More great stories from the Age of Sigmar

SACROSANCT AND OTHER STORIES
Various authors

MYTHS & REVENANTS
Various authors

GLOOMSPITE
Andy Clark

THE RED FEAST
Gav Thorpe

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

SOUL WARS
Josh Reynolds

LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF SIGMAR
Various authors
Contains the novels Fyreslayers, Skaven Pestilens and Sylvaneth

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

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

GODS & MORTALS
Various authors

SCOURGE OF FATE
Robbie MacNiven

• HALLOWED KNIGHTS •
Josh Reynolds
Book 1: PLAGUE GARDEN
Book 2: BLACK PYRAMID

HAMILCAR: CHAMPION OF THE GODS
David Guymer

BLACKTALON: FIRST MARK
Andy Clark

SHADESPIRE: THE MIRRORED CITY
Josh Reynolds

CALLIS & TOLL: THE SILVER SHARD
Nick Horth

THE TAINTED HEART
C L Werner

OVERLORDS OF THE IRON DRAGON
C L Werner

EIGHT LAMENTATIONS: SPEAR OF SHADOWS
Josh Reynolds

THE RED HOURS
Evan Dicken

HEART OF WINTER
Nick Horth

WARQUEEN
Darius Hinks

THE BONE DESERT
Robbie MacNiven

Audio Dramas

REALMSLAYER
David Guymer

EIGHT LAMENTATIONS: WAR-CLAW
Josh Reynolds

SHADESPIRE: THE DARKNESS IN THE GLASS
Various authors

THE PALACE OF MEMORY AND OTHER STORIES
Various authors

THE IMPRECATIONS OF DAEMONS
Nick Kyme

To see the full Black Library range, visit the Kobo Store.

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer Age of Sigmar

Fyreslayers

Four Thousand Days

The Keys to Ruin

Shattered Crucible

The Volturung Road

Skaven Pestilens

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Sylvaneth

The Resolute

Heartwood

The Splintered

Wrathspring

The Outcast

About the Authors

An Extract from ‘The Realmgate Wars eBook Collection’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

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

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

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

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

The Age of Sigmar had begun.

FYRESLAYERS

FOUR THOUSAND DAYS

David Guymer

‘The first day began with wrath...’

The Angfyrd Odyssey

The Fyreslayer screamed until his throat was raw and his chest heaved on empty lungs. He gulped down a breath, heaved forwards, but was restrained. Iron clamps around his arms and legs groaned. His seat rocked on triple-bolted floor brackets. The new rune ignited as it took, blazing brilliant gold that flooded his eyes with fire and the thick muscles of his chest with torment. His biceps spasmed, tensing and un-tensing with a fury.

He screamed as no duardin ever should – honestly, terribly, his cries cast back at him by metal and stone.

The walls didn’t care. They had heard and borne witness many times over ten thousand years. His ancestors had endured the same trials as he. Who was he to suffer so visibly under the gaze of their icons?

Who was he?

‘I am Dunnegar!’ His breath was cinders and ash, his voice the rasp of hot coals stirred through a fire. ‘I am duardin. I am a Fyreslayer. I am… am…’

He grunted with recovering sensation as the pain in his chest faded just slightly, diminishing to a level that allowed him to feel again the punishment meted to his belly, his left hand, his thigh, both biceps, his back, several times over. Power and glimmerlust whirled through his mind. Power and glimmerlust. Glimmerlust and power. It hurt, but by Grimnir he wanted more. With a shuddering swallow breath, he blinked away the fire sprites that cavorted behind his eyes.

Runemaster Rolk stood framed by the heat of the forge.

The ancient priest smouldered. Fire licked the gold and magmadroth scale of his ceremonial dress. The deep lines in his thickly muscled forearms were steaming channels of sweat. Master runes of smiting and unmaking burned red against his blackened skin, responding in kind to the power of the forge that had cast them.

A newly forged rune sat upon his fire-wreathed anvil, spitting out golden impurities under the heat. Impassive, the runemaster reached for it, his arm glowing cherry red as he withdrew it with the rune hissing violently against his bare palm. He raised his hammer of runic iron, eyes the white of the hottest fires glowering through the smoke.

‘What is wrath, boy?’

Dunnegar gritted his teeth and jerked against his bonds. ‘Again. More.’

Face set, the runemaster positioned the rune in the centre of Dunnegar’s forehead and stepped back. The rune roasted into place and didn’t slip. Dunnegar forced his eyes open and his mouth shut against the near overwhelming urge to clench them tight and howl.

Then the runemaster swung, and Dunnegar’s mind exploded into embers.

Chipped stone the colour of rust ran away from his hands and knees.

They were his hands, and his knees, even as their weight and strength took him aback. No ur-gold runes punctured them, branching tattoos spiralling in their place, but it didn’t matter. He was stronger than Dunnegar had ever been or conceived. Heat was the common element between that world and this. Fire had been folded into the wind, smoke and air layered and layered until what the fire had forged filled his lungs like tar. The sun was small and red, hazed behind an ash sky, and intermittently sparked with cinders that rained from the mountain’s peak. Motes shot through his savage crest of red hair and sizzled against his skin. For the injury they caused he might as well have been made of metal. The power within him was older and hotter than anything that boiled under Aqshy’s broken surface.

Even as that inner fire gave him no particular pause, the part of him that was a Fyreslayer gloried in the glow of the divine.

A sky-sundering bellow rocked the mountainside and sent scree avalanching past him.

He held firm and looked up into the ash sky, hunting, but immediately recoiled from the searing intensity of the cinder rain. Brighter and brighter it became, the pain in his forehead pounding on his skull until he could see nothing but light and his mind was awash with molten gold.

Tendons standing from his neck like cables, Dunnegar heaved against his restraints and sprayed his knees with spittle.

‘Vulcatrix! I see the ur-salamander. The Godslayer.’

An excited murmur echoed this declaration, but he saw no one in the smoke, heard no words.

‘Not bad,’ Rolk grunted, drawing yet another hot rune from his forge. ‘Perhaps you’ve half the chance your kin think you have.’

Dunnegar began to laugh, panting hoarsely, gasping the air so fast that his lungs could have strained nothing from it. And yet he felt power. His heart raced upon a tremendous wave of it. It was destruction. It was fire and wrath, but it was joy as well, pride in his strength. His biceps bulged against the iron restraints, metal cuffs beginning to bend and hiss as they were heated. From behind him came a gruff warning, and hands gauntleted in fyresteel clamped over his arms.

‘Tell me again, boy, if there’s anything left in that thick skull: what is wrath?’

‘Grimnir is wrath.’

‘Ur-gold is what Grimnir left us of his power and will,’ said Rolk, staring into the complex geometry of the rune in his palm, his hard face appearing to express something like veneration in the shifting light of the flame. ‘By harnessing its might we do him glory in the manner in which he approves.’

Then the runemaster closed his hand over the rune, and Dunnegar growled to see it taken away from him. Rolk gave a knowing smile, a narrow thing of craggy lines and gold-capped teeth.

‘Glimmerlust. He’s had enough.’

The voice was that of Horgan-Grimnir. Rarity made his words precious, and imbued them with a power far beyond their worth. Even Dunnegar seemed to understand, though his attention remained locked on the runemaster’s closed fist.

The Trial of Wrath had but three possible outcomes: survival, gold madness, or death.

To the minds of those in attendance, no outcome was favourable. Survival meant embarking on the path of the grimwrath – gold madness and death by another name.

‘The flameling’s soft, as flamelings are wont to be,’ Rolk scoffed. ‘He’ll have had enough when he makes it to the top. If he makes it.’

‘Enough,’ the runefather spoke again. ‘There is a long journey ahead, and he already bears more runes than I.’

‘Are you jealous, lord?’ Opening his hand brought a golden flush to the runemaster’s face, and he chuckled at Dunnegar’s immediate reaction to the rune’s brilliance.

‘Again,’ said Dunnegar, straining to be nearer. ‘I will see the mountaintop.’

‘That’s the gold talking, lad,’ came the level wheeze of one whom Dunnegar felt he should remember, but just then, just there, could not.

‘And through it, Grimnir.’ Eyes glowing, the runemaster pressed the scalding rune to Dunnegar’s shoulder, hammer swinging even as Dunnegar drew breath to scream.

The blow knocked him sideways, body and mind.

It came at him from nowhere. He struck it aside on the back of his axe, sending a sword-length chip of talon spinning off into fiery oblivion. A howl of primal suffering shook the mountaintop as if the force of a thunderclap had been pressed into the rock face and unleashed against it. Everything was scales and claws, his twinned axes a blur as despite the exertion burning his every muscle. He somehow countered the great wyrm’s every blow. He laughed uproariously, the sound extinguished by the rush of flame as fiery twisters leapt up from the ground. An infernal glow lit up a reptilian head some thirty feet above him – wide mouth filled with spine teeth, horned ridge, serpentine neck – then billowed out into a fireball that rocketed down and smashed apart his guard.

Dunnegar/Grimnir was slammed down, each of his axes thrown a separate way. With an exhausted rumble, Vulcatrix’s sinuous upper body crashed onto scaly forelimbs. It drew back, neck coiling like a spring. Flame flickered around its hanging jaw as its colossal torso heaved up and down with every breath.

The wyrm was as badly hurt as he was. The next blow would belong to the victor.

Grinning, Grimnir found his feet, Dunnegar urging him on, or perhaps back, for every duardin child knew how this battle ended.

‘I am Grimnir!’ they roared in unison. ‘I am vengeance.’

Howling without words, Dunnegar threw his punch.

And it was his punch. The fist was bruised and glittered bloodily with ur-gold, driven only by a mortal’s strength, but was enough to shatter the front teeth of the half-armoured karl standing in front of him. The warrior’s ornate wyrm helm and twinned plumes of vibrant red hair revealed him to be a champion of the runefather’s hearthguard. A warrior second to none.

The duardin staggered back, stunned, before another punch bent his nose and spun him on his way to the ground. Dunnegar fell on top of him, furious beyond reason, when another duardin threw his arms around his chest and dragged him off. Fyresteel gauntlets pushed up under his ribs and locked as the duardin fired a stream of curses into his ear. Dunnegar heard none of it. The karl was strong, but Dunnegar had tasted real strength and had his opponent’s measure.

Every muscle in his body seemed to flex at once, drawing back his neck and forcing the air from his chest in a scream of golden fire. The ur-gold riven into his shoulder muscles ignited like the head of a match.

The hearthguard grunted in surprise, but held on. With the burning of the rune came a fraction of Grimnir’s strength, and little by little Dunnegar peeled open the karl’s lock. With a throw of his shoulders, he knocked the straining duardin’s arms wide. He tossed back an elbow and felt the hearthguard’s forehead crack under it. Then he turned, followed up with a quick step, and smashed the dazed warrior down into the now-broken iron chair with a headbutt that painted both of their faces with blood.

‘I will not be tamed!’

He turned back to see a fist like a cannonball studded with jewelled rings flying towards his face just before it hit his temple. He corkscrewed twice, then slammed face-first into the flagstones. He groaned. The rune was sapped, and he no longer felt the berzerker rage he needed to awaken the others.

Horgan-Grimnir cracked his knuckles and walked away. The runemaster smiled at the both of them, his ancient face telling a clearer tale than the finest of Battlesmith Killim’s chronicle banners.

The Angfyrd lodge had its first grimwrath berzerker in a generation.

Dunnegar felt no pride in that: just the cool of the inert rune in his shoulder where the might of a god had once raged.

He hadn’t yet tried to push himself off the ground when someone proffered him a grubby oilcloth.

Killim crouched over him, sadness and pity like dust in his eyes.

The look on the smith’s face hurt more than any number of blows from the runefather’s fists ever could. All Fyreslayers of a lodge were bound closely together, but his bond with Killim was stronger than most. Like all his age, Karl Huffnar of the Cannite Fyrd had taught him how to handle an axe, but it had been Killim who had forged his blade. His earliest memory was of the smith – old even then – sitting him on his knee to teach him to read the common runes.

Now, his old mentor searched his eyes as if looking for someone he knew was lost.

‘Will he be strong enough to travel?’ said Horgan-Grimnir, broad back turned. ‘We have a journey of four thousand days, and Grimwrath or no, the magmahold empties at dawn.’

‘He’ll be stronger than you,’ Rolk grinned. ‘Has the messenger in the fire told you anything more about our quest?’

‘That Fyrepeak calls its daughter-lodges home, to war against Taurak Skullcleaver and his two lieutenants.’

‘And of the Fyrepeak itself? Yesterday it was a myth.’

Horgan-Grimnir snorted and shook his head. ‘Tend to what is yours, runemaster. My son and I will keep what is ours.’

‘On the seven hundred and nineteenth day, the Angfyrd lodge was reunited with its distant cousin. The fire is always warm, but a duardin welcome is frosty...’

The Angfyrd Odyssey

With a supreme effort of will, Dunnegar held back the deathblow. A ripple of muscle tension ran through his arm in protest against his efforts to lower his axe.

‘Get up.’

The armoured warrior pushed aside the corpses that had fallen over him and looked up at Dunnegar with a baleful stare of his own. From that alone, Dunnegar saw that the figure was no Bloodbound. He was duardin, a Fyreslayer no less, albeit a ghoulishly presented one.

In contrast to the vibrant oranges and purples worn by the Angfyrd Fyreslayers, this one’s wargear was black, fluted and moulded into the appearance of bone. His face had been painted with white powder, except for the eye sockets where the brazen red of his skin showed through. His beard was an unnatural grey. The twinned plumes of his helm designating him a karl of his fyrd might have been a reassuring point of commonality, but the likeness crafted into the black helm was that of a skeletal wyrm and the plumage itself was short, white, and brittle.

‘Or just lie there, if you like it,’ Dunnegar growled when the strange Fyreslayer neither spoke nor stood, and made to take his axe back to the fight. ‘More for me.’

The Fyreslayer regarded him hollowly, then in a voice that was even and yet carried well enough over the cry of metal said, ‘Behind you.’

Dunnegar heard the manic breathing behind him, bare feet slapping on rock. With a snarl, he spun on the spot and hewed his greataxe through the sprinting bloodreaver’s belly. The blood barbarian was practically on top of Dunnegar when the axe carved through him, launching his torso up over the Fyreslayer’s helm.

More were coming, pelting down the slope that marked the continuous descent from the peaks in the blood-misted distance. Dunnegar counted twenty. Baying their blood-cries they poured in a wave over the bodies that littered the rocks. They were sinewy, lightly armed with knives and clubs and clad in little more than the blood of their victims and the knapped bone that pierced their bodies.

Advancing apace with a languorous stride was a muscular giant half their size again. Blood painted his physique in sharp, grotesque designs. Hanging beads in the form of blood droplets or miniature skulls jangled as he ran, his big black mouth open in a running chant that seemed to drive the savages about him into a preternatural fury.

The slaughterpriest turned on Dunnegar with a look of murder.

Under that gaze he felt the bloodlust that was never far from the surface begin to simmer. His skin prickled, eyes hardening, but Dunnegar shook off the foreign impulse to charge up the hill and soak himself in human blood with a grunt.

Rage was a force of nature that was true under its own terms. It needed no battle to stoke it, nor blood to slake it. He had endured the Trial of Wrath. There was nothing the priests of blood could teach him about fury.

Seeing him shrug off his influence, the blood shaman thrust his long glaive into the air and howled. Aping their master’s cry, the bloodreavers surged past him with redoubled zeal.

‘A lot of them,’ observed the stranger.

‘Always,’ Dunnegar returned.

His teeth were bared. His pupils had constricted to pinpricks flecked with gold. The blood priest had wanted him to charge.

And he charged.

He hit the first wave of bloodreavers like a fireball. Bodies flew aside simply from the force of impact, and then he set to work with his greataxe. Its blade was volcanic glass and dense with runes that rendered it almost transparent with heat. It was a weapon worthy of a grimwrath berzerker, and in his hands it was murder cut from obsidian.

Carving arcs of fire through the air, he hacked the first marauder in half from shoulder to groin. He tore his axe back, turning and arching under the haft, and smashed the butt across a warrior’s jaw. The two Bloodbound fell almost at the same time. His axe spun, taking off the hands of a bloodreaver that tried to jump him with two knives upraised.

With a roar, he dropped his head and cannoned deeper into the melee.

A bloodreaver with a crest of spikes broke through the after-glow of Dunnegar’s axe work and thrust a dagger into his side. The notched blade bent. The bloodreaver dropped the knife from broken fingers and Dunnegar took his head with a single sweep. Blood rained. Through the crimson fountain, he saw the blood shaman.

The man – once a man – was more than twice Dunnegar’s height and almost as heavily built. Spinning his glaive one-handed until his body was blurred by it, the shaman clawed at the heavens and called for the attention of his god.

With a hum of fine-edged steel, a throwing axe splintered the blood priest’s ribcage. The giant looked at the blade for a moment, coughed blood over the handle, and then, losing muscle control in stages, folded indelicately to the ground.

‘No respect for the dead,’ muttered the stranger, relaxing his throwing arm as Dunnegar finished off the last of the rabble. The rest broke and fled for their precious mountains. Dunnegar turned to glare at his unwanted saviour.

‘You could have made him yours if you had truly wanted him,’ the duardin stranger said.

He was referring to the ur-gold runes hammered into Dunnegar’s slowly cooling flesh, added to many times since the day of his trial and shining dully now. Dunnegar grunted acknowledgement. Indeed he could have, but the power of ur-gold was precious and finite and not lightly tapped.

To his slim credit, the other duardin nodded and extended a hand.

‘I am Aethnir, of the Sepuzkul lodge. Thank you for the help.’

A strange name. And strange words.

‘Talkative for one of the Grim Brotherhood,’ Aethnir murmured sarcastically, a smile parting his beard.

Ignoring the stranger, Dunnegar looked across the blasted foothills that Killim’s ancient lore had brought them to.

A mist of gelid gore hung thinly in the air. It clung to the rocks and to the handful of forsaken trees that persisted here, and glazed the standards of the diverse war bands to a common, glistening crimson. While a few of those bands were still battling willingly against the Fyreslayers pushing into the highlands from the plains, the majority were ever-reddening shades disappearing back into the mountains.

Dunnegar squinted into the scarlet dampness.

The fog made it impossible to make out the peaks themselves, but something about their too-smooth contours imparted a frisson of unease. Looked upon directly, as now, the mountains were a jagged haze in the far distance, but caught side-on by an accidental glance, those ill-defined shapes became something other. Statues. Hard warriors whose horned helms broke the sky and whose broad shoulders were cloaked in snow.

The blast of a horn called his attention back, dragging his gaze over a satisfyingly long and deep trail of Bloodbound dead.

Marching at the head of a fyrd of hearthguard elite, Killim held the battle standard of the Angfyrd lodge aloft. The old battlesmith had forged the standard expressly for the great odyssey, and the fyresteel icon depicted Grimnir in his aspect as the Wanderer. The differences to Grimnir the Vengeful, or the previous standard of Grimnir the Destroyer, were subtle, and Killim had captured the ancestor god’s form masterfully.

‘What have I told you about… charging ahead?’ Killim wheezed.

The hearthguard – never the most forgiving of companions – tactfully ignored the battlesmith’s exhaustion. The incline was shallow, but over many leagues taxing, and while they had merely marched it the old smith had spent the last three days and nights through hostile country reciting the five thousand year-long Angfyrd Chronicle to the rhythm of their boots.

The battlesmith struck his standard into the rocks.

Dunnegar offered a conciliatory mumble, Killim huffed something that suggested he was appeased, and on such a foundation their friendship would make it to the seven hundred and twentieth day of the odyssey.

The hearthguard closed ranks around their standard, regarding Dunnegar and Aethnir with equal suspicion.

‘What did you mean about disrespecting the dead?’ Dunnegar asked of the stranger, ignoring the hearthguard as they would rather ignore him.

The dark Fyreslayer pointed up into the hill country. There, under a pall where blood and smoke mingled, a great pyre burned. Dunnegar had assumed the fire to be some phenomenon related to the presence of the Goresworn.

It turned out that he was wrong.

‘Come with me,’ said Aethnir solemnly. ‘I will take you to the runefather.’

With bone weariness, Killim dragged up his standard once again and the duardin fell in behind their cousin.

As far as anyone knew, all Fyreslayers cremated their dead. It recalled the origins of their cult in Grimnir’s demise, the infernal twinning of destruction and rebirth. It reminded the living that power could never be annihilated, only dispersed.

The Sepuzkul’s funeral pyre burned high and hot on a mound of their fallen, tapering in the copper-tasting wind that came in off the highlands. A gathering of grimly attired duardin stood to one side, approaching the flames one by one to cast gold scavenged from the battlefield into the fire. Watching through half-lidded eyes was a magmadroth so worn and ancient that its life could only have been drawn out through some uncanny means. So far beyond its physical prime was it that the heat in its belly wasn’t even enough to clear the rime from its gums. It appeared to be in mourning for its master.

‘We stopped to send on our fallen,’ Aethnir explained. ‘We had not expected the dogs of Khorne to regroup so quickly.’

‘They ambushed you,’ said Rokkar, karl of the hearthguard, casting a weighted look over the rugged, open landscape.

‘They recovered quickly. The Lord of Khorne here calls himself the Griever. I do not know why, but perhaps you will soon have cause to rue the name as we do.’

‘Griever,’ Dunnegar muttered, turning to Killim. ‘A lieutenant of Taurak Skullcleaver, perhaps?

Aethnir looked taken aback. ‘You know that name?’

‘Aye,’ said Killim, forgetting for a moment that his voice had gone three days without respite. With palpable excitement, he reached out and grasped the foreign duardin’s wrist. ‘What brings your lodge to this place?’

‘I suppose the same as you. We have received the call home.’

‘But if both our ancestors came from Fyrepeak,’ said Dunnegar, looking the macabre duardin over with a sick feeling in his belly. ‘That would make us…’

‘Related?’ Aethnir finished, parroting Dunnegar’s actions exactly, but with an added tincture of black humour. ‘You think you are a disappointment.’

‘How far have you travelled?’ Killim interrupted. Dumping Grimnir the Wanderer into Dunnegar’s unsuspecting hands, he unslung his pack and rummaged about in it until he found what he wanted. He withdrew a thick book. The pages were a dull silver, the ancient binding clad in orruk tusk ivory.

Muttering excitedly, he cracked open the tome.

The first page was – like all of the books Dunnegar had once lost himself in as a flameling – given to a highly detailed map drawn by the lodge’s founders. A large circle in the centre depicted the region known to the Fyreslayers of the Angfyrd lodge. Smaller circles depicting other places overlapped the first, joined by realmgates that were indicated by a runic marking. Civilizations had fallen and risen and fallen again since that map was drawn. Many of the cities it marked were rubble, but mountains, oceans: they could but hope that time and Chaos had not altered those.

Killim stabbed his finger onto the map. ‘We took the first gate here, to the Ferroussian Sea, then followed the Orran upriver to these mountains.’

‘Titan’s Edge,’ Aethnir confirmed.

‘Then we are on the ancestors’ path.’ Killim looked upward with a relieved sigh, closed his eyes and muttered his thanks to Grimnir. ‘And you head for the same realmgate as we do.’ Dragging his finger towards the centre of the page, Killim tapped a spot within the mountain range where the silvery-coloured region they occupied overlapped another wreathed in fire.

‘According to our Founding Saga, the journey from Fyrepeak took four thousand days to complete.’

Aethnir nodded. ‘Ours has taken longer.’

The stranger turned his gaze towards the mountains, and the pyre.

Dunnegar’s fingers flexed and tensed around the standard’s steel pole. No one knew what made the grimwraths special amongst their kin, but even though he could endure the amount of ur-gold in his body, the erratic flow of power made him restive, impatient at best, violently ill-tempered at worst. It was one thing to be aware of that. To act before he snapped and somebody lost blood was another.

He took a deep breath, and tried not to think of the battle waiting in those mountains.

‘Have you been told why we’ve been called home?’

‘The message flame spoke of war. What other reason is there?’ With a shrug, Aethnir nodded towards the pyre. ‘Beyond that, you would have to ask the runefather.’

A duardin in ossified ceremonial robes bearing the runic iron of a runemaster called out in an ancient tongue, and a gang of pall-bearers set to withdrawing a scorched iron pallet from the fire. From the quantity of smouldering ur-gold on the pallet and the wealth of the helm, gauntlets and belt, the crisped bones rattling inside their wargear could only have belonged to the runefather of the Sepuzkul lodge. The priest inspected the remains as they passed him, spoke some manner of blessing over them, and sent them for burial by a company of hearthguard. With their red, rune-studded torsos and powdered faces, they looked strange and unearthly.

‘You are burying his runes?’ said Dunnegar in surprise.

After it was spent, ur-gold reverted to an inert state, but so far from his home and forge it would be a rare Fyreslayer who would risk using his final rune. Surely some of Grimnir’s power still lingered in those fragments.

‘They are his, and his soul faces more battles if he is to pass through the Underworlds,’ said Aethnir as though this should be obvious to anyone. ‘Do you not?’

‘We definitely do not.’

The duardin all turned as Runemaster Rolk strode towards them with Horgan-Grimnir, his hearthguard, and a trio of grimly armoured warriors of the Sepuzkul lodge behind him.

Walking with the aid of his runic iron, which he stabbed into the ground ahead of him, the priest glowered at all he passed. Bits of glimmering metal banged against his armour on chains, trinkets of presumably of priceless ur-gold that he had picked out from amongst the jewellery of the enemy dead.

From the steady stream of muttered asides and the way they appeared to compete with each other for the right to be first in the line, the three Sepuzkul were likely the sons of the late runefather. Their wargear was black, ribbed, and hatched with runes that looked like tally marks. One wore a magmadroth skull as a helm and simply by the short shrift with which he put down his brothers he clearly held himself as the favourite to succeed.

Horgan came last, trailing his long cloak of gold-etched steel. As was his way, he allowed his molten stare and weapon arm to do his talking. His immense latchkey grandaxe rested across his shoulder and dripped a trail of blood behind him. None met that gaze, even Dunnegar, though a part of him had longed to try it ever since the day of his trial.

‘A waste of a bloody blessing is what it is,’ Rolk scowled.

‘Your assistance was timely and appreciated,’ said the skull-helmed prince, leaning into his barbed spear and huffing out his bleached cheeks into a grimace. ‘But we’ll send off our own as we always have. I suggest you head on your way and do whatever it is you do with yours.’

‘We’d be better off together,’ said Dunnegar, earning a sharp stare from everyone for his lack of propriety. ‘A lot more Bloodbound where these came from.’

‘Always,’ Aethnir echoed with a thin smile.

‘We have a way around them,’ said the helmed Sepuzkul runeson. From the pride with which he said it, it was plain that if there was a way it was because he had found it. ‘It took us years to explore the trails up in those mountains, but we have found one that leads almost all the way to the gate.’

Killim grinned, closing his book with a tink of metal. ‘You’ll show us?’

‘And why should I? Has your lodge bled itself for the Griever to find this trail? No. Find your own way and to the Lord of Undeath with you all.’

With a rumble of exasperation, Rolk rounded on the Sepuzkul runeson.

‘And if I swear an oath to avenge that lost blood with the life of the Griever, would you let us join you on your trail?’

The four Sepuzkul Fyreslayers looked aghast at the suggestion.

Aethnir explained. ‘Such oaths we swear only for gold.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Rolk muttered. ‘The rate you throw it away.’

‘You would… do this?’ said one of the other runesons.

The runemaster merely crossed his arms, offended at having his conviction questioned and sincerity doubted.

‘I won’t allow it,’ rumbled Horgan-Grimnir. Slowly. Finally. ‘Your skills are needed.’

‘Aye,’ said Dunnegar, voice rising. ‘If it’s to be done at all then it should be me.’

‘Bah! I was wringing the necks of the blood-crazed before your grandfathers grew out of wooden axes.’

His gaze was fire, and even Horgan-Grimnir met it uneasily.

But Runemaster Rolk was harder than the magmadroth scale he wore and just as hot on the inside. It was a miracle he had restrained himself this long. Horgan-Grimnir shook his head, but did not argue the point again. None present doubted that the ancient Fyreslayer would and could do exactly as he vowed.

‘On the one thousand and forty-second day, the realmgate came within our grasp at last. A mighty battle it was to be, a red day, a grim day…’

The Angfyrd Odyssey

The Lord of Khorne who called himself the Griever thrust his lance into the tumbling snow and bellowed his challenge. His voice cracked with the sound of impacting skulls and echoed hollowly from behind the fused teeth of the metallic skull that encased his head as a helm. The skins of Rolk and those duardin that had gone after him fluttered from poles mounted in the harness of the brazen juggernaut the Chaos warrior rode as a mount, while the hell-steel of his armour was fused with the gaping skulls of duardin and countless others.

His horde took up his cry. They coated the mountain like a blood slick. Fifty thousand warriors armoured in crimson and draped in the dead skins of men and beasts stamped their feet, rattled weapons above their heads, and gave vent to a single wordless howl that would surely have brought the mountains down upon them all had the Titan’s Edge not been firmly under the heel of the Lord of Skulls.

Looking across the gully from halfway up the facing mountain, Horgan-Grimnir wordlessly sat back on the violet-scaled shoulders of his magmadroth and raised his grandaxe high. The challenge was accepted.

The Fyreslayers of both lodges, diminished as they were, swore new oaths.

The preceding year had taught them why this dark champion was known as the Griever. The Sepuzkul Fyreslayers set up a great lament to see their dead so mistreated, but none brooded on the insult more than Horgan-Grimnir.

He stared across the chasm with a look that could have soldered fyresteel. Affected by its master’s anger, the magmadroth scratched its claws into the rock and bellowed. The runefather had always preferred to lead his warriors on foot as one of them, but since the snowy night that his son’s mount, Caldernorn, had returned alone he had sworn that they would not be parted until both had vengeance.

Aethnir knelt in front of his fyrd of vulkite berzerkers, who silently joined him on one knee to pray. Their words were strange but still directed towards Grimnir. Beside them, Killim hoisted the icon of Grimnir the Wanderer and in a hoarse voice recounted tales of ancient triumphs over the chosen of Khorne. The auric hearthguard cheered the saga, stamping their feet faster, harder, as if to drown out the thunder from across the gorge.

Dunnegar looked across the gully. The mountain was a totem to the Dark Gods on an infernal scale. From its snow-swirled lower reaches to its majestic heights, it had been hewn into the idolatrous likeness of the Griever.

Its peak was a terrifying replica of the Chaos champion’s skull helm, a mile high, and through sweeps of snow, Dunnegar saw the realmgate they had sacrificed hearth and kin to find. It was inset into one of the eye sockets, ripples of fire shimmering apparently at random below its smooth, metal arch. The Griever and his chosen few stood by their banners on the top of the cheekbone, his horde spilling as far out and down as far as Dunnegar could see.

The Fyreslayers were on a higher, secondary peak, the two lodges occupying a long rump of stone a thousand feet wide.

It was a thumb.

Behind them were more rocky bumps, and an incredible stone lance rising precipitously into the dark sky.

The snow was starting to come down more heavily, and Dunnegar shook it from his beard.

A sour-faced runesmiter of the Sepuzkul lodge stood at the ledge. The duardin spread bare muscular arms wide as if to draw the gulf to him, a latch-axe in one hand and a forge key of pure ur-gold in the other. The Sepuzkul Fyreslayers ended their prayers with a dirge-like hum. Dunnegar and the Angfyrd lodge joined them until the mountainside resonated with deep duardin voices.

Chanting around, under, and against the dirge, the runesmiter smote the ferrule of his weapon on the rock and thrust his forge key out over the gully.

It flared into sudden life in his hand, and the entire mountain shook.

With a great tearing and spitting of rock, the runesmiter began to rise. The ground where his axe touched was a turgid, molten orange, and the glow spread until all but the ring of stone around the chanting duardin’s feet had been swallowed by it. Shouting now over the roar, he pointed his forge key to the realmgate and the spur grew at his command.

The rock behind him cooled quickly in the snow, hardening into a bridge that could bear the weight of an army.

‘Haaaaaggh!’ roared Horgan-Grimnir, thrusting his grandaxe high and kicking Caldernorn forward. The beast responded with a low, lingering roar of its own. The cadaverous magmadroth of Nosda-Grimnir, severe with skull-helm and grandaxe, followed. The bridge crunched under the combined weight, but held. Killim and the Angfyrd hearthguard ran fearlessly after the two monsters and then – at last! – went Dunnegar.

The snow took its free hit with a sadistic flurry. Knuckles dusted by metal and ice, the wind pummelled him from every direction. His beard and hair, driven into a crest through the tall flutes of his helm, pulled him sideways and dragged him down. Emptiness swelled to fill the world but for the spit of still-smouldering rock beneath his feet. He clenched his teeth, narrowed his eyes, and held them firmly ahead as he ran.

The impact, when it came, would forever settle any doubt as to the primacy of stone over wind.

The Griever’s mountain trembled under the strike of the molten rock-bridge and the world seemed to suffer with it. Men were shed by the thousand as their footing shook or simply slid away from under them. Others were dashed from their feet, tumbling down the unforgiving monument to godlike hubris, or flattened under the avalanches that came crashing down from the horned peaks.

The Sepuzkul runesmiter dropped into a braced position, knees bent, fists hard and white around the haft of his axe, as duardin sure-footedness and strength kept him standing. The magma glow receded from the rock beneath his feet and fed back into his axe. For a moment, the fyresteel glowed like the soul of a volcano, then blasted forth a cone of seismic wrath that immolated the shaken few still standing.

The death toll in those opening minutes was astounding. That there was a single Bloodbound still on the mountain was miraculous. The advantage of numbers was still theirs, however, as was the formidably contrived terrain of the mountain itself.

Before they could think to exploit either, Horgan-Grimnir and Caldernorn crashed through.

Under the runefather’s stern direction, the magmadroth slammed sideways into a band of muscle-bound barbarians that came rushing in to assault the duardin’s beachhead, flattening most before they had time to swing their axes and goring the rest on its horns. Into the ensuing carnage rode the Sepuzkul runefather, Nosda-Grimnir, on his cadaverous grey mount. The magmadroth swung its wizened, shovel head from side to side, flaming bile streaming from its maw in a ribboning inferno. With a triumphant yell, Killim hammered his rune standard home as the hearthguard ran past to secure their lords’ bridgehead.

On an explosion of rune-propelled acceleration, Dunnegar burst through their formation and straight towards a sweeping rock face.

It was a wall of ice, almost vertical, rising a hundred feet to near the orbit of the mountain’s accursed eye. The Bloodbound hurled rocks and curses. The sky hurled snow. The hearthguard split into two to go around. Dunnegar charged straight at it. His bare feet drew sparks from the frozen rock.

Blistering speed and a confidence that even he could see might be blind bore him up the incline and in amongst the bewildered Bloodbound.

The mountain disappeared. The battle was gone. There was no duardin with him but Grimnir.

He hacked and he killed, surrounded by screams he only half-heard as wounded Bloodbound were pitched over the cliff behind him to their deaths. A blood warrior in full plate dripping red ran at him under the drone of a swinging chain. Dunnegar held up his forearm and in a roared entreaty called on Grimnir’s strength. The chain wrapped around an arm that was suddenly golden-red, and blistering under the heat. A yank brought the god-touched warrior staggering into range of the headbutt that split his visor and threw him to the ground.

Dunnegar felt another rune awaken, then another.

It was glorious. It was divine.

‘Dunnegar!’

He parried a bloodreaver axe, spun his greataxe so it was horizontal to his chest and punched it forward. The long haft took out half a dozen charging warriors, buying him a second that he spent to look back the way he had come.

Blizzard aside, the clifftop vantage granted him an unimpeded view of the battle. A column of Fyreslayers four across and two-thousand long was still trouping across the rock bridge. Frothing Bloodbound launched themselves into the fray in a suicidal push to hold them there. It might have worked, but to their evident dismay the Fyreslayers were more than their equal in savagery. In that quick glance, Dunnegar saw the flashes as the Sepuzkul runesmiter turned his attentions to awakening individual Fyreslayers’ runes, mushrooming beacons of auric brilliance followed by the cannonball-like devastation wrought by empowered duardin steaming ahead of their kin. It made him ache for more of the same.

Teeth bared in punishing self-restraint, he cut down a spear-wielding barbarian that jumped in from his left. The warriors closed, sensing his weakening, his reluctance to exploit the few runes he had left. He hacked open another, kicked one to the floor with a shattered ribcage, then fell to grappling with a hugely muscled skullreaper that bulled into him from the right. Their arms knotting about one another’s, they ploughed across the ridgeline, knocking men screaming from their path.

‘Ho there, Dunnegar! Here!’

Killim. Through the tangle of limbs and snow, Dunnegar saw the smith at the foot of the bridge. He was waving furiously for Dunnegar’s attention and, seeing that he had it, immediately directed it back uphill.

Caldernorn was tackling the mountain, bounding from ledge to ledge, claws driving into sheer rock while its tail lashed bloodreavers to their deaths. This was the ur-salamander’s environment, more than all the blessings of Khorne could ever make it man’s.

And then, in an avalanche of hellishly animated brass, the Griever joined the battle.

Caldernorn was gigantic even by the standards of its kind, but the juggernaut ridden by the Griever was a daemon of solid brass, and was charged with a power far in excess of its size. The daemon rammed the hard flat of its head into the bulbous armour of the magmadroth’s shoulder. The reptile was pushed back across the mountainside, and then, with a shriek of claws across stone, it was shoved clean off the ridge.

For a moment it seemed to hang. Horgan-Grimnir’s latchkey grandaxe lunged into space. The Griever’s lance spat towards it. The blades missed each other by a metal shaving. Then Caldernorn’s claws found rock again, throwing Horgan-Grimnir back into his seat, and it tore away up the mountain’s flank. The magmadroth scrabbled for higher ground, drawing itself above the Chaos lord, and then swung its head back to loose a torrent of flame. The Chaos juggernaut glowed like an anvil as the Griever turned into the current with his arm held protectively over his grinning skull helm, his lance kindling yellow-red with corposant.

Dunnegar gave voice to a trembling yell that was Grimnir’s battle wrath alloyed to ur-gold no longer, and wrestled the skullreaper from his arms. He broke him across his knee and swung the limp body into the horde, clearing a yard or so for him to run into. Close to the stone and powerful, he bowled Bloodbound aside as if the ground were still shaking.

Behind them was a rock shelf about twelve feet high.

He ran at it, stuck out a foot and kicked off, gaining another few feet of air beneath him, and then swung his greataxe for the ledge. It bit. He hit the cold rock face, thumping the air from his chest. With a wheezing inhalation, he dropped a kick on the blue-veined Bloodbound that came grasping for his legs, and then heaved himself up.

He had time for a breath and he took it. It lanced his lungs with cold, but was welcome there in spite of it.

He was on the very top of the mountain’s cheek, just as it began to slope upwards to the eye. The snow was coming down even more thickly with the altitude, and the realmgate was little more than a fell glimmer. The Griever’s monstrous last line of defence were grotesqueries of looming musculature. The berzerker did not enjoy the runefather’s advantage of a mountain beast, but his wild charge had carried him almost as far.

Wrapped in a scarf of steamy breath, he pushed into the waist-deep drift towards the gate.

Shouts filtered through the blizzard. A grunt. A clash. A daemonic howl. Dunnegar ignored them, eyes staying true to their goal. Horgan was the greatest warrior to carry the name Grimnir in many years. He had once felled Dunnegar with a single punch. The runefather could win his battles without help.

Fire rippled through the gloaming snowfall, opening it up like a fissure.

Dunnegar turned then. Through the steam, he saw a scene of struggle that could have rivalled the gold-brought visions at his Trial.

Caldernorn had its jaws locked around the juggernaut’s throat, but the daemon, in turn, had the ur-salamander on its side and was in the process of mounting its heaving chest. Horgan-Grimnir held firm in the saddle with a titanic grip, stubbornly resolved to his oath that he and the beast would never be parted.

One handed, he parried the Griever’s increasingly frenzied lunges. Flesh banners snapped and ruffled in the heat rising from Caldernorn’s body. The Lord of Khorne chattered like a rolling skull as the juggernaut crunched forward, raising a shriek from Caldernorn as the daemon walked its crushing weight up its neck. In a panic, the beast began to thrash. Horgan-Grimnir raged and swore, but one hand and the grip of his thighs was no longer enough to remain mounted. Sacrificing his guard, he redoubled his oathsworn grip.

The runefather smiled briefly, as though he’d won some kind of victory.

A moment later, Dunnegar watched the Griever’s lance explode from his chest.

Loss hit with the weight of an avalanche. Not grief. Horgan-Grimnir had never been so dear to him. But loss: a challenge to which he would never rise, a trial that there would be no chance to pass.

The runefather arched his back in pain. Caldernorn was still, sinew and scale crunching under the juggernaut’s tread.

‘Rolk Langudsson!’ Horgan howled through bloodied lips, erupting in a column of searing runelight ‘Your oaths are fulfilled!’

The Griever was on top of him, too intent on twisting the lance and claiming another skull for his armour to care how his victim chose to meet his end. He was close enough that he likely never saw the latchkey grandaxe arcing towards his neck.

Howls of an inhuman rage permeated the snow as, as if in tableau, Horgan-Grimnir and the Chaos lord slid from their mounts one after the other.

Dunnegar heard rather than saw the warped spawn tramping down from the realmgate to belatedly aid their master. He knew he should have taken the gate then while it was unguarded, but to his shame he couldn’t bring himself to do so. The battle was won with the death of the Griever, he knew, and others could claim the prize and see the runefather’s quest continued.

He turned aside.

Already partially buried, Horgan-Grimnir nevertheless glittered with precious ur-gold runes, singing to his soul like the forest to a sylvaneth. Dunnegar hefted his axe, quite prepared to defend the runefather’s remains with his own life.

An oath was an oath, but gold was gold.

‘On the three thousand, three hundred and thirty-first day, there was fire…’

The Angfyrd Odyssey

It was a commonly held belief that Fyreslayers did not feel the heat. Dunnegar knew it was untrue. Rather they endured it, like duardin. However, in this unending land where fire fell as rain and rivers boiled whilst somehow remaining liquid, endurance alone could carry them no further.

‘See that mountain over there.’

Killim’s voice was a dry growl. He lowered his flame-discoloured book tiredly and pointed into the distant haze.

The landscape was one of interconnected lakes stretching out towards a promissory red shimmer. Fire swirled across the surface of the water, reminiscent of the pattern of currents, but elementally subverted. That air was still and heavy. Cinders drifted. To describe the combined effect as a heat haze was inadequate. This place was heat. The very land was hazed.

And as far as Dunnegar could see, there was no mountain.

He shuffled back around on his metal stool. It was squat, of Angfyrd make, and hotter than all the hells. He endured it. His left arm roasted similarly on a portable anvil, his bicep bound tightly. He grunted, distracted.

‘No.’

‘There. No. No, wait a moment…’

The battlesmith scratched his dried brow and turned back to his book. It lay open on the back of a wooden cart containing the lodges’ treasures and that the Fyreslayers took it in shifts to pull. It was a straightforward, two-wheeled contraption with a low base built for low country. The wood came from trees that grew natively here, and as such was remarkably tolerant to the heat. The lodges had acquired it and two others like it several years before from a nomadic human tribe in trade for fyresteel weapons. There had certainly been plenty of those to go around since the battle against the Griever, too many to be carried by the few still walking. Hence the need for carts. Now, only this one remained.

A poor trade then, and one bemoaned constantly by the runefather, Nosda-Grimnir.

Running his finger along the map, Killim squinted towards the distant range, then did a double-take between the hellish topography in front of him and the ancient map on the page.

‘I’m sure of it,’ he muttered. ‘The river we followed had to be the Infernum. It had to be. And these are the first mountains we’ve seen.’

‘If you can call them mountains,’ said Solldun, runesmiter of the Sepuzkul lodge, absently.

He was runemaster now in all but name, but the honorific was as yet unearned, and he resisted it. Killim grumbled under his breath and returned to his maps as Solldun made some tightening adjustments to Dunnegar’s restraints. With roughened fingers, the runesmiter felt the muscles of his arm. Exposure to so much ur-gold had built them up hard and massive, but at the same time twitchy. Dunnegar’s muscles flexed painfully as the runesmiter’s fingers walked down to the wrist. Solldun closed his eyes and muttered half-remembered instruction, nodding as his fingers turned back to press down on a spot a thumb’s width up the berzerker’s forearm. Holding it there, he reached across the anvil for hammer and tongs.

‘Are you ready?’

‘Give it to me,’ said Dunnegar. His efforts not to growl made his words sound all the more forced. Deep breaths. He forced his heart to slow. ‘Yes. Yes, I’m ready.’

Puffing out his cheeks to steady himself, the runesmiter applied the rune to the proscribed patch of forearm. It hissed. Hot air blasted through Dunnegar’s gritted teeth. Then came Solldun’s hammer, smiting the rune through surface skin and deep into the muscle.

Dunnegar shivered as new strength suffused him. He felt it restore him to something nearer to normal. Or to a level of power that his body had come to demand as its normal.

‘Better?’ asked Killim.

‘Much,’ said Dunnegar, sagging back.

Breathing hard and feeling somewhat dizzy, he unfastened his bindings and flexed his bicep. It swelled to a pleasing degree. The rune in his wrist was hard and firm amidst the sliding muscle, like scar tissue. It shone dully under the sky’s pervasive amber glow.

So many of his runes had been used up in battle that even recovering the ur-gold from the dead couldn’t replenish them at the same rate. Rationing of the precious substance was beginning to fray sturdier tempers than his and it was only going to get worse. Even those runes that were newly forged, like the one now in his arm, were small and lacking in purity. Solldun had proven himself a force in battle, but he lacked the skills of a true runemaster. Rolk, he was not.

So why then did he feel so much better with the runesmiter’s weak work in his arm?

‘Perhaps now you’re of a mood to help,’ Killim said waspishly as Solldun packed up his tools and departed.

‘Show me a horde of orruks, old friend, and I’ll help.’

‘Old friend…’ Killim snorted, crossing his arms over his chest, but only for a moment. They were all too hot for that. ‘My old friend would be here with me making some sense out of this map.’

Dunnegar shook his head, ignoring him, levering his forearm backwards and forwards against the anvil and feeling the rune pull. Killim puffed out his chest angrily and made to remonstrate further when an even-tempered hail from the lakeside distracted him.

‘Another day, another argument,’ said Aethnir, striding up from the water’s edge with a band of loosely armoured Sepuzkul hearthguard sweating behind him. His bleak smile, like the Fyreslayers themselves, was diminished, but clung on with a stubbornness that was at odds inspiring or infuriating, depending on the swing of Dunnegar’s moods. ‘You must indeed be strong friends, else one of you would be dead by now.’

Killim and Dunnegar eyed each other. They both knew which one.

Remembering himself, Killim bowed stiffly. His attitude to their reversal in status was ironic given that it had been by his own scholarly concession, ‘not unheard of’, that had finally overcome the resistance to the decimated Angfyrd lodge being absorbed into their cousins’ ranks. It was Aethnir now that commanded the auric hearthguard, with Killim relegated merely to carrying the standard.

‘Perhaps in a few hundred years,’ Nosda-Grimnir had said by way of consolation, time enough for the old smith to memorise the chronicle of the new lodge he was now a reluctant part of.

‘Shouldn’t you be foraging ahead?’ Killim grumbled.

With a self-deprecating shrug, Aethnir indicated the slimy marmot-like creatures strung up from his fyrd’s magmapikes. The animals burrowed into the soil all over this country where the lake was shallow. They tasted even more like dung than dung, but they needed neither cooking nor skinning, and when left to hang could release three or four times their dry weight in lukewarm water.

‘I’d rather eat the magmapike,’ Killim grumbled.

‘You could always try going hungry,’ Aethnir returned. ‘It would be better for the pike.’

‘I should’ve gone with Huffnar and Rokkar. Founded a new lodge and forgotten this damned quest. I’ll wager they’re not eating this hot drez right now.’

‘I’d wager you’re right,’ said Aethnir levelly.

Dunnegar snorted, earning himself a sharply quizzical look from his old mentor. ‘You really think they managed to start a new lodge anywhere here?’

‘Better off,’ Killim grumbled after a moment.

Dunnegar turned to the young karl. ‘Do you know how far we are from Fyrepeak?’

Aethnir simply shrugged.

‘Of course he doesn’t know,’ Killim snapped, swiping up his own chronicle and waving it like an admonition to an entire damnable world. ‘It’s been thirty-three hundred days. We should’ve seen the Plain of Dust, but we haven’t. We should have had at least a hint of Taurak Skullcleaver or the last of his lieutenants, but we haven’t. We should be entering the Red Mountains, but we bloody well aren’t.’ He looked around, drunk with sarcasm. ‘We’re not, are we?’

Aethnir squinted at the red haze on the horizon. ‘They look a bit l–’

‘They’re not the Red drenging Mountains,’ Killim screamed, slamming his book shut, then taking it two-handed and launching it into the air.

It sploshed into the lake, ignited an instant later, and sank under with a hiss.

Panting, Killim turned slowly pale. ‘Oh, drez.’

‘It’s alright,’ said Aethnir. ‘I don’t think it was helping anyway.’

‘This is your fault.’

‘My fault?’

‘Aye. You. Burying ur-gold I could have used. Feeding me these… things.’

Ignoring them, determinedly so for the circularity of their arguments made him dizzy, Dunnegar rose to his feet and leaned forward. He was peering to the horizon, and that latent red shimmer. For a moment it had seemed to crackle as if with storms. He listened, counting under his breath, and on the count of nine came the rumour of thunder.

He couldn’t say why, but the storm made him think of war.

‘The Red Mountains are there,’ he said, sure of it. ‘And we go on.’

‘The four thousand and first day saw the end of one quest and the beginning of another. The journey had proven long and costly and perhaps we should have abandoned it before we did, though there can be few who were there that day who took issue with the outcome. An oath is an oath, but gold is gold…’

– The Sepuzkul Chronicle
(formally the Angfyrd Odyssey)

‘I am wrath!’ Dunnegar roared, throwing his elbow through a warrior’s pointed jaw. Blood exploded from the reaver’s mouth. There was no time to attend him further. The enemy were packed in so close that there was no air to breathe that had not already been breathed out or bled into. The froth from their mouths was in his beard, their blood was in his eyes, and he killed more men with his fingernails and his teeth than he could with his axe.

The mountains – whether the Red Mountains or no – were rust red, fangs of rock to rip open the jugular of passing worlds and drink the fire of their blood. The trail that wound through them was rugged and uneven, climbing by sudden rises and twisting often, but not nearly difficult enough that thirty of the hardest duardin ever to leave the Realm of Chamon could hold back the horde for much longer.

Thirty. Against a thousand thousand.

Few they were, but that it was they who had made it this far and not others was testament to their bloody-minded tenacity to kill rather than be killed.

The last of the two lodges’ hearthguard held the old cart, containing the tools of runemaking and the last few ingots of precious ur-gold, as though it were a fortress. Globs of molten magma screamed from their pikes, blasting smoking trenches deep into the enemy ranks. Solldun the runesmiter chanted from his smoky bastion, straddling a pair of fyresteel chests packed over the axle, and bade the rock to split and boiling geysers to fire the Bloodbound to their dooms. What he admittedly lacked in the rune-maker’s craft, he joyfully accounted for in the arts of war.

The final fyrd of vulkite berzerkers was the wall around them. Leading them in a song of gold and glory, Killim left his years behind him to fight with equal fervour. He and Aethnir battled back to back, the latter a ghost-pale blur behind his twinned fyresteel axes.

‘I am vengeance!’

By foot and shoulder, Dunnegar cleared space enough to swing his axe. It clanged against a blood warrior carrying a mace and a shield stretched with human skin. Too close. The rune-scratched bloodsteel took its hit, and then the warrior thumped him back with the flattened face of his shield. Dunnegar shook off the stunning blow, but not before a bloodreaver daubed in black and red flame tattoos grabbed the haft of his axe and tried to pull it from him.

Dunnegar punched the man in the face. Once, twice. The man’s lip split, his jawbone caved. The third hit twisted his head so sharply that his neck snapped.

Dunnegar shrugged off the mobbing bloodreavers with a howl.

‘I am Grimnir! I am already dead!’

And in that moment, power that did not belong in mortal veins rushing through his mind, Dunnegar was Grimnir again.

The heat of the mountain, the dust on his hands. He could feel the meat of Vulcatrix’s mammoth neck coming apart beneath his axe. And claws. Claws piercing, claws in his chest and in his jaw and spearing his thighs. The god-lizard was dying, and in its savage throes those claws came apart. He felt it. Gods of old, he felt it!

Weeping golden tears, he hurled himself headlong into the grind, striking out with such furious pain that it no longer mattered that there was no room to swing. Everything that got near him died.

‘Tame yourself, grim brother,’ bellowed Nosda-Grimnir from atop his terrible ash-grey magmadroth. ‘Back into line, lest the souls you condemn cry your name into the Underworld and bring the gaze of Nagash upon your shade.’

The Sepuzkul runefather was fending off an ape-like monster of blood and sinew at the extreme range of his grandaxe. Black spikes split its muscular torso without any thought to symmetry or pattern, branded icons of control sweating against slick red skin. Fists like boulders beat aside armoured Goresworn and blood marauders alike in its efforts to get close. The magmadroth sent spumes of flame battering against it, re-opening partially healed lash scars and, in concert with his master’s axe, only just managing to hold the rabid bloodspawn at bay.

‘If we die then we die fulfilling oaths!’ Killim screamed, throat raw, mouth red. ‘To the last! All of us on to the bloody death.’

‘A bloody death!’ Aethnir echoed, raising his axes high.

The Fyreslayers sung it, shouted it loud, beat the words into Bloodbound shields. Some even laughed it, for what was death but the penultimate step on Grimnir’s road?

‘A bloody death!’

The shock of a horn blasted back in answer. The note was as deep as the earth, as powerful as thunder, and on hearing it a fire seemed to die in the eyes of the Bloodbound. Dunnegar felt it too, the fight being drawn from him through the uncanny goose bumping of his flesh, though not to the obvious extent of the Khornates. They stared at each other as if through a dream, and in a listless scrape of greaves and boots on the armour of dead men, they stumbled back.

The Fyreslayers let them go. Expedience perhaps, or exhaustion. Or maybe the pacifying power of that horn had affected them more profoundly than they realised. The armies stared at each other across ground thick with dead. A silence well befitting a graveyard fell across them. Duardin shuffled warily.

‘What is this?’ Dunnegar hissed.

‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ said Killim.

And soon enough, they did.

Simpering and shuffling under the crack of whips, the ranks slowly parted to form a corridor. A pair of towering slaughterpriests walked down it with lengthened strides, escort and honour guard to the monster between them.

It might have been a horse once, but its mouth had since become a beak and its spine curved like one of the daemon hounds of Khorne. Fired burned where a mane should have grown and eyes with just enough intelligence to weep rolled in sockets all over its many-jointed limbs. And mounted on that fell beast rode the real monster.

He was a colossus of armour plate, clanking roughly from side to side with the violence of his mount’s ungainly stride. His armour was a fluted puzzle of grooves and channels through which blood sluggishly trickled. His helm had a Y-shaped opening that revealed a black face with eyes like burning coals, and a pair of flat, angular horns.

The priests of blood parted and there, straight backed and with arms crossed like statues before a realmgate to the Realm of Chaos, they stood.

The Lord of Khorne lowered his horn, made from a length of curving, hollowed bone, and regarded the Fyreslayers one by one.

‘I am Kar Thraxis,’ he said, the deep timbre of his words inflaming the blood of all who heard with a need to do violence. ‘I am the Ravager, the Devourer in Flame. I would meet your mightiest.’

Killim, Aethnir and Nosda-Grimnir shared glances.

Without waiting for them to decide, Dunnegar strode into the clearing and readied his greataxe.

Kar Thraxis nodded, apparently satisfied by what he saw. ‘I hear you slew the Griever.’

‘Not I,’ Dunnegar grunted, ‘but I was there.’

‘Good. You cannot imagine how long I have waited to see him dead.’

Dunnegar gave an impatient growl. ‘Are we going to fight then?’

‘One day. Perhaps.’

With a snap of his armoured wrist, a gang of inhumanly muscular men with dull, beast-of-burden looks, trudged between the watching priests. They dragged heavy chests behind them, pulling them by chains that were fed through the steel rings hammered into their bruised flesh. At a motion from Kar Thraxis, one of the slaughterpriests stepped forward to kick the lock from one. The giant bent low and threw it open.

The Fyreslayers murmured in stunned appreciation.

Dunnegar’s eyes widened as he took in the glittering hoard. As if he could simply absorb it all.

‘There is ur-gold here,’ said Solldun, crouching, eyes fire bright.

‘You’re sure?’ Dunnegar mumbled.

Many Fyreslayers had some sense for the presence of ur-gold, but only a runemaster had the gift to pick ur-gold from gold.

Solldun simply nodded.

‘You like my gold?’ said Kar Thraxis, a smile opening his face like a fissure in deep earth. ‘I had heard.’

‘We like some of your gold,’ Dunnegar said cagily, but bartering now seemed pointless. The Lord of Khorne had seen the hunger in them all, the starvation. He lowered his axe in surrender, dimly conscious of his brothers and cousins doing the same. ‘What do you want for it?’

Kar Thraxis gestured behind him. There, the storm that the Fyreslayers had been following like a guiding star blackened the mountain sky. ‘The war storm is here, led by a being the Stormcasts call Celestant-Prime.’

‘You want me to kill this Stormcast for you?’ Dunnegar wrenched his gaze from the gold and turned to face the Lord of Khorne. He felt no fear of this monster. He stuck out his jaw, puffed out his chest. ‘Because I can do that.’

Chuckling, Kar Thraxis dismounted and knelt to be eye-to-eye with the Fyreslayer. ‘His death by another’s hand wins me nothing.’

‘Taurak Skullcleaver,’ Dunnegar grunted in understanding.

‘The gods demand unity in the face of the storm. His death by my hand will also win me nothing. Will you do it?’

Dunnegar’s gold-flecked eyes met the Khornate’s hate-filled glare and held it. The runefather was dead, his lodge destroyed and swallowed by another. Ancient as such civilized trappings could appear, they were temporary. Grimnir’s life and death taught that. Only power was eternal.

Only gold.

He hawked up a gob of saliva and spat it on his palm, extending it to the Lord of Khorne as it sizzled.

‘I will. And I can.’

THE KEYS TO RUIN

David Annandale

I

Daemons were dancing over the Voidfire Plain. The flamers of Tzeentch spun and whirled, their columnar shapes rocking back and forth. Their serpentine limbs outstretched, they bathed the grasses of the Voidfire in their unholy flames, twisting the land, catching it up in their lunatic dance. Wherever he looked, Vrindum saw the daemons. They kept their distance from the Fyreslayers, too scattered and too few to mount a challenge to the great host. They remained writhing silhouettes close to the horizons. The grimwrath berzerker’s grip on Darkbane, his fyrestorm greataxe, was tight with frustrated anger. He longed to cut down the taunting abominations.

Just ahead of Vrindom, Bramnor, youngest of the runesons, rose in the throne on his magmadroth. ‘Face us!’ he shouted at the daemons. ‘You are craven beasts!’ His roar was powerful. The long, roped braid of his beard shook with the force of his shout.

The flamers danced on. They had no need to close with duardin. Mindless, they were caught in the ecstasy of the song, the song that was greater than the daemons, the song that blew with the wind over all the regions and vastness of the Evercry. The song that had called to Beregthor-Grimnir, auric runefather of the Drunbhor lodge. The song Beregthor had answered, leading his warriors down from the mountains, away from the magmahold in Sibilatus, exhorting them to cross the wailing plain.

A choir of a billion voices joined the wind in singing the melody of the dance. The song was simple, repetitive, insistent. It had three notes. Low, high, low. Short, long, short. The beats soft, strong, soft. The voices came from the grasses of the plains. They were tall, waist-high on Vrindum, and flexible, hollow, fleshy, corrupted. Along each shaft, a multitude of toothed mouths chanted. The reeds swayed with the song, bending with and against the wind. When by chance a cluster of reeds leaned together, they burst into eldritch flame. Across the endless stretch of the plain, blossoms of fire shot up into the hard light of the sun. They spread like oil upon water, then went out with the suddenness of candleflame. Fire without cause, out of nowhere, appearing and vanishing.

A tangle of reeds blew against Vrindum’s arm. They grasped at him, mouths gnawing with hunger. He yanked back, uprooting and tearing them. Green ichor spattered. A step later, a cluster formed and spat their fire over him. He growled at the burn. A thousand searing claws crawled over his flesh, seeking to swallow him in metamorphosis. He shrugged away their touch and swung Darkbane like a scythe, cutting a swathe through the reeds. The fire went out.

All along the Drunbhor lines, Fyreslayers fought the ravenous, singing, burning grass. So it had been for days beyond counting.

A flare of violet flame swept over Bramnor. His magmadroth spat its own fire over the grass, killing it with the purging acid. Bramnor snarled as he passed through the daemonic burn. ‘This is not war. I’ve had enough of this cursed land.’

Frethnir, the eldest runeson, said, ‘There is change ahead.’ He pointed.

Vrindum squinted. There was darkness in the distance. A mass of tall forms, much higher than the grasses.

‘Is that a forest?’ The middle brother, Drethor, shaded his eyes.

‘It is not,’ Vrindum said. The shapes, vague as they were this far away, did not belong to trees. He cut through more grasses as they reached for him. Their mouths issued discordant cries, but they fell without burning.

‘Runefather,’ Frethnir called, ‘is that the promise of honest battle we see?’ His tone was jocular, but Vrindum heard an undercurrent of concern. It had been present when Frethnir spoke to his father ever since the departure from Sibilatus, and had become clearer and more urgent during the endless crossing of the Voidfire.

There was no answer from Beregthor.

Instead, there was a cry from further back in the lines. An upheaval of flamer-corrupted grasses wrapped around both legs of a hearthguard berzerker. Blood streamed down his limbs and he fell into a conflagration. He cursed to the last as his flesh burned and his body changed, bones thrusting clacking tongues through muscle, eyes sprouting in his beard, wings unfolding on his back. ‘Brothers!’ he called at the end, and his voice was the only thing that was still duardin about him. His comrades answered his need, and ended his suffering, preserving his honour. Then, in rage, they set about slashing the cursed plain with even greater vigour. In the distance, the flamers danced and paid them no heed.

Another death. They were becoming more frequent. The movements of the land were hypnotic. Mistakes were easier and easier to make with every passing day.

Frethnir had turned around in his throne when he heard the shout. Now he met Vrindum’s gaze. Frethnir’s face was expressive in its pain. His features were thinner and longer than those of his brothers. Even his beard seemed more angular. A great scar ran from Frethnir’s forehead to his chin, earned when he had single-handedly slain two maggoths. Sigils of ur-gold ran along the mark, a sign of Frethnir’s honour and strength. At this moment, though, it seemed to be the division in his spirit. Loyalty and love fought with doubt.

Doubt. Frethnir had spoken it aloud. Bramnor, recoiling from the vast sky over the Voidfire, had been complaining since they reached the plain. Drethor, quieter than the other two runesons, had fallen into a silence he now rarely broke as the days had turned into weeks and supplies had run low. He fought on through the cursed grasses with a stoicism more grim than patient. Frethnir, though, had expressed concern about the quest at the start. He had argued with Beregthor, then accepted the runefather’s decision as final. After so long in the Voidfire, though, the doubts had returned, and grown more serious. They were clearly eating at Frethnir. The lack of answer from Beregthor did not help.

Vrindum moved to the side, hacking through screaming reeds, so he could look past the runesons. Twenty paces ahead, Beregthor rode the magmadroth Krasnak, as high and proud in his throne as he had been the day the fyrds of the Drunbhor had left Sibilatus. Vrindum saw no doubt in the runefather’s posture, and no fatigue. The days in the Voidfire Plain had not worn him down. There was a leader who was sure of the path he had set for his lodge.

Vrindum glanced back at Frethnir. The runeson’s brow was still furrowed, his features still tortured by a decision he did not want to make. He faced forward once more, his posture rigid.

There could only be one choice so agonising. It was between two great loyalties: to the runefather, and to the lodge.

He thinks he might have to challenge the runefather, Vrindum thought.

Vrindum and Beregthor had grown up together. They had fought side by side their entire lives. The idea that the runefather might no longer be fit to bear the name Beregthor-Grimnir was a tragedy Vrindum refused to countenance.

Yet he could not ignore the accumulation of events that had pushed Frethnir to this point. Not just the endless march through the Voidfire Plain. The quest itself was driven by reasons even Vrindum found vague. We seek a gate where the wind is born, the runefather had declared. The lodge of our forefathers calls to us, he had said. A lodge never spoken of before. Beregthor led the Drunbhor toward a myth, to aid another myth. And there was the near-catastrophe at Sibilatus…

He looked again at the bearing of the runefather and felt better. There was a great warrior. He had not fallen, and Vrindum would follow him wherever he led.

But it was hard to look back and no longer see the towering bulk of Sibilatus.

II

Sibilatus: the howling mountain, magmahold of the Drunbhor lodge. Vrindum had dedicated his life to its defence, and it was a wonder worth defending. It shouldered high above its neighbouring peaks, a hulking, titanic skeleton turned to granite, crouched and brooding over the leagues before it. The skull took the full brunt of the wind that blew over the Evercry.

The night of the coming of the storm, Vrindum stood deep in the orbit of the skull’s left eye. He was a mote in the vast opening. The rounded roof was hundreds of feet above him. The wind hit him as it surged through the tunnel, roaring with all the strength built over the uncounted leagues from its legend-shrouded origin. It rushed in through the gaps in the ribs, and through the openings of porous bones. The entrances to the caves of Sibilatus numbered in the thousands. Where Vrindum stood, the voice of the wind was a deep, animal bass. Entwined with it were the higher notes of the ringing through tunnels long and short, wide and thin, straight and twisting. Sibilatus was a single great instrument, and the wind played it, creating a song of many harmonies. Vrindum revelled in the strength of the howling mountain. As he did every night, he rededicated his life to its defence. He spread his arms and welcomed the power of its booming, ever-changing hymn.

The songs of Sibilatus accompanied the retelling of sagas, the revels of feasts, and the thunder of war. He knew them all.

Then came the storm.

In a single moment, all variation ceased. The song became a simple one. It was an immense cry. A war horn bigger than worlds sounded three notes over and over. Vrindum staggered under its blow. Silver lightning exploded beyond the horizon. It streaked to earth as if the stars themselves were coming to wage war. This was lightning such as Vrindum had never seen before. The light was both more pure and more savage than that of any storm.

Such portents. Such omens. He stared. He could not fathom what he heard and saw.

A new thunder sounded beyond the portal to the cavern. It was the runefather’s voice, extraordinary in its power, as if it were drawing strength from the storm.

‘Bear witness, fellow Drunbhor!’ Beregthor called. ‘Look to the west, and see the hand of fate itself! See the workings of prophecy! Bear witness! Bear witness!’

The runefather’s command was taken up and passed through all the tunnels and chambers of Sibilatus. The Drunbhor climbed to the heights of the magmahold. In the socket of that vast eye, Vrindum was soon no longer alone. There were hundreds of Fyreslayers with him, and thousands more wherever there was an aperture giving on to the eruption of the heavens.

The horizon flashed with new war. The entire Drunbhor lodge bore witness.

All eyes looked west, and so they did not see the enemy.

III

The flamers danced, the grasses burned and clutched, and the forest drew near. Vrindum thought of it as a forest because there was no other word he could find for it. The silhouettes of the tall, swaying trunks were swollen with large, tumorous shapes. There was no foliage, though there appeared to be branches. They coiled and gestured, summoning the Drunbhor to their darkness. Over the three-note song of the wind came a rasping sound. Vrindum thought of the rubbing of rough, horned flesh. A scent like foul, piercing incense wafted over the fyrds.

Vrindum drew level with Krasnak. The magmadroth slashed at the hungry grasses before each step. The great beast bore the scars of burns. So did the runefather. He looked down from his throne and smiled at his old comrade. ‘Are my sons full of doubt?’

Vrindum nodded.

‘Will Frethnir challenge me?’

‘He wrestles with the decision. Why did you not answer him when he called to you?’

Beregthor laughed. ‘What need?’ He pointed the Keeper of Roads, his latchkey grandaxe, towards the tortured shapes ahead of them. ‘Is that a fit destination for our quest? My sons need more faith.’

‘Frethnir does not speak against you.’

‘Loyal but troubled, is he?’ Beregthor chuckled.

Vrindum saw little cause for amusement, but the runefather had been in high spirits since the first night of the storm. Even as the Voidfire gnawed at the ranks of the Drunbhor, Beregthor remained transported by the purpose of his quest.

A flamer twisted close, almost within reach, then moved away as throwing axes flew in its direction.

‘And what do you think, Vrindum?’ Beregthor asked.

‘That I march where you march.’

Beregthor laughed again. It was a great laugh, deep and strong. It shook Beregthor’s entire frame. ‘That much I can see, and I am grateful, as always, for your comradeship.’ He turned serious. ‘We are not alone in our purpose. Other lodges are on this journey.’

Vrindum frowned. ‘Have there been messages?’ He did not know how this was possible.

‘No.’ Beregthor rose in the throne once more as Krasnak took them through a burst of flame. ‘That is the prophecy. A new age dawns! It is full of change and war! Grimnir calls to all Fyreslayers, and we must answer!’

Vrindum wondered at this. Beregthor claimed his knowledge came from seeing a prophecy fulfilled, but it was a prophecy known only to him. Not even Runemaster Trumnir had heard of it before.

‘Tell me,’ said Beregthor, ‘do you believe in our journey? Do you believe in the reason we march?’

‘I believe that what happened at the magmahold had meaning, runefather.’

Of that, at least, he was certain.

IV

What happened at the magmahold…

They were all looking west, at the storm and the portents. They let their guard down. They were not looking inward. They did not see the enemy until almost too late.

With a cry of rage, Vrindum leapt from the gallery surrounding the Chamber of the Gate. He came down in the centre of the cave, on the very dais of the Drunbhor’s realmgate itself. He landed on the back of a raving priest, shattering his spine. He swung Darkbane in great arcs, left then right, its dual blades chopping down the corrupted warriors of the Changer of the Ways. The two long braids of his beard whipped about his head. Limbs and skulls flew. Blood fountained, drenching Vrindum in the death of the invaders.

Hearthguard berzerkers stormed in through the four entrances of the chamber. They hacked their way deep into the horde. They brought brutal punishment to the foe that had dared trespass so deep into Sibilatus. None would escape alive.

But they should never have come this far.

Anger and shame battled in Vrindum’s breast. The chamber, deep in the heart of the magmahold, in the roots of the Whistling Mountain, was closely guarded, though it had not been used in centuries. He did not know how the invaders had learned of its existence, or of its location, or how they had reached it undetected. What mattered was that they had done so, and that they tainted the sacred ground of Sibilatus with their presence. The incursion dishonoured all the karls of the Drunbhor. If Vrindum killed all the wretches with his own hands, the fact that they had been here at all could never be forgotten, the taint never washed away.

Vrindum’s fury redoubled. He laid waste to the corrupted. He stood in the midst of a rising pile of corpses. If any of the attackers survived long enough to strike him, he did not feel the blows. He saw only their blood, and there was not enough of it. He would have more and more, until the foe was drowning in it.

The attacking force was a strong one. There were raving, self-mutilating worshippers of Tzeentch, eager to sacrifice themselves for their god. But with them were true champions, Chaos warriors in full armour, the plate distorted with twisting spikes and runes of madness. They fought hard against the Fyreslayers, and they fought well.

They died all the same. A towering warrior reared up before Vrindum, wielding a black, saw-toothed blade. Vrindum smashed the knight’s blow aside hard enough to shatter the sword. He brought his axe around and slammed it into the warrior’s helm, cleaving it and the skull beneath in two.

And there were daemons. Flamers of Tzeentch; hopping, twisting whirlwinds of flesh. Spellfire gouted from their snaking limbs. Vrindum’s anger had him on the edge of a killing frenzy, but he retained enough awareness to see there was strategy in the enemy’s assault. The debased mortals and the Chaos warriors formed a wedge around the daemons. They took the brunt of the Fyreslayers’ counter-attack. The broadaxes of the hearthguard berzerkers cut through the bodies of the cultists, then clashed against the armour and blades of the warriors. The glorious fire of duardin rage battered the darkness. Ancient armour shattered under the blows of the berzerkers. Their columns punched into the ranks of the Chaos warriors, but the hulking champions of ruin held the line, slowing the berzerkers with their own wrath and sacrifice. The flamers ignored the Drunbhor. All of their attention was focused on the gate. They trained their spectral flames on the stone pillars of its archway. The wards of the gate flashed, lashing out with purging lightning, reducing one of the daemons to ash. The others paid no notice. They continued their attack.

Sacred stone began to squirm. Portions softened, turning to flesh. A Chaos warrior hurled an axe at the flesh even as Vrindum brought him down, choosing to harm the gate rather than save himself. The thrown axe cut deep into the newly created muscle. The gate began to bleed.

The base of one of the pillars turned to glass.

Vrindum barrelled into yet another knight, sending the warrior flying out of his way. He roared at the flamer beyond – the one changing the pillar into crystalline brittleness – and plunged his greataxe into the daemon creature. The flamer would have shrugged off the blow of an ordinary weapon, but this was Darkbane, wielded by the grimwrath berzerker of the Drunbhor lodge. There was nothing ordinary about the blow. Stricken, the flamer unleashed a maddened, otherworldly howl. Vrindum’s ears bled at the sound. Darkbane was buried deep in the daemon’s core. He leaned on the shaft and the blade descended further, then the being exploded. Dissipating sorcery washed over him, and his flesh writhed in its wake, but he was stronger than the wave of change.

Two more knights rushed him as he turned to attack the next flamer, but it was too late. Glass shattered. Flesh tore. The pillars of the gate fell.

From the dying gate came a scream of sorcerous light that filled the chamber.

Many of the invaders were destroyed along with the gate. The few who survived were slaughtered by the wrathful Fyreslayers. The incursion was over, but it had served its purpose.

‘They did not seek to seize the gate,’ Vrindum told Beregthor as the runefather walked through the wreckage of the chamber. ‘They came to destroy it.’

Beregthor nodded absently, deep in thought. After several long moments, he said, ‘They had reason to destroy it. The storm has given them urgency. They would prevent us from fulfilling our duty. All they have done is ensure that we will.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Vrindum said.

Beregthor smiled.

Then, for the first time, he spoke of the other lodge.

In the days that followed, as preparations were made for the great march the runefather commanded, he said much about the lodge. How its magmahold had lain a long, but not impossible, journey beyond the other side of the lost gate. How in ages past, the Drunbhor had left that lodge to travel the realms and had come to Sibilatus. How the great storm portended a union of the two lodges in battle against Chaos. How the song of the wind, now unchanging, was the call to the Drunbhor, the call to march to that union. How the incursion had only made clear the necessity of this quest.

‘This prophecy…’ Runemaster Trumnir began when the council met.

‘Passes from runefather to runefather,’ Beregthor told him. ‘It is the memory of our lineage.’

‘But the gate is destroyed,’ Frethnir said. ‘Our way is closed.’

‘There is another gate,’ said Beregthor.

Again, Trumnir looked surprised. The runemaster’s beard and hair were streaked with lightning strokes of iron grey. He was older than Beregthor. That he had not known such secrets stunned him perhaps even more than the other Drunbhor.

Beregthor raised the grandaxe. ‘The gate is locked. It will open only to the Keeper of Roads. We must seek it where the wind is born. We march to the Typhornas Mountains.’

Mountains of lore. Mountains from the oldest stories of the Drunbhor.

A quest for a myth within myths. That was when Vrindum saw the first shadows of doubt and unease on Frethnir’s face.

‘How will we find them?’ the runeson asked.

‘By answering the call of the wind,’ said Beregthor. ‘It summons us to the west.’

Towards the storm.

V

The ground began to slope upwards where the Voidfire Plain ended at the forest of monsters. The smell of incense was overwhelming. It clawed at Vrindum’s lungs when he breathed. The Drunbhor left the grasses behind and passed between trunks swollen with bulbous growths. Their texture was patterns of shifting, spiralling whorls. Their colours varied from deep flesh-pink to the blue of bruises, and the shades changed from one moment to the next. To gaze on a single plant was to be confused by an ever-shifting pattern of colour and movement.

The limbs of the plants were long, thin and serpentine, reaching across the space between them to tangle with each other. It was impossible to tell where the branch of one plant ended and that of another began, as the limbs rubbed against one another, creating a susurrus of muttered truths and shapeless words. They seemed to gesture towards the Drunbhor, calling them deeper into the woods of madness.

‘Be vigilant, fyrds of the Drunbhor,’ Beregthor called.

Clusters of spines curled out from the trunks and branches. Their tips were sharp as blades.

The plants were as tall as fifty feet when they stood straight. Many were coiled like giant ferns or the tentacles of a sea leviathan. Like the flamers on the Voidfire Plain, they danced to the song of the wind. Though each monstrous plant had its own movement independent of all the others, the rhythms of each sway and bow and sinuosity were in time to the sounding of the three notes.

Short, long, short. The beats soft, strong, soft. The song never altering, the same notes since the first moment of the storm. The lightning had long since ceased, but the song remained, calling and calling.

‘The wind summons us!’ Beregthor said, as he had so many times since the coming of the storm. ‘It calls us to battle!’

The dance of the corrupted plants disturbed Vrindum. If the call was to the Drunbhor, why did these unclean growths respond to it?

Behind Vrindum, Frethnir said, ‘These creatures sense us.’ Shudders ran up the trunks and along the branches, as though a web had been disturbed. Vrindum eyed their movements carefully, even as he also watched the shadows between their trunks. There was no underbrush in the forest-that-was-not-a-forest, but the plants stood close to one another, and the light was dim.

There were no paths. The Fyreslayers were forced to wend their way between the trunks. The line of their march became twisted. When Vrindum looked back, he could see only the first couple of fyrds behind the runesons. On a column of more than a thousand Drunbhor, if something happened to the leaders or the rearguard, the other end of the host would not know it.

If the Voidfire Plain had been no proper place for a Fyreslayer, this was worse yet.

‘We are here!’ Vrindum shouted. Let the enemy come at last and meet the edge of his axe. ‘Know us and fear us!’

Laughter ahead. For a terrible moment, Vrindum thought it came from the runefather. Then he realized it emanated from a cluster of trunks a score of paces further on. As one, when the wind’s long note sounded, the growths on the trunks bulged, deep pink and shining. There was a wet tearing noise. The tumours grew arms and horns. They pulled away from the trunks, glistening with mucus. Newly born and ready for war, the pink horrors dropped to the ground. They were heavy, squat, horned things, some with three limbs, some four, some five. All had huge, gaping jaws. Their flesh was the colour of exposed muscle.

Bramnor answered the daemons with laughter of his own, angry yet eager.

‘Finally!’ he roared. ‘A proper fight.’

The rumble of voices along the Drunbhor column echoed Bramnor’s words. Drethor and Frethnir added their voices to the clamour. Bramnor was the brashest of the runesons, but all were hungry to inflict true punishment on the enemy after the grinding losses of the Voidfire.

‘Guard the flanks!’ Beregthor commanded, even as Krasnak charged with him towards the immediate threat.

The hearthguard and vulkite berzerkers aimed their weapons to the sides. The column moved forward, its edges sharp.

The daemons rushed at Beregthor, Vrindum and the runesons. A moment later, more of the pink horrors burst from the trunks on either side, falling to the ground with fat thuds, a rain of monstrous fruit. And as the daemons surrounded the Drunbhor, the plants attacked too. Their true nature was now clear; they were daemons of the same ilk fused and melded into each other, their limbs distorted and stretched into branches, their horns turned into the spines. Flexing, grasping, the conglomerations of daemons were even more like tentacles now, as if the entire forest were the claws of a great fist that now began to close. The huge trunks whipped down, shaking the earth with their impact. The spines lunged for the Fyreslayers.

‘Avenge Sibilatus!’ Trumnir cried. ‘Avenge its desecration!’

On his magmadroth, Runesmiter Harthum beat the war altar, and down the length of the Fyreslayer line the sigils of ur-gold worked into the warriors’ flesh stirred them to the joyous frenzy of war. The essence of Grimnir awoke in all of them, and would be satisfied with nothing except the utter annihilation of the daemons. Vulkite berzerkers tore into the pink horrors, while the magmadroths slashed at them with great claws and spat streams of flaming bile. In the gap created by the dissolving, burning daemons, the hearthguard berzerkers stormed outward, pushing hard against the daemons, cutting down abominations who dared attack the runefather. The vulkite berserkers advanced on either side, and the more the gibbering creatures attacked, the wider the column became as the Drunbhor met their challenge with a rising tide of fury.

Vrindum hurled himself at the daemons seeking to climb the flanks of Krasnak and take down Beregthor. He slammed into them with the force of a battering ram, knocking them back. His blows sank into solid, dense muscle that flowed with the possibility of change. There was no structure of bone. Revulsion fuelled his rage and his violence, and he struck harder yet, severing the flesh completely. It came apart in sticky tendrils.

A cackling daemon opened its maw wide enough to swallow his head, and Vrindum cut it in half with a single blow of Darkbane. The daemon’s laughter turned into a shriek, and then into wails of petulant grief as the two portions of its body shifted to blue and sprouted limbs. The new daemons reached for Vrindum, their gestures both predatory and entreating. They barely had time to come into being and mourn the loss of their greater self. Vrindum already had Darkbane raised again. He brought it down in a diagonal slash. One blow had ended the pink daemon; now one blow destroyed the two blue ones. The onyx blade smashed through Chaos flesh so hard it left a huge cleft in the ground. The daemons vanished mid-howl, their essence erupting then dispersing with a fading echo of a snarl. Vrindum yanked the greataxe from the ground and rounded on more of the foe.

Standing high on his throne, a roaring Beregthor battered pink horrors down from Krasnak’s flanks with the Keeper of Roads. He hit the head of one daemon with such force that he squeezed its essence within the cleft of the blade. Then he twisted violently, snapping the head in half. The blue horrors that came into being were flawed, malformed even for daemons, half their heads missing. Beregthor dispatched them quickly, crushing their bodies beneath the weight of the grandaxe.

Trunks bent and limbs grasped, but the Fyreslayers concentrated on the daemons not rooted to the ground. The other pink horrors numbered in the hundreds, a horde that would have overwhelmed an army of mere mortals with the sheer monstrosity of its existence. But the Fyreslayers waded into the struggle with eagerness. They were strong, and they were legion. They hacked at the pink horrors and then the squealing blue daemons. The enemy multiplied, then began to dwindle in a matter of seconds.

The Drunbhor batted away the probing spines as a mere annoyance. Drethor was bleeding from minor wounds on his face and chest. They were insignificant, barely noticed in the heat of anger and slaughter.

The fused horrors reached and stabbed, accumulating wounds, drawing blood. The tips of their horns broke off and left jagged burrs in the flesh of the duardin.

As Vrindum sent two more daemons into oblivion, he saw many of his brother Drunbhor now fighting while their arms and necks bristled with spines. Blood poured down their skin, obscuring the fire of the ur-gold. The spines writhed. They whistled. And then, as ever to the rhythm of the wind’s three-note song, a metamorphosis took place. Drethor jerked. He dropped his weapons. He cried out in agony. He arched backwards. He kept bending until his spine cracked to splinters. Still he folded backwards, his hair and beard losing their red, turning pink, turning to flesh. The back of his head fused with his legs. Skin flowed over his face, destroying his identity. His shoulders moved back up through his torso until his arms emerged from the sides of his stomach. His misshapen legs grew longer. The flesh of his midsection tore open, becoming gnashing jaws. Muscle bunched, twisted, flowed and grew horns.

Where Drethor had been, a pink horror stood on his magmadroth’s back. It sank claws and fangs into the back of the beast’s neck. The magmadroth writhed, seeking to dislodge its attacker, but more daemons sprang into being, swarming over it. The enemy’s army grew. The lines of the Fyreslayers became ragged from a new and insidious incursion. The cry that went up was beyond rage. It overflowed with grief and horror.

‘Guard yourselves!’ Runemaster Trumnir shouted. ‘Purge yourselves of the foul thorns! Do not despair! Let the fire of Grimnir burn strong and destroy the taint of Chaos.’ He raised his staff high, and holy fire crackled around it. Daemons rushed him, but were held back by the hearthguard berzerkers at his sides long enough for him to complete his summoning and bring the point of the staff down with a blow that shook the earth. A moment later, lava burst from the ground, enveloping an entire cluster of the daemonic trunks. They shrivelled to ash in the molten rock.

Vrindum descended further into rage at the sight of his possessed brothers. He moved too fast for any daemon. He was a storm. Darkbane was a blur. He waded through a rain of daemonic ichor. The only clear thought in the whirlwind of his rage was the need to protect the runefather. Beregthor roared his battle fury, seeming in no need of protection. Vrindum broke through a wall of pink horrors to see Beregthor hurl four of them away at once with a mighty stroke of the Keeper of Roads. Their forms shattered and they fell from Krasnak’s back to be trampled to nothing beneath the magmadroth’s claws.

‘See our runefather lay waste to the daemon!’ Trumnir commanded. ‘Forward! Cut through the enemy in all his guises! Leave a trail of flame and blood to mark our passage!’

Inspired by the voice of the runemaster and sustained in wrath by the drumming of the runesmiter, the Fyreslayers attacked the pink horrors with renewed fervour. The duardin were wary now of the corrupting thorns. They had been made to fight and destroy creatures that had been their brothers, and vengeance was in every blow. The daemons had begun to break through the lines, but now they were hurled back, then hammered and slashed to oblivion.

Beregthor urged Krasnak into a charge, leading the Drunbhor host in a merciless advance. No longer did the Fyreslayers go around the trunks; instead they drove a straight line through the monstrous growths. Though the pink horrors giggled as if they had already won the battle, their laughter ended in squealing and the rending of daemonic flesh. Vrindum ran alongside Krasnak, Darkbane an engine of slaughter. The spirit of Grimnir was strong upon him. The intricate tracery of ur-gold that covered his flesh shone with anger. He lost himself in the charge, and his world became the destruction of the foe. He tore through daemonic flesh and pulsating trunks, unleashing a torrent of ichor and blood.

Then Darkbane swung through air, striking nothing. Vrindum ran forward a few more steps, but there was nothing to kill. He slowed, blinking. The rage faded, and he took in his new surroundings.

He had broken through the corrupted forest. The daemons were gone. Ahead, the ground became more rugged. Vrindum saw foothills, and the promise of mountains.

He looked up at Beregthor. The runefather seemed exhausted for the first time since the departure from Sibilatus, and more drained than triumphant. His face was set, committed to the path, apparently uninterested in anything except the march toward the goal.

And still the wind of the Evercry was constant. Short and long and short, the three notes guiding the Drunbhor to their destiny.

VI

The abominable forest was the first day. The first trial. Eight more days followed. For nine days, the Drunbhor fought through a land full of terrible life, corrupted and enslaved to Chaos. After the forest came the swamp. There the ground was a sucking mire, and ropes of flesh tangled the Fyreslayers while screamers of Tzeentch slashed through the air and through the warriors, their shrieks a choir following the song of the wind.

On the third day, they came to a land riven with narrow gulleys. When they tried to cross, the gulleys became grinding jaws.

On the fourth day, as the land sloped more and more sharply upwards, the ground turned into living glass. It blazed and snarled in the heat of the sun. It broke beneath marching feet without warning, plunging warriors into jagged crevasses, while flamers skittered over the surface. There were many more than on the Voidfire Plain, and they attacked.

And so it went, each day a new trial, a gauntlet that chipped away at the army of the Drunbhor, and the goal was not in sight. Vrindum watched Frethnir’s doubts grow and grow. But the battles were ceaseless, and to challenge the runefather would be a shattering blow to the morale of the fyrds. Frethnir could do nothing to arrest what he clearly thought was a path to disaster without being the cause of a worse one. His agony was terrible to see.

As he fought, Vrindum muttered prayers to Grimnir. ‘Prove the runefather right,’ he said. ‘Prove him right.’

Then there was the wind. The song was still the same, but the air grew more foul. The incense of the forest was gone, but what the Drunbhor now breathed was worse. It was thick and humid, the air of open graves and of a fresh battlefield. It was rotten, and it made Vrindum wonder about the song.

He spoke about the stench with Beregthor.

‘The forces of Chaos seek to turn us aside,’ the runefather answered. ‘They will not succeed.’

Beregthor did not speak with the same fire as he had upon setting out from Sibilatus. His voice was hard, grey, almost a monotone. He did not look at Vrindum. He stared into the distance, as if the invisible goal had thrown a noose around his neck and was slowly pulling him in.

On the eighth day, the Drunbhor encountered fungi so huge they formed caves. Bone-white, streaked with red, they sought to dissolve the Fyreslayers with spores. And when at last fyrds hacked and burned their way through the growths, they beheld mountains ahead of them.

And so, on the ninth day, the Drunbhor reached the Typhornas Mountains.

The wind was immeasurably worse. It was difficult to breathe. Vrindum regarded the landscape with wonder and suspicion. The lodge had arrived at a place of legend, and it was as the myths described. The mountains breathed; they were the lungs of the Evercry. They expanded and contracted, immense heaving movements visible to the eye, and the ground rose and fell beneath Vrindum’s feet. Yet the sensation was not that of an earthquake. The rocky surface did not crack as it stretched. Individual boulders tumbled down the mountain faces, but there were no avalanches. At the same time, Vrindum did not feel as if he were walking on the body of an immeasurably vast beast. His boot heels rang on stone, and the crags on all sides were jagged, solid, monolithic. They were mountains, not flesh.

In and out they breathed, in and out, bellows of such size they sent their endless wind across the breadth of a continent. And the wind was foul. It grew stronger by the hour, until the Drunbhor had to lean forwards, walking into a gale. The three-note song became the shrieking whistle of a mad thing. In the distance, over a bowl in the mountains, lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled from dark, spiralling clouds. This was not the storm the Drunbhor had witnessed from the peaks of Sibilatus. No stars were falling here. There was no explosion as of a war to change the times.

The Fyreslayers entered a narrow pass at the coming of night. They struggled through it against the furious wind. The pass ended at the lip of a huge bowl, a circular valley formed by the meeting of eight mountainsides.

Silence fell.

The wind stopped.

The song ceased.

For a moment, Vrindum thought he had gone deaf. Not once in all his centuries had he not heard the keening over the Evercry. Then he heard the muttered exclamations of the runemaster. He was not deaf, then; yet still the mountains rose and fell, rose and fell.

They rose and fell in silence. There was no breath. Even the stench was gone. It was as if the Fyreslayers stood on a corpse that was unaware of death and continued in its ignorance to move.

In the centre of the valley, on a circular dais, was the gate. Vrindum felt a cautious surge of confidence as the Drunbhor host approached their goal. The gate was clearly the kin of the one the daemons had destroyed in Sibilatus; the pillars bore similar engravings, and though many of the runes were mysterious to him, some of them were also in the language of the Fyreslayers.

A shout of triumph rose from the exhausted fyrds.

The host of the Drunbhor lodge surrounded the wide dais on which the gate stood. Beregthor dismounted from his magmadroth and climbed up. He walked slowly toward the gate, the Keeper of Roads held before him with both hands. Runemaster Trumnir and Runesmiter Harthum walked with him. Vrindum and the runesons followed a few steps behind.

‘Runefather,’ Frethnir said, ‘you were right.’ Relief flooded his face. The shadow that had followed him from Sibilatus lifted.

Beregthor did not answer. Vrindum watched him carefully. The runefather did not appear to notice he was accompanied. His eyes were fixed on the gate, unblinking. He had said nothing since their arrival, falling silent along with the wind.

Trumnir and Runesmiter Harthum examined the pillars. Trumnir frowned. ‘We will have to proceed with caution,’ he said. ‘This gate is warded. I do not recognize all the runes of protection.’

‘Nor do I,’ said Harthum. ‘They were not all part of the original construction. If any are triggered, they might destroy the gate. Or worse.’

‘A fine end to this quest that would be,’ Bramnor said. ‘To have come this far for nothing.’ He spoke in jest, his impatience jovial now.

Frethnir was not pleased. ‘This is our father’s moment of truth,’ he said.

Bramnor nodded. ‘You’re right.’ To Beregthor he said, ‘Runefather, I honour you, and mean no disrespect.’

Beregthor still did not respond. He stood before the centre of the gate, motionless except for his head as he looked back and forth along the span of the arch.

Vrindum moved up beside him. Beregthor’s profile seemed eroded. His skin was grey, worn. It was as if his skull were retreating beneath his hair and beard.

Something was wrong.

‘Runefather?’ Vrindum asked.

No response. The eyes dark like coal.

Trumnir said, ‘I shall begin.’

‘No.’ Beregthor did not raise his voice. He did not need to. His command was so cold.

Trumnir stopped in his tracks as if Beregthor had slapped him. His face darkened with anger. Then he looked concerned.

‘Runefather,’ Vrindum tried again.

Beregthor took a step forward. ‘Leave the gate to me,’ he said. ‘All of you.’ He turned his head to take in the assembly on the dais. ‘I know what needs to be done.’

Trumnir and the runesmiter backed away. They, Vrindum and the runesons retreated to the foot of the dais.

‘He is not himself,’ Frethnir said.

‘Is he unwell?’ Vrindum wondered. ‘He is old, but I would not have thought this journey would exhaust him so.’

No, Vrindum thought. This is something more.

Beregthor raised the latchkey grandaxe. He began to chant. The words were strange to Vrindum.

He turned to Trumnir. ‘Do you know this ritual?’ he asked.

‘I do not.’ Trumnir did not look away from the gate. ‘But the runefather knows what he is doing. Look.’ He pointed to the pillars. Runes glowed, flared white, and then subsided to a dull, magmatic red. ‘He is disarming the wards.’

‘Perhaps his father passed down the knowledge of rituals older and more secret than have been granted to us,’ said Harthum. He sounded unconvinced.

Ancient power crackled between the pillars. Light and space bent, twisted upon one another, and began to spiral. Reality fractured into a thousand shards, then reassembled itself. The view through the gate took on a definite character, becoming more stable. What was revealed was the interior of a stone chamber.

Vrindum saw how this gate and the one in Sibilatus had been mirrors of each other. The Drunbhor’s gate, Beregthor had said, led from the magmahold to a location within reach of the other lodge. This one, a long journey from Sibilatus, led directly to the magmahold of the other lodge.

There was movement in the ranks as the Fyreslayers prepared to march through the gate. Trumnir raised his staff in warning.

‘Hold!’ he called. ‘Many of the wards are still active. We cannot cross yet.’

Beregthor finished chanting. He made a complex pass with the Keeper of Roads before the gate. The gestures hurt Vrindum’s head to watch. He stared at the runefather, and he did not recognise the Fyreslayer before him.

Beregthor completed the gestures. In the centre of the gate, floating in the air, a large stone keyhole appeared. Beregthor lowered the Keeper and approached it. He made to insert the head of the weapon into the keyhole.

The latchkey grandaxe was a symbol. The design of its blade represented the keys to glory. But it was also a true key. It opened the most secret vaults in the magmahold. And now it would open the final lock on the gate.

The wards that were still active glowed red. It was a cold colour. Reptilian. Anticipatory. Trumnir was looking at them with alarm. ‘I don’t think…’ he began.

Vrindum jumped onto the dais. He ran forward and grasped Beregthor’s shoulder, holding him back before he could place the key in the lock.

‘Runefather,’ he said, ‘the gate is still dangerous. Should we not wait?’

Beregthor ignored him. He strained forward.

Vrindum used both arms to restrain him. ‘Beregthor-Grimnir,’ he said, ‘will you not speak to us? Do you know where you are?’

Beregthor turned his head to face Vrindum. His eyes had sunken further yet. His skin was turning greyer with every passing moment.

On the back of his neck, something wriggled.

Vrindum looked closely. There was a small wound just beneath the edge of his helmet. The tip of a daemonic spine protruded from it. At the same moment, Beregthor opened his mouth.

The pink horrors had wounded the runefather deeper than anyone realised during the first battle. A thorn had pierced Beregthor’s flesh. It had been embedded in him, controlling him.

‘The Runefather bears a daemonic wound!’ Vrindum shouted.

Frethnir leapt forward to help. He had been freed of the pain of doubt, but now an agony a thousandfold worse had fallen on him. He had not acted when there was a chance, and now it was perhaps too late. He tried to reach for the thorn.

Beregthor twisted violently. He broke Vrindum’s grip and smashed the side of the grandaxe against the grimwrath berzerker’s skull, knocking him aside. He caught his son with the return sweep. His mouth was still open. His lips and tongue worked, trying to shape the sounds he was commanded to utter. His eyes widened. They were consumed with mortal horror. His soul struggled to silence the coming word. It failed. His voice ragged as if ripped apart by claws, he shouted a name. He sang a name.

‘Kaz’arrath!’

Three notes. Short, long, short. Three beats. Soft, strong, soft.

Now the wind returned. It exploded from Beregthor’s words with such force it smashed Vrindum flat. The runefather was suddenly the origin of the wind. He was the source of the song that had called the Drunbhor lodge to this place. The three-note refrain resounded across the bowl, echoing against the mountainsides.

Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath.

A song of triumph. And of summoning.

The wind howled the name. It shrieked over the Fyreslayers as if the combined force of the Typhornas Mountains had come to rage through this site. At the edges of the bowl, the growing night thickened. It swirled with dark tendrils, ready to burst. Beregthor kept his feet in the hurricane. He turned back toward the gate, his face slack.

Vrindum propelled himself up and forward. He did not know what would happen if Beregthor used the latchkey, but he did know it must not happen. What he had said to the runefather so many days ago was true: the events at Sibilatus had meaning. Every step of the journey had meaning, and the steps had led to a moment that could only mean ruin. So he threw himself at the hero of the Drunbhor, at the Fyreslayer he had followed his entire life. He would die for Beregthor. Now he attacked.

He swung Darkbane, and he howled with grief that he must do so. Filled with sorrow and dread, he was far from losing himself in the vortex of rage. He aimed Darkbane so the sides of the blades struck the shaft of the Keeper of Roads. He knocked it away from the keyhole, then rammed his shoulder into Beregthor. The runefather stumbled from the impact, then turned on Vrindum, his face contorted. Vrindum did not see the righteous anger of the Fyreslayers in his expression. He did not see the sacred fire of Grimnir. He saw only savagery, and a mindless malevolence.

Around the dais, the Fyreslayers were in uproar. Their most ferocious warrior was fighting the runefather. The world had lost all sense. Vrindum trusted that Trumnir, Harthum, the runesons and those who were closest could see the distorted, possessed face of Beregthor. But those further away would only be able to see an impossible conflict, the seed of a terrible schism.

Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, cried the wind.

Beregthor raised the Keeper of Roads over his head and brought it down, aiming for Vrindum’s skull. The grimwrath berzerker dodged to one side. Beregthor was attacking with enormous power but little skill. The Keeper slammed against the dais, lodging itself in stone. Vrindum launched himself at Beregthor again, battering him hard enough to break his hold on the latchkey grandaxe. Beregthor stared at his empty hands, and he howled.

Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath. Short, long, short. A call. A summons.

The summons was answered.

The eight passes that formed the passages to the bowl erupted. The night gave birth to a horde of daemons. A legion of pink horrors and flamers cascaded down the slopes. Gales of demented laughter drowned out the cry of the wind. And to the north, striding behind the thousands of its army, a towering daemon appeared. It was winged. It stalked forward on long legs with multiple articulations. Its arms were almost as long, and it carried a staff in the shape of a giant iron key, whose head changed configuration second by second. Its own head was long and beaked, and its eyes blazed with the terrible cold red of the wards on the gate.

The arrival of the daemons restored some confidence to the fyrds of the Drunbhor. Here was a clear enemy. Here was a war that must be fought, however daunting the odds. And so the great mass of the vulkite berzerkers advanced in an expanding circle around the dais. They shook the earth too with the stamp of their feet and the thunder of their battlecries. The runesons leapt away from the dais, racing through the ranks in three separate directions to lead from the front. Trumnir took a fourth, while Harthum climbed atop his magmadroth and once again began to hammer out the beat of war.

Beregthor and Vrindum were alone on the dais, though Vrindum could feel the eyes of Kaz’arrath fixed upon them.

With the great daemon present, and the mirroring of its eyes and the warding runes, he understood what would happen if Beregthor turned the key and opened the way. The Drunbhor would not pass through. The warding would destroy any who tried. But the Keeper of Roads would permit the daemons to pour directly into the other lodge’s magmahold. This was the quest the daemons had goaded the Drunbhor into completing. The daemons had destroyed the gate in Sibilatus so the Drunbhor would seek and open this one, unleashing horror on the kin they had thought to help.

Vrindum stood between the runefather and the Keeper of Roads. Beregthor ran at him, hands extended like claws. Vrindum met his charge. He grappled with him. He pulled a dagger from his belt and stabbed sideways at the back of Beregthor’s neck. He felt the blade slice into flesh. It struck something hard, and he prayed to Grimnir it was the daemonic thorn.

‘Runefather,’ he pleaded. ‘Remember who you are. You are the greatest of the Drunbhor, and we have need of you now!’ He shoved deeper with the knife. Something severed. There was a sudden weakness in Beregthor’s limbs, and Vrindum wrestled him to the ground.

‘Hear the altar of war,’ Vrindum said. ‘Hear the true call. Hear the wrath of Grimnir. Free yourself of the grip of lies.’

Harthum must have seen the struggle, for his booming hymn of battle grew louder yet. Vrindum’s frame blazed with the strength of his god. He saw the shine of holy fury in the runes on Beregthor’s forehead.

The runefather’s eyes cleared. Blackened coals burst into heroic fire once more. Vrindum released him, and Beregthor leapt to his feet. He stared at the gate, and at the Keeper of Roads embedded in the dais. His mouth twisted in anger and grief. He seized the grandaxe.

And paused.

A wave of grey settled over his features once more. He shook it off with effort. He turned to Vrindum. ‘I hear, old friend. I keep my honour to the last.’ He shuddered, leaning as if his body would unlock the gate if he did not force it away. Then he gave Vrindum a grim smile.

‘Frethnir will lead well,’ he said, and stormed off the dais. His roar parted the ranks of the Fyreslayers. On instinct they made way for their auric runefather. Krasnak bellowed and joined his master. Beregthor climbed his back into the throne for one final time. They drove deep into the gibbering daemonic legions.

Beregthor headed directly for Kaz’arrath. The Lord of Change was halfway across the bowl towards the lines of the Fyreslayers. Beregthor and the magmadroth plunged deeper and deeper into the roiling mass. The runefather’s attack was reckless. It was too fast. He was not leading the Drunbhor. He was leaving them behind.

Vrindum raced after him. Beregthor had no intention of surviving. He was intent merely on destroying as many abominations as he could before they overwhelmed him. Vrindum howled a denial to the fates and raced after the runefather. Beregthor would not be forced to make this sacrifice. Vrindum would fight by his side until the last of the daemons had been dispatched to oblivion.

The battle rhythm of the runesmiter rang through Vrindum’s being. The voice of Battlesmith Krunmir thundered over the battle, his recitation of the victories of the Drunbhor in harmony with the drumming of the war altar. Ahead, Vrindum saw the overwhelming odds turning against Beregthor. Krasnak mauled the daemons and burned them with bile. The Keeper of Roads rose high before coming down with destructive force. But the pink horrors kept coming, piling up on each other, reaching to drag at the runefather. Flamers closed in on Krasnak, and the magmadroth screeched as their unholy fire washed over his scales. His hide rippled, portions of his body in the first convulsions of change. Vulkite berzerkers were fighting furiously to come to Beregthor’s aid, but the mass of daemons slowed them down. They would not reach him before the sea of nightmares pulled him under.

Or before the dreadful author of the tragedy arrived to destroy the runefather utterly.

Vrindum’s focus narrowed to the single point of Beregthor’s peril. Everything else vanished in the rage of battle. He tore into the daemons, and he was a force beyond reckoning. His throat unleashed a continuous cry of rage. His ur-gold sigils were molten with Grimnir’s wrath. The god demanded vengeance. Vrindum was that vengeance incarnate.

He did not see individual foes. The daemons were an undifferentiated mass that presented itself for the slaughter. Darkbane cut through a sea of daemonic flesh. Pink turned blue, blue vanished in sprays of ichor. Horns and blades slashed at him, but whether they hit or not made no difference. He was the fury of war, and no foul thing would stop him from reaching the runefather.

He drew alongside Beregthor, and the proximity of the runefather pulled him back again from complete battle madness. Krasnak had fallen, fighting to the last as his flesh mutated out of control, transforming him into a hill of pulsating scales and crawling parchment. Beregthor had lost his helm. His face and arms were sheathed in his blood, but he fought as if fresh to the battle.

‘Go back!’ Beregthor shouted.

Vrindum cut a pink horror in two, then destroyed the blue daemons before they uttered their first wail.

‘Come with me, runefather!’ he said. ‘You are restored to us! Your honour does not require your sacrifice!’

Beregthor shook his head. He thrust the Keeper of Roads forward through the jaws of a blue horror, exploding the daemon’s head.

‘I cannot return to the gate. If I do, I will bring ruin to us all. But you must. And destroy it.’

Ahead, Kaz’arrath was less than a dozen great strides away.

‘The gate is lost to us,’ said Beregthor. ‘We must take it from the daemons as they took ours in Sibilatus.’

Vrindum hesitated.

‘Go!’ Beregthor roared. ‘Your runefather commands it!’

With an agonised cry, Vrindum abandoned Beregthor. He turned back. Once more he cut his way through the daemonic horde. Wrath fused with grief. He would have tried to destroy every daemon in the field if not for Beregthor’s desperate order. Several fyrds of vulkite berzerkers were pushing hard to reach the runefather too, and it was not long before Vrindum was in their midst.

‘The gate!’ he said. ‘We are commanded to destroy the gate!’

He leapt onto the platform. He raced to the right-hand pillar, thinking only of his duty and not the consequences as he swung Darkbane. With the first blow, a chunk of ancient stone went flying. The vision in the portal shook. And a roar of denial and rage went up across the battlefield.

The daemons surged forward, and there was no laughter from the pink horrors now. They howled with desperation. They fell on the Fyreslayers with determination, forcing them back. The Drunbhor were suddenly on the defensive, fighting to keep the daemons from reaching the dais.

‘Think you to escape destiny?’

The voice was magisterial and filled with venom. Vrindum’s mouth flooded with blood.

‘The book is written. All change is ours. For you there is but the completion of your task,’ Kaz’arrath said. The daemon reached down and grasped Beregthor in a huge claw. It spread its wings, beat the air with them and rose above the fray, moving towards the dais. As it did, it struck downward with its staff, and Fyreslayers by the score died, their bodies twisted into the shape of unholy runes.

‘Destroy the gate!’ Beregthor’s cry was monstrous in its pain, a soul making its last stand in terrible combat.

Vrindum renewed his attack on the pillar. Stone flew. The wards blazed in anger, but he was not attempting to cross the threshold. Frethnir and Bramnor joined him. Their blows eroded the strength of the pillars.

‘Faster!’ Vrindum shouted. ‘We must end our failures here!’ Kaz’arrath descended on the dais. With a contemptuous gesture, the daemon swept aside the berzerkers who blocked its way. It held Beregthor towards the portal. It could ward the gate and twist its nature, but it could not open it. The runefather of the Drunbhor alone could do that. His body trembling, controlled by a will much greater than his, Beregthor raised the Keeper of the Roads and inserted its blade into the floating keyhole.

Vrindum attacked the pillar with the frenzy of wrath.

Beregthor turned the key.

The circumference of the portal blazed with lightning. The vision of the magmahold took on depth. The keyhole vanished. With a raucous caw of triumph, still clutching the victim of its manipulations, the Lord of Change stepped forward into the gate.

And the pillar collapsed.

It toppled like a felled tree, pulling the entire arch of the gate down with it. Runic, warded stonework fell into the portal with the daemon and Beregthor only partway through. The gate exploded. The heart of the Typhornas Mountains flashed with searing violet and silver. The dais erupted.

Vrindum hurtled through a maelstrom of fire and stone and raging power. The storm raged, and he raged with it. The fury of reality’s ending battered him.

He bellowed a cry of victory and grief.

VII

The destruction of the gate turned the centre of the bowl into a crater. The blast killed many Drunbhor. The uncontrolled storm of sorcerous energies wreaked even greater devastation on the daemons. With Kaz’arrath gone, they were leaderless and despairing. With Beregthor dead, the Fyreslayers were terrible in their vengeance.

The end came quickly.

At dawn, Vrindum stood at the edge of the crater. The wind blowing from the Typhornas Mountains had shaken free of the three-note refrain. The song was changeable once again, varying with every rise and fall of the mountains. It sounded in Vrindum’s ears like a chant of mourning. But perhaps there was a thread of triumph too. Beregthor’s final command had defeated the daemon’s machinations. And he left behind a legacy.

As the sun’s rays crossed the lip of the bowl, the veins of gold in the crater gleamed.

Frethnir joined Vrindum. ‘The runemaster says there is a rich concentration of ur-gold below,’ he said.

‘Beregthor would be pleased,’ said Vrindum. ‘He led us well until the end.’

‘He did. I should never have doubted.’

Vrindum bent down and picked up the Keeper of Roads. It had survived the explosion, though its blade was gravely scarred. Vrindum presented it to Frethnir.

The runeson shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘That is for Bramnor. It is not for me to be auric runefather of the Drunbhor. My brother will lead the march back. I will stay here with those who choose to join me. We will found a new lodge where our father has brought us.’

‘Then I will be of your number,’ Vrindum said. Where the daemon had sought to bring ruin to the Drunbhor, now there would be a greater strength.

The wind’s cry grew louder, a martial song for the birth of a new era.

SHATTERED CRUCIBLE

David Annandale

I

The storm began at the height of the Ritual of Grimnir’s Binding. From where they stood on the platform of rock high on the flank of the Forgecrag, both Thrumnor and Rhulmok saw it start. It stabbed deep into their awareness, drawing them from the necessary trance of the ritual.

The Krelstrag lodge stood strong in the largest volcanic isle at the heart of the Earthwound archipelago in Aqshy. Here, the Fyreslayers said, one of Grimnir’s blades had cut into the ground as he had landed a great blow on Vulcatrix, the Mother of Salamanders. The molten blood of the great wyrm had poured into the vast cleft. The wound in the continents was a hundred leagues wide and many times as long, and it gaped and bled, never to be healed. An ocean of magma raged at the surface. It was said that the ocean had no true bottom, that the wound was so profound it tore through the barriers between the realms, but no living soul could survive the plunge through the depths of that terrible heat to find out.

In all directions, titanic molten waves rose and fell. The rage of the earth pushed its incandescent rock to the surface, as if ten thousand volcanoes in perpetual eruption had drowned themselves and the land, from horizon to horizon. This was the ocean of tribulation and annihilation, and nothing could live in its eternal fury.

But the Krelstrag stood strong.

Volcanic peaks did rise above the surface of the burning ocean. Islands would come into being. Then the terrible waves would erode their shores, the internal forces would shake them apart, and they would crumble and melt back into the lava. Not all succumbed. Ten mountains had been there since the wound was first torn open. Perhaps it was their birth that had injured the land in the beginning. Jagged and twisted, like the anguished talons of an immeasurably vast beast, they towered over the waves, arrogant, defiant, unchanging. They were mountains at war, mountains under siege. They would stand forever.

And so would the Krelstrag.

The heart of the Krelstrag magmahold was within the largest of the great claws, the Forgecrag. The island mountain was broad, though so tall it resembled an onyx spike. It rose high enough to pierce the crimson-washed clouds. At a point just beneath the clouds, it was possible to look out at the entire domain of the Krelstrag lodge, the chain of basalt claws jutting from the lava. It was even possible, when the wind was strong enough to clear the worst of the haze, to see the sole hint on the horizon that something might exist beyond the Earthwound, that there was such a thing as a mainland. On those days, the bulky silhouette of the Great Weld would appear. Unlike the spikes of the archipelago, it had a wide, flat peak. It was a distant anvil. On this night, a hammer was striking it.

Runemaster Thrumnor and Runesmiter Rhulmok stood on the edge of the high platform. Behind them were a hundred warriors of the auric hearthguard, those chosen to make up the Sentinels of the Reach. Before each Fyreslayer was a drum. The drums were made of hide stretched over a stone framework built into the platform itself, and could never be moved. They had two purposes. The first was to provide the rhythmic thunder of the ritual. The sentinels beat their instruments, and the sound reverberated throughout the tunnels and vaults of the Forgecrag. The drumbeat was the pulse of the land as magma coursed through its veins. It shaped the humours of the Earthwound and called it to attention. When Thrumnor and Rhulmok listened to the beat, when it entered their flesh and their blood and their bones, when it vibrated through the ur-gold runes that were even more central to their being, then they were one with their environment. Then Thrumnor summoned the rage of molten rock, Rhulmok gave it form, and together they built the bridges.

There were homes and mines in the other claws of the archipelago, but the Forgecrag was the heart of the lodge, and its fortress in times of war. The Fyreslayers of the Krelstrag needed to move from one peak to another, and there was only one way that was possible. The Earthwound’s fury was so total that there were no tunnels that could link one island to another. Instead there were bridges.

Seen from the platform, a suturing of rock connected the islands. Narrow walkways spanned the ocean. Just as the fragments of Grimnir’s being were gathered together in the ur-gold, so the bridges brought unity to the fragments of the Krelstrag lodge. Grimnir had wrought the Earthwound, yet through his strength was a whole forged by his faithful Fyreslayers.

Though they were stone, the bridges were ephemeral. Once they were built, they sometimes lasted as long as a week, sometimes a single day. When the ocean’s rage was great, a bridge could vanish mere hours after its creation, swallowed by waves of lava a hundred feet high.

The bridges had high, curving sides, three times taller than any Fyreslayer, protecting those who crossed them from the worst of the ocean’s heat. Passage across them was controlled by more Sentinels of the Reach. Positioned at either end of each span, carefully trained by Thrumnor and Rhulmok, they observed the conditions of the crossings, determining whether or not they were still safe to use. There lay the second purpose of the drums – to beat the alarm when a collapse was imminent, and so help direct the work of the ritual.

In battle, Thrumnor summoned magma from below, destroying the foe as lava erupted from the ground, burning all who dared challenge the Krelstrag. Rhulmok commanded the direction of the magma’s flow. Tunnels opened before his will, and the Fyreslayers moved beneath the battlefield. Over the centuries, as he had learned to call on the magma’s wrath, Thrumnor had also learned how to calm it. He could cool it to solid rock. Rhulmok, in his turn, came to know how to shape what Thrumnor soothed. What was a bridge, after all, but a tunnel through the air?

And so the Krelstrag lodge thrived, extending its reach across the islands of the Earthwound archipelago, and any enemy foolhardy enough to try its strength against that of the Krelstrag first had to cross leagues upon leagues of the Earthwound ocean.

The Krelstrag had a term: lavasmite. It meant a period of time so short as to be not worth mentioning. It came from the contempt they felt for the sieges they had withstood and smashed to pieces, and for the uncounted thousands of foes who had been swallowed, screaming, by the lava. The sieges lasted only long enough for the Krelstrag to hurl the enemy into the embrace of the Earthwound ocean.

The Forgecrag could not be taken. It would stand forever.

Then the storm came.

Thrumnor was deep in the pounding trance of the ritual. He had caught a great fountain of lava in the clenched gauntlet of his will and chanted a prayer of low, guttural syllables. The blood of Vulcatrix must be called to answer. Righteous rage forced a wave of lava to climb above the ocean. It forced it to change its strength from fire to rigid stone. Rhulmok’s voice was there with him, no less determined but calmer, grinding and growling like the parting of stony waves. The cooling lava lengthened and the bridge came into being, arcing out from the side of the Forgecrag towards a new peak, one that had risen from the ocean a month before, and was now deemed stable enough to explore. Then, at the horizon, where the Great Weld stood guard, there was an explosion of lightning. It disrupted the song. Its thunder was too distant to be heard, but it was so huge it was felt in the air, and Thrumnor stuttered in his song. Rhulmok choked. The half-made bridge collapsed into the lava. Grimnir’s Binding unravelled, its energy lashing out uncontrollably across the bridges. They shook, cracking and groaning. The filament nearest to the incomplete crossing began to glow. Hundreds of Fyreslayers caught on the strut started to run, racing against the rising heat and shifting rock. They barely made it to the safe ground of the Forgecrag before that bridge, too, collapsed.

Out of the trance, Thrumnor saw the last flashes of Binding dispersing over the farther bridges.

‘Grimnir grant we killed no one,’ said Rhulmok, his voice strained with shock.

Thrumnor grunted. His own breath was rasping. His gaze was fixed on the sky’s rage. This was no natural storm. The lightning struck again and again as if beating a rune into flesh. Pulsing in sympathy with the flashes was a searing glow on the summit of the Weld. The light was a vivid green, and Thrumnor experienced each burst with a mixture of holy dread and the excitement of war.

‘What does this portend?’ Rhulmok asked. There was awe in his tone, but great suspicion too.

‘It portends much,’ Thrumnor said. ‘The hammer of Grimnir strikes his anvil once more,’ he recited.

Rhulmok did not appear to recognise the line of prophecy. The foretelling was an ancient one, and almost forgotten. There was much of it that Thrumnor could no longer recall himself.

‘We must speak with the runefather,’ said Rhulmok.

‘Aye,’ Thrumnor agreed.

But there was something he must do first.

II

Thrumnor knelt before the altar. It was a great stone anvil with seams of gold running through it. The strands gathered at its base, and then appeared to flow upwards, becoming a statue twenty feet tall: Grimnir in battle against the wyrm Vulcatrix. The statue was resplendent with golden fire, shining in the light of a hundred torches. There was no ur-gold in its construction; that element, holy with the contained essence of Grimnir himself, was too precious to use in anything but the runes hammered into the Fyreslayers’ bodies. Such was the craftsmanship of the artisans who had created the altar, though, that the lines of the figures resonated in the runes of whoever came before it. Thrumnor felt the warmth of the designs in his flesh. Their power stirred, urging his blood to battle, to march along that road leading to the union with Grimnir, and the great reforging of his scattered being.

Thrumnor leaned forwards, arms spread wide. He rested his palms and his forehead against the side of the altar. With his eyes closed, he could feel the stone vibrate with the beat of the distant storm. The beat passed into his body. His runes flared. Fire coursed through his soul.

The beat grew stronger. It overwhelmed him. Thrumnor no longer touched the altar. He was falling through a darkness resonating with the blows of hammers, a boom boom boom boom shaking realm upon realm. Then, at the centre of the dark, there was a sharp point of bright orange light. It spread with every beat of the hammers. Then the dark peeled away, and Thrumnor beheld a vision. Something dark yet streaked with red and gold moved up the height of a vast anvil. It seemed to be a stream of living ore. A hammer as big as the sky was poised over the anvil. When the ore was gathered, the hammer fell. An explosion filled Thrumnor’s sight. The anvil shattered, then lava was flowing over a landscape. There was movement on the ground before its path, a suggestion of flight, a ripple of war. The lava consumed all. It was a tide hundreds of feet high, and it moved with purpose. Thrumnor could not see where it came from, nor where it was going, but a great will determined the destruction. There was a reason for this wave. And there was judgement.

The vision faded. Thrumnor rose to his feet. He bowed his head before the image of Grimnir and gave thanks.

‘I know what we must do,’ he said.

Auric Runefather Dorvurn-Grimnir regarded his council. With him, along with Thrumnor and Rhulmok, were his seven runesons. All had climbed to the platform to witness the storm. Now, deep in the magmahold, they sat in a circle of stone chairs, carved to suggest the jagged peaks rising from the Earthwound ocean.

‘Our duty is clear,’ Thrumnor repeated. ‘Grimnir’s hammer calls us to the Great Weld. There, on blessed ground, there will be a great forging, and we will march in fire and conquest across the mainland.’

‘To where?’ Rhulmok shook his head. ‘The meaning of your vision is unclear to me. The scrolls of prophecy foretell a time of tribulation when Grimnir’s hammer strikes the Weld. I can well believe it. Something of enormous power is at work in the realm. Why should we respond by abandoning the magmahold?’ He brought a fist down on the arm of his chair. Stone chips flew. ‘Might the portent not herald a siege such as we have never encountered before? You saw the anvil shatter. This disturbs me. Should we not instead be preparing to defend?’

‘No,’ Thrumnor said. ‘My vision points the way.’

‘How? You saw lava. You saw terrible destruction. Is that not the foe heading our way?’

‘No. It is us.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Forvuld, the eldest of the runesons.

‘In my vision, the destruction was a necessary thing. What burned was unclean. The lava was our lodge, overwhelming our foe as we march across the realm in answer to the call of Grimnir. The call every one of us has now witnessed.’

Rhulmok’s heavy brow was wrinkled with doubt. ‘That interpretation is not enough to justify the risk to the magmahold.’

Dorvurn tried to remember the last time he had seen his runemaster and runesmiter so divided on an issue. He failed. Though Thrumnor was Rhulmok’s senior by more than a century, the bond between the two was a strong one, forged by the unity of bridge creation. He had seen them taunt each other in jest about whose mastery over the lava was the stronger, but on matters of import to the lodge, they had always spoken with one voice.

‘Runesmiter,’ Dorvurn said, ‘it is unlike you to express reluctance for battle.’

Rhulmok grunted, but did not take offence. Dorvurn had come close to calling him a coward, and the fact Rhulmok ignored the gibe was telling. The runesmiter’s concerns were deep ones.

‘I’m reluctant to engage in the wrong battle,’ Rhulmok said. ‘If we misinterpret what we see and march toward an illusion, leaving the magmahold open to the real menace, what then?’

‘There is no question of misinterpretation,’ Thrumnor said. He sounded more heated than the runesmiter. His bald scalp, marked with an intricate tracery of ur-gold, reddened with frustration. ‘I have seen our duty! To delay is to defy Grimnir! And there is also the matter of the oath.’

‘What oath?’ said Dorvurn.

‘The Oath to the Lost.’

There was a puzzled silence in the hall.

‘I’ve never heard of this oath,’ Homnir said. He was the youngest of the runesons, but it was clear none of the others knew any more than he did. Even Rhulmok looked confused.

Dorvurn felt a pang of guilt. Was it possible he had never spoken of the oath to his sons? Had he never passed on that portion of lore? He had been remiss. He could tell himself the Krelstrag tradition and history were so vast, it was impossible for anyone to remember every aspect, and some things would be forgotten. The tool that was never used would be abandoned over time, and the oath had never been invoked. Even its name had been altered, the form it now took revealing that something had been forgotten. Nevertheless, it existed. Thrumnor was right to invoke it. It seemed that the runemaster and Dorvurn, the oldest Fyreslayers of the Krelstrag lodge, were the only ones to remember. The runefather could not let that situation stand, especially since the oath’s relevance was clear to him now.

I had forgotten, he thought. Grimnir, forgive me.

‘The Oath to the Lost,’ Dorvurn said, ‘was made at the time before the Krelstrag came to Earthwound. It was made to another lodge, one bound to us by kin, as we set forth on the journey that would at last bring us here. It was an oath of mutual aid. Should the Fyreslayers of one lodge be attacked, the other would help them in their defence. Our foe is their foe, and their foe is ours.’

‘Another lodge?’ Homnir asked. He was stunned.

The passing of so many centuries in the Earthwound had isolated the Krelstrag. They had not had contact with another lodge in the living memory of even Dorvurn.

‘What is it called?’ Homnir continued.

‘We do not know,’ Thrumnor told him. ‘The name has been lost to us. We know we were kin. We know of the oath. We know the lodge lies somewhere beyond the Great Weld. All else has been forgotten.’

‘So we don’t even know if it still exists,’ said Rhulmok. ‘To reach the Weld will be a long journey. When have the Krelstrag ever sought to reach the mainland?’

‘Our foes have come to the Earthwound from there,’ Thrumnor snapped. ‘Are we lesser than they are?’

Rhulmok’s brow darkened, but his grip on his temper was more secure than the runemaster’s. ‘I did not say that. Nor did I mean it.’

‘No one questions our valour and might,’ Dorvurn intervened. ‘It is true that we do not know if the other lodge still exists. It matters not.’ He rose from his seat. ‘What matters is the oath. We made it, and we shall not break it. A great storm has come, an omen of tribulations for the Fyreslayers. The anvil of the Great Weld is struck. And Runemaster Thrumnor has a vision of our unstoppable sweep over our enemies.’ He raised his voice, and he raised his grandaxe. ‘Grimnir summons us to war, brothers! And we shall answer! We march!’

III

‘The youngflame is unhappy,’ Rhulmok said.

He and Thrumnor stood a few paces away from where Dorvurn and Homnir spoke, surrounded by the other runesons. They were assembled on an enormous ledge, as big as a plateau, two-thirds of the way down the Forgecrag. Behind them were the main gates of the Krelstrag magmahold. The heavy iron doors were open, and in the great hall behind them, the massed ranks of the Krelstrag fyrds waited for the order to march. The thousands of vulkite berzerkers were a sea of red hair and beards. Thrumnor looked at them and saw the lava flood of his vision on the verge of being unleashed.

‘And what about his fellow youngflame?’ Thrumnor asked. ‘Is he reconciled to our quest?’ His question was serious. He wanted to know Rhulmok’s mind. It was important they were working well together again as they began the journey. How long would it be until they reached the other lodge? Weeks? Months? The lodge needed them, and it needed them acting as brothers. So he phrased his serious question using the frequent joke between them. Rhulmok was no youngflame. There were mountains younger than he. But Thrumnor was more ancient yet, and he still pretended to look upon the runesmiter as a youth.

He was glad when Rhulmok smiled. ‘This beardling has his concerns, but he will follow where the runefather leads, and be glad to do it.’ He turned serious. ‘And an oath is an oath.’ He looked out over the ocean, in the direction they were to take. The smaller volcanic islands blocked sight of the Great Weld, but the silver flashes of the greater storm were still visible.

‘The oath applies to us all,’ Homnir was arguing. ‘I too must fulfil it. How can I if I stay?’

‘You will fulfil your duty to the oath by staying,’ Dorvurn said. ‘I believe the runemaster is correct in his reading of the portents, but Rhulmok too is right: we cannot leave the magmahold undefended. You will defend our home, Homnir, and you will hold it against all enemies.’

‘If someone must stay, why not Forvuld?’

As the eldest, Forvuld’s hope to succeed Dorvurn as runefather was arguably the strongest.

‘Because you have much to prove,’ Dorvurn said. ‘You will perform the miraculous to protect the hearth.’

To his right, Forvuld nodded, showing his confidence in his younger brother.

Homnir bowed his head in acquiescence.

‘Your father is grateful,’ Dorvurn said. ‘And your runefather is grateful. Gather the people in the Forgecrag in our wake. The bridges will be dangerous until our return.’

‘I will, runefather.’

Homnir walked toward the edge of the plateau, so he would not be in the way of the departing army. Dorvurn went forward to where Karmanax, his magmadroth, clawed at the ground, impatient to be away. Dorvurn climbed into the saddle and stood tall.

‘Fyreslayers of the Krelstrag!’ His voice boomed over the eternal rumble and liquid roar of the Earthwound ocean. ‘To the Great Weld and beyond! On this day, we begin the fulfilment of an oath made an age ago. On this day, we march toward the manifestation of prophecy! For Grimnir!’

‘For Grimnir!’ the great host of the Krelstrag answered.

Dorvurn looked at Thrumnor and Rhulmok. ‘Runemaster,’ he said. ‘Runesmiter. Pave our way.’

Thrumnor made a fist and struck his left shoulder in salute. Rhulmok did the same, and mounted his own magmadroth, Grognax. Thrumnor moved to the magmadroth’s side. With the crunch of thousands of feet against stone, the march began.

The journey through the Earthwound archipelago was a long one. It took many days just to move beyond the Krelstrag domains. Thrumnor and Rhulmok worked in unison, creating bridge after bridge. There came a moment, seven days into the march, when the distance between the volcanic cone on which the army mustered and the next peak to rise above the ocean of lava was so great that Thrumnor wondered if he and the runesmiter could span it. Span it they did, though, and the bridge appeared as thin as spun gold as it stretched across the seething, restless inferno. The bridge was strong, and it carried the host. In the end it was the island they had left that sank first, taking the bridge down after they had already begun construction of the next one.

Days and days of crossings, a journey over the infinity of the ocean, and always the waves of molten rock heaved to the horizon. Slowly, very slowly, the Great Weld grew larger, and Thrumnor began to believe they were making progress. The unnatural lightning storm had ended, though at different points in the sky it would return for a time, like the flaring of a new war. The green bursts on the top of the Weld continued, the rhythm unending, the hammer striking the anvil ceaselessly. It was a summoning so insistent Thrumnor had to remind himself that the ascent of the Weld was but the first stage of the journey, and not the destination itself.

Finally, after many, many more days, a dark line appeared on the horizon. It was the mainland.

The Earthwound ocean had a shore.

The shore was blighted.

A forest spread over the leagues of jagged foothills and deep, narrow canyons that led towards the base of the Great Weld. It was a forest that had been buried aeons ago, but that now had been resurrected into a monstrous new life.

The forest was petrified. The trees in their millions had been killed by the violence of the land, and then turned to stone. They still stood, skeletons of rock reaching up to the cruel sky. Something new had come among them; a terrible foliage hung from their limbs, a thick, black, glistening fungus. It dripped ichor down their trunks. Where the fluid ran, it ate into the rock, dissolving and devouring. Thrumnor examined the fungus more closely as the Fyreslayers moved through the dead-yet-diseased forest. The growths resembled giant slugs. They clung to the trunks and branches as if trying to suffocate them. The surface rippled like muscles.

‘A plague to eat stone,’ Rhulmok muttered. Thrumnor nodded. He tightened his grip on his runic iron. Rhulmok sounded at least as curious as he was horrified. Thrumnor felt only holy outrage.

‘We will find our way below the surface,’ Dorvurn announced. ‘We will take the ancient ways, and if an enemy awaits, we will meet him on our terms.’

The forest writhed. Stone rotted. Insects with clattering wings swarmed from burst fungus pods. Thrumnor learned that stone could have a stench. But there was no attack, and at the end of the first day on the mainland, a scouting party of vulkite karls found a gateway underground. It was a ruin, its doors long rusted to nothing, the pillars of the entrance leaning against each other and blocked by a heap of fungus twenty feet high. The Krelstrag scoured the parasite away with fire, and then descended.

The world they found filled Thrumnor’s soul with melancholy. There was much that was familiar, which made its dereliction all the worse. The tunnels had once seen much work. There were traces of engravings on the walls. Caves were recognisable as dining halls and smithies, and more than once, as the days passed, Thrumnor’s breath caught when a vast, empty tomb of a chamber revealed itself to have been a forge-temple.

‘What lodge was this?’ Forvuld wondered.

‘I have seen signs of several,’ said Dorvurn. ‘But I do not know their names.’

‘Then this was once an empire,’ Forvuld said with bitter awe.

‘Yes.’ Dorvurn was equally solemn.

Forvuld insisted, ‘It is wrong that we have forgotten who was here.’

‘Yes,’ said Thrumnor. ‘It is wrong. But we can do nothing about what has been lost. What we are doing now preserves at least one strand of the long past. We will honour it, and in so doing, safeguard the future.’

The dereliction disturbed him, though. These ruins were not an insurmountable journey away from the Forgecrag. That the Krelstrag had no memory of who had been here was a sign of how much had been taken by Chaos, even if the Krelstrag held fast in the Earthwound archipelago.

They passed under a colossal archway whose runes could still be read. It announced itself as the gateway to the Great Road of the Wyrm. The tunnel was enormous, travelling in a straight line over a long distance, as if it truly had been bored through the stone by a leviathan of myth. It had once been the lodge’s trade route. For three days, the Krelstrag grand fyrd moved long it. Thrumnor’s melancholy turned to anger as he gazed upon its forgotten majesty. So much had been taken from the Fyreslayers. The roof of the tunnel was vaulted, so high that it was a distant shadow in the torchlight. The pillars supporting it were carved in the form of titanic limbs. Their orientation alternated. First was an arm thrusting up from the floor to splay its hand against the ceiling, then another reaching down as if to pull the ore from the earth. Every few leagues, chambers opened up on one side or the other. In them stood towering statues that had been defaced. Many were missing heads, but the heroism of their stances was still apparent. They straddled crevasses so deep that they reached down to the molten depths of the mountain, and an orange light bathed their corroded features.

Glory and loss, everywhere Thrumnor looked. Glory and loss.

Towards the end of the third day, the route sloped upward, rising in increments toward the surface. As it did so, it became more and more unclean. The roots of the petrified forest reached down through the tunnel roof. They too were stone, and they too were diseased, covered in a grey, flaking mould. And they moved. Rock twisted in pain. The roots scraped at the walls. They tortured the ceiling, dropping jagged blocks to the floor of the tunnel. The more the path went upwards, the more the roots clustered and the more they tangled the space. Stone creaked in rotten agony. Leading from the front, Dorvurn smashed at the roots with his grandaxe, while the magmadroths battered them to fragments with their claws. At one juncture where the tunnel narrowed, Karmanax reared and unleashed a torrent of flaming bile into the knot of twisting corruption ahead. The stream melted the roots to nothing, clearing the way. The magmadroth snorted in unhappy contempt at the remains as he passed through.

Ahead, the tunnel widened. The roof was higher. Twisting, grinding roots draped the walls on all sides. Thrumnor watched the shadowy movement of the roots carefully. Rhulmok’s Grognax, just as suspicious, issued a low growl with every breath.

‘The shadows are a thicket,’ Rhulmok commented.

Thrumnor grunted his agreement. Much could hide in the dense tangle.

‘There might be more than plague-ridden stone within,’ he said. The convulsion of a blighted land concealed the artistry of the Great Road of the Wyrm.

There was so much movement. All around them, the shadows bulged and turned and rustled. An attack could come from anywhere.

The attack, when it came, was from everywhere. There was a sudden increase in the volume of the rustling. Things giggled in the dark. The shadows boiled. Down the walls and dropping from the ceiling came a swarm of distended, mewling, chattering, laughing daemons. They were squat, bulbous things, thick with tumours. Their needle-toothed jaws were parted in leering smiles. Horns in ones and twos and threes sprouted from their foreheads.

They were nurglings, and Thrumnor had fought their kind before during some of the many failed sieges of the Krelstrag lodge. Now the daemons attacked as if the Great Road was their land, and the Fyreslayers were the invaders. They came in a tide of uncounted thousands. In moments, the floor of the tunnel was hip-deep in the mire of the beasts. With tooth and claw and crude, rusted blade, the daemons swept against the Krelstrag duardin, seeking to overwhelm them with the sheer weight of their numbers.

The Fyreslayers responded to the attack with fury. These things had made the very veins of the earth unclean, and extermination was almost too good for them. Atop Grognax, Rhulmok let loose a roar of outrage. The magmadroth echoed him. Rhulmok began to hammer a rhythm. He chanted the Krelstrag war song. The ur-gold in Thrumnor’s flesh responded, filling him with the heat of rage and strength to shatter mountains. Down the ranks of the Fyreslayers, the essence of Grimnir came to wrathful life. The sigils and runes beaten into hardy duardin flesh glowed with fury. The uncountable nurglings were the plague-tide, rising up to drown its victims. The Fyreslayers were lava, scouring all before them.

Thrumnor swept his runic iron in wide blows. He smashed swaths of nurglings with every strike. They burst apart with wet cries of distress.

The magmadroths lashed out with tails and claws, destroying scores of the abominations. They crushed the daemons beneath their paws, smearing green bodies to bubbling liquid. They spewed their bile, burning the nurglings to ash.

The warriors of the Krelstrag fyrds hurled themselves into the destruction of the unclean enemy. With axes, they cut the grey tide down. Their voices joined Rhulmok’s, and they sang their fierce joy of battle – a pure, honourable joy that drowned out the burbling, gurgling, nonsensical clamouring of the daemons.

The nurglings rushed forward again with greater force. From behind their first ranks came their leaders. Blightkings waded into the battle, each one commanding hundreds of nurglings. They were bloated, deformed. Suppurating tentacles reached out from gaping maws where stomachs should have been. Some had one eye, others three. Arms were transformed into huge pincers. As they attacked, tocsins rang. The solemn tolling reverberated against the walls of the Great Road, claiming the tunnels in the name of the Plaguefather.

‘Unholy trespassers!’ Thrumnor shouted. ‘This is Fyreslayer land. You come here only to perish!’ He ran forward at the nearest blightking. He struck with his runic iron, plunging it into a torso maw. The jaws bit down, seizing the rod, and the blightking swung a pitted axe at Thrumnor’s head. The runemaster ducked and pressed harder. The sacred metal of the iron burned through the pestilential flesh. It shattered its spine and burst through its back. Thrumnor pulled it free as the heavy corpse fell.

A double-flail struck him from the side, and he staggered. Nurglings swarmed against him, trying to smother him with their biting mass. The blightking who had hit him, a corpulent, one-eyed giant, raised its flails again. Nurglings clamped their jaws onto Thrumnor’s arms to hold them back. He was slow to raise his staff to block the coming blow.

A stream of bile fell on the blightking. Its flesh melted and the flail dropped without striking. Grognax’s huge jaws snapped the plague warrior in half. Rhulmok had led the magmadroth away from the main formation of the Fyreslayers, cutting through the nurglings to ease the pressure on Thrumnor. The runemaster smashed the daemons from his person and took his stance at Grognax’s flank.

‘That was foolish,’ Rhulmok shouted in between his drum beats.

‘You cannot accept this sacrilege!’

‘I do not accept useless rage,’ the runesmiter said. ‘This ground is lost, corrupted beyond hope. We must pass through it, not sacrifice ourselves pointlessly. Is this battle the one of your vision?’

It was not. Thrumnor wished he could refute Rhulmok’s logic.

Still the nurglings and blightkings charged. Still they were thrown back. But their numbers told. Thrumnor saw the karl Gabir, one of the elite of the vulkite berzerkers, swarmed by the creatures. He fought them hard and well, killing many, but they clambered over him and bore him down before any of his brothers could reach him. When the other Fyreslayers cleared the mound of nurglings away, Gabir was a half-eaten carcass swelling with boils.

The stench of the daemons was foul. Gaseous, thick, suffocating, it conjured images in Thrumnor’s mind of stone turned as soft as flesh, falling apart like stringy, fly-blown meat.

The nurglings ate into the Krelstrag lines, but they could not stop the march. They brought down individual Fyreslayers, but the fallen warriors’ brothers responded with renewed fury, destroying the daemons in ever greater numbers. Step by step, the Fyreslayers burned and smashed their way forward, grinding the enemy down. This much was true to Thrumnor’s vision. The Krelstrag were the lava flood, and would not be stopped. Certainly not by this enemy.

I saw what must happen, Thrumnor thought, grasping that triumph. We are on our destined path. The sweep of his staff destroyed another cluster of nurglings.

At last, the flood of foes ended. Their numbers were not infinite. The Fyreslayers trampled the last underfoot and watched as the bodies burst into clouds of dusty spores. The air was filled with disease, but the fire of Grimnir burned brightly in the ur-gold of the Fyreslayers, and they would not be brought down by so lowly a foe.

Less than an hour later, the tunnel split. The left-hand branch continued to climb toward the surface. On the right, it plunged deeper into the earth. Dorvurn raised an arm to call a halt. Thrumnor and Rhulmok rode up beside him. They were joined by the runesons. Together, they stared in horror at the full extent of the blighted underworld.

The route up was relatively clear, but the roots of the petrified forest created a thick, malodorous tangle on the path that descended into the lodge. The mould there had reached a critical stage, achieving an unholy union, and the roots now spread the pestilence to the rock around them. What Thrumnor had only imagined earlier was a reality here. The tunnel walls and ceiling pressed in on each other, as soft as a sponge, a fleshy collapse. There was no passage to be had here. There was barely room for a single Fyreslayer at a time to try the tunnel, and it narrowed further at the edge of torchlight.

‘How can such rot be?’ Forvuld asked.

‘It has had all the time it needs to settle deep into the marrow of the earth,’ said Dorvurn. He turned to the left-hand path. ‘We will travel overland.’

It took another day’s journey, beset by smaller nurgling assaults, before the Krelstrag reached the outer gates. They emerged on a steep slope, less than a league from the base of the Great Weld. The petrified forest with its agonised forms was now at their back, but the route to the Weld was strewn with boulders, fuzzy with mould, and the ground was a carpet of rock-devouring lichen. If there were daemons nearby, they did not attack. The Fyreslayers moved on.

As dusk fell, the army reached its destination.

Thrumnor gazed up its height. The size of the Weld was overwhelming. A force beyond reckoning had brought multiple volcanoes together, fusing them into a single giant, standing alone.

‘And Grimnir desired an anvil for his work,’ Thrumnor intoned. ‘And he essayed first one mountain, and then another, and they were all too weak, shattering to dust at the first blow of his hammer.’ His voice echoed against the cliff face. He faced the Krelstrag, his back to the Weld, and recited the tale they all knew, but had never felt so visceral until this moment. ‘And because the mountains on their own were too weak, Grimnir gathered a great number together, and he welded them into one with the fury of his making. From that great forging, he had his anvil.’

Thrumnor stopped. He turned around again to regard Grimnir’s anvil with a mingling of awe and horror. Seen from the Forgecrag, the Great Weld was a distant silhouette, and its proportions did indeed resemble an anvil. Now he could see the evidence of Grimnir’s work. The outlines of the individual volcanoes were still visible. Clefts running from peak to base, their gaps filled with basalt, marked the shapes of the mountains that had been.

There was something else, though, about the configuration of the lines. Their slopes, their angles and their parallels were suggestive of something else. But the pattern extended beyond Thrumnor’s sight, and he dismissed it.

What he saw was a wonder, and Thrumnor gloried at the power of Grimnir.

But there was horror too. Even in the dim light, he could clearly see the extent of the blight on the towering walls of the Great Weld. It was a stain, one that appeared to move and spread if Thrumnor stared at it long enough. The shape of the stain was even worse.

‘No,’ he said. ‘This cannot be.’

‘You see it too,’ said Rhulmok.

The form of the stain was a flow, as if it were lava pouring from the peak of the Great Weld. It widened as it approached the base. Thrumnor traced the descent with his eyes, and saw new meaning in the plague on the land.

Rhulmok spoke the words Thrumnor could not bring himself to articulate. ‘The Weld is the core of the blight,’ he said.

‘No,’ Thrumnor said, as if denial could banish the obscenity. Ground so sacred could not truly be the origin of the corruption. The Great Weld had been attacked. It too was a victim of the Chaos Gods.

Dorvurn said, ‘We must pass beyond the Weld.’

‘No!’ Thrumnor cried. ‘Grimnir’s hammer awaits us on the peak. A great forging is to be ours.’

The doubt in Rhulmok’s face was now present in Dorvurn’s. The distance Thrumnor had felt growing between himself and the runesmiter now became a schism. He would not permit Rhulmok’s lack of belief in his vision to divert the Krelstrag from their destined path.

‘The Weld is under attack,’ Thrumnor said. ‘But its heart is still pure.’ He spoke from faith rather than knowledge. He approached the wall now. ‘Bear witness with me,’ he commanded Rhulmok.

The runesmiter hesitated. The concern Thrumnor saw in his eyes was beyond bearing. With a great effort, Thrumnor prevented himself from laying his hands on Rhulmok and dragging him to the wall. After a moment, Rhulmok joined him.

‘And if you are wrong, what then?’ he asked.

‘I am not wrong,’ Thrumnor growled.

Rhulmok used his latch-axe to scrape away the devouring mould, exposing the rock of the Weld. He and Thrumnor placed their hands and foreheads against the stone. Rhulmok, Thrumnor knew, would be reaching out to the tunnels in the Weld, reading the veins and passages, seeking to know whether the stone would consent to part before his will. Thrumnor listened for the beat and rush of the magma. He needed to gauge the extent of its rage.

Thrumnor had barely begun to chant a prayer of kinship to the Weld when he recoiled. So did Rhulmok, and at the same instant.

Thrumnor’s head and palms burned as if the rock face had turned molten. ‘The Great Weld rages,’ he said to Dorvurn. ‘It feels the plague attacking it, and all inside is wrath. Holy wrath.’

Rhulmok nodded, gazing at his own hands in alarm. ‘There is so much pain,’ he added.

‘But the heart of the Great Weld is not corrupt,’ Thrumnor insisted.

Rhulmok hesitated, then nodded.

‘Then we climb,’ Dorvurn declared. He looked up.

The clouds flashed green, reflected from what thundered on the peak of the Weld.

IV

At first glance, the walls of the Great Weld appeared vertical. Though they were very steep, a path could be made out. The Fyreslayers marched up a long, inclining ledge that had once been a mountain’s slope. Sometimes it was wide enough for the duardin to march three abreast. Elsewhere, it narrowed to the point that the magmadroths were barely able to navigate it, even with their claws digging deep through the tainting mould and into the stone.

The rock blight became thicker as they climbed, and more active. It pulsed and scraped. The endless whispering of dissolving stone sounded in Thrumnor’s ears like a daemon’s mockery. That this great wonder, this holy monument, should be so desecrated made his fists tighten in fury. He longed to strike out at the bearers of this plague.

Nurglings cavorted along the cliffs, scrabbling over each other, sometimes falling like overfed ticks to burst on the ground below. In small groups they attempted to harry the Krelstrag, and they were dealt with savagely. They could not summon the numbers to attack in the concentrated manner they had in the tunnels, so they taunted and laughed.

Thrumnor vented his rage on those who dared come within reach of his staff, but it brought no satisfaction to smash the lowliest of daemonkind. They were not the ones who had created the blight. He might as well be striking at the mould.

He did once, snarling, then caught himself, even more angry that he had succumbed to his frustration. As he turned back to the path, he heard a low, deep buzzing. He looked up to see a swarm of huge insects descend from the heights of the Weld. Ragged wings supported drooping sacks of bodies. Serpentine trunks hung from their heads. The sound of the rotflies’ wings crawled into Thrumnor’s ears and into his mind. His spine ached. The swarm flew down the path as if to knock the Fyreslayers off the side of the slope. The host of the Krelstrag responded before the first rotfly struck. Vulkite berzerkers hurled throwing axes at the daemon insects. A single blow from a fyresteel blade would have done little against the flies, but the axes arced upwards in the hundreds.

The daemons flew into a scything wall. Axes cut wings to shreds and burst swollen bodies. A score of the creatures tumbled into the dark below. Screeching hatred, the rest of the swarm spread over the Krelstrag line. The abominations fell on the duardin warriors, tearing their bodies apart with the jagged points of their chitinous limbs. Fyreslayers avenged their kin before the insects could fly away with their victims, attacking each monster with wrath and steel. The magmadroths smashed them from the air.

Thrumnor struck at the daemons that flew near him, but his blows with the runic iron were not enough. He longed to punish the rotflies with a burst of lava from within the Weld. Their presence was still another grievous insult to the sacred anvil. His anger grew, but before he lost himself, Rhulmok called his name and drew him back.

He raged, swinging his staff with all the more force because Rhulmok was right. The rage in the Weld was far beyond his own, far beyond his control. He would unleash disaster if he called it to the surface.

Four score of the Krelstrag lay dead before the last of the rotflies was exterminated.

‘Mourn our brothers,’ said Dorvurn, ‘and celebrate their victory. The foe has not stopped our advance.’

‘But they could not have,’ Rhulmok said, thoughtful.

‘What do you mean?’ Thrumnor asked.

‘How could they have hoped to, with those numbers?’

True. The swarm had been no more than another harrying raid.

‘What does it mean?’ Rhulmok asked. The question felt like a challenge.

‘It changes nothing,’ Thrumnor said. He knew he wasn’t answering, but whatever the attacks meant, his faith in the truth of his vision held. He could imagine no other interpretation. He swallowed his anger at Rhulmok and said, ‘We are being tested. We will be tested again at the peak. And from these tests we will emerge stronger yet.’

‘What test?’ said Rhulmok. ‘What waits above? Nothing but foulness has come down to us.’

‘We will cleanse it.’ Thrumnor thought again of his vision, of the great hammer and its transformative blow. Such light, such fire. The memory renewed his faith. They would cleanse the Great Weld of its plague.

On they climbed. The Great Weld shook and rumbled. Its convulsions were not those of an anvil resonating from hammer blows, but agonised wrath struggling to find expression. The heat of the Weld’s interior pushed outward. Cracks webbed along the ledge and stone fragments fell from the cliff face. The walls of the mountains were solid, and they contained their anger, trembling with the effort while their flesh was gnawed by the blight.

The Krelstrag marched day and night without rest. The nurglings gave them no respite. Further swarms of rotflies eroded their ranks. But the summit called to them with its thunder and its beating glow. They would answer. At the end of the fourth day, with the fall of night, they arrived at the peak. What Thrumnor saw there almost paralysed him with rage and horror.

The summits of the many volcanoes had been fused into a giant plateau. There was no sign of the calderas that had once been. Instead, the surface of the plateau was slightly rounded, as if bulging upward. At the centre, half a league away, was the origin of the green light.

It was a celebration.

Daemons of Nurgle in the thousands cavorted and sang. Drums, bells and horns sounded, creating music as dissonant as it was joyful. The noise was enough to make Thrumnor’s chest contract as if he were breathing foul air. The daemons danced. The lumbering, uneven movement of so many abominations was that of maggots heaving under flesh.

At the heart of the ritual stood a titan of plague.

What waits above? Rhulmok had asked.

Here was the answer.

And Thrumnor felt the first true wounds of doubt.

During the most terrible of the sieges that the lodge had withstood, when it had been necessary to withdraw all the Krelstrag to within the redoubt of the Forgecrag, they had fought a Great Unclean One, one of the most powerful daemons of Nurgle. The story of that battle was one that the lodge never tired of hearing Battlesmith Yuhvir recite. It was one Thrumnor recalled in perfect, vivid detail. He recognised the daemon here as kin to the other. It too was a Great Unclean One, though many times larger. It was a mountain in its own right. It was over a hundred feet high. Its mass was swollen, the diseased skin taut and shining with the weight of tumours and the pressure of gas. Its head was sunken in its shoulders, if it could be said to have a head. But there was a maw, a huge one, gaping between the shoulder blades, where a tongue longer than a magmadroth hung pendulously past the fangs, dripping ichor and slime. There were other mouths too. They were on its arms, and on its knees, and they jabbered and slobbered and sang and laughed. It laughed most delightedly when the multitudes of lesser daemons at its feet raised their arms in praise and shouted a word.

‘Distensiath!’

They were calling its name.

The foul colossus led the dance. It created the beat of the song with the ground-shaking impact of its trunk-like legs. It could barely shift its great bulk, and its gut dragged against the surface of the plateau as it lifted and stamped its feet. It waved its arms, conducting the celebrants, and brandished a pitted, twisted sword twenty feet long. The voices of its mouths formed a choir, which summoned a rain of phlegm from the air that hissed when it fell on stone.

The panorama of corruption was intolerable. But the worst of it for Thrumnor was that the beats of the song were the blows of the hammer. Every time Distensiath stamped, the repellent green light flashed, smearing the falling night with its disease. This was what he had seen from the Forgecrag. He had said that Grimnir’s hammer was again striking the anvil. Instead, the truth was the unspeakable amusement of a daemon. It was from this dance that the rockblight flowed. Thrumnor could see it now, see the mould spring into existence around Distensiath’s feet. It piled up, then spread outwards in ripples. It covered the plateau. It poured itself down all sides of the Weld, and from there it reached out to blight all the land.

‘Runemaster,’ said Dorvurn, ‘is this what your vision foretold?’

Thrumnor fought past the horror at what had become of the sacred ground.

‘It must be. Our cleansing fire begins here, runefather.’ The terrible explosion he had seen – that was the coming clash. Fiery glory would follow.

This is the truth, he thought. There is no other possibility.

He kept his doubts secret. He stamped them down.

‘This is our path,’ he said.

Dorvurn turned to address the Krelstrag host.

‘Fyreslayers,’ he said, ‘you see Grimnir’s great work desecrated by daemonkind. I will not stand for it! Will you?’

A collective roar of denial. Hammers slammed against shields. Every warrior present burned with the need to punish the daemons and cleanse the sacred ground.

‘Our oath calls us beyond the Great Weld,’ Dorvurn continued. ‘It calls us through that unclean horde. To fulfil our duty, we must pass through the daemons.’ He grinned. ‘We must destroy the daemons!’

Another roar, louder still, and the greater thunder of clashing weapons.

‘Krelstrag lodge!’ Dorvurn shouted, his voice filling the night with righteous anger and eager fury. ‘March with me to war!’

Dorvurn, Thrumnor and Rhulmok led the advance. Behind them came the runesons, and with them Komgan, the grimwrath berzerker. Then came the fyrds of vulkite berzerkers, Battlesmith Yuhvir striding at their centre. He held high the standard of the Krelstrag, and he began to recite the battles of the lodge, the centuries of sieges withstood and broken, the glories accrued to the warriors of Grimnir. His huge voice reached the ears of every Fyreslayer present. They grinned to think of honours past, and of the saga that would be told of the battle now upon them.

Rhulmok was hard at work, igniting the fire of the ur-gold. The sound of his labours punctuated the chanting of Yuhvir and the berzerkers’ shouts of praise to Grimnir, and so the Fyreslayers countered the foul music of the daemons with a song of their own. Pure and hard and unforgiving, it rumbled over the plateau. It was a challenge, and it was a reclamation. The sons of Grimnir had come to his holy place, and they would take it back, beginning by returning the true sounds of the anvil.

As the Fyreslayers advanced, they built up speed. The magmadroths began to lope. The berzerkers broke into a run. Every second they were not lopping off the heads of daemons was a second wasted. The ground shook beneath the pounding of their feet.

When the Fyreslayers were halfway to the enemy, the sound and the vibrations of their challenge broke through the daemons’ celebration. The daemons hesitated in their dance. They stopped. They turned to see who had interrupted them, and who it was who did not fear them.

Distensiath’s grotesque smiles grew even wider.

Hills of struggling nurglings giggled in delight.

The more solemn plaguebearers clustered together and took up their weapons.

Distensiath spoke. The words came first from one mouth, then another. They overlapped in their speech, so that some words were spoken by two maws at once. The voice of the Great Unclean One was the sound of a mountain coughing up its lungs. The syllables were moist. The mockery was acid.

‘You are welcome, children of Grimnir. We have been waiting for you to join us. What has taken you so long? We have been calling you and calling you and calling you. Were you deaf and blind to our invitation?’

Do not answer, Thrumnor thought. Do not exchange words with the abomination. There is nothing to be gained in doing so.

But he could not remain silent.

‘Your taunts mean nothing!’ he shouted. ‘Your revels are over!’

‘Over?’ Distensiath repeated. All the mouths of the daemon laughed. Its corpulence trembled with mirth. ‘But they have only just begun! Your coming was foretold! Let the prophecy be fulfilled!’

Thrumnor felt the touch of an icy claw in his chest. Had he been wrong? He had seen the storm, and he had seen the light on the Great Weld, and he had believed a Fyreslayer prophecy was coming to pass. That had been the reason to urge action to keep the oath. But Grimnir’s hammer was not striking the anvil once more.

Did the daemon speak the truth?

The possibility was ghastly. Worse than the Krelstrag prophecy not being fulfilled was a daemonic one reaching fruition instead.

Are we the tools of that realisation?

No. Thrumnor would not permit such a thing. No Krelstrag would. The daemons had infested ground sacred to Grimnir, and for this crime they would suffer.

The daemons waited until the Fyreslayers had almost reached their position before they moved. Then they advanced, howling joyfully. The nurglings spilled around the legs of the plaguebearers, rushing to be the first to greet the newcomers to the revel. Distensiath’s maws unleashed a cacophony of laughter, and the Great Unclean One began to walk. Each step was ponderous, dragging and thunderous, shaking the ground and spreading new webs of cracks over the surface. The daemon could barely move, yet as it rocked forwards it spread its arms as if to gather new worshippers to its flock.

Rhulmok pounded the war altar with mounting fury. Thrumnor’s ur-gold sigils blazed in response, and he was consumed with the ferocity of battle. No enemy could stand before the rage he embodied. He roared. The entire host of the Krelstrag lodge roared. The Fyreslayers fell upon the daemons.

A battering ram in red and gold slammed into the abominations. Nurglings burst apart upon impact. The Krelstrag wasted no blows on them. Their charge was enough to part the stream of lesser daemons and hurl them back the way they had come. The plaguebearers were the more worthy opponents. Things of swollen bellies and rotten limbs, they sprouted long horns on their heads and wielded foul blades. They waded into combat with the Fyreslayers with mutters and nods. They appeared to be counting, and they attacked with purpose. The purifying rage of the Krelstrag clashed with the essence of disease.

Dorvurn and the runesons led from the front. They attacked in seven powerful kinbands. At their sides were the auric hearthguard and the berzerkers. Many of the hearthguard had been tasked to remain at the Forgecrag with Homnir, but even so, there were more than enough present to march with the lords of the lodge and burn the ranks of the daemons. The hearthguard’s magmapikes launched fiery death into the enemy, setting the plaguebearers ablaze. As the daemons’ chants turned to cries of pain and rage, they burned again as the berzerkers waded in with their flamestrike poleaxes. Braziers on the ends of chains crashed against the abominations. Into the spreading wall of burning daemonflesh, Dorvurn and his sons laid waste to the foe with sweeps of their axes and the monstrous predation of the magmadroths. Then came the vulkite berzerkers, a brutal wave of blades and anger. The Fyreslayers punched deep, breaking the coherence of the daemons’ advance, pushing the daemons back towards the centre of the plateau.

Thrumnor brought his staff down on the head of a plaguebearer, shattering it utterly. The daemon’s ichor spewed out, and the body sank to its knees. Thrumnor followed through with a sideways strike, crushing the bodies of the daemons who tried to close with him. There was rapid movement in the corner of his left eye. He turned, seizing a throwing axe from his belt and hurling it at another plaguebearer. The axe buried itself in the daemon’s face, splitting it in two.

The Fyreslayers drove deeper into the enemy, wedging the foul mass apart. The plaguebearers responded by closing around the Krelstrag army and trying to crush the lines. Axes smashed their bodies to festering slime.

Dorvurn and the runesons ripped through the diseased ranks, tossing daemons left and right, burning their way toward Distensiath. Seven lines of destruction converged on the greater daemon. It was the defiler of the Weld, and it would feel the greatest wrath of the Fyreslayers. The magmadroths sprayed flaming bile, turning left and right to consume the ravening daemons. The abominations howled and melted, but more rushed forth as Distensiath advanced, footstep by slow footstep, crushing its own followers in its eagerness to meet the Krelstrag.

‘Worship with us!’ Distensiath bellowed. It swung its massive sword and cut deep into the Fyreslayer lines, killing five warriors at a stroke. It swung again, and Krelstrag blood rained from the blade. The duardin roared their defiance. They charged forward to avenge the deaths of their brothers, and surrounded the bulk of the huge daemon. It laughed, delighted, and struck again. The lords of the lodge attacked Distensiath’s flanks. The hearthguard held the plaguebearers and nurglings back while the berzerkers brought their weapons to bear against the rubbery flesh of the behemoth.

Thrumnor stopped before Distensiath. He raised his runic iron high. Here and now he would reclaim the Weld for Grimnir and deny the daemon whatever purpose it believed drove its presence.

‘This is the anvil of Grimnir!’ Thrumnor shouted. ‘This is the work of his hands, of his hammer, and of his forge. You have no place here! Burn in the fire of Grimnir’s anger!’

The rod glowed crimson. Thrumnor slammed its tip into the ground. Now let the wrath of the Great Weld be loosed, he thought. The force of the spell transmitted itself through the surface of the plateau to the molten rock below. The magma rose. The anger was so great it threatened to escape Thrumnor’s control. He managed to contain it, and to direct the burst of its release. Rock split where the staff had hit. The crack widened as it raced toward Distensiath.

‘Grimnir’s fury!’ Thrumnor shouted, a warning to his brothers in the path of what was coming. They parted on either side of the widening gap. Then a geyser of lava shot from the ground before the Great Unclean One. It splashed against Distensiath’s belly and torso. In its first burst, it flew high enough to fall, burning, onto the daemon’s upper maw.

Distensiath screamed. The howl shook the entire Weld and knocked Thrumnor off his feet. A swarm of flies billowed out the daemon’s jaws and covered the sky. The great blade wavered, its blow arrested.

‘For Grimnir!’ Dorvurn shouted, and the latchkey grandaxe buried itself deep into Distensiaths’ bulging flesh. A hundred other weapons struck the raging daemon at the same moment.

The howl climbed higher, becoming a gurgling screech so intense, blood filled Thrumnor’s ears. Distensiath’s body began to swell. It became even more immense. The flesh of its belly bulged like a frog’s throat. The sickly green became the pallid white of tension. The scream rose higher yet.

Thrumnor saw what was coming. There would be no shelter. Nor did he wish it. He pulled himself up into a crouch and held fast to the staff. At the last moment, at the height of the scream, he saw that the mouth on Distensiath’s knee was laughing.

Then came the searing light from Thrumnor’s vision.

The daemon exploded.

The gasses in its body ignited. The blast hurled Fyreslayers and daemons back across the Great Weld like leaves in a gale. Distensiath vanished, transformed into a rain of bile-green ichor that covered the entire plateau. Stone hissed and dissolved at its touch. Flesh erupted in boils. Thrown a hundred yards by the explosion, Thrumnor staggered to his feet. He was coated with the daemonic essence, and he felt it eat into his being. His skin wept pus. Something foul sought to take him apart.

He spat in contempt. He shook his head, ridding his beard of the ichor. There were cries of agonised rage on all sides as the devouring plague gnawed the flesh of the Fyreslayers.

‘Karls of the Krelstrag!’ Thrumnor shouted. ‘The fire of Grimnir runs in your veins! Deny the pestilence. Cast its weakness down and trample it underfoot!’

Rhulmok had climbed back onto the throne atop Grognax, and had resumed the beat on the war altar with a vengeance. Ur-gold flared, and it burned the corruption of the flesh. The purging was torture, but it was a needful pain, true and clean, and Thrumnor exulted in it.

Not all the berzerkers found salvation. The surface of the plateau was littered with bubbling, dissolving bodies. But the Krelstrag were still strong, and they rallied round Yuhvir’s standard and the runefather’s raised grandaxe. They formed a circle of iron at the centre of the plateau.

As Thrumnor ran forward to join the fyrds, he heard something that chilled his blood. It came as the last of the ichor fell from the sky and settled into the Great Weld. He heard a sigh, and he heard a whisper. The voice was Distensiath’s voice, a phantom echo, a single word.

‘Fulfilled.’

In the vision, the anvil had shattered. Now the Great Weld heaved. It rocked to and fro, but the movement was wrong. This was no earthquake. This was no eruption. This was transformation. Standing beside Grognax, Thrumnor looked toward the distant edges of the plateau, and saw them rise up and down. Like flesh. Like muscle.

And now Thrumnor understood the pattern he had partly seen at the base of the Great Weld. The shapes embedded in the rock were not just those of fused volcanoes. They were also limbs. Revelation flooded in. Thrumnor gasped.

‘Runemaster,’ Dorvurn shouted. ‘What is happening?’

‘Grimnir’s feat was greater than we imagined,’ Thrumnor called back. ‘It was not volcanoes he fused together. He battered a great beast into submission. He turned his opponent into the anvil of stone. It became volcanoes.’ He paused. ‘And now that defeat is being undone. The beast is awakening.’

We have done this thing, he thought bitterly.

The heaving became more pronounced. The cracks in the surface of the plateau began to assume a different cast. They were the outline of scales.

The beast came closer and closer to waking. Then it would walk. A monster of plague the size of a mountain chain would be loose upon the realm.

The plaguebearers and the nurglings closed in once more, but gradually, as if waiting for a signal. It came now. Across the entire plateau, the scales of the beast rose, and from beneath each one came another plaguebearer. Thousands upon thousands of them dragged themselves up from the beneath the skin of the Great Weld.

Tens of thousands.

Hundreds of thousands, covering all the leagues of the Great Weld.

There was a sudden, terrible, immense lurch, as of a single step.

The daemons in their uncountable legions raised their voices in solemn praise to the Plaguefather, and they advanced.

The Fyreslayers were surrounded.

‘The defilers of the Great Weld come to meet their doom!’ Dorvurn thundered. ‘Be the fire of Grimnir, and burn them from the realm!’

The air shook with the defiant clash of blade on shield, but there was a different quality to the sound this time. Thrumnor knew it. This was the last stand of the Krelstrag.

From atop Grognax, Rhulmok called to Thrumnor, making peace. ‘At least it will be a fight worthy of song.’

Thrumnor shook his head. ‘This is wrong,’ he said. ‘This is not my vision.’ He could not have been so tragically mistaken. He filled his lungs and howled his wrath at the fates. ‘This was not foretold!’

The Krelstrag lodge decimated. The Great Weld transformed into a leviathan of plague. This was not what he had seen. This was not what the great light in his vision had produced.

Ahead, the front lines of the Fyreslayers hurled themselves against the ocean of daemons. The sound of the battle was immense, as of a great hammer coming down on iron. At that sound, Thrumnor thought of his vision, and of the forging. Of the shattered anvil, and of the lava that came after.

And he felt a surge of hope.

The transformation was not yet complete. Thrumnor called to the wrath inside the Weld, and found it was still there. Grimnir’s work was not undone. The fury of volcanoes had not turned into corrupted blood.

‘Rhulmok!’ Thrumnor cried. ‘We may yet honour Grimnir! With me, brother! Let this be not an anvil, but a crucible. Let us unleash its full wrath!’

Dorvurn looked down at him from Karmanax. ‘Can you do this?’

The image before Thrumnor’s mind’s eye was one of shattering and lava. ‘It is foretold that we will,’ he said.

Rhulmok laughed, and drummed the anvil of war with renewed energy.

‘I see it now!’ he said to Thrumnor. ‘I see it at last! What a grand transformation we shall forge!’

‘We will be the prophesied fire,’ said Thrumnor.

The runefather nodded, and then he spoke to the entire lodge, his voice strong with pride and drowning out the chanting of the daemons and the rumble of war. ‘Fyrds of the Krelstrag, what comes is no sacrifice! This shall be the greatest victory, and the greatest tale, of our lodge!’

The Fyreslayers roared their approval, and with joyous fury they threw themselves at the sea of daemons, holding them back as Thrumnor and Rhulmok did what they must.

Rhulmok increased the beat on the altar. Thrumnor felt his ur-gold sigils ignite with a fire greater than ever before.

‘One more Binding, then,’ Rhulmok said.

‘One more,’ Thrumnor called back. ‘It will be our greatest work, youngflame.’

‘A fine song it will make.’

‘So it will.’ For a few moments more, Thrumnor watched the fyrds fight a war they could not win, and there too was the making of a fine song. The Krelstrag cut the daemons down by the score, by the hundreds. The hundreds of thousands pressed closer, but now, right now, the fury of the Fyreslayers was unstoppable, as the voice of Yuhvir shouted the litany of victories.

Let this be how I last see my brothers, Thrumnor thought.

Then, with both hands wrapped around the staff, its power crackling a deep violet and plunging deep into the transforming ground, he reached for the magma.

The strain threatened to tear him apart. The rage of the Great Weld was enormous, but the change was coming to it too, and molten rock would soon become diseased blood.

But not yet.

Thrumnor called to the magma. He called to the fury of the Weld. Eager, it rose towards him. He felt the deep vibrations as Rhulmok spoke to stone that had not yet become flesh. It raged against the transformation of the Great Weld. At the runesmiter’s command, it parted before the rising magma.

One last Binding, Rhulmok had said. It was true. This was their grandest enactment of the ritual. Though they sought a perfect destruction, in the coming annihilation they would return the Great Weld to its volcanic being. All the bridges linking the islands of the Earthwound archipelago found their culmination here, as they fused wrath with its fullest, most holy expression.

The magma rose. The full strength of the Weld, all of its contained rage, rushed upward to the peak. The surface of the plateau had become flesh, but the interior of the Great Weld was still stone. Walls parted. Tunnels opened up. Molten magma climbed. Thrumnor’s temper joined with Rhulmok’s shaping.

The wrath came. The entire plateau bulged upward, swelling as Distensiath’s bulk had, only this time with the fires of purification.

Thrumnor smiled as the ground rose, and he felt the heat through his feet.

‘For Grimnir,’ he said.

And the world erupted in a terrible blaze.

V

Dorvurn strode down the far side of the Great Weld.

His body shielded from the blast and fire by Karmanax and the will of Grimnir, he had lived through the initial moments of the destruction. He had flown through fire and smoke and incandescent gas, through lightning and ash and still more fire. Burned, his weapons gone, he had landed beyond the new, immense caldera, on a ledge partway down the mountainside.

There was purpose in his survival. Chance had no part in it.

He descended the sloping ledge, so much like the one the Krelstrag had climbed on the other side. It was stone again, not a beast. The ground was still a long way off, and Dorvurn knew he would never reach it. His moments were numbered. Lava was everywhere, flowing down the Great Weld and spreading over the land. Dorvurn was walking between streams, and soon enough another would come to swallow him.

But he was content.

Below, the blighted land was purged by the ocean of lava.

‘Runemaster,’ Dorvurn said, ‘I have lived to see the truth of your vision.’ The Krelstrag had truly become what Thrumnor had foreseen. The Fyreslayers had brought the purifying fire. Dorvurn’s lodge had, in every sense that mattered, become the lava flood. And the Krelstrag would be strong yet. Homnir would see to that.

Dorvurn looked off into the distance, toward the other lodge, its name still forgotten, its location unknown. It was unreachable. But perhaps their actions here today would aid those Fyreslayers. Perhaps the vast scouring of the land would be enough to weaken the hold of Chaos on the entire region.

Dorvurn was still marching in the direction of the lodge, still holding fast to the oath, and to the knowledge the Krelstrag had humbled a vast army of Chaos.

So as the heat came for the runefather, he did not mourn.

THE VOLTURUNG ROAD

Guy Haley

i

They always came for the Hardgate.

To one side of the volcano, its flanks sloped more gently, allowing the Slaaneshi to gather in larger numbers than elsewhere. After one hundred years of siege, the ground was a mess of bones and old armour, the remains of men and titanic monsters tangled with the broken remnants of great siege engines. Time after time, the forces of the daemon prince Qualar Vo threw themselves at the gates with ecstatic abandon. They laughed as they died, revelling in the sensation of death. Time after time, the Fyreslayers of the Ulgaen lodges cast them back.

Today was different. When the Slaaneshi assailed the gate, they broke into the hold from below.

‘Stop them!’ roared Ulgathern, twelfth runeson of the lord of Ulgaen-ar. ‘Kill the breaching worms!’

Hideous, pallid things thrashed as vulkite berzerkers buried their axes in rubbery flesh. Petal mouths gaped and snapped, but the duardin were too swift. Their ur-gold runes lent them speed and strength, and the worms could not land a blow. Other Fyreslayers battled with the human tribesmen coming up the tunnels that had been chewed through the rock by their monsters. The south passage was a disorienting racket of clashing arms and screams.

Ulgathern sliced through the body of a worm behind its head. The creatures were massively thick, and it took several blows to sever its head completely. The body did not cease thrashing, but yanked back into the tunnel keening shrilly, leaving a slick of clear blood on the floor.

The sounds of battle receded. All around the tunnel were heaped the bodies of Slaaneshi marauders. Their gaudily coloured skins were smeared with blood. The last fell with a defiant yell.

‘Ha! Chaos filth!’ roared Mangulnar, third and oldest surviving runeson of Karadrakk-Grimnir. He slapped Ulgathern hard on the shoulder and flicked the gore from his moustaches with a grin. Both of them were covered in the stinking fluids of the worms. ‘When I’m Runefather, little brother, we’ll run out after them and kill the lot, not skulk in these caverns waiting to die.’

Ulgathern looked sidelong at his elder sibling. Sometimes, Mangulnar enjoyed fighting a little too much.

‘That would be the best way to lose the war,’ he said.

‘You sound like Father. Where’s your hunger for the fight? There’s pleasure in war, and we should embrace it. Fear brings no ur-gold to our lodge.’

‘Be careful what you wish for. The thirst for pleasure is what drives our enemies at us.’

Mangulnar spat. ‘Their pleasure makes them weak. Battle joy makes us strong, it’s completely different.’

‘These are not their best warriors. I sense a ruse. Their attacks are getting bolder, more inventive. The worms are new. It is nearly one hundred and one years since the siege began. Storms fill the skies, and we should be wary.’

‘Are you talking about that bloody prophecy of Drokki’s again?’ said Mangulnar harshly. ‘You should be careful whose words you heed. As withered in mind as he is in arm, that friend of yours. Listening to the likes of him is why you’ll never be a Runefather, but if you’re fortunate, I might let you serve me when I am lord of Ulgaen-ar.’ Mangulnar stalked away, looking for something else to kill.

Ulgathern stared after his brother. Mangulnar and he rarely saw eye to eye.

‘You there!’ shouted Ulgathern to one of his warriors. ‘Report back to my father that the third deeping is clear.’ The warrior nodded and ran off. Ulgathern looked to the holes. The walls of the burrows were slick with the worms’ secretions. ‘And get a building team here, plug these up. I don’t want anything else coming through.’

‘Are you to join your father, my lord?’ asked Grokkenkir, Ulgathern’s favoured karl and leader of his vulkite berzerkers.

‘The runefather ordered me to the Hardgate once done. My brothers and father will stop the other breaches soon enough without my help, you can be sure of that.’

Ulgathern took the steps up to the gate parapet three at a time, his muscles hot with Grimnir’s power. Well before the thin daylight penetrated the gloom of the stairwell, he heard the enemy: a frenzied roaring as repetitive as the booming of the sea. On the wallwalk over the gate stood the auric hearthguard, firing their magmapikes into the packed hordes a hundred feet below. Ulgavost, thirteenth runeson of Karadrakk-Grimnir, watched the enemy die from a step behind the battlement. Ulgathern went to join his brother, and looked out over the mountain slope.

The Hornteeth Mountains were in Ghur, but they might well have been in the Realm of Fire: a long chain of sharp-peaked volcanoes stretching sunward and nightward across the continent, dividing the prairies from the Darkdeep Ocean. The mountains were all black ash and young rock, cut through by chasms that often filled with torrents of lava. Precious little grew around the Ulmount. The skies were choked with clouds of dust that glowed orange when the mountains spoke to one another. Blue skies were a rarity; more so recently, for strange storms raged daily.

The Slaaneshi tribesmen had occupied the lands below the Hardgate for so long they had constructed their own town there. Ulgathern looked over the screaming masses to the fortress occupying the settlement’s middle. It was a hideous thing, the blocks hewn from the side of Ulmount itself and carved with repulsive images.

Around the fortress was a sea of tents. Darkness ruled down there, away from the ember-glows of the volcano, and the bright silk banners of the Chaos worshippers appeared muddy in the shadows.

Most of the horde must have marched out from their twisted township, for they were arrayed before the Hardgate in numberless multitude. A pair of gargants with striped blue skin battered at the gates. Endless ranks of warriors and tribesmen surged around them, roaring out praises to their unclean deity.

‘If they think they’re getting in here, they’re going to be disappointed,’ said Ulgavost. ‘Nobody’s coming to open the gates for them today.’

‘You sealed your breach?’

Ulgavost sniffed. His perpetually dour expression lifted a moment in a display of modesty. ‘Nothing to it, there were only a hundred or so of them.’

‘I don’t like the look of this. There are more of them all the time,’ said Ulgathern.

‘Think they’d just give up and leave us be? Chaos won’t be done here until we’re all dead. It’s just a matter of time,’ said Ulgavost.

‘Aye,’ said Ulgathern. ‘I fear that time is coming soon.’

‘Have you been talking to Drokki again?’ said Ulgavost. ‘That rhyme he’s always trotting out has the runefather dead before the hold falls, if I recall, and I don’t see our father laying down his life just yet.’

‘There are the storms, Ulgavost. How do you explain them?’

‘It’s just a rhyme, Ulgathern.’

They stopped talking as hissing streams of molten rock poured out of the statues lining the wall below the crenellations. The heat of it hit them like a blow, but they were unperturbed; fire ran in their blood.

The gargants were not impervious. The lava hit them both, crushing them with its weight and setting them ablaze. They bellowed in pain and died quickly. The smell of roasting meat wafted up over the battlement and the horde bowed back.

‘See? We’re not going anywhere,’ said Ulgavost. He looked to the sky, where storms had played for over a month. For the moment, they flickered with occasional lightning, but banks of black clouds were building to the sunset horizon. ‘Looks like it’s going to rain again. That usually has them leaving off for a while.’

Ulgathern watched the clouds gather. ‘I still don’t like this.’

Just then the sound of running feet echoed up the stair to the parapet. A puffing runner burst from the darkness. Ulgathern grinned in relief, certain the messenger was about to deliver news of their imminent victory, but the runner’s expression quickly wiped the smile from his face.

‘My lords, you must come swiftly,’ he said. ‘Runefather Karadrakk-Grimnir is dead.’

Upon the Isle of Arrak, deep under the Ulmount, two brother lodges stood. The duardin of Ulgaen-ar stood to the left of the island, while those of Ulgaen-zumar stood on the right, and each lodge was arranged around the end of the bridge leading to its respective delving.

The wrights and the warriors, matrons and maidens faced the Cages of Loss in respectful silence. Youngflames had their heads bowed, their youthful boisterousness doused by sorrow. The twin magma streams that made the rock an island ran dim and ruby. The very mountain mourned the passing of its mightiest son.

Over the Fyreslayers’ heads the Ulmount opened its throat. Five hundred feet high and more, the uneven sides of the central chimney had been crafted into a straight, octagonal shaft by the duardin. Four-foot high ur-gold runes spiralled up the walls, their magic stabilising the volcano and holding back its eruptions. At the top the stern faces of Grimnir looked down. In the centre of their leaning heads the shaft opened at the base of the caldera, and the sky could be seen. The storm had broken and thrashed the heavens, flashing lightning the like of which none had seen before. The thunder was so loud it was as if Grimnir waged war upon Vulcatrix once again. The rain that fell on the Ulmount’s cupped peak was gathered by cunning channels and sent deep into the hold. Smiths and artisans teased out its load of dissolved elements, before sending it on to water crops and the duardin themselves. The rain that fell into the vent could not be caught, and dropped down into the centre of the mountain. The water heated rapidly as it fell, and the duardin under the opening steamed.

Karadrakk-Grimnir lay in one of twenty funerary cages. These were wrought of fyresteel fixed to the brink of the cliff, and mounted upon axles. Two burly hearthguard stood at the wheels, ready to send their lord to his final rest. The runefather was swaddled tightly from head to foot in broad strips of troggoth leather, leaving only his face exposed and hiding the places where his body had been stripped of its ur-gold runes. His magnificent orange beard and crest had been washed free of blood, combed and laid carefully upon his wrappings. The deep gash in the side of his skull was covered over with a plate of gold that could not quite hide the lividity of his flesh. Gold coins stamped with the image of Grimnir-in-sorrow covered his eyes, while between Karadrakk-Grimnir’s broad teeth was clamped an ingot of fyresteel, carefully crafted to fit his mouth perfectly – the gold because he was the master of gold and ur-gold, the steel because he was a warrior.

Karadrakk-Grimnir did not sleep alone. Twelve other cages on the Ulgaen-ar side cradled their own sad burdens, each attended by pairs of auric hearthguard. Ulgaen-zumar’s funeral apparatus was set on the cliff opposite, the cages equal in number, though not so many were occupied. The fallen of Ulgaen-zumar lodge may have been fewer in number, but the blow to the hearts of all the Fyreslayers by the loss of Karadrakk-Grimnir was grievous.

A clank of gold pendants and the soft tread of many duardin feet came from the far side of the bridge arching over the lava to Ulgaen-ar’s deepings. A low, rumbling song struck up, audible between the bangs and booms of the storms above. Runemaster Tulkingafar came over the bridge. His staff was visible first, burning hot with the borrowed fires of Ulgaen-ar’s sacred forge. Then his crest, then his face, grim with the duty he must carry out, and painted white with the bone ashes of mourning. His hair was dark red, his upper lip shaved. Ten runesmiters walked in his train, eyes downcast as they sang, their skin coloured charcoal black.

The Ulgaen-ar lodge parted silently to let the zharrgrim priesthood through, and the procession came slowly to the centre of the Isle of Arrak, where it halted in the rain. From the other side, where the bridge to Ulgaen-zumar was situated, came a similar song, and another procession of the priests of the zharrgrim wended its sorrowful way forward, headed by Runemaster Marag-Or the Golden Eye.

Marag-Or, older, scarred, one eye replaced by a featureless orb of gold, came to a halt before Tulkingafar.

‘Runemaster,’ he said.

‘Runemaster,’ responded Tulkingafar. The hot water streaming down their faces made their mourning colours run.

They turned sharply, leading their processions out from under the volcano’s vent to their respective lodge’s cages. Tulkingafar had the graver duty today and so would begin. Marag-Or took his followers to the side of Runefather Briknir-Grimnir, Karadrakk’s brother.

Marag-Or looked sidelong at Briknir. The runefather’s expression was set hard as a mountain’s, no indication of what he thought or felt, but that he mourned his brother was clear to one as wise as Marag-Or. Briknir-Grimnir’s beard showed fresh strands of grey within its fiery bunches, and his eyes were hollow as cave mouths.

Tulkingafar left his runesmiters and went to the side of his master’s last resting place. He rested his broad hands on the fyresteel a moment, and looked at the dead lord and his funeral goods.

‘Our runefather is slain!’ he said. His voice was loud, and carried well over the constant rumbling of the twin lava rivers and the crackling boom of the storm. ‘For three hundred years he led us. No longer!’ He stared over the heads of his congregation, speaking directly to the heart of the mountain. ‘He and twenty other good duardin were slain as they drove the enemy out of our hold.’ He dropped his gaze to meet the eyes of his fellows. ‘The runefather was not fond of long speeches.’ There was scattered laughter at this. ‘Who needs talk? He was brave! He refused defeat each time it was so generously offered to him by our besiegers. He was noble! He was the most generous of ring-givers.’ He paused. ‘And he was my friend.’

More than a few voices rumbled aye to that. Karadrakk-Grimnir had been well loved.

‘We will not be broken. Burukaz Ulgaen-ar!’ called Tulkingafar.

‘Ulgaen-ar burukaz!’ the others responded.

Tulkingafar nodded at the hearthguard manning the cage machinery. They turned the wheels reverently, the ratchets on the axle clacking one tooth at a time.

‘From fire we were born, to fire we return,’ Tulkingafar intoned. ‘Burn brightly in the furnaces of Grimnir, Karadrakk-Grimnir Ulgaen, and be forged anew. May the heat of your soul never cool, and its flames never dim.’

The cage reached a near-vertical position and the hearthguard ceased their turning. One pulled a lever. A gate opened at the foot of the cage, and Karadrakk-Grimnir slid from its confines and fell into the Ulgaen-ar magma river. A bright flash of fire marked his passage from one world to the next, lighting up the faces of the mourning lodge members, showing many tugging at their beards with sorrow.

The mountain rumbled. The cracking of stone sounded deep in the ground. Short-lived geysers in the rivers sent shadows leaping across the craggy stone, and teased starbursts from the veins of minerals in the rock. The cavern returned to its sombre ruby.

‘The Ulmount mourns the loss of a good master,’ said Tulkingafar. ‘Grimnir has taken him to his forge.’

A battlesmith went to the empty cradle. In a droning chant he began to recount the many deeds of Karadrakk’s long life as Marag-Or and Tulkingafar went down the row of occupied cages and immolated their dead.

However, one priest-smith present had his mind on other things. Drokki of the Withered Arm looked up the tall chimney of the Ulmount’s throat. The faces of Grimnir looked down at him reproachfully at this stinting of duty, but he was not interested in their disapproval. He stared at the lightning flashing across the sky, and he worried.

‘In a week’s time, the Ulgahold will have been under siege for one hundred and one years. We come here to discuss the wishes of Karadrakk-Grimnir Ulgaen, and who among you, the seven surviving sons of Karadrakk-Grimnir, will assume the heavy burden of responsibility for leadership of Lodge Ulgaen-ar.’

Tulkingafar gave the seven sons a steely look. They stared back with varying amounts of defiance, hope, sorrow and fear.

Get on with it, you pompous ass, thought Ulgathern. He bridled at Tulkingafar’s superior manner, his ponderous delivery. Ulgathern was eager to be done; he itched to avenge his father, and he needed to talk to Drokki. At first he had dismissed Drokki’s talk of the Great Omen, but since the storms he had come to half-believe him. And now this…

The auric regalia he had to wear was heavy, a wide poncho of gold plates sewn to thick leather, and a huge, ceremonial helm. Fyreslayers as a rule rarely wore much. Their holds were warmed by the blood of the earth, while their own Grimnir-given fires kept them heated in the most inhospitable of environments. To wear too many clothes or, Grimnir forfend, too much armour, was an affront to their shattered god. Ulgathern found the gear uncomfortable. The zharrgrim temple was nigh to the forge, where streams of lava were harvested for their metals and channelled into the fyresteel foundry. The grumbling of hot stone bottled up behind its sluices was as oppressive as the heat. But borne the heat must be, and he stood there sweltering and stiff with all the stoicism expected of a duardin.

Ulgathern did not like or trust Tulkingafar. He was too invested in politicking, always seeking to exert his temple’s pre-eminence in the hold over that of Magar-Or’s, and he was the worst of Drokki’s persecutors. Too often the intention of Tulkingafar’s actions appeared not to be to increase reverence of Grimnir, but to consolidate his own power. To have risen to so lofty a rank within the zharrgrim at such a young age spoke of a certain ruthlessness.

Behind Ulgathern were his six brothers, gathered before the great statue of Grimnir in their coats of gold. Behind them were the guildmasters of both lodges. The stout matrons and males of the Mining and Gleaning Fellowships, the Kin-gather Matrons, the battlesmiths and loremasters and brewmistresses and a dozen others. The leadership of each lodge occupied the chequered floor on either side of the temple’s central aisle in strict orders of hierarchy, in most respects mirror images of each other, save one.

Ulgathern’s uncle, Briknir-Grimnir Ulgaen, stood at the head of his lodge. The space Ulgathern’s father should have occupied was empty. By the time Tulkingafar stopped blowing hot air, it would be occupied again.

‘A number of you have been chosen for honour,’ said Tulkingafar. ‘Only one was deemed worthy by Karadrakk-Grimnir to assume leadership of Lodge Ulgaen-ar.’ The runemaster gestured. A chest was brought from an alcove to the side by his acolytes, and placed at his feet. The venerable battlesmith Loremaster Garrik came forth with an elaborate key, and fitted it to the lock.

‘The legacy chest of Karadrakk-Grimnir. Within is his truth,’ intoned Garrik.

The chest was opened. Tulkingafar’s acolytes took out plaques stamped with the names of those Karadrakk-Grimnir deemed worthy, and handed them to the runemaster. The number caused the brothers to shift. Four were to be chosen, a high number. They waited tensely for their fates.

Tulkingafar played it out as long as he could. The bastard, thought Ulgathern.

‘Ulgamaen, ninth son of Karadrakk-Grimnir. You are to be runefather of the lodge of Ulgaen-ar.’ He tossed the plaque at Ulgamaen’s feet. Ulgamaen looked serious as he retrieved it, but that was him through and through. Probably why Father chose him, thought Ulgathern. Anyone who could crack a smile of delight at landing that role isn’t up to the job.

‘Come forward, Ulgamaen-Grimnir Ulgaen!’ sang Tulkingafar. He took Karadrakk’s latchkey grandaxe from an attendant and presented it to the new runefather. ‘By your father’s command, you are to unlock the great vault of Ulgaen-ar, and take out three-sixteenths of the lodge ur-gold.’

‘Yes, runemaster,’ said Ulgamaen-Grimnir. ‘I shall instruct the hoardtalliers that it be done immediately.’

Mangulnar shot his brother Ulgamaen a poisonous look. He was furious – his beard bristled and face glowed red. The heat of his anger was palpable to Ulgathern.

‘Ranganak! Fourteenth son of Karadrakk.’ The runemaster tossed the second plaque at Ranganak’s feet. ‘You are to receive one of these sixteenths. The quiet halls of the Sunward Deeps are yours, Ranganak-Grimnir. You have leave to forge your latchkey, construct a vault of your own, and establish a new lodge there, for the protection and betterment of all within the Ulmount.’

‘Thank you, runemaster, thank you,’ said Ranganak-Grimnir with a hasty bow, and retrieved his own plaque. He looked at it lovingly.

‘To Tulgamar, twentieth son of Karadrakk, the same,’ said Tulkingafar, tossing the third plaque toward Karadrakk-Grimnir’s youngest son. Tulgamar caught it. ‘The lost halls of the Far Delvings are yours, if you can take them from the beasts that dwell there, Tulgamar-Grimnir.’

Tulgamar nodded once, fingering his token of office thoughtfully. His gift was a hard one.

One portion remained. The four other sons of Karadrakk waited with bated breath. Mangulnar’s hands were clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.

Tulkingafar drew it out, surveying the eager runesons with a crafty look. Ulgathern thought he might explode. Or punch Tulkingafar in the face.

Tulkingafar’s round eyes swung to look upon him. ‘And lastly, Ulgathern, twelfth son of Karadrakk-Grimnir. One sixteenth of the lodge ur-gold.’

The plaque clunked onto the floor at Ulgathern’s feet. He could not keep the grin off his face as he retrieved it. The three disinherited runesons glowered, their dreams of wealth and honour gone.

‘For you, Ulgathern-Grimnir, a choice is given. You are to aid whichever of your brothers you choose, and request of them a right to settle.’

The old sod, thought Ulgathern. His father had often berated him for forging his own path and not thinking of the future. It looked like he had one final lesson for his son; co-operation, or exile.

‘You are charged with these responsibilities on one condition,’ Tulkingfar went on. ‘That you forsake the leaving of the hold, and work with your kin to strengthen it against incursion. Keep the Ulgahold free of the servants of Slaanesh, and you shall forever be honoured in the records of all the Ulgaen lodges.’

Ulgathern accepted claps upon the back from his newly elevated brothers and returned them. Of the three who had received nothing, Grankak and Ulgavost gave grudging respect, though their faces were sunk deep into their beards. Mangulnar held himself apart. He watched from the side for a moment before losing his temper completely.

‘Outrage! Perfidy! I am eldest! I am runefather by right!’ He moved toward Ulgamaen. The new runefather’s auric hearthguard stepped forwards, crossed magmapikes barring his path.

‘You have no right to leadership, runeson,’ said Tulkingafar. ‘Karadrakk-Grimnir’s last wishes have been read. They are inviolate.’

When Mangulnar spoke again, his breath shimmered on the air, and smoke curled from his nostrils. ‘You will all regret this. All of you!’ He stormed out, his few followers hot on his heels.

A shocked silence followed this grievous breach of tradition, until a few minutes later, when hogsheads of magmalt ale were brought in and breached. After the first dozen tankards, they forgot about Mangulnar’s outburst completely.

The Hall of Memory was unusually cool and peaceful. For those reasons, Drokki liked it there. The remembrance beads made long rows of gold that glimmered ruddily in the halls’ low light. So big was the library that a duardin could lose themselves there. Drokki wandered down the aisles between the books dangling on their iron frames. The smell of hot gold and an occasional clatter and hiss drifted over the racks from the die rooms at the rear, where battlesmiths cast new books. From a nearby aisle he could hear hushed conversation. When the battlesmiths were in training, the Hall of Memory was altogether noisier, each basso profundo duardin voice competing with the next in volume and complexity of rhythm as they recited the lodge’s history. But today it was quiet.

The remembrance bead books were arranged by reigning runefather and year. He knew he shouldn’t, but Drokki let his good hand trail lightly along the records, setting off tiny, leaden clacks as the beads swayed on their thongs and knocked one another. He loved the slippery, cool feel of the gold, the random snatches of knowledge he read as his fingers touched upon the books’ runes.

His other arm was small and stick-like and lacking strength. He had lost count of the number of times Tulkingafar had said he should have been cast into the magma at birth. Some had taken the defect as a mark of Chaos. The Matrons of the Kin-gather had stood their ground, insisting that it was nothing of the sort and that the fires of his spirit burned true. Drokki might have been allowed to live, but he was reminded daily that it was upon sufferance.

Drokki habitually kept his withered arm pressed against his side. It wasn’t the most comfortable position – that was to have it up against his chest. But when nestled into his chest his little claw of a hand adopted a form that made it look like it was about to dart forward and snatch at purses, or it gave him a sinister, calculating air, as if he were raking his bent fingers through his beard. The worst of it was that when he held it across his chest, everyone could see. So he had taught himself to hold it straight, and many hours of pain it had cost him. With it forced down by his side, Drokki half-convinced himself that no one noticed.

Everyone always noticed.

Friends did not care, that was the important thing. To them he had been Drokki, and now he was Runesmiter Drokki, not Drokki of the Withered Arm – or worse. He was becoming respected, in his own small way; he had to remind himself of that often. The truth was that twenty friendly faces could not counterbalance one hateful comment, not in his heart.

‘Drokki! What are you doing skulking about back there?’

Battlesmith Loremaster Kaharagun Whitebeard came huffing up an intersection in the aisles, a half-dozen heavy remembrance bead books looped over a soft cloth wrapped around one arm, a slender, hooked staff in the other. Whitebeard was stout, almost as broad as he was tall, with a belly to match.

Drokki darted him a shy look. He found it hard to hold the eyes of others, and he kept having to force his gaze to meet that of Kaharagun. ‘Oh, you know. Looking, um, reading. Are you not at the calling?’

‘No, I’m not. I have given Loremaster Garrik the honour of performing that duty. He’s still got the knees for all that bowing and scraping.’

Garrik was at most six months younger than Kaharagun. Drokki hid a smile.

The loremaster looked back down the way Drokki had come. The swaying of the beads was minute, but Kaharagun noticed. ‘You’ve been up to mischief, again! Have you been disturbing the lore?’

‘Er. Well, I have. Yes. Sorry,’ admitted Drokki.

Kaharagun huffed. ‘Drokki! You’re no youngflame now, you’re a runesmiter! I expect better of you. Eighty-nine and still poking the beads like a bare-faced child.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You know it wears the gold. What’s the first rule of the beads?’

‘Touch them for reading, otherwise never.’

‘Right. Now, can I help you?’ Kaharagun’s scolding was gentle. Still, Drokki found it hard to look him in the face.

‘Um, yes. I was looking for the records from Gaenagrik Hold.’

Kaharagun sucked at his beard and rearranged his belly. ‘Gaenagrik eh? What do you want the beads of the ur-lodge for?’

‘There’s something I need to check on,’ said Drokki. He dared not share his unease yet, not until he was sure. ‘The prophecies of Hulgar Farseeing.’

‘I’d leave all that alone, young one. He was regarded mad, you know.’

‘Yes. Yes, I did know,’ said Drokki softly.

The duardin looked at each other for a moment.

‘Can you show me?’ prompted Drokki. ‘The records from the old hold aren’t arranged the same way as the new, and there is something I need to check.’

‘They’re perfectly easy to negotiate if you know what you are doing,’ said Whitebeard sharply. ‘They’re this way. If you’ll keep me company while I return these books to the racks, I’ll show you.’ He jabbed out a gnarled finger. ‘But no more touching the beads!’

Drokki followed the old loresmith down the lanes of cast gold. Each book was made up of triangular beads threaded onto orruk hide thongs. They were written in the high runes, three to a face, ideograms depicting entire words or discrete concepts. Not many could read them, partly because the information they conveyed was dependent on context and fiendishly dense.

‘I lived in Gaenagrik when I was a lad,’ Kaharagun said as they walked. ‘Fine hold. I was ten years old when Marthung-Grimnir Ulgaen, Grimnir warm his soul, set this place up. Ten! Can you imagine?’

Drokki could not. Kaharagun was already ancient when Drokki was born.

They stopped at a space in the rack. Kaharagun carried on talking as he unwound a bead book from his arm. ‘I’d never have thought I’d end up living here. Funny how life turns out.’ His face set. ‘Not that there was anything funny about the ur-lodge falling. Five thousand years the hold stood, and in two nights it was gone. Half the Ulgaen lodges wiped out.’ He fitted the book’s loop onto the hook on the end of his staff, using it to reach up to the top of the racks and put it back onto its numbered hook on the racks. The book swayed as he replaced it. There were eight strands of beads to it, six feet long when hung. ‘It’s a wonder we survived.’

They passed towards the very far end of the hall. Kaharagun replaced his last book, folded up the cloth on his arm, kissed it reverently, and stowed it under his robe. ‘Right then. This way. Past here are the Gaenagrik records, what we saved of them.’

He led Drokki further in. The torches in the sconces at the end of the racks were unlit and it was dark there. The careful ordering of the younger Ulgahold records gave way to a more chaotic system, if there was any system at all. The books were very old, the gold dark with age and the runes round-edged with touch-reading.

Kaharagun passed a fire iron to Drokki. Drokki spoke to the device, and the runes on it glowed then the end shone with heat. He pressed it to two torches, the pitch spluttering as it ignited. Drokki smelled burning dust. No one had been down there for a long time.

‘Hulgar, Hulgar, Hulgar…’ muttered Kaharagun. He ran his fingers along the beads. ‘Aha! Here we are. What was it you were after?’

‘His Telling of Great Omens.’

Kaharagun snorted. ‘Child’s stories.’ He unhooked a book of six strands with his staff, inspected it briefly and passed it to Drokki. ‘Volume one. Careful with it. The hide is brittle. I keep meaning to get the thongs replaced, but there’s been a shortage of orruks about since the siege began. Some might say troggoth or ogor hide works just as well, but I won’t use anything else. Can’t take the weight.’

Drokki took the book. He draped it over one shoulder rather than over his arm in the proper manner. Kaharagun frowned, but it was the only way he could read it. Drokki ran the beads through the fingers of his good hand. It was an introduction, written in Hulgar’s portentous manner. The first half of the string was a long list of thanks to various patrons.

The beads ran out. A knot had been tied in the thong to keep them from falling off, the end of it scorched hard.

‘Is there any more?’

‘Of that volume? No. Melted. There’s twenty more volumes though.’

‘I need to see them. All of them.’

‘Very well,’ grumbled Kaharagun.

Drokki and Kaharagun spent the next hour reading. There was a good deal missing from the book. One volume had come apart and been threaded back together without care for its content, and was unreadable without checking the tiny order numbers stamped into the base of each bead. Two more stopped abruptly, another started in the middle of a passage.

Volume number twelve, string four, had what Drokki needed, and what he had dreaded. His heart beat faster as he read. It was all there. Everything. The lightning, the siege, the death of the runefather. It was all there in solid gold, not a half-remembered rhyme, but a real prophecy.

Kaharagun leaned in, his old face creased in concern at the look on Drokki’s face.

‘Drokki?’ he asked. ‘Is everything alright?’

‘I very much need to borrow this,’ said Drokki.

Ulgathern-Grimnir returned to his chambers lost in thought. He was a runefather now, something he had wanted all his life, but now he had it, he felt strangely hollow inside. All that responsibility, all those people relying on him – if he could convince them to join his lodge in the first place. The plates of his robe caught on his muscles as he struggled out of it, and with relief he tossed it onto his bed. There was so much to do! He needed to appoint a runemaster, and he needed to marry…

He was so preoccupied he did not notice his visitor until she gave out a gentle cough. ‘A runefather’s greed’s worth of gold, and you toss it on the bed.’

‘Amsaralka?’

‘I should think so,’ she scolded. ‘I hope there aren’t any other maidens frequenting your chambers.’

Amsaralka stepped forward fully into the runelight. At the sight of her Ulgathern forgot the events of the last two days. Amsaralka was breathtakingly beautiful. He took in her massive shoulders, her strong, heavy miner’s arms. Her feet were delightfully huge, and he suspected the toes (he often dreamt of her toes, when life was slow) hidden behind her steel toecaps to be exquisitely blunt. Her hair was gathered into two tresses, thick as an ogor’s golden torcs, and as lustrous. Her face was wide and square, her eyes attractively far apart. She had a broad mouth and full lips, behind which hid white teeth as evenly placed as bricks.

‘What are you mooning at?’ she said, and embraced him, then stood back and gripped his upper arms. Her hands were vices on his biceps. ‘What did they say? What is Karadrakk-Grimnir’s legacy, who will be the next Runefather of Ulgaen-ar?’

Ulgathern reached up a broad finger and gently traced the downy hair on Amsaralka’s jawline. Fine hair, softer than spun gold.

‘Not I,’ he said.

She wrinkled her nose in disappointment. ‘Oh, Ulgathern.’

‘Such a pretty nose,’ he murmured. ‘Like a rock chip.’

She punched his arm. ‘This is important!’ she said. ‘Ulgathern, I don’t know what to say. You were your father’s favourite.’

‘I was his favoured,’ said Ulgathern. ‘Not favourite to lead Ulgaen-ar. He always thought me a little too frivolous.’ He toyed with the end of her tress.

She slapped his hand. ‘Leave that alone! We’re not married. And if you’re not Runefather we won’t ever be,’ she said glumly. She pushed herself away from him.

‘A runeson’s not good enough for your darling mother?’

‘Runesons end up dead. You know what she says. I’m the daughter of the Chief of the Mining Fellowship, mother won’t let me.’

‘Who says I’m a runeson?’

A brief moment of confusion flitted across her face. When her smile broke through, it was like the sun bursting out of the clouds.

‘You mean..?’

‘Yes! Father divided up the ur-gold. Ulgamaen is to be the new Runefather of Ulgean-ar. Tulgamar, Ranganak and I have been given portions. We’re to establish our own lodges in the old halls.’

Amsaralka clapped her hands. ‘We can marry!’

‘Perhaps,’ he said worriedly. He couldn’t get Drokki’s blathering out of his mind. He shook it away and said wolfishly, ‘Maybe I should have a look at those toes first?’

They both glanced down at her heavy boots.

‘Not before our wedding night!’ she said sternly, then smiled, ‘which will be soon, Ulgathern-Grimnir.’ She added the honorific to his name with delight. ‘Grimnir put much fire into my belly, Ulgathern. I promise to bear you many fine sons.’

‘If you’re half as good a mother as a miner, I’d expect at least a score,’ he said.

They closed their eyes and touched noses. They held each other, happy for a moment, all the concerns of the outside world shut out.

‘Oh good, you’re in,’ Drokki said.

Ulgathern turned round to see the Runesmiter in the doorway, his withered arm held rigidly by his side.

‘Ring the bloody gong next time, Drokki!’ said Ulgathern, his face flushing crimson. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy here?’

‘Ah yes, right. Uh, hello, Amsaralka,’ said Drokki absentmindedly. ‘What I’ve got to show you is important. Er, congratulations by the way. I suppose I have to call you Ulgathern-Grimnir now, or, or my lord?’

‘Go away, Drokki. Whatever it is can wait until morning. We’ve got a wedding to plan.’ He grinned at Amsaralka, and reached for her hand, but she slipped away.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said quietly. She left with her eyes downcast.

Ulgathern narrowed his eyes at his friend. ‘Now look what you’ve done.’

‘Er, what have I done?’

‘Don’t you have any sense of common decency? You’ve shamed her, you catching us cuddling like that! Think of the gossip.’

‘I’m sorry. But, but you have to listen, or it’s not going to matter. Records. You’re not going to want to see, but you have to.’

‘Drokki, I am not going tramping down to the Hall of Memory with you at this hour.’

‘You don’t have to.’ Drokki whistled. Two strapping young battlesmiths trooped in, carrying a rack dangling dozens of records strings. The gold clacked and slapped as they trotted in. ‘It was important enough that Kaharagun let me take the book. Put it there,’ said Drokki.

‘Don’t! Stop!’ said Ulgathern. But it was too late, the young duardin had put the rack down and were bowing their way backwards out of the door.

‘Really. Sorry, I am, I mean. But you have to read this.’

Ulgathern sighed and pulled at his moustache. ‘Clearly you’re not leaving. What is it?’

Drokki bared his teeth nervously. ‘The end, the end of everything. Ulgathern, we have to abandon the Ulmount.’

‘What?’

‘Hulgar’s The Great Omen! I know! You keep saying it is another of his bad prophecies, that it’s just a rhyme. But I know you’re worried too. When we were at the funeral I was watching the storm, and I got thinking. It’s happening, Ulgathern. Next week is the one hundred and first anniversary of the beginning of the siege. The Runefather is dead ‘by stealth and surprise’ just like in Hulgar’s poem. The storm is not like anything we’ve seen before, it’s…’

‘Salvation and disaster, the end of a hold, where once was two is now one, but even that will be undone?’ quoted Ulgathern. ‘Grimnir’s fires, Drokki, you can’t put any faith in that doggerel. Hulgar was a fat fool.’

Drokki held up the beads. ‘The original is more detailed. It’s all here! Hulgar was certain of it. Look!’

‘You know I don’t read the high runes.’

Drokki blinked. His face was white and sweaty in a way unnatural for a Fyreslayer. ‘You have to believe me, Ulgathern. The Ulgahold, it’s going to fall.’

Ulgathern sighed through his teeth. ‘All right. Show me.’

‘You expect me to believe this, nephew?’ said Briknir-Grimnir.

‘Drokki says it’s all there in plain gold,’ said Ulgathern. Ulgathern-Grimnir, he had to keep reminding himself. He tried to stand taller in his uncle’s imperious stare. He really should, now he was a runefather himself, but the older Fyreslayer intimidated him. A sixteenth share of Ulgaen-ar’s ur-gold seemed nothing when he stood before so great a lord. ‘I didn’t want to believe him either but–’

‘Drokki of the Withered Arm!’ sneered Tulkingafar. ‘A know-nothing fool.’

Ulgamaen-Grimnir held up his hand and gave Tulkingafar a nervous look, unsure as yet of his authority over his father’s runemaster. Tulkingafar snorted and fell silent.

‘Well,’ said Briknir-Grimnir. ‘Well!’ He slapped the golden arms of his high throne. The duardin of Ulgaen-ar and the three new, as-yet-unnamed lodges were guests of Ulgaen-zumar and met in their High Seat. The Ulgahold was a modest place compared to some, but even its throne halls were vast and lofty, the ceilings of gleaming stone so tall that the eight-foot high runes around the frieze at the top looked no bigger than a babe’s fingernails.

‘It is Hulgar, isn’t it?’ said Marag-Or of the Golden Eye. He sat in his runemaster’s chair, dwarfed by the huge carvings of Grimnir surrounding him. ‘It is said he caused a lot of trouble in Gaenagrik in the old days, predicting this and that. It is also a matter of history that his record of accuracy was somewhat patchy.’

‘But some of his prophecies were right,’ said Ulgathern.

‘And a lot of them were wrong,’ said Marag-Or. ‘The war of a hundred and one years will come to an end, as lightning cleaves the sky, salvation comes late for those that see no sense, greed overcomes virtue and the lodge-line shall be broken,’ said Marag-Or. ‘That’s the one that’s got Drokki all in a lather, isn’t it?’ He leaned forward, the beads in his grey-shot orange beard clacking together. ‘Drokki, Drokki. What’s to be done?’

‘What are you suggesting, Ulgathern-Grimnir?’ said Briknir-
Grimnir.

‘That we head for the Broken Plains of Aqshy and the Volturung. They’re our ancestral kin. They will take us in.’

‘For the love of Grimnir,’ muttered Briknir-Grimnir. ‘We’ve not had any contact with them for a hundred years!’

‘We’ve not had contact with anyone for a hundred years,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We’ve been under siege for over a century. Qualar Vo is not–’

‘Do not utter that name in my throne hall!’ yelled Briknir-
Grimnir. An uncomfortable silence fell. The new runefathers looked uneasily at one another.

Ulgathern-Grimnir swallowed. ‘He is not going to give up. There are more of the Slaaneshi out there than ever. It’s only a matter of time. Volturung were always the strongest among our kin lodges. They’re the most likely to still be there.’

‘If you don’t die on the way, which you will,’ said Briknir-
Grimnir. ‘Can you have a word with Drokki?’ said Briknir-Grimnir to Marag-Or. ‘Get this nonsense out of his head?’

‘I will, Runefather. As soon as we’re done here.’

‘He should never have been accepted into the temple,’ said Tulkingafar.

Marag-Or turned his sole good eye on the younger runemaster. ‘Aye, but he was. By me. Drokki’s a good lad. Only the one arm, and he draws the cleanest runes out of the ur-gold I’ve seen for a long time. He’s better than you were when I trained you, runemaster. Bear that in mind when you’re badmouthing him.’

Tulkingafar’s lips curled. Sparks sprang up in his eyes. He tried to hide it, but the fires of his heart were stoked by his hatred of Drokki.

‘That’s that then,’ said Briknir-Grimnir.

‘With all reverence, uncle, it is not!’ Ulgathern-Grimnir said.

Briknir opened his mouth and shut it again, setting it firm. ‘What then?’

‘I have a very bad feeling about it, here, in my fires.’ He patted his stomach and hurried on before he could be interrupted. ‘Next week it’ll be one hundred and one years since the siege began. We’ve suffered some setbacks recently.’ He did not cite his father’s death. ‘There’s this storm… We should go.’

‘Lad, runefather,’ said Marag-or, ‘that prophecy could apply to anyone, anywhere in any realm at any time. How many hundred-year sieges have there been since Chaos came to the realms? It’s not one or two, let me tell you.’

Briknir-Grimnir grumbled and his big orange beard shook. ‘Feelings now is it, lad? That’s no way to run a lodge! Do your feelings know how to bypass the siege? Get down off the mountain into the Howling Waste? We can’t chance the Ulmount’s realmgate, I’ll tell you that much, nephew. That’s under my protection, and it will not be opened. It cannot be opened, not since that perfumed libertine out there did his business on it.’

‘I know it’s tainted,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘I’m not a fool, uncle.’

‘Well then, looks like you’re stuck here with us,’ said Briknir-Grimnir.

‘Drokki says he has an idea. He won’t tell me what it is until he’s sure it will work, you know what he’s like.’

‘Runefathers Tulgamar-Grimnir, Ulgamaen-Grimnir, Ranganak-
Grimnir. What say you? You are the masters of your own lodges now, this concerns us all.’

Ranganak-Grimnir shook his head. ‘I say we stay.’

Tulgamar-Grimnir held up his hands and shrugged.

‘I’ll not be going. Unlike my brother, I’ll be obeying my father’s dying wish,’ said Ulgamaen-Grimnir. ‘Ulgaen-ar’s home is here.’

‘Baharun, baharar!’ said Ulgamaen-Grimnir’s hearthguard, clashing their wristbands together. Many were young, newly elevated from the lower ranks of Ulgaen-ar lodge, and greater in number than those sworn to the other runefathers.

‘There you are,’ said Briknir-Grimnir. ‘I’m sorry, lad, we’ll not be abandoning the Ulgahold. It might’ve been your great-grandfather founded this place, but it was your father and me built it up from nothing. When the ur-lodge fell, we stood strong. Gaenagrik’s a ruin. Last time I looked we’re still here. We’ll not be leaving. Now stop this nonsense. One hundred and one years’ll come and go like every other anniversary. The Slaaneshi scum outside have been getting complacent of late, we’ll see them off.’

‘This is a time for celebration, and you scaremonger,’ said Tulkingafar coldly.

‘No one agrees with me?’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘No lad,’ said Briknir. ‘I thought I made that quite clear.’

Ulgathern-Grimnir looked around the semi-circle of Ulgaen-zumar’s seated elders. Their faces were hostile. He looked to Marag-Or, but he shook his head. His brothers would not meet his eyes, all but Tulgamar-Grimnir, who mouthed an apology.

Ulgathern-Grimnir sighed. ‘Then firstly I appoint Drokki of the Withered Arm to be my runemaster, with all the rights and responsibilities thereunto.’

‘He’s not ready!’ snapped Tulkingafar.

‘Quiet!’ said Ulgamaen-Grimnir from the corner of his mouth. ‘Let my brother have his moment of infamy. If he’s going to cut off his own head with his axe, let’s not help him.’

‘Is he ready?’ asked Briknir-Grimnir.

‘In some ways, yes, in others, no,’ said Marag-Or. ‘He’s got the rune gift, and he can sniff out ur-gold better than most. But he’s yet to gain wisdom.’

‘Can’t teach that, Marag-Or.’

‘No, got to earn it,’ said Marag-Or. ‘Being runemaster will do that, or he’ll die.’

‘Alright then, Marag-Or releases Drokki from his service.’

‘He has his permission to found his own temple,’ said Marag-Or.

‘And good luck to him,’ said Briknir-Grimnir. ‘Will that stop all this crazy talk?’

‘No.’ Ulgathern spread his hands. ‘I invoke the right of far-wandering. I will take my people with me, and I will go. We shall found a new hold of our own, somewhere safe, for our lodge to occupy.’

‘The stipulation on your runefatherhood was that you stay,’ said Briknir-Grimnir.

‘It’s not binding. It was my father’s wish, but it can’t be a command. The right of a runeson gifted with ur-gold as runefather to found his own hold is paramount.’ Ulgathern-Grimnir swallowed his guilt. ‘I checked.’

Briknir-Grimnir’s face hardened. ‘There’s a reason your father didn’t tap you for the runefatherhood of Ulgaen-ar. Too full of bloody stupid ideas, that head of yours is. Leave us? You’ll be stripping our defence mighty thin, lad. Your father wanted you to open up the old halls, strengthen the Ulgahold from the inside out, not tear it apart.’

‘My father is dead!’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘And I am a runefather in my own right. It is my command that my portion of the folk of Ulgaen-ar leave.’ He choked on his own words, and became quiet. ‘Before it is too late.’

Briknir-Grimnir’s lips thinned. ‘You’re strong-headed. I have to respect that. I can’t stop you. It’s your right to go if you want it. But you’ve a touch too much fire in your brain if you reckon on this being a good idea.’

‘Thank you, uncle.’ Ulgathern-Grimnir bowed.

‘Two things, nephew. You don’t have to bow to me any more, you’re a runefather now.’

‘Right,’ said Ulgathern.

‘And the other is this, you try to take any of my folk with you, or tell them what you told me to get their bellows pumping and the iron in them soft enough that you can beat your daft ideas into them, then I’ll take that as an act against me, and I won’t hold back.’

Ulgavost stepped forward from the throng of Ulgaen-ar’s representatives. ‘I’ll come with you brother, more for the adventure than anything else. There’s not much here for me now.’

Ulgathern-Grimnir nodded at Ulgavost gratefully. Encouraged, he looked to the others. They looked away.

‘Tulgamar?’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘I know you’re torn. Come with me. Your magmadroth would be mighty handy.’

‘I…’ said Tulgamar. ‘I can’t.’

‘Your brother can make up his own mind!’ snapped Briknir-Grimnir. ‘Now get gone if you’re going. I won’t wish you luck, because you’ll need more than there is in all this realm. I only hope you don’t get us all killed and that your ur-gold isn’t lost for all time.’

‘Ur-gold is never lost, Runefather,’ said Marag-Or.

‘So you keep saying,’ Briknir-Grimnir slumped into his throne. ‘But if this kahuz-bahan has his way, some will be. Go on Ulgathern-Grimnir. Audience is over. Get out.’

Drokki emerged from a hidden door low down the Ulmount. The underway between the ruined hold of Gaenagrik and the Ulgahold was blocked for a way, and he was forced to venture over ground. He consulted the map in his hand, an ancient artefact made of etched brass. It showed the many ways that had once existed to Gaenagrik. Only one existed now.

Gaenagrik would be dangerous, unstable after so many years uninhabited. The moulding runes that held its stone together would have failed, leaving it at the mercy of the Hornteeth Mountains’ rumblings. He could find his way to the city easily enough, but he did not know the safe way through to the hold’s realmgate. In point of fact, he did not know if the gate were still accessible. He needed a guide, and it was to look for one that he ventured outside the safety of the duardin city.

Drokki followed a path along the cliffs over the Hardgate. He looked down often onto the Chaos camp, nervous he would be seen. Cries of ecstasy and agony drifted up from the town and wild music played from many quarters, clashing discordantly. Under the harsh, acrid smell of ash and burning rock, there was the cloying stink of daemonic perfume. Bat-winged creatures sported in the sky over the camp, showering it with their excrement and fluids. It was these that Drokki feared the most. If they spotted him, they would be on him in moments, and would tear him to pieces. But they were absorbed with their games and they did not see him. Luckily, he did not have far to go.

A black hole opened in the mountainside. Drokki scrambled gratefully toward it, steadying himself with his good arm as he skidded down the loose material into the welcome dark.

The angry red sky was reduced to a ragged patch that flickered with distant lightning. He was back in the underway to Gaenagrik, and he hurried down out of sight.

A few hundred steps from the opening, the tunnel broadened. The raw rubble of rockfalls was replaced by carefully laid blocks of granite. Smooth setts, so artfully laid that the joins were almost invisible, paved the floor. He held up his lantern and ignited it with a word.

The old road to Gaenagrik stretched ahead into the black.

This is it then, he thought, and set off at a hurried pace.

Signs of war were visible here and there – the bones of an overlooked duardin, or shattered remnants of enemy armour. The underway was otherwise free of debris and in good condition. The realms were filled with ruins, but ‘duardin-made, eternally stays’ went the old saying, and here that was evident.

The underway sloped downward. Gaenagrik Mountain was lower than the Ulmount. He went as fast as he dared, trying to make his footfalls as light as possible, painfully aware that this was the route his own ancestors had fled along when Gaenagrik had fallen, and that to all objective sense he was heading the wrong way.

He went unchallenged. Bones were the only things he saw.

After a time a pair of richly carved gates materialised in his lantern light. They were ajar, the gap between them an impenetrable black. The drafts of the tunnel were forced into sighing winds by the narrowness of the gap, and Drokki smelled slow decay.

He squeezed between them, and came into the outskirts of Gaenagrik. The road split, half going upward, half down. Doorways to deserted guardrooms showed as dark holes. Nervously he sniffed the air, his zharrgrim-trained nose searching for ur-gold. The smell of ur-gold was like no other, a tingle at the back of the sinuses, like before a good sneeze. It didn’t take him long to find it. That would help him find the duardin he sought. Doing so would either save his life, or end it. He patted the pouch of fresh ur-gold runes at his belt, hoping that they would be enough.

Glancing around, he set off on the upward path.

Once in the hold, Drokki had no concern about encountering the enemy. This was the renegade grimwrath berzerker Brokkengird’s territory, and that made Drokki very nervous, more nervous than if he were facing a horde of pleasure-worshippers. Never mind that Drokki had come to find the grimwrath; Brokkengird was insane.

Not the best of allies, but Drokki could see no other way. Only Brokkengird knew the safe route to Gaenagrik’s realmgate.

Drokki followed his nose. The road continued upward at an unvarying incline. A canyon, carved straight by duardin picks, opened up to his side. On the far side roads switched back and forth up the cliff, leading to the open mouths of mines. Lava glow came from the bottom of the crevasse, so faint it must have been hundreds of feet down. Strange sounds came out of the dark, louder and odder the further in he walked.

When Drokki reached the top of the canyon road, the smell of ur-gold had the back of his nose tickling. He held up his runic lantern, playing the bright yellow cone of light over a wide plaza, its walls carved with friezes showing the daily life of duardin centuries dead.

Something barged into Drokki’s back, sending him flying. He rolled over and over, coming to a halt face down over the precipice. His lamp flew from his hand, clattering from the canyon walls before spinning away. The light of it dwindled to nothing. He did not hear it hit the bottom.

A hard hand gripped him by the scruff of the neck and threw him backwards as if he weighed nothing. He flew across the plaza into the carved walls. Stone met his back, bruising his ribs and driving the wind from him, and he slid to the floor, gaping like a landed fish for breath as a figure advanced on him from the dark. He saw only the gold at first, glowing runes studded into skin in such numbers they should have torn the bearer apart with their magic. The smell of ur-gold was maddeningly strong, almost strong enough to overcome the powerful stink of unwashed duardin.

Brokkengird had found him.

‘Ur-gold for Brokkengird!’ said the duardin gleefully, aiming his axe at Drokki’s head. The runemaster rolled out of the way as he swung. Rock chips stung his cheek as the axe blade bit into the pavement.

Drokki kicked out in desperation, his feet meeting a body as yielding as rock. The priest wriggled back, but Brokkengird grabbed his ankle and yanked hard, dragging Drokki right towards him. The berzerker jumped onto the runemaster’s chest, laid his axe haft across his neck, and began to throttle.

‘Ur-gold! Ur-gold! Brokkengird kill, Brokkengird keep!’ He laughed madly.

Drokki pushed at the axe haft, but Brokkengird burned with the might of Grimnir, and his strength was terrifying.

‘Stop, stop!’ gasped out Drokki. ‘I can bring you more, much more.’

‘They all say that to Brokkengird when Brokkengird comes for them,’ said Brokkengird, and pressed down on his axe harder. The haft closed Drokki’s airway.

‘Pouch!’ he squeaked. ‘Ur-gold I brought for you! It’s… in… my… pouch…’ He flapped at his belt helplessly. A roaring filled his head. Blackness spotted with dancing colour crowded his vision.

Brokkengird removed his axe.

‘Ur-gold in pouch? No promise to go away and come back and never return? Many try to bribe Brokkengird, to keep their worthless beards.’

‘I have it, in truth!’

‘Then show Brokkengird.’

Drokki drew in a great wheezing breath and clutched at his neck.

‘Go on then,’ said Brokkengird. He grinned nastily. Even his teeth were made of ur-gold, haphazardly hammered into his gums. ‘Show me what you have.’

Drokki sat up. Still gasping, he undid the strings of his pouch and tipped out three new runes. ‘These are freshly forged,’ he croaked. ‘Warm from the forge and full of Grimnir’s might.’

Brokkengird reached out and took one of the runes reverently. He fingered it, and his face lit up with greed. ‘Good. Now Brokkengird will kill you.’

‘I can get you more!’ said Drokki hurriedly, holding out the other two.

‘How much more?’

‘Lots.’

‘You won’t come back, they never do,’ said Brokkengird. He stood up and lifted his axe. ‘No. Brokkengird kill you now, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘I will come back!’ protested Drokki. ‘I need to. I need you.’

Brokkengird lowered his axe a touch. ‘It’s a long time since anyone needed Brokkengird, longer since anyone wanted him. Why?’

‘I need a guide through Gaenagrik. I want to get to the realmgate.’

‘Got a little message to deliver?’ said Brokkengird. ‘Going to see his mother?’

Drokki shook his head. He reached out for Brokkengird’s hand. Brokkengird looked at it, then back at Drokki’s face.

Drokki pulled his hand back, and got heavily to his feet. His chest burned, and his throat felt like it was clogged with hot rocks.

‘We’re leaving, to found a new lodge.’

‘Nowhere to go. Nothing to see. Only Chaos. Chaos everywhere,’ said Brokkengird. ‘Stay home, little priest.’

‘The end is coming,’ said Drokki. ‘And you can either kill me now and die with everyone who won’t leave, or you can take us to the realmgate, be handsomely paid for it, and live.’

Brokkengird cocked his head on one side. His filthy, stinking crest flopped sideways. ‘Forty runes.’

‘Twenty.’

‘Thirty-five,’ said Brokkengird.

‘Twenty-seven…’ said Drokki.

‘Done,’ interrupted Brokkengird.

‘…and an oath,’ continued Drokki.

Brokkengird snarled. ‘No oaths!’

‘Brokkengird better swear not to harm me, and to lead the lodge to the Gaenagrik realmgate, or Brokkengird won’t get anything,’ said Drokki. For one awful second he thought Brokkengird would strike him down, but the renegade berzerker let his axe head thump to the floor, and reached out one hand. He spat on it. His spittle sizzled in his palm.

‘Brokkengird swear.’

Drokki spat in his own hand and shook. ‘Be here in one week.’

‘Brokkengird here. Brokkengird swore!’ shouted Brokkengird.

Brokkengird retreated backwards. The last thing to vanish into the dark of the abandoned hold was his face. Drokki had a glimpse of gleaming eyes and gold, and then he was alone.

Drokki waited five minutes to make sure Brokkengird had gone before taking to his heels and running home as fast as he could.

Ulgathern-Grimnir gripped his new latchkey grandaxe tightly. The steel haft was still slippery with oils from the smithy. It smelled like home, and he felt a pang of regret. The doors of the Ulgahold were shut to him. The axe was taller than he was, toothed like a key. It would work as one too, once the lock had been crafted to fit it. For the time being there was no magma-vault for the meagre supply of ur-gold he had been apportioned, nowhere to hang his axe, nowhere to sleep. He had nothing.

And so I lead my people to beggary on the say-so of Drokki, he thought. Despite his disquiet, his heart told him he was doing the right thing. To say that to Drokki, however, was one effort too many, and he scowled at him instead.

The slot through the gates to Gaenagrik was a black, uninviting rectangle. Behind the short column of his people – those three hundred warriors, matrons, maidens and youngflames that had decided to come with him – was a tunnel with a collapsed roof open to the enemy, should they have the wit to look for it. They were vulnerable, front and back, and with nowhere to run to.

This was looking like a very bad idea.

‘Where is he?’ growled Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘Um, well. He said he would be here,’ said Drokki.

‘Did he now? You know he’s a murderer?’ said Ulgavost. ‘Forty years ago Brokkengird was denied his eighteenth rune – more ur-gold than any Fyreslayer in the Ulgahold has had hammered into his flesh for centuries. He was accused of the gold-greed, and did not take it well. Brokkengird cursed our father, fought his way out of the hold leaving several dead duardin behind. Since then he’s roamed the halls of Gaenagrik, killing whoever he comes across, and if they be duardin, taking their runes of power.’ Ulgavost grinned sadly. ‘If I’d have known what Drokki was about, I might have stayed. Brokkengird is a kinslayer, and insane.’

‘Loremaster Kaharagun said the same thing about Hulgar the Farseeing,’ said Drokki.

‘Now then, Drokki, doesn’t that tell you something when folks keep warning you about crazy people?’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir testily. He shivered. His innate fire was a small warmth to hold on to in so grim a place. He sought out Amsaralka in the gloom behind him. She smiled at him nervously.

‘You came. Ulgavost came,’ said Drokki.

‘Aye. I did. I’m beginning to regret it,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. Ulgavost made a sour face.

‘He’ll be here. I made him swear. An oath will bind even a duardin as broke-minded as he.’

‘I’m willing to hope, but it’s far from a certainty, isn’t it? I prefer certainty. Hope is fool’s coin,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

The gate jerked, and opened wider. Grit squealed in the bearings of the wheel on the bottom, setting up an unholy racket. Ulgathern-Grimnir’s hearthguard levelled their magmapikes.

‘Ah, yes. I think that’s him,’ said Drokki.

A filthy duardin emerged.

‘Brokkengird here,’ he said cheerily.

‘I am Ulgathern-Grimnir. You will show us the way?’ asked Ulgathern-Grimnir as haughtily as he could manage. He watched the grimwrath berzerker warily – the mad Fyreslayer had enough ur-gold runes punched into his skin that he could probably slaughter his way through the lot of them. He glittered with power. Ulgavost shifted the weight of his twin axes on his shoulders, readying them.

Brokkengird scowled. ‘Uppity young lord has Brokkengird’s ur-gold?’

‘Yes,’ sighed Ulgathern-Grimnir. He weighed a heavy pouch in his hand. ‘Twenty-seven runes, as you asked.’

Brokkengird took a step forward. Ulgathern-Grimnir snatched the pouch back, and stowed it in his pack. ‘You get us to the realmgate first.’

‘Yes, little lordling,’ said Brokkengird with a smirk and a bow.

Ulgathern-Grimnir’s temper flared at his insolence. ‘Where,’ he asked Drokki, ‘do you find these people?’

‘Shhh!’ said Brokkengird, holding up a finger to his lips. ‘Quiet now. Enemy moving. They march on Ulgahold. Brokkengird has seen it! You are wise, crippled runemaster.’

‘The prophecy!’ said Drokki.

‘Right,’ said Ulgavost.

Ulgathern-Grimnir squinted at him in irritation. The door to Gaenagrik was open, and Brokkengird beckoned for them to follow.

‘I only hope you’re right, and this is no false gold hunt,’ muttered Ulgavost.

‘You know the way?’ called Ulgathern-Grimnir softly after Brokkengird.

‘Brokkengird know the way. Brokkengird want ur-gold. No gold for Brokkengird if not, eh? Not far now. Upper halls soon. Realmgate by the Thronecavern of the old fathers. This way! Quickly!’

Brokkengird hurried ahead and the column followed.

‘Madder than a grot trapped in a bottle with fireants, that one,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. He looked back down the column of duardin at the worried faces lit by dimmed runelamps. He couldn’t see Amsaralka, and his heart beat faster. He had to stop himself from hurrying back to find her. Three hundred souls, all his to protect, that was the reality of being a runefather. They looked tired, but they could not afford to rest. They pushed on deep into the abandoned hold. It was much bigger than the Ulgahold, and would take many hours to cross.

Suddenly, Drokki frowned. ‘Do you hear that?’

‘What?’ said Ulgavost.

‘Shh!’

Ulgathern-Grimnir held up his hand. With a lurch, the column came to a halt. True silence descended.

‘There!’ said Drokki. ‘Warhorns.’

They blew in the dark, back the way the duardin had come. A fearful chattering came after, the sound of wild laughter and wicked songs. It faded from hearing a moment, but Ulgathern-Grimnir knew it would only get louder.

‘Curse it all!’ he snarled. ‘They’ve found us.’

At the sound of the horns, Brokkengird increased the pace. The column found strength from their fear and began to jog. It was a slow but dogged pace that the thick legs of the duardin could sustain for days, if need be. The tunnels rumbled to the thumping of their feet and the jangle of gold and weapons.

But the servants of excess were lithe-limbed and quick. They were gaining, their horns soon becoming louder, their songs chasing after the fugitives.

‘Grimnir burn it! It’s not going to be fast enough,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We need a place to fight them off. Brokkengird!’ he shouted.

The grimwrath berzerker fell back to run beside the runefather.

‘This very bad,’ he said in his broken Grimnizh. ‘Brokkengird tell to stripling runemaster enemy move soon. They move now. You should have come earlier.’

‘We need to hold them back, to give Drokki time to open the realmgate. Where can we make a stand?’

Brokkengird grinned. ‘Brokkengird not here for battle, Brokkengird paid to guide.’

‘I’ll give you more ur-gold, Grimnir roast you!’

‘Then this way, O lord of running duardin.’

Brokkengird took a sharp left, leading them onto a broad run of stairs that went up and up. The tunnel they occupied was high and finely made, although the vaulting of the ceiling was dangerously cracked, each piece held up only by the immense pressure exerted on it by the others.

Ulgathern-Grimnir’s lodge was sprinting now, the few beardless children with them wailing in terror. The older ones tried to be brave, but the fire in their eyes flickered uncertainly.

There were nine hundred steps. Ulgathern-Grimnir counted them, his axe bouncing hard on his back. His lungs burned and the column straggled out. He kept his eyes on his feet, not wanting to look up and see the task that lay ahead.

The last step flew away under his feet and he burst into a vast hall built into the side of Gaenagrik Mountain. Ruddy light shone through tall slot windows, and the high mullions separating the apertures from one another were thick and angled, reinforced against earthquake and covered with protective runes.

The magic was dead, and there was a lot of damage to the hall – almost all of it, to Ulgathern-Grimnir’s keen eye, down to the shiftings of the earth. There were signs of defacement to the statues and shrines in the alcoves along two walls, but otherwise it seemed that the forces of Chaos had moved on quickly after their victory a century ago, focusing their attentions on the living Fyreslayers of the Ulmount.

A huge dais dominated one end of the hall, with seats for the hold’s highest lodge-lords. As the hold’s heart, most of these had been smashed by the Slaaneshi, their pieces added to the scattering of rubble about the floor.

‘Gate that way!’ said Brokkengird, pointing to a round arch leading into another hall. ‘This Fifthstair, only way in. All others blocked.’ He pointed back down the way they had come. ‘No other way to get here. Well, one other. Brokkengird go there now!’ With that, the berzerker set off at a run none among Ulgathern-Grimnir’s duardin could match.

‘Make lines!’ called Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Hearthguard to the fore. Grokkenkir!’ he called. ‘Take the women and youngflames and go with Drokki to the gate! Can you get it open?’

Drokki swallowed hard and nodded. ‘Yes, that is the easy part.’

‘Good.’ Ulgathern-Grimnir gripped his axe and looked down the stairs. ‘We’ll hold them here. Hurry!’

Drokki ran after Brokkengird through the huge round doorway into a second chamber. This was slightly smaller than the first. The run of windows continued along the mountainside there, and from this new position Drokki could see the peak of the Ulmount several miles away.

A road of cracked marble led down the length of the hall to another dais, this one crowned with a circular doorway that matched the first in form, but it was no ordinary portal.

‘The realmgate!’ gasped Drokki.

The wall of the hall was visible twenty yards behind it. Unlike the door into the hall, which was fashioned from black granite blocks, the realmgate was made of a dazzling white stone set with ur-gold runes that glowed with dormant magic.

‘Aye, aye,’ said Brokkengird. He had made the far side of the room, and stood beside an open stone door. ‘Best open it quick, or everyone die, and that make Brokkengird angry, because Brokkengird get no ur-gold. See you soon, cripple priest!’ he said, and dived through the doorway out of sight.

‘What are your orders?’ asked Grokkenkir. His vulkite berzerkers were restless behind him.

Drokki opened his mouth to answer.

‘What shall we do, runemaster?’ asked a maiden. This open show of fear set up a muttering among the duardin.

‘This was your idea!’ shouted an angry voice at the back. ‘We’re all going to die!’

The crowd surged forward around Drokki. All of a sudden they were shouting at him from every side.

‘Silence!’ bellowed a powerful female voice. ‘Shivering with fright will do us no good!’ Amsaralka pushed her way to the front of the knot. ‘I’d suggest you, Grokkenkir, get half your vulkite berzerkers down the end of the hall to stop the enemy coming in, and the other half by the gate to stop whatever might be on the other side killing us if it turns out not to be friendly. And stop glancing back through the door at the others. I know you’d rather be in the fight with your lord, but this is honourable duty, protecting the young and maidens and those others who don’t fight.’

‘Of, of course,’ stammered Grokkenkir, his cheeks colouring.

‘Go on then, get to it!’ barked Amsaralka.

Grokkenkir hastily bowed and began dividing his fighters. Amsaralka grinned at Drokki. He stared back. ‘What? I’m going to be a queen. Don’t see why I should sit at the back being quiet. Now you get about opening that door! I mean, runemaster.’

Drokki sketched a bow to her before trotting up to the realmgate dais. Brokkengird was nowhere to be seen. He’s probably waiting to rob our corpses of ur-gold once this has all died down, thought Drokki glumly.

He approached the gate. The runes inscribed onto the stones responded to his presence, calling out to him in voices only he could hear. Looking around guiltily, he unwound a bead book he had stolen from the Ulgahold from around his waist.

He began to read aloud, the beads clacking through his fingers.

Much to his relief, the first rune on the gate’s array ignited with a fiery orange light. Encouraged, he read faster.

‘Here they come!’ roared Ulgathern-Grimnir, setting his stance firmly at the top of the stair and readying his grandaxe. ‘None shall pass!’

A wall of pale-fleshed things came rushing up out of the gloom. Some were recognisable as human, others were so monstrous little trace of humanity remained.

They wore scanty clothing, most of it tight and made from soft leathers of terrible origin. The few iridescent plates of armour they bore were impractical, hooked directly into their skin. The servants of Slaanesh would endure any agony in pursuit of fresh sensation, and the range of horrible mutilations they had inflicted on themselves was dazzling in its variety.

Strong-smelling musk rolled up the stairs before them, making Ulgathern-Grimnir light-headed.

‘Give fire!’ he roared.

Rune-empowered magmapikes sang, conjuring gobbets of molten stone into their flared mouths, and spitting them forward with great force. A wave of invigorating heat engulfed the front rank of Fyreslayers. They clashed their weapons on their slingshields and roared at the oncoming horde. The lava bombs smashed into the packed mass of enemy warriors, igniting several and splashing many others with searing molten stone. The Slaaneshi screamed in ecstasy at the pain. Besides the heat of the bombs, the mass of the rock did plenty of damage, knocking them back down the steep stairs where they tangled with their fellows, creating bottlenecks that the duardin were quick to exploit. Axes flashed out, felling dozens of daemons as they scrambled over their wounded fellows. The smell of burning flesh and molten rock drove away the sickening musk of the Chaos horde.

There was time for one more round from the magmapikes, and then the Slaaneshi were into the main duardin line.

Initially the Fyreslayers had the superior position. They swept their massive axes back and forth, hewing down the Slaaneshi methodically. The hearthguard retreated behind the front line, angled their weapons upward, and continued to lob burning stone down upon the Chaos reavers. The stair’s width clogged with butchered tribesmen and cooling rock. Perfumed blood ran down the steps, making them treacherous underfoot.

Ulgathern-Grimnir threw off a lilac-furred thing that grappled with him. It landed on all fours, displayed itself lewdly at him and scampered away. Ulgathern-Grimnir grunted in satisfaction as a glob of lava caught it square in the side as it ran, killing it instantly and setting the corpse ablaze.

‘We might win this yet lads!’ he shouted. ‘Grimnir! Ulgahold! Barakaz-dur!’

The Chaos worshippers retreated down the steps. ‘Yeah, go on, run off back to your silky pavilions! All mouth, the lot of you!’ His crowing faltered. From the corners of his eyes he became aware of the blood of his kin. Fyreslayers kicked the corpses of their foes down the stairs. Their eyes glowed with ragefire. Cinders puffed from the mouths of the angriest.

Ulgavost came to his side from the left flank. ‘Brother, we should retreat while we can, get back to the gate.’ He paused a moment. ‘Were I runefather, that is what I would do.’

‘Aye, well, you’re not runefather, are you,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘Fine,’ said Ulgavost coldly. ‘We don’t have enough left to weather another assault like that.’

‘I’m sorry, brother,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We’re better off here, that is all. They’ve a steep climb, and nowhere to organise. It’s the best position.’

‘That’s your decision, I suppose,’ said Ulgavost, and some of the tension left him.

Drumbeats came from the depths of the stairs, the heavy tread of armoured feet behind them.

‘Looks like they’re not done with us yet,’ said Ulgavost. ‘I’ll get back to the left.’

‘Good luck, brother,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘You too, runefather,’ said Ulgavost.

The reavers had gone. The Slaaneshi elite came in their stead. Huge armoured figures trod the stair, their helmets blank and armour a riot of gaudy, metallic colours. As they came within a hundred steps, they locked tall shields together, and began to chant.

‘Qualar Vo! Qualar Vo! Qualar Vo!’

‘Let them have it!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir.

Magma pelted down onto the warriors, booming from shields and dripping onto the steps. The warriors came on unaffected, resetting their shields after every strike. They were the champions of Slaanesh, the lost and the damned, and they would not die easily.

They broke into a run at the last few steps and crashed into the duardin with such might the Fyreslayers were forced back. The advantage the duardin possessed was quickly gone, then reversed, for the Chaos warriors were so tall they struck down at the shorter warriors once they were on level ground.

Ulgathern-Grimnir swung his axe, cutting a purple-armoured warrior in two. To an untrained eye the grandaxe might have seemed unwieldy, too massive to be of much use, but the runes in Ulgathern-Grimnir’s body gave him great strength, and he moved the weapon as easily as if it were a willow switch. He stove in breastplates with the heavy knob on the end of the haft, cut heads from shoulders with the broad key-head, and caught sword and axe blades in its slots and broke them into pieces with hard twists. None could stand against the young runefather, and the fire in his eyes was terrible to behold.

In spite of Ulgathern-Grimnir’s best efforts, the Fyreslayers were pushed backwards, past the throne dais, towards the doorway where the vulnerable members of their lodge waited for Drokki to open the gate. Grokkenkir’s warriors barred the entrance, but there were too few of them to hold the Chaos warriors back for long should Ulgathern-Grimnir fall.

‘Come on, Drokki! Get that gate open,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir through gritted teeth.

The Chaos warriors chanted louder.

‘Qualar Vo! Qualar Vo! Qualar Vo!’

‘I am here, my children!’ hissed a feminine voice. Quiet, as intimate as a lover’s whisper, it nevertheless cut through the tumult of battle.

A daemon of Chaos stepped into the hall from the stairway. As tall as a gargant, its head was that of a cow, supporting a broad spread of blood-red horns. It had powder-blue skin, four arms, and carried three swords and a long black leather whip. Its hoofed feet were encased in shining boots tipped with steel. The chainmail harness it wore was immodest. Useless as protection, it accentuated the features of the daemon’s mixed gender. Ulgathern found himself entranced by its sinuous movements. A heavy smell of unwashed bodies and cloying perfume filled the hall. A dark passion rose in Ulgathern-Grimnir in response, distasteful and intoxicating. He fought it down, but even as he brought it under control he knew that everything that brought him pleasure in future would be tainted by this experience.

‘I am Qualar Vo, the Unredeemed.’ It pointed a long, painted fingernail at Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Little duardin, so stubborn, so strong-willed, so boring. Let your passions flow, and join with me. Such things I will show you.’

The Chaos warriors backed away as the daemon strode forward, hips swaying provocatively. The smell of it intensified, causing some of the Fyreslayers to moan, others to retch. A headache pounded in Ulgathern-Grimnir’s head. The creature stood over him, its loincloth flapping inches from his face, and the stink of it made him dizzy.

‘So fierce! You should enjoy the finer things in life more. Pleasure is a generous master.’

‘Pleasure in depravity, in carving the flesh from your own body because your sensations have become so dulled? No, thank you,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir, and he was horrified at how weak his voice sounded.

‘I know you yearn to embrace me, to feel my tender caresses.’ A long, prehensile tongue slipped from the daemon’s mouth. ‘You are young to be a runefather.’ The daemon surveyed Ulgathern-Grimnir’s small band of warriors. ‘Another doomed offshoot of your race, sent off to grub about in the dirt for fragments of your god. It’s simply tragic.’

‘You will not bend me to your will,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘No? Your brother submitted himself quite willingly.’

‘You lie!’

‘Then who opened the realmgate into the Ulgahold, if it were not Mangulnar? Even now your kinsfolk die thanks to his treachery.’

Something snapped in Ulgathern-Grimnir. The fires of his heart were damped down by the thing’s musk no more, but flared up, burning the fog from his mind. He swung his axe at the daemon, but it laughed condescendingly and moved lightly out of reach.

‘How predictable. You little ones have always been so very dull, whichever world you burrow through.’

Qualar Vo raised an arm, and the Chaos warriors came surging back. From the stairs poured a horde of twisted tribesmen, flooding around the circle of duardin, a portion of them running for the door and Grokkenkir’s berzerkers holding it.

‘I loathe dullness,’ said Qualar Vo. ‘My aim is to remove its stain from the world. Dance the bloody dance. Let slip your passions, my children!’

The Chaos warriors attacked, and Ulgathern-Grimnir found himself in the fight of his life. The daemon musk slowed his warriors, but invigorated the enemy. Ulgathern-Grimnir held his breath as he swung his latchkey grandaxe, swatting away the warriors. He was fixed on the daemon, but always it moved away from him, directing its endless swarm of decadent worshippers to attack Ulgathern-Grimnir in its stead. He hewed and hewed until his runes burned so hot they singed his flesh. Even with this magic, however, he tired, and his axe became heavier. He did not relent, ploughing on toward the daemon, but it was hopeless. His warriors fell, but the Chaos ranks did not diminish no matter how many he hacked down, and the daemon would not come within reach.

Nightmare creatures crowded him, their weapons and writhing appendages reaching out to attack.

Ulgathern-Grimnir’s runes fizzled, the magic starting to fade.

‘Ah! Grimnir cannot help you now!’ said the daemon, and it presented its weapons and advanced on him. ‘It is time we danced.’

‘Only now that I am reduced to my mortal strength do you come at me? You are a coward!’

‘What need of honour have I? None. Another tedious mortal conceit. I would enjoy killing you as much whether you were a hero or an old woman.’

Qualar Vo leapt at Ulgathern-Grimnir. It brought two of its three swords down hard. The runefather lifted his axe over his head. It was cripplingly heavy without Grimnir’s magic to sustain him. The swords slammed into the metal haft, driving him to his knees.

‘Pathetic,’ said the daemon. It raised its sword to strike again. ‘Now you die.’

The trumpeting roar of a magmadroth boomed from the stairwell, followed by a wash of fire.

‘Then again, maybe not,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

Brokkengird bounded out of the stairwell, framed by a blazing ball of ur-salamander bile. Ulgathern-Grimnir marvelled at how high he leapt, his legs lent incredible strength by his ur-gold. The runes burned all over him with unfettered fire. His eyes and mouth shone as brightly as a forge’s heart. The air wavered around him.

Brokkengird came down swinging. His axe was a blur, taking one of the daemon’s arms off at the elbow. Stinking black blood jetted from the stump, but though it roared in outrage, the daemon responded immediately with its own weapons. Brokkengird moved so quickly his body was streaked with glowing trails of fire magic. He and the daemon traded blows furiously.

The sneer on the daemon’s face shrank and vanished as it was forced back by Brokkengird’s relentless attack. It lashed its whip round and round, seeking to keep Brokkengird away. The grimwrath berzerker grabbed it, and yanked hard. His muscles were so saturated in magic he had the might to challenge a Keeper of Secrets. Qualar Vo stumbled, falling to one knee. With a triumphant ululation, Brokkengird spun on the spot, sweeping his mighty axe around and down. The daemon’s head tumbled to the stone, the black fluid that served it for blood spraying forth.

From the stairwell emerged a magmadroth, huge and furious. The black and red striping of its hide was instantly recognisable to Ulgathern-Grimnir; Grakki-grakkov, Tulgamar-Grimnir’s mount.

‘Tulgamar!’ he called. ‘Tulgamar!’

Ulgavost looked up at the name and saw for the first time the arrival of their brother. He shot Ulgathern-Grimnir a grin and charged into the tribesmen between their position and Tulgamar-Grimnir. Fyreslayers came in Tulgamar’s wake, slaughtering all before them. The magmadroth stamped around itself, crushing the Slaaneshi under its giant clawed feet. It half-turned, its tail sweeping a dozen men from the ground and sending them crashing to their deaths against the wall. It drew back its head, its chest swelled, and it spat out thick bile that ignited on contact with the air, spattering a swathe of the enemy with fire.

‘Grimnir! Grimnir!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. His exhausted duardin had fought free of their knot. Most of the Chaos warriors were dead. What had been a fight for survival had turned in their favour and become an extermination. They cut down the remaining daemon-lovers without mercy.

Soon enough, Ulgathern-Grimnir found himself standing before Tulgamar.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said, grinning with relief. ‘I thought you weren’t going to come!’

‘You know I considered it.’ Tulgamar slapped the steaming hide of his mount. ‘The choice was presented to me again, and this time in your favour, when Mangulnar opened the forbidden gate. Daemons and worse poured into the middle deeps, and at the same time they attacked the Hardgate, sending great beasts against it. Drokki was right. The hold has fallen, Ulgathern-Grimnir. We barely got out alive. We followed your trail, fearful of the daemonkin and of Brokkengird.’

The grimwrath berzerker gave them a cheery wave at the mention of his name.

‘But then he brought us here, and, well. You know the rest.’

‘What happened to Mangulnar?’

Tulgamar shrugged. ‘I can only pray to Grimnir he found the reward he deserved.’

‘Ranganak? Ulgamaen? Briknir? The others…?’

‘All of them dead, or soon to be,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir sorrowfully. ‘We have Marag-Or, and I have maybe three hundred warriors with me, double that of the folk from all the lodges.’

The ground shook, a sign of an impending eruption. The whole of Gaenagrik shuddered.

‘The runemasters have called upon the Ulmount. They’re bringing it down,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

‘We have to go,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘This way.’ The three of them ran into the gate hall, hundreds of duardin streaming after them.

The realmgate’s aperture glowed bright. On the other side was the peaceful scene of a ruined city being reclaimed by forest; a hot, humid day bright with sunshine filtered through dissipating mist.

‘Drokki! You did it!’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘Yes, yes I did,’ said Drokki, sounding somewhat surprised.

‘Where does it lead?’ said Ulgavost.

‘The city of Vharrashee.’

‘Mannish?’ said Ulgavost.

Drokki nodded. ‘It was. No longer. This was Gaenagrik’s main trading partner in the Mordash lowlands. That is why this gate went there. The Volturung hold is some way from there.’

Through the great windows of the hall they could see the Ulmount erupting. Lava fountained skyward, the amount of it and height it attained lending it the illusion of slowness. Orange tongues of fire ran down the mountainside. The ground shook.

‘The mountain sings its songs of fury,’ said Ulgavost softly.

Gaenagrik shook again. Rubble crashed down at the far end of the hall.

‘It won’t save them. It will kill us too, if we do not go through the gate,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir urgently.

Ulgavost nodded. Without another word, he stepped through the gate. On the other side he looked around, inspecting the ruins. Tulgamar-Grimnir barked orders that sent a large regiment of his own, fresher warriors after his brother to protect him.

Ulgathern-Grimnir roused his own weary people. ‘Get them up. We need to leave. Now.’

‘What kind of land is it, through there?’ asked Tulgamar-Grimnir of Drokki.

‘I can tell you… Well, I can tell you what kind of land it was, but what kind it is now? That we will have to see.’

‘Are you sure Volturung still stands?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Huh,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir. ‘Oh well.’ He stamped down on the thick scales of his mount. ‘Huphup, Grakki-grakkov! Into the woods! You’re going home to the lands of fire!’

The great ur-salamander rumbled happily, and plodded through the realmgate.

Drokki and Ulgathern-Grimnir remained on the Ghur side of the gate, shepherding their relatives and followers through. Marag-Or came last.

Ulgathern-Grimnir grabbed his arm before he could pass through the shimmering skin of magic dividing one realm from the next. ‘Tell me. If I had done as my father asked, and not listened to Drokki, would the hold have fallen?’

‘Prophecies are tricky things, Ulgathern-Grimnir,’ said Marag-Or. ‘Often they contain the seed of their own fulfilment. Who can tell?’ He pulled his arm free, and passed through the realmgate.

Drokki went next, leaving Ulgathern-Grimnir alone in the shaking halls of Gaenagrik.

He took one last look at the burning Ulmount before stepping through to another world.

He never set eyes upon his home again.

II

Eight days after coming into the realm of Aqshy, the Ulgaen lodges came weary and footsore down mountain paths to the Broken Plains. Through beastman-infested swamps and into the arid Firespike Mountains they had travelled. The mood of the lodges was mixed. In Aqshy they found much to delight them, and being in their ancestral realm lifted their spirits. In the swamps the air was as warm and thick as that of a forge, and pleasingly sharp in the mountains. But their thoughts strayed often to their lost kin. They had little food, and were alone in a hostile land.

So it was that when the plains opened up before them their hearts lifted. They were as broken as their name suggested, a country-sized lava flow that had been cracked by the movements of the earth into giant broken plates of stone, all tilted at thirty degrees, their raised sides pointing away from the mountains. They were all of a size – an endless sharp-edged landscape of black teeth salted with white sand. The plains were featureless, but for a duardin causeway running down the middle of the plain parallel to the mountain range. The road was obvious from on high, but as they reached the plains it disappeared between the jagged stone teeth, leaving the Fyreslayers to negotiate a labyrinth that taxed even their finely honed sense of direction.

The sun beat down mercilessly. In the crevices between the rocks there was not a breath of wind. It was hot enough to bake bread, and it made them sweat, fire-born though they were.

Though the journey to the road from the mountains was but a short part of their trek, by the time they reached it they were more exhausted than ever before, and coated with dust.

Ulgathern-Grimnir clambered onto the causeway. In one direction the road stretched away to the vanishing point, disappearing into the shimmering heat haze of the plains. In the other direction, where the mountains thrust themselves out into the desert, lay the Voltdrang of the Volturung lodges. It was many miles away yet, but so vast in scale that they could easily see it from their new vantage.

A whole mountainside had been refashioned into the roaring face of Grimnir-at-war. His curled beard cascaded down the rocks to merge with those of the plains. His craggy brows made a stepped series of battlements. His eyes were giant windows, also fortified, between a hooked nose topped with a rampart. The lower jaw of his roaring mouth disappeared under the stone. A huge throat went into the cliff. At the bottom of it was a massive pair of stone gates whose fyresteel reinforcements glinted in the sun.

Tulgamar-Grimnir’s magmadroth clambered onto the road after Ulgathern. Ulgavost followed him. The three siblings stared at their goal.

‘That’s an impressive sight,’ said Ulgavost.

‘Aye,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘What do we do? March up and knock?’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir. Grakki-grakkov rumbled and yawned.

‘I don’t have a better idea,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Get everyone up on the road. It’ll be quicker going, and better if they can see us coming.’

It took far longer to get their people out of the baking crevasses than Ulgathern-Grimnir would have liked. By the time all eleven hundred of them were on the road, the sun was going down and a strong wind was coming out of the desert.

‘Get a move on!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We can’t be stuck out here at night!’ He turned to his brothers. ‘Get the best we have up front. Let’s look presentable. I want us to arrive as lords, not beggars.’

Arranged with as much dignity as they could muster, they continued on the last leg of their journey.

As they neared the hold, cairns appeared atop the rocks, singly or in twos and threes at first, then with increasing frequency until every tilted stone tooth was capped.

‘Armour, and arms,’ said Ulgavost.

‘Um, yes,’ said Drokki. ‘They build them from the many enemies who have come against their fortress and failed.’

‘I know that!’ said Ulgavost. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘His point is, the stories are true,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

‘They’re not just true,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir, taking in the endless heaps of bones and armour, and the massive face growing steadily before the column. Already it was big enough to swallow the sky, and they weren’t even halfway there. ‘They don’t tell the half of it.’

They walked on into evening. The mountain reared higher and higher, Grimnir’s face appearing titanically huge.

The Fyreslayers were already feeling daunted when a tremendous peal of trumpets blasted out from the Voltdrang. They blared across the silent desert. With no other noise to challenge them, they seemed to go on forever.

‘The gates! They’re opening!’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

A muted cheer went up from the column.

The rattling of the gate mechanism came to them cleanly, again for the lack of any other noise to compete. Shouting and the sound of marching feet echoed around the wide throat of Grimnir, followed by more trumpets.

‘Send Brokkengird to the back,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘I don’t want him coming out with anything regrettable.’

Brokkengird farted loudly. Beaming at himself, he turned about and marched away to the column’s rear.

They were close now. Outside the hold the plain had been flattened and a town constructed. The buildings were all duardin-built, but sized for a mixture of peoples, as far as Ulgathern-Grimnir could tell. The place was ruinous, the buildings tumbledown, its defensive wall so full of breaches that the few parts still at full height resembled rough pillars.

‘The Voltdrang seems inviolable at distance,’ Ulgavost said beneath his breath, so that only Ulgathern-Grimnir would hear. ‘These ruins tell a different story.’

‘Their hold stands still,’ Ulgathern-Grimnir replied. ‘That is all that matters.’

It was there, in the central plaza of the ruins, that the Volturung Fyreslayers greeted them.

A great lord approached them, born aloft on a litter of gold and steel made in the form of a stylised magmadroth. Eight warriors carried it, their biceps studded with runes of strength. The lord wore more ur-gold than Ulgathern-Grimnir had ever seen on one duardin. His hair was easily four feet high, framed by an elaborate helm and crest of gold and jewels. He rode the litter standing, his hands clasped on the top of a double-headed rune-axe. Behind him marched four hundred hearthguard, all heavy with gold and ur-gold.

Horns blared one more time and the litter came to a halt on the other side of the square to the Ulgaen lodges.

Ulgathern-Grimnir nodded to Drokki. He stepped forward and bowed so low his crest brushed the roadway.

‘O high and mighty lords of Volturung! We, the people of the Ulgaen lodges, have travelled many long days to meet with you. We humbly beseech you for aid. Our home is–’

‘You’re a sorry lot, and no mistake,’ interrupted the Volturung lord.

Drokki stopped talking. His confidence evaporated.

‘Runefather!’ he began again, more weakly. ‘We ask only–’

‘Do you hear that? Runefather!’ The Volturung delegation laughed loudly. ‘Voltus-Grimnir wouldn’t rouse himself to greet a bunch of vagabonds like you. I am his fifteenth son, Golgunnir. I suppose I must look like a runefather to you, paupers that you are.’

Golgunnir was old enough and richly decorated enough to be a runefather. Gold pendants hung around his neck in layers. His skin was studded with ur-gold runes. One or two more and he’d be a grimwrath berzerker, but Ulgathern-Grimnir was having none of his poor bearing, gold or not.

‘Right then, runeson. I am a runefather, and I invoke the right of hospitality, and the rights of seniority.’

‘You do, do you?’

‘Yes. So shut up and do me the courtesy of listening. We come here to ask for sanctuary. Our hold was destroyed. Our people are homeless. Volturung is the great-great-great grandsire of our lodge. We return to our homeland and ask for aid.’

Golgunnir rudely looked away until Ulgathern-Grimnir had finished.

‘What happened to your hold?’

‘His brother opened a tainted realmgate and let the hordes of Chaos come flooding in!’ shouted Brokkengird.

‘I thought he’d gone to the back,’ muttered Ulgavost.

Ulgathern-Grimnir closed his eyes. His temper roared hot. ‘We are your kin!’

‘Ulgaen, you say? Never heard of you. Do you know how many lodges Volturung is father to?’ said Golgunnir. ‘Do you? Scores. There are nearly a dozen that claim the name Volturung in their title alone. We can’t take every failing branch back. We’re full, sonny.’

‘You will address him as runefather!’ said Ulgavost angrily. ‘He and Tulgamar-Grimnir both.’

‘I’m twice the age of your runefather. I’ve five times more warriors to command, and I’m reckoned the fourth senior of Voltus-Grimnir’s sons. Now, my father is runefather, highest lord of all the Volturung kin-lodges, which I suppose includes you. Do you see what I’m saying? Your lot, you’re a stripling lodge looking for a handout. That is not the Fyreslayer way. If you’ve got ur-gold to pay us to fight, then fine. If you have something to offer us for our mutual profit, we can talk. But you’re not moving in no matter what, not if you brought me Grimnir’s golden big toe and dropped it at my feet.’

‘Do you think you might show me a little respect, young one?’ Marag-Or came forward. ‘I’m older than you by far.’

Golgunnir’s attitude changed a little. He bowed. ‘One as old as you, runemaster, is worthy of respect wherever he goes. I am sure space can be found, should you wish it.’

The gold beads woven into Marag-Or’s beard clacked as he shook his head. ‘I’m sticking with family. They may not have much in the way of gold, but at least they have manners.’

Golgunnir’s followers laughed again. The runeson gave them an angry look. A junior-looking runesmiter came to his side, and began to whisper in his ear, a concerned look on his face, he gestured at the Ulgaen. Golgunnir listened a moment, his face souring.

‘He’s getting an ear-burning,’ said Ulgavost out of the side of his mouth. ‘The bastard’s been playing with us.’

Golgunnir nodded exasperatedly then flapped the priest away.

‘My noble priest, Runesmiter Keskilgirn, reminds me of my father’s offer.’

‘There’s an offer?’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘Yes, runefather,’ he said disparagingly. ‘There is room for you to settle, in a mountain three days to sunward. The Steelspike we call it, good ore land there. Nothing fancy: iron and lead and your other essentials, and you’ll have to dig deep to get to the earthblood, but there’s plenty for a duardin with a strong back and a will to bend it. It is outside of our current borders, but it’s better than nothing. You are welcome to it in exchange for your fealty, and a pledge to maintain order in the valleys and hills around it. The contract’s in the book.’ He waved his hand at a richly bound tome, made with pages of pressed tin. This was brought forward to the Ulgaen. Drokki flicked through it and nodded.

A sense of relief radiated over the column. Ulgathern-Grimnir smiled broadly.

‘Tell you father that w–’

Golgunnir held up a heavily ringed hand. A sly smile stole across his lips. ‘Before you get too effusive in your thanks, there is one other thing you need to know.’

‘Here we go,’ said Ulgavost.

‘Steelspike is infested with skaven. You want it, you drive them out.’

Golgunnir shouted out orders, and the horns of the Volturung rang. The Volturung Fyreslayers turned about, the gates of the Voltdrang commenced their slow opening, and Golgunnir’s bearers began the delicate process of turning the litter around.

‘Wait! We can’t go now!’ protested Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Stop! You sully the customs of hospitality.’

‘Oh, yes. Forgot. You can camp here,’ said Golgunnir as the litter trundled round. ‘You’ll be quite safe. Chaos has grown tired of defeat before our gates. No doubt my father will send out food and ale.’ He said this as if he thought it a poor idea.

‘What if we fall in battle?’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. The litter was facing back toward the gates.

‘Then your womenfolk, youngflames and such will be accepted into the lodge under the terms of bondage. They will have to earn their right to call themselves Volturung.’

‘That is unacceptable!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. The column was passing back through the gates of the Voltdrang.

Golgunnir laughed. ‘It’s all you’ve got.’

The litter passed through last. The gates clanged shut behind it, leaving the Ulgaen out in the rapidly cooling desert.

‘The thin-bearded weasling,’ said Ulgavost. ‘We throw our lives away fighting their battles, and our wives and children go into servitude for who knows how long.’

‘We’ll sort them out, won’t we, Grakki-grakkov?’ crooned Tulgamar-Grimnir to his magmadroth.

‘Little brother, Grakki-grakkov apart, I have no idea why father picked you as a Runefather,’ said Ulgavost, leaving the sentiment ‘instead of me’ unvoiced but heavily implied. ‘If it’s such a small matter why don’t they clear it out themselves? It’s a convenient way to get rid of us and keep their honour. Times are hard, but still.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ grumbled Ulgathern-Grimnir.

The gate horns sounded again. Smaller, subsidiary gates around the main opened and a stream of handcarts came out, marshalled by shouting victuallers.

‘Well, at least they weren’t lying about the ale,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir cheerfully. ‘The day is looking up.’

Ulgavost shook his head and spat on the ground. ‘A pot of ale and a hero’s death. That’s poor hospitality, and a poorer way to increase the weight of one’s purse.’

The mountains around the Voltdrang were home to numerous holds. The Ulgaen’s passage along the highways linking them brought a variety of reactions. Some among the Volturung lodges were sympathetic to their plight, while others were openly hostile, telling them their domain was full and that the Ulgaen should seek some other place to settle.

Ulgathern-Grimnir honoured those expressions of fellowship with small gifts of gold, and stoically bore the opprobrium of the rest.

As they proceeded, the mountains reduced in magnificence. The smattering of volcanoes became none at all. The Fyreslayers’ affinity to the earth’s heat told the Ulgaen that the earthblood retreated far underground there, almost out of notice. The last holds they passed were little more than outposts, modest in size and means. Nubby hills covered in sandy terraced fields replaced the soaring ridges and peaks. Farmers watched them from under their wide-brimmed hats, or ignored them as they drove their plough-goats to score the earth.

Two giant watchtowers closing the mouth of a shallow valley marked the end of the Volturung kin-lodges’ territory. Ulgaen-Grimnir and his brothers stopped to confer with the karl of the watch there, and were directed onwards.

‘Be careful,’ said the karl, a gruff but kindly duardin. ‘Out there, the ratkin are thick. You might not see them, but they will see you.’

The road continued out into wild country. The valleys fractured into a wilderness of gullies. In response, the road climbed up to run along the ridges where the ground was easier. Behind them were the Firespikes, and ahead the hills became rounder and smaller, dropping down to reveal the Broken Plains once more. The desert conditions had softened, and the rocks jutted out now not from sand but from a heavy scrub of thorny trees.

One last mountain remained, looking over the plain: a small, sleeping volcano, as thin as a spear point. The outline of it was broken up by rickety-looking gantries and platforms, delicate against the far horizon. The smoke of industry rose from its flanks.

‘Brokkengird smell rat-things,’ said the grimwrath berzerker testily.

‘There’s nothing here, you maniac,’ said Ulgavost. ‘You can’t possibly smell them at this distance.’

‘Hey now, brother, best be careful, eh,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

Brokkengird sniffed at the air and scrambled off.

‘Now look what you’ve done. Come back!’ said Ulgathern-
Grimnir. Brokkengird paid him no heed and vanished around a boulder.

‘Bah, he’ll be back. If not, good riddance. Looks like they’ve been busy over there,’ said Ulgavost. ‘How many do you reckon there are?’

‘Thousands,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

‘Tens of thousands,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

Grakki-grakkov growled.

‘There’d be no shame in giving up, going somewhere else. It’d be better to swallow our pride than stir that lot into action,’ said Ulgavost.

‘Tulgamar?’ asked Ulgathern.

‘I’ll do whatever you think best,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir. ‘But Ulgavost does have a point.’

‘N-no,’ said Drokki. ‘We have to stay here. What else can we do? Wander the world homeless? We can take it.’

‘There are worse things than being a wandering lodge,’ said Ulgavost. ‘Assaulting the gates of that place being one of them.’

‘Who said anything about a full frontal assault?’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Are we not duardin?’ He winked at Drokki. ‘We go under it.’

‘Lordling full of good ideas!’ said Brokkengird, returning to the road. He threw a headless skaven corpse down at Ulgathern-Grimnir’s feet. ‘There’ll be less of these to fight head on if we go underground. Clever little lordling.’

‘Shhh!’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

At his command, the Mining Fellowship ceased work, muffled picks stilled at mid-stroke.

‘Douse the lamps!’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

The two runelamps in the tunnel went out. Sparks of fire glinted in the eyes of the duardin. They stayed stock-still for several minutes.

A quietly tapped code gave the all clear.

‘Alright,’ Ulgathern-Grimnir whispered. ‘Continue.’

The Ulgaen Mining Fellowship set to work again, timing their blows to the pulsing of machinery that resonated through the rock.

For three hours they toiled, the Ulgaen warriors keeping watch. Some of them thought they should use the runesmiters’ magic to melt their way through the rock, though none dared say it. But Ulgathern-Grimnir needed the zharrgrim to save their strength for the task ahead, and he did not want to give the skaven advance warning of their approach. Magma tunnelling was anything but quiet.

‘All change!’ said Amsaralka. The Mining Fellowship stepped back from the rockface, rotating their arms and stretching their muscles out. A fresh band came forward and took up their tools.

‘Let me help,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

Amsaralka smiled at him. ‘Mining is not a leader’s work. What would your warriors say?’

‘They’d say there is a runefather who gets his hands dirty with his people,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. They touched noses briefly.

‘No, runefather,’ she said. ‘I’ll not have you hacking away at the rock. One more day and we’ll be through into the cavern. One wrong blow could bring the wall down before we’re ready.’

Ulgathern-Grimnir took a step back. ‘As you wish, my lady.’

‘Soon we’ll be done,’ she said.

‘Then the real work begins,’ said Ulgathern.

Brokkengird strode along the rough road toward the Steelspike. His onyx greataxe was already slick with skaven blood. He sang a very loud, very rude song as he approached. Some three hundred yards in front of the main gate, he stopped and planted his feet firmly apart.

‘Oi, oi, oi! Furry little thieves! Brokkengird is here! Brokkengird wants your mountain! Come out and give it to him, and maybe you keep your worthless heads!’

A small, sharp crack answered his challenge. There came the musical passage of a bullet through the air. It exploded into fragments ten feet in front of the berzerker.

‘And Brokkengird knows how far silly ratguns fire!’ He laughed uproariously at nothing in particular. ‘Come out if you want Brokkengird. He is not going anywhere.’

A dozen gun reports rippled across the mountain. The bullets came a fraction of a second later. Most reached no further than the first, kicking up a storm of stony splinters from the road. One buzzed toward Brokkengird, but he leaned out of its way contemptuously.

‘Brokkengird better shot with rancid old grot head!’ he shouted.

The gunfire stopped. The ramshackle gate creaked wide. A moment later, a regiment of tall black-furred skaven marched out.

‘Oh good, you send your best out first. It is very boring when you do it the other way.’

The stormvermin broke into a clattering scamper. As they neared Brokkengird they levelled their halberds.

Brokkengird grinned widely. The ur-gold hammered into his muscles glowed. He waited until he could see the beady black eyes of the skaven warriors. Only then did he roar, ‘Grimnir!’ and throw himself forward.

Brokkengird exploded into the regiment. Ratmen flew everywhere. He tore through the middle toward the leader, hunched at the back. Their captain levelled a pistol at Brokkengird, but he cut the ratkin in half before its finger could pull the trigger. Bellowing incoherently, Brokkengird slew every last one of them. In short seconds, there were nothing but corpses littering the road, the sole survivor fleeing as quickly as it could back towards the gates. Someone shot the ratman down, then the guns turned again upon the grimwrath berzerker.

Bullets smacked into the corpses. Brokkengird did a little jig, dancing around their impacts. Waving his axe, he walked backwards until he was once more out of range.

Gongs and bells rang. More ratmen came out of the gates, hundreds of them this time, forming up in blocks with a discipline belied by their ragged appearance. They arrayed themselves in a curved battle line along the base of the mountain. They waited for their signal, filthy banners flapping in the breeze.

Then, with a clamour of gongs, the skaven swarmed forwards. Brokkengird howled with delight.

Brassy horns trumpeted out a belligerent march. Behind Brokkengird, Tulgamar-Grimnir’s magmadroth roared. Two hundred Ulgaen warriors climbed out from their hiding places in the valley that the road ran through, and marched out to join Brokkengird.

The battle for the Steelspike had begun.

Drokki took Marag-Or’s arm, although whether it was to steady the old longbeard or himself he was not sure. This was it, the final action. He sent a mental prayer to Grimnir.

‘Now!’ yelled Ulgathern-Grimnir.

Fifteen pickaxes, stripped of muffling rags, swung together at the wall. A hole opened up. A draft of stale air came through.

‘Again!’ ordered Ulgathern-Grimnir.

The Mining Fellowship hewed once more. This time the thin shell between their tunnel and the burrowings of the skaven gave way. Stone spilled into a broad, tubular corridor. The duardin flooded after it.

The tunnel was on an incline, curved in a way that suggested it to be a spiral. Chittering came from both directions. That from above sounded angry, that from below insane.

Ulgathern-Grimnir dragged his grandaxe through the hole. The tunnel was fifteen feet wide, broad enough to wield his weapon effectively. Days before, Drokki had hammered fresh runes into his muscles. Once again the grandaxe was light and easy for him to brandish.

A foul wind blew from the bottom of the spiral. The stench was indescribable. Drokki gagged on it.

‘We’ll hold the way here,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘You do what you must, Drokki.’

‘The stench is stronger that way, it must be the right direction,’ he said breathing through his mouth.

‘That will be where the skaven mothers are,’ said Marag-Or, seemingly unaffected by the stink. He frowned at the young runemaster. ‘Come now, Drokki, it’s only a bit of rat smell. Show some backbone, my boy.’

Drokki nodded so hard his beard flapped, holding his breath just the same. The runemasters’ escort of auric hearthguard and vulkite berzerkers fell in around them, led by Grokkenkir. They left Ulgathern to form up his warriors. The sound of tramping duardin feet echoed down the tunnel as the runefather led his war party further up the spiral.

A minute later the clash of arms rang out behind and above them.

‘For good or for ill, we come to our greatest test,’ said Marag-Or.

The corridor continued down and down, the battle noise growing fainter. The horrendous cacophony of squealings from the bottom became louder.

Drokki counted the revolutions of the spiral – five, ten, twenty. When he got to thirty-nine, it began to level out and ran straight. The stench had become so great it filled Drokki’s body from the toes of his boots to the tips of his crest. Marag-Or stumped on, unperturbed, but the vulkite berzerkers and hearthguard swore and coughed. The smell was as thick as smoke.

Copper pipes emerged from holes to run along the wall. Water dribbled from the joins. Steam hissed out through imperfect patching. There was a sharp, dry odour beneath the overwhelming rat stench. It was similar to the sensation ur-gold brought, but far less clean. Drokki’s spine tingled; he smelled warpstone, and it came from the water pattering onto the floor.

‘It’ll take forever to purify this mountain,’ said Drokki.

‘One thing at a time, lad,’ said Marag-Or. ‘We’ve got to take it first.’

The tunnel opened up. A vast lava chamber, empty of earthblood, loomed large. A ramp led up the side to catwalks criss-crossing the void. Strange machines and thick pipes were dotted around the place. Brass troughs full of blood gruel, overhung with filthy spouts closed by spinwheel valves, were placed at regular intervals around the chamber.

These were the feeding stations of the skaven mothers. There were dozens of them, crowded around the troughs, packed together for warmth. Long, hairless abominations, they lay on their sides, useless limbs clutching at the air in pain and madness. Their bellies heaved with unborn young and their multiple dugs were thick with unclean milk. The naked, blind bodies of infant skaven squirmed over each other all around them, fighting for nutriment. Death hung heavily over the mothers. The crushed corpses of luckless ratlings lay about the floor, many half devoured. The skaven mothers’ anaemic skin was streaked with dried blood and their own filth. From their gaping, razor-toothed maws came that endless, deafening squealing.

‘Grimnir’s holy fires,’ breathed Drokki. The stink was so thick he thought he would choke on it.

‘About there should do it,’ said Marag-Or, pointing to the centre of the room. ‘Auric hearthguard, remain by the entrance. Grokkenkir, clear us a way.’

‘Yes, runemaster,’ said the karl. He and a half dozen of his warriors moved forwards and set to work, slaying the skaven mothers and stamping their pink young underfoot. They were merciless in what they did. The skaven were the ancestral enemies of all duardin, Fyreslayer or otherwise.

The mothers screamed louder, and thrashed about, trying to bring their snapping mouths into reach of their assailants. They did little but crush their own children. Grokkenkir hacked the head from one sickly monstrosity, then another, until a path of bloated, pale corpses carpeted the way to the middle of the room.

‘Come on, we’ll follow. Perhaps you should lend a hand?’ said Marag-Or. Drokki hefted his axe in his good hand and nodded. He wanted very much for the squealing to stop.

Shouts came from behind them, and the runemasters turned back to see the hearthguard guarding the tunnel point to the rickety catwalks leading down from other tunnel mouths high overhead. There was movement up there, burly skaven beastmasters squeaking with rage at the duardin’s trespass.

Marag-Or ordered the rest of the warriors that accompanied the runemasters to block the bottom of the catwalk. Then he readied his own axe.

‘They’ll hold them off, young one. This won’t take long.’

Drokki buried his axe in the head of a skaven mother. He wiped blood from his face with the back of his arm and blinked.

Marag-Or nodded. ‘That’s the spirit.’

A skaven warlord screeched shrilly as Ulgathern-Grimnir drove his grandaxe’s haft into its chest, crushing its ribs. It went down thrashing, bloody froth at its lips.

‘Shoddy craftsmanship, that armour,’ he said.

The clanrats of the warlord wavered, but held. Then another half dozen fell to Ulgathern-Grimnir’s hearthguard berzerkers, and their nerve went. The Ulgaen surged forward as the skaven fled. The braziers attached to the hearthguard’s axes whirled around on their chains, touching off fires on the ratkin’s clothes and fur. The creatures fled, spreading flames among their fleeing fellows.

‘Hold!’ roared the runefather. Brass horns blared, conveying his orders. The duardin halted. The tunnel floor was carpeted with warm ratkin bodies.

‘We’ve a moment, move these back down the line. Stop them using their dead as cover. Halvir’s fyrd, come up front, let Brangar’s lot take a rest.’

The duardin moved smoothly past one another. Footing became better as the corpses were passed down the line from hand to hand. The few Fyreslayers who had been wounded were helped back to the break-in tunnel, where the Mining Fellowship waited to tend their hurts.

Drums and gongs rang down the corridor. Typical skaven tactics, thought Ulgathern. They were seeking to exhaust his folk with repeated waves, uncaring of the lives of their own warriors.

But then, there were always so very many of them.

This time they came with firethrowers, four weapons teams skulking behind the front ranks of a skaven regiment.

‘Ware!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Warpfire!’

He plucked a throwing axe from his belt and hurled it. His rune-empowered might sent it smashing right through the body of a skaven, but the first death took its impetus, and it bounced harmlessly from the shield of the warrior behind. Auric hearthguard with magmapikes hurried to his side from the back ranks and set up a bombardment. The skaven squealed as they were set ablaze and crushed by molten stone. One firethrower gunner was battered down by a hail of lava bombs, while his ammunition bearer became tangled by the tubes and harness connecting them, and he was crushed underfoot by the mass of skaven pushing from behind. Another exploded with a dull crump, immolating a score of ratmen. Ulgathern-Grimnir grinned, but when the fire blew out, the skaven were still coming.

By now the tunnel was thick with acrid smoke. Skaven burned everywhere. Still his hearthguard did not relent, pummelling the lead elements of the second wave with their magical weapons.

Then the firethrowers came into range.

Gouts of green-tinged fire burst outward. Skaven engineers played the jets back and forth, forcing the Fyreslayers to fall back, shields up. Several were caught, their screams turning to bubbling moans as their flesh sloughed away from their bodies in shrivelling sheets.

Ulgathern-Grimnir was at the heart of it. Warpfire, hotter than any natural heat, burst over his skin as the twin streams were directed at him. The pain was immense, but he refused to move. Grimnir’s fire answered the flames of the skaven. His eyes blazed. His ur-gold runes burned with protective magic. Setting his shoulders directly into the jets, he marched forward. The pressure of the burning liquid was great and he struggled against it. His runes fizzed with energy. One gave out with a bang, overcome by the ferocity of the skaven weapons. The molten metal streamed down his arm, but Ulgathern-Grimnir refused to die.

He made it to the skaven line with a wild grin on his face. Skaven blinked and cowered, unsure what to do. The engineers shut the fire off before it was reflected back onto themselves.

Ulgathern-Grimnir’s crest of hair had lost a good foot in height, and smoked vigorously. His skin was blistered and red, his wargear blackened. He lifted his arms to show that he was not seriously hurt, and laughed in their faces.

‘I am Ulgathern-Grimnir, a runefather of the Ulgaen lodges. I was born of fire, forged in fire, and empowered by fire. Your little candle can’t hurt me.’

He swung his grandaxe the full width of the corridor, its razor-sharp head felling a swathe of the ratmen.

With a roar the Fyreslayers charged up to their lord’s side. This time, they did not stop, but advanced a step for every skaven they killed.

The ground rumbled. A hot wind blew from the depths. The Fyreslayers cheered.

‘About time too,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir as the skaven were driven back. ‘Get on lads, drive them up and out, we don’t want to be in here when the mountain blows!’

‘Aid me, Drokki!’ called Marag-Or. His eyes glowed with yellow firelight. Ash sifted down from his mouth with every word. He slammed his staff into the ground. ‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’

The beastmasters of the birthing chamber fought ferociously against the Fyreslayers. They were bigger than normal skaven, incensed by the slaughter of the mothers, and took a heavy toll on the duardin. Drokki watched as a vulkite berzerker threw his bladed shield at a fresh party of skaven entering the hall by a secret tunnel, decapitating one and piercing another through the heart. The warrior gripped his axe and charged into the gap opened up by his shield, but was quickly swamped.

‘Drokki!’ called Marag-Or again. ‘To me!’

Drokki hurried over to the ancient runemaster. The fires of his own runic iron flared bright in sympathy with Marag-Or’s magic as he snatched it from its belt loop. He waited for Marag-Or’s next beat, then joined in, pounding on the rock in time with his old master.

‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’ they shouted together.

The ground shifted. A crack opened in the rock. Superheated steam roared out, cooking mewling skaven young by the score.

‘Yes! Yes!’ shouted Marag-Or. ‘You can feel it, can you not, Drokki? The power of the earthblood. Feel it rise!’

‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’ they shouted again. Their staffs slammed into the rock. Cracks ran out from their feet. The chamber quaked. The cracks widened into crevasses, the ruddy light of sluggish magma shining upward from deep underground.

The skaven’s sensitive noses twitched at the smell of burning rock. When another earthquake sent some of their feeding gear tumbling into the fires of the earth, they gave up their struggle, turned tail and ran.

‘Everyone out!’ shouted Marag-Or. He grabbed Drokki’s arm. ‘No more now, lad, we don’t want this place to go the way of the Ulgahold. Enough to burn the vermin out, no more.’

Grokkenkir’s warriors ran for the tunnel they had arrived by, dragging their wounded with them. The mountain no longer needed the runemasters’ encouragement and set up a terrific shaking all on its own. Molten rock oozed from the crevices in the floor, pooling in depressions. The cavern became as hot as a furnace. Skaven mothers, living and dead alike, burst into flame.

Drokki led Marag-Or over the broken cavern floor as best he could, helping him over the wider cracks, kicking skaven dead and boulders out of the way. Grokkenkir beckoned to them from the tunnel mouth, his eyes straying over Drokki’s shoulder at the rising tide of lava.

‘Come on, runemasters! Just a little way further!’ he cried.

Drokki stepped up the lip of the tunnel, and reached out a hand for the older runemaster. Lava filled most of the cavern floor and was creeping up the walls.

Marag-Or took his hand.

A shot rang out. Marag-Or’s eyes widened in surprise.

‘Skaven sharpshooters!’ bellowed Grokkenkir and pointed to where a number of jezzail teams were lining up on the catwalks.

Marag-Or looked down at his chest. A wisp of smoke rose from beneath his war harness. Blood welled after. ‘I’m done. You best get on, eh, lad?’ said Marag-Or. He let go of Drokki’s hand and fell back into the molten rock. His eyes closed as he sank into it, his skin blackened, and the fire took him.

‘Runemaster!’ said Drokki.

‘We have to head to the surface!’ said Grokkenkir, physically hauling Drokki back before he could jump into the lava after his mentor. A shot ricocheted off the wall and another shattered on the stone near their feet. ‘Now!’

Brokkengird sang as he cut down skaven by the score. Try as they might, they could not harm him. What few scratches he took only enraged him. He drove into them, a one-duardin army.

Tulgamar-Grimnir rode his magmadroth deep into the horde, the great ur-salamander spitting fire into the ratkin masses and igniting them by the dozen. Fyreslayers fought in disciplined ranks around the magmadroth’s feet, their axes cutting skaven down wherever they fell.

And yet still they were outnumbered, and the battle would have been lost, if two things had not occurred. Firstly, the ground’s booming and rumbling turned into a fully fledged earthquake so violent that skaven went sprawling. Smoke belched from the mountain’s summit.

Secondly, confusion took hold of the skaven still pouring from their lair. They began to falter, then to look behind themselves.

Ulgathern-Grimnir’s fyrd burst from the gates, smoke belching after them, slaying skaven as they came. The Runefather had lost many warriors, but those remaining fought ferociously and their arrival sent panic rippling through the skaven ranks.

‘Forward! To my brother!’ yelled Tulgamar-Grimnir. Grakki-grakkov reared high, pounding clanrats flat with its feet when it came down. Roaring, it broke into a lumbering canter, smashing ratmen aside as it ran for the gate. The Fyreslayers began to sing triumphantly. With trumpets blowing, they followed.

The skaven at the edge of the battle began to melt away. A few cowardly souls at first, then in great numbers.

The mountain boomed. Its smokes thickened. The Steelspike slept no more.

Brokkengird laughed. Today was a good day to kill.

The mass pyres of the skaven dead were still burning a week later when the rest of Ulgathern’s people came to join the hold from their camp at the Voltdrang.

The Fyreslayers refashioning the gates downed tools and ran out to meet the column as it appeared from the valley approach to the Steelspike. Families were reunited before the new hold. Ulgathern-Grimnir and his brothers were glad to see a sizeable force had been sent to escort them by the Volturung, and that they were well fed, clean and happy.

They were less pleased to see Runeson Golgunnir.

The runeson came on foot this time, and was garbed for war. Still far too ostentatiously for Ulgathern-Grimnir’s tastes, but at least he was dressed with fighting in mind.

‘Looks like I underestimated you,’ said Golgunnir. He looked around at the heaps of skaven bodies and gear. ‘You did a good job. You reawoke the mountain. Crafty.’

‘You thought we wouldn’t win.’

Golgunnir shrugged. ‘True. But my father thought you were in with a chance, or he would never have sent you. He’s an honourable sort, my father.’

‘You disapprove?’

Golgunnir nodded as he surveyed the mountain, the piles of scrapped machinery, the scaffolding around the gates where statues of Grimnir were already being roughed out in the rock. ‘I do. I’ll never be a runefather because of that. I’ve no faith in other folk. Still, at least I know my limits. Are there any tunnels left open?’

‘A few,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We’ve flooded the deepest with earthblood, set warding runes all about those higher in the mountain. I don’t want to plug them all, else how would we take the war to them?’

‘That’s what I hoped you’d say,’ said Golgunnir. ‘If I might have your permission, runefather, I will take my men hunting. The ratkin have regarded this land as theirs for too long.’

‘I grant it gladly.’

Golgunnir gave a brief nod, hitched up his belt, and held out his hand. ‘Welcome to the domain of the Volturung. Welcome home.’

Ulgathern-Grimnir clasped Golgunnir’s wrist. ‘If it’s all the same, we’ll be keeping the Ulgaen name. We are the last of our lodge-kin. Henceforth, we shall be Ulgaen-dumar lodge and Ulgaen-kumar lodge of Steelspike Hold.’

‘Whatever you like. You keep your side of the bargain, we’ll keep ours.’ Golgunnir sniffed. ‘There’s something else too.’

‘Oh?’

‘An ambassador. He should be here, about… now.’

Golgunnir looked skywards and took three steps back.

With a rush of wings, a huge warrior in gleaming gold armour slammed into the ground before Ulgathern, as shocking as a lightning strike. Wings of brilliant white light dazzled the Runefather, then were extinguished, the mechanisms that had projected them folding upon the warrior’s back.

A stern-faced war-mask looked down on him. Ulgathern-Grimnir was sure this was a human male. He had never seen one so big who was not in the service of the four powers, but the energy that crackled around him was not of Chaos, he was sure of that.

‘Hail, Runefather! I am Seldor, Knight-Azyros of the Hammers of Sigmar. I come to you with tidings of hope,’ said the angelic warrior. ‘The gates to Azyr are reopened. The stormhosts march. Sigmar returns to free the realms from the tyranny of the Dark Gods.

‘The war against Chaos has begun, and we seek allies.’

SKAVEN PESTILENS

Josh Reynolds

CHAPTER ONE

The Crawling City

Skuralanx the Scurrying Dark, the Cunning Shadow, servant of the Great Corruptor, verminlord and blessed child of the Horned Rat, crept on stealthy hooves through the dead temple towards its central chamber. The daemon’s massive frame was heavily muscled beneath his mangy hide, and his bifurcated tail lashed in equal parts annoyance and excitement as he ducked his many-horned, fleshless skull beneath a cracked archway.

He crawled, skulked, scurried and slunk through the shadows cast by the eternal lightning-storm which swirled about the cracked domes and shattered towers. Writhing streaks of lightning cascaded down broken statues or struck the pockmarked plazas of the temple-complex. The sky above was a knot of painful, shimmering cobalt clouds, and the daemon avoided the sight of it as much as possible.

The mortals who had built this place called it the Sahg’gohl – the Storm-Crown of the City-Worm. A fitting name, Skuralanx thought, for a place where the air stank of iron and the elemental heat of Azyr. Within the domed central chamber was a door to that realm, and it wept forever in fury. Perhaps that explained the lightning. Skuralanx didn’t know and didn’t particularly care. Such doorways could be twisted out of shape and off-path with ridiculous ease, if one knew the trick of it.

But that was not his purpose here. Not yet at any rate. He was no brutish Warbringer or treacherous Warpseer, looking to conquer for conquest’s sake. No, he was a child of the Great Witherer, born of blessed foulness and blighted shadows, and his was a higher calling. The Eater of All Things was in turmoil, roiling with conflicting desires which could only be assuaged by that which Skuralanx sought – or rather, by that which his servants sought on his behalf.

One of the Thirteen Great Plagues was here. He was certain of it. Hidden away from the eyes of mortals and daemons alike. Skuralanx had followed its trail from the Jade Kingdoms of Ghyran to the rime-encrusted tarnholds of the fallen duchies of Shyish, and now, at last, here, to the Ghurlands and a city built on the broad, ever-undulating back of a colossal worm.

And he had not come alone, no-no. Skuralanx was a craftsman, and like all craftsmen, he possessed many tools. Two had come to the city-worm at his command, though neither knew that the other served him. The skaven of the Red Bubo Procession and the Congregation of Fumes, drawn from the Clans Pestilens, had risen at his order and drowned the inhabitants of the city in a foetid tide of pox and pestilence. Led by their quarrelsome plague priests, the two congregations had burst from the body of the worm, ringing their doom-gongs and spreading noxious death wherever they scurried.

It had been a thing of beauty and horror in equal measure. A civilization, millennia old, ruined in a fortnight by the teeming, pestilent hordes that scurried forth at his behest. Even better, his chittering servants were now hard at work making this place fit for the children of the Horned Rat. Soon, this city, which had once belonged to the man-things, would instead be home to the Clans Pestilens. And Skuralanx would rule over them – whichever ones managed to survive, that is. He played no favourites and was content to allow them the freedom to murder one another with vicious abandon.

As long as one or the other found that which he desired, he cared nothing for their fate. They were in competition, and every setback and victory spurred them on to greater heights of cunning, just as he’d planned. Live or die, his triumph was assured. One of them would find the Liber and bring it to him.

Had he wished, he could easily have sought out the object of his desire himself. Indeed, there were some among his kin-rivals who would have done just that. But Skuralanx was patient. And besides, what was the point of having minions if one didn’t let them serve? Had not the Horned Rat spawned his children to serve him, after all?

Snickering, the verminlord leapt onto the shoulder of Sigmar. Or his statue, at least. Stern, bearded, unforgiving, the massive sculpture of the man-thing god glared out over the chamber where once his followers had gathered in worship. The chamber glowed with an unpleasant radiance. The glow emanated from the vast iron hatch composed of intersecting plates and set into the base of the statue’s plinth. Lightning dripped from it, crawling across the walls and floor in crackling sheets. It filled the air and made his hide prickle.

The interlocking plates had been designed to be opened only in the proper order. Skuralanx had no doubt that his cunning would prove equal to the task, when the need arose. At but a touch, he would wrench the realmgate open and twist it back upon itself, turning the way to the Jade Kingdoms and the maggot-infested warrens his minions called home. Plague congregations and clawbands without number awaited but the merest whisper of his voice, for his schemes and the tools with which he enacted them were infinite.

Beyond the chamber, through the shattered walls, Skuralanx could see the wide, pillar-lined causeway which connected the ruined temple to the rest of the city.

‘Blind, so blind, yes-yes,’ the daemon hissed, carving filthy runes into the statue’s cheek. He had come here every day for weeks to do so, because it amused him, and the statue’s face was all but swallowed up by the daemonic graffiti. ‘Can’t see what’s right in front of him, oh no. Blind god, broken god, dead god.’

He looked up past the lightning to the amber skies of the Ghurlands, where strange birds flew and worse things besides. ‘Soon, all of the gods will be dead, yes. Only one left, only the strongest, the stealthiest, the most brilliant of gods, yes-yes… all dead, and we will ascend in their place.’

They would rise and flourish, spreading decay across the Eight Realms. Yes, and more besides. All realms, all worlds, all peoples would fall. All would rot, never to be renewed. From out of this glorious corruption, new life would swell, but not mortal life, not man-thing life or hated duardin, no-no – only skaven life. Only the faithful skaven-life – no place for the unbelievers. All things would die.

And Shu’gohl, the Crawling City, would be the first.

The air smelled of worm. Not an unpleasant smell, by the standards of Vretch of the Red Bubo, but not altogether pleasing either. It was a coarse, acrid odour which clung tenaciously to everything here, living or otherwise. It filled the sprawling city of looming towers and swaying bridges which the skaven of the Clans Pestilens had, for the most part, occupied. It was even, regrettably, in his fur. It overlaid his natural pungency, subsuming the unique tang of his many and varied blessings, drowning them in worm-stink.

Chittering in annoyance, he scratched at a ripe blister until it burst, briefly releasing a revivifying aroma of pus and blood into the air. The plague priest’s thin nose twitched as the sickly-sweet smell faded, and was once more replaced by the dry stench of the monstrous enormity known as Shu’gohl, the Crawling City.

The great worm crawled ceaselessly across the Amber Steppes of the Ghurlands. Its segmented form stretched across the grasslands from sunrise to sunset, carrying the city and its people along with it. Shu’gohl crept slowly from horizon to horizon, day after day, devouring all in its path with remorseless hunger. It was not alone in this – to Vretch’s knowledge, there were at least ten of the immense worms remaining in the grasslands, driven to the surface in aeons past by great rains. Someday they might once more descend into the cavernous depths beneath the Amber Steppes, but for now they seemed content to squirm mindlessly across its surface, cracking the earth with their weight.

That suited Vretch just fine. The thought of all that amber-hued sky stretching far above was nothing less than terrifying to most skaven, but Vretch was not most skaven. And in any event, the Setaen Palisades were cramped enough to make any child of the Horned Rat feel at home. The great, bristle-like hairs which rose from the worm’s hide were as hard as stone, and thousands had been hollowed out in ages past to make the tiered towers which rose throughout the city.

Those hairs closest to the eternal lightning storm which wreathed Shu’gohl’s head had been made over into veritable citadels. They rose higher than any other structure in the city, and were connected by a vast network of bridges, nets and heavy palisades made from quarried worm-scale and frayed hairs culled from the worm’s dorsal forests. From the uppermost tiers, which Vretch had claimed for his own, one could see the entirety of the Crawling City. Not that there was much to look at. The man-things knew little of artisanry, preferring to stack stone rather than burrow through it.

His chambers were in the highest tiers of the Setaen Palisades, where the city’s noblest families had once resided. The former inhabitants now swung from makeshift gibbets and iron cages outside his windows, where they could be retrieved at any time he deemed necessary. Sometimes he rattled the chains, just to hear them moan. It had a soothing quality which he had come to appreciate in the weeks since his arrival.

The chamber at the heart of his domain was circular, and mostly open to the elements. The domed roof was supported by intricately carved pillars, and the floor was covered now by the tools of Vretch’s trade – ever-seething pox-cauldrons and bubbling alembics, piles of grimoires and heaps of parchment, and tottering stacks of cages, in which plague-rats and moaning man-things waited for his ministrations. Flayed hides, still dripping and streaked with rot, hung like curtains from the roof, and the signs most sacred to the Horned Rat had been carved onto every available surface. Plague monks clad in ragged robes moved back and forth through the chamber, their scrawny limbs bound in filthy bandages. They worked at various tasks, stirring his cauldrons and refining the battle-plagues they would inflict on the dwindling kernels of resistance within those areas of the Crawling City they controlled.

And then, and only then, it would be Kruk’s turn. Vretch’s claws tightened unconsciously as he thought of his brutal and foolish rival. Kruk, plague priest of Clan Festerlingus, had pursued Vretch to Shu’gohl like a bad smell. Then, that had always been Kruk’s way. Indeed, Vretch could almost admire such single-minded determination, were it not for Kruk’s blasphemous inclinations. Every skaven knows proper buboes are red, Vretch thought, grinding his teeth as the old anger surged through him. Red!

Both plague priests had followed a trail of stories whispered about the campfires of the savages who populated the Amber Steppes, racing to be the first to find their quarry. Vretch’s agents had spied upon the tribes of wild riders and nomads who fled before the approach of Shu’gohl. The worm-city crawled endlessly across the steppes and brought with it a strange plague, which afflicted all those caught in its shadow.

Vretch and his congregation had ascended on the worm, burrowing through its hard flesh and soft tissue to attack the city and its unprepared defenders from within.

Or so they had planned. Vretch ground his teeth in frustration. They had erupted from Shu’gohl’s flesh to find the defenders already occupied with Kruk and his heretical Congregation of Fumes. Now, Kruk held the tailwards section of the city, past the Dorsal Barbicans, though how long he would remain there only the Horned Rat knew.

He and Kruk were both looking for the same thing – the source of the mysterious plague which stalked in Shu’gohl’s wake. It rose from the worm’s ichors and stained the land black. The afflicted man-things grew hollow and rotted away, eaten inside out by burrowing black worms. He’d tested it numerous times since, and found it to be a thing of great beauty. Perhaps it was even one of the Thirteen Great Plagues…

The floor beneath his claws shuddered unexpectedly, and he tensed, clutching at a support pillar. He scuttled to the window and peered out over the expanse of the Crawling City, which sprawled like an unsightly encrustation across Shu’gohl’s broad segments. Its towers and tiers rose and fell with the segments and furrows of the great worm upon whose back it had been erected in millennia past.

Smoke still rose from beyond the distant walls of the Dorsal Barbicans. Kruk’s congregation hard at work, no doubt. Or perhaps something else… Only a few days ago, the skies overhead had grown dark and thunderous, and a harsh rain had fallen. Lightning had struck the great worm, causing it to shudder in agony. The storm clouds had dispersed somewhat as the worm continued its eternal crawl, but they were still there. His whiskers twitched.

The Setaen Palisades themselves rose in staggered levels, starting from a segment of the worm. The upper levels were built around the tops of setae, so that they moved when the worm moved. They had been crafted with care and skill, raised by the hands of eager artisans to house the mighty and wealthy of Shu’gohl. Now, they were steadily being transformed into fields of rot and plague by the hands of their former inhabitants.

How they wept, these weak man-things. How they shrieked and cried, as if they did not understand that all things rotted, all things died. Even the great worms of the Amber Steppes.

He looked down, eyes drawn by the clangour of industry. Far below, his followers oversaw the excavation of the Gut-shafts. Hordes of man-thing slaves, chained with iron and disease, cleared the great pores of flesh and solidified mucus, opening a path into Shu’gohl’s interior. As he watched, a geyser of the worm’s viscous blood spurted up, drowning a dozen slaves, as the Crawling City shuddered again. From somewhere far beyond the storm which wreathed the worm’s head, a throbbing, dolorous groan sounded. Birds rose from the tops of the towers and fled shrieking into the sky.

Soon, Vretch thought, the worm would die and its great hide would slough into bubbling ruin. A great stink would rise from it, choking the sky. It would be beautiful, Vretch thought. Especially if Kruk perished in the meantime.

A garbled moan caused him to turn. His assistants cowered back from the source of the sound, and he could smell the whiff of fear musk rising from them. Vretch chuckled and waved them back. The monks huddled away as Vretch stepped towards the crude plinth which had been built around the largest of his pox-cauldrons.

The Conglomeration was his finest work. A dozen slaves had gone into its creation, their tormented bodies merged through a combination of a hundred different plagues and poxes. Bile, pus and blood from weeping sores and raw wounds had flowed together to harden into stony scabs. The twitching mass of flesh, bone and infection sat astride its plinth and gazed down at Vretch with dull eyes.

‘Vrrretch,’ the thing said, with many mouths.

‘I am here, my most verminous of masters,’ Vretch said. The Conglomeration was an oracle, of sorts. On the rare occasions when it spoke, it did so with the voice of the Great Witherer. Other plague priests looked for their omens in the froth of cauldrons or the guts of boil-afflicted rats, but Vretch had provided the god and his servants a suitable receptacle for their mighty will.

‘You are too slow, Vretch,’ the Conglomeration hissed. The various heads spoke all at once, their individual voices merging into a familiar baritone snarl that shook Vretch to his bones. It was ever thus; his patron spoke with the voice of the Destroyer, the Crawling Entropy, the Eater of All Things… Skuralanx, the Scurrying Dark. One of the mightiest of those verminlords blessed to serve the Horned Rat in his truest aspect – that of the Corruptor. ‘Too slow, too slow. That heretical fool Kruk is ahead of you. Where is my pox, Vretch? Where are my blisters, my buboes, my worm-plagues?’

Vretch thrust a claw beneath his robes and scratched furiously at his greasy fur. Mention of his rival always made him itch. Red buboes, red! he thought. ‘Coming, coming, O mighty Skuralanx,’ he said. ‘I read-study quick-quick, yes? I must learn-know all there is, yes-yes?’ He scanned his chambers – the piles of scrolls, the bubbling cauldrons, the dismembered prisoners. Then, more firmly, he said, ‘Yes.’

The conjoined mass of skaven-flesh gave an impatient growl. Loose limbs flailed and claws smacked the stone floor. Blind eyes rolled in their sockets as froth-stained muzzles snapped in apparent frustration. The whole mass gave the impression that it was about to tear itself apart. Vretch stepped back warily.

‘Are you lying to me, Vretch?’ Skuralanx hissed. ‘What is there to study here? Kruk controls the great library in the Dorsal Barbicans, not you.’

And many thanks for reminding me of that, O most scurvy one, Vretch thought sourly. The Libraria Vurmis, the repository of centuries of knowledge gleaned from the far reaches and diverse kingdoms of Ghur by the scholar-knights who’d founded it, lay in the hands of the one skaven singularly unsuited to possess such a treasure.

‘Much-much, yes,’ he said, gesturing around in what he hoped was a placatory fashion. ‘More than one library in this squirming bastion, O mighty one.’

He hunched forward and swept out a crusty claw, indicating his surroundings. ‘I have found many-much secrets, O Conniving Shadow,’ he said obsequiously. ‘There is a world apart, in the guts of the great worm. One of the missing Libers is there – your most loyal and faithful and devoted servant is certain!’

The blind eyes of the conjoined skaven rolled towards him, as if peering at him in judgement. The bulk swelled and quivered for a moment. Then Skuralanx said, ‘Yessss. Find this world for me, Vretch of Clan Morbidus, and Skuralanx the Cunning shall see that you are rewarded beyond your wildest imaginings.’ Several gnarled claws rose and gestured contemptuously. ‘First, however, you must hurry-quick and send your devotees tailwards. The old enemy has come, riding sky-fire and bringing pain for the Children of the Horned Rat.’

‘The lightning,’ Vretch said. He had seen the storm-things before, at a distance, some months ago. It had been in the Jade Kingdoms, and he twitched as he recalled the gigantic silver-armoured warrior who had slaughtered so many of his fellows in the Glade of Horned Growths. That was where he’d first made Skuralanx’s acquaintance. The Scurrying Dark had filched his broken form from the battlefield, and they had made their bargain in the shadow of the great Blight Oak.

‘Yes,’ Skuralanx murmured, through many mouths. ‘The destroyers of Clan Rikkit, the harrowers of Murgid Fein and Cripple Fang, have come to Shu’gohl.’

‘And you want me to… go towards them, greatest of authorities?’ Vretch asked.

‘Yesss.’

Vretch scrubbed at his muzzle. After a moment, he said, ‘Why, O most scurviest of scurvies?’

‘They will defeat Kruk. Or he will defeat them. But either way, the Libraria Vurmis will be lost to you. You must claim it and all of its wisdom,’ Skuralanx hissed. The Conglomeration grew agitated, and the plinth creaked beneath its weight.

‘But… I already have it, most blemished one,’ Vretch said, peering at the Conglomeration. ‘Access to it, at least.’ He scratched at his chin, dislodging a shower of lice. ‘Yes-yes, all mine – ours! Ours! – most lordliest of lords.’

The blistered muzzles of the Conglomeration turned towards him. The question hung unspoken on the air. Vretch shrunk back, somewhat unnerved by the expressions on its faces. ‘I– I have a claw in Kruk’s camp, my most cunning and wise and beautiful master,’ he said, slyly.

The daemonically possessed mass grew still. Then, as one, the many mouths sighed, ‘Of course you do.’

The smell of blood hung as heavy as dust on the air of the Libraria Vurmis, and it only grew stronger as Kruk dug one blistered talon into the cheek of the man-thing. Squeelch clutched at his ears as the man-thing began to scream again. The cries echoed through the wide, circular chamber and even out along the ramparts of the Dorsal Barbicans, in which the library nestled. Kruk chittered in pleasure and continued with his ministrations, pulling and peeling the human’s abused flesh until bone gleamed through the raw red.

‘Talk-talk, man-thing,’ Kruk gurgled, holding up a gobbet of dripping meat. ‘Talk, or lose more bits, yes-yes.’

Squeelch looked away. He wasn’t particularly squeamish, but between the noise and the smell, he was getting hungry. He gazed about him, taking in the Libraria Vurmis and the bodies which now decorated its floors. In life, they had been something the man-things called Vurmites – an order of holy warriors, devoted to the library and its secrets. In death, most of them had begun the delightful slide into putrescence. Those who were not quite dead yet were chained or nailed to the great curved shelves which occupied the chamber, to await Kruk’s attentions.

Throughout the chamber, the most trusted members of Kruk’s congregation searched the great shelves for anything of interest, or fuel to feed the fires which heated their pox-cauldrons. The plague monks worked under the watchful gazes of Kruk’s personal censer bearers. The deranged fanatics held their spiked, smoke-spewing flails tightly and dribbled quietly, twitching in time to a sound only they could hear.

Squeelch grimaced and turned as the man-thing librarian sagged in his bonds. He moaned softly as his blood spattered across the piles of loose pages and torn parchments which covered the floor. He was the seventh in as many days, and was sadly proving about as useful as the other six. Squeelch could only assume that the weeks of deprivation and torture had rendered them senseless. Either that, or the fact that neither he nor Kruk could speak their language was proving a greater stumbling block than expected. Regardless, Kruk’s frustration was palpable. His scarred tail lashed like a whip as he dug his claws into the dying man’s flesh.

Squeelch cleaned his whiskers nervously, watching as Kruk tore the hapless man-thing apart. The plague priest was a brute, even among the black-furred monstrosities of Clan Festerlingus. He was broad for a skaven, and his heavy robes made him seem all the larger. His cowl was thrown back to reveal a flat, wide skull wrapped in seeping bandages. Kruk was missing his right ear and his left eye, courtesy of a rival plague priest – Vretch, of Clan Morbidus, current occupier of the other half of the Crawling City.

Vretch had tried to obliterate Kruk with a meticulously planned trap. As Squeelch recalled, it had mostly involved certain explosives, procured from the Clans Skryre at what was no doubt great expense, stuffed down the gullet of the man-thing Kruk had selected for his second interrogation. Squeelch recalled this because he had been the one to plant them, at Vretch’s behest. It was always a behest, with Vretch. An imploration, a request, a favour… commands by any other name. Commands that Squeelch was happy enough to follow, as long as it led to his assumption of the Archsquealership of the Congregation of Fumes. Even if Vretch was a heretical Red Bubite. Purple, that’s a proper bubo, Squeelch thought. But still, by clinging to Vretch’s tail, he might rise very far indeed.

Unfortunately for them both, Kruk was sturdier than he looked. Thus, Vretch and poor, put-upon Squeelch would have to find a more effective means of his disposal. Squeelch had considered and subsequently discarded any number of options, from the mundane – a knife in the back – to the noteworthy – many knives, not just in the back – to the extraordinary – more explosives, and in greater quantities, possibly also filled with knives – but no real solution, as yet, had presented itself.

Kruk’s resilience was frustrating. Under his leadership, the Congregation of Fumes had staggered from one massacre to the next, swelling and shrinking with an unfathomable virulence. But such destructive potential was wasted on a creature like Kruk. Even Vretch agreed with that. There were better ways to spread the Great Witherer’s gospel through the Mortal Realms. And Squeelch would do it, with Vretch’s backing. The Congregation of Fumes would stalk at the forefront of Vretch’s procession and reap the benefits of that alliance. Why, together, they might even challenge the great clans themselves…

But all of that was predicated on his removal of Kruk, a task that seemed more difficult with every passing day. Kruk was a monster, and Squeelch doubted that even a direct hit from a plagueclaw catapult would finish the other plague priest off. Two or three, at least, he thought nervously, watching as his superior dismembered his prey. ‘Maybe more,’ he muttered.

‘Wwwhat did you say?’ Kruk hissed, turning to glare at him. ‘What-what? Speak up quick-fast, Squeelch.’ Brown fangs flashed as he stepped towards his lieutenant.

Squeelch shied back, clutching his boil-dotted tail to his chest as he tried to avoid Kruk’s single, madly gleaming eye. ‘Nothing, O most pestiferous one,’ he squeaked. He was beginning to suspect that his bargain with Vretch hadn’t been well thought-out.

‘Lyyyying,’ Kruk crooned, stretching the word out. He reached out a bloody claw and grabbed a handful of Squeelch’s whiskers. Squeelch whined and fought the urge to squirt the musk of fear as Kruk pulled him close. ‘Speak, Squeelch. Or I will tear out your tongue and eat it, yes-yes?’ Kruk’s own tongue slid out to caress his scarred muzzle, as if in anticipation. The plague priest had eaten his last second-in-command, Squeelch recalled.

No, not well thought-out at all, he thought, in growing panic. His hand edged towards the poison-encrusted dagger hidden within his robes. He would only get one chance, if Kruk decided he’d outlived his usefulness.

‘Kruk.’

Kruk released Squeelch and turned, good eye narrowing in consternation.

‘Kruk, Master of the Fumes. Heed me.’

‘Skuralanx,’ Kruk muttered. Squeelch swallowed. The air had taken on an oily tang. He could hear and feel something gnawing its way towards them, through the spaces between moments. His head ached and blisters burst and popped on his flesh as he staggered back, scratching at himself. The flesh of his tail grew hot and he felt as if his stomach might burst. He heard a skittering as of a thousand rats, and then the body on the floor began to wriggle and twitch in a most unseemly fashion.

A great talon rose upwards through the bloody midsection of the dead man, clawing at the air. Then it fell, striking the floor. Clawed fingers spread, and wormy muscles bunched. With a sound like a branch being pulled free of mud, something monstrous hauled itself out of the corpse’s midsection. A narrow head, bare of flesh and topped by massive horns, breached the blood first. Then a second talon. The sound of buzzing flies filled the air, and eyes which glimmered sickeningly fixed unwaveringly on the two plague priests.

Squeelch cowered back, trying to make himself as small as possible. Kruk tensed, his scabrous tail lashing. ‘Greetings, most-high Skuralanx, Cunning Shadow and Mighty Pestilence,’ the burly plague priest said, his good eye narrowed in wariness. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure, O most esteemed patron?’

‘No pleasure, Kruk. Only impatience. Where is my Liber, Kruk? Where is the Great Plague?’ Skuralanx said, blood running down his mangy fur. ‘Have you found it yet?’ Squeelch flinched as the daemon’s voice echoed through his head. Kruk’s daemonic patron was a power unlike any other. He loomed over the two plague priests, and the tips of his great curving horns scraped the domed ceiling of the library. Clouds of flies swarmed about his massive shoulders and lice squirmed in his mangy fur. His cloven hooves drew sparks from the stone floor as he shifted impatiently.

Kruk looked down at the body the verminlord had emerged from, and then up at the daemon. ‘No, O most Scabrous One,’ he said. His shoulders were hunched, and his head held low. Not even Kruk was mad enough to openly challenge a firstborn child of the Horned Rat. ‘The man-things are… stubborn,’ Kruk said.

The daemon’s fleshless jaws clacked in seeming frustration. ‘You hold one of the greatest libraries in this realm, Kruk – have you even thought to search for my book amongst all of these others?’ the daemon hissed, extending a hand to indicate the shelves which surrounded them.

Kruk blinked and looked around. Squeelch tried his best to make himself inconspicuous. As he shied back, the daemon’s gaze fell on him. What might have been amusement flickered in that hellish gaze, and Squeelch froze. He knows, he thought, in growing panic. He knows!

‘Stupid-stupid man-thing books hold no answers worth the name, O horned and hoofed one,’ Kruk said, gesturing dismissively. As he spoke, the ground shuddered and several of the great shelves toppled, spilling their burdens across the floor. Panicked squeals came from outside on the ramparts as Shu’gohl convulsed in what Squeelch suspected was agony. The quakes had been growing stronger, and happening more often. Hundreds of skaven and man-things alike had died, crushed by the twitching segments of the worm as it trembled.

‘Vretch believes that they do,’ Skuralanx said slyly, as he shoved a fallen shelf aside.

‘Vrrretch,’ Kruk growled. Iridescent foam bubbled in the folds of his muzzle. ‘Kill-kill! Tear-bite him, yes-yes!’ the plague priest continued, hunching forward, his bloody claws opening and closing uselessly on the air. ‘Strike him down for me, mighty Skuralanx.’

Skuralanx rose to his full height. ‘Who are you to command me thus, priest? I am the will of the Great Ruiner made manifest. You do my will, little flea,’ the verminlord hissed, his tail lashing in anger. ‘And I say that there are more important matters to attend to than your petty murder-lust. Or even your failure to find my pox…’ The daemon sank to its haunches as Kruk backed away, head bowed.

‘More… important?’ Kruk said, slowly.

‘Lightning-things come, Kruk. More dangerous even than Vretch. You must kill them, quick-quick,’ the verminlord said, stirring the gory remains of the librarian with one of his curved talons.

Squeelch blinked. They’d heard and seen the lightning which struck the outskirts of the city, causing the great worm to heave and thrash. Kruk had dismissed it, and the subsequent reports of fighting in the lower segments of the city. The Congregation of Fumes had spread like a miasma, each individual choir rampaging through a chosen section of the city, killing those who resisted their attacks and capturing those who didn’t.

But that already unsteady flow of chattel had been interrupted. Kruk, with his usual simplicity, had assumed the others had fallen to fighting amongst themselves over some scrap of street or a theological debate, as was their wont. Squeelch’s own congregation had reported sighting strange flying shapes, neither bird nor beast, and the sound of lightning, though the sky was clear. But… lightning-things? He clutched his tail, kneading his sores in agitation.

‘Lightning-things,’ Kruk hissed, his good eye widening in pleasure. ‘Yessss…’

Squeelch tensed. He knew that tone. Kruk was insane – his brain was rotted in his mossy skull. He had a love for bloodshed that outstripped even that of a daemon like Skuralanx.

‘Yes, I shall rip them and break them. I shall fill their pretty armour with maggots,’ said Kruk. He whirled and caught Squeelch by his robes. ‘Get to your plagueclaws, Squeelch. Fill the air with great clouds of pestilence and your lovely poisons – I would fight in the shade.’

‘Beast-bane, follow me,’ Lord-Celestant Zephacleas roared as he crashed through the makeshift stockade. The Astral Templar swept his runeblade and hammer out to either side, smashing timbers and cutting through the thick ropes which held the wall together. Lengths of fossilised hair and wood toppled as the Decimators of his Warrior Chamber joined him in tearing apart the skaven stockade. It took longer than it should have.

The verminous palisades were crude things made from scavenged scrap. The skaven weren’t artisans by any stretch of the word, but their defences had a certain primitive strength regardless. They were built for function rather than form, akin to the Stormcast Eternals themselves.

Zephacleas and his Stormcasts were one amongst many Warrior Chambers sent to the Ghurlands to free the kingdoms and tribal lands of the Amber Steppes from the clutches of Chaos.

Shu’gohl was not the only ambulatory metropolis upon those plains – many of the remaining great worms bore some form of edifice or structure upon their backs, and had done since before the beginning of the Age of Chaos. Isolated and ever-moving, the surging tides of Chaos had swept about them, unnoticed by the vast monstrosities and avoided by the populations who clung to them.

Despite this, some belonged wholly to Chaos now, like Guh’hath, the Brass Bastion, which carried its population of wild-eyed Bloodbound across the steppes in search of slaughter, or Rhu’goss, the Squirming Citadel, its ancient ramparts manned by the soulless crystal automatons of the Tzeentchian sorcerer-king Terpsichore the Unwritten. Others, like Shu’gohl, had seemingly resisted the touch of Chaos for centuries, until the coming of the skaven.

Warriors from the Hallowed Knights and the Lions of Sigmar sought to topple the Hundred Herdstones of Wolf-Crag, even as the Sons of Mallus laid siege to Guh’hath. But to the Beast-bane had fallen the task of freeing the Crawling City from its skittering conquerors and preventing the death of the great worm.

Their orders were to fight their way through the skaven-held regions of the city, all the way to the ruins of the Sahg’gohl – the great temple of Sigmar which had been built by the first inhabitants of the Crawling City. The temple had once contained a realmgate connecting the Crawling City to the Luminous Plain in Azyr, and it would be so once again, once the Crawling City was free of its verminous invaders. The Sahg’gohl clung to the worm’s head like a lightning-wreathed crown, and Zephacleas yearned to see it – to see the glory of such a place restored.

Others might have attacked the Sahg’gohl directly and left the freeing of the city for later – Taros Nine-Strike, the Lord-Castellant of the Beast-bane, for one. But then, Taros put his faith in expedience. Zephacleas favoured a different approach. What good was a temple when the folk who would worship within it were dead?

He bellowed and Liberators stepped forward, using their shields and hammers to wedge apart the broken sections of palisade as the Lord-Celestant led the Decimators into the fray. While the Liberators worked, Judicators fired over their heads, driving back the skaven. The ratmen reeled beneath the sizzling volley, and Zephacleas seized his moment, leading his Paladin retinues forward into the heart of the foe.

The Lord-Celestant was a giant of a man, even among the Stormcasts, and he sang with joy as he wielded hammer and blade. Once, he’d fought simply for food to ensure the survival of his tribe in a land full of monsters. Now, he fought to sweep the Mortal Realms clean of Chaos in all of its forms.

He scanned the interior of the stockade and saw a dozen large, crude cages made from pox-warped bone and disease-toughened ligament. Inside the cages, men, women and children screamed and wept.

Zephacleas growled in anger and took a step towards the cages. A skaven leapt at him from the crumbling stockade, a filth-covered mace clutched in its grimy claws. He spun, smashing it from the air with a blow of his hammer. More of the vermin scuttled forward in a disorganised rabble, flowing around and between the cages, chanting in high-squealing voices and swinging spiked censers with berserk abandon.

‘To me, my brothers – let us show them how the Astral Templars wage war,’ he said, spitting a frenzied rat-monk on his runeblade.

Liberators armed with dual warblades joined Zephacleas and his Decimators in hacking away at the charging skaven. The amethyst-armoured Stormcasts fought as savagely as their Lord-Celestant, as savagely as they had in the Gnarlwood so long ago. But the ratkin were as thick as fleas on the ground and showed no signs of retreat.

‘Thetaleas,’ Zephacleas said, signalling to the Decimator-Prime of a nearby retinue of axemen. ‘Teach them to fear us, as you and your men did in the Gnarlwood.’

‘As you command, Lord-Celestant,’ Thetaleas said, lifting his thunderaxe. ‘I shall give them peace, one strike at a time.’ The Decimators surged forward, away from the other Stormcasts, where they could ply their trade freely. With broad sweeps of their axes they cut a path through the swarming skaven. They hacked down droves of the ratkin, until at last, even the most maddened of the skaven began to fall back before their inexorable advance. The remains of the horde began to scurry away, shrieking.

‘Well done, Thetaleas,’ Zephacleas said, as the last of the skaven vanished through the outer wall of the stockade. ‘Now see to those cages.’ He gestured with his hammer. ‘We’ve only got a few moments before they regroup.’

As one, the Decimators moved to obey, as they had every time before. They had freed captives in a hundred such stockades since arriving on the back of the great worm. Zephacleas joined his warriors in tearing apart the cages.

The folk of the city were not familiar to him, though they might have been descendants of those tribes he’d once fought beside and against. But they were mortal and free of the taint of Chaos, and that was enough. He chopped through the warped bars of a cage and tore apart chains of ligament and muscle.

‘Out, hurry,’ he boomed at the cowering captives. He drove his sword into the ground and extended his hand. ‘Come on, the way is clear.’ The captives stared at him, awed and terrified by the armour-clad giant. Zephacleas grunted in frustration. ‘Out with you,’ he barked.

‘Calm yourself, Zephacleas. They are frightened.’

Zephacleas turned as a figure loomed up behind him. ‘There you are, Gravewalker. Help me with them. We do not have much time.’

‘If you stop shouting, they might be more inclined to listen.’ Like all those who held the post of Lord-Relictor, Seker Gravewalker was a fearsome sight. He was clad in heavy, ornate amethyst armour marked with sigils of death and rebirth. His face was hidden beneath an imposing skull-helm, and the ragged hide of a fire-wyrm hung from one shoulder plate. The beast’s narrow skull was set into the Gravewalker’s reliquary standard, alongside ornaments of gilded bone. A heavy warhammer hung from his belt. He raised his hand, and a crackle of soft lightning played about his fingers. Every mortal eye turned towards him.

‘Go, my children. We come in Sigmar’s name, and strike your foes with his fury. Go, and spread the word to those who yet fight that the God-King has come, and his storm shall sweep your kingdom clean,’ he intoned, his voice swelling to fill the air like the peal of a bell. A man, his flesh bruised and bloody, took a step forward. A woman joined him. Then others, young and old alike, until all were pushing their way free of the cage and fleeing the stockade.

‘I could have done that,’ Zephacleas said, as the last of the captives flowed past him, joining those freed from the other cages. There were places in the city which yet resisted the skaven, isolated enclaves where they might find safety.

‘You have other concerns, my Lord-Celestant. The skaven have regrouped,’ Seker said, drawing his relic hammer from his belt. Zephacleas uprooted his sword and moved towards the rear of the stockade, the Lord-Relictor following close behind.

‘Liberators forward,’ Zephacleas said, as the first of the rat-monks squeezed back through the stockade. The skaven didn’t attack immediately, but their numbers grew by the moment. ‘Lock shields and hold your ground. Gravewalker, get the mortals to safety,’ Zephacleas said. The Lord-Relictor nodded and stepped back, shouting orders to those retinues not already part of the battle-line.

Zephacleas’ pulse quickened at the thought of the battle to come. He could hear the sounds of fighting outside the stockade, as the rest of his chamber defended the newly-freed mortals from harm. The skaven outside were swarming about the stockade, trying to overwhelm the Stormcasts through sheer weight of numbers. But they would fail. Come in your thousands, vermin, we shall not fall, he thought. We held you at the Gates of Dawn, and in the Hidden Vale, and we shall hold you here.

The skaven charged across the stockade, squealing and screeching. A terrible cloud of poison followed them, spewing from the censers of those in the lead. Zephacleas resisted the urge to race to meet them. Judicator retinues loosed volley after volley, at the Lord-Relictor’s command. The crackling bolts tore great holes in the mass of robed and furry bodies, but the creatures did not slow.

‘Stand fast, my brothers. They are but beasts, and we are their bane,’ Zephacleas cried, as he split the skull of a squealing rat-monk. The hooded skaven fell, but it was soon replaced by others. They flung themselves at the thin line of Astral Templars in a screeching, stinking wave of diseased flesh and filthy robes. Their weapons shattered against the sigmarite shields of the Liberators, but they seemed to take no notice of such trivialities.

‘Push them back,’ Zephacleas bellowed. He caught a skaven in the chest with a well-timed kick, crushing the life out of the filthy beast. Liberators and Decimators moved to join him as he stepped out of line. The warriors formed a ragged chain and began to fight their way forward. ‘We are ruin,’ Zephacleas said, lashing out wildly at the skaven.

‘We are destruction,’ the warriors around him responded as they fought. Their savagery matched his, and for a moment, the Lord-Celestant was a mortal again, fighting alongside his clansmen, the heat of battle rising in their veins, their foes falling before them.

‘We are death,’ Zephacleas roared, splitting a cowering rat-monk from skull to tail. ‘Death and ruin! Death to the dealers of death! Ruin to the bringers of ruin!’ His warriors bellowed in reply, their voices mingling, becoming a single fierce note of promise. As far as a war cry went, it was a simple thing, and prone to being bent out of shape when the mood struck him. He did not hold with words forged from iron and prayers set in stone. Let the Hallowed Knights or the Hammers of Sigmar march to a familiar beat, if that gave them comfort. For Zephacleas and his warriors, the song of battle was always different. Yet it served its purpose as well as any hammer or blade.

And at the sound of it, the skaven at last broke. The bloodied remains of the horde streamed away in panic, biting and clawing at one another in their haste to escape. Zephacleas was tempted to pursue them, but he restrained himself. The man he had been would not have hesitated, but that man was dead, and there was more to their mission here than simple slaughter. He raised his sword, signalling for his warriors to fall back and reform their lines.

As Thetaleas and his Decimators moved forward to tear apart the rear wall of the stockade, Zephacleas turned to his Lord-Relictor. ‘Once the stockade is down, we’ll continue the advance along the dorsal thoroughfare. We should reach the Dorsal Barbicans by nightfall.’ He gestured to the distant ridge of ramparts. Streaks of oily green light rose from its length and fell into the city as they watched.

The catapults of the skaven had been firing at those sections of the Crawling City still in the hands of its original occupants, spreading a miasma of corruption and sickness through the streets. Whether the intent was wholesale slaughter or merely to drive the sickened and panic-stricken mortals into the claws of the roaming bands of rat-monks, Zephacleas didn’t know. Whatever the reason, the battery of verminous war engines had to be silenced if they were to free Shu’gohl from the skaven.

‘We’d stand a better chance if you didn’t insist on hurling yourself into the thick of the fray at every opportunity. If you should fall…’ Seker began.

‘I would be reforged anew, and you would lead the Beast-bane in my stead in the meantime,’ Zephacleas said, bluntly. Despite his bravado, the thought was not a pleasant one. Zephacleas had already endured the Reforging. He’d lost his mortality, his memory, and perhaps more besides. What else might he lose, were he forced to endure it again? He thrust the thought aside. ‘Warriors fall in battle, Gravewalker. You know that as well as I. I will not fear the inevitable,’ he said.

‘I do not ask for fear, Lord-Celestant. Merely restraint.’

‘Restraint?’ Zephacleas growled.

‘Some, yes. A modicum of caution, even,’ Seker said, mildly. He turned. ‘The stockades are down, Lord-Celestant. Shall we advance?’

‘Yes,’ Zephacleas said. He spun his hammer in a tight circle. ‘I have the sudden urge to hit something.’

CHAPTER TWO

The Coming of the Star-Devils

Vretch hummed to himself as he made the preparations for his journey. Stacks of tomes, scrolls and parchments, many now weighed down with mould or warped by the wet heat of the pox-cauldrons bubbling away throughout his chamber at the top of the Setaen Palisades, awaited his inspection. Most, if not all, had been smuggled from the Libraria Vurmis by Squeelch – loyal, craven, untrustworthy Squeelch – or captured by his own forces when many of the library’s man-thing guardians had fled towards Shu’gohl’s head. They’d fled right into his clutches.

‘Sought to keep them out of Kruk’s hands, good plan, yes-yes, smart plan,’ he chittered, glancing up at the rusty gibbets which hung from the roof of the chamber. ‘Useful man-things, so useful.’ Things that had once been human crouched or slumped within them, their abscess-covered bodies twitching fitfully as what he’d planted within them grew agitated. Soon, those abscesses would ripen and burst, and his greatest weapons would be unleashed on whichever foe happened to be nearby. He scrubbed his muzzle in satisfaction.

‘Very useful, yes,’ he muttered. The man-things had shown an almost skaven-like cunning and foresight in guarding their knowledge – the most valuable bits of it anyway. The moment Kruk had first set his clumsy claw on the steps of the Libraria Vurmis, they had been scurrying in the opposite direction, fleeing through the Scar-roads – hollows of scar tissue, running beneath the worm’s hide, hidden from the eyes of all but those who knew where to look. They’d fled through those secret tunnels and right into Vretch’s claws, as his forces pushed from the opposite end of the worm. Even better, they’d brought the heart of the library with them: the most ancient texts, crumbling scrolls scoured by peddlers and explorers from the distant shores of the Hollow Sea and the now-lost Citadel of the Midnight Sun.

But those were as nothing next to the true treasure – the Mappo Vurmio, the Map of the Worm. Vretch picked up the ancient cartographical volume and ran his claw over it, chittering in delight. Drawn on hairs cut from the setae of the worm that were woven, pressed and dyed, and protected by a cover made from two of the great beast’s scales, the Mappo Vurmio showed the most direct route to Olgu’gohl, the Squirming Sea, within the belly of the worm. What’s more, it showed the way to what Vretch believed to be the source of the strange pestilence he’d come in search of. Somewhere, deep in the worm’s gut, lay one of the missing Libers Pestilent.

The Clans Pestilens, including Morbidus and Festerlingus, had been searching for the Libers Pestilent and the Great Plagues inscribed within them since time immemorial. Seven had been found, but six yet remained, including the one Vretch believed to be hidden somewhere in the Crawling City – which one it was, he didn’t know, but he desired it all the same.

Each of these mighty tomes contained the secrets of one of the Great Plagues – its ingredients, its effects and the ways and means of its brewing. Wars had been fought over them, and he who possessed all of them would become the vessel by which all non-skaven life would be eradicated from the realms, and all of creation given over into the claws of the Great Witherer. Vretch was determined to be that vessel. Or, at the very least, close behind that vessel, ready to enjoy the benefits of such proximity. Unfortunately, that would never be, if Kruk got to it first.

‘But he will not-never! All mine, all mine,’ he hissed, clutching the map to his scrawny chest. ‘Kruk is nothing, a fool, yes, a blind runt, yes-yes!’ He spun in a circle, lifting the book over his cowled head as he danced about in manic glee. ‘Soon, Vretch shall be the Plague-master and Kruk shall be dead-dead-dead.’

He slowed as he realised his assistants were watching him. He snatched the book to his chest and hissed at them. ‘What are you looking at? Prepare my poxes for the journey. Hurry-quick!’ The plague monks scurried to obey, several of them nearly colliding in the process. Vretch watched them for a moment, tail lashing, before turning back to his collection.

He would need to take some, but could not take them all. Not all, no, but many. He would need them when they reached Olgu’gohl. There were secret places and strange things, in the deeps. Vretch had the uncomfortable suspicion that a skaven could spend years scurrying through the stomach of Shu’gohl, and never find what he was looking for. Still hugging the Mappo Vurmio to his chest, Vretch began to separate the rest of his hoard.

The piles slid and toppled, filling the air with loose sheets of parchment, as Shu’gohl shuddered suddenly. Vretch’s cauldrons wobbled on their tripods, and bilious liquids slopped to the floor, scalding several of his assistants. The gibbets above clattered and twisted in their chains, and the insensate things within them moaned sorrowfully. Vretch cursed and snatched up an armful of books, trying to salvage them from the pox-froth spilling across the floor. The liquid was a dilution of the original pestilence which had brought him to the Crawling City. It had taken him days – and hundreds of man-things – to refine it into something close to the potency of the original pox. ‘Skirk, Putrix! Save the books, fools,’ he squealed.

Two of the plague monks flung themselves between the steaming pestilence-broth and the books. They rolled about in it, soaking it up with their fur and grimy robes. Skirk sat up with a shriek, his flesh melting from his crooked bones. Putrix clawed at the floor, squealing in agony as great boils the size of a skull rose on his flesh and burst, disgorging thousands of squirming worms. The worms melted away as quickly as they’d come, and the two plague monks slumped, rotting quietly, their bodies forming a natural bulwark between broth and books. Vretch peered over them and gestured airily. ‘Clean it up, quick-quick,’ he said to his other attendants. ‘We might be able to get some use out of it yet.’

‘Faster-faster, quick-quick,’ Kruk shrilled, exhorting his followers to greater speed as the Congregation of Fumes flowed squealing and chittering out of the anterior gates of the Dorsal Barbican. He bounded ahead of them, stopping only when they lagged too far behind. The laity of the congregation were made up of plague monks culled from a dozen lesser clans. They sought his patronage and the protection of his mighty procession. Many were willing to die for Kruk and the rest were, at the very least, willing to kill for him.

At their head, and just behind him, came the Reeking Choir, his plague censer bearers, those skaven most devoted to the Effluvial Gospels and to him personally. They swept their great, spike-tipped censers in wide arcs, filling the air with a toxic miasma that inflamed the senses and filled the mouth with froth. They were led by a boil-covered, skull-faced creature named Skug, whose twisted frame was bloated with watery blisters and lesions that wept an ochre pus. Skug’s muzzle had rotted to the bone, but he felt no pain, thanks to the blessed smoke of the many censers which hung from the chains draping his body.

Kruk inhaled a lungful of Skug’s smoke as he burst into a scurry, letting its putrid aroma fill him. His mind swam with images of disease, corruption and death – all of the beauty of the world-to-come. That was the true way of it, the best and most glorious way to worship at the cloven hooves of the most gaseous Great Corruptor. The Horned Rat was the source of and the spewer forth of the Grand Effluvium, those great gastric gases which would sweep over the Mortal Realms and strangle the breath from the unworthy.

And Kruk would be the Archfumigant, the Spreader of Gaseous Blessings, who would squat at the right talon of the Horned Rat for all eternity. The plague priest sucked in another mouthful of smoke, and felt the growing ache in his claws fade. From behind him came the clangour of plague-bells as his followers rang out the call to war.

Soon, every choir, congregation and clawband on the anterior side of the barbicans would follow the ringing of those bells and join him. They would come at his call, or suffer for their absence later. Those who had dared invade his territory would drown in blessed smoke and blood. So demanded Skuralanx and so Kruk would ensure.

It had been truly a sign of the Horned Rat’s favour the day he’d made the acquaintance of the verminlord. The daemon had spoken to him through Skug’s varied collection of boils and lesions, and warned him to flee the warrens beneath Putris Bog before the Stormcast Eternals arrived to lay waste to his allies in Clan Rikkit. He’d led what he could of the congregation, including many from Rikkit who’d abandoned their old loyalties for new, through the sorcerous gnawholes Skuralanx had cut in the skin of the world.

And he’d followed Skuralanx ever since, waging war at the whim of his horned patron. The Congregation of Fumes had sacked the ivory temples of Ghurok-kol, and filled the deep corridors of Iron-Bear Hold with poisonous smoke, slaying three in five of its duardin defenders. They had spread contagion and death across the Ghurlands at Skuralanx’s whispered word.

That the verminlord hadn’t saved him out of the kindness of his heart was not lost on Kruk. That too was in the Effluvial Gospels, and he bore the creature no grudge for its manipulations. After all, he had given Kruk and his congregation a purpose more glorious than any other, and now he had set them at the throats of their foes. And once this battle was done, once the foe was beaten and choking on their own blood, then Kruk could turn his attentions to his true purpose. He would find the Liber that the verminlord said was hidden here and offer it up to mighty Skuralanx, and through him, the Great Corruptor.

As if in fear, the worm-flesh beneath his foot-claws began to convulse. It was as hard as stone normally, but as the great beast trembled in pain, it became pliable and unsteady. Two of the tall setae-structures swayed into one another with a sound like grinding rock, and splinters of the iron-hard bristles rained down upon the Congregation of Fumes. Screeching skaven were crushed between the structures, but Kruk paid their panicked cries no heed.

Overhead, the storm-tossed amber skies were streaked with green, as Squeelch – loyal, fearful Squeelch – saw to the plagueclaws. Kruk was glad that he had not yet had reason to kill the other plague priest – Squeelch was useful, and his cringing was amusing. He also brewed the most magnificent poxes, capable of felling whole tribes of orruks or even a rampaging gargant at the merest whiff. Yes, Kruk would have to learn Squeelch’s secrets before he killed him.

From behind him rose a familiar squealing and creaking. Kruk stopped and turned, his good eye widening in anticipation. A heavy archway of stone, mounted on a precarious assembly of rickety wooden timbers and massive wheels, loomed above the press of his congregation. The archway acted as a frame for an enormous blazing orb of pure filth which swung on rusty chains. A coterie of plague monks, all members of the Reeking Choir, pushed the Plague Furnace forward through the crush of skaven. Some were caught beneath its wheels and pulped, still singing their praises to the Great Corruptor.

It was the war-altar of the Congregation of Fumes, a mobile pulpit from which Kruk could shriek out the blessings and the curses of the Horned Rat. The massive censer which swung from its arch had been doused in rancid warpstone and virulent concoctions and set alight. The fumes which wafted from it drove his followers into a sacred battle-fury.

Plague monks flooded out of the doorways and the side-streets between the towering structures of the city. More of them scuttled across the creaking bridges and woven net-paths which were strung between the wide tiers of the towers, following the summoning knells. Kruk began to chitter the seventh hymn of the Effluvial Gospels as he clambered aboard the creaking Plague Furnace, and Skug joined him. Soon the rest of his followers took up the chant. The sound of their screeching rose high into the air, until it seemed as if the whole world were screaming with them.

The Congregation of Fumes was racing, rapid-quick, to war.

Skuralanx crouched atop the tower of hair, claws dangling between his knees as he observed the goings-on below. Around him rose heavy barrels, meant to collect falling rain and filter it down into the tower below. Somewhere within the tower, he knew, were the fungus farms which had fed the folk of Shu’gohl and now served as breeding grounds for poisonous moulds. Idly, he dug a talon into one of the barrels and let the water spill out to rain down on the foetid tide of skaven flowing through the street below.

The verminlord watched as Kruk led his congregation away from the Dorsal Barbicans and towards the approaching Stormcast Eternals in his usual joyous fashion. To his credit, the one-eyed plague priest was always at the forefront, leading his censer bearers right into the heart of the foe. He was like an unchecked pestilence, reaping a heady toll in the Corruptor’s name.

Vretch, on the other claw, was akin to a more subtle pox, creeping along on mouse-feet. Very, very slow mouse-feet. Skuralanx hissed in momentary annoyance and glanced over his shoulder towards the Setaen Palisades. Of the two of them, he favoured Kruk, if only because the brute was easier to control. But Vretch was closer to their goal.

A good decision, to spare that one’s life, the daemon thought, as he picked at the lice in his matted mane of hair. A good decision to spare both, though for different reasons. And to pit the one against the other had been a masterstroke, worthy of even the Verminking himself. Only through conflict could victory be achieved.

Survival of the fittest. That was the one law, the true law, to which all of the children of the Horned Rat were beholden. Only through struggle could they grow in strength, only through fear of a rival could deviousness be honed to a razor’s edge. They must be strong, in order to survive what was to come. The Age of Chaos was ending. Soon, the Age of the Rat would begin. When all thirteen Great Plagues had been reclaimed, the Mortal Realms would groan in anguish. All man-things would die, no matter what god they served. They would fall and rot, never to rise again. And only the children of the Horned Rat would…

Skuralanx stiffened. The wind had turned. Shu’gohl twisted suddenly, and great clouds of dust rose up over the distant horizons of the worm’s flanks. Skuralanx hesitated, and then glanced upwards. The daemon hated the yawning emptiness of the open skies. When there was only wind on his whiskers, he felt exposed and alone, despite his divine might. There were no shadows to hide in, no defence from that which might swoop down from the wide, hungry sky. Even so, he forced himself to look. The sky above had grown dark with deep ochre storm clouds, and lightning flashed in their depths. He bared his teeth at the clouds and wondered if the man-thing god, Sigmar, was sending more warriors.

But no, this was different. He could feel it in the air. Not the storm, which was unpleasant enough, but something else. The sensation of something approaching, something vast and serpentine, slithering down the long trail of years on his tail. Daemons could not, as a rule, feel fear. Fear was for mortal beings, and Skuralanx had never been mortal. He was a facet of something greater, something mightier than any mortal being, and more cunning than any man-thing god. The Horned Rat contained squealing multitudes. And yet… and yet.

And yet, there it was. That clench of nonexistent muscles, that cold shiver racing from brain to tail, telling him to run, to flee back to the warm and the dark, away from whatever was coming. It was an ancient feeling, reverberating outward from a single moment of pain the origins of which were hidden even from Skuralanx. He thought it must be akin to what a louse might feel, when its host was struck. The part of him that was not just Skuralanx the Cunning, but was a sliver of that elemental malevolence known as the Horned Rat, squealed deep in its lair in the holes between moments. Squealing in fury and something that could only be… fear.

Fear of an old foe, come anew. Fear of a forgotten enemy, newly recalled.

The verminlord hunched forward, digging his claws into his perch, and gnashed his teeth. His tail lashed back and forth, causing his perch to sway slightly. In his mind’s eye, he saw the ragged tatters of broken days, and felt the weight of forgotten moments as scaled shapes glided through jungle shadows. He heard the hiss of a fiery rain striking the steps of squat pyramids. He felt the air grow hot, and saw the sky go dark as the moon came apart and was swallowed by a serpent made of stars and… and… and Skuralanx screeched as he tore his claws free and raised them to the sky. The sky, he thought. The sky!

Like arrows of light, they streaked down through the storm, and the curve of the worm’s back seemed to rise to meet them.

The stars were falling from the sky.

The worm-wind swept down through the setae, bringing with it the iron odour of distant lightning and the stink of open wounds. Shu’gohl shuddered, and stones cracked and shifted. A tiered building tore away from a jutting hair and smashed down across the wide street, filling the air with dust and splinters of stone. The great worm groaned in agony and the air rang with the sound of the beast’s distress.

‘Forget the skaven – this thrashing will be our death,’ Zephacleas growled, as he pressed forward through the roiling surge of dust, his bones reverberating with the echoes of Shu’gohl’s pain. He splashed through steaming rivulets of filthy water as he slashed out, killing a dust-blind skaven. There were hundreds of the creatures fleeing ahead of the advancing Astral Templars, though whether they were running from their foes, or simply trying to escape being crushed by the worm’s paroxysms Zephacleas couldn’t say. ‘This poor brute will crush us before we can save it from the vermin gnawing its innards.’

‘An ignoble death, I agree,’ Seker said. ‘Best we hurry then, eh?’ The Lord-Relictor crushed a stumbling rat-monk. The creature’s filthy hide was riddled with stone slivers and it was screeching in pain even before his hammer touched it.

‘Aye,’ Zephacleas grunted, as he stamped on a wounded skaven’s skull, killing the squalling creature instantly. ‘Care to lend a hand in that regard, Gravewalker – or would you rather watch me do it?’

‘At my Lord-Celestant’s command,’ Seker intoned. He stopped and reared back, arms spread. The air before him twisted and grew bright. Threads of lightning stretched from a central point before him, curling about the head of his hammer and swirling through the fire-wyrm skull set into his reliquary standard. The wind picked up, and the Gravewalker thrust his arms forward. Lightning snarled outward, searing the air free of dust and killing the closest skaven. But as the crackle of the celestial energies faded, the clangour of plague-bells rose to replace it.

‘I think they’re done running,’ Zephacleas growled. ‘Lord-Relictor, see to the battle-line.’

‘And you, Lord-Celestant?’

‘I go to do as I was forged to do, my friend,’ Zephacleas said, clashing runeblade against hammer. ‘I am impatient and have no wish to play the millstone. Thetaleas – to me! Duras, you as well,’ he added, gesturing to a nearby Liberator-Prime. ‘Time to hunt, Bearslayer.’

‘As you command,’ Duras said, striking his warblades together. The Liberator-Prime was almost as fierce as his Lord-Celestant, and had earned his war-name in the Borealis Mountains, after stalking a Chaos-touched crag-bear for seven days before tracking it to its lair and slaying it. Like Thetaleas, he too had been at the Gnarlwood, and learned its lessons well.

As we all did, Zephacleas thought, as he led his chosen warriors forward towards the approaching skaven. Four Warrior Chambers of Astral Templars had entered the Gnarlwood of Ghur and cleansed it, despite heavy losses. It was where the Beast-bane had earned their title, in blood and fire. There too they had learned that no shield wall, no matter how strong, could last indefinitely; that no defence was impregnable, and no foe unbreakable. And, perhaps most importantly of all, that the best defence was a good offence.

His warriors spread out around him as they ran. They would bloody the enemy before they reached the shield wall – that was the Beast-bane way. The skaven boiled into sight, flooding the street in a chittering horde, and the Stormcasts raced to meet them in a loose line. Zephacleas crushed the first with his hammer, and beheaded the second. To either side of him Thetaleas and Duras led their retinues into the thick of the foe. And as he fought, the world grew soft at the edges and one moment flowed seamlessly into the next.

Sometimes, when his choler was at its height, he thought he was elsewhere, fighting beneath amber skies against savage foes. He felt a drumbeat in his soul, and a deep and abiding sense of something lost. Those were good days, though I can but see them dimly, he thought, as his hammer smashed a leaping skaven from the air. He remembered the smell of cooking fires, and the weight of crude bronze armour. The warmth of his tents in winter, and the voices of his clan – of those closest to him.

His runeblade sung out, smashing through a fuming censer to pierce the brain of its wielder. His clan were dead now, though their descendants might yet survive somewhere on the great northern taigas of the Ghurlands. They are dead, and I am dead – but I fight on, he thought. And while I fight, they live. The thought lent him strength as he turned and drove his hammer down, crushing a frothing skaven. That was the burden of Sigmar’s chosen. Two lives, two souls, forged anew in cosmic flame and clad in star-metal.

The whistle-crack of arrows sounded, causing him to whirl. A rat-monk thudded into the dirt at his feet, three faintly glowing arrows rising from its crooked back. Zephacleas looked up and saw a winged shape swoop towards him, realmhunter’s bow raised in salute.

‘Well timed, Mantius,’ Zephacleas said, raising his hammer in a return salute. ‘Your arrows are as deadly as ever, Far-killer.’

‘As is my duty, Lord-Celestant. Besides, the Gravewalker would be annoyed if you fell so ignobly to such vermin,’ the Knight-Venator called down.

Clad in amethyst and gold, with a crest of purest white rising above his ornate war-helm, the Far-killer was amongst the most lethal of the Beast-bane’s warriors. His arrows had helped to fell the Black Bull of Nordrath and plucked out the single eye of the tyrannical Butcher-king. Where he flew, death followed.

‘As would I, sky-hunter,’ Zephacleas said. He gestured with his sword. ‘Take your retinues high, my friend – and rain death and ruin on our foes.’

‘As you command,’ Mantius said. His great, crackling wings snapped, and he banked left. He rose upwards a moment later, joined by several retinues of Prosecutors. The winged Stormcasts fell smoothly into position behind the Knight-Venator, flying with a precision that did them credit. It served them well a moment later, as the sky was suddenly filled with a barrage of rancid filth.

‘Take cover,’ Zephacleas bellowed. The Stormcast Eternals were in range of the deadly war engines now, if only just. And the skaven appeared to be wasting no time in taking advantage of that fact. A globule of the poisonous slop splashed down, spraying corrosive fluid over the Stormcasts. One of Duras’ Liberators stumbled, choking, and dropped his weapons to claw at his helm. The warrior fell to his knees and toppled forward, his body already vanishing in a slash of azure lightning. Another joined him, and another. ‘Back! All of you, get back!’ Zephacleas shouted.

Thetaleas and the others retreated, giving ground before the sickening impacts. Zephacleas looked up and signalled to the Prosecutors. The winged Stormcasts swept down and hurled their celestial hammers with pinpoint accuracy, creating a wall of explosions between their fellows and the tide of filth which spread towards them.

Zephacleas and the rest of the vanguard retreated. Skaven bearing whirling censers emerged from the smoke, chittering frenziedly as they pursued the Stormcasts. Glowing arrows knocked several of them sprawling and celestial hammers crushed the rest as Mantius and his Prosecutors sped low over the enemy ranks.

‘Far-killer – take out those catapults if you can,’ Zephacleas shouted, as the Stormcast shield wall split to allow the vanguard to retreat. The sigmarite shields slammed back together with a ringing crash as the first of the skaven reached them. High above, Mantius saluted and swooped upwards.

Zephacleas turned his attentions back to the battle at hand, confident that the Knight-Venator would accomplish his task. Skaven were spilling out of the setae towers, scrambling down the swaying structures towards the battle unfolding below. ‘Thetaleas, bolster the left flank,’ he commanded. ‘Duras, take the right – we must do this the slow way.’

As his warriors hastened to obey, Zephacleas scanned the area – crude barricades and filth-pits covered the street, signs of skaven habitation. The mortal inhabitants of the city had long since abandoned these ways to the invaders, leaving behind only mouldering corpses dangling in curse-gibbets or heaped in the filth-pits to rot and become the fertile soil for new plagues and poxes.

The streets of the Crawling City changed shape constantly as the worm moved, making the towers and walls on its back shift position, forcing the Stormcast Eternals to rely on their winged brethren to guide them. The only unchanging routes were those which stretched between the uppermost tiers of the tallest setae. Woven from worm-hairs and sealed with ichor, they bent and swayed with the movements of the worm.

Unfortunately, the setae were also full of skaven. They had turned most of the natural structures into stinking warrens, burrowing down deep through them into the worm’s body. Shu’gohl would be dead and the city in ruins by the time the Astral Templars cleared them. But if they could silence the catapults and take the Dorsal Barbicans, they might be able to prevent one of those eventualities at least.

Then we’ll burn their stinking warrens clean, as we did in the Ghurdish Heights, he thought, with savage satisfaction.

The worm heaved, and skaven rained down, tumbling from the swaying towers. Those on the ground didn’t seem unduly bothered, and they pressed on, squealing blasphemous chants. Besides the sheer number of their foe, the Stormcast shield wall was hemmed in by the plague-clouds launched from the verminous catapults. Trying to cut off possible avenues of retreat, Zephacleas thought, watching as the right flank of the shield wall shifted slightly to avoid the breeze-borne clouds of contagion which spread slowly across the battlefield.

Even worse was the creaking war engine which loomed over the centre of the skaven horde, expelling a foetid murk from the massive censer swinging from its arch. He’d seen similar war-machines during the battle for the Gates of Dawn, and in the plague-burrows of the Ghurdish Heights. The smoke from its censer drove skaven into a frenzy, but could melt the flesh from a warrior’s bones. A skaven rat-priest stood atop the pulpit mounted on the front, shrieking in what might have been fury.

Swirling clouds of flies filled the air, flowing towards the Stormcasts as the rat-priest gestured. As the solid wave of insects swept over the shield wall, they clustered at the eye and mouth slits of the Liberators’ helms, smothering their heads and blinding them. Warriors staggered and the line began to come apart. They recovered almost instantly, but the skaven took full advantage of the momentary lapse. Skaven censer bearers lurched forward, shoving aside the other rat-monks in their haste to reach the shield wall.

A smoking censer crashed down, knocking a Liberator from his feet. It was a massive sphere of black iron, almost as large as the skaven which wielded it. The creature, clad in rotting robes, slammed a taloned paw down on the shield of the fallen Stormcast, pinning the warrior in place as it swung its weapon up for a second blow.

Zephacleas charged towards it, bulling aside several smaller vermin. He slammed into the skaven and sent it sprawling. More of its censer-wielding brethren swung at him, and the fuming spheres struck his armour with hollow clangs. The air became thick and foul, and he coughed, trying to clear his lungs even as he whirled his sigmarite war-cloak out. The runic enchantment woven into the cloak activated, and dozens of small hammers hurtled into the packed ranks of the enemy, killing many of the ratkin and driving the rest back.

‘On your feet, Arcos,’ Zephacleas said, as he parried the smoking censer with a blow from his hammer. As the Liberator clambered upright, Zephacleas defended him from the skaven. With hammer and blade he drove them back again, and again they hurled themselves forward, yellow froth dripping from their scabrous muzzles. ‘Get in line – force them back, brothers, force them back,’ he said.

Zephacleas glanced around, ‘Gravewalker! We are on the verge of being overwhelmed. We need to drive these beasts back,’ he called, as the shield wall began to reform itself with a crash of metal.

‘Aye, my Lord-Celestant,’ the Lord-Relictor said, bringing the sigmarite ferrule of his staff down on a skaven’s skull. He set his staff and began to chant, his sonorous voice echoing out above the clamour of battle. The air began to smell of hot iron, and the fire-wyrm skull on Seker’s staff glowed with a sapphire light.

Before his prayer could reach its crescendo, the sky flared a deep cobalt.

‘I didn’t know you could do that,’ Zephacleas said, as the light grew more intense. It was not painful to look upon, though the skaven didn’t seem to agree. They edged back, screeching and chittering in a growing frenzy. Even the clangour of their bells had fallen silent.

‘It is not me,’ Seker said, in a hushed voice. ‘It is the light of Azyr. The breath of the very stars themselves. But it does not burn here by Sigmar’s will – something else invokes it.’ The Lord-Relictor sounded… shaken, as if he found it hard to comprehend what was happening.

‘Whatever it is, I’m not letting this opportunity pass us by. Beast-bane, forward–’ Zephacleas began, but Seker stopped him.

‘No, look,’ the Lord-Relictor said, extending his staff towards the light.

It swelled, growing brighter by the moment. Scores of skaven were incinerated by the celestial radiance, and the rest crowded back from it. Their flesh steamed and burned as they fought with one another to escape the light. It was as if some force had plucked a star from the firmament and dropped it onto the Crawling City. Shu’gohl roared, and the ground shook as the worm reared, casting the shadow of its head across the lower sections of the city. The light filled the streets, rising above the tallest tower before fading to reveal something that was neither Stormcast nor skaven.

‘Sigmar’s light – it is one of the Starmasters,’ Seker said, as the blue haze faded and the thing was revealed fully. ‘The seraphon have come.’

‘That’s a seraphon?’ Zephacleas said, staring at the new arrival. Its massive frame was squat and vaguely batrachian in appearance. It sat hunched atop a graven throne which was clustered with thick vines and brightly hued blossoms unlike any he’d ever seen before. The throne hovered above the street, surrounded by the same flickering azure radiance which illuminated its occupant. Heavy-lidded, half-shut eyes flickered, and a wide mouth opened in what might have been a sigh. A long arm rose and gestured. The air reverberated with a forceful silence. The dust stirred, and in the skies above, heretofore unseen stars flickered strangely.

Something crawled up the back of the throne and perched at its summit. It wore thin, pale robes and a cloak of feathers over its scaly shape, and its narrow skull was topped by a vibrant crest. It clutched a golden staff in its claws, and as Zephacleas watched, it extended the staff towards the skaven. The occupant of the throne gestured lazily, and the air before it was suddenly suffused with radiance. A spiralling nimbus of light grew and spread, and the air trembled with the sound of bestial roars and hisses.

A moment later, rank upon rank of reptilian warriors emerged from the glowing nimbus and moved towards the skaven. They advanced shoulder to shoulder, bearing exotic weapons and armour which gleamed with a fiery radiance. Even as they tore into the skaven, their ranks split to disgorge a pack of monstrous reptiles ridden by saurian warriors. At the head of these scaly riders was an even larger monstrosity, such as Zephacleas had never seen save in half-formed memories of deep jungle crevasses and bellowing shapes which hunted for man and beast alike. The great beast bore another of the scaled seraphon on its back and both rider and mount roared in fury as they tore through the skaven like a sword through flesh.

Taken aback by the sudden appearance of this new threat, the skaven could muster no defence. Their horde crumbled in on itself, as the more fanatical fought and the more prudent attempted to flee. From atop the war engine, the skaven priest chittered imprecations at its followers, but to no avail.

Zephacleas clashed his weapons together. ‘They’re distracted. Gravewalker, keep herding them towards the newcomers – if the seraphon want to slaughter vermin, let’s oblige them. Beast-bane, forward!’ he said, raising his sword and signalling the shield wall to advance. The Lord-Relictor shouted something, but Zephacleas was already moving.

The Astral Templars forced the confused skaven back, herding them towards the advancing seraphon. ‘Thetaleas, with me,’ Zephacleas said, calling out to the Decimator-Prime. ‘I intend to turn that war engine of theirs into kindling.’

Alongside the Decimators, Zephacleas began to carve himself a path towards the skaven catapult. But as they drew near, it seemed as if others had the same idea. At the urging of its scaly rider, the monstrous reptile broke into a ground-shaking run, followed by the rest of the mounted seraphon. The great beast rammed the war engine, knocking it over. The machine crashed down on its side, crushing any skaven too slow to get out of the way and spilling the priest and its bodyguards to the ground.

The rat-priest was on its feet in a moment, whirling to face the first of the smaller saurian knights as its mount scrambled over the fallen war engine. A crackling burst of sickly green energy erupted from the rat-priest’s claw. Great sores opened all over the scaly forms of both rider and mount. Jaws gaped in a silent shriek and a shimmering light burst from yawning wounds, as both vanished in a flare of starlight.

The rat-priest chittered and swung its claw towards another of the seraphon. Zephacleas charged forward, knocking the creature’s guards sprawling. As it turned towards him, its single eye widening, his runeblade swept down, removing its glowing claw. It screeched in agony and staggered back amongst its fellows, where the Lord-Celestant lost sight of it. The other rat-monks surged backwards in a wave of foulness, carrying their leader with them.

The saurian riders moved to pursue them, their scales glittering like starlight. Zephacleas and the others held their ground as the seraphon swept past them in silence. He killed a foam-jawed skaven and then was left with nothing to do but watch as the reptilian beings drove the skaven back or butchered them where they stood. The ratkin retreated, scurrying down side-streets and up the sides of the towering setae, vanishing almost as quickly as they’d arrived. The great reptile crouched over the remains of the war engine, roaring in triumph.

‘Zephacleas–’ Seker began, as he joined Zephacleas. Steam rose from the Lord-Relictor’s armour, and Zephacleas could smell the iron tang of celestial lightning.

The Lord-Celestant shook his head, still watching the carnosaur and its rider. The saurian warrior was a battle-scarred creature clad in golden armour. It clutched a spear in one talon and bore a golden gauntlet on the other.

‘We need to reform the lines, before they finish with the vermin. I don’t want to be caught out in the open, if they decide to turn on us after.’

‘They won’t,’ the Lord-Relictor said, softly.

‘How do you know?’

‘The Moon Monks of Hysh say that they are the children of Dracothion, spawned by his breath in the Age of Myth. They say that the Great Drake’s hatred of Chaos burns like a star in the heart of each seraphon,’ Seker said.

‘They say – don’t they also say that they usually vanish, when the battle’s been won?’ Zephacleas asked, watching the ranks of scaled warriors move with enviable meticulousness. Stormcast Eternals were drilled past the point of perfection, but the seraphon arrayed themselves with inhuman precision, as if they were not individual creatures at all, but rather the components of some greater pattern that was beyond human comprehension.

‘Indeed. Which implies that the battle has not yet been won,’ Seker said, in reply.

The ranks of the seraphon stood inhumanly still, facing the Stormcast line. Silence fell, broken only by the cry of distant birds and the dull grinding pulse of Shu’gohl’s progress across the steppes. Zephacleas shook his head. ‘What are they waiting for?’

‘Us,’ the Lord-Relictor said. ‘I believe – I feel – that they wish to speak.’

‘Have they ever done that before?’ he asked.

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Oh,’ Zephacleas said. ‘I’m not exactly one for diplomacy, Gravewalker.’

‘Speak to them as you spoke to the sylvaneth, in the Jade Kingdoms,’ the Lord-Relictor murmured. ‘Someone must, and you are here. We are here. We are Sigmar’s voice, raised in greeting, and his hand, extended in friendship.’

‘Yes,’ Zephacleas said, doubtfully. ‘Let us hope they don’t bite it off.’ He stepped forward, weapons held low and away from his body. He left the shield wall behind and moved to meet the seraphon as they approached. The Lord-Relictor was right. This was as much their duty as the breaking of chains and the felling of tyrants. Besides, the creatures were between the Stormcasts and the Dorsal Barbicans; best to find out now whether they were allies or obstacles. As he drew close, he could sense the celestial energies radiating from the creatures. It unsettled him in a way he couldn’t explain.

Zephacleas stopped and raised his hammer. ‘In the name of Sigmar, and the Realm Celestial, I bid thee greetings…’

CHAPTER THREE

The Dreaming Constellation

The air of the Setaen Palisades smelled of the sweetest rot and rising infection to Vretch as he strode across them, warpstone-tipped staff in one claw and the Mappo Vurmio clutched in the other. The hard flesh under his foot-claws was growing soft with inflammation, and small geysers of seepage erupted here and there, pooling about the raised platforms which held the slave-cages. The cages had once held the many-legged parasites that nestled in the furrows and folds of the worm’s flesh, which the folk of Shu’gohl raised for meat. Now they held man-things, and stank of fear and pain, as well as the various illnesses which ran rampant through the imprisoned population.

The man-things were veritable gardens of delight, in that regard. Every little pox found its place, and they rotted so swiftly that his plague monks were hard-pressed to keep up. When one of the man-things succumbed, a pox-bell rang and his followers scurried to see which plague was responsible. Only those which brought about swift rot and ruin were extracted and fostered – the swifter the better. The Horned Rat cared nothing for fecundity or the propagation of his poxes – only the end result.

All in all, the palisades were a thing of beauty, Vretch thought. It was almost a shame to leave. But the Gut-shafts waited, and he was impatient. The sooner he found the missing Liber, the sooner he could sweep his enemies – Kruk included – before him. It was also far too open out here, away from the cramped safety of the towers. He glanced at the swirling clouds above, before hastily looking away. He seized his few remaining whiskers and began to groom them to calm himself.

He occasionally heard the sounds of battle carried on the wind. He wondered whether Squeelch still lived, and whether he’d made his assassination attempt on Kruk yet. If not, he might have to punish his not-quite underling. He sighed. Squeelch had showed such promise, but even if the other plague priest had failed, Vretch would not. Yes, the sooner he was safely below, the sooner victory could be achieved.

Each of the Gut-shafts was topped by a rickety frame of mouldy setaen timbers. Platforms of worm-meat and cauldrons of ichor were drawn up by gangs of chained slaves, under the watchful gazes of his most trustworthy plague monks. As new loads were drawn up, bells rang out, summoning more slaves to unload the platforms.

Not all of the shafts were being emptied – some were being filled with the bodies of dead and dying man-things. As they decomposed, the stuff of their rot would seep into the raw, wounded flesh of Shu’gohl, further weakening the great worm. It would die, as all things must die, for the greater glory of the Horned Rat.

And for the greater glory of Vretch, he thought, sniggering. The Crawling City would become a great warren of rot, a sacred temple of putrescence. All of skavenkind would flock to it, in time, as the word of its dreadful miasma spread from it. And Vretch would be its master. Vretch, master of one of the Great Plagues. Vretch, best-beloved of the Great Corruptor. Vretch, Grand Squealer of the Basilica of Red Buboes.

First, however, he must find that which he sought.

A noise caught his attention. He glanced behind him at his procession. A great mass of plague monks shuffled in his wake, their robes and weapons dripping with filth. They twitched and coughed, like true members of the Clans Pestilens – their bodies were temples to the many and multifarious blessings of the Horned Rat. They felt no pain, no weakness. The skaven of less faithful clans did not understand them or the purity of their purpose. They were the most worthy of all the Great Corruptor’s children, and Vretch was the worthiest of the worthy.

Doom gongs rang out in gloomy fashion, and bale-chimes clanged as his chosen servants followed him, murmuring the praises of the Great Witherer. Those closest to the front of the procession carried those tomes and scrolls he’d chosen to bring with him, often staggering slightly beneath their weight. At the centre of the procession was the Conglomeration, squatting on its palanquin of bone.

He had considered leaving the thing behind, but it was his conduit to Skuralanx and the will of the Great Horned Rat. That wasn’t the only reason he would need it where he was going, however – the thing was the only creature he’d discovered so far to be immune to the strange plague which had brought the skaven to Shu’gohl in the first place. He patted his robes, where a jar of the pox-froth which had spilled earlier rested. When the time came, the Conglomeration would ingest it and sniff out the source of the Great Plague. As if reading his thoughts, the mass of scab-melded skaven shook, its many tails lashing with surprising vigour.

Vretch watched the Conglomeration twitch and shriek with some concern. While the accumulation of diseased flesh was prone to paroxysms, this was something different. A number of its larger abscesses burst, expelling steam and superheated pus. They sprayed across the plague monks who bore its palanquin on their shoulders. One of the bearers screamed as boiling pus spattered across his muzzle, burning his flesh to the bone. The monk staggered away, clutching at his snout, squealing in agony. The stink of fear-musk filled the air as the palanquin dipped and shifted. His congregation scattered, abandoning their fellows with commendable speed.

Vretch backed away as the Conglomeration heaved itself to the side and bit off the head of another bearer. The other two couldn’t hold up the palanquin by themselves, and it crashed to the ground, spilling the monstrosity off. It shrilled out in what might have been pain, or perhaps hunger. Its heads jerked and bit at the dying bearer. All save one.

That one turned towards him, malformed features contorted in a snarl. ‘Vvvvretch,’ it groaned in the unmistakable tones of the verminlord. ‘Heed me, most subservient one…’ Flailing limbs caught handfuls of the ground and it began to drag itself towards him. Vretch backed away.

‘I hear and heed, O most puissant and shadowed one,’ he chittered, jabbing at the roiling mass of infected flesh with his staff. ‘You don’t have to come any closer, no-no.’

‘Vretch, an old-new enemy comes slithering down out of the stars,’ Skuralanx hissed. The Conglomeration’s other heads turned, jaws still mindlessly chewing bits of bearer. They fixed Vretch with the daemon’s gaze and he froze in place, staff hanging forgotten in his hands. ‘They come for Kruk first, but they will come for you as well…’

Images flashed through the plague priest’s head – vague, ghostly moments, stolen from the world-that-was, the world the Horned Rat had led his children from at the tolling of the great plague-bell. The beginnings of the Virulent Exodus, when the Horned Rat carried the forefathers of all skaven through the tunnel of stars.

Vretch’s body spasmed as he felt the stinging rain of fire that had consumed that despoiled world, and the fear of those who’d fled. More, he heard the thump of monstrous drums, rising out of the deep jungles to reverberate through his wormy bones. He heard the earth-shaking tread of great beasts as they pursued him, and the ever-hungry roars of titanic predators, hungry for the flesh of cringing skaven. He felt the Fear – the old fear, the first fear – flood him, and he squealed in panic.

The sky yawned wide above him, like the jaws of something infinite and terrible. A serpent of clouds and stars, its eyes swirling vortices, its scales the light of flaring suns. Vretch fell to all fours, clawing at the ground, trying to dig a hole, to escape the eyes of the Fear. His only thought – escape, escape, escape!

‘There is no escape, Vretch. You are cornered. Your burrow is aflame, your warrens invaded. The old enemy comes, and no shadow can save you. Only victory – victory, Vretch! Only that can save you from the jaws of the serpent.’ The hands of the Conglomeration clutched at him, tearing at his robes. Vretch shook himself and skittered back, trying not to thrust at the thing with his staff.

‘I am near-close, yes-yes, Mightiest of Mightiness,’ he chittered. His heart thudded in his chest, and his ears echoed with the dull scrape of scales over stone. He fought against the urge to squirt the musk of fear. From the smell, his followers had not been victorious in that regard. A number of plague monks had sought safety on the struts and framework of the shafts, while others stared at the Conglomeration, frozen in huddled masses.

‘Near? Then where is my pox, Vretch?’ Skuralanx growled. ‘Do you hear the thunder? Do you hear the serpent’s hiss? They are coming, Vretch – only the pox can stop them. Where is it? Where?’

‘O– Olgu’gohl, the Squirming Sea, O savage scurrying one,’ Vretch squealed. He sank to his haunches and lifted his head, instinctively baring his throat to his master. ‘It is below – far below! Through the Gut-shafts, most insidious one,’ Vretch chittered in what he hoped was a placatory fashion. ‘They will take me – take us! Us! – to that which we seek. I go now, below.’

‘Hrrryes, below,’ Skuralanx grunted. The quivering bulk grew still, but the hell-spark eyes remained fixed. ‘Run, Vretch. Scurry-fast, quick-quick… the old serpent is on your trail, looking to snap you up. Only once all of the Great Plagues are gathered can the Horned Rat hurl his other aspects aside and become the Great Witherer Ascendant. Only then can he bite through the throat of the old serpent, and silence its hisses for good. And Skuralanx shall be the one who brings that final victory about,’ Skuralanx hissed. ‘Find me that Liber, Vretch.’

The Conglomeration fell silent, and its gazes again became dull. It squirmed and gibbered as Vretch gestured for his assistants to roll it back onto its palanquin.

‘Yes,’ Vretch muttered. ‘But not Skuralanx, no-no. Only Vretch.’ He warily jabbed the insensate bulk and then looked around at the hunched and cowering shapes of his followers. ‘Well? Pick it up, you fools. We have wasted enough time! The Squirming Sea awaits!’

The Dorsal Barbicans were a hive of activity. Skaven ran to and fro, congregations jostling for space behind the stone ramparts or within the towers. At the highest point of the worm-spanning fortress, the Archfumigant of the Congregation of Fumes was being treated for his sadly non-fatal injuries. Squeelch watched as Kruk stripped the filthy bandage from his maimed limb. A pale steam rose from the wound – the mark of the enemy’s magic. It burned the flesh free of blessed diseases. Squeelch’s lice-ridden flesh crawled at the thought. He had worked very hard on his collection of skin diseases. He stepped back, putting another claw’s length between himself and Kruk.

‘Star-devils,’ Kruk snapped, his good eye wide with fury. ‘We were betrayed! Betrayed!’

Squeelch refrained from asking the obvious question. Instead, he nodded jerkily. ‘Yes-yes. But what now, O Hardy Scion of the Horned Rat?’

‘Nowww?’ Kruk growled. ‘Now, you summon a warpflame, fool-fool!’ The plague priest reached out with his good claw and caught a handful of Squeelch’s robes. ‘Quick-quick, or I will eat your heart.’

He extended his bloody stump. Squeelch pulled himself free and gestured over the chunk of warpstone lashed to the top of his staff. The green stone began to glow with a sickly light, and he felt the ticks in his ears grow agitated in response. An oily flame blossomed from the facets of the warpstone and he held it out.

Kruk thrust his ruined claw into the flames and hissed in mingled pain and fury. ‘Get me the censer, quick-fast,’ he snarled, as he withdrew the smouldering stump. Skug lurched forward, holding a makeshift gauntlet. It slid over Kruk’s stump with a click, as the warpstone-infused nails within immediately pierced the charred flesh and spread like cancerous roots. Kruk shrieked in pain and bashed a nearby censer bearer on the skull with his new limb, killing the unlucky skaven instantly. Squeelch flinched, glad that it wasn’t him. Skug tittered phlegmatically and shook his chains.

Squeelch hated the censer bearer with a passion. The leader of the Reeking Choir was as foul a watch-dog as Kruk could hope for. He was certain Skug harboured his own schemes and desires, but for now, the boil-encrusted brute seemed content to ward Kruk against any harm that might befall him, whether from without or within. Squeelch looked away from the operation, and studied the defences he’d laboured so long over.

The Dorsal Barbicans were heavily manned. The bulk of the congregation’s laity now guarded the walls, clutching their weapons in anticipation of the confrontation to come. Censer bearers from the Reeking Choir moved among them, filling the air with pungent smoke and wailing out the thirty-nine Bubonic Hymns. Some few stragglers scurried across the setae bridges from the outer towers, seeking shelter within the barbicans.

The sound of thunder echoed up from the streets below, signalling the approaching enemy. There was a strange musk on the air – dry and harsh. Squeelch felt his insides twist in knots at the merest whiff, and knew he was not alone. All across the barbicans, skaven muttered to one another in growing fear. They could all feel it – all save Kruk and his Reeking Choir, whose noses were dead to anything save the scent of decay.

It came with the star-devils, swooping down on searing celestial winds to burn away all save the urge to run, to flee. Only their numbers and the bilious fumes spewing from the censers of the Reeking Choir kept those crouched atop the barbicans from scattering and fleeing.

Squeelch found comfort in his plague-engines. The plagueclaws were the holiest of the holy, and Squeelch felt his sores pucker in pride as he gazed at the rancid contraptions of rusty metal and festering wood. They were as the filth-encrusted talons of the Horned Rat himself, gouging at the enemy. Plagues brewed by his own claws were ladled into the catapults to be hurled into the enemy’s midst. With his plagueclaws, Squeelch had spread many a blessed sickness through strongholds and citadels, through streets and caverns. He had rewarded many of his most fervent followers with the honour of crewing one of the machines.

Those who now crewed the plagueclaws had shed their robes, so as to better saturate themselves in the hissing virulence of the ammunition. Their mangy hides were covered in abscesses and weeping tumours, and many had lost most, if not all of their hair. Soon, they would rot away entirely, their shrieking essences becoming one with the Great Witherer. He would have to remember to choose their replacements.

To Squeelch, that was the truest way of war – to share the blessings of the Horned Rat with the foe, but from afar. Very, very far. A rain of death, rather than a poke with an infected stick. That was the best way.

Kruk held up his gauntlet and examined it with his good eye. It was a smaller, fist-sized censer, taken from Skug’s plethora and mounted on a heavy iron bracer. Greenish fumes rose from it, flowing up Kruk’s arm and around his bandaged head. ‘It’ll do,’ he grunted, inhaling the smoke with a sigh. He looked at Squeelch. ‘Destroy it.’

‘Destroy what, holiest of holies?’

‘The city. All of it. Turn it to sludge, now-now!’ Kruk snarled, thrusting his censer beneath Squeelch’s nose. ‘Fire the plagueclaws – destroy everything. Let the star-devils wade through oceans of filth, if they would.’

‘But– but our warriors, most powerful of plague-winds,’ Squeelch began, flinching at the mention of the scaly creatures. He had never seen them before, but something in him recognised them regardless. Rising up in him, he felt the instinctive urge to find a hole and hide away from them, to burrow deeper than they could follow. For a moment, he was lost, and he knew the full terror of being prey.

‘They die for the glory of the Corruptor. If you would not join them, you will do as I command,’ Kruk growled, his eye glittering with malice. He did not seem afraid. Then, Squeelch would have been astounded to learn that Kruk even knew what the word meant. ‘Destroy everything – the city, the lightning-riders, the star-devils, all of it.’

‘A– as you command, O mighty Summoner of a Thousand Pestilences.’ Squeelch turned, ready to screech orders at the plagueclaw crews to begin loading his deadliest poxes. If the foe wanted to take the Dorsal Barbicans, they would have to do so through a rain of plagues. But before he could give the order, something caught his eye.

He turned, gazing up into the storm-tossed sky. Gleaming shapes glided out of the clouds on crackling wings and dove towards the barbicans. He peered up at them, trying to understand what he was seeing. His eyes widened. ‘Fire-fire! Hurry! Quick-quick,’ he shrilled, flinging out his claws in panic.

Kruk whirled, glaring up at the descending shapes as the plagueclaw crew hurried to ready the war engines to fire. ‘What–?’ he growled. ‘Treachery!’

The first plagueclaw fired, hurling a steaming mass of putrescence into the air. The diving storm-things rolled through the sky, nimbly dodging the missile. There were twelve of them, and their wings gleamed like fire. Storm-swift, they swooped. Heavy hammers appeared in their waiting hands, manifesting in a blaze of light. A moment later, those hammers were spinning through the air towards the barbicans.

They struck like comets, shaking the great walls down to their foundations. Squeelch was knocked from his claws. He cowered for a moment, expecting the nearest plagueclaw to topple over on him, but it merely swayed in place. The crews scrambled across it, readying it to fire.

Skug jerked him to his feet. ‘Up-up, squealer,’ the skull-faced skaven gurgled. Squeelch slapped his claws aside.

‘Do not be touching me, fool-fool,’ Squeelch hissed, exposing his teeth. Skug snarled at him, and Squeelch prodded him in the chest with his staff. The chunk of warpstone lashed to the end lit up and Skug cowered back, raising his claws in surrender. Before Squeelch could poke him again, Kruk caught hold of the staff with his good claw.

‘Cease-stop, fool. Enemies aplenty before us,’ the scarred plague priest roared, shoving Squeelch back against the plagueclaw’s frame. More of the glowing hammers struck the barbican wall as the winged Stormcasts swooped overhead. Panicked skaven ran in every direction, trying to avoid the storm of debris that arose from the impacts.

The plagueclaws continued to fire, their crews driven beyond fear, beyond sense, by their proximity to the foul ammunition of their war engines. The boil-encrusted crew-skaven fought to swing the catapults about, trying vainly to track their foes. Squeelch hissed in consternation as a glowing hammer tore apart the frame of one of his charges, nearly destroying it.

Incensed, the plague priest thumped the barbican with his staff, and unleashed a putrescent light from the warpstone crystal mounted atop it. One of the winged Stormcasts was caught full-on by the blast. Amethyst armour corroded as the flesh within turned black and gangrenous. What was left of the warrior tumbled from the air to land with an undignified splat. Azure lightning roared upwards from bubbling remains, and Squeelch flinched back.

‘Haaaa, yes-yes, that’s the way, Squeelch,’ Kruk screeched. ‘Kill-kill, rapid-quick!’ He thrust out his censer. The smoke spewing from it billowed abruptly, shredding and reforming to become a massive claw. Kruk swung his arm, and caught one of the storm-things in the smoky talon. The warrior struggled, trying to smash his way free. Kruk rotated his wrist, and the claw tightened, enveloping the warrior in its noxious grip. The storm-thing’s struggles became more frantic as the poisonous vapour filled his lungs. Then, abruptly, he went limp.

Kruk chortled and let his victim fall. ‘They die easy,’ he grunted, looking for more prey as lightning crackled upwards from the dissolving body. Skug knocked him aside as a glowing arrow thudded into the barbican where he’d been standing. Kruk smacked Skug away with a curse and clambered to his claws. More arrows rained down, impaling skaven where they stood. Death fell across the barbican, marked by glowing contrails.

As Squeelch ran back and forth, trying to avoid the shimmering arrows, he caught sight of the sky-archer hovering over the barbican, his crackling wings holding him aloft. The warrior’s armour was more ornate than that of his hammer-wielding followers, and his arm was a blur as he loosed arrow after arrow in rapid succession.

Squeelch flung himself beneath the frame of a plagueclaw, narrowly avoiding losing the tip of his tail. Kruk was not so lucky. The plague priest screeched as an arrow pinned his tail to the rampart. He staggered as the second tore through his robe, somehow missing anything vital. One of the winged Stormcasts swooped low, hammer raised as if to remove Kruk’s head. Despite being pinned, the plague priest was in no mood to surrender to fate. The smoking censer that had replaced his claw lashed out and caught the winged warrior in the head, dropping him twitching to the parapet.

At Kruk’s shriek of command, Skug and the rest of the Reeking Choir swarmed over the downed warrior. A moment later, the censer bearers were thrown back by a crackling bolt of lightning, which speared upwards to streak towards the heavens.

By now, the miasma of the whirling censers was rising into the air, and skaven swarmed across the barbican. Fanatical plague monks clambered up the plagueclaws, slashing wildly at the winged Stormcasts if they drew too close.

Kruk tore himself free of the arrow that pinned his tail, even as it dissolved into motes of light. He shook his censer-claw at the winged shapes in a show of defiance, as the plagueclaws continued to fire, filling the air with boiling clouds of sickness. Squeelch stuck his snout out from under the plagueclaw and gave the ground a thump with his staff.

The bodies of the fallen skaven began to twitch as the lice and maggots that occupied their robes were wracked by the transformative energies of his spell. The insects became humming flies. At Squeelch’s gesture, the flies rose up in a massive, buzzing cloud and roiled towards the Stormcast Eternals, shrouding them in biting, stinging swarms. The winged warriors darted skywards a moment later, leaving both the flies and the barbicans behind.

Squeelch’s triumphal chitter was cut short as Kruk hauled him out from under the catapult and held him aloft with his muscular claw. ‘Stop wasting time, fool-squealer,’ he snarled. ‘Destroy this city – destroy everything! For the glory of the Horned Rat!

The seraphon did not immediately react to Zephacleas’ greeting. As he stood waiting, he studied them. While he had never encountered them before, others had, if only briefly, most notably in the Gorevale, as well as the Fortress of Embers on Obsidia Isle. Never before had the seraphon remained after the battle was done. Always, in his admittedly limited experience, they vanished in beams of starlight, returning to wherever it was that they came from.

But not this time. This time they waited, though Sigmar alone knew for what.

Zephacleas saw a plume of fire rise up over the Dorsal Barbicans, and knew that the Far-killer had begun his attack. Impatience won out over discipline, and he took a step towards the seraphon. The saurian warriors raised their glittering spears with a thunderous rattle. He stopped, gripping his weapons more tightly, ready for whatever might come next. The little saurian in its feathered cloak met his gaze. He felt a chill, and tensed as it raised its staff.

The ranks of the seraphon split, allowing a large shape to amble through. It was massive, far bigger and bulkier than the saurus warriors around it. The creature stalked forward, slamming its war-mace against its curved shield. It bellowed in challenge. Zephacleas instinctively bellowed back. The creature glared at him, its nostrils flaring. It was larger than any Stormcast Eternal, and twice as broad. Its turquoise scales were interrupted by weals of pale scar tissue, criss-crossing its wide torso and marring its face. It slammed its star-metal war-mace against its shield again and lurched forward.

Instinctively, Zephacleas caught its blow on his sword and struck its shield with his hammer. It gave a chortling grunt and came at him again, more swiftly this time. They traded blows, moving back and forth between the two forces. Within moments, however, Zephacleas realised that the creature was only playing with him. Anger surged through him, and he pressed the attack, trying to bring it to its knees – whatever game it was playing, he was in no mood for it. But the seraphon caught his fiercest strikes on its shield or turned them aside with its war-mace, matching him blow for blow.

Abruptly, it stepped back. Arms spread, it turned its back on him and roared. Zephacleas lowered his weapons, sensing that the game, or perhaps test, was over. The little skink advanced to meet its champion, then stepped past to where Zephacleas stood. It cocked its head.

‘Sutok has tested you,’ it chirped. ‘You glow with the light of Azyr. You shine like the stars in the dark between realms. Great Kurkori has thus decreed that we will speak.’ It swung its staff back, indicating the seemingly slumbering slann on its floating throne.

Zephacleas waited. The skink eyed him. ‘The stars change. The skies burn. The war remains the same,’ it chirruped. It raised its claw in a complex gesture. ‘Always the war. Great Kurkori dreams always of war. The last war and the first.’ The skink straightened abruptly. Its head swivelled, gazing at its seemingly insensate master. ‘Never to wake, only to dream, until dream’s end.’ It turned back, fixing Zephacleas with a beady eye. ‘You are part of it?’

‘I…’ Zephacleas began, wondering how to answer. Then he nodded. ‘Yes.’

The skink’s crested skull twitched and dipped, reminding Zephacleas of one of the flightless predatory birds of the Savannah Kingdoms. He smiled at the thought, but only briefly. Those birds were larger than a man, and deadly. In his mortal days, the armoured knights of the kingdoms had tamed them to ride in battle. The skink chirped wordlessly, and he wondered whether it knew what he was thinking.

‘Will we dream together?’ it said, after a moment. ‘Will we dream of war? Of death, to the scurrying vermin?’

Zephacleas nodded in understanding. ‘Aye, and gladly.’ He extended his hammer. ‘We fight to free this city from the vermin which infest it, to free its people and the great beast upon whose back they ride.’

‘You march to the great fortress which spans the worm,’ the skink said. ‘Great Kurkori has seen it.’ Before he could reply, it clicked its jaws and added, ‘You must march further and farther. You must go into its belly and to the worm’s head. This, Most Ancient Lord Kurkori has seen in his visions,’ the skink said. ‘The future and the past are all one for him. He has seen what will be, what is and what must be for the dream to be good.’

‘And you will march with us,’ Zephacleas said, somewhat shaken. The seraphon knew of their mission.

‘The Most Ancient and Somnolent Lord Kurkori has seen it,’ the skink said. Zephacleas peered at the slumbering shape of the slann. He wondered if the creature was even aware of what was going on. Then, perhaps it didn’t matter for such a being. An ally was an ally, and he was not one to turn away the offer of friendship. Especially if it meant the difference between success and failure.

He looked down at the skink. ‘Then let us ensure that it is indeed a good dream, my friend. I am Zephacleas, Lord-Celestant of the Beast-bane, servant of Sigmar,’ he said.

The skink stared up at him. It blinked, and said nothing. Then, ‘Takatakk. I am Takatakk. Starpriest to the Dreaming Constellation, servant of Kurkori.’ It looked up at him, expression inhuman and unreadable. ‘We have come to fight beside you, dream-of-Sigmar.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Into the Depths

Vretch strode down through the pleasingly noxious murk of the Gut-shaft. The incline was raw and infected. It sloshed pleasantly beneath his claws as he used his staff to test the route ahead. The shaft was a steep slope of shuddering meat, shot through with webs of veins and throbbing runnels full of what passed for the worm’s blood. Ichor dripped from the walls and ceiling of the shaft, and curtains of torn fat and muscle flapped wetly in the breeze which had followed the skaven down.

It was the most comfortable he’d felt since he’d first led his procession up through the gnawholes and onto the surface of the worm. The fleshy tunnel reminded him of the cramped and crooked corridors of Blight City, full of the comforting smells of rot and skaven – if somewhat more perilous, on the whole.

More than once since he’d begun his expedition, the scoured walls of the worm’s pores had expanded to envelop an unwary plague monk. Shu’gohl’s thrashing had grown worse since they’d started their descent. He wondered whether it had anything to do with the stink of pox-sludge which drifted from the dorsal area of the city.

Kruk was up to something. Nothing intelligent, obviously. No, Kruk was a fool and prone to foolish things. Vretch was tempted to bite his own tail in frustration at the other plague priest’s disagreeable antics. Even at a remove, occupied by battle with the storm-things and the star-devils, his rival was causing him difficulties. Then, it had always been that way.

Kruk was a natural disaster looking for a place to happen. If Squeelch didn’t act soon to put Kruk out of his misery, Kruk might kill the worm before Vretch had found what he was looking for, and that could prove disastrous. Who knew how Shu’gohl’s death might affect its internal regions? Things could shift or dissolve, carrying the object of his quest further out of reach. And that would be disastrous – Skuralanx might even blame Vretch for the delay, and punish him accordingly. He shuddered.

As he did so, he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. A flickering shadow. He glanced back, but saw only the shadows of his followers, cast by the light of the warpstone torches they carried. Unconsciously, he hugged the Mappo Vurmio to his chest. A trick of the light, he thought.

Despite the worm’s convulsions, they reached the bottom of the shaft with little real difficulty, and most of his procession intact. It wasn’t that far, through the layers of flesh and muscle. The shaft flowered into a wide lump of fatty tissue, which jutted over what he believed to be Shu’gohl’s intestinal tract.

A foul wind rose up out of the dark and washed over him, carrying with it, the sound of… squirming. He smelled ichor and something else, something bilious and musky all at once. ‘Quick-hurl a torch, fast-fast,’ he said. One of his plague monks scuttled forward and threw a warpstone torch into the darkness, briefly illuminating the immensity below.

In that glimpse, Vretch saw that the Squirming Sea was well-named. It was a narrow sea of digestive juices running lengthwise along the worm’s body, broken at points by steaming reefs composed of uncountable squirming worms – whether these were parasites, or offspring, Vretch couldn’t say. In the distance, he could just make out the shapes of broken spires and crumbled towers, rising from the bubbling waters. It was said that whole man-thing fortresses had been swallowed by Shu’gohl on its eternal crawling. And more than just fortresses – encampments of orruks and even the warrens of skaven had been drawn into the worm’s belly.

It was one of the latter he had come to find: the lost warren of Geistmaw. It was an innocuous little den, inhabited by a clan of old. They had perished to a skaven, but had not been forgotten. He opened the Mappo Vurmio and flipped through its stiff pages. Those ancient cartographers had discovered the remains of the warren and its unfortunate inhabitants. And after they had mapped it, they had died one by one from a strange sickness – a sickness, according to their peculiar man-thing scratching, much like that which had drawn him here in the first place. Vretch licked his snout in anticipation.

He knew, with every fibre of his keen and matchless intellect, that the forgotten clan of Geistmaw had discovered the secret of one of the Great Plagues and brewed it, only to be subsumed by the worm before they could unleash it. How long must it have taken for the poisonous atmosphere of the lost warren to spread through Shu’gohl’s stomach-sea? A hundred years? A thousand? Only to be expelled at last in the worm’s wake, to poison the land where it squirmed. Such was the potency of the Great Plagues that they remained dangerous even centuries after their brewing.

He traced a page with his claw, following the route those long-dead mapmakers had taken. Most of what the worm ate passed through its digestive tract. But some things became lodged in the flows and eddies of Olgu’gohl, there to become a permanent fixture of this ill-lit realm. The Geistmaw warren was one such thing. Once, it had occupied the remains of a man-thing fortress of the same name; now both fortress and warren hung suspended from the worm’s stomach-lining over a natural eddy in the digestive fluid.

It would not be easy to reach, but reach it he would. He was too close to fail now. He peered over the lip of the precipice, down into the digestive waters below. He turned back to his followers and raised his staff. ‘Hurry,’ he snapped. ‘Lower the raft-platforms, quick-quick.’

His procession devolved into a flurry of activity as skaven dragged the rafts forward. The wide, scoop-shaped platforms had been made from ichor-hardened setae and scale prised from the worm’s back. They would resist the acidic waters of the Squirming Sea, as would the oars woven from similarly hardened setae-strands – or so his assistants swore. The oar-skaven were clad in thick, heavy robes designed to resist even the most virulent pox-brews, and wore goggles and cowls to protect their faces. Vretch had his own goggles and congratulated himself for thinking of them – the stinging steam rising from the gut-juices of Shu’gohl would have blinded even one as inured to pain as himself.

His followers dragged the rafts to the edge as others clambered down the fatty cliff below to create a living chain by which the rafts could be passed from one set of claws to the next. The rafts were lowered one after another without incident, and sat waiting in the bubbling stream below. Then, and only then, were Vretch’s books and the Conglomeration lowered to occupy the largest of the rafts. His pox-cauldrons and plague-urns were scattered about the rest – their contents would smoke and spew, keeping any potential predators at bay. The Horned Rat alone knew what sort of monstrosities lurked in Shu’gohl’s gullet.

But soon, none of that would matter. Soon, nothing would be able to stop him. Vretch would rise, and the Mortal Realms would fall.

Tokl watched as the vermin lowered themselves into the bubbling river. When he was certain they’d left no watchers behind, he dropped from the wall. The rest of his cohort did the same, moving in perfect unison. Nimble and clever, the band of chameleon skinks had pursued the skaven down the pulsing length of the fleshy shaft, and they would pursue them further still, until the Great Lord Kurkori commanded otherwise.

Such was their function. Tokl and his warriors were the unseen instruments of the slann’s will, the forgotten moments of the Great Dream. Their scales mimicked the hue of their surroundings as they stalked their prey, and the whisper of their celestite blowpipes was all but inaudible. They existed within the shadows, where the light of Azyr did not always reach, invisible, at times, even to the eyes of their fellow seraphon. But so too were they invisible to the servants of the Dark Gods. They were the Unseen Correctors, and they set broken dreams to rights at their master’s command.

Tokl licked his bulging eyes, trying to attune them to the humid interior of the worm. The lingering traces of warp-smoke stung him, and he longed for the open air. His cohort chirped in alarm as the worm convulsed and the shaft shuddered about them. He heard the panicked squeals of the skaven as they fought to keep their rafts from turning over.

He did not know why the vermin had come down here, and it was not his function to ask. It did not matter. The vermin hunted, and they would be hunted in their turn.

The worm shuddered again. The great creature was in agony. Monstrous as it was, it deserved better than to be eaten away from the inside out by the scuttling rat-vermin. But Great Lord Kurkori had decreed that such would not happen here, and Tokl and his cohort would do their part to see that it didn’t.

Tokl chirped and gestured. ‘Move. Swift. Silent,’ he chirped. They would scale the walls of the great worm’s intestine and hide among its folds and creases as they shadowed the vermin.

‘Attack?’ one of the others asked, head cocked.

‘No,’ Tokl chirruped. ‘We keep our distance.’ The sickening fumes rising from the cauldrons mounted on the rafts would kill a skink as easily as whatever predators lurked in the great worm’s stomach. They would follow their quarry at a distance, and strike when the time was right. When Takatakk commanded.

They were guided by the will of the Dreaming Seer, and they would not fail.

The wind had turned, and the stink of melting setae washed over the Dorsal Barbicans. The streets and furrows before the barbicans were covered in steaming, bubbling sludge. The great worm thrashed in continual agony, setting the barbicans to shuddering. Skaven lined the walls, chanting the Thirty-three Rapturous Hymns to the Third Great Plague as they swayed amidst the thick smoke emitted by the censers of the Reeking Choir. The plagueclaws continued to hurl their frothy projectiles, filling the streets of the Crawling City with poisonous smog. And as they launched, Squeelch worked steadily to brew new plague-slop for them to toss into the city.

‘Load-load,’ he chittered as he stirred the mixture in the pox-cauldron before him with his staff. ‘Faster, fools, faster!’

His crews hurriedly ladled the brew into the plagueclaws, scratching at their sloughing flesh as they worked. His assistants were stationed before similar cauldrons up and down the barbicans, using the recipes he had taught them to prepare ever more powerful mixtures. Plague monks staggered towards him, dragging baskets full of shrieking rats. Squeelch stepped back, allowing them to dunk the baskets in the cauldron.

The baskets were then dragged to the buckets of the plagueclaws, where they would be hurled into the city. Some of the rats would endure the landing and scurry forth to spread sickness. They were hardy creatures, as befitting creations of the Horned Rat, and were easily capable of surviving long-distance, high-speed travel, especially when bolstered by a healthy mixture of plague-broth. It was an old tactic, a traditional tactic. Squeelch had learned it from his master, and his master before him, before murdering them both with a tainted bowl of fish heads. He sighed happily as he hawked a huge glob of phlegm into the pox-cauldron and continued to stir the soupy mixture.

He took a cursory sniff, and instantly his lungs filled with a cloying weight. He hacked in satisfaction, pounding on his chest. One of the crew-skaven, overcome, toppled forward face-first into the cauldron. At his gesture, the others stuffed the body into the thick soup. He jabbed at the still-twitching carcass with his staff. It would add to the potency.

This was a good brew. One of his best yet, he thought. His sores tingled in pride as he filched his snuff-bag from within his robes and stuffed a talon in it. The powdered warpstone within was mixed with dried pus scraped from the bodies of plague victims, and something vaguely sweet. He stuffed his powder-coated talon into his mouth. Green sparks danced behind his eyes, and he felt as if he could out-think a hundred rivals.

Sniffing, Squeelch stared at Kruk’s broad back, and wondered whether he could shove him over the edge of the rampart before Skug reacted. He lifted his staff from the cauldron, considering. One good poke, yes-yes, and much-dead Kruk, he thought. It was glaringly obvious to his superior intellect that even Kruk couldn’t survive such a fall.

Kruk might not even mind. It was how he’d taken control of the Congregation of Fumes in the first place, after all. And the title of Archfumigant had passed through at least a dozen claws before Kruk had pitched old Frekt into a toad dragon’s mouth at the Guttering Fen. No, Kruk wouldn’t mind. He was a traditionalist at heart.

Kruk turned, his good eye narrowing, as if he’d read Squeelch’s mind.

Maybe not yet, Squeelch thought, trying to look as if he hadn’t just been contemplating assassinating his superior. ‘Why has Vretch not attacked yet?’ Kruk demanded.

Squeelch blinked. ‘What, O most potent of poxes?’

‘Why… hasn’t… Vretch… attacked,’ Kruk growled, thrusting his muzzle towards Squeelch. ‘We are distracted. I would have attacked. You would have attacked. Why has Vretch not attacked?’

‘Prudence, O most pestilential of priests?’

‘Prrrudence, squealer? Is that what you call it?’ Skug rasped.

Squeelch glared at the censer bearer. He was about to snarl a reply, when Kruk grunted.

‘Whatever you call it, it is an itch in the back of my mind,’ the plague priest said, glaring towards the ever-present lightning storm which swirled over the worm’s head. ‘But I will not give him the pleasure of abandoning this place, no-no. Vretch wants the Libraria Vurmis. He will come – he must.’ Kruk smacked his censer into his palm.

So that was it. Squeelch had wondered why Kruk had seemed so bent on defending the Dorsal Barbicans. He almost pitied the brute. Vretch no longer needed the library or its contents, for Squeelch had given him the pick of its bounty already.

‘Vretch is not attacking because he is more cunning than that,’ a deep voice growled. Squeelch looked up and saw the muscular shape of Skuralanx crouched atop the closest plagueclaw. When the daemon had arrived, Squeelch couldn’t say – the creature moved more silently than a shadow, appearing and disappearing at will.

The verminlord glared down at them. ‘Vretch is counting on you to occupy the foe, while he accomplishes his goal.’

Kruk growled wordlessly. Skuralanx chittered in amusement. ‘You’re a fool, Kruk. Your enemies approach through your pox-rain, and your true foe goes to accomplish what you could not,’ the daemon said.

Kruk cocked his head. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Fool-fool,’ Skuralanx hissed. ‘You came here looking for the lost Liber, and so did he. But while you suffer here, he nears your goal. Poor Kruk… perhaps I should have let you die in Putris Bog…’

‘No-no-no!’ Kruk shrilled. ‘I will kill-kill Vretch myself, yes-yes. Where is he?’

The verminlord pointed a talon downwards. ‘In the belly of the beast, Kruk. You must leave, go to the Setaen Palisades. The sooner the better. You must get me that Liber Pestilent before Vretch gets his claws on it.’

‘But the barbicans…’ Kruk began.

‘Squeelch will hold them,’ Skuralanx said, looking at Squeelch, who cowered back. ‘Won’t you, Squeelch?’ he hissed, even as his form twisted and shrank into a wisp of shadow and vanished from sight.

‘Yes-yes, to hear is to obey, O most merciful of potentates,’ Squeelch chittered. As he said it, he wondered whether he should have taken the chance to shove Kruk over the edge after all.

Oxtl-Kor sniffed the air and growled. The Oldblood could smell the rat-stink on the air. It pervaded this place, and drove him to distraction. It grew stronger the closer they drew to the Dorsal Barbicans. They would have been there already, had they not been forced to slow their pace to accommodate their allies.

He sniffed, inhaling the scent of celestial lightning and the world-that-was. The Stormcasts wore the flesh of a broken dream, as if it belonged to them alone. He licked his muzzle angrily. Were it not for Great Lord Kurkori’s command, he would not have countenanced his warriors to march beside them. They were not worthy to fight alongside the Dreaming Constellation – they were but pale ghosts, newborn and unaware.

Irritated by the smells and sounds, Oxtl-Kor rubbed his snout. He was covered in a latticework of scars, each one a page in his history since the final beginning and the first ending. Sometimes, in the red moments between the his master’s call and the triumphal dissolution which saw him returned to the calm and quiet of Azyr, the Oldblood wondered where he had gained them all. It seemed to him that he’d had some for longer than he had been alive.

There were scars on his mind as well as his body. Gaps in his memory, where his thoughts grew thin and faded, and when he became frustrated by them, only the death of his foes could sate him. The Oldblood longed to deal death to the vermin, to feel their flesh tear between his jaws, the hot rush of their blood sliding down his throat. That was his part in the Great Lord’s dream. He was the savage longing of his master made flesh. He was Kurkori’s rage, and he was content only when killing. Sawtooth grumbled in seeming agreement, and Oxtl-Kor patted the carnosaur’s thick neck.

Sawtooth, like his master, was covered in the scars of battle. He was a mighty beast, with jaws capable of crushing stone and a hide as thick as the celestite armour Oxtl-Kor wore. Together, they were virtually unstoppable. Around him, the cold ones ridden by his saurus knights easily kept pace with the loping carnosaur. More animalistic than their riders, the cold ones were foul-tempered and vicious, but possessed the same instinctual hatred for the stuff of Chaos as did the rest of the seraphon. Like Sawtooth, they had no need for sustenance, but they desired the flesh and blood of their foes regardless.

Oxtl-Kor gazed with pride at the ranks of saurus warriors advancing in Sawtooth’s shadow, their stardrake icons held aloft. They were a scarred and scaly instrument of war, understanding well the ebb and flow of the eternal battle. Their rage, like his, was tempered by an instinctive adherence to order. The order of the stars, the order of spheres, of the sacred mathematics of being crafted and nurtured by the Starmasters and the Great Drake.

He glanced back at the Dreaming Seer, slumbering peacefully on his floating palanquin. Time and celestial tide had taken their toll on the Great Masters, the Oldblood knew. But some, like Great Lord Kurkori, yet remained. They slept, their minds elsewhere, contemplating more important matters. And Oxtl-Kor was determined to see that the slann continued to sleep undisturbed.

He flexed his sunbolt gauntlet, studying the star-forged celestite that shrouded his talon. He did not understand the secrets of its working, only how to employ it. At a gesture, he could unleash a flash of celestial fire which would sear flesh and soul alike. Another gift of the slann to their most loyal servants.

The wind shifted, bringing with it the stink of the falling pox-rain. Sawtooth, angry, reared and unleashed a thunderous roar. Oxtl-Kor lifted his spear and added his voice to that of the carnosaur.

The skaven would hear. They would know that the wrath of Kurkori, and of the seraphon, was sweeping down on them.

They would know that the end of their dark dream was near.

Poisonous fumes stretched through the streets, reducing iron-hard setae to sagging masses of smoking glop. The bodies of mortals and skaven lay everywhere in heaps and piles, victims of the pox-rain rising from the Dorsal Barbicans. The street squelched underfoot as Zephacleas led his chamber towards the barbicans. Things were growing ever more foul the closer they drew to their goal. If they didn’t manage to destroy the skaven weapons, the city – and the worm it was built upon – would surely perish.

He looked up, scanning the toxin-filled sky. Mantius and his Prosecutors were scouting the area ahead, their crackling wings searing a path through the befouled air. While their assault on the Dorsal Barbicans had failed, they’d managed to keep the skaven from venturing too far from the fortress. Three times the ratkin had massed to attack since the arrival of the seraphon, and three times the Knight-Venator and his sky-hunters had broken them from afar.

Now, what few skaven remained outside the protective ramparts of the Dorsal Barbicans were in hiding, likely hoping the combined host of Stormcast Eternals and seraphon would pass them by. They’d have to be hunted down and harried from their foul lairs after Shu’gohl had been freed, but first the skaven warrens around the Dorsal Barbicans and the distant Setaen Palisades would have to be destroyed. The vermin could not be allowed to hold such places, or destroy them as they were even now attempting to do.

The skaven were levelling the city all around the barbicans in an effort to impede the progress of their foes and prevent them from reaching the walls. Nonetheless, many of the setae towers were still standing – full of skaven, but still standing. They were connected to the walls by the strange, swaying bristle-bridges. If they could get to the walls without having to fight their way through the barbicans they could silence the catapults quickly. And once the Dorsal Barbicans had been freed from skaven control, they could push forward towards the anterior sections of the worm-city, including the Setaen Palisades. Hopefully there are survivors there yet, he thought.

A sudden roar shook the tainted air. He glanced up as the shadow of the great reptile and its rider fell over him, and the echoes of its roar faded. It was a truly imposing creature, and its rider was equally fearsome. Oxtl-Kor was the seraphon’s name, or perhaps his title. Zephacleas wasn’t entirely sure which, and the creature didn’t seem in a hurry to explain it to him. Indeed, the creature – the ‘Oldblood’, as the skink Starseer, Takatakk, called him – seemed unhappy with the current state of affairs. Or so Zephacleas judged – he’d communicated nothing either way.

None of the seraphon save for the Starseer had spoken, or shown any inclination in that regard. Indeed, other than Takatakk and the hulking creature called Sutok, most seemed content to ignore the Stormcast warriors marching alongside them.

‘What do you mean?’ Seker said.

Zephacleas looked at him, and then at Takatakk, when he realised that the Lord-Relictor’s question had been directed at the skink.

‘You are made of light,’ the skink chirped, as it circled the Lord-Relictor. ‘Storm-light, sun-light, ghost-light…’

‘But not star-light,’ Seker said. The Gravewalker had been talking with the little seraphon since they had begun their march towards the Dorsal Barbicans, trying to learn all he could about their strange allies. Or perhaps it was the other way around, Zephacleas mused. ‘Not like you,’ the Lord-Relictor continued.

‘Same, but different, yes? Yes,’ the skink said, head cocked. ‘You are a different type of dream, I think.’ The creature glanced back towards the hovering bulk of its master. ‘Yes, a different dream,’ the lizard-man said, more firmly.

‘I’m solid enough,’ Zephacleas said. He pounded his fist against his chest-plate.

‘Hrr,’ the big seraphon called Sutok grunted throatily. One claw swatted Zephacleas in the back, nearly knocking him from his feet. The ‘Sunblood’, as the skink called him, was impossibly strong – Zephacleas counted himself among the strongest of the Astral Templars, but he knew that the seraphon could tear him limb from limb without much effort.

‘Sutok agrees,’ Takatakk chirped. ‘He likes you.’

‘Does he?’ Zephacleas said, regaining his balance. ‘How can you tell?’

‘He has not eaten you,’ the skink said.

‘Luckily for the both of them,’ the Lord-Relictor said. Zephacleas glanced at Seker, but, as ever, the Lord-Relictor’s skull-faced helm gave no hint as to what the man beneath might be thinking. He looked back at the Sunblood. The creature gave a chortling grunt and slammed his war-mace against his shield.

‘I still do not understand why you march with us,’ the Lord-Celestant said, with a shake of his head. ‘Why not simply strike the Setaen Palisades, if that is where your true foe waits? Why spend your strength here?’

‘To help,’ Takatakk chirped. ‘Great Lord Kurkori dreamed it, and so it must be. The Dreaming Constellation moves to aid Sigmar, so that future events occur as they must.’ The skink nodded. ‘All things flow towards their predestined end, and so we must flow with them.’

‘But aren’t you afraid that by aiding us, you will fail in your own mission?’ the Lord-Relictor asked. Takatakk looked at him as if confused.

‘We cannot fail. Great Lord Kurkori has seen it.’

‘Yes, but–’ Seker pressed.

‘Besides, we follow them even as we march beside you. Great Lord Kurkori’s dream is vast and composed of many parts. He sees all at once, and simultaneously.’ The skink made another of his complex gestures, as if attempting to help them visualise his statement.

‘He’s saying that they sent scouts, I think,’ Zephacleas said. As he spoke, he heard the whistle-crack of the distant catapults on the Dorsal Barbicans. ‘Cover!’ he roared.

A cascade of yellowish spheres of muck struck the towers far above, and a rain of hissing plague-liquid pattered down. Both Stormcast and seraphon alike raised their shields as the noxious fluid fell over them. Takatakk raised his staff and hissed out a guttural string of syllables, filling the air with a strong wind which blew some of the foulness away before it reached its targets.

Despite this, the pox-rain grew stronger, and Zephacleas heard it sizzle as it struck his armour. ‘That wind isn’t enough. Summon a proper storm, Lord-Relictor – wash this foulness from the skies,’ he called out. But even as Seker began to intone a prayer, Zephacleas heard a deep, rumbling croak from the Dreaming Seer. He turned and saw the slann Starmaster stir blearily, as if the stink of the rain had disturbed his slumber. The pox-rain abruptly steamed away to nothing in the air, leaving behind only a foul smoke. The slann grunted, his head sagging once more, eyelids drooping.

‘That works as well,’ the Lord-Celestant said, trading glances with his Lord-Relictor. As the stinking fog cleared, the air quavered with a shrill cacophony. Rats flooded towards them. They seemed without number, and came in a great, squealing wave. The vermin were bloated with disease and covered in runny sores. Zephacleas roared and stamped, crushing the rats with hammer and boots. His warriors followed suit, and the seraphon stabbed at the scurrying creatures with their broad-bladed spears.

The vermin were more interested in fleeing than fighting, however. A moment later, as the breeze called into being by Seker’s prayers shredded and dispersed the miasmic fog, Zephacleas saw why. Before them was a slick, slowly spreading mass of bubbling putrescence, occupying what had once been the wide courtyard before the central gateway of the Dorsal Barbicans. It would have been a magnificent sight once, he thought. The plaza had been a semi-circle of setaen tiles, dyed and shaped to create an intricate mosaic, now hidden beneath the frothing foulness. Great statues had once lined the curve of the plaza, wrought in the likeness of the heroes of the Shu’gohl – knights-militant of the Order of the Worm, nobles of the setaen houses, warrior-priests of the Sahg’gohl. Those statues were broken now, fallen and shrouded in muck. Everywhere he looked was ruin and filth.

Toppled towers, sheared from their foundations by the boiling foulness, lay atop others, creating a tangled mass of ruined stone and hair. Red eyes gleamed in the shadows of those fallen structures, and a dolorous chittering rose. Bells rang and gongs crashed. High atop the curved walls of the barbicans, the catapults continued to rain down plague and filth on the city. The massive gates which occupied the centre of the barbicans were barred and chained, the ancient surface marked and scarred with skaven-sign.

The ratmen had claimed this place for their own – but they would not hold it for much longer. Zephacleas clashed his weapons together and glanced down at Takatakk. ‘You wish to fight beside us, seraphon? Now is your chance.’ He raised his hammer. ‘Forward! For Sigmar and the Realm Celestial!’

With a shared roar, the two hosts of Azyr began their advance.

CHAPTER FIVE

Treachery and Shadows

Great Lord Kurkori, the Dreaming Seer of the Second Departure, stirred reluctantly on his palanquin. His dreams held tight to his vast consciousness, drawing him into better and brighter worlds than the broken, limping thing he now found himself in.

In his deep dreaming, he saw an empire of order and light, a thing of perfect structure and harsh angles. The universe would move in perfect harmony, every realm, every inhabitant perfectly synchronised and in rhythm with the cosmic plan. It was a good dream, and one he intended to see made real, whatever the cost.

He cracked his eyes. The world drew into stark focus through a veil of celestial light. He could feel the agonies of the great worm upon whose back they fought as a dull pressure upon his thoughts. The beast was ancient as the Mortal Realms judged things, though its existence was barely a blip to his perceptions. Nonetheless, its death was not a part of the pattern and thus he saw no reason to allow it. With a thought, he sent waves of soothing energy through the great beast’s simple mind, easing its distress, if only for the moment.

He could feel the pulse of star-born energies that were his chosen cohorts. Each one was as unique as the stars in the firmament, and as precious to him. They were his claws, his fangs, his darkest dreams made scaly flesh. When they roared, they roared with his voice; when they bled, they bled with his blood. They were his dreams, and he wielded them with a deftness that was spoken of in awe by his fellow slann.

The central points of his constellation glowed the brightest – his rage, his cunning, his hope, made manifest in his chosen champions. Oxtl-Kor, a proud beacon of cold fury and determination; Takatakk, a quicksilver flickering of celestial power, ebbing and strengthening with Kurkori’s attentions; and Sutok, saturated with the very stuff of Azyr, his scales glowing with the light of the stars themselves.

Chaos had grown powerful during the centuries of blood, but so too had his kind. The Dark Gods had learnt little with the waxing of their might – they were feckless abstractions, impatient and impulsive. Disharmony and disunity were their lot, and all things unravelled at their touch. They did not see the Mortal Realms for what they were, only what they wished them to be, and so were blind to the true nature of the game being played.

That they did this in isolation, each slann pursuing their own campaigns against the slow advance of entropy which threatened to consume eternity, did not hamper them at all. For all that they were the merest fragments of a long extinct civilization, the lingering debris of a vanished world, they were not without some power.

The Eight Realms were a great game board and the Starmasters placed their pieces with calculated precision. They saw many moves ahead of their inattentive foes, and wove iron-hard stratagems which would advance their singular cause, however infinitesimally, from a thousand different angles. Step by step, Kurkori and his brethren manipulated the winds of fate with their celestial mathematics to bring about the final defeat of the ancient enemy.

Sigmar, the being they knew as the Rising Storm, was their ally in this endeavour, though even the God-King could conceive but dimly of the true purpose of the slann. And there were other forces which were, if not allies, yet subservient to the great pattern. The Undying King on his throne of sorrows, the Queen of the Hidden Vale… these too served in their own way to advance the designs of the Starmasters in their wisdom. Pieces, great and small, moved to and fro across a board of stars.

The world was different, but the game remained the same. Sometimes Kurkori dreamed of the world-that-was, of humid greenery and a sky full of falling stars. He dreamed of the vermin, flowing up the wide, stone steps of ancient temples in their chittering hordes. He dreamed of dead kin, eaten as they slumbered, their wisdom devoured by scuttling shadows. Anger filled him, and the saurus marching alongside his palanquin stiffened, growling. He heard the rumbling voice of his favoured general, Oxtl-Kor.

Kurkori felt the energies which formed and filled the saurus. At a whim, Kurkori knew he could reduce the scarred warrior to mere motes of dancing light, or invigorate him into nigh-invincibility. He could send him back into the dream, or stoke the rage which flickered within him. Too, he saw the looming moment that the Oldblood’s life-thread was cut short. Death was not the end for the seraphon, for they did not truly live, save in the memories of the slann. Even so, each death was like a thorn in Kurkori’s flesh, a persistent pain which never dimmed.

He heard a rattle as the servants of the God-King began to advance. They too were filled with the light of Azyr, though they were not made from it. They were not memories but an ideal, shaped and forged and set loose. The crash of thunder, the flash of lightning; they were all this and something more, though Kurkori could not say what. They were a strange dream, drawn from a mind most alien – a thing of rougher symmetry than his own. Cruder, but more powerful. The thoughts of the slann were as polished stones, but the thoughts of the Rising Storm and his creations were jagged rocks, freshly drawn from snow and stream. Emotion, rather than calculation, guided them in all things.

Such was the burden of limited minds; they saw only what the universe allowed them. The celestial pattern was too vast for their comprehension, its beauty too blinding for their eyes. That was why he had dreamed as he had dreamed, why he had come to this place of soft angles and brief lives. The pattern grew layered here – moments from the past, present and future crossed back and forth over one another at a single point, requiring action.

Something old would be found in the depths of the worm, inconsequential from his perspective but with a terrible potential if the equation of this place was corrupted as he had foreseen. The vermin were clever. They had their own patterns, erratic as they were. He could not allow such a random element to be introduced into his design.

Kurkori leaned back on his throne, looking through the walls and past the fortresses beyond, towards the head of the worm. Time and distance were as one to him, and as easily manipulated as the star-born winds of Azyr. He had come following a gleaming thread which stretched back into the shadows of the world-that-was and into the world-that-might-yet-be. Echoes of memories lost, carved before the Great Exodus, old calculations which had survived the death-spasms of a world. It would be found, and its potential neutered. Such he had seen, so he had dreamed, so must it be for the pattern, and his calculations, to remain undisturbed.

With a drowsy grunt, he turned his attentions back to the present. The skeins of pox and filth weighed on the air, making it sluggish and opaque. Their pestilences gnawed at the very fabric of the realm, dissolving it even as they dissolved the worm’s flesh. An untidy equation. A small thing, a confluence of random variables, easily tidied. He reached out with his mind. What the vermin had made, he could unmake. And he did, and found it good.

The bubbling moat of filth became as green glass, its liquid foulness replaced by the solid angles of shimmering perfection. Oxtl-Kor looked at him, a fiery request burning in his eyes. The old warrior yearned to taste the blood of the foe, and the slann did not have the heart to deny him this moment of pleasure. Kurkori blinked in acknowledgement.

The Oldblood snarled in satisfaction and thumped his mount in the side with the haft of his spear. The carnosaur roared in pleasure and surged forward, shaking the ground with its tread. The saurus knights followed their commander, sprinting across the newly hardened field of green glass.

But they would not be enough. The vermin had spread wide and deep, and cast their burrows into the flesh of the worm. So he stretched mind and hand upwards, toward the stars that spun somewhere far above the darkening amber skies and the swirling storm. He drew down dream after dream, star after star, and his constellation expanded, swirling wider and farther. The roars of ancient beasts, unheard by mortal ears for a millennia, filled the air, drowning out the bells and shrieks of the skaven.

The Dreaming Constellation went to war.

And, satisfied, Great Lord Kurkori went back to sleep.

Mantius Far-killer took aim and loosed a crackling arrow. A skaven was punched back into the darkness of the fallen tower, its rotten carcass swiftly consumed by the energies of the arrow. ‘Drive them back, my huntsmen – clear the way for our brothers,’ the Knight-Venator said as he loosed a second arrow.

His Prosecutors skimmed low over the fallen length of the tower, hurling their celestial hammers as swiftly as they could conjure them. The skaven pouring down the ruined setae were hurled in all directions, their foul robes smouldering. But for every one killed, two more scrambled out of the ruin of stone and hair, foetid blades between their teeth and filth-encrusted cudgels in their claws. They were limitless and rapacious – the living embodiment of the evil that the Stormcast Eternals had been forged to fight.

A flash of shimmering light caught his eye, and he smiled. ‘Prey enough for the both of us, eh, Aurora?’ he said, to the circling, iridescent shape of the star-eagle. He’d bonded with the fierce raptor during a training exercise within the Aetheric Clouds which clung to the Broken World. There, in the star-spattered darkness of celestial space, he and the creature he’d named Aurora had hunted the great void-beasts of Azyr. More than once, the star-eagle had saved his life in the void, warning him with a shriek, or tearing apart some ethereal predator with its glittering talons. Now the raptor waited for his command to launch itself down among the enemy, to rip and tear.

He drew another arrow from his quiver. The arrows were magical in nature, as was the quiver they rested in. Crafted by the Six Smiths, the quiver filled as quickly as he could empty it, as the magics condensed new arrows from the air and the storm. Only one arrow was not so easily replaceable – the star-fated arrow. Forged from the very stuff of the stars, its potency was such that it took days rather than moments to reappear in the quiver. That one was reserved for the most powerful of targets. He’d used the star-fated arrow to pierce the fiery brain of the Black Bull of Nordrath, and cripple the abomination so that his fellow Stormcasts could end its monstrous rampage.

From the upper reaches of the fallen towers, rat-monks armed with rocks and whatever other missiles they could scrounge took aim at the winged warriors. Stones hissed through the air and Mantius swooped upwards, arrow nocked. As he crested the top of the tower, he loosed arrow after arrow, quicker than mortal eyes could follow. Skaven died, clawing and snapping at the arrows which transfixed them. As he nocked another arrow, he saw his huntsmen destroying the curve of the fallen tower, and burying the skaven within.

As the tower was reduced to a slope of smoking rubble, Lord-Celestant Zephacleas led retinues of Liberators and Decimators up the incline, killing any skaven who managed to wriggle free. Mantius swooped towards them, his hands a blur. Nock and loose, he thought, repeating the mantra over and over again in his head. There was a comforting rhythm to it, a susurrus that eased his scattered thoughts into the calm of battle.

He had been a hunter, once. A seed-rider, on the Ghyran Veldts. He had vague memories of floating on updrafts and riding swift downdrafts, loosing arrows at the wild, jade-feathered birds his tribe hunted for food. He had ridden his seed-pod into war as well, against the Rotbringers and their foul allies – chortling, gape-mouthed daemons who crushed entire tribes beneath their loathsome weight. The sound of their laughter still echoed up out of the black wells of his memory. He drew, nocked and loosed, faster and faster, losing himself in the rhythm.

‘Far-killer – the skaven seek refuge below,’ one of his huntsmen, Darius, cried, as he flung the smoke-wreathed body of a ratman aside. Several Prosecutors had landed at the apex of the fallen tower, where it had crashed against another, creating a natural arch. There, they dealt death to the skaven seeking to escape from one tower to the next, and drove most back towards the advancing Decimators. ‘Should we pursue?’

‘Aye, let no shadow escape the light, Darius,’ Mantius said, as he loosed a final arrow. Several of the Prosecutors, led by Darius, leapt into the air and swooped swiftly beneath the fallen tower. Mantius tucked his wings and followed, Aurora keeping pace.

It was dark beneath the tower, and streams of dust and filth spilled down from the cracks in the structure, reducing visibility and choking the air. Mantius spread his wings and cut through the streams, following his warriors. He could see the snap-spark of a celestial hammer as it spun towards a knot of writhing skaven. The ratmen were attempting to squeeze through a spider-web of cracks and escape their amethyst-armoured pursuers.

But as the Prosecutors drew close to the fleeing skaven, the Knight-Venator heard a grinding of rock and twisted in the air, hunting for the source of the noise. His breath caught in his throat as a wave of rot-stink enveloped him. He saw two thick, pale tendrils uncoil from the shadows which clung to the underside of the fallen tower. Before he could cry a warning, they snapped out and coiled around a Prosecutor’s neck and arm, yanking him from the air. The tendrils quivered and tensed. The air was filled with a horrible cracking sound, and the Prosecutor slumped.

‘Darius – beware,’ Mantius cried, as he brought himself up short and reached for his quiver. His warning came too late. Darius wheeled about, crackling hammer manifesting in his waiting hand, but something that gleamed with an oily hue spun out of the shadows and removed his head. The curved, sickle-like blade thudded home into the opposite tower, even as Darius’ body returned to Azyr in a blinding flash.

Mantius loosed a trio of arrows, trying to gauge where the blade had come from. As his arrows pierced the shadows, their attacker uncoiled from the darkness and dropped towards the remaining Prosecutors of Darius’ retinue.

It was akin to a skaven, but far too large and muscular to be a member of that breed. A number of curved and ridged horns rose from amidst its shaggy, greasy mane, and surmounted its fleshless skull like some hideous crown. Its bifurcated tail lashed about it like a whip and its boil-encrusted flesh clung tightly to swollen muscles. Daemon, Mantius thought. He’d seen similar beasts in the Jade Kingdoms, in Ghyran.

‘Die-die for Skuralanx,’ the monstrosity shrieked as it dropped, its sickle-blade opening an unlucky Prosecutor from skull to midsection. Even as the warrior came apart and vanished in a flare of lightning, the daemon was falling towards the next, tails lashing. Its blade slammed against the Prosecutor’s crossed hammers. The force of the contact caused the combatants to twist through the air.

A swooping Prosecutor had his neck snapped by a piston-like blow from the daemon’s cloven hoof. The verminlord spun through the air, somehow keeping itself aloft through sheer savagery. It leapt off a Prosecutor’s back and drove its hooked blade into the throat of another warrior, reducing him to a writhing streak of lightning. As it struck the opposite tower, it tore its hurled blade free and lunged back into the fray.

Mantius cursed, unable to draw a bead on the quicksilver shape of the rat-daemon. The creature seemed to be there one moment and gone the next, as if it were only a trick of the light. It sprang from tower to tower, ricocheting between them with inhuman grace. Another Prosecutor perished before Mantius at last had a clear shot. He loosed the arrow, but only managed to splinter one of the creature’s worm-eaten horns.

The verminlord sprang back, seeking refuge in the shadows.

‘Aurora,’ Mantius snapped. The star-eagle screeched and shot forward, talons spread. The raptor intercepted the daemon and drove it back in a flurry of glittering feathers. The rat-daemon dropped, digging its blades into the side of the tower. It looked up at him, eyes flaring with hatred. Mantius reached for the star-fated arrow – daemon or no, few creatures could resist it.

As if guessing his intentions, the daemon tore its blades loose and dropped to the street below. The remaining Prosecutors hurled their hammers after it, obliterating the sides of the tower and filling the air with debris. Mantius knew that the beast was gone before the air cleared. A coward, just like its followers, he thought, as he flapped his wings and rose.

‘Proxius, Caledus,’ he said. ‘Gather the other huntsmen. There will be time enough to mourn later. For now, we must clear those ramparts.’ He surged up and away, swooping around the curve of the fallen tower and over the thick ramparts of the Dorsal Barbicans.

As he rose over the walls, he spotted the slave-stockades inside the inner courtyard. Prosecutors swooped to join him. The stockades were domed cages of bone and setae, and each one held dozens of mortals, most of them undernourished, maltreated or dying. The skaven were using them as pox-hosts, ammunition and food, he knew. The vile creatures valued nothing save ruin.

Between the seraphon advancing on the central gates and the Stormcast Eternals climbing the fallen towers towards the ramparts, the vermin had little attention to spare his efforts. He was determined to make them regret that.

At his signal, Prosecutors crashed down across the barbicans and into the courtyard, smashing apart the cages, freeing the sick and the wounded. Mantius dropped lightly onto one of the cracked minarets which rose over the ramparts, releasing an arrow as he touched down.

Other Prosecutors hurled their hammers to shatter the walkways between the slave-stockades and the skaven racing towards them. From his perch on the crumbled minaret, Mantius loosed three arrows at once and pinned a trio of squealing rat-monks to the collapsing rampart by their tails.

‘Free them, brothers – free them all so that they might take back their city,’ Mantius growled, as his arrow took a skaven overseer in the throat. ‘For Sigmar and the Realm Celestial!’

It was all going horribly, terribly wrong, Squeelch thought. And it was all Kruk’s fault. The one-eyed fool of a plague priest had led the Congregation of Fumes to its destruction at last. Squeelch’s only satisfaction arose from having played no part in such foolishness. It wasn’t his fault, no-no! He had done the best he could, under circumstances that would have tried even the legendary patience and skilful might of the most revered of pox-masters.

Still, he had done his best with what fate and Kruk’s ineptitude had dealt him. He had brewed his most virulent poxes and destroyed much of the man-thing city, levelling whole towers, filling the streets with a lovely, noxious murk and a veritable sea of steaming putrescence. He had done all that a skaven in his position could be asked and more, and what was his reward to be? Abandonment and brutal murder at the hands of their foes.

That had decided him. Now was the time – he’d never get another, if Skuralanx had his way. The daemon clearly wanted him dead. Squeelch could not fathom the verminlord’s fascination with a dullard like Kruk. Kruk knew nothing of the brewing of plagues, or any proper priestly duties. He was a brute, a fool and mad. A skaven could be any one of those things and prosper, but not all three – never all three!

And yet, the daemon continued to protect Kruk from harm. Perhaps that was why Kruk had survived all of Squeelch’s most cunning ploys and his boldest attempts at murder – yes. Yes! It all made sense now. The odds had been stacked against Squeelch from the beginning.

A test, he thought. A sudden bout of coughing wracked his frame, and he rubbed his muzzle with his grime-stiffened sleeve. Mucus bubbled out of his snout and he hawked and spat. It was a test: a test of his cunning, of his perseverance, of his faith… of his devotion to the Horned Rat. Well, he would pass this test, as he had passed all the others.

He hurried across the inner bridge, away from the sounds of battle, the ramparts and his precious plagueclaws. It hurt him to leave them behind, but it would serve no purpose to die with them. Despite his valiant efforts, the enemy were drawing close. Too close. They were already crossing the setaen bridges that swung between the closest towers and the barbicans, and the star-devils had reduced his bubbling moat to a shimmering glaze. Plague monks scurried past him towards the battle. He ignored their chittering, intent on his own fate.

It wasn’t fair! Kruk had led them to this, as Squeelch had always suspected he would. The other plague priest lacked the true skaven sense of self-preservation, and seemed deadly intent on dragging the rest of them down into death with him. The central structure of the barbicans, which housed the Libraria Vurmis, rose to greet him. He crept through the doors, which were already off their hinges, and into the central chamber.

There were no guards – Kruk needed none, save Skug and his malcontents. Every other skaven in the Dorsal Barbicans was either fighting or in hiding. There were always some who hid, even among the faithful of the Clans Pestilens. Squeelch would deal with them fairly, but firmly, when the time came.

The air in the central chamber of the library was redolent with the reek of fear-musk and death. He drew his knife as he entered the chamber, and held it close to his body. Squeelch crept forward. The wavy-bladed knife had been allowed to stew in one of the most virulent potions ever devised by skaven claws for thirty days and thirty nights. It was so potent that it had caused his claw to blister, just from touching the hilt. It was sure to be enough, he thought. And if not, well… Running had always served him well, in the past. Kruk wouldn’t get far with a knife in his back.

Plague monks scurried about him, climbing the shelves, tossing their contents to the floor, chittering in excitement. Kruk’s most trusted followers were hard at work, while Squeelch’s own spent their lives in brave-yet-futile battle. The library shook as the star-devil assault continued. Soon, the Dorsal Barbicans and his beloved plagueclaws would be no more. But catapults could be rebuilt, as could fortresses. Slaves could be retaken.

Parchment crunched beneath his claws, and he froze. But the noise had been lost amid the thunder of the attack. Dust sifted from the ceiling, and one of the great shelves toppled over, crushing an unwary plague monk.

Squeelch heard Kruk chittering in anger as he oversaw the evacuation, and the deep, growling tones of the verminlord as it pointed out which books might be needed to buy Vretch’s friendship long enough to turn on him, when and if he’d found the fabled Liber. Not much chance of that, of course… Squeelch had picked the library clean of its choicest morsels weeks ago. Those he hadn’t put aside for himself he’d sent on to Vretch. It was no wonder Kruk hadn’t found anything of use in them.

He hesitated, wondering if he should simply flee, rather than chance assassinating Kruk beneath the daemon’s snout. Would it look with favour upon such an act, or with anger? Assassination was a fine, long-standing skaven tradition, even among the Clans Pestilens. One could not expect promotion to the high plateaus of clan leadership without first spilling a bit of blood. But the daemon… he stopped, head cocked.

He realised he could no longer hear the daemon’s basso rumble. Kruk too had fallen silent. Squeelch froze, scarcely daring to breathe. He fought the urge to squirt the musk of fear. Had they heard him coming? Had Kruk fled while he dithered? Had he been left in the library, to face their enemies alone?

‘Cunning Squeelch, crafty Squeelch. Yessss,’ came a voice, from just over his shoulder. At first, he feared it was Skug. Then, as the voice’s owner began to titter, he realised with mounting horror that it wasn’t Skug at all. He turned, knife raised, and stared up – up! – into the skeletal grimace of Skuralanx.

The daemon’s prehensile tails coiled about him faster than he could follow. He shrieked as Skuralanx jerked him from the floor and slammed him against a shelf. His knife clattered from his grip. He tried to summon the strength to unleash a spell, but everything hurt too much. The bony leer thrust forward, so close that Squeelch could smell the hideous stench radiating from his captor. ‘And what were you going to do with that, hmmm?’ the daemon murmured.

Squeelch squeezed his eyes shut and began to whimper a prayer to the Great Witherer. He begged the Horned Rat to take and shelter his soul, for it seemed his body was about to be torn asunder. He felt a dribble of foulness run down his leg. He cracked an eye, and saw Kruk and Skug hurrying towards them, the censer bearer trying to hold his master back.

‘Squeelch? Treachery!’ Kruk chittered, reaching for the other plague priest with his good claw. Skuralanx yanked Squeelch out of reach and pointed a filthy talon at Kruk.

‘I will deal with this faithless one, yes-yes. You will take the Scar-roads, where the teeth of the great stone-wyrm Bolestros tore wounds in Shu’gohl’s flesh, in the days when the sky wept fire and the black blood of the earth sought to drown the land,’ Skuralanx snarled. ‘Take one of the man-things to show you. Leave the others here. Let our enemies see what awaits them.’

‘But–’ Kruk began.

‘I said go-go,’ Skuralanx roared. Skug prostrated himself immediately, but Kruk only stepped back, head bowed. Despite his predicament, Squeelch could only marvel at the other plague priest’s sheer stubborn viciousness. With a final glare and growl, Kruk spun and stumped off, barking orders as he went.

Skuralanx leapt from the floor to one of the thick pillars which supported the domed roof of the library. ‘It is a shame,’ he said, as he climbed up the pillar, dragging the helpless Squeelch behind him. ‘You show much promise, Squeelch. Much cunning, yes-yes. But needs must.’ The daemon reached the top of the pillar, and crouched there, deep in the all-concealing shadows.

‘Skuralanx’s needs, if you were wondering,’ the daemon said, as he twitched the struggling plague priest closer. His eyes glowed like the coals beneath a cauldron as he examined Squeelch. He sniffed the air, and Squeelch’s aching scent-glands spasmed, trying to squirt fear musk though there was none left to give.

He began to babble, begging for his life, promising the verminlord anything he could think of. ‘Squeelch will serve you, most cunning one! Squeelch will be your slave, he will–!’ His squeals died away as the daemon pressed the tip of a claw to his muzzle.

‘Shhh, little pox-maker. Shhh. Yes, you will serve Skuralanx. You will serve him, and all skaven, to the utmost of your ability. I told you that you would hold this place, and you will.’ Skuralanx’s hell-spark eyes gleamed. ‘Yes-yes, you will…’

Zephacleas swept his runeblade out and sliced a leaping skaven in two. The sore-covered ratman fell past him as he forced his way out onto the bridge. Made from woven worm-bristles and hardened with unguents and ichors, it connected those crooked setaen towers which still stood to the Dorsal Barbicans. Zephacleas and his chosen vanguard had fought their way up the rat-infested incline and through ruined towers to get to this point. Now only a single, shuddering span separated them from their goal. As he set foot on the swaying bridge, skaven scurried towards him from the opposite side, squealing and chittering.

He glanced at the massive shape of the Sunblood, Sutok, crouched beside him. Between them, they were the width of the bridge. No skaven would get past them. ‘Look, they come to greet us my friend,’ he said.

Sutok threw back his scaly head and roared. Together, they lunged to meet the swarming vermin.

‘Death and ruin,’ Zephacleas shouted as he and the Sunblood ploughed into their foes, driving them back through sheer momentum. Stormcasts advanced behind them along the narrow walkway, weapons raised, their voices raised in unison with his. Skinks and saurus scaled the underside and sides of their bridge, as well as those above and below, climbing with a speed that put their verminous foes to shame. Flying reptiles swooped low over the bridges, jerking screeching ratmen up and dropping them. Prosecutors darted past the leather-winged reptiles to strike at the skaven, sending twitching bodies plummeting to the streets below.

The Dreaming Seer’s magics had turned the bubbling pox-froth which covered the streets to shimmering green glass, and Oxtl-Kor led the bulk of the seraphon host across it with earth-shaking strides. Behind the saurian host, the Gravewalker led the rest of the Stormcast Eternals in support of their allies. And he is welcome to that role, Zephacleas thought, as he booted a skaven over the edge of the bridge. I am the blade of the axe, not its haft.

Together, step by step, he and Sutok pushed the skaven back. The rabid rat-monks flung themselves heedlessly into death, and Zephacleas’ armour was scored by the marks of foetid blades and rusty bludgeons. Thin trickles of starlight ran down Sutok’s scales as he waded through the enemy, ignoring the bite of their blades. Whatever filth clung to them was seared clean by the touch of his blood, and the skaven seemed more frightened of that than the war-mace the seraphon wielded.

‘We’ve arrived, my friend – let us make the most of it,’ Zephacleas said, as he and Sutok reached the upper ramparts at last. Squealing skaven raced towards them, though some seemed less than enthused to get anywhere near the Sunblood and the Lord-Celestant. Behind them, their chosen warriors flooded onto the ramparts. ‘Thetaleas, the catapults,’ Zephacleas said, signalling the Decimators to attend their task. He turned and motioned to the nearest retinue of Liberators. ‘Duras, keep the skaven back.’

The warblade-armed Liberators surged forward, forming a wall of amethyst-hued sigmarite between the axemen and the screaming mobs of rat-monks seeking to intercept them. Thetaleas and his Decimators chopped down the crew of the nearest catapult. When the last sore-ridden skaven fell, they began to hack the war engine apart. Zephacleas turned to see that Sutok had his own ideas about how to dispose of the enemy artillery.

As he watched, the Sunblood wrenched the arm from a catapult and whirled it about like a staff, smashing a dozen skaven from the rampart. The seraphon roared in what Zephacleas took to be pleasure. He swung the arm around again, bringing it down on one of the other catapults, destroying it. Skaven scurried towards the lizard-man, whirling their smoking censers with fanatical intensity, and Zephacleas moved to meet them.

He chopped through the chain of one of the smoke-spewing spheres and crushed its wielder’s bandage-shrouded skull. Sutok’s war-mace whirled in a tight circle, filling the air with broken bodies and squealing vermin. Skaven sped towards them from every direction, driven into a berserk fury by the roiling clouds of poisonous incense and smoke which clogged the air. Zephacleas heard the crackle of lightning as unlucky warriors were pulled down by sheer numbers. He saw seraphon stagger and burst into motes of blinding star-light as pus-daubed blades opened reeking wounds in their scaly bodies.

Through it all, the catapults continued to launch their foul burdens into the city. The Stormcasts and their reptilian allies had destroyed three of the plague-engines, but more remained. As he fought his way forward, he saw that the crew of one was hastily attempting to haul the catapult around so that it could be aimed at the forces gathered on the rampart. Before he could alert his warriors, he heard a bone-rattling roar and turned to see Oxtl-Kor’s monstrous reptile leap from the courtyard.

Its claws dug into the surface of the barbican wall and it began to haul itself up, Oxtl-Kor urging it on with bellicose snarls. It scaled the wall in moments and clambered over the rampart between Zephacleas and his foes. With a hungry growl, it lunged for the closest knot of skaven, jaws wide. Teeth like swords tore into cringing, furry bodies. Oxtl-Kor impaled a fleeing rat-monk with his spear. The Oldblood lifted the wriggling skaven into the air and hurled it over the barbican.

Smaller beasts followed the larger creature’s example, scrambling up the wall with reptilian agility, carrying their saurian riders to the top. Spears flashed, piercing and gutting the skaven defenders, even as the cold ones savaged them with jaws and dewclaws. Zephacleas stepped back, momentarily awed by the ferocity of his allies.

A flash of fire leapt from Oxtl-Kor’s gauntlet, incinerating the crew of the nearest catapult. The giant reptile closed its jaws on the arm of the catapult and tore it loose from the frame, before sending what remained of the infernal device toppling into the courtyard below with a shove of its shoulder. The beast reared up and let loose a triumphant bellow. The Oldblood looked down from his saddle and met Zephacleas’ gaze. The Lord-Celestant lifted his hammer in salute, but the creature turned away with a snort.

Down below, more seraphon had appeared in flashes of coruscating light – massive reptilian warriors, larger than any saurus and wielding heavy war-clubs and maces, marched into being behind a gigantic horned creature. The sound of war-drums filled the air as the howdah full of skinks mounted on the brute’s back kept time with its ground-shaking tread. The living, bellowing war engine stomped towards the central gates of the barbicans, horns lowered. They groaned as the brute struck them. Hardened setaen fibres burst and split as the armoured monster shoved its way through to the courtyard beyond.

The gigantic seraphon warriors surged past the creature, wading into those skaven unlucky enough to be nearby when the gates finally gave way. Great clubs and hammers, their heads infused with shifting motes of light, rose and fell, leaving a path of broken bodies in their wake.

Zephacleas felt a grim sort of admiration well up in him – even Stormcast Eternals did not fight so fiercely, or so ruthlessly. ‘Worthy allies indeed,’ he murmured, glancing at Sutok.

The scar-faced Sunblood dipped his broad skull, as if in acknowledgement.

‘Your comrade seems to have things here well in hand,’ the Lord-Celestant said, nodding towards Oxtl-Kor and his mount as they tore apart another skaven catapult. ‘What say we find new prey, my friend?’

Sutok showed his teeth and pounded his shield. Zephacleas took that as assent and shouted, ‘Thetaleas, Duras – leave the remaining engines to our scaly friends.’ As he spoke, Sutok roared. Stormcasts and saurus alike moved towards their commanders.

Side by side, Zephacleas and Sutok led their warriors across the ramparts and towards the inner bridges. The wide walkways led to the central network of barbicans, and beyond them, the walls and gates on the other side, which overlooked the anterior avenues of the Crawling City. The Lord-Celestant raised his sword in greeting as he caught sight of Seker and Takatakk hurrying to meet them, a retinue of Protectors and skinks following in their wake.

‘Zephacleas – quickly,’ the Lord-Relictor said. ‘We must take the central barbican before the skaven can regroup.’ Zephacleas nodded and waved his warriors forward. He thudded across the bridge as the Lord-Relictor’s lightning-storm snarled above.

Once past the outer walls, he saw few skaven. Those he did encounter seemed more interested in escape than in preventing the Stormcasts from entering the inner chambers of the barbicans. Those few who tried to intercept them were dispatched with ease. As they crossed over the courtyard below, he saw mortals armed with makeshift weapons locked in battle with their former captors. Mantius and his Prosecutors swooped overhead, lending aid to the former prisoners where necessary. Zephacleas growled in satisfaction as he watched a woman clad in the stained remnants of what might once have been robes of office brain an unwary skaven with a chunk of setae. Despite being sick, malnourished and outnumbered, the mortals were giving a good account of themselves.

‘Should we aid them, Lord-Celestant?’ Duras said. The eagerness in his voice was echoed in the murmurs of the other Astral Templars. Each and every Stormcast Eternal knew what it was to be a victim of the Ruinous Powers, and each and every one of them desired restitution of the most bloody sort.

‘No. Mantius has it well in hand. Let them fight,’ Zephacleas said. Several of his warriors made as if to protest and he turned, fixing them with a stern glare. ‘Are they not owed for what they have suffered? Would you take that from them, merely to sate your own desire? We have many battles before us, brothers, and victories aplenty – let them have theirs.’

Satisfied, he turned. The central barbican rose over them, rounded walls now mostly covered in a shroud of filth and mould. Wherever the plague-rats went, such foulness was sure to follow. The massive doors had been torn off their hinges and the way in was unguarded.

The sounds of battle grew dim as the allies entered the structure. The chamber spread out around them, the air thick with the stink of vermin and illness.

‘The Libraria Vurmis,’ the Lord-Relictor murmured, with what might have been awe. ‘I have rarely seen its like, save in Azyr. It is spoken of admiringly, even by the scholars of Sigmaron and the liche-monks of the Dead Vaults. They say it holds all the secrets of the Ghurlands.’

Curved rows of shelves occupied the great chamber. Piled tomes and scrolls filled every nook and cranny, and were scattered across the floor in disorderly heaps. Zephacleas looked around, taking note of the bodies hanging from the shelves or lying broken on the floor. Men and women, clad in the remains of robes and armour, their bodies showing signs of torture. Their passing had not been easy, he thought, and anger rose in him.

Takatakk hissed softly, and he followed the skink’s gaze. A strange glow throbbed at the heart of the chamber. Past the fallen shelves, amongst the filth-covered pillars, a single skaven stood with its back to them, swaying slightly, clutching a staff tipped with a green stone which pulsed with a strange light. The creature hacked and wheezed piteously.

‘Rat-priest,’ Zephacleas said. The creature whirled with a shriek. It was cloaked in a sickening murk. Its flesh was swollen and its blind eyes wept oily tears. It shrilled and swept its claws out, filling the air with greenish flames. The shelves caught immediately, and their contents as well.

‘Seker, keep everyone else back,’ Zephacleas said as he stepped forward. He caught sight of Sutok doing the same. The Sunblood lifted his shield and Zephacleas crossed his weapons as the green flames washed over them. The heat of them was not clean – it made his flesh crawl beneath his war-plate. It was the heat of infection given shape and unleashed. Zephacleas ducked his head and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The flames licked at his armour, leaving greasy trails of char across its purple surface.

From out of the corner of his eye, he saw Takatakk strike the ground with the end of his staff. The tainted pressure of the flames seemed to lessen, for just a moment. The skaven’s blind gaze turned towards the skink and it snarled wordlessly. With a gesture, it sent a column of flame roiling towards the Starpriest. Takatakk swept his claws out, splitting and snuffing the flames in a burst of star-light.

Zephacleas lunged forward through the dying flames and brought his runeblade down on the rat-priest’s skinny shoulder. The vermin staggered, but did not fall. Yellowish froth burst from its mouth as it caught hold of his blade with its free claw and tore it loose. Its blood spurted and sizzled where it struck his armour. Wormy muscles bulged unnaturally in its arm as it bent the sword away from itself. Zephacleas swung his hammer into the side of its scrawny chest, but the blow barely budged it. Still clutching his sword, it struck at him with its staff.

Zephacleas avoided the glowing nub of warpstone and tore his sword free from its grip. He chopped through the staff as it swept it around again, trailing greenish smoke through the air. The rat-priest shrieked and tossed the remains aside. Before it could attempt a spell, Sutok’s club crushed its skull. It fell twitching to the ground, its diseased blood burning the floor. The Sunblood waved his shield, snuffing the flames which clung to its surface.

‘Call down the storm, Lord-Relictor,’ Zephacleas said. ‘Put out these fires before we lose this whole chamber.’

Seker’s prayer was a melancholy one. The atmosphere grew damp as the Lord-Relictor called water from the very air. It dripped outwards from the walls and down from the ceiling, snuffing the flames. Soon, the air was thick with ash and blackened shelves groaned as they settled. Piles of scrolls and books had been reduced to nothing more than blackened smears on the floor.

‘All of this knowledge, ruined. A millennia of gathered wisdom, made into fodder for vermin,’ Seker said. His voice was harsh. ‘This is why we fight, brothers. This is what will become of the Mortal Realms should we fail – all will fall to corruption.’

‘Right now, I’m more concerned with the rat-priests. Mantius reported seeing more than one, but other than the creature we just dispatched, we’ve seen none,’ Zephacleas said, jabbing the body with his sword. One of the more infuriating habits of the ratkin was their propensity for cowardice, this one excepted. Mad, obviously, he thought – the plague-vermin are almost worse than the Bloodbound. But the others had fled. He hated having to chase the foe. Give me orruks any day… a straightforward test of strength, rather than all of this skulking and searching, he thought sourly.

‘G-gone,’ a muffled voice wheezed. ‘They’re gone.’

Zephacleas whirled, searching for the speaker, weapons raised. His warriors spread out at his signal, hunting.

‘There,’ Seker said, after a few moments, pointing with his staff.

Zephacleas followed his gesture and wrenched one of the shattered bookshelves up, revealing a broken shape beneath. The mortal was clad in the tattered remnants of battered scale armour and yellowish robes. His face was a mass of bruises and infected wounds marked his arm and bare flesh. His eyes were gone, leaving behind only ruined, raw sockets. Zephacleas tossed the rest of the shelves aside but hesitated. The mortal was dying. His chest heaved as he sucked in a rattling breath. Was I this fragile, once, he thought?

‘Leave him where he is,’ the Lord-Relictor murmured. ‘His spirit will not linger long and there is no reason to cause him any further agony by moving him.’

Zephacleas examined the dying man. He was dressed in the same fashion as the corpses strewn about the library. The mortal gazed sightlessly up at him. Broken fingers thumped uselessly against his sigmarite as the dying man reached for him. ‘W-we held the Libraria until– until the last,’ the mortal wheezed. ‘C-could hold it n-no longer. T-too many of them. Came in their thousands, burrowing up through the g-great worm’s flesh…’ He began to cough, and Zephacleas knelt. The mortal’s ruined hand passed across the contours of his war-helm. ‘S-Sigmar,’ the dying man hissed. ‘We… we waited for you to come… we prayed… we…’ A spasm ran through him.

Zephacleas wanted to speak, to deliver words of comfort, but none came to mind. What was there to say? Is this how it was to be? Did they exist only to avenge those already fallen? He pushed the thought aside, and focused on the matter at hand. ‘Where did they go? Where have the skaven fled?’ he murmured.

‘Th-through the Scar-roads,’ the man muttered. ‘O-only we knew of those roads. The daemon t-told them to… the daemon…’ He caught hold of Zephacleas’ armour with surprising strength. ‘We prayed,’ he hissed. Another spasm tore through him, and he went still. Zephacleas bowed his head. He heard the other Stormcasts gather around. The Lord-Relictor began to murmur the Incantation for the Fallen.

Zephacleas rose to his feet. The seraphon were watching them silently. He met the inscrutable gaze of Takatakk, and wondered if the Starpriest understood or cared what he had witnessed. The skink communicated nothing either way.

‘Whatever road they’ve taken, we know where they’re going,’ he said, after a moment. ‘We march for the Setaen Palisades.’

CHAPTER SIX

Soul of the Hunter

Fires burned within the Dorsal Barbicans. Mortal men and women, newly freed and healed by the magics of the Stormcast Eternals, carried fire and blade into the dark, cleansing the ancient fortress of those lingering packs of skaven. Takatakk watched them from the dome of the Libraria Vurmis. The mortal inhabitants of the Crawling City glowed with a pale amber light, and he could trace their lifelines back along the solid orange river of Shu’gohl’s existence. That river stretched back to the birth of the realm and forward, into the misty reaches of the future. Strands of infection threaded through that thick skein of existence – the lives of the vermin. Those strands grew thicker and then faded abruptly as they intersected with the cerulean threads of Azyr.

Takatakk nodded to himself, satisfied that things were progressing as Great Lord Kurkori had foreseen. Shu’gohl’s progress towards its ultimate end would continue unhindered. What part the great leviathan would play in those distant, yet-undreamed events, Takatakk did not know, but the Dreaming Constellation would see that it was around to do so.

Down below, the Stormcast Eternals made ready to march. They glowed with a flickering radiance that Takatakk found comforting, though strange. It was akin to the light which flared through the seraphon, and yet not – weaker, perhaps. The Stormcasts were yet merely memories-to-be, rather than memories-of-what-was. In time, perhaps, they would become as one with the light of Azyr – things of pure order, even as the seraphon were. But for now…

He heard the bellow of Zephacleas’ laughter, and thought, just for an instant, about the inevitable and the inexorable. Claws scraped on stone and he turned. Oxtl-Kor stood behind him. ‘They are too slow,’ the Oldblood growled. ‘The vermin will escape us.’

Takatakk cocked his head. ‘Great Lord Kurkori says–’

‘I know what he says, Starpriest,’ the Oldblood rumbled. He tapped his skull with a claw. ‘I hear his words in my blood as well as you. I will not fail. The stink of the vermin-spoor is strong, and Sawtooth’s belly is empty.’ He looked at their master, reclining on his throne. ‘His wishes are many, and all must be fulfilled, even the least of them. I follow the Dreaming Seer’s design, even as you do.’

The skink grunted. He clicked his jaw, uncertain. The plan stretched before him, but even he was not aware of every facet of its infinite complexity. He was but a conduit for the wisdom of his master, an extension of the Dreaming Seer’s will. To him fell the mundane responsibilities of battle, the guiding of the unruly along the predestined path. Oxtl-Kor was more unruly than some. ‘We will march for the great worm’s head. You must mark our path, O veteran of wars yet undreamt. Show us their trail,’ he chirped.

Oxtl-Kor grunted and turned to clamber back down the dome. Takatakk watched him rejoin his warriors, waiting below on the ramparts. He could subtly alter the outcome of a battle, or call forth the destructive energies of Azyr itself, but he could not change what was written. Victory was bought by the blood of the star-born, and even in death, they would serve the Great Plan. Where they stood, death would not pass. And where they fell, the taint which afflicted the worm would be purged.

He closed his eyes, and let his mind stretch forth, into the deep places, where Tokl and his chameleon skinks stalked the vermin scurrying in the dark. Go, he pulsed.

Down deep, on the twisting intestinal currents of the Squirming Sea, Vretch waved his staff and unleashed a wave of sizzling, entropic energy. The lashing, fang-studded leech-maw came apart in smouldering clumps of rotting meat. More of the thrashing, hungry tendrils erupted from the boiling digestive juices and darted for the squealing skaven manning the rafts.

Panicked plague monks hacked at the gnashing, serpentine shapes with rusty blades, as Vretch, annoyed, began to chant. The sliver of warpstone set into the top of his staff glowed, and waves of oily light rippled out from it. He thumped his staff down, and the light flared. The tendrils caught in its radiance abruptly stiffened and began to swell. One by one, they burst, spewing maggots into the bubbling waters.

Vretch sniffed and looked around. So far, he’d only lost one raft to the hungry denizens of the Olgu’gohl. Something massive had surfaced from beneath a reef of worms and hooked the raft with a flabby claw, pulling it and its crew of plague monks down into the gastric morass. But he was determined to lose no more.

After all, who knew what dangers awaited him in the lost warren? He needed as many loyal – but more importantly, expendable – bodies between him and what might be waiting for him as possible. Geistmaw could be infested by all manner of horrors, given how long it had rested forgotten in the worm’s belly.

‘Faster-faster,’ he chittered, swatting one of the closest plague monks with his staff. ‘Row faster or we’ll all be food for the worms!’

As the monks bent over their oars and the raft picked up speed, he shuffled to the back and took his place at the rear, with the Conglomeration. The thing had been quiescent since its last outburst, but it still jerked fitfully on its palanquin. Every so often, he caught it looking at him and wondered whether Skuralanx was keeping an eye on him. Annoyed by its twitching, he looked away, out over the narrow sea of digestive juices.

The flickering torches mounted in the prow of the rafts cast an eerie light over the cavernous interior of the worm’s gullet. Strange shapes crawled through the shadowed upper reaches, or splashed through the shallows. Chunks of rubble thrust up on every side of the floating rafts like broken islands. A thousand cities had perished to Shu’gohl’s hunger before it had been tamed, and their ruins littered its craw. The tattered remnants of orruk encampments flapped in the foul sea-wind, and once, Vretch thought he saw the carcass of a gargant, covered in a pelt of hungry worms.

His snout wrinkled as he sniffed the air. He could smell the tang of strange moulds and ichors on the wind. Occasionally, they had passed thick patches of poison and infection, seeping down from above. Who knew what sort of poxes could be brewed here, in these humid depths? Perhaps he’d made a mistake, making his encampment above. The belly of the beast was fertile ground for the planting of pestilences. Yes-yes, it would make the perfect cauldron for the brewing of the Great Plague, once the Liber was in his grasp.

A hollow, tooth-rattling groan swept over the Squirming Sea, and the sizzling waters suddenly swirled ferociously, causing the rafts to bob in an alarming fashion. His followers cowered, and the air was thick with the musk of fear. Vretch was tempted to follow suit, but he clamped down on his panic, trying to think instead of the successes to come. His stomach lurched nonetheless and he awkwardly snatched up his tail and stuffed it in his mouth. He felt no pain, despite the way his chisel-like teeth cut into his wrinkly flesh, but the coppery taste of blood and pus calmed him.

The bubbling waters slopped over the edges of the raft, stinging his claws. The worm was weakening. It was succumbing to the thousands of pox-brews and pestilences unleashed on its flesh, and the damage from the fighting above. Sheets of rotting muscle fell from above, splashing down into the Squirming Sea as the monster convulsed. Another moan echoed through its craw, and Vretch found himself momentarily deafened. The noise reminded him – unpleasantly – of the thunder he’d heard, and the knowledge of what it meant.

He bit down harder, juggling the Mappo Vurmio and his staff as he tried to feed more of his tail into his mouth in a moment of stress. Kruk would keep the enemy occupied. That much he was certain of. Kruk had all the survival instincts of a rat ogre with a snout full of warpdust, and less sense. Once he sank his teeth into a foe, he didn’t let go until they were dead. He would fight the storm-things until he won or, more likely, they killed him.

Vretch chittered in pleasure at the thought. Kruk had dogged his trail for too long. Yes-yes, Skuralanx would see to it, and even if the storm-things failed, then Squeelch would…

He stiffened, the thought lost. There was a new scent on the air, a familiar stink, though he’d never encountered it before. He remembered what the daemon had shown him, and what he’d felt in those visions, and he spat out his tail. Vretch whirled, searching the curved walls of Shu’gohl’s gut-pipe for some sign of the enemy he knew must be close by.

Nearby, a plague monk pitched backwards, clawing at a shimmering dart that had sprouted suddenly from his throat. The skaven gurgled and slumped, steam rising from his flesh. As Vretch watched in horrified fascination, the dying monk’s flesh began to putrefy even faster than normal. ‘Poison,’ he hissed. ‘Guard yourselves, fools.’

A sudden shout from one of the other rafts drew his attention and he turned to see reptilian shapes bleeding into view, their scales shimmering strangely as they raced across the cliffs and crags of muscle and meat. They were there one moment and gone the next, as if blending into the background.

He watched in horror as the raft behind his came under attack. The plague monks aboard gave in to panic, rocking the raft wildly as they sought to find cover from the hissing death which shot out of the darkness. It availed them nothing; one by one, they slumped or pitched over the sides, their rotting bodies vanishing into the digestives juices of the worm. The empty raft, bereft of rowers, wafted along, drawn in the wake of his own craft.

‘Faster! Row-row rapid-quick,’ Vretch shrieked, battering at his followers with his staff. ‘Stroke – stroke – stroke – faster-faster!’ Satisfied that they were following his commands, Vretch turned his attentions back to the foe. His eyes narrowed. They were gone. He spun, searching the opposite shore, but saw not even the barest hint of movement.

He heard screams from the rafts behind, and snapped his jaws in frustrated realization. Of course, he thought. They’re trying to weaken my magnificent forces, to rob me of my mighty congregation! That thought was soon followed by another, slightly more panicked one. They know! Somehow, they know… He looked around, trying to spot the other rafts. Two had been sent ahead to test the waters, but there were four behind – how many yet remained?

Enough, perhaps, to occupy the unseen enemy’s attentions, he thought. He stood, steadying himself with his staff, and called out to the flickering light of the warp torches. ‘Vilebroth, Pux – my most loyal and courageous brothers, do you yet live?’ When squeals of assent greeted his cry, he said, ‘You must row for shore, my brave ones! Vretch shall meet you there. Together, we shall sweep aside these sneaking, treacherous assassins, yes-yes!’

He counted to ten, waiting until he heard the excited splashing of oars carrying the rafts to shore, and then let out a breath. Then, with a hiss, he raised his staff and conjured forth a sickly radiance which swelled and filled the air, illuminating even the deepest shadow.

The light washed across the shore, revealing the startled plague monks as they clambered out of their rafts. Yet also, it revealed the lurking shapes of the seraphon.

Vretch flung out a hand. ‘There! There, Pux – see them, get them, fast-slay them, lest they kill you all.’

The two bands of warriors hesitated, staring at one another. Then a skink raised its blowpipe, and one of the plague monks gasped and fell backwards into the water. With that, the battle was joined. Vretch watched for a moment, until he was satisfied that the skinks were too preoccupied to pursue.

‘Hold this, wretched one,’ he snarled, tossing the Mappo Vurmio to one of his servants. ‘Guard it with your worthless life, or be prepared to face the wrath of the Horned Rat himself, as embodied by me.’

Vretch turned from the cowering skaven and thrust his voluminous sleeves up, exposing his pallid, mange-ridden foreclaws. Clutching his staff in both claws, he began to sweep it in a wide circle, as if he were standing over a pox-cauldron.

The air turned oily and thick. Half-seen shapes formed in the murk, and the water roiled about them as the edges of the raft were caught in insubstantial talons.

‘Pull in your oars, lazy fools,’ he said. ‘You are not going fast enough. As ever, it has been left up to me to see us through.’ He thrust his staff forward, and the newly-conjured pox-winds swelled, shoving the raft on through the water.

The sounds of battle faded as he manipulated the murky wind. He grunted in satisfaction. It was as he’d always said. If you wanted a bone gnawed properly, it was best to gnaw it yourself.

Skuralanx, clinging to the side of a setae tower, watched the seraphon lizard-riders charge through the rolling streets of the Crawling City in pursuit of their prey. They were led by a bestial war-leader on a monstrous steed. The verminlord shook his shaggy head, wondering at the thrill of fear that shot through him at the sight of the star-devils – he had never encountered them before.

The whispers of the Horned Rat, the daemon thought, after a moment. Like all of his kind, the verminlord was but a mote of something greater; a vast intelligence whose attentions he feared, resented and craved in equal measure. He crawled around the other side of the tower as a flock of flying lizards swooped past, their riders chirping to one another. Skuralanx watched them go, half-formed memories of wickedly sharp beaks ripping the steaming innards out of squealing skaven filling his crooked mind.

Skuralanx recognised his true foe easily enough. The name of the Dreaming Seer was a whispered curse in the plague-gardens and filth-warrens of skaven and mortal Rotbringer alike. Kurkori, last survivor of the Nightmare War and slayer of Balagrex, one of the Seven Virulent Sons of Bolathrax. The Dreaming Seer had cooled the ever-burning sea, so that his star-blooded legions could march across and lay waste to the Fortress of Malady and burn the seven great plague-gardens within.

Skuralanx scrambled to the top of the tower and sprang across the gap separating it from its closest neighbour. The tower swayed gently as he landed. Before it had stilled, he was moving again, hunting the hunters. They were on Kruk’s trail, and would catch him if he didn’t intervene. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have worried about it – Kruk had more than served his purpose – but he suspected he would need the fanatic again before this affair was ended, if only to have something durable to throw at his enemies, when the time came.

The seraphon were as implacable as they were deadly, and single-minded besides. That would be their downfall. The storm-things were a different matter. He’d recognised their great, roaring brute of a leader – that one had almost done for Skuralanx’s kin-rival, Vermalanx, at the Gates of Dawn in the Jade Kingdoms.

Skuralanx had watched from the shadows alongside the rest of his sniggering, chittering kin as Vermalanx had gone to aid his ally, the Great Unclean One Bolathrax. His kin-rival had paid the price for his lack of caution. Skuralanx did not intend to follow his example. This was not the Ghyrtract Fen, and he was not a fool.

Far behind the seraphon riders rose the storm clouds that marked the rest of their host. Where the warriors of Azyr marched, lightning flashed and cleansing rains fell, ruining all that the Clans Pestilens had worked so hard to build. Skuralanx hissed. They were moving faster than he’d anticipated. He’d left Squeelch to cover their tracks, but it hadn’t been enough. Even as a distraction, that one was a disappointment. He scratched a talon down the side of his skull, dislodging one of the bone-beetles nesting there. He caught the insect and popped it between his incisors. Crunching idly, he considered his options.

The Stormcast Eternals and the seraphon – one or the other, he could have handled. But both together was a challenge, even for one as perspicacious as Skuralanx the Cunning. Still, he had the advantage in cunning, in wisdom, and in might. One against two is no contest, he thought, but the one is me, and I am worth at least three, am I not? Yes-yes, possibly even four. All problems had solutions. He simply had to… ah.

He stretched out a claw and touched the filthy breeze. He could taste the million skeins of plague which threaded throughout the city, and with a single gesture, pulled them tight. A cacophony of squeals echoed through his head and he cackled. Where the skaven went, so too did their smaller cousins. Millions of plague-rats scurried through the city, spreading pestilence, and with the merest exertion of his incandescent might, he summoned them all.

The rats would divert some of the hunters, at least. For the rest, he would have to take matters into his own claws. He sped on, loping from shadow to shadow, winnowing through the rat-holes in reality, trying to get ahead of the main contingent of seraphon pursuers. He and his kin had gnawed tunnels through the walls of existence for millennia. One simply had to know where to look. The Scar-roads of the Crawling City were similar things. He saw movement below, and heard the clangour of bells.

Predictable, he thought. And out in the open as well. Vretch is right – Kruk is a fool. But, unfortunately, a necessary one. Vretch, though cunning, was too treacherous to be trusted with the secret of the Liber for long – that one was undoubtedly already planning to betray Skuralanx for his own gain. Kruk, should he survive, would make a more suitable figurehead for the glories to come. He was too simple to plot against his master and too durable to die.

Skaven spilled out of the stump of a ruined setaen tower like insects out of a rotten log. With angry squeals, they pursued a stumbling mortal into the open plaza beyond. Even from so far above, Skuralanx could tell that the human, one of the last surviving members of the Order of the Worm, was dying on his feet. Blood poured from his wounds, and his breath came in harsh rasps. Skuralanx leapt from shadow to shadow, descending in the blink of an eye.

He dropped to the ground in front of the mortal and slapped the unlucky human from his feet. The mortal fell to the floor, body contorted in agony.

Kruk, at the head of his followers, leapt on the fallen human with a triumphant growl. ‘Thought you could flee-escape, yes-yes? No! No! No-one escapes from Kruk,’ the plague priest snarled, crushing his captive’s skull with a blow from his censer.

‘A brilliant stratagem, Kruk,’ Skuralanx said.

Kruk looked up, scarred muzzle wrinkling in a snarl. ‘He tried to escape,’ he said. He still held a handful of the dead man’s robes.

‘Yes, captives tend to do that,’ the verminlord said. He straightened to his full height as he heard the roar of the carnosaur. The air filled with the musk of fear as Kruk’s followers looked around in panic. ‘You must run-fast-scurry-quick fool,’ Skuralanx hissed, glaring down at the skaven. Kruk dropped the dying human and wiped his bloody claw on his robes.

‘Yes-yes,’ he growled. He turned, as if seeking the source of the roar. ‘But the enemy…’

‘I will deal with them, Archfumigant. You will do as I command,’ Skuralanx snarled. His tails lashed in fury as he glared down at his servant. ‘Maybe I should have let Squeelch kill you, yes? Maybe Squeelch would have listened to his most wise and cunning master, rather than questioning me at every turn like the addle-pated fool before me,’ he hissed, snapping his jaws in frustration. ‘Get to the palisades, take them for me, take them from Vretch!’

Kruk opened his mouth as if to argue further, when a sudden shriek interrupted him. Star-devil lizard-riders loped across the open plaza before the ruined tower, heading straight for the gathered skaven. Skuralanx spat a deplorable word and a wave of sickly light washed across the plaza. As the plaza gave way, dissolving into tarry ichor, the worm writhed in agony. Setae swayed, slamming together with deafening crashes, as the street rolled upwards with a surging motion. The bipedal lizards screeched as they were sent sprawling. Some were hurled into the bubbling ichor, where they and their riders struggled helplessly against the viscous liquid as it ate at their flesh. Kruk cackled and capered. Skuralanx whirled and shoved him back. ‘I said go, fool,’ the verminlord shrieked. ‘Go or all is lost.’

Kruk’s followers caught his arms and dragged him back. Satisfied, Skuralanx turned back to the plaza. The blight had spread, and the worm’s thrashing grew worse. Across the plaza, the massive reptile stalked into view. Its rider thrust out a golden gauntlet and unleashed a burst of blinding energy in the verminlord’s direction.

Skuralanx ducked the blast and bounded forward, plaguereapers held low. He leapt over the bubbling ichor, racing across the thrashing bodies of the beasts and their dying riders. The giant reptile roared and lunged, jaws wide, as it caught sight of him. Skuralanx dove aside, narrowly avoiding the beast. He rolled to his hooves and sprang between the monster reptile’s legs. His blades slashed out, slicing easily through the monster’s tendons. The wounds turned black and gangrenous.

The great beast toppled forward with a despairing shriek. Skuralanx deftly avoided its pain-wracked thrashing, and drove a blade into one rolling eye. The orb burst with a hiss and the giant reptile shrieked again, its jaws savaging the air. It squirmed across the dissolving plaza, snapping blindly. Skuralanx sprang onto its skull and raced towards the dying beast’s rider. He slashed out, hoping to kill the seraphon before it could free itself.

He wasn’t fast enough. The seraphon roared as it rolled from the saddle. It bobbed to its feet, spear whirling about its head as its mount thrashed its last. It slashed out with the spear, driving Skuralanx back. The daemon backed away, plaguereapers raised. The spear stank of dark places, where no light fell save for the cold flicker of stars. It was a deathly thing, capable of harming even one of his preeminent might.

The star-devil’s snarl pounded at Skuralanx’s brain like the moan of a dying sun. Everything about it, the way it moved, the way it smelled, offended him – it was a thing of wrongness, opaque and hideously solid in a fluid universe. A voice within him wailed in terror, and he fought the urge to seek safety in the shadows. The creature snarled again and surged forward with sinuous grace, its every move causing the air to hum.

The deadly spear thrust forward again, and despite his speed it glanced off his skull. The blade burned him where it touched, and chunks of bone and hair blackened and fell away from him as he staggered back. He slashed wildly at his opponent, and just managed to hook the haft of the spear. He tore the weapon from the star-devil’s grip and kicked it in the belly, knocking it backwards.

The creature leapt on him a moment later, its gauntlet crackling with painful energies. Skuralanx shrieked as his flesh smouldered. He drove an elbow into his foe’s scaly snout and thrust one of his plaguereapers between the plates of its armour. Teeth snapped shut perilously close to his jugular, and Skuralanx shrilled. He clawed desperately at his foe, rolling back and forth across the ground. The seraphon’s tail looped around him, trying to break his bones.

Even as he fought, Skuralanx felt a hideous, fearful weight settle within him – this confrontation was merely the echo of a million-million other conflicts, raging back to the beginning of time. It had been fought again and again, between the servants of the rat and the serpent. Prey and predator, locked in an unending cycle. No matter how deeply the Horned Rat might dig his burrows into the soft soil of all that was, the serpent inevitably found him. And even as the rat-god feared the Devouring Serpent, so too did those shards of him which were the verminlords fear their opposite numbers.

Skuralanx clawed at the ground, fighting the panic which gnawed at him. Strong jaws snapped at his throat. He rolled over, trying to shove the creature off him. It pushed its gauntlet towards his snout, the crackling energies singing his whiskers. The creature’s yellow eyes widened suddenly, and it reared back with an agonised roar.

The seraphon fell away from him, its own spear jutting from its back. Skuralanx looked up and saw Kruk backing away, his claw still smoking from where he’d touched the star-forged weapon. ‘You live, yes-yes?’ he chittered. ‘Kruk has saved you, Skuralanx, yes he has.’ His good eye blazed with fanatical fervour as he gazed at the dying seraphon. ‘Kruk could not abandon you, O most holy of holies. Whatever you commanded…’

Skuralanx gazed at the plague priest. ‘You mean it,’ he muttered. ‘You actually mean it.’ Wonder of wonders – an honest skaven. Kruk was utterly mad.

The plague priest rubbed his burnt claw against his filthy robes. ‘Filthy star-devil,’ he gurgled, gazing down at the thing’s dissolving form. He shuffled back as the creature’s blood pooled on the floor. It cleansed the ground as it spread and Kruk hissed in repulsion. ‘Your nests will rot untended, when the Horned Rat ascends to his proper place. And Kruk will be there to feast on them, yes-yes.’

He looked at Skuralanx. Before he could speak, the verminlord rose to his full height.

‘Go back to your congregation, fool. They require your guidance. You must get to the Setaen Palisades, quick-quick. I will see to any further pursuit. Go!’ he snarled.

It would not do to let Kruk realise how close Skuralanx had come to being defeated, until his intervention. Kruk eyed him for a moment, and then scampered away.

Skuralanx shook his head. Yes, Kruk would be a fine figurehead, when victory had been achieved, but until then… he stiffened, sniffing the air. He turned to see his blight steaming away as the last of the trapped seraphon finally succumbed. Their blood and flesh shimmered as it dissolved and he stepped back, scalp bristling with an inexplicable fear.

The bubbling ichors were burnt away by the blinding light as the corrupting magics were cleansed from the worm’s flesh. Skuralanx turned and saw that the same was happening around the dissipating carcass of the star-devil as well, and its fallen mount. The light swelled, rising up, and he felt the grime-stiffened hairs of his mane sizzle as a terrible cleansing heat stretched out towards him. With a hiss, he leapt for the shadows.

Mantius Far-killer swooped over the Crawling City, sickened by what he saw. The skaven had left a trail of destruction from the Dorsal Barbicans to the outskirts of the Setaen Palisades. The streets between the tall bristle-towers were full of toxic smog and pits eaten away in the worm’s flesh, thick with bubbling pox-waters. The worm’s convulsions were growing worse as it twisted first one way and then the next, as if trying to shed its abused flesh.

Shu’gohl was strong, befitting a creature that had lived for uncounted centuries on the open steppes of Ghur. But the great worm was approaching its limits, he suspected. He looked towards its head, where the eternal lightning storm shimmered. The storm acted as the great worm’s eyes in some manner, Mantius suspected, allowing it to know where it was crawling. Whatever its purpose, the storm also marked the site of the Sahg’gohl. He could almost make out the tiers and shattered minarets of the ancient temple.

The loremasters of Sigmaron spoke of a calamity, in the early days of the Age of Chaos, when some hell-sent beast had attacked Shu’gohl on its unending travels. The great worm had almost died then, and the ancient temple-crown which clung to its head had been destroyed, its priests killed to a man.

But Shu’gohl had survived, and the Crawling City had survived, even as the folk of Azyr had done. Chaos surges wild, but it cannot drown us all, he thought, his earlier bitterness forgotten. It was one of Zephacleas’ favourite sayings, and was always punctuated by a bellow of laughter. His Lord-Celestant was capable of great mirth, for all that he was an implacable warrior. But there was a fatalistic streak to his commander as well – a surety of death. The only surety Mantius possessed was that of finding his mark when he loosed an arrow.

He climbed up through the air, away from the worm, into the amber skies. He could see the vast plumes of dust rising from the steppes as the worm crawled across them. In the distance, through the dust and rain, he could make out the hunched, mountainous form of one of the other great worms, and the long columns of smoke which rose from the bastion on its back. Guh’hath, the Brass Bastion, he thought. The Great Worm of Khorne.

The Brass Bastion had been squirming towards Shu’gohl for months – years even – in slow, agonizing pursuit. It would have caught up with the Crawling City in ten years, maybe less, if warriors from the Sons of Mallus Stormhost had not intercepted it. No less than three Warrior Chambers from the Sons now laid siege to the Brass Bastion.

It would fall, as the skaven would fall. They would free the steppes of the taint of Chaos, and harry its followers wherever they found them. Mantius snarled, unable to contain the sudden surge of savage joy which filled him. The air rushed around him as he rose towards the ochre storm clouds. He swooped down, crackling wings spread, and scanned the tops of the setae towers which rose along Shu’gohl’s back.

He could just make out the shapes of his Prosecutors, spread out across the city, hunting the skaven wherever they might choose to congregate. After the fall of the Dorsal Barbicans, the vast majority of the vermin had scattered, streaming into the crooked streets beyond. They had occupied the city long enough that there would be innumerable warrens and burrows for them to seek refuge in. Lord-Celestant Zephacleas was determined that the ratmen would find none, and have no chance to regroup. And so Mantius’ huntsmen had been dispatched to range ahead of the combined host and harass the skaven.

Mantius himself had already claimed the tails of over a dozen reeking rat-monks as they sought to ambush the seraphon vanguard which followed the trail of the largest group of skaven. But while he’d paused to deal with the ratmen, the seraphon had continued their hunt, and seemingly vanished.

Somewhere above him, Aurora shrieked. The raptor swooped past him and he followed. She had seen something. A moment later, so did he. The bird’s swelling starlight rose up, washing over the towers. He felt a tingling in his limbs as it blazed over and past him. As it cleared, he spotted a shape fleeing the fading edge of the light. He recognised the verminlord easily enough. The daemon was running flat out, springing from tower to tower with all the agility of the vermin it resembled, outpacing the light with desperate speed.

I see you, beast, and no shadows to hide in thanks to that light, he thought as he angled himself and swooped downwards. He drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it as he dove towards the daemon.

He held the arrow steady, waiting. When the rat-daemon made a leap, he loosed the shaft. It caught the verminlord between its shaggy shoulder-blades, and sent it plummeting down into the gap between the two towers. Mantius pursued it, Aurora streaking ahead of him with a predatory shriek. But so intent was he on taking the beast’s head, that he nearly lost his own. As he tucked his wings and sped down between the towers, a flash of reflected light stung his eyes. He twisted aside, and a curved blade drew fat sparks from his shoulder-plate.

The force of the blow drove him into the opposite tower. The verminlord sprang at him. Its blades slashed down, gouging his amethyst armour. He lashed out, driving his feet into the creature’s gut. They fell in a tangle, and the street cracked beneath them. The verminlord stabbed one of its blades through the joint of his wing, pinning him to the ground. It slapped his realmhunter’s bow from his grip, and caught his war-helm in its free talon. It raised its remaining blade. ‘Scream loud, storm-thing,’ the daemon chittered. ‘Only Skuralanx to hear you…’

Mantius whistled. Aurora screeched and dove towards the verminlord like a shimmering comet. The star-eagle tore at the daemon’s head with beak and talons, scoring the pox-warped bone again and again. The verminlord staggered back, flailing blindly at its avian attacker.

While his opponent was distracted, Mantius tore his wing free of the daemon’s blade and drew two arrows from his quiver. They crackled as he thrust them into the daemon’s hip and midsection, eliciting a shriek of agony. The verminlord’s knee came up and struck his face. Mantius staggered back, vision spinning. ‘Aurora,’ he rasped.

The star-eagle shrieked and so too did the verminlord, as the raptor’s talons tore at its throat and muzzle. The daemon swung an arm, driving the star-eagle back, and whirled to plunge into the shadows gathered about the base of the tower. The creature vanished with a shrill hiss. Mantius swiftly reclaimed his bow and nocked an arrow, waiting.

He heard the shriek of the flying seraphon overhead, and the rattle of sigmarite echoing through the streets beyond the towers. He relaxed slightly. The verminlord was gone, but he’d hurt the creature. He could smell the foul tang of its ichors. And if he could smell it, he could track it.

He raised a hand, and Aurora swooped low about him. ‘Find it, my friend,’ he said, to the star-eagle. ‘Seek it out with your void-spanning eyes and lead me to it.’

Twice now he’d fought the verminlord, and twice it had escaped.

It would not do so a third time.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Setaen Palisades

Skuralanx scuttled through the shadows of the worm, moving through the dark trails of rot and poison which pierced the great beast as easily as a skaven might scurry through a gnaw hole. The places where the raptor had clawed at him ached, and he longed to tear the bird to pieces. But he would wait, yes, wait and choose the right time and place for vengeance, rather than being drawn into a pointless scuffle with such an annoyance.

He scratched at the suppurating wounds left by the Stormcast’s arrows as he scurried. They had been infused with the raw stuff of Azyr, and had come close to severing the bonds that held him tied to this realm. Daemons rarely felt pain, unless the Horned Rat so willed it, in his infinite patience, and Skuralanx did not care for the sensation. He wished to avoid it in the future.

Such a cunning scheme, so nearly undone by chance – no, treachery, he thought, as he scuttled. It was always treachery. Chance had been allowed for, but this… this was an attack. Someone – some force – was trying to prevent him from finding the eighth Great Plague. Another verminlord, perhaps… yes, that made sense. How else to explain these same purple-clad Stormcast Eternals and the star-devils showing up here, on the eve of his triumph?

Vermalanx had been close to finding the Hidden Vale, and was defeated, he thought. I am close to success here and… He hissed. Treachery, yes. But who? Which among his kin had driven this blade into his back? He shook his shaggy head. He would discover their identity soon enough. Once he had the lost Liber in his clutches, none would stand before him.

He twisted about and plummeted deeper through the shadows, into the depths of the worm, following the particular trails of rot and filth left by Vretch and his followers. He cursed his lot, having to use and keep track of such flawed tools. Was any child of the Horned Rat so beset by foolishness? No, he thought. Only Skuralanx. All the better to prove his worth, perhaps. But only if he succeeded. And that meant keeping track of his servants and ensuring that they got where they needed to go, before it was too late.

He emerged onto the last of Vretch’s rafts, from the shadows behind the palanquin where the plague priest’s Conglomeration sat, tittering to itself. The mass of conjoined skaven thrashed as it sensed his presence, and it mewled softly from many mouths. Vretch, standing beside it, stiffened, his whiskers twitching. ‘Is – is that you, O most beloved and officious one?’

‘It is I, Vretch,’ Skuralanx growled. He rose to his full height, causing the raft to dip dangerously. Several plague monks darted looks at him, but hurriedly turned away to bend over their oars once more. ‘Prepare your congregation, Vretch. The enemy follow you,’ Skuralanx said. He spoke softly, so as not to attract the undue attention of the others. They knew he was here, but they also knew better than to look. They were not worthy to gaze upon the Scurrying Dark, and he had done horrible things to those who dared.

‘What? How?’ Vretch muttered, his eyes widening in sudden panic. ‘What have you done?’ He made as if to confront the daemon and rose from his seat.

Skuralanx caught Vretch by the back of his head and prevented him from turning. His tails coiled about the plague priest. Not too tight, but just enough to make Vretch’s bones creak audibly. ‘I? I have done nothing save bring you warning, you ungrateful squealer. And more besides – Kruk is on his way, O most unworthy of my many servants. He flees to the Setaen Palisades, and your enemies give chase. Have you found my Liber yet, lackadaisical one?’

He could feel Vretch squirm in his grip, and hear the quick thump of his heart. He could smell the fear of all of the skaven on the raft. ‘You – you honour me, O most conniving one,’ Vretch whimpered. ‘It is – I mean – you speak to me in the flesh, not through my creation…’ He gestured jerkily to the Conglomeration. Skuralanx growled softly. He hated wearing that fleshy guise, but it had served to keep some distance between himself and Vretch.

Skaven, whatever their clan, whatever their overriding devotion, were natural spies. Plague monks moved between congregations like germs, their allegiances as ephemeral as a morning mist. He could not risk Kruk learning that he spoke with Vretch. Vretch was also more easily impressed by such tricks as possession.

Now, however, none of that mattered. He needed the Liber. If the enemy had arrived closer to the worm’s head, rather than its tail… He hissed. Another sign of the Horned Rat’s favour. He was tempted to squeeze its location out of Vretch and find it himself, but some instinct warned him against it. His mighty brain would be needed to distract and harry the enemy, to slow them so that Vretch could claim his prize. Kruk was too simple to be anything more than a minor distraction. Besides which, the Liber could very well be guarded in some manner. Best to let Vretch weather whatever dangers waited in these depths. ‘My Liber, Vretch… how soon?’

‘C-close, O most kindly and patient of pestilences,’ Vretch squeaked. Skuralanx tightened his grip on the back of the skaven’s skull.

‘How. Close,’ Skuralanx said. Normally, Vretch’s prevarications amused him, but there was little time for it now. He needed to be sure that Vretch was sure.

‘The– the books say near here – see, see! Look-look, O greatest of baleful shadows, look, there-there… a ruin!’ Vretch shrilled, gesticulating wildly.

‘Yesss, there are many ruins here, Vretch. Many-many,’ Skuralanx murmured. His tail tensed, slithering more tightly about the plague priest. ‘I feel nothing, see nothing.’

‘Th-the Liber is hidden! Yes-yes! Hidden deep-deep,’ Vretch said, in a shrill warble. ‘But I can find it! The Conglomeration knows its scent!’

‘Does it now,’ Skuralanx said, glancing at the mass of twitching flesh. Vretch might be telling the truth. Had not the Third Liber been hidden so well that the magics of a hundred plague priests failed to pinpoint its location? Such things hid themselves even from the eyes of the gods. Once again, he congratulated himself on sparing Vretch’s life.

‘Well – no, not yet, no-no,’ Vretch admitted. ‘But it will!’ He thrust a claw into his filthy robes and extracted a stoppered pot. Skuralanx reached over and took it from Vretch’s unresisting grasp.

‘What isss thisss, Vretch? Some new unguent?’ he said, examining the pot. Something sloshed within it.

‘It is that which we seek, O most pernickety one,’ Vretch said, reaching haplessly for the vial. ‘Or a dilution of such. I shall feed it to the brute and use it to find the Liber.’

‘A cunning plan, my servant… but a slow one. Would it not be better to have a hunter which can move under its own power?’ Skuralanx murmured, eyeing the Conglomeration. He twisted to the side and drove a hoof into the centre of the mass, eliciting a clamour of squealing. The obese monstrosity wobbled on its palanquin and, with a flurry of despairing shrieks, rolled into the hissing waters of the Squirming Sea. It sank swiftly, and left no trace.

Vretch stared in shock at the now-empty palanquin. The skaven at the oars had picked up speed, and Skuralanx settled back on his haunches with a sigh. Vretch hunched inward, head bowed. Skuralanx could almost hear the priest’s mind whirring.

‘You – ah – you have another suggestion then, O most mighty scion of a hundred-thousand horrors?’ He twitched a claw forward, gesturing towards one of the monks. ‘One of – ah – one of them perhaps? Who shall we see blessed this day, my most tolerant and wise of mentors?’

‘No, Vretch, no… though I do not doubt your loyalty, I feel that you would not pursue our goal so diligently, so expediently, if you had to rely on another,’ Skuralanx said. He shook the pot slightly. ‘Tell me, Vretch… are you immune to this pestilence?’

Vretch’s eyes bulged. ‘N-no, O most wise and gentle of counsellors,’ he whimpered. ‘My magics might keep it at bay for some time, but – but…’ He trailed off into strangled silence.

‘But it will kill you eventually, yes-yes? Unless you find the Liber quick-fast, yes-yes?’ Skuralanx flicked the cork out of the pot with a thumbnail. Vretch began to struggle, but too late, and not too fiercely. Unlike Kruk, he knew when he was beaten. Skuralanx caught the squirming plague priest’s muzzle and squeezed it open.

‘Do not be wrong, Vretch, or I will find your soul amid the cacophony of the Horned Rat’s great warren and gnaw upon it for time out of mind,’ Skuralanx said. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he poured the contents of the pot down the plague priest’s gullet.

Vretch coughed and retched. Skuralanx let him fall forward. The plague priest gasped out an incantation, as great boils began to rise on his exposed flesh. The boils shrank slightly, but did not disappear entirely. Even diluted, the disease was potent. Skuralanx sighed and drove a claw into Vretch’s bowed back. Ignoring his servant’s writhing and shrieking, he carved a ruinous sigil on Vretch’s flesh. ‘Be still,’ he hissed. ‘This is for your own good, fool.’

When he’d finished, he leaned forward, over the gasping, whimpering priest. ‘Know this, Vretch… I have carved my sigil in you, and no sickness shall claim your life until I say otherwise. If you fail me, I will whisper a word and you shall be food for worms. If you succeed, your pain shall be at an end.’

Skuralanx rose and backed away, into the shadows that clung to the edge of the raft. ‘Do not fail me, Vretch, or I shall sharpen my teeth on your soul for the rest of this age and the next.’

Unlike most skaven, Kruk was not in favour of running. At least not away from the enemy. It wasn’t really courage, so much as the realization that your foes were more likely to die if you ran screaming at them, rather than away. It was simply more practical to charge and ride the roiling wave of poisonous fumes to inevitable and sudden victory. Unfortunately, the treacherously cunning storm-things and the cunningly treacherous star-devils were cheating. And it was making him angry.

He could come up with no other explanation for their continued pursuit. Perhaps they are in the pay of Vretch, he thought, as he scampered towards the massive, slanted gates of the Setaen Palisades. Yes. Yes. That would explain their dogged pursuit – Vretch had summoned them, with his devious and sneaky magics, drawn them down from the hateful stars and unleashed them on his rival. Perhaps Vretch had even suborned Squeelch.

Kruk could almost respect such skulduggery, had he not been on the receiving end. He was tempted to discard everything he’d brought to buy sanctuary from Vretch. No. No-no – cunning, Kruk. Cunning is what’s called for here, he thought. He could be cunning if he wanted. It was just that he saw little purpose in schemes, when open murder often accomplished the same objective in half the time.

But Skuralanx was insistent, and Skuralanx knew best, yes-yes. Unless he didn’t… Kruk growled as he scurried. His suspicions had been growing by leaps and bounds – he knew when he was being used. Indeed, the daemon had never made any secret of it – Kruk was his weapon, wielded in the name of the Horned Rat. But one could have more than one weapon.

What if Vretch was one as well? What if that was why he was being sent here, to pretend-parley with Vretch, not to murder him, but to be murdered? What if Skuralanx had grown tired of him? What if the daemon wished to steal his glorious destiny and bestow it upon unworthy Vretch? He ground his teeth in growing fury. Why else send him into the heart of his enemy’s lair? Question after question chopped at the foundation of his surety.

Kruk glanced around at the Reeking Choir. Skug and his smoke-wreathed followers were loyal, and almost as ferocious as Kruk himself. With them, he could bully almost any congregation into line. And, indeed, had – his forces had swelled threefold as they retreated from the Dorsal Barbicans. Newly loyal bands of plague monks sought his benevolent protection, and swarmed to the sound of his bells. Unless they too had been suborned. A plot, then. Enemies all around him. Should he kill Skug first – or wait and see?

‘Where are they?’ one of the others chittered. Kruk blinked.

‘What? Speak up,’ he snapped.

‘No guards,’ Skug said, whirling his censer absently. The gates to the Setaen Palisades loomed above them, unguarded, unlit, seemingly unbarred. The gates were massive sections of worm-scale, shaped to fit in a gap between the first tier of the palisades. Scenes from the history of the Crawling City had been carved on their sprawling surface. All in all, a magnificent sight.

Kruk gestured, and a geyser of greenish light washed over the gates, reducing them to sloughing ruin. Gouts of thick, reeking smoke rolled over them and filled the narrow streets behind them, momentarily obscuring the sky above. Kruk stumped forward through the smoke, shoulders hunched, tail lashing. His congregation followed at a respectful distance.

Screams rose up from the courtyard beyond, as Kruk and his congregation swarmed up the wide steps towards it. If any of Vretch’s warriors were waiting for them, Kruk would give them more than they bargained for. Skug and the others howled out prayers as they streamed into the courtyard, ready for battle. But there was no one there to greet them, save a pathetic lot of man-things, trapped in domed slave-cages. These were scattered about a series of rickety scaffolds and mine-works, set up over vast, bubbling wounds in the worm’s flesh.

The man-things set up a wail as they caught sight of the skaven. Kruk paid them no heed. They would make for adequate chattel, when the time came, and, even better, they were already in cages. He caught sight of a massive doom gong set up in the centre of the courtyard. He stalked towards it, eye scanning the towers and tiers of the palace-citadel. Why did the man-things always build up? It made no sense. Madness was what it was. When the worm was dead and Vretch was dead and all of his enemies were dead-dead-dead, Kruk would burrow deep into the putrefying flesh of Shu’gohl and build his warren in the worm’s guts.

He struck the gong with his censer, summoning the defenders of this place. He struck it again, before the echoes of the first had faded. Kruk smashed the gong again and again until it warped beneath the force of his blows. He heard a soft scurrying, somewhere high up and far away. His tail lashed. Cowards. Of course they were hiding. Well, they would come out, or his congregation would drag them out by their tails.

‘Skug, you and the Reeking Choir shall accompany me. The rest of you – find our hosts. Drag them out if you must. Bang the gongs, ring the bells, call them, let them know that the Archfumigant, their new master, has arrived. This place is ours now – Glory to the Fumes!’ he snarled.

By nature, however fractious they became at those rare intervals when greed and ambition overcame their natural amiability, the skaven inevitably sought safety in numbers. Unlike Kruk, the laity needed companionship. They needed to be surrounded by their kin and fellow believers. An illness shared was an illness strengthened. Besides, how could you stab someone in the back if there was no one in front of you? More would come, every scattered clawband and isolated procession, because there was nowhere else to go. But would they arrive before the enemy?

Kruk started towards the tallest of the towers, Skug hurrying in his wake. ‘Master, where do we go?’ the censer bearer gurgled.

‘Vretch is a vainglorious fool. He knows nothing of humbleness or piety, of servitude. He will have taken the largest of these for himself. I will claim it as mine, yes-yes, as is my right,’ Kruk growled. If Vretch had found the Liber, that was where it would be. Skug opened his flayed muzzle as if to comment, but quickly fell silent.

Stiff-legged with righteous fury, Kruk led his followers up through the tower. It took a long time to reach the domed chamber at the summit, but Kruk’s energy was inexhaustible. His claw still tingled from the touch of the star-devil’s weapon. It hurt like an old burn, and the pain drove him on.

That was Kruk’s truest and best secret – pain was his ally. Unlike many plague priests, his nerves had only grown all the sharper during his service to the Great Witherer. He felt every clogged pore and peeling scab, every leaking sore and rotting fang. He felt the weight and pressure of the thing growing in his head, pressing down on his cunning brain. That was the Horned Rat’s greatest gift to him, for the pain kept him sharp, kept his thoughts flowing like the most cunning and quicksilver lightning.

He could almost feel the weight of the Liber in his claw. The weight of its power – a power undreamt of save by those who’d felt the withering touch of the Grand Corruptor – dragged him forward and set his claws on the path of glory. The world would be remade into a rotting husk, and Kruk its king, on a throne of sour meat and stacked corpses. He was Kruk and Kruk was him, and Kruk was the best beloved of the many-horned god. Kruk would be Archfumigant and Pox-Master, Kruk would–

‘Yesss Kruk, all this and more. So swears Skuralanx.’

Kruk blinked. They’d reached the high chamber where Vretch had obviously made his lair. It was circular and open to the elements on almost all sides. Tools and cauldrons lay scattered everywhere, among empty cages. There were no books, no scrolls, and certainly no Libers, Pestilent or otherwise. The only signs of life were the whimpering things in the gibbet-cages which hung from the domed roof. ‘Where are the books?’ he hissed.

‘You did not seem interested in books before, Kruk,’ Skuralanx’s voice hissed from the darkness above. The gibbets suddenly rattled on their chains as something heavy moved over them. A familiar stink filled Kruk’s nose.

‘Where are they, Skuralanx?’ Kruk growled, trying to spot the daemon among the shadows. His anger flared out of control. Tricked! He had been tricked! ‘Where is Vretch? You told me to come here, but Vretch is not here… the Liber is not here!’

‘No. He has gone below,’ Skuralanx said, prowling across the top of the gibbets. ‘But I know where he will appear next. There.’ The daemon flung out one long arm and pointed towards the window, through which the distant lightning storm which flickered about Shu’gohl’s head was visible.

‘You told me he was here,’ Kruk said, stubbornly. The daemon had lied. That was the only explanation… the daemon had lied to him. It was playing a game, testing him, but Kruk was not one to submit to such things. He had the weight of destiny on his side, yes, destiny and fate. He did not need a conniving daemon to lie to him and tell him falsehoods, no-no, he was Kruk. Kruk! And Kruk was surrounded by traitors. He glared about him, his remaining claw clenching. He longed for a throat to tear out. Sensing his mood, Skug and the others edged back, rattling their chains nervously.

‘And so he was,’ Skuralanx said. The daemon fixed him with a glare. ‘But he is not here now. He is there, Kruk, and he has the Liber – take it for me! Take it and you will be rewarded beyond all skaven.’ The verminlord leaned towards him. ‘Do as I command, Kruk… or face the consequences,’ the daemon growled, his bifurcated tail lashing.

Kruk hunched forward, shrinking into himself. He was not afraid of the daemon. Kruk feared nothing. Not the daemon, not the storm, not even the star-devils. He was Kruk. He exposed his fangs, but did not meet the daemon’s eyes. No, he didn’t fear it, but neither could he win a fight with it, not yet at any rate. When he had the Liber, though, oh yes, then he would challenge the daemon. He would show Skuralanx who was in charge, oh yes-yes.

‘I will do as you command, O most cunning of shadows,’ Kruk said, casting a challenging gaze at his followers, daring them to snicker or enjoy his humiliation in any way.

Screams and squeals rose from outside. Kruk heard the sizzle-crack of lightning-wings and something swooped by the open chamber, hurtling towards the courtyard below. Alarm bells rang and doom gongs sounded.

‘The enemy are here. Run, Kruk, run now-now,’ Skuralanx snarled. He sprang into the shadows, vanishing in a moment. Kruk sucked on his teeth.

‘They are coming, hrr? Yes-yes,’ he grunted, glaring at the shadows. He was beginning to suspect that the daemon was not so cunning as he’d first thought. ‘Yes, I will run. I will claim our prize, daemon. But…’ He swung his head about, and fixed Skug with his eye. ‘Vrrretch has left us a gift, Skug. It would be foolish to ignore it, yes? Yes-yes.’

‘I do not understand, O most gaseous one,’ Skug grunted, peering at him in confusion.

‘You do not have to. I understand, and that is enough,’ Kruk said, tapping the side of his skull. ‘Look-look, my servants. Smell, see…’ he growled, indicating the cages. ‘A gift, yes, and intended for us, I think. And we shall make use of it, yes-yes!’ The thought amused him no end. Vretch had clearly intended the things in the gibbets as a trap for unwary raiders; sneaky, tricksy Vretch, treacherous Vretch… useful Vretch. Kruk licked his scarred muzzle and glared at the closest gibbet and the twitching body within. He looked at Skug. ‘You will lead them up here, and spring the trap, my most loyal and faithful Skug.’

‘I… I will?’ Skug said, his eyes widening.

‘Yesss. See how I honour the Reeking Choir? See what gifts I bestow upon my most faithful followers?’ Kruk extended his censer and prodded Skug’s rotting snout. ‘See how I give up the taste of victory, for you, my most reliable and trustworthy Skug. Do not fail me, Skug. Or I will gnaw your guts for days.’

Mantius Far-killer swooped low over the Setaen Palisades. Skaven scurried everywhere through the smoke-filled courtyard, fleeing his shadow. There were more than he’d thought there’d be, and they were making enough noise for three times their number. Gongs, bells and shrilling chants rose up to meet him. Sigmar guide my aim, he thought, loosing arrows as he plummeted down. Aurora shrieked past him, claws wide.

He and the star-eagle had followed the daemon’s trail across the city. It was wounded, hurting, and the hunter in him yearned to finish it off. Such a creature was far too dangerous to be allowed to roam free. In the Jade Kingdoms, such monsters had been lodestones, drawing skaven to them in untold numbers. It seemed that was the case here as well. He had to draw it out and destroy it, before the skaven gathered in numbers enough to threaten his brethren and their strange, reptilian allies.

Zephacleas and the others were close now, advancing on the Setaen Palisades in force. There was no sign of the seraphon vanguard, and he suspected the skaven had killed them. He could hear the thunder of his Prosecutors’ hammers and the echoing shrieks of the seraphon flyers in the distance as they converged on his position, cutting off the skaven’s routes of retreat and attack as they came. But swift as they were, they would not reach the palisades before the skaven had regrouped and made ready to defend it. It was up to him to keep the enemy in disarray, by any means necessary.

He loosed arrow after arrow and skaven died, their robed forms pinned to the ground. They fled before his shadow as he swooped overhead. He rolled through the air, passing between the wooden structures which lined the strange, suppurating holes in the worm’s flesh. Skaven clung to the towers, and scrambled towards the upper platforms, shrieking and waving foetid blades at him threateningly. He aimed himself towards the cages he saw scattered about the courtyard. There were almost a hundred mortals trapped in those stinking constructions, perhaps more. Squealing skaven leapt at him, driven to suicidal extremes by fear and frenzy.

Mantius twisted and banked, avoiding some. Others he smashed from the air with his wings or his bow. Its sigmarite length crushed bone and pulped flesh as easily as a hammer. He flew the gauntlet and dropped from the air to land on one of the cages. The scent of illness and gangrene rose from those trapped within. Hands reached up through the cage, clutching at his legs. ‘Back,’ he roared. He tore an arrow from his quiver and slashed the point across the bindings holding the cage together, and with a kick, burst it wide.

‘Now – out, quickly,’ he said. Skaven scurried towards the cage, squealing in outrage. He readied and fired arrows as quickly as he could. Nock and loose, nock and loose, he thought, emptying his mind of all but that lethal rhythm. The cage shivered beneath his feet as men and women fought to further widen the gap he had created. Good. Some of them at least were taking advantage of the opportunity he’d afforded them.

‘Fight, sons and daughters of Shu’gohl,’ he shouted. ‘Fight for your lives.’

As he spoke, he heard Aurora shriek in warning. He flung himself backwards in the nick of time. Two curved scythe-like blades drew sparks from Mantius’ chest and back as the verminlord’s weight knocked him from the air. They rolled across the top of the cage, trading blows. Mantius’ wings burnt furrows in the cage as he slid across it, the verminlord atop him. The daemon slashed its blades down at him, and he interposed his bow, grunting as the blows connected. ‘Aurora,’ he called out.

The star-eagle shrieked and darted down, clawing hunks out of the verminlord. For a moment, the Knight-Venator thought the raptor might drive the daemon off as it had before. But the verminlord was ready this time. As the bird swooped around it, the daemon ducked beneath her talons and impaled the raptor on one of its blades. Aurora shrieked in pain as cancerous strands spread through her flesh and tore her apart from the inside out.

Mantius’ heart lurched with pain and sorrow as the bird vanished in a burst of starlight and lightning. I am sorry, my friend – return to the stars, and hunt anew, he thought. Bow in both hands, he smashed it across the daemon’s shaggy head. It staggered, and he struck it again and again, battering it mercilessly. Its weapons clattered to the ground, and he drove it to one knee. As he made to strike it again, the daemon twisted and caught his bow in one claw. It wrenched the bow from his grip as it kicked him in the chest.

Before he could get his feet under him, the creature had caught him up. The verminlord slammed Mantius down hard enough to splinter the top of the cage. It jerked the dazed warrior up by his ankle and smashed him against it again, before flinging him off. Mantius hit the ground and lay still, breathing heavily, trying to make his limbs work.

The battering he’d taken had crumpled his armour and cracked his bones. Every breath brought a new spasm of pain, and his bow was lost. Arrows lay scattered across the ground where they’d spilled from his quiver. He caught sight of the glowing head of the star-fated arrow, and reached for it. One chance, he thought.

The courtyard was in chaos – mortals wielding improvised weapons fought desperately against the skaven, as winged shadows swooped overhead, thunderbolts in their hands. The ground shuddered beneath the tramp of marching feet. The Beast-bane had come at last, but too late, too slow. Mantius knew, with a sickening certainty, what was called for. What he had to do. Nock and loose, he thought.

‘Now, you die, storm-thing,’ the verminlord hissed as it stalked towards him. Mantius groaned and dragged himself towards the arrow. He caught hold of it, even as the verminlord grabbed the back of his head.

The creature wrenched him into the air, but the Knight-Venator twisted in its grip, lashing out with the star-fated arrow. The tip caught the verminlord in the eye socket, and exploded in a blaze of incandescent light. The creature dropped him and shrieked, clutching at its head. Its filthy mane was aflame, and the bone of its muzzle warped and deformed as if from a great heat. Mantius rose to his feet and scanned around for his bow.

Pain flared through him and he staggered. He looked down, and saw that a bloody, smoke-wreathed claw had erupted through the front of his chest-plate. A thick spew of steam rose from the wound, and he couldn’t draw breath. As he was lifted from his feet, he clutched clumsily at the claw with fingers that had gone numb.

‘You… hurt me,’ the daemon hissed. It ripped its claw free in a burst of smoke. Its forearm was aflame, but it caught hold of his head in both claws regardless. Its wormy muscles bunched, and the ache in the Knight-Venator’s head grew worse, as did the pain in his limbs. Mantius had just enough strength left to spit in the beast’s remaining eye, before it snapped his neck. The pain flared, growing into an all-consuming incandescence.

And then, he felt nothing… nothing, save the storm.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Lost Warren

Vretch coughed and stared up at the tangled network of shattered rock and withered roots which rose from the Squirming Sea. The Geistmaw warren had spread deep below the ancient fortress for which it was named, but that had not saved it from Shu’gohl’s hunger. It had been scooped up and crushed into the remains of the ruin, making a mangled reef of jutting towers and crumbling hummocks.

‘Quick-quick, we must find a way within – hurry, fools, hurry-hurry!’ he chittered, gesticulating weakly with his staff.

That small exertion had him breathing heavily. He could feel things moving, growing within him. Swelling with hideous hunger, eating away at his insides. He was dying – Skuralanx had killed him. He hunched forward against his staff, a whine escaping his mouth as his insides twisted, and fleshy blisters on his arms and back throbbed. In the light, he could see tiny, dark shapes squirming within the opalescent swellings. Worms, black worms, the kind which had drawn him here. A plague unlike any other, a plague which spread with every popped blister, moving faster than wildfire.

It was almost beautiful – indeed, he had often thought so, when experimenting upon his captives. But now he was starting to see the downside. ‘Not me, no-no,’ he snivelled.

Several of his monks glanced back at him, but not for long. He exposed his teeth in a grimace of chastisement, feeling the blisters on his muzzle pull tight as he did so. The worms moved within him. Their agitation grew as he neared their source, like metal filings drawn to a lodestone. Some plagues were like that, he knew. The Chattering Pox or the Glopsome Surge both grew in potency the closer one drew to their epicentre.

Vretch had studied the ways of a thousand plagues – he had taken samples from Nurgle’s Wyrdroot as it hollowed out the treekin of the Jade Kingdoms, and helped the Wailing Chill pass between the Doldrum Heights and Rigvale’s Run. But few were as horrible as the one his magics now kept at bay. He’d already coughed up part of what he suspected was his liver, and his flesh was peeling away in sheets.

Why had Skuralanx done this to him? Unless… yes. Yes, perfidy, of course. The daemon had no more use for him, and had decided to dispose of him, whatever its promises to the contrary. He growled softly in anger. That he had been planning to do something similar only made it worse. Another shiver of pain wracked him. The sea heaved as the worm shuddered, torn by its own pain. The air shivered with the sound of its agony, and, as if in sympathy, the worms within him twitched abominably. Vretch bit back a shriek of pain.

He didn’t dare show weakness, not now. It was all he could do to keep from spurting the musk of fear. His long-dead nerve endings had spasmed to life, and a foul-smelling ichor beaded on his flesh.

‘O great Horned Rat, watch over your most pathetic and beset of children. Have I not served thee faithfully, O Ruiner and Wrecker? Watch over me, as you watched over me in the Glade of Horned Growths, O most blessed planter of poxes,’ he murmured, clutching his tail to his chest. He made to chew it, when he noticed that the blisters had spread there as well. He flung it down with a grunt.

The rafts eased forward by the light of the warp torches, through the steaming current. They passed beneath broken archways curtained with shrouds of half-digested matter. Things roared in the darkness, and he restrained himself from hurling a fiery pox towards the source of the noise. Somehow, he knew that using his magics would only aggravate his condition. If he wanted to survive long enough to find the Liber Pestilent and rid himself of the worms growing within him, he had to save his strength.

The raft thumped over a submerged stone, nearly knocking him from his claws. ‘Careful, fools,’ he shrilled. Incensed, he flung out his claw, and a plague monk collapsed, wreathed in green flame, his flesh going necrotic beneath his disintegrating rags. A tremor ran through Vretch and he sat back, wheezing. ‘Careful… careful…’ he whispered, staring balefully at his followers. There weren’t many, now.

One of his remaining rafts had vanished somewhere along the slow crawl of the worm’s gullet. The other had been caught in a gastric riptide and sunk. Those plague monks who’d managed to survive the swim now overburdened his last, precious craft. He contemplated booting a few of them over the side to lighten the load, but decided against it. His display of temper would keep them in line well enough, and there were likely dangers aplenty in this place. He could hear unseen things moving through the shadowed vaults and broken turrets.

He could also smell the pungent ichor of the worm. Black, writhing shapes dripped from the broken walls and plopped into the water like raindrops. Some squirmed purposely through the water towards the raft and he barked a warning. Heaving himself to his feet, he stumbled to the side of the raft and jabbed the tip of his staff into the water. The shard of warpstone flared once and the water boiled with an ugly heat. Worms crisped and sank out of sight. As they did so, the ones growing within him became frenzied.

‘Follow the worms,’ he croaked.

His monks poled the raft deeper into the tangled ruin. They followed the trail of his pain along the winding eddy until they reached a massive bole of stone and mossy soil. It had been compacted into an unmoving bubo of dirt, perched awkwardly in the water. Broken bones, half-dissolved and intertwined with millions of thick-bodied black worms, floated in a sump of tarry ichor at its base. A winding stair of stone rose from the murk, and Vretch led his remaining monks up its unstable length. The pain was concentrated in his belly now. It had become a pulsing black heat, filling him snout to tail. A strange fluid spattered on the stones where he trod, and worms rose from it.

‘Do not let them touch you,’ he said. ‘You are not worthy to receive their blessings.’ And, he thought, I may need some of you alive before this is over. He hacked and coughed into his sleeve. Worms squirmed in his robes and wriggled out of his pores as he tried to concentrate on the Thirty-Nine Rancid Mantras.

At the top of the steps was a chamber. A buckled section of stone floor, gummed to its walls by a mortar of filth and sour meat, spread out before him. There were piles of broken bones everywhere, swaddled in rotting rags – the remains of a hundred or more skaven, long dead. The dried husks of worms lay scattered about in heaps. Familiar graffiti marred the walls and the signs of the Three Horns had been scratched into the floor. Shattered cauldrons lay everywhere, and their contents had spread tackily across the loose stones of the floor, to drip down into the sump below. From the scene, Vretch deduced that the Geistmaw clan – for these remains were theirs, of that he was certain – had been in the process of brewing the worm-pox when Geistmaw fell to Shu’gohl’s hunger.

‘It must be here, it must,’ he hissed. In a sudden frenzy, he began to smash aside bones with his staff. ‘Well? Don’t just stand there, fools! Help me look-find the Liber! Now-now,’ he snarled, glaring at his followers.

They scrambled to obey immediately. Plague monks flung aside bones and lifted broken cauldrons, tore at loose stones and ripped up fallen shrouds. So hurriedly did they set about their business that the air was soon filled with the clangour of the bells they wore. Vretch watched for a moment, his head and belly throbbing with agony. Then he turned, raising his staff high. He summoned a flicker of light into the warpstone. ‘Sssseek,’ he muttered. Motes of sickly light spilled from the facets of the stone and darted about the chamber.

There was always the chance it wasn’t here. That it had been swept away, lost to the dark. But this was the source of the worm-plague. If they’d had one of the lost Libers, it would have been here, somewhere. Skuralanx was certain of it, and by extension, so was Vretch. Whatever else he might be – traitor, deceiver, assassin – he was no fool. It had to be here somewhere, it had to be. Heart thudding, panic growing, Vretch swept his staff about wildly, trying to illuminate the whole chamber.

All at once, something glinted, reflecting the light of his staff. ‘There!’ he snarled. He lurched forward, robes flapping. He shouldered aside two of his followers and stabbed the end of his staff down, through the bones and rubbish.

Clink.

He fell forward, clawing at the refuse with his free claw until he found it. It was not a book, nor a tome, a grimoire or parchment, as he’d expected. It was, instead, a set of square golden plaques, with holes punched along one side, bound together by thick coils of some sort of vine, unlike any he had ever seen. He made to snatch up the plaques, but they were glued to the floor by ichor and mould. They felt warm, as if they hadn’t been lying in the dark for hundreds of years. Vretch hissed in frustration and pried at them, to no avail. The other skaven shuffled forward, as if to help, and he snarled at them in warning. ‘Back,’ he snapped. ‘Back, fools – this is mine-mine!’

As they scuttled back, he braced himself over the plaques. They were shrouded in the same sticky worm-ichor that covered the walls and floor. He grunted and set his foot-claws, tail lashing. Pain-riddled muscles strained and his head began to pound. His eyes bulged and worms spilled from ruptured blisters.

‘I… will… not… be… denied,’ he yowled. He felt the floor shift beneath his claws and heard the hardened ichor pop loose. Vretch chittered in triumph as he toppled backwards, the golden plaques in his claws. ‘Mine – it is mine!’ he howled, lifting his prize over his head. ‘Vretch shall be triumphant!’

As the echoes of his cry faded, the floor gave way; all save a circular section on which he stood, eyes wide. One by one, accompanied by a rain of rock, his remaining followers dropped into the bubbling morass of worms far below.

The skaven screeched as, drenched in the steaming ichors, their flesh swelled and split, disgorging more worms to join those writhing about them. Truly a blessed plague, Vretch thought, tightening his grip on the plaques as he watched his followers die. The golden plates were warm against his abused flesh, almost uncomfortably so. He made to examine them, but heard the harsh rasp of scales on stone.

Vretch froze. Then, slowly, he looked up. Small, scaly shapes shimmered into view on the walls and ceiling of the chamber, their round eyes fixed on him.

Sutok roared joyfully as he swung his war-mace about his head and brought it down on the cowering skaven. The creature splattered in a satisfying manner, and the Sunblood turned, searching the central courtyard of the Setaen Palisades for new prey. He waded forward into the thick of the fighting, his massive, scarred form shining like a fallen star.

All around him, seraphon poured up the steps and into the courtyard beyond. The skaven had been caught by surprise and only a few of them were putting up any sort of fight. That had always been the way of it – the rat ran and snake pursued, until at last, the rat could run no more. It shed its tail, its fur, all in haste to escape, until there was barely a mouthful left.

It had always been that way, and would be that way again. Again and again, without end, the Great Serpent chewing its tail. Wherever the rat ran, the serpent would follow. Sutok took comfort in that thought. He stomped forward, crushing skulls and flattening skaven.

His smaller brethren followed him, and fell upon the skaven with pleasing vigour. Spears and clubs rose and fell, and the broken bodies of the vermin were crushed underfoot. Sutok swept his mace out in a wide arc, smashing several of the ratmen from their claws. Their diseased flesh pulped easily, for all that it was less sensitive to pain. They stank of sickness and rot. Faint memories flickered within the depths of his thoughts, fragments of a lost past.

The Sunblood swung his head about, studying the ebb and flow of the enemy tide. He could perceive a foe’s weakness as another might scent the blood of a wounded animal. Spotting the weak link in the swarm of skaven, he roared. Instinctively, the nearby seraphon lunged forward. They fell upon the skaven with a savage joy that was a match for his own. They all remembered, and in remembering, felt the old hate rise anew.

But they were not alone in that hate. Sutok glanced down at the armoured figures fighting alongside him. Yes, they were not alone. It was good not to be alone. Oxtl-Kor did not understand that. Sutok felt no sadness at the Oldblood’s death. It was the thing of but a moment. Sutok himself had fought and died a thousand times, and each of those deaths was but a moment experienced and then forgotten.

It was a good thing, to be a dream.

‘Any sign of the Far-killer?’ Thetaleas asked as he swept his axe out in a wide arc, chopping through another cage. Zephacleas helped the Decimator-Prime pry it open, freeing the mortals within. They were inside the Setaen Palisades, having pushed the skaven back from the outer defences and into the courtyard.

‘No,’ the Lord-Celestant grunted. They’d seen a flash of celestial lightning spear upwards from within the palisades as they breached the lower gates. Stormcast Eternals did not truly die, but the thought that any foe had sent the Far-killer back to Sigmaron was almost inconceivable. ‘Keep to your task, brother – as he would, were he here. Ho, Duras, come help Thetaleas get the rest of these cages open.’ As the Liberator-Prime moved to obey, Zephacleas stepped into the battle-line of Stormcasts arrayed between the cages and the bloody melee going on in the courtyard. The seraphon had fallen on the skaven in a frenzy, and the ratkin were fighting like the cornered rats they resembled.

‘We should have the last of the cages open in a moment,’ Zephacleas said. He glanced at Seker, who was standing nearby. ‘We’ll advance then, but slowly. Drive the foe back.’

‘Most fled the moment the huntsmen arrived,’ Seker said, gesturing upwards with his staff. A retinue of Prosecutors swooped overhead, herding a group of the former prisoners back behind the Stormcast line. The mortals had been fighting the skaven when they first arrived. Many had died from their wounds or the illness which burned in them, but some yet remained. And these he was determined to defend.

‘Is that the last of them?’ he said.

‘Aye,’ Seker said. ‘Shall we proceed, Lord-Celestant?’

‘I shall take the vanguard,’ Zephacleas growled.

‘Naturally,’ the Lord-Relictor murmured.

Zephacleas ignored him and stepped forward. The skaven were distracted and scattered. There was only one true knot of resistance left – a band of smoke-wreathed skaven, whirling censers. No seraphon could get near them, so thick was the miasma surrounding them.

‘Duras, you and your warriors follow me. Seker, summon a storm, wash that miasma from the air. The rest of you, advance slowly – keep your shields locked, let no vermin get past you, and no mortal come to harm,’ the Lord-Celestant roared out. ‘With me, brothers… there’s red work yet to be done.’

As he started towards the knot of ratmen, he began to pick up speed, slamming his weapons together as he went. Duras and his warriors followed him, clashing their warblades. The harsh, scraping rhythm rose over the sound of the fray. Skaven fled before their approach.

‘Death,’ Zephacleas shouted.

‘Ruin,’ Duras and the others growled.

‘Death to the dealers of death,’ Zephacleas bellowed. ‘Ruin to the bringers of ruin.’

His warriors bellowed with him, and they plunged through the miasma like a mailed fist. Overhead, thunder rumbled as Seker called down the storm. Zephacleas held his breath against the choking odour and brought his hammer down on a skaven. Warblades slashed out, chopping through censers and chains and hairy limbs as the Liberators tore through the foe. A steady, cleansing rain began to fall, soothing the hurts of those few Stormcast Eternals who’d been wounded and dispersing the murk. As one, the remaining skaven broke and ran for the tallest of the towers which occupied the palisades.

‘They’re fleeing,’ Zephacleas said, as Seker joined him. Before the Lord-Relictor could respond, a shadow fell over them both.

‘We… chase,’ Sutok growled, slamming his war-mace against his shield. Saurus warriors stood arrayed behind the Sunblood, whose massive form was streaked with blood and worse things. The seraphon bobbed his scarred head. ‘Chase?’ he rumbled.

Zephacleas laughed. ‘We chase,’ he said.

Together, the seraphon and Stormcast Eternals forged after the retreating skaven. If they were allowed to hide, to dig in, they might never be rooted out.

Unfortunately, by the time Zephacleas and the others began a thorough search, it seemed that they had done just that. Besides a few skaven cowering on the lower levels, or trying to escape through what Zephacleas suspected were privy holes, the rest seemed to have vanished. Nevertheless, they continued the search, hunting through pillared chambers and warren-like halls, rising ever higher as they went. The stairs carved from the condensed hair wound ever upwards in a tight, claustrophobic coil. Zephacleas understood why the skaven had gravitated to the towers – the creatures preferred cramped space and dark shadows.

Accompanied by the shouts of more successful hunters, the roars of eager seraphon, and the squeals of dying skaven, Zephacleas and the others ascended to the summit of the tower. There were no doors here, only a wide open, circular chamber. The room was enormous – despite the great windows which lined its walls, the upper reaches were lost in shadow. It had been abandoned in a hurry. Empty cauldrons, piles of books and rotting bodies lay everywhere.

‘I’ve seen this before. Remember that foul warren in the Ghurdish Heights?’ Zephacleas murmured. Beside him, Sutok sniffed the air warily and glanced at the skink, Takatakk.

‘Indeed,’ Seker said. ‘A plague-womb. The vermin have been busy.’ The skaven – some of them, at least – were brewers of pox and plague second only to the foul followers of Nurgle. They delighted in rot and decay, and spread pestilences with fiendish glee. The Astral Templars had seen similar horrors in the Jade Kingdoms as well. ‘We must burn this place, when the battle is won. We cannot allow whatever horrors they have brewed here to spread.’

‘It may be too late for that, Lord-Relictor,’ Zephacleas said. He peered into one of the gibbets. The man inside was dead, though his journey to the underworld had not been easy. He wore the strange segmented armour of a city militia-man over his ragged and torn robes. It was dark, and composed of scales shed from the worm’s hide. Pale, like all folk of the Crawling City, his flesh was covered in bruises, blisters, burns and more besides, including a number of fleshy pus-filled growths. Despite these, his form looked somehow… shrunken, as if whatever vitality he’d once possessed had been drained into the bulging abscesses. Zephacleas tapped the gibbet with his hammer, turning it slowly.

As it twisted on its chain, he examined the body more closely. ‘Gravewalker, what caused these growths? It looks like the work of no disease I recognise,’ he called, glancing at the others. Seker turned, and cursed.

‘Zephacleas, get away from it,’ the Lord-Relictor snarled.

Zephacleas heard a hiss, and turned, just in time to see the first abscess split open. A stinking yellow gas spewed from the ruptured flesh, and he smashed the gibbet aside. The Lord-Celestant backed away. ‘Get clear of the cages,’ he roared. A moment later, a thin lash of suppurating flesh shot from the twitching body and struck at him. More tendrils erupted from the abscesses, thrashing about wildly enough to set the gibbet to spinning.

Cries of horror and disgust filled the chamber as the bodies in each gibbet flowered and burst, allowing the putrescent horrors within to emerge – they were akin to the foul, strangling vines of the Fangwood in the Ghurdish Heights, but horribly afflicted by some pestilence which made the ever-coiling fronds weep a strange, musky pus.

Rusty metal bent and buckled as the things within the gibbets fought to get free. A foul miasma rose from the monstrous blossoms which bloomed on the writhing tendrils, filling the air. ‘Back, back,’ Seker shouted. ‘All of you, back!’

Zephacleas turned to join his warriors when something snagged his throat from behind. One of vines, he realised, as it tightened about his neck. It contracted, as if seeking to reel him in, and more of them ensnared his wrists and chest. He roared in fury and fought against their pull. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that he was not alone in his predicament. Several of the warriors who’d accompanied him were caught as well. Liberators slashed at the tendrils, trying to free their fellows, but the squirming appendages simply regenerated.

The seraphon were attempting to aid their allies. He saw Sutok slam his great mace down on a gibbet, nearly ripping it from its chain. The writhing mass inside launched its vines at the Sunblood, trying to snag him. Sutok roared and slashed at them. Zephacleas turned slowly, fighting against the strength of the vines that held him. He heard a shrill voice chitter in amusement, somewhere far above.

Chains rattled and robes flapped. The chamber was dark, but with a single chirp, Takatakk filled it with a soft blue light. Dozens of skaven clung to the chains of the spinning, thrashing gibbets, glaring down at the invaders. At a shrilled command, they descended en masse, leaping first to attack those Stormcasts who were caught by the tendrils.

A disgusting-looking skaven, wrapped in stinking rags and rattling chains, scurried down towards Zephacleas, whirling its censers wildly. The ratman darted across the straining lengths of tendril towards him. It squealed at him in obvious challenge.

Zephacleas heaved his body to the side, jolting the skaven from its claws and sending it tumbling to the ground. The gibbet creaked on its chain as he twisted it, and the tendrils trembled. Hissing ichor seeped from them to spatter his armour. He set his feet and slowly, achingly, pulled his arms back until, one by one, the tendrils snapped. Freed, he lurched backwards to avoid the ratman’s whirling censers. Across the chamber, his warriors and the seraphon had engaged the other skaven.

The censer bearer drove him back in a swirling cloud of poisonous fumes. Zephacleas held his breath, knowing that to inhale one lungful of the reeking smoke was to die. As the whirring censers slashed down at him again, he thrust his sword out and twisted, snagging the chains. He tore them from their owner’s claws with a single heave and caught the off-balance skaven with a blow that crushed its bandaged skull.

As it fell to the floor, twitching in its death-throes, Zephacleas turned to see that the writhing shapes in the gibbets were beginning to pull themselves free. Split tendrils reformed or sprouted anew as the musk of the blossoms thickened. Strands of fleshy matter shot towards the pillars and roof. Blotches of foulness spread wherever they touched. He started chopping through the questing tendrils.

He caught Seker’s attention. ‘Gravewalker – call down the lightning. Purge this place in fire and storm.’

The Lord-Relictor didn’t hesitate. His voice roared out, strong and clear, and the air in the chamber grew thick and sharp. Bits of paper and loose debris were caught up by the dervish winds that seemed to emanate outward from him. Lightning coalesced around his reliquary staff as he lifted it in both hands.

As tendrils surged towards him from the arboreal abominations, he slammed the ferrule of his staff down, and lightning erupted from it, immolating everything in the chamber save the Stormcasts and their seraphon allies. Skaven stumbled out of the conflagration, screeching in agony. They were swiftly put out of their misery.

Zephacleas nodded in satisfaction. ‘Death and ruin,’ he murmured.

CHAPTER NINE

The Sahg’gohl

Deep within the ruins of Geistmaw, Vretch reacted with all of the instinctive savagery of his race. He lunged forward, throat swelling as he belched forth a cloud of noxious mist. The creatures nearest him crumpled as the cloud enveloped them. Shimmering scales turned dull and began to drop off their frames as, one by one, they fell into the darkness below. Mist trailing from between his clenched teeth, Vretch whirled on his perch of stone, the susurrus of the worms loud in his head.

A reptile sprang towards him, and he caught the seraphon by the throat before it could land a blow with the barbed dart in its talon. It struggled for a moment, trying to break his grip, and he glared at it. ‘You think to kill me? Me?’ he hissed. The lizard twisted about in his grip and sank needle-like teeth into his arm. Vretch shrieked and dashed the creature’s head against the ground.

Darts sprouted from his back and shoulders. He staggered. A trick – a distraction to get him to turn his back. Whatever celestial poison was in the darts was as nothing next to the toxins already running riot through his system, but it still burned like fire. Screeching continuously, heedless of his condition, he lashed out with his magics. More darts sank into his rotting flesh, but he was too far gone to feel them.

And then, at last, he sank down, too weary to do anything more than hold onto the plaques. Smoke filled the air, and he could hear stone collapsing; he smelled the too-clean scent of starlight as what was left of the seraphon dissolved. As with their darts, their deaths would not be enough to cleanse this place. Once he was cured, he would come back. He would study the worms and the brew they swum in and he would unleash a blight unlike any other.

He would–

Vretch sagged, coughing. His perch wobbled. He could hear stone grinding, and the splashing of the worms. He had no strength left. He coughed again, spitting ichor. Dying, he thought, and his musk gland spasmed painfully. It was spent, as was he.

Youuu are not dying, Vretch…

Vretch blinked blearily, searching for the daemon. ‘Is… is that you, O most resplendent of… of…’ His body was wracked with pain. As he coughed, fangs pattered from his mouth and mucus ran from his snout. There were worms in it. There were worms in everything now. He could feel them moving behind his eyes.

You stand on unstable ground, Vretch. You must jump, yes-yes… jump and bring me the Liber, Skuralanx murmured. The daemon’s voice sounded odd, as if it were… hurt?

I can help you, fool… but you must jump. Jump now!

Vretch sprang for one of the remaining walls. As he leapt, his perch collapsed at last. He hit the stone and scrabbled for a moment, trying to find a hold with his free claw. It was only through a supreme effort of will that he managed to force himself not to fall. The stones he clung to were embedded in the gut-lining of the worm. Digestive juices spilled across him, burning him. What was left of his fur bristled and he shifted his weight painfully. He could see a speck of blue far above. He could smell…

Do you smell the storm, Vretch? You are in the worm’s head, close to its jaws – listen, you can hear them grinding. You are not far from the surface, Vretch. You can hear the lightning, the daemon said, its words echoing in his head.

‘I– I can, yes-yes,’ Vretch coughed.

Then climb, Vretch. Climb, for your very soul!

‘He is gone, then,’ Zephacleas said heavily. He stood outside, on the palisade wall, away from the chamber at the top of the tower and its stink of death. He closed his eyes for a moment, praying silently for the soul of the Far-killer. They would meet again, but it would be… different. Those who fell and were reforged were not the same. Death – even if it was but a temporary one – took something from them. Something indefinable. When next the Far-killer flew, would he be the same keen-eyed hunter whom Zephacleas had relied on, or would he be something, someone else? The thought was not a pleasant one.

‘The daemon killed him,’ the mortal said, her voice hollow with shock. ‘He freed us, and then the daemon killed him.’ Her name was S’ual and she was one of the few survivors of the slave-gangs. She trembled with fear and weakness, her malnourished body clad in the remains of once-rich robes and the now-rusted armour of a Setaen Guard. She held a spar of bone, slick with skaven-blood, in her remaining hand. Her other was bandaged tight and lashed to her chest by strips of filthy cloth torn from her robes. As she spoke, she tossed the spar aside in obvious disgust. ‘He freed us, but it… it came out of the shadows and…’ She looked up at Zephacleas, eyes wide. ‘What are you?’

‘Friends,’ Zephacleas rumbled. She flinched, and he softened his voice. ‘We are friends.’ He looked past her, towards the inner courtyard of the Setaen Palisades, where hundreds of sickly mortals waited – the survivors of those who’d made their stand here, when the skaven had attacked. Soldiers and nobility, now reduced to a pitiful state. The skaven had worked most of them to death, and abused the others terribly. Many had been broken in body and soul, their spirits crushed beyond repair.

But the rest… they would survive. The folk of the Ghurlands were hardy; if it didn’t kill them outright, they’d survive it. At least in my day, Zephacleas thought.

S’ual reached out, hesitantly, and traced the sign of the lightning bolt carved on his chest-plate. ‘Warm,’ she said, softly, wonderingly. ‘Your armour is… warm.’

‘As the day it was forged,’ he said. ‘Where did the daemon go? After it killed him?’

‘Away,’ she said, absently. She blinked. ‘The others – they fled towards the Sahg’gohl and the Storm-Crown, across the great causeway.’ She looked up at him, not quite meeting his eyes. She extended her good arm, pointing out across the structure in question. The causeway was not long, but it had once been an impressive span, lined with tall statues and prayer-towers. Now those towers were in ruins and the statues shattered. It extended from the rear of the highest tier of the palisades to the lightning-wreathed structure which crowned the worm’s head. ‘Will you follow them?’ S’ual asked.

He nodded. ‘We must. Can you lead the others back? The Dorsal Barbicans have been cleansed, and your folk hold them once more. There is safety there, if anywhere.’

‘Nowhere is safe. The great worm is dying,’ S’ual said.

‘Not if we can help it,’ he said. After a moment’s hesitation, he placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Go. Sigmar shall watch over you, sister.’

She straightened at his touch. Her fingers found his gauntlet briefly, and then she bowed her head and stepped back. Zephacleas watched her go, and felt the faint stirring of a half-forgotten memory… a proud face, hair like fire, bound in thick plaits, and a voice… sharp, like a knife. His hand curled into a fist and he shook his head, angry at himself, though he couldn’t say why.

‘The Storm-Crown… an apt name,’ Seker said behind him, diplomatically. He peered towards the head of the worm. ‘It was a temple, once. A way to Azyr and back – a realmgate – shattered at the beginning of the Age of Chaos.’

‘That’s not what the vermin came here for, otherwise they’d have already taken it,’ Zephacleas said, irritated with himself for a number of reasons, not the least of which was not sending warriors to take the place when he’d had the chance – a mistake he would not make again. ‘From what we’ve seen, I doubt they even knew it was there,’ he continued.

‘I wonder if our allies do.’ The Lord-Relictor indicated the seraphon as he spoke.

The slann hovered nearby, expressionless features gazing out over the causeway. Takatakk crouched atop the ancient being’s throne and chirped quietly to his master in the hissing tongue of the seraphon. ‘They know more than they’re telling… all this talk of helping us, of fate and dreams.’ He shook his head. ‘Why are they really here?’

‘It doesn’t matter. We came to free this place and that’s what I intend to do,’ Zephacleas said. ‘We must–’

Without warning, a geyser of ichor and poison spewed upwards from the great shafts carved around the courtyard as Shu’gohl thrashed in agony. The air reverberated with the worm’s groans, and all around him mortal, Stormcast and seraphon alike clutched at their heads in agony. The world shuddered and the sky spun as the leviathan writhed in pain. Chunks of stone fell from the towers, and lightning flashed as a Liberator was crushed. The ground bucked beneath them, sending warriors and mortals sprawling. The causeway shook on its supports and swayed so perilously that Zephacleas thought it might be destroyed.

‘There must be a way to calm the beast, else we’ll all be crushed – or worse, the causeway will shatter,’ Zephacleas shouted, grabbing Seker by the shoulder. ‘Work your healing magics, Gravewalker, or we’re all bound for Reforging!’

‘I can try,’ the Lord-Relictor said. ‘The beast might be beyond saving.’ He extended his reliquary staff, holding it above the ground. As he did so, Takatakk reached out to set his own staff across it. The skink looked back at his master, and then at the Lord-Relictor.

‘You will not try alone. We shall work our magics together, dream-of-Sigmar. We shall bring harmony to the great leviathan, and ease its agonies,’ the Starpriest chirped. ‘Align your thoughts to mine, and listen. We shall make whole that which is in disarray.’

As the skink spoke, the slann raised his long arms above his head and uttered a wordless croak of power. The amber sky turned blue, and the storm clouds thickened. Motes of azure lightning danced within them. The Dreaming Seer reached out towards the Lord-Relictor, and Zephacleas felt something indefinable and intangible pass between them. The slann’s eyes were wide open now, and there were stars within them. Seker and Takatakk raised their staves and began to chant in unison. Though one prayed to Sigmar and the other did not, their voices flowed together like rushing water, rising up towards the darkening sky. Through it all, the worm continued to bellow its agonies, until Zephacleas thought his eardrums might burst.

The air thickened with growing pressure, and the voices of the Lord-Relictor and the Starpriest shaped it and stretched it. Their words seemed to echo from every tower and stone in the Crawling City, redoubling in volume and strength. Overhead, the clouds had turned the colour of the void, and the lightning had become as stars.

The slann stretched out his hands and, for a moment, it seemed to Zephacleas as if the creature were larger than it was. A titanic shape, quite unlike the crude amphibian body it normally wore; something vast and serpentine, as wide as the world and as long as eternity. It stretched up, and fangs of starlight scraped the sky. A glittering cerulean rain began to fall across Shu’gohl – lightly at first, but then growing in intensity. It was not the rain which accompanied the Stormcasts as they went to war, but it was of Azyr nonetheless.

Zephacleas lifted his hands in wonder. Other Stormcast Eternals followed suit, as too did the mortals. It was a cleansing rain, as would purify both body and soul, and he felt invigorated as it splashed across his armour. Where it touched the ground, a pale steam rose from the worm’s flesh. The filth of the skaven was reduced to ash and their abominable structures sagged and decayed in an instant. The worm’s shuddering slowed, and its groaning faded to a dull rumble.

Seker stumbled, his staff nearly slipping from his grip. Zephacleas caught him and helped to steady him. ‘Easy my friend – you have truly worked a wonder this day.’

Seker shook his head. ‘Not… not me. Not alone. It’s– his mind, it was so vast, like nothing I have ever witnessed… his mind is a sun, and we but orbit it,’ the Lord-Relictor said, in a whisper. ‘I saw horrors and beauties undreamt of even in the halls of Sigmaron, and moments… like fragments of crystal, holding flickering images of places I did not recognize. His mind is as clockwork, built not of mortal matter but something else… he has played out this very moment a thousand times across a thousand years, honing it, pruning away those possibilities which displease him. We… No.’ He shook himself and pushed away from Zephacleas. ‘Forgive me, Lord-Celestant. I… I am myself again.’

‘You are worthy indeed, dream-of-Sigmar,’ Takatakk said, softly. ‘You have seen the Great Equation, though you cannot understand.’ The little seraphon patted Seker’s arm, as if in sympathy. ‘It is a great thing, to witness the all that was and is.’ A flying reptile shrieked overhead. Takatakk looked up, head cocked. ‘The vermin flee across the causeway. There is nowhere else for them to run. The Great Lord Kurkori’s dream is coming to an end.’ The skink looked up at Zephacleas. ‘We must march.’

‘And we will march with you,’ Zephacleas said. ‘We make for the causeway and the Storm-Crown. And we will end this once and for all.’

Lightning speared through the sapphire air and crawled across the ruins. It cascaded down shattered statues and washed over broken domes. The air stank of iron and heat and Kruk’s filthy fur stood on end. Lightning struck the causeway ahead, filling the air with dust and stone. Kruk pressed on, followed by the remnants of his congregation. He had to hurry, quick-quick. The enemy were close at hand. All of them.

Kruk could not say who he hated more at this point – Vretch or the star-devils. The storm-things were a close second, but they were as nothing compared to the continuing intestinal malignancy that was Vretch. The plague priest thrust his good claw beneath his robes and scratched furiously at himself. Worse than the nearness of his foes was the lack of his daemonic patron. Skuralanx had not appeared to him since the Setaen Palisades, and Kruk had begun to wonder if the daemon had abandoned his most loyal follower. What sort of master did that? No sort of master at all, Kruk thought. Kruk would never abandon his own followers, no-no.

The causeway to the temple wasn’t long or particularly wide. Broken statues lined its rail, glaring down at the scurrying skaven, and at its end, a ring of massive effigies occupied the plaza where the causeway intersected the heart of the temple. Kruk could see the broken dome of the central temple over the tops of the shattered outbuildings and something told him that was where he must go – and quickly. The enemy weren’t far behind them. They would soon finish off Skug and the others. Poor Skug… poor heroic, expendable Skug. Kruk shook his head. It was hard to find a lackey of that quality in these decadent times.

The causeway began to shake on its foundations and an elemental groan rose up, blasting his skull free of all thought. All around him, skaven released the musk of fear or fell onto their faces, screeching in terror. Broken statues toppled from their plinths, and one crushed a dozen plague monks into a foetid paste. Kruk alone maintained his claws during the quake, more because he wanted to be ready to run than from any innate obstinacy. Stubborn as he was, even he knew better than to try and fight a force of nature.

Overhead, the sky went dark and a burning rain began to fall. It stung his flesh and he waved his censer over his head in an effort to shield himself. The shaking slowed and finally stopped a moment later. Kruk cast a disdainful eye over his followers. ‘Up-up, fools. Up on your claws, quick-quick… we must hurry,’ he snarled, stumping towards the end of the causeway. If they could get in among the ruins, they might be able to ambush the foe. He glanced back at the ruins of his congregation – a few dribbling choirs of censer bearers, and thrice that of sorry-looking plague monks, some of them from Vretch’s procession. Barely a few hundred in all.

It would have to be enough. He had survived worse. He would survive this. The Congregation of Fumes would rise again. Kruk thumped his chest with his censer, hissing in pleasure at the moment of pain. He enjoyed it so much, he did it again, inhaling the fumes. Yessss, he thought, I shall rise like the pox-smoke, once the Liber is in my possession. I shall use that coward Vretch’s spine to stir my cauldron and wear his fangs around my neck. He snickered cheerfully at the thought.

Lightning struck the ground nearby, and his good mood vanished. He snarled defiantly at the sky. Yes, he would survive. And then he would kill this blasted worm and all who dwelt atop it.

‘Look,’ one of his followers chittered, interrupting his reverie. Kruk turned.

A huddled mass of rags and blisters lay weeping audibly at the foot of one of the statues which occupied the central plaza. A wide stain, dotted with tiny worms, marked the path it had taken to get there. The greasy trail led back into the ruins some distance, where a great hole gaped, its edges seared by lightning. Kruk stumped forward. He glared down at the shivering mass. Worms bored in and out of the cracked and weeping blisters which marred the visible flesh, and the whole mass stank of a sickness so potent it made even him hesitate. Kruk nudged the mass with a foot, causing it to roll over. It was Vretch.

The plague priest looked up, and by his expression, Kruk thought his was the last face the other skaven had ever wished to see.

Kruk licked his scarred muzzle and reached down, catching Vretch by the scruff of his neck. Vretch squealed as the other plague priest hauled him bodily to his claws. Disgusted, Kruk flung him back to the ground. Vretch hugged a set of strange golden plaques to his chest and tried to scramble away, but Kruk set a claw on his tail, pinning him in place.

‘Vrrretch,’ the burly skaven growled. ‘Where were you going, Vretch?’ He cocked his head. ‘Is that my Liber, Vretch?’ he asked, slyly.

Vretch squinted up at him with filmy eyes. ‘N-not a Liber,’ he said, finally. He coughed, and something wriggled down his chin.

Kruk’s scarred lip curled. ‘Then what is it? Tell me fast-fast or I shall flay you to the bone,’ he growled.

Vretch began to laugh. It quickly turned into a wracking cough. ‘G-go ahead,’ he wheezed. He extended his arm, and let one mouldering sleeve slide back. The limb was gangrenous, and covered in burrowing black worms. The whole thing looked like it would pop off if you gave it a good twist. Kruk waved his followers back.

‘What have you done?’ he said.

‘Not me… Skuralanx,’ Vretch moaned.

Kruk froze. His growing suspicions bloomed fully and crystallised. He caught Vretch by the throat, ignoring the feel of the worms wriggling beneath the other skaven’s loose flesh.

‘What is the daemon to you? Answer me,’ he snapped, shaking Vretch brutally.

Before Vretch could answer, however, a clamour went up from his followers. Kruk looked up, and saw winged shapes hurtling through the sky above the causeway. Below them came ranks of marching storm-things and star-devils. They were closing in, moving faster than he’d thought possible. He looked back at Vretch.

‘We fight… togetherrr,’ Kruk growled, glaring up at the circling storm-things and flying reptiles. Vretch stared at him for a moment, then nodded weakly.

‘If we must,’ he said.

‘We must,’ Kruk grunted. ‘You will. Or I will kill you myself.’ Kruk thumped his rival in the chest with his censer. ‘We will defend this place with claws and teeth.’

‘Or magic. Magic might be more useful,’ Vretch said.

‘Yessss. Magic,’ Kruk said. His eye fixed on the plaques Vretch held wrapped in his robes. ‘What is that, if not my Liber?’ he demanded, snapping his teeth together inches from Vretch’s snout.

Vretch shook his head. ‘It is something else. But valuable, yes-yes! Valuable nonetheless,’ he simpered. ‘I must get it to Skuralanx. I must…’

Yesss.

Both plague priests turned. Kruk glanced at Vretch. ‘You hear him too?’ Vretch nodded weakly. He coughed, and a wad of something indescribable dripped from his jaws.

Bring me what you have found, Vretch. Hurry-quick! And protect it with your worthless life!

Skuralanx’s voice echoed almost painfully in Kruk’s head. He hissed and considered telling the daemon to go scurry up his own shadow. Then he looked at Vretch thoughtfully. One good thwack with the censer and his rival might simply come apart, given his state.

No, Kruk. For you there is a more glorious task, yes-yes… hold the enemy back, Kruk… do as you were born to do and fight. Rip them, tear them, choke them… for if you don’t, I shall surely do it to you, yes-yes. Vretch – follow my voice… bring me the prize.

‘I will protect them, O most portentous of pox-bearers, yes-yes,’ Vretch hissed, cowering back before Kruk’s beady glare. ‘Ours is not to reason why, no-no, ours is but to do and… and prosper, yes-yes! Skuralanx has used-tricked us, but for the greater glory of the Horned Rat. I know that now… we shall be pox-masters, yes-yes.’ He hugged the golden plaques to his chest. Thin streams of smoke rose where the strange metal touched his bare flesh, but he did not seem willing to let Kruk take them from him. His eyes were wide and mad, and Kruk wondered what had happened to his rival.

It wasn’t that he particularly cared, of course. But he did wish to avoid a similar fate, if possible. He shrugged. ‘Guard your prize then, yes-yes,’ Kruk said. ‘From the looks of you, I could simply take it from your rotting claws, but I will refrain.’ He gestured dismissively with his censer. ‘Go on then, scurry away. Your master calls. But when this is done Vretch… I will settle up with the pair of you, oh yes…’ He fixed Vretch with a glittering eye. ‘We will settle all debts.’

CHAPTER TEN

Mysteries of the Worm

Skuralanx perched on the shoulder of Sigmar in the central chamber of the Sahg’gohl, and called out to Vretch, guiding the worm-ridden skaven to him. His sibilant tones echoed back at him from the curved walls and shattered dome of the chamber.

He hissed and rubbed the stumps of his broken horns. What he felt could not be called pain, as such, but it rankled nonetheless. That such a puling creature had been able to get close enough to harm him – to harm the mighty Skuralanx – spoke volumes about how badly his underlings had bungled things. He hoped that at least one of them would survive, so that he could have the pleasure of devouring them himself.

He could have gone to claim what Vretch had found himself, but his injuries had weakened him considerably. He would need every iota of his remaining strength to twist open the realmgate and escape. Yes, he had to conserve his strength.

Rain fell through the cracked dome and mingled with the lightning which occasionally crossed the floor in bursts. The radiance rising from the realmgate situated in the statue’s plinth cast long shadows across the faded and peeling murals which marked the curved walls. Scenes from Shu’gohl’s history were illuminated briefly before fading into darkness. Skuralanx had covered most of them in claw-marks and filth, for the sheer joy of it.

This place was his – or soon would be. As soon as Vretch delivered whatever he had found, Liber or otherwise, to him, he would depart, only to return at the head of an army larger even than the Congregation of Fumes had been… the Children of the Horned Rat would swarm over and through the worm, gnawing it hollow and making a warren-to-end-all-warrens from its bloated carcass. And nothing would stand in their way.

He gazed down at the realmgate, studying its design with his remaining eye. A matter of moments, yes, that was all it would take. Even if he didn’t understand the way the facets were locked together or what the symbols on them meant, he knew he could open it. Indeed, he had already begun. A portion of his cunning intellect was focused on the task, necessitating his remaining here, well away from Kruk’s doomed last stand. The daemon sniggered. He had saved Kruk’s tail often enough; now it was the plague priest’s turn to repay Skuralanx’s kindness.

Perhaps he might salvage the burly lunatic, before he departed. Vretch was in no condition to be of any further use, but Kruk… yes, let no one say Skuralanx didn’t pay his debts. Kruk had enabled his triumph – it seemed only fitting that he spare the brute.

But first… the Liber. He looked towards the causeway. He could feel Vretch’s agonised mind. The plague priest was on his last legs. He was rotting as he staggered through the ruined temple, leaving a trail of worms and mangled flesh.

It was a fitting irony, Skuralanx thought, that such a treacherous creature should die serving the master he’d sought to betray.

He’d known from the start that Vretch harboured ambitions above his station. It was one of the reasons he’d brought Kruk along… while Vretch was focused on his hated rival, there had been less chance of him coming up with ways to free himself from Skuralanx’s influence.

In a way, the daemon was almost sad that it was all coming to an end. Vretch and Kruk had been entertaining in their way. But better days awaited, greater glories and mightier triumphs. He chittered in anticipation and hunched forward, clawing at the statue. Soon… soon it would all be done.

Soon, Skuralanx, the Scurrying Dark, would unleash a pestilence like no other. And reap the rewards thereof…

Kruk scuttled across the plaza towards the causeway and the advancing star-devils and storm-things, the remnants of the Reeking Choir at his back. He felt neither fear nor pain, though he would feel both, he suspected, before the day was done. ‘Kill-kill, for the glory of the Great Corruptor! For the glory of your Archfumigant,’ he shrilled, slashing the air with his censer-gauntlet. ‘Keep them from the temple! Hurl them from the causeway!’

It would be a close-run thing, he thought. They only outnumbered their foes five to one, and those weren’t the best of odds. But he was Kruk – the Horned Rat had marked him for greatness. Why else would he have survived every misfortune that sought to waylay his one, true destiny? Tests! All of it – tests! To prove his worthiness in the eyes of the Great Witherer! He was Kruk, and he would spread the Effluvial Gospels into every nostril and lung, yes-yes!

He slammed into the enemy, wreathed in a choking murk. He caught the edge of a bladed shield and hauled himself up, so that he could brain the scaly warrior who bore it. The seraphon fell and Kruk flung himself forward. As he dropped, his jaws sprang open and he vomited a cloud of noxious gas. Seraphon collapsed, their scaly bodies sloughing away into nothing. Kruk staggered back as starlight flared and his cloud was dispersed.

Spears tore holes in his robes and slashed his flesh as the seraphon closed ranks, forcing him to backpedal quickly. He pointed a talon at one of the snarling saurians and the creature staggered as its body began to shrivel and rot. The rot swept through their ranks, killing half a dozen of them before its potency faded. Kruk cackled as he crushed a shrunken skull with his censer. ‘Die-die! Die for the glory of Kruk,’ he shrilled.

He heard agonised squeals and smelled burning hair as a blast of celestial energy incinerated a skaven to his left. Kruk spun to see a reptile, clad in a cloak made of brightly hued feathers, step through the ashes of the fallen skaven, a glowing staff extended before it. The skink met his gaze and cocked its crested head, as if in challenge. Kruk snarled and darted beneath the stabbing spears of the intervening seraphon. He sprang towards the feather-clad reptile, who released a second searing burst of light from its staff. Kruk bulled through the burning luminescence with a scream.

‘Kruk is to be killing you, star-devil,’ the plague priest shrieked, as he snatched up the reptile and slammed it back against a statue. ‘Not even you can prevent Kruk from achieving his destiny – Kruk will rise, like the vapours of death, and strangle all the world. Kruk will–’

Kruk screeched as a bolt of sizzling lightning took him in the back.

The plague priest released the reptile and stumbled, flames licking from his robes. He whirled and saw the skull-masked storm-thing striding towards him. Kruk cursed and flung out his good claw. The vapours rising from his censer suddenly stiffened and solidified. They shot towards the approaching figure like glistening arrows. The storm-thing staggered as the semi-solid vapours tore at him.

Before he could finish the smaller creature off, it drove a dagger into his shoulder. Kruk spun and backhanded the seraphon with his censer, knocking it sprawling. He tried to call to mind a killing spell, but his rage was too great – he wanted to rend, to tear. He raised his censer, ready to bring it down on the skink’s head.

He heard a shout from behind him and half-turned to see the skull-faced storm-thing extend his staff. A moment later, a bolt of lightning speared down through rain-choked skies and struck his censer. Every nerve in Kruk’s form wept in sudden, all-consuming agony. The lightning ran through him and into the ground. The stone crumbled beneath his smoking claws as a radius of devastation spread outward around him.

He fought against the pain, against the clutches of the lightning, trying to lower his arm, to thrust himself towards his enemies once more. He refused to be defeated so close to his ultimate triumph. He heard the shrieks of his closest followers as they were immolated, or slipped between the cracking stones, vanishing into the shadowed depths.

His squeals of frustration were swallowed up by the dark, as he plummeted down into the depths of the worm, his robes and body alight.

‘For Sigmar,’ Zephacleas growled, clashing his weapons together in the silence that followed the collapse of the plaza, and the disappearance of the rat-priest. ‘For the Far-killer and every fallen brother, death to the dealers of death!’ He charged forward, Sutok at his side, Thetaleas and the Decimators racing in his wake. They met the skaven in what was left of the central plaza, in the shadow of lightning-wreathed statues.

All around Zephacleas, seraphon and Stormcasts advanced and fought as one. At the rear of their lines, the slann slumbered on his palanquin as all around him his warriors fought and died to defend him from the desperate skaven. The Starmaster hadn’t stirred since he’d aided Seker in calming the agonies of the worm, and Zephacleas wondered whether the ancient being even knew what was going on.

The skaven fought like maddened animals, driven by fear and desperation and the reeking smoke that spewed from their censers. They fought to overwhelm, to break free, to escape. But there would be no escape. Not this time. Like an infection, they would be purged from Shu’gohl’s body. He hacked a squealing rat-monk in two, and snapped the spine of another. The force of his blow sent the creature flying. He saw Thetaleas bisect three of the creatures with one blow, and Sutok obliterate a frothing censer bearer with his war-mace.

Zephacleas laughed as Seker’s lightning flashed and the enemies of Azyr died. ‘Death to the dealers of death,’ he roared, arms spread. ‘Ruin to the bringers of ruin.’

Go.

The voice echoed like a bell within his head. It was not a human voice. It wasn’t even really a voice at all – rather, it was the slow rumble of stars wheeling in the heavens. It was a heavenly roar, hammered into the shape of words, made small enough for his mind to comprehend. He glanced back at the slann, resting on its palanquin. The heavy-lidded eyes were half-open and fixed on him.

Go.

Images filled his mind. He saw a dying skaven, staggering up stone steps, something golden clutched in its trembling arms. He saw a verminlord, slinking from the shadows. The same creature, the voice whispered, which had killed the Far-killer and Oxtl-Kor both. A creature which had claimed the lives of too many Stormcasts and seraphon to be allowed to escape. It deserved death no less than its servants.

Go.

‘Yes, I hear you,’ Zephacleas growled and signalled to Seker. ‘Cleanse this place, Lord-Relictor. Let not a rat survive. I go to deal with the one who brought them here.’

‘Zephacleas – wait,’ Seker began, but Zephacleas was already moving forward, bulling his way through the disorganised mob of skaven. He chopped two of them down, and they began to scatter, flowing around the great, roaring amethyst giant ploughing through their ranks. In moments, he had slaughtered a path through them and was storming across the plaza towards the domed central chamber of the temple.

He caught glimpses of the rat-priest through the pelting rain and flashing lightning. It was limping up the temple steps. It was hurt, and moving slowly, but it had a head-start. He pushed himself to greater speed. He knew somehow that he needed to be there when it died. As he pounded up the temple steps, he heard the creature cry out in a strained squeal.

The interior of the chamber was dominated by a statue of Sigmar, Ghal Maraz lifted over his head. Lightning crawled across the raised hammer and the crown of the statue, cascading down it in shimmering waves. More lightning wept out of an iron hatch set into the statue’s plinth – the hatch was easily twice the size of a man, and at a glance he recognised it for what it was.

The realmgate. Still sealed though, thank Sigmar, he thought. He’d seen firsthand what happened when a realmgate became twisted by the forces of Chaos. Thankfully, that didn’t appear to be the case here.

The rat-priest was standing before the statue of Sigmar, swaying on its claws. As Zephacleas entered the chamber, it staggered and fell. It dragged its broken body forward, clutching the golden item to its chest.

Zephacleas stalked towards it, intent on finishing the creature off for good. But before he could reach it, the beast gave a grunting cough, shuddered and lay still. Its body came apart with a vile sound, and a tarry substance spread across the floor. Black, writhing shapes rose from the waste and he stepped back with a curse.

Above him, in the dark, something laughed. ‘You have come far just to die, storm-thing,’ a voice hissed. ‘Yes-yes, die-die.’

Zephacleas looked up. Something hideous stared down at him from its perch atop the head of Ghal Maraz. He didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed it before. The side of the verminlord’s skull was scarred as if by fire, and one eye socket had gone dark. Several of its horns had been sheared off, and smoke still rose from the broken nubs. The daemon slunk down and crawled across the statue’s shoulders, leering at him with its single flickering eye. ‘Die-die beneath the gaze of your man-thing god. Die for the glory of the Great Corruptor.’ Its eye narrowed as it looked down at the body of the rat-priest. ‘Ahhh… poor Vretch. Poor, cunning Vretch.’

It sprang from its perch and Zephacleas stepped back as it landed in a crouch before him. He could hear the crash of weapons and the screams of dying skaven. The creatures were making their last stand and fighting like cornered rats. But none of that mattered if the daemon got what it came for.

It yanked the remains of the rat-priest’s body up and shook the golden plaques loose from the corpse’s grip. They clattered to the ground where they lay gleaming with a strange radiance. ‘Not what I was looking for, no-no, but perhaps valuable all the same…’ the verminlord chittered as it stared at them, its tail lashing. ‘Yes, valuable…’ it hissed softly. It looked up at him. ‘Is this what they came for? Is this why the serpent slithered down out of the stars? What secrets of theirs will it reveal, I wonder?’

Whatever those are, best not to let that thing have them, Zephacleas thought. He stepped forward, sword extended. ‘Step back, daemon. You’ll claim no prize today. Not unless you go through me.’ Lightning crawled across his armour as he faced the monstrous verminlord.

The verminlord hunched over and spread its long arms.

‘Aye, I’ve faced one of your kind before,’ Zephacleas growled. He brought his weapons together with a crash. The lightning flared in response, coiling about the blade of his sword and the head of his hammer as he wrenched them apart. ‘It fled, rather than fight me… what about you, beast? Fight or flight?’

The verminlord shrieked and sprang towards him, curved blades sweeping out. Zephacleas jerked back, avoiding the first of them. The second connected with his sword in a spray of sparks. The force of the blow knocked him back a step. The daemon landed two more strikes before he could drive it back with his hammer. Faster than me, for all that it’s bigger, he thought, following it.

But he’d fought bigger, faster things since before he’d been chosen to wage Sigmar’s war. It had been a way of life in the Ghurlands. There was always something bigger and faster and hungrier on the other side of your tribe’s palisade. There was always something that wanted to make a meal of you. The trick was in making it regret the attempt.

‘Did Mantius give you that?’ he asked, gesturing at the verminlord’s fire-scarred skull. ‘Did the Far-killer get in a bite, before you killed him?’

Heat flared in the daemon’s remaining eye and it gave a shriek of anger. It lunged for him again and he managed to side-step the blow. As it charged past, he caught it in the midsection with his hammer. The blow knocked it off of its hooves. It tumbled to the ground, but almost immediately rolled upright, steam rising from the point where he’d hit it.

He glanced back as something else entered the chamber through the great doors. The Dreaming Seer, on his palanquin, watched through half-closed eyes as he and the verminlord circled one another. He expected the slann to banish the daemon with but a gesture, but the creature did nothing. ‘Well?’ he growled. ‘What are you waiting for?’

The end.

The voice rang dully and deeply within him, and he shook his head to clear it.

He heard the daemon laugh. ‘It has not come to help-aid you, storm-thing,’ the verminlord hissed, darting glances at the waiting slann. ‘It comes only to watch.’

The daemon circled him, scraping its dripping blades together menacingly. ‘They only ever watch… they watched as we ate them, in the world-that-was, and they shall watch as we take our rightful place in this one. And it shall watch as you die.’

Its sickle-like blades whipped about, faster than his eyes could follow. First his runeblade, then his hammer, were torn from his grip. Before it could capitalise, he drove his head into its skull, causing it to stagger back. He lunged forward with a bellow and wrapped his arms around its midsection, lifting it off its hooves.

Its blades carved gouges in his war-plate as his charge carried it backwards into the statue of Sigmar. Stone legs cracked and the daemon squealed. It drove its elbows down on his shoulders, trying to break his hold. He ignored the blows and tightened his grip. Steam rose from the daemon’s maggoty flesh as the blessed sigmarite contracted about it. Its struggles grew more frantic and it hacked wildly at him, shearing slivers from his armour. Its knee caught him in the chest, and with a sudden, convulsive heave it broke his hold and flung him backwards.

The daemon was on him before he hit the ground. He caught the downward sweep of its blades on his bracer and knocked them from the creature’s grip. Before it could recover, he caught it by the throat. It grabbed hold of his head and slammed him back, rattling him. He drove his fist into its skull until the yellowing bone cracked.

The daemon rolled away from him, the lightning playing about its monstrous form. Zephacleas gave it no chance to recover, no chance to flee. He scrambled to his feet and hurled himself upon its back. He caught one of its remaining horns with one hand and snaked his arm around its shaggy throat. With a roar, he snapped its horn loose and drove the length of splintered bone into its good eye.

The daemon flung him off with a wail. He crashed into the statue of Sigmar. Stone cracked and split. Zephacleas rolled aside as the statue broke at the knees and fell. Ghal Maraz crashed down on the verminlord’s skull, silencing the daemon’s wails with dull finality. Its body thrashed for a moment, and then slumped in defeat. Slowly, it began to dissolve into a putrid mess of bubbling, tarry excrescence.

Zephacleas hauled himself to his feet, breathing heavily. He met the stony gaze of the statue and then looked up, through the hole in the roof, at the storm overhead. With a grunt of mingled annoyance and thanks he shook his head and picked up the golden plaques. They were warm to the touch, even through the metal of his gauntlet. He hefted them, feeling their weight. They were covered in strange pictograms, indecipherable to his eye.

It is done, the voice said, as vast and as deep as the dark between the stars. The words pulsed through him, echoing through flesh and bone. He heard a crack, as of great wings, and felt the heat of undimmed stars and blazing suns.

He looked at the Dreaming Seer. The slann was fully awake for the first time since his arrival, bulbous eyes wide open. The Starmaster gazed at him unblinkingly. Takatakk and Sutok were there as well, though he had not noticed them arrive. The skink crouched on his master’s throne, head cocked. ‘Do you hear, dream-of-Sigmar?’ the little creature chirped. ‘It is time. All has happened, as the Great Lord foresaw. And now our dream ends, and we will sleep again.’

Great Lord Kurkori extended his hand. Zephacleas hefted the golden plaques and some force plucked them from his hand. They floated onto Kurkori’s palm. As the Lord-Celestant watched, the plaques were suddenly suffused with light. They came apart with a soft sound, reduced to golden dust which spilled through the slann’s fingers and cascaded to the floor. Old calculations, best left forgotten, the voice said. It is done. The pattern may continue, unimpeded by random variables.

‘It is done,’ Zephacleas said, echoing the voice in his head. Whose voice it was, he couldn’t say. Kurkori’s perhaps, or maybe even Sigmar’s, echoing down from the Realm Celestial. Or the voice of something older, and more vast in scope than any god or sorcerous ancient.

Slowly, the slann inclined his wide head. He blinked, once, as if in thanks, and Takatakk chirruped. Sutok growled and raised his war-mace in salute. Then, with a soft whisper of parting air, they were gone. Light flared from the plaza beyond, and there was the sound of air rushing to fill a sudden void. Zephacleas knew that the rest of the seraphon had departed as well. Gone back beyond the veil of stars.

He looked down at the pile of golden dust, wondering what it had been. Had its destruction been the only reason the seraphon had come? Or had there been some greater purpose? He shook his head, annoyed by the thought of questions that would likely never be answered, and reclaimed his weapons. He was a warrior, not a seer. He raised his hammer in salute to the departed seraphon. Though he was unable to see the stars of their constellation for the storm, he knew that they were there regardless.

‘To what dreams may come, my friends,’ Zephacleas murmured. Weapons in hand, he turned to rejoin Seker and the others. The battle for the Crawling City was done but there were others yet to be fought. And Zephacleas intended the Beast-bane to be in the vanguard.

EPILOGUE

The Congregation of the Worm

Kruk fell for what seemed like hours, his robes burning, his flesh peeling. He felt no pain, only rage, and when he struck an outcropping of bone and flesh, it was almost a relief. He bounced, struck something else, and tumbled into a pool of gastric juices. The burning waters carried him for what might have been days, hours or merely moments. Time passed strangely to his pain-fogged senses, and when he at last felt something solid beneath his claws, it came as a shock. Instinctively, he dug in and clawed for purchase.

The plague priest rose with a screech and floundered for shore. He hauled himself out of the bubbling liquid, and gave himself a shake. The vast gullet of the worm rose up around him, blocking out the hateful sky and shrouding everything in a pleasing, humid darkness.

Holding his maimed claw to his chest, he sniffed the air. Everything stank of worm and lightning, though that was no surprise. He heard thunder echoing down from above, and something told him that Skuralanx would not be coming for him.

The thought was not displeasing, all things considered. The daemon had used him, and abandoned him when it had achieved its goal. And it had paid for its temerity, as had the duplicitous Vretch and the treacherous Squeelch. Betrayers and fools all, they had paid the price for attempting to bar Kruk from his destiny.

Despite the pain of his wounds, he tittered in satisfaction. His survival was proof enough that his fate was already written. The Horned Rat had gouged Kruk a place in his schemes, and he was protected from the vagaries of fate.

‘Protected, yes-yes,’ he mumbled, squinting into the dark. As the pain faded, his vision improved. Even with one eye, he could see the tumbled slabs of mould-covered soil and rock that rose up around him. His robes had been burnt to shreds, and most of his body had been charred into hairlessness, but all of his limbs were working.

He heard a soft scrape and turned. Something speared towards him, razor maw spread wide. He caught it just behind its jaws with his good claw and hacked at its squirming length with the jagged remains of his censer. When its struggles had weakened sufficiently, he took a wary bite out of the worm-thing’s glistening flesh. The dark slime which coated it burned as it slid down his gullet. It tasted… odd. But Kruk was not one to turn his nose up at a meal, no-no. As he tore more flesh from his prey, he looked around.

The bones of skaven, orruks and man-things alike filled the sump, and among them squirmed a nest of black, glistening worms, all smaller than the one he held. Too, worms curled about splintered ribs and filled the burst skulls of fresher skaven corpses – Vretch’s followers, he guessed. The air was thick with the stink of disease and Kruk’s sensitive nose wrinkled as he sucked in a lungful. He dipped his broken censer into the frothy ichor that dripped from the worm-nests onto the ground and lifted it to his snout. As the liquid slopped from the ruined gauntlet, it solidified into a writhing mass of wriggling shapes. Kruk chittered in pleasure as he dumped the worms back into the ichor.

Vretch had been wrong. Worse than wrong – Vretch had been foolish. He had thought that the answer was in a book. But it wasn’t, and had never been. Whatever plague this was, whatever its name or source, it had never been written down. Not yet anyway.

Kruk looked around, examining the ruined latticework of stone and dirt and sludge with a considering eye as he chewed another chunk of worm. He knew the old stories of Geistmaw, and suspected that Vretch had as well. He had come searching for this place to find its secrets and, true to form, walked away with the wrong one. Kruk tapped his broken censer against the walls. Yes-yes, this had once been a fine warren, before the worm had swallowed it up.

And it might be so again, in time. A perfect lair, hidden in the belly of a great beast, away from the prying eyes of daemons and star-devils alike. There would be survivors above, both from among his followers and Vretch’s… enough, at least, to start with. In time, more would come. They would burrow down, seeking safety, and Kruk would be waiting for them. He looked down at the squirming shapes floating in the ichor and licked his muzzle in satisfaction. Yes-yes, more would come, and a new warren would rise, down in the dark.

The Congregation of Fumes was dead.

Long live the Congregation of the Worm.

SYLVANETH

THE RESOLUTE

Josh Reynolds

The rotling roared out a challenge and Felyndael, Guardian of the Waning Light, turned to meet it. They always sought to challenge him. It was not bravery, he thought, so much as hunger. Hunger for challenge, hunger for conquest… hunger for death. They were like the roots of a blighted tree, still stretching for nourishment even though the trunk was dead. They belonged dead, but could not die. He gestured contemptuously, and the rotling lumbered towards him.

Around him, his fellow tree-revenants fought with other rotlings, leaping and slashing among the clumsy plague-lovers. Scarred Caradrael bisected a bloated warrior from crown to groin as lithe Yvael cut the sagging throats of three with a single blow. Daemonic ichor splashed across the wondrous curved structures of the reed-city of Gramin as the rotlings stumbled and died beneath the blades of his twenty-strong kin-band.

Felyndael felt a surge of satisfaction as his warriors fought with their customary flowing grace. They flickered in and out of sight, lunging and striking at their opponents from every direction at once. They were veterans of the withering years, and could easily dispatch three times their number in open combat.

He turned his attention back to his challenger as the brute, bulbous and clad in stinking furs and pitted metal, came at him in a clumsy rush, roaring out the name of its foul god. It seared the air with its murk. An axe swept down, and Moonsorrow rose to meet it. The ancient blade hummed with strength and struck with the force of an avalanche. The jagged blade of the axe shivered apart. The rotling reeled back, pustule-dotted jaw working in shock beneath the rim of its foetid helmet. Flabby paws waved in hapless defiance as Felyndael darted forwards, quick as the wind.

Moonsorrow screamed in joy as it pierced the noisome bulk. Flesh, muscle and bone parted like smoke before the bite of the sword. The rotling hunched forward with a shrill wheeze, clawing helplessly at Felyndael’s bark-clad arms. Wriggling worms spilled from its mouth and pattered to the ground as its stinking ichor gushed from the wound.

Ably done, noble one, Yvael thought, her compliment pulsing through Felyndael’s mind as he pulled Moonsorrow free of the rotling’s cancerous body. He let the creature sag to the ground and looked around.

I am not alone in that, my sister, Felyndael thought. Around him, his tree-revenants finished off the last of the dead thing’s companions, killing the bellowing brutes with graceful savagery. The rotlings had become separated from the flow of the horde now occupying the circular streets of Gramin, and thus were easy prey for him and his kin-band as they erupted from the spirit paths close to the heart of the city.

The reed-city was as much a thing of Ghyran as Felyndael and his warriors. Alarielle’s magics had constructed it in ages past. She had drawn up the reeds that grew thick and wild in the shallows of Verdant Bay and woven them together into a great metropolis of canals, bridges and high, sweeping arches, spreading outwards from the Basilica of Reeds at Gramin’s heart. All as a gift for the mortals who had sworn to care for that which she had entrusted to them in ages past – a clutch of slumbering soulpods.

It was a duty that the citizens of Gramin had upheld until the final days of the withering years, when the rotlings had come from the sea. Their plague ships had clustered like maggots along the shore, befouling the green waters of the lagoon, kept pure until then by the budding soulpods. The raiders swept through the city with fire and axe, killing or enslaving all who inhabited it.

Felyndael’s grip on his sword tightened at the thought. Though they had not been of his soil, the mortals had been caretakers, even as the sylvaneth were. They had not deserved such a fate, and he wished that he had been there. Perhaps… no. The season was done, and the cycle continued. Though his heartwood cried out for vengeance for the atrocities of the past, his task now was more important than simple slaughter.

The raiders had left the city itself – and that which even now slumbered beneath it – untouched, after scouring it of all mortal life. Perhaps they had deemed it unimportant, or indefensible. Regardless, they had retreated to the great sargasso, where they had raised foul citadels upon the floating weeds and left the reed-city and its hidden treasure to sit silent and undisturbed.

Until now. Until Alarielle had awoken, and her scream had set the skies to burning and the winds to roaring. As the echoes of that scream spread throughout Ghyran, the rotlings had returned in their scabrous galleys, stinking of ruin, and their return endangered the slumbering grove of hidden soulpods. Now the city shuddered in the grip of a malaise, and the waters beneath screamed without ceasing.

Moonsorrow trembled sympathetically in his grasp. He could feel the ghost of the mountain for which the sword was named stir within the blade. A sorrowful weight, a millennium of tragedy, condensed and compacted into the weapon he now held. A burden and an honour both. It sang to him sometimes, when the moonlight struck the blade just so, and the din of battle had faded.

But it was not singing now. Even if it had been, Felyndael could hear but one song – the war-song, the song of the reaping. Alarielle’s voice resounded through him, branch and root, summoning him, driving him to war. It had been centuries since he had last heard the Everqueen’s voice. It was like a gale wind, ripsawing through the realmroots. She sang and screamed and whispered all at once, crying out in wordless command.

It was a command he had no difficulty obeying. Indeed, he had never stopped fighting. Felyndael of the Fading Light had never set aside his sword, had never set down roots or shrunk into the dark and quiet like many of the others. He had fought without ceasing since the first rotling had set ragged claw on the good soil of Ghyran. And he would not stop until the last of them were mulch beneath his feet. He would not stop until they had been punished in full for their crimes against life itself.

The sword hummed in his grip, the voice of the mountain murmuring to him. Calming him, settling its weight upon the rage that rose up within him like a wildfire, snuffing it. But not for long, he suspected. It grew more difficult to ignore with every turn of the seasons. The harder he fought, the harder it became to do anything but fight.

He had become a hollow thing, burned black and made brittle by war. But he would serve until his roots shrank and his branches cracked. Calmer now, Felyndael examined the body at his feet. Why had the rotlings come back? The servants of Chaos always sought to destroy the soulpods, when they knew of them. But that was not the case here. He would have sensed it if the soulpods were in any direct danger. Something else was going on.

One of his warriors, Lathrael, stretched out her hand. The air is wrong here, she thought. Her words pulsed gravely through the connection that bound them.

It is sour, Caradrael the Scarred thought, with the mental equivalent of a shrug. Like everywhere the rotlings infest. And so? Caradrael’s bark had been kissed by fire long ago, and it had made him short-tempered. Let us kill them, and cleanse this place.

Their numbers are great, Yvael thought.

Then our vengeance will be all the greater. Caradrael’s thought was the hiss of a slashing branch.

No. Lathrael is right. It is different, Felyndael thought. Like the calm before a storm. It trembles, like a thing afraid. Wait – something is–

The air shuddered as unseen bells tolled. The sound of it was every axe-thud, every root-snap and crackle of flame. It was the sound of bark sloughing, curling, decaying and the scream of dry grass in the burgeoning. Felyndael nearly dropped Moonsorrow as he clutched at his head. The others were similarly afflicted by the droning reverberation.

As the tree-revenants recovered their wits, horns brayed in the distance, and drums thudded. The rotlings were agitated. But not, Felyndael thought, by his kin-band. Something else had come to Gramin. Come, brothers and sisters, he thought. Let us see what has our foes so excited.

Aetius Shieldborn, Liberator-Prime of the Hallowed Knights, led his warriors through the deepening murk that clogged the streets and plazas of Gramin. Three retinues of Stormcast Eternals from the Steel Souls Warrior Chamber marched in his wake. Their panoply of war gleamed silver where it was not befouled by grime and mud. Their shoulder guards were of deepest regal blue, such as the heavens themselves, as were their heavy shields, where they were not scored and marked by battle. The weapons they carried shimmered with holy fire, lighting their way through the gloom.

The Hallowed Knights were the fourth Stormhost of the First Striking, and only the faithful filled their ranks. Each warrior had called upon Sigmar’s name in battle, and each had shed their mortal flesh in the name of a righteous cause. Their courage had been proven in battles all but forgotten in the haze of their Reforging. And among the Warrior Chambers of the Faithful, the Steel Souls were pre-eminent.

For Aetius, it was not so much a matter of pride as it was a simple fact. The Steel Souls had been at the forefront of the war for the Jade Kingdoms, and the entirety of Ghyran itself. They had forged a path for their brothers to follow, hurling back the servants of the Plague God wherever they found them, from the Grove of Blighted Lanterns to the Mirkwater.

As they would do here, Sigmar willing.

Gramin had been beautiful once, Aetius thought, as he led his fellow Stormcasts through the vacant streets. The city was a living thing, shaped rather than built, and reeking of the strange magics that permeated much of this realm. Once it had been home to thousands. Now it was a husk, emptied and abandoned, and falling to the same blight which was slowly devouring all of Ghyran. Black ichor seeped from the reed-walls, and stinking water bubbled up through the mat of the street. Flies choked the air.

So far, their advance into the city had been uncontested. They had discovered great ironwood barges abandoned in the marshes and used them to reach the city. The barges now sat beside the beslimed quays of Gramin, guarded by a few volunteers from among his retinue. The outer ring of the city had devolved back into a quagmire of reeds and marsh-grass, uninhabited save by unseen beasts. But the enemy were near. The sea-wind carried with it the monotonous thud of their war-drums to Aetius’ ears.

The mortals who had once lived in this place had fought when the Rotbringers laid siege to their sea-gates and lagoon-walls. But without Sigmar to guide them, they had faltered and fallen. Those who had survived the sack that followed the shattering of the sea-gates had been taken in chains to the miasma-shrouded sargasso-citadels that now dotted the mouth of Verdant Bay like sores. There they had likely been cast into the plague-gardens as fuel for the balefires that now ceaselessly vomited pox-smoke into the skies above the marshy coastline.

But Gramin had remained, abandoned and forgotten. Until now. Until the bells. When they rang, they filled the air with their dolorous cacophony. The sound of the bells spread like a plague, stretching from the coastal marshes and onto the Plains of Vo. And the lovers-of-plague had come following it, drawn like maggots to dead flesh. Hundreds of them, moving from the north and the south, trudging towards the source of the clangour. The curse-bells, calling Nurgle’s children to war.

The rest of the chamber was to the north, somewhere on the Plains of Vo. Lord-Castellant Grymn had ordered scouting parties sent out to search for the bells while he led the other Steel Souls in battle with the migrating warbands. Numerous ruins dotted the coastline for leagues in either direction, and any one of them could have been the origin of the din.

‘It’s the basilica.’

Aetius glanced at Solus, his second-in-command. ‘What?’

‘That’s where they are, I’d wager. It’s the highest point in the city,’ Solus said, pointing towards the domed roof that was just visible over the tops of the other buildings. The great structure known as the Basilica of Reeds occupied the heart of the city. Once, Sigmar’s worshippers had filled it with the sound of song and reverence. Now the God-King alone knew what horrors stalked its aisles.

‘Maybe,’ Aetius said.

‘Definitely.’ Solus was possessed of a calm certainty that Aetius could scarcely fathom. Sometimes he fancied that the Judicator-Prime was the eye of a storm made manifest. When Solus deigned to speak, even Lord-Celestant Gardus, the Steel Soul himself, listened. Aetius envied his brother Stormcast that steadiness. Solus seemed to have no doubts as to his place or purpose in the world.

In contrast, Aetius had nothing but questions. Unlike some Stormcasts, Aetius had no memory of who he had been – no recollection of what event had prompted Sigmar to choose him for a life of eternal war. There was an emptiness in him, a hollow space in his soul that he’d hidden behind a wall of faith and now tried his best to ignore. For Aetius Shieldborn, there was nothing in the world save duty.

‘If they are here, we will find them,’ Aetius said.

‘If? That doesn’t sound like if,’ Solus said, as he drew and readied a crackling arrow. One by one, the Judicators of his retinue followed suit. ‘That’s not just the wind we’re hearing, Aetius. Listen!’

Aetius cocked his head. The sea wind rolled through the streets of reed and soil, carrying the sour smell of the distant sargasso. And something else. A low sound that spread like a fog rolling in off the sea… The sound of the bells of Gramin. A hollow groan rolled over the assembled Stormcasts, reverberating through their bones and souls alike with a horrible finality – it was the sound of dirt striking a coffin lid and the last cry of a dying beast, the crumbling of stone and the sifting of sand through an hourglass, the sound of futility and ruin. One of the Liberators stumbled forwards, vomit spewing from the mouthpiece of his helm.

‘Back in line,’ Aetius growled, as the warrior mumbled apologies for his moment of weakness. His brothers helped him to his feet. Aetius kept his eyes on the broad avenue ahead. The thick miasma clung to everything in this sour place and seemed to be thickening, growing more opaque with every toll of the unseen bells. It stank of the sea and of decaying seaweed and rotting fish. And from within it came the padding of many feet.

‘I know that smell… Rotbringers,’ Solus said.

‘Form a square, brothers.’ Aetius raised his hammer as his warriors shifted position, forming a loose phalanx. ‘Lock shields and brace yourselves,’ he continued. The Hallowed Knights had come seeking sign of the enemy, but it appeared that their foes had found them instead. ‘Solus, take your retinue behind the shield wall and ready your arrows.’

‘Aye, Shieldborn,’ Solus said, leading his men into the square of sigmarite. The Judicators would be able to ply their trade freely there. Few foes could break a Liberator shield wall and survive. Aetius stepped back into line. The miasma crept closer, billowing upwards and thickening. It reminded Aetius of nothing so much as a snake readying itself to strike.

The wall of mist ruptured, expelling a pestilent horde. The Rotbringers were clad in filthy rags and rusted armour. They had been mortal once, before they had surrendered their souls and sanity to Nurgle. Now they were a braying morass of suppurating flesh, stumbling forwards on bandaged feet and cloven hooves.

‘Solus – split the log,’ Aetius said. A moment later, the Judicators loosed a crackling volley over the heads of the waiting Liberators. Arrows struck the oncoming Rotbringers with unerring aim. Those in the front ranks were pitched backwards into their fellows or else hurled into the air by the explosive impact. A second volley followed the first, and then a third, as quick as thought. Slowly but surely, the foetid mass of enemy warriors buckled and split, dividing in two.

Sigmarite shields creaked as the Rotbringers slammed into two sides of the square. Aetius drove his hammer into a bloated belly, popping it like a pustule. The blessed metal of the hammer cauterised the creature’s seeping organs even as it crushed them. ‘Hold the line, brothers,’ Aetius cried as he ripped his hammer free of the dying warrior’s intestines in a plume of smoke. ‘Who will stand, as the world crumbles?’

‘Only the faithful,’ the other Stormcasts shouted, as one.

‘We are the faithful, brothers. We are the steadfast,’ Aetius said, as a moss-encrusted club thudded harmlessly from his shield. ‘Solus – scour these barnacles from our shields.’ A volley shrieked up over the wall, and fell screaming amongst the foe. ‘Push them back,’ Aetius said as he shoved forwards, arm and shoulder braced behind his shield. The front line of Liberators followed his example, and the Rotbringers reeled back. But not for long.

Over the din of battle, Aetius could still hear the sombre tolling of the dreadful bells. It was a summons, he thought, calling the Rotbringers and driving them into combat. More of them flooded out of side streets and doorways, coming at the Stormcasts from all sides. Some were chanting the name of their monstrous patron, while others were singing abominable hymns even as they fell to crushing hammer blows or sizzling arrows.

The Rotbringers pressed on with little regard for their own well-being, driven forwards by the bulky, lumbering shapes that strode slowly through the press of battle towards the gleaming silver battle-line of the Stormcasts. Aetius recognised the grotesque warriors instantly – putrid blightkings, the chosen of Nurgle. He had fought them before, and they were far more dangerous than the diseased fodder dying beneath the hammers of his retinue. There were more of them than his retinues could hope to hold at bay, at least while they were caught in the open. They had to fall back and find a more defensible position, one they could hold until reinforcements could be summoned, if need be.

Thinking quickly, Aetius fell to one knee and brought his hammer down on the street, sending a shockwave through the hard-packed soil. Rotbringers stumbled and fell as his Liberators stalked forwards, shields held high. Aetius rose to his feet, backhanding a Rotbringer with his shield as he did so. A mutant, her flesh encrusted in buboes, saw the opening and lunged forwards with her rusted blade held in both paws. She cackled with bitter amusement as the sword struck his breastplate and shivered to flinders. He crushed her hairless skull with a blow from his hammer and turned. ‘Solus – fall back,’ he called out.

The Judicators retreated, loosing crackling arrows at any Rotbringer who managed to squirm past the shield wall. Aetius struck out left and right. Their foes were as thick as fleas, and somewhere the great bell was still ringing mournfully. The blightkings drew closer, smashing aside Rotbringers in their lumbering haste to close with the hated Stormcasts. ‘Tomas, pull your retinue back and reform the shield wall – we will hold them while you disengage,’ Aetius shouted, gesturing with his hammer.

At his order, half of the Liberators disengaged and retreated. His own retinue tightened their lines, covering their brothers as they fell back. One of the blightkings bellowed something, a challenge perhaps, and tottered towards Aetius with a roar. A crackling arrow sprouted from the visor of the warrior’s helm, and he sank down with a choking sigh. ‘Thank you, Solus,’ Aetius murmured. Then, more loudly, ‘Fall back!’

He and his warriors fought their way free of the Rotbringers and backed away, shields raised and held steady. The arrows of the Judicators seared the air as they fell, ripping through those enemies who sought to pursue them. Aetius led his retinue past Tomas and the others, who waited to take their place in battle. The manoeuvre was repeated again and again, as the Hallowed Knights steadily retreated back the way they’d come.

Their withdrawal wasn’t without casualties. A Liberator fell, skull cloven in two by a blightking’s festering blade. Another was swarmed by chanting Rotbringers as blades and claws sought the joins in his war-plate. Aetius could do nothing to help either as they were reduced to crackling columns of azure lightning and returned to Sigmar’s forges. As the glare of their passing faded, however, he saw a thin shape, neither Rotbringer nor Stormcast, rise suddenly from the packed reeds that made up the street, a glowing sword clutched in its bark-covered hands. Long, vine-like hair whipped about a lean, almost human face as the newcomer removed the head from a Rotbringer with a single blow, before vanishing as swiftly as it had appeared. ‘What in Sigmar’s name…’ Aetius muttered. ‘Sylvaneth.’

It had been weeks since they had last seen any of the treefolk. After the Battle of Blackstone, and Alarielle’s rebirth, the sylvaneth had gone their own way, leaving the Steel Souls to fight where they would. They were fickle beings, and Aetius had been somewhat glad to see the back of them. What were they doing here?

A moment later, more of the strange sylvaneth burst from the reeds, their spindly forms moving with mercurial speed – first fast, and then slow, and always with a lethal, inhuman grace. Unlike the dryads, these creatures fought with weapons, albeit ones made from bark and stone. Despite the seeming crudity of their manufacture, the weapons cut through the diseased flesh of the Rotbringers with ease.

‘Tree-revenants,’ Solus said. ‘I saw them up close at the battle in the Hidden Vale. They’re some sort of royal guard, I think.’ He looked at Aetius. ‘They serve her will. And her will is not Sigmar’s.’ The Steel Souls had learned much about the sylvaneth in the weeks and months since Gardus had led them into the Hidden Vale. The treefolk did not forget or forgive, and they were as savage as they were enigmatic.

‘No. But we are allies, until the God-King commands otherwise.’ Aetius watched as the tree-revenants swarmed through the faltering ranks of the Rotbringers, butchering them in deadly silence. The enemy were confused, and in their confusion were growing frightened. Horns signalled the retreat as Rotbringers began to fall back in disarray. ‘Either way, they’ve given us the respite we needed,’ he said. He raised his hammer. ‘Forward!’

As he led his warriors into the fray, he watched the sylvaneth fight. Sometimes, they disappeared even as one foe fell, only to reappear across the battlefield, stepping from the seemingly solid reed-walls to attack another opponent from behind. Soon, the Rotbringers gave in to their growing panic and fled, streaming around the bewildered knot of blightkings, who roared in frustration and grunted vain commands to stop, to fight. Solus’ Judicators added to the panic, loosing volley after volley into the disorganised rabble.

Aetius and his Liberators slammed into the blightkings. Without the Rotbringers to support them, the fight that followed was swift and brutal. Preoccupied as they were, the blighted warriors were easy prey, though it took some doing to put them down for good. Luckily, the Steel Souls had had enough practice to know when to cease bludgeoning a fallen blightking and when to continue.

When the last of the brutes had fallen, Aetius looked up and found the tree-revenants watching them. He stepped forwards warily, ready to defend himself if it should prove necessary. While the treefolk had fought beside them as allies, there were stories of less friendly encounters, especially in the Wyldwoods, where sylvaneth were said to hunt anything not of Ghyran, regardless of whether it was Rotbringer or Stormcast.

One of the tree-revenants moved to meet him. It was the first one he’d seen, a long, glowing blade clutched in one talon. Rough bark covered its form, though whether it was armour or flesh, Aetius couldn’t say. ‘Hail, warriors,’ he said, wondering how one addressed a sylvaneth properly. Lord-Celestant Gardus had made it look so easy. ‘A fortunate thing, to find you here. We thank you for your aid.’

‘We… have come to… free this place,’ the tree-revenant said. Its – no, Aetius thought, his – voice was like the rattle of windblown branches and the scratch of leaves through wet grass. His face was akin to a mask pulled taut over knotted vines, with features that reminded Aetius of the strange, reclusive folk known as aelves. But this creature’s face moved in odd ways, twitching and twisting strangely.

‘As have we,’ Aetius said. He held his shield away from his body and very slowly hung his hammer from his belt. ‘We come to silence the curse-bells that call the servants of Nurgle to this place. Will you fight beside us?’

‘Fight…?’ the tree-revenant said, head cocked.

‘Your aid… would be appreciated,’ Aetius said. ‘I am Aetius Shieldborn, Liberator of the Steel Souls.’ He extended his hand, and waited.

Felyndael felt something in him tighten at the sound of the Stormcast’s voice. It was a deep sound, low and grumbling, like the progress of rocks down a mountain slope. Or the crash of distant thunder. They smelled of rain and heat and raw iron, newly scraped from the good earth. They were not of Ghyran, these beings, but of Azyr, and they burned with a cold light that stung his senses.

These silver ones were known to him. They, alongside the amethyst ones, had fought to free the Gates of Dawn. They were also the ones who had unwittingly led the forces of the great enemy to the Everqueen’s hidden bower. Had they made the same mistake again, leading Alarielle’s foes to this place?

Many sylvaneth have died because of these silver-skins, thought Caradrael.

And many more have been saved, Yvael replied. These defended the Everqueen, even unto death and beyond.

The Everqueen is not here, Caradrael thought. He shifted impatiently, his blackened bark creaking with every twitch. Leave them, noble one. We have more pressing matters to concern ourselves with. Did you hear that tolling as we fought? It was like being in the fire all over again.

Yes, Felyndael thought. The echoes of the – what had the Stormcasts called them, curse-bells? – had finally faded. He tilted his head, listening to the wind and the crash of the sea, the creak of the reeds and the cry of marsh birds. Within that ineffable song was a hidden note, dim now, and weak. But growing stronger.

Those bells will shatter the soulpods if they continue to ring, Lathrael thought. We all felt their power. If these silver-skins come to destroy them, why not aid them?

We have no need of them, Caradrael thought.

Maybe, Felyndael thought, still listening to the call of the soulpods. The pulse of life as yet dreaming, a wellspring preparing to gush forth and leave something new in its wake. But if they were not recovered soon, their blooming could be twisted, and that was something he would not, could not allow.

He looked into the thoughts of his warriors, sensing the same resolution in each of the tree-revenants who had accompanied him to Gramin. Twenty in all, each was a child of the Heartwood Glade, and connected by bonds older than thought. Felyndael drew strength from that connection. Within it was a thunderous echo of glories past, which reverberated in the soul of every child of the forest. He felt again the savage exultation of the Third Harvest, and the sorrowful joy of the Crucible of Life.

We have known glories, he thought.

We will know glories again, Yvael replied.

In a span of moments he saw again every battle he had ever fought, every long war waged down the winding path of his people’s slow waning. His heartwood ached from the weight of those long centuries of retreat and loss. More, it ached with fear. Not for himself, or even his kin, but for that which nestled helpless and unawares somewhere beneath Gramin.

Fear that he would fail them. Fear that twenty warriors – even these twenty – would not be enough to confront the horde he could feel gathering elsewhere in the city. The reeds of Gramin whispered of their numbers to him, and whispered too of the pain the soulpods felt every time the bells rang. Lathrael was right – they might be destroyed if that monstrous tolling were not silenced.

The foe were too numerous for his warriors to fight through alone, too many to avoid even, too many between him and his goal. All of this passed across his mind in the blink of a mortal eye, and he turned, opening his thoughts to his kin.

Sensing his frustration, they reached out to him, to comfort him. Even seething, impatient Caradrael. Fingers of bark and vine touched his shoulders and face, as each sung a single note which merged into a calming melody, pulling him back to himself. The Stormcast lowered his hand and stepped back, as if he could feel the edges of the spirit-song.

They had all suffered as much or more – Yvael had been with him at Ghoremfel where the Lady of Vines had led them into battle for the Tear of Grace, and seen the pride of House Lathrien splintered by daemons; Caradrael still bore the burns he’d suffered at the fall of the enclave of Verdantia; Lathrael… mighty Lathrael, who had fought her way free of the pox-waters which had drowned the Hidden Vale; and the others, whose voices and sorrows were as one with his own.

We will know glories again, they said.

Slowly, he added his own voice to theirs, until the air shivered with their song. Many became one, and in an instant, a decision was made. He turned back to the Stormcast called Aetius. ‘I… am Felyndael, of the Heartwood. We will aid you,’ he said.

Aetius blinked. He had felt something in that moment, as the sylvaneth communed with one another. A pulsing echo that had tugged at his soul. There had been pain there, and something that might have been… faith. A form of it, at any rate. Pushing the thought aside, he nodded gratefully. ‘I thank you, Felyndael of the Heartwood. With your help, we might yet cleanse this place of the filth that afflicts it.’

‘We must silence the bells,’ Felyndael said. He turned, chin raised, as if he were scenting the wind. ‘There.’ He extended his sword towards the distant dome of the basilica.

‘I told you it was the basilica,’ Solus said, from behind him.

‘Yes, well, now we must reach it in one piece,’ Aetius said, annoyed. He looked at Felyndael. ‘Can you lead us there? Lead us past the foe?’

‘Yes,’ the sylvaneth said. ‘We will go–’

‘Wait,’ Aetius said. Without thinking, he caught hold of the tree-revenant’s arm. Felyndael froze, and the others suddenly surrounded them, the tips of their blades pressed to Aetius’ throat. He heard the rattle of sigmarite, and flung up his hand, signalling for the other Steel Souls to stand down. ‘You as well – wait. Wait.’

Felyndael looked down at Aetius’ hand and then up. His face did not change expression. A moment later, the other sylvaneth stepped back. ‘We must go now,’ Felyndael said. ‘We must silence the bells.’

‘Will you wait for us to summon reinforcements?’ Aetius said carefully, releasing Felyndael’s arm. The tree-revenant seemed impatient. Aetius was not trusting by nature. Something told him that the sylvaneth had not intervened out of friendship. Or at least not for that reason alone.

‘There is no time,’ Felyndael said. The bells began to ring again, filling the air with hideous noise. The tree-revenants turned as one. ‘No time,’ Felyndael said again.

Aetius glanced at Solus. ‘No time,’ he said.

‘We are taking a chance,’ Solus said, a moment later, as they pounded after the sylvaneth. The treefolk were leading them a circuitous route through the curving streets, avoiding the largest groups of Rotbringers. The Stormcasts moved in perfect synchronisation, jogging shoulder to shoulder. The tree-revenants, for their part, moved more swiftly. Their thin shapes bled in and out of sight as they passed through the very walls of the surrounding buildings, or sprang across the sloping rooftops. ‘Lord-Castellant Grymn would say we are being fools, not calling for reinforcements.’

‘Why call for them, when they have come to us?’ Aetius said. Occasionally, he heard the sounds of fighting, and screams. He wondered what other horrors might stalk the city. ‘Besides, the bells grow louder. Time is against us, I think. We must silence them.’ He could hear the winding of horns and the stamp of feet. They were not the only ones moving towards the sound. So far, however, they had managed to avoid any further conflict. It wouldn’t last. The enemy knew they were here, and some of them, at least, were likely rushing to find them. He picked up the pace.

‘And then?’ Solus asked.

Aetius shook his head. ‘Let the Lord-Castellant figure it out. Perhaps we will take this place for our own, and fortify it. It would make an adequate staging area from which to launch an assault against the sargasso-citadels of the enemy. If we held this place, we might sweep Verdant Bay clean in months.’

Solus chuckled. ‘Sound thinking. I see now why they put you in command.’

‘I should have thought my qualities were obvious from the outset,’ Aetius said. Solus laughed and pounded a fist on Aetius’ shoulder-plate as they ran.

‘Only some of them,’ Solus said.

Felyndael listened to the dull grumble of the Stormcasts’ voices echoing up from below. They had no song to unite them, only artifice and discipline, and he pitied them their blindness. Though the one called Aetius had almost heard the spirit-song, he thought. What must he have made of it, Felyndael thought.

He feared it. Like all meat fears the song of life, Caradrael thought dismissively, as he outpaced Felyndael. The tree-revenants ran smoothly across the rooftops of the reed city, leading the silver-skins on, safely past the clumps and eddies of warrior-filth that clogged the streets of Gramin. Those foes who drew too close or seemed likely to stumble upon their allies’ trail were diverted by his warriors, led away or butchered before they realised their danger.

They fear the dark and the forest, as well they should. Those places are not theirs, Caradrael continued. His blade and bark dripped with blood, and he had scattered the severed heads of rotlings across the rooftops in his wake.

They are no longer ours, either, Yvael thought, as she kept pace with Felyndael. But these ones will help us claim something back.

Caradrael growled in disgust. Felyndael ignored his displeasure, and stretched his mind outwards. They were close to the centre of the city, and the hidden grove where the soulpods slumbered on, unaware of the danger crouched above them. He felt their song swelling in the dark. It had protected them thus far, but the city was infested with rot.

The buildings were weeping black tears, and the streets sagged in places, expelling geysers of foul water. The curse-bells were somehow warping the ancient enchantments that bound this place, twisting them into a new, more horrifying shape. Every time the bells rang, some part of Gramin died. They all felt its pain, twisting within them.

We should grant this place mercy, noble one, Lathrael thought. Let it die, lest its pain bend it all out of joint and into something monstrous.

The silver-skins seek to claim it, Yvael protested. Let them care for it, and it might yet flourish. She pressed close to Felyndael, and he felt her plea. If we but grant them soil to take root in, they will fight all the harder.

I cannot, he thought. Gramin holds our quarry within its heart. They are bound together, and when the one is removed, the other must die. Once, they might have flourished together, but now… Now the sick branch must be pruned, for the good of all.

And Gramin was sick. As the Jade Kingdoms were sick. As Ghyran was sick. But the sylvaneth could not purge the realm alone. They lacked the proper tools. Or had, at any rate. Until the coming of the silver-skins. Felyndael tightened his grip on Moonsorrow’s hilt, annoyed by the thought. He had fought since the mountains were first birthed by the seas. He would fight until the last leaf fell from the last tree. The Everqueen had grown him for war. He would be true to his nature. But hollow as he was, a seed of honour yet remained. To treat these sons of Azyr as tools went against everything House Lathrien and the Heartwood Glade had stood for.

You are disturbed, Yvael thought.

Perhaps we should tell them, Felyndael replied. Let them know what must happen. Let them know why we must do this thing.

It would serve no purpose, even if they could understand, Caradrael interjected. He slid to a stop and turned. We should use them as the noble one uses his sword – plunge them in and watch them bleed our foes.

And leave them there, I suppose, Felyndael thought. Caradrael looked away.

They are not our kin. Caradrael’s thought was shrouded in sullen resentment, but the sentiment was shared. Felyndael could feel the agreement of others – not all, but some. Alarielle’s rage burned brightly within them. How capricious, how inconstant they must appear to their allies, driven as they were by the war-song.

The wide dome of the great basilica came into view. The air throbbed like an open wound, and he felt his insides twist in revulsion. But beneath that maddening knell came the whisper of the soulpods. Still alive, still safe, but not for much longer.

No, Felyndael thought, looking down at the Stormcasts. They are not our kin. But they aid us regardless.

Aetius slowed. The tree-revenants had stopped. He raised his hammer. They had come to a narrow alleyway, which wound between two tall, windowless buildings. Liberators moved forwards, blocking the centre of the alley with their shields.

A great bawling rolled between the buildings, trapped in the curves and angles of the alley. The smell of rot was thick on the air, and the sky above was black with smoke. ‘What is that din?’ Aetius said. The sound crashed over the Stormcasts like the roar of the sea, impossibly loud in the narrow space.

‘Come up,’ Felyndael called down, looking at them from the edge of the roof. ‘I will show you.’ He rose and slipped up the incline, moving swiftly. Aetius exchanged glances with the closest Liberators, who sidled backwards. Aetius sighed, hung his hammer from his belt and slipped his shield over his back. Then, digging his fingers into the packed reed-wall, he began to climb. The reeds bent beneath him, providing natural handholds. It wasn’t easy, but the climb wasn’t long. Few of the buildings in the city were more than three times the height of a Stormcast, and that was no real exertion for one of Sigmar’s chosen.

‘Still… sometimes… I wish… Sigmar had seen fit to give me wings. This… would be… much easier if I could fly,’ Aetius grunted as he hauled himself onto the roof of flattened reeds. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky. He lay for a moment, watching the distant stars flicker in the jade firmament. ‘Azyr…’ he murmured.

‘The realms weave together like the roots of a great forest. It is hard to say where one ends and another begins,’ Felyndael said, looking down at him. He extended his hand.

‘Or even how big the forest is,’ Aetius said, grabbing the proffered hand, though he needed no aid. Felyndael easily pulled him to his feet, and Aetius was surprised by the tree-revenant’s strength. Carefully, they crept to the edge of the roof. The rest of Felyndael’s warriors crouched nearby, scattered across the rooftops which overlooked the great plaza beyond. Aetius looked down. ‘More of them than I was expecting,’ he murmured.

While crossing the Plains of Vo, the Steel Souls had encountered only scattered warbands. But here, below him, was a true warhorde in the making. Arrayed before the steps of the Basilica of Reeds, the gathering had the exuberance of a carnival. Great fires burned in pits scooped from the reeds. Dozens of pestilent standards rose over the mighty throng of monsters spread through the vast plaza. Chieftains gurgled greetings to one another, warriors bellowed prayers to the fly-infested sky, and gales of phlegm-choked laughter echoed across the open space.

Felyndael peered towards the basilica, and the hordes gathered there. ‘There are too many. Even if we slip past them, they will soon know where we are.’ He looked at Aetius, his expression inscrutable.

‘Unless they’re already looking somewhere else,’ Aetius said, in instant understanding. ‘The servants of the Ruinous Powers are strong but fragile… They are still mortal, for all their monstrousness. Kill enough of them and they will lose heart. Kill their chieftains and they will flee.’

‘How will we know which are the chieftains?’ Felyndael said.

‘They’ll be the ones trying to get to us first,’ Aetius said.

‘Ah. Those,’ Felyndael said. ‘We can kill those.’

‘I encourage you to do so, and with all due haste,’ Aetius said, making his way back the way he’d come. ‘The more of them we kill, the less chance they’ll regroup when they break.’ He dropped heavily to the ground.

‘How many?’ Solus said, peering down the alleyway towards the plaza.

‘Many. We will meet them head-on and punch through them. Tight formation, shields locked,’ Aetius said, meeting the gazes of his warriors. ‘We are not many, but Sigmar is with us. We will prevail.’ He looked at Felyndael. ‘We will stop only when we reach the steps of the basilica. We will make our stand there.’

‘I will meet you there,’ Felyndael said, without further elaboration. He stepped back, and vanished into the packed reeds that made up the wall of the alleyway.

‘Can we trust them?’ Solus said, staring at the wall.

‘I have faith,’ Aetius said, softly. ‘Whatever their reasons, we want the same thing – the bells silenced and the enemy routed. Let us draw some attention to ourselves. Shields up.’ At his signal, his Liberators started forwards, shields raised, hammers ready. They marched into the plaza, moving with steady precision. The rattle of their war-plate clashed with the tolling of the great bells, filling the air with discordance.

One by one, the gathered Rotbringers turned. Chieftains bellowed commands as blightkings began to shove their way through the mass of bodies towards the approaching enemy. Horns whined and iron-shod bones thumped festering drums as the Rotbringers reformed to face the Hallowed Knights. Aetius slammed his hammer against the face of his shield. ‘Who will hold the dark at bay?’ he roared. ‘Who strides forth, when all is lost?’

‘Only the faithful!’ the Hallowed Knights bellowed in reply. As they did so, Solus raised his hand, and his Judicators sent a volley of arrows streaking up over the heads of the Liberators. Aetius gestured, and the Liberators picked up the pace. The square broke and reformed, becoming a wedge with Aetius at the point. He bent forwards, shield lifted, and began to run. The first Rotbringer he struck fell beneath him, and was crushed by the unyielding tread of the Liberators. The wedge blossomed like a murderous flower as the battle-line expanded at Aetius’ bark of command.

Hammers and war-blades rose and fell. Ichor splashed the reeds as the silver-armoured warriors hacked and crushed their way through the forces of the enemy. Where once they might have displayed caution, the Steel Souls now gave full vent to the fury that pulsed bone-deep within each and every Stormcast Eternal. They had clashed again and again with the servants of Nurgle since their arrival in the Jade Kingdoms. They had seen first-hand the monstrous cruelty such filth inflicted on the innocent and defiant alike. And here and now, that vile debt had at last come due.

‘Push through them,’ Aetius shouted. A featureless helm, covered in blighted sigils, burst like an overripe fruit beneath his hammer. ‘Hold the line, but do not stop!’ A Rotbringer lunged for him, and squamous tendrils slithered about his throat. Without stopping, Aetius slammed his head against that of his attacker, shattering malformed bone and bursting one faceted eye. The mutant reeled, squealing, and Aetius shoved it aside with a blow from his shield. Arrows slammed down ahead of him, erupting into crackling streamers of lightning as they felled squalling Rotbringers.

Axes and swords thudded against his shield or bounced off his armour as he waded through them. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a flash of crooked bark. A Rotbringer staggered, clutching at his spilling intestines in confusion. Another slumped, his head neatly removed from a spurting neck. The sylvaneth danced with a deadly elegance, their branch-like limbs sliding through flesh or launching deceptively gentle blows that nonetheless broke bones or punctured armour and flesh with ease.

When they reached the steps, the Liberators turned, sweeping their shields out, driving the closest of their foes back so that Solus could lead his retinue through. As soon as the Judicators reached the top of the dais, they loosed volley after volley into the packed ranks of the Rotbringers. At Aetius’ command, his warriors reformed their battle-line on the steps. Shield rims crashed together, forming a wall of gleaming sigmarite between the stunned Rotbringers and the Basilica of Reeds.

More of Felyndael’s tree-revenants erupted from the walls of the structures surrounding the plaza as the foe reeled in momentary confusion. They savaged isolated Rotbringers, reducing them to screaming wreckage before whirling away. Caught between the sylvaneth and the unyielding shield wall of the Stormcasts, the followers of Nurgle reeled as if in a daze. It wouldn’t last for long. The servants of the plague god were nothing if not resilient. And the bells were ringing again, impossibly loud, filling the debased creatures with courage and zeal. Aetius turned to Solus. ‘Hold the line. Let none of them pass. Felyndael and I shall silence the bells.’

‘Where is he? I don’t see him out there,’ Solus said, as he loosed an arrow.

Aetius looked towards the basilica. ‘Likely already inside.’ He caught Solus by the neck and brought their heads together. ‘Sigmar be with you, my friend.’

‘Better he go with you, I think. I’m perfectly safe where I am, sitting behind all of these shields,’ Solus said, pulling another arrow from his quiver. Aetius laughed and stepped past him. He hurried across the portico towards the sagging doors of the colossal basilica. The bells were pealing steadily, such that he half-hoped they might shatter.

‘Felyndael…’ he whispered, looking around. In kinder times, the basilica would have been impressive. Now, it was simply horrifying. A tarry substance marred the delicate whorls of the bent reeds, and the great pillars that supported the dome were covered in bunches of buzzing flies. Sickly green balefires burned in rusted braziers scattered along the length of the nave. The reeds making up the basilica seemed to pull away from their light and the weird shadows it cast. Grotesque censers had been hung from every cornice and arch, and they filled the air with a noxious miasma.

‘Here,’ Felyndael said, stepping into view. ‘The bells are above, within the dome.’

Aetius nodded. ‘Then let us silence them. The noise is wearing on me.’ Side by side, they stepped into the nave. There were no guards. Only a single figure, kneeling at the far end of the nave before a bloated idol. The idol was monstrous, its expression one of diabolical mirth, and flies clustered about it, clinging to its horns and ruined belly. Past the idol was a set of narrow steps, curving upwards and away around a pillar, rising towards the ceiling and the dome above. The kneeling figure shifted slightly, as they approached.

‘Stand aside,’ Aetius called out. Flies hummed in agitation.

‘What?’ The voice was a guttural thing, rough like hot mud splashing over jagged stones. ‘What was that?’

‘I said step aside,’ Aetius said, waving a fly out of his face. He peered upwards, and through the rotted gaps in the ceiling was just able to make out two great black-iron shapes, swinging back and forth within the dome. The curse-bells rang without need for human hands. Daemons, perhaps, or some sort of fell spirit, he suspected.

‘You must speak up, I cannot hear you for the bells,’ the hunched shape said loudly. ‘Or better yet, do not speak and return from whence you came. This place is for quiet contemplation, on the eve of doom. I commune with Grandfather. I would not be interrupted by… Hnh.’ The figure grunted. ‘The flies… The flies say you are not mine.’

‘No, we are not,’ Aetius said. He looked at Felyndael. The tree-revenant’s head was cocked, as if he were listening to something only he could hear.

‘In that case, forgive me,’ the hunched shape said. ‘I was but meditating on certain truths, as espoused by Blight-Master Wolgus in his seventh treatise on the nature of the warrior. It is said that the hope of a moment is but the foundation stone of everlasting regret, and that today’s palace is tomorrow’s ruin.’ The warrior glanced over one broad shoulder. ‘An appropriate quotation in this moment, I suspect. Now… who are you to interrupt my prayers?’

Aetius traded a glance with Felyndael, but said nothing.

‘Have you lost your voices, then? Or are you cowards? I shall ask again.’ The creature sighed and rose, massive frame creaking with protest. He wore heavy armour, covered in barnacles and seeping tumours where it was not etched with grimacing faces, and his helm was wrought in the shape of a frowning, daemonic visage. Great antlers, fuzzy with mould, rose from the sides of the helm. ‘How unexpected. A tree-devil and a broken soul. Worthy opponents indeed. The gathering faithful brought word of silver-skinned giants. You must be the authors of that clamouring I hear even now…’

Aetius took another step forwards, wondering at the size of the creature before him. This was nothing less than a champion of the Dark Gods. He gripped his hammer more tightly, drawing reassurance from its deadly weight. Champion or no, the creature would fall.

The Chaos warrior lifted an enormous flail. ‘Have you come to stop me, then? A last test, perhaps.’ The chains of the flail clinked softly as it was thrust upwards. ‘Or come, mayhap, to silence the bells. Seven witches cast seven spells on them, and when they lay spent and weak, my blight-brother Goral and I took their bones to make the clappers, which sound without ceasing as their strength waxes.’ Laughter burbled from within the helm. ‘Brave Goral is dead now. Slain in the dark by devils of bark and moss. A beautiful death, as the troubadour, Onogal, might say.’ He spread his arms. ‘Well, faithless one? Well, cruel spirit? Here I stand, a pilgrim most inflamed. I am Count Dolorugus, knight of the Order of the Fly. Come and test my faith, if you would.’

‘Gladly,’ Aetius said, stung by the creature’s remarks. Why did Nurgle’s servants always prattle so much? He stepped forwards and Felyndael followed his example. ‘This city will belong to Sigmar once more, beast, whatever your name, whatever weapon you wield.’

‘Fie on thee, fie and ruin,’ the Rotbringer rumbled. ‘This land is ours, by blight and conquest. You shall not have it – the Lady of Cankerwall has seen it and so it must be. I, Dolorugus, say thee nay.’ He swung his flail towards Felyndael, and the tree-revenant ducked aside. The blow arced over his head and obliterated a pillar of winding reeds.

Aetius charged, hammer thudding down to draw sludgy ichor from the surface of Dolorugus’ chest-plate. The gibbering faces set there began to wail and howl as the hammer cracked steaming scars across them. Dolorugus stepped back. His flail smashed down. Aetius interposed his shield, but the force of the blow drove him to one knee.

‘The basilica is mine. I will ring the pox-bells and call forth every mouldering thing in these marshy lands to my banner, and more besides. We will make this place a bastion – a temple to the King of All Flies. We will be the gate to the Garden, and break armies in Grandfather’s name,’ Dolorugus rumbled as he drove his cloven hoof into Aetius’ chest and sent him flying backwards. ‘Starting with yours, faithless one.’

Aetius groaned and clambered to his feet. His chest ached. Dolorugus was strong. But his faith in Sigmar was stronger. He shoved himself forwards, hammer raised in both hands. Dolorugus swatted him aside. Aetius stumbled, sinking to one knee. Dolorugus reached out with one wide paw and caught the Liberator-Prime by the back of his head. Aetius clawed at his foe’s fingers as Dolorugus’ grip tightened. Smoke rose from his hand as the blessed sigmarite seared his cankerous flesh.

Dolorugus roared in pain and hurled Aetius aside. The Rotbringer flexed his hand. ‘That stung,’ he grunted. ‘The pain is good, though. Victory without pain is anything but. I knew pain, dragging those bells here from Cankerwall, and I will know pain again, before long. Pain brings clarity of purpose. Let me show you.’

Aetius barely heard him. He forced himself up, groping blindly for the haft of his hammer. The chamber seemed to be shaking, and the reeds beneath him were loose and soft. Water bubbled up from between them. He looked around for Felyndael, but didn’t see him. Had the tree-revenant abandoned him?

He caught up his hammer, but before he could rise, Dolorugus planted a hoof between his shoulder blades. ‘A valiant effort,’ the Chaos champion rumbled. ‘But as I said – clarity. It is too late. The bells still ring, and the walls of this pale world grow thin. The tallymen heed the summoning knell… see! See!’

And Aetius did. Strange shapes shimmered in the murk of the chamber, not quite solid yet, but growing more so with every clang of the unseen bells. Suddenly, Aetius knew what his foe had meant by ‘more besides’. He’d faced daemons before. He couldn’t help but recognise their infernal stink as it grew stronger and stronger, almost choking him. ‘Sigmar give me strength,’ he whispered in growing horror.

‘There is no Sigmar here, my friend,’ Dolorugus rumbled. ‘Only Nurgle.’

Felyndael dived into the reeds as the blow arced over him. The sounds of the struggle and the bells faded, swallowed by the reeds and water. Aetius would have to fight alone. Only while the enemy was distracted would Felyndael have the time he needed to do what must be done. Though he knew it was necessary, it rankled. The Stormcast had hurled himself into battle on Felyndael’s behalf with a resolve that reminded the tree-revenant of glories past.

He shot from the underside of the city like an arrow loosed from a bow. Foetid at first, the waters stung his eyes and flesh. But the murk faded and the dark paled as he raced downwards, following the spirit-trail to the heart of Gramin. He coursed along the ancient realmroot, travelling deeper and deeper beneath the lagoon. The primeval root-pylons Alarielle had crafted in an age long past stretched beyond him. Hundreds of them, rising from the lagoon’s bottom to the underside of the city. Some floated listlessly, their reeds black with rot, while others were still whole and healthy. It was the largest of these he followed, slipping around and within it, following the song of the soulpods.

He could feel the struggles of his kin as he descended. Caradrael fought with a fury worthy of the Protectors of old, leaping and whirling amidst his foes, reaping a red harvest. In contrast, Yvael fought with subtle precision, wounding an opponent so that his bellows of agony might dishearten others. And Lathrael was destruction personified. Where she danced, no rotling remained in one piece.

Felyndael felt a fierce joy. Drawing strength from the bond, he began to sing, casting his thoughts down, down into the silt and sand. Calling out to the sleeping spirits. Every sylvaneth heard the spirit-song, from even before their first moments of life. It flowed through their thoughts and coursed through their bodies, binding them to the land itself. Heed me, spirits of the lagoon. Heed the Guardian of the Fading Light. I am Felyndael and I say awaken, he thought. Awaken and rise, for it is not safe here. You must rise… Rise!

Groggily, the soulpods stirred, sending up great plumes of silt. The root-pylons wavered, creaking, groaning. The oldest roots began to unravel, while the youngest snapped. Felyndael dropped to the lagoon bottom in a cloud of silt. His mind was rebuffed, cast back. They did not wish to wake, now was not the time, not yet, they whispered in drowsy petulance. They were stubborn and powerful, and he wondered what slumbered within them. Alarielle herself didn’t know. Life was ever capricious, even where the Everqueen was concerned.

But whatever they were, they would awaken. They must.

With a cry that was as much thought as sound, he drove Moonsorrow into the ground between his feet. The blade shivered in his hands, adding its voice to his own. He cast images of what might be into the stubborn, unformed minds – of places of exquisite beauty reduced to wastelands, of soulpod groves uprooted and burning, of pyres heaped with the kindlewood corpses of their people. This – this is what will happen, unless you rise, he thought, as their despairing screams rang loud in his head.

If he failed, if they did not stir, they would die. Another piece of his people would fade into the long dwindling. Worse, those he had brought here would die for nothing. He thought of Aetius above, and felt the reeds give and bend as the Stormcast and his foe fought. He felt Caradrael’s pain, as old wounds opened anew to spill golden sap across the ground. Heard Yvael’s scream as a rusted blade pierced her leg. Felt the reeds burn as lightning speared down to claim Azyr’s dead. All of this he felt, and all of it he thrust down through Moonsorrow’s blade and into the ground.

You must rise. You must.

The ground beneath his feet churned and split. Light, pure and radiant, speared upwards. The water frothed and grew warm. Felyndael stretched out his hand. Rise, he thought. Rise!

And in a blaze of light and song, they did.

Aetius groaned in pain as Dolorugus’ hoof pressed him down. ‘It is even as the Lady of Cankerwall claimed,’ the Nurglite said as half-seen shapes capered about them in jolly encouragement. ‘They rise, and I shall rise with them. Look upon the end made flesh, my friend, and know a perfect despair.’

Aetius ignored the creature’s babbling, and the growing solidity of the daemons. If he could not stop the bells, Solus and the others would be overwhelmed. More, the rest of his chamber might be taken unawares when Dolorugus’ hellish force erupted from the marshlands. ‘Who… Who will stand, when all others fall?’ he hissed, between clenched teeth. He dragged his hammer up to use as leverage.

‘What?’ Dolorugus looked down. ‘Is that a riddle?’

‘No. It is the faithful,’ Aetius said, as he forced himself up and back. The sudden movement knocked Dolorugus backwards a few steps, freeing the Liberator-Prime. Aetius staggered to his feet, hammer in hand. ‘I am the faithful. And I stand.’

‘Ha! Still some fight left in you? Good,’ the Nurglite burbled. ‘I will– eh?’ The Chaos champion turned. Aetius looked past him. A light rose from beneath the floor, spilling upwards, growing in radiance. Dolorugus hissed in pain and flung a hand up as the warm light washed over them, expanding to fill the chamber.

At the centre of the light, the reeds of the floor tore themselves free of the weft and pulled away from that which churned in the dark waters below. The foul idol Dolorugus had been praying to toppled from its altar, and the murk which clung to the walls was seared clean. Daemons, half-solid, were reduced to whimpering shadows by the scorching radiance. Within the burning heart of the light, something rose.

To Aetius, it was all shapes and none, constantly changing. They were tall, winding stalks, heavy with golden, glowing cocoons, but also strangely shimmering fungal orbs or perhaps a cloud of seeds with diaphanous wings. There were other shapes as well, hundreds of them, each more disturbing and unrecognizable than the last. They shifted from one to the next almost faster than his eye could follow, and the light which contained them took on a shape of its own – a shape that planted what might have been legs and set its burning shoulders against the ceiling above.

Then, with a roar like that of the sea, the light surged upwards. Reeds popped and burst, tearing away from the whole. The dome ruptured, bursting open like a seedpod. The ringing of the bells wavered, as if in panic, before continuing their tolling. The light flowed upwards, burning a path through the smoke, cleansing the air of toxins where it passed.

Higher and higher it rose, until at last it was lost to sight. What was left of the ceiling creaked and began to peel away in mats of dying reeds. The whole basilica shuddered like a dying animal, and a vast moan seemed to rise up from the depths of the city.

‘Well. There was a wonder,’ Dolorugus said. He lunged forwards, and caught Aetius by his throat. A blow from his flail knocked the hammer from the Liberator-Prime’s grasp. With a grunt, he dragged the struggling Stormcast from his feet. ‘But it matters not. Listen. The plague-bells still ring where I hung them.’ He gestured to the ceiling with his flail.

Aetius pounded on the Nurglite’s arm, but the creature’s grip was unyielding. ‘Grandfather’s hand stretches out, as implacable as time itself. He shall clutch you to his bosom, my friend, and teach you the true meaning of faith.’ Dolorugus shook him, the way a dog might shake a rat. ‘Perhaps you will even join me as a blight-brother, in time. You already have the armour and bearing of a knight, after all,’ Dolorugus said, chortling.

‘No.’

The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. ‘Felyndael,’ Aetius gasped, still trying to free himself.

Dolorugus grunted. ‘Where are you, spirit? I thought you gone.’ He turned, dragging Aetius with him. ‘Come out. Were those lights some witchery of yours?’ He laughed. ‘You should have fled while you had the chance, spirit. Now, I shall break your limbs and use them for tinder. The fire of your passing shall light our path to victory. But first…’ He looked down at Aetius. ‘You die, my friend, but you will be reborn, I have no doubt. Perhaps we will meet again, in days to come.’ His grip began to tighten. His flesh sizzled, but the sigmarite creaked, as did Aetius’ neck.

Suddenly, Felyndael was there, flowing up the nave towards Dolorugus. His blade flashed, chopping into the Nurglite’s arm. Ichor spurted and Dolorugus cried out, more in rage than pain. Aetius fell to the ground. Dolorugus whirled his flail out, driving Felyndael back. The floor buckled and split as the Chaos champion lunged after the tree-revenant. Water, clean and crystal pure, geysered upwards.

Aetius stood, fighting for his balance. It felt as if the whole basilica were coming apart. The passing of the light had wrecked everything in its path. But the bells were still ringing, and Dolorugus still roared and fought. As Aetius watched, his flail caught Felyndael a glancing blow and knocked the tree-revenant sprawling. Aetius charged barehanded and crashed into Dolorugus, driving him back against one of the reed pillars. The force of it bent the pillar and caused the damaged ceiling above to buckle and warp. The clangour of the bells lost its monotony, becoming arrhythmic and erratic.

Aetius’ silver-clad fists thudded into his foe’s greasy armour until Dolorugus brought both of his own down between Aetius’ shoulder blades and dropped him to one knee. As he sank down, head ringing, he heard the sound of splintering wood and the scream of reeds giving way. He looked up as, with a roar, the curse-bells at last tore through what was left of the ceiling and hurtled downwards.

Dolorugus looked up at the last instant, as Aetius hurled himself aside. As he rolled away, he thought he heard the Chaos champion laugh. Then the bells struck home, and smashed through the floor and into the waters below. They carried Count Dolorugus with them into the black depths of Verdant Bay.

As the echoes of the bells’ final tolling faded, Aetius hauled himself to his feet. He looked at Felyndael as he recovered his hammer. ‘I thought you had abandoned me.’ The tree-revenant didn’t look at him.

‘We must go.’

As they hurried towards the doors, the reeds crawled and split beneath their feet. Everywhere Aetius looked, the basilica was beginning to unravel. Outside, Solus was waiting for him, with the remaining Stormcasts. There was no sign of the other tree-revenants. ‘Our allies?’ Aetius asked, fighting to be heard over the creaking and groaning of the city.

‘They’re gone,’ Solus said, casting a wary glance at Felyndael. ‘They vanished as soon as that light did. Left us to clean up.’ He looked around. ‘So much for garrisoning this place. The streets are coming undone and the buildings are unwinding like so much thread. What happened?’

‘Victory. I’m just not certain as to whose. What of our foes?’ Aetius asked.

Solus shook his head. ‘Gone. Dead or else fled, once the unlucky ones started slipping through the holes in the streets. The whole city is sinking.’

‘Whatever magic was holding it together has been lost,’ Aetius said, looking at Felyndael. The tree-revenant nodded.

‘Go,’ Felyndael said. ‘The city has served its purpose. It will sleep now, until its season comes again. You must not be here when it does.’

‘You heard him. Rally the others. We need to make it back to the quays before we join the Rotbringers in the lagoon,’ Aetius said, gripping Solus by the shoulder. As the Judicator-Prime turned away, Aetius looked at Felyndael. ‘That light… What was it?’

Felyndael said nothing. Aetius sighed. ‘Next time, perhaps, you will simply tell us,’ Aetius said, softly. Felyndael looked at him, his expression impenetrable. Aetius held out his hand. ‘But you have my thanks for coming back, Felyndael of the Heartwood.’

Felyndael looked down at his hand. The sylvaneth’s deceptively delicate features split in a small smile. ‘And you have mine, Aetius Shieldborn,’ he said as he clasped the Stormcast’s armoured forearm. A moment later he was gone, leaving Aetius standing alone.

‘Next time,’ he said to himself. Then, as the Basilica of Reeds unravelled and Gramin came undone, Aetius Shieldborn hurried to join his warriors.

HEARTWOOD

Robbie MacNiven

The Realm of Life had become a place of death.

Blood and bark, iron and earth, the glade shook with the fury of battle. At its centre a warband of Rotbringers had turned at bay, their tight cohorts of rusting plate armour and sagging, rotten flesh split apart by nature’s wrath.

Nellas the Harvester, branchwych of House Il’leath, swung her greenwood scythe in a hissing upward arc, parrying the blightking’s stroke. The hulking Rotbringer leant into the blow, trying to use his bulk to force Nellas’ guard down. The sylvaneth was dwarfed by the warrior, but she stood her ground, willowy limbs invested with the strength of the Wyldwood’s deepest roots. Bark creaked and the scythe shuddered in her grip as she held the blightking in place, while from the trees all around the sylvaneth poured. The whole forest keened with the battle-song of the Wargrove; the encroachment of the Great Corruptor’s minions into Brocélann would not be tolerated.

The bittergrub that coiled among Nellas’ branches saw its opening. It darted forward and locked its mandibles around the upper thigh of the Rotbringer, slicing through corroded plate and neatly snipping a hamstring. The blightking grunted and went down on one knee. The bittergrub held on.

Nellas leant back to give herself room, and plied her scythe in a great arc. There was a crunch, and the warrior’s cyclopean helmet thumped to the ground, a jet of pus-like ichor pattering across the glade’s trampled grass.

Nellas was pushing past the decapitated corpse before it had even slumped, her bittergrub wrapping around her once more. The Rotbringer champion was ahead, bellowing vile curses as he swung a great, rusting mace at Thaark. The treelord ancient’s own household revenants were struggling to reach him, locked in a grinding melee with the Chaos lord’s bodyguard. Nellas shrieked with fury as she saw the Rotbringer’s blow thump home into Thaark’s thigh, splintering wood and splattering thick amber bloodsap. The head of House Il’leath tore into the champion’s flesh in response, his great talons splitting armour and spilling rancid guts, but to no avail. The Rotbringer’s wounds regenerated as soon as they were made, the obese armoured body bound together by more than mere mortal willpower.

The Rotbringer heard Nellas’ cry and turned in time to swat aside her first blow, moving with a speed that belied his diseased bulk. Nellas darted back to avoid the warrior’s backswing, the forest air thrumming with the force of the mace’s passing. Thaark lunged at the champion’s exposed back, dragging fresh gashes down his spine, but he simply shrugged off the wound and stepped in closer to Nellas. She attempted a shortened slash with her scythe, but this time it merely clanged off corroded battleplate. For all her strength, the branchwych didn’t possess Thaark’s oaken might.

And now she had overextended. The Rotbringer was too close to strike at her properly, but the thrust of his mace was still deadly. The blow smashed into Nellas’ side, and pain fired through the branchwych. She went down, roots questing for purchase in the glade’s bloody earth. Her bittergrub lashed out at the plague champion, maw snapping at the wounds already dealt by Thaark, but the Rotbringer simply snatched its writhing, segmented body in one iron gauntlet. With a bile-choked laugh he crushed the spite, popping it with a hideous crunch.

Nellas tried to rise, shuddering at the departing soul-shriek of the grub. Her bark was splintered, bloodsap running down her side. The Rotbringer turned to Thaark, another stroke of his mace splitting a great gash down the treelord ancient’s trunk. Nellas could feel her lord’s life force draining as he swayed back from the blow.

‘Your Wyldwood is mine, tree spirit,’ the Rotbringer said, the voice rasping as though from two separate, phlegm-choked throats. ‘Skathis Rot claims this kingdom for the Grandfather.’

Thaark was able to ward away another huge blow with his upper branches, but he teetered as the Rotbringer kept swinging, snapping limbs and scattering leaves. Around him the tree-revenants of Thaark’s guard were battling furiously to reach him, but the phalanx of blightkings protecting their own champion were still unmovable. Only Nellas had broken through.

The branchwych rose silently. The whole glade shuddered as Thaark went down on his knees, a creaking groan seeming to run through the surrounding forest spirits as they felt his agony. Nellas hissed at their song of pain and loss.

‘Surrender your pathetic kingdom to Grandfather’s mercy,’ Skathis Rot spat, standing over Thaark’s splintered form. ‘Share in his magnificent blessings, and embrace the majesty of abundant decay.’ The Chaos champion smashed another blow against Thaark’s torso, breaking the iron-hard bark and exposing the soft heartwood. Chuckling grotesquely, the Rotbringer leant forward, one gauntlet probing at the sap-soaked wound.

Whatever it was doing, the distraction was enough. Nellas swung at the plague champion’s exposed back. There was a crunch as the greenwood scythe parted Skathis Rot’s skull. Grey brain matter, thick with maggots, splattered the branchwych. She shrieked with furious triumph.

The champion’s corpse fell heavily, the ground sizzling where vile ichor pulsed from its split skull. Nellas went on her knees before Thaark, running slender fingers over the great rent splitting her master’s trunk.

‘It is no use,’ the head of the clan said slowly, voice creaking like a great oak bending in a tempest. ‘He cut to my heartwood.’

‘You must rest, lord,’ Nellas responded, willing the broken bark to reknit beneath her fingers. It could not be too grievous a wound. House Il’leath could not lose Thaark.

‘Take my lifeseed, branchwych,’ the treelord said, gently brushing aside Nellas’ touch. ‘Plant it in the Evergreen with the others who have fallen here. Give Brocélann new life, and we will resist these invaders for an eternity. Ghyran endures.’

Around them the tree-revenants had finally broken through the remaining blightkings, butchering them with blade and talon. Nellas was oblivious to it all, looking up into the eye knots of her lord. The green battle-fury which had burned there was dimming.

The song of the Wyldwood shifted fractionally, a new melody struck by the dying treelord. The sound pricked at Nellas’ memory.

‘The song of Everdusk’s Waxing,’ she said.

‘It always was my favourite,’ Thaark murmured, swaying slightly. Nellas could only nod. Around them the last sounds of slaughter faded, and the survivors of House Il’leath gathered with bowed branches to hear the final spirit-song of their lord and master.

After death, the harvest.

The glade had once been a tranquil place, an enclave of lush green grass dappled by the shade of overhanging ash and yew boughs. Now it was a circle of hell, the grass trampled into churned mud, the spiked, armoured forms of butchered Rotbringers intermingling with the smashed kindlewood corpses of felled sylvaneth, dark blood and amber sap mixing in the furrowed muck.

Nellas passed over it in silence, using her scythe as a crutch. The wound in her side still throbbed. It would heal in time, when she had an opportunity to rest in the Evergreen and channel the forest’s healing song. Until then she pressed on. She had a duty to perform.

One by one, she harvested the lifeseeds of her fallen kin. As a branchwych it was her most vital task, a part of the ever-turning cycles of the Wyldwood. From the day she had sprouted from her soulpod many seasons ago, Nellas had served House Il’leath as one of its harvesters, plying her scythe and carrying each and every lifeseed fallen, in peace or in war, back to Brocélann’s heartglade – the Evergreen. Amidst a reaping of death she was a sower of life, of tender branches and new shoots.

As she went, Nellas hummed a new song. She sensed other little voices joining in, one by one, answering her lilting call. She spoke to them as allies and as friends, not with orders, as she would have her fellow sylvaneth clansfolk. And one by one they answered her. They came buzzing, fluttering or leaping from the surrounding Wyldwood, dozens of tiny forest spirits that gathered around her, their bodies glittering with fey light. They had come to show their respect to the ones who guarded their homes. They had come to bear away the fallen.

Every time Nellas plucked a lifeseed from the dead wood before her, one of the spites flitting around her would retrieve it, ready to carry it with the branchwych to its resting place in the Evergreen. The creatures did so in silence, their playful jostling and bickering suppressed for the moment by the gravity of their task.

Near the far edge of the clearing Nellas paused, her flock of spites going still around her. She had been one of three. Her sisters, Llanae and Sylanna, had completed Il’leath’s triumvirate of branchwyches. Between them the trio had reaped the echoharvest of the lamentiri, the sylvaneth spirit-songs, and ensured the continuing existence of the Wyldwood of Brocélann since Thaark had been a sapling. But no more. Nellas found Llanae and Sylanna side by side, bark broken and lifeless, their bittergrubs crushed alongside them. She had sensed them fall during the fighting, had heard their battle-song cut short, but in the fury and desperation of the glade’s killing she hadn’t had time to mourn. Now, as a pair of little spites reverently received their lifeseeds, Nellas felt the ache of their felling keener than the wound still burning in her side.

It had been a grim day for Brocélann. By the time Nellas had passed over the whole glade, the sun was sinking below the treetops and the air was thick with attendant spites. The urge to dig her roots in and rest was almost overwhelming, but she resisted. She was now the only one capable of seeing so many lifeseeds replanted. As the Forest Folk set about piling the Rotbringer corpses for burning, she made her way to the Evergreen.

It was a long walk, through hidden vales and along the high paths of Brocélann’s wooded uplands. Few outside the noble houses travelled such routes, fewer still at so late an hour. As she went, her way lit by the light of her buzzing companions, Nellas felt the ancient forest sigh and creak in sympathy around her. The whole of Brocélann had suffered, the loss of so many venerable sylvaneth sending an undertone of pain through the Wyldwood’s spirit-song. Nellas could still feel the shared agony in every rustle and moan of the forest around her.

By the time she arrived at the outskirts of the Evergreen, darkness had fallen. The woodland was restless, still distressed by the violation it had suffered. Things darted past Nellas, their shapes insubstantial in the dark. She felt the beat of wings as a woodland owl soared overhead, hunting. The killing, Nellas reflected, was never done. Around her she felt the ever-present song of the Wyldwood waver, as though the chorus had become suddenly doubtful. A colder, more cutting note entered the recital.

‘Stop.’ The command seemed to breathe from the trees themselves. Nellas halted, grip tightening around her scythe’s haft. There were few creatures capable of taking a sylvaneth by surprise in her own woods. None of them meant her well.

Shapes melted from the shadows beneath the surrounding boughs, taking physical form seemingly only with great reluctance. They were sylvaneth, but they possessed none of the graceful bearing of the Noble Spirits Nellas was used to communing with. Their outlines were jagged and sharp, their trunks stooped, features twisted with fang-filled disdain. They blocked the path ahead, pressing in on the branchwych from all sides. The song of the woodland grew colder still around them.

Spite-revenants, she thought. Outcasts. Nature’s most merciless aspect given form and thought.

‘You go no further,’ one of the malevolent spirits said. He was big, bristling with jagged fir needles, his eyes glowing a bitter, icy blue in the creaking darkness. ‘You are not welcome here.’

Nellas faced the Outcast, straightening despite the pain that flared from her wound.

‘The shadows are deep, so I will forgive you your mistake. I am Nellas the Harvester, of House Il’leath of the Heartwood Glade. I am bearing the lifeseeds of many of my house. Too many. In the name of the Everqueen, stand aside.’

‘We know who you are, branchwych,’ the spite-revenant said, showing no sign of moving. ‘And I am Du’gath, of the Loneroot. Your presence defiles the sanctity of this enclave. These woodlands do not want you here. Their roots squirm at your passing.’

‘Are you delirious with barkrot?’ Nellas snapped. ‘These little spites with me carry the very future of this Wyldwood. You have no right to impede us.’

‘You carry corruption. We can feel the taint that infects you. We cannot allow you to spread it to the Evergreen. Whether you are aware of it or not, you could bring about the destruction of the heartglade and the death of the whole forest.’

Nellas shook her head angrily, leaves rustling. ‘You refer to my wound? It was earned today in battle with those who would defile these sacred glades. I did not see you or your kindred there when Lord Thaark was felled.’

‘That does not mean we weren’t present,’ Du’gath countered, taking a step closer to Nellas. He stretched out one jagged talon, moving to touch her splintered side. The branchwych darted back instinctively, hissing as the sudden movement sent a pulse of pain through her body. She felt her anger flare.

‘It won’t heal,’ Du’gath said. ‘It is infected with the rot of the Great Corruptor. If you enter the Evergreen you may pass the taint on to the saplings there.’

‘If I don’t enter, the lamentiri will wither and be lost,’ Nellas countered. ‘Make way for me, Outcast. Unless you wish to see this Wyldwood brought to ruin.’

‘You know not what you carry,’ the spite-revenant said. ‘But I cannot bar a branchwych from her own glade. Tread with care, Nellas the Harvester. We will be watching you.’

The spite-revenants receded back into the darkness, their bitterness lingering on the night air. Nellas continued up the path, until the final branches parted before her.

The Evergreen, Brocélann’s heart, lay ahead. A clearing at the peak of the Wyldwood’s uplands, at its centre stood the great Kingstree, the oldest oak in the forest. It was here that the lords of Brocélann’s noble families gathered in council and mustered the Wargrove in times of conflict. It was also the focal point of the forest’s combined memory-echoes, the well that collected the reverberations of House Il’leath’s many life songs. Some, like the melodies of the Kingstree itself, were as old as the Jade Kingdoms’ deepest roots, while those soulpod groves newly planted in the shade of the great oak had only just begun to add their own cadence to the forest’s choir. Through them, Ghyran endured.

At night the clearing space was lit by the flickering of a thousand fireflies, and the colourful flashes that marked the passage of lesser spites weaving darts of light among the shadows of soulpod saplings and thick wildflowers. Nellas began to murmur her greetings to the many forest spirits as she stepped into the clearing, brushing gently past fresh shoots and leaves. As she did so more spites fluttered to her, perching in her branches, their tiny songs full of concern.

‘Do not worry yourselves, little lights,’ the branchwych murmured gently to them. ‘I will heal. Many others this day will not.’

As the spites that came to greet Nellas wove among those already carrying the lifeseeds, their songs melded into a mournful chorus. It was a tale of passing and of withering, of falling leaves and dry, dead wood. Nellas let it play out around her as she began the replanting.

Each of the lifeseeds had its place, a soulpod in the Evergreen. Those who had been Forest Folk, the dryads and the branchwraiths, were planted among those that formed a great grove arcing around the clearing’s edge, nearest to the trees which grew thick all around. The tree-revenants and the other members of the noble houses were planted among the pods closer to the clearing’s heart, ranked by their dedication to each of the Wyldwood’s ever-changing seasons. Then, nearest of all to Brocélann’s heartwood, in the shade of the mighty Kingstree itself, the treelords were laid to their final rest, the lamentiri of all planted in the fertile soil around them, their echo-memories allowed to rejoin the great chorus of the Wyldwood.

Not even the Everqueen knew what form, great or small, any of the lifeseeds would take when they sprouted once more from their soulpods. But regardless, all would serve the natural cycles. Nellas planted Thaark last of all, among the very roots of the Kingstree. The flourishing soulpods round about the old oak would take both strength and wisdom from its presence, and from the same soil new life would one day join the ranks of the sylvaneth.

As she nestled Thaark’s seed in the knotted core of the shining soulpod, Nellas swayed. Her exhaustion was coming close to overwhelming her. The harsh words of the spite-revenant returned unbidden, disrupting the mourning of the spites and the gentle songs she sang to the fresh seedlings. Corruption. Taint. She was infected. Her wound still throbbed, and every step brought with it a deep, aching pain. The growth song of the Evergreen called to her, promising the chance to rest and heal, but she pushed it gently from her mind. She had one more duty still to perform. Sensing her distress, the spites around her fluttered and darted to and fro.

Thaark’s seed safely buried, she took one of the lesser tracks out of the clearing, leaving the Evergreen’s hum of renewal behind her. The darting lights of the spites lit her way, guiding her faithfully down a steep, twisting path tangled with briars and thorns. As she went, the number of spites multiplied, until the whole Wyldwood seemed to be illuminated with buzzing, kaleidoscopic colour, the flying forest spirits dancing and spinning around, over and under one another with glittering, preternatural grace.

She paused at the edge of the path, beneath the boughs of a soaring beech tree. Its branches were laden with small sacks, around which the creatures dashed and darted. They were cocoons, each one bearing within it the germinations of a new forest spirit. Nellas reached out and delicately brushed one of the larger sacks, its skin black and mottled with orange blotches. It was ripe, close to hatching. As she came into contact with it, she prayed to the spirits of Ghyran that she would have a new bittergrub to accompany her. Her song throbbed through the cocoon, binding the small creature’s first memories to her own, imprinting on it the work of the Harvester. The loss of Nellas’ former grub, and the lack of the soothing, simple counterpoint of its little spirit-song, tugged at the branchwych’s subconscious. Just one more pain for the day’s tally, both mental and physical.

She no longer had the strength to return to the Evergreen. Instead, she walked a little way into the forest and planted her roots, letting her mind join the wider thoughts of the Wyldwood. As her consciousness fragmented, her last memory was of Thaark, and his final moments.

In the surrounding darkness, the Outcasts watched her, silent, waiting.

Realisation struck her. It was time. She pulled her scattered thoughts together, easing the forest’s drowsy night-time murmur to the edge of her thoughts. It was right that she witness this. The first song it should hear ought to be her own.

She returned to the beech, scythe in hand. The spites had gathered, adorning the boughs of the tree with shining, bickering brilliance. They crooned and fluttered as she appeared, excited at what was about to take place.

The black-and-orange cocoon stirred beneath its branch. She reached out a hand and touched it, twigs splayed. Through the fragile membrane, she could feel warmth and the squirming pulse of fresh life. Yes, she thought. It was time.

She withdrew her hand as a split appeared in the sack, oozing a thick, clear substance. The watching spites chittered all the louder, pushing and shoving one another as they tried to get a better view. The hatching of a new bittergrub was an uncommon occurrence. She prayed to the Everqueen that her new companion recognised her.

There was a pop, and the cocoon burst. A flood of green-grey slime poured from the ruptured sack, splattering the beech’s roots. With it came a thin, segmented form, gripping onto the branch it had hatched from with vicious pincers. A vile stink filled the cool forest air.

She knew immediately this was no bittergrub. It only bore a single segmented black eye, and hissing, acidic toxins dripped from its wicked mandibles. Its body was worm-like and its flesh translucent, exposing inner organs that were riddled with pulsing, yellow veins and swollen by globules of raw filth.

As the plague wyrm uncoiled, the attending spites shrieked with terror, scattering in a great, roiling cloud. She found herself rooted to the spot, frozen in a moment of horror as she understood that the rot had reached the very heart of the forest. The Outcasts had been right. The monstrosity that had hatched from the Wyldwood cocoon hissed at her and lunged, its slime-coated pincers snapping–

Nellas!

Her thoughts returned like a springsfed flood. She gasped and twitched, the first sensation that of the pain in her side, her second the realisation that at some time during the night she’d fallen, and now lay among the tangled thorns and bracken near the beech tree.

The bittergrub. A nightmare or a vision – she couldn’t tell, but the memory of the vile creature that had hatched so close to the forest’s heartglade made her branches shudder. She tried to rise. The pain of her wound was worse than it had been the night before. Not only had the splintered bark refused to heal, but now dark veins criss-crossed the injury, spreading like an ugly latticework along the bottom half of her trunk.

The accusations of the spite-revenant came back to her. She was infected. She was spreading the Rotbringer’s plague to Brocélann. The nightmare made her shudder again. Then she remembered what had woken her.

The voice of Thoaken of the Blackroot, snapping and splintering with a rare urgency.

She dragged herself up by her scythe, body trembling. Light was filtering through the forest canopy. It was well after dawn, she realised. The Wyldwood was quiet and still, as though the forest spirits around her were straining to overhear something momentous.

My lord, Nellas thought, letting the shoots of her mind quest out through the woodland and join the wider spirit-song. There, at its heart, she found him, along with the other treelords. They were gathered at the Kingstree. That could only mean an impromptu council had been called.

Where are you, Nellas? The treelord ancient’s creaking tone filled her thoughts. We have summoned the noble house to a moot. Grave news has reached us from beyond the treeline.

I’m on my way, lord, Nellas responded. She took a step, and found she was able to stay upright. Leaning heavily on her scythe, she began to make her way back towards the Evergreen. On the way she glanced at the beech tree, still surrounded by darting spites. The bittergrub cocoon hung among the others, whole and unblemished. Had it merely been a nightmare, a discordant tremor in the forest’s evening song, or a vision of something yet to transpire? She pressed on.

In the Evergreen, the noble household of Il’leath had assembled. A host of tree-revenants ringed the edge of the clearing, their attention fixed on the Kingstree at its centre. Beside its great trunk, the lords and ladies of the woodland clan stood in a close circle, swaying gently with the rhythms of their discussion. There were the treelords Bitterbough and Thenuil, the two loremasters, Ancients Gillehad and Whitebark, and Thoaken himself. The absence of Boughmaster Thaark leading the debate sent a stab of sorrow through Nellas’ heartwood.

The murmured contemplation of the watching tree-revenants stilled as she arrived. They parted wordlessly for her. She could feel their eyes on her injury. The sudden hush caused the treelord conclave to cease their own discussion and turn to watch her slow approach. She felt her anger spike under the scrutiny.

‘You need not bow, Nellas,’ Thoaken said as she drew closer. ‘I did not know you were wounded.’

‘It will heal with time, my lord,’ Nellas said, letting her roots sink in a little as she stopped before the gathered moot.

‘The whole Wyldwood aches for the loss of your sisters, branchwych,’ Thenuil said. He was a redwood by nature, his rust-coloured bark giving him a warlike appearance as he loomed over his fellow treelords.

‘And for the head of the clan, the venerable Thaark,’ Gillehad added, the ageing willow bent almost double. ‘The goodness of his spirit and the wisdom of his leadership will not soon be forgotten. May his lamentiri enrich many a sylvaneth as-yet unplanted.’

‘Such a loss makes your well-being all the more important, Nellas,’ Thoaken added. He was old, even by the standards of the ancients. A slender pine, his highest needles matched the canopy of Thenuil, while his grey bark was knotted and craggy with age. He swayed gently as he talked, each word as inexorable and measured as the passage of years.

‘Until the soulpods sprout fresh branchwyches, you alone can safely harvest the lifeseeds and tend to the Evergreen. And until we have elected a new head of the clan, Brocélann needs you now more than ever. We already miss Thaark’s guidance.’

Doubt made Nellas hesitate. Should she admit her fears? Should she tell the conclave that she believed Skathis Rot’s blow to her side had brought on some form of infection? That the Outcasts had accused her of corruption?

‘Spite-messengers have brought us grievous news,’ Thoaken said before Nellas could order her thoughts. ‘From both Ithilia and Mer’thorn. Our sister woods have been overrun by the worshippers of blight.’

His words chased all thoughts of self-doubt from Nellas’ mind, and she felt a keening at the thought of such desecration flare in her breast.

‘Surely not,’ she heard herself say.

‘It has been confirmed by those Forest Folk that escaped the felling,’ Gillehad creaked. ‘And we ourselves feel the spirit-song ache of many great lords cut down and wise ancients forever uprooted. Tragedy has finally caught up with our corner of Ghyran.’

‘How is this possible?’ Nellas demanded, turning from one treelord to the next. ‘The glamours have kept Ithilia and Mer’thorn safe ever since the Great Corruptor set foot in the Jade Kingdoms. How have the Rotbringers been able to overcome them?’

‘How did that warband pierce our own treeline?’ Gillehad replied.

‘Bands of Rotbringers stumble across us from time to time,’ Nellas said, voice snapping angrily like broken branches. ‘There were no survivors to tell of what this squirm-scum uncovered. There never are.’

‘I agree,’ said Whitebark. The ancient loremaster was the least vocal of the conclave, so old that he seemed in a perpetual doze, his spirit-song drifting and languid. A knotted silver birch, he leant heavily on one drooping branch like a crutch. ‘The chances of not one but two great Wyldwoods falling to the random roving of a warband large enough to overcome their enchantments are almost non-existent. We must assume their glamours failed them.’

Or that some rot beset them from within, thought Nellas. The realisation hardened her resolve.

‘We must discover the state of our sister woods,’ she said. ‘And find how the Rotbringer filth were able to locate them. I propose to the moot that I be allowed to spirit-walk to Mer’thorn for this purpose.’

‘Out of the question,’ Thoaken replied. ‘I have already told you of the vital place you now hold in Brocélann, Nellas. If we lose you, the very future of this Wyldwood would be threatened.’

‘If we do not discover how the sister woods fell, we will be next,’ Nellas said. Her anger drove out any thought of admitting her private fears, of agonising over what even now gnawed at her bark.

‘Spites are being dispatched,’ Thoaken said. ‘And the Wargrove assembled once again. We shall begin a muster as soon as our household has rested its roots.’

‘That will take time. A spirit-walk will be faster and safer.’

‘Not if the Wyldwoods have indeed become as corrupt as we fear.’

Nellas didn’t respond immediately. As far as preserving Brocélann was concerned, Thoaken was right, and the whole woodland knew that once he dug his roots in, the fury of all the gods, great and small, would not move him. But if Nellas’ fears were correct, they didn’t have time to assess the threat from afar. She bowed, ignoring the discomfort the motion brought her.

‘As you wish, venerable lord.’

She could feel the scrutiny of the conclave as she spoke, prickling with suspicions. Most of them, she suspected, perceived her intentions. She kept her eyes on the Evergreen’s nearest soulpod saplings, praying by bough and branch that they didn’t demand assurances of her. She could not disrupt the natural cycle by refusing a direct order from the conclave, but nor would she wait passively for events to play out around her. The fury smouldering inside her demanded her sister woods be avenged. Eventually, Thoaken spoke.

‘The moot will continue to ponder these dark events. You are clearly in need of rest, Nellas. You are dismissed, for now. May the Everqueen’s blessings be upon you.’

‘My thanks, lord,’ the branchwych replied, turning her back on the conclave.

She would have to be swift.

Nellas slid gently into the clear depths of the woodland spring, slender bark limbs immersed in its cool flow. The waters embraced her, whispering a song of renewal as they slid over the thick tangle of thorns and vines that sprouted from her scalp. Her green eyes opened beneath the surface, following the redfins and minnowspawn as they darted back and forth through the clear depths. The water was brimming with life, just like the soil it fed.

She could not allow a place such as this to fall to corruption. Ghyran endured.

Closing her eyes once more, she let the stream’s song fulfil her. The healing waters had reduced the agony of her wound to a numb throb. She could spend an eternity in here, watched over by the spirits of the spring, sustained by their soothing embrace. But in her mind’s eye she saw the waters congeal, the clear flow discoloured by filth. To stay would be to surrender Brocélann to damnation, a truth she had known even as she had paid lip service to Thoaken’s commands. Her bark would not leave the Wyldwood’s treeline, but her spirit would.

She hummed to herself, communing with the spring’s song, letting its melodies entwine with hers. As she did, she felt the flow around her tug, teasing at her branches. Though her roots remained sunken into the slick stones at the spring’s bottom, her mind started to drift.

There were many ways for the spirit-song of a sylvaneth to travel between the Wyldwoods of Ghyran, and the sacred waterways were one of them. The stream was one of several that flowed from Brocélann to her neighbouring woodlands, one of the realmroots blessed by the Everqueen to bring her life-giving energies to this part of the Jade Kingdoms. As Nellas’ spirit-song left her physical form, the water’s flow snatched at her and carried her along. She bound herself to the form of a passing bluescale, the big fish darting over rocks and between lazy fronds and watermoss, following the current as it carried her beyond Brocélann’s borders.

The sense of detachment was exhilarating. The pain of Nellas’ wound had become a distant ache, left far behind. The natural rhythms of the stream flooded her thoughts, the instinctive concerns and needs of its wildlife merging with her own desires. It was only with difficulty that she slid free from the bluescale, forging through the current towards the bank.

She emerged without disturbing the water’s surface, her spirit-form invisible to mortal eyes. It was immediately apparent that she was in Brocélann no more. Around her, trees stretched, but these were not the healthy boughs and branches Nellas had passed through when she had last visited Mer’thorn, many seasons ago. The forest was skeletal, leafless, the trunks bare and gnarled, each tree seemingly struggling to stand beneath the weight of its own dead wood.

Their song cut to the branchwych’s heartwood. It had none of Brocélann’s spirited cadence, none of the vibrant pitch and swell that coursed through the Jade Kingdoms still resisting the Great Corruptor. Instead it was a low, weary moan, the creak and sigh of a tree that had long given up the hope of ever sprouting fresh shoots again.

Nor were there any spites. The lack of the little darting lights and the elegant counterpoint of their songs was like a void in the branchwych’s core. A forest without spites was a forest that had lost the essence of its being.

Nellas eased her own song into that of Mer’thorn’s, her light, quicker tempo seeking to stoke the Wyldwood’s sentience.

Who has done this to you?

The tired answer drew her on along the bank of the stream, deeper into the Wyldwood. As she went, she noticed the waters beside her were also changing. The stream no longer possessed the crystalline clarity it had in Brocélann, but instead grew steadily murkier. Soon it was brown and discoloured. It began to congeal around the edges, the banks thick with green scum. Eventually it took on the appearance of tar, oozing and black, a pestilential stink coming off its bubbling surface.

The woodland, too, grew worse with every ethereal step Nellas took. The trees were no longer bent over and gaunt, like bare old beggars. Now they were clothed, but in all manner of vileness. In her time tending to the Evergreen, the branchwych had uprooted and carved out many diseases and blights before they could take hold among root and bark. Ever since the distant days of the Great Corruptor’s arrival in Ghyran, constant vigilance had been needed to ensure his plagues didn’t achieve what his Rotbringers could not.

Here, those plagues had run rampant. As she passed through the fallen Wyldwood, she saw every blight she had ever encountered in evidence around her. Spinemould covered entire trees, turning them into bristling, puffy growths. Sap with the consistency of pus poured from the hideous gouges bored by Weeping Rot, while all manner of monstrous worms and maggots had burrowed out nests among bark and branches. Leaves were black and slippery with Slimestench and Daemon’s Spit, while the forest floor beneath was rapidly becoming a rotting, shifting mulch. Instead of mischievous spites and darting forest spirits, great swarms of black flies now droned, filling the air with their buzzing, ugly insistence.

Nellas stopped trying to commune with the Wyldwood. Its song was no longer weak and breathless. It was no longer the voice of something dying a slow, inevitable death. It had become a drone, unhealthy but strong, a sonorous chant that she wanted no part in. The forest here, she realised, was no longer dying. It was alive, but it was not the life granted by the changing of the seasons or the Everqueen’s grace. It was unwholesome and twisted, a vile parody. It was the fresh life of maggots bursting from a boil, of a virus coiling in a bloodstream, of flies hatching from rancid meat. It was a mockery of everything green and vibrant, of everything Nellas had spent her entire existence nurturing and protecting. The realisation sent righteous anger coursing through her.

She began to seek out the Everqueen’s distant song, holding onto it like a beacon amidst the encroaching darkness. Even though she was invisible, the sensation of being observed made her thorns prickle. The forest was aware of her. She knotted a glamour about herself with whispered words, clutching her scythe close. Even her spirit-self felt as though it was swarming with lice and maggots, and each step became more difficult, more repulsive, than the last.

Before her, a clearing emerged. She realised as soon as she gazed beyond the final dripping, cancerous boughs that her worst fears were true. The heart of Mer’thorn and the heart of the corruption were one and the same.

Like all Wyldwoods, Mer’thorn had also once had an enclave at its heart, a grove where the energies of life swirled and eddied the strongest, where the soulpods thrived and the spirit-song reached its crescendo. Such places could take many forms, and Brocélann’s mighty Kingstree was only one expression of a heartglade. Mer’thorn’s had once been a menhir, a great, jagged pillar of primordial stone standing tall upon a grassy knoll, thick with moss and carved with the swirling heraldry of the enclave’s sylvaneth clan.

That menhir still stood, but it was split and deformed almost beyond recognition. Something had burrowed out its core, and now the space within was no longer a part of the Realm of Life. A sickly yellow light pulsed from its heart, and whenever Nellas tried to look directly at the rent in reality, her gaze instinctively flinched away, her spirit shuddering with revulsion.

From the open rift daemons came, clawing their way into the Wyldwood. They already infested the heartglade around the menhir, a sea of sagging, diseased flesh and corroded iron. Clusters of plaguebearers circled the space with an endless, limping gait, the tolling of their rusting bells a counterpoint to their throaty chanting. Great flies, bigger than Nellas and dripping with thick strings of venom, droned overhead. Underfoot, a living carpet of nurglings writhed, bickering and giggling like a nightmarish parody of the spites that had once inhabited Mer’thorn. The entire clearing was alive and bursting with the vital virulence of entropy and decay.

The Wyldwood’s heart was still beating, Nellas realised. It was choked and rancid with rot, a rot that had first taken root not at its borders, but at its very core.

The horror of realisation momentarily eclipsed all of Nellas’ other concerns. Her glamour shimmered, and she heard the chanting of the daemons skip a beat. The dirge of the trees around her rose in pitch. Her spirit-self tensed. She sensed a thousand rheumy, cyclopean eyes turn towards her.

Branchwych. The words, squelching like maggots writhing in rotten bark, slipped directly into Nellas’ thoughts. Skathis said you would come. He wants us to tell you it is too late. He wants us to thank you, branchwych. He wants to bless the rot that already works through your bark, for welcoming him into your home. Grandfather’s glory be upon you, and upon his Tallybands.

She had been right. Mer’thorn was lost. Shaking, she fled.

Nellas returned to her body with a scream of pain and rage. For a second, she didn’t remember where she was, her branches thrashing through the water as she surfaced.

But the agony in her side, worse than ever before, stung her thoughts into order. She had been right. She had brought corruption into Brocélann, but it hadn’t been in her. It had been in what she had carried.

Scythe in hand, she made for the Evergreen, keening a song of fear and warning for the forest spirits to spread around her. She had to rouse the Wyldwood, before it was too late.

‘She took the realmroot to Mer’thorn,’ said Brak. Du’gath dipped his branches in acknowledgement, fangs bared as he watched the branchwych race towards the Evergreen. To the spite-revenant’s attuned senses, the wound in her side reeked of corruption. Her visit to the fallen Wyldwood and her sudden madness were the final confirmation.

‘She must die,’ he said to his surrounding kin. ‘Before she can spread her foulness any further. Follow me.’

As she neared the Evergreen, Nellas’ spirit-song quested ahead. Even now, a sliver of defiance within her held out the hope that she was wrong. Maybe it had simply been her wound the daemons had referred to. Maybe, with time, the rot could be excised, and she could be made whole again. Maybe Brocélann was untouched.

Thaark.

She pushed her song ahead into the clearing, seeking out the individual voices that flowed from the Evergreen. She should be able to commune with them. She should be able to know for certain that her fears were misplaced.

Nellas.

The voice that answered her did not belong to any sylvaneth. It didn’t run in harmony with the melodies of the forest, but cut across it, a discordant baritone rich with rot.

Thank you, Nellas. Thank you for bringing me here.

She had heard the voice before. It belonged to Skathis Rot – not the mortal Rotbringer champion she had cut down, but the daemon that had inhabited his flesh. The daemon which had been transferred by hand to Thaark’s heartwood even as Nellas had split the champion’s skull. The daemon her spites had carried in the treelord’s infected lifeseed, right into the centre of Brocélann.

I will destroy you, monster, Nellas keened, her fury eclipsing even the pain of her wound as she threw herself through the last of the undergrowth and into the Evergreen.

Around her the trees were no longer singing. They were screaming. Nellas had planted Thaark’s lamentiri in a soulpod right beside the Kingstree, nestled among its very roots. In doing so, she now realised, she had carried the lifeseed tainted by Skathis Rot right into her home’s heartglade.

The Evergreen was under attack. What had once been Thaark’s budding soulpod was now a sinkhole, a black pit from which the filth of Chaos welled and poured. Plaguebearers were already limping and staggering through the Evergreen, chanting and muttering darkly to themselves as they hacked at the groves surrounding the Kingstree with rusty blades. The nurglings that accompanied them gnawed on roots or gleefully ripped down saplings, destroying future sylvaneth generations before they had even had a chance to bud. Around the clearing, great swarms of fat flies buzzed, breeding and hatching in a frenzy of infestation.

Worst of all was the thing at the Evergreen’s centre. Skathis had taken on physical form, a tall, emaciated, one-eyed daemon who now sat languidly above the sinkhole, reclining amongst the roots of the Kingstree as though they were his throne. Maggots longer than Nellas’ forebranches squirmed and writhed across the great oak’s bark, seeking to burrow in and defile its core. As the branchwych laid eyes on him, Skathis spread both skeletal arms, his long face split by a warm grin.

‘Welcome home, Nellas,’ the daemon boomed, his voice unnaturally deep and vibrant for such a wasted frame. ‘Good Boughmaster Thaark told me all about you before I consumed the last of him. How joyous it is to finally meet you!’

Shrieking, Nellas flung herself at the nearest plaguebearer. It was attempting to uproot a briarthorn soulpod with both hands, seemingly numb to the gashes the plant was leaving in its diseased skin. It was too slow to avoid Nellas as she sliced its head from its shoulders. Its daemonic form exploded into a great cloud of flies.

Nellas surged on, even the pain of her wound momentarily burned away by the rage that blazed through her bark. She disembowelled a second plaguebearer, then a third, Skathis’ merry laughter ringing around her all the while.

‘Curse you, maggotkin!’ she screamed, a single swing of her scythe eviscerating a clutch of squirming nurglings. ‘Die!’

‘Not before you, Nellas,’ Skathis chuckled, pointing one long, bony finger at her. ‘Not before you.’

Around the branchwych, the Tallyband closed.

‘Drycha’s curse,’ Du’gath spat as he looked down into the Evergreen. ‘We’re too late.’

‘It was the lifeseed,’ Brak said. ‘Not the branchwych. The disease was in what she planted, not her wound.’

‘We must help her,’ another of the spite-revenants added. ‘If we wait for the Wargrove to muster, the heartglade will already have fallen.’

Du’gath was moving. He burst from the treeline into the Evergreen like an icy gale, fangs bared and talons out. Keening their own cold war-song, the Outcasts followed.

Nellas plied her scythe, the harvester come home. One monstrosity after another fell, their corroded blades no match for her greenwood, their daemonic bodies disintegrating with every strike. But still they came, on and on, as inevitable as time’s decaying grip, and Skathis laughed all the harder. Nellas had barely managed to take a dozen paces towards him, and with every passing moment the sinkhole between them grew larger, and more filth hauled itself up from the depths. The Kingstree had started to bow slightly as the hole reached its roots. The ancient oak’s throaty song of pain and fear drove Nellas into an even more violent fury.

So busy was she with hacking and slashing, swinging and slicing, that she didn’t notice the press of rotting bodies easing around her. It was only when a clawed hand caught the downward stroke of a rusting sword meant for her upper branches that she realised she was no longer alone. With a contemptuous twist, Du’gath snapped the plaguebearer’s blade and tore the leprous daemon limb from limb.

There was no time for a greeting, much less for explanations. Nellas pressed forward, screeching at the woodland around her to rise up and strike down the violators of the heartglade. To her left and right, the spite-revenants ripped into the Tallyband, their features twisted with hideous fury, the same rage that now gave Nellas strength. For a moment, Skathis’ laughter faltered.

‘Slow yourself, dear Nellas,’ the daemonic herald said, weaving a complex pattern in the air before him. ‘That wound in your side looks like it may be infected.’

Pain, worse than any she had ever felt, speared through the branchwych. Her limbs seized up and her scythe slipped from her fingers. In a daze she fell to her knees, discoloured bloodsap oozing from her wound. Du’gath stood over her, driving back a trio of plaguebearers with a savage swipe of his talons.

‘We won’t reach the Kingstree in time,’ the Outcast called back to her. ‘We’re too few!’

Nellas couldn’t reply. The taint Skathis had planted in her side drove out all else, its agony threatening to eclipse her own spirit-song and cut her off from the strength of the Wyldwood. A single melody remained connected with hers, entwining itself with her thoughts. It refused to let her go. Through the haze, she recognised its voice. It was a bittergrub. It had been born, hatching pure and unblemished from the nearby beech tree. It lived, and with it came hope, sure as the first buds among the snows.

Nellas closed her eyes, seeking to focus through the pain. She could not save Brocélann alone. She could not even save it with the strongbranch fury of the likes of Du’gath and his Outcasts. But Brocélann could save itself. She only had to show it how.

She began to sing. It was not the terrible battle-cant of sharpened bark-claws and crushing roots, nor did it possess the violent beat of the fury that motivated the sylvaneth when they saw their sacred enclaves defiled. It was something deeper, something even more primal, a rhythm only the branchwyches, with their instinctive connection to all the creatures of the Wyldwood, could access. It spoke of shared lives and shared fates, of the bonds forged in the changing of Ghyran’s natural cycles. It was directed not at the noble houses, nor the Forest Folk, or any of her forest spirits. It was sung to the smaller creatures, dedicated to the multitude of tiny, vibrant souls that called Brocélann home. They were all the Everqueen’s children, as worthy as the most gnarled treelord ancient, and the death of the Wyldwood spelt their doom as assuredly as it did that of the sylvaneth.

Nellas heard it first as a hum, a counterpoint to the infernal buzzing of the flies that choked the air around her. She continued to sing, her voice rising and becoming stronger as the hum grew. Pain flared once more as Skathis sought to silence her. She ignored it now. Her spirit was no longer wholly bound to her body, but rose above the fighting to direct the Wyldwood’s salvation. Skathis had stopped laughing altogether.

From the trees the spites came. They were a cloud, a nebulous, darting, roiling swarm that shrieked with a rage as potent as their branchwych’s. They struck the flies first. The Great Corruptor’s emissaries, countless as they seemed, were squashed or snapped up, or had their buzzing wings ripped off. The spites engulfed the whole of the Evergreen in a multihued blizzard, poking out plaguebearers’ eyes and bursting nurglings like little pus sacks.

Nellas unleashed them on Skathis Rot. The herald of Nurgle wailed first with rage and then fear as the cloud descended upon him. The spites picked the bark of the Kingstree clean, plucking off and crushing each and every loathsome maggot that sought to defile the venerable oak. Then they set upon Skathis, ten thousand little limbs raking and pulling at his flesh, gnawing at his eye, slicing and slashing with little claws.

‘You cannot stop me now!’ the daemon wailed, flailing ineffectually with his gaunt limbs. ‘You are too late! A thricepox curse on each and every one of you! Grandfather take your miserable little souls!’

The daemon screamed all the louder as a spite lanced his eye with a long sliver of living wood. He staggered forwards and lost his footing on the edge of the sinkhole, teetering for balance. With a concerted heave, the swarm of spites tipped him. The daemon bellowed as he plummeted over the edge, knocking a clutch of plaguebearers back down into the pit even as they sought to climb up out of it.

As the daemon fell, the Evergreen resounded with the call of hunting horns. Nellas, still engulfed in the breaks and eddies of the spites’ great spirit-song, was only dimly aware of a furious roar. It was one the forest hadn’t heard in a very long time, and it was enough to make the roots beneath her quiver. From the trees around the glade the Forest Folk poured, twisted with their war aspect, and at the fore of their vengeful tide came Gillehad. The stooped treelord ancient roared once more.

The sound was echoed by the battle cries of tree-revenants as they too emerged into the heartglade. Striding in their midst were Bitterbough and Thenuil, talons bared and branches firm. The Tallyband broke before their thunderous blows, diseased forms flickering and turning insubstantial as they were banished back to their master’s blighted realm.

Nellas felt the grasp on her spirit-song waver and break. Her voice faltered. Her mind returned to her body, dragged down by exhaustion and pain. Her wound, she realised, was killing her. Du’gath still stood over her, roots planted and immovable, his bark scored and slashed in dozens of places by daemonic blades. She remained on her knees, bent and broken. She felt her consciousness slipping, the song of the Wyldwood suddenly distant and muffled. She could feel something crawling among her branches and gnawing at her bark. Memories of diseased worms and maggots made her shudder. Her thoughts finally slipped away, and her song faded into nothingness.

It was the singing of her new companion that woke her.

Her bittergrub was coiled on her breast, watching her with beady eyes. She stretched out a limb to let the creature run along her branches, and was surprised to notice the absence of a shock of pain for the first time in what felt like many seasons.

Tentatively, she shifted her body so she could look down at her side.

Her wound was healing. The flow of bloodsap had finally been stemmed, and tender greenwood had now replaced the rotten bark. She realised abruptly that the final sensation she’d felt before her spirit-song had faded was the bittergrub eating away at the diseased bark, freeing her body from the Great Corruptor’s foul grasp. It had saved her life, and with it possibly the future of Brocélann.

‘Your new grub would not leave you,’ Du’gath said, looming over her. ‘It gnawed away the rotting wood and gave your wound a chance to reknit.’

Wordlessly, Nellas thanked the creature, letting it scuttle appreciatively up one limb and nestle among her boughs.

‘I thought about cutting it in half,’ Du’gath said coldly. ‘But I trust the spites more than I trust you, Harvester. May you serve them well.’

‘Branchwych,’ boomed the venerable tones of Gillehad. The treelord ancient was striding across the Evergreen towards Nellas, who rose to meet him with the assistance of her scythe. She looked around as she did so. The heartglade was scattered with the dead wood of fallen sylvaneth, and the swiftly decomposing filth of the Tallyband, but of the sinkhole that had nearly consumed the Kingstree there was no sign. Soulpods had been ripped up or brutally slashed, and lifeseeds lost forever. But the Evergreen stood, and with it the future of the Wyldwood remained secure. For now.

‘You are healing, I see,’ Gillehad noted. ‘Thoaken has been beset with worry. We all have. We sensed your spirit travelling the realmroot to Mer’thorn.’

‘I beg forgiveness from the conclave,’ Nellas said, voice firm. ‘But I would have done it again if need be. It was necessary, for the good of all Brocélann.’

‘And in doing so you undoubtedly saved the entire Wyldwood,’ Gillehad replied. ‘By the time we were aware of what was afoot, it was almost too late.’

‘I would have made little difference if it weren’t for the Outcasts,’ Nellas continued. She turned to gesture towards Du’gath, before realising the spite-revenant and his sinister kin had vanished.

‘They do what they can, as do we all,’ Gillehad said slowly, casting his wizened gaze across the treeline. ‘There can be no bystanders in the war against the blight. Noble houses and Forest Folk, spites and Outcasts, we are all a part of the great Wargrove.’

‘I will tend to the soulpods until I have sisters again,’ Nellas said. ‘Once they have been fully instructed in their duties as branchwyches, I will travel the realmroots to all the remaining Wyldwoods of the Jade Kingdoms. They must be warned not to make the same mistakes we made. They must be told to examine all things, especially where it concerns their heartglades. The rot that festers from within may yet prove more deadly than that which gnaws from without. Thaark’s passing must not have been in vain.’

‘True words, Nellas,’ Gillehad agreed. ‘I wish all the seasons’ blessings upon such a task.’ 

‘Many thanks. Now, with the greatest respect, venerable lord, I must be about my duties.’

‘Yes, of course.’

Nellas bowed again, hefted her scythe, and began the harvest afresh. She sang as she made her way slowly through the Evergreen, a recital of both triumph and sorrow, the intertwining roots that ran through everything. It had always been so, the branchwych mused as she worked. And it would always be so, long after she and all she had ever planted had returned to the ground.

The seasons changed, but Ghyran endured.

THE SPLINTERED

Rob Sanders

The realm was dying.

Diseased. The myriad lands of Ghyran were like the gangrenous limbs of one great body, cut off from the spirit paths, heartglades and roots of Alarielle’s Realm of Life.

The taint of Chaos had spread across the skies, over the mightiest mountains and through forests that had once stretched forever. Nurgle, the Lord of Decay, walked the lands in the guise of plague-touched hordes, daemons and the contagions that swirled about their rank presence. His indomitable armies marched everywhere, and wretched death went with them. Ghyran swelled, pulsed and wept with Nurgle’s magnificence – he was father to all rancid misfortune.

Amongst the sickness and suffering the sylvaneth endured. As spirits of the forests and wild places, they were a hardy people. Their displeasure could be heard in the hiss of the rain. Their fury was the thunder of the storm and the quake of the mountains.

These noble guardians of life had survived the mortal tribes that had tried to claim the untameable tracts for their own, and the hordes of orruks that had swept through the lands with axe and flame. And they survived still. Hidden in plain sight, Forest Folk were the trees and boulders, the vines and tangled roots of ancient woodland. The magics of life and land disguised their knotted forms and numbers. Many marshalled the strength of their glades against the bringers of rot, while others fought a guerrilla war in the shadows. They were the creaking of branches in the night and the rustling of things unseen through the undergrowth. They slit the throats of warriors bloated with plague, and entangled sorcerers in their thorny brush, dragging the polluted servants of Nurgle off to silent deaths.

Through the bubble of corruption and the groans of the dying, something else could be heard. While the taint and suffering was great, a spirit-song – light with hope – rose above the browning canopies. It soared above the clouds of flies and echoed through root-lined caverns. The dull senses of Nurgle’s Tallybands were deaf to the song, but the sap and sinew of the sylvaneth rang with its beauty. It was Alarielle’s song. The Queen of the Radiant Wood was calling to them.

To some, the song carried with it an invigorating sustenance, a fortification against the illness sweeping through their boughs and branches. For others it was a choral announcement, resounding from the heads of flowers, from the swirls and knots in trees and depths of forest grottos. Something to give them hope: a song of solace and unity. As it carried across the never-ending reaches of Ghyran, it grew to a sonorous boom. It was a trumpeting call to war in the Everqueen’s name, one that even Great Shaddock heard, hundreds of years into hibernation and slumber, deep within the Arkenwood.

Shaddock was a towering totem of ironwood and stone, indistinguishable from the trees around him. A Spirit of Durthu, he was a being of age-earned wisdom. His golden sap flowed with nobility while his bole creaked with formidable power. His thick bark, like the surface of a cocoon, had sheltered him from the concerns of the realm, both large and small. He had slept away the Greater Upheavals and the Season of Storms. He had slumbered through the invasion of orruks from the Skullfang tribe. When the Queen of the Radiant Wood sang, however, something stirred deep within Shaddock’s soul. The fires of his ardour were stoked to amber brilliance and lit up the Arkenwood, drawing the Forest Folk and their enemies down upon him.

Great Shaddock, Wardwood of Athelwyrd – wise counsel and glade-guardian of the Everqueen – hear me.

Golden soul-light flickered within Shaddock’s eyes and mouth.

Spirit of Durthu, hear me. There isn’t much time.

Shaddock could see. It was night. The blurriness of centuries in slumber began to fade, and the Arkenwood took shape around the ancient. Instead of the mighty trees of the forest, vaulting for the clear sky, he found bark dripping with a veneer of filth and trunks leaning drunkenly over. Criss-crossing each other through the forest depths, the trees of the Arkenwood were suffering some great affliction. Leaves fell from the canopy in a constant shower, forming a carpet on the surface of foetid waters that had risen about the trunks and throughout the woodland. The once-proud Arkenwood was a veritable mangrove, with root systems rotting beneath the surface of the swamp.

‘To whom do I speak?’ Shaddock said. His voice emanated from the very depths of his being. While his face remained unmoved, words laden with age and wisdom rumbled from the sylvaneth.

‘I am Ardaneth,’ a voice returned, like a melodious breeze through the treetops. ‘Priestess of the Arkenwood and branchwraith to the people that once called this forest home.’

Shaddock saw her. The priestess was a spirit of lithe limbs and smooth wood. Roots snaked down her body from her head, writhing and entwining ceaselessly. Standing up to her knees in the filth that flooded the forest, she sketched a bow with talons of rough bark.

Other senses were returning to the ancient. The stench of the diseased forest was overpowering. He felt the cold floodwater about his trunk and roots. Looking around, Shaddock saw that the surrounding Arkenwood was full of eyes that burned amber with the spirits of Forest Folk. He could make out the crook and twist of dryads, their bodies curved like antlers.

‘You said we had little time, priestess,’ Shaddock rumbled. ‘I had nothing but time – but now my Everqueen calls for me.’

‘Mighty ancient,’ Ardaneth said with urgency, ‘you do not understand.’

‘A bold claim,’ the Spirit of Durthu told her, ‘from one so young, to one who was awake when the realm was new.’

‘You have slept too long, Great Shaddock,’ the priestess said. ‘This realm is not the one you left behind. Chaos infects our lands and our people. The sylvaneth are dying.’

As the wardwood shook off the bleariness of aeons, his leaves and branches rattled. He reached out with his waking senses.

‘This corruption is here?’

‘It is, Great Shaddock,’ the priestess said. ‘We implore you, mighty spirit, to protect us as we have protected you. To defend the Arkenwood that has been your home.’

‘We will fight with you, noble ancient,’ a dryad said, venturing forth to stand next to the priestess. Her horned head was a tangle of ivy. ‘For the Arkenwood and for Radiant Alarielle–’

‘Forgive, Great Shaddock,’ Ardaneth said. ‘Laurelwort leads the Forest Folk but forgets herself.’

Now that Laurelwort had come forwards, her eyes burning with the bravery of her kind, other dryads crept forth. They were less warriors than rangers and glade tenders. Their willowy limbs splashed through the liquid muck.

‘You must help now, ancient one,’ Laurelwort went on.

As the branch nymph spoke, the clash of weapons and armour rose close by. A dryad stumbled from the trees, an axe lodged in her bark. She fell face-first in the foetid shallows as Forest Folk scattered to the safety of the ailing trees. A bloated warrior of Chaos, his plate a rusting remnant and his flesh spoiling, pulled the great blade of his axe from where it was embedded. He pushed away and trudged through the swamp towards the sylvaneth. Other putrid warriors followed him, carrying filth-smeared weapons. Horrific spawn leapt from tottering trunk to trunk, drooling and gibbering.

‘Great Shaddock, help us,’ Ardaneth called out, her snake-like roots squirming with terror, ‘for the love of all that is living and pure!’

The Spirit of Durthu had heard enough, had seen enough. He felt the fear and revulsion of the Forest Folk and the shock of the life taken before him. The dryads had prayed for aid in his sacred grove, before the hardwood effigy he had become in the years long gone. He was the only tree in the Arkenwood not to fall to disease and decay, for the golden purity of Shaddock’s sap still burned within. But now, his amber light had brought enemies down on his tenders. If the Realm of Life was indeed under attack from the forces of Chaos, Alarielle would need every forest spirit to fight and drive back this plague.

Shaddock stirred. He willed his limbs to move. Roots began to tear and pop. Leaves and breaking branches rained down from his canopy. His bole squealed and his crust of petrified bark began to splinter and shred. The crack and boom of the wardwood’s stirring turned into a roar that shook the forest and sent ripples through the fell waters.

While the Spirit of Durthu struggled to be free, Ardaneth, Laurelwort and the dryads fought for their lives. The sylvaneth were usually swift and agile, but in the thick swamp their movements were slow and restricted. Such terrain did not bother Nurgle’s foul servants, however. Blighted warriors trudged through the mire with indomitable certainty, and their rust-eaten blades cleaved through the limbs and slender bodies of the sylvaneth. Spawn set upon the dryads, finding purchase in their offshoots and branching forms, enveloping shrieking heads with dribbling maws.

Laurelwort and the priestess ran to the aid of their people, advancing as one through the swarm of plague-swollen warriors. A monstrously bloated warrior strode through the filth towards them. His helm was twisted with horns that had erupted through his rusted helm. Pus dribbled through the slits of his visor as he gurgled in his own rot. The warrior gestured for the Forest Folk to approach with his rusted battle axe.

Moving with a fluid grace, Ardaneth ducked and weaved out of the clumsy path of his blade. Simply laying her bark-encrusted talons on his wrist and then shoulder, she allowed her powerful magic to flow through his tainted form. Infected limbs turned to stone, creaking and transforming before the warrior’s very eyes.

Two of his grotesque companions waded through the waters towards them. Ardaneth’s powerful magic left a gallery of rough statues in her wake. Laurelwort stretched out her sharpened talons, moving with a dancer’s confidence. Stabbing, slashing and crashing through the statues of Nurgle’s warriors, the branch nymph sent their shattered remains sinking to the bottom of the mire.

‘Fight for the Everqueen!’ Ardaneth called out to her people, but the dryads were dying. With the servants of Nurgle smashing through their lean forms, the dryads were fast becoming kindling that floated on the surface of the swamp. Drawn by the amber blaze of Shaddock’s awakening, diseased warriors closed on the ancient and began sinking their axes into his body and trunk.

With a creak, Shaddock brought a mighty arm around. Shredded bark and moss fell from the limb to reveal smooth ironwood and encrusting stone. A pair of bloated shapes emerged from a buzzing cloud of flies, their axe blades dripping with golden sap. As they hammered them into the ancient’s hallowed form, he snatched up the first Chaos warrior in his great talon and crushed him with the impunity of a natural force. Corroded plate crumpled, and the warrior’s diseased body distended until finally his head popped within his helm. Shaddock smashed the second axe-wielding monster away with such force that he came apart in a spatter of pus-laden gore.

A rabid spawn leapt on the wardwood’s arm but Shaddock flung it away with monstrous force, breaking its miserable body against the trunk of an Arkenwood tree. He felt the bite of new axe blades in his bark and grabbed for the putrid warriors attempting to fell his emerging form. He crushed them against his own bole like ripe fruit. He picked up armoured bulks by the tips of his bark-clad fingers before tossing them into the unyielding trunks of surrounding trees. He flicked heads from shoulders, allowing decapitated bodies to crash into the shallows.

As he fought, Shaddock tried to heave himself out of the ground. He could only do so much, rooted to the spot. Bark sheared and splintered away, and foliage cascaded down to carpet waters that began to bubble about him. The stench intensified as he unearthed the filth in which his resistant roots had been sat.

Suddenly, the waterlogged ground gave way and a sinkhole of foetid water gaped open. Thrashing his mighty limbs and splashing filth about him, the ancient disappeared beneath the surface with the warriors of Chaos attempting to chop him down.

‘No!’ Laurelwort yelled, splashing through the shallows towards the ancient. Ardaneth hauled the branch nymph back. A maggot-infested warrior stomped through the swamp towards them, but Laurelwort took out his leg with a swipe of her talons. As the servant of Nurgle splashed down into the shallows, the dryad ended him with vicious strikes.

Suddenly, Shaddock erupted from the mire. A wave of filth radiated from his emerging form, swamping Rotbringers and carrying Forest Folk out of the reach of axes and cleaving blades. Mud and decaying weed dribbled from his body. Clawing his way out of the sinkhole, Shaddock reared to his full height. Cocooning bark, branches and roots were gone, and the golden light of his spirit blazed from within, lighting up the forest. Filth steamed away from the glowing runes on his trunk.

The wardwood drew an elegant blade from the crooks and hollows of his back. Crafted from razor-sharp stone, it glowed like a blade drawn from a blacksmith’s forge – only it burned not with the heat of the furnace, but the golden energies of Shaddock’s sap.

‘Get down,’ the Spirit of Durthu commanded. Each and every dryad felt the power of his words reverberate through their being. They dropped, kneeling in the disgusting waters. Shaddock swung his glowing blade. Trailing a golden haze, the sword passed over the spirits and cleaved through the bodies of the still-standing servants of Nurgle. Rotten armour offered no protection, and sour flesh parted. Some warriors were sheared in half by the passage of the glorious blade, their rank innards displayed for all to see. Others, ripe with their myriad afflictions, simply came apart in a rain of gore.

Few were fast enough to avoid the devastation. Spawn gibbered and leapt at Shaddock, clawing and biting at his crooked trunk. He tore them from his body, crushing their spindly forms within a fist of ironwood and stone.

As Laurelwort ran to her people, the surviving dryads were helping each other back to their feet. Ardaneth approached their towering saviour. Shaddock looked down at the priestess. Thickets of sprouting shoots grew from his head, while those cascading from the bottom edge of his face gave the impression of a beard.

‘You are truly Queen-sent,’ she told him.

‘The Everqueen has not had need for my kind since the Splintering,’ Shaddock said. ‘But at long last she calls for my return.’

‘Of course, you must go,’ the priestess said. ‘As the Radiant Queen commands. She will have need of you.’

‘But she is not the only one in need,’ the Spirit of Durthu said, burning bright from within. ‘Where are the fell sorcerers and daemons that have damned the mighty Arkenwood?’

‘While the flood rises about us, they take to high ground,’ Laurelwort said, supporting a smashed dryad.

‘They weave their spells above the Ebon Tarn,’ Ardaneth said, ‘a place once sacred to our kind – but not anymore.’

‘Take me to this place.’

Shaddock knelt down once more, offering his branches and trunk to the Forest Folk. Led by Ardaneth and Laurelwort, dryads climbed up the crooks and stumps of his towering form. Rising once more, the Spirit of Durthu strode off through the diseased shallows and the forest of leaning trees.

The closer they got to the Ebon Tarn, the sicker the Arkenwood became. Trees were bare, diseased and abloom with warped fungi. Through the leafless canopy and drooping branches, Shaddock saw a rocky mound that rose above the forest floor. The mighty pines that had crowned the rise had been cut down and used as fuel for fires about which the noisome warriors of Nurgle were gathered. On the crest of the hillock, looking over the Ebon Tarn beyond, stood bloated sorcerers engaged in dread ceremonies.

The wardwood stopped at the foot of the rise, allowing the Forest Folk to disembark on dry land. He rose, looking towards the hillock.

‘You’re going to fight them?’ Ardaneth said, her voice light with hope.

‘They must be purged,’ Shaddock said.

‘Then let us help you,’ Laurelwort insisted.

‘She is right,’ the priestess added, ‘there are many and you are one.’

‘One that will not be stopped,’ Shaddock told them.

‘What will you do?’ Laurelwort said. The wardwood paused. He gestured towards the ailing Arkenwood.

‘I was but one tree unseen among many,’ Shaddock said. ‘Our enemies shall see me now. They shall hear the wrath of the wild places and feel the forest’s vengeance. These Rotbringers are a disease. I shall deliver what all diseases deserve. Eradication.’

Leaving the Forest Folk at the base of the stump-dotted hillock, Shaddock strode up the rise. He smelled the rot of flesh and heard gurgling laughter. The servants of Nurgle seemed to find a madness and hilarity in their suffering. While their bodies broke down about their souls, they belly-laughed and roared through their pain. Fires crackled and rusted plate jangled about the camp. By the time any of them realised that an ancient of the forest towered over them, it was too late. Shaddock had his stone blade in hand.

Like a terrifying entity of the forest, the wardwood suddenly raged with the stoked fires of his soul. His blade hit a group of Rotbringers with such force that they burst and were scattered across the hillside in streams of blood and pus.

Across the rise, it was slowly dawning on Nurgle’s servants that they were under attack. Some had been sleeping, their corrupt bodies putrefying in the warmth of the fires. Others had removed their weapons and plate. Shaddock made them bleed for their lack of discipline. The suffering was brief, however, as with each sweeping strike of his sword, he sent mobs of diseased warriors into oblivion.

Warriors that all suffered from the same horrific affliction woke from their slumber and scrabbled for their weapons. Their pox-ravaged leader shook himself awake, but before he could issue an order from his lipless mouth, Shaddock squelched him into the ground with his roots. Using the flat of his sword, he batted the blighted warriors aside. The last he snatched up and crushed, allowing spoilage to dribble between his wicked talons.

Shaddock could hear the sorcerers atop the rise gabbling orders. As he worked his way towards them, more pox-ridden warriors of Nurgle charged at him from around the sides of the hillock. Taking a ground-shaking run-up, the spirit kicked the blazing embers of one of the campfires flying through the air. Caught in a fiery blizzard, warriors were set alight. While most were consumed by the inferno, some exploded due to the gases that had long been building within their swollen bodies. Those that did make it through were stolid mountains of sickly flesh, ignoring their burning garb, skin and hair. Shaddock wheeled his mighty blade about him like a golden storm, cutting them down and sending leprous limbs and slabs of diseased meat bouncing down the slope.

As he neared the top of the hillock, Shaddock found that it hung over the Ebon Tarn like the crest of a wave. The lake was a festering expanse of filth. Flies swarmed across its surface, which in places had formed a scabby crust. The Plague God’s sorcerers had turned the obsidian waters of the Ebon Tarn into their own steaming cauldron of effluence. Shaddock could see a shadow slowly rising from beneath the bubbling waters. Something huge and daemonic was using the tarn as a gateway to the Realm of Life. The sheer size of the thing was displacing the lake water. It was the water gushing over the banks in bubbling waves of filth that had flooded the surrounding Arkenwood. The Spirit of Durthu might not have been able to save the forest, but he could do something about the sorcerers that had doomed it.

Reaching the summit upon which the sorcerers had conducted their fell rituals, Shaddock found that they were no less corrupted than the warriors who had died for them. The hooded coven closed on an improvised altar in defence of the profane offering still chained to it. Spread across the stump of a once-magnificent ironwood lay a sacrificial victim so diseased and mutilated its race was unrecognisable. The sorcerers clutched staffs and blades in their slime-slick hands that glowed with unhallowed energies.

As one sorcerer made to visit some dread pollution upon Shaddock, the ancient kicked him off the summit and out across the Ebon Tarn. With a vengeful swing of his sword, the Spirit of Durthu felled a whole gaggle of sorcerers. Shaddock stepped forwards, and released the prisoner from its woes. He obliterated the suffering soul with a stamping foot and sent several sorcerers stumbling back. The fell thing leading the ritual launched itself at him, only for the wardwood to snatch him up in his talon.

Turning the blade of his sword about, Shaddock stabbed it deep into the earth of the summit. The ancient heard rock and root give beneath his feet. A crack ripped through the ground before the overhang tore free and plunged down towards the Ebon Tarn, taking a throng of sorcerers with it.

As he clasped the last of their foetid kind, Shaddock felt the sorcerer’s futile resistance. The thing stabbed its sacrificial blade into the thick bark of his arm and pulled back its stained hood to reveal an abhorrent face. Instead of a mouth, the sorcerer had a hooked pit, like that of some parasitic worm. Opening it wide, he vomited forth a stream of corruption at Shaddock’s face. The filth dripped from his frightful visage and steamed away on the amber brilliance that burned within. Shaddock pulverised the sorcerer, feeling blubber burst and bones break within his mighty talon. The sacrificial knife thudded to the ground amongst the mess dribbling down from his fist.

With his sword still burning gold in his hand, he looked down into the festering birthing pool. Without the sorcerers’ spells to sustain its entry into Ghyran, the surfacing daemon sank back beneath the fly-swarming filth. As the daemon’s monstrous form descended, returning to whatever unhallowed place from whence it originated, the waters crusted over, growing thick and still.

Shaddock stood there for a moment. There was no roar of defiance, no celebratory rage. There was only a deep, dark sadness as the ancient looked out across the Arkenwood from the rise. The forest was beyond saving. From the top of the hillock he could see the damage wrought by the Chaos sorcerers and their plague magic. He could see the bare branches of dead trees surrounding a few ancient survivors. Their canopies dribbled with pus, were smothered by moulds, choked with blooms of warped fungus or tangled with the webs of voracious insects.

The Spirit of Durthu soaked up the hopelessness of a diseased land. If the rest of the realm was like this, then the Everqueen would be in dire peril. It was no wonder that the searing call of her spirit-song now passed through the plague-ridden lands of Ghyran. She would need all her noble guardians. Ancients long banished, wardwoods that had once towered at her side, before the Splintering. They would again, Shaddock promised silently. He saw Ardaneth, Laurelwort and the Forest Folk climb the rise. They picked their way through the wounded Rotbringers and groaning sorcerers, finishing with stabbing talons what Shaddock had started on the hillock. The dryads gathered around the wardwood like a circle of forest menhirs.

‘We thank the Radiant Queen for your coming, Great Shaddock,’ the priestess said. ‘You have saved the Arkenwood and its attendant spirits.’

‘You can do more than thank her,’ the Spirit of Durthu said. Ardaneth nodded, looking out across the diseased forest.

‘You are right, of course,’ the priestess said. ‘The Arkenwood is ailing – it will take an eternity of care to undo what has been done. To heal what has been afflicted. To purge, replant and tend.’

‘And what of the next warband or sorcerous coven to lay claim to this land?’ Shaddock asked her. ‘The next daemon to burrow beneath its bark or army to pass beneath its bowers with axe and flame?’

‘We are the spirits of the Arkenwood,’ Ardaneth said. ‘We live, as those that sprang forth before us, to tend the ancient groves of our homeland. We shall defend what remains of this sacred place, as will those that follow. We shall bring it back from the brink, no matter what it takes. I should have expected a denizen of the Arkenwood to understand such a pledge.’

‘I understand it,’ Shaddock said, ‘and honour it. I have great faith in your care and custodianship and am here because of it. But you plant your hopes in rocky ground, priestess. The Arkenwood is lost, the land defiled.’

Ardaneth stared up at the Spirit of Durthu in disbelief before casting her gaze across the diseased forest.

‘I do not believe that,’ the priestess said finally.

‘Only the Everqueen can heal this place,’ Shaddock said, ‘Arkenwood and all. But she needs all of her spirits now. I am her wardwood. She has called to me and I must obey. Come with me and find fresh service in her ranks. Priestess, you are needed.’

Ardaneth looked to the ground. Laurelwort knelt before her.

‘Priestess,’ the branch nymph said. ‘Let the Forest Folk fight for their Everqueen.’

‘And abandon our ancestral home?’ Ardaneth asked. ‘Leave it to sink into the mire, to wither and die?’

‘The Arkenwood is dead already,’ Shaddock told her.

‘My lady–’ Laurelwort began.

‘No,’ Ardaneth said, her words hard like the barbed wood of her bark. ‘I forbid it. The fight is here. Let all dryads stand their ground. Let all the ancient places endure. This invasion, like the fever, shall pass. Even if we can save but one single tree, then our efforts will not be in vain. Let the Queen of the Radiant Wood take glory in that. For from one fruit can great forests grow. The Arkenwood will survive this. I will ensure it.’

Following Laurelwort’s example, the remaining dryads on the rise knelt down before their priestess. Shaddock nodded slowly to himself.

‘Your loyalty and belief do you credit, priestess,’ Shaddock said.

‘As do yours, mighty wardwood,’ Ardaneth told him. ‘May the Everqueen be safe in your hands – as her lands are safe in ours.’

Shaddock sheathed his colossal blade in the tangled roots on his back. Turning with a creak, the wardwood strode down the rise. Wading through the sickening swamp in which the Arkenwood died, he left the Forest Folk there. They knew the spirit-song of Alarielle was calling him on.

Shaddock strode across the festering lands of Ghyran.

Towering above the suffering and blight, the Spirit of Durthu travelled across great expanses, festering forests, dead grasslands, and mountain ranges capped with frozen filth. He crossed foul rivers and strode along the coastlines of deep seas, once full of life. The bright, blossoming green of life unbound was gone. The blue of sea and sky had been drowned in the murk of pollution.

As Shaddock walked on, there seemed no part of the realm he had once known that had not been tainted and transformed. Once, the great lands of Ghyran supported huge, migrating herds and a plethora of mighty predators that stalked them. The air sang with colourful birds and insects. The shallows thrashed with the bounty of fish while the depths boomed with ancient behemoths. Mortal tribes flourished, as did the fleet spirits of the forest, their lords and their ancients, living as one with the land. Even the strange forces of the realm were in tune with Alarielle’s will, creating marvels of nature. Crystal waterfalls, flowing up into the sky. Storms of flowers and seeds. Sky forests floating through the clouds. Cavernous underpeaks reaching down through the earth.

The breathtaking grandeur of Ghyran was now gone, rotted through. The daemons of Nurgle stalked the lands, polluting everything with which they came into contact. The crystal mountains of Quartzendor darkened, shivered and quaked with affliction. The surrounding rivers feeding Lake Serenity had steamed away to nothing in the fevered land, leaving behind crusty beds and channels.

Worst of all for Shaddock was the sight of sylvaneth laid low. The dryads of Winterbirch had been transformed into kindling that hacked, coughed and cackled at his passing. Shaddock found the lowland Wyldwoods of Hanging Forest impassable, the Forest Folk having strangled one another with root and vine. The resulting knot was like a contracted muscle that knew not how to let go. Crossing the wooded peaks of the Realmspine, the Spirit of Durthu struggled across lands laced with Nurgle’s affliction. The caves of the Illythrian Deep had grown sharp, yellowing teeth and babbled madness that infected creatures for leagues around.

In what remained of the Sorreldawn, Shaddock passed amongst the scaly trunks of treelord ancients who wandered blind across the realm, their limbs and branches withered and drooping. He encountered the revenants of the Gloomwood in a terrible state. Blooming with unnatural growths that restricted their movements, the tumorous bark hardened, turning the spirits into warped statues of petrified horror.

Wherever his kin was suffering, he found the servants of the Plague God. With Alarielle’s song lifting him, the wardwood took the wrath of wild places to the abominations in his path.

In the Dell of Gort, warbands of rot-withered knights surrounded Shaddock, chopping the ironwood of his legs with their tarnished blades. The wardwood crushed them into the suppurating ground. About the felled Bronze Willow, Shaddock encountered warriors of insensible fortitude. Emerging from the stumps of toppled bronzewoods, they threw axes blistered with a metallic infection at him. As the blades found their mark, Shaddock stepped between the stumps to skewer the bloated warriors into ground they had defiled with their recent butchery.

In the Darknid Vale, Shaddock found himself set upon by three monstrous maggoths that tried to fasten their lamprey maws onto his ironwood and tear him limb from limb. Hefting a blood-sweating boulder from the valley floor, the Spirit of Durthu crushed the head of one of the beasts. He sank his talons into the belly of another, spilling its foul guts as he tore the wicked claw free. The last maggoth stomped through its companions’ remains, flashing concentric rows of shearing teeth. The ancient drew back his mighty blade and thrust it deep into the thing’s gullet. Holding the creature transfixed, Shaddock waited while it vomited its stinking insides out onto the vale floor before finally falling still.

At the Verdenhold, Shaddock found its walls of thorn and tangled roots writhing in agony. The realmgate it had guarded – the Glimmerfall – had been a rainbow cascade of light and water. Now it was a slurping cataract of blood and pus, swarmed by fat, black flies. Plaguebearers issued forth from the realmgate, wading through the morass of filth before reaching the shore. They found Shaddock there. With savage kicks and sweeps of his long arms, the wardwood cast scores of the daemons back into the swarming gateway. Those that remained began to climb his towering form, trying to use their combined weight to bear him down to the floor. He plucked each one from his branches, dashing them on the ground like rotten fruit.

As the Spirit of Durthu forged on, his progress became a blur. Crossing lands that seemed to rise and fall with laboured breath, Shaddock found himself wandering in a malaise. The thunder of his staggering step took him through a horde of marauding Rotbringers and grotesque sorcerers. His grasping talon missed as often as it found foes, while the bludgeoning stone of his blade carved furrows in the infected earth. Still, Shaddock scattered the spoiling warriors and pulled down an ailing tree on the spell-mouthing sorcerers as he steadied himself.

The ancient felt only worse as he stomped on absently. The ironwood of his arm creaked with inner agonies, and his sap ran hot beneath his bark. The brilliance of his inner fire burned low, while the spilled blood and diseased filth that he wore like a second skin felt like it was finally working its way through his defences.

Over the festering mess that had been the Rivenglades, it began to rain. While the ground crunched like a mouldering carpet of leathery flesh and snapping ribs, tiny, pot-bellied daemons began to fall from the sky. The shrieking green creatures had miniature horns and needle-toothed smiles. Shattering against Shaddock’s meandering form, they coated him with a burning ichor that smouldered on his canopy. Lifting an arm before his face, the Spirit of Durthu staggered on, the squelching bodies making the ground slippery underfoot. Through the gloom of his fevered mind, Shaddock saw the suggestion of shelter ahead. Groaning through the torment that wracked his body, he crawled for the woodland ahead.

Under the cover of bare and twisted branches, the Spirit of Durthu took shelter from the shower of daemons. What little light Shaddock had been aware of was now gone. Even his own light burned sickly and low like a dying camp fire. The Wyldwoods about him were packed tight, huddled together in their joint suffering. The woodland creaked and groaned as it attempted to flee the daemon rain.

Shaddock rose and stumbled from trunk to trunk, making his way through the writhing trees. He had no idea where he was going. The song of Alarielle had long been lost to him – its distant beauty drowned out by suffering. Instead of the Everqueen’s sonorous call to war, the wardwood began to hear other voices in the darkness. There were three of them: voices of abyssal woe that were deep, knowing and inescapably evil.

‘Give yourself to me, doomed spirit.’

‘Soak up your suffering. Be one with it. Become the exquisite torment that already wracks your body and mind.’

‘A dark agony lives in you. Embrace it. Unlock its soul-withering potential.’

‘For every living thing there is a season. Let yours be the warm dread between life and death. Revel in the rot.’

‘Let me save you from your suffering. I can make you strong again. Indomitable, and impervious to the pain that is to come.’

‘Affliction is but the beginning. Beyond such misery and anguish is a world of woe – a world that is yours for the taking. Savour it. Draw upon its strength.’

‘The Great Lord of Decay holds sway in both your spirit and your realm. There is no escape. Contagion claims all in the end…’

Shaddock stopped. He grabbed his head, which creaked with the pressure. The last flashes of golden brilliance flared behind the eyes and mouth. Letting go, the Spirit of Durthu looked down at his talon. In the thick bark, burning with a cruel malevolence, was a dark sigil. It had been carved into the wood by the sorcerer leading the sacrifice above the Ebon Tarn. Before Shaddock had crushed him, the sorcerer had afflicted him with his master’s mark. Three wretched circles, conjoined.

‘Yes…’ the daemon said. ‘Your sap belongs to me, forest spirit. As this realm falls to my feculent lord.’

The Spirit of Durthu brought his talon up close to his face. His vision was darkening. His thoughts ran thin. The mark of the daemon glowed with fell power. About it, the bark was soggy and pus-threaded. The ironwood beneath was weak and swollen. Worms riddled the wood while lice swarmed the surface of the thick bark.

The mighty talon moved with sudden violence. It started shaking uncontrollably. The wardwood grabbed the wrist with his other hand. As he held it there, maggot-thick pus dribbled down his fingers.

Shaddock fell to his knees in the darkness. His aeons of wisdom, his warrior’s spirit were beyond him now.

‘Radiant Queen…’ he managed.

‘Your queen cannot save you from me,’ the daemon told him, his every word intensifying the pain within the limb. Shaddock felt the pollution spreading through him.

‘Alarielle…’

‘You are Feytor’s now,’ the daemon told him. ‘A child of the Thrice-Father’s reborn. You thought you could deny me entry to this place, but I am the touch that taints. The wound that seeps. The blade that contaminates. There are a thousand ways into your doomed realm. A thousand acolytes to ensure my entry.’

Shaddock tried to stand. Beyond the taunts of the daemon echoing through his infected being, he could hear friction – the sound of wood being rubbed together. There was light in the darkness. Heat. A terrible brilliance that grew into a crackling blaze. Shaddock recoiled but the flames were everywhere. The Wyldwoods, unable to face the corruption around them, had set light to themselves. Their bare branches raged with cleansing flame. Through the spit and roar of the fires erupting all about Shaddock, he could hear the agony of the tree spirits.

Shielding himself from the heat and billowing cinders, the Spirit of Durthu staggered through the inferno the forest had become. The Wyldwoods had not intended to trap the ancient – they had simply been overwhelmed with dread. Shaddock crashed through briars and tangled branches. Smoke swirled and flames roared about him. His leaves shrivelled and curled up before blowing away. Fires took about his twigs.

At last, Shaddock burst free of the twisted wood. A suffering silhouette against the furious flames, he stumbled on without care or thought. He listened for the Everqueen’s song but could hear nothing. The sky was a poisoned smear of greens, browns and black. All but blind, he was alone in the darkness. He could hear the festering creak of his infected limb. He felt agonies blossom throughout his form, the heralds of spreading corruption. All the while he heard Feytor the Thrice-Father, the daemon’s merry madness reaching through him.

Shaddock did not know how long he had been staggering across the afflicted lands but suddenly the ground wasn’t there anymore. His foot stepped out into nothingness. The wardwood reached out to save himself. His mighty talon was crippled and useless. Hooking the sharp digits of his other hand into crumbling rock, Shaddock slowed his fall. With the weight of his mighty frame hanging off some kind of cliff or precipice, the wardwood tried to hold on. For what remained of his dwindling spirit. For the dying realm. For Alarielle.

He could not, however. Rock came away in his hand, and Shaddock tumbled. Air rushed through his branches and hollows. The ancient waited for oblivion, welcomed it. The impact that would break his hallowed form and end his suffering. Shaddock was not granted his wish, however.

He hit liquid, something soft, thick and disgusting. His mighty form plunged down into the vile warmth of blood and pus. It was a river of diseased filth, swelled by the ichor of the raining daemons. The torrent bubbled and slurped along, with Shaddock’s frame floating on the surface. He crashed into the shattered forms of felled trees, the river crowded with debris from further upstream. His spirit all but extinguished, the wardwood rode out the thick current as it meandered through the valley.

Shaddock was carried by the filth, bumping into logs that formed a tangled dam. He drifted to the slimy bank, where he became beached on the shore. There he lay, caked in blood and pus, smothered in flies. He felt the slime below him squirm with daemonic worms. They bit at the wardwood tentatively before opening their jaws wide to devour his limbs.

Through Feytor the Thrice-Father’s dark chuckle of satisfaction, Shaddock thought he heard a familiar voice.

‘Skewer these sacks of filth,’ Laurelwort called.

All about him, Shaddock felt the fleet footsteps of dryads. The wardwood heard the thud of sharp thorns and talons puncturing daemon flesh. The beasts thrashed and squirmed as Forest Folk descended upon them, stabbing skulls and slitting throats. At first, Shaddock thought that Laurelwort must have abandoned her priestess, but as he heard Ardaneth’s soft commands he knew that the Forest Folk of the Arkenwood had left their sacred glade.

‘Get him up,’ the priestess said. Shaddock felt dryads swarm about him, their talons locked about his limbs and branches. Heaving him up onto their shoulders, the Forest Folk carried the wardwood away from the bubble and glug of the disgusting river. He felt Ardaneth come in close, her face next to his.

‘We found you, mighty ancient,’ she said. ‘Now know the peace of a realm thought lost. Once, you awoke to deliver us from a plague. Sleep again, Great Shaddock, and let us save you…’

So the wardwood slept. Gone were the fevered thoughts. Gone was the madness of voices in his troubled mind. Gone were dreams of sickliness and smothering. When he awoke, his sight had returned. The land was pure and he saw it crystal clear.

His spirit burned like a furnace within the fortitude of his body. Looking up, he saw skies of blue, framed by branches heavy with fruit and greenery. A mountain peak, dashed with a cap of glittering diamonds, reached into the heavens. Beyond, he could hear the tinkle and splash of a stream.

‘Where am I?’ Shaddock said, half expecting the vision to be a dream.

‘The spirit awakes,’ Laurelwort said. The branch nymph came into view, standing over him. The wardwood got the impression of Forest Folk gathered amongst the trees. Ardaneth came forth.

‘Great Shaddock,’ the priestess said, her words like a rejuvenating tonic. ‘You are in the Draconite Glade.’

‘How…’ the wardwood said, ‘how can this be?’

‘Like Alarielle’s servants,’ Ardaneth said, ‘there are places that have yet to succumb to the grip of Chaos. Sites of significance that resist the corruption as you have, mighty Shaddock. This glade is protected by Draconyth, the spirit of this mountain. Trees grow on his slopes unmolested and the blessed waters of his meltwater streams are pure.’

With a creak, Shaddock sat up. He had been slumbering in a circle of standing stones. Each was a crystalline menhir, draped with moss. The ancient looked around to see Ardaneth, Laurelwort and the gathered Forest Folk. These were not the dryads he had left behind in the Arkenwood. They looked hopeful but hardened. Their boughs were notched and splinted. Their thorns and sharpened talons were stained with blood and ichor. His own form, however, had been washed in the shimmering waters of the nearby stream. The filth was gone from the ironwood and encrusted mineral of his frame. And so too was the diseased remnant of his left arm.

‘To save you,’ Ardaneth said, seeing him look at the stump of his shoulder, ‘I had to sacrifice the limb. I did not undertake such a thing lightly, but the pulp and sinew was cursed, spreading further taint through your mighty form. So I laid my own talon upon it and petrified the wood. To be sure that you were beyond Nurgle’s reach, I shattered the stone limb from your shoulder.’

‘Thank you,’ Shaddock said.

‘I do not expect your gratitude, mighty ancient,’ the priestess said. ‘I have mutilated a wardwood of the Radiant Queen.’

‘The shrub pruned,’ Shaddock said, ‘grows the better for such attention. Forest fires bring forth the sun to benighted groves and nourish the soil. I shall become the stronger for your care and determination. Besides,’ the wardwood said, reaching behind him and slipping his stone blade from where it still rested in its scabbard of roots. The weapon burned bright with the amber brilliance of Shaddock’s rejuvenated spirit. ‘I still have one good hand with which to protect my queen and fight, side by side with the sylvaneth of the Arkenwood.’

‘And we are glad for it,’ Laurelwort said.

‘While glad of your presence here,’ Shaddock said, ‘I am painfully aware that you are folk without a forest. What of the Arkenwood?’

‘You were right,’ Ardaneth said. ‘Like your limb, the Arkenwood could not be saved. Like you, its spirits survive and fight on. I said we would defend what remains of that sacred place. Mighty wardwood – you are all that remains.’

Shaddock nodded solemnly. His frightful visage was once again lit with golden brilliance. He had lived through the ages and yet rarely encountered spirits such as these.

‘How did you find me?’

‘Alarielle’s song grew louder and clearer with our every step,’ the priestess said. She hesitated slightly before going on. ‘The path of destruction that you left in your wake might have helped also.’

The wardwood stomped down the slope, pushing through the branches of the trees. From the greenery of the mountainside, the wardwood could see that the surrounding lands were blighted and foul. The canopies of nearby forests were a patchwork of yellowing leaves and bare branches, while the untamed reaches beyond were blanketed in sour marshland and the black smoke of torched sylvaneth.

‘Tell me, Great Shaddock,’ Ardaneth said, standing beside him. ‘Are the sylvaneth doomed?’

‘Do you hear that?’ the wardwood said, cocking his head.

‘Yes,’ the priestess said, startled.

‘That is the spirit-song of the Everqueen,’ Shaddock said, himself gladdened to hear it once again. ‘As strong as I’ve ever heard it. Alarielle is close, and she calls to us – to all the spirits of her realm. It is time to take back the wild places from those that would defile them, and drive the plague from this sacred land.’

‘From which direction does the Radiant Queen call?’ Ardaneth asked.

Shaddock pointed his blade towards the stained horizon, towards a distant place where land and sky met in a blackened blot of disease and creeping death. A decimated forest – more blasted battlefield than ancient grove – that seemed to draw in the festering legions of Nurgle from leagues around.

‘Our queen needs us,’ the Spirit of Durthu said.

Leaving the sanctity of Draconite Glade and the shadow of Mount Draconyth, Shaddock led the Forest Folk through the dismal land. The sickness of the sylvaneth was everywhere, reminding the spirits of what was a stake. They passed toppled treelords, blooming with spore-spitting fungus. Altered Wyldwoods, dragging their corrupt trunks along with grasping roots, hindered their advance. Shattered dryads, brittle to the touch, lay about in mottles of mildew. Everywhere there was evidence of the Plague God. Meadows had been marred by the rotting remains of camps, forests reduced to mulch by sorcerous contagion and grasslands turned to tracks of mud and pus.

As they approached the blighted woodland formerly known as the Forest of Aspengard, the sky grew dark. The heavens were stained black with filth and the air was thick with flies. The forest itself had been reduced to islands of standing Wyldwoods, isolated by a bitter and war-torn wasteland. The ground of the blasted expanse was littered with stumps, slithering roots and mouldering logs.

Plague-infested daemons and columns of putrid warriors weaved across the battlefield to reinforce the hordes of Nurgle battling the sylvaneth warhosts of Aspengard. Shaddock and the Forest Folk of the Arkenwood used the ailing Wyldwoods to cover their approach. With virulent pus showering from the canopy and infected trees reaching out for them with root and branch, Shaddock and the dryads had to take as much care with the forest as they did with the servants of Nurgle.

Those plague lords and rancid champions that did spy the approach of the sylvaneth despatched warbands to deal with the interlopers. Believing that they were isolated spirits of the Aspengard fleeing the slaughter, they never for a moment considered that they were reinforcements searching for their Radiant Queen. Withdrawing into the wailing thickets, Laurelwort and her dryads prepared an ambush for the Rotbringers. They moved through the roots and branches of the fevered Wyldwoods, hiding, stalking and striking at their infested foes. They gutted bloated warriors who were ready to burst. They sliced the throats and stabbed at the rusted helms of passing outriders from concealed nooks and hollows. They garrotted Rotbringers with noose-like vines that they heaved up through the canopy, leaving the hanging warriors there to choke.

While the Forest Folk stabbed and sliced their way through the servants of Nurgle, Shaddock drew them into a clearing. As corpulent knights charged from the trees, Shaddock whirled his blade around in an amber flash. The wardwood cleaved through corroding plate and diseased flesh. He swept ripe warriors aside with the flat of his blade. He kicked a leprous champion apart and chopped clean through the trunks of warped Wyldwoods, burying Rotbringers under toppling trees.

As they moved from copse to copse, Shaddock and the dryads found the wastelands between crowded with marauding warbands. With the searing song of Alarielle getting louder, the wardwood marched on towards his Everqueen. Towering above the hordes, he impaled daemons on the length of his sword and stamped down on plague knights in green plate. With the creaking sinew of his sword arm guided by his age-old form, the wardwood smashed a path through the scourges of Aspengard. Picking their way through the corpses Shaddock left behind, the dryads of Arkenwood swept in on half-dead foes. Stabbing warriors and skewering the hearts of felled champions, the dryads followed the Spirit of Durthu through the death and disease.

Before long, the sylvaneth reached the centre of the battlefield. The bloated servants of Nurgle were crushed up against each other, the plate of unclean knights crumpling against the brawn of cyclopean daemons, as scythe-wielding champions chanted foul prayers astride monstrous maggoths.

Like a constricting wall of muscle, the hordes of Nurgle surrounded what was left of the Aspengard glades. Known as the Silver Dell, argent oaks and mirrorwoods formed the centre of the besieged forest and stood uncontaminated amongst the mud, blight and destruction. The dell was teeming with the silver-barked spirits of Aspengard – Forest Folk who had fallen back to protect it and the treelords who ruled from there.

While the dryads entangled the servants of Nurgle in a thicket of thorns, the roots of treelords burst free of the earth behind their enemies. They bludgeoned grasping sorcerers and champions into the ground before dragging their smashed bodies beneath the surface of the soil. Silvered Wyldwoods swung their heavy branches, sweeping hordes of sickly warriors aside with bone-breaking force.

As Shaddock strode through the packed ranks of Chaos warriors, axes and spears embedded themselves in his bole and branches. Forging a path through the crush of corrupted bodies with sweeping sword and stamping feet, the wardwood pushed on. The air rang with the sound of wood snapped, split and cleaved in two by rusted blades. Nurgle’s servants fought with an indomitable fervour, rank after rank of diseased warriors gladly walking into blood-slick talons and the pulverising sweep of branches.

The wardwood tried to block out the sickening cheers. He concentrated on the song of the Everqueen, fighting his way through the hordes to reach Alarielle.

‘Stay close to Great Shaddock,’ Ardaneth called to her dryads as they were swamped by a wave of sour bodies. Horned daemons and Rotbringers were attempting either to smash the sylvaneth to kindling or visit their myriad contagions on the Forest Folk. As the dryads of the Arkenwood began to shriek and fall, Shaddock’s mighty blade passed like an amber blaze through the packed ranks. It sheared off elephantine limbs, cut swollen warriors in half and clipped fat heads and helms from shoulders.

Ardaneth and Laurelwort whirled about one another in a deadly dance. A mighty daemon warrior swung a rust-eaten sword at the branch nymph, forcing her to duck. Sprigs and leaves were chopped from her head as the cursed weapon sheared through the tips of her foliage. Laurelwort charged at the monster, slamming her body into its own. Its cyclopean eye rolled in its socket as the branch nymph knocked it back. Ripping furiously into its swollen belly with her talons, Laurelwort tore the rancid guts out of the thing.

The daemon would not be stopped, however. Grabbing her with unnatural strength, the plague-ridden monster tossed her at Ardaneth. Both of them fell back into the stinking ranks of Nurgle’s servants. As the daemon stomped towards Ardaneth with its blade held high, she reached out at the Nurglites surrounding her. As the petrifying power of her talons touched their slimy flesh, their bodies were immortalised in standing stone. Immortality, however, lasted only the few seconds it took for the daemon to smash through the wall of statues.

‘Help me,’ Ardaneth called to the branch nymph as the daemon crawled over the rubble to get to her. Laurelwort came up behind it and entangled its limbs in vines that sprouted from her branches. Seeing her chance, Ardaneth lunged forwards and placed her talon squarely on the daemon’s horned face. As the creature turned to stone, Laurelwort let it fall, its head snapping off at the neck where it struck the rubble.

‘Where is she?’ Ardaneth called up to the wardwood. ‘Where is our Radiant Queen?’

‘I don’t know,’ Shaddock told her. Alarielle’s song was all around. He looked about the blasted battlefield and argent oaks of the Silver Dell but the Everqueen was nowhere to be seen. ‘She should be here.’

Something suddenly gave. The hordes of Nurgle were never-ending, but up to that point the sylvaneth of Aspengard had proven immovable. Neither army had given way. Sorcerous catapults, however, had finally reached range through the crush of foetid warriors. Mouldering barrels leaking a horrific green concoction were flung through the air, high over the heads of Shaddock and the diseased hordes. Smashing into the canopy of the Silver Dell, the shattered barrels hung in the shimmering branches, cascading fell liquid down on the treelords and forest spirits holding the dread masses at bay. Some kind of acid ate its way through the trees and the sylvaneth below, stripping leaves and burning through bark. As a dirty silver cloud rose over the dell and a further barrage of barrels were fired up into the sky, Shaddock could hear the sounds of horrific suffering amongst the argent oaks.

‘Radiant Queen,’ the wardwood roared. ‘Where are you?’

Looking over at the siege engines, Shaddock saw that they were not the only reinforcements to arrive on the battlefield. Walking mountains of festering corpulence were making their way towards the Silver Dell, wading through the Plague God’s jubilant hordes. With the bombardment intensifying and the sylvaneth faltering, these daemons were advancing like shock troops to break the siege and lead the horde into the ancient glade.

A monstrous daemon had assumed command near the catapults and brought the siege engines forth. The abomination was not one but three bloated creatures conjoined – an echo of the symbol carved into Shaddock’s bark. The Spirit of Durthu realised that he was looking at Feytor, the Thrice-Father, the daemon he had prevented from manifesting at the Ebon Tarn. The monster that had taken his arm and sullied his essence. A sound like thunder boomed from the wardwood as the golden fire of his wrath burned bright.

‘Kill the crews,’ Shaddock said, stabbing his colossal blade into the ground and offering his hand to the dryads of the Arkenwood. ‘Sabotage the engines.’

Laurelwort and a barbed cluster of surviving Forest Folk crawled up the crooks and branches of the wardwood’s arm. Ardaneth joined them.

‘What are you doing?’ the priestess asked.

‘I’m curing this blessed land of its affliction,’ Shaddock told her.

With a heave, he became a catapult of his own, sending the spirits sailing across the battlefield. As their light frames landed amongst the sorcerers and siege engines, he saw dryads throw themselves valiantly at the withered crews. Laurelwort kicked over barrels of acid and stabbed a sorcerer in the chest, while Ardaneth petrified the workings of the engines so that they tore themselves apart upon firing.

Shaddock crushed warriors underfoot as he closed on the Thrice-Father. Spotting the towering ancient, the greater daemon heaved his bulk around.

‘Welcome, spirit,’ Feytor said, lifting a colossal cleaver. ‘Your sap belongs to me.’

‘Then take it, daemon,’ Shaddock roared.

‘I shall,’ the Thrice-Father said. ‘One drop at a time, if I have to.’

The daemon moved with a swiftness that belied its rancid bulk. Knots of Rotbringers were crushed beneath the Thrice-Father as he leaned in to strike with his cleaver. Parrying with an arcing swing of his own, Shaddock felt the weight and power of his foe. As he staggered back, one of the creature’s bodies twisted towards him to reveal a monstrous axe. The weapon’s rusted blade clipped some of the wardwood’s branches as he swept his head below the strike. Then the third and final body came around, knocking Shaddock into the ranks of plague-ridden warriors with its swollen belly. The Spirit of Durthu turned aside as one of the greater daemon’s heads vomited a stream of sizzling bile.

Shaking the filth from his canopy, Shaddock found himself near the catapults. He began to fear that despite several ages of service to the Everqueen, he had failed her. She had called to him and he had been unable to reach her – and now he was going to fall to some monstrous servant of her sworn enemy. A foul creature that was not one great daemon but three.

As the Thrice-Father dragged its obscene carcass towards him, booming with abyssal laughter, Shaddock readied himself for the end.

‘Wardwood,’ Ardaneth called up from a demolished engine. ‘Look.’

The priestess was pointing up into the sky. Turning, Shaddock saw massive islands of stone drift down through the miasma of pestilence that stained the heavens. Atop the floating islands stood mighty ironwoods, their roots dangling down from their rocky undersides. He had seen the islands before. They were the Skyforests of Jynnt, towering sentient woodlands that traversed the heavens, hanging in the clouds and soaking up the sun’s rays. The sylvaneth of Jynnt had descended to offer reinforcement.

Shaddock watched as several islands settled over the Silver Dell, draping their writhing root systems across the glade and allowing the inhabitants of Aspengard to climb to safety. Other islands drifted across the battlefield, their roots squirming. Boulders rained down on the Nurgle forces, crushing corrupt mortal and daemon alike. The Spirit of Durthu spotted ranks of Kurnoth Hunters at the forest’s edge, their bows drawn over the island precipice and aimed at the enemy below. Releasing their weapons in unison, the Free Spirits loosed volleys of huge arrows into the servants of the Plague God.

‘Go!’ Shaddock told Ardaneth as an island floated towards them.

‘Not without you, mighty ancient,’ the priestess called back. The wardwood put himself between Ardaneth and the Thrice-Father.

‘Get the Forest Folk to safety,’ the Spirit of Durthu commanded. As Ardaneth, Laurelwort and the dryads of the Arkenwood made for the roots reaching down towards them, the daemon Feytor heaved his great bulk around and levelled the broad blade of his cleaver at the wardwood.

‘I’m going to smash you to splinters, spirit,’ the Thrice-Father told him. ‘I will bury each one of them in my infected flesh.’

‘I am beyond your reach now, monster,’ Shaddock told him. His sword pulsed with energy, just before he leaned into a mighty throw. As he released the weapon, it flew hilt over heavy blade until it finally thudded into the nearest of the Thrice-Father’s vast bellies. It was held there, glowing through his stretched, leathery skin and spoiling guts. Feytor’s booming laughter rolled across the battlefield. Such an attack might have felled other monstrous beings, but Nurgle blessed his servants with unnatural resilience. The sword simply sat there, in its scabbard of diseased flesh.

‘We are the cure,’ Shaddock told Feytor the Thrice-Father as the sylvaneth pushed back against the forces of Nurgle.

The amber glow of the wardwood’s blade faded, the weapon reverting to cold, inert stone. Feytor’s faces dropped in unison, each suddenly aware of something terrible happening deep amidst the daemon’s corpulent form. The tips of branches prodded, stretched and then burst through the monster’s skin. The blade had transferred some of Shaddock’s energy into the daemon, fuelling the growth of a tree inside the Thrice-Father’s grotesque bodies. Swollen bellies burst open as the life within could not be contained, flooding the surrounding battlefield with spoilage. As branches reached up through the rotting guts of the daemon, they skewered his hearts.

The Thrice-Father tried to say something, but his words were smothered by the thick foliage bursting free of his mouths. Branches pierced his eyes and ripped the flesh from his faces, their growth finally slowing and coming to a halt. Shaddock watched the daemon’s bellies rise and fall for the last time around the tree that had grown up within him.

As a floating island cast the wardwood in shadow, a giant, trailing root grasped him. Lifted clear of the battlefield, Shaddock snatched his sword from the carcass of the defeated daemon. Sheathing the weapon, the Spirit of Durthu allowed the root to draw him up towards the Skyforests of Jynnt.

With the sylvaneth of Aspengard rescued, the islands rose up through the filth and back into the glory of the sun’s rays, leaving the hordes of Nurgle behind. Kurnoth Hunters extended their talons down to haul Shaddock and the dryads of Arkenwood up over the precipice, welcoming them to their glade. The Skyforest bustled with the spirits of Jynnt, Aspengard, the Arkenwood and other spoiled lands. The ancient felt Ardaneth and Laurelwort beside him.

‘I am Shaddock,’ he said. ‘Wardwood of Athelwyrd, former counsellor and glade-guardian to the Radiant Queen. I humbly present myself, with the refugees of the Arkenwood, as a true servant of the Everqueen and request a meeting with the presiding ancient of the Skyforest.’

‘Your request is denied,’ a voice replied from the ironwoods. It was the imperious rumble of thunder. It was the playful splash of the stream. It was the calm breeze through the leaves and the fury of a forest fire – all as one. Dryads, Hunters and ironwoods parted to admit Alarielle, Everqueen of the sylvaneth and all Ghyran, riding high on a gargantuan wardroth beetle.

Shaddock went down on one knee, bowing his head. He came to understand how Alarielle’s song had led him to the battlefield but not to the Everqueen herself. She had been drifting high above on the islands of the Skyforest. Like the wardwood, the spirits of Aspengard and the Arkenwood knelt also.

‘There is no presiding ancient here,’ Alarielle told the Spirit of Durthu. ‘Only a queen – with a request of her own. That an old friend can forgive her foolishness and take his rightful place by her side once more, as wise counsellor and as glade-guardian. The time of the Splintering is at an end and the war for Ghyran begins. What say you, my wardwood?’

Shaddock sagged. Then, the weight of his trials and travels was lifted from his shoulders. He rose before Alarielle, to bathe in her glory and her love for all living things.

‘My queen calls,’ Shaddock said, ‘and her subject obeys.’

WRATHSPRING

Gav Thorpe

Something noisome carried on the wind. The reek was born of blood and rotten offal and rodent droppings. It was a harbinger, the vanguard of a thoroughly loathsome tide. Not just the air carried the taint. The Wrathwaters knew what was coming. Even the springsfed surge churning down from the peaks of the White Stair could not clear the pollution from the winding waterways and rising pools. The trees drew in their roots, sickened by the presence of the corruption. Fish lay gut-to-sky, rotting amongst withered leaves and decaying rushes.

In the heartwaters below the rivers and lakes, deeper than the delving of millennia-old trees, the miasma of decay spread through the veins of the forests. The font of wyldmagic – the essence of life, the meltwater of souls – thickened into sluggish swells, bloated and bubble-ridden like a stream choked with noxious gasses and rank sludge.

Diraceth, Leafmaster of Clan Arleath, felt all of these changes – upon his bark, in his sap, on the tips of his taproots. The cloying, stifling Chaos taint was like a fungus on his spirit, leeching his essence, spreading fibrous tendrils through the lands of the Wrathwaters into every part of him.

It was hard to rouse himself, even with the strength of the long-awaited blooming forcing rivulets of life energy into his body. All of the worldwood sickened – it was folly to believe that the Wrathwaters could hold out. Better to succumb, to give up the last clinging vestige of life. Oblivion was preferable to further torture, the never-ending gnawing of soul and strength.

‘Lord!’ Callicaith, the branchwych, had climbed into his upper limbs and was dragging her wood talons against his rough bark – insistent but not painful, nor deep enough to draw sap. Her heartsong was an agitated twittering like the alarm of a bird. On her shoulder, a glimmersilk grub twitched with agitation. ‘Lord Diraceth! The ratmen, they come at last. They come for the lamentiri!’

He opened deep green eyes and looked at the slender tree maiden.

‘The soulpod groves?’ His voice was sonorous, as deep as the earth into which his roots ran. He quivered at the thought. Diraceth’s drooping branches scattered leaves onto the surface of the lake. Around him the bloodwillows responded, straightening their trunks, pulling up ruddy-leafed limbs.

Beyond his copse, other spirits were answering the growing strength of the clan-song. His fellow treelords rumbled echoes in their diminishing slumber. Sylvaneth warriors stirred in the dappled gloom at the water’s edge. Polished wood and firestone of bared blades caught the scant sunlight, scattering glints like water droplets.

‘No more pestilence, no more sickness,’ Callicaith continued. ‘Ratmen with blades, with spears. Creatures we can fight. Creatures we can kill!’

The thought brought Diraceth further from his slumber, drawing up an influx of the essence of Ghyran, the magic of the Realm of Life streaming through his sap.

‘A poor move,’ he growled. He let his roots fall away and drew up a foot. ‘Skaven, always impatient. Another hundred seasons and we would be quite beyond resistance.’

‘There are many, lord.’

‘There always are, my glade-daughter.’ Diraceth levered his other foot out of the sodden lakeside bank and took a step, his sap continuing to rise. It felt good to move again. ‘Rouse the clan. We go to war!’

The wailing of trees competed with the deafening chitter of rats. Arboreal screeches and thrashing leaves beset the river glades of the Wrathwaters as the skaven advanced within a bank of burning mist. Tainted by warpstone, the deathfog of Pestilens scorched leaves and blistered bark. Droplets of warp-touched acid settled on the pools and meres, sinking slowly into the waters with greenish trails.

Diraceth waited, ignoring the pulses of pain that ran through him from the wickedly deep cut across his trunk – a wound that still seeped with the corrupted taint from the blade of the plague priest that had struck him. He wept streams of thick sap, the agony of his body nothing compared to the injuries inflicted upon his domains. The treelord ancient could feel a shudder of misery throbbing through the pools and rivers every time the filth-ridden missiles of the catapults crashed through the canopy. A dozen of the accursed engines had pounded the last scraps of territory for two days, littering the banks and water with heaps of steaming, disease-ridden offal and corrupting shards of warpstone.

Most of the trees were dead, and the rest had retreated with the sylvaneth. Beyond the painfully slender ring of forest sheltering Clan Arleath, the Wrathwaters had been turned into a steaming mire, a wasteland of sucking marsh and drifting, suffocating clouds.

They waited, the last Wrathwater scions of Glade Winterleaf. They waited without hope. At their backs lay the lifepool, the last vestige of their home. Heartseeds covered the surface, but the replenishing waters did not rouse the spirits within. The taint of the skaven came before them, quelling the life force that sustained the lake of the sacred grove. Even more faintly luminescent heartseeds gleamed beyond the perimeter of the clan’s remaining realm – lost in the fog, overrun by the skaven, beyond reclaiming by the branchwyches.

As the last of the warp-wounded trees succumbed to the deadly miasma, the Wrathwaters fell silent. The impenetrable mists surrounded the dell, obscuring everything beyond a bowshot of the water’s edge, revealing only dim silhouettes of trees bowing beneath the effect of the toxic cloud, curling like parched leaves. Diraceth shifted, sensing that something approached through the mist.

Drums. Slow-beating drums. The death fog muted the sound, every percussive rumble seeming to come from all directions. The distant crack of catapults had stopped too. Diraceth could hear the rustling of his glade-daughters and the creak of the other treefolk as they shifted, turning to and fro to watch the closing mists.

‘We die here,’ the Leafmaster told his glade-kin. He looked down at Callicaith. Like all of them, the branchwych bore the injuries of furious battle against the Chaos ratmen. Her leaf-limbs were snapped, her arms scored by deep marks from notched, rusted blades. ‘On the shore of our life-grove, we fight to the last. No more retreats. Without our soulpods, there can be no Clan Arleath.’

The sap in his veins felt clammy and cold. The last of the Wrathwaters were succumbing to the encroachment of Pestilens. Diraceth could feel it like claws dragging at his spirit, trying to pull him down into the ground to suffocate him.

‘There!’ hissed Callicaith, pointing a talon towards the fog.

Others were calling out, indicating a growing darkness in the mists, the approach of the plague monks. Along with the sombre beat of the drums drifted the sound of feet splashing through the swamp.

Screeches split the air a few moments before individual shapes solidified and burst from the fog bank. Fanatics bearing fog-spouting censers sprinted towards the line of sylvaneth, faces flecked with saliva, thick tongues lolling, eyes wild. They swung their censer-maces in wide arcs, surrounding themselves with wreathing spirals of poisonous fumes.

Diraceth let his will flow back into the sustaining pool. He pushed his essence out into the remnants of the Wrathwaters, tapping into what little life magic remained. He felt a reciprocal force, as the Wrathwaters themselves sought a response to the invaders.

‘’Tis the last time your feet shall sully these lands, children of the Horned Rat!’ bellowed Diraceth, letting his rage flow free in a torrent of magic.

The ground beneath the onrushing censer bearers erupted with the Leafmaster’s power. Tiny rootlets sprang into full-grown rushes that speared up through the skaven, spitting them as surely as any lance strike. Grasses with blades like swords slashed through others, turning ragged robes and flesh to red tatters, gizzards hanging like blossoms on the tips of their rapidly growing stalks.

The spattering of running feet heralded the final rush of the plague monks. Hooded and robed, the ratmen advanced out of the fog bank, rank after rank of snarling, spitting vermin. With them, they brought a great wheeled altar, on which was hung a giant censer of burning warpstone. The fumes from this infernal engine streamed over the coming horde, roiling and bubbling with a life of their own.

The sylvaneth did not wait for the skaven to charge, but counter-attacked at a signal from their lord. Dryads and tree-revenants fell upon the Chaos vermin with sweeping branches and shredding claws, their war-song like the cawing of crows and shriek of hunting hawks. The plague monks fought with serrated daggers and warpstone-tipped staffs, their own cries every bit as strident as the calls of Clan Arleath.

The greater treefolk, Diraceth’s glade-cousins, were about to move forwards to support their smaller kin but the Leafmaster halted their long strides. Callicaith glanced up at him, feeling it too. The Leafmaster pointed into the fog.

‘Await, kin of the glades! Do you feel its presence? A greater darkness comes upon us this eve.’

As he spoke, the sensation grew stronger. It was like a deeper pit in the darkness that was the Pestilens horde. The magic of Ghyran swirled as it approached, turned away like dead leaves before a gale, scattering and burning at its touch.

In the fog, something as large as Diraceth loomed through the withered remains of the trees. The Leafmaster drew in all the life magic that he could, expelling it as storm of sharp, glittering kernels that parted the encroaching deathfog.

As the miasma billowed back, it revealed the daemonic master of the skaven.

A crown of curling, twisted horns framed its huge, rattish head. Its tail was like a barbed whip longer than it was tall, tipped with rusted blades. Pink-grey flesh was draped in a ragged brown tunic, over which sat overlapping plates of serrated oil-black armour. A helm with long cheek-guards protected its skull. A huge book hung on its waist, chained to a thick belt of hide, and an unnatural breeze fluttered the pages, spilling forth seeping tendrils of sorcerous mist. The dark magic of the grimoire was like a heavy weight in Diraceth’s thoughts, an artefact of corruption and decay wholly anathema to the Leafmaster and the life-giving magic that had given birth to him.

Bellowing wordless hatred for the greater daemon, the Leafmaster’s tree-cousins stomped forth, whipping lacerating limbs against the Verminlord’s armour, thrusting penetrating branches towards its flesh.

The creature reeled back, allowing more of its underlings to stream forwards, hurling themselves at the treelords and tree-revenants. While the arboreal giants crushed these attackers beneath root-splayed feet and pulverised them with hammering fists, the rat-daemon belched forth a noxious cloud of vile fumes. The treefolk retreated from this poisonous mist, their bark withering and drying at its touch, blighted sap erupting from widening skin-cracks and splitting knotholes. At the touch of the sorcerous fumes, their leaves shrivelled to blackened wisps. Low moans of pain made the earth shake.

All around the ancient, the song of his kin was falling in volume, as spirit after spirit fell silent. He tried to rouse them with bass urgings of his own, infusing them with his renewed desire to fight.

Snarling, glittering spites erupted from Diraceth’s canopy as he stormed forwards, surrounding him with a whirling shield of biting, spitting spirits. He hardened his limbs into lance-points and drew his arm back, ready to strike.

The daemon creature turned, as swift as any of its rapacious minions, its tail whipping around Diraceth’s arm. The two titanic beings braced against each other, pulling, each trying to tear the limb from their foe.

Fog swirled and lightning crackled around the daemon’s free hand. It coalesced into a four-tined spear. Stepping closer, allowing Diraceth to drag it forwards, the greater daemon of the Horned Rat plunged the weapon into the trunk of the Leafmaster, the points opening up the wound already marking his bark.

Chaos power flared through the injury, a thousand tiny bites engulfing Diraceth. He lashed out, throwing dagger-needles into the face of his foe. Ripping the spear free with a spray of golden sap, the skaven-beast stepped back, its tail unwrapping from Diraceth’s arm.

The treelord ancient staggered away, life fluid spurting in thick fountains from the gash in his torso. He thrust a hand into the wound, growing branch-fingers to bind it together. The ancient felt the burn of the Chaos magic, tiny flecks of corrupted rust burrowing through his exposed heartwood.

Even as he stumbled and almost fell, Diraceth let forth a retort. Vines burst from the broken ground at the monster’s feet, snaking around its legs, seeking its throat and eyes.

The Verminlord took a step closer, spear raised for the kill. Diraceth looked up into its red eyes, undaunted by its horrific majesty.

The Verminlord hesitated.

As it was about to strike the blow, it shifted, cocking its head to one side. A moment later a breeze rippled through Diraceth’s leaves. Fresh, restorative. The fogs were swirling, becoming ragged tufts on the gusts of a new wind. The darkness beyond was diminishing, overpowered by a burgeoning yellow gleam.

Sunlight.

Warmth touched Diraceth. The heat of the sun. The power of Ghyran.

With it came a new spirit-song. It was like nothing he could remember, swelling up from the heartrock of the ground and cascading down from the sky, melodic and subtle, but dramatic and discordant all at once. Fuelled anew, the wound in his chest sealed by the magical touch, the Leafmaster surged to his feet. His hands crooked into wicked blades as he advanced towards his enemy with renewed purpose.

The daemon thrust its spear into one of its own followers, spitting the mewling plague monk upon the points. Sorcerous lightning crackled again, forming an arc that pulled the skaven apart, its scattered body forming a swirling circle of green fog that flickered with Chaos power. Through the miasma Diraceth felt a yawning chasm, a deep shaft that dropped away between the physical realms.

The daemon stepped into the fresh gnawhole with a last look at the Leafmaster. Though its expression was impossible to read, the spear thrust towards the ancient was a clear threat – this would not be their last encounter.

With a wet sucking noise the portal closed, the remnants of the sacrificed plague monk splashing to the mulch-covered ground.

Diraceth’s attention was drawn back to the strange sunrise. The fogs were almost completely dissipated now, taking on more of the cast of mountain lake mists at dawn.

The plague monks felt it too, and having been abandoned by their immortal master did not take flight but threw themselves upon the sylvaneth with frenetic desperation.

Where the gold light touched, the Wrathwaters responded. The blackened, withered morass burst into renewed life, saplings and bushes springing forth from the groundwaters, blossoming into full growth as Diraceth watched.

The rush of magic flowed around and over and beneath him, through air and water and ground. Heartseeds thought lost in the mire crackled with energy amongst the fronds and strands of fresh growth. He heard the tremulous strains of their nascent soul-songs quivering into life, ready to grow into fresh generations of sylvaneth.

Behind him the waters of the lifepool glimmered with the magic of birth. Sylvaneth souls that had long been repressed by the noxious flow of skaven corruption suddenly burst into full bloom, brought to fruition by the influx of life essence. Out of the heartseeds his clan had salvaged from the incessant skaven encroachment burst forth a fresh surge of dryads, branchwraiths and tree-revenants. These newborns splashed out of the waters, their birth-songs tainted by rage and bloodthirst, and they fell upon the skaven with vengeful cries and haunting moans.

And then it was as though the sun itself entered the sacred grove.

The presence was blinding, both in light and as a spring of the energy of Ghyran. Diraceth could not quite comprehend what was in their midst, all senses both physical and spiritual overwhelmed by the force of the entity that had arrived. The sound of thrumming wings made the air and ground vibrate. Heat prickled on his bark, like fingers caressing the folds and cracks, bringing forth green buds where they passed.

As the wave of life magic seeped into the earth of the grove, its power restoring tree and spirit alike, the Leafmaster looked upon their saviour.

Her wings were feathery streamers of dawn light, luminescent and hot. Her face was serene, her eyes a rich leaf-green. Diraceth met that godly gaze and felt a moment of connection, from root to branch, spreading out across the entire Realm of Life. Here was the font, the spring of creation, the mother of his people.

Alarielle, Everqueen of the sylvaneth.

His gaze moved away, freeing him from the trance. It was now that he saw that his goddess was not as he remembered, in robes of autumnal growth. She wore armour, her body clad in shimmering plates of birch-silver edged with ironbark and studded with firestones. The apparition held a spear as tall as she was, its head shimmering with destructive magic. The Leafmaster watched as she turned her attention to the skaven. Alarielle’s tranquil expression changed, and the light of her presence changed with it. Ire twisted her features. The dawn light aura became a crackling halo of incarnate fury that burned with the fire of an unrelenting noon sun.

‘Kill them all,’ she commanded in the voice of a burgeoning storm.

As her children eradicated the stain of the ratmen from her realm, Alarielle’s anger faded. It did not disappear completely, for how could she not feel rage whilst her children teetered on the edge of extinction? She could not rest while her people in the Realm of Life and far beyond suffered from the malignance of Chaos. But for the moment, in this place and at this time, her vengeance was temporarily sated.

She held up a hand and the heavens opened at her command, bringing rain as sweet as nectar. The Wrathwaters responded to her call, swelling in a spume-topped mass over the shores of the lakes to wash away every vestige of the skaven. Her tree-kin set down their roots as the deluge swirled past them, making sanctuary for the smaller sylvaneth in their branches. A glorious wind swept down from the Laureneth Peaks, driving away the last of the rat-must. The rustle of green leaves and the creak of swaying canopy was a song in her ears after the thunder of the skaven drums.

While the floodwaters drained, a carpet of new grass and flowers in their wake, Alarielle turned her attention to the deeper wounds, the taint laid upon the souls of the Wrathwaters. She settled, furling her nebulous wings, letting her armour fade so that she could feel cool breeze on her flesh. Its touch brought flashes of recollection, scattered images of her previous lives.

She held the pain at bay, a mortal memory not suited to an immortal spirit.

Alarielle purged the taint of Chaos from the Wrathwaters, using her magic as she had used the Wrathwaters, driving out the corruption from the lowest earth. She became part of the Realm of Life, splitting again and again, allowing her essence to be one with the land and water and air.

She tumbled over rocks, her cleansing current bringing freshwater to algae-swathed pools where rat corpses bobbed. Her essence eased through cracks, nourishing the broken-stemmed plants, the pressure of her spirit forcing the magic of life into the deepest roots of the maligned forests. She lapped against the banks and gurgled over the rapids, reed beds and rushes growing fulsome in her light. Lilies rippled on the pools amidst the crackle of life magic shimmering in the waters. She nestled with the crabs in the sands of the Scarlet Sea, into which the vast delta of the Wrathwaters flowed.

All that lived felt her coming, renewed by the Everqueen’s magic.

Even as she danced on waves as sparkles of sunlight, she spiralled along high branches. Blossom erupted in her wake. Snapped limbs healed and trunks marked by welts and rot were made anew.

Winds carried the Everqueen’s spirit far over the swamps that had engulfed the Wrathwaters. From murky pools sprang every variety of marsh flower in a profusion of rainbow colours. Even in the darkest regions she could not be denied. Grubs and beetles, worms burrowing through the dark mud, acted as a conduit for her power.

Bringing together her energies, Alarielle ascended, leaping skywards from one drop of falling rain to another. She reached the clouds and looked down upon the great rivers and winding streams of Clan Arleath’s territory. Renewed, it stretched in vibrant greens down to the white sands of the coast, and was lost in the haze of the mountains.

Higher still she climbed, into the stars bordering the Celestial Realm. She could feel Ghyran, the Realm of Life, pulsing and changing, awakened by her return.

Yet it was only the start, the first breaking of bud through hardened frost. All across her lands, Chaos lay like a choking clot, stifling and repugnant. Even to touch upon it in thought revolted the Everqueen. The pollution made her soul sicken.

They had come so close to ruin. Chaos had almost overrun everything. Though the enclaves of the sylvaneth were like bright sparks, they were almost lost in the darkness – here and in other realms. Even the great glades where Alarielle had arisen as the war maiden seemed like a pinprick against the vast pustulant expanse.

And through the decay, on the far side of the rot and destruction, she could feel the thunderous heartbeat and ponderous breaths of the power that desired dominion over her. Life perverted, built upon death. The tendrils of Nurgle’s Garden stretched far and deep into the Jade Kingdoms, coursing with vile purpose, throbbing with vigorous intent. And the gnawholes of the skaven ran like maggot trails through rotten meat.

So close to utter destruction, so much to reclaim.

It seemed not so long ago, to her immortal reckoning, that she had conquered all, that victory over Chaos had seemed but a breath away.

Yet it had been lost, and the darkness had prevailed again.

Alarielle woke, returning to her physical shell. In her absence, her council had gathered – mighty treelords and ancients from across the Royal Glades and woodland clans. The Old King of Winterleaf conversed with Leafmaster Diraceth, newly reacquainted with his clan-cousins. Their senior, the High King of Oakenbrow, noticed first the return of the queen. Rippling his leaves, he pushed silence out into the song of his clan, quietening both it and their boisterous mood.

‘The Wrathwaters run fresh once more, Jade Mother,’ the High King intoned solemnly. ‘Clan Arleath returns its strength to Winterleaf, and your reach extends once more. Whither now shall the attention of your host fall?’

She ignored the question for the moment and beckoned to the Winterleaf conclave.

‘Attend me for a moment, lords and ladies of Winterleaf.’

The tree-beings approached, their silver bark and leaves pale in the sunlight. A procession of branchwraiths followed, wearing long coats of golden leaves, each accompanied by a tree-revenant – spirits of the forest clad in the guise of wood-dwellers from an older age. In stately accord they arrayed themselves behind the treelords, bowing before their queen.

Diraceth was ushered forwards by the High King. The ancient approached with eyes cast down, his long strides slow and purposeful. Callicaith and a few branchwyches nestled in his limbs. They averted their gaze from the Everqueen.

‘Look upon me,’ Alarielle instructed. ‘See your queen as she is now.’

Diraceth looked up, almost flinching. He met her gaze for a moment and then looked away, branches trembling with shame.

‘I am thankful, bounteous goddess, but unworthy. I have failed you and the Winterleaf clan. But for your miraculous presence the Wrathwaters would be lost forever. Our guard was not strong enough.’

‘You are not alone in such tribulation, and I do not absolve you of blame. But know this, Leafmaster. Clan Arleath held when others did not. The Wrathwaters, though tainted, remained a part of my domain.’ She held out a hand and stroked his bark, comforting the troubled spirit. ‘You resisted a long time. Long enough.’

‘Thank you, queen of the forests. Clan Arleath shall repay the debt in whatever fashion is required. We owe our existence to you, mother of hope.’

‘Mother of hope no more,’ Alarielle replied, her expression turning grim. ‘The avenger, the scourge, the cleansing sun I have become. None failed the Jade Kingdoms more than I, and none has more for which to atone.’

‘No, my queen, that is not so…’

‘It was not the lords of the clans that turned back at the very brink of victory. It was not my ancient warriors that lacked the heart to finish what had been begun.’

Diraceth said nothing, not understanding what she meant. Even he, an age old as he was, could not remember the first wars against Chaos, when the Realm of Life had been wrested from their grip and the sylvaneth first born.

Alarielle remembered well enough, and too well the part she failed to play. How could she judge any of her children harshly, who had done more than she to resist the encroachment of Nurgle’s touch, who had battled daily against the incursions of the skaven? While she had slumbered, afraid and spent, her people had died without hope.

‘I have returned, but I cannot bring hope,’ she told the treelord ancient. ‘We stand upon the brink of oblivion and have only taken a single step from the edge. My return will herald not hope, but war, and suffering on a scale none but the immortals have known. I am strife-bringer, woe-seeder. Look not to me for hope, Diraceth, for I have none.’

‘Then why…?’

‘Because we must fight or surrender. Victory is so far away that even I cannot see it, but it is not victory for which we strive at the moment. This is a war to survive, to push back from the precipice, to claw our lands free of the grip of darkness and corruption.’ Alarielle stepped back, her canopy-wings turning to golden streamers behind her. ‘I guarantee nothing, Leafmaster, but bloodshed, misery and death. I am clothed in the light of the sun, but I cast the shadow of the grave. Without hope, without even hope of hope, will you fight beside me?’

The Leafmaster lowered himself to one knee, a lengthy process accompanied by much creaking and swaying of his branches.

‘You fight without hope, majestic sunqueen, but I cannot deny mine at your return. In the mire of despair I almost succumbed. With the great lords and ladies of the Royal Glades to stand witness, I swear I will not show such weakness again.’

Alarielle gestured for him to rise. He retreated to the company of his clan-kin as the Everqueen addressed her entire council. Her voice carried without effort, as thunderous as a waterfall and yet like the sigh of a playful breeze.

‘There was greater purpose in coming to the Wrathwaters than freeing Diraceth and his kin. The path to the Vale of Winternight has been opened.’

A fractious rustling disturbed the council. The Willowqueen of Harvestboon voiced the discontent.

‘We are not yet strong enough to reclaim the Vale of Winternight, dawnqueen. And little will its liberation add to our cause.’

‘What of the besieged clans of the Verdant Cliffs?’ suggested the Archduke of Ironbark.

‘Or the Mooncrags?’ added the Oakenbrow High King. ‘My bud-brother holds still against Foulslug and his corrupted host. A brave ally.’

‘We owe it to those that stayed loyal, my queen,’ said the Willowqueen. ‘More allies will bring greater strength.’

‘The bargain has already been struck!’ The voice was a whip crack like snapping limbs, silencing the others. The members of the Royal Moot turned like a forest bending in a new wind, directing their glares to the speaker – the Keeper of Dreadwood. Bark blackened along one side by recent battle, the scarred ancient stepped forwards. Fanged and clawed spite-revenants swung through his limbs, whispering angrily to their master.

‘The Dreadwood fight no less than any other Royal Glade,’ the Keeper snarled. He thrust an accusing limb at the councillors, fingers stained dark with the blood of humans and skaven – and the sap of other sylvaneth, if the dark rumours were true. ‘At the Emerald Moors my kin and folk fought beside you, Everqueen, for promise that my forest-kin of the Winternight would be freed from captivity.’

‘A fortress holds them,’ said the Oakenbrow ancient. ‘Many heartseeds will be scattered to take it from the enemy.’

‘No fortress can stand against the will of the forest,’ countered the Keeper. He looked at the Everqueen. ‘And the Royal Moot does not stand against the will of its ruler. What say you, Alarielle the warrior-reborn?’

‘They did not answer our call for aid,’ said Diraceth before Alarielle replied. ‘We offered aid when the Rotbringers came, but they did not want us. When Pestilens beset the Wrathwaters, they turned a deaf ear upon our pleas for help. Ancient Holodrin cares nothing for others. Clan Faech are traitors to their own, corrupted seeds that fell far from their mother-tree!’

‘Recant your accusations!’ roared the Dreadwood Keeper. ‘Vile lies!’

‘The truth burns deeper than flame,’ retorted the Willowqueen, moving to stand between the Dreadwood entourage and the lords of Winterleaf. Her branchwraiths jeered and snarled at their counterparts in the Dreadwood, and tree-revenants looked on with glowering stares.

‘My word is the law,’ declared Alarielle, drawing herself up to her full battle-aspect. The Spear of Kurnoth appeared in her right hand. Her other manifested as the Talon of the Dwindling, flaking dead wood falling from her fingers as glittering dust. ‘I have spoken and so it shall be. Clan Faech live on, trapped within the festering walls, hiding in the deepest shadows. But they are not yet lost. Not to death and not to darkness. I feel them, their pain and suffering. We shall free them. Go now, spread the word, ready your armies.’

The Keeper of Dreadwood withdrew, bowing in deference to the Everqueen. The others followed in turn, their leaves rustling with murmured apologies. Only Diraceth remained, trembling with sorrow and rage.

‘You will find nothing but rot in the heart of the Vale of Winternight, my queen,’ he said quietly. He uprooted and turned away, following the trail of rucked earth left by his clan-kin.

Alarielle diffused her power again and sighed. She no more wanted to travel to the Winternight than any of the others, but the Keeper was right. A bargain had been made, and it needed the alliance of all the Royal Groves, including the Dreadwood. If she was to reclaim the Jade Kingdoms from Chaos, she would have to win back the loyalty of the Outcasts, the dark and broken spirits she had denied.

There had been a time when the Vale of Winternight might justifiably have been called a jewel of the Jade Kingdoms. Though an age had passed during her slumber, Alarielle could still recall the white-and-silver trees, the sparkling mists that rose from the tarns each morning, the threads of streams that glittered on the walls of the deep valley.

Dark rock and bright ice, that was how she remembered this place, how it had come by its name. The twin peaks that stood as sentries to the valley were steep-sided, their white-clad summits lost in the haze of cloud above the vale. The Sisters of Serenity they were called, but there was little peace to be found on their slopes since the coming of Chaos.

A bastion had been raised across the mouth of the Vale of Winternight, running from one Sister to the other in an uneven line. She could feel the wall like scar tissue on her flesh. It was not a thing merely built, but constructed from the spirit-stuff of the lands, warped by corrupted magic into something far more hideous than a simple fortification. It was a mortuary-thing, made of corpses and tree-carcasses, heaped between with black rock and baked earth, a core of dead roots binding its foundation. Thornweave grew along its length, spines as long as swords, seeping toxic sap that would slay even the sylvaneth.

In three places the wall was broken by broad arches, through which flowed the great rivers of the vale. Gone were the bright waters. Now the banks brought forth bile, blood and seeping ichor. Their pollution stained the groves into which they flowed, carrying the taint of Chaos into the Jade Kingdoms and towards the shores shared by the Wrathwaters.

The bastion was broken irregularly by seven towers, each grown from an immense tree with branches of bone and fumaroles where knotholes should be, spewing a dark smog along the entire wall. Cadavers hung from the branches like fruit, and on the dead flesh puckered fungal growths and bright moulds.

The stench of death lay on the vale as surely as the fog-mire of the towers. The corruption was near total. Alarielle could scarce stand to be so close, as though she walked on the borders of Nurgle’s Garden itself. She shuddered at the prospect of wandering into such accursed territory, but it was for this reason that she had come. Here, the grip of decay was so great that the Realm of Chaos and the Realm of Life were almost indistinguishable. From this vile sanctuary, the warriors and daemons of Nurgle could march with impunity to conquer and despoil.

Just as sight could not penetrate the fog shrouding the valley past the wall, so the Chaos magic held at bay the questing tendrils of the realmroots sent forth by Alarielle. Linked to all the parts of the Jade Kingdoms, the realmroots allowed her and her children to pass from one glade to the next without effort. In such fashion had they come upon many foes unaware of their approach, and encircled even enemies that were.

The Everqueen was baulked by the corruption. There would be no infiltration from without, and so heavy lay the hand of Nurgle she could scarce detect the tiniest flutter of spirits within. But they were there, she was certain of it. She heard their lamentations and felt their despair. As much as the other Royal Glades despised the Dreadwood, they were all her children, wayward or not. She bore the suffering of them all with equal sorrow.

The ground trembled and the realmroots quivered as Alarielle sent the summons to her Royal Moot. Life force swelled like a springsfed tide, pulsing along the arteries of the Jade Kingdoms, each flutter the spirit of one of her children. Along the realmroots surged the power of the Wyldwoods, animated by the will of the queen, root and branch responding to her demand as surely as the clansfolk of the glades.

The Wyldwoods ploughed towards the wall of decay, bush and tree and grass flowing like an incoming sea, until it reached the extent of her power just a bowshot from the wall. There the grip of Nurgle was too great for her to push through. Only when the plague bastion had been broken, when her children entered the valley, would she be able to thrust her power deep into the heart of the enemy and tear it out from within.

With the Wyldwoods came the glade hosts. From Oakenbrow and Harvestboon, Ironbark and Winterleaf, Gnarlroot and Heartwood. Dryad tree-maids and ancient treelords, tree-revenants in arboreal likeness of the ancient dwellers of the world-that-was. From each Royal Glade, from their clan groves spread across the reclaimed realms they came.

And like the touch of first frost creeping along a stem, the army of Dreadwood heeded her call. Led by their Keeper they came into the Wyldwoods – tree spirits and forestkin that had dwelt long in the shadow of Chaos. Vicious and bitter spite-revenants accompanied them, and branchwraiths and dryads that had been cast from their clans for their disruptive behaviour and bloodthirsty ways.

In the near-forgotten time of reconquest, when Alarielle had required alliance with Sigmar and his kind, such creatures had been a liability, preying on allies as well as foes. Now the Everqueen needed them back, and was willing to deal with whatever consequences that might bring.

‘Break it,’ she told her children, pointing at the wall. Her voice rippled through the realmroots, touching the spirit of every sylvaneth that had gathered. ‘Tear it asunder and make bloody mulch of its defenders. Open up the vale for me, my children, and become the vengeance we all crave.’

Diraceth advanced with his clan elders, proud to stride amongst the great army of the Winterleaf Glade. His loremasters walked beside him, two ancients called Drudoth and Ceddial, and behind came the lesser nobles and forest folk of Clan Arleath.

Each stride that took him closer to the looming wall made his sap rise in ire. Through his roots he could feel the death and decay woven into the barrier, seeping into the good earth of the Jade Kingdoms. It was a deeper, more malignant curse than the gnaw-wounds of the skaven. He felt his leaves shrivelling at its touch.

The sylvaneth host pushed out from the sanctuary of the Wyldwoods, a gathering of spirits such as Diraceth had never witnessed before. Treelords and ancients by the score led their clans, following the stern warriors of the Royal Glade households. Hundreds of tree-revenants and thousands of dryads flowed from the mystical forest, thorn-fingered and bright-eyed.

And on the periphery, from the darkest patches beneath the boughs, the Outcasts came. Like shadows they lingered near their clans, spite-revenants that lusted after mortal flesh, whose wickedness had earned them exile in ages past. Diraceth noticed that more than half the host of the Dreadwood was made up of these dispossessed spirits and wondered what manner of clan they marched to liberate. Ancient Holodrin and his folk had always kept to their own glades, but it had been a shock when messenger-spites of Diraceth had returned with tidings that Clan Arleath would stand alone against the skaven.

The forest host passed into the thick smog. It smeared along Diraceth’s leaves and bark, slicking his twigs and buds with its oily, noisome touch. The branchwyches and branchwraiths spat and cursed, and flicked droplets of the foul vapour from their talons. By his side, Callicaith adjusted her grip on the long greenwood scythe she carried. Her glimmersilk grub wriggled back and forth across her shoulders, reacting to the tension.

‘I can see nothing,’ she said.

It was true, the smog was as thick as marsh water. It felt as though Diraceth waded through a mire as much as pushed through the dank fog. He could barely see the branchwyches and ancient treelords to either side. The armies of his fellow Winterleaf clans were lost from view.

‘Press on,’ he told them, sensing the unease of his folk. Their spirit-song was quiet and flat. Diraceth set free his own song, a martial beat that resounded through the thoughts of his followers. He quickened the pace of his stride and the tempo of his war-song.

It was then that he felt the glade-voice of the Old King, calling him on, adding its weight to the harmony of Clan Arleath. And the other houses around him, each clan-song different but called from the same source, creating a growing chorus, making his sap rise further. Like an echo rebounding, the booming of the ancients was returned by the heart-songs of the lesser folk, a staccato of expectation and fury over the deliberate percussion of their leaders, the intensity growing as they continued through the smog.

Diraceth was taken aback as they broke through the fog and came upon the wall itself. The mists were still thick, but the great darkness of the edifice rose up before the ancient, more than twice as high as his topmost branches.

The spirit-song reached a crescendo as Diraceth and the treefolk charged the bastion. It sang in his heartwood, filling him with strength and purpose. He raised his own voice, urging his clan to prevail.

Thorny tentacles lashed from the wall, and a storm of projectiles flew down from above. Dryads were snared by the bloodvines and crushed, tree-revenants pierced by the spines. Bloodsap fell in glimmering rain, showers of light in the dark fog.

Bellowing his rage, Diraceth hurled himself at the wall, sinking branch-claws deep into the blackened mud. Forming rootlets from his fingers, he pushed deeper, feeling the bone and sinew of dead animals parting, trickles of ichor dribbling down his arms as though blood from a living thing.

He ignored the slash of the thorn-vines against his bark, leaning close to the filthy wall to penetrate deeper and deeper with his thrusting attack. Callicaith and the other branchwyches led the clan maidens up his back and across his upper limbs, leaping from branch to branch to reach higher up the wall. They ascended through the bodies of the other treelords and ancients, and set about with scythe and claw to hew at the pseudo-tentacles.

Spreading rootlet-fingers wide, Diraceth pulled back, wrenching the guts from the wall. Like intestines splayed from a wounded animal, ropes of rotting flesh and sodden wood erupted from the bastion. Hurling the vegetative offal aside, the Leafmaster attacked again, tearing and ripping, splitting foundation roots and ribcages, engulfed by spores from exploding fungi.

Around him the other Noble Spirits tore at the skin of the bastion, severed roots flopping like eels on the ground, broken pustules spewing ichor over limb and trunk, matting their canopies with greenish-yellow gobbets.

With a sound of snapping bone and branch, a portion of the wall collapsed into a rotten heap. Armoured warriors toppled into the morass, crashing into the piles of steaming mulch. They struggled to their feet, reaching for rusted axes and serrated blades. Their armour was pitted with corrosion, the plates covered with a film of filth that leaked from rents and breaks in the metal. Some were bloated creatures, their guts barely contained by their armour. Others were skeletal-thin, rusted mail hanging loosely over famine-wasted frames.

The dryads shrieked in triumph and leapt upon the Nurgle warriors, their claws seeking visors, piercing chainmail at the joints of their armour, pulling the warriors apart.

Other foes, more lightly armoured, leapt down onto Diraceth. They sawed at his limbs with their blades and jabbed spears into his knotholes and cracks.

‘Begone, minions of the decaying one,’ rumbled the treelord, plucking a tribesman from his branches. He crushed the human in his fist, splitting him like overripened fruit. Lance-claws speared another, piercing him from belly to throat. Diraceth flung the corpse away and turned swiftly, shaking another three of his assailants from his canopy.

Widening the gap in the wall, the ancient stepped into the barrier while more branchwraiths and dryads scaled the breach to spill along the rampart above. Pulling up the last vestiges of the wall, Diraceth broke through into the valley proper.

Elsewhere the bastion was breached too, the sylvaneth flowing into the Vale of Winternight like water through a broken dam.

‘For the Everqueen and the Jade Kingdoms!’ rose the roar of the treelords.

Spite-revenants flowed around Diraceth, snarling, eager to be at the enemy. He recognised spirits he had banished from the clan long ago, but they paid him little heed, their hatred now focussed on a mutual foe. Their enraged howls were quickly joined by the cries of dying Chaos followers.

Seeing that the wall had fallen in many places, her subjects pouring through the breaches, Alarielle sent the summons to her own grove-host. Her song carried the furthest of all, light and lilting, rippling through the Wyldwoods and the rootways to all parts of the reclaimed kingdom.

She held out a hand to one of the nearby Wyldwood trees. Its trunk shuddered and a knothole parted, disgorging a bulbous grub. Though but a larva, it was as long as her forearm. It crawled over the leaf-carpeted ground and burrowed into the magic-rich dirt at her feet. A few moments passed before the ground under her feet started to tremble. Leaf and earth parted as an immense swarm of glinting fireflies erupted around her. Swirling like sparks, they coalesced into a single creature. The massive wardroth beetle bore up the Everqueen, its carapace glistening like oil, antlers gleaming in the light of Alarielle’s aura.

She added a fresh melody to her call, the long note of a horn that echoed through the trees. Haunting, distant replies drifted back to her, rebounding and growing in volume. She felt the flow of magic changing, becoming a stream and then a river, converging on her location from many directions.

From the trees came forth her Kurnoth Hunters, each taller than any warrior of Chaos, with bark stronger than metal armour. Some carried long, straight swords, others bore scythes that could slay the largest mortal monster with a single blow. The rest were armed with greatbows, accompanied by scurrying quiverlings – spites that grew fresh missiles from their backs.

Their leader, Raldorath the Huntmaster, came forwards and bowed low. He looked at the broken bastion, wooden brow furrowing.

‘A harsh task, my queen,’ he said. ‘Though the wall be broken, the Vale of Winternight holds an army of foes.’

‘Yet not enough to hold back my ire,’ said the queen. ‘With me, Hunters of Kurnoth – your prey awaits.’

High upon the hunched back of the wardroth beetle, her wings of light flowing behind her, the Everqueen advanced quickly through the Wyldwoods. The Kurnoth Hunters spread around her, loping strides carrying them as swiftly as their queen. More treelords and ancients answered her call as she moved. Among them marched the mightiest of the old nobles – the Spirits of Durthu.

The fog had all but dissipated, and as Alarielle emerged from the Wyldwoods she saw that two of the seven towers had fallen. Yet from the upper reaches of those remaining, missiles and fire cascaded down upon the spirits surging through the breaches.

‘Break the towers, bring them down!’ she commanded. The Spirits of Durthu responded to her command, breaking away to fall upon the nearest fortification.

She felt the swirl of magic as the revered treelords summoned the energy of the Jade Kingdoms, letting it pass through their bodies. It erupted from outstretched limbs in gusts of emerald energy, scouring the armoured warriors from the higher limbs and platforms of the tower. The treelords smashed against the blackened trunk with their fists and stomped upon the ground to break open its foundations, root-claws driving deep into the earth. Throwing their weight against the tower while others dragged at the upper limbs, three of the huge forest spirits sent the entire tree-edifice crashing down. More armoured warriors plummeted to their doom as it fell, and those that picked their way out of the splintered, black-leafed foliage were swiftly crushed by the raging Spirits of Durthu.

The wall was shattered, more towers falling as the sylvaneth ascended into the heights and tore at their roots. Alarielle could feel the Vale of Winternight responding. She let her essence gush free into the land beyond, bracing herself against the clammy touch of decay that still lingered within.

She searched back and forth, seeking the slightest trace of Clan Faech, steeling herself against the cold darkness as she plunged deeper into the Chaos-tainted magic permeating the vale. Her song became a strident call, ringing clear through the wash of wyldmagic flowing into the valley.

The flutter of an answering spirit-song drew her into the heart of the vale, the loathsome power of Nurgle like a cold corpse hand pawing at her body. Pressing past, she looked for the tiniest glimmer of the song’s source.

She found it ringed with Chaos power, a cornered animal panting and whining with fear. Anger replaced Alarielle’s distaste and she forged on, fuelled by ire. At the approach of the Everqueen’s presence the corruption parted, scattered like leaves in a gale, but swiftly the taint returned, pressing hard against her soulform.

The grim surroundings nearly silenced her voice. The crushing stench of Chaos energy was overpowering, endless waves of decrepitude and corruption crashing over her. Her light was no star, nothing more than a guttering spark in everlasting darkness. Timidity all but stilled the tongue of her spirit-song.

Gathering her nerve, ignoring the fear that she would draw unwanted attention upon herself, Alarielle sang loud and clear, calling to the quivering spirits of Clan Faech. She pushed back the darkness as it encroached on the path she had made behind her. The Everqueen beckoned and cajoled, tried to soothe away the primal dread that trapped the sylvaneth as surely as the warriors of the Plague God.

‘Fight it!’ she insisted, bursting forth with fresh soulsong. Alarielle could almost touch them, could almost make the magic flow into the spirits to rouse them from their terrified stupor. ‘Reach out to me. Break free!’

But they did not. Not only dread quelled them. Bitterness spat back from the renegade forest spirits.

Recoiling, Alarielle could do nothing as the grip of Nurgle tightened again, a black sludge that filled the space around Clan Faech as tar bubbling up from its pit. It hardened, seizing them fast once more. Their song was muted and deathly silence engulfed Alarielle.

The Everqueen realised she was alone in the great sea of darkness. She fought back panic, searching for the rivers of life-essence that had brought her here, desperate as a ship’s crew tossed on a tempestuous sea.

She caught upon a glimmering trail and started to follow it, but in her agitation did not sense the approach of something else. It was too late that she detected another presence in the mystical strata – a triumvirate entity. A three-spawn fly of Nurgle made into bodily form somewhere in the vale. A sting strike, a spine of pure Chaos, pierced her spirit, pumping darkness into her soul. Like a toxin in the blood of a mortal, the Chaos energy flowed through her, trying to drag the Everqueen into the mire of death that surrounded her.

She fled.

Returning to her body, Alarielle gasped, suppressing the scream of horror that wanted to break free – her subjects had to fight on, could not know anything was amiss.

The Chaos taint was still in her. She could see it now, like a blackness in her veins, darkening her skin, dimming the light of her presence. It worked fast, weakening her, trying to consume her with burning pain.

Horror gripped her. All that she had feared, all that had cowed her for those long years of slumber, was coming to pass. The touch of Nurgle was in her. Beneath the surface of her being, raw wyldmagic and Chaos power thrashed against each other, their conflict sending agonising stabs through her.

‘My queen?’ A Spirit of Durthu stood over her, its spirit-song a sombre throb of concern. She realised a single crystal tear marked her cheek, a sign of the struggle within.

She took in a shuddering breath but dared not speak of what had happened. The Everqueen mastered her fear and urged the tree spirit to leave her.

Unprompted, the Spirit of Durthu lay a twig-fingered hand upon Alarielle’s arm. At his touch she felt the foul magic burst forth, engulfing both of them. The spirit’s branches shuddered and its soulsong became a low moan of age-old aching.

She felt the spirit drawing forth the blight. Alarielle tried to fight it, to hold the poison in herself. But the spirit would not be deterred, placing another leaf-limb on her to bring forth more of the taint.

‘It is not… yours to… take…’ she gasped, but the spirit silently looked at her with deep emerald eyes as the corruption flowed into its heartsap.

When it had siphoned away the last of the dark power, the Spirit of Durthu reared up, taking a step back from the Everqueen. Already its leaves were wilting, branches drooping with the weight of the poison in them. Its spirit-song was little more than a few whimpering notes as wood turned to dust and sloughed away, revealing blistered greenwood beneath.

‘My queen, everlasting font of life,’ croaked the spirit, sinking down. Threads of mould spread over its splintering, disintegrating form. ‘Lead our people to fresh life. Fear nothing more. Let the wrath of the sylvaneth carry you to victory.’

The spirit slumped, degenerating into scattering motes and spores that drifted away, leaving nothing but a blackened heartseed. The last vestiges of its song died away with its body.

She had almost failed her people again. Freed of the taint, Alarielle calmed herself, her sorrow short-lived. In the past she had allowed fear to rule her, to break her resolve. Not this time. Not now.

The fire of her wrath flared from her body like a fresh dawn. Where its light touched, Alarielle’s presence filled the sylvaneth with a deep rage. She drove the wardroth beetle forwards with a thought, weapon held high. Her spirit-song called to her glade-warriors to follow.

Incandescent with fury, the Spear of Kurnoth singing its own bloodthirsty hymn in her thoughts, the Everqueen passed into the Vale of Winternight.

If the breaking of the wall was a dam bursting, the coming of Alarielle was an ocean rising to engulf the Vale of Winternight. With her came the Wyldwoods, limbs and leaves angrily swaying, creepers and thorn bushes advancing beneath their shadowed canopies. Ahead of her life magic streamed. The gale of her approach washed away the thick fog, revealing the parched lands of the Vale of Winternight.

All had been drained of vitality, the cracked earth like the dry skin of an ancient mortal. Scrubby bushes with blood-red thorns grew out of split heartseeds, and fungal fronds played in colourful profusion from the corpses of animals. Such trees as had survived were twisted, stunted things with flies as big as birds buzzing in their limbs. More insects fluttered in thick swarms, fighting against the rush of air that heralded the Everqueen’s arrival.

At the heart of the valley, where once had stood the lifetree of Clan Faech, a tower now rose at the centre of a soulpod-studded grove that had become a thick mire of bubbling mud. Threefold were its bastions, winding about each other like vines, becoming one at the pinnacle. It seemed to have grown of tumorous bone, split and blistered, cracked and flaking. No windows broke its surface, but a single fracture formed a jagged door at its root.

The warriors of Nurgle were arrayed about this fortress, grotesque and bloated, cadaverous and vile. In ranks of rusted mail and blood-spattered plate they awaited the attack of the sylvaneth.

They did not have to wait long.

The earth erupted with choking, snaring vines, and the spirits of the worldwood descended upon the Nurgle army. Branch and root vied against hammer and spear, talon versus blade. Whipping leaf-limbs crashed against shields marked with the fly rune of the Plague God. Ensorcelled iron bit deep into spirit-folk flesh. Blood and phlegm, bark and sap flew.

The trembling ground beneath the stride of the wardroth beetle set the beat of the battle-song that rose from Alarielle. From her heart poured out a rhythm of defiance and death. It drove the sylvaneth, enriching their hatred as mulch fertilises soil, filling their limbs with vigour and growth. Where Alarielle fought, the followers of Chaos died.

A dozen armoured warriors set themselves against her advance, their axes flaking rust and dried blood. Alarielle did not hesitate, but met them head-on. Their blades broke on the carapace of her wardroth beetle, and other blows went astray in the blinding light of her presence. The beetle charged without pause, trampling foes and spearing another on its antlers. The Spear of Kurnoth whirled and plunged, lancing through the bodies of the survivors, foetid blood streaming from the mortal wounds left by its touch.

The Wyldwoods enveloped the fighting, dragging tribesmen and beasts into the foliage where birds and spites plucked at eyes and clawing twigs lacerated flesh. The screams of the dying were accompanied by the patter of blood falling like rain form the canopy. Roots quested for the pools of life fluid, drinking deep of the Chaos followers’ suffering.

The Outcasts were a nightmare to behold, led by the ancients of the Dreadwood glade. Though fire and axe were set against them, the bitter forest spirits would not be stayed by the shield walls and warped spawn of the Chaos army. Armoured plate was no obstacle to piercing talons powered by magical sinew. With banshee howls of glee, dryads tore the limbs from their foes, glorying in the sprays of blood. Flesh and bone parted under the razor-strikes of the branchwyches, strips of gory flesh flung into the air. So vengeful was their aspect that even as lumbering beasts crushed them underfoot the Outcasts bit and clawed with their last strength. Spite-revenants leapt into their foes without regard, happy to tear down an armoured warrior even if in turn they were battered and slashed by the corroded weapons of their enemies.

As a root prises apart a rock, the sylvaneth drove through the corrupting host to within striking distance of the tower. Alarielle’s magic washed up to the perimeter of the fortress, unable to penetrate it but still gathering strength. The spirits of Clan Faech murmured beyond her reach, trapped. Alarielle urged them to rise up, to tear down their captors from within. She was greeted with a quiet echo of spite and dread.

The gate of the tower widened with a terrible tearing of wood, and from the dark interior emerged a trio of bloated figures. The three sorcerers let free swarms of biting flies and choking mists, stalling the sylvaneth attack. Whirring, buzzing things beset Alarielle, flying into her eyes, trying to crawl into her mouth. She choked and spat, fighting back the memory of the cloying power of Chaos that had nearly taken her.

Out of the swarm lumbered an immense gargant, its skin falling away in strips to reveal bloody fat and muscle. Its shadow fell over Alarielle, bathing her in a sudden chill.

Her beetle hissed its anger. At her command it dashed forwards, but its antlers simply sloughed away rotten flesh from its enemy’s shins and thighs. The gargant seized up the wardroth, trying to tip the Everqueen from its back. The beetle sank its antlers deep into the sore-ridden flesh of the gargant’s hand and arm, fixing itself there while blood streamed over its head, bathing Alarielle in thick crimson fluid.

Though repelled by its stench, Alarielle took the pouring vital fluid as a libation, as refreshing to her as the cascade of a waterfall. Blood-masked, she reached out with the Talon of the Dwindling and drove a claw into the gargant’s arm. At her bidding, dire power flowed. Not the magic of life, but the turning of seasons, years, centuries.

In a few heartbeats the monstrous creature’s flesh fell in dried scraps and its bones turned to dust, pitching the wardroth and its rider back to the blood-soaked earth. A triumphant melody erupted from Alarielle, sweeping her warriors into the enemy.

A great moan of despair erupted from the Nurgle host at the loss of the gargant. Surrounded and pushed back, they were forced into a semicircle about their sorcerous masters, battered and torn but not yet broken.

Alarielle pulsed a warning note to her servants as she felt a surge of Chaos power flow from the dark tower. It bubbled up into the three sorcerers, filling them with unnatural energy. The trio of warlocks swelled, metaphysically and literally, their robed bodies distending, skin stretching further and further until it split with cascades of blood. Each Chaos wizard bloated beyond possibility until they formed a single quivering mass of plague-ridden flesh.

With a final influx of power, the sorcerers burst, showering pus and ichor, flesh-gobbets and organs over a wide area, their scattered entrails forming a triple-sided sigil of Nurgle. Within the unholy pattern, the air seethed and the skein of reality stretched just as the skin of the wizards had done.

Daemonic things pressed against the thinning barrier, their power seeping through the sundered gap. Alarielle knew that in moments a host of the Plague God’s daemons would break through, summoned by the destruction, for Nurgle found life in all death.

At the heart of the flesh-icon, the sorcerers remained – small mounds of sentient meat no bigger than a fist, forming porcine eyes and fanged mouths. Yet for all she urged her spirit-warriors to attack, the line of Chaos followers held amidst the bellows of ancients and the crash of blades.

Alarielle summoned the depths of her hatred and with it fuelled her courage. She dared one more time to send her spirit into the quagmire of Nurgle that filled the tower. Holding tight to the threads of magic that sustained her, the Everqueen dived into the spirit-morass.

Ignoring the slithering, sliding things that were breaking through into her realm, she drove directly for the final remnants of Ancient Holodrin and Clan Faech. This time she would not be repulsed. Like a bolt she sped into their midst with the full glory of her battle-song.

We are afraid! You abandoned us! You will desert us again.

Their plaintive wails did not sway her. Whatever wrong had been done to these spirits in the past, whatever transgressions she and they had committed against their own people, the sylvaneth fought and died as one.

‘I am the Everqueen – the font of life, the despairing storm, the wrathspring. I do not command your loyalty, I demand it!’ She reached out as though with her hand and seized up the guttering remnants of the sylvaneth souls. ‘Your fear counts for nothing. You will fight!’

The ground shuddered, and a moment later the dark tower split asunder, dividing into its three parts in a shower of offal and rotten wood. The great tree of the Vale of Winternight, silver-barked and white-leaved, erupted from the falling ruin, its branches gleaming with soulpods.

Alarielle’s essence raced along the branches, liberating trapped spirits even as the first daemons tore their way into the Realm of Life. Heartseeds fell like rain, and where each landed a sylvaneth sprang forth – branchwyches and branchwraiths, treelords and dryads, tree-revenants and ancients. And with them was unleashed wrathful Ancient Holodrin, a towering pine-lord with silver needles and claws like scimitars.

The lord of Clan Faech brought down a foot onto the mewling flesh-pile that was the sorcerer trio. Grinding them under his roots, the ancient tore the heart out of the Nurgle sigil, blood and mud and daemon becoming a single bubbling cataract of dissipating power. His booming roar crashed as a wave over the fighting, swelling the war-song of the sylvaneth.

‘The Vale of Winternight belongs to us! Obliterate the defilers!’

Screaming, bellowing and howling, the freed spirits of Clan Faech hurled themselves at the beset Chaos warriors.

‘Would that I had felt such courage sooner, great queen,’ said Ancient Holodrin, making obeisance to his ruler. The taint of Nurgle was already seeping away, fresh tufts of grass and red blooms consuming the bodies of the Plague God’s mortal followers.

‘There are none of my folk that are strangers to fear,’ Alarielle replied. ‘When all is nearly lost, one thinks only to cling to what is left. I am not guiltless in such regard. The ages have turned and a different season is upon us. We cannot seek to simply resist our inevitable decline. A new power is coming, and we must allow ourselves to be borne up on the fresh tide or be washed away forever.’

‘What new power, Everqueen?’ asked Holodrin.

She looked up to the skies. Against any natural wind, clouds were gathering, tinged with azure light. Lightning flickered, not of any mortal origin.

‘We are not alone,’ she said. Sadness marred her divine features for a moment. ‘It was only fear that made me think that we ever were.’

THE OUTCAST

Josh Reynolds

‘Filthy trees,’ Goral rumbled. ‘They offend me, Blighthoof.’ The Lord-Duke of Festerfane stroked his steed’s cadaverous neck as he spoke. The horse-thing squealed, shaking its lice-infested mane in what might have been agreement. It pawed at the ground with a hoof, causing the root-riddled soil to split and smoke. Goral leaned forwards in his mouldering saddle as his Rotbringers felled another tree. It toppled with a bone-shaking groan and struck the ground with a loud crash.

‘That’s the way. Hew them down, my brothers. Shatter their branches and befoul their stumps. Make the land weep sweet tears, in Nurgle’s name,’ Goral said, gesturing with his axe, Lifebiter. Filth-stained blades and rusty cleavers bit down again and again, tearing, gouging, chopping. Bark ruptured and roots tore loose of the soil with popping sounds as branches cracked and bent. More trees fell, clearing his warband a path into the heart of the vast, black forest known as the Writhing Weald.

It had taken them days to get this far. Then, the Writhing Weald was more stubborn than most. It had swallowed a dozen warbands over the centuries, remaining verdant and untamed despite the best efforts of Nurgle’s servants. But no longer. As a knight in good standing of the Order of the Fly, it was Goral’s duty – no, his honour – to make these simpering lands fit for the glopsome tread of Grandfather himself. And once he found the forest’s heart, Nurgle’s will would be done.

‘Chop them down and stoke the fires,’ Goral said, trusting his voice to carry to the flyblown ears of all seventy-seven of his warriors. ‘We will choke the air with smoke and ash, and call down a boiling rain once we have found the great stones which are the heart of this place. Grandfather will water the soil with the blessed pus of his Garden, and we shall make this wild place fit for civilised men. By this axe, I so swear.’

Goral lifted Lifebiter and felt the weight of the baleful blessing wrought into its rust-streaked blade. It pulled at his soul and left pleasant welts on his flesh where he clutched it. The weapon had a cruel life of its own, desirous of nothing save the chopping of bark and bone. It had been a gift – a token of appreciation by the Lady of Cankerwall, whose fungal demesne he’d preserved from the depredations of the ancient change-wyrm, Yhul.

He thought of her and smiled. Regal and infested, clad in tattered, mouldering finery, she had seemed sad at his leaving, and pressed Lifebiter on him as a sign of her esteem. The axe had been borne by her father-in-decay, and his father before him all the way back to the beginning of the Age of Chaos, and now Goral carried it, with her blessing and in her service. Its pitted blade had been touched by the finger of Nurgle himself, and imbued with a mighty weird. It was an axe worthy of the name Lifebiter and he hoped he was worthy of its destructive potential, and her trust in him. Like Blighthoof, or the scabrous armour fused to his swollen flesh, it was a sign of Grandfather’s favour.

And that favour was why he, above all others, had been sent to accomplish this task. For it required speed of thought and surety of limb, as well as faith in the will of Nurgle. Goral raised his axe and bellowed encouragement as another tree fell. Around him, his vanguard of pestilent knights did the same, calling out to their brothers in support or mockery as they saw fit. Like Goral, they too served the Order of the Fly, and had supped from the unhallowed grail which dangled from Nurgle’s belt. In them was the strength of despair and the will of the gods made manifest.

‘Beat them, break them, burn them,’ the knights chanted, in low, hollow voices. Their flyblown steeds screeched and buzzed, tearing at the ground with claws and hooves. Goral joined his voice to theirs, but as he did so, the remaining trees began to sway slightly, as if in a breeze. The chanting died away, as did the sounds of labour, as every rotten ear strained to hear the sound, in case it was the sign that they had been seeking.

It was a soft thing. Like loose leaves scraping across stone. Goral tightened his grip on his axe. Soft sounds were dangerous in the forests of Ghyran. Blighthoof stirred restlessly. The horse-thing whickered and Goral patted the sagging flesh of its neck. ‘Easy,’ he murmured. Far above, in the high canopy, branches rustled and then fell silent.

Goral looked around. He feared no mortal enemy, but this was something else. He could smell it, stirring in the dark. Like sap gone sour and rotting leaves. An old smell, almost familiar, but… not. It choked him, and made his stomach turn. The forest was alive with a thousand eyes, watching, waiting.

He’d fought the tree spirits before, with axe and balefire. Nevertheless, it was unnerving. They came so suddenly, and with such ferocity that even a moment of inattention could mean the difference between life and death. ‘Where are you?’ he muttered. ‘I can feel you, watching. Are you afraid, little saplings? Do you fear the bite of my steel?’ He lifted his weapon, waiting. Nothing answered his challenge.

But they would. This realm, the Jade Kingdoms entire, was waking up now, and all of the dark things within it. The forest-queen had been driven from her hidden vale, and into the wilds. Now trees marched on Festerfane and a thousand of Nurgle’s other holdings. What was once a certainty had become mutable. Goral couldn’t have been more pleased. It had been decades at least since he had faced a worthy challenge.

The sound faded, as quickly as it had come. As it paled, a new, more welcome noise replaced it. The guttural barking of Chaos hounds. The beasts loped into view, bounding over fallen trees with long-limbed grace. They were shaggy and covered in sores, their blunt, squashed muzzles streaming with slobber and snot. They had bulging, compound eyes and worm-pale tongues which lolled as they sprang at Goral in greeting. Their high-pitched yelps momentarily overwhelmed even the crash of falling trees and Goral laughed as he swatted an overly affectionate hound off his saddle.

‘Hail and well met, my lord,’ a rasping voice said. A broad figure, swaddled in grimy furs and filthy armour stepped out of the trees, one bandage-wrapped hand resting on the cracked hilt of his sword. His other hand held a thin, broken shape balanced on his shoulder. The hound-master’s face was swollen with what might have been insect bites, and tiny black shapes writhed beneath his tight, shiny flesh.

‘Hail and well met, Uctor. Good hunting, then?’ Goral asked. Uctor had fought beside him for longer than any other, and was, like Goral, a servant of the Order of the Fly. The hound-master was strong in the ways of war, and as loyal as one of the four-legged beasts which trotted at his side. Goral had dispatched him to locate their prey, as his Rotbringers set the fires that would flush them from hiding. He gestured to the thing on Uctor’s shoulder. ‘Have you brought me a prize?’

‘Aye, my lord,’ Uctor said. He let his burden fall to the ground and planted a foot on its back. He caught hold of the protruding, antler-like branches and bent its inhuman features up for his lord’s inspection. The tree-thing was dead, or as good as. Golden sap ran from the cracks in its face and stained the ground where Uctor had deposited it.

‘Can it speak?’

Uctor made a face. ‘Can they ever? They are but brutes. No more capable of conversation than my maggot-hounds,’ he said. He let the head sag, and it thumped to the ground. The whole thing had begun to shiver and crack apart. It was dying. Goral could see the blistered wounds where the infectious jaws of Uctor’s hounds had savaged the tree spirit. They were such fragile things, for being so deadly.

‘But where there is one, there are others,’ Goral said. Uctor nodded.

‘Aye. They’re there, my lord. Your fires have flushed them out and my hounds have their scent now,’ Uctor said, with a phlegm-soaked cough. ‘We caught this one out easily enough, but it was a straggler.’ He patted the head of one of the Chaos hounds affectionately and the squirming beast wriggled in pleasure, blistered tail thumping the ground. The others gambolled about their master’s bandaged feet, gargling in excitement or snuffling at the dying tree spirit. ‘The others are deeper in the wood. All fleeing in the same direction, I’d wager.’

‘To the stones at the forest’s heart,’ Goral growled.

‘Aye,’ Uctor said, giving a gap-toothed smile. He slapped his corroded breastplate with a flabby hand. ‘Sure as my black heart beats, my lord. We find the others, and we find the heartstones. All together, and waiting for the axe to fall.’

Goral sat back in his saddle and nodded in satisfaction. ‘Finally,’ he murmured. The heartstones were the unyielding soul of this place, or so the Lady of Cankerwall had claimed – an unnatural outcrop of sorcerous rock, which spilled crystal-clear waters to feed the ever-growing roots of the forest. She was a seer without equal, and could read the skeins of fate and moment in the effluvial smoke of her bubbling pox-cauldrons. He remembered her voice in that instant, and the way she had looked at him with her blind, crusted eyes. There had been something there, he thought. Some trace of… what? Sadness? What did you see, my lady? He pushed the thought aside and ran a thumb along the edge of Lifebiter’s blade and relished the moment of pain.

Pain brought clarity. Clarity was Nurgle’s gift to his chosen. To see the world as it was, stripped bare of the tattered masks of desire and hope, leaving only a beautiful despair. There was comfort in surrender, and joy in acceptance. There was love there, at the heart of all endings, and serenity at the end of all things. And it was that bleak serenity which the Order of the Fly served. Goral glanced at his knights. He knew their names and stories, for they were all brothers in despair – some were heroes in their own right, like brawny, boil-encrusted Sir Culgus, who had held the Bridge of Scabs for twelve days against the blood-mad hordes of Khorne, while others, like young Pallid Woes in his seeping, ochre tabard and rune-marked bandages, had yet to earn their spurs in battle.

Pride swept through him, as, one and all, they met his gaze. He raised Lifebiter. ‘For the honour of the Order of the Fly, and for the glory of Nurgle,’ he said. Serrated swords, jagged axes and filth-encrusted maces rose in salute. All around the clearing, Rotbringers, seeing the gesture, readied themselves to march.

He looked down at Uctor. ‘We go quietly from here, like the sleeping sickness on a summer’s eve. Lead the way, hound-master. Take us to our prize.’ Uctor nodded and turned, chivvying his maggot-hounds into motion. The beasts gurgled in pleasure and loped away, Uctor trotting in their wake. Goral and his warriors followed.

Goral felt Lifebiter squirm in his grip. The axe was eager. It knew its business, as did he. The heartstones of the Writhing Weald were close. And when he had them in his power, this place would know true dread. He looked down at the dying tree spirit as he rode past it. ‘Toss that rubbish on the fire. Then lead me to my prey, hound-master. I have a forest to tame.’

The Outcast sleeps.

Her addled thoughts surge up and drop down into the darkness at the root of her, crashing and cascading over rocks made from broken memories. There is only the rush and roar of it in her mind, drowning out all else save the wind of the reaping.

The war-wind.

The Outcast cannot hear anything over the shriek of the wind save her own voice, and that but dimly. It has always been that way, for as long as she can remember. Which is not long, as her folk judge things. Her mind fades with the seasons, reason growing bare like wind-stripped branches before renewing itself once more. In the season of flourishing, she can almost hear the song of the sylvaneth. In the season of lifeswell, she can hear the trees whispering to one another as they stretch towards the sun. They do not speak to her, but she hears them nonetheless.

But now, at this moment, the Outcast hears only the sounds of war. She hears the weeping of the trees as their bark splits and their sap runs. She hears the leaves of the canopy shriek as the flames gobble them up. She hears the groan of the soil as poison spills over it, and the impotent roaring of the rocks as their surfaces are left seeping and scarred. But there are other stones and these do not roar, but instead sing. Desperately, defiantly, they sing.

The Outcast hears it all, but does not stir. She refuses to stir. She will sleep. She will sleep until the world rots to nothing, and then she will sleep forevermore. Better to sleep, better to rot away with the world than to hear, to see… what?

What do you fear, Drycha Hamadreth?

The voice is soft, at first. Like the sound of newly sprouted leaves rustling in a breeze. A gentle sound, and its placidity infuriates the Outcast, though she cannot fathom why.

Awaken, daughter of my soul. Awaken, Drycha Hamadreth.

The voice grows stronger and the Outcast shivers in her sleep. The sound of rain striking the canopy, the hint of distant thunder. There is pleading there, but also warning. The Outcast wants to speak, to reach out, but something in her… refuses. It is stubborn. She is stubborn. She will not be moved by pleas, by whispered entreaties.

Heed me, best beloved one. Heed the words of the Everqueen. Awaken.

Petulant, the Outcast turns away. She is almost awake now, for the first time in a long time. Or perhaps not. She only stirs when time stands still, when the world shudders and whines on its track. The Outcast stirs only with the war-wind. That is what she knows. She is not beloved, best or otherwise. She is unloved, unheard, unremembered. She is forgotten, until the season of reaping and despair, until the roots suckle seas of blood. Until the stones which anchor the worldroots scream out in desperation.

The voice rises like the wind. There are no words now, merely force of will. It pushes at her, jostling against the walls of sleep, shaking her from the dark. The Outcast screams in rage, trying to resist. She is strong, and her roots stretch deep. But the voice – her voice – is the soil which holds those roots. It is the moisture which nourishes them, and the wind which rips them loose. The Outcast grips the darkness nonetheless, even as the shadows slip away, caught in the whirlwind of the voice. Her voice.

Alarielle.

Up, cruel one. Up, wildling. Up, Outcast. Awaken and rise.

Awaken.

Awaken, Drycha Hamadreth.

The Outcast awakens and screams.

The howl set the carrion crows in the upper branches to flight, and caused Blighthoof to snarl in agitation. It had come from close by. Too close for comfort. Goral twisted in his saddle, searching for the source of the sound. But rather than having one point of origin, it seemed to echo from every knothole and shadow. It slithered between the trees and filled the empty silence of the Writhing Weald. It was like a rumble of thunder, or the growl of an avalanche. ‘Steady,’ he called out, as his warriors muttered among themselves.

Even with the comforting, sickly light that spilled from the balefire torches his warriors carried, the darkness felt as if it were pressing in on them. ‘These cursed trees fair swallow the light,’ Sir Culgus croaked. In the silence which had descended in the wake of the scream, his voice seemed abominably loud.

‘We’ll give them more light than they can choke down, when we set our balefires to blazing,’ Goral rumbled. ‘We shall cast back the shadows of life, and reveal our horrors with perfect clarity.’ The words sounded good, but the dark remained, and the echoes of the scream as well. What had it been? Some animal, perhaps. There were beasts aplenty in these forests – iridescent wyrms, their scales flashing emerald, and packs of scuttling spiders, each as large as a Chaos hound. But no beast he knew of screamed like that.

Despite his bravado, his warriors crowded together. The voice of Grandfather was but a dim rumble here. There were the bones of men and monsters filling the hollows within the roots – a stark reminder that they were not the first warband to attempt this feat. Every Rotbringer felt the choking weight of uncorrupted life on the air, seeking to smother them. Uctor used his broad, broken-tipped sword to chop a path through the tangled density of the forest. Sir Culgus and the others did the same, hacking at the branches and roots which seemed to rise up in opposition to them.

Goral longed to topple the trees, and burn their roots to ash. But that was a fool’s game. They could burn a thousand trees and make no impact on the Writhing Weald’s size. It grew larger with every passing year, denying Nurgle his rightful due. The forest swallowed bastions and pox-gardens, setting back the hard work of ages. Only by taking control of the heartstones of the Writhing Weald could Nurgle claim this forest as he had others, such as the Grove of Blighted Lanterns or the Glade of Horned Growths. Only by cleaving the great stones he’d seen in the visions conjured by the Lady of Cankerwall, and blighting the crystal source-waters which fed the cursed trees looming above them, could he salvage this place.

Branches cracked and splintered in the dark, noises separate from the thud of axes and the rattle of swords. Unseen things were moving past the Rotbringers, flowing away from them, heading… where? Goral peered into the dark as he urged Blighthoof on. What were they fleeing from – his Rotbringers, or something else? Again, he wondered what the Lady had seen, and what she had not told him. He shook his head, banishing his fears. ‘We are the hunters in this forest, not the hunted. Grandfather stands at my right hand, and the King of Flies at my left,’ he murmured. Lifebiter quivered encouragingly.

‘Almost there, my lord,’ Uctor murmured. The hound-master was trudging alongside him. ‘We caught the other one around here. You can hear them… and feel that? Something is calling them home to the forest’s heart.’ He shook his head. ‘They always run.’

Goral grunted. The air was reverberating now with a bone-deep throb that set his remaining teeth to itching. It was as if the scream had been but a prelude to this new intrusion of noise. The heartstones, he thought. He could feel it in his bones. Blighthoof whickered softly. He looked up, eyes narrowed.

Something shone, out in the dark. At first, he thought it was balefire, but it lacked the oily sheen. Instead, it put him in mind of sunlight reflected on rolling waters. Goral’s lip curled. The forest was filled with sound now, so that the noise of the Rotbringers’ approach was obscured. The trees were shuddering as if caught in a hurricane wind, and the shadows were full of movement. He kicked Blighthoof into a gallop, and Sir Culgus and the others followed his example. Uctor led the rest of the Rotbringers in Goral’s wake, his hounds yelping and scuttling around him.

Goral slowed as he reached the edges of the light, and lifted Lifebiter in a signal to dismount. The other knights jerked on their reins, causing their steeds to rear and screech. Goral slid from the saddle and led Blighthoof forwards. The light, soft as it was, stung his eyes and skin, and he raised Lifebiter to shade his face. The trees and their tangling roots began to thin and bend, revealing a vast, rotunda-like glade. The canopy overhead was so thick that no light could pierce its shadowed recesses.

The trees at the edges of the clearing bent outwards, as if pushed away from the edifice which occupied its grassy heart. Even the roots were humped and coiled, like paving stones leading into a sacred temple. And at the centre of the glade, radiating a soft light and unbearable warmth, were the stones. Goral hissed in satisfaction. Even as the Lady of Cankerwall had promised.

The stones were large, many hands taller than the gaunt, branch-antlered tree spirits which had gathered before them, crooked talons raised as if in supplication. The man-sized creatures surrounded the stones in a loose circle. A trickle of gleaming water poured down from some unseen source within the stones, and dampened the verdant grasses. A shroud of vibrant green moss almost obscured the strange sigils which had been carved into the flat face of each of the stones. Goral didn’t recognise the markings, for they were unlike any dread marking or bane-symbol he was familiar with. But whatever they were, Lifebiter was eager to deface them.

The axe strained in his hands like one of Uctor’s hounds, its thorny haft digging painfully into his palms. Some instinct held him back. If they attacked now, the tree spirits would simply scatter and vanish. The forest would swallow them up, and even Uctor wouldn’t be able to track them. Let them begin, he thought. Let them start whatever they had come to this place to do. Then, and only then, would come the time to strike.

As one, the tree spirits extended their arms and their bark-like flesh began to unravel and stretch with a cacophonous hiss. Talon and claw blended, forming an unbroken ring of bodies about the circumference of the shining stones. Root-like toes dug into the soil, anchoring them. Branch-laced skulls tipped back as jagged mouths opened, and a dirge-like groan rose. Softly at first, but growing louder and deeper with every moment. The sound pulsated on the air, pounding at Goral’s ears as he climbed back into Blighthoof’s saddle.

‘What are they doing?’ the young knight, Pallid Woes, mumbled through the seeping bandages wrapped about his head. He pointed as he hauled himself up onto his own steed, and Goral looked. The stones were shining as brightly as the moon, where they were not covered in moss. Leaves rose, cast into the air by the wind. The song of the tree spirits rose, higher and fiercer. The stones shimmered and grew indistinct as the light swelled.

It was even as the Lady of Cankerwall had said, and Grandfather through her. The secret of the Writhing Weald, and why no one had been able to find its thudding, stony heart. The accursed tree-things were singing it elsewhere. Singing it to safety. If it was allowed to vanish, Goral and his warriors might spend a century searching before stumbling across it again.

‘Now. Take them now.’ Goral kicked Blighthoof into a gallop and charged towards the ring of preoccupied tree-folk. ‘For Nurgle and the Garden!’ Lifebiter wailed eagerly as he swung it down on one of the tree-things, splitting it from branches to trunk. The edges of the wound turned black and powdery and the golden sap of the creature became turgid and murky as the axe’s venom took hold. The tree spirit toppled with a rattling cry, tearing loose from its fellows, and the dreadful song faltered for a moment before rising anew.

Goral jerked on Blighthoof’s reins, turning his steed about. ‘They are trying to steal our prize, brothers. Teach them the folly of denying Grandfather his due,’ he roared, urging Blighthoof towards more of the tree-things that lurched out of the forest, seeking to defend their cowardly ritual. The one in the lead was far larger than the others, more than three times the height of a man, with a gnarled bulk that bespoke a monstrous strength. Goral thought it was surely a lord of its kind. The massive being strode to meet his charge as its followers swarmed in its wake, its every step causing the ground to shake.

As he drew close, roots suddenly rose up like striking serpents and tangled about Blighthoof’s legs. The horse-thing shrilled and lashed out, but the roots were everywhere. Goral struck with Lifebiter, hacking through the writhing tendrils. The axe vibrated in his hand, pleased. A moment later, the treelord loomed over him. Goral gagged as the stink of the living forest engulfed him.

Scything talons scraped down his armour. The force of the blow nearly tore him from the saddle. Goral laughed, despite the pain. ‘Yes, yes! Fight me, you creaking horror,’ he roared, spinning Lifebiter about. He sliced a divot out of his opponent’s flesh, shattering branches and tearing vines. Black strands of corruption spread from the edges of the wound, and the treelord staggered. Its agonised wheeze sounded like branches clattering in a windstorm. Bark bubbled and sloughed away. The treelord flung out a talon, and Goral was forced to turn Blighthoof aside as a storm of squirming roots shot towards him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pallid Woes gallop towards the treelord, flail whirling above his head. The creature creaked aside, more swiftly than Goral would have thought possible, avoiding the charge. Long arms snapped out, and Woes was snatched from his saddle. He cried out Nurgle’s name, but to no avail. The treelord gave a twist of its claws, and wrung the young knight’s body like a wet rag, crushing him and dappling the thirsty roots with his blood. It flung what was left aside and turned as Goral gave a cry and charged.

More roots pierced the air, arrowing towards the Lord-Duke. They struck his armour and spread like oil, wriggling into every nook and cranny. Others burrowed beneath Blighthoof’s flesh, causing the horse-thing to buck and squeal in pain. Roaring, Goral slashed at the writhing roots, trying to cut his way free. He could feel them tightening about him as the treelord stomped towards him.

‘Leave him, beast,’ Uctor shouted. The loyal hound-master hewed at the treelord’s legs with wild abandon, his rusted sword carving weeping gouges in the creature’s jagged bark. Uctor’s maggot-hounds burbled and snarled as they worried at the darting roots. The treelord turned, eyes blazing with an eerie light. It swatted Uctor from his feet with a swing of its long arm.

‘Mistake,’ Goral said, with a guttural laugh. ‘I’m the one you should be worried about, brute.’ Blighthoof surged forwards with a whinny and drove its shoulder into the treelord’s back. As the monstrosity turned with a creaking roar, Goral drove Lifebiter into the centre of its face. The treelord staggered back with a scream, a pungent smoke spewing from the wound. Golden trails of sap spattered Goral’s arm and chest as he swung the axe again and sheared off one of his opponent’s branches.

The treelord stumbled away from him, clutching at its ruined head. It sank down, moaning hoarsely. Satisfied that it was all but finished, Goral turned. He saw Sir Culgus tear the head from a tree-thing with one sweep of his sword as it tried to crawl away. A few of his warriors had fallen, but not so many that they could not do what they had come here to do, and they had not died alone. Sap-oozing bodies lay broken and twisted across the glade.

He felt some relief in finding that the heartstones still stood where he’d seen them last. They still glowed and pulsed, but not with the stinging brightness. Their vibratory song had grown muted, like the panting of a wounded animal. Soon, you will sing again – but this time, it will be a tune more to Grandfather’s liking, Goral thought, pleased. He felt like howling his triumph to the skies. Instead, he turned, seeking the fallen treelord. He would extract a measure of joy from the creature’s stiff hide. Perhaps he would even lay its head at the feet of his Lady of Cankerwall, as proof of his devotion. Will you offer me a smile then, my lady? His own smile faded as he realised that the treelord was gone.

Goral cursed. A trail of spilled sap led out of the glade. It hadn’t been as wounded as he’d thought. ‘Hunt the wounded one down, Uctor,’ Goral snarled, angry at himself. ‘I want that brute’s branches for my trophy-rack. It must pay for daring to defy Nurgle’s will.’ And for denying me the joy of the kill, he thought savagely.

‘We’ll strip the bark from whatever passes for its bones, my lord,’ the huntsman said, whistling for his dogs. The wormy Chaos hounds yelped and bounded out of the glen, loping after the wounded treelord. They had gotten a taste of its roots and were excited to finish the job they had started. Goral knew how they felt.

He knew he should not leave. The Lady had said he must embed Lifebiter in the heart of this place to accomplish his quest. But there was time enough for that, after he’d indulged himself. Perhaps he would chain the thing, rather than kill it, and drag it back to Cankerwall. Such thoughts were pleasant, if untoward. They reeked of hope, but Goral thought Grandfather would forgive him his vices.

‘Sir Culgus – see to these damnable stones. Topple them and make this place fit for Nurgle’s chosen. I’m for the hunt,’ Goral said as he thudded his heels into Blighthoof’s flanks and urged his steed after Uctor and his hounds. A number of the others followed him, ignoring Culgus’ raspy commands. Goral laughed. He was inclined to leniency. After all, was Grandfather not indulgent of his children?

‘Come brothers, ride hard,’ he shouted, still laughing. ‘Our prey awaits us!’

In her delirium, the Outcast calls out. She casts her voice into the teeth of the world, listening as it echoes through shadows and knotholes. The wind carries her call to the secret places of this weald, this wood, where sane things fear to tread. She is not alone in her status as outcast, though some part of her believes that perhaps she was the first. There are others: broken things with cracked souls and minds riven by hunger and fear.

Inside her flesh, hive-spites stir, and she feels their confusion. They have slumbered too, these tiny spirits. As they awaken, they begin to speak in their high, buzzing voices, murmuring to her as children to their mother. They seek comfort and reassurance, but she has none to give them. There is nothing of the nurturer in her, nothing of the caretaker. The song of the sylvaneth is not for her, or hers. Only the song of the reaping. Only the war-song.

She begins to sing. And as she sings, she strides the root-road through the shadows of the forest, at once insubstantial and implacable. The forest is under attack. The sound of its pain catches and tears at her secret knots, loosening some and pulling others painfully taut. Memories mutter deep in her, the sound of them almost lost among the murmurings of her spites. She twitches, trying to see through the murk of what once was or what might have been, and find the trail of the now. Her feet seek the hard path of the present.

Something happened. That is all the Outcast knows. Some black moment, forever etched in the bark of the world. The Everqueen knows, but will not say. The Outcast shrieks again, in frustration now, rather than command. She can feel the edges of that black moment in the air and soil, like a wound that will not heal. It reverberates through her, searing her mind and filling her with dread purpose. The land is sick and dying, but not dead yet. Not yet, and never again. The Outcast will not allow it. Not again.

The thought snags, uncomfortably close to epiphany. The Outcast remembers lies and forgets truth, or so the Everqueen has said. That is why she is outcast. And the word of the Everqueen is law, thus her words must be true. But then why does the Outcast remember them? Questions hum through her mind like wasps in a hive. Her thoughts race like fire through dry grass, igniting old fears and desires. She has been asleep for so long… so long… Her roots ache with need, and the hive-spites nestled within her hiss eagerly.

It is time to hunt… to hunt… to hunt, she sings. The need is like a creek swelled by the springsfed tide, unnoticed until it is no longer ignorable, and then all-consuming, all at once. It races through her roots and branches, filling her.

The trees are singing as well, but she cannot hear them. She sees them swaying with the wind, their roots stretching deeper and deeper, seeking strength as she strides past, cloaked all in shadow. Leaves twitch back, afraid to touch her or be touched. She is anathema, forgotten, outcast. So Alarielle has said and the word of the Everqueen is law. The forests fear her, and rivers recede at her approach. Animals and spirits fall silent in her wake. Root-claws gouge the earth as she stalks forwards now, growing, unfolding. Sap runs and forms, layer after layer. Scything talons of bark and stone and vine sprout, swell and flatten. They thin to well-used points. They will tear iron and crush bone. The Outcast is still singing as she pulls herself through the shuddering trees, leaving tiny scratches on their trembling bark to remind them of this moment.

Remember me… Remember this moment, she sings, as the forest begins to scream. She can hear the wails of the dryads and the agonised bellow of one of the ancients. The great song falters, interrupted. Its last notes hang suspended, quavering, on the air. Her song matches the echo and drives it to flight. Hers is the only melody now, whatever the Everqueen intended. You have called, and I have come. I am here… I hunt… I slay… Remember.

The Outcast laughs and the forest falls silent, abashed. Then, a sigh of noise fills the emptiness, like a soft black whisper. The broken ones. They have found her trail, and follow her now, snuffling at her heels. They slash past her, broken bat-like shapes and gaunt, loping shades, chittering and shrieking. The reaper-kin, the reavers and outcast-kind. They have heard her song, and found it to their liking. They fly at her command, laughing in mad joy. They will hunt the forest, and harry the foe, and drive them back towards her.

She does not slow as she reaches the glade where the heartstones thud in fear. The pounding of the stones calls out to her, drawing her on as Alarielle knew it would. Fully awake now, the Outcast feels the weight of the world’s pain and she desires nothing more than to punish those who would dare set foot in the holy places of the sylvaneth. The glade glows with warm light as she enters its circle in a skirl of leaves.

She sees the defilers, the rotten ones, the grub-men, through the eyes of every tree and blade of grass, all at once and from a thousand directions. They are small, compared to her, and their souls are weak things, flickering on the edge of awareness. Like her, they are deaf to the song, though they lack even the knowledge of their handicap. But she will show them.

The Outcast tears through the veil of worlds. They are slow to react, slow to understand. She lunges towards the closest of them, and fills the air with sour blood. Trees bend towards her as she attacks, uprooted and added to her mass, despite their protests. She reaches out, crushing the head of another of the would-be defilers as easily as she might snatch a worm from the soil. They are so fragile, the Outcast thinks, these piles of meat and muscle. They are ephemeral things, bundles of scattered moments soon forgotten. But dangerous… so dangerous.

They have wounded the realm. The sky weeps poison and the rivers are stagnant. She feels it all with every breath, and tears of sap run down her cheeks. But it is rage she feels, not sadness. The Outcast is not the Everqueen. I will not run… I will not hide, she thinks. I will hunt… I will slay… I will kill until the trees grow fat on red water.

She kills two more before they see her fully, for she is cloaked in a storm of leaves and splintered branches. The forest seeks to hide her monstrousness, ashamed. It needs her and hates her for that need, though she does not understand why. Animals squeal and stamp as she ravages among them, snapping their greenstick bones and tearing their filthy flesh. They are half-dead already, these things, as are their riders. So much mulch, for the hungry soil. A heavyset warrior, clad in boils and barnacled iron, heaves himself towards her, spewing the high-pitched bird noises which pass for words among his kind.

The Outcast cannot stand the shrill screams of the meat. They do not sing. They squeak and scream, too fast, too high. She desires their silence. A foul blade bites into her hives, eliciting shrieks of outrage from her spites. Flitterfuries pour from the honeycombs in her arms and shoulders and swirl about the warrior in a glittering, stinging cloud. The spites drive him back as the Outcast advances. She tears the blade from his hands and catches his flabby face in her talons. He hammers at her bark with ineffectual fists, still squeaking.

Why do they talk so much, she wonders. Why do they clog the air with words and the sound of meat slapping against meat? Fragile… so fragile, she thinks, as she pulls the sour one’s head apart, stripping flesh and muscle from bone, one red blossom at a time. His squeals fall silent, and she sighs in relief. Bits of his flesh dangle from her claws, but the Outcast loses interest as a ring of iron and fire surrounds her. She hisses and her spites hiss with her. They stream from her hives and launch themselves at the enemy. The ring of iron and fire comes apart as she strides through the glen, stalking and killing.

Some flee, rather than face her. These, the Outcast ignores as she continues her butchery. The forest will take them. The broken ones will drag them into the dark. That is their pleasure. Like her, they are hidden beneath the canopy, forgotten and ignored until the reaping comes and the war-wind blows.

When the last of the defilers dangles ruined from her claws, she stops. The song of the heartstones has caught her attention and for an instant, just an instant, the song of the reaping gives way to the blooming and war is drowned out by peace. The Outcast sways in place, listening, and in that moment, she is outcast no longer. She is Drycha Hamadreth, first daughter of the sylvaneth, auspicious and honoured. She hears the song of her kin for the first time in a long time, and feels the tears of Isha upon her cheeks. See me… hear me… she croons, reaching out with one monstrous talon.

She wishes to touch them, just for a moment. To feel again the warmth of the blooming and the suns. To taste the sweet waters, so long denied her. She wishes…

A sour one moans at her feet. The moment is broken. She lifts a foot and stomps down, turning bones to powder and flesh to jelly. No… do not touch me… fear me, the Outcast hisses, glaring at the trembling heartstones. For an instant, she almost forgot… no. She will never forget and never remember. For her, there is no song. There is only the now. There is only the reaping and the wind.

The Outcast throws back her head and screams.

The treelord was gone.

A trail of golden sap marked its stumbling flight. The trees sought to hide it, but Uctor’s hounds found it and followed it regardless. They led Goral and the others on a yelping chase, away from the glade and the hateful light of the stones. Golden handprints and smears led them deeper into the dark and the quiet of the forest, until the only light was that of their torches and the only sound was the susurrus of the leaves.

But their quarry was nowhere to be found. Even Uctor’s hounds seemed to have lost the trail, and they now circled and yelped in apparent confusion. Goral cursed and smacked a fist on his saddle horn. Some part of him had expected as much. ‘Where is that cursed thing? It can’t have gotten far, not with the wounds I gave it,’ he said. He glared down at Uctor, wanting an answer, though he knew the hound-master would not know.

Before Uctor could reply, a monstrous shriek echoed through the forest. The yelping Chaos hounds fell silent and slunk back towards their master, tails tucked between their legs. The shriek seemed to grow in strength, reverberating in the dark, before finally fading away. Goral gripped Lifebiter more tightly. ‘What is that blasted thing? Why does it not come out, if it wishes to challenge us?’ he said. He straightened in his saddle and peered into the dark. He thought he saw something moving beneath the shroud of roots, but dismissed the idea. A serpent, he thought. Or some weak spirit, seeking to hide from them.

‘My hounds don’t like it, my lord,’ Uctor said, peering at the trees warily. ‘There’s something new in the air, a smell…’

Goral nodded. He could detect it as well. At first, he’d thought it was the stones and whatever magic was seeping from them inundating the surrounding trees, but this wasn’t the smell of either rock or sorcery. Not quite. It was a sickly sweet reek, like too-ripe flowers. Close to the pleasing odour of rot, but not quite. And it was everywhere, and growing stronger. Like the hint of rain, heralding a storm, he thought. But the smell wasn’t the whole of it.

The trees were trembling. But not, he thought, from fear. No, they were trembling with anticipation. As if the forest were a wounded animal, and it was about to turn on its hunters. They seemed to crowd around his warriors, and the roots beneath their feet twisted slowly into new and horrid shapes. It’s waking up, he thought, and he couldn’t say why he’d thought it. They’d hacked and burned a scar across its face, but it was only now stirring.

For the first time in a long time, Goral felt what might have been the embers of an old and forgotten fear stirring. Uctor’s maggot-hounds were whimpering, and his warriors were sounding little better. They had faced the shimmer-scaled devils of the stars, and the silver-armoured warriors who rode the lightning. But now… here… their courage was stretched thin, like a ligament extended past its breaking point. The joy they’d felt only moments ago had dissipated, leaving behind only silence.

‘Perhaps we should turn back,’ Uctor said. ‘Once we shatter those stones, whatever lurks here will wither and be no more threat. We can call on aid from the rest of the Order, or rouse the musters of Festerfane and Cankerwall if need be.’

Goral ground his teeth in frustration. In the dark, something laughed. The Chaos hounds began to bay shrilly, and their horses whinnied and stamped. ‘Light – more light,’ Goral snapped. He reached down and snatched a crackling torch out of a Rotbringer’s hand. He slung it away. It rolled across the carpet of roots, casting weird shadows. His knights and warriors followed suit. The dark retreated in bits and pieces, leaving oily pools of blackness between the trees.

More laughter. Something peered at him from behind a tree. Goral twisted in his saddle, but whatever it was, it was gone. Chuckles echoed down like raindrops. Childish laughter slithered up from the roots. Goral heard wood scrape against wood. He caught glimpses of pale flesh or tangled bark, never in the same place twice.

‘Steady, brothers,’ Goral said as he tried to control his restive steed. ‘We are the hunters here. What we have claimed, they cannot take back.’ As he spoke, the laughter ceased. Silence fell.

Then, the crackling. Not of balefire, but like twigs snapping. One of his warriors gestured with his sword. ‘I saw something,’ he gurgled. ‘In that tree.’ Goral looked. The tree was a stunted thing, sheared in half by some long-ago axe stroke. In the flickering glare of the fallen torches, he could make out something moving. Many somethings.

Then, cackling, shrieking, they spilled out of the cloven tree, crooked bark-talons reaching. Pest-swollen flesh popped and tore as they swarmed over Goral’s warriors, biting and clawing. They moved quickly, like dead leaves caught in a cold wind. A Rotbringer stumbled, clutching at his torn throat. Another was yanked upwards, into the shadowy canopy, legs kicking. More of them descended on his knights, knocking them from their horses. Armour buckled and split as blows rained down. Shields splintered and shivered apart. Axes and swords were yanked from hands, or left embedded in trees. Bellowing warriors were mobbed by dozens of spirits and dragged away. Chaos hounds were pulled howling beneath the roots by unseen claws.

The blessings of Nurgle granted strength and durability, but those gifts were useless here. Cyclones of stabbing bark talons and gnashing fangs tore even the most doughty Rotbringer to bloody strips. ‘Back, fall back,’ Goral roared. He lashed out with his axe, removing a groping claw. ‘Leave me,’ he snarled as the cackling tree spirits crowded around Blighthoof. They had the faces of aged children, stretched taut across bones of root and vine. Teeth like splinters tore at his legs and Blighthoof’s neck. The horse-thing shrilled in agony and reared, lashing out with its hooves even as Goral swept his axe out, hacking at them savagely. The tree spirits retreated, but only for a moment.

Laughing, they scuttled across the trees and over the roots like insects, pursuing his remaining warriors as they retreated. Goral hauled on Blighthoof’s reins, turning his steed about. ‘Fall back to the heartstones,’ he bellowed. He couldn’t say whether any of the others heard him. He bisected a chittering spirit with Lifebiter and then turned Blighthoof away. He raced through the forest, and the tree spirits followed him, swooping and surging out of the dark. He fended them off with wild blows from his axe. Toying with me, he thought, as he bent low over Blighthoof’s neck.

He had heard stories about the malevolent spirits which lurked in the shadows of the forests. Things which were of the tree spirits, but apart from them. Twisted things, more savage and cruel than any daemon, for they were bound by no god’s will. Old things, blighted, embittered and monstrous. If these creatures infested the Writhing Weald, it was no wonder Nurgle desired its taming.

If he could make it back to the stones – shatter them, defile them – they might yet have a chance. The forest would grow weak. Goral looked around, trying to spot the light of the stones. But he saw only darkness, or the brief, bounding motion of a torch swiftly snuffed. He wondered whether Uctor was one of those. He’d lost sight of the hound-master in the attack. Goral hoped the warrior was still alive.

As soon as the thought had crossed his mind, he heard Uctor cry out, in pain or perhaps in challenge. Goral twisted Blighthoof about, pursuing the sound, and the horse-thing brayed in protest. ‘Uctor! Hold on my friend – I am coming,’ he shouted. If anyone could find their way back to the stones, it was Uctor.

‘This way my lord,’ Uctor’s voice called out, and Goral saw a spark of light. ‘Hurry! This way…’ Goral pointed Blighthoof towards the flickering of the hound-master’s torch. When he reached its light, he saw the torch on the ground, and Uctor standing just out of sight, gesturing to him. What was the fool doing? Trying to hide behind a tree? Goral grimaced. Perhaps he was injured.

‘Uctor? What–?’ Goral began. Uctor made a horrid, wet sound and what was left of him staggered into the light. His flesh had been perforated at a hundred points by thin tendrils of bark, which stretched back towards the creatures which followed close behind him. The two grey-faced spirits grinned wickedly at him as they manipulated their tendrils and made Uctor stumble like a marionette. One reached around and caught his sagging features, squeezing his mouth open. As it did so, it said, ‘This… way… this… way,’ in a raspy approximation of Uctor’s voice. The other cackled and added its voice to that of its companion. ‘This… way… this… way… this… this… this… way… hurry… hurry.’

Goral watched in revulsion as the tree spirits made his hound-master dance a merry jig, scattering droplets of blood around and around. Uctor groaned pitiably as they jerked his limbs this way and that. Then, with a final, mocking cackle, the spirits hunched forwards and stretched their talons wide, tearing Uctor apart in a welter of steaming gore. The sight of his warrior’s demise snapped Goral from his fugue and he drove his heels into Blighthoof’s sides. The horse-thing screamed and charged.

The spirits retreated, still laughing. They bounded from tree to tree, as if they were no more substantial than shadows. Enraged, Goral urged Blighthoof to greater speed. Roots blackened and decayed beneath the horse-thing’s thundering hooves. But no matter how fast his steed ran, the tree spirits stayed just out of reach.

Suddenly, Blighthoof fell screaming and Goral was hurled from the saddle. He scrambled to his feet, broken ribs scraping his heaving lungs. Blighthoof kicked and screeched in distress as roots burrowed into the muscles of its legs. Flowers and moss sprouted from the horse-thing’s abused flesh, obscuring its tattered hide. Blighthoof snapped blindly at the air as its greasy mane began to crawl with grass and thistles. More roots snaked around the horse-thing, restraining its thrashing form as it sought to rise.

‘No – Blighthoof, no, no,’ Goral wheezed as he stumbled towards Lifebiter, embedded in a stump during his fall. He jerked the axe free and staggered back towards his faithful steed. Vainly, he chopped at the vines and roots. But it was useless. Almost all of Blighthoof was shrouded in verdant greenery now, eaten away from the inside out. ‘Up, get up,’ Goral cried, trying to tear the roots away from his steed’s neck and muzzle. ‘Fight it, you stupid beast… fight…’ he trailed off. Only one of Blighthoof’s eyes was visible now, rolling madly in its weeping socket. But he could still hear the horse-thing’s agonised grunts. Goral laid his hand on the side of his steed’s head. ‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ he whispered.

Then, crying out in rage, he brought Lifebiter down on Blighthoof’s skull. The horse-thing’s thrashings slowed, then stilled. Goral tore his axe free and turned away. He limped through the trees, not caring whether he was going the right way or not. Sometimes he heard the screams of his warriors, and occasionally the pained shrieking of one of Uctor’s poor hounds. But mostly, he heard the pale, giggling things as they swept past him and above him, always out of sight. Whenever he dared to slow, to catch his breath, they hurtled towards him out of the dark, attacking until he began to move again.

Black blood and bile was running down his limbs when he at last staggered back into the glade. He shouted for Sir Culgus, but received no reply. Blearily, he scanned the glade. Besides the stones, and the crumbling bodies of the slain tree spirits, it was empty. There was no sign of the warriors he’d left to deface the glade, save for a sword embedded in the ground. He limped towards it, and as he drew close, he recognised it as Sir Culgus’ blade. Roots clung to it, and, as he watched in sickened fascination, they drew the sword down into the dark soil until it was completely lost to sight.

Goral looked down. He caught glimpses of rounded armour plates and twitching fingers covered in grass, and suspicious hummocks of moss and flowers which might have once been bodies. Branches creaked above him, but he did not look. He could hear the laughter of the tree spirits, just past the edge of the glade. They were taunting him, trying to draw him out. As they have before, he thought angrily.

The forest had drawn them in and swallowed them whole, the way it had done to uncounted others. But Goral intended to show it that it bitten off more than it could chew this time. As if they knew what he was thinking, the unseen spirits laughed again, filling his ears with their mockery.

‘I do not fear you. This is the moment I was created for,’ Goral said, lifting Lifebiter. But his words sounded hollow, and his axe shuddered fearfully in his grip. I am not afraid. I am the Lord-Duke of Festerfane and I am not afraid, he thought. The carpet of grass undulated beneath his feet. ‘I am not afraid – my moment has come! Come, come and die, monster,’ he shouted, turning slowly. ‘Where are you?’

Screams were the only reply. The screams of his warriors, as something hurt them, deep in the dark. He heard the whine of crumpling armour, and the squeals of dying horses. And above it all, the laughter. It spread like a miasma, creeping under the branches and winding about him. A low, sad sound, made horrifying by its incongruity. Whatever was out there was laughing as it spilt seas of sour blood. But there was no humour in the sound, no joy. They weren’t even enjoying the slaughter, and that made it all the worse.

Goral turned. The heartstones still throbbed. They pulsed with heat, like an infected wound. But it wasn’t the right sort of infection. It was wrong, like the forest. It was all wrong. He wondered whether the others who had fallen here had known as much, in their final moments. This place lived. It would not, could not surrender. Not to axes or fire. Not to despair. The mad did not know when they were beaten, and this place was truly mad.

He felt the old familiar fingers of despair, such as he had known only once before, when he’d been who he was, before Blighthoof had come to him. He had not been Goral then, but in despair he’d found strength. In surrender, he’d found purpose. ‘As I have found it now,’ he said, raising Lifebiter.

If he could not befoul the stones, he would destroy them. If he could not tame this place, he would lay it low, at least. He would hurt it as it had never been hurt. ‘Lend me your strength, Grandfather,’ Goral said, as he advanced on the stones. One blow would be enough to spread a contagion that would never be cured. This place would wither and die, though not immediately, and he suspected he would not be here to see it.

The pulse quickened, as if the stones knew what he intended and were afraid. He smiled. Good. It was good that he had taught them that much, at least. Lifebiter sang in his hands as he readied the killing blow. ‘In Grandfather’s name, for the honour of the Order of the Fly–’

A branch snapped behind him.

Goral spun. A blow smashed him from his feet. Somehow he managed to hold onto Lifebiter, and used the haft of the axe to lever himself upright. The thing followed him as he rose and stumbled back. How had he not seen it before? How could such a creature hide? Or had it been following him?

It was like nothing he had ever seen before, a hideous instrument of life run riot. It towered over him. Long, bestial limbs sprouted horrid blossoms across a surface that was swelling and contracting constantly. Great, honey-soaked hives clung to its shoulders and torso, their chambers full of squirming, humming shapes. Iridescent insects bored in and out of its flesh in continuous activity. Flowers blossomed, unfurled and withered in the space of moments, before repeating the cycle. Long, flat talons, dripping with gore, flexed as if in anticipation. But its face was the worst of all, at once feminine and monstrous in its nest of thorny locks.

That hideous head cocked, watching him. Gleaming tears of sap ran down its face. Goral couldn’t breathe. The air had grown thick and sweet. Insects circled him, wings shimmering with dew and light. He could no longer feel Grandfather’s presence. Lifebiter whimpered in his hands, and he knew the axe was afraid.

The moment stretched taut. The abomination lifted a claw. Goral recognised what was left of Sir Culgus’ face, twisting on a talon-tip.

‘For Nurgle, and the Garden,’ Goral roared. He lunged, Lifebiter raised. A blow rocked him back on his heels. A second lifted him into the air. Lifebiter slipped from numb fingers as he hurtled backwards. His back struck something unyielding, and he felt his spine crack. The warmth of the stones spread over him, and he clawed uselessly at the ground, trying to move away from it. He could feel it burning the blessings of Nurgle from him. The grass caressed his limbs, snaring them. Soil filled his mouth and he gagged. His legs didn’t work. In time, if he managed to get away, his back might heal, but for now, he was all but helpless. Crippled and broken. The grass pressed against him, seeking a way beneath his armour. It murmured to him and the heartstones sang softly, but he refused to listen.

Desperate now, remembering what had happened to Blighthoof, Goral tore an arm free of the winding grasses and groped for Lifebiter’s haft. If he could reach the axe… if… if… if. Wood creaked and the smell of honey filled his nose. The abomination sank to its haunches and watched him. Strange insect-like things crawled in and out of its hives. It reached out with one claw and touched Lifebiter.

The axe made a sound like a wounded cat as vines and roots rose up about its haft and slid into the wood. The haft cracked and burst, growing. The blade, blessed by Nurgle, lay where it was, avoided and ignored. Goral wondered if anyone would ever find it. Or would it lay here forever, a tainted patch in this verdant hell?

Maybe that had been Grandfather’s will all along. Infection grew from the smallest scratch, after all. He looked up at the creature, struggling to meet its gaze. His bones ached where they were not numb, and his blood was seeping into the soil. Even Grandfather’s blessings couldn’t save him. But the pain, as ever, brought clarity. I am… done, he thought. He had striven and failed and now the grass would shroud his bones. Was this what his Lady had seen, in her pox clouds? Was this moment the cause of her sadness on that final day? Had she despaired of him? He thought so, and gave silent thanks for it.

Goral looked into the dull, black eyes of his killer, and saw a most beautiful despair there. Like him, it had surrendered. Not to Nurgle, but perhaps to something worse, for its surrender had brought it no comfort. There was no joy in its eyes, no serenity. Goral smiled weakly and said, ‘You are truly beautiful, my lady. And far more damned than I.’ And when the first roots pierced his armour and the flesh beneath, Lord-Duke Goral of Festerfane smiled in contentment.

The Outcast watches the last of the defilers vanish into the soil. His rotted body, like the others, will be purged and cleansed before it is used to feed the roots of this place. The Writhing Weald grows strong on the bodies of those who seek to kill it.

And yet… she feels no satisfaction at this. She wonders what he said, in his hummingbird voice, too high and swift for her to understand. A curse, perhaps. The Outcast knows all about curses, for she is wreathed in them. They inundate her and strengthen her. More, she is a curse. Alarielle’s curse.

She hears the Everqueen’s voice on the wind, murmuring soft comforts to the trees and the sylvaneth who hide in their depths. Her words send the other Outcasts fleeing, seeking their safe places now that they are no longer needed. The reaping has passed, the Everqueen whispers, let the wind fade.

The Outcast looks up, into the canopy which twists and coils in on itself and becomes a face, vast and wise and hateful. Her face. Mother and betrayer, queen and usurper, friend and foe. To the Outcast, Alarielle slides from one to the next with every breath. She is unpredictable and terrible and weak.

The reaping has passed, Drycha Hamadreth. Cease your song, daughter.

The voice is soft, and insistent. Persistent, it dapples her mind like dew, spreading warmth, driving back the cold. And as it spreads, the Outcast hears the song, swelling out of a hundred-hundred glades, resonating within the very heart of her. In the song are echoes of other years and other lives, of time out of time, and broken worlds. The song is ancient and redolent of a world-that-was, and it rises to a triumphal thunder in her mind.

It weighs on her, burying her in its warmth. The heartstones echo with it, and as before, the Outcast wishes to feel once more the warmth of the blooming and the suns. To remember the taste of sweet waters. She is Drycha Hamadreth, first daughter of the sylvaneth. She is auspicious and honoured. She hears the song, and feels its warmth blow through her.

And then, all at once, it is gone.

The reaping is done for now, best beloved one. Sleep. Sleep.

Enraged, the Outcast stiffens. The fires of her fury, growing dim, are stoked anew. She remembers now. She will not sleep. The reaping has come, and there is yet more to be done. She is not beloved. She is unloved. She is forgotten, until the forests scream in pain, and the world trembles. Until the very realmroots call out in desperation.

No, she is awake now and she will not go back to sleep. Alarielle’s voice falls silent and her presence recedes. Perhaps she is angry at her wayward daughter, or maybe even pleased, but the Outcast does not care.

A storm is coming and Drycha Hamadreth will fight at its forefront.

She is the roar of the forest fire and the crushing weight of the avalanche. She is the moment of madness which makes animals foam and gnaw the air. She is all of these things and worse. She is the dark at the heart of the forest, and she is angry. The song of the sylvaneth is not for her or those she will call up.

Only the war-song, howling down from the high places to the low.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

David Annandale is the author of the Horus Heresy novel The Damnation of Pythos and the Primarchs novel Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar. He has also written the Yarrick series, several stories involving the Grey Knights, including Warden of the Blade, and The Last Wall, The Hunt for Vulkan and Watchers in Death for The Beast Arises. For Space Marine Battles he has written The Death of Antagonis and Overfiend. He is a prolific writer of short fiction, including the novella Mephiston: Lord of Death and numerous short stories set in The Horus Heresy, Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar universes. David lectures at a Canadian university, on subjects ranging from English literature to horror films and video games.

David Guymer is the author of the Gotrek & Felix novels Slayer, Kinslayer and City of the Damned, along with the novella Thorgrim. He has also written The Beast Arises novels Echoes of the Long War and The Last Son of Dorn, and a plethora of short stories set in the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. He is a freelance writer and occasional scientist based in the East Riding, and was a finalist in the 2014 David Gemmell Legend Awards for his novel Headtaker.

Guy Haley is the author of the Space Marine Battles novel Death of Integrity, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Valedor and Baneblade, and the novellas The Eternal Crusader, The Last Days of Ector and Broken Sword, for Damocles. He has also written Throneworld and The Beheading for The Beast Arises series. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He has also written stories set in the Age of Sigmar, included in War Storm, Ghal Maraz and Call of Archaon. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.

Robbie MacNiven is a highland-born History graduate from the University of Edinburgh. He has written the Warhammer 40,000 novels Carcharodons: Red Tithe and Legacy of Russ as well as the short stories ‘Redblade’, ‘A Song for the Lost’ and ‘Blood and Iron’ for Black Library. His hobbies include re-enacting, football and obsessing over Warhammer 40,000.

Josh Reynolds is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels Fabius Bile: Primogenitor and Deathstorm, and the novellas Hunter’s Snare and Dante’s Canyon, along with the audio drama Master of the Hunt. In the Warhammer World, he has written the End Times novels The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, the Gotrek & Felix tales Charnel Congress, Road of Skulls and The Serpent Queen. He has also written many stories set in the Age of Sigmar, including the novels Nagash: The Undying King, Fury of Gork, Black Rift and Skaven Pestilens. He lives and works in Northampton.

Rob Sanders is the author of The Serpent Beneath, a novella that appeared in the New York Times bestselling Horus Heresy anthology The Primarchs. His other Black Library credits include the The Beast Arises novels Predator, Prey and Shadow of Ullanor, the Warhammer 40,000 titles Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarius and Tech-Priest, Legion of the Damned, Atlas Infernal and Redemption Corps and the audio drama The Path Forsaken. He has also written the Warhammer Archaon duology, Everchosen and Lord of Chaos along with many Quick Reads for the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in the city of Lincoln, UK.

Gav Thorpe is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Deliverance Lost, Angels of Caliban and Corax, as well as the novella The Lion, which formed part of the New York Times bestselling collection The Primarchs. He is particularly well-known for his Dark Angels stories, including the Legacy of Caliban series. His Warhammer 40,000 repertoire further includes the Path of the Eldar series, the The Beast Arises novels The Emperor Expects and The Beast Must Die, Horus Heresy audio dramas Raven’s Flight, Honour to the Dead and Raptor, and a multiplicity of short stories. For Warhammer, Gav has penned the End Times novel The Curse of Khaine, the Time of Legends trilogy The Sundering, and much more besides. He lives and works in Nottingham.

An extract from
The Realmgate Wars eBook Collection.

The bolt struck Vandus Hammerhand like a spear flung from the heavens. First there was light, a searing luminescence so bright it eclipsed all sense of being and self. Then pain brought him back with white daggers of pure agony. Heat, fury, and the drumbeat of immortal vigour rushing through his veins reached a crescendo so loud it turned into deafening silence.

Then peace, a feeling of true solace and quietude.

Vandus would come to learn it was always this way. This is what it meant to be born of the storm and borne by the storm.

Reforged, wrought anew. Brought back. This is what it was to be eternal. But as with all such godlike deeds, this apotheosis did not come without a price.

Before…

After defeating Korghos Khul, the Hammerhands went north.

Though the Goretide were scattered, their ranks would swell again. The war against the dominion of Chaos was far from over, but Sigmar’s Stormcasts had won a great victory at the Gate of Azyr. Now that momentum had to be seized upon were it to mean anything.

And so the Hammerhands went northward.

Thousands clad in unalloyed sigmarite crossed the Igneous Delta. Liberators bloodstained and begrimed by war marched with grandhammers slung across the burnished plate of their shoulder guards. Dour Retributors strode in grim silence, their massive lightning hammers held firm across their chests. Above the infantry, retinues of unearthly Prosecutors had taken wing and soared across the blighted sky. At the clarion sound of the warrior-heralds’ war horns, their masked brethren below would close ranks and raise shields, knowing an enemy horde approached.

There had been many enemies, for the Igneous Delta and its surrounding lands were overrun by those bound in blood to Khorne.

It would fall to other Stormcast Eternals to hold the realmgate they had opened to Azyr. At least now they had a foothold at the Brimstone Peninsula, something to defend. But the vanguard could not rest. They had to forge on, despite the lead in their limbs.

Only when night had fallen and they reached the crags did they stop to make camp on a sheltered plateau of rock. Here the army had mustered, whilst a few of its leaders had walked up the shallow incline to a second smaller plateau from which they might gauge the best route onwards.

‘This is a strange land,’ murmured Dacanthos as he regarded the rime of frost around the fingers of his gauntlet. He clenched it in a mailed fist, shattering the ice that had formed.

‘Agreed,’ said Sagus, leaning on the head of his lightning hammer as the caustic wind of the delta tried to sear his armour. The air was rank with the stench of blood and cinder. It carried a foul cawing, like the mockery of crows, only deeper, as if uttered from the throat of a larger beast. Several carrion-creatures had already been seen.

The Hammers of Sigmar had left the scorched desert behind them. Here, on the rugged crags and low hills, a deep winter prevailed.

Snow hid some of the land’s deformity, its hillocks like the petrified claws of some ancient leviathan, a golem trapped forever in its final moments of agony. Eight stunted crests rose up from the smothering tundra like horns, and there were hollow cavities where eyes might once have been.

‘It is a grim place, enslaved to darkness,’ uttered Vandus, his voice deep, his distaste unmasked. From the edge of a rocky promontory, he looked out across the Igneous Delta and beyond. Swaths of forest colonised much of the eastern lands, but the trees looked unnatural, bent and tortured, their limbs petrified.

The Lord-Celestant’s eyes narrowed. He could have sworn he saw something stir within the dark heart of the forest. His gaze went skyward to an even greater and larger mountain fastness than the one his warriors had camped on. Clad in ice, it appeared more like a glacier. Oily mists crept from its footings, lathering the earth below in a foul tar.

Further north, Vandus discerned the forbidding silhouette of an immense tower, obscured behind scads of pyroclastic cloud. It was one of eight brass towers that surrounded Khul’s domain. Here then was their god-given mission, though he knew his own destiny lay elsewhere.

‘Rank indeed,’ snarled Vandus as he turned away to speak to his men. ‘But there is worse below…’ He gestured for Dacanthos and Sagus to join him at the cliff edge, certain those below them would not notice three figures watching from on high.

Sagus’s gauntlets cracked loudly as he clenched the haft of his hammer, and when the Retributor spoke it was with barely restrained anger.

‘Wretched filth… I would see them seared from this land, scraped away like dirt from a boot.’

Dacanthos had no words. He merely stared through the lifeless eyes of his mask, his body trembling with righteous anger.

Far below in a smoke-choked basin of tar-black rock, shawled by drifts of ash and snow, were mortal followers of Khorne known as the Bloodbound.

Hordes of the warriors had gathered to rest, after a long march. A great fire burned, spilling a column of smoke that almost reached the promontory where the Stormcasts were watching. Garbed in spiked leather and furs matted with dried blood, the tribesmen left their arms and torsos exposed. These Vandus and his men had come to know as bloodreavers. The lesser of the vast and mighty Goretide, they were nonetheless brawny and muscular fighters. What they lacked in skill, they made up for in aggression and devotion to Khorne.

Bellowing and fighting, they revelled around the fire. Long shadows cast by their bodies contorted in the fell light, transformed into an echo of what they might become should they live long and worship with enough devotion. A bloodreaver’s altar was the battlefield, his offerings slaughter and death.

They were a rabble, but a dangerous one. Their blades were thick and sharp, notched by battle and stained black with the blood of innocents. But of late they had grown arrogant and complacent.

‘When do we bring the storm’s wrath, my Lord-Celestant?’ Dacanthos said at last.

‘Soon,’ said Vandus, half-turning as he felt the presence of eyes upon them. ‘After I have consulted with our Lord-Relictor.’

All three warriors turned as one to face Ionus Cryptborn. The Lord-Relictor emerged from the shadows, as if he were a part of them and they him. Morbidity clung to Ionus like a curse, and his skull-helmed visage gave him a grim aspect that was entirely in keeping with his demeanour.

Ionus gave a shallow bow, disturbing the oath scrolls attached to his golden war-plate. He rasped, his voice like the last stirrings of a disquiet spirit.

‘I crave your ear, Lord Hammerhand.’

Hanging his tempestos hammer, Heldensen, on his belt, Vandus nodded at the other two warriors, who departed with muttered reverence to the relic-keeper.

Only once they were gone, back down to the plateau where the army mustered, did Vandus speak further.

‘I shall not be dissuaded, Ionus,’ he warned.

‘You have spoken to me of the Red Pyramid of skulls, and I now understand that is not something you can ignore,’ said Ionus, slowly taking off his helm to reveal a gaunt, sinister-looking face. ‘I only wish our paths were conjoined. That you, like I, were headed to the brass towers as Sigmar has ordered.’

There was rebuke in Ionus’s tone, regret that they would be parted for the battles to come. It sat ill with him, but his Lord-Celestant had fixed his gaze on thwarting Korghos Khul and destroying the dread Gate of Wrath.

‘But I know your purpose is unwavering, my friend,’ Ionus concluded.

Vandus nodded. He was smiling as he turned towards Ionus and removed his war-helm, holding it in the crook of his arm. In sharp contrast to the Lord-Relictor, Vandus had a noble face and the clean, chiselled features often represented in the statues of heroes. Those monuments to old glories, to an age torn down, were gone but Vandus would see them rise again. He extended a hand to Ionus.

‘Fate shall see us together again, brother.’

The corners of the Lord-Relictor’s mouth only curved up a little, but he clasped his Lord-Celestant’s forearm in the manner of warriors.

‘Aye. The tower shall fall and I’ll make for your brotherhood. United, we shall triumph against any fell beings who claim lordship over these lands. The domination of Chaos is at an end.’

Vandus’s good humour faded, as he was reminded of what he had seen and the desperate battle they had fought and won at the Gate of Azyr.

‘It is possible he survived?’ Vandus asked.

‘Khul?’

‘Who else?’

‘He lives.’

Vandus raised an eyebrow. ‘You sound certain, brother.’

‘It is a feeling. Nothing more.’

Vandus caught an inkling that it was much more, but kept his silence for now. The ways of the Relictor were veiled to him, and perhaps that was for the best. But if Khul did yet live, as Ionus professed, then that meant the vision could still be proven true.

Vandus’s head, cut off and brandished aloft by Khul, exulting as he capped his dread pyramid.

‘I saw my own demise, Ionus,’ said Vandus, after a moment.

‘The vision we spoke of, the one that is leading you to the Red Pyramid?’

Vandus nodded.

‘And you would still step into Khul’s domain, knowing it means your death?’

‘I would.’

Ionus frowned. ‘But why? Unless you believe you can defy prophecy.’

‘Have you not said before that we are architects of our own destiny?’

Ionus gave a curt laugh. ‘I say a great many things, but not all are intended to be heeded on face value alone.’

‘I follow this path because I must, my friend. If I do not stop Khul then who else will?’

‘And if you challenge him, you may end up fulfilling his prophecy for him.’

‘Then that is a chance I have to take.’

Ionus regarded the Lord-Celestant for a moment, and not for the first time was reminded why Sigmar chose Vandus to be the vanguard of his storm.

‘Yes, I believe it is. Still, I hope he does not kill you, Vandus.’

It was meant in humour, but Vandus grew serious.

‘Are we truly immortal? If fated to die, can we?’

‘We are as immortal as Sigmar’s will, but even the God-King does not always get his way.’ Ionus gestured to the Bloodbound they had come to vanquish, then to the land beyond and all its perfidy both seen and unseen.

They stared at the revelling hordes below, and after a brief silence had passed Ionus said, ‘They think they are the death of these lands. They think they have already won.’

Vandus laughed. ‘They are not death, brother. We are death.’

He slammed his helm back on, demonstrably belligerent, and turned at last to the Lord-Relictor. ‘And it’s past time that we dealt our gift to those heathens beneath us.’

He raised Heldensen aloft, so the warriors amassing on the plateau would see it, and cried out in a clarion voice. ‘Stormcasts, to arms! This night, we mete out death and Sigmar’s judgement!’

A great cheer rose up from the golden throng, loud enough that the hordes below heard it. Some of the wretched tribesmen began to look up at the Stormcasts who now emerged above them, others scrambled for blades, a few even began barking orders.

‘Vermin,’ snarled Vandus, as he felt the armoured tread of an entire chamber of Hammers of Sigmar gather at his back. Ionus was at his side, skull-faced once more. It would be their last battle together for a while. If Sigmar willed it, their paths would cross again.

‘Scurry all you like, it will avail you nothing.’

Heldensen flashed like a golden flame against the darkness. This time, more than a thousand hammers joined it in salute.

Ionus roared, unable to hold his righteous fury at bay a moment longer.

‘Smite them and cleanse this land!’

And the storm descended on burnished wings and in a crushing tide of gold.

A Black Library Publication

Fyreslayers first published in 2016.
Skaven Pestilens first published in 2016.
Sylvaneth first published in 2016.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Mark Holmes.

Legends of the Age of Sigmar © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. Legends of the Age of Sigmar, Age of Sigmar, 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: 978-1-78572-533-3

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