Contents

Cover

The Road of Blades – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

The Road of Blades

Josh Reynolds

Ahazian Kel twisted in his saddle as the barbed arrow sank into the meat of his bicep. He looked down at it, and then up, to see where it had come from. More arrows followed the first. Most of these splintered against the warped plates of his crimson and brass armour, but several found gaps and pierced his flesh. More annoyingly, one found the eye of his horse, killing the scaly brute instantly.

The animal fell with a sibilant whinny, and Ahazian tumbled from his saddle with a curse. The Deathbringer rolled to his feet in a slew of choking dust and shredded grasses, weapons in hand. He ignored the broken arrows jutting from his scarred body. A little pain was good, like salt for meat. The goreaxe squirmed in his grip, eager to bite flesh, and the skullhammer throbbed, ready to crush bone. The thorns of metal set into their hafts bit comfortingly into his palms, sinking into old grooves of scar tissue. The weapons were a part of him, an extension of his arms and will. He stepped away from the dying horse, deeper into the waving, waist-high grasses of the plain, and set his feet, awaiting his attackers. If they wanted him, he saw no reason to disappoint them.

He didn’t have long to wait. A dozen horsemen galloped towards him through the sea of black grasses, their reptilian steeds shrieking with hunger. The cannibal-horses of the Caldera would, and often did, devour anything that fell beneath their scything hooves, even their own riders. The Horse-Lords of the Caldera were little better than their fierce steeds, and the other tribes of the steppes justly feared falling into their hands.

Clad in armour made from bronze plates and the reddish scales of their stallions, and draped in dark robes of firewurm silk, they made for a most impressive sight. Each rider carried a stubby, curved bow and an array of hand weapons that even the most ardent blood reaver would eye with envy. Masks of bone hid their faces.

Intimidating. But then, so was he. He stood hands taller than the tallest of them, and his broad frame was clad in heavy armour. His helmet curved upwards, coalescing into the rune of Khorne, marking his allegiances for all who wished to see. He spread his arms, extending his weapons outward, in a gesture of welcome.

One of the riders bent, and drew an arrow from the quiver on his saddle. He loosed so swiftly that Ahazian almost missed it. His goreaxe snapped up, and the arrow split itself on the blade. More arrows followed. His skullhammer swept out, smashing them from the air. The clans of the Caldera had fought his kind before, and knew that to get too close, too soon, was to die. They galloped in a wide circle, surrounding him, screaming their war cries.

When Anhur of the Axe had led the Eight Tribes across these lands, he’d sent Kung of the Long Arm to cast down the fang-standards of the clans, and humble them. Since Anhur’s death, at the fall of Klaxus, the clans had recovered their courage. Mostly, they contented themselves with raiding the slave-caravans of the Furnace-Kings, or warring upon weaker steppe tribes. That they were here, now, seemed almost an omen.

‘Khorne smiles upon me,’ Ahazian murmured. Perhaps the Blood God had sent him one last gift, before he left this place. Or perhaps they’d seen a lone rider and not realised his true nature until it was too late. Either way, he had little patience for such obstructions. He was close to the end of his quest. The Road of Blades called out to him, and he would not falter now.

Bored, he slammed his weapons together and glared at the circling horsemen. ‘Come on then. I am Ahazian Kel, scion of the Ekran, and I walk the Eightfold Path. I have no time for cowards.’

As if his words were a signal, a horseman screamed and galloped towards him, drawing a sword as he did so. Ahazian turned to meet him. He slammed his shoulder into the horse’s chest, and swept its front hooves out from under it with his skullhammer. Thick bones snapped, and the scaly creature fell with a scream that was almost human. His goreaxe slammed down, shearing through the fallen rider’s blade and the head behind. An arrow smacked into the small of Ahazian’s back, and he whipped around. He smashed aside a lance that sought his midsection, and removed its wielder’s arm for good measure.

He killed two more before the rest broke. The Caldera retreated, leaving him standing over the corpses of their fellows. ‘Perhaps your folk are not so foolish as all that, eh?’ he asked, looking down at one of the dead men. ‘They know when they are beaten, at least. Unlike my own.’ His amusement faded, as he silenced a wounded horse. He crushed the beast’s head, and let his skullhammer drink in its blood.

He looked around. The Black Grasses were exactly what their name implied – a steppe, covered in tall, blackened grasses, rustling in a hot wind. And beyond them, limned in the red light of the setting sun, the ruins of Caldus. Caldus, where the ancestors of the Calderan clans had made their final stand against the armies of the Bloodbound, before being scattered to the winds. ‘And here you are, standing against one of us again,’ he said to one of the corpses, laughing. ‘Perhaps you are a foolish people, after all.’

It was Caldus he had come to find. Caldus and what lay beyond it – the Road of Blades. The road to his destiny. Khorne had called him, and Ahazian Kel had come.

Click here to buy The Road of Blades.

A Black Library Publication

Published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Lie Setiawan.

The Road of Blades © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2016. The Road of Blades, 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: 978-1-78572-285-1

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.