Contents

Cover

Fury of Gork – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Prologue

The Eight Lamentations

‘Speak, shaman – tell us the tale of Marrowcutter,’ Goreshroud growled. The Bloodbound was a tall man, covered in muscle and piecemeal armour scavenged from a hundred fields of slaughter. His eyes were obscured by a great scar in the shape of the rune of Khorne that covered the upper half of his skull, rising to meet his mane of fat-stiffened, crimson-dyed hair. Though he had no eyes, it was said that Goreshroud could see through those carved into the blade of his heavy, broad-bladed battle-axe. As he spoke, he thumped the ground with the bone-haft of the weapon. ‘Speak and tell us of that which I seek.’

His gathered chieftains growled assent, pounding the earth or clapping their hands. ‘Speak,’ they murmured as one. They were a varied lot: hillmen from the Ghurlands and silver-haired savages from the Boiling Mountains of Chamon, obsidian-clad reavers from the Shadowlands and Calderan horse-lords from the Felstone Plains of Aqshy. Goreshroud had stirred the embers of a conquering fire from the ashes of his past victories, binding his defeated opponents to his skull-bedecked banners. Soon, his armies would sweep across the Ghurlands, from the Gholian Heights to the Sea of Monsters. Or so he claimed, at every available opportunity.

Zazul of the Radiant Veil hunkered closer to the fire around which Goreshroud and his chosen headmen were gathered. The fire was one of a dozen that flickered amidst the long shadows of the boneyard. Goreshroud’s warriors had chosen the massive ribcage of some ancient leviathan as their encampment, trusting in the old bones to act as a palisade against the horrors that roamed the vast plain. They were overconfident and inobservant, and it would be their undoing, Zazul thought.

The Gargant’s Graveyard, as it had come to be known, stretched from one amber horizon to the next. It was covered in the sun-bleached remains of thousands of gargants, as well as other beasts, some larger, some smaller. Immense ribcages and titanic skulls the size of duardin citadels dotted the plain, dwarfing the bones of ogors and other nameless monstrosities that hunted the Ghurlands. The bones spread outwards like a grisly maze from a central point that few had seen and even fewer had lived to speak of. It was this point, and what lay within it, that Goreshroud had come to find.

‘On your feet, rag-and-bone man,’ Goreshroud said, gesturing sharply. ‘Up and speak. Speak to me of the glories that await me in the Howling Labyrinth. Speak to us of the hell-blade, Marrowcutter. Up! I command you.’ His chieftains added their voices to his, glaring at Zazul with impatience and eagerness. Some of them wanted to hear the story. Others were looking for any excuse to carve out his heart and offer it up to Khorne.

Zazul sighed and stood, careful not to let the illusions that cloaked him slip. To Goreshroud and his servants, he appeared as nothing more than a fur-clad shaman, bedecked in feathers and mouldering pelts, his filthy skin marked with crude scarification and tattoos. The Blood God was no friend to those who wove the skeins of magic and fate, and his servants dealt harshly with any sorcerer that they could not cow into subservience – especially if that sorcerer was a servant of the Changer of Ways.

‘In the beginning, before the Age of Blood, before the realms cracked and the four brothers made war upon one another, there was fire. From fire, came heat. From heat, shape. And shape split into eight. And the eight became as death,’ Zazul intoned. As he gestured, the fire flared up and things took shape within the writhing flames.

‘The eight were the raw stuff of Chaos, hammered and shaped to a killing edge by the sworn forgemasters of the dread Soulmaw, the chosen weaponsmiths of Khorne. To each forgemaster was given a task – to craft a weapon unlike any other, a weapon fit for a god. Or one as unto a god,’ he said, meeting Goreshroud’s eyeless gaze meaningfully. The deathbringer’s lip curled in a sneer, and he thumped the ground with the haft of his axe.

Fool, Zazul thought, even as he continued his tale. ‘Some, like Wolant Sevenhand, forgemaster of Chamon, crafted weapons of great size and little subtlety. It was said that the great iron-banded mace Sharduk, the Gate-smasher, could shatter walls and crack citadels.’ In the flames, a gigantic warrior clad in blood-stained armour struck a looming gate with a heavy mace, obliterating it. At this, the chieftains whistled and stamped their feet. Goreshroud chuckled and motioned for silence.

Zazul inclined his head and continued. ‘Others, like Qyat of the Folded Soul, forgemaster of Ulgu, crafted things of great subtlety – the spear called Gung, the Huntsman, which would always strike home, no matter how far or how fast its intended prey fled.’ He gestured, and in the flames the image of Gung took shape, a long haft of solid shadow and a broad blade of blackened silver. It squirmed like a thing alive, and Goreshroud’s chieftains murmured in awe. Zazul motioned again and the image was lost to the flames.

‘But one weapon was prized above all others,’ he said, ‘for a hundred and one greater daemons had been sacrificed in its forging by Volundr Skullcracker, the forgemaster of Aqshy. Their screaming essences were folded and beaten on an anvil of living bone, until they flowed together into the sword called the Worldsplitter – Marrowcutter.’

‘Marrowcutter,’ Goreshroud growled, as his chieftains murmured. ‘The Ur-sword, the Kinslayer, the Unmaker.’ He looked around. ‘A weapon worthy of an Eightfold Lord.’

‘Indeed, O most mighty Goreshroud,’ Zazul said meekly. He heard a caw, somewhere far above him and glanced up, through the latticework of cracked bones, towards the night sky. Black shapes circled above and he smiled thinly. Ah, finally, he thought.

‘Eight weapons in all were forged by the daemon-smiths,’ he continued. ‘Two for each of the four brothers, gifts to them from the eldest and mightiest of their number, and to himself as well. But the gods soon turned their thoughts from friendship and camaraderie, and towards domination. The four brothers were ever aligned only in opposition, and when their foes fled or faded, Khorne’s boundless fury was turned upon his kinsmen.’

The Bloodbound laughed at that. Khorne cared not from where the blood flowed, only that it flowed. Zazul hid a frown and said, ‘And as the realms shuddered and the Age of Chaos gave way to the Age of Blood, the weapons known as the Eight Lamentations were lost.’

‘Aye, but we have found one, eh, brothers?’ Goreshroud said, slapping his knee. ‘And guarded only by a few thousand greenskins... Easy pickings.’ He motioned to the nets full of orruk skulls that hung from the Khornate icons and lodge-poles thrust into the ground all about the campsite. ‘Good prey, the brutes, but hardly a challenge for Khorne’s own.’

‘Indeed, O most cunning of killers,’ Zazul said, bowing. In truth, the orruks were far more numerous than Goreshroud realised, and growing stronger all the time. The sound of their drums filled the night, echoing up from the depths of the Gargant’s Graveyard. They were gathering in the dark, and would soon flood the plain like a green tide. And there were others – champions of the Ruinous Powers from across the Ghurlands were stalking the boneyard, following the stories of Marrowcutter. ‘Marrowcutter waits at the heart of the Howling Labyrinth for a worthy claimant.’

‘And I shall be that claimant,’ Goreshroud said. ‘Goreshroud, wielder of Marrowcutter.’ He shoved himself to his feet and spread his arms. ‘Aye, has a nice ring to it, eh? What say you, brothers?’

As the Bloodbound cheered their leader, Zazul raised his hand. The flames flared once more, higher and brighter than before, turning from orange to red to purple. The gathered chieftains staggered away from the coruscating fire, blinded, their flesh singed. Goreshroud yelped and fell backwards. From deeper in the camp came a sudden cry, swiftly silenced. Goreshroud turned, eyeless face twisted in a grimace of consternation. ‘What–’ he began.

All at once, the night was alive with the sound of violence. Warriors cried out in alarm as shapes burst from the darkness and lunged between the thick bones around them. The air throbbed with the song of sorcery, and screams became screeches as men were transformed into mewling beasts or reduced to motes of coloured light. From above, a flock of ravens dived down through the vaulted reaches of the great ribcage. Goreshroud’s chieftains looked up in alarm as the birds plummeted towards them.

As the ravens filled the air above the fire, Zazul let his illusion lapse. Ragged furs and filthy flesh evaporated, replaced by robes of all colours and none, and armour made of beaten gold. His featureless helm was crafted from lazuli, carved by the silken chisels of the seer-masons of the Dusty Sea. Zazul spread his arms and lifted his staff.

‘Reveal yourselves! Let the Ninety-Nine Feathers show their talons, in the name of the King-of-all-Ravens and the debt you owe me,’ he chanted.

Ravens twisted and changed in mid-air, shedding feathers and growing arms and legs. Black-robed killers tumbled down among the awe-struck chieftains, and laid about them with curved swords and knives. Clad in black scale mail and robes beneath their feathered cloaks, their faces hidden behind black iron masks wrought in the shape of birds’ heads, the Ninety-Nine Feathers made for an intimidating sight. They fought in silence, wielding blade and magic with consummate skill.

Zazul watched the slaughter with detached amusement. A raven fluttered down and perched on his shoulder. ‘Thrice you have called upon the Ninety-Nine Feathers, and thrice we have aided thee, Radiant One,’ the bird croaked in a woman’s voice.

‘Yes, and one marker yet remains to be paid, my lady,’ Zazul said. ‘Four debts thy cabal owes me, and four services shall ye perform.’

‘And then we are free?’

‘As free as any in this world,’ Zazul said, after a moment. He heard a bird-like scream and saw one of the black-clad sorcerer-champions slump, Goreshroud’s axe buried in his skull. As the deathbringer wrenched his weapon free, Zazul waved the Ninety-Nine Feathers aside, opening a path between himself and Goreshroud.

‘Who are you?’ the deathbringer growled.

‘I am Zazul, mighty Goreshroud,’ Zazul said, one gilded claw resting on the azure pommel stone of the curved sword sheathed at his waist. ‘I am one of nine, ordained by the Architect of Fate. The twisting paths of the future are mine to scry and walk, the webs of fate mine to weave... or cull.’ The sounds of battle rose up from within the palisade of bones. Goreshroud’s warriors were faring badly by the sound of things. With their chieftains dead and their commander preoccupied, they were at the mercy of their enemies. Those who did not fall here would scatter into the Gargant’s Graveyard, there to become prey for orruks or worse things.

Goreshroud raised his axe. ‘Pretty words, worm. Even so, I will mount your veiled skull on my lodge-pole,’ he said. One of the raven-warriors leapt at him, and the deathbringer bisected him with a lazy sweep of his axe. Goreshroud charged through the fire, scattering embers, axe raised. Zazul gestured, and Goreshroud’s axe slammed down against a shimmering prismatic shield. Goreshroud howled and hacked at the shield, seemingly unable to grasp that his weapon could not pierce it.

Zazul looked past the deathbringer and caught sight of a shimmering figure striding through the dark. He chuckled. Of course – she wishes to be in at the kill, he thought, as the newcomer struck an icon with the flat of her sword.

At the quavering peal, Goreshroud turned, scarred features crinkling. ‘You... I know you,’ he said.

‘I daresay you do,’ the newcomer said. She wore armour composed of what appeared to be multicoloured crystal or glass. Intricately wrought and delicate looking as it was, Zazul knew that it was stronger than steel. Upon her head was a high-crested, open-faced helm of the same material. The crest was made from flowing streamers of pale smoke, as was the buckler on her arm. The curved blade of crystal in her other hand was stained crimson.

‘I heard you were driven from the mountains by the lightning-men, Sharizad,’ Goreshroud said. ‘They killed your siblings and cast down your standards.’

‘And they shattered your conclave and drove you from Hookjaw Cove, eyeless one,’ Sharizad, the Shimmering Countess, said demurely. She extended her blade. ‘As the Great Black Fox whispers, defeat is but the lesson one must learn to achieve victory.’

‘Those are your wolves out there, then, attacking my followers,’ Goreshroud grunted. ‘Trust a sorceress to attack in so cowardly a fashion.’

‘If by cowardice you mean cunning, well... we are but as the gods made us,’ Sharizad said, with an elegant shrug.

Goreshroud licked his lips and spun his axe. ‘I was raised by the wolf and the stallion, witch,’ he said. He stepped towards the Shimmering Countess, his weapon raised. ‘An eagle circled my mother’s birthing-yurt eight times. My destiny–’

‘Your destiny is to be but a footnote in my own,’ Sharizad said. ‘A fate for which you are well suited.’

Goreshroud gave a roar and charged towards her, his axe sweeping out in a savage arc. The two warriors traded blows as they spun about the campsite in a brutal gavotte. Goreshroud was the stronger of the two, but lacked his opponent’s finesse. He could turn bone to powder with a single blow, but that blow first had to land. Sharizad twisted and whirled, avoiding the broad sweep of her opponent’s axe with calculated ease. Goreshroud grew angrier with every missed strike, and what little discipline he possessed began to fray. Soon, he was frothing at the mouth and howling every curse he knew. His blows grew wilder and more desperate, but still Sharizad stayed out of reach, baiting him with light caresses from her own blade, drawing blood and wounding her foe’s pride.

Finally, the deathbringer could stand it no more. With a howl fit to shake the boneyard, he hurled himself at the Shimmering Countess, axe raised over his head. Zazul watched with no small amount of pleasure as the Shimmering Countess sidestepped the deathbringer’s berserk charge and buried her crystalline sword in his back. Goreshroud fell onto his hands and knees, vomiting blood.

Sharizad set her foot against the back of his neck and wrenched the sword free. Goreshroud sank down and lay still, his axe sliding from his grip. The countess held her sword up to the firelight, watching as her opponent’s blood was absorbed into the irregular facets of the weapon’s blade.

‘Such a fine weapon,’ she murmured. ‘But there is a finer one by far to be had, is there not, my Zazul?’

Zazul inclined his head. ‘So my little birds have said.’ He stroked the raven perched on his shoulder. ‘They also bring word – time grows short. Goreshroud will not be the last. Every warlord in the region worth his salt will be hurrying this way. Not just Bloodbound, but Rotbringers and pleasure-hounds as well. Even the ratkin. Many are here already.’

‘Of that, I am well aware. I traded sword-strokes with the Knight of Silk not a day ago before the poltroon fled, and heard the wheezing bellows of the Black-Iron King at a distance.’ Sharizad sheathed her sword with a flourish. ‘And yet, what of it? Is my destiny not paramount in this moment, in this place? Why should I fear lesser fates?’

‘Things grow uncertain when many destinies converge,’ Zazul said patiently. Sharizad was demanding and ambitious, as well as cunning, and the combination made her tempestuous. ‘The skeins of fate overlap and interweave confusingly here. What was once solid becomes fluid. Your victory is assured, O Destined Queen, but so too are the destinies of those who move in opposition to you. Fools like Goreshroud, or the Black-Iron King,’ he continued. ‘A hundred chieftains, champions and heroes are even now stalking these bone-fields, and each one has as much claim on victory as you.’

‘None have as much claim as me,’ Sharizad said.

‘None, perhaps save the dogs of Sigmar,’ Zazul said. He motioned to the dark sky. ‘You heard the thunder, yes? A storm pursues you, Sharizad. And it will find you before you leave here. That much, at least, the spirits say.’

Sharizad glared at him. ‘I fear no storm, celestial or otherwise. But I take your point.’ She looked down at Goreshroud. ‘We must winnow the grain from the chaff. I will not be denied again, sorcerer.’ She pointed at him with her blade. ‘Marrowcutter will be mine. You have sworn it, my Zazul, and I will hold you to that promise.’

Zazul bowed obsequiously. ‘I have sworn to aid thee, O Many-Splendoured One, and so I shall.’ He caught sight of one of the skull-nets dangling from the Khornate icons planted about the fire. As he straightened, he gestured and the net unravelled. One of the orruk skulls floated into his waiting hand and he proffered it to Sharizad.

‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I believe I have just the tool for the task...’

Chapter One

The Fist of Gork

The Black-Iron King roared hollowly and charged. The deathbringer’s baroque, smoke-spewing armour creaked shrilly as he trampled over bloodreavers and the orruks they battled alike in his haste to reach his foe. The fiery maul he wielded tore flesh and crushed bone as he swept it out in a vicious arc to clear his path.

‘Deliver thyself to me, beastling – I am thy doom, and the doom of all thy kind!’ the Black-Iron King thundered, pulverising an orruk too slow to get out of his way. He had been shouting the same thing for hours, calling for Gordrakk. And, at last, Gordrakk, the Fist of Gork, had decided to oblige him.

After days of skirmishing, the orruks had cornered their foe in a narrow canyon made from the spread skeletal jaws of some long-dead monster. Now, the Five Fists of Gordrakk pummelled the Black-Iron Legion with a relentlessness that set even the most hardened worshippers of the Blood God back on their heels. Ardboys, led by brawling brutes, clashed with armoured reavers amid a forest of sun-bleached fangs. Their confrontation saw thick clouds of dust thrown into the air, blotting out the light of the amber suns far above.

The maw-krusha bounded forwards with a peculiar hopping gait, its scaly jaws wide. It was larger than anything else on the battlefield, save perhaps the Black-Iron King himself. The beast crashed down, flattening an unwary blood warrior beneath its bulk. Gordrakk thumped Chompa on the head with the haft of one of the axes he carried, eliciting a thunderous bellow. Those blood warriors closest to the maw-krusha died instantly, bones shattered and brains burst by the incoherent force of that furious sound. Those who survived, and made it past the maw-krusha’s jaws and talons, leapt onto the creature, scrambling towards its rider.

Gordrakk laughed and stood up in his saddle. He clashed his axes together and tore them apart in a spray of sparks. Kunnin’ hummed in his grip, whispering in one ear, while its twin, Smasha, bellowed in his other. Gordrakk’s head was always filled with noise – just the way he liked it. Silence was boring. The axes had been silent until he had pulled them apart, making two weapons where there had once only been one. Two axes were better than one; this way he had one for each hand, and could crack twice as many skulls.

The boss-of-bosses whipped Kunnin’ out in a shallow arc, cutting the legs out from under a blood warrior, even as he crumpled the chest-plate of another with Smasha. He blocked a blow from an enemy axe and gutted its wielder. He twisted, driving an armoured shoulder into an opponent’s chest, and knocking him backwards off Chompa’s skull. Before the warrior could rise, Chompa crushed him with a massive fist. Gordrakk thumped the beast with his foot.

‘Oi, he was mine, ya greedy git. Get your own!’

Chompa roared in protest and swung its thick arms, slapping Bloodbound from their feet. Axes and heavy blades bounced off the monster’s thick hide even as it smashed their wielders into paste. Gordrakk bellowed laughter and fell back into his saddle as Chompa surged instinctively forwards, carrying them towards the heart of the fray. Gordrakk had ridden many maw-krushas in his life, but only one equalled his sheer, unbridled lust for battle. He urged Chompa to greater speed, kicking its flanks.

The Black-Iron King held court at the centre of the narrow battlefield, surrounded by the broken bodies of brutes and ardboys. The Chaos-nob was tough, no two ways there. Gordrakk leaned forwards in his saddle, eager for the fight to come. At Chompa’s roar, the smoke-wreathed shape of the deathbringer whirled about and extended his maul.

‘Yes. Come to me, beastling. Come, Gordrakk, and meet your prophesied doom,’ the Black-Iron King shouted. ‘The Allslaughter has been drawn and the wings of death shadow you!’

Gordrakk blinked and glanced up, and saw carrion-birds circling overhead. He laughed. The Chaos-nobs always talked rubbish. They talked before they fought and while they fought – talk, talk, talk. Even so, Gordrakk couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride. Everyone had heard of Gordrakk, the Fist of Gork. Even the iron-shod Chaos-things and the duardin in their deep-holds. It was good that they knew him and came looking for a scrap. It meant he always had a fight waiting, wherever he went, even if he didn’t know where that was until he got there.

He urged Chompa forwards and roared, scattering his warriors. This was his fight and his alone; his boys knew better than to get between the Fist of Gork and his foe. For his part, the Black-Iron King seemed to welcome Gordrakk’s charge. He spread his long arms and set his feet. As Chompa drew near, the deathbringer took a two-handed grip on his maul and swung it out. The weapon slammed across Chompa’s scaly jaw, staggering the beast.

Gordrakk growled and vaulted from the saddle as Chompa swayed drunkenly. He slid down the maw-krusha’s snout and dropped to the ground, axes whistling out in opposite directions to drive the Black-Iron King back several steps.

‘At last,’ the deathbringer rumbled. ‘The gods have spoken, brute, and your death shall be my stepping stone to–’

Gordrakk lunged, driving his skull against the ridged helm of his opponent. The deathbringer reeled with a metallic squawk. Gordrakk bulled into him, knocking him back.

‘Talk or fight, not both,’ he snarled as they broke apart.

‘Ho, it speaks!’ the Black-Iron King rasped. ‘Good. You shall be able to beg for mercy.’ He tromped forwards, joints creaking, vents hissing. The fiery maul looped out in a blow that would have removed Gordrakk’s head, had he not swayed beneath it. Kunnin’ whispered to him in Mork’s voice, or maybe Gork’s, calling his attention to his foe’s armour. There – a chink in one of the joins.

Swiftly, Gordrakk whipped both axes up and around, slamming them into the weak spot as one. The Black-Iron King screamed and stiffened. Gordrakk tore Smasha free and drove it down again. Cracks formed, running along the seams of the daemon-armour. Wherever Smasha struck, even the strongest iron buckled. Foul gases and smoke spewed from the deathbringer’s armour as he sank to one knee.

Weakly, desperately, he swung his maul, trying to drive Gordrakk back. ‘Doom... I am your doom... It was written...’ the Black-Iron King gasped in disbelief. Gordrakk laughed and hit him again. He used the edge of one axe to hook the head of his opponent’s maul and tug it from his grip. The Black-Iron King lurched forwards, clawing for the weapon. ‘Doom...’ he wheezed.

‘Shut it,’ Gordrakk growled. He drove the other axe into the back of his foe’s helmet. Hell-forged metal crumpled and split. Ichor spewed and a convulsion ran through the Black-Iron King’s gigantic frame. Then, with a whine of abused metal, he toppled forwards and lay still. Gordrakk set his foot on the dead warrior’s skull and lifted his axes. ‘Gorka-MORKA!’ he roared.

‘GORKA-morka-GORKA-morka!’ his warriors began to chant, stamping their feet and clashing their weapons, until the bones that rose up around them trembled. The remaining Chaos-things were fleeing now, scarpering back into the maze of bones. All the fight had been knocked out of them by the death of their chieftain.

Gordrakk spread his arms, soaking up the adulation of his boys. This was what it meant to be the boss-of-bosses. He was the best, the biggest, the baddest and the most blessed. Gorkamorka spoke to him, in his head, and punched him in the heart, filling him with divine fury. His fury was shared by the rest of the Ironjawz. The Big Waaagh! was coming. They could all feel it in their bones, rising up from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads – it was like being hit by lightning all the time. Gordrakk threw back his head and roared wordlessly.

It didn’t matter what their enemies did, how hard they fought or how well they hid – the Ironjawz always found them and gave them a beating. He lowered his arms, looked down at the trio of heads that dangled from his belt and gave them an affectionate thump. He knew all their names: Oleander Hume, the Knight of Silk; Poxfinger; Baron Slaughterthorn. It was good to know the names of those you had beaten. That was the word of Gorkamorka, and it was good enough for Gordrakk.

He hefted Smasha and hewed through the Black-Iron King’s gorget with a single blow. The smoking helm rolled free and Gordrakk snatched it up. It would look fine hanging from his back-banner. Fights were already breaking out as the boys fell to looting the dead. The Chaos-things had good armour and sharp weapons, needing only a bit of work to make them properly fighty. Gordrakk ignored the brawling as he looked around. Chompa snuffled at the ground nearby, piggy eyes glaring angrily at an approaching mob of megabosses. He punched the maw-krusha before it could get any ideas, and took hold of one tusk. He met the beast’s glare with his own and, after a few moments, Chompa grumbled and settled down.

Gordrakk turned to watch the other bosses draw near. He had cracked the skulls of each of them, thumping them into line, the same as he had done to Chompa. They didn’t resent it – if you got your head smashed, you followed the one doing the smashing. That was just the way of it. Granted, if you thought you could smash the boss’ head, you were expected to try. Gordrakk clashed his axes together as they got close, just to remind them that he was the killiest and smashiest. Kunnin’ murmured observations in his head: Drokka was still favouring his right knee and Grotrak had gone mostly deaf after taking a blow to the head. Morgrum was getting bored and Roklud wanted to krump Morgrum. And Stabbajak, the one-eyed grunta-boss, was thinking that Gordrakk’s head would look good on the end of his gore-stikka. Gordrakk smiled toothily.

The megabosses weren’t alone. Warchanter Grund was idly smacking the carved femurs he carried together, forever lost to a wild rhythm only he could hear. Clad in a harness made from the tusks of gore-gruntas and other beasts, Grund was a hulking brute, made all the more fearsome by the scars that covered his knotted flesh and the crude tattoos that covered what the scars didn’t.

Gordrakk knew the warchanter’s head was empty of everything save the drumbeat of the twin hearts of Gork and Mork, calling all proper orruks to war.

‘Good scrap, good,’ Grund said. He sank into a crouch beside the body of the Black-Iron King and began to beat out a rhythm on the dead warrior’s back. ‘They know us now – know we is the best,’ Grund continued. ‘Soon, everybody going to know that Ironjawz is the best.’

‘They already know,’ Gordrakk rumbled. ‘We’re just reminding them.’ He looked at the other megabosses. ‘Loot ’em quick, then get your boys up on their boots. We got to go.’

‘Go? Go where?’ Stabbajak said, scratching up under his eye patch with the tip of his stikka. Gordrakk’s lip curled. ‘We got somewhere to be?’

‘We’re going where I say, Stabbajak. You got a problem with that?’

‘Maybe.’ Stabbajak’s good eye narrowed. Gordrakk met his gaze and held it, until the other megaboss looked away. ‘No,’ Stabbajak muttered.

‘No, you don’t,’ Gordrakk said. He set his axes across his brawny shoulders, the Black-Iron King’s helm dangling from the blade of Smasha. ‘But I’ll tell you anyways, you git. We’re goin’ to the Big Skull, lads. Make a good jaw-fort, that.’ He jerked his chin towards the distant shape of the Big Skull. The megabosses murmured among themselves. Gordrakk ignored them.

The Big Skull was the biggest bone in the Gargant’s Graveyard. It rose like a cracked and yellowing mountain above the plain. The maze that was the boneyard radiated outwards from it in all directions. Some boys whispered that the skull had belonged to one of the monsters Gorkamorka and the Hammer God had beaten to death in order to make the foundations for all the worlds. Gordrakk liked that story, and he liked the Big Skull. But more importantly, he liked the thing that sat atop the skull.

It was never the same shape twice... Sometimes it was a crown, sometimes a tower. Once it had looked like a box. When the wind was right, he could hear it groaning and shifting, like iron rubbing against iron. Occasionally, he could even hear it howling.

Something about it plucked at him. He felt like Gork’s – or maybe Mork’s – finger was on his head, forcing him to look at the Big Skull and whatever strange thing sprawled across the top. He could hear the gods whispering in his ears, urging him on. They had called him and his fists to the Gargant’s Graveyard, promising a scrap to remember, a fight to end all fights. So far, it had been fun enough, but the need to scale the Big Skull, to see what was at the top, was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Gordrakk kicked the Black-Iron King’s body, eliciting a hollow creak. ‘Ain’t seen any more Chaos-things. They hiding. Or running. Maybe we could find ’em easier from someplace high, yeah?’ he growled. He glared about challengingly. Only one set of eyes met his. The hunched, hooded shape of the shaman, Jabberjaw, stood off to the side, scratching himself idly. No one liked to get too close to the weirdnob. He smelt funny, and skulls tended to pop when he started twitching.

As always, a bevy of carrion-birds circled him, or hopped on the ground at his feet, cawing and scolding any boy who got within pecking distance. Like with their master, there was something... off about the birds. More than one orruk had tried to make a snack of them, only to go missing. Gordrakk didn’t care if they ate a few stragglers. Chompa’s appetite was far worse. The big maw-krusha had eaten an entire war-sty of gore-gruntas once. Stabbajak had been beside himself.

‘You got something ta say, Jabberjaw?’ Gordrakk asked. He already knew the answer. Jabberjaw was called that for a good reason. He was always saying things, yammering on and on and on.

‘Just thinking,’ Jabberjaw said, eyes unfocussed. ‘Spirits are whisperin’...’

‘Talk, you git,’ Gordrakk grunted, slugging the weirdnob. The shaman stumbled and sank to one knobby knee. His birds squawked and shot into the air, circling overhead, their beady eyes gleaming. The megabosses lurched back, eyes narrowed in nervous anticipation. Most orruks didn’t beat on weirdnobs, even if they deserved a kicking. The shamans tended to explode if they were treated too roughly. But Gordrakk wasn’t most orruks.

Jabberjaw rubbed his face and glared at Gordrakk. Gordrakk placed the flat of Kunnin’ underneath the shaman’s chin and lifted his head. ‘Tell me what you seen, Jabberjaw, or I’ll feed you to Stabbajak’s gore-gruntas one bit at a time,’ he growled. ‘Just like I did to the last four weirdnobs who made me angry.’

‘No more Chaos-things,’ Jabberjaw said.

‘Yeah,’ Gordrakk said slowly. ‘I said that, didn’t I?’

‘Don’t mean ain’t no more fighting to be had,’ Jabberjaw said, slyly. He snatched a bird off his shoulder and stroked its head roughly. ‘Spirits hear things, see things... Hear a rumbling in the sky, O mighty Fist of Gork...’

Gordrakk blinked. ‘A storm,’ he grunted. There were always storms, these days. The skies were always thick with clouds and rain. Lightning burned holes in the ground, and set fire to the grasslands. Thunder growled and set the herds to stampeding. It was a war-storm. Wherever the Chaos boys were, the storms followed, spitting armoured warriors down. ‘Storm means storm-things,’ he said.

‘Spirits say they coming, marching through the bones,’ Jabberjaw said. He released his bird and it flew away, croaking. Chompa reared up and snapped at it, but the bird flapped out of reach of the maw-krusha.

Gordrakk glanced up at the dracoth skull on his back-banner, eyes narrowed. He scraped the blade of Kunnin’ against one of the lightning-bolt glyphs he had hammered onto his armour after the last time he had krumped the storm-things.

‘You think the Hammer God wants another fight?’ he grunted, looking back at Jabberjaw. ‘That’d be good, yeah?’ He looked around. Orruks nodded eagerly, excited by the prospect. There was nothing Ironjawz loved more than a good scrap, and the storm-things scrapped better than most. If nothing else, it would make a nice change from the Chaos-things. ‘Yeah,’ he rumbled.

He looked at Grund. ‘Thump the bones, warchanter,’ Gordrakk growled. Grund chuckled and began to beat on the ground with his makeshift clubs. He let loose a howl that was soon picked up by the megabosses and, finally, Gordrakk himself.

Somewhere, back among the brawl, the other warchanters began to howl and stamp their feet. Gordrakk could feel the drumbeat of war in his head and heart, and his axes were talking to him, telling him where to go and what to hit. The Big Skull could wait.

Gordrakk threw back his head and slammed his axes together. ‘GORKA-morka! Gorka-MORKA! GORKAMORKA!’ he roared, and the Ironjawz roared with him.

From behind his shroud of illusion, Zazul of the Radiant Veil watched Gordrakk bellow in barbaric joy. The temptation to simply incinerate the brute then and there was nigh-irresistible. It had dared to strike him, and he had never been the sort to allow such humiliations go unpunished. But the creature was no fool, despite its single-minded nature. It hungered for battle the way another beast might hunger for meat. But it was no blood-simple lunatic like Goreshroud or the recently deceased Black-Iron King. There was an ember of cunning there; he had to be careful, lest it grow into a flame.

It was much the same with Sharizad. The Shimmering Countess was too clever by half – if she learned of his true purpose, she would not be pleased. She thought of him as a servant, one slave amongst many, and he intended to keep it that way. Until the time was right and he forced her to kneel at last before the Grand Marshal of Chaos himself. He cherished that thought, and her probable reaction. Such a moment would make every trial and degradation he had endured in the course of this venture worthwhile.

It had taken him years of careful study and relentless searching to find the Howling Labyrinth, and even longer to find a champion capable of penetrating its tangle of corridors. How many had he fed to the maze – a hundred? Two hundred?

I have not failed one hundred times, merely found one hundred ways that will not work, he thought. An old saying, in the incense-choked libraries of the Forbidden City, and one often associated with the works of the being known as the Daemoniac Conundrum.

The Daemoniac Conundrum was – or had been, or perhaps would be – a trickster without equal. Even such dread pranksters as the Changeling or the Queen of Foxes could not hope to equal the Conundrum for japes and drollery. The Conundrum was malevolent and troublesome, and it was whispered that even the Architect of Fate was wary of its schemes. The Conundrum had been banished from the Forbidden City, the only creature Zazul knew of to suffer such a fate.

A favoured ploy of the Conundrum was to craft cunning structures – mazes and labyrinths, folded citadels and furled castles – and place at their heart prisoners and items of importance. How the Conundrum acquired these prizes in the first place was unknown. Some thought it had spies in every realm, seeking out such things as might be fit for its purposes. Others said that the Daemoniac Conundrum simply waited until one of its puzzles was solved, and then ensured that what was found within was stolen away at some earlier point along the thread of history.

Zazul was of the opinion that the Conundrum was a test, a tool of the Great Deceiver, a stone on which the minds of the faithful could be sharpened. He glanced up at the distant shape of what the orruks so eloquently called the Big Skull. He had wrested the location for the labyrinth from daemons. They had claimed that the skull was that of Agorath, one of the great star-leviathans that prowled the black seas of infinity. Supposedly, the Daemoniac Conundrum had used Marrowcutter to slay the beast, after a hunt lasting centuries. Now, the vast skull marked the tomb in which the Worldsplitter rested...

Unless, of course, the daemons were lying, Zazul thought. That was always a possibility. Daemons were little more than falsehoods made flesh, and one had to sift carefully through their words to find the merest kernels of truth. More than one of his schemes had gone awry thanks to a daemon’s gleeful whispers. It would be unfortunate if that were the case now.

The orruks had been a surprise. They were everywhere, but he had not expected such... discipline, for lack of a better word. The daemons he had consulted had not warned him of Gordrakk’s interest in the Gargant’s Graveyard. The Ironjawz had flooded the plain of bones, driving every living thing before them.

It hadn’t been easy, ingratiating himself to the horde. Zazul had a thousand faces, but most were human. The orruks were suffused with a strange, belligerent form of magic that wore on his mind and soul. It was akin to clinging to a stone, amid a roaring river. One false move, one slip, and his illusions would be washed away, leaving him stranded at the heart of the warhorde, surrounded by thousands of angry orruks.

Zazul had no doubt that he could fight his way free. Armies of savages were as nothing to the sorcerer who had seared the skies of Yithe and shattered the vast heart-columns of the Living Fortress. For the moment, he had Gordrakk aimed away from the Howling Labyrinth. But there was no telling how long that would last.

Something was drawing the brute to the Big Skull, though whether it was instinct or something more sinister, Zazul didn’t yet know. Nor did he intend to let his curiosity get the better of him. Not this time. The Stormcasts would keep Gordrakk occupied long enough for Sharizad to penetrate the mysteries of the Howling Labyrinth. Once Marrowcutter was in her hands, no force in this realm would be able to stand against the Shimmering Countess.

And then... Well. He sighed in satisfaction and reached up to stroke the raven perched on his shoulder. ‘The dogs of Sigmar are sniffing at our threshold, my dear. Have you ever had the pleasure of their company?’

‘No,’ the raven cawed. ‘They make the world feel... wrong.’

‘Indeed. They burn the air and land, erasing illusion and whimsy where they pass. Fit prey, I should think, for your sort.’ Zazul looked around. None of the orruks gave any sign that they thought it strange that Jabberjaw should speak to birds. ‘They will have scouts – winged killers, riding the storm-winds,’ Zazul murmured to the raven. ‘Find them. I want the dogs of Sigmar blinded and stumbling, dear sister. I want to know where they are at all times.’

‘Not your sister,’ the raven croaked. ‘You are not of our cabal, crooked soul. This will be our final service to you, magus.’

‘No, my dear. This is but the first part of your final service. An enemy for an enemy, as we agreed so long ago in the City of Corkscrew Towers,’ Zazul whispered, stroking the raven gently. ‘One more enemy, and then you and the rest of the Ninety-Nine Feathers are free to flee this realm if that is what you wish.’ He flung the raven into the air and it circled him once before flapping off. The others rose from their perches and joined their sister.

Zazul watched them go. It would be a shame the day he lost the services of the Ninety-Nine Feathers. They were useful tools. Unlike many sorcerers, the raven-cabal were focussed in their studies to an incredible degree. They had been pre-eminent assassins once, hunting the mad shadows of the Sideways City and serving the quarrelsome sorcerer-lords of the aerie-citadels of the Amber Veldt in their internecine feuds. He wondered if there was a way to retain their servitude, short of outright force – then discarded the thought as a problem for another day.

Right now, there were more immediate issues to consider. Neither Gordrakk nor the Stormcasts could be allowed to interfere with Sharizad’s quest. Marrowcutter had to be found, and it would be Zazul’s tool who found it.

Once Marrowcutter and the rest of the Eight Lamentations were in the hands of Archaon’s chosen champions, the true war could begin – the final war that would see the entirety of the Mortal Realms consumed by the Realm of Chaos. That was the singular goal of Zazul and his fellow Gaunt Summoners.

And when that day comes, brute, your head shall be first on the block, Zazul thought, glaring at Gordrakk.

The boss-of-bosses had clambered back into his maw-krusha’s saddle. He hauled on the chains that were wrapped around the beast’s neck, forcing the monster to rear up. The maw-krusha thumped its barrel chest and gave vent to an earth-shaking bellow, echoed by its rider. The Five Fists of Gordrakk were marching to war. And the dogs of Sigmar would never know what hit them.

Chapter Two

Stormwalkers

‘Hold them back, Beast-bane!’ Zephacleas bellowed, as the horde of orruks crashed against the shield wall of the Astral Templars in a frenzied wave. The Lord-Celestant of the Beast-bane tore his runeblade free of an orruk’s gut and booted the creature backwards into its fellows. He was a giant of a man, even among the Stormcasts, and he laughed savagely as he wielded hammer and blade alongside his warriors.

He, and by extension his Warrior Chamber, had earned their war-name in the wilds of Azyrheim, hunting the monstrous beasts that still lurked in the high crags and deep canyons of the mountains of the Celestial Realm. At the head of his chamber, Zephacleas had slain the Black Bull of Nordrath. Together, they had harried the beast-packs of the Antarktos Ridge to extinction, slaughtering the white-furred goat-headed servants of Chaos to the last scrawny beast-warrior.

But Ghur was not Azyr, and its dangers were its own. Everywhere he looked, orruk clashed with Stormcast. The brutes bellowed joyfully as they traded blows with the equally vocal Astral Templars. Shields crunched into green faces and saw-toothed clubs drew sparks from sigmarite plates as the two sides shoved against one another in the wide canyon of bone. Over the clangour of battle rose the steady beat of orruk war-drums from somewhere deep within the Gargant’s Graveyard.

The orruks had attacked suddenly, rushing wildly out of the heaps and crags of piled bone that made up the canyon walls and the vast, vaulted archways of ribcages and broken spinal columns.

‘Steady the shield wall, Nine-strike, we have to keep their attention,’ Zephacleas shouted.

‘I know my duty, Lord-Celestant. See to your own,’ Taros Nine-strike said, grinning slightly. The Lord-Castellant of the Beast-bane was almost as broad as Zephacleas was tall, and his thick amethyst war-plate was covered in the marks of battle. A pack of screeching gryph-hounds paced at his feet. They were heavy-bodied creatures, each with the limbs and torso of a great hunting hound and the head of a bird of prey. They could rip the throat out of an unarmoured man in a matter of moments, and had been known to give even Stormcasts a few uncomfortable minutes, if they were of a mind. Occasionally one of the raptor-headed beasts would dart out from between the Stormcasts in the shield wall to hamstring or disembowel an unlucky orruk.

‘Aye,’ Zephacleas said. ‘So I shall.’ He raised his weapons and brought them together. Lightning flared and crackled between hammer and blade as he wrenched them apart, casting strange shadows across the purple armour of his warriors. ‘To me, Beast-bane! Duras, Thetaleas – bare your fangs, my brothers,’ he roared, as he stepped back, out of the fray.

As he called out to his retinues, Zephacleas scanned the battle-line, searching it for weakness. He gave a grunt of satisfaction when he found none. His warriors knew the ways of the orruks of old – the greenskins were as dangerous as any Chaos-tainted warhorde, at twice the numbers. But for all their savagery, they were not things of Chaos. Indeed, they had even been allies of men once, in the dim days of ages past, before the splintering of Sigmar’s pantheon and the fall of the Allpoints.

Sigmar willing, they will be allies again, Zephacleas thought. Hopefully before he had to kill too many of them.

‘Brothers,’ he said, as Duras and Thetaleas joined him. ‘It’s time for a sortie. Care to join me?’

‘Always, my lord,’ Duras said. The Liberator-Prime scraped together the two warblades he carried. Zephacleas nodded in satisfaction. Duras was a fierce one. He had earned his war-name in the Boralis Mountains, after stalking a Chaos-touched crag-bear for seven days, tracking it to its lair and slaying it. And like Thetaleas, he too had been at the Gnarlwood, and learned its lessons well. As had they all...

He looked at Thetaleas. The Decimator-Prime inclined his head.

‘Let us bring them peace, one stroke at a time,’ he rumbled, hefting his thunderaxe meaningfully.

Zephacleas laughed. ‘Yes. Taros!’ he called, turning towards the Lord-Castellant.

Taros nodded and raised his halberd. ‘Arcos, take your warriors forwards five paces, staggered formation,’ the Lord-Castellant called out to a nearby Liberator-Prime. ‘Form a barbican, as we did at Black-Claw Ridge. The rest of you, hold fast.’

‘Aye, Lord-Castellant,’ Arcos said. Liberators advanced behind their shields, warblades held low to thrust into bellies and legs. A crippled foe was as good as a dead one, in close quarters. The Liberators pressed the orruks back, and the shield wall tightened behind them, creating a bubble of sigmarite in the battle-line.

‘Brace yourselves,’ Taros shouted, as a knot of orruks breached the closing wall of sigmarite and forced their way past the Stormcasts. The Lord-Castellant whirled his halberd out in a tight circle, and the orruks were knocked sprawling by the blow. Stunned, the greenskins made easy prey for the warblade-armed Liberators who waited behind the shield wall. Those orruks that escaped the butchery were bowled under by yowling gryph-hounds, and torn apart by savage beaks and talons.

‘Your gate awaits,’ Taros said, glancing at Zephacleas as he wrenched his halberd-blade free of an orruk’s skull. Zephacleas dipped his head in acknowledgement and turned towards the shield wall, Thetaleas and Duras at his heels. Liberators pulled their shields in and stepped aside.

Without stopping, Zephacleas caught the edge of his sigmarite warcloak and swirled it, unleashing the enchantment woven into its folds. Mystic hammers erupted from the edges of the cloak and hurtled into the onrushing ranks of orruks. Green flesh was pulped and torn, and the orruks retreated in disarray. The lull wouldn’t last for long, Zephacleas knew.

Zephacleas and the others advanced as the greenskins retreated. The warriors formed a ragged line and began to trot towards the regrouping creatures.

‘We are ruin,’ Zephacleas said.

‘We are destruction,’ the warriors around him responded, as they moved. Their savagery matched his and, for a moment, he was a mortal again, fighting alongside his clansmen, the heat of battle rising in their veins, their foes falling before them.

‘We are death!’ Zephacleas roared.

‘Death and ruin!’ His warriors bellowed in reply, their voices mingling, becoming a single fierce note of promise. It was a simple sort of cry, and prone to being bent out of shape, when the mood struck him or his auxiliary commanders. He did not hold with words set in stone or prayers forged from iron. For the Beast-bane, the song of battle was always different. Yet it served its purpose as well as any hammer or blade.

In this case, it was an enticement. The orruks responded as he had hoped, bellowing their own war-songs as they lunged forwards to meet Zephacleas and his warriors.

That’s right, keep looking at us, he thought. It was an old hunter’s trick: keep the prey focussed on what was in front of or behind it, rather than what might be coming up alongside. And the easiest way to do that with orruks was to give them someone to fight. Someone out in the open.

That was the lesson of the Gnarlwood. Four Warrior Chambers of Astral Templars had entered that bleak forest and cleansed it of its loathsome inhabitants, despite heavy losses. Zephacleas himself had taken the three monstrous heads of Grand-King Gidhora, the beastlord who had ruled there. It was while fighting the beastlord’s innumerable war-herds that his Warrior Chamber had learned that no shield wall, no matter how strong, could last indefinitely; that no defence was impregnable, and no foe unbreakable. And, perhaps most importantly of all, that the best defence was a good offence.

Zephacleas cracked a green head with his hammer and tore his sword free of the dying orruk’s chest. They took a lot of killing. They were sturdier than most things that walked the Mortal Realms.

A crude blade, made of jagged metal and studded with fangs ripped from the jaw of some beast, crashed down on his shoulder-plate. Zephacleas spun and drove his runeblade up through the brute’s torso. The orruk scrabbled at his helm, chuckling, as Zephacleas twisted his sword, hunting for its heart. Before he could find it, a thunderaxe sank into the orruk’s skull, silencing its barbaric laughter.

‘A stubborn sort of chaff, eh, Lord-Celestant?’ Thetaleas said, as he hauled the orruk back and tore his axe free.

‘That one was mine,’ Zephacleas said as the orruk slumped.

‘My apologies, my lord,’ the Decimator-Prime said. ‘I thought you in distress.’

Zephacleas shook his head. ‘I know you, axe-man. There’s not been a skull made that you could resist splitting with that blade of yours. I’ll forgive it this once, but ply your trade elsewhere – this killing ground is mine.’

Thetaleas laughed. ‘As you command, Beast-bane,’ he said, turning to wade back into the fray. Satisfied, Zephacleas turned, weapons lashing out. Soon, he had fallen into the old familiar cadence. He was an island of sigmarite, surrounded by an ocean of foes. For Zephacleas, there was no pleasure greater than to lose himself to the rhythm of death. He felt it in his soul, and with it a deep and abiding sense of satisfaction. He removed an orruk’s head with a sweep of his blade.

Memories – the smell of cooking fires and the weight of crude bronze armour, the warmth of his tents in winter and the voices of his clan – flooded his mind. Not so strong as they once might have been, but still there, still vibrant. He heard the lilting songs of the rabbit-boys as they brought home their kills, and the roar of old battles with rival clans, the reasons for which were long forgotten.

His folk were dead now, though the descendants of his clan might yet survive somewhere on the great northern taigas of the Ghurlands.

They are dead, as I am dead. But I fight on. And while I remember them, they live, he thought.

That had always been the way of it, even when he had been mortal, and he would not weep or feel sorrow. The living died, the mountains crumbled and the seas dried, as the seasons changed. Once, he had fought simply for food or for the survival of his tribe in a land full of monsters. Now, he fought to sweep the Mortal Realms clean of Chaos in all of its forms and manifestations.

But that was easier said than done. He parried a descending axe and sent its wielder reeling with a blow from his hammer. The Stormcast Eternals were but brief flickers of light against an all-consuming dark. They needed allies if they were to persevere.

By Sigmar’s command, Zephacleas and his chamber had been sent into the wildest regions of the Ghurlands to seek out any sign of the deity known as Gorkamorka, the double-headed god of the orruk race. The bellicose Gorkamorka had once been a member of Sigmar’s pantheon, in the days before the coming of Chaos. But as the pantheon had splintered, so too had Gorkamorka. Where once there had been one, sometimes now there were two, or so the seers of Sigmaron said. Zephacleas wasn’t sure whether he was looking for one god or two, but he intended to fulfil his mission. One way or another, the huntsman would have his quarry.

At the moment, however, Gorkamorka would have to wait – they had prey closer to hand. As Zephacleas had led his chamber through the wilds of the Ghurlands, following the whispered rumours and wild tales of the two-headed god, Sigmar himself had spoken to him. The God-King commanded and Zephacleas obeyed, leaving the Amber Steppes behind and marching hard for Nettlefang Mere, in the southern Ghurlands. There, he and his chamber had met the battered remnants of another Warrior Chamber, and learned of their mission – a mission more imperative than the locating of an unruly godling.

Zephacleas shoved an orruk back. The creature was large, its green flesh covered in scars and iron plates, beaten into shape and bent around its thick, twisted limbs. He opened the bulky creature’s guts with a sweep of his sword, parting crude armour and flesh with ease. It staggered towards him almost immediately, stumbling on loops of intestine. Zephacleas parried its next blow and slammed his hammer down on its broad skull. The orruk dropped and he turned, scanning the battlefield. Thetaleas and the others were keeping the bulk of the orruk forces occupied, as he had hoped. But they couldn’t do so for long. Already, mobs of orruks were surging past the thin line of skirmishers towards the shield wall.

A crackling column of lightning speared upwards as one of Thetaleas’ warriors was pulled down by the orruks and hacked to death. Close by, a Liberator was tackled off his feet by an orruk brute wielding a spiked club. As it hunched over the fallen Astral Templar, it raised the weapon over its head and chortled. Before the blow could fall, Duras was there. His warblade removed the orruk’s hand, sending it and the club it clutched sailing away. Unperturbed, the orruk twisted about and caught the Liberator-Prime about the throat with its remaining hand. Duras spun his swords and drove them down through the orruk’s shoulders and chest, seeking the beast’s heart.

Zephacleas lost sight of the Liberator-Prime as he dispatched an orruk wielding a jagged spear. A moment after he felled the beast, something heavy struck him in the back, knocking him to one knee. He turned. The orruk was massive, far larger than any of the others, and clad in thick, barbed armour. The skull of some massive beast served it as a pauldron, and in one thick hand it hefted an axe larger than a dracoth’s head.

‘Drokka!’ the orruk bellowed, filling the air with noise and spittle.

‘Indeed,’ Zephacleas said, heaving himself to his feet. He looked around and noticed the other orruks pulling back, giving them space. Most were hunting for other opponents, but some appeared to be settling down to watch. They slapped their armour with the flats of their blades, chanting what he guessed must be the big one’s name.

‘Drokka-snik!’ Drokka roared, spreading his arms.

Zephacleas understood the meaning. He studied the beast. Drokka was a mountain of ill-tempered muscle, wrapped in armour that looked as if it had been beaten into shape, rather than forged. Grisly trophies hung from every surface. Scars marked the orruk’s face and he hunched forwards awkwardly. Favouring his right knee, Zephacleas noted. The orruk snorted impatiently and gestured. ‘Come, come fight Drokka,’ he growled. ‘Come fight Drokka, storm-thing! Fight Drokka!’

Zephacleas lunged forwards. His runeblade scraped down across the orruk’s chest, staggering the beast. He narrowly avoided the bite of the axe as it swooped down in reply, and turned, slamming his hammer into the small of the orruk’s back. Drokka roared. His free hand snaked out, quicker than Zephacleas had expected, and caught the Lord-Celestant by the head. Green fingers enveloped his skull, and then he was flying through the air.

Zephacleas crashed down and lay still for a moment, fighting to regain his breath. He had lost his weapons, and there was no time to find them. The ground trembled as Drokka trudged towards him. The chanting of the orruks had reached a crescendo. He rolled aside as Drokka’s axe crashed down, tearing his warcloak. Zephacleas twisted, driving his foot into the side of the orruk’s knee. Something popped, and Drokka howled.

The orruk dropped his axe and sank down, clutching at his leg. Zephacleas thrust himself to his feet and snaked his hands around Drokka’s head. Even as Drokka began to struggle, Zephacleas braced himself and wrenched the creature’s head around. Bones crackled and flesh tore as Drokka heaved himself upright, dragging Zephacleas into the air. Zephacleas braced his feet on the back of the orruk’s shoulders and hauled back, his fingers digging into Drokka’s pulpy flesh. Drokka gurgled and clutched uselessly at the air.

Then, with a wet sound, the orruk’s head came free of his neck. Zephacleas fell to the ground, clutching his gory trophy. Drokka’s body took a tottering step forwards, then another, and a third before sinking to its knees and toppling sideways.

The watching orruks closed in almost immediately. Zephacleas scrambled to his feet. He took a two-handed grip on the dangling remnants of Drokka’s spinal column and swung the head out like an improvised club, flattening an unwary orruk. Before the others could respond, the air hummed with lightning and several of the brutes dropped in their tracks, blackened to a crisp by a crackling shroud of celestial energies. As the remaining orruks retreated, Zephacleas turned towards the source of the lightning. He held up Drokka’s head.

‘I have a new trophy for you, Gravewalker,’ he said.

‘Your generosity is rivalled only by your impetuousness, Zephacleas.’ Seker Gravewalker was a formidable sight. He was clad in the heavy, ornate armour of a Lord-Relictor, which was marked with sigils of death and rebirth. The ragged hide of a fire-wyrm flapped from one shoulder-plate, and the beast’s narrow skull was set into the Gravewalker’s reliquary standard, alongside other ornaments of gilded bone. ‘Pull back, Zephacleas,’ he said. ‘Greel is here. We’ve bloodied them. Let our brothers make the kill.’

‘Greel? Finally,’ Zephacleas said, as he recovered his weapons. ‘I wondered how long it was going to take him to get here.’ He impaled Drokka’s head on his runeblade. The ground trembled beneath the tromp of many feet. At his command, Thetaleas and the others began to fight their way back to the shield wall.

Even as the Astral Templars reached their lines, the wall of bone that lined the makeshift canyon exploded outwards, revealing rank upon rank of black-armoured Stormcast Eternals. They drove forwards, through the cloud of dust and splintered bone, ploughing straight into the orruks without hesitation.

The Sons of Mallus had come.

‘Judicators, kill the leaders as they reveal themselves,’ Lord-Celestant Gaius Greel said, his deep voice carrying easily over the clamour of battle. ‘Ignore the chaff. Leave it to the rest of us.’ He started forwards, walking slowly through the cloud of dust. It had taken his warriors hours to smash a path through the boneyard, but the effort had been well worth it. The orruks had been caught by surprise, and they were as good as beaten.

The Astral Templars had done their duty well – they had pulled the orruks into the narrow canyon and held their attention while Greel’s warriors flanked them. Now, with the foe caught between hammer and anvil, they could be eliminated.

The orruk ranks split, disgorging a disorganised mass of brutes and black orruks, who charged towards the advancing Stormcasts. The Sons of Mallus had been forge-struck under the zenith of the Dark Moon, and their armour was a polished black, edged in purple and gold, where it wasn’t wet with orruk blood.

Greel swept his hammer out as the first orruk reached him, crushing crude armour and the flesh beneath. He fought with a mechanical precision, no movement wasted. His runeblade thrust out again and again with deceptive speed, slashing at joints. Felling an orruk inevitably required more than one blow. If they survived blade and hammer, he left them to be ground under the sigmarite-shod feet of the warriors marching in his wake.

The Lord-Celestant of the Iron-sides Warrior Chamber fought at the head of his men, as was the proper way of things, surrounded by his Decimator retinues. The axe-wielders moved alongside him in a steady line, their weapons carving a gore-ridden path through the flank of the orruk force. The rest of the Stormcast Eternals marched in close formation behind them, the Liberators shielding their Judicator brethren from the orruks. The Iron-sides moved forwards resolutely. Skybolt bows crackled, picking off the bigger, more boisterous orruks, as hammers and thunderaxes felled any who got too close. ‘Remember Hreth,’ Greel said, removing an orruk’s head with an efficient slash of his runeblade.

Hreth. The Iron-sides had earned their war-name there, on the basalt fields of that fiery kingdom, where they had endured the attentions of a warhorde of bloodreavers, culled from a thousand savage fiefdoms. The Iron-sides had waded into the heart of the enemy to make their stand beneath the blind gazes of the great obelisks of Hreth. After five days of fighting, the foe had at last broken themselves on the shields of Greel’s chamber and melted away.

It would be the same here. No foe could withstand them. No foe could outlast them. Not even one as resilient as the orruks. Not even her, Greel thought. He immediately chided himself. Now was not the time. Such thoughts were a distraction from the task at hand, and he could not afford to be distracted. Distraction was weakness. One moment of inattention was all an enemy needed. He must be as sigmarite – without fault.

He heard the thump of drums, and a howl went up from the greenskin mob. Caught between the Sons of Mallus and the Astral Templars, the orruks had been ground into bloody disarray. Their thirst for battle had been quenched and then some, and now they were starting to flee. While the greenskins could be fierce foes, they were not without some sense; they knew when they had been beaten. Regrettably, the lesson rarely stuck. He lifted his hammer over his head.

‘Halt. Let them flee,’ he said, with some reluctance. His warriors crashed to a stop and waited, shields raised but weapons lowered. He planted his runeblade in the ground and rested his hand on the pommel, watching as the enemy left the battlefield.

Orruks loped past the Iron-sides’ shield wall, growling and snarling at one another in their own barbarous tongue. Greel watched them go, and wondered that creatures such as this had once fought side-by-side with Sigmar’s armies.

Had Sigmar himself not declared it to be so, I would not have believed it, he thought, but then, Sigmar’s armies had their own share of savages. He heard a voice cry out in greeting and turned.

As the orruks retreated, the Beast-bane shield wall had followed. Zephacleas trotted at the forefront, his armour stained with orruk blood and the massive head of one of the brutes’ chieftains dangling from his grip. Zephacleas was bigger than Greel, and loud. His voice carried, even at a whisper. He strode towards the Iron-sides’ Lord-Celestant, hammer dangling loosely from his free hand.

‘Ho, Greel. Now what do you think of my plan?’

‘An adequate stratagem, I must admit,’ Greel said, grudgingly. He had initially been against dividing their forces. Too much could have gone wrong. The Gargant’s Graveyard was vast, and it would have been easy to become lost. ‘We have scattered them, at any rate.’

‘For the moment,’ Zephacleas said. ‘Orruks have short memories. They’ll be back, and in greater numbers. But not until they recover their courage.’

‘Perhaps now we can continue with our true mission,’ Greel said. ‘Are you going to keep that?’ he asked, gesturing to the orruk head Zephacleas held.

‘What, this? This is Drokka,’ Zephacleas said. ‘I’m going to mount him on a pole, so his ghost can enjoy the fighting.’

‘That’s abominable,’ Greel protested.

‘It’s the orruk way,’ Zephacleas said, with a shrug. ‘It costs nothing to show a fallen foe some measure of kindness, and besides, as you said, they’re not our real enemy.’ He looked out over the battlefield. ‘Speaking of which... Any sign of her?’

Greel shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But she is here. If Sharizad has not already reached the Howling Labyrinth, then she is close.’ He turned, staring at the immense skull that marked the centre of the Gargant’s Graveyard. Something at its apex caught the light of the setting sun and flashed. He felt his stomach lurch.

It is even as the God-King said... It drinks in the light and traps it, he thought.

Zephacleas followed his gaze. ‘So that’s what that is,’ he said. ‘I was wondering.’ He laughed. ‘A labyrinth within a labyrinth.’

‘It is no laughing matter,’ Greel snapped. He gestured to the bones around them. ‘This monstrous charnel ground is all that remains of those forced to build that abominable structure. Hundreds of gargants and men and orruks, sacrificed to construct a daemon-engine of unknown purpose. A thing that has crouched here for an age, undisturbed.’

‘Until now,’ Zephacleas said.

‘Yes, until now,’ Greel said. ‘That is where she is going. And we must stop her.’

‘And so we shall, my friend,’ Zephacleas said. He looked up. ‘Heratus, get down here,’ he shouted, signalling the amethyst-armoured Prosecutors circling overhead. One dropped to the ground, scattering dust and fragments of bone as he landed. The Prosecutor-Prime folded his crackling wings back and straightened.

‘You bellowed, my lord,’ Heratus said. He spoke with the impertinence that was so characteristic of the Astral Templars, in Greel’s opinion. He bore a round sigmarite shield and a stormcall javelin, which he leaned nonchalantly over his shoulder. His armour was decorated with ribbons of purity, and the fanged jawbone of an Azyrite sky-shark was mounted on his gorget. The Beast-bane had an unseemly predilection for covering themselves in such totems.

‘I did. Are your warriors in the mood for a hunt?’

‘Always, my lord,’ Heratus said. ‘South?’

‘East,’ Zephacleas said. He dropped a friendly fist on the Prosecutor-Prime’s shoulder-plate. ‘Follow the drums, huntsman. Find me my prey.’

‘As you command, Beast-bane.’ Heratus swatted his shield with the flat of his javelin’s blade and stepped back. A moment later, he was soaring skywards. Greel watched him go, then looked at Zephacleas.

‘Your prey, or our prey?’ he asked.

‘The one will show us the location of the other, in this case,’ Taros Nine-strike, the Lord-Castellant of the Beast-bane said, as he joined them. ‘We’ve passed over the detritus of a dozen battles in the past few days, and these orruks are wearing fresh trophies.’ He used the end of his halberd to roll an orruk body over, revealing the sections of brass-and-crimson war-plate dangling from the orruk’s armour.

‘Your Shimmering Countess isn’t the only follower of Chaos looking for the Howling Labyrinth. It seems the orruks have dealt with the others, Sigmar be praised for small favours,’ Taros said. ‘Indeed, I’d wager that wherever she’s lurking, the orruks will be nearby, hunting for her, whether she’s reached the Howling Labyrinth or not. They want a fight, and we know well enough that she’s capable of giving them one, after what happened at the Temple of the Empty Heart.’ He looked pointedly at Greel.

Greel looked away. The battle for the Temple of the Empty Heart had been a disaster for the Stormcast Eternals. Warrior Chambers from several Stormhosts, including the Lions of Sigmar, the Sons of Mallus and the Astral Templars, had been all but obliterated thanks to the cunning of the Triumvirate of Charn. The three sorcerer-champions had ruled the three great duchies of the Charn Mountains for centuries before the servants of Sigmar at last cast down their standards. Greel had been among those claimed in the conflagration, his heart split by the crystalline blade of the creature known as Sharizad.

And now he lived again, his heart beating anew. He had been reforged and returned to this harsh realm for one purpose and one purpose only. The Shimmering Countess had come to the Gargant’s Graveyard looking for a weapon, a thing of horror and power in equal measure. A thing with which to split worlds – a daemon-weapon of inestimable power. A weapon she must not be allowed to claim.

He closed his eyes, remembering how the words of Sigmar had struck him like hammer-blows, even as he was pulled apart and remade, his flesh boiling away from god-forged bones and needles of lightning thrust into his mind. His joints had been shattered and reset on the God-King’s anvil, and his soul scoured clean of weakness. Gaius Greel had been remade, to make good on his failure.

He would destroy Sharizad, even if he must die again to do so.

Click here to buy Fury of Gork.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2016.
This eBook edition published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Cover illustration by Diana Martinez.

The Realmgate Wars: Fury of Gork © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2016. The Realmgate Wars: Fury of Gork, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer, Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78572-071-0

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.