Collections

THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 1
Various authors
Contains the novels The Gates of Azyr, War Storm, Ghal Maraz, Hammers of Sigmar, Wardens of the Everqueen and Black Rift

THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 2
Various authors
Contains the novels Call of Achaon, Warbeast, Fury of Gork, Bladestorm, Mortarch of Night and Lord of Undeath

LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF SIGMAR
Various authors
An anthology of short stories

RULERS OF THE DEAD
Josh Reynolds & David Annandale
Contains the novels Neferata: Mortarch of Blood
and Nagash: The Undying King

WARCRY
Various authors
An anthology of short stories

GODS & MORTALS
Various authors
An anthology of short stories

MYTHS & REVENANTS
Various authors
An anthology of short stories

Novels

• HALLOWED KNIGHTS •
Josh Reynolds

Book One: HALLOWED KNIGHTS: PLAGUE GARDEN
Book Two: HALLOWED KNIGHTS: BLACK PYRAMID

EIGHT LAMENTATIONS: SPEAR OF SHADOWS
Josh Reynolds

OVERLORDS OF THE IRON DRAGON
C L Werner

SOUL WARS
Josh Reynolds

CALLIS & TOLL: THE SILVER SHARD
Nick Horth

THE TAINTED HEART
C L Werner

SHADESPIRE: THE MIRRORED CITY
Josh Reynolds

BLACKTALON: FIRST MARK
Andy Clark

HAMILCAR: CHAMPION OF THE GODS
David Guymer

SCOURGE OF FATE
Robbie MacNiven

THE RED FEAST
Gav Thorpe

GLOOMSPITE
Andy Clark

GHOULSLAYER
Darius Hinks

BEASTGRAVE
C L Werner

NEFERATA: THE DOMINION OF BONES
David Annandale

Novellas

CITY OF SECRETS
Nick Horth

THIEVES’ PARADISE
Nick Horth

CODE OF THE SKIES
Graeme Lyon

THE MEASURE OF IRON
Jamie Crisalli

Audio Dramas

• REALMSLAYER: A GOTREK GURNISSON SERIES •
David Guymer
Boxed Set One: REALMSLAYER
Boxed Set Two: REALMSLAYER: BLOOD OF THE OLD WORLD

THE BEASTS OF CARTHA
David Guymer

FIST OF MORK, FIST OF GORK
David Guymer

GREAT RED
David Guymer

ONLY THE FAITHFUL
David Guymer

THE PRISONER OF THE BLACK SUN
Josh Reynolds

SANDS OF BLOOD
Josh Reynolds

THE LORDS OF HELSTONE
Josh Reynolds

THE BRIDGE OF SEVEN SORROWS
Josh Reynolds

WAR-CLAW
Josh Reynolds

SHADESPIRE: THE DARKNESS IN THE GLASS
Various authors

THE IMPRECATIONS OF DAEMONS
Nick Kyme

THE PALACE OF MEMORY AND OTHER STORIES
Various authors

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer Age of Sigmar

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Warcry’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

From the maelstrom of a sundered world, the Eight Realms were born. The formless and the divine exploded into life.

Strange, new worlds appeared in the firmament, each one gilded with spirits, gods and men. Noblest of the gods was Sigmar. For years beyond reckoning he illuminated the realms, wreathed in light and majesty as he carved out his reign. His strength was the power of thunder. His wisdom was infinite. Mortal and immortal alike kneeled before his lofty throne. Great empires rose and, for a while, treachery was banished. Sigmar claimed the land and sky as his own and ruled over a glorious age of myth.

But cruelty is tenacious. As had been foreseen, the great alliance of gods and men tore itself apart. Myth and legend crumbled into Chaos. Darkness flooded the realms. Torture, slavery and fear replaced the glory that came before. Sigmar turned his back on the mortal kingdoms, disgusted by their fate. He fixed his gaze instead on the remains of the world he had lost long ago, brooding over its charred core, searching endlessly for a sign of hope. And then, in the dark heat of his rage, he caught a glimpse of something magnificent. He pictured a weapon born of the heavens. A beacon powerful enough to pierce the endless night. An army hewn from everything he had lost.

Sigmar set his artisans to work and for long ages they toiled, striving to harness the power of the stars. As Sigmar’s great work neared completion, he turned back to the realms and saw that the dominion of Chaos was almost complete. The hour for vengeance had come. Finally, with lightning blazing across his brow, he stepped forth to unleash his creations.

The Age of Sigmar had begun.

Chapter One

Syzek Govus of the Iron Golems stepped into the Realmgate as lightning danced down the metal frame, a murky yellow reflection wobbling in its heart. He closed his eyes instinctively. Cold nothingness washed over his bleached, ashy skin and hissed over his ruddy plate.

For a long moment, he was nowhere at all.

Transformation in permanence, permanence in transformation was how the mantra went. The saying described many of the unknowable mysteries of Chaos, from the madness of the afterlife to the state of the soul. In this way, the Iron Golems also described the space between the realms. Some scholars said it was where the forge-fire burned. Some said it was where the Four Instincts made their home. Some said that there was nothing but void.

Suddenly, heat rolled over him like the breath of a forge. Harsh sunlight pierced through the grille of his helm into his pale eyes and he blinked away tears. It had been years since he had seen a sky. The wet stone was crooked under his bare feet and he stumbled a little.

A ragged scream shocked him out of his disorientation.

Below him, a pack of emaciated men and women cowered, staring up at him with bulging eyes, near-toothless mouths hanging open. When he stepped forwards, they scrambled back like feral animals. Some hid amongst the broken pale ruins that surrounded the gate, others froze, licking their cracked lips.

His mountainous frame encased in heavy plate enamelled in red like old blood, Syzek strode forwards. Sheets of chain mail and brass hammer charms jingled. Cautiously, he drew his heavy warhammer from his back, the spiked head gleaming. The wretches scuttled back, using their hands as much as their feet. He rested his hammer on his broad shoulder.

‘So these are the creatures that live in the Bloodwind Spoil,’ he muttered, frowning.

Eziel, his drillmaster, appeared at his side with a snort of derision. Like him, she was tall, heavily muscled and armoured in the same ruddy plate. Unlike him, she was at ease under the strange sky, rolling her shoulder as if preparing for some forge-yard feat of strength, not war. The long chain-flail at her hip clinked, more heavy weapon than goad for lesser humans, and a footman’s flail dangled on the opposite side. She cocked her head at him.

‘You sound disappointed,’ she said, amusement trilling through her dry, raspy voice.

‘I am,’ he said. ‘You said that there would be dangers.’

She barked a rasping laugh and the pack moved back further.

‘I said that there would be dangers,’ she replied, ‘but there are also things like these. Most seem to be escapees.’ She chuckled again. ‘Imagine escaping your drillmaster, rushing through this blessed gate and ending up here.’ She pulled the flail-whip from her belt. ‘I almost feel bad for them.’

Syzek glanced at her sharply, the quick movement exaggerated by his helm.

‘I said almost,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You know me better than that.’

He shook his head. Most people did not understand Eziel at all. She often spoke in riddles, putting too much trust in her tone to convey meaning. It was only because he had known her since they were children that he understood her strange turns of logic.

Loud rhythmic jangling announced the arrival of his signifer, Somnixes Ozud. In his hand, he carried the war-seal on a heavy iron pole. The broad steel plate bore the spiked portcullis symbol of the Golem’s Will; a sheet of small brass discs hung from it and jangled whenever he moved. It was he who announced that war had come to these pathetic wretches. With him came the first supply wagon, pulled by ornery Ghurian pack drevars and loaded with water barrels.

A change rolled over the wretched scavengers. Their backs stiffened, their fingers dug into the sand.

‘They have water!’

‘Water!’

‘They have eating on them!’

‘There are only a few!’

The feral crowd charged, hurtling across the sands towards them. More poured out of hiding. Starvelings or not, their numbers might have made up for their relative weakness. No matter how many were there, they could be no match for Syzek’s warband, the Golem’s Will. They came from the Legion and the Legion was unstoppable.

‘Legion, front!’ he roared. ‘Riot crush!’

Somnixes banged out the order, his thunderous voice carrying like the rumbling of a drum.

With a disgusted grunt, Syzek swung his warhammer off his shoulder, turning the motion into an underhanded stroke. It was a lazy strike, but these weak creatures did not need his full effort.

The first wretch reached him and warhammer met skull. Brains and bone scattered over the sand, the thin body flying back. Another wretch scrambled at Syzek from his left and he backhanded the man to the ground. Without pausing, he staved in the prone man’s chest with a single blow, crunching frail bones.

Behind him, his legionaries stepped through the gate, their armour gleaming dully in the light. They numbered twelve, carrying their personal arms, hammers, spiked maces and round shields. It was still strange to him, leading these soldiers. His place had been in the forges as a forge-master, supplying the Legion with its arms. Now he was in the field, leading them as dominar.

Still, war-making was his duty and inheritance as an Iron Golem. It had soaked the air he breathed, the rations he ate, the water he drank. The knowledge simply existed for him. Where so many other decadent civilisations treated their warriors like they had a profession, for Syzek and the Golem’s Will, it was simply life. To be otherwise was to be nameless, without citizenship, perhaps less than human.

Syzek growled and pushed away the memories that threatened to surface. His family of origin had been nameless – worse, the professions of both his parents were outright shameful. His mother was a merchant, his father a jeweller. Useless in war. Still, his past was irrelevant to his elevated present. At least, that is what he told himself. There were many who were eager to remind him.

‘Stay together, kill them,’ Syzek shouted.

They wasted no battle cries, as this was not war but a speedy extermination. Armour and mail clanking, the legionaries charged forwards in a wall, swinging their spike-sheathed clubs and heavy hammers. The thud of maces hitting flesh and bones breaking cracked across the basin.

Broken bodies piled high, and the sand became soaked in blood. The dregs came on in clots of reeking desperation, like jackals trying to bring down lions. Slowly, the legionaries moved forwards in a u-shaped formation, hemming the creatures into the pale rocks where they were crushed. Yet, there were always more of the stinking things, as if the ground spawned them like insects.

Syzek pulverised them. He broke their limbs, cracked their skulls and twisted their necks. Blood flowed, but Syzek did not revel in it. This violence was a purely mechanical endeavour; it was neither a test of his skill as a soldier or as a smith. Just a wearying delay, if it could be called that much.

Eziel followed at his side, roaring encouragement and threats in equal measure. Unlike some drillmasters who perhaps edged too close into cruel decadence, she touched her prods to his legionaries only if she needed to, using drevar whip, razor-sharp insults and occasionally her heavy flail-whip as required. Instead she wielded that flail-whip against the enemy, the heavy brass ball lashing out to break ribs or crack skulls with frightening precision.

‘We’re almost free of these creatures,’ she said. ‘They’re breaking.’

Then the unthinkable happened.

One of his legionaries, Galex, fell under a crowd of flailing wretches, cursing as the dregs tore his flesh. Syzek shuddered. They were trying to eat him even as he still lived. Sensing that these newcomers were not as invulnerable as they had first appeared, the crowd surged forwards anew.

How many of these cannibals were there?

Syzek barged in, swatting aside shrieking cannibals as he went. Another legionary joined him, a man named Alon, armed with mace and shield. An older veteran, he rarely needed ordering; he simply knew what needed doing.

They reached the screeching knot and Syzek shattered it apart with a sweep of his hammer. More scrambled over the shattered bodies of their fellows to reach Syzek, biting and clawing at his exposed flesh. Pain flashed through his thigh. Alon hauled Galex to his feet. The man’s skin was ripped, great chunks bitten from his flesh.

‘They sense food, more will always come,’ Eziel said as she strangled some fiend with the chain of her flail-whip.

‘Part centre!’ he roared.

His remaining legionaries did so. They knew what was coming.

‘Breacher! Charge!’ he bellowed.

An inhuman roar boomed over the basin, loud as an avalanche. The sands quivered with each footfall as the vast slab of iron, gristle and muscle that was the ogor Breacher charged. He did not have a name – not unless ‘Breacher’ counted. Not that he cared, as long as he was fed. His vast fists were encased in iron mauls, his prodigious gut covered in plate, his head enclosed in the same type of heavy helm as the rest of them. A generous parting gift from his adoptive father, this living weapon was the ultimate sign of Azen Govus’ confidence in him.

The Breacher bulldozed through the gap into the odious crowd. Bodies flew up into the air as if they weighed nothing. A bloody hole opened in the sea of weak flesh as the Breacher swung wildly about, pulping everything around him. A mash of gore marked his path as he churned onwards.

Behind their line, the supply train plodded forth from the Realmgate. Wagons loaded with rations, water, shelter, fortifications – everything they needed for a lengthy expedition. Slaves from dozens of nations huddled in their cages, shrieking at the sight of the cannibals that lunged towards them.

‘Follow the Breacher!’ Syzek roared. ‘Guard the flanks!’

The call was taken up around him and their supply train followed. The warband scattered through the train, breaking up knots of clawing cannibals. Even protected by the warband, several of the unnamed were dragged away to their deaths. Syzek was not concerned. His father had been generous and they could afford to lose a few lesser workers.

Syzek moved to the rear wagon with Atoska and Ferron, both armed with shields and hammers, to form a tough defensive knot around the second load of water. They were nearly free.

The fight became desperate as the creatures realised that their opportunity was vanishing. With a final shriek, they rushed at the Golem’s Will. Like they were shaping metal, Syzek and the others hammered their bodies into paste.

Whimpering, the cannibals finally broke away and loped back the way they had come.

‘Cowards,’ Syzek muttered, looking down with disgust at the bloody bite in his leg.

‘No, just smart,’ Eziel said, behind him.

‘Smart?’ he said.

‘Plenty of eating over there,’ she said, a smile in her voice.

Sure enough, the creatures fell upon the broken corpses of their fellows, wrestling with each other over crushed limbs and spilled guts.

He shuddered in disgust, and she laughed.

‘Welcome to the Spoil,’ she said. ‘It gets worse.’

The two shield bearers tensed at the apparent disrespect but when he only shook his head, they relaxed once more. Eziel hopped onto the back of the wagon and sat down, her feet dangling. Syzek joined her, poking at his wound.

The train crested the lip of the sandy basin, and they entered a vast scrubland. Strange tripodal insects creaked to each other and blood-red scrub rattled in the wind like old bones.

Now that they were not in immediate danger, they took off their helms, though they kept their weapons close. Syzek was typical of the breed, heavy-featured and hairless. Small bone spikes lined his jaw and brow, and heavy brass discs dangled from his ears, marking out his house. Eziel was much the same, though she still had hair, dry and brittle, tied tight to her scalp.

As a slave healer tended to the bite in Syzek’s leg, Eziel opened the thick folio of maps and notes that carried her family’s knowledge of the Spoil. Like the rest of her family, Eziel Ebrixos was curious. It was the Ebrixos that sought out new ore veins and farmland to exploit, new cities and towns to conquer. And it was the original Ebrixos, the first of their bloodline, that had been the first to try and map the Eightpoints. Her descendants had been trying to complete her work ever since. The Varanspire remained blank on every map, known and unknown, seen but unseen. Eziel intended to change that. She wanted to be the first Ebrixos to step inside it.

‘There’s the place that we can set up the forge,’ she said, pointing at a map. ‘Though we’ll have to fight for it.’

‘Understood,’ he said, as the slave healer finished stitching the wound and left silently.

At that moment, a black haze swept over Syzek’s vision and all sound muffled.

Syzek. Govus. Are you ready to make a weapon worthy of me?

It was a deep voice, ancient and curt, used to being obeyed. Such was its authority and majesty that Syzek nearly stood and knelt. There was no voice like it. Not even Mithraxes wore the right to rule so easily.

A welter of images skittered through his mind. Despite himself, Syzek flinched. He hated this; it felt too much like madness. A vast forest opened before him, heat rippling over the boughs. His sight rushed along dry riverbeds and cracked clay banks, flashing by towering trees, as if he were a bird, until he came to rest at a tumbled-down stump, bleached from the sun. No, not a stump. A corpse. A treelord corpse.

Syzek rubbed his brow.

He knew his purpose here.

To make a weapon worthy of Archaon – the Great Overlord, the man of Iron and Flame, the Iron Will that had overcome the Four Instincts. It had to be without peer to earn him his place in the warlord’s forges. That much, he knew. But as Syzek looked over the distance to where a faint blot of darkness hovered on the horizon, he questioned how these new, strange visions played into his quest.

‘What is it?’ Eziel’s voice broke through, echoing to him as if over a great distance.

He shook his head. How long had he sat there vacantly staring?

‘Syzek?’ she said.

He described the vision to her in a quiet voice, hoping that she knew what he was talking about.

‘I know that place,’ she said. ‘The Cursewood.’

‘The name feels right, which seems wrong,’ Syzek muttered. ‘Going by feeling is foolish. Dangerous, even.’ He looked about him at the alien wastes. ‘I wonder how many lose their souls to the Instincts instead of going to the Golem’s Forge.’

Eziel paused before answering.

‘Too many.’

Chapter Two

Failure! Dolt! Miserable little rook! Why are you still here! Why is the Govus still alive!

Ias Vo cowered under the shadow of his god, curled into a foetal position, with his hands clamped over his ears and his eyes scrunched shut. He screamed and screamed but could only barely hear himself. No matter how hard he shrieked, the voice of the Great Gatherer hammered through. The vast ebony presence loomed over him as if he were a mouse, a darkness that blotted out everything around him. He could never escape the Gatherer. It nested in his mind, awake and aware of his every thought. Worse, it had stolen his own voice and used it to shriek at him endlessly.

Bring me the Govus’ dream!

The black beak slashed downwards like a sword and he flinched away. Treasures jingled as the Great Gatherer leaped about, the immense black eye peering at him like the eye of a hurricane.

‘Rookery leader?’ a woman asked in the speech of birds.

So stupid! Must I tell you everything?

‘Please stop,’ Ias whimpered in the same squawking language. ‘I will do anything. Just stop, please.’

A cacophony of cawing ripped over him, blotting out his thoughts. Sleek black crows swirled around him in a great howling storm.

‘Shrike Talon?’ the woman said.

The darkness faded like fog in the morning. A hazy figure appeared out of the mist of his madness. Ripping his war-pick from his belt, Ias lunged at the figure with a ragged cry. A flash of crow feathers flickered in front of him as the figure scampered back, squawking in alarm. Ias swung at his foe’s head, the hooked blade whistling. Then the haze cleared abruptly, revealing the littlest of his rookery, Semni, lying prone on her back, her arms flung up in terror.

The blade stopped inches from her nose.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, backing away from her, his dark eyes wide.

‘I should have waited,’ she said.

Yet the way she pulled away from him filled him with shame. Ias rubbed at the dent in his skull, trying to clear his thoughts. He heard the dim cawing still, as if the Great Gatherer’s flock hovered just out of sight. It had not always been this way. In the past, he had been able to think and sleep in silence.

Around the rookery, the rest of the warband studiously ignored his fit, going about their tasks. Just as they had for the last seven years.

‘What is it that you could not wait?’ he said, squatting down in the sand. His raven familiar, Hookclaw, fluttered down and landed on his shoulder.

Slim and wiry, Ias Vo moved with quick, jerky movements, holding still one moment and then snatching up a fallen trinket the next. A black crow-skull mask perched atop his head, revealing a gaunt face marked by deep shadows and sallow skin. Black feathers dripped from him, but his clothing was ragged and stained. Like the rest of his warband, he had seen better days.

Semni looked around warily, clearly mapping out a route of escape.

‘I have seen a Govus,’ she murmured, the name alien amongst the squawks.

He tensed, his fingers digging into the sand. The strange pressures of his broken skull shifted, and a stinging pain started behind his right eye.

‘Where?’ he asked.

‘Out past the Razortill, at Oveso’s Landing,’ she said.

She went on to describe a busy, unsubtle camp – no, not camp; a bridgehead. As much as he loathed the stiff-necked brutes, Ias had to admire the Iron Golems’ ability to build, within mere hours, a fortified position so fierce that few tried to assault it. Of course, when one had access to that many slaves, it was easy to be so industrious.

He looked about the alcove in the cliff where they had lived for seven long years. Small huts built of light timbers and thin reeds crowded in close to each other. The rookery was supposed to have been a temporary abode, but resignation had rooted them to the spot. Dangling from the ceiling, shiny bits of ceramic, bird skulls, scraps of silk and other colourful items tinkled softly in the hot air. Refuse lay heaped in corners, filling the place with the stench of human habitation. Out front hung the corpses of their victims, strung with every treasure one could imagine: strings of pearls, glittering crowns, shimmering sabres. Crows, vultures and other scavengers danced over the display, picking at choice morsels, quietly chattering at each other.

‘The Govus set out at sunset to the west,’ she said. ‘Him and a warband.’

He relaxed his fists and scuttled up to her, his black eyes gleaming.

‘This Govus is not Azen?’ he hissed, his voice thick with disappointment.

‘No, he seems… young,’ she said. ‘I think. He moves like a younger man.’

For a moment he was consumed with rage, grinding his teeth and hopping about in a tight circle. Still, the Great Gatherer had not been particular about which Govus it was. This youngster would do just as well as the elder Govus that had escaped his blade all those years ago.

Azen Govus, Mithraxes’ forge-master. An old, deaf, half-blind Iron Golem, easy prey by any measure. Ias had wanted his eyes; another kingdom wanted him dead. But Azen had seen Ias as he had crept into his cell. He’d waited, lying in bed, pretending to sleep, and Ias had been too proud to see it. When Ias had lifted his blade, Azen had struck Ias in the head with a sledgehammer, staving in his skull. The sound it had made, the crunch. Ias had fled and the rookery had nursed him back to health, but there was no art that could restore his mind.

He took a few quick breaths and gripped his skull.

‘A son?’ he said, warbling to himself. ‘That is odd. He did not have a son when I… visited. Adopted, then. Who else is with them? How many?’

‘Twelve,’ she said. ‘There’s an ogor.’

‘Azen has given him mighty gifts. An only child, then. Come, let us find out what this young Govus is here to do.’

‘We are not going to kill him?’ Semni said.

‘We might. Or not. We’ll see.’

He whistled for the others and they slunk to him, curious. They had no shortage of food or water or treasures. There was no need to go out.

‘For many years, we have had no worthy gifts for the Great Gatherer,’ he said. ‘However, Semni has found one. Azen Govus’ child. Let us take his eyes. Let us steal the dream of this Govus and return home.’

They smiled in wickedness and let out a great shriek. Then they gathered their weapons, a few rations and skins of water. Chanting softly, they donned their masks and marked their throats and weapons with blood. Ias took on his winged feather cloak, his stilt-blades that lengthened his stride and his bladed gloves.

Then they leaped out into the darkness, scattering the crows on their monuments. A row of slinking shadows, they ran on with great speed, staying on firm ground so they would leave no sign of their passing.

Ias nearly wept as he followed Semni out into the blood-red scrub. For the first time in years, the Great Gatherer was silent.

Chapter Three

A low tone sifted out to them over the rocky hills. As they trudged through the loose gravel, Syzek began to hear other notes as the wind rose and fell, hollow shrieks and shrill whistles, deep horn blasts and discordant hooting. It was as if some madman were trying to capture his melancholia through music.

They crested a ridge, and looked upon a place that at first glance seemed vibrant with life. A forest, pale as old bone, shimmered in the sun. Looming trees stalked to the horizon, the undergrowth thick and tangled. As the Iron Golems walked closer, Syzek realised that they were deceived.

The forest was made of stone, a pale, bleached granite. From root to branch to leaf, the place was still. Old stream beds lay cracked and empty. Dust streamed amongst the trunks as the wind howled with its thousand eerie voices. The heat was as brutal as a furnace, even though it was early morning. Every breath seemed to suck the moisture from him. In a few minutes, Syzek’s mouth was dry as tinder, his throat pulling tight.

‘Leave the water jugs here,’ Eziel said. ‘Take only minimal sustenance.’

The others paused in bewilderment.

‘What?’ Somnixes said, war-seal jangling.

‘Do as she says,’ Syzek said. ‘Whatever is in there is no doubt thirsty.’

Somnixes glared for a moment but Syzek stared him down. Unlike Eziel, Somnixes had never been a friend to him, not in the forges and not here. Syzek knew that Somnixes’ tongue wagged against him, never outright sedition but constant grumbling all the same. However, he came from a known family of rank, and that rank had earned him the right to carry the war-seal. Even out here, names had to be taken into account.

The legionaries did as they were told, burying the heavy jugs under the rocky soil. None of them said anything but their tense shoulders told him they were displeased. They gripped the leather bottles at their belts like they were weapons.

‘Breacher, guard the water,’ Syzek said. ‘Do not drink it yourself. If you do, I will roast and eat you.’

The Breacher shook himself and made an assenting rumble. As Syzek turned, he heard Alon cough and whisper to Eziel.

‘He is joking, right?’

‘No,’ she said and walked up to Syzek.

‘I take it that this place is not as lifeless as it appears?’ Syzek said, loud enough that the others could overhear.

‘It is every bit as lifeless as it appears,’ Eziel said. ‘But that means nothing. Dead things still guard it and they are attracted by water. They will track a man by the moisture in his breath for miles and kill him for the water in his veins. At least, those are the legends my family passed down.’

He nodded and turned towards the forest. Its stillness made his hackles rise. As the wind kicked up, that eerie music rose to a bitter crescendo. His warhammer on his shoulder, he walked under the stiff boughs of the forest. The others followed, watching the trunks warily.

The undergrowth did not bend as he passed. Instead, the brittle stone broke and crumbled against his greaves. Gravel crackled under his feet and dust stuck in his throat. Occasionally, a stone leaf plummeted down and broke with the crash of a breaking plate. The heat escalated to blast-furnace levels and even Syzek opened his helm so that he did not roast.

‘It’s not protocol to keep them open,’ Eziel said.

‘I am dominar,’ he said. ‘You are my drillmaster. And my word supersedes any protocol. And your opinion.’

She blinked, then smiled and inclined her head. ‘Yes, dominar.’

They kept to the shade, but that did nothing. The pale stone reflected the sun and roasted them red like sides of meat. Sweat tracked through the dust on their ashy skin, their breathing became ragged and fast, their pace became sluggish. Hardy as they were, as deep as their endurance lay, the Cursewood broke them down all the same.

Eziel turned her skills on them with her cruel cheer. Her insults and threats stung the legionaries’ egos and the occasional prod kept them going. However, even she conceded the pace once the sun was at its zenith. They stopped next to a dry stream bed under the remains of a towering oak and lay down, panting and lathered in sweat.

‘Dominar,’ Somnixes said, leaning on the seal’s pole.

‘Yes, signifer?’ Syzek said, taking a sparse sip of water. He shook it, disappointed that a quarter was already gone despite his efforts to ration the precious fluid.

‘Do you know where you are going?’ Somnixes asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. He pointed at a dry stream bed. ‘I know that from my vision.’

Somnixes nodded slowly, licking his dry lips, and then turned away. ‘Mad upstart son of a jeweller,’ the signifer muttered under his breath, just loud enough that Syzek heard him.

Somnixes was a true-born child from a long line of generals and armoury masters. And he had no respect for Syzek’s humble origins and his adoption by Azen. Normally, Syzek would have ignored such an insult until there was a quiet place to corner one such as Somnixes and teach him certain lessons in respect. However, out in the field, he did not have that discreet option.

‘Come back here, Somnixes,’ he growled, standing and dropping his warhammer off his shoulder. He planted the brute weapon head down, the gravel crunching underneath the steel head.

The others tensed, eyes fluttering open, their armour creaking. For a long moment, nothing moved.

‘I meant nothing, dominar, it is the heat,’ Somnixes said, his head dropping.

‘Are you so weak that your discipline breaks down because you are… hot?’ Syzek said.

Somnixes froze with all the fear of a sudden, damning epiphany. He had misjudged badly, and while he and Syzek shared no affection, it was doubly true for him and Eziel. The chain-flail clinked as she unhitched it from her belt.

‘No, dominar,’ Somnixes said, straightening abruptly.

‘Good. If I thought that this heat affected you, I would not bring you with me into the Lord Archaon’s forges,’ Syzek said. ‘Your weakness might impact his production negatively.’

‘Of course, dominar,’ said Somnixes, banging a fist off the opposite shoulder in salute.

Syzek nodded and Somnixes slunk off, properly chastised.

The sun descended towards the horizon and the heat lessened somewhat. They roused themselves and moved on, following the dry stream bed. Syzek’s anticipation grew. As they marched, he recognised more landmarks. A chunk of blue stone the size of a man. A cluster of stony flowers utterly still in the warm breeze. They were close. He was close to finding the first component that he needed – the haft of the weapon.

Hours passed in a dead silence as the winds stilled. Not an insect creaked, nor did any vermin scuttle about. Not even a night bird cooed. The crunch of gravel under their feet, the clank of their hammer charms, the soft whisper of leather – the sounds seemed to echo. All the while, the heat remained, boiling out of the stone.

Eventually, a clearing opened before them, dotted with shattered stone stumps. The broken treelord corpse gleamed in the moonlight, twisted and wrenched in unspeakable agony. Apparently, the creature had destroyed the surrounding forest in its death throes. Exactly as it was in his vision.

‘Alon, keep four legionaries at the edge of the clearing,’ Syzek said, his voice loud. ‘I do not trust this.’

‘Yes, dominar,’ Alon said, and picked out the four he wanted.

Leaving them, Syzek and the others filtered through the broken stumps. Dust curled under their feet. Nothing else moved. Syzek closed his helm and walked forwards slowly, his warhammer at the ready. His weapon weighed in his hands, his armour dug into his sunken flesh. To his left, Bersa stumbled, though she caught herself.

Upon reaching the shattered remains, Syzek ran a hand over the warm stone, expecting something to happen. Yet, all remained still.

Then he saw it. A claw of stone, a dull black. The haft of his weapon, the foundation of its power.

‘Maybe this forest really is dead,’ Somnixes said.

Syzek raised his hammer and brought it down on the out-thrust hand of the treelord, cracking the longest finger at the lowest knuckle. It took several blows to break the digit off and when it dropped, it did not shatter.

Something hissed.

A flash of pale stone and bellowing. Something hit Syzek bodily and hurled him into the air. His warhammer flew from his grip and the ground crashed in. The impact blasted the air from his lungs and the stony ground ripped his exposed skin like a grinder.

Screams went up as the ambush crashed in. Steel scraped and bashed against stone.

Shaking his head, he looked up. A bipedal tree sprinted towards him, shockingly fast despite its palsied movement. Its face was gaunt and howling, a leathery tongue dangling from its maw. Wheezing like a plague victim, it leaped upon him, terrible claws outstretched. A dryad: stone, but still moving.

He caught it by the wrists, stone banging off his armour. It leaned down over him, its dead eye sockets radiating a terrible desperation, dry tongue flicking at his bloody wounds.

Grunting, he clenched his fists, muscles bulging. Stone flaked and the dryad hissed, claws flexing towards his mask. He wrenched and pushed at it but could not dislodge the dryad’s immense weight. Roaring, he planted both feet into the centre of its mass and heaved the creature off. Swiftly, the thing rushed back at him and he backhanded the dryad’s head. Stone splintered and it reeled back.

Around him, the melee churned the clearing into a maelstrom of dust and blood. A legionary screamed, strong at first then diminishing into a coughing wheeze that vanished altogether. Syzek could see no one else, though the bang of the war-seal announced the arrival of Alon’s party.

Hissing, the dryad clawed at him and he smashed the thing with an overhanded strike, hitting the dryad’s head square. The stone burst apart, the rest of the body crumbling in a shower of gravel.

He looked about, trying to catch his breath. Trembling and soaked in sweat, he turned his hammer onto the rest of the hissing, shuddering things. As always, nothing stood against the weapon that he had wrought. Stone gave way before steel. Yet, his muscles ached, blood leaked from his shredded skin, he could not seem to breathe. His blows slowed, his defence weakened. As always, the weakness of the Iron Golems was their own soft flesh.

‘Steel is strong, meat is weak!’ he roared. ‘These creatures cannot stand before you! Show them what war is!’

The Golem’s Will bellowed in affirmation. Yet the stone dryads started to overwhelm them, battering their exhausted flesh. Eziel joined him at his side, her flail-whip spinning. Then the dryads seemed to flinch as one, and the Breacher crashed into the clearing with a sound like a thousand stones breaking. Swinging wildly, the Breacher blasted the stone creatures apart. As much as Syzek was annoyed that the ogor had disobeyed his orders, he was thankful the Breacher had come. Between them, they fended off the onslaught. One by one, the stone dryads fell, hammered into dust until at last, silence fell like a shroud.

For a moment Syzek did not believe it. He scanned the treeline and swallowed. More of the creatures lurked there, watching them avidly.

‘Pour out your water,’ he said.

They swallowed with stinging throats but the legionaries could see his intent. They did as they were told, the shimmering fluid hitting the stony earth and disappearing into the dust.

‘Run,’ he whispered as the dryads started from the treeline.

The warband bolted from the thin puddle as the palsied creatures rushed across the clearing. As they fled, the creatures howled inhumanly, rock cracking together. A glance back revealed a frenzy of scrabbling limbs as they tore up the moist earth, tongues dangling.

Then came the hardest part: walking back out. The Golem’s Will did not stop to rest, instead staggering on into the blazing heat of the day. In a straggling line, they trickled through the stone trees, Eziel’s prods at their backs.

‘Keep moving,’ Syzek barked at them as they stumbled. ‘If you stop, you stay.’

Still, two of his soldiers collapsed in the heat, their ashy skin flushed red, chests heaving. The others carried them in turns, and no one said a word about it. Weakness did not exist if it was not allowed to. Yet, as the warband struggled on into the unnaturally hot twilight, both of them ceased breathing, perishing within an hour of each other.

The Iron Golems left the corpses behind. They did not mourn, as both legionaries had died in the field, their souls sent to the forge-fire. Their husks were unimportant.

A scrabbling caught Syzek’s ear. He looked back. Stony dryads bit into the corpses, sucking at their blood like vampires. More stared at them from the treeline, not brave enough to attack but waiting for them to fall all the same.

Under the dryads’ hollow gaze, the warband shuffled on. With burnt skin and cracked lips, they escaped from under the stone branches in the small hours of the morning. They found their cache of water and guzzled. The warm, alkaline fluid was the best thing Syzek had ever tasted.

As he drank, a raven with a hooked beak hopped on a stone nearby, observing them with a beady eye. Nothing lived for miles. But then perhaps it had followed them.

He shrugged and looked back at the forest.

‘Transformation in permanence, permanence in transformation,’ he muttered to himself.

Chapter Four

‘There it goes!’ Eziel said, pointing with her mace.

The rippling shape of their prey slithered over the rock, its atonal howling bouncing off the canyon walls. They had pursued it through the maze-like canyon, the walls unnaturally smooth and high. Its trail was easy to follow. Great splashes of colour marked its path, like the work of some mad god. A great blade of green glass thrust out of the stone here, a stinking blue stew of liquid ate through the stone there. The slithering prints of the thing itself filled with an oily substance that instantly caught fire.

‘It’s too clever by half for an animate skin,’ Alon said, as they herded the thing. ‘How can it see us without eyes?’

‘It held a daemon once,’ Eziel shouted. ‘The devotees of the Instincts like to summon shards of their gods and put them into slaves. Out here, though, with as much magic as there is in the air, the skins sometimes stay alive after the spirit departs.’

She cocked her head, listening.

‘Herd it to the left!’ she said. ‘There’s a box canyon that way.’

They did and the thing fled before them, lurching and floating down the narrow passage. Its ugly shrieks turned to distress as the daemonskin found itself trapped.

Syzek touched the case at his belt, which contained a flamestone brand, bearing the skull shape of the rune of ceasing. Like many other civilisations, Iron Golems mistrusted the erratic essences of magic and had many tools to contain it so it could be put to use. The rune of ceasing was one such tool.

The trick was marking the thing while keeping it intact, without dying themselves.

‘There, it ducked down that crevasse,’ Eziel said. ‘There’s no way out of there. We have it.’

The narrow passage ended in a round bowl, the sandstone walls too tall for even the daemonskin to climb. The maze-like canyon was a slaver’s dream, the walls tall and sheer, the ground covered in fine sand. Boulders almost perfectly round dotted their path. It was as if the canyon had been melted out by a finger of the Golem itself. As they approached, the thing scrambled about like a panicky prey animal. It was a strange thing that only grew stranger as Syzek closed on it.

A billowing sack of skin, it rippled like loose cloth in an unseen wind. Slithering about on two legs, it kept a loose human shape. Uncolours showed through the eye sockets and drooping mouth of its head. A shock of white hair rippled like flame from its scalp. Ritual tattoos glimmered with the same unlight, and strange pops and wails erupted from it.

With a thrill of triumph, the warband closed in.

The daemonskin abruptly wheeled about, glared right at them, and a shrieking beam of light burst from its mouth. Scattering, the warband lunged behind the round boulders and outcrops, trapped in the narrow crevasse. Where the beam struck, flocks of crystalline birds erupted from the stone, screaming with the voices of children. The flock dived down amongst them, razor-sharp wings slicing up their exposed flesh.

Zenox gurgled and grabbed his neck as a cascade of blood rushed from his gaping throat. Others struck the creatures from the air with their hammers, shattering their frail bodies.

Even as they fought the flock, the daemonskin charged in for another attack. Slithering about, the thing loosed another shrieking beam at them, which blasted away everything it touched.

‘We can’t just sit here!’ Somnixes shouted, pressing himself against the canyon wall.

‘Indeed, we need a distraction, but what?’ Syzek muttered.

Syzek looked about and spotted two baggage slaves as they cowered in the back in terror. As one, they caught his glance and quailed. They understood his thoughts.

‘Ready for assault!’ he bellowed.

As the creature’s deadly gaze whipped away from him, Syzek lunged from behind the half-melted boulder and bolted towards the quivering slaves. A beam struck nearby, showering him with hot sand. He crashed down amongst them as they scrambled away. One evaded his grasp, the other was not so lucky.

‘Please, don’t,’ the man shrieked, flailing and kicking at Syzek’s meaty arm.

‘And you wonder why we crushed your pathetic civilisation with such ease,’ Syzek growled.

Then he heaved the man off the ground and hurled him out into the open. The wretch landed like a sack of flour, breaking a leg with a crack. His screams rang out as he thrashed.

‘Move in!’ Syzek roared, bolting towards the glowing daemonskin. ‘Irixes, bola ready!’

The creature’s head turned, the neck twisting tight like a rag. It spun and whirled, then focused on the squirming slave. A shrieking blast burst forth, catching the poor wretch full in the chest.

Syzek bolted into the open, readying the brand as he did so.

The slave’s scream turned to a liquid gurgle. His flesh boiled, erupting with bloody bubbles. Bubbles that peeled open, revealing hundreds of staring eyes. Then he disintegrated into a jiggling, blinking mass.

With terrible focus, the daemonskin looked straight at Syzek as he pelted towards it. Never had Syzek felt so lumbering and slow in his life. He started to lunge to the side, knowing he was not fast enough. A glow rose in its mouth like bile.

‘Irixes!’ Syzek roared.

The chain bola of Irixes whirled past, heavy spiked balls whistling. It crashed into the daemonskin, tangling it into a knot. With a shriek, it twisted its head around, sparks and flame spitting from its mouth. Once more, its gaze focused on Syzek.

Eziel’s flail-whip lashed out, striking the thing’s head. Aim jerked aside, the beam lanced past Syzek, scorching the air with a scent like burning sugar. One of his men, Ferron, screamed behind him, flesh crackling like cooking fat.

Syzek grabbed a fistful of its head. It was like grabbing a sack of jelly. A blast burst past his shoulder and his pauldron erupted in thrashing tentacles. They lashed onto his arm, pinning it. Straining, he pressed the brand ever closer to the thing’s rippling hide as the tentacles on his pauldron tightened. The deadly glow built up in its mouth as it stared into his face. Ever-closer that brand came.

Then the brand touched the leathery skin with a jet of steam and a reek like burnt hair. The daemonskin jerked, screamed with an alarmingly human voice and then collapsed like an empty sack.

Syzek staggered back, wrenched off his mutated pauldron and flung it away from him. For a long moment, he stood gasping, watching the monster at his feet. It still writhed, as if snagged by an unseen gust of wind.

‘Dominar?’ Eziel said.

‘Well done, all of you,’ he said, straightening. ‘That was… ugly.’

Eziel relaxed, understanding that he was uninjured. He looked around. The mass of eyes and jelly still blinked, and Zenox lay dead in a puddle of blood. Ferron lay moaning, the flesh of his hammer arm blackened and blistered.

Syzek had been a fool. He had underestimated the creature and it had cost him soldiers and equipment that he could not afford to lose. He would not make that mistake again. They all knew it, of course. Would it matter?

At that moment, dust sifted down from up high on the cliff and Eziel snapped her weapons up in readiness.

‘There was someone up there,’ she said. ‘We need to move.’

‘Agreed,’ Syzek said.

‘Where to?’ she asked.

As the remaining slave put the twitching skin in an onyx containment box, Syzek paced. Then a single image filtered into his mind. A silent, puzzling image of a shimmering blue wall. Was it the sky in some other part of the Eightpoints? he wondered. Or maybe a lake?

‘Blue?’ he said out loud.

The others cocked their heads at his tone. Hesitancy was not tolerated in a dominar, nor was confusion. Especially considering his unusual past, and their current mission. Any ambiguity on his part was a mark against him. Just like everything else.

He looked at Eziel. ‘What do you make of it?’

She took a deep breath and spread her hands in a conciliatory gesture. ‘I have no idea what that could mean.’

‘I… see,’ he said.

That was not the answer he was hoping for.

Chapter Five

Syzek and his warband returned to camp, disheartened despite their triumph over the daemonskin. After Syzek put the daemonskin into the inner vault and his armour was taken by Krughar to be repaired, he went to his command tent. He needed privacy to sort his thoughts.

Archaon’s voice rumbled with impatience, an impatience that made Syzek’s heart thunder with uncharacteristic fear. His visions tilted into the territory of madness. They grew more confusing, crowding his conscious thoughts along with all of his doubts.

Could he solve the riddles presented to him? Would he go mad as he feared? Would Archaon’s voice simply cease, leaving him stranded in this waste?

Would his men turn on him first?

Mutiny was the fear of every dominar; however, it was one that he felt more acutely than most. His thoughts turned to Somnixes. His signifer did his duties but only when ordered, his eyes dark with blatant rebellion.

A meal was brought, his table set, the fire stoked against the desert chill by half a dozen slaves. All of whom were near-invisible to Syzek; they were nameless living tools, nothing more.

‘Tell drillmaster Eziel that I have need of her,’ he said to no one in particular.

One of them slipped out without a sound and after a time, Eziel arrived, slave in tow. She was also without armour, her wounds tended to. She sat at his table as he sopped at a thick gravy with a hank of heavy bread.

‘Forge Special Rations,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wondering why the others have been getting so… meaty.’

‘Azen suggested them,’ he said, warmth rumbling in his voice. ‘He said that the fastest way to a legionary’s heart is through their stomach.’

‘As always, your father is not wrong.’

‘How are Ferron and Galex?’ he asked.

She grimaced. ‘It will be some time before Ferron is duty ready,’ she said. ‘Probably several weeks at best. That is if he isn’t crippled. If these were just normal forge burns, he would be well enough to march. They would not be as deep. But these were something darker, deeper, more like warp-fire burns. Galex is almost ready, though he’s somewhat shaken.’

He pushed away his plate and looked at her, considering. Who else could he tell his doubts to if not her?

‘So, drillmaster, we have a problem,’ he said.

‘No, you have a problem,’ she said.

‘My problems are your problems.’

‘If I let them be.’

He blinked at her, and she broke out into that dry chuckle.

‘You should know by now not to take me so seriously, but you always do.’

He smiled, though it sat unnaturally on his face. Quickly as it came, the smile vanished, his features settling back into the deep-set frown he usually wore.

‘I am not sure what to do,’ he said, rubbing his knee in nervous habit.

‘Clearly not,’ she said.

‘The visions are garbled,’ he said, standing up and pacing. ‘I see blue like a night sky. Sometimes, I see thousands of colours falling in on themselves. I hear the bleating of drevars. I hear the gibbering of thousands. And I keep seeing these symbols in sequence, over and over.’

He gave her the list of the symbols he saw, replicated in his precise if heavy hand.

‘Alchemy?’ she asked.

‘Not any language that I know,’ he said. ‘It’s not runes, it’s not Agathae or any of the other alchemical languages. Krughar says that it is not duardin in origin. Maybe some aelvish tongue.’ He threw up his hands in disgust. ‘None of it makes sense. Why can he not just tell me what he wants?’

One of Eziel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You sound like an Instinct devotee,’ she said. ‘Maybe you need to sacrifice a drevar on an anvil with molten iron like the traditionalists do.’

His frown deepened. He was not in a mood for jokes at his expense. Then the epiphany hit him.

‘Actually, that makes sense,’ he said, rubbing the spines on his chin. ‘Lord Archaon is the Iron Will, the Dominance. He rules over all the true peoples as their king. So, it may be that I have to indulge certain antiquated customs on this journey of mine. In fact, I’m certain of it.’

She pursed her lips. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Do I ever joke?’ he said.

‘No. So, which drevar shall you pick?’

He looked around him, seeing the flock of humans that served his needs as if for the first time.

‘I don’t think a drevar will satisfy,’ he said, more to himself than to her.

The assembled slaves froze like prey animals. As one, they hoped to stay unobtrusive until one of their fellows was caught and devoured while the rest fled.

‘All right, let us do as the traditionalists do,’ she said, standing up.

Preparations were made according to half-remembered custom. Many of the sects within the Iron Golems had abandoned ritual human sacrifice ages ago as petty superstition after the Tenets of Iron supplanted all other faiths in importance. Though there were still some families and forges that clung to the older customs. Still, given where they were, perhaps it was fitting that he participated in such a thing.

Where knowledge was absent, Syzek ordered an improvisation. It disturbed Syzek that he always seemed to know what needed to happen. The ritual spoke to him in the same way a raw ingot did, the way any work did.

The open air forge-yard was swept, the anvil and other tools scrubbed clean with oils, the mouth of the forge anointed with salt. Pure iron was melted down in a crucible and set aside. Then a slave was chosen by lottery and dragged to the anvil, shrieking.

His warband stood and watched in silence. Some frowned and shifted on their feet, while the old hands like Alon and Krughar, their duardin armator, bantered as if it were another day on campaign. Somnixes seemed ready to squirm out of his skin.

The slave was pinned face down over the anvil, naked from the waist up. Then Syzek took the molten iron and poured it over the screaming slave’s back. Flesh burned and fat sizzled. The slave shrieked and writhed for a time, then quieted as death swiftly closed. Syzek leaned in, whispered thanks to the man for his service, and then waited. The pitiable man expired, his head dropping, the body going slack. Slowly, the metal puddled and cooled on the man’s scorched flesh.

To the others, the metal formed a strange but useless splatter pattern. Yet to Syzek, a shape veritably leaped out. An anvil – thinner than normal, with a long, delicate horn. A hallucinatory glimmer of colour like the heart of a crystal shimmered at the heart of the shape.

‘Colour,’ Syzek murmured, then paced around the yard. ‘An anvil made of arkentine, prismatine and silantis. Krughar, how would you create such a thing?’

‘That’s definitely aelfish work,’ Krughar said, rubbing his beard. ‘I could not do it. Not from raw materials.’

‘So we need to search out some aelfish ruins,’ Syzek said. ‘That is where we’ll find it. Aelfish ruins with walls of blue stone, smooth as glass.’

The corpse slid off the anvil, the iron clattering on the earth. Syzek paid no more attention to it, the vision that crowded in hazing over his sight.

‘Those ruins are well known,’ Eziel said, pressing her lips together.

Relief flooded Syzek and he looked up at the sky. He knew what was needed. Confidence in his path returned. He looked around at his warband as they readied, their expressions a mix of relief and anticipation. Yet there was still a tension. Maps and strategy they understood. Visions and instinct were too nebulous to be trusted.

‘Now we need to retrieve it,’ he said, turning to leave.

‘No, we can’t,’ Eziel said, behind him.

Syzek froze and the rest of them tensed, eyes wide in shock. Fury swallowed up his good humour. He had sense enough to know that his leadership was fragile, what with Somnixes’ bleating elitism and the others grumbling under the command of a dominar new to campaigning with a quest that verged well into the realm of fool’s errand. The last thing he needed was his closest ally doubting him in public.

‘I have always allowed you a certain latitude under my authority,’ he snarled. ‘But I suppose this is the result one should expect.’

‘Syzek, I know where the–’

‘Dominar!’ he roared at her.

Eziel’s temper flashed, her ashy skin flushing. She pressed her lips together and balled her fists. Her shoulders squared. Somnixes murmured something to Irixes, his eyes gleaming at the squabble.

‘Dominar,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘Prismatic anvils lie inside the Cobalt Ruins. A ruin that is infested with thousands of beastmen. It is suicide.’

‘Do you think that you have a choice?’ he bellowed, stepping up to her, his nose inches from hers. ‘What makes you think that this is some sort of debate?’

‘There has to be some other option!’ she roared back at him. ‘You said yourself that these visions cannot always be trusted.’

‘Sometimes they are not clear,’ he said. ‘It is clear now. And we are going into this ruin and we are getting that artefact.’

‘As I said, we will die. Even we, the best soldiers in the realms, could not stand against those numbers. We are of the Legion but that does not mean we are fools. It does not mean that we hurl ourselves at every fight like orruks. There has to be another item, some other artefact.’

He balled his fists, and Eziel stepped back a pace. Companions or not, Syzek was still dominar. And at the end of the day, his authority was absolute. It had to be. Whether it was built on camaraderie or corpses mattered little to the Iron Golems.

‘There is no other artefact,’ he said. ‘Archaon will have what he wishes. I cannot refuse his orders any more than the flesh can refuse death. Nor would I. I cannot change the what or the where. But the how, I can give you. So give me options, Eziel Ebrixos. How can we get this anvil?’

The others stood with open mouths. Syzek knew why. Since when did a dominar let a lesser officer determine strategy?

She ran a hand over the steel anvil and looked at him. ‘If it was my family, we would sneak in. The Cobalt Ruins are vast and have many layers and entrances. Even the beastmen can’t control them all. Especially since they are only beasts. Our best approach is stealth, but that is not exactly the usual war doctrine.’

‘In this place, flexibility is key,’ he said, looking around him. ‘The usual methods won’t always work. We sneak in.’

He turned to the others as they watched him warily.

‘Prepare yourselves,’ he said. ‘We leave in the morning at full strength. And ready the Breacher.’

The legionaries glanced at each other, hesitating.

‘Now!’ Syzek barked.

They did so but their sluggish response was unmistakable. They filed out with little initiative, casting glances back at him. Irixes and Somnixes muttered between themselves, huddled together.

‘You should have hit me a few times,’ Eziel said, once they left.

‘And you should have waited until we were in private,’ he snapped. ‘What happened to Prefector Dozun?’

She froze, her face stricken. ‘I thought you did not care about that. You said so.’

‘I did not think I needed to care at the time.’

She rubbed her brow.

‘I cannot let it be,’ Syzek said. ‘If discipline falters, exile will be the least of the punishments I can offer you. I cannot appear to be playing favourites.’

‘I know,’ she said, pacing. ‘I’ve heard the rumours. Don’t think I haven’t. That I let Prefector Dozun die because I allowed a conspiracy to foment in the ranks or worse, that I led it myself. Truth was he was incompetent, so incompetent that he did exactly what the enemy needed him to do. He charged when he should have waited, gave ground when he should have stood and fought. The enemy force broke us and Prefector Dozun was trampled to death by his own soldiers.’ She stopped, and her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Star warriors. Have you ever seen one?’

Syzek shook his head. ‘No, though Alon has. I know that.’

‘They are completely unnatural,’ she said, looking off into the middle distance. ‘You can tell how broken they are. Everything about them is wrong, their smell, their skin, their voices. But they broke the Legion honestly that day, no tricks, no lies. And General Dozun could never accept that his cousin was an idiot that cost him an entire expedition. So the dung rolled down the ranks to the drillmasters and the name Ebrixos cost me any credibility. The worst part was my family. There was talk of lashing me to the diplomats before your summons came.’

‘I see,’ he said.

‘It is what it is,’ she said, shrugging. ‘You can only carry out the orders you are given.’

‘Very good, but let me make this clear – never contradict me in public again,’ he said. ‘Honesty is best done privately. Speaking of, ten lashes in private. No need to make a spectacle of it.’

‘Yes, dominar,’ she said, both of them understanding the politics of it. He could not appear to be lenient, just respectful enough to let her punish herself in private. But not enough to let her escape unscathed. It was only fair.

She rose to go and then stopped at the yard entrance. ‘One thing, though – I am watching that gold bar Somnixes. The Madness has gifted that one with a devious tongue.’

‘I noticed,’ Syzek said. ‘And yes, he is too soft and flashy to be functional, merely ornamental. But others like him and so consider him valuable. Azen said I could not risk insulting his mother and leave him behind.’

They left the forge-yard and went to rest. Syzek tried to sleep, but found himself staring up at his tent ceiling, as the air became clammy and cold and an icy wind tugged at the canvas.

The next morning, the warband departed before the sun rose. It had snowed over the night, turning the desert white. Their breath steamed and frost glittered on their armour as they marched out of camp. Grey clouds obscured the sky, tinged by some light off to the north.

The Breacher chuffed and growled with pent-up aggression, stomping over the snow. Krughar walked with Alon, jesting as Alon chuckled. Eziel seemed none the worse for wear for the whip weals on her bare back.

Still, Syzek noted the whispers, the glances from behind face-obscuring grilles. Somnixes in particular bristled every time Syzek spoke to him, his grip tightening on the war-seal. Syzek waited, knowing that Somnixes’ next challenge would be loud and public. And then Syzek would put the signifer down like the petulant child he was.

After days of travel, they came across the first signs of the beastmen’s perimeter. They smelled it first, a barnyard stink mixed with the gut-turning stench of a slaughterhouse in the sun. Soon, they came upon the source of the reek, a rock column crudely carved into a beastman’s visage, standing in a mound of dismembered corpses. Raptoryx jostled with each other amongst the filth, their fat lizard bodies and avian wings slick with gore.

With a shudder of contempt, the Golem’s Will marched on. The terrain changed from scrub to dry forest. Stunted pines with needles so sharp they pierced the skin crowded round them. Their pace slowed as they avoided the thick carpets of fallen needles. Flies buzzed as they fed on their sweat. Up ahead, tall blue spires crept over the horizon, casting a strange glimmering pall over the sky.

The stench returned with a vengeance as the wind turned. Worse than a tannery, the ammonia stink stole the breath and stung the eyes.

They waited until nightfall, sheltering in the shade of a ravine. As twilight darkened the sky, they crept towards the ruins.

As they grew closer, Syzek slowed in awe. Though he would never say that any city matched the Onyx Fist, even he could appreciate the might and ingenuity evidenced by the ruins. The spires stood in a bristling mound, weightless and thin, each tower heaving ever higher towards the centre. Stone streets spiralled out in a great wheel, reaching out into the desert like searching fingers.

Yet it was old, broken and covered in filth. Braying and shrieks echoed in a great din. White torches burned in their thousands and smoke hovered in a dingy haze. It would have been pitiable, such wretches huddled in the shadows of their betters, if their numbers were not so great.

‘By the oldest iron, I hate these creatures,’ he muttered. ‘That I have to sneak by them is… offensive. Never mind the orruks or star warriors, these beasts were always the animals that kept the Onyx Fist’s defences sharp. They ambushed Azen and me in the Sorgoth Basin once. Azen hated them more than anything else.’

‘Legend says that they are the mutated citizenry,’ Eziel said. ‘The water turned from them, the land dried out and they started eating each other. Contemptible, really.’

Behind his helm’s grille, Syzek frowned deeply. ‘Onwards.’

They closed on the crumbled outer walls, which were shaped like a great star. For a time, they circled round the endless wall, scrambling over heaps of scree and broken masonry. Yet they could not find a way in; the few inlets they found were collapsed or simply too small to admit them. Just as Syzek was about to give up in frustration, he saw a flash of white, higher up a slope of rubble.

He clambered up the scree towards the white splotch. As he grew closer, he realised the white was a series of symbols painted on the stone. Next to it, a tunnel opened, unlit but broad and clear with two rusty rails running parallel into the dark. He knew these symbols.

‘Not alchemy, not runes – route numbers for freight transport of some sort,’ he said.

Syzek beckoned the others and they scrambled up the slope.

‘Nice find,’ Eziel said, taking a small glowstone from her pocket.

The Breacher hove in, growling at the stench, and the rest filed in after him. Compared to the reek of the beasts, the Breacher’s earthy smell no longer seemed so bad.

With smooth walls of stone, the tunnel went straight on for some distance then twisted and turned several times before it opened out into a large junction, with tunnels splitting off in every direction imaginable. Guided by the symbols, Syzek led them ever deeper into the maze-like ruins. They passed through strange platforms, empty chambers and immense depots, a vast tangle of industry.

‘I wonder what this place was like at its height,’ Syzek said.

‘Industrious, but still weak and indulgent,’ Eziel said.

Yet they were not alone in the tunnels. Braying, and the scrape and clop of hooves, echoed around them, sometimes nearby, other times distant. Sometimes the beasts seemed right on top of them, only to rush down some side passage at the last moment.

The Golem’s Will crept on, their way dimly lit by glowstones. As they turned a corner, something scrambled back in shock and then sniffed.

‘Ogor?’ a reedy voice said.

Then one of the others shifted, mail and charms jingling slightly. With a piggish squeal, the voice’s owner fled back down the tunnel.

‘Bola,’ Syzek hissed.

Irixes darted forwards and hurled his bola after the fleeing beast. The bola whistled through the air, struck the creature and the heavy spiked ball whipped into the beast’s head. With a grunt, the beast slewed to the cobblestones. They waited for a moment, but nothing else appeared out of the dark.

As quietly as he dared, Irixes went to retrieve his weapon. ‘An ungor,’ he said as he nudged the body over with his foot.

‘It’s only a matter of time before we are discovered,’ Alon said.

‘I know,’ Syzek said, looking about him. He sniffed the noisome air, catching the acrid smell of coal but also the overwhelming stench of a beastman shrine.

He signalled for a halt as something glittered in the dark.

Partially blocking their path was a broken-down steam engine on iron wheels, its train of cars overturned, whatever goods they were carrying long ago rotted away. Syzek walked over to it and ran his hand over the thick metal. It was smooth under the crust of grime; whatever the alloy was, it resisted the decay that afflicted iron.

An entire row of them gleamed in the dark and Syzek guessed they were in some sort of storage yard.

‘Old duardin work,’ Krughar said, inspecting the thing. ‘Aye, I must confess that sometimes the ancients’ work is comparable to ours. They just wouldn’t take the next step, they limited themselves too much.’

‘Where do we go, dominar?’ Somnixes said, his voice lilting over the title. ‘We’ve been wandering these tunnels for hours.’

‘That way,’ said Syzek, as if Somnixes’ whining did not concern him.

Leaving the old engines behind, the Golem’s Will walked down the narrow tunnel, their heavy tread echoing off the walls. A ruddy glow announced the end of the tunnel. Braying and drumming echoed dimly at first, then grew louder as they closed on the source.

They carefully snuck out of the tunnel onto a crumbling stone platform. A vast chamber opened before them, filled with half-collapsed platforms, broken stairways and heaps of rubble and machinery. Clusters of beastmen cavorted about huge bonfires, and greasy smoke pooled over the blackened ceiling before escaping through the broken roof. Massive gors battered each other as skinny ungors scuttled around underhoof. At the far end, three great horned totems stood, crudely formed out of the cobalt stone, their eyes and open mouths glowing with unnatural white fire. All about their bases were the accumulated sacrifices of an age, the corpses of great beasts, piles of gold and gems, weapons of every sort. How would they find the anvil in this rubbish pit?

A shimmering gleam caught Syzek’s eye, refracting like a crystal. It stood before the totems, fixed to a solid block of stone. A group of armoured gors, who seemed bigger and heavier than the rest, guarded it with unusual focus.

‘It’s there,’ he said, pointing.

‘Dominar, it looks like a block of filth,’ Eziel said.

Syzek blinked and his vision cleared. A malformed lump of sludge revealed itself, its true nature utterly obscured. With a growl, he attempted to recover his dignity. He could feel the others staring at him, wondering if he had lost his mind.

‘They’re using it as an altar,’ he said. ‘How primitive.’

‘We can’t go through all that,’ Somnixes blurted.

Eziel glared at Somnixes, her hand drifting to her mace. ‘Watch your tone,’ she growled.

‘Enough, he is right. A direct assault would be suicide,’ Syzek said, pulling back into the shadows of the tunnel. ‘As much as these beasts deserve a good beating, we will need to be more creative in our tactics.’ Syzek sighed in disgust. ‘Armator, the old engines. Could one still work?’

‘Yes, though not well,’ Krughar said, scratching at his beard.

‘The louder the better,’ Syzek said. ‘Kamaxes, Atoska, go with him. Stay hidden, do not engage if you do not have to.’

The armator nodded, the brass plates on his helm jingling. They slipped away and the minutes ground by. Then the floor started to hum, little pebbles dancing as dust trickled down. In a ripple of awareness, the beastmen paused, their bovine ears flicking. Then, as if summoned, herds of beastmen thundered away in a rush, streaming down into the tunnels. Soon, only the gors around the totems remained, fists clenching on crude axes.

Syzek clambered down a rough slope of scree onto the main floor, the others following close behind. Watching the shadows, they jogged through the chamber and came within sight of the totems. Just as Syzek turned to order them into position, an ungor bolted out of some crevice, squealing like a pig. Cursing, Eziel swung out her whip, the weapon cracking open the fleeing ungor’s head like an egg.

It was too late: the gors bellowed, their feral eyes locking onto the human interlopers. Lowering their horned heads, they charged in.

‘Break them quickly!’ Syzek roared.

The warband barged in, meeting the gors’ strength head on. A crash of metal on metal echoed. Roaring with glee, the Breacher thundered in, finally having targets for his brutal rage. Several gors rushed him, only to be swept aside by the ogor’s iron-clad fists.

Syzek charged the lead beast, hammer whooshing in. The brute struck at his head, its axe crude but lethal. The two weapons met with a metallic bang, staggering them both. Roaring, the gor shook its head and charged him once more. This time, Syzek swung low and crushed its knee with a meaty crunch. The creature slewed past him and crashed onto the floor, shrieking.

As the melee pitched and swirled around him, Syzek pounded up the stone platform where the anvil loomed, misshapen and abused. He grasped it, appalled at its vile texture, but then a beastman grabbed him from behind, a knife clanging against his gorget.

‘Wretched beast,’ he rumbled, punching the haft of his warhammer back into the thing’s ribs.

Yet its grip remained tight. He bashed the thing again and again, bone breaking under the iron. Finally, its breath gurgling, it released him. As the thing staggered away, he scrambled back to the anvil and heaved on it. The thing would not budge. The anvil was fixed to the stone by four crude bolts that were as thick as his thumb.

‘Iron such as this will not stop me,’ he said.

With both hands he swung a mighty blow from the side, trying to sheer the bolts off. A musical tone like a bell peal burst out, and light flared as flakes of filth broke off the anvil’s surface. A second blow was followed by a third, but the anvil remained stuck fast.

Syzek swore and set down his hammer. Then he squatted down, wrapped his arms around the slimy thing and heaved upwards with his legs. Muscles bulging, he strained against the thing, but for a moment nothing happened. Then thin cracks appeared around the base, splintering out from the bolts. With a loud pop, the anvil came free.

As he staggered back, a beastman rushed at him from the side, and then splattered spectacularly.

The ogor grunted in satisfaction, looked about and hurled himself bodily off the platform, crashing down like a boulder. Beastmen and rock flew as he brought his metal-shod fists down in a great double-fisted strike.

Syzek hefted the anvil onto his shoulder and followed the Breacher off the platform.

‘Legion, we have what we came for,’ he shouted. ‘Withdraw!’

The Golem’s Will broke away from their battered foes, rushing back the way that they had come. As they wove through the chamber, a horn blast rose up behind them, shrill and quivering like a dying drevar. The tunnel entrance was just ahead, their escape ever closer.

As they scrambled up the rubble to the platform, just as Syzek thought they might escape, the first of the main herd pelted back into the chamber. A huge black beast with horns as long as Syzek’s arm pointed at them with a rusty cleaver, braying like thunder. Roaring, the vast herd rushed towards them in a wave of horns and fur.

Syzek’s plan had failed.

Chapter Six

The Golem’s Will clambered up the steep slope of rubble that led up the platform to their escape route. Encumbered as he was, Syzek lagged, his feet sliding on the loose cobalt scree.

‘Alon, take the anvil,’ Syzek said.

Alon grabbed the anvil from Syzek as the braying horde scrambled across the chamber, the earth rumbling beneath them. With a snarl, the warband turned to fight their bestial foes.

‘I said withdraw!’ Syzek shouted, brandishing his warhammer at them.

‘But–’ Somnixes said, starting forwards.

Syzek strode up the slope, grabbed him and spun him about.

‘Withdraw!’ Eziel shouted, her voice cracking like a whip.

With sheer mass, Syzek pushed the signifer across the platform into the tunnel, the man’s feet scrambling. Some of his legionaries retreated back in good order but others, Bersa and Irixes in particular, hesitated. As they sprinted back through the maze, avoiding roving bands of confused, aimless ungors, Syzek could sense the breakdown in discipline. The warband straggled apart, Eziel’s voice cracking over the din too often and too harshly.

Then, as they pelted through the darkened tunnels, the sounds of their pursuers echoing distantly, Somnixes planted his feet and the war-seal, snarling in fury.

‘Why do we run from these beasts?’ the signifer shouted at him. ‘Why are we sneaking around this maze like filthy ratmen?’

Immediately, the others stopped, a frisson of dismay rattling through them. Eziel started back, fists clenched, but Syzek held up a hand. Now was not the time to delegate this to his drillmaster. Trust Somnixes to pick the worst moment possible for his petty rebellion.

‘I was wondering when your spine would stiffen,’ Syzek said, his voice cool.

‘You are weak and lenient,’ Somnixes said. ‘Just what is to be expected from a jeweller’s child.’

Syzek slapped him across the head, slamming him into the wall. The war-seal jangled as bestial voices echoed. Even as Somnixes staggered back, raising his hammer to try and defend himself, Syzek slammed a fist into his gut, doubling him over. The war-seal slipped from his grasp and Eziel snared it before it touched the ground.

‘I chose you as signifer because of your name,’ Syzek snarled at him. ‘Your name alone, as a sign of respect for your house. Something that means less here than it does back at the Fist.’

He snatched Somnixes’ helm, hauling the man upright.

‘I am dominar here,’ Syzek said. ‘And while I know my station, you have forgotten yours. You serve as my voice to the Legion, you are an extension of my will. I lead us to glory, I hear Archaon’s voice, I make our wars. While you whine, disgracing the honours you earn. So, Somnixes, here is your choice. Will you serve me or shall I feed you to the Breacher?’

Syzek released him and Somnixes shakily straightened, his helmed head bowed, his gaze fixed on the floor. ‘I will serve,’ he said, spitting blood. He bowed as deeply as he dared, saluting as he did.

‘Any concerns from the rest of you?’ Syzek snarled.

‘No, dominar,’ they said in unison.

They saluted, charms and brass plates jingling. Now they relaxed back into acquiescence; their dominar was acting as he should be. The crisis was over.

Then a piggish squeal echoed down the tunnel. A scrawny ungor hopped about nervously, eyes bulging with fear. Then a pack of them scurried round the corner, puny blades glinting.

‘Punch through them,’ Syzek said. ‘Armator out front, with Kamaxes and Bersa.’

The Golem’s Will bowled into the beasts, casting them aside and shattering their bodies. Krughar chopped forwards and the other two kept his flanks clear. As the bodies mounted, fear drove more ungors under his hammers. Towards the back, two gors lashed their lessers into the tunnel. The warband chewed through them like a grinder through wood until they struck down the last beasts.

As the warband broke free and pelted out into a large empty chamber, the black beastlord rushed in from their right at the head of an armoured mass of hooves and claws. It caught out Bersa from the rest of the warband. Swiftly, it struck aside her shield and planted an axe into her neck between helm and gorget. Blood pumping from the wound, the legionary dropped to the stone. The beastlord stomped on her helm, crushing the fragile skull within.

Syzek snarled in fury as he beheld the thing. The beastlord was heavier and taller than him, and covered itself in sheets of looted chain and bent plate, daubed in black paint to match its rank pelt. Drool dripped from its maw as it stared at him with yellow eyes. The two axes it wielded were too good for it, steel shining under the grime, the edges still sharp.

If Syzek killed the thing, the beastmen would fall apart, their feral natures taking over until another beast could fight its way to the top and restore order. At least, as much order as could be expected from such creatures.

‘You!’ Syzek thundered, pointing his spiked warhammer at the beastlord. ‘I will have your head for that!’

The beast tossed its head, bone tokens rattling. Scraping the stone with its hooves, it brayed and frothed. It understood what Syzek was about, and the thing could not allow the challenge to stand. All about them, the melee swirled, claws and horn crashing into plate, muscle against muscle.

They both broke into the charge at the same time, armour and chain rattling. An ungor stumbled into the beastlord’s path and the behemoth slashed the thing aside. With a tooth-rattling crash, man and beast collided. The beastlord’s axes swept down, and Syzek blocked the blow with the steel-shod haft of his warhammer. Sparks flew and metal squealed as they locked together.

Nostrils flaring, the beast strained against Syzek. Growling, Syzek tried to twist out of the bind but the thing followed his motion. His injured arm spasmed and the beast jerked its weapon down against the weaker side, slipping the bind. It reversed its stroke and swung both axes at Syzek’s head. Syzek shifted, taking the blow on his right pauldron. The axes crashed home with a sound like a struck bell, jarring his weakened arm and cracking the iron.

Staggering back, Syzek put his guard up as the beastlord slashed in. The beast whipped an axe under his guard across his ribs, opening a bloody gash. Syzek tried to put some distance between himself and the beast but it was quicker than him. It drove him back across the hub, slamming blow after blow into his guard and armour. The shock lanced through his arms into his shoulders as the beast hammered at him. It was only a matter of time before the beast overwhelmed him with its barbarous ferocity.

He let it. He let it chase him around the hub. He let it herd him. Then it grew cocky, and Syzek had it.

Syzek slammed the thick haft of his hammer into the thing’s jaw as it brought its axes back for another stroke. Teeth flew and the beast staggered back. Taking the opening, Syzek swung a blow at the thing’s centre mass. The spiked head of his warhammer punched into its crude plastron, ripping through the poor-quality iron. Blood spurted. Braying furiously, the beast chopped away at him, driving him back.

They traded heavy blows, tearing at each other until they were both battered and bruised. Syzek’s shoulder burned and ached, the joint grinding, blood leaking down his arm. His foe hunched over, favouring its injured side, bloody froth leaking from its mouth. They slumped with exhaustion, dripping with sweat and gasping for air.

Syzek dropped his healthy shoulder and charged in, holding his hammer low in a wide grip. Beast and man slammed together again like two metal-clad boulders, and Syzek drove his hammer into the thing’s gut with all his momentum behind it. An axe cracked against his battered right pauldron with bruising force, and a grunt of pain escaped Syzek. Yet something broke in the beast’s body, its breath blasting from its lungs in a burst of blood. Wheezing, it wobbled on its hooves, struggling to lift its axes.

Without pause, Syzek launched an overhand blow at the beastlord’s head. Bellowing, it leaned into the blow, taking the hit on its thick horns. One of the horns split like wood, gobs of blood flying. One side of its body seized as all the muscles locked, and it lurched to that side like a drunk. Still it swung its axes, its bestial nature unable to acknowledge that it had taken a mortal blow.

With a triumphant growl, Syzek pressed in. Twisting away from its clumsy attacks, he slammed the hammer home every time the creature left itself open. Armour crunched, bone cracked, flesh tore under the heavy two-handed blows. His hammer left gruesome ragged wounds, the spikes punching through armour and flesh alike. A final blow to the head spun the thing around and sent it sprawling onto the floor.

Syzek stood over the flailing beast as it struggled to rise, kicking and mewling.

‘Ours is the superior form of war,’ he said.

In a great, overhanded swing, he brought the hammer down one final time. The beastlord’s skull burst like fruit, brains and blood spattering.

A vast silence stole over the chamber as Syzek looked around for his next foe. All about them, the beasts shifted around, snorting and glaring. Then, as if madness took them, the herd flew apart. Some larger beasts charged each other, horns cracking together, while the ungors fled in every direction. It was raw pandemonium.

‘Now is our chance!’ Syzek shouted. ‘Withdraw!’

Chapter Seven

Ias Vo let out a sigh of relief when the jangling rattle of the Iron Golems reached his ears. Perched up high in the needle trees with his warband, Ias waited. He stroked Hookclaw’s head as the bird picked at his feathers.

‘They’re not dead,’ Ias signed at the others. ‘I thought the beastmen had killed them.’

The others waggled their thumbs at him in silent laughter.

Soon, the battered brutes stumbled through the trees back into the clearing that they had stopped at before. Trust people to search out the familiar. His warband tensed, ready to leap down in ambush, but Ias stayed them with a gesture.

Bloodied and limping, the Iron Golems nonetheless moved with surety and purpose. They kept in a close group, shields out in a tight wall. Nestled in amongst them, a soldier carried a large, greasy object on his shoulder. An odd prize. Yet, when the soldier dropped it to the earth, it rang like a crystal bell. An anvil – ugly, but clearly of value.

Then they milled around, looking behind them and murmuring to each other in their growling language.

‘Where is Govus?’ Ruen signed. ‘He is not here.’

‘How can you tell which is him?’ Tlon replied. ‘These oafs all look the same to me.’

Ias repressed a scream as a pain started behind his eye. Govus was not here, neither was the ogor.

Then, a few moments later, Govus tramped out of the trees, ogor in tow. The rest of the Iron Golems cheered raggedly, their attention focused on their leader.

With an evil smile, Ias signalled for the attack.

Ias had forgotten how easy it was to ambush the so-called greatest soldiers from Chamon. Clad in great heaps of armour, it was a wonder they could even hear their own thoughts, let alone each other. His warband flitted out amongst them, yanking them apart before they could organise into the tight shield knots they favoured so much. Screeching their war cries, his Cabalites slashed into them, creating a confusing, whirling melee.

Ias leaped down, his wings flaring. In a few steps, he sprinted up to Govus and swiped at him with his claws, pulling the brute’s attention. For the first time Ias saw his hated foe.

Govus towered over Ias, a mountainous, barrel-chested brute. Gasping like an exhausted bull, his armour was dented and gore coated him. He favoured his right shoulder, the arm slack, his grip on that gore-soaked hammer tremulous. However, even injured, the war-leader was dangerous, as no doubt dozens of beastmen could attest.

Ias and Tlon circled him like wolves then darted in when the brute left himself open, slashing at the exposed, ashy flesh. Even with their skill, their attacks met that thick plate as often as his skin. As Govus swung around to strike at Tlon, Ias sliced open a long cut in his broad back. As much as Ias wanted to just kill the brute, that was not why they were here.

No, this was part of a much greater deception. The Great Gatherer cackled in his ear.

Yes, destroy the Govus.

Off to his left, his two best spire stalkers faced a pair of shield bearers. The prize lay between the pair. They traded blows, war-picks shrieking off the round shields, hammers whistling. Another of his Cabalites crept out of the forest, lightly approaching the artefact while its guardians were distracted.

The key with Iron Golems was to keep their leader too busy to order their defence. Without it, even as strong as they were, Iron Golem legionaries had no initiative to speak of. They would stand there until picked off.

Every time Govus so much as glanced away from them, Ias punished him for it, opening another painful wound, hitting tender nerves. And the war-leader grew more and more frustrated, swinging about him with greater fury. Ias watched his footwork, already sluggish and sloppy, becoming even more so.

Then Tlon made a mistake, his appetite for the Iron Golem’s frustration overcoming his good sense. He leaped in after another of the Iron Golem’s fruitless swipes and the brute snatched him up in a brutal embrace, the steel-shod haft of his hammer pinned across Tlon’s back.

‘No!’ Ias shrieked, leaping forwards. He struck with his claws but Govus twisted back, and the blow clanged uselessly off a pauldron.

Tlon wriggled against the mountain of iron and meat, his arms pinned to his sides. Muscles bulging, the brute squeezed in a sudden jerk. Bone gave way with a horrifying crunch; Tlon’s legs dangled like rags. With a furious roar, Govus flung him to the earth and whirled to face his other tormentor.

Keeping his attention was Ias’ only thought.

‘You dare try and assassinate me!’ Govus thundered. ‘Try to steal what I have gained through battle. You stinking thieves!’

‘A raid is not a battle – you are as much a thief as I am,’ Ias said. ‘I can imagine it. Skulking through their tunnels, avoiding patrols, fleeing with your prize. Hah! You may as well grow some feathers.’

This was an insult the Iron Golem could never tolerate, and the war-leader charged him with a bullish bellow. Sluggish from blood loss and injury, his pace was slow and Ias darted to the side. With his usual deftness, Ias hooked the warrior’s armour and hauled him forwards with his own momentum. Govus stumbled into one of the spiked trees, the needles screeching against his armour.

Ias looked at the whirling knot around their prize and his blood ran cold. One of the soldiers lay on the earth, his leg twisted gruesomely, as Mian grabbed the anvil and then stumbled fatally under its weight. A towering woman lashed out with a chain whip and the brass ball caught him in the shoulder, breaking his arm. Stumbling to the earth, he turned to face her. Another blow whipped out and caught Mian across the head, pulping his face. He clutched at the ruins, and let out a gurgling scream.

What had Mian been thinking? He had not. He had always been stupidly greedy. This had gone on too long.

Ias whistled for their retreat. Lightning-quick, his Cabalites bolted free and sprinted into the trees. The Iron Golems would not follow them in their state, not that the heavy brutes could catch them at the best of times.

‘Circle back, oh and take little Hookclaw with you,’ he said softly to Semni.

She slipped away, Hookclaw flapping after her. In a moment, she was gone.

They fled the area, unerringly filing back towards their camp. Once they reached it – a small gully that lay under a great growth of pricklers, a ferocious-looking if ultimately benign bush – they settled around in a circle. There, they prayed for the souls of their comrades, that they would have the strength to fly to the Great Gatherer’s nest, that they had enough treasures to bribe the greatest thief. Then they were silent, mulling over the attack. Ias ate a bit of dried meat.

‘You do not seem concerned about losing Tlon or Mian over this trick,’ Ruen said, her face cut into a deep frown under her mask.

‘They forgot it was a ruse,’ Ias said. ‘The trick is now more convincing. The Iron Golems will think that they have won and not look for us again.’

Ruen nodded, her posture relaxing. ‘But was it worth it?’

A convulsive twitch ran through his neck, and that stinging pain flashed behind his eye. They all tensed, waiting for the screaming fit, ready to flee from him.

He tightened, waiting for the darkness to swallow him. But it did not happen; the pain receded. With a shrug, Ias brushed off his hands in the dust and considered for a moment.

‘Yes, it was,’ he said. ‘They were stupid in their greed. The Great Gatherer can be as grasping as he wants. We mortals cannot. Is it not that simple?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I just feel that we did not gain much.’

‘That’s where you are wrong,’ he said. ‘We gained much. I know what Govus’ dream is. His goal.’

He fidgeted for a moment, drumming his fingertips together.

‘This younger Govus is making something,’ Ias said, almost murmuring to himself. ‘After all, what would a smith need an anvil for otherwise? And anvil it was. We have our young smith out in the wastes instead of at his forge, making something that requires very particular exotic materials. Which he finds with alarming speed. What do you think?’

‘He hears the voice of Archaon,’ Ruen whispered as the realisation hit her.

‘Exactly,’ he said, rubbing at his scraggly beard. ‘I wonder what it sounds like to him. No matter. He makes Archaon a mighty gift. Now instead of watching over his shoulder for us, Govus will move ahead without care or worry. He sees nothing outside of his quest, because he obsesses. And when the object is complete, we take it to the Great Avatar instead of him. Destroy his dream and he will go mad, with no way of silencing the voice in his mind.’

He smiled an awful, evil smile.

A great squawk startled him and a darkness crowded in behind him.

And now you understand my wishes. Continue on this course, little bird. It will take you home, though not as you imagined that home would be.

The Great Gatherer still spoke with his own voice. The thief.

Ias Vo laughed and laughed until he was hoarse.

Chapter Eight

Syzek stewed in his fury, wincing with every step. Even as he tried to keep his gait steady, he could not hide the limp. Those slinking animists. They dared to steal his work from him. The thought made him wring the neck of his hammer like a fragile throat.

Around him, his soldiers staggered. Alon leaned on Kamaxes, dragging his splinted leg behind him. A Cabalite had twisted him around during the battle and caused him to tear out the tendons in his knee. It was unlikely that he would ever campaign again. Still, there was more to being a soldier than fighting, and his logistical skills put even Krughar to shame. Even a broken tool could be useful.

Atoska held her shield arm close to her body, her split shield slung on her back. The limb was not broken, but a bruise the colour and depth of ink ran from her elbow to her hand. She chattered as she often did when she was in pain, engaged in a philosophical debate about the nature of the Golems’ forge with Krughar and Irixes. From the sound of it, she was winning through the sheer power of blathering.

Twilight settled around them as they set their course towards base. Carrion birds circled while raptoryx hopped after them, the chorus of squawking and hissing deafening. In particular, the black rooks that mingled with the larger vultures caught his eye.

‘What do you think, Eziel?’ he asked.

Following his gaze, she grunted in affirmation. ‘It is said that they can see through their stinking birds,’ she said. ‘We beat them thoroughly, as we should have. Being cowards, they don’t have much stomach for difficult campaigns. So they are probably watching us. But they won’t do anything.’

‘They will just sulk?’ Syzek asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The bird-worshippers make nothing for themselves, nor can they compel others into their service. If they cannot steal what they need, they go without.’

‘That explains their wretched state,’ Syzek said.

‘And why you find more of them in the soft countries like Tarnastipol,’ Krughar said, the subject turning to the well-worn contempt of one of Sigmar’s larger nurseries.

As Eziel and Krughar waxed eloquently about the bloated yet feeble city, Syzek realised that something was off. There was a void, an absence. He felt alone for the first time in nearly a year. Archaon’s voice, the presence of his attention, was missing.

‘Syzek?’ Eziel said.

‘Nothing,’ he said, alarmed at how accurate that word was. ‘Just pain.’

The journey back was long, painful and tense. The Golem’s Will slogged on, once again following that inimical night schedule that made their heads swim and tempers short. On top of that, the gaggle of shrieking scavengers was like a beacon over their heads for any number of stronger, more powerful beasts. The memory of the parched flight out of the Cursewood haunted them.

Soon, the rocky outcrop of their camp loomed over the horizon. With a ragged cheer, they surged forwards in one last sprint. As they neared, the scavengers left off their pursuit, hopping back into the empty spaces.

Once ensconced within their fortifications, they finally relaxed. There was nothing like the heavy spiked palisades and check points to remind them of home. As always, the gears of the camp turned in the rigid manner to which they were accustomed. Yet, a restless fear took over Syzek. No hint of what he was supposed to do entered his mind.

As he sat in his command tent, impatiently waiting for the healer to tend his aching wounds, Syzek looked at the gore-encrusted anvil. After he ordered the other two materials brought to him, he fell deep into thought. Perhaps he had everything he needed. But that did not feel right to him.

The daemonskin was merely the connection that allowed the bearer to use the weapon. The anvil was merely the lens through which the forge-fire would focus. The treelord talon was only the bed upon which the rest of the weapon would be laid. The forge-fire, the heart of the artefact, was not here.

Syzek resisted the urge to roar out his frustration.

The slave healer arrived, and Syzek was for once thankful to see his carefully placid face. With the help of another slave, the healer removed his damaged plastron, his gorget and the two pauldrons. The weight lifted off his shoulder, which had the counter-intuitive effect of making it hurt more. When the slave prodded the injury with his fingers, the pain was literally breathtaking. He clenched his teeth but did not make a sound.

Seeing his face, the slave swallowed as he continued to work. ‘The cut in your bicep is not as bad as it appears,’ he said. ‘It will heal without permanent injury. However, your shoulder is effectively pulped meat hanging off the bone. The other injuries do not concern me so much. But you need to rest your shoulder or you will render yourself a cripple.’

The man stood very still, his shoulders hunched, ready for punishment.

‘Understood, do what you must,’ Syzek said, with more exhaustion than he had intended.

Perhaps it was a blessing that the visions had ceased. Perhaps it was a sign that he needed to rest. In the end, the fight against the impermanence of the flesh was always lost. Only fools did not keep that weakness in mind and pushed themselves into uselessness. The only thing worse than being in a sickbed was being crippled permanently.

‘How is Alon?’ Syzek asked. ‘What is his state?’

The slave pressed his lips together. ‘Poor,’ he said. ‘He will not walk without a brace. Magical healing might return him to his ideal state. But even that likelihood is remote.’

He will not campaign again. The slave knew not to say it as it was not his judgement call to make. However, they both knew that it was true. And it was Syzek’s duty to retire the fighter. He hated it. He would damn the man to a life of ease and mediocrity instead of the glory that he had earned.

‘And Atoska?’

‘She will recover fully, provided she also rests.’

‘Very well,’ he said.

The slave stitched his wounds and wrapped him up tight in an immobilising prison of poultices, cloth, leather and iron braces. Once done, the slave left him to his thoughts and his pain. For a time, he lay in his bed, lingering in a near-delirious state between sleep and wakefulness.

And still Archaon’s voice did not sound. Instead, restless memories ran through his mind. Memories he preferred to pack away like the shameful family heirlooms they were.

Syzek opened his eyes. Eziel sat by his bed in only a padded jerkin, carrying a plate of rations. Bruises spotted her skin and two of her fingers were splinted. She glanced over when he stirred.

‘You look like dung,’ Eziel said, munching on a mash of dried fruit and meat.

He grunted at her.

‘You’ve also been under for an entire bell cycle,’ she said.

He jerked up to rise and immediately regretted it as pain lanced through his body, running like lightning from his chest down to the tips of his fingers.

‘Do not rush if it will cost you dignity, dominar,’ she said. ‘At least that’s how I think the saying goes.’

He gave her a baleful look as he slowly dragged himself into a sitting position.

‘So, where to next?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Well, what have your visions shown you?’ she prompted.

He remained silent; instead, he looked at her and shook his head.

‘Nothing?’ she said.

He shook his head again.

‘That’s a change,’ she said.

‘Yes it is,’ he said. ‘What is your report? Since I was resting.’

‘Not much to report,’ she said, relaxing back in her chair. ‘We’re not in any condition to be on campaign. The camp is running efficiently. All the equipment is repaired. The wounded are on the mend. Regular sentries have not reported any sighting of the Corvus Cabal. Though the raptoryx are a nuisance, they keep trying to break into the supplies. Morale is surprisingly high.’

‘Good, hopefully it stays that way,’ he said. ‘As far as where we go next, I do not know. And that will not be good enough for them.’

‘I can come up with something plausible,’ she said.

‘You mean lie?’

‘Of course. My duty is to keep your leadership on solid ground. It is a bad drillmaster who doesn’t lie now and then.’ She rose with a stretch and a wince. ‘Let me know if anything changes.’

‘You will be the first to know,’ he said.

Nothing did. Days turned into a week, then two. The others began to speculate about their idleness and Eziel provided the logical excuses. That they and their equipment were battered and the next trial would be far beyond the others in its agonies and challenges. They would need to be in top form. Syzek turned to meditation as he often did when something was troubling him, but insight remained elusive.

Once he was mobile, Syzek visited Alon. When he told Alon that he was no longer fit, the soldier had stoically asked to be left alone. He was doomed to die in a bed, no longer able to withstand the transformative fires of combat.

Two weeks turned to three. Now the excuse began to wear thin. The legionaries started drills to stave off that killer of discipline, boredom. Alon took to his new duties as quartermaster with capable stoicism, while Somnixes, transformed from rebel to sycophant, tried to make up for lost time.

Finally, in a fit of frustration, Syzek ordered another sacrificial ritual. It was the only thing he could think of to do. It was done in the same manner as last time. Yet, even as they did it, he doubted it would work. There had always been a certain escalation of effort, a demand for insight. Sure enough, the slave died in agony and the molten iron revealed nothing but random spatters.

Three weeks turned to a month. The high morale faded into malaise. Kamaxes and Alon broke into a brawl over an alleged theft from the stores. As Eziel broke it up, they deduced that a slave had stolen it and escaped into the wastes. It was an opportunity to blow off some steam and Syzek allowed the warband to go hunt the escapee, which they did with enthusiasm. They returned whooping, the battered man dragged in behind them.

Naturally, an example was made. Syzek felt no need to witness the discipline; he trusted Eziel to handle it.

As was routine for his meditations, he lit the single flame upon the black ashes and concentrated on it. All it did was open the bottomless pit of his self-doubt.

Had he been found wanting? Had he missed something? Perhaps this was a test of faith.

In a sudden flash of anger, he brought his fist through the table. Meditative items scattered over the sandy floor, the fire extinguishing itself.

‘Why are you suddenly silent!’ he thundered at the sky.

A tension filled the air and he realised that he was not alone. He whirled around with a snarl to find Eziel staring at him, a black clay jug of Kort in hand.

‘Still nothing, I take it?’ Eziel said.

‘No,’ he said, bitterly.

His slaves hurried to clean the mess as Eziel poured him a cup.

‘You know, we’re not supposed to bring this into deserts,’ she said, shoving the cup at him. ‘Still, I like drinking with you, instead of Alon.’

One of the slaves dropped a plate, the ceramic ringing as it hit the ground. Syzek glanced at the cringing slave but then ignored him. He had no need to fuss over every move his slaves made in his presence like some prissy decadent.

‘Oh?’ he said.

‘He gets drunk, I stay sober,’ she said. ‘It’s awful. Whereas with you, it’s usually the reverse.’

He said nothing and tipped the small cup back. The brew’s bitterness made his tongue shudder. It scorched down his throat and settled like a small bonfire in his chest. Despite himself, he coughed.

‘You never did drink well,’ she said.

He nudged his cup towards her, which she filled again.

‘There are many things we’re not supposed to be doing,’ he said. ‘One of which is sitting idle while there is a task to be done.’

He took another swig. For a time, they drank in comfortable silence. She was the only person he ever drank with; he trusted no one else enough to intentionally impair himself in their company.

‘I do not understand this at all,’ he said. ‘Why stop now? Why the silence?’

‘You are a dominar now,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you’re on your own for this one? After all, leaders do not follow forever.’

‘True. I have been thinking as a forge-master, not as a dominar. And dominars seek their own way to victory.’ He rubbed his brow, sighing in frustration.

‘What is your victory then?’ she said. ‘If you do not know where you are going, you will never get there.’

‘I need the heart of this weapon,’ he said, gesturing at the inert components he had already gathered. ‘I know what it will do but there is nothing heavy or powerful enough to produce the effects I want. I considered realmstone from Shyish but that substance is relatively common. You can find gravestone in any market if you look hard enough. I thought of certain essences of the Stagnation but that would align the weapon too close to that one’s lesser power. Archaon is their master, not their servant. And he would never choose one over another.’

He took another sip and coughed.

‘You are the worst drinker,’ she said.

‘At this point,’ he said, ‘I might as well drown my despair in the oblivion of drink. It’s not as heavy.’ He lifted the glass to his lips and then paused. ‘Wait.’ He pushed his cup away and Eziel surreptitiously took and drank it. ‘Despair. There is nothing heavier.

‘I need despair, melancholia, in a tangible form,’ Syzek said to himself, standing and pacing about a touch unsteadily. ‘But it cannot come from the power of the Dead King or his ghosts. There is still a certain purity that Archaon requires. Such a material would be perfect but–’ he looked at her, ‘does it exist?’

Then the tent and Eziel faded away, the bitter smell of the Kort replaced by the reek of ash. The air became hot and dead. A shadow crept overhead like a god’s outstretched hand. He turned and saw a tower looming, black as night against the noon sky. As a thousand voices rose in a weeping, shrieking crescendo, he stepped back and brushed against something.

He was in the tent again, his hand pressed against the table. With a dry throat, he told her what he had seen.

‘The Gallowspire,’ she said. ‘In the Kardeb Wastes.’

‘Then that’s where we’re going,’ he said, a grin flashing across his face. ‘I can get us there.’

‘When you have sobered,’ she said.

He glared at her a long moment and then acquiesced with a grunt.

‘Eziel,’ he said as she turned to leave. ‘You are an excellent drillmaster.’

‘I’ll have them ready by dusk,’ she said, with a smile. ‘The Kardeb Wastes are not as bad as the Cursewood but it’s not a nothing-war either.’

She rose, slapped the cork back into the bottle and strode out. For a moment, he could only stand there. After weeks of idleness, it was strange to have a task to perform, a duty to fulfil. Elation bolted through him, but he kept it quiet. His slaves armed him, strapping him into his plate and bringing him his warhammer. His shoulder still ached, and he suspected that it always would.

Out in the camp, Eziel’s voice carried and was soon joined by Somnixes’ heavy baritone and the metallic beat of the war-seal. The clank of armour, the rush of feet and the gleeful whoops ran between the tents. The frenetic energy of pre-campaign hours was on them, and he found it comforting.

Dusk came on them quickly, and by then Syzek was sober once more. In a civilian jerkin, Alon oversaw their preparations, going about his duty with a certain fastidiousness. When he reached Syzek, his brow furrowed and he tightened down a strap on his pauldron with a grumble.

‘We are going to miss your skill,’ Syzek said softly.

‘Perhaps, but I am broken now,’ he said, not looking Syzek in the eye. ‘I am better off here.’

The glint in his eye said that someone was going to suffer for laxity. Or perhaps his self-recrimination was turning outwards. In truth, Syzek did not care which as long as Alon was taking his duties as seriously as he appeared to be. Still, there was an absence in the warband now that Syzek did not like.

As the desert cooled, the warband set out, laden with water and fewer soldiers than they had previously.

They headed to the north-west. The scrub rapidly thinned, then vanished, and the stony ground turned to fine ash, vast clouds kicking up with every footfall. Soon they were all rendered into identical grey ghosts. Syzek and the others slipped filtration masks over their faces in well-practised drill. Ash fall was a familiar hazard, and one not to be taken lightly. It killed sooner or later, either through suffocation or cancerous lesions in the lungs that appeared as time went on.

Still, the journey was uneventful and endurable. As Eziel surmised, it was not as miserable as the Cursewood. Syzek knew which way they needed to go; he sensed the darkness that loomed over the horizon, drawing him on. A darkness that wished to kill him.

Finally, the crooked peak of a tower poked over the horizon. As they grew closer, the shambolic spire revealed itself, lurching up towards the sky. A rattle caught their ear, like a thousand hollow sticks clattering together. Studding the tower’s skin were heavy wood beams from which dangled clusters of sacks, like the desiccated supplies at an abandoned depot.

Then Syzek realised what the sound was and what the clusters were. He stopped cold, a bolt of genuine fear running through him. Skin prickling with sudden sweat, his gaze crawled unwillingly up the tower.

Hundreds of corpses twisted in the wind, rattling together like grotesque prayer chimes. They had hanged themselves, an act that would cast one’s soul into the deepest pit and return one to a new life as a drevar.

‘The Gallowspire’s name is well earned,’ he murmured to himself. ‘By the Golem’s Forge.’

The more he looked at the tower, the more dead revealed themselves. A thick carpet of bones lay about its base, and corpses were draped out of the windows. A single archway led inside, the darkness within impenetrable and filled with fears unknown.

‘Stay outside,’ Syzek said. ‘If I do not return within a day, leave.’

‘Yes, dominar,’ the others murmured, their enthusiasm dampened by the horror before them. Several of them started muttering mantras from their childhood under their breath.

Syzek pulled his warhammer free and walked up towards the tower. As he closed, the tower seemed to turn towards him, its precarious bulk looming as if it would fall and crush him. He paused at the threshold.

The air flowing from within was cold and sweet. An aelfish corpse lay crumpled against the door frame, clad in ornate plate, a still-shining dagger pierced upwards through the brittle skull.

Syzek stepped through into the shadows. Glancing behind him, he watched the wind carefully erase his footprints. To his right, a spiral staircase spun upwards, a single thin rail all that stood between him and a long fall.

He stood, studying those stairs. They were uneven and steep, the steps cracked or sometimes broken away completely. Ash drifted down from on high, settling into every crevice. How long he stood there, he could not guess. All he knew was that he suddenly returned to awareness with a start.

What was he doing?

Syzek was letting his fears consume him. None of these men had been Iron Golems and none of them were him. He had faced harder trials than a set of stairs. Gripping his hammer, he started up.

The stairs were chilly under his feet, the stone flaking under his weight. As he ascended, he expected to feel watched. Instead, he felt that he was the last person alive in the world.

Would he be able to do this alone? With his other trials, he had been surrounded by men and women who had been hand-picked by his father. What about now? Were not all Iron Golems like him? They never did anything without the strength of others. Without leaning on the strength of others.

‘Enough,’ he muttered to himself.

He shook his head, clearing away the mental chatter.

‘We make war, there is no greater forge,’ he said.

He took another step.

He was not in a battle, though. He was here. In silence. With himself. With only himself to blame if he failed.

Which he would.

Of course.

Another step.

A flash of light lanced into his vision from the side. Blinking, he looked off to his right. There was a window, or rather the remains of one. Outside, a brilliantly clad warrior spun slowly about, the rope, so tight around her neck, creaking. Her flesh had not yet shrivelled in the sun, her eyes rolled back in her head. A yellow gem from her sword, still resting in the sheath, flickered and flashed in the sun. A warrior from one of the so-called Free Cities. Apparently, not free enough.

Syzek pushed on, the effort greater than he expected. A feverish chill rolled through him as if he had suddenly become ill. His muscles became slack, his hammer and armour growing heavier. The weight dug in as if his armour had warped slightly. A wave of dizziness made him wobble and he threw himself forwards onto his knees before he pitched backwards and broke his neck.

He should stop and rest.

Rest. Even the great Mithraxes rested when on campaign. Just to lighten the burden. Only a little. A few minutes would refresh him.

No. He knew this temptation from his apprenticeship. When he had just come under Azen’s care, the man had worked him horribly to test him. And then would offer to allow him to rest if he needed to. It was a trap that caught out many.

Snarling, he pushed himself onto his feet once more, using his hammer as a crutch.

He looked up. The top seemed miles away, the bottom only a few feet, seemingly close enough to touch.

He could just leave. Was his work worth this? What had that woman been here for? Or the other warrior?

Of course, if he returned alive even Eziel would turn from him in his weakness. Perhaps even killing him to keep him from damnation and shame.

It would be easier. So much easier. Who said that a pit waited for his soul? There were other more pleasant afterlives. So many more than he could imagine.

‘This is not my mind,’ he said, sweat coating his feverish skin.

Syzek began to climb once more, one step above the other.

But it is. Jeweller’s son.

‘That man is dead to me,’ he growled.

Jeweller’s son. Jeweller’s SON.

‘Jeweller’s son,’ a woman said.

He pivoted, his warhammer lashing out in the direction of a physical voice. The hammer struck flesh. Or something like it. The woman gave an awful scream, gross with neediness. Dead meat slapped the stone.

Stepping back, Syzek swallowed the yelp of disgust in his throat.

The woman lay beneath him on the stair, crumpled in a pallid, dead heap. Within a half-split head, one brown eye lolled up and fixed on him.

‘Kill me. Give me silence,’ she whispered from the floor.

Instinctive revulsion whipped him up the stairs. For a time, he paid no attention to where he was. He just needed to get away from whatever that thing was. Then his disgust faded, the energy slipping away until once more, taking a step seemed as impossible as leaping to the top of a mountain in one bound.

His helm seemed too close, too suffocating, and he nearly took it off. Then he stopped himself and ploughed on. Up he went, passing more hanged corpses, all of whom seemed to watch him as he went by. And who seemed to follow him, just out of his sight, with feverish eyes and battered flesh.

You know the truth of it. You know the truth of your father and mother. What an embarrassment they are. Their obscene avarice. Their fawning praise. Their wretched life of ease. You know why they gave you up. And where they went. Who they chose to serve.

‘Azen Govus is my father,’ he said, dragging himself further up the steps.

‘He took you in out of mercy,’ a man said.

‘No, it was bribery,’ said another.

‘Your worth was bought with gems,’ said a third.

This time he did not have the strength to strike his tormentors and push himself up the stairs. The tower narrowed as he went, the walls closing about the stair. He was close to the top, if he could just make himself move.

He fell to his knees, metal crashing. The walls closed in, brushing his pauldrons on either side.

‘No,’ he gasped. ‘That is not what happened, weak fools.’

He crawled. It was the only thing left to him.

What was it? What was he here for?

‘Something about proving yourself to the Great Dictator,’ a man whispered.

‘But you know yourself,’ said another.

‘You know that you are not worthy,’ said the third. ‘Why put yourself through all this? You’ll be left yammering at his door, and all will know just what you are. Jeweller’s son. Disgrace.’

He looked down at his hammer, the scarred, spiked head gleaming. In its surface, pallid faces loomed, blackened tongues lolling. He could feel their overly sweet breath on his neck. Dead things. Daemon things.

‘The Legion knows no weakness,’ he said. ‘We make war.’

Bracing himself with his hammer, he pushed himself back onto his feet. It was then he realised there was a light ahead. It gleamed and oozed like a reflection in oil, shimmering over the walls. Gasping as if he had run for leagues, he staggered to the top of the stairs.

And collapsed onto his hands and knees once more.

His breath sawed in and out of his lungs, his muscles burned with acid. The warhammer slipped from his numb fingers and landed with a bang on the floor.

The chamber dripped with a black fluid that steamed like a mist. Drifting down in ropes, it flowed down the walls, pooled in the cracks in the floor. Treasures of every kind lay heaped over the chamber but they were not just any material goods. Paintings, vases, jewellery, busts, weapons, all dripping and stained with inky liquid. The curated hoard of an avid collector.

Tears. That was what he needed.

A flicker of energy flashed through him. Heaving himself into a kneeling position, he took the clay bottle off his belt with trembling fingers.

‘It’s all dross,’ a voice echoed in a dead monotone.

His head snapped up.

It was inches from him, staring.

Shrouded in its shadowy effluvium, it leaned over him, pale, battered flesh poking through the cascade of darkness. A face perched in the mass, porcelain-white and utterly still. It shifted, thin spidery limbs protruding from the bleak veils.

‘It’s all dross, just like you,’ it said. ‘None of it mattered. Wanting.’

‘Niness,’ Syzek choked.

‘People still know my name,’ it said. ‘I suppose that’s something.’

It crouched in front of him, hugging its knees. Black eyes bored into him.

‘I wonder if you realise that you’ve reached the edge of your potential,’ Niness said. ‘Jeweller’s son.’

‘Silence!’ Syzek thundered.

Grasping his hammer, he launched himself at it. The hammer whistled through it and his momentum carried him through its insubstantial form. It washed over him, warm and sweet. Tumbling out of the creature’s back, he crashed onto the floor.

The head twisted round on the shoulders and it stared at him with dead black eyes.

‘It’s true,’ Niness said, then it caught itself, its shoulders tensing. ‘Actually, you are right. You are not a jeweller’s son. Your mother gave birth to you seven months after the contract was signed. So not a jeweller’s son, but the illegitimate son of a jeweller. You should have been a slave with such a lineage as that. What Azen saw in you, even you do not know. And I certainly cannot guess.’

‘How dare you speak his name, slime,’ Syzek growled. ‘He knows my worth.’

‘Worth? Every single one of your works was flawed,’ Niness said. ‘In small yet substantial ways. And do you think that the great Azen Govus did not see? How foolish do you think he was? Apparently, a great fool indeed.’

Syzek charged the beast again, anything to shut that voice up. As before, he pelted through the thing, this time crashing into a glass sculpture. He crushed the fragile piece under his weight, the glass slicing into his skin. As he struggled to pick himself up, the black fluid slopped across his skin, beading like oil.

He looked back and the thing stretched forwards, bigger than he remembered, an avid light gleaming in its dead eyes.

‘I hate being the one to tell you these things,’ Niness said. ‘Very few have the strength to accept the truth about themselves. And you are not one of them.’

‘I was born of fire and iron – what would you know of strength or truth?’ Syzek gasped.

‘Perhaps if you know of both, you know how weak you are,’ Niness said. ‘Once outside of your boring little forge, away from your pedestrian little general, you’ve foundered. If it wasn’t for that wondrous woman Eziel, you would have been eaten by cannibals. By livestock. By the weakest daemons in the pantheon. How are you worthy of this quest?’

It grew still larger, its thin body swelling obscenely until it filled the room. The porcelain face gleamed with sweat, its eyes starting from its head.

‘Clearly, you’ve led her to her death,’ Niness said. ‘You should just give up. There is peace to be had. You can rest. The endless cycle of permanence and transformation can end. You just have to accept yourself for who you are. Accept that you’ll never produce anything of real worth. And do something about it.’

A noose spun out of the darkness in front of him, right at neck level. For a moment, it swung hypnotically.

Syzek struggled to his knees, wrenching his hands out of the sucking muck.

‘First, Eziel takes care of herself,’ Syzek said, planting his hammer into the floor. ‘Second, you do not matter. You are just ephemera. You are not the one who judges me.’

He drove himself onto his feet.

For a moment, it did nothing, looming there.

‘Hateful little worm, I know the truth of you,’ it said, spite leaking into its monotone. ‘I am the truth. I see everything. I know everything. I know your filthy little secrets.’

Syzek did not respond, steeling himself against its emptiness. A chill still rolled through his limbs, but sheer dogged will pushed his weakened body into motion.

‘Archaon will know your worth at a glance,’ Niness hissed, its body bulging and heaving. ‘What you’re making is nothing compared to the treasures he has seen before. What makes you think that you have something worthy?’

‘I do not,’ Syzek said.

He found the clay bottle and dipped it into a pool of clinging ooze. The fluid flowed in and it made no sound, nor did it weigh anything. Yet, he knew how heavy it could be. He screwed on the cap and then staggered out of the room.

‘Don’t you leave!’ the thing shrieked from the top of the stair. ‘Insolent speck! You aren’t anything! I know you better than you know yourself! I am your inner truth!’

Yet it did not move from that chamber; instead it fretted at the door, clawing and shrieking.

Syzek stumbled down the stairs, battering aside the lesser beings that attempted to bar his way who, he realised, were its innumerable victims. To be trapped by Niness’ gnawing destruction of the self did not sound so restful.

The trip down was shorter than he remembered going up. Indeed, it seemed only a few short steps and then he burst out into the sunlight. The heat was immense, the sun burning almost directly overhead. For a moment, he stood in the sand blinking, and then dropped to his knees, shuddering.

‘Syzek,’ Eziel said.

He started as the others rushed up to him.

‘You have it,’ she said, breathlessly.

She opened a small bag and he dropped the bottle of Niness’ Tears within, eager to have it away from his skin.

‘Syzek?’ she said.

He waved her away, attempting to rise on his own. Instead, the world spun sickeningly and darkness swallowed him up.

Chapter Nine

They arrived back at camp, silent and pale. No one said a word; they simply walked away from each other and refused to answer any questions about what they had seen. Or worse, felt.

Syzek walked into his tent, set the clay bottle with its grim contents on the table, stripped off his armour and then lay down. Despite his escape, he would never be free from the thing’s whispers. After all, it spoke with his doubts, his perfectionism, his fears. It was every person that had ever lived, the ugliest part of themselves. A part of him desperately wanted to go back and burn the tower to the ground.

He slept, though for how many hours he did not know, opening his eyes and then drifting off again. Finally, gnawing hunger shook him from his fugue. That ache in his muscles remained, the haze over his thoughts clung on like a stain.

As he ate, he looked over the raw components. In truth, they did not look like much. A hunk of rock, a bottle of spite, a dark, stained anvil and a twitching skin. Yet, it was there. One just had to see it. The weapon of a king.

Meal forgotten, he stood and ran his hands over the stone and metal. A whisper of cloth signalled the arrival of someone, the heavy walk announcing Eziel’s presence. The clanking creak of Alon’s brace gave him away. They had been waiting for Syzek to free himself from his lethargy.

‘Do you see it?’ she whispered. ‘Is there a vision?’

‘I see it, but not in the way you are asking,’ he said, only half aware of her.

Now he appreciated the silence in his mind, the distance. Like all great leaders, Archaon knew when and where his guidance was needed. And it was not here.

‘Alon, have the forge prepared,’ Syzek said in that same distracted voice. ‘Though do not heat it yet. That will come later.’

Alon turned, the brace on his leg creaking.

‘And send me Krughar,’ Syzek said.

Alon glanced at Eziel with a questioning look on his face. She nodded at him, knowing what Syzek was like when he was working. The rest of the world could have been burning down and he would not care.

Krughar arrived a little while later. As always, he was hard for Syzek to read, the duardin’s face set with an amiable expression.

‘You asked for me, dominar,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Syzek said, breaking away from his distraction. ‘I require assistance with this. And I do not trust slaves with this work. You and Alon are the only ones with the skills I require. Are you ready for it?’

‘Of course,’ Krughar said, smiling and bowing deeply. ‘Whatever you need from me, you will have.’

‘Good,’ Syzek said. ‘However, if you fail me…’

‘I know, you’ll feed me to the Breacher,’ Krughar said, the easy smile never falling from his face.

‘I am glad we understand each other,’ Syzek said. ‘Wait with Alon, I will be there soon.’

Krughar grunted and left.

‘You are getting better at being dominar,’ Eziel said. ‘But why put Alon in this position in the first place? Krughar knows his way around a forge blindfolded.’

‘Yes, but this is going to take many hours,’ he said. ‘I need them both. I must account for the weaknesses of the flesh. Duardin he might be but even Krughar will need to rest. All of us will. As much as I hate it.’

‘This is why I became a scout,’ she said. ‘I do not have the disposition for all that. I can’t say that you’re making a mistake but I wouldn’t trust Alon’s capability. He’s crippled.’

‘He will prove himself worthy with this.’ Syzek nodded and at that, Eziel left him alone with his thoughts.

It seemed insane that the moment was finally upon him. When he had first arrived, every task had seemed impossible. Now, his time in the Spoil seemed to have flashed by in a day.

He spent some time refining the image in his head, sketching it out with parchment and charcoal. The mundanity of it was not lost on him, and that somehow made the venture even more real. He detailed the hollow head, the vicious flanges, the pattern of the grip, every detail all the way down to the rivets, which would have eight sides. At last, the design satisfied him.

Shaking himself, Syzek walked out under the darkening sky. The sun was sinking beyond the horizon, the alien stars flickering to life. Not a cloud marred the sky.

He went into the forge-yard, where Alon had prepared the wide open space. An awning protected them from the elements, though given the nature of the Spoil, that protection was much diminished. Made of blocks of black stone and clay, the forge loomed at the heart of their camp, cold and inert. Formed into the shape of the Golem’s head, the wide grimacing mouth opened, a lolling tongue cupped to form the bed for the heat. The two vents that formed the eyes were dark and cold. Two large bellows were built into the sides.

In front of it stood his anvil, upon which he had made his armour and his warhammer all those years ago. All about in a circle hung every tool he might need: hammers, tongs, punches and brushes.

Alon and Krughar waited for him, patient in their silence. The first task was to carve the handle and shaft from the shattered treelord talon. This took much longer than even Syzek anticipated, the black talon resisting chisel and file with remarkable tenacity. Finally, as the sun crept over the horizon, Syzek completed the work.

The stone shimmered, black as night with veins of glistening blue. Even though Iron Golems did not generally consider beauty in their work, Syzek noted it was remarkable. Weapons for kings required a different mindset. He set it aside.

As he stood, he felt the ache in his shoulder and an unfamiliar exhaustion. Niness had weakened him, and his loathing for the creature surged. Still, how he dealt with the weakness of his body was entirely in his hands.

‘Prepare the forge,’ he said, turning his mind to transforming the prismatic anvil into the heavy head the mace required. ‘Coals, not flamestone. The anvil would steal the heat.’

The forge’s mouth was filled with coals and then the jaws levered closed to seal in the heat. Then it was brought up to the desired temperature with two massive bellows manned by Krughar and Alon. As the two brought the forge up to heat, Syzek created the mould for the massive head and flanges out of fine sand packed around a false form of a quick-burning wood.

By the time he was done, the forge was alive, fire billowing from between its teeth and eyes like a daemon. Its breath roared like a dragon’s. The prismatic anvil, still stained from its rough treatment, was set into a crucible and then into the brilliant furnace.

‘So, dominar, do yeh think the anvil might be tainted?’ Krughar asked.

‘Perhaps,’ Syzek said. ‘I do not know what will happen when it becomes molten. Perhaps nothing. Or it may explode or mutate us like rat-stone. I can’t be sure.’

‘Mutate us?’ Krughar said.

Syzek nodded. ‘Indeed. It depends on what the beasts were doing with it. We must risk it.’

Krughar pursed his lips then opened his mouth to speak.

‘If you are going to make a joke, don’t,’ Syzek said.

Krughar snapped his mouth shut.

They worked on through the morning as they kept the forge at the breath-stealing temperature to melt the anvil down. For a time, the anvil resisted such mundane treatment. It sat, glowing furiously. Syzek took over from Alon, who staggered over to the side and threw himself down in the sand, gasping.

His shoulder aching, his lungs burning, Syzek kept up the pace on the bellows. In his youth, he had done this for hours at Azen’s direction. It seemed odd that he would be doing it for himself. And even odder that he would struggle with it.

Then the forge began to hiss and thick black smoke boiled out of the vents.

‘By the forge-fire, what is that?’ Krughar said, his nose wrinkling. ‘Oh, that smell!’

‘Alon!’ Syzek bellowed.

Alon, now refreshed, rushed across and took over for him.

An eerie whistling howled out of the forge as Syzek opened the forge’s jaws. Out of the crucible, a disgusting brown slurry spilled. On contact with the searing heat, it bubbled and frothed into a fine ash that reeked of blood and hair.

Syzek swore and grabbed a pair of tongs out of instinct. Then he paused.

‘Wait,’ he said softly.

He knew what this was. Forge-fire was a transformative thing, a cleansing thing, drawing out weakness and impurities in equal measure. In this case, the anvil had absorbed the energy of thousands of the beastmen’s crude rituals over the years. He had expected some manner of reaction when the anvil melted, but not this vile sludge.

‘Stay at that pace,’ he shouted as the others stared at him in alarm. ‘The fire simply cleanses away the residue of their rituals. Nothing more.’

The others nodded at him, looking relieved. Despite himself, Syzek ran his hands over his skin, looking for any new bone spurs or other lesions. While the Iron Golems were not as risk-averse as some other civilisations, no one wanted to be caught in a magic-fuelled accident. Being turned into a spawn or crippled by some mutation was a constant fear.

Soon, the last of the slop burned off and a glittering metal revealed itself from under the filth. The potentiality that hung in the molten alloy was immense.

They took out the glowing crucible and poured the alloy into the mould, smoke pouring from the vent holes. Then they waited, Alon and Krughar both dozing while Syzek watched. As much as he did not want to admit it, the next step was more instinct and art than knowledge and process. He knew how the alloy should react, but until he formed and tempered it, he was merely guessing – guessing based on prior knowledge, but guessing nonetheless.

They broke open the mould to find the round head and flanges solid and well-formed. The cavity for Niness’ tears was perfect. However, the metal was a murky slate grey, its nature reduced to the utterly mundane.

Now came the delicate part. Tempering it so that it was strong and re-formed its prismatic nature, but not so quickly that the piece cracked, or so slowly that the alloy failed to return to its previous state. The prismatic alloys could only be reshaped a few times before the base metals lost their unique properties. There was only one chance to get this right.

An achingly dull process of heating the pieces began, slow and steady over the course of hours. Syzek stood at the forge bed, carefully turning the nascent head as it glimmered and dulled by turns. As always, certain aches and pains surfaced, the heat baking his skin, his eyes drying out. Meanwhile, the patterns shifted, narrowing and flaring as the metal reacted to the heat.

He ate at the forge, nibbling at his rations when he could. The moon arched overhead, the forge fending off the desert chill. Insects creaked in the shadows. Off to either side, Alon and Krughar worked the bellows, looking worse for wear with sallow skin and sunken eyes.

Then the familiar play of light coalesced in the pieces and Syzek breathed a sigh of relief. He took them off the heat and set them on a rack to cool.

‘To think, there are civilisations that forbid prismatine weapons,’ he said to himself. ‘One of the few ways to channel the magic of the forge-fire and they do not pursue it. What fools.’

Once they had cooled, Syzek hammered out the flanges, grafted them to the head and then attached them onto the handle with iron bands and rivets. Then he took the squirming daemonskin and bound it to the handle in carefully folded strips, its power coursing through the stone, its wild will utterly defeated. The weapon was outsized, but Syzek knew the dimensions of the man for whom it was made.

‘Now what?’ Krughar asked.

‘Rest,’ Syzek said, sitting down in the sand. ‘I will not need you for the next part.’

The other two cast themselves down and were soon snoring, and Syzek went to his tent once more to rest himself. Yet he tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The hours ticked by as his thoughts gnawed on each other. His next task filled him with dread. Combining the head with Niness’ Tears, exposing himself to that vile substance once more. He became ill just thinking of it.

He looked across his tent at the table where the tears lay. It looked innocuous enough, a simple clay jar with containment runes pressed into it. Yet the grain of the table underneath it had shifted, forming grim images of nooses and sobbing faces.

He snarled, loathing himself for the sudden quivering fear that froze him. He was above such ridiculous cowardice. Growling, he snatched up the bottle and walked back to the forge-yard. Even through thick gloves, the chill leached into his veins.

He put the mace into a vice and placed the container onto a stand. Then he pulled off the wax seal.

Time froze. Colour dimmed. Sound ended.

A clammy wave rolled through him, sending his mind shuddering. His hands went numb and weak, as if he had aged in a second. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog in his mind.

Glancing down at the inert mace, he noticed something. Was that a crack in the head? No, that was impossible. He had checked. How had he not noticed? It was ruined. Utterly ruined!

He blinked, and realised that it was a shadow.

‘By the forge-fire,’ he muttered, shivering with relief.

There were trials and then there was this. His breathing rattled in his chest as if he had ash-lung, weakness dragging him down to the sands. He wobbled and grabbed hold of the vice to keep from falling. Worse were his thoughts, racing through every anxiety and every doubt, murmuring in Niness’ dead monotone. Every instinct screamed that something had gone wrong, something that he could not see. Leaning on the vice, he fought to centre himself.

‘Transformation in permanence, permanence in transformation,’ he growled.

He grabbed a pair of tongs, picked up the container and poured the black fluid into the cavity. Then he sealed it with a cap of brass, clamping it down with iron bands. There was a last fitful burst of darkness, and then a strange quiet.

Colour bolted through the world and he was suddenly aware of the heat from the sun. The forge pinged and hissed as it cooled. His warband crowded at the entrance to the forge-yard, eyes wide and lips tight. Even Somnixes stared at him with concern, his arrogant face tense with fear.

Then there was a rumble through the earth, the sand rippling like water under the vice. With glowing runes and a black aura, the mace vibrated softly at first, and then grew steadily louder. The blackness deepened, until the mace emanated a crystalline unlight. Deep musical tones hummed and the grip tightened under his hands like something alive.

It was wondrous.

Syzek gripped the mace with one hand and released the weapon from the vice, its power rumbling through his bones. Carefully, he inspected it from the flanged head to the eight-sided pommel. He had made this thing, this Voidheart Mace.

A grin split his face, before sobriety checked his giddy triumph.

He needed to test it. It looked powerful and it felt powerful, yet the realms were filled with powerful-looking trinkets, inert artefacts worth no more than their materials. In short, failures.

The others followed him as he walked out of the forge-yard, into the desert.

With a deep breath, he brought down the mace against a boulder. The mace’s rumbling note rose sharply, like it was taking in a breath, and then it boomed. The boulder shattered into a thousand pieces like brittle glass. Yet the force released did not stop. Instead it rippled into the ground, nearly knocking Syzek off his feet and causing the carrion birds on the outcrop to scatter into the air.

With a spoken word, he exerted the weapon in a different way and pointed at the rising flock. Several of the birds screamed and then plunged downwards, as if snatched by invisible hands. Every gesture let him push and pull any object, from pebbles, to plants, to the living.

It was done. He had done it. After all the suffering and the work and the risk, Syzek had made a weapon worthy of the greatest king.

He hoisted the mace above his head with a triumphant roar.

‘I have made war!’ he thundered.

The rumbling chant of the Iron Golems went up.

‘We make war!’

At that moment, a concussive boom echoed from within the camp and a fireball boiled up into the sky, tinting everything orange. Liquid flames splashed across the tents, catching on whatever they touched. Figures ran through the camp, scuttling through the shadows. The shrieking of slaves keened as they bolted about like animals.

‘Back to base now, get those flames out,’ Syzek bellowed. ‘Protect the water.’

They ran back towards the flaming base as the fire caught on tents and palisades alike. Greasy smoke rose into the sky and Syzek could only hope that they could put it out before the flames brought scavengers or even another warband on them. The others charged on ahead, and Syzek lagged behind, too exhausted from his days of labour.

Something snagged his leg. He stumbled. Shrieking sounded from above him, and he caught sight of giant wings and blades before someone crashed bodily into him. Already unbalanced, he tumbled, entangled with some other attacker he could not get a grip on. As the winged man scampered away, the other enemy pinned him spread-eagled onto the sand, a hooked blade pressed into his throat from behind. He scrabbled in the sand, but he was prone and weaponless.

His hands were empty.

A familiar black bird mask looked down at him, black eyes blinking.

‘No!’ he roared, struggling against the man’s weight.

Off to his right, a scrawny woman hefted the Voidheart Mace off the ground with a grunt and handed the winged man his greatest work.

‘You! I will kill you,’ Syzek shouted.

The knife dug into his throat and Syzek forced himself to be still. Gasping and shaking with fury, he watched the man inspect his work.

‘I am Ias Vo and I am the man that is stealing your dream,’ the bird-worshipper said, his accent strange. ‘And what a marvellous dream it is. This is stunning. You know what is even more stunning? How oblivious you are to all those slaves around you. Dozens of people you don’t see. People that will do anything to be free.’

‘You were there in my tent,’ Syzek whispered, remembering the clumsy slave. ‘Wretch. Face me on the battlefield!’

The winged man took in a breath. ‘No.’

The blade pressed into the tender flesh of his throat. Snarling, Syzek snapped his head back, his thick skull crashing into a bone mask. With a shriek, the weight on his back toppled away. Syzek scrambled to his knees, reached behind and grabbed the man’s neck. Giving the Cabalite no time to bring his weapon to bear, Syzek gripped his scrawny neck and squeezed. Bone cracked under his grip.

Ias and the woman danced back and warbled at each other. Roaring echoed as the Golem’s Will pelted towards them in force. The Corvus Cabalites bolted, skittering off into the desert. There was only one place that they could be going.

Syzek staggered to his feet as the flames leapt tall behind him.

‘Thief, I will catch you and crush you!’ he roared. ‘You hear me! I swear that I will. You are already dead!’

Eziel and Alon appeared at his side. ‘Dominar, what do we do?’ Eziel asked.

‘Arm yourselves, and then we hunt them down like the slaves they are!’ Syzek thundered.

She sprinted off.

‘And arm and release the Breacher,’ he yelled after her.

‘Understood!’ she said as she ran.

‘What about the camp?’ Alon said.

A glance told him that the damage had been done. The flames were already dying down, the ashes of the slave barracks and the supply depot spitting and popping. Snarling in fury, Syzek stalked towards the epicentre. Pockets of flaming oil burned on the ground, and in the forge-yard lay a burst quenching vat with a chunk of flamestone still burning in the remains.

A burnt corpse lay twisted amongst the flames, much of the meat burned off but the slave collar still about the neck. A slave had sabotaged them, doubtless in concert with the Corvus Cabal. The rest of the slaves had fled out into the desert.

With a shuddering sigh, he turned to Alon.

‘Abandon it,’ he said. ‘Its purpose is done.’

‘Yes, dominar,’ Alon said.

Despite himself, abandoning the forge here hurt him. It was as if he were abandoning his home to whatever scavengers turned up. He imagined that they would dismantle it to build some badly listing shack.

‘I am not a forge-master, I am a dominar,’ he muttered to himself.

The fact did not make him feel better; instead, fury tightened every fibre in his body. He turned from the forge with its dark eyes and closed jaws. Casting his eyes towards the sky, he roared. The war he would bring upon these wretches would make the Berserker’s warriors cringe.

Armed and enraged, the Golem’s Will followed in the steady lope that allowed the Golems to cover shocking distances in other lands. Even Alon joined them, jogging in a limping gait with Krughar and Ferron. They rested through the heat of the day as most creatures were forced to in the scorching desert. Knowing that the thieves must do the same gave them little comfort. Always the trail seemed to lengthen, their prey fleeing away from them with all the speed of their foul birds.

Over the course of weeks, the heat lessened and the sky darkened. The nights became colder, their breath misting and steam rising off their skin. Rains and snows burst upon them without warning, ripping out of thin air to drench them and then vanish again.

Then the storms came, great bruise-coloured clouds that sent tornadoes howling down like the fingers of a god, scoring trenches through the earth. Sometimes, they saw savage laughing faces in the howling winds, but thought nothing of it until one of the storms fixed its gaze on them and chased them for several miles.

All through it, they drove on where they could. Still, Syzek could not help but hate every delay that this foul land hurled at them. It seemed that their prey always danced on ahead of them, light as feathers on the wind. Syzek wondered if his one chance at glory was slowly being lost to him, that he would never hold his greatest work in his hands again.

Then the Cabalites’ trail ended altogether when they entered a broken maze of cliffs and chasms. At that point, the Iron Golems resolved to move towards the Varanspire as quickly as they dared. After all, they were all going towards the same place, and the warband could not use the same route as the Corvus Cabal did.

It was slow going, with dead-ends and peculiar loops that led them uselessly about. As they moved through a narrow crevasse, moaning caught their attention. Eziel crept over towards the sound and she relaxed.

‘What is it?’ Syzek said, bridling at the delay.

‘It’s one of them,’ she said.

The Cabalite lay groaning, his leg pinned under his body at a shudder-inducing angle. Feebly, he fumbled at his war-pick as they approached. Looking up, they realised that he had fallen from the stony heights.

‘They are not far ahead,’ Syzek said.

‘You think so?’ Alon said.

‘He hasn’t been eaten yet,’ Eziel said.

Syzek looked up, considering.

‘Breacher, eat quickly,’ Syzek said, gesturing.

The ogor did so, ripping the man asunder and wolfing the pieces down in great gulps. As always, Syzek thought that the ogor must choke, but he never did, even the largest chunk vanishing into the thick gullet.

Then they moved on, weaving through the ravines. Syzek was now confident that the Corvus Cabal was less than an hour ahead of them. And that they were not as fast as they might be.

A sound echoed to them, bouncing down the ravine.

Battle.

They ran up to the mouth of the crevasse, which opened up to them like a gate to some lower hell.

All of them had seen wars, charging every enemy from the sorcerers of the Madness to the Dead King’s ethereal servants with the same dogged contempt. They had crushed cities and towns beneath their heels. And all of them had thought that they knew what to expect from wars in this place, as well.

This was not so. Magic, eternal and endless, charged across a seething plane of savage warriors. Chomping, flaming teeth and whirlwinds of swords struck randomly. Up above the two armies, a daemon of the Madness and another of the Berserker battled, reality tearing itself apart in their wake. The battle swirled as the lines flexed and pushed, the crash of arms nothing more than an endless drone of metal.

Over it all loomed the Varanspire. It filled the horizon with its black bulk, its walls and towers endless. Storms broke around its pinnacles and danced within its courtyards. Daemonic faces leered and cackled on its walls, shouting the praises of Archaon with great booming voices. Flocks of daemons swirled through the tortured air, their unnatural lives supplemented by the Varanspire’s endless energies. And the entire thing centred on one man.

Syzek stared for some time before he shook himself free from the spell.

‘There,’ Somnixes said, pointing to the canyon wall.

At first, Syzek could not tell what he had seen, but then he spotted the first tiny figure, like a blot of ink crawling over the stone.

‘They go over the battle while we must slog through it,’ Irixes said bitterly.

As they watched, the two fearsome daemons slashed into each other, and then they both vanished in a deafening explosion. Below, the two armies continued to grind each other down to nothing, breaking apart into a hundred ragged skirmishes.

‘We go through,’ Syzek said, hefting his warhammer.

They walked down into the canyon, calm and cool, and the battle swallowed them up.

Chapter Ten

The Iron Golem weapon tried to kill him.

As Ias worked his way around the canyon wall, the mace suddenly moved. Tied to his back, it jerked backwards, flinging him out into space. With lightning speed, he lashed out with his war-pick, trying to snag the stone. The blade sank in and he wrenched to a halt, dangling over the battle churning many yards below him.

He let out a sigh of relief, punching his hand-blades into the rock.

‘It’s going to take more than that to kill me,’ he muttered to the thing.

It loomed at his shoulder like death itself, the great flanged head throbbing with malevolence. As much as he had tried, the weapon did not acknowledge him as its new owner. It dragged and jerked at him, and his back was now a mash of bruises and scrapes. Sometimes it whispered at him in a voice he could not hear. It hated him more than life itself.

‘Ias, are you all right?’ Semni croaked at him from above.

‘Yes,’ he said, hauling himself up the stone.

He accepted that the thing hated him. He did not need to make use of it. As masterful as it was, the Voidheart Mace was not a weapon for him. It was for another. The Great Gatherer had made that very clear. That was part of the trick.

They continued the climb, leaping and scuttling over the stone wall. Occasionally, some flying creature took notice of them and they had to pause to destroy the beast before they could move on.

These delays infuriated Ias more than the weapon on his back. As much as he had hoped otherwise, the Iron Golems had slowly but surely closed the distance. They had matched the Cabal’s speed with their endurance, continuing through brutal weather and their own exhaustion with barely a pause. It would be impressive if it did not comment on their doubtless limited intelligence.

‘Ias, look at the mouth of the canyon,’ Lyeq said.

Ias turned and squinted. In the dim distance, a small circle of light flashed. The Iron Golems’ war-seal.

‘It’s much too late for them,’ he said. ‘They need a miracle to make it through that in one piece, let alone at speed. We have already won.’

The mace slowly pulled on his right shoulder, twisting and humming. He jerked back against the motion and the weapon ceased, the tone changing. Slowly, Ias glanced back at the Voidheart Mace, like it was a viper that he did not wish to startle.

‘Then again, perhaps we should hurry,’ he said.

They crept into the heart of the Varanspire’s domain. Precarious as the climb was, it was not so dangerous as the churning war above or below them. As bodies toppled off the heights, threatening to collide with them and send them careening to their deaths, the Corvus Cabal scrambled on. They drew closer, and the Varanspire became ever larger.

Occasionally they came to a fork in the canyon, and it was then that their crow familiars guided their path. Ias knew from his visions where they must go with their stolen prize. Unlike the eight great gates that spewed forth the massed armies of Archaon like a flood, the ways to enter were far subtler. Gates might only open at certain times or for certain rituals, and other entrances were small or disguised. Still there were others that led directly into slave pits or a daemon’s domain, and these opened with great fanfare and frequency. One simply never knew what lay beyond.

The Corvus Cabal finally reached the foot of that massive wall, and the fortress towered over them, as big as the sky, rendering them as small as mice. Off to his left, seemingly miles up, the great road stood. It made him feel tiny. Formed from black onyx, it towered upon thick pylons, elevating Archaon’s armies above the common rabble of the Spoil. Their thunderous tread echoed, as warriors of every god from the greatest to the smallest marched out, united under Archaon’s banners.

The avatar owned them, all the humans and beastmen. Every sword and shield. Every horse and horse-like creature. Every wyvern, giant and unnameable spawn. And his appetite for more was boundless. What could be said about a man that wanted to own all of creation and seemed capable of doing just that?

Ias Vo took in a deep, shuddering breath.

Such a man would be in need of thieves and assassins just as he needed generals and warriors.

Ias picked up his pace, even as the mace dragged at him once more.

This close to the walls, the seething war broke apart into a thousand vicious brawls. Only the strongest made it past the ring of battle, and these remainders were no longer merely obstacles but equal rivals. Thus, they attempted to murder each other while they were tired and weak. The Corvus Cabal kept to the shadows, watching for foes with dark eyes.

‘Where are we going?’ Semni asked, as she looked about at ruination.

‘There,’ Ias said, pointing at the wall.

A pair of stone heads, one stacked over the other, blinked and yawned together like living things. The upper one was a bird, with a beak hooked and ripping like a vulture’s, while the lower was a beast whose jaws hung slightly open, revealing the dim interior within. They shook themselves and then beast and vulture squabbled, hissing and biting. Then they both froze and a skeletal man in robes of coloured glass shuffled out to a diminutive stool fixed to the stone beak.

Ias and the others rushed closer, sensing the opportunity. They passed under the shadow of that mighty wall.

The man sat down and drummed his pale fingers on his knees, his head turning this way and that like a blind man’s. Fabulous jewels dangled from his neck and earlobes, clattering when he moved. Even as he looked, his eyes remained shut.

Go, little one. He looks for you.

Flapping wings alighted all around him and Ias Vo strode forwards away from the others, Hookclaw on his shoulder. In the distance, the various warbands noticed the judge on his perch and started to make their way closer, only to snarl once they realised that Ias and his warband already had his attention. Instead, they kept their distance, watching warily.

With a flourish, Ias knelt and held up the mace.

‘I bring a gift for the avatar of the Great Gatherer,’ he said, bowing his head.

Dead silence greeted his proclamation and he waited.

And waited.

After what seemed an eternity, he dared glance up at the gatekeeper. The man was not looking at him; instead, his head was cocked towards the horizon.

‘What is he doing?’ Semni warbled softly.

A thrill of nerves rushed up Ias’ spine and Hookclaw launched off his shoulder. There was only one thing that could be of interest in that direction.

‘No,’ he muttered, then looked up at that distant judge. ‘You cannot make me wait until he gets here!’

A metallic bang echoed distantly, and the other warbands looked about them. Never had Ias felt so naked out in the open, and yet unable to leave.

Those who thought that they might make allies of the Corvus Cabal by taking out the onrushing Iron Golems before they arrived made their fatal mistake. They surged out, and then the battle started in truth.

For a moment Ias was hopeful. Then the screams, cracking bone, crunching metal and above it all, the deafening roar of the Iron Golems’ dominar reached his ears. Other warbands hunkered down and departed, wisely staying out of whatever business this was.

Ias hopped in a nervous circle, the pain starting behind his eyes. With a sudden jerk, he signed to the others to prepare themselves. As they hid and scuttled through the broken terrain, Ias did not look to see what they did; he did not need to. After all this time, they would do as was best for the warband.

Fool! You failed to kill him. Now let’s see if you can keep your prize.

Govus appeared, his warband clustered about him in an iron knot. They were battered and bleeding, but their stride was steady as they moved in. Looming behind was the Breacher, casually pulping anyone who came close with gleeful bellows. Growling with every step, muscle bulging with fury, the Iron Golems’ dominar came forwards. His armour was scored, his skin ravaged with cuts and bites, but the brute seemed to feel none of it, like he was made of leather and iron.

Ias realised in that moment how much he hated fair fights.

Chapter Eleven

Syzek Govus could barely contain his fury as he laid eyes on the skulking Corvus leader. The others scuttled around the rocky terrain, some out in the open, others hiding amongst the boulders. For a battlefield, it was less than ideal. Fog thickened, the light from above garish and unnatural, tinting the mist like glass. And there were so many places for the assassins to hide. Still, the Corvus Cabal would have to stand and fight, instead of indulging their cowardice.

‘You thought that a war could stop me,’ he roared, veins standing out on his skin. ‘I create war, you thieving cretin!’

Ias flung the mace away from him. With a soft tone, the artefact righted itself and then hovered, head down over the earth, as if waiting for any fool to come claim it. Then Ias stretched, the matte metal blades on his hands and feet catching in the garish light.

‘I did,’ Ias said. ‘I thought that Khorne might claim you during your little fit.’

Syzek charged, roaring incoherently. His fury blew apart any kind of thought. His only desire was to crush the puny thief in front of him. Swinging wildly, he lashed out at his foe, warhammer whooshing. Elusive as smoke, the winged man sidestepped the crushing blows and then darted inside of his guard.

With cunning speed, Ias whipped his blades across Syzek’s torso. One hand sheared across his armoured belt, while the other sank into the warrior’s flank. Blood gushed, and Syzek stumbled. Feet pattered towards him and a war-pick flashed as another Cabalite snuck up on him from behind.

However, Syzek knew this trick now. He pivoted and slammed the pommel of his hammer into the feeble backstabber. The metal spike crunched bone, and feet skidded over the stone. Arm dangling, his collar bone crushed, the Cabalite scrambled back from him. Not fast enough.

Syzek brought the hammer down on the man’s leg. Bone and tendon gave way and the man shrieked.

‘Not so quick now, are you?’ Syzek growled.

Another blow staved in the man’s chest with an ugly crunch.

Syzek spun around, expecting to feel a blade sinking into his back. There was no one. Ias had bolted.

‘Coward,’ Syzek hissed, scanning the scrum for his foe. Every feathered Cabalite looked much like another.

Across the broken terrain, legionary and Cabalite traded blows, thieves hopping in and out, blades whipping at faces and hamstrings, the hardier legionaries waiting behind mace and shield, then striking with bone-crushing force. This time his warband had a better measure of their foes and did not let the bird-worshippers dictate the battle.

No other warbands joined in; rather they lingered and watched, waiting for some opportunity to present itself.

Krughar and Alon circled against a trio of blade-wielding cut-throats, all of them bloody and bruised. None of the Cabalites had delivered a blow without taking a hit in return. Crashing over the fight, the hammering of the war-seal sounded as Somnixes exhorted the others to greater feats of war.

Another Cabalite rushed at him, hooked war-pick flashing. Syzek met the blow with the haft of his hammer. He could not afford this distraction – where was Ias? Even as the Cabalite laid into him, Syzek looked around for the war-leader.

His obsessive distraction cost him.

The war-pick caught his gauntlet and pulled him off balance, twisting Syzek’s hammer hand off his weapon. A heavy bang crashed through the grille of his helm, stunning him. Light flashed across his vision. Pain punched through his face as the blade’s hook sank into his cheek. With a triumphant shriek, the Cabalite wrenched the blade free and raised it for another blow.

‘Worm,’ Syzek snarled as he steadied himself.

As the blow came down, Syzek lunged out with his free hand. He caught the man’s weapon arm and jerked him forwards with his own momentum, lifting him off his feet. Sprawling into the dirt, the Cabalite pulled against Syzek’s greater mass to no avail. With brute force, Syzek slammed a foot into the man’s back, pinning him to the earth.

Gripping his hammer tight, he slammed the heavy weapon like a piston onto the man’s head with all his strength. Once, twice.

Syzek spat out a gobbet of blood, breathing out of his mouth like a winded bull drevar. Coughing as the warm fluid ran down his throat from the injury in his face, he wrenched the ruined helm from his head and tossed it aside.

While the battle was going better than last time, that did not mean that it was going well.

A hopping, taunting Cabalite led the Breacher on a merry chase, flinging knives into the brute’s broad body. In turn, the ogor smashed his way about the battlefield in an effort to kill his tormentor, scattering individual fights and bashing aside rock in its blind rage.

The shadow piercer with his two-handed blade had leaped down from on high and crashed into Kamaxes, the great blade sheering through the warrior’s armour into his spine. Toppling, blood spitting from behind the grille of his helm, he died before he hit the ground. Shrieking, the shadow piercer then focused on Atoska. Atoska broke rank and ran after him, the shadow piercer’s limp impeding his charge.

‘Atoska, get back into formation now!’ Eziel said, even as she swiped at a spire stalker, keeping the skulking woman at bay.

Atoska almost seemed to ignore her, but then slipped back into formation with the scarred Ferron. A dark figure scuttled in the shadows near the heavy warrior. An ambush, narrowly avoided. Yet the shadow piercer was a threat. Then Ias appeared, hopping onto a rock out of reach of the melee, his blades dark with blood.

‘Irixes, target their war-leader,’ Syzek shouted, his voice grating.

Chain bola whirling, Irixes turned towards Ias. As he did, another Cabalite sidled out of the melee, a barbed spear in his hands. Roaring, Syzek charged the spear thrower even as he drew the spear back, the barbed head stained from previous victims.

Someone crashed into him from the side and a flash of pain struck his arm. As Syzek tumbled to the earth, the spear flew over him and slammed home into Irixes’ hip. With a pained grunt, Irixes loosed his bola, but it spun wide, ineffectually flicking the war-leader’s wing.

‘I will crush your skull!’ shouted Syzek, reaching out to throttle his attacker.

It was Eziel.

‘Stinking backstabbers!’ Eziel roared as she untangled herself from him.

Shouting curses, she leaped to her feet and charged off seemingly in a random direction.

‘Eziel, what are you doing?’ he said as he staggered back to his feet.

Then he saw what Eziel had seen. A small Cabalite skulking amongst the boulders, another hooked knife in her hand. She flinched as Eziel swung out with the flail-whip. The heavy spiked ball pulverised the rock, showering the Cabalite with dust.

‘I have this, Syzek,’ she said. ‘Go kill that thieving bastard.’

Growling, he turned towards the battle once more. Corpses lay strewn across the battlefield, each butchered legionary a loss Syzek could not afford. There was Galex, sprawled on the earth, there was Atoska, her breath gurgling. While the Legion had given more than they had taken, the Corvus Cabal were more numerous and could tolerate such losses.

The battle had scattered. Somewhere, Alon and the shadow piercer traded blows. Out in the gloom, the war-seal jangled. The bang of shields and scrape of blades rang around the battlefield. Yet Syzek could see no one.

When he found that wretched thief, Syzek would break him slowly. His grip tightened around his hammer as he imagined a neck in his hands. Then he stopped. Often the battlefield required patience, just as the forge did. The tempering of battle was painful. He needed patience.

This searching was useless. The coward Ias would always be able to evade him. Unless there was a way to draw him out, Syzek could chase the bird-worshipper for days and never catch him.

Syzek looked over at the Voidheart Mace, which hovered exactly where Ias had left it, the sands dancing below it like water in a pond.

He turned and coolly walked towards it.

A little distance from him, a crow fluttered down and landed on a rock.

As soon as he reached for the mace, the crow launched into the air and dived down at his unprotected face. The flapping bird stabbed at his eyes with a sharp hooked beak, gouging his skin. Syzek staggered, trying to back away from the bird.

Ias was there, perched on a boulder to Syzek’s right. The Cabalite war-leader flexed his claws, his black eyes gleaming. Every breath was measured and silent; not even the cloth hissed as he moved. A stalking zincat made more noise hunting.

Then he leaped off, his wings spread.

The blades on his feet flickered as he plunged down at Syzek like a hawk.

Syzek drew a ragged breath and spun around, the hammer leading in a long, whooshing arc. Ias recoiled, eyes wide in surprise. The blow swung low at Ias’ legs. With a sharp crack, Syzek sheared off the blades from Ias’ feet and the assassin tumbled gracelessly to the earth.

Scampering back like a spooked bird, Ias stared at Syzek. Then the Cabalite began to stalk him.

Syzek spat out another glob of blood, chest heaving. Sweat lathered him and a chill shivered through his body. Blood leaked from every cut, soaking the leather backing of his armour. The grinding ordeal had worn his flesh to the breaking point, and Ias knew it.

‘Can’t breathe, can you?’ Ias said, stalking around him.

‘Flesh is but a temporary curse,’ Syzek said. ‘Ignore its weakness. Trust in iron.’

‘Azen, that fat old man, said the same thing to me. He nearly died in his bed. Did you know that?’

Syzek lashed out, charging in, hammer leading. How dare this miserable thief wallow in his own dishonour.

Ias dodged underneath the swooping hammer and punched his claws into Syzek’s knee, crunching through the chain mail there. As Syzek spun around, he swung at the elusive figure but he hit only feathers.

Laboriously, Syzek began to circle, just to keep moving. Yet his gait was awkward and staggering, his knee flashing with agony. Ias hopped and danced about, that black crow mask disguising his intent.

By now, both knew just how dangerous the other was.

The crow familiar flew in a tight circle around them, cawing. Syzek realised that Ias was waiting while blood loss did his work for him. And as much as the tactic disgusted him, Syzek could not find any practical fault with it. It was just the same as starving out a fortification that would not fall by other means.

‘Tell me, what is your name?’ Ias asked.

‘What?’ Syzek said. ‘Shut up before I feed you cold iron.’

The bird-worshipper chuckled and shrugged, the feathered collar exaggerating the motion.

‘I am just curious,’ he replied. ‘The old man had no children. Not when I tried to kill him, anyway.’ He twitched, a strange little spasm. ‘So who are you really?’

The old inner wound, so raw and tortured, started to sting. It seemed his past would always be a weakness for others to attack. Syzek growled and took a step forwards.

Then he realised his only reward was likely another bloody cut somewhere. No, he would not play the assassin’s game.

‘I am Syzek Govus, and I create war,’ Syzek grated. ‘Where I come from has made me strong, my struggle has made me worthy. I am where I am because I earned it. I earned my name and rank. I wonder, did you earn your fate? I think you did, when you failed to kill an old man in his own bed.’

Ias convulsed, feathers shivering and skulls rattling. He jerked upright, his head cocking at an awkward angle. Almost as if something had gripped him by the scruff of the neck. Then he screamed, high and long, like a raptoryx on the attack.

Ias darted forwards and slashed at Syzek’s exposed face with a shriek. With what strength he had, Syzek blocked the blow with his hammer. The claws skittered off the metal-shod haft. Pressing the attack, Ias drove him backwards, his flickering blades seeking out Syzek’s flesh.

‘You are nothing!’ Ias hissed, striking again and again. ‘You came from nothing. I will not be mocked by a stupid brute like you.’

Syzek’s grip eroded under the onslaught, every strike jarring his chilled flesh. Flashes of pain burst across his naked skin, a slice here, a cut there. It was only a matter of time until Ias disarmed him. The assassin was peeling him apart.

‘I have murdered hundreds, thousands!’ Ias shrieked. ‘I have taken such treasures, such works. The works of gullible menials like yourself who think that they own anything!’

Where was the calm killer from a few moments ago? Ias’ movements were jerky and erratic, his attacks manic. And yet, Syzek could not see an opening in the frenzy.

Something collided with his head, flapping and clawing. Ias bolted inside his guard and slammed his blades into the tender underside of his forearm.

Syzek’s grip loosened.

He let his hammer fall.

And grabbed Ias’ outstretched wrist with all his strength, with his now-free hand. Bones ground underneath his grip. Wrenching the blades free of his flesh, Syzek jerked Ias towards him and slammed his forehead into Ias’ black mask. Avian bone cracked and Ias let out a croak. Lightning fast, Ias jammed his claws into the tender flesh above Syzek’s hip, twisting and cutting.

Syzek head-butted him again, the mask shattering, black bone flying.

The third blow to the head dropped the assassin onto his knees, his body drooping. Once more the crow drove in at Syzek’s face. Snarling in fury, Syzek held Ias away from him with a strong, stiff arm and snatched the squawking bird with his other hand. Muscles bunching, Syzek crushed the animal in his fist with a hideous crunch.

Ias shrieked in horror, claws scraping over Syzek’s gauntlet. With a wordless howl, Ias kicked him in his bloodied hip. Pain burst over Syzek, flashing up through his body. Syzek’s grip loosened and Ias squirmed free.

Ias scrambled away from him on all fours. Weaving on his feet like a drunk, he whimpered and chattered to himself, as if barely aware of what was happening around him. One arm twitched, the blades clinking together. Under the broken mask, his eyes rolled erratically in their sockets.

Wheezing, Syzek limped towards his foe.

Ias steadied, trembling on his feet like a newborn drevar.

‘I wanted to go home with a mighty gift,’ he slurred. ‘All I wanted was to please the Great Gatherer.’

Ias charged Syzek, claws leading, but his strength was gone. He had nothing left. And he knew it.

Syzek grabbed Ias’ head in both hands as the assassin feebly clawed at him. Then he twisted, and a dreadful crack echoed over the battlefield.

Then there was silence, save for the fearsome hum of the Voidheart.

Syzek let the body fall, a wreck of feathers and claws.

He felt empty. He had spent all his anger on the man, every last mote of battle focus. Only ash filled his heart. Maybe the bird-worshipper would go to his greedy deity. Or maybe his soul would go to the forge-fire and he would burn away to nothing. It was not Syzek’s place to say.

Syzek turned and bent over to pick up his warhammer from where he had dropped it. The motion was too much, and he dropped to his knees.

Was he dying as well? Slower, but dying all the same?

‘You look like dung,’ Eziel said.

He looked up at her.

She was battered, covered in cuts and bruises. One of her vambraces dangled from a broken strap and she limped. Yet she carried her bloodied flail-whip with sure hands, and her shoulders were straight.

‘I feel like it,’ he said, his voice ragged.

He tried to rise but his leg gave out, dropping him back into a kneeling position. Leaning on his hammer, he tried to stand but simply shuddered there, immobilised.

‘Dominar, get up,’ she said, her voice cold.

The voice of a drillmaster. And she was ordering him.

Fury rose in him like hot coals. The arrogance of the woman. He was dominar. He staggered but a coughing fit took him, and blood dripped from his lips.

‘Get up, dominar,’ she shouted. ‘Defend your work.’

He looked up. Another warband closed on them, attracted by the melee. Their eyes lingered covetously on the Voidheart Mace, their hands clenched on their weapons as they imagined the power it would give them.

‘By the forge-fire, you scum will not touch it,’ he choked out.

Slowly, agonisingly, he drove himself onto his feet. Every muscle screamed and shuddered but once he was standing, he felt a bit of strength return. Then he fixed his gaze on them, his eyes blazing.

‘I still have the strength to kill every one of you wretches,’ he growled.

For a moment, it looked like they might be brave. Then they slunk back.

Tumbling out of the mists, Alon smashed the shadow piercer to the ground with a savage strike and then rained down blows until the Cabalite stopped moving. After a few moments, Alon picked up the large two-handed war-pick and gave it a few experimental swings. Krughar shouted a joke at him, and Alon chuckled. Rumbling contentedly, the Breacher devoured the dead raw, but watched the newcomers with bottomless appetite. Somnixes appeared also, his war-seal spattered with blood. Ferron, Irixes and Atoska walked out of the mists.

Syzek slipped the warhammer into its straps on his back and gripped the Voidheart Mace. The grip flexed unwholesomely, its black aura flaring. His battered warband gathered around him, still strong and ready to fight. He turned and limped towards the two gates with the blind man sitting so high and arrogant on his perch.

‘I am Syzek Govus, son of Azen Govus,’ he bellowed. ‘And I have come with a mighty gift for the Iron Will who overcame the Four Instincts.’

‘I will be the judge of that,’ the man said, his voice amplified by some clever means.

‘There is only one that can judge me, and you are not he!’ Syzek roared back.

He brought the mace down on the hard earth and its might rippled out, shattering the rock in a great circle about him. It rattled outwards and rumbled into the walls. The two gates bowed and rattled.

For a long moment, no one moved. Then the man made a bitter yet conciliatory gesture.

The gates opened wide, revealing a broad, open yard within, and a thunderous roar boomed out from hundreds of throats. Slowly, the warband walked over the tongue into the dark shadow of the gate’s throat, the stone flexing like flesh. Then their feet hit solid ground, and they looked beyond.

A host waited for them, black-clad and mighty. The soldiers were huge, their armour thick and elaborate. Some rode horses and other steeds, armed with barbed spears. Banners rippled under the ghastly sky as thunder rumbled overhead.

‘Greetings, pups,’ a towering behemoth said, striding forwards, his black armour clanking.

Behind them, dim screams rang out, along with a vast gulping sound, like a leviathan swallowing prey. Syzek looked back and saw that the rock had smoothed over, as if there were no gate there at all. Then he glanced around, noting the hard, arrogant eyes and predatory grins. They were the sort of glances that the Breacher gave before he ate someone. They were not amongst friends.

Around him, the others bunched together, shields out.

The Voidheart hummed in Syzek’s hand and the behemoth grinned, revealing white pointed teeth.

‘An interesting trinket,’ the Chaos warrior said, even as his eyes lingered on it.

Syzek snarled, his grip tightening on the weapon.

‘I am Syzek Govus of the Golem’s Will, and I create war,’ he said.

The warrior’s smile broadened. ‘We’ll see, pup. We’ll see what you think war is.’

Syzek and the others stood amongst the smirking warriors, wary and tense. Gauntlets tightened on swords and spears, and mounts licked their chops.

‘As I told the old man,’ Syzek said, ‘there is only one who can judge me, and you are not he.’

The warrior’s face dropped into a snarling frown, but his eyes still lingered on the Voidheart Mace.

‘Welcome to the Varanspire,’ he said, his voice dark with malice. ‘Watch your backs, lest you find a dagger between your shoulder blades.’

Syzek walked past the behemoth and the others warily followed. The Golem’s Will could all feel the itch of murderous intent crawling over their skin as the warriors rumbled behind them. Ahead was an open door to the heart of the Varanspire.

Triumph mixed with disappointment. Perhaps he had been too idealistic, Syzek realised. He had thought that all that would exist under Archaon’s authority would be war, power. That there would be no petty rivalries and gossip, as human frailty would not be allowed to flourish.

Yet here they were.

Syzek shook his head. It did not matter. He would serve Archaon, and he would not allow rivals to impede him.

‘I always wanted to see the inside of this bastion,’ Eziel said. ‘But it is not what I expected.’

‘We are here in triumph,’ Syzek said. ‘Never forget that. Our greatest tests are ahead of us, and we who are of the Legion will overcome them.’

The Golem’s Will walked into the deep shadows of the Varanspire, unyielding and harsh as iron.

About the Author

Jamie Crisalli writes gritty melodrama and bloody combat. Fascinated with skulls, rivets and general gloominess, when she was introduced to the Warhammer universes, it was a natural fit. Her work for Black Library includes the short stories ‘Ties of Blood’ and ‘The Serpent’s Bargain’, and the forthcoming Age of Sigmar novella The Measure of Iron. She has accumulated a frightful amount of monsters, ordnance and tiny soldiery over the years, not to mention books and role-playing games. Currently, she lives with her husband in a land of endless grey drizzle.

An extract from ‘The Harrower’ by David Annandale,
from the Age of Sigmar anthology Warcry.

It was the same set of memories that came most often, and most forcefully. Memories of blood, of triumph and of purpose. Memories whose strength she needed.

Memories from before the Bloodwind Spoil. From before her ascension to the blessed state of Blissful One too, though her transformation and the journey she was called to were deeply entwined.

Memories of Shyish, and of the island of Tzlid. The island of loss and grief, and the island blessed by the Gods with the gift of pain.

The memories began with a hunt. Gravskein was still an Awakened One. She had sliced off her face, but she still had all of her limbs. She knew, though, that more change was coming, and soon. Her waking dreams were filled with whirling motion, a dance of murder and blades. The visions faded to shards when she returned to full awareness. They left her with impressions of herself suspended above the ground, filled with the light of agony and drenched in the blood of butchered enemies. And there was more. Looming over the hints of transformation, a lodestone at the centre of all her visions, calling to her, shackling her soul, was the tower.

Bulsurrus was leading the hunting party. He moved swiftly, leaping over obstacles with such grace that he seemed on the verge of taking flight. He and Gravskein had undergone their ritual flaying the same night, but he had rushed more swiftly towards transcendence. He was a Joyous One. Razor-edged chains hung from his shoulders, swaying viciously with every step. His arms were swords. He ran with them spread wide, eager to meet the world with his slashing embrace.

He took the patrol through the White Forest. The trees in this region of Tzlid were their own form of undeath. They were skeletons, the bark having long ago fallen away to reveal bones. The trunks were massive femurs, the largest looking as if they had come from the corpse of a dragon. The branches were strange clusters of arms, dozens of articulations sprouting smaller limbs until they ended in grey claws instead of leaves. They were dead, yet they grew ever larger. In the wind, they rattled like chattering teeth. Their claws drew blood from whatever brushed against them. The Unmade felt kinship with the trees, and Bulsurrus did not hesitate to burst through drooping tangles of branches, shredding his face with new wounds. The others followed his example. Blood flowed freely down Gravskein’s forehead and her arms, cooling quickly in the cold keening of the wind.

She kept up with Bulsurrus easily. They were drawing close to a Realmgate on the island’s southern shore, and her excitement was growing. A glow of presentiment spread like fire through her veins.

Bulsurrus must have seen the shine in her eyes. ‘You saw something during the night,’ he guessed.

Gravskein smiled, her fleshless remains of lips drawing back over her teeth.

‘What are we going to find?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Perhaps the quest has at last been fulfilled.’

‘No.’ Of this, she was sure. They would not find their comrades returning in triumph from the Eightpoints.

‘How do you know?’

‘They have not found the tower.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because their faith was not strong enough.’ It could not have been. If the latest band sent to find the Tower of Revels had been successful, the visions would not still be calling to her.

‘You still think you will be the one to find it,’ said Bulsurrus.

‘I know I will be.’

The Tower of Revels loomed large in the tales the Unmade told each other of the Flayed King. He who had once been King Vourneste had been changed along with his warriors in the realm beyond the gateway in the woods. He had returned with the gift of pain, and had transformed his people. He was long gone, though the hope that he would return one day and prove he had not been killed by Neferata lived on. And the stories of his deeds beyond the gateway were legion. They had grown in importance since the Unmade had learned of the Everchosen. The Flayed King had not returned, but there was another ruler out there, blessed by the Gods to command all the loyal subjects of Ruin.

It fell to the Unmade to prove their worth to the Everchosen. A sign that they must do so had come with the dreams of the Tower of Revels. In the tales, the Flayed King had found the tower in the realm beyond the gateway. The precise nature of the tower was vague. What was told was that it was a site of power, power so great and so attuned to the nature of the Unmade that the Gods could only have intended it for them. The Flayed King was going to lead his people back to the tower, so they might receive it as their gift from the Gods. But he had fallen before he could do so. Gravskein believed that it was treachery that had taken the Flayed King from the Unmade on that battlefield. She did not believe he could have failed. But he was gone, and so the Tower of Revels had become another chapter in the tragedy of her people. It was another kind of loss, another among so many. The Unmade embraced what they had become, yet what they had been lingered at the edges of their thoughts, transmuted into a remembrance of grief as ill-defined as it was sharp. The tower called to the Unmade through visions and lore with the force of that rarest of things – a promise. It was a gift that must be found, and its discovery was not an end in itself. It would be a proof of worthiness.

Gravskein would find it. She could accept no other purpose to her visions. It called, and she would answer. She would not die trying, as so many had before her. She would come to the tower. No other destiny was possible.

‘Have your visions told you what we will find today?’ Bulsurrus asked. They had fought side by side for years, and were held close by bonds of shared combat and shared pain. He did not experience visions, though. He treated Gravskein’s glimpses of fate with a mix of jealousy and scepticism.

Gravskein shook her head, refusing to be baited. She did not believe Bulsurrus was foolish enough to think the Gods spoke to her so directly, or about matters so beneath them. If the Unmade could not defend the gate without the intervention of the Gods, then they did not deserve ever to find the tower.

Gravskein heard the enemy force before she saw it. She heard the beat of horses’ hooves, and the tread of marching feet. Bulsurrus forged straight ahead, silent now, his flayed features set into a predatory snarl. Soon, the hunting party arrived at a vantage point overlooking the Realmgate. The terrain was hilly, and the gate stood at the foot of a slope, facing the end of a broken road that led out of the White Forest towards the western shore of Tzlid, and the channel that separated the island from the Screaming Wastes. Finger bones grew between the cracked, disintegrating paving stones. Most of the road had vanished beneath the soil, another fading memory of a dead civilisation. The path was still quite wide, and marked a clear way through the forest for mounted troops.

At the head of the foe, a vampire in resplendent crimson armour rode an obsidian stallion. Long, golden hair streamed from his head. His flesh was more pale than the trees. His features seemed carved from alabaster, their perfect symmetry and sharp lines making him, in Gravskein’s eyes, a living incarnation of pride.

Beside her, crouching behind the trunk of an undead tree, Skarask said, ‘He has never known enlightenment.’ Spittle dripped between his teeth. He was as eager as the rest of the band to visit revelation upon the blood knight’s face.

Behind the vampire marched an infantry composed of skeletons and corpses. Whether they had been summoned by this vampire or dispatched by a more powerful lord, Gravskein did not know. What was clear was their unthinking obedience. All were armoured, and though their plate was not as resplendent as the knight’s, it looked rich to Gravskein. Their shields and cuirasses were all engraved with the same insignia as the knight’s, depicting a fanged skull radiating rays of light.

A huge dire wolf paced alongside the stallion. Rotting flesh hung from its frame. Rib bones were exposed, yet its musculature, viscous and grey, was still powerfully corded. Its head swayed heavily from side to side as it sought the scent of prey. The Unmade were downwind of the beast.

‘They do not see us yet,’ Bulsurrus whispered.

‘There are many,’ said Skarask. There were three times as many undead as there were Unmade.

‘Does that trouble you?’ Gravskein asked.

‘Only that there are so few living to teach.’

Gravskein nodded. The dead that marched had left pain behind. They had forever lost their chance to know the true glory of the gift. ‘But there is still one,’ she said. The blood knight was not beyond pain. He was not beyond scarring.

Gravskein looked to Bulsurrus, awaiting his signal. He was the most transformed, and so the most enlightened, of the hunting party. He waited as the blood knight reached the dais of the Realmgate. The vampire turned his horse around slowly, scanning the wooded hills that embraced the gate on three sides.

He will see us, Gravskein realised. The vampire was gazing at his surroundings with something greater than mere sight. She looked again at Bulsurrus, and he nodded. He saw the danger too.

With the nod, the Unmade rushed out of concealment and charged, howling, down the hillside.

There was little art to their attack. Once, in the lost time, there would have been. Now, there was only the direct charge, the straight line to the prey and to the evangelism of pain.

The hunting party came down on the left flank of the undead, midway between the rear of the skeletons and corpses and zombies and the Realmgate. The blood knight saw them at once. He shouted, and with a thrust of his sword he commanded his troops to meet their attackers. The infantry ran forward, and they met the Unmade just before the base of the slope. Gravskein’s comrades had the advantage of speed and momentum, and they slashed into the blood knight’s troops.

Bulsurrus whirled once, his arms outstretched, decapitating the skeletons closing with him, and then he turned, flying over the ground in his ecstatic sprint to reach the vampire. Gravskein followed. She had a flail-headed chain in one hand, a sword in the other, and she whipped the chain into the corpses. She moved swiftly, only a few paces behind Bulsurrus. She had little interest in the things without pain. She would fight to hold them off, but they were not important.

Behind her, the rest of the band was not as fast, and plunged deeply into the struggle. Skeletons and zombies fell without a sound. Screams of rage and shouts of joyful agony reached her ears, though. Her comrades were dying too, but not without a final burst of blessed pain.

The blood knight charged, the dire wolf at his side. He made for Bulsurrus. The Joyous One leapt high to meet the vampire, attacking with the swiftness of the wind, but the vampire was faster. He batted Bulsurrus’ blades aside with a contemptuous blow of his sword, smashing the Unmade away. Bulsurrus landed hard, one leg twisting badly beneath him.

The dire wolf leapt at Gravskein before she could run to Bulsurrus’ aid. The massive beast flew through the air, a battering ram of fur and muscle. It slammed into her and brought her down, its paws crushing her chest with its weight. It snarled and opened its jaws wide. Hot, foetid breath washed over Gravskein, and she stared into the darkness of its maw and at its curved-dagger teeth. She jabbed up with her sword, and the wolf reared back, evading her blow. Released, she scrambled back, but the beast came at her again, its jaws gaping to tear out her midsection. She kicked at it, jerking its head away once, but the animal was bigger, stronger and faster than she was. She was doing nothing more than delaying its meal by a few seconds.

Then, with joy and exultation, she saw what she must do.

She kicked again, this time aiming for the maw itself. The jaws snapped shut on her leg. The dire wolf’s teeth came together, severing muscle and snapping bone in a single, monstrously powerful bite. The wolf sank its teeth deeper, pulverising her limb. The pain was enormous, consuming, glorious. It was, since the removal of her face, the greatest pain she had experienced.

The greatest gift.

The undead monster gazed at her with baleful triumph as it chewed, breaking more bone. It thought she was helpless, a fallen prey for it to devour as it saw fit. The wolf was mistaken. She was energised, transformed by the gift it had bestowed upon her. It did not understand the truth of its situation. She was not the one in a trap. She had caught the wolf with her leg. She held it with her sacrifice.

Gravskein jerked up, striking with chain and sword. The chain whipped around the wolf’s throat, tearing muscle apart as the flail smashed against the left side of its skull, caving in bone. Gravskein plunged her blade through the wolf’s right eye and into its brain. The beast’s body jerked violently, severing her leg completely below the knee. Frenzied with pain, she yanked the sword free and put out the beast’s other eye. The dire wolf howled, and the necromantic sorcery that held it together began to unravel. Gravskein hauled its head to the side with the chain, cutting deeper, and hacked with the sword until she decapitated the monster and it fell, stilled.

Her blood pumped in cataracts from her stump. The wolf’s fangs were rotten, its saliva poisonous, and the crimson that fell from her was already streaked with thick clots of black. The pain of the injury paled next to the fire, the devouring, putrid fire that coursed through her body. The injury the wolf had inflicted upon her was trying to kill her, but she embraced the agony with such fervour that she held death aside. She would not surrender to darkness while there was still a heartbeat’s worth of pain to experience.

She pushed herself away from the dire wolf and lunged up on her remaining leg. A few yards away, the blood knight was toying with Bulsurrus. The Joyous One was fast, squirming like an insect out of the way of each sword blow, but he could not rise to counter-attack. Gravskein saw the struggle through a haze of red and cracked silver. Her vision was narrowing. Her body was weakening quickly, but the wracking bliss carried her forward. The vampire had his back to her, and she hopped forward, a bleeding, savage grotesque of slaughter. The world grew slippery, falling away from her conscious grasp. The only solid thing in her vision was the blood knight. She lurched towards him, propelled by a vortex of agony. There was no conscious thought. There was action, every movement summoned as if by the dictates of fate. It was as though she were beyond choice, blissfully caught in a dance of death.

She was barely aware that she was raising her blade. She was aware of plunging it down, at the apex of a final lunge. She stabbed the vampire above his gorget, deep into the base of his skull. The blood knight froze mid-blow. A profound, paralysing shudder ran through his body from his spine down, rooting him to the spot.

The world faded still more. Blood poured from Gravskein, soaking her leg, the back of the vampire’s armour and the ground below. Held up by wings of pain, Gravskein clung to the blood knight and sawed with her blade. He moved again, jerking and stumbling in a doomed effort to throw her off. In the darkening world, Bulsurrus rose and thrust his arm-blades into the vampire’s eyes. Gravskein kept sawing, and somewhere in the thick darkness closing in on her, the battle was ending. Skeletons and vampires were falling as she severed their leader’s will. The surviving Unmade rushed around the vampire, bringing him down in a storm of blows.

Gravskein kept sawing even after the blood knight was on the ground. She sawed until his skull rolled free.

Her memories smeared after that. Someone bound her wounds and stopped the bleeding, though she did not know it was Skarask who had helped her until long afterwards. Oblivion tried to claim her, but she clung to her pain. She floated in it, welcoming it as her identity and her salvation, and it kept her alive as her comrades carried her back in triumph to the ruins inhabited by the Unmade.

‘You have done well,’ voices said, cutting through the haze to become part of her fever dreams. ‘You will be honoured.’

‘I am not done,’ she moaned. ‘I must look for the poison.’

She did not know what she meant, but the words burst from her with the force of prophecy.

She was tended to, though she could not remember that either. Her next clear memory came some time later. The pain of the wound was still extreme. The poison’s fever still burned through her. But she could see again, and as she sat up she found herself on an eroded altar stone at the centre of a ring of pillars. Once majestic, the columns were now grey, stained with moss, their tops broken off. They were stumps of fingers stabbing up into the night.

There were many other ruins beyond the ring of pillars. Everywhere, crumbling and half-buried, were the fading dreams of a once great civilisation. There had been majestic cities here. There were the stone ghosts of formal gardens, amphitheatres and palaces of learning. Before King Vourneste had become the Flayed King, Tzlid had been ruled by some of the greatest philosophers Shyish had ever seen. Then had come the final enlightenment. The Unmade had no use for the things that had been, but the vestigial memories of greatness lingered, an ill-defined and resented grief. They clung to the rubble of what was once their kingdom. They could not let go of what had become meaningless. Intimations of lost glory gnawed at their souls like a cancer.

Gravskein knew those griefs and phantasmal regrets as well as any of her fellows. Now, though, they had receded to insignificance. She was conscious only of a present glory, a present honour. She was surrounded by tall, hooded figures. All their limbs were blades. They were the Blissful Ones of Tzlid. They were the most transformed of the Unmade, the ones who had ascended the highest on the mountain of pain. If she was on this slab of pitted marble, at the centre of this group, it could only be for one reason.

The Blissful Ones were silent. Their faces were hidden. Above their heads, the skulls of the enemies who had brought them to this exalted state gazed with dark sockets upon Gravskein. One of the warriors advanced towards her. Between his arm-scythes, he held a new skull. It had been freshly skinned. Traces of blood still dripped from the naked bone.

The skull had sharp fangs. It was the head of the blood knight.

The Blissful One bowed, and set the skull on the end of the slab. Then he stepped back to rejoin the circle, and broke the silence at last. ‘We are the honoured of the Unmade. We are prepared to welcome you to our number. It falls to you to do what must be done. Prove yourself. Embrace the full dominion of pain.’

Gravskein’s sword lay beside her. She picked it up. She looked at her remaining leg, then at the Blissful Ones. ‘Let pain be mine,’ she said. ‘Let me belong to pain.’ She did not hesitate. With a scream of ecstasy, she brought the blade down, cutting deep below the knee. Her blood jetted into her face as she sawed through skin, muscle and veins. Bone shards flew. She raised the sword and brought it down hard again, breaking bones. She half-severed her leg before she passed out from blood loss and pain. She had done enough, though. She had committed herself, and embraced what had been offered. When next she woke, her hands were gone, replaced with the lethal curve of iron, and her temples throbbed with the ache of the bolts fixing the eight-pointed halo to her head.

The circle of the honoured was still around her. As she rose from the altar and stood for the first time, unsteadily at first, and then with growing wonder and certainty, on her new blades, they raised their arms and shouted.

‘Hail to the Flayed King!’ they cried. ‘Hail to the wonder of pain! Welcome, sister! Welcome, Child of Bliss!’

Overcome, ecstatic, she howled her joy. They surrounded her, reaching out with their hooked blades. They linked hers to theirs, and Gravskein passed from one new comrade to the other, until the long line of the Blissful Ones danced, weaving between the rings of the columns.

When the ceremony ended, and the dancers bowed to one another, she said, ‘I am, in the midst of my joy, humbled. I did not dream this honour could be mine.’

‘You earned the right of transformation through your actions at the Realmgate,’ the one who had led the ceremony told her. She recognised his voice now. It was Nazarg. ‘You were a great blade that cut deeply through the enemy. You are Gravskein the Harrower, and a warband is yours to lead.’

Gravskein’s heart swelled with hope. ‘To lead a search?’

Nazarg bowed his head. ‘Find the Tower of Revels, Harrower. The task is yours, now.’

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2019.
This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Stepan Alekseev.

The Measure of Iron © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. The Measure of Iron, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-78999-480-3

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