A lonely figure drudges through the snowbanks of the wilderness. Her burgundy armor and azure cloak are the only spots of color in the all-encompassing monochromaticity of winter. During this season, the frozen continent of Bjarl in Ghur becomes even more predatory towards lone travelers, but she isn’t a regular hunter. She is Ariene Talonfall, Knight Questor of the Astral Templars stormhost, and she is tracking her prey.
Ariene’s breath steamed out from the mouth slit of her helmet. Frost caked her sigmarite armor, creating intricate maps of ice on the surface. She felt a slight ache in her legs and a gnawing feeling in her stomach. Ariene stopped walking. She realized it had been five days since she left the skyvessel that brought her to Bjarl. But there was no time to stop, she thought. Ariene had finally found fresh tracks of her prey, and if she stopped to rest, she would lose them. Or be buried under snow and freeze to death. So she continued walking. God-King had sent her on this quest, and she would return only with the head of the monster that had killed so many of her kin.
Astral Templars were known as the hunters of Sigmar, the beast-slayers. Ghur was their home, and the beasts of this land were their prey. But sometimes there would come a predator, that would challenge their strength. The Thunder-Eater was such a beast. While some of the mortal tribesmen of Bjarl had fallen to it, the beast seemed to hunt Stormcasts. Ariene’s vanguard chamber, the Farstrikers, vowed to hunt the beast down. Chamber’s Vanguard-Palladors were the first to hunt the monster. The frozen corpses of their gryph-charger steeds were found three weeks later. A squad of Vigilors was next to go, and they similarly disappeared to the frozen wastes of Bjarl. Curiouser, and worrying, was that there were no reports of their souls returning to Azyr and being reforged. It is as if the beast had eaten them, souls and all. Thus the name Thunder-Eater.
Ariene was Vigilor-Prime then, waiting for her turn to get sanction to hunt the Thunder-Eater. But then the dreams started. Dreams of her walking in the snow, with only fur-cape on her shoulders and a bone dagger in her hand. Dreams of tasting the blood of the beast, bathing in it. These dreams continued, repeating and sometimes invading her in the waking hours as well. This was a message from the God-King. It was her task to kill the Thunder-Eater, and so she became Knight Questor, a tool in the hand of Sigmar, with a single purpose. Anointed with warpaint and armed only with her warblade and stormcaller bow, Ariene set off to hunt the Thunder-Eater. She would either succeed or die trying. But she didn’t fear dying. She was Stormcast Eternal, she would be reforged. And that was a relief to her.
Ariene stopped again. She had arrived at the edge of a valley, crude and brutal, like a wound in the hide of Ghur itself. Snow had created natural barriers that made it into a perfect place for an ambush. But for who, Ariene thought. If the beast was smart enough, she could be trapped there, unable to retreat to a better vantage. But the same would apply to the beast as well. Ariene un-slung her stormcaller bow, and nocked a single arrow. It was a risky gambit, but Ariene was Astral Templar. She did not back down from a fight and did not fear death. As Ariene started to descend into the valley down below, she thought of her previous deaths. The first one, before she was chosen by Sigmar, was something she did not want to think about much. The first as Astral Templar was when a Khornate daemon plunged a fiery sword into her abdomen. The second time was during the siege of Excelsis, when a Skaven war machine had incinerated her. Ariene thought that was a particularly unpleasant experience. The third and latest time she had been sent to Azyr was when a duel with an orruk brute had ended with the orruk decapitated, but the brute’s cleaver tearing her lungs apart. That was a good death, Ariene always said when showing the scars to her fellow Astral Templars.
No, Ariene did not fear death. She did know about the issues of reforging. How warriors she knew well stepped off the Anvil of Apotheosis and had forgotten the names and faces of their friends. Some had told Ariene stories about what they remember from before they were chosen by Sigmar. Ariene’s fellow Farstrike warrior, Santhos Skyward, had told her about his memories once; Santhos remembered the wind in his hair as he rode on the plains of Thondia, he remembered the taste of mead that was made by his tribe, and the face of a man he thoughts was, maybe, his husband. But after Santhos was struck down during the siege, and when they were reunited in the Azyr, Santhos barely remembered anything of his life before. While many are saddened by the toll of the reforging, Ariene thought of it as a blessing.
She too remembered things from her past life. For many, those memories were a reminder of their connection to the normal humans of the Realms. For Ariene, those were nightmares. Ariene remembers things that were unfamiliar and strange to her. Memories that belonged to someone else, someone different. Course and rough hands that held a spear. Face mirrored back to her that didn’t look like Ariene at all. A face that was like hewn from stone, scarred and ruddy. Those memories haunted her, like an old battle wound that never stopped aching. She hoped that the reforgings would free her from those. She must have forgotten some of them, Ariene thought. But the feeling of unfamiliarity between her past and present caused great distress to her still. She was Ariene Talonfall, but sometimes she felt like a remnant of someone else haunted her, and as long as Ariene remembered them, she couldn’t be truly whole.
She was jolted back from her thoughts by a rumble of snow. A small avalanche rolled in the distance. Ariene held her ground and stood still. Sometimes animals would cause the snow to slide off steep cliffs. Loud noises could unsettle the deep banks of snow at the heights. Ariene hadn’t seen any wild animals for days, and the valley was quiet. She could only hear her own labored breath. She stood there, staring at the blinding snowbanks, waiting for some sign of life to make itself known. Suddenly, a sound of thunder, oddly muffled and restrained. Ariene’s grip on her bow tightened.
“Ursricht, reveal my quarry, Sigmar, guide my hand”, she prayed quietly.
As soon as she finished her prayer, the snowbanks exploded in the distance. Something burst from beneath the ice and snow, screaming and screeching. It looked like a massive feline beast, but it had no fur, only pink and scarred hide. Its head looked like a grotesque, naked rat, with an odd number of eyes and great tusk-like teeth that did not fit its mouth. The beast screamed like a stuck pig, with reverberations of thunder rising from its gullet. Lighting sparked from open wounds on its flanks, but it was not the azure lighting of Stormcasts, but a bloody, pinkish, and seemingly alive.
“Thunder-Eater.” Ariene grabbed three more arrows from her quiver and stuck them in the snow in front of her. She quickly calculated the distance between the daemon-spawn and her. One hundred yards, before the Thunder-Eater would reach her.
“Beast! I am Ariene Talonfall, and I am your doom,” she shouted and aimed her first arrow. Thunder-Eater screamed and started to pounce towards her. Ariene could see arrows and swords clinging to its back. She aimed at the beast’s head. The first arrow was loose, flying like a thunderbolt. It struck the beast but bounced off its bulbous head. Ariene cursed and nocked the second arrow. Thunder-Eater crashed through the snowbanks, its massive size not hindered by the amount of snow in its path. The second arrow struck the beast in the head again, but this time the arrow pierced the beast’s hide. The wound bled pink lighting, but the beast did not stop. Ariene took the second to last arrow she had prepared and nocked it. She took a deep breath, then another. She aimed, and let the arrow loose. Again the arrow struck the beast, this time burrowing itself into one of the beast’s eyes. Thunder-Eater yowled, and dragged its head along the snow, trying to dislodge the arrow. But the distance between the beast and Ariene continued to shorten. Thunder-Eater rose to its hind legs and started to run towards her with an unnatural gait. As the beast closed, Ariene could see flailing tentacles erupting from the beast’s mouth, as if the creature was trying to regurgitate its organs.
Final arrow. Ariene aimed. The beast was on her in mere moments. After that, her advantage would be gone. The time stretched, as she readied her shot. The beast had given her a new target. Straight to the heart. She let loose, and it was as if the beast ran into the arrow. The projectile pierced the skin, and the beast screamed — but continued its charge. Ariene cursed, and threw her bow into the snow, unsheathing her warblade.
“Come, then! Let’s make it a sport.”
Thunder-Eater charged straight at her. At the final moment, Ariene stepped out of the way, and her blade licked the beast’s scarred and raw skin. More blood and lighting erupted from the side. Thunder-Eater changed direction faster than Ariene anticipated and slammed straight into her. For a brief moment the sky, snow, and earth mingled in her eyes. She landed hard on the snowbank, struggling to get back on her feet. But the beast did not wait for her to regain her posture. Jaws distended, and a mass of rotten entrail-tentacles launched towards Ariene. They grabbed her legs and started to reel Ariene towards the mishappen fanged mouth. Ariene’s warblade sang, and wet blood stained the snow. Thunder-Eater screamed as Ariene got back on her feet. Blood clouded her sight, and she removed her helm, tossing it into the snow. Ariene’s white hair flung in the wind, her eyes glared and sparked with lightning under her blue warpaint.
“Ursricht,” Ariene said breathing heavily. One or more of her ribs were definitely broken. “Give me strength. Sigmar, give me revenge or give me death.”
Thunder-Eater’s jaw distended, and it ran straight at her. Ariene braced her warblade, and stood still. Wind and snow billowed between the Stormcast and her prey. Ariene smiled, as the beast did not change its path. With a sound of thunder, two hunters crashed into each other. Huge fangs came down hard, piercing Ariene’s sigmarite armor from the clavicle to the waist. She grunted in pain, and the impact of the charge pushed her back into the snow. But her hands had stayed true. Thunder-Eater’s eyes pulsated and its limbs failed aimlessly, as Ariene’s warblade slid into the beast’s palate, and pierced its brain. Thunder-Eater flinched and jolted, as the sound died in its throat, and light vanished from its eyes. They both fell to the ground, and Ariene retrieved her blade from the beast’s mouth. As she stepped back, Ariene saw the pink lighting in the beast’s wounds turn into pure blue of Azyr, as the remnants of the monster exploded with a roar of thunder. Streaks of lightning sprang into the heavens.
“Y-you are freed, warriors,” she said with a quiet, pained voice. Her armor was wet with blood, and she couldn’t feel the right side of her body.
“I shall join you shortly.”
Ariene staggered away from the carcass of the beast. She felt the snow and cold wind on her face. Her hair was wet from it, and the frost prickled her skin. This was who she was, Ariene thought. Bloodied blade in hand, hair flowing in the cold wind, taste of victory on her lips. Not some face in her memories that she did not recognize. Ariene felt lighting erupting from her side, and she fell down on one knee, keeping herself up with her blade. Thunder would take her in a few moments, but she wanted to enjoy this moment. Maybe this time the memory of the unfamiliar face would not haunt her anymore, or she would forget what her voice sounded like before. As the last of her strength faded away, Ariene fell to the ground on her back.
“This was a good death”, Ariene said smiling as her form exploded into lighting, and her essence bolted towards the firmament, and silence fell to the icy valley.
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Aasa T
