The filthy cloud seemed to retreat in the khorgorath’s presence, as if fearful to approach, or perhaps it parted so the beast could hunt all the easier. The thought that the fog might be sentient brought a tremor of unease to the Lord-Celestant, as did the sight of his warriors being slain so easily. It took an act from his dauntless mount to overcome it.
Calanax knew these abominations too. He spewed forth a gout of crackling storm breath at the khorgorath. The beast howled, engulfed by lightning. Calanax did not relent. Pulling against the reins, he galloped towards the khorgorath, his rage unceasing until the monster was nothing but charred meat.
It was only once the carcass had shrivelled to a blackened mess that Vandus realised his mistake. The dracoth’s unruly zeal had separated the Lord-Celestant from the rest of his chamber and now they were too far away. Silhouettes of his men were barely visible and, worse, they were dying. Lightning flashes broke amidst the fog, searing the image of the dead in frozen memorial before vanishing with an echoing crack.
Thunder rolled above, the God-King’s anger made manifest.
Knots of warriors were managing to band together; Vandus saw some lumbering blindly as they got close to him. Others fought alone. As the shieldwall broke apart, so did the martial coherency of the entire chamber. Heraldor Skythunder attempted to restore some order but a thrown axe struck his neck and he fell.
‘Mercy of Sigmar,’ Vandus breathed. And the thunder boomed in answer.
They were being slaughtered. Above the din of battle, he heard another sound like a fell humming. Belatedly, as he was about to turn Calanax around, he realised what it was.
Chanting.
Something else loomed from the sulphur fog, dredged from the hellish depths of the Realm of Chaos. A host of red-skinned daemons, snorting and spitting as they loped towards the Lord-Celestant on bent-back limbs.
Vandus felt the furnace heat coming off their bodies as the bloodletters closed, a ring of eight with black blades clenched in their wiry fists.
As the daemons bore down on him, Vandus heard the chanting intensify, coming not just from one throat but many. A ritual was taking place, a dark sacrifice that had brought these creatures into existence.
As the daemons sprang at him, Vandus swung Heldensen in a wide, looping arc. Three of the bloodletters were smashed back and discorporated in welters of dark ash before they could hit the ground. Calanax caught a fourth in his jaws and snapped its body clean in two. The dracoth reared up, trapping a fifth under his claws, then bellowed in pain as a hellblade bit through his scaled hide.
Vandus fended off a blow against his vambrace, but felt searing in his side as one of the bloodletters breached his armour. He crushed both their misshapen skulls with his hammer, before Calanax gored the last of the daemons with his horns.
But obscured by the fog, a second summoning of the bloodletters fell upon them, this time in droves.
‘Back, Calanax!’ Vandus cried urgently, realising, isolated as they were, that they would be overwhelmed.
The dracoth growled his agreement and retreated. All too quickly, the onrushing daemons that had been nought but shadows in the fog began to take form as they got close.
Their loping gait was unearthly fast, and Vandus realised with a sick feeling in his gut that he and Calanax would not escape the trap.
But they would die with honour.
The dracoth held its ground as Vandus bellowed his defiance at the daemon horde.
‘Sigmar! Glory to the God-King of Azyr!’
None knew what truly happened when a Stormcast died. Whatever his fate, Vandus resolved to meet it with fierce courage in his heart.
Dacanthos and a host of Liberators rushed to their Lord-Celestant’s side. Their shields locked just as the daemon horde reached them. Hell-wrought steel met Azyr-forged sigmarite and failed to breach it.
‘Part! Part the line, now!’
The Liberators responded at once to Dacanthos’s order, the shieldwall folding back in an inverted spearhead to let the daemons in.
Sagus and his waiting Retributors were arrayed behind the wall. They fell upon the bloodletters as the daemons barrelled through, and utterly destroyed them with their lightning hammers.
Overhead, Vandus heard flights of skybolts as the Judicators let loose.
Partial order had been restored. Under the leadership of its captains, the chamber had alloyed together again and forged towards their leader.
‘How, brother?’ Vandus asked Dacanthos in a brief moment of respite.
‘Your armour, Lord-Celestant,’ replied the Liberator-Prime. ‘It was our beacon.’
Only now did Vandus realise his war-plate had taken on a refulgent glow, as celestial light poured forth from every piece of it. The glory was fading now, but it had been enough to anchor his men and bring them back together.
Vandus raised Heldensen aloft in salute.
Thank you, Sigmar…
For who else could have intervened on his behalf?
With the daemons vanquished, the Sigmarund could be reformed. This time, Vandus took his place in the shieldwall with Calanax.
Despite the turn in fortune, the Bloodbound did not relent. Nor did the hellish fog lessen.
‘We are still fighting blind,’ said Sagus from the rear ranks.
‘Aye, and if anything, their numbers have swelled.’
A great broiling clash had erupted, hordes of bloodreavers and blood warriors driven to frenzy and hurling every ounce of fury they had against the Stormcast Eternals. Time and again, the shieldwall would fold, and the Retributors would attack and the Judicators let fly.
All the while, the chanting persisted, growing louder and more urgent with every passing moment. No further bloodletters came, but Vandus felt the oppression on his soul as he had in the Igneous Delta when the blood priest had called forth the Realm of Blood and Brass.
But this was something different, some manifestation that came from the very twisted nature of the land and how Chaos had corrupted it with its malign presence.
Something else was coming, invigorated by the slaughter.
Vandus knew he had to end the battle swiftly. His warriors needed to attack, but the blinding fog would render such a move suicide as they would be cut apart piecemeal again. Maintaining formation would ensure survival — but not if the Bloodbound sacrificed enough to Khorne to bring forth some hell-beast from the red pit.
Death or damnation lay in either choice.
As a blast of clarion trumpets broke through the clamour of battle, Vandus realised it was not his decision to make.
Kyrus had returned.
From the high vantage above the cloud, Prosecutors swept down in small flocks to unleash their celestial hammers against the Bloodbound.
As his warriors continued their harrying attacks, having cut a small swathe of open ground between the Bloodbound and their other Stormcast brothers, Kyrus landed nearby to speak to his lord.
‘Lord Hammerhand, it seems we have arrived back just in time.’
A pair of crackling hammers materialised in Kyrus’s gauntleted fists and he flung them at a clutch of bloodreavers who had tried to resume the close quarter crush.
Kyrus was joined by a host of his brethren who interceded against the Chaos horde so he could give his report.
‘I saw the miasma overhead as we returned. It clouds only you and your chamber, Lord Hammerhand.’
‘It follows us?’
‘Akin to a cloud of sulphurous flies, yes. I also saw something beyond the ridge, another Warrior Chamber.’ He turned as a trumpet sounded, the signal to take wing.