy, came a whispering, sibilant hiss in the confines of his head. Kruath shook his head, blinking hard to shake the sensation. He had been mind-touched before by one of the city sorceresses and he had despised the feeling then. This was magnified exponentially and brought bile rushing to his throat. The daemon’s eyes closed once, before flaring wide open. The previously black irises were replaced by steadily glowing orbs of arterial scarlet. It was a piercing, hypnotic stare and Kruath felt inexplicably drawn to it.
Come closer. Is she not magnificent? Is she not glorious? Come, boy. Embrace the bride of Khorne. Bask in her glory. And then, when you can bear her majesty no more, take your sword and run it through her. Slaughter Valkia the Bloody where she stands. Do this thing and my god’s reward to you will be infinite.
The daemon shield’s words were utterly compelling and Kruath knew that it was possible. A brief thought fluttered through his consciousness, wondering why it was that this daemonic thing was whispering promises to him and not to Darkhand. Surely the captain was the greater threat? And then Kruath knew. The daemon clearly understood that he, Kruath, was the greater warrior. He could kill Valkia.