‘Make them pay,’ he bellowed to his men, the rancour he felt filling his heart until it overflowed. What few Judicators remained let fly. Retributors and Liberators stood beside each other to meet the charge that would surely end them all.
The Bloodbound army met them. Both of its armies, twin bloody mauls of seething violence and unfettered destruction.
Caught in the middle, the Stormcasts’ defence shuddered, but held, a circle of gold that defied the darkness. Jactos fought hard, determined to be the exemplar for his men. The act of bravura was a pointless one, but he sought to make amends anyway. At least Neros was alive, protected by the Judicators and around them the Liberators and Retributors. At least, for now.
Jactos began to despair as he saw the third host descend, the one shown in silhouette on the ridge line.
His despair quickly turned to hope, then joy, as golden war-plate, not the blood-red of Khorne’s disciples, shone in the blazing sun over the Volatus Ridge. Seeing reinforcement, his warriors fought even harder. They shouted their defiance and roared in exultation of their saviour.
‘Vandus! Vandus! Vandus!’
Their cry became a mantra, and it armoured them better than a thousand sigmarite shields.
Hammerhand he was called, and he led his Stormcasts down the ridge with cloak flapping and a call to arms upon his lips.
‘Hold fast, Jactos!’
Vandus rode a dracoth as he spearheaded the vanguard, and in his wake he brought death.
The battle did not last much longer after that. Between the Hammerhands and the Goldenmanes, the Bloodbound were crushed. Ground down beneath armoured boots, pinioned by skybolts or smote by the celestial hammers of winged avengers, the slain were many.
It was over. Jactos lived, as did his shame.
Vandus approached him during the aftermath, as the Prosecutors chased down the few survivors.
‘Well met, Jactos,’ said Vandus, offering his hand.
Jactos nodded, grateful but weary.
‘Your arrival was timely, Lord-Celestant.’ He regarded Vandus with a deep sense of respect, taking off his war-helm before he shook the other warrior’s hand. Long, golden hair flowed from beneath, making it obvious how Jactos’s honorific came to be. He had a noble bearing, so very different from the barbarian blacksmith lord who looked back at him.
‘I watched you from the ridge,’ Vandus said, his dark eyes honest and hard. ‘You overreached, Jactos, and spread your warriors too thinly. Remember, we are outnumbered in this land and know not of all its perils.’
Jactos stiffened a little, chastened. ‘Is that the wisdom of Sigmar talking?’
Vandus held up his hand. ‘No, just the words of a smith who knows something of the ways of war.’
‘You are as much a blacksmith as I am an orruk,’ Jactos replied, clapping Vandus on the shoulder, ‘but I heed the wisdom, nonetheless.’
All amongst the Stormcast force sought to further Sigmar’s glory and exact vengeance against those creatures who had put the realms asunder, but Jactos wanted it more than most.
A cry from across the bloody field of battle interrupted them.
It was Neros, his warding lantern held aloft and his gryph-hound by his side. Warriors who basked in the glow of the lantern saw their armour restored, the deep axe grooves and clefts melding together with the power of celestial magic.
No such balm could cure Eriad though, still impaled on the iron talon.
Jactos rushed over to the stricken Prosecutor, with Vandus not far behind him.
‘We cannot remove it,’ uttered Neros in a low voice, his back to Eriad who twisted in pain, ‘not without killing him. Even the lantern cannot save him.’
Jactos looked upon his Prosecutor grim-faced. The spike driven through his body should have killed him, but something about the metal was refusing to let Eriad die. Jactos saw tendrils of it had split off from the shaft and wormed their way into Eriad’s skin.
‘It… burns… my lord…’ rasped Eriad, his every breath an agony.
Jactos drew his runeblade, and the star-sigils upon the steel shone brightly.
‘Sigmar awaits you, brother,’ he told the Prosecutor solemnly. ‘He calls you back unto his halls as a hero.’
About to enact this mercy, Eriad’s outstretched hand stopped the Lord-Celestant.
‘W-wait… Will I die…? What will… become of me?’
Jactos faltered. He had no answer. None knew what it meant to be Eternal.
‘Let the storm carry him, brother.’ Vandus’s voice came from behind him, reassuring yet urgent.
‘Close your eyes, Eriad,’ said Jactos, after a moment. The Prosecutor had barely lowered his eyelids when Jactos thrust the runeblade up into Eriad’s chest, piercing his heart and ending his torment.
Above, a thunderhead had gathered and from its tumultuous depths came a single arcing bolt of lightning that struck Eriad and engulfed him in a glowing coruscation. With the thunder of a tempest unleashed, the bolt turned Eriad’s corporeal body into blinding light and carried him back into the heavens on the fury of the storm.
All who saw felt the awe and disquiet of witnessing a miracle.
‘Is this the fate of every man wrought on the Anvil of Apotheosis?’ murmured Jactos. ‘Are we destined to ascend back unto the stars when we are slain? And what then?’
He felt a strong, reassuring hand upon his shoulder and knew then why Vandus had been chosen above all others. He heard it in his voice and felt it in his words.
‘Fear not the storm, Jactos. For it is both life and death to us. Ours is not to question. It is but to do our duty and, when the time comes, to die well in Sigmar’s name. It is why we were forged, it is a hope for all mankind and there is no greater honour than that.’
Jactos nodded slowly, and reached for his war-helm again.
‘I hear the call to arms, Vandus.’
‘As do I, brother.’
‘I hear it calls to you from across the wastes and the Red Pyramid.’
‘I beheld a vision,’ Vandus told him. ‘A warlord, the slayer of the Direbrands, climbing a red pyramid fashioned of bloody skulls. A gate lay beyond it, a portal to the Realm of Chaos itself.’
‘Such a gate would spew forth hellspawn beyond count.’
‘Aye, and I must close it. Even now, my Lord-Relictor seeks out the brass towers from which the gate yokes its power.’
Jactos turned, and there was lightning in his eyes through the slits in his mask.
‘I pledge my sword to this task, Vandus. The Goldenmanes will stand with the Hammerhands and consider it a great honour.’
Vandus smiled behind the implacable face of his war-helm, his voice conveying his emotion.
‘It is I that is honoured, brother. Let us stand together then, and crush the Goretide.’
‘The warlord in your vision, Vandus, he yet lives?’
Vandus’s mood turned bleak and wrathful. ‘If he does, then it is he we must overcome. His will, his dominance is everything. Break that, and we break his warband.’
‘With hammer and blade, then,’ uttered Jactos, as a cry of ‘Sigmar!’ echoed around the gathered chambers.
Jactos revelled in it, just as he rejoiced that in Korghos Khul he saw a chance to restore his tarnished honour.
Chapter Four
Taker of skulls
Korghos Khul lived. He was lying on his back, dimly remembering the moment his own warriors had trampled him in their zeal to get to the Stormcasts.
He had fought the golden warrior, the one who had once been Vendell Blackfist. Khul had the better of him, and yet the wretch had escaped death a second time. Even in his stuporous state, the warlord of Khorne vowed there would not be a third.
And as he lay there, plotting vengeance even as he stirred from unconsciousness, he came to a realisation.