The Black Rift of Klaxus: Assault on the Mandrake Bastion Read online

  ASSAULT ON THE MANDRAKE BASTION

  Josh Reynolds

  ‘Forward! For Sigmar, for Azyrheim, and for the Realm Celestial!’ Orius Adamantine roared, as he and the Stormcasts of his Warrior Chamber fought their way up the ashen slopes of the Tephra Crater. They battled through the crumbled barrows of a fallen people, and amongst swirling clouds of ash stirred into being by the burning, acidic rain which pelted down from the ominous sky. Its sizzling droplets left black streaks on the golden war-plate of the Stormcasts. Jagged streaks of azure lightning thrashed in the belly of the clouds, and the storm grew in intensity as the Hammers of Sigmar plunged into the fray.

  The Lord-Celestant’s sigmarite runeblade slashed out to cleave a bloodreaver’s head from his shoulders, even as his hammer crushed the skull of another. More enemies surged towards him, hurling themselves down the slope through the burning rain with savage abandon. Crude axes and jagged blades hacked at him, drawing sparks from his golden war-plate.

  ‘Forward, my Adamantine,’ he shouted, smashing a bloodreaver from his path. ‘Let no foe bar thy path, no mercy stay thy hand – grind them under!’

  Liberators advanced up the northern slope of the Tephra Crater, moving through the rocky barrows in tight formation, shields locked against the blood-addled tide that sought to sweep them from their path. They marched in lockstep, never wavering or slowing, but steadily ascending. Behind them came the Judicator retinues, their skybolt bows singing. They launched crackling shafts of energy into the air over the heads of the advancing Liberators to explode amongst the enemy. Rank upon rank of the Bloodbound fell but more pressed forward, clambering over the dead in their eagerness to come to the grips with the Stormcasts.

  The retinues of the Adamantine fought their way towards the rudimentary palisades that stretched across the curve of the slope. Crafted from volcanic stone, with trees torn from the rim of the crater many miles above, these palisades were larger and sturdier than those Orius’ chamber had brought down on the lower slopes. Tribes of bloodreavers occupied those unsophisticated ramparts, defending them on behalf of the monster who had descended into the crater to drown it in blood.

  ‘Anhur,’ Orius growled, unable to restrain the sudden surge of anger at the thought of the Khornate warlord as he smashed a bloodreaver to the ground. The Scarlet Lord had made a name for himself as he carved a path of carnage across the Felstone Plains. There were monsters aplenty plaguing Aqshy, but the Scarlet Lord was no simple blood-soaked raider or warmonger. He had purpose, and that made him deadly indeed.

  But then, you always were one for plans, Orius thought. A face surfaced from among his scattered memories, the face of a man he’d once served. Angrily, he banished the memory. That man was as dead as the man Orius had been. Only the Scarlet Lord remained.

  Twice before they’d fought, in those first red days of war, as the storm broke over Aqshy. He’d been in the vanguard at the assault on the Bale-Furnace, where the Bloodbound forged terrible weapons. Anhur had been amongst those warlords gathered there, to pay homage to the twisted furnace kings in return for weapons and armour. The Scarlet Lord had retreated across the Furnace Lands, taking whatever fell artefacts he’d bargained for with him.

  Warrior Chambers from no fewer than three Stormhosts had pursued the warlord to the Hissing Gates and brought him to battle amidst the searing geysers. There, for the first time, Orius had met his enemy face-to-face… A crimson figure, awaiting him beyond the boiling breath of countless geysers. The sound of their blades clashing… a moment of recognition… He shook his head, thrusting the memories aside. Anhur had beaten the Stormcasts back then, mauling them badly enough that they could not pursue him as he led his warriors across the Felstone Plains.

  Why Anhur had come to the Tephra Crater, to Klaxus, Orius did not know, but he would deliver the creature up to the judgement of Sigmar regardless. He drove his shoulder into a barbarian’s sternum, splintering bone and killing the warrior instantly. He swatted the body aside and forged onward, a trail of crushed and broken bloodreavers marking his progress. Retributor retinues waded through the battle in his wake, their heavy lightning hammers striking with all the force of the storm itself. With every blow a resounding clap of thunder shook the air, and crackling sky-magics ripped apart the bodies of the foe.

  Working in unison, hammers rising and falling with a brutal rhythm, the Retributors cleared a path for their fellow paladins – the Decimator and Protector retinues who would punch through the Bloodbound lines and lead the assault on the palisades. At Orius’ signal, the Decimators surged forward, plunging past him, deep into the enemy lines. Their thunderaxes reaped a red harvest as severed limbs and decapitated heads were flung skyward.

  As the bloodreavers reeled beneath the counter-assault, Orius and the remaining paladins fell in behind the advancing Decimators. The stormstrike glaives of the Protectors wove searing patterns in the air as they shielded the Liberators from attack, and the lightning hammers of the Retributors tore great holes in the enemy battle-line. Soon, the fur-and-brass-clad tribesmen were in retreat, staggering back through the swirling clouds of soot and stinging rain.

  The Stormcasts did not pause in their advance. Orius signalled to his auxiliary command, indicating that they should press onward. They had to reach the palisade before the enemy regrouped. He knew similar scenes were being played out across the circumference of the crater, on every slope. Warrior Chambers from a dozen different Stormhosts – the Hallowed Knights, the Astral Templars, Celestial Vindicators, and more – were fighting their way up these ash-choked slopes, smashing aside the bastions and stone bulwarks of the enemy in an effort to reach the rim of the Tephra Crater.

  They all shared the same purpose, but each chamber had its own objective. To the south, the Hallowed Knights of the Stormforged Chamber fought to breach the enormous basalt gates which straddled the path to rim-citadel of Ytalan. On the western slope, Lord-Celestant Zephacleas led the Astral Templars of the Beast-Bane Chamber against the howling hordes which guarded an ancient duardin road through the Raxulian lava-tubes. But to Orius and his chamber had fallen the task of clearing the Mandrake Bastion of Klaxus, and scouring that kingdom clean of the Blood God’s taint.

  My kingdom, Orius thought, as he stalked forward, at the head of his warriors. While he, like many Stormcasts, could but dimly recall the days of his own mortality before his death and Reforging at Sigmar’s hand, Orius remembered enough. He could still recall the heady musk of the Ashen Jungle after rain, and the way the colossal roots of the immense trees had wound through the walls and streets of Uryx. The jungle and the city were one, and its people comfortable in either. He had been comfortable in either. Klaxus had been his home.

  And now, he who had been Oros of Ytalan had returned to save it.

  Yet though he remembered some things, others were lost to him. The day of his death, for instance. He remembered war – no, an uprising – as the people thought to throw off the shackles of oppression, but little else. Anhur had been there then, clad in the black armour of Ytalan, as Orius himself had been. He could not even say whose side he had fought on, save that he had fought for the right reasons. Otherwise, Sigmar would not have chosen him.

  His reverie was broken by the voice of his Lord-Relictor.

  ‘This is the third of these filthy bastions in as many days, Orius,’ Moros Calverius said, as he joined his Lord-Celestant at the fore. ‘How many more dung-heaps must we scatter across these slopes?’

  Holy lightning crawled across Calverius’ golden mortis armour. It wreathe
d his limbs and formed a crackling halo about his skull-shaped war-helm. In one hand he gripped the haft of his reliquary staff, and in his other he held a sigmarite hammer, its head marked with the runes of life and death. ‘Not that I mind the exercise, you understand, but I would like to believe we are making some form of progress, even if your strategy does not call for it.’

  Orius grunted. There were still many miles between the Adamantine and the Mandrake Bastion, and with every palisade they toppled, the enemy seemed to redouble in strength. But he had expected that – he’d fought the Bloodbound before. He knew that they favoured attack over defense to a monomaniacal degree, and that the only way to break them fully was to blindside them. To that end, he’d dispatched the Angelos retinues of the Adamantine, led by Kratus, the chamber’s Knight-Azyros, to catch the enemy unawares. Kratus would assault what few forces had been left to guard the Mandrake Bastion, even as Orius and the rest of the chamber distracted the bulk of the foe. ‘You disagree with my plan, Lord-Relictor?’

  Moros chuckled. ‘No, my Lord-Celestant. Merely making an observation.’ He raised his staff. ‘The palisade draws close. And it appears Tarkus has beaten us there, as ever.’

  Orius peered towards the palisade and saw a number of Liberator retinues racing ahead of the rest of the chamber. They followed the gleaming figure of Tarkus, Knight-Heraldor of the Adamantine, as he chopped himself a red path through the enemy. As they watched, Tarkus raised his battle-horn and blew a bellicose note, exhorting his brethren onwards towards the gates and the palisade.

  ‘He was ever eager to take the fight to the foe,’ Orius said, annoyed. Tarkus was as brave and fierce as gryph-hound, but seemed to lack a single iota of that animal’s common sense. More than once, the Knight-Heraldor had found himself ahead of his brothers, alone amongst the enemy. Yet even so, he persevered. Where his horn sounded, victory soon followed.

  ‘We should join him, unless we wish to be left behind,’ Moros said.

  ‘And so we shall. Galerius, to the fore,’ Orius said. The heavily armoured shape of the Knight-Vexillor of the Adamantine pushed his way through the marching Protectors, the battle-standard of the chamber clutched in one gauntlet. ‘Moros, you and your warriors are with me – we shall join Tarkus. Galerius, lead our brethren forward.’

  Galerius nodded. He raised the battle-standard of the Adamantine high, so that the celestial energies which crackled about it were visible to the eye of every Stormcast. Liberators moved forward at his signal, shields held at a steep angle as they ascended towards the palisade. Judicators followed them, firing over their heads in an attempt to drive the Bloodbound back. As the bulk of the chamber’s forces continued their steady ascent, Orius and Moros led their Paladins forward, clearing the way as they had before.

  The Bloodbound were in full retreat now. All but the canniest of the bloodreaver chieftains had fallen, and those who remained were bodily dragging their warriors away from battle. Even as he fought his way towards them, Orius saw the crude gates rise on ropes of woven scalp-hair and brass chains, pulled up by savage tribesman at the bellowed command of a bulky, lash-wielding warrior. Bloodreavers flooded out of the gates, howling war-songs as they trampled their own retreating comrades. Brutal duels broke out amid the carnage as chieftains and tribesmen clashed, fighting for survival.

  The Decimator retinues waded into the madness, cleaving the combatants apart with broad strokes. Soon, the remaining bloodreavers were streaming back through the gates, their berserk courage broken. Orius picked up speed, running now as the gates began to close. Jagged spears and crude javelins, crafted from bone and wood, pelted from the top of the palisade, splintering against sigmarite armour. The Bloodbound had little liking for such weapons, but they employed them when necessary.

  Even as he reached the palisade, the gates thumped down with finality. There were still some bloodreavers left on the slope, but they were isolated and easily picked apart by his warriors as they advanced. Tarkus met him at the palisade, his armour streaked with gore and ash, but his enthusiasm undimmed.

  ‘Unwelcoming lot, aren’t they, my lord?’ he called, ignoring the chunks of stone and bone-tipped spears that rained down around him. ‘I’ve half a mind to blow this filthy nest of theirs right over.’

  ‘If memory serves, you got the last one,’ Moros said. He lashed out with his reliquary, smashing a javelin from the air.

  ‘And so? Am I not the herald? Is that not my duty, Lord-Relictor?’ Tarkus said. A chunk of volcanic rock bounced off his helm.

  Orius waved Moros to silence. ‘It is your duty to announce us, Knight-Heraldor. Blow your horn and let them know we are soon among them.’ He motioned the paladin retinues to the fore. As the Liberators raised their shields over their heads to absorb the rain of rocks, javelins and spears, the heavily armoured Retributors and Decimators ploughed forward. He looked at the Lord-Relictor. ‘Moros, yours is the honour this time. Open the gate, O Master of the Celestial Lightning. Let them know the fury of the Power Aetheric.’

  Moros whirled his staff about and slammed the sigmarite ferrule down against the hard black stones. As he did so, he spoke, fiercely and fast, firing the words as if from a skybolt bow. They shivered on the air as they left his lips, and Orius felt the power of them reverberate through him. The Lord-Relictor was calling upon Sigmar, and such a thing never failed to invigorate those Stormcasts who heard it. The glow about him grew brighter and brighter. With a roar that shook the ground, an immense bolt of lightning punched through the palisade, ripping away the gate and much of the wall besides. Dust filled the air, and the Stormcasts moved immediately to take control of the gap.

  Decimators and Retributors widened the smoking hole, smashing aside burning bones and sections of charred stone so that the Liberators could step forward, shields locked. They formed a shield wall before the gap, marching forward slowly so as to make room for the other Stormcasts. The bodies of those Bloodbound unlucky enough to be too close to the gates when Moros shattered them lay scattered all around, and any survivors were quickly dispatched as the Stormcasts moved into the palisade.

  As the smoke cleared, Orius saw that the Bloodbound had built their fortress on the plundered remains of hundreds of barrows. Savage altars of brass and iron, spewing red smoke, had been set up beneath primitive stone monoliths. These enormous pillars were covered in the hateful runes of the Ruinous Powers. Standards and daemonic icons had been stabbed into the rocky soil in haphazard fashion, and their number stretched back up the slope as far as the eye could see. Bodies hung from some of these – flayed, burned and broken by the savage tribesmen who even now gathered beneath them. Croaking carrion birds perched on iron crossbeams, pecking at human wreckage or watching silently from atop the monoliths.

  ‘Thus does the Blood God claim his killing fields,’ Moros murmured. Bloodreavers crept through the forest of icons and hanging bodies, chanting the name of their foul god. Larger shapes moved behind them – not Blood Warriors, but something else, something worse. Huge mutation-scarred warriors, clad in heavy half-plate the colour of freshly spilled blood, loped forward, smashing aside icons and any bloodreaver too slow to get out of their path.

  ‘Skullreapers,’ Tarkus muttered. ‘The head hunters of Khorne.’ Then, with a laugh, he added, ‘They must have heard we were here.’

  Past the skullreapers, Orius saw a heavy-set figure standing on top of a crumbled barrow, exhorting the bloodreavers forward with gestures and the kiss of an expertly applied lash. He was clad in battered armour marked prominently with the rune of Khorne, and wearing a helm made from the split jaw-bone of some savage beast. His flesh was the colour of a fresh bruise and one hand had been replaced by a cruel trident, anchored in the raw, red stump of his wrist.

  ‘The fat one – I know his kind. A bloodstoker. He’s lashing the others into a frenzy,’ Moros said. ‘They’ll drive us back through sheer momentum unless we break them now.’ Even as he spoke, th
e bloodreavers began their charge. They came in a howling wave, closing in on the Adamantine shield wall from all directions.

  ‘Then break them we shall. Set your standard, Galerius,’ Orius said. ‘We shall take not a single step backward. We smash them or they smash us. There will be no retreat. You will hold here until there is nothing left to hold.’

  ‘Aye, my lord,’ Galerius said, stabbing his standard pole into the rocky ground. ‘Let them come, and break themselves on our shields. None may withstand us.’

  The Bloodbound crashed against the shield wall a moment later. Clouds of dust thrown up by their charge washed across Orius and his auxiliary commanders. The rattle of sigmarite meeting brass and iron filled the air.

  ‘No one seems to have informed our enemies of that,’ Moros said, as he directed his Protectors forward to bolster the shield wall. ‘Then, they seem a fairly primitive lot… Perhaps they simply don’t understand what and who they face.’

  ‘They understand,’ Orius said, watching as the Liberators locked shields and pressed the enemy back. ‘They know us by now, Moros. See how eagerly they run to us, and how joyfully they accept the gifts we bring.’ He raised his runeblade to point at a howling tribesman. The warrior had managed to clamber over the shields of the Liberators and had fallen behind the shield wall, his body covered in grievous wounds but his fury undimmed. As he struggled to rise, Orius removed his head.

  ‘Moros, Galerius, hold the line,’ Orius bellowed. ‘Tarkus, with me. Form up. Form up, my brothers – the enemies of all the realms stand before us.’ He gestured with his hammer and the Retributors swung into motion around him as he started forward, Tarkus at his side, leading them forwards. ‘Make a path, brothers,’ he cried, and the shield wall split with a crash of sigmarite. Orius led Tarkus and the others through the gap.

  The Retributors struck the bloodreavers like a mailed fist, driving deep into the frenzied bands of tattooed warriors. Bellowing chieftains and clan-champions were broken and cast down by the heavily armoured paladin retinues. Grisly battle standards were shattered and discarded, even as those who sought to defend them were cut down.