Contents

Cover

The Offering – Andy Clark

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Gloomspite’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

The Offering

Andy Clark

In the dark of Nost’rnight,

When all’s cold as a tomb

Then comes Grobbi Blackencap,

A-creeping from the gloom.

To ward him from thine hearth and home,

A price you have to pay

Or through the starless night he’ll steal,

And drag you all away.

Elder led his villagers through the forest gloom. They pushed laden barrows: barrels of salt-meat and shald-wine; glassware from Anvilspire traders; sacks of argentite nuggets. That last was their only real wealth, and not easily given away.

But the offering had to be made.

The path was muddy. Glintwyr roots poked through the soil, snagging wheels and feet. The trees’ silvery needles glimmered in the twilight, emitting metallic rasps in the breeze.

Elder heaved his barrow up a final rise and into the presence of the Offering Tree. Despite the chill, he snatched off his cloth cap and used it to mop his brow. One by one his companions joined him. All were younger, even old Martyn, but they were puffing and blowing too. He glanced at the darkening sky. Nost’rnight was almost upon them, when not a single star shone. They would be home safe before truedark, he promised himself.

Even then he wouldn’t feel safe until Hyshlight crept over the horizon the following dawn.

‘Never gets easier,’ he commented.

‘Never does,’ agreed Martyn, distracted. Like the rest, he couldn’t take his eyes from the Offering Tree. It hunched alone, as though the other trees had recoiled from it, and its bloated trunk was thick with fungi. It coiled skywards, branches outflung as though in supplication. The Offering Tree stank like an infected foot, the reek wafting from deep crevices in its bark.

Narry was last into the clearing. He was a scrawny lad just come of age, and he was sweaty and scowling.

‘What are we doing here?’ Narry’s demand shattered the deep arboreal quiet. They all cringed.

‘Keep your voice down!’ hissed old Martyn.

Narry was not to be dissuaded, though Elder noted the lad dropped to a hoarse whisper.

‘What are we doing here?’ he repeated.

‘You know,’ snapped Martyn.

‘I know we’re wasting produce, and we’re going to lie about it to the Anvilspire assayers,’ said Narry. ‘I know we’re giving this lot away to some local bandit for the sake of fae-tales and nursing rhymes.’

Elder reckoned the lad had rehearsed this speech. Narry perhaps expected amazement from them, dawning realisation and shame. Instead they glared. Narry’s jaw set, ready for an argument.

Won’t keep until we get home, Elder thought, resigned. Always the young’uns think they know better.

Elder raised a placating hand, then stepped close to Narry and laid it on the lad’s shoulder. He felt the tension there, a live wire under his hand. Narry was frightened, and angry with himself for it. He didn’t want to lose face. Problem was, if he weren’t careful, Narry’s youthful insecurities might be the death of them.

‘Listen to me, lad, because lives depend on it,’ said Elder. He pinned Narry’s roving gaze. ‘You listening?’

Narry nodded, the angry jerk of a youth’s disingenuous agreement. Did he plan to argue? Maybe slip away on the walk back, double back for his barrow or catch his imagined bandits in the act?

‘Sigmar knows I’d rather tell this tale anywhere but here. But you need to hear this.’

Narry didn’t speak, but he didn’t push Elder’s hand away either. The others drew closer, as though Elder’s voice were a fire to huddle around. Most had heard this story before, but he supposed anything was better than listening to the Offering Tree creaking.

‘There was one Nost’rnight when we didn’t make the offering,’ Elder began. ‘It’s not jumping ahead to say it didn’t go well…’

The carriage rattled along the dirt road. Within, Gustav Thatcher battled nausea. He felt hot and claustrophobic. Shoving his head out the window didn’t help, as then he was treated to the depressing sight of the glintwyr forests marching away into the rain.

Mud, trees and filthy peasants, he thought with weary disgust.

The long carriage ride hadn’t helped his hangover. Neither had passing through a Realmgate earlier that day. But who could blame him for a few nights’ drowning his sorrows?

Exiled.

He scowled. Gustav had always thought himself too cunning to be caught with his hand in the war coffers. His mistake.

He wasn’t a physical presence, and he knew deep down he lacked for charm. A loathed former acquaintance had once described him as the bastard child of a leech and a gyrferret. Yet Rahme Thatcher’s third son had a keen eye for financial wrangling and had long turned his skills to lining his pockets, and to destroying such fools for their slights. The thought lifted Gustav’s spirits, but the next hard jolt of the carriage dashed them anew. He leaned out and yelled at the coachman.

‘Are you aiming for the potholes, cretin?’

‘Sorry m’lord,’ the man’s voice floated back to him. ‘Road to the Anvilspire front ain’t in a good way.’

‘I thought this road was meant for Lord Sigmar’s armies?’ sneered Gustav.

‘T’is, m’lord. But there’s pyryke crystals in the soil. Engineers dig ’em out, but they just grow back.’

Gustav wondered whether the military funds he had embezzled had been earmarked for road maintenance.

Sigmar, have you such a sense of irony? You’d think exile from Azyrheim to some grubby Chamonite backwater would be punishment enough…

Gustav looked back down the road to where Captain Thorne rode at the head of his household guard. It was a grand title for ten weather-beaten Freeguilders riding somewhat aged-looking horses, but they were all his father had granted.

At least he managed to spare me the noose, thought Gustav. Then the carriage bounced again.

‘Captain Thorne,’ he barked. She set spurs to her steed, cantered up alongside the carriage.

‘Sir?’ Thorne enquired.

She was young for an officer, heavyset from easy Azyrheimer living. As always, though, Thorne’s jaw was set and her gaze keen; Larinda Thorne’s assignment to his guard was the only sign that his father cared whether his disgraced son lived or died.

‘If the inbred driving this carriage hits another pothole, shoot him.’

It was there and gone – the flicker of loathing in Thorne’s eyes. Gustav didn’t mind. He enjoyed exercising power over those who resented him.

‘Understood, Lord Thatcher,’ Thorne replied. She unholstered her coglock pistol and spurred her steed, drawing level with the coachman. Gustav settled back, smirking as he listened to the man bluster.

Soon be there, he thought.

In the end though, driving slower for fear of his life, it took the coachman another three hours to reach Breaker’s Vale. By the time they passed through the gates of the small mining town, Gustav was tempted by the hempen caress of the noose after all.

Gustav peered out at the muddy main street. The buildings were charmless slabs of metal and stone with a little wood worked into the more salubrious structures. Relative term, thought Gustav, wistfully picturing the magnificence of Azyrheim. In Breaker’s Vale, it seemed, a second storey was opulence indeed. He passed dwellings with smoking chimney holes and heavy shutters, a smithy, a local inn. Folk watched his carriage pass. Gustav saw careworn clothes and faces, unfriendly eyes that made him shrink back. He made a mental note to keep Thorne and her soldiers close.

The carriage rounded a bend, furnishing Gustav with a view out over the valley. More silver-leafed glintwyr trees marched away until they reached the towering cliffs, where lay the argentite mines.

The one good thing about this mess.

The bead-pushers of Azyrheim were cunning foes. But if a percentage of this little town’s output went astray before reaching the counting houses of Anvilspire? Gustav was certain no one out here would have the wit to notice. Argentite was a precious ore, and some alchemist or armourer in one of Sigmar’s cities would doubtless pay well for their own personal, unregulated supply.

A few years feathering my nest, then–

His musings were disturbed as the carriage halted. Muttering biliously, Gustav craned out to see the coachman clambering from his perch.

They had arrived.

He looked upon his new home. Beyond a drystone wall, the manse was a three-storey slab of stone with wooden sills and beams and a slate roof. A sodden excuse for a garden surrounded it. A stable stood off to one side.

Some nest, Gustav thought. He sighed and disembarked. Mud squelched underfoot. The coachman shielded Gustav with an umbrella as he passed through the manse’s outer gate and up the path to its steps. A handful of staff clustered there, sheltered by the stone portico. Gustav noted they were dressed little better than the peasants.

A young man with a thatch of black hair and earnest blue eyes stepped forward, clutching a rolled and sealed parchment scroll.

‘M’lord, my name is Saul. I’m the head of your household. These are your staff. I have written here a full account of the people and assets that accompany the manse as instructed by your honoured predecessor, may Sigmar rest him. We welcome you to your new home, and hope your journey was–’

‘The journey was abominable, and I need a piss,’ Gustav said, interrupting him. The young man blinked in shock but recovered quickly.

‘Of course, my lord is road-weary. Yeni, Dathyd, fetch his lordship’s things. Gethyn, show his lordship to his rooms. Evenmeal is cooking, m’lord, and–’

‘Have it brought to my rooms, the scroll too, then for Sigmar’s sake leave me alone.’

Gustav watched Saul deflate. Manservant’s garb and a few learned letters doesn’t make you any less a peasant, he thought, pushing past into Argent Hall’s dingy interior. Gustav heard Captain Thorne addressing Saul, something about stabling the horses. Matters below Gustav’s notice. He stared about at the rickety staircase, the faded portraits of former mayors, the statues of Sigmar and the beast-pelt rugs. It was parochial, trying to be something it wasn’t. Gustav sighed again, then followed a nervous maid to his chambers.

What a nest indeed…

Rain spattered the study windows. An ornate horologue ticked. Gustav’s quill scritched. The mayor of Breaker’s Vale hunched over his ledgers. It was rare that Gustav liked or trusted people. But ledgers? They confided in him, and they were biddable in a way no bribe could secure.

My only real friends… He snorted with bitter mirth. Saul, hovering at Gustav’s shoulder, misinterpreted the noise.

‘M’lord, do you–’

‘As usual, I do not,’ snapped Gustav.

‘Sorry, m’lord, I thought–’

‘How long have I been here, Saul?’ asked Gustav.

‘Three months and six days, m’lord.’

Gustav winced. It felt longer. He’d managed to shirk most of his duties thus far, letting the grubby little town run itself.

‘In that time, how often have I sought your opinion?’

Saul paused, no doubt reluctant to play his part in the demeaning rigmarole.

‘Never, m’lord.’

‘There’s a lesson there, Saul,’ Gustav sneered. ‘Now, as you’ve shattered my concentration you can fetch me a carafe of shald-wine. Can you manage that?’

Looking stricken, Saul bowed his way out of the study. Gustav smirked.

Fool.

He turned back to the ledger and ran his eyes along the next column of figures. It was the last before the bottom of the page, and he frowned to find that he had smudged its ink a little. Was that a four, or a seven? If the latter, then it put his calculations on the following page out of true. Gustav hissed with frustration, set his quill in its inkwell with a wet clink, and rubbed his tired eyes.

He stood and stretched. How long had he sat at his desk? Long enough for Saul to light the lanterns. Darkness had come earlier every day since Gustav’s arrival. Tonight would be Nost’rnight; the locals said it would be starless and utterly dark from dusk until dawn. Why, no one seemed to know, but it was local custom to bar gates, shutter windows and keep lanterns burning until the dawn.

Fear of local fae-tales, no doubt. Credulous twits.

Gustav believed in only one thing: wealth was power, and power freedom. He considered strolling downstairs to check on the vault.

My vault, he corrected himself. Already the stockpile within it was growing, fruits of his nefarious labours. He’d swindled traders with a smile. Assayers from Anvilspire had collected the taxes they believed due and remained none the wiser to his profits. On paper, Gustav hadn’t done anything wrong. Not so any but the keenest-eyed would spot it, anyway.

But then, he’d felt such confidence before, and the smudged figure he’d found rankled. It would need amending. His figures required double-checking. As he had learned to his cost, the slightest error, if left unchecked, was like a crack in a fortress’ foundations that could bring the entire edifice crashing down.

Suddenly uneasy, Gustav returned to his ledgers. He drew his quill with all the purpose of a warrior baring steel and prepared to strike through the offending error. Then he paused, quill point hovering above the page.

That is my writing, isn’t it?

Suspicion tightened his chest and drew his brows downward. Gustav cursed the wavering lamplight that made it hard to see clearly. He brought the page up to the light and peered at it. The tension clenched within him.

That is not my writing!

Someone had managed a passable imitation of his script, certainly, but not good enough. Perhaps conscious of their mistake, they had smudged the number just enough to obfuscate their error.

Or so they hoped. Instead they merely drew my notice! The thought flashed through his mind, triumphant, spiteful and afraid all at once. Hands shaking, Gustav flicked forward to the most recent accounts. He had planned to check these tomorrow, but now they had become the scene of a financial crime and he, in a reversal of fate, the investigator.

Gustav’s unease redoubled at what he saw. He scowled at the columns of numbers, trying to make them match. Here a one had been carefully transformed into a seven, there an eight rounded to become a zero. A flush of outrage crept up his neck. It was done with passable skill, he supposed, but had the culprit really thought Gustav so slapdash that he would not notice eventually? He paged back through the ledger. Now that he knew what to look for, he found further, earlier inconsistencies.

Well, you were sent here in disgrace, caught out doing just this to others, whispered a treacherous part of his mind as he did so. Is it any surprise that they’d take you for an amateur? A fool? And it seems you’ve lived down to their expectations until now.

The fact was that someone had been stealing from him for weeks, skimming a little here and a little there: alcohol; food; argentite; glyntwyr sap; strangest of all, glassware. Not enough to be obvious, but taken together it was enough of a haul to fill Gustav with shame and self-recrimination for not having noticed it sooner.

Even now you only noticed because of a mistake they made in haste.

But who could have done such a thing? Who had access to his ledgers when he was not present? Captain Thorne? He dismissed the notion at once; she was loyal to his family name if nothing else. She gained nothing from the Thatchers suffering further.

The staff then? Who amongst them would have the letters for this?

A memory surfaced then, of an earnest young man pushing a scroll at him upon the doorstep of the manse. I have written here a full account… I have written…

Gustav scattered a stack of papers and almost upended a lantern as he scrabbled in search of the scroll. There, at the bottom of the pile, the first document placed in his hands after his arrival at Breaker’s Vale.

Yes. The handwriting was a match, or close enough to leave him in no doubt. The scroll crumpled where he clutched it in his mounting wrath. Now his manservant’s over-attentiveness took on a new light.

Saul…

An hour later saw Gustav out in the rainy twilight, oiled cape about his shoulders, expression thunderous. Captain Thorne and five soldiers accompanied him, heading for a small warehouse on the town’s western edge.

Saul trailed in their wake. He’d given up the location of the thieves’ stockpile under threat of violence, but clearly still felt he could offer some justification for the theft. His face was the picture of earnest dismay.

‘M’lord, it’s Sigmar’s will,’ he wheedled.

‘You don’t need to be here, Lord Thatcher,’ said Captain Thorne. ‘We can deal with this.’

‘M’lord, please,’ repeated Saul.

Gustav wasn’t one to place himself in harm’s way, but tonight he was driven by indignation.

‘I am the rightful representative of Sigmar’s authority. As mayor I must deal with such matters personally.’

The words sounded good, but he suspected she caught their subtext. I want to watch these thieves suffer in person.

‘M’lord, you don’t understand! I wasn’t trying to do you ill, none of us were!’

Gustav rounded on Saul. Caught in a pool of lamplight from a nearby window, the rain-sodden manservant looked young and frightened.

‘I understand thieves need punishing,’ hissed Gustav. ‘Unless you wish to be amongst them, shut up and return to the manse.’

Gustav would punish Saul. The man had interfered with his ledgers! Worse, he had taken Gustav for a fool and made him feel like one to boot. Yet he was a competent manservant and it would take time to train his replacement. Retribution could wait; bullying Saul would do for now.

To Gustav’s surprise, Saul stood his ground.

‘M’lord, we’re not thieves. The offering has to be made.’

‘Offering?’ snapped Gustav. Beside him, Thorne cleared her throat.

‘Word travels fast in small towns, Lord Thatcher. If we don’t hurry, this man’s co-conspirators will escape.’

Gustav waved away her concerns. He was intrigued despite himself. ‘What do you mean “offering”, Saul?’

‘M’lord, it’s been Sigmar’s will since memory. One-tenth of everything the town makes in a turning, we load it into barrows and take it to the Offering Tree.’

‘Why?’ Gustav’s question dripped scorn.

‘It’s to keep Grobbi Blackencap away, m’lord,’ said Saul. He glanced into the lengthening shadows. Fear and hope warred on his face. ‘And m’lord, I’m sorry to make bold but time runs short. Nightfall’s coming. They would have set off already but…’ Saul trailed off.

‘What? Are they in hiding, hoping you’ll clarify things with the stupid outsider first? Or maybe the offering is not quite complete? They await a final delivery from you, stolen from my vault?’ Gustav’s voice had risen to an undignified screech. He didn’t care. Let them hear his anger. Let them run and hide.

Saul’s expression twisted in panic, though Gustav had an infuriating sense it owed more to the man’s need to make his offering, than to his mayor’s displeasure.

‘M’lord, we must!’

‘Must?’ asked Gustav, prodding Saul in the chest. ‘You must get back to the manse or I will have Captain Thorne shoot you. These soldiers must recover my goods, then secure them in my vault. The staff must have evenmeal prepared for my return or I will have them flogged!’

Saul opened his mouth, closed it again. Gustav wondered if the younger man would do something foolish. Then Saul’s shoulders slumped.

‘Yes, m’lord,’ he said, and the despair in his voice was enough to give Gustav pause. Saul turned and sloped off through the darkening streets.

‘Lord Thatcher…?’ Thorne’s question was implicit in her tone.

‘No, captain. Whatever bunkum these peasants believe, we will not be drawn into it. Understood?’

Again, that glint of dislike in Thorne’s eyes. Again, he enjoyed seeing her suppress it and obey.

‘Very good, Lord Thatcher,’ said the captain.

Another horologue sat on a shelf in the dining room. It cracked the stifling quiet with every tick. Gustav’s cutlery clinked and scraped as he ate. He could hear himself chewing. The sound made him feel self-conscious. That made him angry.

Angry, not anxious, he told himself. Absurd local superstitions. There will be a reckoning on the morrow!

When Thorne’s men had broken down the door to the warehouse, the captain’s fears had proved correct. There were signs that people had been there: smoke whisping from still-warm lanterns; a half-eaten hunk of bread sat on a stone windowsill; a back door hanging open, left unbolted in the rush of flight. Yet of the thieves themselves, no other sign remained but for Gustav’s stolen goods heaped in wheeled wooden barrows.

As though they were about to take them somewhere, dispose of them somehow. As though they were going to make their offering.

The villagers had been slamming shutters and barring doors as he returned to Argent Hall. He’d heard whispers, fearful oaths. They really believed he had cursed them. Gustav had half expected a mob to challenge him, try to wrest the barrows of goods away from Thorne’s Freeguilders. He’d hoped they would. The excuse to have his soldiers hurt someone would have been welcome.

Gustav speared a chunk of steak, chewed, forced himself to swallow. He pointedly ignored Saul, grey-faced and trembling nearby. Waiting on my pleasure, fearing the punishment I have planned for him.

He suspected the true source of Saul’s fear, but to entertain the man’s absurd beliefs would risk being infected by them. Gustav was a creature of logic. He knew the realms swarmed with danger. However, the war front was many miles from here and he knew the difference between real threats and those from fae-tales. No doubt Nost’rnight was a risky time. Complete darkness hid all manner of criminality. That was why he had set Captain Thorne and her soldiers to patrol the grounds. One didn’t require Grobbi Blackencap to feel imperilled upon a starless night in the wilderness.

He chewed, swallowed, and felt the tightness in his throat ease as the power of logic banished the fear of the unknown. Gustav shook his head, though whether at himself or the locals he didn’t know.

‘Saul, where are the staff?’

‘Still here, m’lord, as you commanded.’ Saul sounded sick with worry.

‘But why stay if it’s so dangerous?’

‘Duty, m’lord, and because they fear your soldiers,’ replied Saul, sounding bitter.

‘I thought they’d scurry off to hide in their hovels, and hang the consequences,’ said Gustav airily. He held his fork like a wizard’s wand, waving it over dishes and salvers while debating what to eat next.

‘It’s too late. It’s dark. They’ll be coming.’

Gustav set down his fork with a click, irritated and unsettled all over again. Defying the feelings, he plucked the lid from a dish of a local milk pudding, dipped a spoon into the off-white mixture. Propriety and superstition can both be damned, he thought and popped the spoon into his mouth.

The taste hit him, sour and acrid. His throat clenched. Saliva flooded through his teeth. Gustav spat out the pudding with a grunt of revulsion. His eyes widened as he saw something squirm in the spattered mess.

That was in my mouth!

Gustav rounded on Saul. Before he could speak there came the muffled clang of the town’s alarm bell.

‘Sigmar save us,’ moaned Saul.

Gustav’s anger fed on his fear like fire devouring tinder. He lurched to his feet, knocking over his chair. The crash made Saul jump.

‘Enough!’ shouted Gustav. ‘It is just a dark night! I shall fetch Captain Thorne, and whichever drunkard is tolling that bell I am going to have her behead them on the spot! Then I’m coming back here to find out who tried to poison my food!’

Saul stared at him. Gustav only resisted the urge to strike the man because he had no idea how to swing a proper punch. He could do without breaking his hand on top of everything else. Spitting to rid himself of the foul taste, Gustav stalked from the room.

He met Thorne in the entrance hall, coming the other way.

‘Lord Thatcher, we should get you somewhere safe,’ she said. Gustav scowled. She was taking the threat seriously, and that rattled him. Could there be something to the locals’ claims?

Hammer and damnation, no! If I must be the only rational man in this fools’ asylum, so be it!

‘Captain, there is no threat beyond that idiot tolling the bell and panicking people. Come, we’re going to make them stop.’

Thorne looked as though she would argue. Then she nodded and followed him out into the night. Three Freeguilders waited outside, each holding a lit torch. Gustav balked at the darkness beyond and had to suppress a shudder. It really was very dark out there. The town was just a suggestion of angles, limned here and there by light escaping through barred shutters. The sky was a black absence that left Gustav feeling disoriented. He was tempted to retire indoors and let Thorne go without him.

No, he told himself. Give in now and everyone will know. These animals must learn their place, or they’ll disobey forever. You’ll never amass the wealth you need to get home.

His sudden longing for the well-lit streets of Azyrheim was a physical pain. It goaded him to action.

‘Come on,’ he snapped. The guards formed up around him as he stalked into the night. At least the rain had stopped, he thought as he splashed through muddy puddles.

They had barely got a hundred yards from the manse’s gate when a figure burst from the darkness and crashed headlong into one of the Freeguilders. The soldier went down, entangled with their assailant. His torch hit the mud and sputtered out. There was the ring of drawn steel, a flurry of cries.

‘Stay your blade, it’s a local!’ barked Thorne. Gustav stared as the man, muddy and bulge-eyed with terror, fought to regain his feet.

‘What in Sigmar’s name are you doing?’ demanded Gustav. The villager seemed not to hear him. Emitting a desperate whine, the man lunged away into the dark. He left Thorne’s soldiers cursing in his wake.

That was when the wind hit them, an icy draught that stank of infected wounds and mouldy food. The taste of spoiled milk surged powerfully at the back of Gustav’s throat. He gagged.

Whinnying and cries came from the manse grounds, accompanied by a violent banging.

‘The horses,’ barked Thorne.

‘What’s got into them?’ asked a Freeguilder. Gustav realised the banging was the sound of the horses trying to kick their way out of their stalls.

There came the crash of broken wood from the opposite direction. The next thing Gustav knew, squealing pigs were surging around him. The beasts jostled, ploughing mindlessly ahead. One slammed into Gustav’s legs and he fell.

Captain Thorne heaved him upright as the pigs stampeded away into the gloom. Gustav gasped and scraped mud from himself. The cold wind still blew, and now as he drew it into his lungs it made him choke. Gustav’s throat burned. His eyes teared and itched.

‘What…?’ he started to say, then coughed violently. The Freeguilders choked. Their faces looked puffy in the drag of the torchlight.

‘Something in the air,’ rasped Thorne. Gustav saw it too, now: the wind blew thick with fine particles.

Dust?

His skin crawled as though he’d been draped in cobwebs. His breath rattled in his lungs. He sneezed violently.

Spores! he realised, pulling the neck of his tunic over his nose and mouth.

‘We need to get… back…’ Thorne’s words devolved into retching coughs. Trying not to breathe, Gustav fled for the manse and his soldiers followed. Some detached part of Gustav’s mind noticed the bell had stopped clanging. In its place came different sounds.

Shrieks of fear and pain, rising across the village. Choking. Wheezing. The mad cries of terrified animals. From the direction of the town gates, a loud and repetitive booming.

Something big hitting the gates? Gustav thought with a thrill of fear. Something trying to get in.

One of the Freeguilders gave an awful wheeze and clutched at his throat. Gustav recoiled as nodules sprouted across the man’s face, billowing swiftly into pale orbs. The soldier toppled. The torch spilled from his hands. By its last fitful flickers, Gustav saw the man convulsing.

Puffballs, his mind gibbered. Those were puffball mushrooms bursting out of that man’s skin… He breathed the same spores I did… My skin itches and my throat is burning and Sigmar please take pity, don’t let that happen to me!

The manse drew closer, an island of light amidst the darkness. What had seemed barely any distance walked one way now felt like many miles fled the other. He ran as fast as he could with the air curdled in his lungs. A scream rose somewhere, high and despairing. There came a crash of shutters breaking. As he dashed past an alley, Gustav saw something move, something whose eyes glinted malevolent red beneath a black cowl. Its spiteful chuckle chased him down the street.

Another large shape surged from the shadows. It was a Freeguilder horse, mad-eyed with panic. Two creatures clung to it, swathed in black robes. He caught a flash of red eyes, pallid green skin, wicked fangs. Then the steed charged on, blood spattering in its wake.

Gustav lunged through the manse gates. He slipped on the muddy path, coughed, regained his footing, and pelted up the stone steps.

The doors were shut.

Panic smothered him. Gustav clawed at the polished wood with one hand, pressing tunic cloth against his mouth with the other. From the direction of the town gate there came a rending crash, then a bestial roar so loud it froze the blood in his veins. Gustav’s strength deserted him. His legs turned to water. He slumped against the door.

I’m going to die…

Captain Thorne hammered her sword pommel against the doors.

‘Open up or by Sigmar I will beat this door down!’

Her voice was a wet rasp, yet it did the trick. Relief flooded Gustav as the door swung open. Lamplight spilled out. He registered frightened faces: maids, the cook, Saul. Behind them were two more of Thorne’s Freeguilders, their pistols pointed at the serving staff, expressions stricken.

Gustav fell through the door. He crawled along the rug then vomited a stream of foamy matter. Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. His gut, chest and throat, all heaving, forcing the foulness from his body. Gustav panicked as he saw blood and pale, rubbery clots in his vomit.

I’m going to puke myself to death right here, oh Sigmar I’m not ready… there’s so much… please…

At last, the flow ceased. He choked, spat, dragged in ragged breaths. His thoughts regained some coherence. Gustav swiped at his watering eyes and recoiled from the stinking slick of bile.

Only now did he register that the door still hung open. Fresh panic jolted him. What had the fools been doing while he emptied himself onto the hall floor?

He saw two Freeguilders, slumped against toppled furniture, their skin thick with puffballs and their chests slicked with bloody vomit. The cook and another soldier lay on their backs, stubby black arrows rising like obscene flagpoles from their bodies.

The remaining soldier struggled in the doorway, dragged to his knees by cackling creatures in ragged black robes. Their blades rose and fell. Perhaps he had tried to swing the door shut?

Captain Thorne was on hands and knees nearby, as vomit-spattered and bewildered as Gustav. The maids fled screaming into the house.

‘What…’ Gustav coughed, trying to scramble into the dining hall. ‘What…’

He was hauled to his feet. He stared blearily into Saul’s hard expression.

‘We weren’t thieves, we were trying to protect the town! If I save you now, you’ll tell them that’s what we tried to do. No punishments for any that survive.’

It was more threat than question, but Gustav nodded. In that moment he would have agreed to anything if it meant escape. Did the lad have a steed ready? A secret way out, perhaps?

‘Swear it?’

‘I swear,’ he blurted. Didn’t this idiot realise the danger they were in?

Seemingly satisfied, Saul pulled Gustav’s arm about his shoulders and supported him into the dining room. From behind them came Thorne’s hoarse shout.

‘In Sigmar’s name, get back to the netherworld that spawned you, filth!’ Her pistol boomed. Something shrieked. Something else roared, a blast of sound that made Gustav yelp.

‘Oh Sigmar… oh Sigmar…’ – he couldn’t stop repeating it. They limped past the dining table and he felt his gorge rise again as he saw all the food was now putrid. Pale worms squirmed through it. Many-legged things with waving antennae scuttled across the tablecloth.

‘The vault,’ said Saul, hauling him mercilessly onward. ‘We’ll hide in the vault, m’lord. They can’t get in there.’

Gustav wasn’t sure. Hadn’t Saul heard the booming and roaring? Yet terror lent him the strength to keep moving.

As the two of them spilled into the back hallway, Gustav had another horrible thought. The vault wasn’t large. He had been irked by its limited dimensions when he had first inspected it, back before this nightmare. Gustav was no Ironweld guildsman, but he’d been taught a little of the sciences.

How well sealed is it? What if our air runs out?

They were before the vault door now, foot-thick argentium set with a clever cogwork tumbler-lock. A portal to safety, and only he knew its combination.

‘M’lord?’ Saul prompted. He shot a glance back down the hall.

Gustav set his fingers to the mechanism. Bleary-eyed he turned the first tumbler, searching for the right number. One turn… two… then back… there! The mechanism clunked. One down, two to go. From behind came a bowel-loosening roar and the crash of the dining table being upended.

‘M’lord, hurry!’ urged Saul.

He worked the next tumbler, then the last one. The locking mechanism whirred. Triumph! Gustav mashed the tumblers to misalign them then hauled the metal door just wide enough to slip through. Saul shot another terrified look down the hallway. Gustav paused, halfway into the darkness beyond the door. He knew he should save his young manservant, who in fairness had saved him first. Regardless of Saul’s crimes, surely they weren’t enough to condemn him to whatever horrible fate drew near?

The image swam before Gustav’s eyes again of the smudged figures in his ledger. He thought about how Saul had taken him for a fool. If the manservant had been so deep into the ledger’s numbers then he must have been aware of Gustav’s own embezzlements? He was the only witness to these fresh crimes, for which there would be no clemency a second time.

That decided it. Hardening his heart, Gustav Thatcher gave the door a hard shove. He caught a last glimpse of Saul’s appalled expression, and then it slammed shut.

Two people breathe twice the air, he thought. And I don’t make deals with peasants.

Gustav staggered backwards. In pitch darkness, he bumped into something hard. One of the offering barrows, still full of argentite nuggets. The feel of them calmed him. He took a shuddering breath. There was no light, but the vault didn’t require a code to be opened from within. A simple tug of a handle and he would be released. He could find that easily enough, even sightless. But not until I must, he thought. Let the monsters run riot. Let them murder everybody for all he cared. The local superstitions claimed the creatures would be gone with the dawn and if they’d been right so far, hopefully they were right about that too. A spark of courage reignited in his chest.

Tomorrow morning… emerge… grab what valuables I can, a beast of burden if any survived. Sigmar, there’s barrows if not. And a pistol. Need one of those. Then… what… trek to Anvilspire? Back to the Realmgate? What if…

Gustav’s plans flew apart as something roared outside. Even muffled, the sound was terrifying. A dolorous blow rang the vault door like a bell. Gustav recoiled.

Another roar. Another blow.

The vault door held.

Moments slid by.

Can’t beat your way through that much argentium, can you? Good luck getting in here! Steeling his courage, Gustav crept to the door. He had to listen, had to know if they were gone. He pressed his ear to the metal and heard a muffled voice. He frowned, realising it was Saul’s. He couldn’t make out words, but the tone was pleading, terror-stricken.

Stupid peasant, thought Gustav, guilt curdling to venom at the back of his throat. Better to get it over with quickly.

But the manservant kept talking. That unsettled Gustav deeply. Why hadn’t the creatures killed him yet? Gustav didn’t want to listen, but he couldn’t seem to drag his ear away from the door. His frown deepened as he heard another voice, guttural and shrill. Was it… replying?

Saul spoke. Then silence, but for Gustav’s breathing, his heart thudding. What was going on out there?

A sudden clatter right by Gustav’s ear made him recoil. A tumbler, turning. The creatures were turning the tumblers!

How do they know to do that? Doesn’t matter, they won’t guess the code! They can’t!

Click.

The first tumbler unlocked. Gustav whined and backed away. He tripped and fell hard, banging his head on a barrow. His heart galloped. He was trapped and somehow, somehow the creatures knew the code. Unless…

Cold certainty stole over him. Saul had lived in Argent Hall longer than him. Saul had served the last mayor, who could have shown him how the vault’s mechanism worked. Saul had been in his ledgers, altering things. Reading things. Things like the vault code.

Why did I write it down? he thought. But of course, he already knew. Gustav kept meticulous ledgers. He was not a man who would risk the indignity of forgetting his own vault code. Nor was he a man who thought enough of his peasant servants to assume any of them could pick apart the simple cypher he had used to obfuscate the numbers.

He tried to struggle upright, but pain lanced through his neck. Gustav wheezed in terror as the door mechanism whirred. Slowly, so slowly, the vault door creaked open. A poisonous green light spilled through, blinding him. Short, black-cowled figures crept towards him. Gustav cried out as a huge lumpy arm stretched over the slinking creatures, encrusted with fungi and rock-like deposits. Thick fingers enfolded his body. Another stab of pain as he was hefted bonelessly out of the vault.

The last thing Gustav saw before consciousness fled was Saul, pressed up against the wall, his expression an unreadable mask.

‘And that is what happens if we don’t make our offering,’ said Elder. The villagers blew out breaths and shaky oaths. The Offering Tree loomed over them, seeming more monstrous than ever in the wake of Elder’s tale.

Narry was cowed. Still, he managed a question.

‘How d’you know all that?’

‘I’m the Elder of Breaker’s Vale, ever since we stopped havin’ mayors. It’s my job to know all that,’ Elder said. ‘Now, it’s getting dark and we need to be gone. You going to cause trouble?’

Narry shook his head vehemently. He might have more questions, but the story had done its job.

Abandoning their barrows, Elder’s party hastened from the clearing and back down the hill. The lights of Breaker’s Vale glimmered in the distance, calling them home.

Elder was last to leave. He cast a look into the gloom beneath the trees and fancied he saw dark shapes moving, the glint of blood-red eyes. Truth was, Elder had embellished his tale a little, filled in the blanks about how Gustav Thatcher had thought. It had been long ago, and time was a bleary window. Perhaps he’d been unfair to the man. But then, Thatcher hadn’t listened. He had refused to make the offering. Grobbi Blackencap had come to take it and levelled half of Breaker’s Vale in the process.

Besides, that bastard locked me out of his vault to die…

‘Ah well,’ said Elder to himself, turning his back on the things that crept through the shadows. ‘The offering has to be made.’ With that he set off down the slope, back to safety and to light.

About the Author

Andy Clark has written the Warhammer 40,000 novels Fist of the Imperium, Kingsblade, Knightsblade and Shroud of Night, as well as the novella Crusade and the short story ‘Whiteout’. He has also written the novels Gloomspite and Blacktalon: First Mark for Warhammer Age of Sigmar, and the Warhammer Quest Silver Tower novella Labyrinth of the Lost. Andy works as a background writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

An extract from Gloomspite.

Tobias Kench stepped from the tavern door into the cobbled street beyond. He wiped the blood from his knuckles and took a deep breath of cool evening air.

‘That’s better,’ he sighed, rolling his shoulders. The Wayward King rose at his back. The tavern was a slab-like architectural pile that looked as though it had been carelessly discarded rather than built. Its bottleglass windows were webbed with cracks, its heavy roof slates had begun to erode, and the rain-proofing was peeling down its frontage where the landlord had been remiss in his duties of care.

Tobias wouldn’t have drunk in this dive if his life depended on it. He wouldn’t have drunk anywhere in the Pipers’ District, come to think of it. But the Wayward King was always good for working out the stresses of a bad day. It had got so that the regulars knew to get very quiet and attend their flagons of rotgut when Tobias walked in, but there was always someone who didn’t know better: docksnipes off the barges that came upriver from Hammerhal Aqsha, spending their ingots before they’d earned them; a local piper who’d scraped together enough dust to drink their resentment away in the cheapest dive in town while cursing their betters for their own misfortunes; ne’er-do-wells making sure to celebrate their latest score a safe distance from any who would place their faces. Some days it was just outsiders that he judged to be lacking in piety, or those Tobias suspected had turned from Sigmar’s light.

Tobias would never take his fists to good, God-King-fearing folk. He would have been horrified at the thought. But the Wayward King never let him down.

‘Such impious souls always stray when the daemon drink takes them,’ he muttered to himself as he readjusted his watchman’s cloak and took a moment to work the sparker of his lantern. It stubbornly failed to fire, reminding Tobias that he had meant to hand it in for repair and draw a replacement from stores. Evening was drawing in and the shadows of the volcanic mountains flowed along Draconium’s streets like ink, pooling between the city’s tall, slate-roofed buildings. ‘I am merely preempting their transgressions, reminding them that Sigmar is always watching.’

Behind him, the tavern was quiet, as it always was after he left. It would become rowdy again soon enough. They’d light the lanterns, mop up the blood and carry on as though he’d never been there. Tobias, meanwhile, would continue his watch.

Ever was the pious man’s burden thus.

Lightning blossomed high overhead, drawing Tobias’ gaze to the sky. Up there, amidst the jagged peaks and rumbling calderas of the Redspine Range, storms brewed and broke with ferocious speed. The storm’s wrath was a sign that Sigmar watched over them all, thought Tobias, as arcing bolts were drawn from the sky to strike the metal prayer rods of the shrines that dotted the mountainsides. He wondered if any pilgrims were up there now, knelt upon narrow ledges of stone, their rapturous expressions illuminated by the arc and flare of one lightning strike after another. If so, there’d be bodies to bring down by morning, those who had passed into the realm of the dead and whose charred mortal remains were no longer required.

‘Not my task,’ Tobias told himself. ‘Not for many years now.’ Pilgrim retrieval was a duty given to the watchmen fourth class, and these days Tobias was second class. He touched a fingertip to the silver clasp, inscribed with Sigmar’s hammer, which held his cloak in place and denoted his rank. A habit, ever since Iyenna had left him to the affections of what she described as his twin mistresses – his job and his religion.

As it always did, the thought of Iyenna soured Tobias’ mood. He squared his shoulders and set off down the street. His normal patrol route took him from here through the fringes of Docksflow before he doubled back west to reach the factories and workshops of Forges, before angling back uphill through the more affluent streets of High Drake and thence to the watch blockhouse atop Gallowhill. It would only be a short detour, however, to angle through the dive streets of the Slump. Tobias was sure he would find more impious souls to punish down there.

The watchman had taken only a few steps before a subtle movement caught his eye. Shadows shifted in the alleyway beside the Wayward King. Between a broken crate and a heap of burlap sacks, something moved. There was a scratching sound. Tobias frowned, shifting his grip on his halberd and pacing closer to the alley. Vagrants and fengh addicts were a constant problem in Draconium. Life was hard in the realms beyond the heavens, Tobias could attest to that, but he would never understand how desperate someone must have to be to lean on the rotted crutch of drugs.

His scowl became a smile as his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he made out glinting yellow eyes and a long, waving tail.

‘Hah, Saint Klaus, you old rogue. Where have you been? It’s been weeks, I thought the God-King might have taken you up for reforging!’

Tobias sank to his haunches and held out a hand. The cat padded from the alleyway, its gaze switching hopefully between his gloved hand and his smiling face. It shoved its head against his fingers, an insistent nudge that elicited a chuckle from Tobias. He scratched the cat’s ears.

‘Still no owner, lad?’ asked Tobias. Klaus purred, danced back from his hand for a moment then wound under it again with his tail twitching. ‘Oh, very well.’ Tobias’ smile broadened, and he reached into a pouch at his belt for a strip of dried saltfish. Klaus snatched the food from his hand, and Tobias watched with pleasure as the cat chewed and swallowed, then looked expectantly at him again.

‘One of these days, I’m going to carry you back to the blockhouse and we’ll take you on as a mascot.’ Tobias reached for a second piece of fish but paused as a fresh volley of lightning broke high overhead. In its strobing glare, the alleyway behind Klaus was momentarily illuminated and Tobias saw something strange.

The watchman’s frown returned, and he rose, trying again to light his lantern. It sparked and died, sparked and died, then at last sputtered fitfully into life. Klaus meowed a question, but Tobias ignored him, brow furrowed as he raised the lantern and played its beam along the alley. There. Halfway along, at the darkest point where buildings loomed high overhead, Tobias saw a deeper darkness surrounded by lumpy shapes.

‘Klaus, old boy, I think you may make a watchman yet,’ murmured Tobias. ‘My cloak if that’s not a tunnel of some sort, dug right in under the Wayward King.’

Thoughts full of smugglers and thieves, Tobias opened the clasps on the haft of his watchman’s halberd and affixed his lantern beneath its blade. A twist of the mechanism and the clasps snapped shut, securing his lantern so that, when his halberd was lowered and pointed blade-first ahead of him, its light would shine out to light his way and blind potential miscreants. Tobias always thought of it as Sigmar’s light, an inescapable glare that transfixed wrong-doers and aided the God-King’s rightful servants.

Stepping carefully past Klaus, Tobias advanced into the alleyway. Lightning cracked on high, whitewashing the walls and floor then plunging them back into shadow. To Tobias’ right rose the flank of the Wayward King, all crumbling stone and a couple of small, dirty windows high up. To his left hunched a tenement, one of many built to house dock workers, and Tobias noted that the only windows on this side of the building were long-ago broken and boarded. It was a good spot for secretive deeds; no eyes upon it at all.

None but his and Sigmar’s.

In the beam of his lantern the dim suggestion of shapes resolved into something clear and, to Tobias’ mind, incriminating. A hole had been dug here, right into the foundations of the Wayward King. It was surrounded by rough heaps of spoil, dirt and old broken cobbles piled a foot deep on the alley floor.

Sloppy work. Professionals would have removed the debris to avoid attention being drawn to their efforts. And surely pointless, he reflected with puzzlement. The hatch that led to the tavern’s beer cellar was around the back of the building, in Drover’s Lane; he knew from experience that its lock had been broken and repaired so many times that a good kick was all it took to snap it off and gain access below. So why go to the trouble of digging a hole?

He paced closer, lantern beam swaying with his footsteps. Tobias’ body radiated tension. He was ready at any moment for some malcontent to spring from the pit, cudgel swinging.

Nothing moved but him.

Lightning flashed again as he reached the lip of the hole and saw that, sure enough, it led straight down into the tavern’s cellar. Or rather, he realised as he stared at it, it had been dug up and out of the cellar. The way the soil had been pushed up and heaped around left him in no doubt of that fact. Tobias’ frown deepened. He sank down on his haunches, playing the beam of his lantern around the edges of the pit.

‘This was dug with… claws? Burrowed by something?’ He glanced back and saw that Klaus had followed him a short way down the alley, but that the cat had now stopped, wide eyed and watchful, some way back. Klaus’ tail twitched with agitation. His fur bristled.

Something was awry here, and Tobias aimed to find out what. If some vermin or beast had been allowed to make its lair in the cellar of the Wayward King then his next visit wouldn’t be the usual social call, but an official inspection that would undoubtedly end in the negligent owner’s business being shut down. Tobias felt a momentary pang of regret that his visits would have to end. It was eclipsed by the greater surge of pious satisfaction at the thought of doing his duty to Sigmar.

‘Nothing for it, lad,’ he said, setting off for Drover’s Lane. ‘That lock’s getting broken again.’

A few moments and one swift kick later, and Tobias was treading carefully down into the darkened cellar of the Wayward King. He pointed his halberd ahead of him, its lantern light flickering as he played it across stacked kegs and boxes of foodstuffs.

‘City watch,’ he said in a loud, clear voice as he advanced. ‘If anyone is here, step out into the light now or it will go worse for you.’

He paused at the bottom of the steps, waiting, but nothing moved. Tobias had been half-ready for some belligerent duardin smuggler or worshipper of the Dark Gods to burst out and assail him. If he was honest with himself, he had rather hoped for it.

It was cold here, the district being too poor to benefit from Draconium’s thermal heating-pipe network. Ironic, he thought; they toiled to build and maintain the system that drew volcanic heat up through the pipehouse and funnelled it to the richer regions of the city, but they had not earned the right to benefit from it themselves.

From above, Tobias could hear a muffled din of rowdy conversation, singing and the clink of glass. Trickles of dust fell sporadically through the floorboards above his head, drifting in his lantern light.

‘How in Sigmar’s name can they have a hole in their cellar and not know about it?’ he wondered aloud, but a moment later Tobias’ question was answered as he realised that he couldn’t see the hole at all from where he stood. Pacing across the cellar to where he knew the hole must be, Tobias instead found a wooden wall barring his path, empty ale tuns piled up against it in a heap.

The boards were rough-cut yarrenwood, festooned with splinters.

‘Cheap,’ muttered Tobias. ‘And comparatively new.’ It had clearly been put there to hide something.

Quick and quiet, Tobias set aside his halberd, propping it so its light was pointed at the false wall. He moved the empty tuns one by one, stacking them to his right until he had cleared a good space, and then slid his gloved fingers into the gap between two boards. A quick, sharp wrench and the board he had grasped came away with a splintering crack of wood and nails.

Tobias peered through the gap he had made. Sure enough, there was another few feet of space back here, and a ragged-edged tunnel connecting cellar and alleyway. He saw Klaus staring at him through the hole.

Repeating his wrenching procedure several more times, Tobias made a large enough gap to squeeze through. He thought about grabbing his halberd, but the weapon would be unwieldy in the confined space and besides, its light would serve him well enough from where it was.

Tobias pushed his way into the hidden chamber and immediately saw what it was for. Heaped at one end were several wood-and-iron strongboxes, hidden away behind the false wall.

‘Ill-gotten gains, I’ll wager,’ he said with a satisfied smile. ‘The watch coffers are about to receive a generous donation.’

Then he registered another hole, this one yawning in the dirt floor at one end of the hidden chamber. This pit was wider, around five feet across and vanishing back and downwards into darkness. Again, it looked to have been excavated with large, heavy claws. A damp reek wafted from it, causing Tobias to wrinkle his nose in disgust. Small, glistening fungi sprouted around its entrance, half-visible in the spill of his lantern’s light.

‘What in the realms did this?’ Tobias wondered aloud. He edged tentatively closer to the hole, peering into its depths. Suddenly, he felt the lack of his halberd keenly. He was about to turn back for it when his lantern’s light suddenly winked out.

Tobias cursed as he was plunged into inky darkness.

‘That damned lantern,’ he snarled, then stopped as he heard a scuff of movement from the direction of the main cellar. The sound came again, something or someone trying to move stealthily across the dirt floor. Someone coming closer.

Tobias tensed, then jumped as Klaus gave a yowl from somewhere up above. Heart thumping, Tobias turned, trying to locate the gap in the boards that led back to the cellar. The hole up to the alleyway gave next to no light at all.

He fumbled at his belt for his coglock pistol.

‘City watch,’ he barked, hoping to banish his panic with the weight of his authority. ‘Whoever is there, you are interfering with an official investigation. Spark that lantern at once and step back, or face Sigmar’s justice.’

He heard a sound that might have been a mean chuckle or might simply have been an animal snarl. Tobias’ heart beat faster. Nothing human had made that noise. He strained to see, the darkness seeming to smother him. He fumbled his pistol free just as another scuffing scrape came from the cellar, the sound close enough that it made him recoil involuntarily.

Tobias stepped smartly back and pointed his pistol blindly.

‘I’m warning you–’ he began, then something struck his legs from behind with tremendous force. Tobias felt hot agony sear its way up from his calves, felt himself flung forwards and a sudden crunching impact as the floor rushed up to meet his face. He tasted blood. His ears rang. His throat closed over the winded shriek of pain that tried to escape his lips.

Something was ripping at the flesh of his legs, like a dozen knives driven into his calves and thighs all at once. Tobias tried to cry out, to yell for aid, but shock seemed to have sealed his voice inside him as sure as a stopper rammed into a bottle. He heard grunting, felt a wash of stinking breath, felt warm wetness, the slither of something muscular and slick across his flesh and a crushing weight.

No.

Not knives.

Teeth.

‘Oh, Sigmar,’ croaked Tobias, swinging his pistol down to point at whatever had surged from the hole and sunk its fangs into him. There came a violent dragging motion, a wrench that hauled Tobias across the dirt floor and cracked his chin against the lip of the hole. His gun spilled from his nerveless fingers. Consciousness wavered.

Tobias felt another ferocious tugging sensation, a crushing pressure and an explosion of unbearable agony from his legs, then a deeper darkness swallowed him whole.

Click here to buy Gloomspite.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

The Offering © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. The Offering, 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.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-80026-339-0

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

the purchaser of a Black Library e-book product (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase a Black Library e-book (“e-book”). The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media.

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.