Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden Read online

  The vessel stank of rot and standing water. Everything dripped with slime, or flowered with barnacles. The captain bounded down a set of sagging steps towards him, cloak flaring about its narrow shoulders. Gardus casually beat aside the daemon’s blade and ran it through. It stumbled against him, body blackening to ash. He ripped his sword free, and it dispersed on the breeze. Down below, the last of the crew was disposed of by a blow from Feros’ hammer.

  ‘A less than satisfactory fight,’ Cadoc said, as he landed at the stern with a thump. ‘Greedy, fair Enyo, very greedy,’ he called up to the circling Knight-Venator.

  ‘Be silent, Cadoc,’ Morbus said as he climbed the ramp, ferrule thumping the wood with every step. He nodded to Gardus. ‘You are right. Our journey will be easier with a ship. Even a ship in this condition.’ Liberators and Judicators followed him, dispersing throughout the vessel to check for hidden foes.

  ‘Yes.’ Gardus strode down the line of rowers’ benches. The creatures chained there were strange indeed. Some of them might once have been human, but now they were malformed by disease and harsh treatment. Clusters of fungi and barnacles crusted their flesh, obscuring faces and reducing limbs to formless lumps. He could smell the blight within them, and knew it was too late. Even so, he was bound to try to help, if he could. He shattered a loop of chain with a single blow from his sword. ‘You are free,’ he said.

  The spirits stared at him in incomprehension. He broke another chain, freeing a second row. At his command, Liberators followed suit, smashing the chain loops. ‘Free,’ Gardus said again. ‘Do you not understand?’

  ‘They do not,’ Morbus said. ‘Nor, it seems, do you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you think that they were drawn here unwillingly? Some of them, perhaps, but not all. These souls have succumbed to Nurgle’s blandishments as surely as that creature we hold in chains. They know only despair, and no light we possess can draw them out of the dark.’

  ‘You cannot know that,’ Gardus said.

  ‘Look at them. Your light, Gardus. See how it pains them.’

  Gardus looked around. The rowers cowered back from him, hiding their eyes, their faces, as if they could not bear to look upon him. Morbus was right. He could not save them. Not this way. But neither did he have to let them remain in captivity. ‘Shatter all of the chains,’ he said harshly. ‘Free any trapped in the hold.’

  When the last of the chains had clattered to the deck, the souls rose. Not in unison, but in arhythmic fits and starts. More emerged from the hold, their moans rising and falling like a winter wind. The Stormcasts stood aside and let them pass. They flooded down the ramp and spilled into the marsh, scattering into the murk.

  ‘We cannot just let them go,’ a Liberator said, her voice startling in the silence that followed. ‘It is not right.’

  ‘Nothing about this place is right,’ Gardus said. He looked around. ‘The vessel is ours. The question now is how to get it moving.’

  ‘I dislike the thought of spending time on such a ship,’ Aetius said. The Liberator-Prime’s disgust was palpable.

  ‘You prefer walking?’ Solus said from where he sat on the rail.

  ‘Walking is the only honourable means of travel.’

  ‘Slow, though,’ Solus said. ‘And Tegrus might disagree. What say you, Sainted Eye?’

  Tegrus, perched on the mast above, laughed. ‘I could carry him in a sling. Like a babe in arms. And in armour.’

  ‘Quiet,’ Morbus said sternly. ‘Cadoc.’

  The Knight-Azyros looked towards the Lord-Relictor. ‘Command me, Stormwarden.’

  Morbus gestured with his hammer. ‘Hang your beacon from the mast, Prince of Ekran.’

  Cadoc stabbed his blade into the mast and hung his beacon from the hilt. Cerulean light spilled out, washing over every board and nail. It raced across the rails and climbed towards the flabby sails. Morbus strode amidships and thrust his staff down. Lines of cobalt fire converged on him and rose up in an eye-searing conflagration as he spoke a single word. The flames swelled, colours darkening, as the Lord-Relictor reached out and plucked something from within them. Morbus turned, offering up what appeared to be a spike made from sapphire light. ‘Cadoc, you may retrieve your beacon. Gardus, place this at the centreline, and strike true.’

  Gingerly, Gardus took the spike. It was the size of a gladius, but had no weight to it. He did as Morbus had requested, pacing to the midpoint of the ship. He sank down and set the spike into the deck. The boards creaked and began to blacken. Gardus stood and lifted his hammer in both hands.

  When he struck, a thunderclap echoed. Strange birds took flight from the closest of the crooked trees, and the miasma thinned as a blaze of azure enveloped the galley, stem to stern. The old sails burnt away, traded for new ones of flame. The rigging was consumed and replaced by strands of lightning. Every board, every oar, every stack, was limned by a blue nimbus. Smoke rose from the waterline as the sludge was burnt momentarily pure by the touch of the vessel’s hull.

  The Stormcasts looked around in wonder. ‘It will not last long, in this place,’ Morbus said, his voice a ragged growl. ‘But it will last long enough.’

  Gardus nodded and looked around. ‘You heard him,’ he said loudly. ‘Every warrior to an oar. Time runs thin, and we have leagues yet to travel.’

  Clear of the trees and miasma of the swamp, Gutrot Spume could see the great cloud of pox-smoke that rose up in the distance, spilling from the hollows of the garden’s heart. The smoke billowed up from Grandfather’s cauldron, inundating each level with his blessed contagions. Spume inhaled deeply, drawing the wonderful stink into himself. ‘Pah,’ he exhaled. ‘It smells like victory, eh, Durg?’

  ‘As you say, captain,’ the plaguebearer said. It prodded the ruined hole that might once have been a nose. ‘Can’t tell, myself.’

  Spume chuckled and slapped the daemon on the shoulder. ‘A shame.’

  Durg’s single, bleary eye narrowed. ‘Land ho,’ he said, pointing a knobbly finger. Spume nodded. He’d spotted the gateway. There were only seven true paths out of the swamp and into the deeper garden, and this was the largest of them. At a distance, it resembled a half-submerged range of mountains or leprous fingers reaching for the yellow sky.

  Spume lifted his axe and set it across his shoulder. He mused on his good fortune. The silver-skin chained in his hold was a prize Nurgle, indeed, all of the Ruinous Powers, had long desired. Sigmar’s return had upset a balance long in the making. Chaos had held sway in the Mortal Realms for uncontested centuries, and things had, to Spume’s way of thinking, fallen into a pleasing rhythm. Like the tides of the sea, Chaos had begun to wear away at the foundations of existence, and Spume had sailed those tides to power and glory. Not alone, either. Others had accompanied him in his voyages.

  Urslaug was one such. She was not a friend, as such. The sorceress had once served aboard his ship, wielding the pox-winds in his favour. But she had grown tired of the seadog’s life and retired to her studies, in the comfort of the garden. It had been a century or more since he’d had need of her services, and that time hadn’t ended well. From the sound of things, she hadn’t forgiven him yet.

  ‘Women, eh?’ he gurgled, glancing at Durg.

  ‘Rot fly,’ Durg said.

  Spume blinked, momentarily confused by the plaguebearer’s reply. Then he heard the tell-tale hum of wings. He looked up, shading his eyes with a tentacle. ‘What’s this then?’

  The fly was larger than a man, and fat with strength. It bobbed through the damp air, riding the currents with an awkward inexorability. Its hairy legs were decorated with tarnished gee-gaws of gold and silver, and a saddle made from woven scalps was cinched across its abdomen. The plaguebearer that sat astride it was similarly bedecked, in a fine yellowish coat of mouldering cloth and fraying ruffles of silk. A bent rapier was sheathed on its bony hip, and its horn wa
s polished to a pulchritudinous gleam.

  The rot fly struck the deck with a thump, scattering crew. ‘Ahoy,’ the rider croaked. ‘Step forward, Lord of Tentacles. I come bearing word from your betters, sir.’

  ‘And who would that be?’ Spume said, glaring up at the rider. ‘Come to it, who are ye?’ He knew this creature’s sort. One of the courtiers who clung like errant motes to the disease-infested corridors of Nurgle’s manse. They did not speak for the Lord of All Things. Rather, they spoke for his closest servants, and waged silent wars in their name. The Court of Ruination was infested with them.

  ‘I am Puersillimous Blotch.’ The plaguebearer snuffled noisily at a reeking handkerchief he extracted from one sleeve. ‘Forgive me, I am not used to such uncultured foulness.’ Blotch’s eye narrowed. ‘I much prefer the artisanal bouquets of Desolation. Have you ever smelled them, reaver?’ The eye gleamed with malice. ‘No, I expect not.’

  Spume frowned. ‘Aye, I have, as a matter of fact, and most pleasing they are. Though I much prefer the tang of saltwater to the soft fens of the garden. Why are you here? Who sent you?’

  ‘One who far outstrips you in power, I assure you.’ Blotch cast about condescendingly. ‘Though that is not difficult. You have fallen far, admiral. Come down in the world, haven’t you?’

  ‘A setback,’ Spume said. The haft of his axe creaked in his grip.

  ‘A permanent one, if you are not careful,’ the plaguebearer said. ‘Things have changed, in the wake of the Glottkin’s failure to hold open the doorway to Ghyran. Those who fought in those verdant fields are no more the favoured children. New bile is needed in these troubling times, don’t you think?’

  ‘No,’ Spume said.

  ‘And that is your problem, corsair,’ Blotch chuckled. ‘You don’t think.’

  ‘How dare ye set foot uninvited on my ship and cast insults,’ Spume gargled, lifting his axe. ‘I ought to split your mossy skull, flydandy.’

  ‘And attract Grandfather’s ire, captain?’ the plaguebearer hissed, leaning over to bare his bulbous throat. ‘If you would have it so, strike, sir. Strike then!’

  Spume bristled. He swept the axe back, but could not bring himself to do it. The flydandy was right. He might be the wormy apple of Grandfather’s eye, but his visitor was part of the same bunch. And perhaps an even wormier one than Spume. He let the bite of his axe thump to the deck. ‘What do ye want?’

  ‘You have something that does not belong to you, pirate.’

  ‘Do I?’ Spume gestured to the bent backs of the slaves. ‘One of these wretches, perhaps? Or a keg of finest cankerwine?’

  Blotch chortled. ‘You know of what I speak, slug-trail.’

  ‘Aye, mayhap I do. What concern is it of yours?’

  ‘You will bring it to Desolation, or suffer the consequences. Father Decay would see this thing you have found, and soon.’

  Spume grunted. Father Decay was the Hand of Nurgle, one of the Council of Ruination, and a name to send shudders through every soul in the garden. This Blotch had friends in low places. ‘And how does his loftiness know what I’ve found, or not found?’

  The flydandy grinned and plucked at his filthy cuffs. ‘How could he not, when the very air speaks of a cleansing taint?’ The plaguebearer sat back in his saddle. ‘And more besides.’ Black teeth clicked together in a crooked smile. ‘It is not alone, this thing.’

  Spume tensed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Can’t you smell it, reaver? The air burns. And not in the way it should. Look to the horizon. See the fires there, as Grandfather’s galleys blaze.’

  Spume turned, and saw that the creature spoke the truth. Something was burning out in the swamp. And he’d smelled that sort of fire before, at Profane Tor, and then later, in the Canker Cascade. That they were here, now, was deeply unsettling. Not since the Age of Blood had an enemy dared breach the sanctity of the garden. He lifted his axe. ‘Shall I take their heads then, these invaders?’

  ‘No,’ Blotch said. ‘They will be dealt with. Bring your plunder to Desolation, and be rewarded. Fail, and suffer as no being has yet suffered.’

  Spume cocked his head. ‘I’ll do as ye ask. But ye won’t be there to see it.’ His axe looped out and smashed the flydandy from the saddle. Startled, the fly heaved itself upwards and away, buzzing loudly. The flydandy gurgled in shock as Spume planted a boot on his throat. ‘No daemon threatens me on my own ship.’

  ‘You can’t,’ Blotch whimpered, clawing at Spume’s leg.

  ‘Who are ye, to tell me what I can and can’t do on my own vessel, eh?’ Spume raised his axe. ‘A fool, that’s who. When Grandfather remakes you, Blotch, hold fast to this memory, and let it guide you to future wisdom.’

  The axe fell, and Blotch collapsed into itself. Durg prodded the remains with a boathook. ‘Father Decay won’t be happy about that.’

  ‘No,’ Spume said, flicking bits of Blotch from his axe. ‘He should keep his courtiers on a shorter leash next time. I’ll not play the worm-belly on my own ship, by Grandfather’s wormy guts.’ He pointed with a tentacle. ‘Make haste for the gate.’

  Durg nodded and uncoiled its whip. ‘Stroke,’ the daemon bellowed, ‘stroke!’ The plaguebearer snapped its whip over the heads of the rowers, causing them to ply the oars more swiftly. The sails billowed as they caught the pox-wind, and soon they were cutting swiftly through the waters towards the gate.

  Spume planted his axe and rested his forearm atop it, watching the swamp as it receded. Blue fire flickered in the murk, and he felt the kraken in his abdomen shift in agitation. Sometimes, he could feel a whisper of the thing’s thoughts, dripping into his own. He felt its nervousness. An animal wariness that added to his own irritation.

  The flydandy had been right. He’d been a fool. He’d given no thought as to where the shiny-skin had come from, only the possibilities he represented. And now it seemed more of them were on the way. He considered dropping anchor and waiting for them. If he dispatched them, Grandfather might be pleased. Unless…

  ‘Ah,’ he murmured. That was it. The garden was only for the willing. If the shiny-skins wanted to smash themselves a path to Desolation, Grandfather would let them. Once they got deep enough in the mire, there’d be no getting out for any of them. And he was the bait, drawing them in. ‘He’s a cunning old oaf, Father Decay,’ Spume said.

  A shadow fell across the deck, and Spume felt a shiver run along his barbed spine. He turned. They’d reached the gate, at last. He raised his axe in salute to the guardians of the gateway as the galley passed the edge of the swamp.

  Broken stones of immense size marked the vast, curving rim of the abyss at the swamp’s heart. They rose up in haphazard ridges, between which scummy water eddied and poured down into the depths of the garden. Grandfather brewed his pox-clouds, which rose up through the abyss and filled the swamp with rain. And that rain in turn ran back down, feeding into the lower tiers, through passages, rivers and waterfalls.

  The gateway itself was a gargantuan arch of crudely carved basalt. It was longer than a dozen galleys chained prow to stern, and hung thick with yellowing vines. Hundreds of fruiting bodies swayed among those vines, caught fast either by the will of Nurgle, or that of his chosen guardians: Hope and Despair.

  The guardians were two ossified daemons hunkered on the stone plinths that rose to either side of the vast archway, gazing sightlessly and eternally out over the swamps. One was a bloated Great Unclean One, its posture strained, its features twisted into an expression of savage contempt as it raised a broken blade. The other was a vulture-like monstrosity, with skeletal wings and withered limbs, leaning on a great staff, as if bracing itself against a strong wind. No servant of Nurgle, that one.

  Legend had it that, in the aeons before the Mortal Realms had congealed from the cosmic sump, a servant of the Changer of Ways had slipped secretly into the garden. The daemon had whispered treache
rous hopes into the ears of many of Grandfather’s most loyal servants. Including one of the oldest, and mightiest, of Nurgle’s sons, whose name had since been erased from the Ledger of Souls. Treachery followed, as the son sought to usurp the father and paid for his temerity. Neither had the instigator of such foolishness escaped unchastised. Now both stood watch over the antechamber of the garden, until such time as Grandfather had forgiven them.

  The eyes of the Lord of Change seemed to follow Spume as the galley slid beneath the archway and into the curtain of vines. He heard a whisper of sound, like a voice calling out to him from some impossible distance. Spume laughed and made a rude gesture. ‘Peddle your promises to someone else, or I’ll carve my name in your scrawny neck.’ The voice faded into insulted silence as the galley moved out of the shadows of the archway.

  It was always the same. Some daemons never learned. Spume reached up with his axe and tapped a dangling foot. The leprous body danced and twitched in its vines, and emitted a sound like a groan. He laughed. No soul passed through the archway, save that Nurgle willed it. And those that tried regardless lived eternally to regret it.

  Beyond the vines, the edges of a massive, fungus-covered aqueduct rose. The passage was the only safe way down to the next tier of the garden. Spume thumped the deck with his axe. ‘Lay on some speed, Durg. I’ve got an appointment to keep.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  A TOWN CALLED DESPAIR

  Aetius Shieldborn cursed and ducked away from the groping hands of the vine-snared corpse. Splintered nails clattered against the face of his shield as stinging flies spewed from the sagging jaws. He bashed the hanging body aside and crushed its skull, blocking the torrent of insects. Immediately, he was beset by another. There were too many corpses to avoid, and possibly more than even he could handle.