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The Sulphur Citadel – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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The Sulphur Citadel

Josh Reynolds

Orius Adamantine was not alone as he confronted the Scarlet Lord. In his wake and at his side came a thousand ghosts. The murdered folk of Cinder, of the Calderan Plains and the Firewalk were with him as he surged up the grotesque spell-born stairs, drawn from the charnel remains which decorated the great chamber. But loudest of all were the dead of Klaxus, who called for the head of the one who had once marched in their name.

The waters of the Hissing Gates shrieked upwards in boiling columns. Steam swept down, filling the air, as the Adamantine advanced in a shimmering line. The forces of the Scarlet Lord met them there, in the shadows of the immense geysers…

Anhur lurched to meet Orius, moving awkwardly as if some unseen wound pained him. Daemons clung to him like wisps of smoke, leering and laughing as the black axe fell through the air with an animal shriek. Orius twisted about, raising his sword.

Two figures, one gold and one crimson, charge towards one another through the boiling breath of the countless geysers. Their blades clash. And then, a moment of recognition, as the eyes of the duellists lock. A voice cries out…

‘Anhur,’ Orius roared as runeblade crashed against daemonic axe. The shock of the blow shivered up his arm, and sent his memories into disarray. He shook his head to clear it as he faced his opponent. He lashed out with his hammer, trying to drive Anhur back.

‘Oros,’ Anhur said, as he parried the blow with his axe. ‘All hope is gone, and the way is open.’ He shoved Orius back down several steps. ‘Welcome to the eternal moment, the sharp edge between victory and defeat, my friend.’

Orius glared up at the Scarlet Lord from where he crouched. Behind him, the Lord-Celestant could hear his warriors fighting against the daemons which continued to pour from the shimmering rift above the steps.

‘No,’ he said, taking a step. What happened to you, Prince of Ytalan? Where is the man I once knew? There would be no satisfactory answer to those questions, Orius knew. Chaos had claimed Anhur’s soul and whatever choices had led him down that dark path were hidden in the mire of the past. ‘I am no friend of yours, monster.’

‘But you were once,’ Anhur said. ‘We stood together in this place, against true monsters. Against those who would see our folk stretched on altars and fed to false gods.’ He gestured at the shifting facets of the Black Rift above them. ‘I will free our people, Oros. At long last, they shall be free of all suffering. They shall be reborn in fire and blood.’ He shuddered. ‘As shall I.’

‘My name is Orius. Oros of Ytalan is dead – he died, leading those you left behind. He is dead, as Anhur of Ytalan is dead. We are not friends, and we share no past,’ Orius said, as he took another step. Faces swam before his eyes, soldiers, rebels, heroes – men and women who had joined their rebellion and paid the price. Anhur laughed.

‘You said that before, but it is a lie. Your new life is a lie. You are still the man you were, as am I. We shall never be free of our past, while this debt is owed.’ He pointed his sword at Orius. ‘Look – see. I still carry the sword of Ytalan, the sword of my fathers, and their fathers before them. I am Anhur. I am king.’

‘You are a coward,’ Orius said and lunged up, hammer looping out. Anhur caught the blow on the flat of his axe and swung his sword. Orius interposed his runeblade. The tableau held, for a moment. ‘You left us, left them, to die in your stead.’ In his head he heard again the screams of the dying, the whispered prayers to Sigmar – the true Sigmar, rather than the debased caricature that the priest-kings worshipped – the clash of steel on steel and the hiss of the sulphur-blade as it cut towards his neck. He had died. But Anhur had lived.

‘I am no coward,’ Anhur snarled. ‘I wished to fight and die, but your hand – yours and no other – propelled me to safety. It was by your hand that I was denied my glorious end, and now you have the gall to call me coward?’ Axe and hammer slammed together with a sound like a scream. Swords clashed in a flicker of steel.

‘You are worse than a coward,’ Orius said. ‘You are an abomination.’

‘Aye, and more besides,’ Anhur said as their swords locked with a screech of metal. ‘The drumbeat of war is in my blood, as it is in yours, Oros. We are the sons of Klaxus – the last sons of Klaxus. I slew the old priest-kings, swept their ashes from the throne of the crater-kingdoms, and I will raise up something glorious in their stead.’

‘We are not the last, Anhur,’ Orius said, as he strained to hold his foe’s sword back. ‘As you yourself claimed, not all of our folk have been taken by the madness you unleashed. And while a single Stormcast lives, Klaxus shall survive. Her people will live.’ He thought of the refugees huddled within the stone ramparts of the Mandrake Bastion, those pitiful few, saved by the efforts of his Stormcasts. They will survive, he thought. My people will not go into the dark, not today, not while I yet draw breath.

‘A simple enough solution presents itself,’ Anhur said and shoved Orius back. Their blades separated with a scream. ‘But why speak of dread certainties, when there are more important matters to be discussed?’ Anhur turned away, startling Orius, and began to climb the steps towards the coruscating facets of the rift. He left himself exposed to attack, as if certain that Orius would not do so. ‘Since I recognised you at the Hissing Gates, I knew that our story had but one end. What began here must finish here. Whatever others might wish. A debt is owed and it must be paid. A life for a life, Oros.’

Orius pursued him up the steps. Whatever else happened, the rift had to be closed. Daemons raced past him down the steps, gaining substance as they drew closer to the floor. Phantasmal muscle bulked and swelled, darkening and becoming real as brazen claws struck the bloody stones. The bloodletters loped into battle with his dwindling retinue of Protectors and Liberators. Of those Stormcasts who had accompanied him and Lord-Relictor Moros in confronting the horrors of the Sulphur Citadel, a bare handful remained. Soon, they – and those Stormcasts who fought to hold the Bridge of Smoke – would be overwhelmed.

Moros was somewhere nearby, locked in battle with the monstrous skullgrinder who served Anhur. And Lord-Castellant Gorgus was leading those forces defending the bridge. There would be no aid from either quarter. It was up to Orius to seal the Black Rift by whatever means he could, even if it meant his death. Even if it meant the destruction of Uryx and Klaxus both. His grip on his hammer tightened. ‘Face me, monster,’ he said.

The Lord-Celestant lunged, runeblade extended. Anhur spun. His axe nearly caught Orius in the head. The Stormcast lurched aside and swayed, off balance. The steps twitched beneath his feet, as if they might try and dislodge him. He regained his balance and struck out at Anhur again and again, trying to land a blow. But the Chaos lord avoided or parried his attacks with ease.

‘Ah, Oros, do you recall our mornings on the training fields of the Rim-Citadel?’ the Scarlet Lord said. ‘When we sparred, honing our skills to face whatever enemies the day brought? How many times did I leave you gasping in the dirt, Hound of Ytalan?’

‘As often as I left you, Prince of Klaxus,’ Orius said. He did not know whether he spoke the truth. He barely remembered those days, and what memories he still possessed were more distraction than anything else. But if Anhur’s growl were anything to go by, he’d struck a nerve. The Scarlet Lord started towards him, but paused as a sudden spasm wracked his body. ‘You’re still running Anhur – why not stand and fight?’ Orius said.

Stones plummeted down from above. He heard the hiss of lightning, and the shriek of daemons. The chamber shook as the rift pulsed with a red light. Anhur shuddered and bent forward with a groan. His armour creaked as though something were pressing against it from within. For a moment, Orius thought he saw a second form, more monstrous by far than Anhur, superimposed over the Scarlet Lord’s own. A nightmare shape of talon and sinew, winged and horned, and wreathed in black fire. Then the moment passed and Anhur was rising to his full height with a harsh sigh.

‘Because I have chosen the ground for our duel, and this realm is not it,’ he said. ‘I have been planning this moment since the Hissing Gates – have you never wondered why I pulled my blow that day? I could have given your skull to Khorne there and then…’

The blow scraped the sigmarite of his breastplate, knocking him flat… The axe fell, splitting the air… Orius shook his head, banishing the memories. Anhur stepped back, so that he stood directly before the pulsing rift. Spectral daemons swept over and around him, screaming in savage joy. He spread his arms.

‘I knew, my friend. I knew that if I spared you that day you would not rest until you had brought me to battle once more. Until we came again to the only place our debt could truly be settled. And here you are. So follow me if you dare, Hound of Ytalan – follow, so that we might meet our fate together.’ With that, he turned and stepped into the swirling rift. Orius hesitated, but only for a moment.

Then, weapons ready, Orius Adamantine plunged into the Black Rift.

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