Hey there, gamers! If you’re into Warhammer, you’ve gotta check out what’s happening with Neave Blacktalon and her gang in Dawnbringers: Book III – The Long Hunt. These guys are like the A-list celebrities of the Warhammer world, and they’re answering the call from none other than Vandus Hammerhand himself to join the Twin-Tailed Crusade.
But wait, there’s more! Before this epic showdown, the Blacktalons decided to go hunting for something truly colossal in the mountains of Capilaria. And, as you’d expect from this bunch of characters, they can’t quite agree on the best way to handle the situation. I mean, come on, when you’ve got a crew this diverse, sparks are bound to fly.
‘Legend says,’ said Rostus Oxenhammer, ‘that Sortor the Bright earned his moniker after swallowing Mindarax, second-sired of Vulcatrix. For nine days and nights, the gargant belched liquid flame into the skies over Capilaria from this very mountain’s peak, as the raging magic he had devoured transformed him.’ A gravelly chuckle rumbled in the Stormcast’s chest, each shifting of his broad shoulders echoed by the beast horns mounted on his shoulders. ‘Must have been quite the sight.’
‘Who says?’ Shakana cut in. Leaning against what remained of a crushed hovel, the sharpshooter wiped a cloth through the dust that their ascent up the mountain had left across her crossbow’s stock. The gathering darkness couldn’t hide her raised eyebrow, nor how Anda – the star eagle perched on her shoulder – ruffled her feathers so imperiously.
‘Who says that?’ Shakana said again. She nudged a broken brick with a foot. ‘If it had somehow escaped your notice, there is hardly a thriving rumour mill in these parts.’
‘Tales have a way of travelling upon swift wings,’ Rostus said. Anda’s indignant squawk drew a chortle from the warrior. ‘Never hurts to respect old knowledge, my lady Goldenblade.’
Hendrik said nothing as his fellow Blacktalons spoke. He kept his eyes on the mountain’s rise. They had scaled most of the peak, the Capilarian fireplains shrunk below them, before halting in the ruined township on an outcrop. Even so high, scalding winds tugged at the Stormcast’s cropped beard and dirt-encrusted cloak.
A great plume of smoke choked the upper mountain, settling over it in a dense cloud. It had blown in over the evening, and was still visible as a deeper point of blackness amidst the dusk. Sortor had taken to timing his raids with the arrival and dissipation of this phenomenon. Come morning, he would traipse down the mountainside to raid the lands beneath, savaging local strongpoints and crusader trails before returning with looted kegs of firegrog and sacks of screaming victims. Prudency had seen the Blacktalons elect by majority to wait here until the gargant was stinking drunk, before they moved in for the kill.
Not all the hunters, admittedly, had agreed with the plan.
‘Fate’s tides have washed you onto these shores, Silver Wolf. And you are far from Azyr.’
Lorai always managed to surprise Hendrik with the silence of her approach. Years of partnership, and he’d never gotten used to it. The aelven sea-sorceress glided upon rippling aether-currents that wafted with strange thalassic aromas. Rostus had said once that she smelled of old brine, but Hendrik thought of the scent as nameless vapours once trapped by coral. It was neither pleasant nor grim. It simply was.
‘At some point, consider expanding your metaphors beyond the maritime, lady of the abyss,’ Hendrik said. He kept his voice level, a veteran trading jibes with an old confidant. Nothing more. Lorai’s eyes pierced him for long moments before she spoke.
‘Your gaze always turns heavensward. Yet starfire cannot banish all darkness, nor guide you to a path that will absolve you of duty.’
‘Careful,’ Hendrik murmured, his geniality shrivelling. The warrior turned to where the last, eponymous member of the Blacktalons stood. ‘I’m sure you’ll agree there’s nothing wrong with a little star-gazing, Ne—’
Neave was gone. Hendrik’s smile withered. As he looked back up the mountain and sharpened his focus, he heard it: clashing blades and monstrous roars echoing from afar. A sigh crept up his throat.
‘Damnation.’
From coiling like a crag-panther, Neave Blacktalon hurled herself into a sideward leap. Seconds later, a spiked club shattered the ground where she had been standing. Rolling to a stop just before a fire-pit, trophy pelt whipping where it was fixed to her armour, the Knight-Zephyros rose into a crouch and twirled her axes.
‘Stupid…’ The rock beneath her feet shuddered as her opponent growled his disdain. A towering figure pushed through the smoke of the naked flames burning there. Sortor the Bright’s flesh was the deep hue of onyx. The many wounds Neave’s axes had carved across the gargant glowed flame-bright amongst the smoky darkness of his mountainside lair. Piggish eyes like burning coals glowered, and his beard flickered with embers. Each swing of Sortor’s club trailed a wake of sparks. Each of his utterances released a wafting reek of scorched meat.
‘Pipsqueak,’ Sortor grunted again. ‘Stand still an’… go squash!’
‘As the folk of the mountain once did?’ Neave said, teeth grit. ‘As you would have those in the valleys below do on the morrow? No. Your predations end tonight, Sortor.’
The gargant’s swing was furious, but predictable. Air crackled around Neave as she rolled beneath his club, before she twisted and struck with both axes. Sortor howled as one of his fingers was hacked away; it had taken a few furious blows, for each was the girth of a human waist. Neave herself swallowed a yell as sizzling blood spurted across her face from the wound. Even temporarily blinded, instinct saw her dart aside from a boulder-like fist that instead left a crater in the earth. A war cry became a snarl as her foot slipped in a puddle of blood. Her deft landing became a sudden, perilous lurch. Overhead, the gargant drew back his club.
Sortor’s strike was interrupted by the winged shard of starlight that darted at his face. Bellowing, the gargant groped in vain as Anda clawed out one of his eyes. The eagle retreated only seconds before further flashes of luminesce rippled across Sortor’s flank. Neave wiped blood from her eyes in time to see Shakana lower her crossbow. Behind the sniper, Hendrik and Rostus were emerging from the pall of smoke, Lorai floating serenely behind them. Despite the pain ravaging her face, Neave caught Hendrik’s scowl. A curse slipped under her breath.
Staggering, Sortor the Bright inhaled. Seconds later, he earned his title, a plume of fire billowing from his maw to send the nearest Blacktalons reeling away.. Snatching up an old keg of liquor, the gargant crushed it in a fist, letting the liquid spatter onto his club. Moments later, he thrust the weapon into the nearest fire. It burst into incandescent brilliance, before he swung it at Rostus. The Oxenhammer threw himself back, but the wake of fire would have still consumed him were it not for the glimmering liquid shield that leapt from Lorai’s outstretched fingers. Sortor roared, dropping to a knee, as Rostus’s hammer was swung into his leg with a gristly crunch. Hendrik moved to capitalise on the gargant’s vulnerability, but panic granted Sortor surprising haste. His gore-slick hand seized the warrior. The Silver Wolf bunched his shoulders against the pressure, managing to slip an arm free and hack at his captor’s wrist. With each moment, though, the groan of buckling Sigmarite grew louder as Sortor tightened his grip.
Neave was already running. Gusts coursed around her armour, the winds aetheric hearkening to her will. Reality blurred like misaligned slides in a Chamonic image-caster. Even the Blacktalons moved like laggardly spectres. She closed her eyes and let the winds take her. For a moment, she was one with the tumult. Only the sensation of her axes in hand remained; that, along with the scent of far-off greenery, and a horned shadow glimpsed amongst the tempest. Her hunter’s instincts had not been swept away by the winds; they flared with danger-sense, an old and curiously familiar impulse, compelling her to reach towards the figure. Always, though, it remained just out of reach.
Then she was whole again, leaping through the air towards the stunned gargant. Hand grasping Sortor’s beard, Neave used her momentum to swing herself towards his neck. Her axe carved across his jugular. This time she turned away from the jettisoning blood before it splattered her face. Sortor swayed and gurgled. His eyes blinked in mild indignation. Then he collapsed with enough force to quake the plateau.
Neave leapt from the corpse. She already knew what awaited her. Sure enough, she landed right in the firing line of Hendrik’s frown. Gratitude had been too much to expect, but she had hoped he might allow her one moment of triumph.
‘We took a vote. You should have waited.’
‘And let him raid as he pleased?’ Neave shrugged. ‘We are hunters, Hendrik. We hunt. And we won.’
‘We have discussed this, Neave.’
‘Don’t insult me by suggesting I did this for glory. If that were so I’d have followed him down to the tribal lands tomorrow and ensured I had an audience. Our mission is to deliver the God-King’s justice, and we cannot uphold that ideal by waiting for our enemies’ backs to be turned.’
‘That is not the issue.’
‘What is the issue, then?’
The frustrated force of her own question surprised even Neave. Hendrik flinched, while Shakana and Rostus glanced up from tending their weapons. Only Lorai kept her typical placidity. Neave sucked breath through the cage of her teeth, shoulders bunching before she forced herself to relax. Slowly, her white-knuckle grip on her axes loosened; she had not even noticed how tight her grasp had become.
Nearby, Rostus cleared his throat.
‘We got him, though’ the warrior said, giving Sortor’s corpse a kick. ‘Told you he breathed fire.’ He added with a nod to Shakana, who simply rolled her eyes. Neave remained staring at Hendrik. As much as his unspoken accusations rankled, she was used to them. They were certainly preferable to the trace of pity that threatened to colour her old mentor’s gaze.
‘Hail, Blacktalons! Another worthy quarry run down, I see.’
The cloud of smog that surrounded the Blacktalons began to break apart as a streak of liquid gold sped across the skies, winds billowing in its wake. It was from there the strident voice had echoed. Neave stared at Hendrik for several moments longer, before turning her glance upwards.
A figure hung upon wings of light, resplendent against the grimy canvas of clouds. Neave recognised him. Though the hunt often took her and her fellows far from their brethren amongst the First-Forged Stormhost, a hero of the feted Hammerhands chamber was of a calibre one could not fail to identify.
‘Ho, Liminos Stormsight.’ Neave raised one of her axes in salute, bracing a foot on Sortor’s corpse. ‘Simply doing the heavens’ work. Now tell us, what news from the host?’
‘What news?’ The Knight-Azyros called back. Neave could hear the grin in his voice. ‘Heed this, my kin. Lord Vandus calls upon you. He has a hunt of his own in mind.’
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