He tasted blood, and he spit it out. Beside him, Xshaeta’s head was hanging limp. Isthubar turned his neck towards the Blightking, hissing at him.
With extreme effort, he staggered to his feet. An ugly, blubbering belly laugh greeted him as he once more faced the Blightking.
To the two-headed Tzaangor, it was rare that a foe came close to their height. A soiled yellow cloak over the corroded black armour made it obvious that this was, indeed, a champion of the Pox Triumphant. From the Nurglite’s eyeslits, small streams of pus and exudate ran down his helm, dripping onto his breastplate. The armour was probably everything that held this diseased being together. He weighted the rusty, jagged mace in his hand.
Said rusty, jagged mace abruptly shot towards Isthubar, who was still struggling with limbs he had barely any control over. He raised his right arm just in time, and the tremor of the impact ran through the entirety of his body.
The Tzaangor staggered backwards, seeking to put as much distance between the lumbering brute and himself as possible. A thousand needles shot through his numb left arm as he tried to shake Xshaeta awake, to no avail. One misjudged movement, and he fell again, losing the grip of his axe in the process. The Blightlord stepped closer.
Nearby, the other Templars fought a desperate fight against a seemingly endless stream of plague monks, and they couldn’t find how to push through to him.
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It had been an act of balance to keep the attack on the Spire at the highest possible strength. Luckily, the Templars had managed to acquire the services of Borhun Jorgensdottir, a Kharadron captain with the Stakeholder’s Bargain, who had served as an intelligence gatherer alongside their own scouts.
With subtle prodding, misinformation (and the sacrifice of some Expendables) the Templars did their best to keep the attacking forces apart and to preserve the attacking strength of the disparate forces marching on Slekit Spire. Khornates, Fyreslayers and Lumineth were of more use to the war effort if they didn’t needlessly kill each other while on the march.
Meanwhile, Isthubar and Xshaeta themselves had continued constructing their Path of Sigils, with the assistance of Tzaangor shamans arriving at the Citadel of Metamorphosis from the realmgate.
It was a delicate plan, close to it’s glorious completion – until Clan Pestilens attacked in full force, the bellowing yellow-cloaked Blightking at their forefront.
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The mace came down once again with a powerful strike, aimed at Isthubar’s head. Only in the last second was the Tzaangor able to bring his arm up to block – white-hot pain flooded through his whole body as he felt the bone shatter underneath his dented golden gauntlet.
“Disappointing. I had hoped you would put up more of a fight.” The Blightking spoke, his voice gruff but burbling, as if there was pus streaming through his mouth at all times… which probably was the case. “Slekit Spire will stand. And from it, a beautiful garden will sprout, you will see!” His breastplate shook as he laughed at his own ‘wit.’ “No you won’t.”
The Nurglite set his foot upon the Tzaangor’s ornate breastplate and pressed down.
Isthubar’s vision began to fail. With Xshaeta hanging unconscious, it was more intuition than true control what the left side of his body was doing; like desperately pulling at an invisible puppet’s invisible strings.
Gurgling in mirth, his opponent raised his heavy, jagged weapon for a final strike, as a powerful “His Golden Wings inflame!“ diverted his attention away from his victim.
Sorush the Dour broke through the wavering wall of ratmen. The Templar Chosen charged towards the startled Blightlord, but an especially megalomaniacal Plague priest jumped in his way, only to be promptly beheaded by a single strike of Sorush’s Holy Blade.
Isthubar could see the blood splatter onto the ground, and also how the other Templars joined into the battlecry, hacking and tearing into the skaven as Sorush led their slaughter.
With massive effort, Isthubar pulled on the string, and indeed, their left arm shot forward, a vicious curved blade in hand.
The numb claw painfully clenched around the weapon, Isthubar slashed it across the Nurglite’s lower tigh, the only place he could sensibly reach with his opponent pressing down on his breastplate with his foot, and the sharp edge caught on the corroded leather strap holding the greave in place, cutting it apart.
With blind aggression, the Tzaangor slashed at the same spot twice again in quick succession, as he could see the blade vibrate with the Holy Might of Our Saviour.
“Why you dirty little buzzard..!”
The Blightlord had franticly raised his mace high to shatter the last of the Tzaangor’s resistance as his shredded leg suddenly gave way below him; he collapsed onto the Tzaangor, awkwardly bracing his fall with his one hand, trying to end Isthubar with the force of the other.
Instinctively, the Templars’ sharp beak darted forward, tearing deep into the Blightlord’s diseased arm with a powerful thrust, continuing to slash at the Blightlord, again and again, gore and pus spilling in streams over him until the Nurglite’s unprotected neck finally gave in and his severed head rolled on the ground.
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For the umpteenth time, Isthubar spit out the bile collecting in his beak. It had saved his life, but thrusting his beak into the Blightlord’s arm had still been the most disgusting experience of his entire life.
Beside him, his other head Xshaeta was still unconscious, although his wounds had been treated well, and he would survive. They would survive.
They all started chanting, a circle of Tzaangor shamans leading the ritual.
Around them, complex sigils of power had been intricately carved into the ground. A grand pyre had been erected in its midst, where the corpses of today’s battle burned, and nine pyres arranged around it, where the prisoners were arranged in the Choir of the Burning.
The attacks on the spire if Slekit had begun. Not only the Templars, but the other warbands had attacked well, just as planned. It was surely enough to bring the Spire down, and with it…
With the realmgate to Ghyran broken, their ritual would allow them to capture the massive energies releasing themselves with the spire collapsing. They would channel them along the path of Sigils, leading towards the Nullstone infections in the red forest and above the Metallic Caverns. If Fate was on the Templars’ side, it would cause a chain reaction cleansing the Nullstone from Vulkaris, if not, it should at least cleanse some of it.
In the distance, Isthubar could see the corrupted spire move and shift in magical flames.
The time had come.
