Blacktalon: First Mark (Warhammer Age of Sigmar) by Andy Clark

Author:Andy Clark [Clark, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2018-11-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Neave’s thoughts were in turmoil, and she battled an awful sense of mental violation as the echoes of the invading voice faded in her mind. She was sure she had heard it before, crooning to her amidst half-remembered darkness and horror. Yet it had not been the mangled slurring of Xelkyn Xerkanos that she had heard but another voice, rasping and ancient.

She had no time to consider such things now, and so she ran. Katalya and Ketto galloped in her wake, water splashing up around their footfalls. Gnarled trees and jutting roots spilled over the edges of the ravine and the canopy closed over their heads. Sound carried weirdly, one moment deadened by the thick undergrowth, the next echoing and rolling as though they ran not through a forest, but down the corridor of some gloomy sepulchre. Daylight carried weakly through the entangled branches overhead, the patches of light and shadow adding to the effect.

‘They’re close behind,’ shouted Katalya. Neave didn’t need the warning; she could hear only too well the chittering cacophony of the skaven as they poured along the watercourse at her heels.

‘We need to go deeper into the forest,’ she replied. ‘Don’t slow for anything!’

‘You think the forest spirits will scare them away?’ asked Katalya.

‘Perhaps,’ said Neave. ‘Besides, we’re swifter than they are. We’ll outpace and then lose them.’

Even as she said this, though, Neave knew it for a lie. Alone, she could have outstripped her pursuers with ease, but it would have meant plunging headlong into this dangerous and mysterious realm upon the winds aetheric, a risk Neave would have been loath to take. Even setting aside the hazards of injury or death from attempting to windshift amidst such torturously dense terrain, she would have chanced disturbing and angering whatever guardians awaited deeper within the forest’s bounds.

For the sake of her quest, she could not afford to make that mistake.

As it was, she wouldn’t leave Katalya to be overrun. But Neave could sense that Ketto was tiring, and any fool could see that the tattakan would struggle to fit between many of the gnarled tree-trunks and dense thickets of thorned creeper that overhung the waterway. They could only continue to dash along the bottom of the watery ravine, avoiding treacherous pitfalls and slick rocks as best they could, and hope for some form of salvation.

‘It’s getting steeper,’ cried Neave. ‘Take care – if we trip or fall they’ll overrun us.’

The banks of the ravine had dipped until they were mere feet above Neave’s head. At the same time, the ground was indeed sloping away, the waterway becoming a chattering rill as it swept down over rocky outcroppings and moss-furred ledges. Neave felt momentum pulling her off balance and her feet trying to run away with her as she pelted down the increasingly steep slope.

At the same time, she felt a spark of hope. Her sense of familiarity was growing, blue motes dancing in the periphery of her vision as a growing certainty blossomed in her mind.

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