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The Reservoir of Rot – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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The Reservoir of Rot

Ian Green

Barrek hewed another cultist, his sword smacking away a cudgel and ripping into a torso clad only in grime and ash. The man fell back to join his brethren lying dead in the swamp, and Barrek drew up his sword and felt his guts heave. The bodies stank – more than they should – but then everything stank. The fight had ebbed away from him. He stepped back thrice and tried to take his bearings. Where was his squire? He spotted the boy’s pallid face staring up at him from the bog, half submerged. Barrek grimaced. That was the third squire he had lost since the horde had arrived – they had all been so young, no notches on their blades.

Poor boy. I told him to stick with Rallens.

A quick glance for his men found Rallens and the dozen others in similar straits, dead in the water. Barrek blinked and looked around. He was in a sump, a bog surrounded by mounded earth and corpses. Beyond he could hear the cannonade, the screams. Metal on metal, metal on flesh, magic on flesh. Above, one of Kenniksen’s gyrocopters cut across the sky, propellers thundering as it passed through the pale morning, a lone blot against the blue. It left Barrek’s sight, and with a sigh he began to trudge out of the hollow, each step dragging against the vines and roots that tangled in the water. He coughed, wiped at his face with what was left of his tunic – the red star and split mesa of Thellasamin now lost amidst the claret of the dead – and then he crested the hollow.

Barrek could see no order to the battle. For three days the horde had been probing at their defences, and the Wildercorps reported huge numbers in the wild swamps beyond, more ever coming. A sepulchral fog had sat over the mire as the battle was joined in full that morning, in the deadlands between city and forest. The deadlands ran for half a mile from the city walls where the ground was cleared of brush and tree, and aside from a single, hard-fought road, the land was all bog and hollow that would snap a horse’s leg or swallow a cartwheel faster than a breath. As Barrek emerged from the charnel pit, he had to squint against the blaze of a bright sun, and only wisps of the fog remained. His step faltered as he turned and flexed his grip on his sword hilt, desperate to orient himself amid the tumult and roar of the surrounding battle.

From the stunted trees at the edge of the forest, the horde oozed. Shambling daemons with green-and-grey skin howled as they sludged themselves forward, surrounded by throngs of cultists, the scarpering lesser evils moving amongst them jabbering with shrill voices that cut through the screams. Above, the flitting of monstrosities that buzzed through the air. One cut closer, harrying a square of Fusiliers, who brought it down with a volley of fusil-cannon fire. The flying beast fell to the swamp, and from its back a creature rose with a sword in hand, but three Steelhelms with halberds descended upon it. Shouting, blackpowder. Screams.

We are lost. Barrek felt his chest tighten. Too many, surely there are too many, he thought. Everywhere he looked was melee and frenzy: a plagued creature ripping at the throat of a pleading knight with a sickle; a riderless horse brought down with a single blow from an axe held by a hulking green-skinned figure, its mouth a tangle of jaundiced teeth, its body a patchwork of oozing wounds that slowed it not a mote. A crash of lightning split the clear sky from the city’s ramparts – Battlemage Orcadia. A group of cultists harrying Thellasamin’s sole squad of Stormcast Eternals disappeared into burning flesh and light, and Barrek fell to his knees. No lightning for my men, he thought numbly. No lightning for my squires or my squad.

Barrek forced himself up – the lull where he was would not last, and if he encountered the enemy alone he would be left to rot in the field. There was a Fusilier formation a hundred yards from him, their sergeant screaming commands from behind a fusil-cannon between the roars of the firing line. He started towards them, pausing to slam his sword blade down viciously into the body of a cultist at his feet whose hand had flexed towards his ankle.

‘Barrek!’ a voice screamed. ‘The marshal!’

Turning from the security of the Fusiliers, Barrek saw Red Paranos pointing with his sword towards the city – Paranos was atop a nearby hillock, his once bright armour clagged with clots and mulch. He was surrounded by a dozen Steelhelms and a handful of knights, all grim-faced.

Paranos yelled again, and he and his men began to move, but his message was lost as, from the ramparts, the throats of the three dozen Ironweld great cannons opened in synchronised anger. Barrek felt the sound in his stomach, in his bones, and he forced himself to grip his sword hilt ever tighter. You survived your crusade, he told himself. You’ll not die to pox-ridden wretches. The shot impacted far from him, sending explosions of dirt and body parts high into the sky.

Following the point of Paranos’ bloody sword, at last Barrek understood. Closer to the city by a few hundred yards, a scant handful of Stormcast Eternals in their gilded armour surrounded Cavalier-Marshal Wellerpike. All grand formations were gone – the man had lost his horse, his guard. The dead of all hues surrounded them, Steelhelms and Fusiliers, broken halberds and flagpoles. The Eternals were harried by dozens of wailing cultists, and surging towards them was an abominable beast. It was perhaps ten feet tall, something between a slug and a nightmare, green and scarred and oozing from mouth and claw, what might be a head thronging with wet tentacles.

What the daemon piss is he doing? We should all be behind the walls!

Barrek ran towards the marshal, not slowing even as the beast ripped an Eternal apart, tentacles pulling on each limb. A whip-long, toothed, pustulant tongue lashed out and eviscerated the woman, golden armour shredding like wet parchment. The Eternal screamed her final breath, and at that noise Barrek felt his step falter, but he held his forward motion.

I will not fail.

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