Acts of Sacrifice - Evan Dicken Read online

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  Acts of Sacrifice – Evan Dicken

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘The Realmgate Wars: Volume 1’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  Acts of Sacrifice

  Evan Dicken

  Sir Anaea knelt alone in the shadowed recesses of the chapel vault, hands clenched at her sides, head bowed in silent prayer. A muffled boom from outside caused the chapel to tremble, dust trickling from between the heavy stones overhead. Anaea opened her eyes at the sound of distant shouts, the clash of arms, but ignored the desire to leap up and join the rest of her Order as they tried to hold at bay the shrieking, gore-spattered mob that beat at the fortress walls like waves against a stony shore.

  With a deep breath, she steadied herself. The Order of the Ardent Star was more than Anaea’s desire for vengeance, more than the creeping loss that seemed to shadow her every thought. Master Vaskar had taught her that. But Master Vaskar was dead, cut down by the Khornate champion Sulkotha Godspite, not two hundred paces from where Anaea knelt, his body lost to the numberless horde outside. That had been three days ago, when the Chaos army was not so large, when there had been enough Order knights to sally forth in hopes that the ravagers could be driven off. The images were scarred into Anaea’s memory – her comrades pulled down one by one, Vaskar falling to Godspite’s vile blade as he fought to buy the other knights time to withdraw. It had been all Anaea could do to retrieve her master’s sword, and the failure ached like an old battle wound.

  Anaea exhaled and focused upon the statue of Myrmidia that presided over the chapel. The warrior goddess seemed a being of deadly grace, standing triumphant although her armour was scarred by blade and arrow. The burnished gold of her shield was bright even in the fading torchlight, and her spear seemed to glitter with the blood of defeated foes.

  ‘Stella Invicti.’ Anaea whispered the Order’s motto as her gaze fell to Vaskar’s sword upon the altar. As if to echo her darkening thoughts, there came another deep rumble from outside, followed by the roar of inhuman voices and the harsh crackle of balefire.

  ‘Blessed Lady Myrmidia, grant your loyal servant peace.’ Anaea reached for the blade, its well-worn hilt fitting comfortably in her hand. She set it before her, point resting on the chapel tiles. The metal of the pommel was cool against her forehead as she bowed once more. ‘Let his shining example light the way along the dark paths we must tread.’

  It was a quick eulogy, far less than Master Vaskar deserved, but already more than Anaea could afford. She bowed, then turned away from the statue. Although Myrmidia cared little for genuflection and prayers, Anaea could not let her master go in silence. Moreover, she had needed time to focus, to prepare herself for what must be done. All that mattered to the Goddess of War was triumph. This time, however, there would be no glorious victory, no salvation.

  All that remained was survival.

  Anaea stepped from the chapel, striding across the courtyard with new purpose, but by the time she had crested the wall the ravagers had been driven off. So it had been since the siege started – Godspite raking the walls with hellcannon fire before sending her shrieking horde charging towards the fortress.

  ‘We beat them back.’ Master Karon stepped to Anaea’s side, removing his helm to scrub a hand through his thinning white hair. ‘Stella Invicti.’

  Anaea echoed the old master’s words, but her stomach clenched as she surveyed the wreckage. Corpses sprawled across the battlement, the unholy sigils cut into their flesh marking them as followers of the god of slaughter. Most of the newly slain wore beaten, blood-red armour, but here and there her eye caught the glimmer of knightly plate, as though a handful of golden coins had been scattered amidst the carnage.

  ‘How many of our brothers and sisters were lost in doing so?’ she asked.

  ‘Too many,’ the old master conceded with a sour frown. ‘But they met a noble end.’

  ‘And how many remain?’

  ‘Less than one hundred.’ Karon shook his head. ‘Not enough to defend the eastern rampart, let alone the curtain wall. We shall have to pull back to the chapel.’

  Anaea surveyed the horde, one of the seemingly numberless warbands of Chaos ravagers that had swamped the Flamescar Plateau like a bloody tide. ‘Have we received any word from Sir Leta?’

  Karon’s silence was answer enough. They had dispatched Leta to the Burning Cliffs many days ago on a mission to seek aid from the Hermdar Lodge. The fyreslayers had never been friends to the Order, but the looming threat of annihilation made for strange alliances.

  And yet, no one had come.

  The Hermdar must have refused, if Sir Leta had reached them at all.

  ‘Duardin wretches,’ Karon said, echoing Anaea’s thoughts. ‘Hiding in their holds as if gates and stone could shield them from the end of the world.’

  Anaea glanced at the old knight, but Karon’s attention was fixed on the horde outside. He stood like a man steeling himself to charge into cannon fire.

  Below, the ravagers had drawn up just outside of bow range. They laughed and jeered, the clash of their weapons causing Anaea’s jaw to tighten. Smoke obscured the smoldering sun of Aqshy, the field of cracked basalt painted in crimson tones, red as the blood of the fallen.

  As if summoned from some abyssal pit, Sulkotha Godspite stepped from the horde of muddied bronze. She was a head taller than even the largest of her mad followers, her armour set with spikes and cruel, barbed hooks, fire gleaming in the eyes of the daemonic faces etched into her breastplate. In one gauntleted fist, she carried a broken greatsword, its blade notched and pitted from hard use, foul sigils scored into its jagged length. Her other hand dragged a long, spiked chain. The barbed links writhed like a beheaded snake, lashing out at any of Godspite’s followers too slow to retreat.

  ‘Myrmidia has abandoned you!’ Godspite roared, as she had every day since her horde first besieged the chapel fortress. ‘Show more courage than your pitiful god. Die like warriors, not like rats cowering behind pathetic walls.’

  As the champion stalked forward, Anaea could see the end of Godspite’s chain was wrapped around a body in battered armour. The corpse left a smear of old blood as the champion dragged it across the stony ground.

  ‘Come, brave knights. Join your leader.’ With a heave of her massive shoulders, Godspite hauled the chain so that the corpse flopped forward.

  Anaea felt a shout building in her throat, hot and furious. The corpse’s armour was cracked and broken, its face a mask of dried blood, but even through the gore Anaea recognised her former master.

  ‘Abomination,’ Karon hissed at Anaea’s side, drawing his sword. ‘This cannot be allowed.’

  Anaea grabbed his wrist and forced him to halt. ‘You would give her what she wants,’ she growled, quashing her own rage.

  ‘And why not?’ He jerked from her grip. Vaskar had been Anaea’s master, but he had been like a son to the old knight. Karon shook with barely restrained fury, his scowl equal parts pain and rage. ‘Cut the head from the serpent and her horde will scatter.’

  ‘You know as well as I that killing Godspite would solve nothing,’ Anaea said.

  Karon gave a low, angry grunt, but slammed his sword back into its sheath. ‘What do you propose?’

  Anaea’s gaze fell upon the battlements and towers, a long expanse of wall scattered with those few knights who survived. ‘This fortress cannot be held with what forces remain to us. We must seek a more defensible position.’

  ‘The hordes are everywhere,’ Karon said. ‘
Where can we ride?’

  Shielding her eyes from the burnished sun, Anaea scanned the horizon. Godspite’s warband ranged across the cracked plain surrounding the chapel fortress, seeming to stretch almost to the Desert of Glass in the east. Although Anaea could not see them, she knew somewhere in the distance lay the Burning Cliffs. There, the Hermdar fyreslayers hunkered behind their great walls, safe in the knowledge they could weather any siege. The Order needed to do the same, to preserve what remained of its forces, to focus on survival.

  ‘The Redoubt,’ Anaea said, at last.

  Karon frowned. ‘Drakemount is three day’s ride across the desert, even with no enemies barring our path.’

  ‘The Redoubt is defensible, difficult to assault, well supplied and located near the centre of the Flamescar Plateau,’ Anaea replied. ‘It is the logical choice, for there we will find those chapters of our Order that still survive.’

  ‘If any survive.’ Karon sighed, considering.

  ‘How many more of Godspite’s assaults will we survive?’ Anaea tightened her grip on Vaskar’s blade. ‘This is not a war we can win, master.’

  Karon winced as if Anaea’s words were a knife drawn across his flesh. He regarded her for a long moment, then gave a quick nod, turning to the group of knights who had drifted over to watch the exchange. ‘Gather the others and harness the demidroths. We ride for Drakemount.’

  As the others hurried off to spread the word, Karon turned back to Anaea, his voice tired. ‘And if you are wrong? If the Redoubt has fallen? If we cannot win through Godspite’s horde?’

  Anaea took a long, slow breath. ‘Then you shall have your noble death, master.’

  The knights waited, still as statues in the fading afternoon light. Once the Order’s warriors would have filled the courtyard to bursting, bright and golden like stars fallen to earth. Now they seemed dwarfed by the high walls, diminished in number if not spirit.

  ‘We have but one chance.’ Anaea turned her mount, a reptilian demidroth, to face the assembled knights. ‘The time for grand strategy has long passed. We must simply draw the savages out and create a gap. If we are lucky enough to hack our way through, we ride for the Redoubt.’

  Master Karon urged his mount next to Anaea’s. ‘And if we are not lucky, we shall die gloriously, our blades singing Myrmidia’s praises.’

  Anaea looked to Karon, frowning, but the old master held her gaze.

  At Karon’s nod, the knights dragged open the fortress’ gate. The great iron-bound doors slammed against the walls with a resounding boom.

  With a grim smile, Karon turned from Anaea, raising his blade even as he spurred his demidroth forward. ‘Stella Invicti!’

  The others echoed his call. Although few in number, the Knights of the Ardent Star charged as if there were an army behind them. Arranged in a serried wedge, lances lowered, they streaked west across the broken field mounted on their large, lizard-like steeds. Far smaller than their draconic cousins, demidroths lacked both fiery breath and molten blood, but were no less fierce. Anaea could feel the vital pulse of her demidroth’s muscles as it bounded across the rough stone, the powerful expansion of its lungs as it drew in a great breath.

  Her mount roared, and Anaea roared with it.

  The Order’s banner snapped in the wind as its bearer led the charge. Even now the sight of the banner filled Anaea with determination. A golden star blazing on a field of purest black, it was inscribed with the Order’s war cry. Said to have been a gift from Myrmidia herself during the ancient days, the banner had been borne by Knights of the Ardent Star in a thousand battles.

  Up ahead, Godspite’s ravagers laughed and brandished their cruel weapons, seemingly undaunted as they were ridden down by the wave of steel-plated doom.

  The knights cut into the horde like a lava flow. Ravagers fell away, impaled by broken lances or gutted by demidroth talons. Anaea brought Vaskar’s sword down again and again as if hacking through stubborn rope.

  A man leapt at her from the press, axe in hand, his eyes mad with bloodlust. Anaea ducked the wild swing and drove her blade between his ribs. He fell back with a look that seemed almost disappointed, there to be torn apart by the claws of her steed.

  For a moment, the combat eddied around Anaea. She sat back in her saddle to quickly scan the lines of battle. The knights’ charge had cut deep into the howling mob, although not deep enough for the reavers to fully envelop them.

  She waited, her throat tight. At last, the moment came, thin as a knife’s edge. Frantic to spill blood, the horde had shifted to the west, following the knights’ charge. Anaea caught Karon’s eye and nodded.

  ‘Withdraw!’ The old knight’s word rose above the clamour of battle.

  With the precision of a lifetime of careful drill, the knights wheeled their mounts to charge through the closing gap at their rear. Roaring, the demidroths pelted across the pitted field, racing parallel to the ravagers’ lines. The frenzied horde turned in on itself as reavers fought their own comrades, frantic to reach the knights.

  For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, Anaea felt the weight lift from her shoulders. Godspite’s horde was fierce, unshakeable and driven by mad bloodlust. The knights could not hope to face them in the field, but the Order could use their strength against them.

  Anaea held her sword high, a wild shout building in her throat. The bulk of the horde was behind them, a few scattered bands of ravagers all that remained between the knights and the Desert of Glass.

  The cry died on Anaea’s lips as Sulkotha Godspite stepped from the milling crowd before them.

  The Khornate champion spread her arms wide in welcome, her great blade sheathed across her back, the spiked chain writhing about her feet. Laughing, she raised Vaskar’s severed head, his blood staining her armour. ‘Blood for the Blood God.’

  ‘Veer around her!’ Anaea gestured with her blade, teeth gritted against the upswell of fury that screamed at her to cut the champion down. She could feel the hesitation in her comrades, her desire for vengeance echoed by every lowered lance and raised sword.

  With a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders, Godspite tossed Vaskar’s head to the ground, grinding it to pulp beneath one bronze-shod boot.

  ‘Defiler!’ Master Karon wheeled his mount to confront the Chaos champion.

  ‘Keep formation! We cannot afford to be bogged down!’ Anaea called after him, but the moment was lost as the knights followed their master. With a curse, she turned her demidroth towards the waiting ravagers.

  Godspite watched them come, seemingly unconcerned. A moment before the charge connected the Chaos champion pivoted away, her spiked chain lashing up to tangle the legs of Karon’s mount. The demidroth pitched forward and the old knight was tossed from the saddle. He stumbled to his feet just in time to duck a heavy slash from Godspite’s blade.

  The combatants were lost from sight as the knights hammered into the Chaos ranks. A pair of ravagers rushed at Anaea. The blades of their huge axes gleamed crimson in the dull red light of Aqshy’s sun. Using her legs, Anaea steered her mount towards the attackers. The great demidroth lunged forward, covering the distance with a speed that set the reavers back on their heels. It pounced on the first man while Anaea shifted in her saddle as a blow cut the air where her arm had been a moment before.

  Anaea’s return cut took the reaver’s arm off just below the elbow, flesh and bone parting like clouds before the tempered edge of Vaskar’s blade. One-handed, the ravager tried to raise his axe to parry her next blow, but the weapon was too unwieldy and her stab slid easily into the hollow of the man’s throat.

  Drawing in a great whooping breath, Anaea glanced back. The bulk of Godspite’s horde was closing in; if the knights didn’t win through soon they would be surrounded and cut off.

  Anaea cast about the battle, spying Master Karon.

  The knight’s demidroth was down, surro
unded by a knot of ravagers who hacked at the dying beast with wild abandon, leaving Karon to face Godspite on foot.

  Undaunted, the master launched a flurry of slashes and stabs, his blade seeking the joints of the Chaos champion’s armour. With a scream that seemed equal parts joy and rage, Godspite brought her greatsword arcing around, forcing Karon to drop to one knee to avoid the slash. He responded with a cut to Godspite’s knee that set her back a step. The two champions exchanged rapid blows, Karon moving like a man half his age.

  Around Anaea, the charge’s momentum had stalled. To her left, the Order’s banner bearer was dragged from her demidroth, still slashing even as she disappeared amidst a knot of blood-spattered reavers. Anaea kicked her mount forward, and the demidroth tore into the foe just as the banner slipped from the bearer’s hand.

  With a cry, Anaea leaned in her saddle to catch the falling banner, her blade arcing out to split the skull of a marauder who sought to wrench it from her grip.

  ‘To me!’ Vaskar’s blade cut a bloody path through the snarling horde as Anaea urged her mount towards Karon, banner held high.

  The old master pivoted to avoid Godspite’s sweeping blade. Like a gargant beset by a gryphon, the Chaos champion roared and swatted at the old knight, but Karon was far too quick.

  As she burst from the press, Anaea spied Godspite’s chain slithering towards Karon, but her shout came too late.

  The daemonic chain wrapped around the master’s leg, its spikes punching bloody holes in his armour even as it pinned him in place. Unable to dodge, Karon barely parried a vicious chop from the champion’s greatsword.

  Anaea put her heels to her mount’s flanks and it bulled into the Chaos champion, knocking Godspite from her feet. Rather than press the attack, Anaea hacked down at the chain binding Master Karon’s leg. The first strike drew a spray of angry sparks and the chain writhed like a wounded snake. Godspite roared as if Anaea’s blade had struck her rather than her weapon. The chain tried to unwind, but Karon drove his sword through its links to hold it in place. Anaea hewed at the chain, her nose thick with the smell of scorched metal. At last, the foul thing gave way before the blessed steel. Bleeding black ichor from its severed links, it writhed away, leaving only the portion wrapped around Karon’s leg.