The map before them is weathered, scuffed by long, hard travel. But the buildings, roads and defences of Civilia are still accurately depicted, as are the recent additions of damages caused by the flood.
Bartheliman watches Tcimmera study that map, her eyes flicking from district to district. She’d been silent since the Starpriest Tekta-Korchi had told them of Civilia’s fall, save to order this war council.
He still remembers the spike of guilt and pain when the Skink had told them of Sorrah Nikos’ betrayal, and of the torments the populace were being subjected to. It is a familiar pain; he’d felt it twice before, when the Blackhammers were lost to the Eightpoints, and when Anvilgard fell.
It is something that he can manage, he knows. Even if he didn’t, he has to. Phionan had attached him to the Wardens of Burden for a reason.
Tcimmera has been silent for a long time.
It disquiets him more than any shouting could have.
While Tcimmera is bent over the map, the Stardrake Ahvria sits next to their makeshift stone table, while Tekta-Korchi perches herself on another rock. The Skink too has been silent, cold eyes studying the participants without giving a hint to her private thoughts. Ahvria by contrast stirs uneasily and regularly, head swinging around to fret around Tcimmera. Even without speaking, it’s clear to Bartheliman that the great drake is worried for his Stormcast companion.
It’s not an encouraging thought.
Finally, Tcimmera grunts, and looks up at Tekta-Korchi. When she speaks, her voice is clinical and cold.
“We need to blind the enemy to our approach.”
The Skink bobs her head.
“We can provide.” she hisses. “Chameleon skinks have been watching Civilia. When the order is given…”
The rider trots his horse several miles beyond Civilia, eyes faced outwards into the dark. Odd, he thinks. He should have encountered one of the sentries by now.
He stumbles on her cold body just minutes later.
As nerveless fingers fumble with the straps of his horn, there’s a sharp pain in his neck; before he can touch his wound, the poison pumped into his veins stop his heart.
The horse screams as the outrider slumps forward against its neck, and bolts into the dark away from Civilia. It knows better than to flee back to its walls.
The noose of shadows tightens around Civilia.
“Your Stormbloods will find no prying eyes.”
Tekta-Korchi raises her staff, and the head of it briefly swirls in Azyrite magic; not the electrical discharge of storms, but the subtler bending of time and sight.
“No Witch-eyes will see you, either. Fore-sight and far-sight are blind to you, so long as I am with you. Even their shield will be open to you.”
She lowers her staff again and looks up at Ahvria, bowing her head respectfully.
“Will the child of the Twin-Tailed One permit me to ride with him?”
Ahvria bows his head in return.
“It will be no burden upon my wings.”
Bartheliman catches himself waiting for the Stardrake to make a joke or flash a grin. He hadn’t expected unadulterated solemnity.
If Tcimmera shared his unease, she brushes past it with another grunt; one of acknowledgement, if not exactly appreciative. She looks back down at the map. Her finger traces the contours of a forest on Civilia’s eastern facing, not too far from the city.
“Then there will be a distraction. Something to keep their eyes focused on this spot…”
The Hornshield walks just behind the barricade, conducting an inspection of the guard. He didn’t really need to do it, but it was better than spending more time with the Skaven, or Sorrah Nikos’ monstrosities. He had no qualms with the butchery and plundering that came with taking a city, but his stomach turned looking upon those abominations. He imagines that it must be a fate worse than death.
“Will an enemy come tonight?” shouts down one of the guards, a brash man eager to shed blood for the Dark Gods. He had bragged about being at the forefront of the battle, slaughtering foes and those who couldn’t defend themselves alike.
“No.” calls up the Hornshield. “The seers and scryers see a safe night for us.”
The guard’s disappointed complaints are cut short by Ghur coming alive, with bowel-loosening force.
Never in all his years had the Hornshield felt such terror than now. It’s almost like a physical force, bludgeoning him with weakness that makes his legs quiver. It takes him a long, agonising moment to realise that the assault upon Civilia are roars, coming from beyond the walls.
He scrambles up the barricade, trying to fight down the urge to turn and run. Shouldering aside the blubbering guard, he stares out into the dark, at the forest beyond the walls.
It seemed closer at night than during the daytime.
“We were supposed to have a safe night.” he whimpers, eyes locked upon the shadows of the forest, each promising to hold a predator straight from his blackest nights. Caught between the terrors of an unknown threat before him if he stands, and one right behind him and unseen if he flees, he can’t look away.
He’s not the only one.
“While the real strike descends from the heavens.”
Tcimmera turns her stare onto Ahvria. To Bartheliman, she seems to soften a little as she touches a hand to the Stardrake’s snout. Though still firm, the Lord-Celestant loses her commanding voice for a moment.
“Can you, Oxtrika, Durvick and Yfrije carry a dismounted Lightning Echelon between yourselves?”
He shakes his head lightly, uncertain.
“Perhaps, I’m not sure…”
Ahvria is silent for a moment, then nods against her hand.
“We can. We will, if that is what it will take to free Civilia.”
The Skaven crew of the commandeered Hammer of Khardihr finish hauling their weapon to point towards the forest; or, more accurately, their slaves did, under the lash of whips, then driven away; no Warlock Engineer would have trusted the man-things with being near his finest weapon. Although, even the menials under the new commander of the Hammer are barely tolerated.
For the moment however, such paranoid thoughts were kept at bay by the threat that lay beyond his sight. In the water-logged city even his smell was confounded, so he is forced to rely on his far-seer. He peers down the brass tube through dirty glass lenses, hoping for a target…
There! He grins to himself. The storm-things couldn’t hide from his perfect eye, no they could not. Only his genius could see pass their ruse; the roaring was coming from the throat of a mega-predator of Ghur, but Dracoths!
He opens his mouth to screech his orders, when a niggling detail suddenly holds him back. He stares through his far-seer, trying to pick out what is confounding his genius.
Then, he sees it.
The Dracoths have no riders.
He briefly wonders why the storm-things would give up such powerful tools, before screaming interrupts his musings.
He looks up from his far-seer at the source of the disturbance, to be chilled by the sight of a Stardrake annihilating a nearby battery with a single breath. There had been no warning, as if the great beast had just simply dropped out of the sky. His mind rebels at the thought. Something so big and destructive had to have been noticed.
Stormcast drop from the Stardrake’s body and claws, bringing spears and crossbows to bear as they clear away what few survivors remained on the walls.
So that’s where the Stormcast had gone, he thinks to himself, before a Tempestor levels a volleystorm crossbow and sends a bolt straight into his eye.
“Thank you.”
Tcimmera gives him one last pat, before she lowers her hand back to the map.
“You four will carry the Echelon to their objectives. The two gates on the western wall, here, here, and…”
She touches the mark for the Hammer of Khardihr.
“Especially this. The Hammer is their greatest weapon against us. It has to be taken. Destroyed, if necessary.”
“The Grey Company wouldn’t like that.” Bartheliman interjects. Tcimmera snorts.
“If they’re still alive. If they are, then they’ll have the luxury of complaining when we retake the city.”
‘When’, Bartheliman notes. It had been a quality of Tcimmera’s that Phionan had both praised, and warned of. The absolute refusal to concede defeat.
Tcimmera turns back to the map as if Bartheliman hadn’t spoken.
“When the Echelon clears the walls, they’ll open the gates for the remainder of the Wardens.”
A smile flashes across her expression, one not especially mirthful.
“Then they’ll know Sigmar’s wrath.”
The Hornshield runs through the streets, struggling to breath through a too-tight windpipe. Others run with him, his fellow Emissaries, other followers of the Dark Gods and Skaven.
It’s utter anarchy within Civilia. First terrible roaring from beyond the Eastern walls had put everyone on the edge of their nerves, then thunderous and blinding annihilation had come from above. Then calls to reinforce the west wall.
Screaming and bellowing grow louder before him along with the boom of thunder and clash of weapons, echoing over the water and through the streets. It’s hard to tell where the sounds are coming from. At times, it feels like there’s a war being fought in every alleyway.
He keeps pounding forward with his makeshift squad. As much as he feared whatever was haunting the streets, he feared Sorrah Nikos more.
Finally, in the half-light of a burning house, he sees silhouettes running and stumbling up the street towards him. Allies, he recognises. As he watches one at the front drops, and is trampled by the mob. They didn’t even seem to notice.
His squad and the mob meet, his Emissaires immediately pushing into the crush of people to restore discipline. The Hornshield grabs one of the deserters and holds her fast.
“Where’s the enemy? What are they?” he commands, but she doesn’t stop weeping.
“Run… We need to run!”
“Are they behind you?”
With order restored and the running warriors brought into line after a few examples were made, the Hornshield’s warriors begin to spread out into a defensive formation, preparing for whatever might charge down the street.
The warrior shakes her head.
“No, they are…”
A flurry of bolts roar out of the side streets, cutting down those on the outskirts of the group. Behind each illuminating bolt a terrifying vision of draconic monster and silent metal warrior is revealed, the former growling, the latter utterly silent as they scythe efficient volleys through their enemies, pressing them further together.
“Ahead of us…” the warrior gasps, before a bolt punches through her stomach.
The Hornshield feels the ground shake beneath him as axe-wielding Stormcast atop Dracoths charge down both ends of the street. His last sight is of a fanged maw spitting lightning death, closing around his head. Then darkness.
The slaughter lasts all of a dozen seconds before the Wardens of Burden are already riding away, leaving only corpses in their wake.
“Our enemy outnumbers us, but their forces will be spread out across the city. A single Echelon has a superior concentration of force within it than any single unit the enemy has.”
As she talks Tcimmera traces the routes she’s already planning for her Wardens; infiltrating through smaller streets to harry and herd the enemy, followed by charges up the wider thoroughfares.
“So we keep every single engagement between an Echelon and a few of theirs. Hit each one piecemeal, destroy it, then ride on to the next before they’ve even realised that they’re the new first line of defence. Shock and awe is key, so anywhere where they’ve managed to create an entrenched position…”
She circles the tip of her finger around barracks, towers, and – worryingly to Bartheliman – the stone structures that had survived the flood, mostly temples and civic buildings.
“The Stardrakes will destroy with might and starbreath, while the Dracothian Guard push on. We can’t get bogged down.”
“What about civilians?”
Tcimmera frowns, and her eyes dart up to Bartheliman.
“As I said, we can’t afford to be bogged down.”
Bartheliman leans forward on the rock, splaying his hands over the map.
“So we’re not even going to try to rescue them?”
Tcimmera’s frown deepens, and she stands up straight. Bartheliman expects a rebuke; Tcimmera looks almost ready to give one, as her mouth opens…
But just as abruptly as her furor had been piqued, it dies away. The Lord-Celestant slumps and stares at the Knight-Azyros with an empty expression, suddenly bereft of anger.
“Bartheliman,” she murmurs, surprising him by how softly she speaks. “We’re not the Blackhammers. We can’t fight that kind of war, no matter how much…”
Her voice trails off, then picks up again;
“You… Wish to. The Wardens are a small chamber. We can’t take the city with a conventional assault.”
She leans forward over the map again, averting her eyes from his. Ahvria curls his neck around her shoulder, moving gently for a creature of his size.
“The kindest thing we can do for any hostages, is to destroy their captors as quickly as possible.”
“We wouldn’t have managed by ourselves either.”
Tcimmera turns her defeated eyes back up to him. Bartheliman pauses for a moment as he studies them.
No completely defeated…
He lets that thought embolden him, along with Phionan’s voice echoing from the past.
“For better or worse, Tcimmera never gives up. So long as she has breath in her body, she’ll never retreat.”
“But we would have tried anyway. Whether it’s hard or not is besides the point.”
Tcimmera’s back stiffens; just a touch, but enough for Bartheliman to notice. Ahvria looks from his Lord-Celestant to the Knight-Azyros and back again, confused, while Tekta-Korchi watches on impassively. Bartheliman pushes those two out of his mind, focusing entirely on Tcimmera.
“What mattered was doing the right thing.”
She looks back at him impassively, thoughts locked away behind her empty expression.
But not so tightly that Bartheliman can’t see the spark as she tilts her head, and the brilliant mind begins to turn…
“What… Could you do with a Lightning Echelon?” she finally says, still hesitant. But there’s enough willingness there for Bartheliman.
“Far more than what I’d be able to do without.”
Tcimmera stares at him, then… It’s not quite a smile, or even the ghost of one. But she doesn’t seem quite so beaten anymore.
“It’s yours.”
The Emissairy ducks under Fulminator Wyttige’s spear, grinning with victory and relief as he stabs his blade forward. That grin is broken by her shield slamming forward to smash into his face, sending him sprawling onto the ground. With unhurried efficiency, Wyttige marches forward, and before the Emissairy can push himself upright breaks his neck with a single stomp of her boot.
She feels Bartheliman watching her, and turns her cold, hard eyes towards him.
“You don’t have to worry. We’ve crushed vermin like this before.”
He wonders if he had ever heard a Stormcast say something so bleak before, and filled with hate.
But, as he readies his dripping blade and steels his soul to open up another laboratory of Sorrah Nikos’ horrors, he’s not entirely sure he can blame her.
Around him Civilia burns, and where it doesn’t he finds monsters. Whether the Wardens of Burden take or lose the city, it might already be a defeat.
