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Hallowed Knights: Ghosts of Demesnus – Josh Reynolds

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden’

A Black Library Publication

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Hallowed Knights:
Ghosts of Demesnus

Josh Reynolds

The boat carved a slow track through the thick bulrushes. Clouds of insects, disturbed by its passing, rose towards the pale green sky with an audible hum.

The vessel was a flat-bottomed riverboat, its aft deck stacked with cargo. Bales of cloth from Verdia, and bolts of silk from some far, eastern kingdom were stacked precariously beneath a heavy tarpaulin to keep off the weather. Gardus sat on a large cask of sweet wine beneath the tarpaulin, and watched the home he had all but forgotten draw nearer, through the curtain of morning mist.

The Lord-Celestant shifted on his perch, feeling oddly unbalanced without his weighty silver war-plate. The simple tunic and leather jerkin he wore beneath his woollen Nordrathi cloak had been cut especially for his immortal frame, as had his boots. None of it helped him to fit in.

The crew had given him a wide berth since they had left the riverside docks of Hammerhal Ghyra, despite his initial, hesitant attempts to engage them in conversation. Perhaps it was his size. Or the runeblade he wore at his side. The sword was almost as long as one of the oars the crew used to ply the waters, and its wielder was almost twice the size of the tallest crewman.

Regardless of the reason, they had left him alone. He’d half hoped they would encounter a troggoth or some other malign river-beast on the voyage south along the Quamus River, if only to prove that he and his sword meant them no harm. Such an encounter might have kept him from thinking of what awaited him at the end of his journey. He frowned and turned away from the city as it drew closer.

The dreams had started innocuously.

Gardus barely noticed them, so rarely did he sleep. A fact of his new reality was that the needs of mortality had all but abated. But he’d had time, of late, to ponder such things. To think and consider the echoes within his own head.

Such rumination was not encouraged among the ranks of the Stormcast Eternals. Even less so, when one was not simply a Liberator standing in the battle line, but a Lord-Celestant, with all the duties and obligations that came with such a rank. The past was the past – to try to grasp it was a distraction at best, and outright folly at worst. Warriors had perished, seeking the answers to unspoken questions.

Then, death was not an unfamiliar experience for Gardus.

Nonetheless, he’d done as always and sought solace in the movement of the stars. He had climbed the highest peaks of Azyr, and then further still, following the winding celestine bastions of Sigmaron to the uppermost heights, where the blue gave way to the black. Finally, he had wandered the outer rings of the Sigmarabulum, so close to the firmament that he’d fancied he might slip and fall upwards forever.

He’d hoped to find forgetfulness there, or at least a way to calm the sudden turbulence that afflicted his soul. But all he’d found was more dreams. And more time to think about the dreams. He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his shaggy white hair. It had been black, once. Before his second death. Now, it was the hue of moonlit ice.

That wasn’t the only change. There were others – some subtle, others not. He could feel the light, shimmering beneath his skin. That strange radiance, pulsing within him. If he relaxed, even for a moment, it would escape. It grew brighter with every passing day, as if seeking to return to wherever it had come from.

He was not the only Stormcast Eternal to change after being reforged on the Anvil of Apotheosis, but he took little comfort from that fact. Some lost memories, or pieces of themselves. Others became hollow, as if they were mechanisms of steel, rather than flesh and blood. He shone like a star, and dreamed strange dreams.

He let his gaze wander across the slow, sunlit waters. Bulrushes clumped thick and long to either side of the boat and stretched away into the morning mist. If he looked hard enough, he could almost make out familiar faces in the swirling vapours. Men and women he had known, and helped – or failed to help.

He heard their voices in his dreams – the voices of the living and the dead, or perhaps those caught somewhere in between. Ghosts of a past that was drawing further away with every decade that slipped unnoticed through his fingers. The ghosts of those he’d laboured among, and laughed with, and even loved, before a crash of lightning had stolen him away.

Gardus felt no resentment. His faith was not a rock to be broken, or iron to rust and chip. His faith was a river, always changing and renewing itself with every passing day. But sometimes, like every river, he felt a need to find the sea.

Perhaps there would be answers there. Or maybe, only more questions. In any case, he’d decided to come back to the beginning. His journey had begun in Demesnus. And so, it had brought him back, many centuries after he had left. He felt the hull of the boat scrape against something and opened his eyes.

‘Are you awake, then?’

Gardus looked up, as the captain of the riverboat stumped towards him, her round features set in a scowl. The duardin was as broad as all of her kind, but dressed in simple garb, befitting a sailor. Thick iron bracers encased her forearms, and her red hair was bound tight and coiled atop her head in a bun. A small fyresteel axe was thrust through the wide leather belt strapped about her midsection.

‘I am awake, Fulda.’

‘Good. I hate to throw a sleeping man off my boat.’

Gardus stood. He loomed over her, but she didn’t seem unduly concerned. He smiled. ‘I trust I have not inconvenienced you overmuch.’

‘You mean other than scaring my crew half to death?’

‘Yes, other than that.’ Gardus looked towards the docks. ‘It smells the same.’

Fulda’s frown deepened. ‘It’s Demesnus. It doesn’t change. It just sinks a bit deeper into the bulrushes.’ She turned her scowl on the city. ‘What does one of your sort want here anyway? There’s nothing here but mud, fish and moss-lepers.’

Gardus felt a prickle of irritation. ‘Demesnus is one of the greatest centres of learning in southern Ghyran.’

Fulda peered up at him. ‘Maybe a hundred years ago. Now it’s the biggest fish market in southern Ghyran.’ She hiked a thumb over her shoulder. ‘Which is why I need you off, so I can make room for the load of salted fish I’m taking to the markets in Hammerhal.’

Gardus chuckled. ‘I understand.’ He held out his hand. Fulda looked at it for a moment, and then clasped it.

‘You’re an odd one, Azyrite.’

‘So I’ve been told.’ Gardus left her shaking her head, and made his way towards the gangplank and the wharf beyond. The crew were already hard at work unloading cargo as he tromped down the wooden boards, but paused to watch his departure warily. Gardus pretended not to notice.

The wharfs stretched along the untidy curve of the Quamus. Berths of varying sizes jutted out into the shallows of the river, alongside raised piers. Warehouses lined the path opposite, their doors flung open as the dockhands and crews went about their duties. Fulda’s vessel wasn’t alone. Dozens of riverboats crowded the berths. There were flat-bottomed rafts and multi-storeyed paddle-wheels, as well as stranger craft – vessels made from woven, living reeds and even a lithe dragger, pulled by a coterie of gigantic, highly vocal waterfowl.

While Demesnus was not the largest port in southern Ghyran, it had carved itself a niche as a necessary stopover along the intersection of several rivers. Or, at least, such had been the case when Gardus had been mortal. It was still as busy as he remembered. Overhead, birds swooped and squalled with raucous disapproval.

As he stepped onto dry land, he saw mortals in the dull ochre uniforms and troggoth-hide armour of the city guard escorting scribes through the crowd. The scribes likely worked for the Rushes – the leading families of Demesnus, who formed the city’s ruling council. There was cargo to be inspected, and taxes on foreign goods to be collected.

Several of the warriors studied him with narrowed gazes. Gardus knew they were taking note of his size and his blade, but they made no move to stop him as he walked along the wharf. Most mortals would take him for an outlander – from the wilds of Ghur, perhaps, or the hinterlands of Aqshy, where some folk grew to great size. Others would recognise him for what he was. Either way, they would steer clear of him.

He made his way along the wharf, moving carefully through the crowd. Over the sounds of ships being unloaded and dockhands shouting, he heard a sharp cry. At first, he dismissed it for the call of a bird. But when it came again, he recognised it as human. He turned, seeking the origin of the sound.

He saw a flash of movement – too abrupt to be a part of the normal routine of the wharfs – and started towards it. Near a freshly unloaded fishing boat, a trio of men herded a slim, ragged shape against a mooring post. The men were of a sort Gardus had seen in every city – rough-looking and brutal, wearing a mishmash of armour. Sellswords and bravos, of the sort that even the most desperate freeguild would think twice about contracting.

‘Filthy leper,’ one of the men spat. ‘Ought to burn the lot of you.’ His ire was directed at the young woman huddled against the post. She was clad in threadbare robes and rags, that might once have been of better quality. She held a knife in one hand, and jabbed at the air.

‘Leave me alone,’ she said, her voice high and thin with dismay. ‘Someone help me!’ Gardus saw nearby fishermen turn away, as the sellswords patted their weapons meaningfully. He stalked towards the confrontation, hands balling into fists.

One of the sellswords leered. ‘No one is going to help you, leper. They know better.’

‘She is not a leper,’ Gardus said, as he caught the closest of the men by the scruff of his neck, and without pause, flung him from the wharf. The second spun, hand falling to the hilt of his sword. Gardus caught his wrist and squeezed. The mortal’s eyes bulged. ‘There is no sign of moss, no odour,’ Gardus continued. He slapped his prisoner from his feet, and sent him tumbling into a nearby pile of fish.

The third man – the one who had threatened the woman – backed away, sword out. It was a cheap, back alley blade, its length pitted and chipped. ‘Stay back,’ he shrilled. Gardus lunged, moving more swiftly than mortal eyes could follow. He slapped the sword aside and drove a fist into its wielder’s sternum. Bone cracked, and the swordsman folded up into a heap. He wasn’t dead, but he would soon wish he was. Gardus turned, looking for the woman. But she was gone – fled as he had dealt with her tormentors. He frowned and shook his head.

He reached down and hauled the second man out of the fish. ‘Get your friend to a hospice,’ he rumbled, shoving the frightened man towards his downed companion. The man bent hurriedly to do as Gardus had commanded, his injured hand pressed to his chest. Gardus watched them go, noting with some chagrin that he had attracted an undue amount of attention. ‘Can’t be helped, I suppose,’ he murmured.

Behind him, someone cleared their throat. ‘Mercy is a sword with two edges. Or so Elim of Vyras had it, in his seminal treatise, On Clemency.’

‘But an honest man need never fear its cut,’ Gardus said, finishing the quote. He smiled and turned. ‘Hello, Yare.’

‘Hello, Steel Soul. I thought I recognised the rumble of your voice. We were supposed to meet at the northern wharf.’ The old man was tall, despite his accumulation of years. A halo of white hair encircled a bald head. Yare’s ravaged eye sockets had healed in the years since Gardus had last seen him, forming a thick mask of scar tissue, balanced atop the remnants of a once proud nose.

‘Someone was in trouble.’

Yare nodded. ‘This is Demesnus, my friend. Someone is always in trouble.’ The philosopher wore thick robes of wool and fur against the growing chill of the season, and held a wooden staff. Beside him, a small gryph-hound leaned against his leg, its tail twitching. It shrieked softly in challenge, as Gardus neared. Yare patted the creature’s wedge-shaped skull. ‘Easy, Dullas. The Lord-Celestant means me no harm.’

Gardus looked down at the gryph-hound. Solid black, with feathers the colour of ash, the beast was a stocky mix of leopard and falcon, with a temper to match. He acted as Yare’s eyes, when the old man let him. ‘He was just a hatchling, when we gifted him to you.’

‘He grew quickly. Likes his fish,’ Yare said, stroking the beast’s feathers. Dullas hissed in pleasure and wound himself about the old man’s legs. ‘Then, so do I.’ Yare smiled and extended his hand. Gardus took it gently, all too aware how fragile Yare was, these days. He had been old when they’d first met, in the slave-pens of Nurgle’s Rotbringers. He was ancient now – almost a hundred seasons, but still surprisingly spry.

Gardus studied him. ‘You look well, my friend. Better than when I last saw you.’

‘Home is a healer,’ Yare said. ‘And fresh marsh honey is a wonderful preservative. A spoonful a day helps to keep me from feeling the full weight of my years.’ He cocked his head. ‘Is Angstun with you? He and I have a discussion – several, really – to continue.’

Gardus chuckled. ‘I’m sorry, no. But he sends his greetings.’

Yare laughed. ‘I bet he does.’ The Knight-Vexillor of the Steel Souls and the elderly philosopher had become good friends, in the days following the fall of the Sargasso Citadels. They shared a love of esoteric philosophies, as well as a willingness to argue a point for days on end. Having witnessed some of this verbal sparring first hand, Gardus couldn’t help but feel admiration for the old man’s stamina.

A stiff breeze curled in off the wharf. Yare shivered, and Gardus shifted himself so that he stood between the old man and the river. ‘You did not have to meet me here, Yare.’

‘I know. But I am not an invalid, yet.’ Yare smiled. ‘My students tell me that the fog is getting thicker. It slouches in off the water in the mornings, and creeps on cat-feet through the maze of streets and alleys, filling them sometimes until noontide.’

Gardus nodded. ‘There’ll be ice on the river soon, then,’ he said. He glanced at the river, remembering. ‘I recall those days. Sometimes, the frost on them was so thick, the rushes broke. You could hear them snapping, all throughout the day.’

‘The music of winter,’ Yare said.

Gardus felt an ache in him, as he remembered. He turned away from the water. ‘It is good to see you, Yare.’

‘And it is good to hear you, my friend.’ Yare clutched at Gardus’ arm, just for a moment. ‘I’m glad you came. I feared that Sigmar had sent you beyond the reach of my letters once again.’

‘Not of late. Though there are rumours that we will be descending into the dark of Shyish soon.’ A petition had come, to re-open one of the few remaining realmgates that connected Shyish and Azyr. Gardus had little doubt that Sigmar would grant it, as he had other, similar petitions recently. In the last decade, expeditions had entered the underworlds of Lyria and Shadem, among others. New cities rose, amidst the ghosts and dust.

‘Is that why you finally decided to come, then?’ Yare tilted his head, as if studying Gardus. ‘And clad as a mortal.’ He reached out and tugged on Gardus’ sleeve. As ever, the blind man’s perceptions were sharper than Gardus gave them credit for.

‘I would prefer not to go into the lands of death encumbered by malign dreams,’ he admitted. He flexed his hands, as a breeze blew in off the river. For a moment, he thought he heard something, in the space where the susurrus of the wind met the slap of water. Voices, rising up and falling away, just at the edge of hearing. He looked at Yare. ‘It’s still here, then. I thought… I hoped it would not be.’

Yare smiled sadly. ‘It took some time to find. I had my students compare half a dozen maps of the city, from this century to the last. The way Demesnus has grown, even since I returned, is startling. New streets appear by the months, new voices, new smells.’

‘The light of Azyr brings new growth, even to the Realm of Life.’

Yare chuckled. ‘But is it merely growth for the sake of growth?’ He raised a hand, forestalling Gardus’ reply. ‘I know, you didn’t come here to debate philosophy, much as I might wish otherwise.’

‘Afterwards, my friend. I promise.’ Gardus felt gripped by a sudden urgency. ‘After I have laid these ghosts to rest, once and for all.’

Yare sighed. ‘There have been three Grand Hospices, since yours burned. They are all tangled together, in the histories. The same place, scattered across different locations. The one I knew was destroyed when the servants of the Plague God last attacked. Another was closed when its master fell into disfavour with the Rushes. And the third… the third became a plague pit and was torn down…’

‘You found mine, though,’ Gardus said. The urgency was all but unbearable. ‘The one I built…’ He flexed his hands, feeling the ghost of an old ache. He had built it himself. Not alone, but he had worked alongside the others, stacking stones. He remembered the songs the others had sung, as they’d worked, and the prayers the priests had spoken as the foundations had been sunk.

He remembered, but not clearly or well. It was like a particularly vivid dream.

Or a nightmare.

Yare nodded. ‘I think so. A set of ruins, on the western edge of the city, overlooking the wharfs there. Overgrown, now, like much of that part of the old city.’ He frowned. ‘We’ve lost so much in the centuries since you were mortal. Demesnus was once a major port – a centre of learning and wisdom. There were broadsheets on every corner, and the air bristled with debate. Now…’ He shook his head. ‘I fear the students I tutor in the art of dialectics and rhetoric will be the last.’

‘If you have taught them well, they will not be.’

Yare laughed. ‘Let us hope.’ He turned his blind gaze westward. ‘What you seek is there, Gardus. I am sure of it.’

‘Then that is where I must go.’

‘Do you wish for company?’

Gardus smiled and clasped the old man’s shoulder. ‘No, my friend. You have done enough. But when I am done – when I have found what I seek – we will sit and debate.’

Yare patted Gardus’ forearm. ‘I look forward to it, my friend.’

Demesnus had grown, since Gardus had last seen it.

It did not come as a surprise – Yare’s letters had said as much – but reading about something and seeing it first-hand were two different things. But despite the changes, he still recognised the city he had once loved.

The roots of Demesnus were sunk deep in the mud of the Quamus. It had grown from a scattering of simple bulrush huts, to a thick palisade of marsh-oak and, finally, a city of imported stone, banded on two sides by wharfs and quays. A city of weavers and fisherfolk, ruled by the descendants of the inhabitants of those first bulrush huts.

Gardus forced himself to walk slowly. To amble, rather than march. He let the old smells fill him – the stink of pitch-lanterns and burning moss; of dung and fish; the distinct pong of the tanneries and the wharfs – hoping they might stir his sluggish memories. As he left the river behind, the reek of commerce gave way to the smell of baking bread and flowering orchards. The patter of street vendors duelled with the catcalls of the broadsheet urchins. The folk of Demesnus had an abiding interest in the written word, despite the average citizen being only nominally literate. Yare’s fears in that regard seemed unfounded, from what Gardus saw.

The boarded streets of the riverside gave way to flat stones, or rutted dirt paths, carving crooked trails between buildings that still bore the scars of fires set centuries before. It was exactly as he remembered, and yet unfamiliar. There was more green, for one thing.

Demesnus had never truly recovered from the various assaults and sieges that had befallen it during the Chaos incursions of the past century. Unable to rebuild, or simply unwilling, buildings had been left as ruins. And as was common in Ghyran, what mortals abandoned, nature soon reclaimed. Whole blocks of the city now faltered under the weight of old growth. Broken structures slumped beneath spreading trees and clinging vines, which created impromptu parks. Many of these had become orchards, or communal gardens. Others were seemingly avoided, and left to whatever vermin might choose to call them home.

Despite this, the city had prospered visibly in recent years. With trade once again flowing along the Quamus, the city’s population had swelled. Every street was crowded with throngs of people, laughing, talking, buying, selling. Living.

As he moved through the crowds, tatters of memory stirred, and his head echoed with the dolorous hymn of a hospice – coughing and moaning, prayers and whispered pleas. The sounds of the sick and the dying. The street around him wavered, like a desert mirage, and for a moment, he stood elsewhere. The same spot, but many centuries ago.

He smelled again the acrid stink of burning pitch, and heard the ringing of the great river-bell. The ground trembled, as soldiers thundered past, their faces white with fear. The streets were flooded, water pouring down the lanes, as the river broke its banks. The enemy had come, on barques of bone and gristle, sailing a blood-dimmed tide.

Almost against his will, he turned, watching as the echoes of the past raced through the present, overlaying it in his mind’s eye. Ghostly fires burned, as street-vendors hawked their wares. Soldiers raced towards the wharf, through heedless carts and crowds.

Garradan… help us…

He pressed on, trying to escape the tangle of recollection. But the past held him tight. He felt a wash of heat, as a building collapsed, spilling burning slates across the street. The air was split by the shriek of primitive artillery – he looked up and saw comets of greasy flame, trailing smoke, arc overhead. He heard the dull boom of the siege engines, assailing the landward gates.

Garradan… please…

Gardus stumbled, narrowly avoiding a tinkerer’s cart as it trundled down the street. He stepped back, into an alleyway. He shook his head, trying to clear it. The hospice. He had to get to the hospice.

Garradan… where are you…

Around him, the city wavered between what it had been and what it now was. The streets twisted around him, and it was all he could do not to simply freeze in place. The horizon rippled, birthing familiar turrets and towers, that vanished moments later. It was as if the world were in flux, caught between past and present, but only for him.

Garradan… save us…

He found himself walking down a familiar crooked lane, lined with marsh-lanterns. Even at midday, they glowed with a pallid light, casting long shadows on the brick walls to either side. The lane widened into a plaza, its surface broken by a carpet of thick, winding roots that stretched in all directions. Twisted trees, with full boughs, rose from craters of broken cobblestones, and birds sang amid the branches.

The sounds of the city were muted here, swallowed up in curtains of green. Ivy snaked across the walls of nearby buildings, and swaddled the weatherworn statues that overlooked the street. Gardus found himself holding his breath, as he walked over the thick patches of weeds and wild bramble.

At the other end of the circular plaza, nestled between buildings to either side, was a crumbled facade. He recognised a high archway of imported stone, rising atop a semicircle of rough-hewn steps, worn smooth in places. The great wooden doors, so visible in his memory, were now nothing more than a few splinters attached to rusty hinges. The two great lantern posts were still there, to each side of the doors, though they were now rusted through. And the carving of the twin-tailed comet over the archway.

Garradan… where are you…

Gardus stopped, and stared. Remembering. He remembered watching as the comet had been chiselled into the stone. He could feel the weight of the lantern posts as he helped set them into place. He remembered that first day, as he’d welcomed his first patient – a carter who’d been trodden on by a horse. The man had cursed loud and long, as his fellows helped him up the steps. How he’d screamed, as Garradan had set his leg.

Garradan… help us…

Overcome, he sank down, head in his hands. He could hear them all, the voices rising, asking, pleading, thanking, cursing. The wind in the trees sounded like the whispers of the dying. They filled him, drowning out all thought. He closed his eyes, and the words came to his lips. Canticles, prayers, the armour of faith.

Then, a new sound. The birds fell silent. The wind died away. And the bells rang. He remembered the bells – it had cost him – cost Garradan – the last of his inheritance to have them fashioned, but it was worth every coin. Great bells of bronze, to accompany the songs of the faithful…

He blinked back the beginnings of what might have been tears, as the low tones echoed across the plaza. The bells were still here. After all this time. Still ringing, even after so many years. He stumbled to his feet, and towards the steps, drawn by the sound of the bells. He had to see them again, to hear them above him.

But as he passed through the archway, he heard something else, beneath the bells. The sound of voices, raised in a hymn. The broken stones of the foyer were covered in a carpet of dried rushes, and curtains of the same now occupied the doorways beyond. Braziers of incense smoked in the corners, and mortal forms were huddled along the walls.

Gardus stopped. There were people here. Living ones, not ghosts. But perhaps not for much longer. Beneath the fug of incense, he smelled the stink of sickness. Of death and the dying. Instinctively, his hand fell to his sword, but he fought the urge to draw it. The sickness he smelled was unpleasant, but natural. Familiar. Moss-lepers and marsh-lung. Wracking coughs accompanied him across the foyer and to the archway that led to the heart of the hospice. Eyes and muted whispers followed his progress, but none of those in the foyer made any move to stop him.

There were more of them, in the entry chamber beyond. Once, it had been filled with cots and pallets, with the sick and the dying. The sick were still here, but they were not alone. A crowd knelt or sat, filling the chamber, their voices raised in song as the bells rang.

Pilgrims and penitents, devoted and zealots. He saw crones, clad in sackcloth, and men who had carved the sign of the comet and the hammer into their flesh. Others were clad more sedately, in blue robes that they had obviously dyed themselves. There were men and women and children as well. Infants cried softly as their parents sang.

At the opposite end of the chamber was a statue. It was stained with dirt, but he recognised his own face – or what had been his face, once – lifted to the ceiling, where the remains of the ancient murals a grateful patron had commissioned still clung. It was him, but not – an idealised version of the man he had been. Tall and strong, bearing a great two-handed blade over one shoulder. He stared at it, wondering when it had been carved. And who had done so. Was Garradan remembered, then?

He wanted to speak. But something held him back. Was it fear? Or regret? Who were these people? And why were they here, in this forgotten place?

‘It’s you.’

Startled, Gardus turned. The woman he’d rescued on the wharfs stood behind him, staring. So preoccupied had he been, he had not noticed her approach. ‘Yes,’ he said softly, so as not to disturb the prayers of the other mortals. ‘I am glad to see that you are unhurt.’ Gardus smiled. ‘I am Gardus.’

She hesitated. ‘Dumala. You’re not mortal, are you?’

Gardus avoided the question. ‘Do you… live here?’

‘We do. Saint Garradan called to us, and we came.’ She smiled shyly. ‘I saw him once.’ Gardus looked at her, and she hastily added, ‘In a dream, I mean.’

‘Oh? Did he speak?’

She flushed. ‘It wasn’t that sort of dream.’ She looked at the statue, and made the sign of the hammer. ‘I… saw him, as he must have been. Ministering to the sick. Feeding the poor. Striking down daemons with his silver blade.’

‘It was a candlestick,’ Gardus murmured.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. And so you came here?’ He had heard similar stories before. The Devoted of Sigmar often followed in the footsteps of holy men and women who had come before, and long since passed into celestial sainthood – most were warriors like Orthanc Duln, the Hero of Sawback, or martyrs like Elazar Tesh, who had brought down the pillars of the Red House upon himself and the hounds of slaughter. ‘Why?’

‘I told you. He called to me. He called to all of us. So we came to sit and pray, as he did, until our purpose reveals itself.’ She looked at him. ‘Does he call to you as well?’ She motioned to the statue. ‘They say Sigmar raised him up, and set him in the sky, so that he might always watch over us.’ She peered at him. ‘Your face… it is familiar, I am certain.’

Gardus turned away. The song had ended, and the bells had fallen silent. People had noticed him now, and he felt a twinge of unease as he felt their attentions. ‘I doubt it. This place… it used to be a hospice, didn’t it?’

‘That it did, stranger.’

Gardus turned to see a small figure approach, wrapped in rags and bandages, leaning on a pair of canes. He could smell the stink of illness wafting off of the newcomer. A familiar odour – the soft pungency of moss-leprosy. He could see the grey-green stains on the rags, and the fuzz of moss, peeking through the bandages.

The cancerous moss ate away at flesh and muscle, leaving only clumps, clinging to pitted bone. It was a common ailment here, and throughout the Jade Kingdoms, and one Gardus remembered well from his mortal life. Long had Garradan of Demesnus laboured among the moss-leper colonies, isolated in anchored ships along the river. Thankfully, the lepers could feel nothing as their bodies dissolved.

‘I am Carazo, friend,’ the leper said, his voice a harsh, wet rasp. ‘Might I know you?’

‘I am Gardus.’

Carazo peered up at him, his eyes a bright blue within the mass of stained bandages that hid his face. ‘A fine name.’ He hunched forward suddenly, coughing, his frame wracked by tremors. Instinctively, Gardus reached for him. Carazo twitched back. ‘No, my friend,’ he wheezed apologetically. ‘No. Best not to touch me. What’s left of me might well slough off the bone. Very messy.’

‘You should not be standing.’ Gardus looked down at him. ‘How are you standing?’

‘Sigmar gives me strength, friend. As he gave Saint Garradan the strength to fight against the slaves of darkness.’ Carazo fumbled in his rags, and produced a tarnished medallion, bearing the twin-tailed comet. ‘Sigmar guided me across many battlefields in my time, and this is but one more.’ He chuckled. ‘Though I rather think it shall be my last.’ He looked around. ‘It is a good place, though.’

‘You were a warrior-priest,’ Gardus said.

‘I had that honour, once. Now I’m just a humble pilgrim, tending to this most holy of places.’ Carazo turned to look at the statue. ‘I first heard of him when I was a novice in the temple here. He cast down a hundred foes, to defend those he had tended, and when he fell, the enemy wept to see such courage.’

Gardus did not remember them weeping. The Skineaters had not seemed to possess the capacity, nor the inclination. And he had not killed a dozen of them, let alone a hundred. ‘And you… venerate him?’

‘Just a few of us, for now. But our numbers grow.’ Carazo coughed again. Dumala stepped to his side, not quite touching him. There was a concern there, like a child for a parent, and Gardus could not help but wonder at the connection. ‘Soon, he might reveal why we are here. When enough of us have come to this sacred place.’ He looked at Gardus. ‘Until then, we pray and sing, and make do as best we can. Hardship is the whetstone of faith.’

‘Some hardships are more difficult than others.’ Gardus looked at Dumala. ‘Those men who accosted you earlier, on the wharf…’

Carazo stiffened. ‘They attacked you again? Why did you not tell me?’

Dumala looked away. ‘I did not want to worry you, or the others.’ She glanced at Gardus. ‘He saved me,’ she said. ‘Maybe the Saint sent him to help us.’

Gardus looked back and forth between them. ‘It has happened before?’

‘They think we bring sickness,’ Dumala said. ‘Many of our number are ill – Saint Garradan watches over the sick – but we keep to ourselves. We grow our own food, where there is space. We endanger no one, save ourselves.’ Her voice became heated. ‘They have no right to try to drive us from this place! I – we – will not go!’

Heads turned, and people murmured as her words echoed. Carazo waved Dumala to silence. ‘It will be well, child. The Saint watches over us. He would not have called us here, merely to see us turned out.’ He looked at Gardus. ‘Regardless of why you came, I am grateful to you for saving her life.’

Gardus bowed his head. ‘I could do no less.’

‘Even so, you have my thanks. And I welcome you here, brother. Stay, if you wish. We have food, and there are pallets for those with nowhere else to go. We ask only that you abide by the peace of this place, and perhaps pray with us, at evensong.’

Gardus paused, considering. Then he nodded.

‘It would be my honour.’

Gardus sat on the steps as night fell, weaving rushes.

Though he had not done so in a century or more, he found that his hands remembered the way. So he wove, and let his mind wander over what he had seen. The pilgrims had been welcoming of him, if wary. Their days were spent weaving bulrush baskets, or fishing nets, which they sold in the markets to feed themselves. When not at work, they cared for the sick among them, or sang hymns and prayed, seeking enlightenment.

A peaceful existence. And yet, one that left him ill at ease. Why had they come here? Something had drawn them, but what? Did they hear the same voices he did? And if so, what did it mean? He shook his head. Too many questions, but precious few answers.

They were weak with hunger, ravaged by illness, and seemed to subsist as much on prayer as scraps of bread and watery soup. In that regard, they were little different from other pilgrims he’d seen. Hardship was their proof of faith.

Carazo wasn’t the only leper among them. Others coughed blood, or shook with fever and chills. A few of them, like Dumala, were healthy, but the rest were almost at the liche-door. They’d come from as far away as Aqshy, hoping Saint Garradan would heal them.

A rush snapped in his hands. He paused.

‘Was that why I was drawn here?’ he murmured, selecting a new rush from the pile beside him. ‘To minister to the sick once more?’ A part of him leapt at the thought. But surely Sigmar would have told him, if he was to be released from his oath of duty. Then, the ways of the God-King were, at times, mysterious.

No. There was something else. He could feel it, like water running beneath the earth, or the air just before a storm. As if he had arrived just before the rain began to fall.

He stopped again. He felt eyes on him.

A familiar face peered at him from a side street. The man he’d thrown off the wharf earlier. And he wasn’t alone. Others sidled into the plaza, until there were more than a dozen sellswords lounging among the trees, watching him. A muttered comment elicited harsh laughter.

The laughter died away, as he looked at them directly. He considered asking them what their business was, but decided to err on the side of patience. He went back to his work.

A few moments later, his patience was rewarded.

‘Rushes are wonderful things. Utilitarian. Practical. You can use them to make seats for chairs, or to fill out coats and pillows. They can be peeled, and the hearts boiled or eaten raw. Their pollen can be used to thicken flour, for making bread. The local broadsheets use them for paper. Why, the earliest settlers of this place even made their homes from them. Just goes to show, anything can be made useful, with a bit of effort.’

Gardus looked up from his work. A short, thin man stood watching him. He was dressed simply, if richly, in a heavy coat of dark leather, lined with eiderdown, and a shapeless hat of otter fur. A brooch of silver, decorated with a spray of feathers, was pinned to the side of the hat. He leaned on a cane of dark wood, carved with shapes reminiscent of the harvest, and had a short sword sheathed on one narrow hip.

‘They tell me you accosted several of my employees.’

Gardus set aside the bulrushes and stood. The sellswords twitched, some reaching for their weapons. But the newcomer did not so much as flinch.

‘You’re a big fellow, aren’t you?’ he asked. He glanced back at the sellswords and waved them back. ‘Bigger than these.’

‘And with a sword to match.’ Gardus let his hand drop to the pommel of his runeblade. The newcomer nodded.

‘So I see. I am Sargo Wale.’ Wale bowed shallowly, one hand on his hat to hold it in place. ‘You might have heard of me?’

‘No.’

‘You are new to the city, then?’

‘No.’

Wale frowned. ‘How curious. I should have thought I would have heard of a fellow of your… vigour. And you certainly should have heard of me. My ships line the wharf. My grain and my orchards feed the city, and keep Demesnus from sinking into the mire, like so many of our neighbours.’

Gardus crossed his arms. ‘Nonetheless, your name does not ring familiar.’

‘May I have yours, then?’

Gardus made to answer, but something held him back. ‘No,’ he said finally.

Wale smiled and shrugged. ‘Ah well, no matter. I’ll just call you friend.’ He set his cane down and leaned on it, one thin hand atop the other. ‘I am here to speak to Carazo. Where is he?’

‘Inside. Sleeping.’ The old priest had used up what little energy he had leading his people in another hymn. The last Gardus had seen, Dumala had been bullying the old man into laying down somewhere. ‘He is ill.’

Wale sighed, and peered up at the sky. ‘They all are. This place… it is not healthy. Perhaps in time. But not now.’ He thumped the street with his cane. ‘The soil is sour, you see. It needs a firm hand to till it, and turn out the stones. You know whereof I speak?’

Gardus said nothing. Wale continued, as if he had. ‘I own this land. I bought it, fair and true, from the council. They were glad to be rid of it.’ He frowned. ‘I will turn it into something useful. Another orchard, perhaps, or maybe even a park. The soil is still sweet, beneath the sour. Or it can be made so again. With a bit of effort.’

Gardus looked him up and down. Wale’s smile widened. ‘You think me a liar, sir? Why, I’m no scion of the bulrushes, come from money and privilege. I came here from Aqshy, without a single coin to my name. But I knew how to work the soil.’ He held up his hands. They were scarred and muscular. ‘These hands were worn bloody on handle of plough and haft of scythe, my friend.’ He turned them over, studying them. ‘I bargained with treekin and waged war on beasts, to carve out my first fields. And I paid well, and was paid, for the privilege of feeding this growing city. I’m a man of the soil, me. I take what it offers, and give back, when I can.’ He gestured with his cane. ‘Nothing more.’

‘Your men tried to hurt one of the people living here,’ Gardus growled, tired of Wale’s patter. ‘And not for the first time, if what they say is true.’

Wale’s smile vanished. ‘And you believe them?’

‘I have no reason not to.’

‘My apologies. Were they a friend of yours?’

‘No.’

‘Then less reason still to involve yourself in matters that don’t concern you.’ Wale peered up at him. ‘Step aside, and we’ll say no more about it.’

Gardus crossed his arms. Wale blinked, but recovered quickly. He glanced back at his men, and then shook his head. ‘Ah, well. One must learn to endure what comes.’ He looked at Gardus. ‘Is it money, then?’

‘No.’

‘Mm. Something else?’

‘I want you to leave.’

‘And so I will. But I will return.’ Wale looked up at the hospice. ‘This place is mine, now. By right, and by law. They can’t stay here. Better for everyone if they move along.’

‘Because you wish to turn this place into something useful.’

Wale shook his head. ‘For their own good. For the good of the city.’ He took off his hat and ran a hand through thinning silver hair. ‘This was a place of healing, once. A long time ago. Now, it’s a graveyard. It needs tending, and not by sickly wretches, coughing out prayers, and spreading their ills to honest folk.’ He slapped his hat back on his head and looked at Gardus. ‘I know what you are, friend. I’ve been to Hammerhal, aye, and Azyrheim as well, if you can believe it.’

‘Then you know these will not be enough to move me, if I decide to stand here.’ Gardus indicated the sellswords with a sweep of his hand. A gesture of bravado, but necessary. The sellswords had the look of men who’d just realised that they probably weren’t going to be paid.

Wale nodded thoughtfully. ‘And yet, I own this land. Mine by right, you see?’ He held his hand out. ‘You’re like a stone, sitting in my field. I can try to dig you out…’

‘Or you can go around me.’

Wale smiled thinly. ‘Never been one for that. But, never been one to tempt the gods, either.’ He hunched forward, leaning on his cane. ‘I expect that you came here for a reason, my friend. I expect that reason has to do with them inside. Maybe you can move these stones, where I can’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I came here today to drive them out once and for all. I have warrants from the Rushes, allowing me to use whatever methods I deem best.’ He twitched his cane towards the sellswords. ‘I’m a simple man, friend. I use what tools are to hand. But I wouldn’t say no to a bit of help.’

‘You want me to get them to leave.’

‘You’d be ensuring their safety. Sigmar’s law is on my side, and I’d rather not water this ground in blood.’

Gardus’ hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. ‘If I say no?’

Wale smiled sadly and shrugged. ‘Then these fellows will earn their pay.’

‘And if I stand against them?’

‘Then they’ll die, I imagine.’ Several of the sellswords blanched at this. Wale continued, ‘But I will have what I’m owed. Even if I have to involve the Rushes, and the city guard.’ He frowned. ‘I’ll hire an entire freeguild regiment, if that’s what it takes. So, you have to ask yourself – am I the stone, or the man who’ll move it?’

Gardus said nothing. Wale sighed and peered up at the darkening sky. ‘I’ll give you until evensong tomorrow. After that, I’ll do what must be done.’ He turned away. ‘As, I imagine, will you.’

Gardus watched the sellswords drift away, as their master departed, in ones and twos. They wouldn’t go far. And they’d be back, in force. Possibly with help from the city guard, if Wale had been speaking the truth. Gardus had little reason to doubt him.

Mortals like Wale were becoming more common, as Sigmar’s influence spilled out into the wider realms. They remade the land in Azyr’s image, whether they meant to or not, taming the wilderness and helping the cities of men grow. Gardus had seen it before, and had even aided it, once or twice. That was the Stormcast Eternals’ purpose, after all. To drive back the dark, so that the light of Azyr might flourish. To make new what was old.

Men like Wale were necessary, in that regard. They consecrated the ground the Stormcast cleansed in blood and fire, and sowed the seeds for the harvest to come. They raised the cities and rebuilt the roads. Without them, all that warriors like Gardus had achieved would soon fall back into ruin.

But necessity was not always just. He remembered other men, like Wale, from his life as Garradan. Men who wanted lepers burned, and the sick herded onto barges. Men who wielded necessity as a shield, for their own fear and greed.

He turned, and looked up at the ruins of his hospice.

‘Sigmar guide me,’ he murmured.

‘They will return tomorrow at evensong,’ Gardus said, as he watched Dumala and others fill bowls of soup for the hungry.

‘And we will be here to greet them,’ Carazo said. They stood in an antechamber, watching as the pilgrims took their evening meal. Soup and hard, crusty bread, donated by a sympathetic baker. ‘Saint Garradan will provide. As he always has.’

‘What if he wishes you to leave?’

Carazo looked at him. ‘Has he spoken to you, then, brother?’

Gardus looked away. Carazo sighed, and went on. ‘Wale never showed an interest in this place until we moved in. Then he decided he needed it.’

‘And the Rushes gave it to him.’

Carazo nodded. ‘Of course. We are lepers and beggars and fanatics. They don’t want us here. But our numbers grow, and they fear what others might say if they turn us out. We are not the only followers of the twin-tailed comet in this city, though most worship the Everqueen, these days.’

‘So they hand the problem to Wale.’

Carazo laughed, but it quickly turned into a cough. ‘Wale has done much good for the city. I admit that.’

‘And you haven’t,’ Gardus said. Carazo shrugged.

‘What is the measure of such a thing? We preach, sometimes, to those who wish to hear. We tend to the sick among us. We sit out of sight, and pray and sing. We are peaceful, as Saint Garradan was peaceful. But like him, we will fight to defend this place, and our way, if we must.’

‘I doubt he would want that.’ Gardus looked at the old priest. ‘Why stay?’

Carazo coughed and dabbed at his bandaged features with a rag. ‘The Saint called us here, though we know not why. So we came, and we found a sort of peace in this place.’ He looked at the statue. ‘I will not leave, until I know why the Saint called me here.’

‘Nor will I,’ Dumala said firmly. She offered Gardus a bowl of soup.

He waved it aside. ‘It is not a question of allow,’ he said. ‘They will come, and there is little you can do to stop it.’ He looked around. ‘Wale has the Rushes on his side. He has the law.’ The words tasted bitter, even as he said them.

‘And we have a higher law,’ Carazo said. He made the sign of the hammer. Gardus’ reply was interrupted by the sudden scream of an infant. He turned, to see a woman trying to quiet her child, to no avail.

Gardus stepped over to her. ‘Let me,’ he rumbled. The woman stared up at him, fear in her eyes. Gardus held out his hands. ‘Please.’

She looked at Carazo, who nodded. Gingerly, she held out her child, and Gardus took him. He lifted the infant, and rocked him gently, quieting his screams. The woman smiled, the exhaustion on her face easing slightly. ‘He is quiet,’ she said.

‘I remember when I, too, was a child,’ Gardus said softly. ‘All men were children once, and in need of comfort.’

‘Some might say we still are,’ Carazo said.

Gardus smiled gently. ‘Yes.’ The infant had quieted, and he handed the boy back to his mother. ‘He is colicky. A warm bath may help.’

Dumala stared at him. ‘How do you know that?’

Gardus looked at her. ‘Know what?’ He turned to Carazo. ‘If you will not leave for your own sake, think of this child – and of the others here. Think of Dumala.’

‘I told you – I will not leave,’ she began, but Carazo silenced her with a look.

‘Perhaps you are right. But it is not a decision I can make lightly. I must pray.’ He raised his hands, and the others fell silent. ‘We all must pray, and seek answers from Saint Garradan. If it is his will that we go – if it is Sigmar’s will – we will go. But we must pray.’ He looked at Gardus. ‘Will you pray with us, brother?’

Gardus nodded, after a moment. ‘I will.’

Perhaps in prayer, he would find the answers he sought.

Gardus snapped alert.

He could not say why, but something had drawn him from his meditations. He glanced at Dumala, and saw that she was sleeping beside him. So were Carazo and the others. Prayer had given way to slumber as the night wore on.

He rose, wondering if Wale’s men had come early. If so, he would greet them. Quietly, he padded from antechamber to antechamber, searching for the source of the disturbance. But he found nothing, saving the sick and the lost, sleeping fitfully. Did they dream of him, of the man he had been?

Garradan… please…

He turned. ‘I hear you,’ he said softly. ‘I have always heard you. But when will you tell me why you call out to me?’

Garradan… we need you…

He paced through cold corridors, his breath billowing in the chill. Mortals huddled for warmth, shivering and coughing in their sleep. This place was not good for them. They did not light fires for lack of fuel. They had no food, save what could be scavenged. And yet they stayed, in defiance of all common sense.

Garradan… help us…

His hands clenched into fists. Into weapons. Light flickered in an antechamber. Silently, he moved towards it, his every instinct screaming now. Warning him. There was a smell on the air. A sickly smell, worse than any other, but familiar. One he had smelled before, in places men ought not to go.

Garradan… Garradan… Garradan…

His name beat on the air like the wings of a dying bird. It brushed across the edges of his hearing with painful flutters. He ducked beneath an archway, and the ill light washed over him, filling the antechamber. Men and women lay asleep on pallets, tossing and turning.

Something abominable was coiled about them.

Gardus stopped, a prayer caught in his throat.

The thing looked up at him with more faces than mouths, and more mouths than eyes. It was at once a slug and a cloud and a serpent – no, a nest of serpents – a scabrous, shimmering wound in reality. A thing that should not be. Tendrils of glistening mist wound about the sleepers, pulsing red, and Gardus knew that it was feeding on them in some way. Like a vampire, it drew the life from them, and took it into itself.

Time seemed to slow. His hand fell to his sword. It reared, like a snake readying itself to strike, and unfurled in some awful way. Its mouths moved.

Garradan… Garradan… Garradan…

‘No,’ Gardus said. Light rose from his flesh, a clean light, and the thing shrank back like a startled beast. The whispers were mangled into moans as it squirmed away from him, slithering into the dark. He followed it, moving quickly.

Was this why he had been drawn here? All this time, had he been haunted in truth, and not just by memories? He did not know. All he knew was that the thing – the daemon of plague and murder – held in itself the souls of innocent and damned alike. It slithered away from him, crawling on withered hands, its faces twitching and gaping. He could hear the voices in his head. A silent storm of whispers and moans. Anger, fear and pain, merging into a dolorous hammer stroke – a pulse of unsound that reverberated through the air, undetectable, save by one with a shard of the divine grafted to their soul.

The ground glistened with grave-light where the daemon-spirit passed, and Gardus could smell the sourness it left in its wake. The earth sickened in its presence, and the air became miasmatic. It was no wonder so many of Carazo’s followers were ill.

The daemon-spirit stopped in what had once been the central chamber of the hospice. As Gardus followed, it began to come apart like a cloud caught by a breeze. In slips and tatters, it sank down into the broken soil, until there was no sign it had ever been at all. Gardus sank to his haunches at the point of its disappearance. Tentatively, he pressed the palm of his hand to the ground. He could feel it, somewhere below him. Like water rushing beneath the earth. Burrowing down, down to… what?

He looked around the chamber. He noted the fire-scarred stones and the ugly, fleshy growths that clung to the blackened timbers that pierced the broken ground like talons. As was the way in Ghyran, life had returned with a vengeance. Tapestries of green hung down the broken walls, rippling gently in the night breeze. Overhead, the shattered remains of the dome of glass had turned a filthy brown, from neglect. Sigmar’s face was hidden beneath a mask of grime. Thin pillars of starlight fell across the chamber like the bars of a cage.

He heard rubble shift, behind him. He glanced back, and saw Dumala.

‘When I awoke, you were gone,’ she said. ‘I thought…’ She shook her head. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘What is this place?’ he asked, as he stood.

‘They buried them here. All of those who died when the hospice burned.’ Dumala joined him, her arms wrapped tight about her. She shivered slightly, her eyes wide. ‘You can still feel it. That’s what Carazo says.’

‘Feel what?’

‘What happened here.’ Dumala looked up at him. ‘Can you feel it?’

Gardus did not reply. He stared at the ground, a sick feeling growing within him. All the dead… How long had they been trapped down there, in the stifling dark? Broken souls, changing, made into something else by pain and fear. By a plague that had been more than mere sickness. A plague of the soul, as well as the flesh.

How long had they festered until the scent of new life, new souls, had drawn them questing from their pit. A new thing, born in blood and darkness, and hungry. So hungry.

He felt Dumala flinch away from him, as if startled. Belatedly, he realised that he was shining. Starlight shimmered over him and from within him, turning the greens and browns of the chamber to silver. Dumala had fallen to her knees, hands clasped in prayer. Tears streamed from her eyes and her mouth moved wordlessly. Gardus stepped back, trying to dim his radiance. To hide the light once more. But it was hard. Something about this place, this moment, called out to it, and the light… the light answered.

‘Garradan…’ she whispered, reaching for him. ‘Your face… I knew…’

‘No,’ Gardus said. Softly at first, and then more insistently. ‘Garradan is dead. He died here. I am Gardus.’ He made to draw her to her feet, but she fell onto her face.

‘No, I am not worthy,’ she moaned.

Gardus hesitated, momentarily at a loss. Then, with a sigh, he dropped to his haunches. ‘Get up, please.’

She looked up at him, tears streaking her face. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ she whispered. ‘You came, and we did not know – I am not worthy.’ She made to fall forward again, but Gardus caught her.

‘Up,’ he said, helping her to her feet. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘I – I questioned, I doubted, I thought – I thought…’

‘You thought Garradan would not come.’

She nodded. She turned away, shivering. ‘I was going to leave.’

‘That is why you were at the wharfs.’

‘I wanted to leave. To go. But they caught me, and then – and then…’ She trailed off. ‘My faith was not strong enough. Carazo’s faith is like iron. I wish mine was.’

‘No. Be like water,’ Gardus said softly. ‘Water flows and renews.’ He tapped his head and his chest. ‘Running water never grows stale. When water – when faith – stagnates, it becomes something else. Fanaticism. Obsession. It makes your soul and mind sick. You must be water, always flowing into the sea, to rise up as vapour and fall as rain.’

‘I-I do not understand,’ Dumala said haltingly.

‘Faith without question, is not faith. To be truly faithful, you must always question. You must always be flowing away from certainty, for in certainty, there is only stagnation. Perhaps not immediately, but it will come.’ Even as he said it, he realised that he had answered his own questions. He had come here seeking some sort of assurance, and found only more uncertainty. And perhaps that was what he had always been meant to find.

‘Why did you call us here?’ she asked.

‘I didn’t.’ He looked at the ground. ‘There is a sickness in this place. Whatever drew you all here, it feeds on you now. If you stay, it will only get stronger.’

She shook her head, not understanding. ‘Carazo will not leave. Nor will most of the others.’ She frowned. ‘Some of them can’t. Too sick.’

Gardus nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Will you stay with us?’ She touched his arm. ‘Will you help us?’

He looked down at her. ‘For one night more, at least.’

Gardus spent the rest of the evening and most of the next day in silent vigil over the gravesite. The daemon-thing would come again. But this time, it would not leave the chamber. He would make certain of it.

Now that he had seen it, it was impossible to ignore the thing’s presence below his feet. Waiting for nightfall, when it might rise and feed again. As it had likely done for months. It was no wonder that illness was rampant here.

Others might have seen that as evidence of corruption. Enough, at least, to warrant burning this place to the foundations, and salting the ashes. But Gardus was not others. Sickness was to be fought, here more than anywhere else.

‘Was this why I was drawn back here, now, of all times?’ he murmured, looking up at the mural of Sigmar. ‘To confront hungry ghosts? I should not be surprised, I suppose. We were forged for war, and it seeks us out.’ Sigmar, as ever, remained silent as to his intentions. Even the few times Gardus had spoken to the God-King face to face, he had found himself questioning what was said, and whether what he had heard had been what was meant.

Questions and uncertainty. These, not hardship, were the whetstones of faith. He felt that he was where he needed to be, whatever the reason. And so he would wait, and do as Sigmar willed. As he hoped Sigmar willed.

‘Patience is something of a burden,’ he grumbled. He patted his runeblade in its plain sheath, sitting across his knees. He could feel the heat of the blade, the echo of its forging. Like him, it was more than just a sword. He hoped it would be enough. He hoped he would be enough. But only time would tell.

Behind him, he could hear the faithful of Saint Garradan singing an old Verdian hymn. A song of life and renewal, of hope. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, he almost thought himself in Azyr once more, walking the rim of the Sigmarabulum, listening to the song of the stars. As Dumala had said, Carazo had decided not to leave. Some few had departed, but most of the congregation had stayed.

For her part, Dumala told no one of her realisation, not even Carazo. Her faith in him was somewhat unnerving, even as he made use of it. She and a few others would keep watch for Wale’s men, and ring the hospice bells when they spotted them. Gardus suspected that a show of force would be enough to make the sellswords rethink any plans to violence. And if not, he would deal with them, if necessary.

As you dealt with the Skineaters?

The question caused him to stiffen. He was not sure whether he had thought it, or not. He took his sword off his knees and stood. ‘I did what I thought was right,’ he said.

Right… right… right…

Long shadows crept along the unsettled earth. The night came on, and a chill prickled across the nape of his neck. ‘Do you know me?’ he asked. He felt foolish as he did so. ‘Have you been calling to me, all this time?’

Silence. But he felt as if he were being watched. The air had taken on a pall, as before a storm. He drew his blade, and cast aside his sheath. ‘You called. I am here. Answer me.’

Still, no reply. Then…

Garradan…

‘Yes,’ he said, bringing his runeblade up. ‘I hear you. I have been hearing you for a long time, I think. I am sorry I could not come sooner.’

Garradan… help us…

‘I will. If I can.’ He turned, seeking any sign of the daemon-thing. He’d half hoped his presence would keep it quiescent. It had seemed to fear him, the night before. But there was no fear in its voice now – only a raw, ugly need.

In the other chamber, the song rose. He felt the ground shudder beneath his feet, as if the sound pained it. Had their prayers woken it, that first night? Had the hymns stirred some faint memory, and brought what had been growing in the dark to the surface?

Garradan… where are you… Garradan… please…

‘I am here.’ He raised his blade, watching the ground. ‘I am waiting.’

The song faltered. He spun, as the bells began to ring, and a babble of worry rose. He could hear Carazo trying to keep people calm, and something else – shouts, and the clatter of weapons. He started towards the archway.

Garradan… don’t leave us… You can’t leave us…

Gardus paused, and turned back, as the daemon-spirit erupted from beneath the churning soil, its many mouths open in a manifold scream. Hands and arms sprouted from its serpentine length, like the legs of a centipede. He staggered, and fingers and fists thudded into him, striking with inhuman force, bruising his flesh as he was driven back, against a broken support timber. It was at once there and not – incorporeal, but somehow hideously solid. The thing surged up, larger than he’d imagined, and coiled about him, knocking aside fire-scarred rubble in its fury.

Gardus smashed a gibbering, gnawing face, and slashed out with his runeblade. The moist spirit-stuff parted like jelly, rippling and splitting around the edge of the sword, before reforming with a wet splat. Gardus grunted in frustration and redoubled his efforts, chopping at the viscous matter as it rose up around him. As he fought, the whispers of the dead insinuated themselves, burrowing through the walls of his concentration.

Garradan… help us…

My hands… I can’t feel my hands…

Dark… So dark… Why can’t I see…

Garradan…

Garradan…

‘Silence,’ Gardus roared. But the voices continued, doubling and redoubling, drowning out his own thoughts. The daemon’s coils convulsed about him, nearly crushing the air from his lungs. He fought to free himself, as fingers and teeth dug into his flesh. Blood ran down his arms and legs, dripping to the broken ground.

He tore himself free of the entity’s coils, splitting it in two with a wild blow, and staggered back against another fallen timber. There was blood in his eyes, and his breath thick in his lungs. The daemon-spirit hissed and writhed, reforming slowly.

He heard a chuckle, from somewhere close by. ‘It’s strong, for something so young. Then, good soil does wonders with even the smallest seed.’

Wale.

Gardus blinked blood and sweat from his eyes. He could hear screams. The shouts of Wale’s men, and the rattle of weapons. ‘No,’ he said hoarsely.

‘I warned you. I gave you a chance. But here it is, evensong, and this stone is still in my field.’ Wale sighed. ‘I’m no butcher. Just a man of the soil. But this field is mine, by right.’ Gardus heard the click of Wale’s walking stick, striking a rock. ‘As is this harvest. Someone else might have planted the seeds, but the crop is Grandfather’s, through and through. I’ve been waiting for it to ripen for decades.’

The daemon-spirit had finished reforming. It lurched towards him with a slug-like undulation. Faces and hands bulged like blisters on its gelatinous body, biting and groping at the air. The voices of the dead hung on the air like the hum of insects. He felt weak – as if the daemon’s miasma were sapping his strength.

‘Beautiful,’ Wale said. Gardus saw him, standing near the far wall, his hands folded over the head of his cane. ‘A new thing, under Grandfather’s sun. That’s a true joy, that is. Bringing something new into the world.’

The daemon-thing turned at his words, its faces contorted in expressions ranging from confusion to frustration. It snarled, in many voices, and Wale frowned. ‘Now, now, little one. None of that. I’m not here to harm you.’

It stretched its upper half towards him, faces splitting and sprouting anew as they extended. Mouths moved, voicing a babble of what might have been questions. Wale gestured, and there was a sudden sickly light. The daemon-thing jerked back, with a startled hiss. ‘Go back to your meal, little one. You’ll find no nourishment from my withered frame.’ The thing turned, and began to slither back towards Gardus.

Gardus lifted his sword. ‘Is this your doing, then? Is this monstrosity something you’ve conjured?’

The daemon-thing undulated closer, mouths opening and closing. Parts of it were singing. Some were praying – to Sigmar, to Khorne – but the words twisted, becoming a paean to Nurgle. Gardus twisted aside as it lunged, its malformed jaws tearing a chunk from the timber behind him.

Garradan… help us…

Wale laughed. ‘Me? No. This is the fruit of death, and I’m no killer. Just a farmer. A man of the soil, as I told you. I know a few tricks, but I’m no sorcerer or rotbringer. But isn’t it magnificent? Grandfather loves all things that live and grow, friend. Even this. Even you. You should remember that, should you walk these green places again.’

Garradan… we need you…

The daemon-thing shimmered in the dark, shining with the ugly light of a bruise or an infected wound. The runeblade felt heavy in his hand. The thing seemed to shrug off his strongest blow, and he wondered at the weakness he felt. He touched one of the wounds on his arm, rubbing the blood between his fingers. The thing licked its lips. His blood marked its mouths and limbs, and crimson pulses ran through its semi-opaque form.

It was feeding on him. The mortals had given it the strength to manifest, but it needed more than they could provide. He lowered his sword, as realisation flooded him. Fighting it would only make it stronger. It would bleed him, and leave him a broken husk.

It was greedy, like an infant. And like an infant, it needed comfort.

Garradan… please…

He stabbed his sword into the ground. ‘Yes,’ he said, stepping forward, weaponless. He spread his arms. ‘I hear you.’

It surged towards him, with a murmur of triumph. He heard Wale cackle in pleasure. The daemon-thing engulfed him. It was like being struck by a spray of icy water, and he fought the urge to resist. He felt teeth fasten into his flesh, and fingers clutch at him, with desperate ferocity.

He sank down, drowning in effluvia, and let loose his hold on the light within him. It burst forth, from every pore. It swelled, filling the daemon-thing. The entity screamed in many tongues, and heaved itself away from him, its form writhing. Gardus stumbled after it. The blood that slicked his limbs shimmered like fire, and where it struck the ground, plumes of smoke curled upwards. He caught hold of the daemon-thing and dragged it towards him, as the light grew blinding in its intensity. It squirmed in his grip, babbling.

Garradan… Garradan… Garradan…

‘I am here,’ he said. ‘I am here. I will help you.’ It twisted, coming apart in his hands, boiling away to nothing. Faces stretched like clay, bubbled and fell away, leaving only fading moans to mark their passing. His light filled the chamber as he gathered the dissolving remnants to him, hugging it close. He murmured to the struggling entity, whispering words of comfort. ‘I did not mean to leave you here,’ he said. ‘But I will not leave you again.’

Garradan… help us…

He closed his eyes. ‘I will.’ It beat at him, trying to free itself, but its struggles grew weak, and finally ceased entirely. As it fell silent, he looked down, and saw that he held something frail and broken and pale – something that murmured wordlessly as it came apart in his hands and spilled away like dust.

‘No!’

Something caught him on the back of the head, and shattered. He staggered, sinking to one knee. Wale roared and struck him again, with the remains of his cane. Despite his withered frame, the old man was far stronger than he looked – stronger than any mortal. Wale cast aside the fragments of his cane and caught Gardus by the scalp. ‘You killed it! Murderer!’

Wale drove him face first into a timber. Gardus slumped, dazed. Wale kicked him in the side, knocking him onto his back. ‘What harm did it ever do you? It was no more than a seedling.’ The old man drew his sword. The blade was dull and brown with old rust. Ugly runes decorated its length, and Gardus could feel the malignant heat of its magics. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

‘It was a monster,’ he said hoarsely. ‘As are you.’

‘Just a farmer, friend,’ Wale said, as he raised his blade. ‘And after I’m done with you, I’ll grow such a crop here as this city has never seen.’

‘Gardus!’

Gardus looked up, and saw Dumala. She had his runeblade in both hands and sent it skidding across the ground towards him, as Wale spun towards her, face twisted with fury. Gardus caught the hilt, and lunged to his feet. Wale, realising his error, turned back. Their blades connected with a hollow clang. Gardus forced Wale back.

‘You’ll grow nothing,’ he said.

‘It’s – You can’t! This place is mine,’ Wale snarled. ‘Mine by right!’

‘No,’ Gardus said. ‘It is mine.’ Wale’s blade shattered as Gardus swept it aside. Wale fell back, mouth open in denial. Gardus slammed his sword through Wale’s chest, and drove him back against a timber. He loosed the hilt and stepped back, leaving Wale impaled.

Wale clawed at the runeblade as his thin form began to unravel. His coat shed its feathers, as his limbs shed skin and muscle. He crumpled inwards, like fruit gone rotten, and fell away, leaving only one more black stain to mark his passing. Gardus pulled his blade free, and turned. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

Dumala nodded. ‘Just returning the favour.’ She gestured. ‘Look,’ she said softly.

The chamber had changed. Was changing.

Blue flames danced across black walls, leaving only bare stone in its wake. The unsightly vegetation crumbled away, and new, vibrant growth replaced it. Wherever his blood had fallen, green shoots pushed through the soil, and spread outwards.

His light had seared away the filth. The pall he’d felt was gone, and the whispers of the ghosts had fallen silent. ‘Wale’s men?’ he asked.

‘Gone,’ Dumala said. ‘You were right. They had no stomach for a fight. They ran, the moment we began to resist.’ She smiled. ‘You should have seen Carazo, waving his canes as if they were warhammers.’ Her smile faded, as she took in his wounds, and the black mark of Wale’s demise. ‘What happened here, Garradan – Gardus?’

For a moment, he had no answer for her. ‘What was meant to,’ he said finally.

She frowned. ‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t.’ He looked up at the mural of Sigmar, and smiled.

‘But I have faith.’

About the Author

Josh Reynolds is the author of the Horus Heresy Primarchs novel Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix, and the audio dramas Blackshields: The False War and Blackshields: The Red Fief. His Warhammer 40,000 work includes Lukas the Trickster, Fabius Bile: Primogenitor, Fabius Bile: Clonelord and Deathstorm, and the novellas Hunter’s Snare and Dante’s Canyon, along with the audio drama Master of the Hunt. He has written many stories set in the Age of Sigmar, including the novels Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows, Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden, Nagash: The Undying King and Soul Wars. His tales of the Warhammer old world include The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, and two Gotrek & Felix novels. He lives and works in Sheffield.

An extract from Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden.

The sigmarite runeblade gleamed in the soft glow of infinity, as it etched complex patterns upon the air. Wherever the blade passed, light followed. The light, that of ancient stars and newborn suns, glimmered briefly but brightly before fading away. There was a lesson in that, the blade’s wielder mused, as he swept the sword around in a curving slash. But then, lessons were all around, for the attentive student.

And Gardus of the Steel Soul was nothing if not attentive. The Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights was clad only in a simple blue tunic, marked with the sign of the twin-tailed comet. His limbs were bare of all save sweat and scars, and his white hair was cropped short. His armour, gleaming silver and crafted of the same holy metal as his runeblade, lay nearby, alongside his tempestos hammer, stacked neatly against one of the long marble benches that lined the walls, biding its time. Soon, he would once again don the panoply of war, and the man would be subsumed beneath the warrior. But for now, he was simply a man, hard at his labours, joyful and content.

Through the soles of his feet, Gardus could feel the omnipresent rumble of the storms that raged eternally over the aetherdomes of the Sigmarabulum. Overhead, the High Star Sigendil gleamed, an eternal beacon in the black seas of infinity that stretched outwards around the celestial ramparts of Sigmaron. This place had ever called to him, stirring something inside. It was where he felt the most at ease, on the edge of all that was.

The weight of the blade in his hand was a comfort. The pull of his muscles, the growing ache from his exertions. The sweat in his eyes. All of it served to ground him. To anchor him to this place, this moment. There was peace here, for a time. A purity of purpose, simple and uncomplicated. He turned, letting the hilt of the runeblade slide through calloused palms. The mystic steel was an extension of his arm, of his soul.

As he moved, his flesh began to shimmer with an eerie radiance, like sunlight across new-fallen snow. It shone from every pore, filling the air. The light welled up, only to then fade away as he instinctively mustered his will and forced it back down inside himself. He slid forwards, moving gracefully despite his size. With god-given strength came elegance as well. Such were the gifts of Sigmar. But they did not come without a price.

There was always a price. Both physical and otherwise. At times, Gardus felt as if he were a broken vessel, badly repaired, and all that he had been was leaking away. Perhaps that was the origin of the light he had just banished – perhaps it was his soul, seeking escape. The thought unsettled him.

Sometimes, his mind thrummed with fragments – snatches of conversations he could not recall having, faces without names and names without faces. Embers of old emotion flared to new life, before guttering away once more. The ghosts of those he’d known – those he’d failed. Those he’d killed.

He felt phantom heat wash over him. Heard the pad of feet over marble floors, and the guttural howls of the Skin Eaters. His skin prickled as the howls grew louder. The candlesticks were heavy in his hands. The doors of the hospice burst inwards and…

He breathed out. His grip on his runeblade tightened, and he drew strength from the steel, surety from its purpose. Not a candlestick, this. He turned, slicing the air, letting the weight of the blade do the work, as he’d been taught. Banishing the Skin Eaters back to oblivion. But they had not come alone.

A hand, vast and reeking of rot, reached for him. He jerked back, sword slicing up. He heard the rumble of daemonic laughter as the image wavered and dispersed. Another broken memory, though he could put a name to this one – Bolathrax.

‘Much is demanded of those to whom much is given,’ he said, forcing the memory down. Bolathrax was gone. Cast back into the void by Alarielle. He repeated the words. The mantra had a calming effect on his troubled mind. His voice echoed across the platform, its echoes merging with the roar of the storm, even as the reflection of his blade merged with the glow of the stars above. He slowed his movements, falling into a more elegant rhythm. His runeblade moved lazily, with less precision, as he let his muscles relax and his attention wander away from old hurts.

Here, on the precipice of the Sigmarabulum, he was as close as any save the gods could come to the celestial canvas. It was a sea of colour and light, impossibly vast and terrible in its cosmic ferocity. Stars pinwheeled through the fraying strands of pulsing nebulas, and immense coronas flashed in the deep. And, nestled within its tides, the still-beating heart of a broken world. He looked up.

Mallus. The world-that-was. The last breath of all that had come before. A fragment of forgotten grandeur, casting strange shadows over the vast forges, armouries and soul-mills of Sigmaron. The broken world was at once a reminder and a promise for all those who dwelled in Sigmaron.

Gardus turned away, unable to bear the weight of the sight for very long. In any event, he needed no reminding of what was at stake; he would keep his promise, whatever the cost.

He was a Stormcast Eternal, and he could do no less. The embodiment of the tempest, forged anew to wage war in Sigmar’s name. To fight and die, and fight again, until either ultimate victory was achieved, or the foundations of all that was at last crumbled. The thought brought him little pleasure. Victory was not certain, and sometimes the price seemed more than he could bear. He pushed the thought aside, and concentrated only on the runeblade in his hand, and the light of the stars as they played across its edge. Like the weapon he had been forged for a purpose, and he would fulfil it.

He fell into a defensive stance, rolling his wrists, letting the runeblade rise. As he brought it down a moment later, he moved, stepping to his left. Like the storm, it was best to always be in motion. Lessons learned in Ghyran, the Realm of Life, had taught him that standing still often led to being overwhelmed. A warrior must be fluid, like water, else he would inevitably be worn down, as happened to even the tallest mountains.

He paused, sword raised, sensing a new presence just behind him.

‘You employ that blade of yours the way an artist employs his brush, Steel Soul.’

Gardus turned, lowering his sword as he did so. ‘And your voice carries even over the roar of the storm eternal, Beast-Bane. We all have our talents.’

Zephacleas Beast-Bane laughed boisterously. The Lord-Celestant of the Astral Templars did everything boisterously, much to the chagrin of some. ‘Too true,’ Zephacleas said as he came forwards, grinning. ‘When I heard you were back, I decided to come and pay my respects. It has been too long since last we spoke.’ They clasped forearms.

He was bigger than Gardus, big even for a Stormcast Eternal, and brutal-looking despite his cheerful demeanour. In his mortal life, the man who would become Zephacleas had been a barbarian chieftain of the Ghurlands, a brawling, bellowing giant of a man. Apotheosis had refined him somewhat, but the veneer of civilization was a thin one. And, indeed, thinner now than it had been the last time they’d met.

He had his helmet tucked under one arm, leaving his head bare. His hair was long and bound in thick braids, as was his beard. His battered features would never be handsome, but his eyes gleamed with merriment, and his smile was genuine, despite the gaps in his teeth.

Like his face, his bruise-coloured war-plate was scarred by hard use. Its gilded edges were faded and dull, and the plates were now marked by savage adornments. Fangs and claws taken from the slain bodies of monstrous beasts rattled against the holy sigils of Azyr. The skull of an orruk had been mounted on one of his shoulder-plates, the thick bone etched with primitive runes.

Gardus gestured to it. ‘That’s new.’

‘This? This is Drokka.’ Zephacleas knocked on the skull with his knuckles. ‘Was Drokka, I should say. A gift from the Fist of Gork himself.’

‘I heard you’d been sent to parley with the orruks. I’m glad to see you made friends.’ Gardus laid the flat of his sword over his shoulder. ‘I was worried they might take offence to you and send you back in pieces.’

‘You just have to know how to talk to them.’ Zephacleas motioned to Gardus’ hair. ‘Gone shock-headed, have we? Last time I saw you, it was black.’

Gardus reached up and ran a hand through his hair. ‘The Athelwyrd,’ he said simply.

Zephacleas’ smile faded. He knew what Gardus was referring to. They’d fought side by side in the hidden vale, in defence of Alarielle, the Queen of the Radiant Woods, embodiment of Ghyran, the Realm of Life. And during that battle, Gardus had… died.

‘That’d do it, I suppose.’ Zephacleas peered at Gardus, as if searching his face for something. ‘Do you… remember any of it? After, I mean.’

Gardus frowned. Bits and pieces of the last scattered moments rose to the surface of his mind – he smelled the foetid stench of the Great Unclean One as it scooped him up, rotting fingers tightening painfully about his battered form. He felt his bones crack and burst as the daemon sought to wring the life from him. And he felt again the pain as a bolt of searing lightning carried him from the killing grounds, and back to the celestine vaults of Sigmaron. There, formless and broken, he had been forged anew by the hand of the God-King himself, and made fit for duty once more.

Hammer stroke after hammer stroke had shaped the shards of his soul. Each blow, a tempest, drawing forth memory and instinct from what remained. Who he had been was the fire used to fuel his rebirth. Was he even the same being who had undergone those tribulations that still haunted his dreams, or was he but the barest memory of that warrior, recast and given the same name? A memory of a memory, clothed in borrowed flesh.

‘Gardus?’ Zephacleas said softly, startling him from his reverie. He sounded concerned. There was a keen mind beneath that brutish exterior. Zephacleas played the fool, but he was more observant than many gave him credit for.

Gardus shook his head. ‘Some. Pain. Thunder. And Sigmar’s voice, like a bell tolling on high, drawing me up from the depths.’ He hesitated. ‘It hurt worse than death. I was glad when it was done, and I would not go through it again for anything.’ He fell silent. He had died, in the Athelwyrd. And on the Anvil of Apotheosis, he had been Reforged. That was all there was to it. And no benefit to be had in dwelling on it.

Zephacleas looked as if he wished to ask more questions but, thankfully, he kept them to himself. He clapped Gardus on the shoulder. ‘I am glad you are back, my friend. And I am sorry I was not able to fight beside you on your last foray.’

Gardus nodded. The battle for the Great Green Torc had been fierce, and many warriors, both Hallowed Knights and otherwise, had fallen on the sky-borne toroid. They had been victorious but, as ever, there had been a cost. ‘It was your sort of battle, more so than mine. There were giant spiders.’

‘I miss all of the good fights,’ Zephacleas said mournfully. He broke into a grin. ‘Still, there’s always tomorrow.’

‘Unfortunately.’

Gardus went to where he’d left his war-plate and began to pull it on. Other Lord-Celestants were more than content to allow chamber serfs to help them with their armour, but Gardus had no patience for such indulgences. He would do it himself, or not at all. He dressed slowly, the warmth of the sigmarite easing the ache from his muscles. ‘But perhaps not forever.’

Zephacleas grunted and scratched his chin. ‘You’re rejoining your chamber in Ghyran soon, I hear. A last push across the Plains of Vo, or so go the rumours.’

‘You shouldn’t listen to rumours,’ Gardus said. He was looking forward to rejoining his chamber. And he wasn’t alone in that. Other warriors, some newly Reforged, would be returning to Ghyran with him. It had been too long since the Steel Souls had fought as one, and, reunited, they might just be able to swing the war in the Jade Kingdoms in Alarielle’s favour. Or so he hoped.

‘Grymn must be beside himself with joy,’ Zephacleas said.

Lorrus Grymn, Lord-Castellant of the Steel Souls, had assumed overall command of the warrior chamber after Gardus’ fall in the Athelwyrd. The Lord-Castellant had led the Steel Souls to continue their mission in the Jade Kingdoms, and defend Alarielle from the diseased servants of the Plague God, Nurgle. Their efforts had culminated in a final stand against the forces of the Rotbringers at Blackstone Summit, and the subsequent rebirth of Alarielle.

‘He has acquitted himself well,’ Gardus said, smiling slightly as he thought of the taciturn warrior. Grymn was the Steel Souls’ shield, where Gardus was its sword. Where he chose to plant his standard, no enemy would prosper, as the servants of the Ruinous Powers had learned to their cost, most recently during the siege of the Living City. ‘The sylvaneth sing his praises.’

‘The least they could do, given all that you have both done for them and that goddess of theirs,’ Zephacleas said. He picked up Gardus’ hammer and gave it an experimental swing. ‘But then, gods aren’t ones for gratitude.’

Gardus stood and sheathed his runesword. He picked up his helmet and took his hammer from Zephacleas. Whatever Zephacleas thought, Gardus knew that Alarielle owed them little. For, in their ignorance, it was the Stormcast Eternals who had inadvertently cost the goddess her last sanctuary in Ghyran. Whatever debts lay between them were paid, or as good as. ‘It is not for us to question the gods, my friend. Merely to do their will, whatever it might be. Much is demanded…’

Zephacleas laughed. ‘Of course we should question the gods. How else will they know we’re listening?’ He poked Gardus in the chest. ‘Eh? Answer me that.’

Gardus chuckled. ‘As much as I’ve missed arguing with you, I fear I have somewhere a good deal less cheerful to be.’ He looked past Zephacleas. ‘Isn’t that right, sister?’

‘Punctuality has always been one of your more pleasing virtues, Steel Soul,’ the newcomer said, as she drew close. The Lord-Celestant was as large as Gardus, and her silver war-plate was marked with a profusion of blessed prayer scrolls. Her helmet hung from her belt, and her round, dark face was set in a look of stern disapproval as she studied Zephacleas. ‘But your choice of such disreputable friends has ever been your greatest failing. Take care, lest they lead you into impropriety.’

‘My Lady Cassandora, a pleasure as ever,’ Zephacleas said, making an attempt at a courtly bow. He peered up at her as he did so. ‘How’s that for respect?’

‘Adequate,’ she said, smiling slightly. ‘Barely.’

Lord-Celestant Cassandora Stormforged had been among the first of their Stormhost to wage war in the Mortal Realms. It was by her hand that the Queen of Swords had been cast down, and the ancient rim-citadel of Ytalan claimed in Sigmar’s name, during the Crater-War. The Stormforged struck like lightning, and left nothing standing in their wake. ‘Still as foolish as ever, Beast-Bane. I recall it was almost the death of you, in Klaxus.’

‘And yet, here I stand,’ Zephacleas said, gesturing expansively.

‘Yes, thanks to me,’ Cassandora said. ‘You’re welcome, by the way.’ She looked at Gardus, as Zephacleas spluttered. ‘It’s time, brother. The Shadowed Soul requests our presence. The lords of the fourth Stormhost gather in the Sepulchre of the Faithful.’

Gardus nodded. ‘Yes.’ He tapped Zephacleas’ shoulder-plate with his hammer. ‘It was good to see you again, brother.’

‘So it was,’ Zephacleas said. He caught Gardus up in a rib-rattling bear hug, squeezing him hard enough to make his sigmarite creak. ‘Go with Sigmar, my brother. And if you need help, I shall be there, come death or ruin.’

Cassandora coughed politely. ‘Time runs swift, brother.’

‘Indeed it does,’ Gardus said. He extended his hammer. ‘Lead on, sister. The Sepulchre of the Faithful awaits us.’

Click here to buy Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Helge C. Balzer

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